This will be a long post, so if you get bored easily, proceed on to the next message.

Last week I made my annual journey from Orlando to Baltimore for the Preakness Stakes, and then on to the New York area to re-visit my roots. I hoped to pick up some new chips, and I wasn’t disappointed. This year, I got a great one way rate on a rental car, so I drove north and flew back home.

The trip from Orlando to Baltimore was long, but uneventful. I worked Friday and Saturday at the track. Despite an attendance dip of 30%, the grandstand was still very busy on Saturday. This year, they didn’t allow people to bring in alcohol to the infield, so all the party goers stayed home.

On Sunday I drove to my son’s house in New Jersey, with a very interesting stop in Delaware. I found a website for a poker room in Wilmington which no one on this board had heard of before. http://www.depokerroom.com/. My trusty GPS directed me to a new strip mall that was almost empty, except for a Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant in the corner. No sign of poker anywhere, until I looked up and saw a sign in one of the windows on the second floor. I found the entrance to the second floor offices, and finally made my way through a maze of hallways to the Delaware Poker Room.

The room had one active table out of a total of about ten tables. The owner Brandon greeted me and explained that this was run for the benefit of local charities (although I'm sure he gets his cut first). They’ve been open for a few years, but they had just started no limit hold-em a few days prior. I later found out that the new laws that authorized sports betting in Delaware also allowed expanded poker, so I'm sure some more operations like this will pop up around the state. I told him that I didn’t want to play, but I wanted to pick up some chips for my collection. He wouldn’t sell me anything, but he GAVE me a set of $1, $2 and $5 chips. At first I thought they were generic chips, but I later saw that ACES FULL is the name of the company. Brandon was very nice, so I hope the room is successful.

I met up with my wife in New Jersey (she didn’t want to drive, so she flew). We spent two days visiting Manhattan and Long Island. It was good to see the old neighborhood again.

On Tuesday, we drove to Connecticut for Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun. My wife is happy to play video poker for days at a time, but I get itchy for new chips. Poker is played at several race tracks and card rooms in New Hampshire (also for charity), so I had to check it out. I had been there back in January and was able to get to three places (Seabrook and Rockingham racetracks, and the River card room). That left three places still on my list. Unfortunately, one of them closed in Nashua, but the other two were still open. It was a bit of a long drive, but if there are new chips to be found, I’ll do it!!

The first one was Sharky’s in Manchester. My GPS brought me to a large brick building that looked like it used to be a factory. There were no signs for poker, but there was one for bingo. Sure enough, the poker was right next to the bingo. The manager wasn’t too thrilled about selling me chips, but he did let me buy a $1 and $2 chip. That’s all they use, because the laws only allow small bets. The inlay says “Universal Gaming”. The room didn’t seem too busy.

Next, it was on to the greyhound track in Belmont, now called the Lodge. I finally found it, after my GPS had me on the right road but a couple of miles away from the track. To my surprise, there was a mini casino on the top floor. Craps, roulette, blackjack and a few other card games were played there. It’s definitely not big time, with minimum bets of $2 and maximum bets of $4. Poker is played downstairs. I played craps for a while, and I was able to pocket some chips. I was afraid that they would want their chips back, so I tried not to make it obvious. I got a few $.25, $1 and $2 chips, and I was able to color up for a few $4 chips. They also had black $20 chips, but that is out of my price range. After I left the table, I walked around the place for a while, still worried that they would stop me at the door. I made it to the car with no problem, and made an exciting discovery later. There were two versions of the $4 chip – one with three inserts and one with six. If I had noticed this, I would have tried to get more of each kind.

So it was back to Foxwoods to pick up my wife. We flew back to Orlando on Thursday from Providence RI.

Overall, it was a good trip. I got to see a great filly win the Preakness, and I picked up some chips that I didn’t have. Before anybody asks, I have no extras from Delaware and Sharkey's, and I'm saving the Lodge chips for the convention in June.