But sometimes, dreams creep in and firmly take hold in the back of our minds. Sometimes, when we are honest with ourselves, we allow those dreams to come out of the recesses of our souls. We allow them to dance and play in our hearts. We allow ourselves to dream as a child once again. I believe it is in those rare moments that we are truly our REAL selves. And sometimes, we are blessed enough to see those dreams become a reality.
This last weekend was one of those times for my husband. A number of years ago, he took an interest in learning to play poker. It's a hobby of his, just like playing golf. And he's gotten really good at it. I'm always amazed at how quickly he can calculate his odds, figure out the number of "outs" he has, the "pot" ratios and make a move in any given hand. Meanwhile (if I'm playing too which is rare, as I'm NOT as skilled, LOL) I'm still trying to figure out what I even have and if it's a "good" hand or not! My husband has even, in more recent years, formed a poker league with a regular group of guys that meet every month. They rotate between 3 different houses, have a system of game rotation, and even take a "rake" of each poker night to be held back for the end of the year tournament. I'm telling ya, they are serious! But they have such a great time and we've truly been blessed by this great group of guys and their families. They even held a fundraiser poker tournament for our adoption! But anyway...
Back when we had cable (which we really don't miss btw, but that's a whole other story!) Sean enjoyed the times he could watch the World Series of Poker (WSOP) and follow the months long tournament to the "Main Event" and final table. He even read bios on some of the players! It's cute. :)
He spoke regularly of his dream to play in the WSOP. He even had my daddy saying he was gonna save money to bankroll his entry some day (a buy-in to the main event is 10K!! Sheesh. Yeah, NOT in our budget!). It's been a long held dream. One that he's mentioned in some of his quieter moments...when he's allowing himself time to drift away from the everyday and be that kid again.
As a graduation gift for getting his MBA, his parents took us to Las Vegas for an extended weekend. We hadn't been there since 2004 (and that was on business) so we were excited to go. We were also looking forward to getting away as adults for just a bit, especially after all of the events of the last month. My parents were gracious enough to come watch the kids while we were gone.
Low and behold, the FIRST night we were there, Sean noticed an article in a magazine mentioning that the WSOP WAS GOING ON RIGHT NOW. We all agreed it'd be cool to go over to the Rio and just look around, to get a feel for what it was like. But when we got there, we realized that there were tournaments going on and starting and ending all. weekend. long. Now Sean's parents had already said they wanted to pay for him to play in a tournament in Vegas because they knew how much he'd enjoy it. We never thought it would work out to play in a WSOP tournament! But hey, lifelong dreams don't come up all the time!
He debated all of the different options for tournaments, and finally settled on a Hold'em Deep Stack tournament. It was to start at 10pm! He could've played in one that would lead to another and another and possibly end up at the main event in July. However, that would require him to play all weekend long. Since we wanted to sight see and spend time with his parents, that wasn't going to work. And since that wasn't why we'd come, it wasn't really even appealing. But he WAS excited about playing in a one-time tournament.
Long story short, he did AWESOME! We left the Rio at 6AM the next morning! Yes, that's 8 HOURS of playing. Every 2 hours they'd get a 20 minute break. He ended up at the final table of 9 people (out of 170 people who started!) and they decided it'd been long enough and opted to "chop" the winnings at that point. 1st place got $3500, 2nd got $2500 and everyone else got $1200!!! The buy-in was only $135, so that's nearly a 10x return on investment! He finished in the top 5% when his average has been the top 10%. And he got to fulfill a lifelong dream to play at the WSOP...at those tables, on that floor, where he'd watched all the pros and other people play for years.
I couldn't help but think Daddy would've been so proud! I know Sean's parents and I were! We spent the rest of the weekend hanging out, seeing Ray Romano live, eating food that is now requiring a detox LOL, and generally just having an amazing time. We are so blessed by our amazing parents who allowed us to go by watching our kids and who paid for us to go and for Sean to play!! It truly was a great trip. Lifelong dream--CHECK! :)
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