Home Sweet Home

So after 8 days inside a casino, I have finally escaped! And yes, I did feel like I was stuck there. As everyone knows there was an ice storm/snow storm that hit Indiana and Kentucky which left us all stuck inside the casino. I'm not complaining, at least we had power and heat and water!


This picture is the view from the hotel.



Now on to the real stuff!! As I said before, I had to work on the friday before the tournament and I was real bright thinking that the banks portion of the tournament started on Saturday when it really started on Friday! There went my chances of winning the women's all-around...oops.



As for the rumblings of all of the Derby City pessimists, the turnout was really pretty good. There were less players, but definitely no shortage of action. The new venue was very nice but very, very spread out! Besides the one main tournament room (which was pretty cramped, seating wise and player wise), there were also about 7 other rooms with anywhere from 2-10 tables in each. This kind of made for a nightmare when trying to find your match in a hurry...which happened to me once. The best thing about the main room was that there was seating overhead. It made it really awesome to see everything going on downstairs and great seats for the TV table. If I would have used my camera properly...I would have pictures to show this. :(

My tournament life was pretty short. I entered the One-pocket tournament. I was told to be there at 1pm, so I was there. After waiting an extra few hours for the draw, my name wasn't showing up on the board. I turned into an annoyance to the Tournament Director which kind of made him turn into an annoyance to me. I asked what the deal was and I got "Well, we are having computer issues, keep checking back to see if your name shows up." This happened all the way until midnight. Finally after that I was told to come back at 11 am and they would have the problem resolved. I show at 11, keep in mind, there is no going to bed early at DCC so 11 am is a tough feat! I was told I got a bye into the second round..woohoo, no complaints there. I was also told that we would be starting the next round around 1:30. What an odd time, it is just enough time to get bored sitting around and too little time to make it back to the room and rest. Well, of course I took the back to the room route and fell asleep. My phone started ringing and I had to run around like a chicken with my head cut off to get to the match in time! Needless to say, I made it with about a minute to spare and won 3-1. From there, I got the rest of the day off which means, let's find action! Well, this started the epic Chris Bartram/Mike Banks Jr. match that lasted for 30 hours...that's right, 30 HOURS! Without knowing it would last so long, I made a decent sized bet and then proceded to watch most of the match (wow, was I tired).

In all of this I decided to match up a little as well. I forgot that I made a plan to play Kathrine Jenssen at noon. So on little sleep...I played and stopped and lost my one pocket match and then played some more. I ended up winning the toughest $100 I've ever won! After all of that, I still couldn't take a chance at missing anything. I went back to the TAR booth for some more action sweating.

This is the view from inside the TAR booth...the place where I spent the most time. I'm sure many of you know that and were thinking "Wow, someone shut her up!!!". That's how much time I spent there! I got to have the time of my life in there to be honest. I got to make a lot of new friends and hang out with old friends, tell stories and definitely have some laughs. Thanks Justin and Chad. You have helped me out a ton! For those of you that didn't watch, I got to do my first Pay-Per-View commentary, the Shane Van Boening/Francisco Bustamante match! I have to admit, I was pretty nervous! Thanks to Jay Helfert and Fred Agnir for helping me along! I have to say thanks to everyone else that I met that has tuned into a TAR event before and thanks to everyone in the chat. You guys kept be busy with questions and full of laughs!!

My review of the whole thing, I don't think it was such an awful thing moving the venue. Yes it was spread out but the venue was beautiful. The food was expensive, but tasted much better than anything ever offered at the Executive West. The rooms were pricier but hopefully next year the price will go down. I do know the beds were mighty comfy! The venue was much, much safer and I doubt there were any horror stories like there were before. The only downfall I thought there would be was the Casino. I'm sure it got a few people, which was expected but overall I think there was plenty of pool action to keep everyone busy.


So my name won't be up in lights like these champions but I definitely had a lot of fun! Now I'm back home and back to real life. For now I have pictures, a messed up sleep schedule, a broken out face, an aching tooth (root canal tomorrow, guess I shouldn't have put it off!) and tons of laundry to do...but it was all worth it and I can't wait to do it again next year! Hopefully the Horseshoe Casino will have us back.