Short answer:  yes.

Back in October 2006, in the wake of Congress’ passage of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, I speculated on the new law’s possible impact on online poker.  One of my hypotheses was that the new law would make funding poker sites more difficult, thereby eventually chasing the weaker players off the sites.  Seven months later, I firmly believe that I was at least partially correct.

I have no hard evidence to support this claim.  In fact, Pokerstars actually broke its attendance record in the Sunday Million this past week.  Online poker isn’t shriveling up and dying.  But in the past year, the game has certainly evolved, and there has been a palpable decrease in the number of boneheads splashing around out there. 

First, and most obviously, the general climate surrounding online poker has taken a turn for the worse.  Everyone is aware of the new law, probably because two of online poker’s former landmark institutions, Party Poker and Neteller, have disappeared.  Players seeking to fund their accounts at the surviving sites have had to use alternate means.  And, in a sharp break from past practice, the World Series of Poker, which is owned by Harrah’s, has severed all ties with online poker.  This year, Harrah’s is not allowing any advertising for online poker entities whatsoever and is no longer accepting entries wired to them by a third party on behalf of any player.  In other words, Main Event entries won via online satellite will not be honored in 2007.  All Main Event participants must either 1) win a live satellite sponsored by Harrah’s; 2) personally wire ten grand to Harrah’s, Inc.; or 3) personally hand a teller at the Rio ten grand if they want to play. 

The online sites are continuing to run “WSOP Satellites,” but the package no longer includes an automatic entry and hotel accomodations for a week.  In fact, the “package” isn’t a package at all; upon winning a satellite, ten grand in actual cash is simply dumped into your online account, where it remains available for the player to risk (and possibly lose) before the WSOP ever starts.  The almost certain fallout is that the number of entries in the Main Event will decrease for the first time in many years (ever?).  The fallout for me personally is that I will not be focusing much on online satellites, which are really nothing more than regular tournaments with a $10,000 first place prize.  The hotel package offered by the sites was a real selling point for me. 

Anyway, back to my hypothesis.  In my opinion, today online poker is indeed lacking the rampant, seemingly endless supply of idiots that it once offered.  This has been pointed out by several authorities recently, including Anthony Holden in his curmudgeonly (but entertaining, and familiar–it eloquently covers many topics perviously discussed in this blog) sequel to The Big Deal, along with other observers ranging from respected Cardplayer columnists to countless poker message board contributors.

There are two reasons for this change:  the first is the legislation.  Bad online players need to be able to replentish their accounts.  When the government made this more difficult, many of them simply gave up on online poker.  For some, I imagine, the legislation served as a sort of wakeup call.  Having to establish an entirely new, less reputable way of sending money off into cyberspace for the purpose of gambling it away probably served as an awakening for thousands of habitual losers.

The second reason for the “donkey decrease” is the availability of relatively cheap expert instruction.  On a daily basis, extremely valuable, insightful information about poker is offered on websites like PokerXFactor, Cardrunners and 2+2.  All three of these resources either did not exist or existed in a severely diminished form only two years ago.  Today, any reasonably intelligent person can learn to play solid poker.  The requisite characteristic is nothing more than simple dedication.  And millions of people possess it in spades.  Poker is a complex game that involves exploitive strategies.  For that reason it has always been evolving.  But in recent times, that evolution has been happening at hyperspeed.

For instance, online multitable tournaments are completely different today than they were two years ago.  The prevailing strategy a couple of years back was to cling to your chips and avoid elimination at all costs.  As a result, a new aggressive strategy was popularized by Gus Hansen and other pros, in which “aggression” was embodied by the stealraise, especially in late position.  “Taking a stand” against the new breed of stealers was accomplished by calling in position with a decent hand, or defending one’s blind by calling the raise and playing a flop.  That was the tournament landscape at the time:  the active players wore down the table, firing multiple barrels pre-and post-flop when defenders forced them to.  Many of the aggressors were, in actuality, tight players, but as long as no one turned the screws on them, they were able to dominate through selectively pushing hard on the hands they had brought in for a raise.

The proper exploitive strategy against the stealraise was always known, and the idea of accumulating chips in tournaments rather than simply surviving was already being bandied about, but it didn’t gain widespread momentum until around a year and a half ago, when all the online instructors and a few books let everyone in on the secret:  simply reraise.  You don’t need a big hand.  If you’re out of position, or the stacks are shallow, or you just plain suck at postflop play, that’s ok.  Just reraise all in.  What is Gus Hansen gonna do when you shove a huge stack of chips in his face and he’s holding 7-4?  Fold, obviously.  For awhile, a lot of players–myself included–have had a lot of success employing this strategy against timid players and Gus Hansen wannabes alike.  I had a lot of fun doing this in live tournaments in particular.  Live tournament players tend to be way behind on the learning curve and today are still succeptible to this maneuver in the right circumstances.   

Online, the “reshove” caused a seismic shift in tournament play.  Where a preflop openraise on the button used to succeed with regularity, it quickly became (and remains) the Rodney Dangerfield of tournament poker.  It’s nothing more than an invitation to resteal.  About a year ago, everyone and their mother was taught that resteals succeed a high percentage of the time, and that even if a resteal is called, whatever hand you hold is probably at least 30% to win the pot against even the strongest holdings.  So bombs away!  The average player, who was once scared to put any chips into the pot, became a LAGtard.  And thus was born an army of restealers.  Picking up pocket aces on the button used to make me worry about whether or not I’d get any action from the blinds.  Now, when I see AA on the button, i’m licking my chops because I’m likely to get all my chips in against a resteal. 

The exploitive strategy against the restealers became somewhat prevelant at least six months ago, but is only now reaching widespread acceptance.  There are two things you can do to counteract resteals:  1)  call reshoves light; and, if the stacks are deep, 2) put in the third raise. 

The first strategy leads to a situation that was unfathomable two years ago but is now commonplace, and it goes like this:  about halfway through a tournament, with the blinds at 100-200 with a 25 ante, player A openraises from the cutoff for 650.  It is folded to the big blind who pauses for a second and then moves all in for 4700 chips.  The cutoff instantly calls, leaving him with only 1500 chips behind.  The entire table anxiously leans forward to see what hands are revealed.  The cutoff has A-9 offsuit, and the big blind has the 10-9 of diamonds.  Two years ago, everyone would immediately assume that both of these players were completely out of their minds.  Today, this hand is pretty typical.  The cutoff knew that the big blind was shoving a wide range of hands, so he made a stand with a hand that was likely to be favored.

The second strategy takes even more guts and goes something like this.   The scenario is the same, but both players have 10,000 chips.  The cutoff raises to 650.  It is folded to the big blind, who reraises to 2200.  The cutoff thinks for a moment and then moves all in.  The big blind folds, and the cutoff shows everyone J-8 offsuit and drags the pot.

This is the kind of poker that is being played now in online multitable tournaments.  No one, not even the poor players, is weak-tight.  Errors now tend to be errors of aggression, rather than errors of passivity.  The last bastion of crappy passive play–the most exploitable form of play–appears to be live tournaments, where the nitty player is alive and well.  But online?  Thanks to the recent legislation and easy access to instruction from very bright players, it’s a shark-eat-shark world.  What is the next evolutionary step?  Maybe it’s the kind of poker that was played in the 1980’s, when no one ever entered a pot with any kind of marginal hand and everyone sat around folding.  That would be amusing.

While most multitable donkeys have either disappeared or evolved, leaving the remaining players to continually adapt to one another, the situation is even worse in sit-n-go’s.  While sit-n-go’s used to offer a huge rate of return to any player who knew basic tournament concepts, this is no longer the case.  In fact, nowhere has the online landscape changed more than in this area.  What was once the province of donkeys looking to play a quick one-table tournament is now a total minefield.

The reason:  preflop sit-n-go strategy, especially near the bubble, is nothing more than a math problem, and a solvable one.  Because sit-n-go stacks are relatively shallow, postflop play ceases to exist, and the game always boils down to a single decision:  push/fold.  In the past year or so, several poker scholars have “solved” the correct strategy for pushing and folding hands in the various stages of sit-n-goes (and labeled this study “ICM,” which stands for independent chip modeling), and their solutions have not only been posted on websites, but have been taught in both online videos and live lectures.  Just as is the case with multitable tournaments, the only characteristic required for becoming proficient at sit-n-go’s, provided you have a modicum of intelligence, is determination.  In multitable tournaments, there are numerous adaptive strategies that can overcome whichever strategy is employed.  This is less true in sit-n-go’s, which can be more or less completely mastered.

So what happens when nine sit-n-go masters sit down and play a sit-n-go?  The results become almost random and the house takes its cut.  There are still very small edges that can be pursued, but pushing/folding on the bubble is something that there is an indisputably correct way to do, and there is nothing much anyone can do to counteract it when it’s done properly.  I began to notice that the overall quality of sit-n-go play was improving several months ago, and my solution was to drop down to lower stakes sit-n-go’s, where I imagined some idiots might still reside, allowing me a continued high rate of return.  Unfortunately, learning solid sit-n-go play is so easy that I’ve noticed decreasing numbers of ill-informed players remaining even at lower stakes.  There are still tons of expert players, many of whom are multitabling, at the lower buy-in sit-n-go’s. 

Sit-n-gos are really not worth the trouble unless a readily identifiable donkey is at your table.  It’s a shame, because I used to love them.

It appears that the final frontier for really shitty online poker play is in cash games.  It is in cash games that a smart player can employ one of the last weapons available to him against the much-improved masses:  game selection.  It is easy to tell, by looking at statistics, or by simply observing a cash game, whether a lousy player(s) is present.  There was a time–in the glory days when donks roamed the earth and sat in every game–when doing this wasn’t necessary, but I am now actively looking for dummies when I pick an online cash game.  Game selection is, quite simply, an integral part of the arsenal, and one that I’m not ashamed to resort to.

So what am I really saying in this windbag blog entry about how tough online poker has become?  That I’m disillusioned?  That I’m not good enough to make it?  That my adventure is over?  No, no and NO.  I’m doing quite well, thank you.

I do intend to do the following:

1) Play more live poker.  A little something called the World Series of Poker is almost upon us, so it shouldn’t be hard.

2) Play fewer sit-n-go’s and even more cash games.  I’ll miss my old addiction.

3) Try and stay a step ahead on the learning curve in multitable tournaments.  The answer to “what is Sugar D doing in this hand?” will hopefully be “I have no idea” more often than not. 

The drought is over.  I have my first substantial live tournament cash of 2007. 

It came in the $1,000 buy in event at the Harrah’s WSOP Warmup yesterday.  This tournament was seriously under advertised, and the 1k event drew only 58 players.  The field consisted of mostly Atlantic City regulars and young internet pros (no fewer than three fielded calls from their mothers in my presence), with a smattering of dead money types.  I have a small edge in this situation, as I’m both a quiet player and a relative nobody, but one that knows the names, repuations and playing styles of many internet players.  I’ve played with all of them online and know who they are.  But they have no idea who I am.

I came in fourth in the tournament.  In light of that, the following were unusual: 

-I showed down only one hand before the final table.  At the final table, other than situations where I called an all-in, I showed down exactly one hand.

-I was never dealt pocket aces, pocket queens, or pocket jacks.  I was dealt KK once and got no action.  I held AK twice.  The classic chip-accumulater, where someone runs into your monster hand, never happened. 

In other words, I won no huge pots.  I won many smallish to medium sized pots with continuation bets.  I bluffed postflop more than I typically do.  A few interesting hands and situations:

At my first table, at the 100-200 level, a TAG player limped in middle position and I overlimped right behind him with the KdJd.  Both blinds called.  The flop came Q-J-4 with one diamond.  It was checked around.  The turn was the six of diamonds.  The blinds checked to the MP limper and he bet 600.  I put him on a jack, a middle pair, or some kind of a draw and raised to 1400.  The blinds folded, MP limper said “queen-jack, eh?” and folded.  Thus began my ascent. 

Ari Engel, a.k.a. ‘Bodog Ari’ was at my first table.  He’s an amazing tournament pro who until recently was too young to play live events.  He’s a nice jewish kid from Brooklyn with a very quiet, semi-nebbishy demeanor.  He’s too young to grow a beard, but he’s trying.  The result is a scraggly little mess that he nervously plays with.  His vocal announcements at the table (e.g. “raise,” “reraise,” etc.) are barely audible.  It’s his play that establishes his presence.  He gets leverage in many pots by raising in position, especially if a player or two limps in front of him.  He’s also very dangerous after the flop and will test his opponent, even if he isn’t holding much of a hand.  Thankfully he was two seats to my right, so I had position on him.  We never really tangled.  I did see him make an amazing call later in the tournament: 

When we redrew for seats with 2 tables left, Ari once again ended up at my table.  We were down to around 14 players with the top 9 making the money.  Ari was on the button, and it was folded to the cutoff, who made a very large openshove for about twelve big blinds, or around eight times the pot.  Ari just barely had the cutoff covered and contemplated for around a minute and a half before silently reraising all in and turning over Ah7h.  The cutoff grimaced and tabled KQo.  In Ari’s position, I’d fold without much thought, because my tournament would be on the line and I’d assume that bigger aces are a major part of the shover’s range.   But i’m not Bodog Ari.  The flop brought a king and Ari was out of the tournament a few minutes later.  A few players at the table were critical of Ari’s play in this hand, but in my opinion, it was an amazing call.  Ari obviously plays tournaments to win, not to cash, which increases his overall equity.  He somehow correctly deduced that he was a favorite against the shover’s range, and he was in fact favored to win the hand.  The detractors criticized the concept of calling off all your chips as a 60-40 favorite, but an edge is an edge, and it is safe to assume that Ari would have been very difficult to deal with if he acquired a big stack on the bubble.     

Another interesting hand I played occurred when we were down to three tables.  The blinds were at 100-200 with a 25 ante, and I was on the button.  I called a raise from a player I recognized as “Hoodini2810” from Pokerstars on the button with the 54 of spades.  The blinds folded and we played heads up as the flop came A-8-3 rainbow.  My opponent bet 1000.   I knew he’d fire at this flop with or without an ace, so I floated and waited to see what the turn would bring.  The turn was a deuce.  My opponent checked, and I took down the pot with a bet of 2500.  It was only after I had thrown the chips into the pot that I realized that I had hit a gutshot wheel draw and was holding the current nuts.  Oops.  I probably would have bet the turn either way, as we were both relatively deep stacked.

At the final table I drew a very good seat, in only 5th position in chips but seated to the immediate left of the two chipleaders.  We reached the money when I made a big blind math call against a shortstack (the aforementioned ‘Hoodini’) with Q3 and sucked out against Q9.  We then played two full levels (over two hours of poker) 8-handed before the next elimination.  This was a grueling period during which I played normal ABC poker, picking up chips by stealing from the tighter players, and staying out of the way of the aggressive guys, with an occasional resteal against them.  I had a tight image and used that to my advantage on a couple of occasions where I made continuation bets with nothing against tight guys, and one large resteal with nothing against the most agressive player at the table.  Then, with 6 players remaining, I won my first and only classic race of the tournament with 1010 against a shorter stack’s AQs. 

Eventually, the tournament worked its way down to four players:  1) the very tough, very solid Joe Brooks, a.k.a. ‘JOEYTHEB,’ who was second in chips; 2) the shortest stack, a young, very LAG-y player named Kyle, seated to my right; and 3) the chipleader, seated to my left.  More on the chipleader:  I mentioned earlier that there was a smattering of dead money in the tournament.  Well, one of the dead money guys managed to have the chiplead when we were four handed.

This guy was one of the funniest nits I’ve ever played with.  He both resembled and had the mannerisms of the character “Milton” from the movie Office Space.  Yep, the guy who loves his stapler and ends up blowing up the building.  He had super-thick glasses that made his eyes appear very large, a strange nervous stutter, ill-fitting clothes, and a habit of involuntarily rocking in his chair (think Leo Mazzone) whilst muttering to himself.  I hadn’t sat with him until the final table, but he apparently had engineered a huge suckout to get there.  Then, at the final table, here is how he acquired the chiplead:  first having played about 2% of the hands for three hours, he was down to about 10 big blinds and was seated in the big blind when I was in the small blind.  I had J10s and shoved him, presuming no resistance.  Instead, he checked his hole cards and practically spilled his drink getting his chips in.  He had pocket aces, and they held up.  For his next trick, after folding his big blind to the LAG-y player’s raise about ten consecutive times, he finally reshoved Mr. LAG and was instacalled.  This time LAG had a hand:  QQ.  Milton had A7o.  But the flop came 7-7-x, and voila, new chipleader.

Unfortunately, I did not have position on Milton, and I was card dead.  Not a good combination.  Both Brooks and the LAG recognized that Milton was a total nit, and began to reshove Milton’s hesitant steal attempts.  Each time, he’d pause, say “I know I have the best hand,” and then toss his cards into the muck with trembly hands.  I really needed him to call these shoves with his monstrous stack, but he was not experienced enough to realize that neither Brooks nor the LAG had to have a hand to make their shoves.  So he slowly leaked chips to them until I was the lone shortstack.  On my final hand, I was down to about five times the pot, was seated in the big blind with KQo, and I beat LAG into the pot on his obvious ‘any two’ shove from the small blind.  He had a live J7 and flopped two pair.  Adios.  On Cardplayer, the nit is listed as the winner, but i’m not sure whether or not they made a deal after I got bounced.  If not, Milton is one very unlikely tournament winner.

I cashed for a relatively paltry $4,400, which is not a big payout in a $1,000 tournament.  But I feel this cash might turn out to be an important one.  The schneid is finally over.  It is very hard not to be results-oriented in tournament poker.  The correct way to measure your ability and progress is by examing tournaments on a hand-by-hand basis, and digging for weaknesses in your playing patterns.  I have been doing this all year, and despite having no cashes to my credit, I honestly felt that I was playing well.  I never sit there blinding myself off.  I adapt well to the other players at my table.  I have put my money in as a favorite in almost all of my elimination hands.  The one place where I didn’t love my game was in my lack in inventiveness in postflop play. 

For the most part, it’s been a pretty simple diagnosis:  I’ve run bad.  That’s the unfortunate thing about tournament poker:  you’re always a dog to cash, and droughts are simply part of the landscape.  Still, no matter how well-adjusted, rational and analytical you are, continuous failure is bound to toy with your confidence, and I’m afraid that I’m no exception to this rule.  The most important thing I am taking away from yesterday’s tournament is the knowledge that I still know what I’m doing.   

From Tuesday May 1, 2007 through Sunday May 6, 2007, I played no poker whatsoever.  This was my longest poker hiatus in at least a year and a half.  The reason for the break was a gift my sister, brother-in-law and I gave to my parents last Christmas:  a vacation to Nashville, Tennessee and to the Kentucky Derby.  We selected Nashville because it was the birthplace and childhood home of my paternal grandfather.  We selected the Kentucky Derby because it seemed fun.

I’ve been really uninspired blogwise lately, so I will just provide some short snippets of information about the vacation, broken down by day.

Tuesday:  The vacation hadn’t started yet, but it was my birthday.  In November, I managed to secure a reservation for four at Rao’s, an old Italian restaurant up in East Harlem.  After hearing a bunch of lukewarm reviews, I was very happily surprised.  It is a true old school experience.  There is no menu, the manager comes out and tells you what he has that night.  There are only two seatings per night.  The food is simple but delicious.  Almost everyone in the place is obviously a “regular,” and throughout the meal several of the proprietors come over to introduce themselves.  Around 11:00, they turn on a jukebox and a bunch of old mafioso types sing along to the doo-wop songs.  It’s a totally authentic, unique experience.  I can’t recommend this restaurant highly enough.  Good times.

Wednesday:  the crew consists of my parents, my sister, my brother in law, my 10-month old nephew, Janeen and I.  The evening flight goes off without a hitch, but when we land and go to the rental car counter, it occurs to me that this vacation will be reminiscent of the old childhood stationwagon tour:  we’ve rented a massive Dodge Caravan, and the seven of us (and our luggage) fill the entire thing to the brim.  Ezra (my nephew) has an ungodly amount of accoutremont:  a stroller, a car seat, a bunch of other stuff.  I’m a bit apprehensive about the trip, as I have not spent four consecutive days with my parents (or anyone, for that matter) in many, many years.  Partly to minimize the amount I’ll have to interact with everyone, and partly because I like driving, I unilaterally decide that I’ll be the family chauffer for the entire trip.  Once we’re inside the truck, I discover that my father has brought his GPS, which is an amazing invention.  On the vacation it ends up saving us countless minutes and a lot of aggravation.

Thursday:  Time to explore Nashville.  First stop was Andrew Jackson’s plantation.  To the curators’ credit, they didn’t sugarcoat anything:  we learned that Andrew Jackson was the largest slaveholder in the region, and a generally nasty one.  His mansion has no bathrooms.  He shat in a pan then called upon his house slaves, who dumped it out back.  I also learned that our forefathers bathed only 3 or 4 times a year.  We had a nice steak dinner at Ruth’s Chris. 

Later on, everyon except Ezra and my parents decided to grab a beer in Nashville’s famous nightlife district, which is nothing more than 2 blocks of bars.  Living in NYC really skews one perspective of what constitutes “urban.”  By my standards, Nashville is tiny.  It is also, quite apparently, the place where many Southern musicians migrate to “make it.”  We discovered this by stumbling into a karaoke bar, where any thoughts of performing were quickly squelched by a long string of pro-level performances of country hits by struggling Nashville singers.  I have to give the local karaoke mavens credit.  They were all blasted and having a good ‘ol time.  Some of the performances were quite memorable in both their quality and hilarity.   Here’s a snippet of video from a guy we called “Soggybottom” singing something about his boogie-woogie choo-choo baby, or something. 

[janeen’s video goes here]

From there, we bounced around from bar to bar.  Suzanne (my sister) wanted to see line dancing, but there was no line dancing to be had.  Just a string of very large places, all featuring stages, live country/rock music and patrons of all ages drinking one of the three bottled beers available:  Bud, Bud Light, or Coors Light.

Friday:  Janeen and I got up much later than everyone else (I was still on poker time) and discovered that everyone else had consumed a big southern breakfast in the hotel.  This was not a problem, as there were at least six fast food places within a half mile of our hotel.  At noon, each one had a drive thru line over 10 cars long.  People in Nashville–and, I suspect, the entire South–love fast food in a way northeastern Americans don’t.  Maybe it’s because they have fewer options, maybe it’s some other reason, but the fast food joints in and around Nashville were always packed.  So if you’re gonna open a Wendy’s franchise, do it down South. 

Next, we toured Nashville.  We took a bus tour, which took us all over the city:  past the bars we had frequented the night before, past all the run-down country music studios, past an area which was virtually all hospitals (Nashville is the health care capital of the South), and through the park where my grandfather rode his horse every weekend as a child.  Once the bus tour was over, we hit the Country Music Hall of Fame.  While I am not a fan of America’s favorite genre of music, I was able to appreciate the musem, which had a lot of cool listening stations.  I confirmed what I had already suspected:  I like bluegrass, I like Johnny Cash, I like old ratty steel guitar songs… but I despise modern country music.  We had some authentic BBQ at some dirty little place after the museum. 

The next stop was the Grand Ol’ Opry, but we had a few hours to kill and no hotel room, so we drove to the mall at Opry Mills and did nothing.  After successfully killing the requisite time, it was Opry time.  To put it bluntly, the Grand Ol’ Opry is a place for geriatrics to hear old country music by old washed up country stars in a genteel environment.  The most interesting thing about the Opry is that it is a live radio show, with live commercials read on the air in between songs.  We were subjected to the same commercials for Cracker Barrel, U.S. Bank and Vietti Chili (“it’s a kick in a can!”) over and over again.  In between the commercials, crusty old country crooners were trotted out on stage, and they sang, as best they could, their old hit(s).  It was all very subdued:  the only time the crowd got a little rowdy was when an old dude called Mel McDaniels impolored them to “stand up for America” accompanied by a video of Old Glory waving in the breeze.  The absolute lowlight was a group of white men in traditional Mexican attire doing a cheesed-up set of mariachi songs in “honor” of Cinco de Mayo.

Thus ended phase one of the trip.  It was around midnight, and it was time to hightail it to rural Bardstown, Kentucky, where we had booked a bed & breakfast for the remainder of the trip.  The trip took us up Interstate 65 and then some very dark highway, and it was longer than expected.  It didn’t help that we passed from the central time zone back into the eastern time zone on this journey, so an hour of sleep got flushed.  The GPS also screwed up for the first and only time, and we lost an additional half hour driving in a circle in the middle of nowhere.  By the time we pulled up at the bed & breakfast, and fumbled our way into our hostess’ house, it was around 3:00 AM.    Breakfast was going to be served at 8:45.  Crash.

Saturday:  Derby Day started off with a southern breakfast, consisting of a lot of eggs and pork, served by the owner of the quaint bed & breakfast.  The hostess made things significantly less quaint by gratuitously mentioning that she was no longer married, had buried both of her children, and was only running the bed & breakfast because she needed the money.  Gulp.  Pass the butter. 

We were about 40 minutes away from Louisville and left for the Derby bright and early.  My father, my brother in law and I were dressed in jackets and ties.  My sister, my mother and Janeen wore dresses, heels and big goofy hats.  I had heard numerous reports on both Louisville and the Kentucky Derby, so when we got to the Derby, none of the following facts surprised me:

-Louisville, Ky. is a DUMP.

-Churchill Downs is massive.  Over 150,00 people show up.  Over half this many drink heavily.

-Various small industries spring up around the Derby.  Louisville residents charge Derby-goers to park on their lawns, and residents turn their cars into cabs for the day, as your parking spot is unlikely to be anywhere near the track.

Our day at the races was pleasant enough.  Our tickets were for a pavilion off to the side of the track (literally built on top of the parking lot), so we had a private seating area in a tent, open bar, and our own mutuel windows.  While this setup was away from the action, it was perfect for Ezra and my parents.  In any event, being away from the “action” was all right by me.  At the Kentucky Derby, “action” entails standing in unbearable crowds, avoiding fistfights and vomit, and pondering exactly who these trashy people are, so it was all good.  It’s not that I have a huge problem with drunk rednecks, I really don’t.  It’s more about my rather NYC-centric idea of partying, which is at direct odds with Kentucky Derby partying.  I like to have my fun late at night, when the rest of the world is asleep.  This preference is likely honed from years of living in New York.  In my world, the days are for working or relaxing, they’re not for getting fucked up.  That’s what God made nighttime for.  The sea of trashed humanity on display at 2:00 pm at the Kentucky Derby does not appeal to me.      

Anyway, I hit a nice exacta in the fourth race, but lost thereafter, having picked the horse that ran second in the Derby.

Leaving the track and getting to the car was the lowlight of the trip.  I’m not providing any details.  Suffice to say it was a major pain in the ass.  When we finally got to the vacationmobile, we drove back to the bed & breakfast, ordered pizza, ate it, and crashed.

Sunday:  The last day of the trip was a quirky haphazard tour of rural Kentucky.  First stop was a down-home Civil War museum, which featured a lot of authentic artifacts and interesting information about the battles in the western theater.  Next, we made a stop on Kentucky’s “Bourbon Trail,” which is a series of bourbon distilleries.  Think wine tour, but with whiskey.  We went to the Maker’s Mark distillery, where we saw each of the various stages of bourbon production.  Then, headed for the highway, we came upon a small parking lot on the side of the road, behind which sat an old log cabin.  The sign said “Lincoln’s Childhood Home.”  Okay, why not.  We stopped for 10 minutes.

The last stop was for food at a Cracker Barrel.  For those unfamiliar, Cracker Barrel is a peculiar little chain of diners that serves Southern comfort food and always has a general store attached to it.  Here is Ezra, the world’s happiest baby–he didn’t cry for the entire trip, enduring a full four days in the back of a minivan–having some fun at Cracker Barrel.

[kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/lteQIv36nuQ” width=”480″ height=”360″ /]

And that was more or less it.  Griswald adventure complete.  Back to poker!