In my first tournament back from hiatus (okay, I’m not including Mohegan Sun), I made yesterday’s final table of the $1k event at Harrah’s.  Pretty nice, but I finished with a thud.

In one respect I am very happy, because I managed to finesse my way there.  I never had a commanding stack at any point in the entire tournament.  I also survived a really nasty rivered two-outer that left me crippled just before the bubble and rebuilt everything from there.

On the other hand, the final table itself was very disappointing.  I came in 6th in chips, and despite drawing the worst seat at the table, I felt confident that I could find some good spots and do some damage.  The lineup of players who made it there wasn’t too impressive.  Still, it didn’t happen for me.  I held nothing but dirt the entire time, lost the first significant pot I played, then waited a long time to get my money in.  When I looked down and saw two kings, I reshoved it on pocket tens.  One player announced that he had folded a ten, but that didn’t stop the case diez from falling on the turn.  Even had I won the hand, I’d still be pretty short.  Just not a good day. I finished 8th for $5,300.  So it goes.

That runs my total final tables for the year to five, which is a respectable number considering how much time off I’ve taken.  The bad news is that my gross earnings is a rather paltry number in light of the five final tables.  I’m like the Knish of tournament poker, I guess.

Back to the grind…

The blog posts have come to a standstill for a reason:  nothing has been going on with me.  I have played maybe a couple of hours of poker since April 1st and have spent the last couple of days trying to figure out why.

I should give credit to all the folks who laughed in my face when I told them I’d still be playing 40 hours of poker per week even after I became a family man.  With only a wife and a puppy this is impossible–lord help me if we ever add offspring to the mix.  I am Ruthie’s daytime caretaker, and she simply cannot be left unattended for more than five minutes or mass destruction can and will ensue.  She has also recently learned that whining at the top of her lungs will get her released from her crate if anyone has the gall to lock her up. She reliably wakes up sometime around 7:00 am and commences whining (and is very lucky that she is so cute).  These are not ideal conditions for playing online poker tournaments (nor for sleeping in, which was once my forté).  

And then of course there is Janeen, who works hard every day and expects something resembling relaxation when she gets home.  Disappearing into my office to fire up a bunch of donkaments and leaving her alone with our evil puppy isn’t the nicest way of saying “hey honey, how was your day?”  My window of opportunity for playing online poker is at night, after my wife and puppy have gone to bed.  Imagine how pleasant Ruthie’s early morning baying sounds when your last waking activity was bubbling a $26 tournament on Full Tilt at 5:23 am.  I have been told that Ruthie will at some point become a normal adult dog, which is currently hard to conceive of.    

In the past month I’ve also come to grips with another reason for my inactivity:  plain old complacency.  I’m just not that motivated (a recurring theme in my life!).  Don’t get me wrong:  I love poker and I’ve worked really hard on my game.  I never could have made it this far without a strong will to succeed.  Still, one of the byproducts of my new friendships with other pro poker players is a fresh perspective on how I compare to them.  And nearly all of them are way more into poker than me.  I sometimes get tired of playing poker, many do not.

I think this is both a blessing and a curse.  It certainly sucks that I have chosen (read:  prefer) a lifestyle that will keep me from ever reaching my full potential.  Barring anything but the most miraculous over-expectation mega-tear, I am never going to finish near the top of Cardplayer’s Player of the Year race.  Also, my desire to study poker has waned.  My long-held goal of learning to become expert at another form of poker will likely never happen, and I will never teach myself to effectively multitable online tournaments.  In terms of learning new tricks, I’m out of gas.  When a group of guys is discussing poker hands (supposedly the best way to improve your game), I usually suppress my yawns and am invariably the first one to excuse himself and go find something else to do.  I am certainly driven, but I’m also cursed by the absence of an overdrive setting in my machinery.  Sadly, this flaw (along with my sub-genius intellect) will keep me from becoming an all-time great.  

Then again, this is also a blessing.  A lot of the guys who say they’re “driven to be the best!” are actually just addicted to poker, a concept that is considerably uglier.  Those who allow poker to consume their entire lives remind me of those freakshow bodybuilders you see on ESPN 2 at 3:00 in the morning.  You know– those guys who smear grease all over themselves then stand on stage in a Speedo, contorting themselves into bizarre poses, with crazy muscles bulging out of every square inch of their bodies?  Yeah, those weirdos.  In their worlds the line between bodybuilding and real life somehow got blurry, and they ended up in an alternate reality where it’s okay for your head (and genitals?) to look like a pimple on a grapefruit.  

A lot of poker players are the same way.  Poker ain’t life and life ain’t poker.  For a lot of guys, somewhere along the way life became 350 days a year in a casino, living out of a suitcase and spending your spare time discussing nothing but three-betting hand ranges.  For how many years can someone honestly pull that off? The sick part is that a lot of the guys that live this way are not winning players.  They eat, drink, sleep and shit poker but somehow are not profitable.  Trust me when I tell you that there is something peculiarly pathetic about a guy who spends all his waking hours in the poker world yet still cannot figure out a way to beat the game. 

To some, this probably sounds like the rant of an old guy stuck playing a young man’s game.  In a way that’s true; my station in life is definitely different than many of my peers’.  But (chronologically speaking) I chose poker first and domestication second.  I’m where I want to be.  I just need to remind myself (and now, you) of that sometimes.

Also, I don’t mean to downplay my overall drive or how competitive I am.  I have a ton of pride; if you run into me with twelve players left in a live tournament, don’t expect to find me feeling less than fully committed to busting your ass.  I am just saying that I have my limits.

In closing, happy six-month anniversary to my beautiful wife Janeen.  I love you!

I’ve been playing tournament poker for three years and have more combined TV time doing drunk interviews in a Snuggie than I do playing cards. 

SnuggieFest now officially ranks among the greatest David Zeitlin/Matt Catapano goofball capers, and there have been many.

No poker at all going on in these parts, but the blog is starting to get neglected. Life update, for those keeping score at home:

Snuggie Fest 2009 was a big success. About thirty Snug-a-maniacs braved the cold and rain and got sloshed. We got written up in Time Out New York, the Village Voice, and Gothamist. And we were interviewed for a segment that will supposedly air next week on CNBC.

I’m an uncle again! My sister gave birth to Zia Victoria Mellor on April 13th! She’s a cute little peanut.

Zia and Ezra!

I managed to get invited to the New York Mets’ annual welcome home dinner, where Matt and I purposely focused on collecting pictures with the club’s B-list employees while everyone else clamored to get player autographs. Brilliant!

Ruthie is a huge pain in the ass but is adorable. Here she is looking somewhat forlorn in her cone after getting fixed.

I went to CitiField to witness the finished product last night. There’s been a lot of bitching and moaning about the new stadium amongst fellow Mets fans, and I have no idea what sort of bug has crawled up these peoples’ asses. It’s a fantastic place to watch a ballgame. It looks, feels and is nothing like our old beloved dumphole, Shea Stadium, which is now a parking lot. The Mets won, but no one was really there to see a ballgame.

My next poker action is still a week away, at Mohegan Sun.  I’ll be chasing a puppy around until then.

The scene:

It was late at night on March 29, 2009.  Actually, probably very early in the morning on March 30th.  I had been playing poker all day at the illustrious Foxwoods Resort and Casino in a $1500 No Limit Hold ‘Em event, and the field had whittled itself down to two tables.  Fifteen players remained.  We were playing down to the final table before quitting for the night.  I short-stacked my way all the way there.  I was tired but focused.

Seated two seats to my left was a young fellow pro with a lot of big cashes to his credit.  He’s confident, tricky and dangerous. Seated to his direct left, three seats away from me, was an older amateur.  He is neither tricky nor dangerous, but he certainly was not scared.  He’s what we call a station:  he was playing more pots than anyone else at the table.  These two players both had plenty of chips and had been clashing a lot in the prior hour or so, and also sparring verbally.  Then the following hand developed:

Blinds were 3,000-6,000 with an ante.  Both players had stacks of about 300,000.  Everyone folded to the pro in the small blind and he raised to $18,000.  Old Amateur immediately called.

“Spite calling me now, huh?” snapped the pro as he glared at Old Amateur.  Old Amateur remained steely in his cap and sunglasses.

The flop came K-Q-7 with two clubs.  Pro checked and Old Amateur bet 33,000.  Pro quickly called.

The turn was another seven.  Pro checked and Old Amateur made another healthy bet of 56,000.  Pro considered briefly and called.  Big pot brewing.

The river was the four of clubs, making the final board K-Q-7-7-4 with a flush possibility.  Pro checked and Old Amateur studied for about ten seconds before turning to Pro and asking:

“How much you got left?”  The answer was around 180,000.  Old Amateur studied for a few more seconds then announced that he was all in.  

This news widened the Pro’s eyes.  He stared at Old Amateur with disgust, then got out of his chair and walked behind it.  He leaned forward heavily, using the vacated chair for support.  Then he shot Old Amateur a longer, even more disgusted look.  Then he sat back down and deliberately said “I call,” never taking his eyes off Old Amateur.

Old Amateur’s despondent reaction was to sit there stone faced, refusing to turn over his cards.  It was obvious after a few seconds:  He had zilch.  Nothing.  

Pro, now practically seething with adrenalized bravado, looked straight at Old Amateur with wild eyes and said “c’mon, c’mon!” the same way Rocky Balboa once uttered those same words after absorbing Ivan Drago’s best.  Still, neither player turned over their cards.

Then Old Amateur finally dejectedly muttered “I have nothing,” and flipped his cards face down towards the muck.  I managed to catch a glimpse from my vantage point:  10-5 offsuit.

Now the Pro sprang back to his feet.  In one fluid motion he grabbed his hole cards, flipped them over in his right hand, lifted his arm up over his head, then SLAMMED the cards face up onto the felt:  pocket threes.  Then, with a mixture of bluster and utter contempt, as the pot was shipped in his direction, he screamed:

“YEAH SON!  THAT’S HOW WE DO IT ON LONG ISLAND!”

Wait, what?!  This comment diverted my attention completely from the great call he had just made.  All I could focus on were the most hilarious words I had ever heard at a poker table.

Whaaaaaaat!?!? That’s how you do it on Long Island?  Wait.  No way.  WHAT?!

Where do I start?  Holy crap.

First, is Long Island a hotbed of poker talent?  Wow, I didn’t know that!  News to me.  

Second, Long Island isn’t a bad place, but it’s also not the kind of place you’re allowed to rep like that. Long Island is where your parents moved so that they could have a yard and get you a decent public education. Unless your grandparents were farmers, fishermen or innkeepers, you’re probably a first generation Long Islander; your family hasn’t been there forever.  Your parents lived in Brooklyn or Queens (maybe the Bronx), then one day they found a nice house in Levittown that they could afford. So you had a swing set. You hung out at your local diner a lot.  Then you hopefully went off to college somewhere else, and if you were lucky you never returned.  Jesus Christ, you’re allowed to have deep long island roots, but you don’t brag about it! When you do that, you inadvertently advertise the fact that you were zooming up and down Deer Park Avenue in your retarded Camero while the rest of us were in college. 

Third, you really need to be more specific about this.  Long Island is a big, diverse place.  You can’t say “that’s how we do it on Long Island.” Eight million people live on Long Island.  You need to give me something to work with, like a specific town.  ‘Cause I gotta know:  exactly who on Long Island does it that way?  

Is that how Mrs. Jones does it while she shops for discounted fine china at the Fortunoff’s on Old Country Road?

Is that how all the suits reading the Newsday sports section while they wait for the 6:38 at the Hicksville LIRR station do it?

Is that how an old lady humming Chattenooga Choo Choo at her kitchen table whilst cutting coupons out of the Waldbaum’s weekly circular does it?

Is dat how da boyz do it down at Sal’s Pizza, next to the stationary store ovah in da strip mall?  Or maybe those waitresses at the Ben’s Deli in Wheatley Plaza?

Wait, it’s probably how those slobs do it in the bowling alley on Jericho Turnpike?

Madon a mia, is that how they do it at St. Rocco’s in Glen Cove?

Oy vey, is this how they do it before Friday night shul at Temple Beth-El down in Hewlett?

Or maybe that’s how they do it in the arcade in that big Nathan’s in Oceanside?

It could be how little red-faced Johnny does it while he eats a delicious Marino’s Cherry Italian Ice with a wooden spoon over at Jones Beach?

Is it how we do at the fancy Commack Motor Inn?  Or the White Castle next door?

Is it how those fat nasty ex-jocks playing softball in Eisenhower park do it?

No wait, it must be how they do it at the Artful Dodger in Huntington, or Tavern on the Plaza in Locust Valley, or Partners in Sea Cliff, or Finn Mac Cool’s in Port Washington, or maybe McHebe’s in Hempstead, or Dublin Pub in New Hyde Park or possibly even Mulcahy’s in Wantaugh?

Maybe it’s how we all used to do it when we went rollerskating at Laces and the DJ dropped Shannon–Let The Music Play ?  Or how we used to do it at NY Arrows games at Nassau Coliseum, or how we did it when we bought baseball cards at the Roosevelt Field Flea Market, or when Roosevelt Field was all about Le Petit Mall and Lum’s, or when we went bong shopping at Utopia, or when we chilled at the Oak Beach Inn (“OBI”) in Bay Shore back in the day!?

See, I know from what I’m talking here.  But I also know you can’t shout out Long fucking Island that way. Jesus Christ man, WTF are you smoking!?  How we do it on Long Island, LOL…

Parting thought:

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: