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Sunday, July 6, 2008

Its about midnight.

I start my Main Event in about 12 hours.

And oh yeah...I am at table 63 seat 7 in the Brasilia room.....

I like my seat. I hate that room...but who cares? What does it really matter?
the goal is to get through Day 1 with 40 to 80K in chips. Anything more than that
will be great. In my house today's players included Gabe Costner, Claudia Crawford and Jena Delk. As of 10pm they all had pretty decent chip stacks. Wouldn't it be amazing if we all made the money and a bunch of us got real deep? Maybe a camera crew would come move into our house! My day was fun. And by fun...I mean....CRAP!

The 1pm Mega was sold out...and Harrahs is a joke. Nice availability.
the 4pm Mega..which I played had only 150 players....meaning 7 seats.
I was so card dead I wanted to kill myself. I got moved to a table with Karina Jett, Chip Jetts wife, who I know pretty well from other experiences in Poker.

Since I was so card dead I just sat and flirted with karina. I pretty much had 85% of the table believing that Karina and I were married for 4 years. It was hilarious. She was having a blast. When she doubled up with 3/6 offsuit out of the small blind it was even funnier. We got down to 75 players and I picked up AQ suited...which no kidding, was the best hand I saw the whole time. Of course I ran into AA...and the Monkey was outa there! Rick Rudloff, my housemate and wing man...was out 7 minutes later, and we decided to go play the 7pm donkfest at Ceasers. Buy in $150. There was actually a pretty big field, 215 players...so with a first place prize of over $8000, I decided to actually try winning the thing.

On my third hand I pick up 33. I limp in for $50. This lady....lets call her.....um.....Lady Donkey....raises to $350. Nice raise. I have 5000 starting chips and will pretty much call any raise with a pair...so I do. Flop? J-6-3....rainbow. I check. SHE GOES ALL IN! Um...I call. She has Aces. She misses on the turn and river. Monkey has 10K. Nice. I then lose half my stack when I flop top two, get called by guy who flops bottom two....then call his all in when he rivers his boat. Whatever. The night would end...when the (officially labeled) WORST PLAYER IN THE WORLD sucked out on me for the 3rd time in an hour. First it was AK vs. his A9. Then it was AQ vs. his K10. And the finishing touch was my AQ (flopped an ACE, turned a QUEEN) vs. his 44.........4 on the river. I spent about an hour telling this guy how bad he was. I think though, that he was from Spain and didn't understand a damn word I was saying. Figures.

Oh by the way, earlier in the Mega...I was sitting next to a guy who lives in Costa Rica and is the head of Tech Support for PokerStars....and it looks like I may have a shot at getting my chat privileges restored! Whoa.....maybe I will actually go back to playing online once in awhile!!!!

I saw that you mentioned all the stuff that was going down at my house. Well...its kind of a touchy subject...and from what I could see, you are kind of waiting for me to reveal all the details. Its kind of a hard thing to talk about because I don't know the total truth about what has happened. But basically...I left Biloxi with $5800 in my bag. I had Matt Murse with me. In Dallas we picked up a gal I have known for awhile and who has worked for the WPT and WSOP as a satellite coordinator. Her boyfriend is a guy I have know for awhile as well. I pretty much trust EVERYONE until they give me a reason NOT to. At her house we took a brief three hour nap then hit the road. In Albuquerque my car broke down.

We had to hang out there for a couple days. We decided to go play poker at a local casino. (I know...SHOCKING!) It was at that time that I noticed I only had $5300 in my bag....I was missing $500. I mentioned it to both. And of course both showed the predictable shock and disbelief that anyone would. I just chalked it up to somehow misplacing it. (???? not like me, but what could I do?)

We get to Vegas. I won 4 out of 7 sit and gos at Rio and had 6 $500 tournament chips in my bag. I was sharing my bedroom with the gal. The next morning on the way to play at Venetian, I was riding in with Gabe...and noticed that I was missing all 6 of my chips. I about freaked out! Tried to backtrack...everything. Had Venetian security review tapes of the tables I was at the previous day and night. They didn't find anything. I was sick...but what could I do? A few days later a bunch of us went to a strip club. when we got home I dumped all of my money and a tournament chip in my nightstand. The next day...tournament chip was GONE. AGAIN! I chalked it up to me being careless and losing it at the club.

A few days later, while out in the hot tub with Squirrel and Claudia...and no one in the house except for the gal from Dallas....ANOTHER tournament chip vanished. Then on a Saturday, after she dropped a couple of us off at the Rio to play in the $1500 event...she went home and was surprised by two guys in the house...who put a shirt over her head, wrapped her in duct tape and demanded to know where all the money was. She said she gave them all her money...which at the time of the robbery was $3500 in chips and a little cash (what she told the police) but which two days later had become $8500. She told the police she was attacked in the kitchen, but told us she was attacked in the bedroom. Everyone's rooms were turned inside out. My initial reaction was to TOTALLY believe her and the account and to offer my support any way I could. But as the days went by...things just started to feel very strange.

Then Gabe made the final table, won around $100,000....and when they brought home $21,000 in tournament chips in their bag...the next day there was only $19,000. They were missing $2000. After the supposed robbery, it was suggested that Gabe and/or Claudia maybe give her a couple thousand dollars to help get her back on her feet. it was initially thought that maybe due to them playing in the big 50/100 pot limit omaha cash game...that perhaps they had invited a criminal element to our home. So the fact that they were missing $2000 just seemed a little bit strange.

She finally decided to move out two days ago. Oh, I almost forgot to mention.....Jena Delk, the Ladys new Orleans Champ....took 13th in the WSOP lady's tourney...and had money in the house..in three different places. She woke up one morning and was missing $1500. So pretty much everyone was victimized in our house. It has to be more than just a bizaare coincidence. But its the most uncomfortable of situations becuae this person is supposed to be my friend, and you NEVER want to believe that a friend would rip you off. And you certainly cant accuse them without any hard proof. But when things just continue to point to a person being the culprit...what are you supposed to do? how are you supposed to act towards that person? So when she moved out two days ago...I was just releived. And with the Main Event starting tomorrow....the last thing I needed was any more distractions at home. So I am really glad that she moved out.

Okay I can no longer keep my eyes open!!!!!!
Gonna get some sleep and go play the biggest tournament of the year!!!!

MONKEY

1 comment:

Matt Bryant said...

Hey monkey. My name is Matt Bryant. I met you in Tunica in January this year. We were at the same final table in a 2nd chance tournament at the Goldstrike. I think 5 of us made a guarantee deal and set more aside for 1st place. Anyway, we sat next to each other at the final table and you seemed like a cool guy. Just wanted to let you know I'm reading your blog and pulling for ya. Good Luck in the future. See ya at the Beau in August.