SEVEN DEADLY SINS, MONEY MANAGEMENT, SATAN, AND KERRI SIMMONS

So another Gulf Coast Poker Classic has come and gone with the end of January at the Beau Rivage, and who would I be fooling if I were to say I wasn't all-consumed by that little green monster known as "envy" of those playing in the Main Event.


Envy is a crafty little bastard.  One of the seven deadly sins, no less.  If I had to guess, I'd have to think that out of the six sins remaining, "envy" would probably get along best with "greed."  Those two seem to really go hand-in-hand; much more so than, say, "sloth" and "wrath."  Kind of hard to pair those two up and expect any real sinister, horrific, bloody activities to get done that day.  It's kind of odd since not a lot of words end with the "th" suffix, so you figure they'd maybe have something in common.  But that's not the case.

"The chicks dig the rod.  And the six-pack.  And the
cape... and the parachute pants.  Wanna breakdance,
mortal fool?"

No wait, I figured it out.  It's those "passive-aggressive" types.  The ticking time bombs.  The "slothy-wraths."  Ok, moving on...


More on the seven deadly sins later, but for now, just a thought.  If I would have begun this blog going on about the "Seven heavenly virtues" would you have been half as drawn into it?  I don't think so.  I think all things evil have a real irresistible, gravitational pull towards them.  You might not want to dive right into the pool of evil, maybe just stare curiously at it's beautiful, shimmering reflection.  Watch as the evil ripples break on the edge, the waves hypnotic, your eyes fixed and tranced now, lulling you in with the warm ripples of desire.  Maybe you'll just dip your toes in it...now your feet.....just your feet that's all....  it's ok...no one will know...


Another quick aside:  If someone wrote two poker books, one called "POWER RAISING!" and the other called "Sensible Folding," which one of the two would sell out, and which one would be at the top of the New York Times "Worst Seller List" for the next five years at least?


Exactly.


So it's with all the difficulty in the world that I had to say "no" to envy, pride, and greed, and sensibly fold to the thought of playing the WPT main event this January at the Beau.


The little red man on my shoulder had so many seductive, sweet whisperings, too.  "Come on, you're playing great right now (pride)!  You just won that 7 Stud 8 or Better event!   You won a Hold 'em event less than a month ago!  This is your territory, dude!  You took second in the last main event here in September!  Don't be a coward!  Easy money, baby! (sloth) You don't want your kids to know you're a coward do you?  Do you?  It's a televised event just two blocks away from your house!  You're already up $*,*** for this series!  What's another $*,*** gonna hurt you (greed)?!  Don't you wanna earn a buffet comp? (gluttony, idiocy)  Hey, look Kathy Liebert is playing! (lust...wait...huh?!)"


Well, Satan, an extra $*,*** would hurt quite a bit.  I promised myself I'd only play the Main if I won my way in via a satellite or was up $**,***.  That magical number would justify as make-up money for the time off from work I'd taken, and if I failed in the main, I could still walk away a winner from the series for the time I put into it.


Money management in poker is so important, despite what Satan and his anchovy-heavy breath might whisper to you.  It's right up there with game selection, not playing above your limit, and all the simple things that are so easy to get seduced away from.


It's the EASY things in life that are so difficult.  Google "Diets" and look at the well over 1,000,000 sure-to-win diet plans that will get you to lose weight.  Over a million different ways to sell you the exact same simple thing that not everyone can do, but everyone already knows exactly how to do it.

"Psssst!  Baby, over here!  On your other
shoulder!  It's me!  Money Management!
Wanna, like, cuddle or somethin'?"

Eat sensible, exercise.


Hardly anyone can do those two very, very simple things.


Buy when the market is going up, sell when it is going down.  Again, so incredibly simple, hardly anyone can do it.


Money management.


Sigh.  This one hurts really bad today.  But it's not about today.  It's about the end of the year.  And when you alone are your own team of ONE, as many of us are, you're your own player, trainer, coach, manager, and backer.  It's a hell of a strange dynamic -- that internal struggle -- when the player in you is screaming, "coach put me in!" but the manager and backer in you is saying, "sorry, kid, not today."  Hopefully in the schizophrenic struggle, discretion wins out.


Hey, just over a week ago I was consumed so badly with "Trophy Envy" when that Roland Israelashvili dude busted me out on the 7 Card Stud bubble when he overplayed his kings right into my Aces (not Kosher), and sent me home three from the trophy.  I'd go home with my bubble sympathy buy-in money given back to me, and Roland would go home with first place money and a gorgeous crystal-Earth spinning trophy.


That trophy envy and greed consumed me so badly, I went home, read Ted Forrest's Chapter on Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo 8 or Better in the "Full Tilt Poker Strategy Guide" obsessively, over and over again, until I could virtually recite it.  The book is a phenomenal tool for your game with the best chapters having golden nuggets of wisdom from Ted Forrest, Gavin Smith, and Howard Lederer. Took lots of notes, discussed some ideas with friends, and went on to win that event just a few days later.  Booyah!

So I believe the powers of "envy" and "greed" can be channelled and harnessed to do good things.  Temper them with hard work and sensible behavior, and eventually and hopefully, generosity, and you've got something special.  That's how capitalism works.  The idea is that you can never suppress greed -- it's too powerful a force, but if you can harness it's energy to get some good things out of it, and tax it, then everyone benefits.  Communism and Socialism fail repeatedly because there's no energy to channel and harness jujitsu style which would lead to communal benefits coming from "sloth."  That's my political science lesson for the day.  Test in November.


Of course it didn't hurt that I got "hit with the deck" on the final table, but I did allow myself just a few moments of "pride," since I got to the final table 45 minutes late ( I thought it would begin at 5pm instead of 3pm -- thank you Brian Hempinstall for the phone call!!!), began play as the short stack, had only played that hi/low game twice before in my life, and was up against seven Eldo-Americans, who specialize in Stud events.


So, I got to take my winner's photo with my trophy in a lovely sweaty jogging suit since I was at the gym when I got the phone call from Brian ( Dude...dude...where are you?!  Your final table is going on right now!).

The eighth deadly sin.  "Grandpa wardrobe."  Please
click on my Amazon links, buy a book, so I can afford to not
look like a transient/ vagrant/ Wal-Mart refugee/ retiree.

What I really enjoyed seeing at this January's event, and what's always very, very encouraging is that so many people who are working hard on their games, and performing well, were cashing and/or getting first places.  For some reason, I find that much more inspiring and refreshing than whatever I was lucky enough to do this time around.  I get the best feeling seeing my friends do well, and seeing those committed to this very strange discipline of ours, in a land of degenerates, doing well!


Kerri Simmons comes to mind.  Some of you might know Kerri as that "crazy b****" as a lot of our fellow players have come to describe her, and she was first described to me.  The latest Kerri tale came to me from a female player at a single table satellite.  She had just gotten busted from the Ladies' event and Kerri was at the final table.  "That girl is insane," she stated.  "She was cussing at the table and I asked her to stop, and do you know what she did?  She told me, 'I paid my money just like everybody else here, I can behave however I want!  I can pick my ******* nose at the table if I want to!'"

What I do know is that her boyfriend Brad Peterson, who just won the PLO event at the Beau, as well as a MegaSat into the Main, has been working on Kerri's game with her, coaching her to play in top form, and Kerri finished third in the Ladies event!  She probably would have gotten first if the floor would have granted her table a break so she could <use the restroom>, but for some reason the floor did not wish to comply with the agreed requests of all players.  So, long story short, Kerri admitted to playing so much better after following Brad's advice, letting a lot of hands go (Power Folding), and not getting too involved in too many hands.  Awesome!  Congratulations, Kerri!

And with that, Kerri spelunked her index finger, knuckle deep, into her right nostril, and scratched her frontal lobe.  I don't know if she pulled out any stalagmites, or even if this story is true, but that's how it was told to me.

You can pick your friends ...aw, you get the idea...

So, good for her and good for everyone else who had a hell of a series this January at the Beau including, but not limited to Mark Wilds, Leif "Fear of Razors" Force, BJ McBrayer, Allen Carter, Shannon Shorr, Mark Rose (again), Chad "Mr. Vanessa Rousso" Brown (again, again, again), Tennyson Phillips, Ryan Lenaghan, Tom Franklin, Michael Brawley, Tim "Ed Hardy" Burt, Matt Brady, Jonathan Little, Michael "Car Wash" Schneider, and Lake Garner (Senior's Event, dude?   Really?!!  ;) ).


So, for me, for this main event, I'd have to watch from the rail.  And it was absolutely...miserable.  Just didn't make enough to warrant a big gamble like that.  Patience, young Jedi.  Patience.   There's something to that prayer of St. Francis' after all.  Or if you're Catholic and looking for the patron saint of gambling, it's St. Cayetano.  Thanks to Hannah Elisabeth for that Cliff Claven-like bit of trivia.  More on Catholic gambling in future blogs.  Stay tuned...


Well, I'm off for now.  Gonna go to Tunica this week and try to "Grover Cleveland" the main. Besides, there's just one more personal demon/ deadly sin left to placate...delicious, delicious gluttony!

Popeye's.  Kickin' ass since 1972!
Happy 39th birthday!

BACK TO BLOGGING! THAT WAS THEN...THIS IS NOW.

The Dos Equis guy, circa 1979

Well OK, folks, the powers that be at www.GulfCoastPoker.NET have subtly nagged me over the last few months to dive back into their blogosphere. The words you see before you now are a testament to my ability to give up and do as I’m told.

Jay Cutler, you’re not alone.

I haven’t blogged in over a year now for reasons I’d rather not share (not yet), but let me say I have missed it tremendously, as I’ve missed getting all-a-y’all’s feedback on my little sordid tales from the deep dark recessed corners of the casinos where our kind feast parasitically on one other.

It was a great way to meet people unexpectedly as blogging is kind of like opening up your mind and heart, and broadcasting into the dark, globally, and never quite knowing who’s reading, minding, laughing, snorting, rolling their eyes, disgusted, turned off, amused…you learn not to care and just enjoy being yourself. You know…a “those who mind don’t matter” kind of liberation.

Sometimes you find yourself getting compliments from people who were strangers to you just moments ago, accompanied by laughter about something you wrote a couple of years back!

“That thing you wrote with the wolverine in the dark closet, and the fire alarm goes off, and it goes berserk and goes after your sack? That was hilarious!” Sometimes, they miss the point behind the joke, or re-tell it worse, but that’s ok.

For those of you who have never blogged before, I’d imagine I could compare it a bit to riding naked through a village on a donkey. You’ve got only a blindfold on and earplugs. You’re holding a large sign that says, “I can’t find my car keys.” An hour later, the donkey, knowing his way around town, brings you back to your village hut, and you’re back safely in your home. Your original intent was to get a few laughs, but because of the blindfold and the earplugs you have NO IDEA what reactions you got. Your best guess is that you made lots of people laugh, some people had no idea what to think of you, some were disgusted, and some, maybe most, just looked away in disinterest and spent their day unbothered.

And it’s that lack of immediate feedback that drives you nuts as a blogger; the complete opening up of yourself in a one-way communications vehicle into the dark vacuum of silence. We’re a people conditioned to have instant reactions, instant gratification, instant everything…so there’s something instantly unsettling and unnerving about opening yourself up to what’s usually just a few comments. Even if you get thousands of hits and readers (as I had), very few of your voyeurs will actually take the time to comment on your post. Peeping Toms rarely, if ever, leave calling cards in the windowpane or graffiti on your walls.

Those of you who remember my last blog on this site, entitled “YOU’RE ENTERING A WORLD OF PAIN,” might have noticed that the title and it’s content were an attempt to de-glamorize the televised, bright and shiny world of poker and present things as they truly are sometimes. The celebrity (barf!) aspect of it is still in its infancy, but to those players who are, say, in their twenties (internet whippersnappers), that’s the way poker has always been in their lifetime! For myself, a guy on the wrong side of thirty, it’s still a concept I’m shocked with, and have trouble getting used to, since I had always played when being a poker player was regarded with contempt, suspicion, and a general assumption of what the remainder of what your free time involves.

If you were a poker player before the Moneymaker/Negreanu/Ivey makeover of the industry, you were generally considered to harbor some kind of illegal addiction, to be guided by absolutely no kind of an ethical compass, actually held residency in a casino if not residency in a seedy motel in the underbelly of a warehouse district, had a laundry list of claims where you were known as the “defendant,” knew at least five people named “Vinnie,” frequented peep shows bi-weekly or more, or even worse; you were suspected to be able to claim ownership of your own bowling ball.

The face of poker circa 1979

Now if you’re a poker player, you’re a brilliant, hip, master of money, math, psychology, and women. You’re stylish, money comes easy to you, you’re reasonably good looking, and very fashionable. You’re sure to be the next big TV sensation, your bankroll is like a self-perpetuating cash cow, you date “Rounder Girls” or whomever the tart is that the magazine of the month supplies you with, your superstar income can be googled by anyone with the click of the mouse, you never lose, and, most importantly, no one ever, ever gets hurt by gambling.

I realize as I write this that Stuey Ungar could have been the only one to actually fall into both camps had he worn anything other than 70’s jogging suits or Members Only windbreakers, and had more than a figment of a nose left to breathe with.

(I’ve always wanted to use "figment" outside of the imagination context. Thanks, Stu!)

The face of poker today, 2011

So since the poker player perception pendulum had swung so ridiculously far to the “media darling camp” in 2009, when I first started blogging, I thought I’d like to offer the antithesis of what is forcefed to the wooled masses via television. “You’re Entering a World of Pain” didn’t present ANY glamour to our favorite hobby, but instead, tried to chop down that tree of lies of the glamorous poker lifestyle. Poker players are nothing more than guys trying to outsmart the next guy and take their money. The great lie of televised poker was that it was cannibalism made sexy. Thomas Harris did it with Hannibal Lector, then television did it with poker.

Somewhere between those two camps lay the truth, and I wanted to present it. As for the poker “World of Pain” being what it is, I know that whenever I’m deep in a major tournament, I’m so stressed out and my gut is wrenching, that I’d rather be anywhere else than in the tournament right now…but I’ll be damned if I’m going to leave! It’s severely stressful. If you “go the distance” in a major tournament, it’s around 32 hours of sudden-death, elimination, high-wire stress. Even when you’re in “the zone,” well, I’ll let “Big Ern” from “Kingpin” take it from here...

“I know that right about now, your bladder feels like an overstuffed vacuum cleaner bag and your butt is kinda like an about-to-explode bratwurst.”

All you can do is use that nervous energy to find an edge. Then you see someone make a mistake, and he goes home to suffer his mind second-guessing itself for as long as it takes his stomach acids to stop its fiery churning, and hopefully, he really does have rent money left. Really. World of Pain. No autographs, please. I’m broke now, no photographs, please. Name a famous player, 98% of them have been BROKE, and many will be again.

…ever feel like you’ve kind of strayed off the path? Where was I? Blogging.

"Roooooooxxxanne!" circa 1979.

So as I had blogged on this site, I learned that recognition for your drivel comes at times when you least expect it, and usually from strangers. My former boss said I had a “Roxanne moment” when a couple of customers came into our workplace (in a casino). He explained Sting’s “Roxanne moment” of recognition that what you’re doing is catching on comes to you unexpectedly. Sting got that moment, my boss said, when he was passing by a ladder with two workers painting a building. One was whistling the Police’s first single out loud to himself. He knew what his band was doing was catching on.

So when these two guys came into our business, I was helping them out and they kind of kept looking back and forth at each other, a little confused. Finally one of them asked, “So…are we entering a world of pain?”

Cool.  The blog caught on...

"Roooooooxxxane!" today.  2011.  I know my mind is made up.  Put away the makeup.  Seriously.

So here’s the deal. I’ll keep feeding you voyeuristic jackals our torn up remains from the pit to feast on, the bones to pick at, the whisperings and gossip to savor, and whatever else I feel like blogging about IF I feel like blogging about it. But don’t beg me for more; I can’t rush this stuff. It comes at its own pace. I’m not Monkey, I don’t have “diarrhea of the fingertips,” and I can’t blog once a week. You’ll get it whenever you get it, probably more often if you LEAVE COMMENTS. That’s your subscription price. Add a little something to the discussion. Spit out an opinion. Don't have a Google account? Post under the "Anonymous" button. And you have to deal with long periods of silence. That’s just the way it is.  As a bonus, this blog will only be about poker stuff about half the time.  Refreshing, huh!

Go check out “Pokerbat’s” blog if you crave MORE…that scandalous old curmudgeon kind of has things figured out in a deliciously, salty, old psychotic kind of way.  


Anyway enough blogging about blogging, I’ll get back to you licentious jackals soon enough with a recap of the past few months, and my take on the WPT and Beau Rivage’s Southern Poker Classic. All right, I’m done for now.  My wrists are sore. I hate typing! Coach, take me out!  Waaaaaah!!!!  Waaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!