BEST BLOG EVER KNOWN TO MAN.

(((  This blog has been deemed so incredible it has been shielded from public view for safety concerns.  We apologize for that disappointed feeling you have.  We will return soon with a less incredible blog.  Thank you for your understanding.  )))

K

WSOP MAIN EVENT UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE

And there you have it.

Thanks for reading.

DAY 1D. THE JOURNEY TO HELL AND BACK...AND FUN PEOPLE. B.A.P., ANYONE.?




6,865 players this year.  Just a few of them here.

 It was downright "Twilight Zone" to be sitting back at Table White 51 in the Pavillion Room.  Of all the tables in the Rio, the one where I "left off" with a bust in 2009 (my only other WSOP main) was the most curious spot to land in this years event.  In the seat of the guy who busted me no less.  Kind of like they divide day one up into day one A, B, C, and D...this felt like I was playing in event 2009-B.  The conclusion of a cliffhanger.  A do-over.  Something.

So I was a little terrified when ol' TT landed in my palms again.  But it worked out well, and I played it right.

2009's unceremonious exit was extra heartbreaking because the guys at my table and I were all having a great time.

Ditto 2011.  Deja vu all over again.

I don't know why it is that I always seem to have a great time at main events.  Maybe it's the awesome structure.  Maybe it's the magnitude of the event paired up with people on day one that one can only wonder how on Earth they got in, or landed in a lucky enough gene pool to have such funds available.

But it's probably the nervous tension that I pick up on at the table and try my hardest to twist that nervousness into a fun time.  Toss around a few insults with a smile and a wink, tell a few stories that make no sense...then stop and look around confused... whatever it takes, I always try to turn that nervous energy into a good time.  And this bunch of guys, well, at least on my side of the table, were game.  The other side of the table?  Not so much.

Then there were our two mildly psychotic dealers.  Picuted immediately below is "Raven."  Presumably her stage name.  This self-proclaimed witch, as in "Wiccan," decided she absloutely must wear my ridiculous leopard skin sunglasses.  She was, to say the least, a lot of fun, and had no reservations about being excessively goofy despite the size and importance of the tournament.  After she put my glasses on, a tablemate told her she should "lick his glasses to give them some witch magic."  She wasted no time and covered my glasses in a nasty, glossy veneer of 62-year old saliva.  The table roared laughing!   All except for the stoic Jedi-Knight hooded Dwanna-be's in seats 3,4, and 5....more on them in just a moment.

The "sexy" pose.



Spit.  It's the new "rust-coating."



NNN TSS NNN TSS NNN TSS

"Raven" had lots of good one liners, and really cracked me up when one of the Dwanna-be's took forever on a hand, released it, and she taunted him by saying kind of quietly, "Baby...I still need to get my toothbrush back."

Gold!

Then there was "A.J." a dealer from Thailand who reminded everyone that if you play AJ you'll wind up in the parking lot, and that her nickname in fact was "Parking Lot."

"Wanna go to Parking Lot, honey?" she'd ask.   Then she'd insist that me and the dude next to me had to give her a lapdance.  Even took a couple of stray dollar bills out of her pocket, and begged for it!  Hysterical!!!

By level three, of course, most of the laughter had subsided...and the rest of the entire Pavillion Room no longer had to wonder why our remote corner of the room was having such a great time.

"Parking Lot."

As I was slowly grinding my way up to $35,000 from my starting stack of $30,000, aiming for my calling station target who I'd named "Darth Spewer," the wheels came off and took me from in a great mood, to so angry I actually believed I couldn't physically see for a few seconds.

How the other side of the table "rolls."On their collective bookshelves: "Being
a Tool for Dummies."  Do they all shop at the same garage sales?  I don't
 know, but pictured center is"Darth Spewey, Lord of Jedi Clowns."

Darth Spewey, who's mission in life seemed to play Ace-rag from any position and river two pair against anyone, looked down to find himself with a commanding stack of 70,000 pretty quickly.  Make no mistake about it...I liked that quite a bit, since another guy in seat two really seemed to be the best player at the table, I'd much prefer Darth to have the chips.  Or so I thought.  It's no fun when your target's special Sith power is not "force lightning," but "catching abilities."

I raise big. I flop a perfect one-gapper straight.  Darth Spewey calls. I jam it.  Again.  He rivers a flush with a lovely J6h.

I look down at AA against him.  9,3,2, J,9.  I jam huge every street.  He has A-9o.
At about this time, I look down at 9k in chips, taste the full, rancid flavor of defeat in my mouth, and start to have a Helmuthian meltdown of rage.  More like a blackout where I just had to walk it off...for twenty minutes.

Picked and clawed my way back up to 14k, doubled up somehow with AK, won another big one, clawed and scratched some more and finished with 64k.  WHEW!!!  Comeback!

About the same time that Monkey and I are sending creative suicide plans to one another via text message, he makes a REMARKABLE comeback as well.  El Monkez went from 1,975  (about a small blind, big blind and an ante) to finish the day at 42k.  Wow.

Almost a shame...because I kind of liked the idea of sending a long rope through the rafters in the ceiling of the Pavillion Room and going Saddam in front of the crowd.

No?  Too soon?

Well, there's always tomorrow, but I'm really planning on cashing this thing instead.  Stay tuned.

Lastly, just a word of confirmation to Gabe Costner and Michael "Car Wash" Schneider, who have 20% of me, and a 1% save-swap respectively.  Also, I'm glad to see my 40% of Monkey didn't vanish into the land-of-broken-dreams-o-sphere yesterday, and is positioned for what I can only hope will be a strong run starting today at high noon.  Also predicting Claudia "The Claw" Crawford to make a big run.  Don't know why that is, I just trust my gut.  Hope she'll swap 1% with me tomorrow.

And as I look at that, I realize I'm really overinvested in myself for this one.  I'd like to probably sell another 25% or so of my action.  Or at least a swap.  You guys let me know... but not too late, and we'd have to have some sort of a written deal, of course.

Off to get a good night sleep in a comfortable bed, have a great run through the crack corridor of Las Vegas tomorrow morning, and if I don't get shot, stabbed, or beat down, do some good things tomorrow.  Hope my A-game shows up.

Boom Shaka Laka Laka,
K

SOME STUFF I'VE NEVER SEEN BEFORE...EVER...REALLY!

What an exhausting couple of days.  As you are certain to see, my brain is so dog tired that I can't properly write.

Sorry, kids.  No clever writing today, gigantic women, hideous shoes...but a story so shocking, it's a shame I can't tell it better at the moment.  But I promised myself I'd spit something out for you.

Shipped the $2K Mega for myself to get into the main yesterday.  Pretty pleased with that; wound up spending my max allocation for the main: $3k and got in.  I've only played the WSOP LV main once before in 2009.  I was thrilled to, as anyone should be. 

Strange to think that after a certain amount of time, you expect to get into the main event (anywhere), and place so much internal stock on whether or not you can make the cut.

So it was nice shipping tonight's 1K Mega as well tonight, for a friend of mine who staked me out of the blue.  Back to back Mega shipping feels good  (earning two "seats" in two nights), but I hope I haven't worn myself out for the main tomorrow.  Truth be told, I'd never been staked ever before and was wondering how it would affect my play today.  I'm not the guy to go out and "Eskimo" people on the rail begging to get into anything.  I've always played with my own money, independently and stubbornly.  To some I suppose that means increasing my variance, but to me it's decreasing my variance.

Anyway today's $1K became a hysterical zoo unlike anything I'd ever seen before as panic set in for those without an above average stack.  With 624 entering the event, and with 61 getting their Golden Willy Wonka WSOP seat, more screaming failed "deals," obvious collusion, fights, accusations of cheating, flashed cards, insults, etc. took their toll on management...

What do you think of their decision on how to deal with all of this...

The three floormen decided that to end the problems, we were to go hand-for-hand with 65 left (61 would get paid).  To counter the "soft play" among players that was accused at about every table, management decided that from now on, each player, as they folded, was not to throw his cards into the "muck," but to "fold" their hand by putting it out just a little bit in front of them.  After a pot was awarded, management would order EACH FOLDED HAND SHOWN!  Upon viewing each folded hand, which was lying right in front of each player who had discarded it, management would subjectively decide whether or not the player was "soft playing," and would inflict a one-round penalty upon that player.

A player at the table next to mine, was revealed to have folded pocket tens to three larger stacks (on the bubble) and was given a one-round penalty!

HUH?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!!??!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

He rightfully lost his mind and raised hell.

Management then decided to no longer persue that policy about fifteen minutes later.  Time to go from 65 players to 61?  About three hours.  Yes.  Really.

When fights resulted and hysteria broke out with 62 left (yes, just one from the money), management threatened to end the tournament right then and there and refund all  624 people's $1060 buy-ins.

HUH?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!!?!?!?!??!!??!!?!?!?!?!??!!?!?!?!?!??!?!!?

Yes, they were dead serious.

Remember...this wasn't at some VFW bingo hall.

This was at the World Series of Poker at the Rio $1060 mega to the main event.  Today.  Yes.  You read all of that stuff right.

Anyway, I'd write more on the subject, but tomorrow's that special day.

How's this for a peculiar omen.  I'm playing at the exact same table I played at in 2009.  Know how many tables there are at the Rio?  Even weirder... I'm in the exact seat of the guy who busted me that day.

Guess we'll see soon what this all means...


Boom Shaka Laka Laka,
Kai

THE DEATH OF THE JETTA, A COUPLE OF GOOD FINDS, AND...WHAT'S IN OMAR HIKARY'S CLOSET...

Hola from Vegas, once again, disloyal, fickle readers! ;)

It's been quite a journey coming back here with a good bit to tell, so let's get started with a bunch of pictures from this week.  I like pictures.  They are great space-killers and it lessens the load of all the quality writing I have to churn out.  I can put the ol' cerebrum on auto pilot for this blog and let the pix do most of the talking...

For starters, I think we can all agree that these two lights (engine and battery) are not the kind of thing you would like to see on your dashboard when you are in the middle of the desert smack dead in the middle of New Mexico, whose state motto, if you are inclined to believe that sort of thing, is the "Land of Enchantment." Enchantment? I must have missed that right turn.  Arid, flat desert.  Horizon.  Screaming sunlight.  Large predatory birds circling overhead.  Waiting.  Watching.   Waiting.

So it is with great regret that I must report that the All-Terrain-Jetta, whose adventures many of you followed in my previous blog...is no longer with the company.   Yes, I too am sad about such a loss of one of our staple characters to my blog's ever evolving storyline.  The Jetta transported me across this great land from casino to casino. The All-Terrain-Jetta had a cult following on this board.  I am aware of this.  My All-Terrain-Jetta received fan mail from Indonesia, Brazil, Slovakia, Belize...  sometimes written crudely on bits of scrap paper with pencil or crayon; sometimes a gift attached...a spark plug, an Armor-All wipe, a rubber fitting for a windshield wiper...  everyone across our global community wanted to see this lovable loser of a car succeed.  

So it is with great, great sorrow that I now issue the standard corporate cookie-cutter, pre-fabbed, emotionally void statement of grief that all politicians nowadays use whenever they address someone's death...

"I am shocked and saddened to learn of the sudden passing of [The All-Terrain-Jetta].  [It] will be greatly missed."

Shocked and saddened.  Watch for someone to use that meaningless catch phrase next political death.  I guarantee it.

Also, well not so much shocking and saddening, as it is a little disappointing is the fact that I will apparently not have a backer this WSOP.  Not the biggest inconvenience in the world, but it sure would have been nice to play twenty or so events on someone else's dime this year.  Maybe next year.

Before the demise of the Jetta, I did manage to stop in Amarillo, TX on the way back to Vegas for something I've been wanting for quite some time now.  A pair of really nicely crafted boots.  And where better on Earth to buy a pair than Amarillo, Texas, whose double-Ls in the town name's logo, are, after all, cowboy boots?

Ostrich -- it's what's for dinner.  New boots at the dark edge
of the horizon for the Jetta...just stay with me here, folks, there's
a reason I'm talking about shoes...just wait
for it...wait for it...

So I have to say, they do take a little getting used to.   I wonder if this is what it feels like to have to wear high heels?  Pretty uncomfortable over all, and kind of off balance.  Makes me think that maybe cocktail waitresses shouldn't have to be forced to work in high heel shoes.  That has to be hell.  Note to self:  quit having feminist inner monologues.  You just bought BOOTS!  Stop acting sensitive!  Wuss!

Last week I told you all about the venerable Sahara Canino going bankrupt and being "dark" permanently.  Well, a few days ago I noticed they were having a liquidation sale starting at 10 am.  Great!  Sounds thrifty and predatory!  What's not to like?  But upon arrival that morning, the line of huddled masses extended a good quarter mile down the road (no exaggeration) of people wanting to have fun with an auction format to try to steal a piece of memorabilia...  Forget that.  Can't do lines.  But... I did go back a couple of days later to hope that I might just be lucky enough to find something that I really wanted that was overlooked somehow...and BAM!  There it was!

Original, great condition, even replete with chewing gum under the table!  Felt is in great shape, just a little dirty.  Last one!  Total steal.  $327 total out the door price!   Anyone can buy a poker table, but the way I see it, this is a little piece of history and pretty darn cool memorabilia.  I can only imagine they brought this one in from storage that day.  I told one of the workers I'd slap him a "finders fee" if he could locate another one, and he thought that was a great idea; even let me know that they could have some poker table Sahara new "felts" for the tables that were never used coming up tomorrow.  Stay tuned.  Lastly, I did pick up about 64 decks of Sahara playing cards that I'll probably sell most of.  See me if you're interested.  Unwrapped.  Unused.  History in the palm of your hands for a measly $5!  Tip optional.

Yesterday, the South Mississippi/ GCP crew for the most part headed out to cash game specialist/ Armani fashionista/ quasi-heterosexual militant Omar Hikary's lavish Turnberry Place condominium just off the strip for a really well put together barbeque.  Omar ponied up for a lavish spread of grilled sausages, burgers, ribeye after ribeye...Newcastle on tap, ice cold drinks by the pool...really well done!

Gabe Costner's lips are moving, but as Oren
Zweig savors the last juices of his ribeye
off his fingertips, he hears only one thing...
"pie...pie.......piiiieeee......"

Monkey and Omar on the 36th floor.  Monkey's
monolithic skull impedes a great view of the
Las Vegas Strip.

Omar as Audrey Hepburn, some random dude who
laughs a lot, the rarely photographed recent WSOP
bracelet winner David Diaz as Zach Galifianakis, TK
Miles, Rastafarian Warlord.

Omar is always a lot of fun at the tables, and it sucks that Uncle Sam relocated him to Las Vegas (great for him though).  He's become a cash game machine within the last couple of years, and tonight I hope to see why he talks up the Aria's poker room so much.  In fact, I plagiarized Omar's trademark look of gigantic Armani shades a while back; putting my own twist to it.  Whereas he would have expensive oversized designer shades, I went with gigantic, really, really ugly shades...and never looked back.  The kind of look that makes people quizzically stare at you and think, "Is..he..serious?  Does he think he looks good in those?  Is he kidding?  Is he borrowing some girl's glasses?  Is he totally metro?  I wonder if he sells drugs.  Or ponies...  Seriously... what's up with that dude's shades?"  The way I see it, the more confused you make the other guy, the better off you are.  Keep 'em wondering.

So at the barbecue, I stripped down from my jeans into my swimsuit.  Giving credence to the Shawshank Redemption's theory that no one really ever looks at the shoes you're wearing...well, once I took my shoes OFF and laid them on the table, Omar took immediate notice of them and, well, most of you know how Omar does that thing where he exclaims really loudly...

"SON......WHAT........IN THE WORLD...........ARE.......THOSE?!?!"

Green is the new red.  Just ask any socialist.
Think about it.

Ok.  I get it.  I'm stretching a bit far with my shoes.  I thought they were a good buy.  I don't spend a lot of money on myself, and I thought they were cool.  I still do.  The boots I'd wanted for years.  This was something cheap, practical, and fun.  Yes...they're high-tops.  And green canvas.  Whatever.  I'm still feeling pretty good about my purchase.  Yes, I know I'm thirty-nine.  And, yes, I'm probably trying to look more youthful and hip with the shoes than I am.  I think I'm allowed to have an early mid-life crisis in my footwear if I chose to.  Damn!  Why I gotsta bees called out like dat?

So after an inordinate amount of ribbing, we take the grand tour of Omar's condo...which is an awesome, well laid out pad.  270 degree view of the Valley.  Three bedrooms.  Totally stylin'...

All was going well for Omar's condo tour until he bragged up his spacious walk-in closet.

That's when I noticed...

wait for it...

wait for it...

Omar's recently bought, pristine "FLINTSTONE HIGH TOPS!!!"

Suddenly my mouth went dry with fear and horror.  My body froze.  You know that cinematic effect when the most horrible grizzly event just happens in the climax of a horror movie...and the camera slowly zooms in on the horrified guy's face, but the hallway behind him slowly appears to get longer and longer?  Where escape out a confined area seems a million miles away -- and you know, right there, that escape is impossible now; there's no way out...   and you     belong     to     the      monster!

Yeah.  That's how I felt.  A stultifying fear washed over me in a cold sweat.  I was paralyzed with fear and...well, disgust.

Suddenly, TK walks in and GRABS the high tops!  Like, with no fear at all.  Like each shoe was NOT a coiled up Cobra or something.  I felt my stomach drop to the floor.  We are all going to die.  We are all going to die right here in this closet because these shoes are going to violently f***ing murder us and eat our bodies.

That's when everyone saw them and the room expolded with fear and panic.

Since you are reading this, it's obvious that somehow, I escaped.  I don't know how... I kind of blacked out there for a minute.  I just remember a lot of screaming, a mob rushing in a frenzied panic out of the condo for the elevator, the sound of children getting trampled, that thing where blood starts pouring down the walls...distant blood curdling howls from those left behind in the condo..."NO.....HELP US.....HEEEELLLLLLPPPP  USSSSSSSS  AAAARRRRRGGGHHHHHH...."

Omar, I hope that many years from now, you look at those shoes and think, "Damn!  I was really running well in 2011.  I had way too much money!"

I mean, seriously, dude, where would you ever wear shoes like that?  To protest a funeral?  To your own DIY exorcism?  To a bingo function for blind jazz musicians? To a Mormon Baptism?  I can't think of one social event, even remotely, that you could actually get away with wearing those things!  To a job interview for a "funeral comforter?"  To an interview with the law school admission board?

Wait.  I got it.  You know what would actually be cool?  You know how the state hires someone to actually pull the switch at a state execution of a criminal?  Yeah.  You could be that guy.  Black hood.  Black suit.  Flintstone hightops.

That would be awesome.

But even more than looking back on 2011 and the shoes with regret, I actually never hope you notice.  I hope each year, you make so much money, you never even begin to take notice.  I hope you never notice the leopard print Jeep you'll probably buy in 2012.  Or the mink coat you'll buy in 2013.  Or the Sengali hand crafted marble and ivory waterbed with the disco ball spinning on top of it you're sure to buy in 2014.  Or the ostrich skin boots you're certain to buy in...

wait...

I have no Amazon books to peddle to you people this month.  It's been a slow reading month, so go see the X-Men.  It's really good.  Or buy some Sahara playing cards from me.  Or don't.  Maybe I could sew together a card-jacket for you-know-who...

ADVENTURES IN LAS VEGAS

Hello, voyeurs!

Been a long time since I've blogged.  Wouldn't really be fair of me to raise the subscription price since I've been so inconsistent, huh?

Vegas's former number one cheesy photo op, and
 a once thriving hotel in the disco era suffers disrepair...read: Bargain prices!

Anyway, yes, I'm here in Vegas with my ol' standbye roommate, Senor Monkey.  Got in Monday night and yesterday, June 4th, I got to SMELL a WSOP bracelet.  Just a whiff...    just as if it were a  passing dream...  



Yes, I came within five people of capturing one of the highly coveted fifty-nine gold bracelets available to the players this year.  Instead, a consolation prize (like a parting gift for a game show loser) of sixth-place money would have to do.  You'll hear it a million times  -- the agony and bitterness, and the apparent disrespectful ingratitude of how anyone could be so miserable to make such great money in one day. " Sixth place?  Great run! Congratulations!"

Whatever.  I lost.

The Zen masters have a saying.  "In a journey of a hundred miles, ninety-nine miles is about halfway."



The Riviera's theme?  Broken glass!  Bring the kids!

If you've ever played a poker tournament, you totally get this saying.

Three hundred fifty-seven players slapped down $1500 four days ago for the Seven Card Stud tournament.  As has become tradition it seems, the worlds biggest leg-humper would be placed to my immediate left.  For those of you unfamiliar with the term (I'm pursuing a trademark on it), a leg-humper is someone on your left who will CALL for any price, thereby leaving your large bet unprotected, and giving pot-odds for anyone who wishes to join the fray, in a now completely unmanagably large pot.  Your split Aces or pocket Kings now have to survive a four way drunken chip carnival, and their highly-favored-holding status is completely diluted by a large pot, and worse, Stud is a LIMIT game.  You can't just throw a grenade into the pot and expect everyone to stop, drop, and fold.

So I've learned here to completely SKIP betting on fourth street; it's a small bet that only works against you when the pot is so large. (Apologies to those of you already falling asleep with the idea of Seven Card Stud being discussed...I understand).



Long story short, it got to the point where every time I would four-bet on third street, the rest of the table would begin to openly laugh at the guy calling my raise.  I'm showing an Ace.  It's not like all three cards are hidden.  You can actually SEE what I have.  Even if you omit deductive reasoning from your mind about what four bets could possibly mean in this situation...dude...you still SEE I have an Ace.  Even small children with poor attention spans can put two and two together in this situation and decide to fold. 

Hump.  Hump.  Hump...    Here he comes again along for the ride, bringing everyone else in with him...

Because of him, within about six hours I'm down to half my starting stack while the field is getting whittled down and everyone else has tripled up and is stacking chips.

And as I'm boiling over angrily about this guy...who has no plan other than to CALL himself into a Mutually Assured Destruction scheme for the both of us, and as I'm wondering HOW, HOW do I get this insanity to stop, he looks at me and says, "Huh huh huh...I remember you from last year!  You were buying everybody shots and you were a lot of fun!"



Yeah, the guy whose very flesh I'm imagining covered in a pack of angry, rabid Dobermans amped up on a cocktail of PCP and Red Bull, is just having himself a good ol' time.  Not too concerned about winning, mind you...at all...just here for the social aspect of the whole thing.  And apparently, according to him, I've Butterfly Effected myself a monster from some forgotton drunken late night 1-2 NLHE game from last year in Vegas!

So he's become the ultimate pest.  The pest who is not only destroying your plans for chip accumulation, but who actually LIKES you.   Ugggghhhh...

I went for a run that Thrusday morning, hours before the start of the tournament.  I think a long run before the start of any tournament is the best thing that one can do.  Gets out all the funk, hate demons, tension...but most importantly, I try to go for a distance a little further than I'm comfortable with. It kind of programs the brain to get into the mode of thinking "marathon; not a sprint."  Every tournament I've done well in, without fail, was played after an early morning long distance run.

For that morning's run, I deliberately picked the worst possible route from our hotel, The Riviera.  Um, yes, we're truly doing the "budget" thing this time.  I ran the crack corridor in between the Riviera and downtown Las Vegas.  The area known as NOTS...north of the Stratosphere.  I wanted a little motivation that the artificial sunshine of the Strip can't provide.  There's a perverse beauty in that area with all its tattoo shops, pawn stores, peep shows, bail bonds, street walkers, street sleepers, immigration lawyers, ethnic food dives...it's the ghetto hammocked between the two of the fakest areas of the planet.  It reeks of reality, has a few areas even Clark Griswold and his family would avoid, and makes for a good run.  In fact, you might find the motivation to run even faster.  I run past The Sahara.  Despite numerous reinventions of iteslf and reinvestment, the Sahara is now permanently "dark."  I run past the Rummell Motel, advertising "Non-smoking rooms  Hourly rates!"  Classy place.  All the freaks, povs, pervs, and weirdos Travis Bickle crusaded against surround me.  Suddenly I get chills how the randomizer on my iPod has chosen the Red Hot Chili Pepper's "Tell Me Baby."  It's an amazing song about the Sunset Strip and those trying so hard to "make it," while the city eats them alive.  The Sunset Strip and the NOTS corridor are like mirror images of each other.  I jog deeper and deeper into the 'hood.



Bad day to go jogging in a red t-shirt...
time to head back!

It's funny...if some Vegas resident had made a bet in the 1970's as to what would last longer, The Sahara, or the careers of Cher and Tom Jones, anyone would have arrogantly taken The Sahara.  Eventually, as you see from the picture to the right, I came to the conclusion that I've run far and deep enough for the day.  The back of my throat is cracked from the dry air, the sweat evaporates off me instantly as I'm panting, and I decide that I've had enough and start to head back.



But I still look for the Gambler's General Bookstore in that area, which I couldn't find that day on foot.  Back then, in the early 2000s, if you wanted ANY poker literature at all, you had to come to this place to get it.  It was like a trove of esoteric knowledge cleverly hidden in a little known store hidden in a cess pool of humanity.  Only those strange enough to want to gamble for a living but too anti-social to get themselves on a blackjack card counting team pursued poker.  Some of you probably remember this store.  Ha!  Nowadays, of course, ample poker literature is in every bookstore.

As I finish my run, I cross the middle of Las Vegas Boulevard when there's no traffic.  The street creeps all look up at me at the same time with a look of condemnation and astonishment.  I forgot!  No one on the West Coast jaywalks.  Ever.  Suddenly, to everyone around me, I'm the criminal and weirdo...

So I attribute my outlasting the Leghumpapotamus to gearing my brain properly from that early morning run.  He finally busted out!  Whew.  A little while later the field has been cut in half.  Feels like we are about half way there...  But with the forehead vein protruding frustration built up from his presence over the last several hours, towards the end of the night as I'm involved in a big three-way pot, I snap verbally at a new guy at our table who pairs his 10 on sixth street.  "Awesome!" I scream sarcasticaslly.  "Just Awesome!" after he bets into us.  I think I mumbled that he's a bananahead or something totally uncool, since the guy is right next to me, but deep down I know that he had the right odds to call at that point. I'm just very frustrated and behaving in a way I never do.  He's a quiet, polite clean cut Jewish guy talking about living in Israel with another Jewish guy at the table.  He scoops a big pot, and looking down his nose at me for my little fit (which I never throw...if that tells you the effect leg humpers have on me) and asks what limit I usually play.  "2-5, 5-10 Hold 'em, 20-40 stud...why?"  He just scoffs at me.

A few hours later we're bagging up our chips for the day.  I peek over at his bag as he writes "J-o-s-h  A-r-i-e...."   Ooops.

The next day I skip the run but do lots of sit ups.  I have a ill-formed new age theory that the gut is a primitive brain, and the more sit-ups one does, the better tuned your "gut" instincts will be.  I realize that I have opened up a window for anyone to make fun of me for that theory, but it's ok.  I'll accept it.  That's actually about as weird as I get, despite the fact that I once frequented the Gambler's General Bookstore.

Tom Dwan, Shannon Shorr, and Josh Arieh are assigned to my table, but if anything, I'm encouraged by that.  I've been playing Stud longer than the first two for sure.  I get Aces full of Queens to take a good sized pot off of Dwan, but realize that I missed a bet along the way, attempting a greedy check-raise.  Those little value mistakes cost you tournaments.  In a scene no one would have guessed, the amateur microstacks devoured the pros at that table with a good bit of luck.  It's the middle of day two and it kind of feels like I'm halfway there.



We're well into 2 a.m. when Shaun Deeb gets moved to our table.  We have to fade about twenty more people to make the money.  Then just ten more.  Deeb takes two murderous bad beats from the pudgy British kid on my left, who I've named "Devilboy."  He seems to take an unholy liking to his new nickname, and I wonder if I've encouraged this calling-station too much.  Yes, I have.  I really have.  He slaughters Deeb, clearly the best player at the table, giving the cards and the players intense concentration.  First Devilboy two outs him.  Then he two outs him again.  Deeb is brooding is his chair; once the chip leader, he now sees his fate as a min-casher.  His fuming behavior reminds me a lot of myself when I take bad beats.  After several minutes of steamng, he reaches for his cellphone and rapidly thumbs at it, then puts it down, feeling a little better.  "Facebook or Twitter?" I ask, kind of smirking.  "Both!" he almost shouts, "...and I was way too polite about it!"

The energy of day two was heightened by all the commotion going on at the Main Stage right next to us.  In a highly billed match, Jake Cody took on Yevgeniy Timoshenko head up.  But since Timoshenko is a Full Tilt representative, and since there were about two hundred British hooligans in the audience, the loudest most creative chants for Jake Cody and heckles againts Timoshenko rocked the entire Amazon pavillion room at the Rio.  The drunk British hoolgans would chant "USA! USA! USA!," which was funny enough in itself, but purely amazing in the fact that the heckling and chanting kept up solidly for at least seven hours!  Every chant was funny, perfectly and spontaneously coordinated, and set to no less than few hundred base melodies!  It was like being at a rowdy soccer match overseas.  I made sure to join the fracas on any one of my breaks, and they welcomed me and fed me lots of Heineken from their own individual kegs.

We finally make the money and my friend sweating me, Greg Grivas, brings over a big shot of encouragement to me.  The guy my friend brings over is an acomplished player, almost blinded this past winter by riding and crashing motorcycles in Vietnam.  He's a pretty energetic guy.  Not bad for seventy-one years old.  Men "The Master" Nguyen suddenly greets me right next to my table as we are re-starting.  The greeting was one of two hands held out to clasp my single handshake, then pull me into a big hug into his tiny frame.  He was greeting me like I was a long lost relative come to pay the rent.  Pretty nice of him, since we only have a mutual friend in Greg.  The hug gives me instant credit at my table, as he knew it would, and gives me some encouraging words.  He won the $10K Stud event last year, and is second in WSOP cashes only to Hellmuth.   The guy is radiant; a very charasmatic energy comes out from him.  Men has had an illustrious poker career probably most analagous to Pete Rose's career in baseball.  Men, one of the best ever, is now hungry to take the lead and recently encouraged to leave a better legacy for himself, each day diminishing that asterisk on his stat sheet.  And with the amount of energy and vitality the guy possesses, I'm here to tell you it won't be long before he takes the lead.

 We bag up our chips once again and come back for day three with twelve of us left.  The last nine of us would make the final table.  As we do, we're taken to the "kiddie table" of final tables, off to the side of the casino, a far cry from the glorious production set of the televised final table area.  I understand...it's Stud.  Boring enough to play, definitely nothing anyone wants to watch on TV.

I'd run card dead the whole day.  That's just the way it goes sometimes. As if a cruel joke, I'd once look down at rolled up Aces (5525:1 against ever seeing that hand) to watch everyone fold behind me. I'd get half way through the last days field of twelve people, crashing and burning out at sixth place.  It may have felt like halfway, but really only second place is half way.  And big congratulations to cosmonaut Yevgeniy "Eugene" Katchalov for his victory making it all the way.  His patience and concentration were top knotch throughout, and a very hard man to read with his icy cold Russkie demeanor.

Sixth place and the scent of a WSOP bracelet is a hard pill to swallow, but the consolation prize of money in my pocket, some of which was Negreanu's, Dwan's, and Arieh's just days ago is a little comforting. Stud is my best game and I hope the growing lack of interest doesn't kill it in the near future...

Anyway, I hope to come back to Vegas for another shot at this year's WSOP soon.  We will see how things go back home in Mississippi...

As always, thanks for reading my blather, and have an awesome day!

Full of giggles.  Daily.

Lastly, the booky stuff...



Here's my two highest recommendations for the month.  First the brilliant book Hollywood ruined last month by dumbing down the script to a vapid romance film.  Written in a simplistic, almost Hemmingway style, Water for Elephants exposes our own necessary needs in life for illusions, and the destruction it causes.  Brilliantly parallels the pains of growing old, the circus, hardships, and poverty.  Next up, Havana Nocturne.  Another serious page turner.  Expertly researched about the mob, gambling, Batista, Castro and the Revolution (wan't that a band?), Havana Nocturne takes you back in time to a very real and very scary world just a few miles off our own coast.  Despite yourself, you'll find Castro very intelligent, heroic, and likable...if not only because of how over-the-top awful his own enemies were.







22d PLACE AGONY...AND THE TUNICA CANKLE MONSTER!!!

PARTIAL VIEW of the 480 entrants in this years $1600 Tunica Main Event Buy-In.  A Chechnyan
mine field of insanity.  Photo credit:  Jennifer Gay.

Wow.  I don't even know how to begin this semi-epic blog about this weekend in Tunica.  Maybe it would help if I offered an illuminating geographical comparison.

Mississippi's gaming mirrors Nevada's in a unique aspect.  It's two biggest gambling towns are laid out both in the most southern point of the state.  Nevada has Las Vegas in the very southernmost point in that angled state, Mississippi has Biloxi, which hangs off Mississippi in a neat little peninsula.  Their two lesser gambling towns are both nestled in the upper Northwest corners of the state.  These two also-rans are known as Reno, Nevada and Tunica, Mississippi.

And without actually having ever been to Reno, Nevada, I'm going to go ahead and call Tunica the "Reno of Mississippi," or maybe I'll just call Tunica the "Biggest Little city in Mississippi," stealing their slogan.  So to properly imagine Tunica, just imagine a smaller, southern, fun-house circus mirror aimed at Reno.

I really didn't like the fact that I'd have to zoom into Tunica just to play the main event.  I never play well in a series for the first few tournaments; it takes me a little while to get acclimated into correct game form -- a few tourneys to get a feel for this particular crowd's style, and a chance to adapt to them.   But I'd been here before, done well, and I thought I was prepared for the same weak-passive, calling station, belly full of Paula Dean buffet burpin' good country folk.

***Important note to tourists:  Never, ever, EVER make any off-color jokes about Paula Dean while in Tunica, Mississippi.  Just trust me on this one.***

The WSOP's decision to lower their 2011 circuit buy-ins to $1600 from $5000 is a smart move.  2009's main event entrants in Tunica were 154.  2010's entrants were a paltry 96 entrants.  It's easy to forget that in our economic heyday, Tunica's 2006 WSOP Circuit event boasted a $10,000 buy-in that could draw 240 people, and allow Daniel Negreanu a juicy $750,000 first place payout.  This years winner would have to be content with $140,000, still doing better than last year's payout.

But before I descriptively walk you through the Chechnyan mine field of insanity that was the 2011 Tunica Main Event, I am proud to say that I captured an amazing creature on video.  Weeks ago, in a previous blog, I told you of my "Roxanne moment."  This week, I'm proud to say, I had my "Loch Ness moment."  A moment that when it hits you, you hope to God, or as she's known here in Tunica, Paula Dean, you have your camera on you.

With the tournament starting in half an hour, I wanted to do a quick run-in to the "mall" of Tunica, located directly across Harrah's.  It was there that I encountered the creature.

It's gleaming white drooping hamstrings swayed lugubriously across it's brilliant pasty gigantic calves.  The dress, serving ceremoniously as mudflaps from behind, did it's best to conceal the spectacle, but with the last of the northerly winds of Winter, the occasional "Marilyn Monroe updraft" would scoop up the black dress revealing what spilled out over it's tan UGG boots...the most prized, dimpled cankles in all the Western Hemisphere.

This was the Loch Ness of Tunica.  The Holy Grail of Cankledom.  These mighty cankles were replete with ripples upon ripples of adipose tissue, dimples, stretched out skin, bulging muscle to the point of fully displaced ligament and tendon views.

She got legs...she knows how to use them...She got legs...

I would watch the creature, approaching slowly...ever so slowly as to not disturb it in it's natural habitat.  It had appeared to arrive in two transports, both silver, and both emptied out, ready to be loaded with something.

But with what?

Well I figured if Loch Ness had "Nessie," than this was surely my "Tunie." But I wasn't so sure if that was the best comparison for my discovery.  Consider also, this short film I was able to surreptitiously take of the creature.  I apologize for it's brevity and lack of clarity.  At the very last second, you can barely see the creature look back at my camera.  Then compare it to the famous Patterson film from Northern California (very close to Reno, NV) made in 1967 directly below.

What else can I say?  I want a grant!  I want full funding for a research team on an expedition, complete with doctors, cartographers, DNA researchers, paleontologists, archaeologists, and Indian chiefs along with venerable country folk to supply stories and locations of previous encounters.

Putting the "UGG" back in "UGGs."

Now back to the story.  "Tunie" came with two young servants.  She would beckon to them with a series of low, staccato grunts.  The servants would then move back and forth fearfully, loading up box upon box of some precious cargo into the two transports.  I moved closer, fearfully, not being armed with anything other than a body full of adrenaline; a body that would not hesitate to choose "flight."

What was Tunie having loaded up in her tranports?  Cookies.  Boxes upon boxes of cookies.  Samoas.  Peanut Butter Fills.  Do Si Dos.  Chocolate Fudge.  Macaroons.  By my count, 55 boxes.

Carefully, my preeeeeeeecccccioussssss....

Unless she's expecting 15,000 visits from Santa Claus this year,
she clearly has other plans for the cookies.

I hurried off to the tournament.  I had seen all I could afford to witness.  With the frenzy of activity, I wound up being a full half hour late to the tournament.

I made my way back into the Harrah's convention center to the crowd of 480 people playing poker.  There was the usual clicking of chips, but the room was unnervingly quiet.  I found my table and looked up to see both "Smilin'" Don Norman and Scott Williams.  Never truly glad to see friends at my table with me; there's not a whole lot of good things that can come out of that situation for anyone, but we all said our friendly "hellos," and began to play...but it was still eerily quiet in a room filled with somewhere over 500 people, staff and workers included.

"Don," I said, "It sure is quiet in here, isn't it?"

Don and the part of the table not involved in a hand looked up and kind of giggled and agreed.  Then, as if in an old cowboy epic movie, I loudly added, "...too quiet!"

And with that, all the lights in the room went BLACK.  All electricity shut off until the generators could kick back on.  Only a couple of gleams of cellphones throughout the room gave any light at all.  There were shouts of "Cover up your chips!" and "What's going on?" and some laughter mixed in with worried murmurs.

Of course at my table and the tables around me, everyone was laughing hysterically at how what I had said seemed to cause such a weird event!  Of course, that meant, everyone but me.  The first fear that flashed into my mind was that "Tunie" had found her way to the main circuit breaker of the building, ripped out or eaten the main power cords, and was headed into our room for a 500 plus meal of pure red-meat carnage.  Was she out there?  I listened on the edge of my chair in a cold-sweat panic...When the lights came back on, everyone was relieved...especially me!  Thank you oh sweet holy Paula Dean.

As for the actual tournament, not a whole lot to tell, without boring you, except for my brief encounter with "the kid from Kentucky" decked out in Wildcat gear who seemed to enjoy jamming all his chips into the middle of the table and won, by my count, a ridiculous 13 of 15 coin flips, and wrecklessly and without any worry at all.  I hoped to plant some seeds of doubt in his head by mentioning that every season's Kentucky Wildcats football teams proclivity to lose embarassingly in the fourth quarter, no matter by how much they're ahead.   Decade...after decade...after decade!  Maybe it's "dirty pool" to play head games with these people, but, yes, I really wanted to put him in a state of mind where he wouldn't have any confidence.  No such luck.  It only convinced him to try harder to win the game outright in the third quarter!  This kid kept plowing through better hands one at a time felting more people in a three hour span than I'd ever witnessed before...

But maybe that seed did get planted after all.  Although I busted out 22d, about an average payout, "Kentucky" would go on to the final table with a close second place in chips.  Here's the hysterical part.  The other kid, first in chips --  that would be the kid who shove busted me with a KJ, not that I'm bitter, there's something truly successful about unrestrained aggression -- and "Kentucky" apparantly decided that IT WOULD BE A GREAT IDEA for the TWO LARGEST STACKS at the final table to get into an epic raising war.  They were perfectly content to not even try to strategically get the first place money of $148,000 but to settle, psychotically,  for 9th place money of $14,000 if that's what the flop decided.  It was probably the dumbest strategic thinking since der Furher decided, "Hey, we're in a war with France AND Britain and all of our resources are used up....um.... Ich got it!  Let's invade our gigantic military ally Russia too on our other border!  Ja!!!"

Within the blink of an eye, "Kentucky" had over HALF THE CHIPS IN PLAY.  There were eight players left.  Guess what place he came in?  If you guessed "eighth"place and a traditional Kentucky Wildcat football fourth quarter finish you were right!  I watched a little bit of the final table and when my friend Preston Derden got seventh place, he looked like a shell shocked war veteran who had seen just about freaking everything in poker now.  Preston looked like he just successfully navigated a mine field scattered with dead bodies everywhere over three days, to just make it past the last land mine, began to make a final run for the border and get shot by a sniper in the back.  Great run though, Preston!

Of course the night before I had to decompress from getting busted out of the Main in 22d place.  If you've ever played in a poker tournament you totally understand Ricky Bobby's philosophy of, "If you're not first, YOU'RE LAST!"  No cash finish except for first place is anything other than meaningless platitude.  After you leave a tournament, your nerves are SHATTERED, and it takes you a good several hours to acclimate back to the real world.  You have to decompress.  I call this the "Poker Bends" if you try to do anything normally to quickly.  You just can't do it.  You're a freaking MESS.

So Ante Up writer and friend Jennifer Gay took me to the local bar where she'd helpfully feed me enough cocktails to even sedate "Tunie."  It did the trick.  So I wasn't sure when I woke up the next morning if I really did run into "Fat Albert" or not.  Checking my cellphone for photos revealed that my Fat Albert encounter was not just a Pink Elephant.  It really happened!  Wow!  Within two days I spotted the fabled "Tunie" AND "Fat Albert!"  Also a photo montage of the rest of the "sights" we were treated to where she tells the story and I supply the pictures.  Here's the pictures for proof of the stories she'll tell you.  She's a really great writer and as far as I'm concerned, one of the "cool kids" by far.  Below is the link to her Gulf Coast Poker . NET  blog.  It's great to have her on board with us.  Enjoy.  I'm simply tired of writing, so be sure to enjoy her perspective on the event that was...Tunica WSOP 2011.  Bye for now, thanks for reading this jibberish and I look very forward to seeing you guys in ...hmmmmm.....I'm not quite sure yet!  (And lastly a look at the books I'm reading now and my book of the month selection...I'm such an Amazon tool.)

READ JENNIFER'S BLOG RIGHT HERE BABY!

Out of syndication, on hard times...

"Hey baby, what's your name?"

"My name's Jennifer Gay...I'm feelin' lonely...how 'bout you, Tiger?"

We spotted someone downtrodden and asleep at the Food Court in some casino.
We named her "Pocket Jacks."  Seemed appropriate.

Jennifer in the background hot on the trail of  a unibrowed man and his
lovely Pentecostal fashionista woman.  Jennifer carries research
equipment in a bag, and tags them with GPS darts for later study.  The male of the species
exhibited a strong protruding monolithic solitary eyebrow, a latent gene
trait of all Troglodytes.  The female walks unbothered by our photographs, hands behind
back, always, but the male exhibits some signs of stress...

Tracking down Pentecostal fashionista Suzie Ann "Pigtails" Hopkins.  The use of
tranq darts was not permitted in this particular casino, so the couple escaped
back into the wild, unscathed.

A herd like gait, rather sedentary and calm, takes the
two travellers outside the casino, back into the wild.
In the distance, the eerie pitch of a distant Viking
horn being blown could be heard, bringing those lost
from the fold, back.

Checking back on "Pocket Jacks."  Still in repose.  Still regretting overplaying her hand.

A man Checking into this hotel wearing his finest Elmer Fudd cap, Sponge Bob jacket and
jeans with an arrow pointing to...

Goodbye, Pocket Jacks.  Goodbye.

Kai is currently reading:  T.R. The Last Romantic.   Ashamed I don't know much about our early 20th century president.  A really great read just starting off.  Actually halfway through it now, but it's a fattie.  hope to be done by May.  Hey, I have other things to do.
















and Phil Gordon's little Blue book.  A great poker read; just finished it.  Lots of helpful lessons sprinkled in throughout many of his sessions all around the world with poker pros and Hollywood celebrities.  Stories are humorous and well told.  DON'T get his "Little Green Book."  It's got some entertainment value, but few lessons to be drawn from it.