Greetings from Turning Stone

I’m up at Turning Stone Casino in Vernona, New York for a couple of days. Turning Stone is an interesting place. The rooms are very nice, the food is OK but it is the differences that make the place unique. What differences? Well let me list a few.

A) There’s smoking. That may not be a big deal for those of you in states that still allow smoking in restaurants but I come from the People’s Republic of Massachusetts and Turning Stone is in the Nanny State of New York where smoking in restaurants or public spaces is not “tolerated”.

B) The newspaper of choice is The Indian Times. After the initial novelty wears off you start to yearn for the sports section of the USA Today.

C) The big difference, however, is the fact that THERES’S NO ALCOHOL! Imagine that – a dry casino. It’s just strange. All I can think about is those old Westerns where somebody is always getting into trouble for selling “fire water” to the Indians. It’s as if the “white man” in New York is determined not to allow the Indians to return the favor.

I’m having a pretty good time here. Last night I entered their nightly Texas Hold em tournament. It was $70 to enter and there ended up being 50 players. The top 6 finishers got paid with the payouts ranging from $975 for 1st to $150 for 6th. I made the final five players with me and this older guy being by far the chip leaders. The older guy negotiated a chop with me and him getting $600 each and the remaining three players splitting the rest (which ended up being $383 apiece – which was actually slightly better than what 3rd place would have paid). Not a bad night’s work.

Today I golf.