Shake It Off

One day, when I grow up, I'll be well-rooted in reality. I'll know that you can't gallivant across the country on a moment's notice and expect everything to be right with the world immediately thereafter.

For now, duck it. I'm getting on a plane in 10 hours and that's all there is to it. I got a txt from @TeamGetBig about LA... Tuesday. Further inspection revealed that he was leaving Denver for Los Angeles, and it would be nice to not have to pay for a hotel room all by himself.

Who am I to leave a friend hanging in the breeze? I like LA... I could go there (on less than 12-hours notice) too.

Maybe I wouldn't have made this decision if I hadn't come straight from the bar. Maybe if I didn't go to @Keon_S's game on Saturday and pick up $1K and then pick up another $1K at @FiveFingerz & @EHonda500Mob's game a few hours ago... then maybe I wouldn't jump at the chance to go back to LA.

I've still got some, um... issues... to work out in Baltimore, but that's another story.

Soonly, I'll be catching a nap before my flight. I'll drive to @BMoreBilly's house, hope that he'll give me a ride to BWI, and then take the hop, skip, and jump across the country.

With a little luck, I might actually remember how to play $30/$60 Stud again. Wouldn't that be fun.

Oh, to have a "real job." How boring would that be?

Fantasia

In the closing scene of "The NeverEnding Story", the Childlike Empress presents Bastian with a single glowing speck of dust. It is all that remains of the once great Fantasia.

Last week, Tilt swept through my bankroll like The Nothing. The $17 I have in my wallet is like that single glowing speck of dust. In all honesty, it sounds worse than it is. While, true, it's no picnic to lose $12,000 in a week - it's nice to still be showing profit for the past couple months.

Slowly but surely, I'm rebuilding. Maybe one day, far into the future, I'll learn my lesson.

Nah, probably not.

Sylvester the BankRoll Molester

Making money at poker is easy. It really is. Just sit in chair, wait for a good hand, bet it, watch everyone call, take down a nice pot.

The hard part is the impatience. The flashy lights. The limo rides and lunches with the Pacific Ocean as a backdrop. Makes one forget that losing can be just as readily achieved.

I was grateful to have @WriterJen pick me up from @CommerceCasino on Saturday afternoon. Got me out to see some of the what LA has to offer. We took a ride to the coast, up PCH past Santa Monica Pier. Stopped at the light for Sunset Blvd. Could turn right to go to Hollywood, we took a left turn: Gladstone's.

Calamari and Crabcakes for appetizers. Lobster, Shrimp, and Scallop pasta for the main course. Food was fan-freaking-tastic.

Three or four RedBull/Vodka's later, Jen drops me off at Commerce. I decide to play some $5/$10 NL. Whoops. Would've been cheaper to say, "Let's take this lunch to some place exotic, like... Australia..."

Been a rough week ever since that Lunch. My brain fell out. Attempting to put it back in. Didn't help that everyone had been asking me, "Are you sure you can afford to play that high?" Well, yeah, I could... before you black-catting Mother Duckers made me all kinds of paranoid.

Gonna get back to it. Thx for reading.

What's a Few Thousand Dollars Between Friends?

Every player who final tabled @BorgataPoker Event 14: $350+$50 Stud was guaranteed a minimum of 2.5:1 on their $400 investment. Luck into the top three, and you're looking at 11:1 and better.

Chet, Mike, and Tony were solid stud players, NOT their first rodeo. Jimmy was playing tight and right all tournament. John "JW" Womack had a bracelet on his wrist from taking down an event in Tunica (PLO?).

But, we were all having a pretty good time. Cracking jokes, telling stories, laughing about the $13,700 first place on the line.

Chet has been playing in the casinos for years on end. He gave us some tongue-in-cheek strategy for beating the Atlantic City cash games.

"When you're stuck, play until you get even. If you're winning a good amount for the day, go home with the win."

It's alot harder than it sounds. I lived it soon after landing in LA Friday afternoon. Played like total ASS in the $30/$60 Stud. I could think of about 30 times where I put a Big Bet in the pot knowing it wasn't coming back to me.

Do this at $2/$4 LHE, and you're out $120. In this stud game... we're talking two $900 buy-ins.

Good thing I removed my cranium from my rectum and began to play a much more solid game. (Snapping off the locals with a few thin draws put me in a better mood, too).

I'm such a donkey. Wouldn't have it any other way. Just woke up from a little nap, probably head back downstairs in the next hour or so.

Beers with Judd Hirsch

"Hi, my name is Reality. You may not recognize me, after all this gambling and spending money like it's going out of style... Just wanted to stop by and remind you that internet romance is sooooo 1998, and all women are evil."

Well, maybe not all of them, my sister has her good moments.

@FiveFingerz reminded me that everything happens for a reason. If not for this heart-wrenching calamity, I never would've found the Mecca that is @CommerceCasino. For the time being, I'll just pretend like it doesn't bother me. Yeah, that'll go over grrreat!

Speaking of my sister:

Thursday was my Mother's Birthday. Tried to reach her on her cell, standard no answer. Called my sister at work to chit-chat, wanted to get Mom's current home phone number. Does it make me a bad son that I didn't already have the number? Maybe. As it turns out, I did have it, just wasn't sure if it was correct.

Now, my sister is 26 years old, married, with a degree in Occupational Therapy. She's an OT in Berks County, not a cocktail waitress in Vegas. So, when I call her at work, and the receptionist tells me, "Is this an emergency? We don't put personal calls through," I almost went ballistic.

For a brief fleeting moment, I actually thought I might be getting my sister in trouble. In hindsight - WTF kind of nerve does that little desk-jockey have telling me when I can and can't call my sister at work?

Flying to LA in the morning. Batting 1.000 in the $30/$60 Stud game out there, hope to maintain.

Can't Make This Schtuff Up

I've been talking to this girl (@SlantdNEnchantd) since the middle of July. We would chat every day. I don't mean "almost" every day, or "it felt like" every day. I'm talking about... never more than 18 hours of silence. When I went a full day without hearing from her, I knew something was wrong. Two, three, four days... big problem.

Friday night we were scheduled to meet at @CommerceCasino. I had dinner reservations, big bouquet of flowers, stopped by the salon and had my beard trimmed up, hands and feet done... the works. I almost went and bought some nice clothes that had never seen the inside of a poker room.

Coming down to the wire, I still hadn't heard from her. I began to listen to too many family members and concerned-enough friends when they insisted on cold feet as the reason. I felt betrayed and once again all alone, but in the back of my mind, still held out hope that there was another explanation.

One of my friends from high school moved out to LA and lives 10 miles away from Commerce. She joined me for dinner and we caught up on old times, chatted about the crazy new lifestyles we were both leading far and away from Berks County, PA.

Saturday, we had plans to get me out of the casino and onto the beach. Transportation, hangovers, and a juicy $30/$60 Stud game made it difficult. Around sunset, I managed to quit the game and head over to my friend's house. Her license is expired, she has yet to fully master the ways of the Cali DMV, so we opted for Yogurtland over booze. A little after midnight, she and some roommates passed out in her room, I fell asleep on the couch watching TV.

I had to pinch myself and do a triple-take when I saw an e-mail on my phone from Leslie. She got into a car wreck on Tuesday afternoon. She's alive, but far from a clean bill of health.

tues afternoon i was in a car wreck w/ my bro. bro was fine, I was not. had concussion, bruised ribs, cracked ribs, fractured wrist, shattered elbow, cracked my breast plate, contusions from head to toe, among other things.
...

I stood up off the couch, cleared my head, told my friend Tiff about the e-mail, and went outside to call the woman I'm crazy in love with, whom I hadn't heard from in over four days. She had left me her brother's phone number in the e-mail.

She's in a tough spot right now. She wants to see me, but doesn't want me to see her in a body cast. The $30/$60 Stud game at Commerce is pure heaven for me, think I might go back every weekend until she's ready.

Oh, and in case you weren't following on twitter - I had an extremely profitable trip to Atlantic City, including final-tabling a $350+$50 Stud event, getting almost 25:1 on my buy-in.

Prayer

It has been a long time since I got down on my knees and prayed. We're talking 5-10 years. Today, I'm seriously considering it.

Danny Evans, author of http://www.DadGoneMad.com, put out a memoir entitled "Rage Against the Meshugenah." Not sure what made me enter the bookstore or walk directly to his book, but I picked it up.

As I type, I'm on United 477, direct from BWI to LAX. I dove into the book prior to take-off, caught a little nap once we reached our cruising altitude.

Thursday was a long one that started with a hangover at 11:42am, found me dominating most of the final table of @BorgataPoker $350+$50 Stud tournament, and finished w/ me buying into a $5/$10 NL game for $1K, picking up $1,500 in first forty mins, then going from $2.6K stack to the felt in two hands.

I was leaving AC to catch my 7am flight out of BWI either way, would've been great to leave two hands sooner.

Also would've been great to ignore my mild case of arachnophobia and throw the doors on my Jeep ::before:: I left for my Dad's and Atlantic City.

Somehow dodged hypothermia on the way home. Stopped at the ATM and off-loaded several thousand dollars into my checking/svgs accts. Put the doors on, finally.

I don't have the math on me as I type, but off the toppamuhhead, safe to say I've lost about $23,684... In the past month. The sickest part is, I'm in the black. I made between $35K and $40K along the way.

So sick.

Back to Danny's book. After my much needed nap, I did some more reading. He really pours out his soul in this thing, but it's also ripe with comedic timing and surprise George Lucas references sure to please @ThatKevinSmith and the like.

According to the memoir, Mr. Evans met unemployment on Fri 7 Sept 2001. Four days later, everyone's life changed; he was hit hard by clinical depression.

I've never been professionally diagnosed, but I've got more issues than a magazine stand. I'm a gambler, recreational raging alcoholic, lack compassion and sympathy at times where many would consider me heartless... dare I continue?

But we're all just people, just trying to keep on keepin' on. Up until late June of this year, I was convinced that I was going to spend the rest of my days on this big ball of rock, wind, and water alone. Not by choice so much as by design. I'm not an easy guy to love, and my free-time is simultaneously abundant and scarce. I'm never "at work," but always looking to play.

Then, along comes @SlantdNEnchantd. A gorgeous Texan who started following me on twitter and found her way into my heart. Pete "GA Ave" Heyneman and @TheLeafNode were quick to point out the fact that "Internet Romance is soo... 1998..."

Believe it or not, I'm crazy about this girl. In love with her, and about to find out just how far this fairy tale can go. She's in LA visiting family, I'll be staying at @CommerceCasino tonight and Saturday, hoping she doesn't get cold feet on me.

Jason Roth (had that monologue in "He's Just Not That Into You") was up in AC w/ me in the past week. He heard about the trip, wished me luck at the tables, hoping I'd continue on my great run.

I told him, "Honestly, buddy... I really hope I don't get to play a single hand because I'm spending the whole weekend w/ her."

(to be continued...)