After a pretty horrendous January and a so-so February, I have made a bit of a breakthrough.  March 2009 was my most productive month in my three-plus years of playing tournament poker.  It was not one of my highest grossing months and I didn’t have any outright wins, but it was easily my most consistently dominant stretch of tournaments ever.  I made it to four final tables in three different locations, including one in a 5k main event.  I also accomplished a rare feat:  back to back final tables this past weekend at Foxwoods. It’s satisfying to get deep in so many tournaments in such a short period of time.  Lots of my colleagues–including some whom I have the utmost respect for–have recently paid me some really nice compliments, and that is also especially gratifying.

So what happened?  Am I running insanely hot right now or have I turned some kind of a corner as a poker player?  It would be convenient to say the latter is the case, but it would also be self serving.  The truth is likely closer to the former; I’ve definitely won a lot of coinflips late in these tournaments.  I do feel particularly dialed in right now– my understanding of preflop hand ranges is pretty impeccable (if i may say so), but for the most part I think my number is just getting called more often than it has in the past.

Either way, I have no complaints and hope to continue popping up at final tables.  

I haven’t had a really good night sleep in weeks, so I’m not interested in describing any key hands I’ve recently played, but I expect I’ll get around to it sometime soon.  Also, I have a few amusing stories to tell. Probably next time.

Again, to those of you who have recently given me props:  thank you.

Also, take a look at what else I’ve been up to.  I’m quite the multi-tasking guy.  Not only have I been appearing at final tables near you, I’ve been penning diatribes for NYC in the ongoing war between Chitown and NY Snuggie entusiasts.  Snuggie pride y’all!    www.snuggiefest.com

I’ve only played one tournament since Caesar’s.  Janeen and I have placed our lives as we knew them on hold thanks to Ruthie.  Our days and nights are fully dedicated to the difficult chore of looking after our puppy, who I’ve begun to call (somewhat affectionately) “LT” or “Little Terror.”  She is a miniature tornado.  We have time for absolutely nothing else right now. 

I can sense all the parents out there in the blogisphere collectively rolling their eyes, but I’m sure that my seven-week old puppy is more difficult than any of your children ever were.  Imagine a witless, diaperless, rampaging two year old child that urinates every half an hour, defecates every two hours, and in the interim runs around shredding everything in her path.  Now imagine that you don’t have the assistance of a nanny or a day care provider.  That’s my life right now.  I did manage to play one tournament–the Borgata Deep Stack event from this past weekend, and this blog entry is sort of about that.

One never knows when he might be visited by an existentialist epiphany.  Well, for many of us the answer is never, but I do occasionally stumble into deep thought.  My latest such episode occurred this past Sunday morning as I stared blankly through my windshield as my car hurtled southward down the Garden State Parkway, Borgata bound.  A sports talk program was droning white noise through my radio speakers.  I was sipping coffee from a perforated hole in a plastic cup, still half asleep, when a question posed itself.

What was I doing?

The short answer:  driving to a poker tournament in Atlantic City early on a Sunday morning.  But I was searching for an answer of larger magnitude.

What was I really doing? 

I’m a professional gambler, and I’m pretty good at poker.  My expected value in these tournaments is a positive number.  I was doing my job.  

That answer was still not enough.  

On the deepest level my pea brain is capable of pondering, what was I doing?

(Here I must warn the reader that my background in existentialist philosophy begins and ends with a novel by Milan Kundera that I read many years ago; if you don’t want to hear my amateur philosophical musings please click on something else immediately).

Start with a premise that horrifies most people:  our lives are pointless.  There is no point to our time earth. Our stupid lives are hilariously pointless, devoid of meaning.  No matter what we do or how much we “accomplish” in our short lives, we come and we go, and then everything moves forward without us.  Poof.  Our existence is futile.  Mankind has been grappling with this difficult reality since time immemorial.  Concepts like purpose and legacy and meaning have emerged to combat the unbearable lightness of our lives.  In the end, there’s nothing weighty or important about all the thing we spend our lives agonizing over.  Oh noes. 

Man is obsessed with his collective fear of the lightness, so people occupy themselves with all manner of weighty plans and ideas.  We are encouraged to work hard, to contribute to society, to achieve, to make things better for those who come after us, make others proud, to leave our mark, to make a difference.  But in the end, all of that is bullshit.  There is nothing we can do to alleviate the ultimate absurdity of our lives.  Nothing makes a difference and all those concepts exist only to comfort us and shield us from the pointlessness of everything.  This is absolutely beguiling to people and will never be accepted by most.

So why was I driving a car down the Garden State Parkway so that I could play a poker tournament?

I was pursuing the concept of living light.  Professional gambling is attractive to some of us for a reason:  it is supposed to offer a means of escape from a world in which all that heavy shit is crammed down your throat.  Gamblers are supposed to be the free-wheelers of society; we live in the moment, we make our own schedules and we are our own bosses.  We live our lives on our own terms, free from many of the demands foisted upon others.  More fundamentally, we are embracing the lightness that most can’t bear:  we’re not concerned with adding value to society or of fulfilling some imaginary purpose.  We spend our days playing a game.

And that is precisely why professional gambling seems so vacuous and insipid to a lot of folks:  “You play a game for a living.  What is the purpose of that?  What meaning is there in that?  What value are you adding to society?”  The answer to those three questions, respectively, is none, none and none.  But so what?  Every day, this profession puts me in a realm where only the game matters, and within that realm I come closer to pure awareness than most ever will.  Isn’t that enough?

Unfortunately, those last two paragraphs are not exactly an accurate portrayal of my world.  Those are idealistic concepts I’ve expressed.  Even the freewheeling world of professional poker is permeated by the same heaviness that the rest of the world suffers with.  Even professional gamblers (myself included)–the very people who have managed to make their escape–find the lightness of being unbearable.  We need concrete things to grab onto.  We occupy ourselves by incessantly comparing our profit margin to others’, we complain about the structures of our tournaments, we worry about going broke, we bitch about bad beats.  Oh, it’s so hard for us.  And many of us are so driven to win, achieve, win, achieve that we render ourselves incapable of doing what drew us to professional gambling in the first place:  appreciating our daily lives.

Having pondered all this, I experienced a moment of unusual clarity as I continued to drive southward down the Jersey shore.  I resolved to try and thwart that classic existentialist dilemma:  to not constantly preoccupy myself with bullshit and enjoy my life for what it is.  In the end, none of this freakin’ matters anyway.   I’m a poker tournament grinder, and I’m lucky to be one.  I enjoy what I do.  Life is (and ought to be!) good.  Although it really hurts when Ruthie bites my toes.

At Borgata, freshly epiphinated, I played my best day of poker in recent memory.  Everything I did worked, even though I ran bad throughout the day.  I had a decent stack going into Day 2, and on Day 2 I built it upward until I was threatening to take my table over completely.  I was all set to dominate.  And then it fell apart in the span of two hands.  I made a really bad read (committing my favorite error, ascribing too much sophistication to an opponent in a big spot) and then stacked off with QQ against a very tight player’s AA.

The sting of defeat that usually accompanies a bustout was absent.  I packed up my things and hit the highway, happy to be returning to my wife and pup.  It was a crisp, remarkably clear day.  The sky was so blue and the sun shone so brightly that even the Raritan River gleamed as I crossed from New Jersey into Staten Island.  As soon as I walked in my front door, Ruthie ran to my feet and chomped at my shoelaces.  I had blown an opportunity to make a big score, but so what?  Life is good.  

There is only one person I have ever personally known who was consistently capable of embracing the lightness of life, and that was my grandfather (he is also the person who first taught me how to play poker).  His conscience was always free from worry and he lived in the moment.  I think that only his strict catholic upbringing (“pointlessness” is definitely not in the catholic vernacular!) kept him from mastering a life completely free and clear of imaginary obstructions.  As it was, he was a wondrous person who brimmed with legitimate positivity and refused to kowtow to convention. One of his mantras was his succinct way of telling everyone to appreciate their lives: Count Yer Blessings!, and that’s what I’m about to do.

-I’m blessed to live in a time when being a professional gambler is relatively easy.  Thanks to the internet and television, I don’t have to be an absolute savant to make a living at gambling.  We’re a pretty healthy little sub-sect of society nowadays.  Only ten years ago, the life I have chosen for myself would have been impossible.  Now it only takes dedication and a modicum of ability.  I am blessed to have both.

-I’m blessed to have a family that supports me.  Janeen gets everything about what I do and is my biggest fan.  To the surprise of many, my parents are equally supportive.  I was proud to have my father along with me two weeks ago at Caesar’s.  Not only did he sweat my brief appearance at the final table, he experienced a complete day with me on the road and met many of my new poker player friends.  He has done his share of hanging out with losing gamblers, so I imagine that he really appreciated getting to meet a handful of winners from the poker community.

-I’m blessed that poker is practically recession-proof.  The turnouts for the tournaments I grind have been stellar this year, and there are no signs that things will slow down.  We’d need to get blasted with a full-blown bread line, “brother can you spare a dime?” kind of depression for poker tournaments to lose their steam.  To that end, I’m blessed that I have as little to do with corporate America and corporate law firms as possible right now.  If Janeen wasn’t so intimately involved in that world, I’d feel smug–very smug indeed– about this fact.  Janeen is constantly coming home with news of corporate layoffs, law firms closing their doors, downsizing, etc., and several friends of mine have recently been laid off.  Sounds like a lot of misery begetting misery.  Not my thing.  I’m blessed to have bailed out when I did.

That’s all for now.  I’m off to Foxwoods tonight for a couple of tournies.  Good luck to The Mayor and MC, who have made Day 2 of the $600 Event up there.

The 2009 Caesar’s Atlantic City WSOP Circuit events started less than 48 hours after my final table appearance at the Wynn. I considered taking some time off to relax at home, but instead kept my New Year’s resolution and pressed on. After a red eye flight and only one night in my Brooklyn digs, I hit the road again. Down the Garden State Parkway I went!

A few interesting notes preceding the Main Event:

Prop Bet!

Poker players will do just about anything to relieve the boredom of life on the road, and my crew is no exception. A couple of weeks ago my good friend Gordon “Da Mayor” Eng and I concocted a little wager. We each would draft one player from amongst our friends, and one duo would take on the other at Caesar’s. Whichever team had the most gross dollars cashed would win the bet, with the losers treating the winners to an expensive dinner at the conclusion of the meet. I drafted Felix “MinCash” Mok and Gordon selected Kevin “YumiPuff” Mason. After a lot of posturing and joking around, the prop bet was a runaway. Felix opened the scoring with a couple of his patented mincashes while the rest of us did nothing in the early going. Then “Team MC” finished with a flourish when Felix finished 2nd in the $300 Turbo event for $10,000 and I final tabled the Main. Meanwhile, “Team Yumi” bricked everything, giving my squad an easy victory.

Congrats to Felix for having a great Caesar’s Circuit and earning his keep as half of Team MC.  We will be dining at Peter Luger’s on Gordon and Kevin’s dime in the not too distant future. Mmmmm….. Suckas!

Kanoot Sighting!

Before one of the meet’s $300 events, longtime friend of DZ.com Dan Knauth made the trip down to AC to try his hand at tournament poker. Not only did he manage to outlast me in the Friday $300, we chopped a sit-n-go later that day. It was great seeing one of my old home game buddies down in pokerville. I sincerely hope that his wife allows him some more poker excursions going forward. 😉

Boardwalk Scramble!

The aforementioned $300 Event which Dan also played was one of the more interesting tourneys I’ve ever experienced. Since I have played quite a few donkaments and busted this particular one in Level 3, you are likely guessing that I have some kind of story to tell. Yep…

It was halfway through Level 1 when I noticed it. I was minding my own business and had built my starting stack of 4,000 chips to around 5,000 when I realized something was wrong with my left hand.  My wedding ring, which I gingerly placed on the night stand in the room I shared with MinCash at Showboat the night before, was missing.  And we were checked out of the room.

I have had major issues with my wedding ring during my short marriage. I am not used to wearing jewelry of any kind and instinctively remove the ring as soon as I get home. I’m also absent-minded generally (I can NEVER find my car in a parking garage, for instance), so I’m always accidentally leaving my wedding ring behind when I depart on my trips. I always feel terrible about it when I leave my ring at home, but at least I know this precious item is secure there. This mid-tournament misplacement posed a more serious problem.

Feeling panicked, I stepped away from the table (for the noobs: standard tournament protocol is that there is absolutely no cell phone use at the table) and whipped out my phone. I punched in the number for the Showboat, asked for the housekeeping department and was promptly put on hold. For over ten minutes, I watched my cards get systematically folded by the dealer while I waited to speak to a human being about my wedding ring. Finally someone answered.

“Housekeeping, can I help you?” came the voice.

“Hi. I checked out of room 2415 about two hours ago. I left my wedding ring in there.”

I was instantaneously placed on hold again. Another five or ten minutes melted away and another orbit worth of my hands were folded. There was about ten minutes left in Level One. I began to pace back and forth. Eventually, the voice returned.

“We checked the room sir, there is no wedding ring in there. It hasn’t been cleaned yet so I’m afraid it’s not here.” This answer didn’t sit real well with me. My wedding ring’s retail value is less than half the buy-in of the tournament I was playing; it’s an ordinary uninscribed small gold band. But the idea of losing it only a few months into my marriage filled me with a heavy karmic dread that needed to be lifted immediately.

I was feeling an unpleasant mixture of panic, anger and guilt. I clicked my phone off, jammed it in my front pocket and did the first thing that came to mind: I broke into a full sprint. I weaved through the poker tables, then I beelined out of the tournament room, then ran through the casino floor, past the rows of slot machines and then found myself in the Caesar’s hotel lobby. I took a sharp right turn and ran through the tunnel leading to the self park garage. By the time I (thankfully) found my car, I was completely out of breath. I jumped in, started it and careened down the garage ramps. I pulled out, turned onto Pacific Avenue and hit the gas. I veered around the sputtering AC Jitney, then zoomed towards the Showboat. Then I tore through another parking garage until i found a spot, jumped out of the car like Bo Duke, and ran to the Showboat’s front desk.  I demanded a key to the room and went upstairs. When I got there, I threw the already-ajar door open and found that a maid was cleaning the room.

“My wedding ring is in here!” I said before she could open her mouth.

“Ohhh jes, I found dat half hour ago. Is with Lost and Found.”

“Well how the hell can I get it?!” I said as I jammed a $20 bill into her hand.

Three phone calls and twenty minutes later a clerk brought my wedding ring to me at the Showboat’s front desk. Awash with relief, I stuck it onto my finger and ran back to my car, then sped back to Caesar’s.

When I finally plopped back into my seat, the tournament was fifteen minutes into Level Three.  I had missed half of Level One, all of Level Two, and the beginning of Level Three, but my stack had shrunk only to around 4,600, and the blinds were 100-200. On my second hand back, I was UTG+1 and still catching my breath when I looked down and saw two black aces. I thought to myself, I have my ring.  I have aces. All is right with the world. Then things got even better. The player under the gun, with about the same stack as mine, raised to 550. I decided to get trappy and smooth called. Then the player to my direct left proceded to jam all in for around 3800. Wunderbar! What a bonanza! It folded back to the under the gun raiser and he mucked his hand. I snap called and flipped open the nizzles.

I should have known that something might go wrong when my opponent wasn’t even slightly discouraged by the sight of my aces. He tabled pocket fives, pointed a finger in the dealer’s direction and said “show me a five!” The dealer burned, turned and deliverd.  A five, right in the window. I busted two minutes later.

Interesting tournament.

Big Boy Final Table

I’m running out of gas on this blog entry, so I’m gonna keep my description of the Caesar’s Main Event short and sweet.

A $5,000 buy in tournament with 208 entrants is not a kiddie game. Over half the field was comprised of excellent poker players, and I’m proud of the way I navigated my way to the final table. I was never all in with the worst hand, all my plays worked, and my stack grew throughout Day 1.  I somehow managed to stay out of trouble when it was lurking. I made a very ballsy five-bet all in against another deep stack with only AQ–believe it or not, I could sense that he was only trying to keep me in line when he put in the third raise–and from there more or less cruised into Day 2.

On Day 2 I continued my assault, both running good and staying out of harm’s way, and then before I knew it I was at a very stacked final table.

working my way to the final table

Caesar’s put on a big show prior to the start of the final table, and for the first time in my poker career, I was treated like a big deal. Each player was announced and then walked down an aisle through the crowd before claiming his seat, like it was a heavyweight title fight. And each of us was accompanied by a hot chick in a miniskirt. Amusing.

Sug enters with his assigned bimbo. Picture by A. Riccobono

Unfortunately, the final table played out as poorly as it possibly could. The shortest stack (and eventual winner), a nice French-Canadian kid by the name of Sam, was seated to my right, and I was fully prepared to call his obligatory jams very light. Alas, I held complete dirt every time he moved in and could do nothing with him. Meanwhile, my stack was not big enough to withstand much pressure, so I chose not to open without a hand that could stand some heat. I was dealt absolutely nothing for an entire hour, and no one busted. Finally, with my stack whittled down to reshove territory, I found 66 in the big blind and shipped it in when Frank Vizza opened from the cutoff. I had played with Frank the night before and watched him open some marginal holdings, but this time he had aces. Done and done.

me during my cameo final table appearance. Look, I put gel in my hair.

I was (and remain) very disappointed with my 9th place finish. Making a big buy in final table only happens so often, coming up empty feels terrible. Still, I am playing well and 20 grand isn’t something to sneeze at. I seem to have some momentum right now and I hope I can keep things rolling.

The vanquished Sug D’s exit interview.

After two grueling days of poker, I’m headed to the final table of the Main Event of the Caesar’s AC WSOP Circuit tomorrow.  The final table is stacked with accomplished pros and it will be tough sledding.  I’m fifth in chip going in.  First place is $322,000.  

Pokenews.com and Pokerpages.com will have continuous updates for those of you keeping score at home. 

Let’s see if Sug D can rip one of these things down!

Actually, it’s Ruth Alex Woofenstein-Zeitlin, but she goes by Ruthie.

Janeen and I have been scouting out our first dog for awhile now.  When we came across Ruthie’s ad, placed by a rescue agency in South Jersey, we couldn’t resist.  I took a day off from the tourney grind to bring her home.

She’s half boxer/half something else and was rescued from a high-kill shelter in North Carolina.  She’s just a baby, maybe 7 or 8 weeks old.  We’re thrilled to have her.  🙂

Her first encounter with her reflection was interesting:

At the end of my Vegas trip I was feeling pretty weary and was desperate to get the F out of Dodge. Fortunately degeneracy defeated desperation and I still entered a $500 Event at the Wynn Classic the morning before my red eye left town.  As it turned out, I had to reschedule my flight because I ended up final tabling the thing.  I ran like God during the period following the bubble then ran roughshod through some folks, arriving at the final table third in chips.  The two players who had me outchipped were my talented friend Vinny Pahuja and poker megastar Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier.  We eventually were the last three standing, and for a few brief glimpses I seemed to be on the verge of wresting control of the table from those two very formidable opponents.  However ElkY got the best of me in a couple of big pots, then I met my fate (Pajuhja’d!) by running AQ into Vinny’s AK.  I made $14,000 and certainly cannot complain.

Vinny overcame a short deficit to defeat ElkY, who is widely considered one of the best heads up NLHE players in the world.  This is a terrific accomplishment and another notch in the already heavily notched belt of Vicious Vinny.  Congrats sir!

You may be wondering what the hell ElkY was doing in a $500 Event.  So was I.  I still don’t know the answer.  I do know that he was either unamused by or did not understand the moniker I gave him and repeatedly called him:  “Elkapotamus.”  English is like ElkY’s eleventh language, so my bloated ego likes the latter explanation.  And now for a quick scene from Las Vegas.

I am at the Venetian awaiting the start of the Deep Stack Main Event.  I’ve arrived over an hour early, so I decide to grab a bite at the closest restaurant, which happens to be Grand Luxe Cafe.  I stroll in and decline the hostess’ offer of a table for one and seat myself at the bar.  I peruse the menu for a few moments, decide on the chopped salad, and wait to be served.

The bartender is a sturdy raven-haired woman who looks to be about thirty.  She’s attending to some folks at the other end of the bar.  I can tell by the way she’s effortlessly handling the beverage gun and slinging pints of soda down there that this ain’t her first rodeo.  She faces me and walks over.  She’s healthy and strong, but her face wears the expression of a person who has been dragged through some disappointment or some sleepless nights.  Or both.  I imagine her finishing up her shift, driving her trusty Camry down into Henderson, picking her kid up from day care and fixing him some macaroni and cheese dinner. 

“What can I get you?” she asks with the saccharine Vegas smile that even tired probable single moms are required to wear.  I order my chopped salad and an iced tea.  Before she departs, she glances at my book and breaks into a smaller but more legitimate smile.  

“Is it better than the movie?  I loved the movie.”

I have no absolutely idea what she’s talking about.  It takes me about five seconds before I realize that the book I picked up in the Miami airport on a lark, Into The Wild, must have gotten the motion picture treatment recently.  

“The movie’s probably better, I’m not loving this book,” I answer truthfully.  The bartender shrugs and walks off.  My salad and iced tea arrive less than five minutes later.  I begin to eat, thinking about my early tournament strategy. 

Before long, I realize someone has occupied the seat to my right.  It’s a sprightly blond girl in her early twenties.  She is wearing a grey pantsuit and her hair is pulled back into a tight ponytail.  There is a hole in her left nostril which was recently occupied by a stud of some sort.  She glances around her, then inhales deeply.  She puffs her chest out, then lets loose a sharp, exaggerated exhale.  She’s nervous.  I correctly surmise that she’s not here for lunch.  

“Can I help you?” the bartender asks our new arrival.

“Hi, I’m Amanda.  I’m here for my interview for the hostess position.”  Amanda isn’t doing a great job of concealing her anxiety; she’s got a death grip on the napkin in front of her.

“Oh, okay.  Randy will be back in ten minutes,” says the bartender.  Now she gives Amanda a once-over and a kindhearted grin.  “You new in town?”

“New-ish.  I’ve been here three months,” says Amanda.  “I’m a server right now.”  I presume this means that she fetches drinks in a casino.

“So do you like Vegas?” asks the bartender, drawing slightly closer to Amanda.

“Well…” 

“Tell the truth, don’t bullshit me,” interrupts the bartender.  Amanda gathers her thoughts for a moment before replying.  The bartender clearly wants the answer to be no.

“It’s okay so far.  I’ve met a few nice people, but I miss a lot of things back home.”

“Where’s home?”

“Orlando.  It’s not the same here,” she says wistfully.  “I miss car shows, basketball games, cookouts…. I still don’t feel totally at home here.”

I want to blurt out “Vegas doesn’t have car shows?!” but I just continue staring straight ahead and sip my iced tea.

“And the guys here… I’m not impressed so far.” 

This topic arouses the bartender.  She fixes Amanda with an intense stare that needs no explanation, then makes a gesture with her index finger that I’ve seen from attorneys in courtrooms before.  The bartender has a key point to make. 

“Honey, you don’t know the half.  Let me tell you something.  Vegas guys suck.  Don’t listen to anything they tell you, it’s all lies.  Most of them have just moved here and are dead broke.  They put on their fancy clothes, walk around like they’re hot shit and they all have some kind of dumb hustle going on.  If one more guy tells me he’s a professional poker player I’m going to vomit.”  Upon hearing this comment, I chortle audibly, stop forking around in my salad and glance over at them, but they don’t notice.

“The guys here suck.  Plain and simple,” continues the bartender.  “And the tourists are just as bad.  People are so out of touch.  These people want to tell me stories about how much money they just lost; how they lost it, how bad their luck is.”  She’s on a roll.

“Hello?!  I work twenty feet from the casino floor.  Your story means nothing to me, it’s the same as the last guy’s.  I don’t care!”  she says with wide-eyed amazement.

The bartender’s rant ends at just the right moment.  Randy is on the scene.  Randy shakes Amanda’s little sweaty hand, then she’s off on her interview.  The bartender wishes her luck, Amanda thanks her and I continue eating.  

Less than two minutes later, as if on cue, a man replaces Amanda in the seat next to mine.  He’s middle aged with glasses and a Venetian ball cap.  He arrives quickly and forcefully, almost with determination.  He’s wearing a pair of neatly creased beige shorts.  Tucked into his shorts, with the help of a thick black belt, is a button-down shirt, the kind I wore at my law firm on casual Fridays.  This man is seriously overweight; his shirt is fighting an uphill battle to keep all the gut contained.  Even though he is seated a healthy distance from the bar, his gut/shirt is smushed uncomfortably against the mahogany divider.  He receives his menu, opens it for one second, grimaces, closes it, and places it back on the bar.  I sense some negative energy.

He flags our trusty bartender down.  

“Gimme two eggs, over easy and an order of crispy bacon.  And a coffee…  Does that come with potatoes?”

“Yes, it comes with either…” begins the bartender.

“I don’t want potatoes!”  Fat guy is yelling for no apparent reason.  I instinctively cringe and slide to my left.  “What can i get instead of potatoes?!”

“We have sliced tomatoes,” says the bartender.

“No tomatoes!  I don’t like tomatoes!  What can I get besides potatoes and tomatoes?  Give me something else!”  This fat guy is practically barking.  I’m growing seriously uncomfortable, but the bartender is nonplussed. 

“There aren’t too many other options.  We have different vegetables that I can ask the kitchen if they’ll…”

“What vegetables?!”  he screams.  “I’m done with that menu.  And I’m not a mind reader.  You have to TELL me here.  What vegetables?!”  Spittle is actually flying out of the fat guy’s mouth.

“Broccoli.  We have broccoli.”

“Good, give me broccoli, but steamed.  Don’t overcook it.  EGGS.  CRISPY BACON.  BROCOLI.  And I”m in a hurry.”  

Wow, what a douchebag.  The bartender walks off.

And with that, the fat guy pulls two sheets of paper out of his front pocket, lays them side by side in front of him and attempts to smooth the creases out of them.  He was ordering food only seconds earlier but now fatty is completely engrossed with these sheets.  He’s poring over them with such intensity that he’d probably fail to notice if I smack him in the back of the head, which I have the distinct urge to do.  Fat guy proceeds to pull out a pen and goes to work.  He makes a few X’s.  He makes a couple of circles.  In one particular spot, he makes about sixteen circles for emphasis.  He writes some numbers in the margins.  Fat guy is working these sheets over like a topographer who just discovered a previously unexplored island. What are they?

I take a gander.  One sheet has printed on it the Venetian’s sports book’s NBA offerings for the day, and the other appears to be some kind of tout sheet produced by one of those hacks-about-town handicappers.  He’s divining tonight’s basketball winners by looking at two pieces of paper.  In other words, this fat bastard is exactly what he appears to be:  a self-important loser.  Chalk one up for the bartender.  I finish my food, pay my bill, and leave the idiot to his studies.

End story.

I’m back on the east coast playing some tournies at Caesar’s AC WSOP Circuit now.  I’ve bricked all the daily events but have won a seat in the main event so far.  Also I’m currently winning a prop bet that I will explain in the next entry.

I’ve had limited computer access lately, so I haven’t addressed the blogisphere in awhile.  Here’s my current status:  I’m out in Vegas and can’t wait to come home.  I miss my wife, my apartment, and (of course) my Snuggie.  And the news that a big snowstorm is bearing down on the NYC area has had the unexpected effect of magnifying my homesickness considerably.  I love snowstorms and I’m really regretting the possibility of missing out my first Brooklyn blizzard.  Tomorrow night’s red eye home can’t come soon enough.

Anyway, here’s a tidy summary of the last two weeks.

I started out in Florida, where Janeen and I visited first with her father and then with my grandmother.  We passed the time by taking in the ocean vistas, having a couple of nice dinners and enjoying a bicoastal drive.  All these things were lovely, but the highlight of the Florida trip came when I got slowrolled by a drunk old man in a 2-4 limit game at the Fort Myers dog track.  Amazing!

In South Florida, retirees have nothing better to do than fuss over time, and they’ve turned wasting it into an art form.  So proceeding from that environment directly to the alternate universe of Las Vegas, where time’s very existence is purposely obscured, was a shock to the system.  I arrived late last Sunday, got some sleep, then played the Venetian Deep Stack Main Event.  I played well, made Day Two, got into the money, then promptly went broke.  Two days later, I played the first preliminary event at the Wynn Classic.  Again I played well, made Day Two, eked into the money and promptly went broke.  In each tournament I won a fraction of the buy in, netting a whopping total profit of around $500.

Most tourney players refer to these puny thankless first level payouts as mincashes, but my friend Gordon and I have coined a new term for them:  postcards.  These shitty little tournament cashes are functionally a push; they accomplish absolutely nothing.  They are nonetheless collected by Pokerpages.com and therefore create a new entry on a player’s Pokerpages profile (here’s mine).  These profiles are widely read and serve as the poker world’s official player tracking devices.  When a lousy mincash shows up on your profile, it’s nothing more than an announcement to family, friends and other followers of your whereabouts on a particular date.  Like a stamp on your passport.  Or better yet: a postcard home.  Having a great time, wish you were here!  Another mincash!  Wheeeeeeee!