On Monday in Bangkok I treated myself to a cinema visit at the immense Paragon Plaza in the downtown area. This place puts American malls to shame, it is mahuuuuusive! I watched Cloverfield on the Imax screen... it was pretty cool.
I'm going back Tuesday as they have a large aquarium worth a look on the ground floor.
Once I got back to my hostel I decided to stay local and went into the English run pub right next to the Suk 11 hostel on Soi 11 Sukhumvit. Randomly there was a guy in there that I'd bumped into on Koh Chang, so we got chatting. This place is heavily into football, and the owner is a life long Sheffield Wednesday fan. He turned up a bit later with some friends, and we chatted a bit about football.
A couple more guys arrived to meet with the bossman, and I noticed one of them take what looked like a poker chipset out the back. So as soon as I got a good opportunity to ask, I did, and was invited to play. Sweet!
They play a very friendly small stakes cash game every Monday night, mostly for the social aspect of it. It was a 300B max buy-in (about a fiver), but there were to be many many reloads... hehe
I played Nick, the owner, his good mate Dave (I think that was his name, but I nicknamed him the milkman because of his readable play! ;), Nicks sister Sophie (who cashed for the first time tonight apparently), a Danish guy called Chris (who could play a bit) and an American who's name was never used (who also knew more than the basics).
I'd had about 5 pints of guinness by the time we started and had not slept much the night before as you know. I was fairly lucide at this point however, as per usual once cards are spotted, and settled in to watch the table for one revolution. They were playing no limit hold em every other revolution, with Omaha high and pinapple inbetween. Good stuff!
After about an hour I had pretty much six times my initial buy-in and was recieving a fair amount of friendly aimed abuse! I was also nicknames 'snuggles' by Dave who couldn't remember my name, but I wasn't going to argue with the big lad! Lol ;)
I finally cashed out at 4:30am to the tune of 4 times my buy-in, after some expert donking!! This was pretty handy though, as it will pay for my postage home and another night in the dorm...
...which leads me on to a gripe! Before I went out, I made my bed up with nice clean sheet, pillow case etc, and left my day sack on the bed and rucksack next to it with a pair of shoes. When I got in (a little worse for wear) there was someone snoring in my bed! There was only one free bed, at the other end of the room from my stuff, and it had no sheet or pillow case... so I ended up crashing on that.
Part of the problem with dorms is that when you have a late night, you will be woken at various early junctures by those moving on, or just being plain noisy getting ready to go out!
I got up wide awake at 9am, and went for a walk with my gritty eyes. None of the other hotels near here have any private rooms, so it looks like I'll be in the dorm again tonight, bah!
I'm going to move on tomorrow anyway, and might even try and book a room where I'm going to make sure I have somewhere to catch up on sleep!
Must get my fuzzy hair trimmed today, and collect my laundry too... lots to do!
So if any of you pokerites ever find yourself in downtown Bangkok on a Monday night with nothing better to do, get yourself to the English pub next to Suk 11 hostel and (discreetly) ask Nick for a game. They play from about 9-10pm until 7am usually, and the booze flows! I really enjoyed it and will probably pop in there tonight for a few Guinness and a chat, they were a good crowd. :)
I've posted some pressies home for the family, 7 business days it will take and the postage cost more than the stuff I bought! I won't be making a habit of that... hehe ;)
Catch you later or from Kanchanaburi in a day or two!
Sloggs :)
