Kentucky Derby trip report

Thursday night – Poker night

Got on the road by about 530pm, for the drive to Louisville. The drive was pretty uneventful with me and Victory sharing the driving, with me starting and finishing. Doug made sure to sleep enough for the 2 of us. Got to the hotel at about 11:30, to check into the other 2 rooms. They gave me a room that Paul had already checked into, so that was a hassle getting keys to the right room. After that we left for the casino, where Paul was likely playing poker. I sat down at a 10/20 table with Doug, and lost about 100, until Sonny got there and we both sat down at a 2/5 no limit table.

Very early on I caught a huge hand, a player raised to $20, and I called with 77. Another player re-raised to $75, two players (including the original raiser) called, and I called to close the action. The flop was a beautiful 722, and I check-raised the original player all-in, winning about a $1200 pot. I flopped pretty good for the rest of the night, making about $860 when all was said and done. I also got quite a bit of booze in me in the short time we were there. Left the casino about 4:30am, since we had the Kentucky Oaks on Thursday. Sonny won about 850, Paul won about 200, and Doug lost 500 or so.

Friday (Oaks Day) - Sonny’s trip gets bad

We bought some scalped tickets so the 5 of us could sit together, though it took a little work to get Victory in our section. I decided I wanted to miss just about every race, despite picking several winners. The day culminated in the Oaks when I failed to bet on a 47-1 shot I liked a lot…who happened to win the race. Sonny had the trifecta for $1, but there was an inquiry and objection on the 3rd place finisher for bumping. After the objection was upheld, the 3rd place finisher was disqualified to 6th, and Sonny no longer had the trifecta, which paid about 12K (meaning he would have gotten half of it). Consider that bad beat #1 for Sonny.

When we were back at our car having a beer for the road, I mentioned something to Sonny about missing the race, and he proceeded to give me a NASCAR victory celebration with his beer (termed a Jimmie Johnson), spraying my head with Budweiser. This would become a theme for the night.

After the races we needed some food, so we went to the hotel buffet, which was the most terrible buffet ever, especially for $20. The choices were non-existent, and they didn’t even have somebody slicing the prime rib. The service was also horrible. Sonny and Doug were getting progressively more drunk, with Sonny being the worst. Sonny gave Doug 2 additional “Jimmie Johnson’s”, and Doug dumped his beer on Sonny in the restaurant. At that point, Paul, Victory and I left, and Doug and Sonny proceeded to dine and dash on their portion of the tab. Victory was pretty fed up with my friends at that point and wasn’t going to go out. I was tired, as well as annoyed with them, and realized that my best play was to stay in with my girl. Paul stayed in as well, and Doug and Sonny went out and got more drunk, apparently seeing some free concert in downtown Louisville, where they played a lot of Bon Jovi.

Saturday (Derby Day) - Sonny’s trip gets worse…much worse

Derby day started off with a bad beat, as the track doesn’t allow you to bring sunscreen or coolers inside, we were planning on buying both of those on the track. Unfortunately the place was sold out of both by 10am (nice planning). I bribed the beer people for a box (makeshift cooler) and some ice, and bribed someone else to get Victory some suntan lotion.

Derby day was awesome, not too hot, not too cool, and we got a nice spot on the far turn. Betting was difficult as they decided not to put the TV’s out near the betting windows like EVERY other Derby I’ve been to. This made it impossible to really see the odds on the horses I was betting. The lines were huge, and the tellers were the dumbest/slowest/worst that I had ever seen. I was losing, but a little more slowly then the Derby. Sonny started making out of control bets, with tickets that cost $1000+. After the Derby, in which me and Sonny hit a pick 4 (pick winners of 4 straight races) that paid about $1500, we just standing around bullshitting. At that point the track is starting to clear out, even though there are 2 more races. People are throwing footballs and Frisbees all around. All of us were within a few feet of each other talking when a football, thrown from at least 30 yards away, hits Sonny right in the back of the head. The ball just dropped straight to the ground after hitting him, as his head seemed to absorb most of the blow. Fortunately we had all had about 6-8 big beers at that point (except for Victory), so Sonny didn’t quite feel it.

After the Derby, we got cleaned up (not Doug and Paul…Doug decided he was afraid of the water outside of Michigan and went showerless for the trip). We went to Caesars Indiana for some more gambling and dinner. Sonny was in degenerate mode, and instead of eating went straight into the casino to either do some damage to himself or the casino. I was playing 2/5NL, Paul 10/20, Victory 2/4, and Doug was just drinking at the bar and then eventually went to sleep in the car. About 130am, Sonny came down drunk as hell and said “The casino took a bad beat.” That translated to Sonny being up about 8K. I told him to sit down at poker with me, but he disappeared after I told him Doug was in the car. I wrongly assumed he was at the car.

After my game broke up, I got in the 20/40 game, and started running it over. As I got my last beer at 230am at last call, Sonny came up and said “I think I’m about to get kicked out of here, are you ready to go?” I told him I would be ready after I finished the 2 beers in front of me. 5-10 minutes later his self fulfilling prophecy came true, as he came over with 3 members of the security team, telling me he had to leave. At this point I was pissed as he has gotten me kicked out of several casinos, and was tired of that ruining my fun, so I told them to get him a taxi. Their claim was that he threw a bottle at somebody. I knew he wouldn’t do that, but I’ve seen childish outbursts at the casino before and figured he knocked an empty off the table with a pseudo Karate chop (this he later confirmed). I thought that was the end of the story, so we decided to leave about 330am. I was up about 750, so poker was nice to me for the weekend.

Walking out of the casino, Sonny is walking towards us, with security again, but this time in handcuffs. Apparently after waiting with them for the cab, he refused to get in it. After some give and take with the security (who actually were cops), and him refusing their choices to get out of there, they arrested him. At that point, they wouldn’t release him to me, and gave me a phone number and address to the jail.

There is no official word on how Sonny finished for the night, but suffice it to say if he was throwing/hitting bottles around, it was not a good night.

Sunday morning – The culmination

I called the jail at 9am, and they told me he wouldn’t be released until 515pm. This put a crimp in all plans, as we were supposed to drop him off in Indianapolis for a 130pm flight. The cops wouldn’t let me drop his bag off either, so we were forced to leave his bag at the hotel front desk. To make a long story short, he finally got out of jail after a big struggle with the bail bondsmen, and has a court date set for trespassing and public intoxication (or something to that effect). I’m not sure how the court date will shake down since he lives in Vegas. Maybe we can somehow tie it in to next years Derby.

We got back into town at about 6pm. My end result for the trip was down about $500 or so…including all of the money I spent on admission, food, beer, etc….Thankfully Caesars was there, as I have won a decent amount of money every time I have played poker there….which is probably 5-6 times at least.