golf course fright night

On Friday night I went to Chicky's company's Halloween party. It was held at Mayfair golf course in Richmond. We didn't end up dressing up but there were many people there in some nice costumes - lots of pirates! Which was great as I got a lot of costume ideas from them. There was even one that looked a lot like Captain Jack Sparrows! :-) How creative. Chicky and I tried our hands at winning 10 grand but failed miserably. The game was to putt a hole in one on this man-made putting green. Of course they didn't make it easy and made the green have slopes, etc.

After that we made our way into the lounge and picked up a few pieces of finger food and chatted with his friends. I couldn't resist taking a look at the door prizes - nothing spectacular. I had my eye on the Disney Princess pencil set though - figure not many people would want it. There were the usualy array of house hold items, liquor and gift certificates. Nothing that really perked my interest. After munching on some food we went into the main ballroom to play some casino games. The company set up a pretend casino and everyone was given pretend money ($10,000 to start). I did fairly well at the poker table and ended up taking out 3 of Chicky's friend's wives. I felt bad so I gave them some of my money to play elsewhere. Then the poker shark, aka Joyce, sat down next to me and smiled develishly. Joyce is Michael's friend that works for Ritchie Bros now. She said she was there to take all my money. I laughed and told her to play at another table. She didn't. :-) I had played poker against Joyce the week before and she won all my money. I pulled out of the game when she proclaimed that she had enough money to go shopping the next day. :-)

It was a fierce game but fun nevertheless. Because the money was fake - some of us weren't taking it as seriously. Joyce had the dealer wrapped around her fingers and she dealt some of the games. We had 8 people at the table - the majority of them were good friends of Chicky's. No matter how many times Joyce lost all her chips - she would go away and come back with a handful to play again. I had an asian dealer play for me at one point. Our table was being pretty rowdy. Joyce was dealing, the dealer was sitting in her chair playing for her. Another dealer (on his break) was playing for one of the other girls at the table and the asian dealer was playing for me. Secretly I think all 3 dealers were seeing who was better at guessing the cards. I was pretty nervous when my dealer-guy threw in handfuls of chips at every turn. I kept asking - "are you sure?!". He laughed and said "don't worry". I trippled my earnings because of that game. Wow - if only that money was real! The objective was to get lots of money so that you could bid on the door prizes - no one wanted the cup and tea bag set. It was cool though - the dealers that lost told their girls to come "see" them at their tables (I think that's where they hand out chips to the girls). If you were a girl - it worked in your favor as all the dealers were guys and they didn't care too much on how many chips they were giving out. Some girls really milked it. Even Joyce pretended not to know how to play so that the dealer would "coach" her on each of her hands (while he dealt!).

After poker and beating Chicky out (that was the most important part) we went for late night dinner at Number 9 restaurant with Joyce. She's so small and eats very little. The great part is that she speaks fluent cantonese. So much easier going to a chinese restaurant with someone who can speak the language.