[MathBabe]

Hey all;

I'm up in the land of the midnight sun... enjoying 21 hours of daylight a day, the Dawson City Music Festival, and playing poker at Diamond Tooth Gertie's.

For a long time Diamond Tooth Gertie's in Dawson was Canada's only legal gambling casino. It's a relic from the gold rush days, and they still run it as a saloon with cancan shows three times a night. There are enough tourists to keep it running every night of the week.

Saturday night there was a tournament wrapping up when I arrived around 11pm, and one table of $5/$10 - higher limits than I've ever played before. I sat down with $150 ($50 was from my Dad) and tried to keep a low profile for the first little while - aided by the dealer who gave me Q3o for my first three hands.

With JJ I raised and was re-raised by a weatherbeaten guy in a cowboy hat who I would have believed was a local miner (some individuals still mine for surface gold here). The flop came QJ rag, he bet and I raised. Another Q on the turn, so I felt better about him having QQ and we repeated the bet/raise. Again on the river with a rag card, and as he flipped over his KK he practically roared at me "Have you got that Queen??". "Nope", I replied, flipping over my jacks to show him my full house. That set me up to $230, which the blinds chewed away at for a while.

I was able to watch the players for a while - about half the table were tourists in town for the music festival, and the other half probably local or from the outlying areas, in town to get supplies and see other people for a change. The guy to my left was extremely drunk, chatty when I sat down, but slowly subsided during the evening until the dealer at one point had to yell at him "hey buddy, no sleeping at the table!".

Later my T6o in the big blind gave me a low top pair on the flop which improved to two pair on the turn, and I got some action from a guy at the far end who had been playing almost every hand.

Pocket fives gave me another full house later on and I was able to walk away from the table with $360, throwing $120 on the breakfast table for my dad in the morning.

Anyway, thought you might like to hear about my Northern adventure! Dawson is a cool place, still dirt roads and wooden sidewalks, with lots of historic sites restored and owned by Parks Canada. We're off to the museum today and to try our hand at panning for gold... at least until Gertie's opens up again at 7pm...