Part 4: The beach and more

(Will has been blogging fast and furious, I already got another one in the hamper will be up tomorrow, but lets finish his trip log-WB)

JUST WHEN YOU ARE READY TO LEAVE...YOU DISCOVER THE BEACH!!!!

Saturday morning, after passing out at 6:45am...I wake up at 10:15am. Awesome. Text Squirrel for exact flight departure time. 3:20pm. Hmmm...leaves me very little time to try and see the beach. The Final Table for both events starts that day at 2pm. Another brilliant move. Both final tables at the same time. Clever! And at 2pm. Even smarter. Don't do it at 5 or anything..you know? So people can enjoy a nice day on the beach. I get my book and make my way for the beach. I walk. It was a very long walk. Like...45 minutes. When I get to the beach, I am amazed. It is BEAUTIFUL. And running all over the place is topless women, and surprisingly, they weren't all gross. Wow! It took four days, but when I found it...wow, it was worth it. The water was so clear and warm. The sand, smooth, soft and white. It was about 85 degrees and no clouds in the sky. Oh boy...and I am scheduled to leave in 4 hours? Hmmm...

I enjoy the ocean for awhile. I read for an hour. I look at titties. I get something to eat. Hey...THAT WAS FREE! All Inclusive finally scores a hit! Then I see Phillip Jones stumbling out of the restaurant...with Matthew and his crazy Turkish wife who had disappeared the night before at the club about ten minutes after we arrived. Phillip comes over and sits with me. I guess that he somehow made the Final Table of the Second Chance tourney and has to go play in that pretty soon. I tell him my ordeal, do I stay...which, my changed reservation has me staying until WEDNESDAY if that's the decision I go with...and enjoy three days of sun and relaxation...and of course, topless honeys!?? Or do I go to my room, rush pack, try to get a shuttle, and high-tail it to the airport and try to catch my flight so I can go home to the Squirrel, who hates it when I am off on these excursions? Also, if I go home right now...I can drive over to New Orleans on Sunday, play the $550 Mega Satellite and try for one more decent score this year. I go back and forth in my head about three times...before finally deciding..."Ah hellll....okay lets try to make the flight!"

I get to my room, immediately press 0, since that is one of the only keys I have on my phone...and get the front desk. Tell them I need a shuttle and a guy to come help me with my bags. She promises me a guy in ten minutes. I take a shower, power pack...15 minutes have elapsed. No baggage guy. Typical! I leave the room key, the towel card, and the safe key all IN THE ROOM. I take my bags to the front...a 5 minute odyssey that leaves me hot and sweating. The first thing I see is a shuttle with a guy holding a sign that says WILLIAM SCOTT. Hmmm. SHUTTLE! "are you William Scott?" Ugh..yeah yeah...William Scott! You never know...it MIGHT have been MY shuttle! They might have just misunderstood my last name. It happens! I tell this guy I am in a MAJOR hurry. I give him $10 (which is like a $50 down there) and ask him to step on it. He does! WE nearly die about 4 times on the way to the airport. We arrive at 2pm. Not bad. Not bad at all. I see a HUGE line in the DELTA/ATLANTA line...so at least I know I am in 'contention' to make the flight. I didn't check out of my room, so if I miss the flight I still have the option of going back to the hotel and getting my room back. Standing at the end of the line I see a dog. A big, potentially ferocious dog. I think about the bag of weed in my luggage. And I make an unusually good decision. I dig the bag out of my shaving kit...and walk it over to a garbage can...and dump it. I am NOT going to jail in this SHITHOLE! No freaking way! The line is NOT moving. THen I notice a second line. The first class? Business class line? Whatever...I will pretend. I get in that line. Two others ahead of me. Its my turn. Not a problem. Not even sure it was designed for higher class. Its never even brought up. But now we have a new nightmare. Their are literally 7 people behind the counter. None over the age of 25. All Hispanic. All appearing clueless. I come to the conclusion that the big problem is with my flight times changing from Wednesday to Saturday. I stand there for 45 minutes waiting for them to figure it out. Every time I look at my watch, it is getting closer and closer to 3:20. My bags are long gone. I am still standing there. Panic sets in. I am told to stay calm. Really? okay. There is now NO ONE left in the other line either. EVERYONE has been checked in. Everyone but me. Beach, here I come. It aint looking good.

Finally, something happens, they figure it out. And something good happens. I get an escort through all the customs and security bullshit. Almost as if I was someone famous. But most importantly dodging those lines. Then we get to the gate, and the guy who had been helping me snares me a seat in FIRST CLASS for all the hassle! Wow. Awesome. I tip the guy $100. I think I pretty much made his week! I see John Robert Bellande and David Williams at the gate and we talk a little bit about everything. I know JRB pretty well, met him in Aruba a few years ago with my buddy Chad Brown and we hung out a bit. He's a pretty good dude. I still think he looks down his nose at me a bit and will until I win something big. Its like that with a lot of the top players. They know me, but they don't give me much respect as a player or friend. NOW. That's why I like all of you on the coast. We don't have that FAKE friend thing going on. You are either my friend, a REAL friend...or we cant stand each other! Doesn't get much more honest than that does it!??

So I get on the plane. Seat 2a! Nice. And along comes a married couple. They claim to be in my seat. Ha. Really? Well, talk to that flight attendant, because she is the one who just put me in this seat. Turns out they were a couple who worked for the airline, so they had ZERO right to be trying to claim my seat, since they were flying on a pass in the first place. I win. But instead of the guy letting his wife sit in the seat...he kicks her back to coach and takes the seat himself. Wow, ya Squirrel would let me get away with THAT ONE!??? I think not! The flight to Atlanta was delightful. Me and JRB and David were going to play some big deuce but we couldn't figure out a good place to spread the game. Dave's mom was sitting in front of him...I enjoyed watching her eat her salad...like a lion eating an antelope...lettuce hanging out of her mouth. It was funny. Classy. I get to Atlanta and hear the bad news. News that almost assures me of a miserable night when I get home to Biloxi. Florida 31, Alabama 20. And when I get to Biloxi, and see Squirrel's face, I know I am right. Damn. Waiting 41 minutes for my luggage probably didn't help. I don't know what it is about the Gulfport/Biloxi airport...but in the past two years, I have flown in to this airport no less than 20 times, and the AVERAGE time that I wait EACH time for my luggage is around 25 minutes. WHY!?? It is a tiny airport. Where do they take the bags? Why do they take so long? I mean..its EVERY STINKING TIME! Its the worst airport for that in...well...maybe the world!

My dogs are in the car. Happy as hell to see me. Always nice to come home to them. True, unconditional love from those beasts! Molly (the new dog) has been stealing ornaments off of the Christmas tree, sneaking them under the bed, and chewing them into pieces. Nice. Get home. Don't unpack. Fall asleep. Wake up Sunday morning...and with every intention of driving to New Orleans and playing the Mega into the Main that starts at 1, 4 or 8, or maybe all three...get talked out of it by Squirrel, who wants me to stay home with her. Grrrrr.... But then I talk online to several players who have been playing over there and are FUMING about how badly that tourney has been run. THe poor turnout and the even poorer structures. Apparently, they completely removed some of the most critical levels in the tourneys. 25/50 to start...instead of 25/25...with only 3000 starting chips. Then from 50/100 it went straight to 100/200 with an ante. Then it went from 300/600 straight to 500/1000 then skipped the 600/1200 level. I dont get it? The last event they had...the one where I got two 2nd places and won over $87,000 for the week (so it made it hard to complain TOO MUCH) it was the same way. I made my pitch to them about it, and they ASSURED me that everything would change for their next event. NOTHING CHANGED. Jason Lipscomb took over as the tourney director and I would have EXPECTED things to get straightened out. But nope! WHY? $65 SNGs with 800 starting chips. $125 SNGs with 1000 starting chips? What a joke. Which is why on the last trip, the best play was to get 5 people and buy up two stacks in the $65 sng....add a $50 last longer....and play for one winner. Those are the STUPIDEST SNG structures on the planet. They are designed for one purpose, to make Harrah's money. Get them in, get them out...get them over in a hurry, and get Harrah's their juice! And these tourney structures? It makes absolutely NO SENSE! The economy is bad, poker tourneys are everywhere, too much...so when you have a tourney, you REALLY have to make it attractive to the players...and what do they do? They destroy the product! It makes me sick what these idiot casinos are doing to poker. I really, truly wish that some casino would approach me and offer me an incentive-laden deal to run tournaments for them. I can promise, that they would kick ass. I would get every player worth a shit to play them all.

Its now December. Christmas is right around the corner. My Playstation 3 60gb has arrived from my eBay seller. I have bought a couple games. I have bought Squirrels Xmas present. The only thing I have to accomplish now is taking down this Pokerstars PCA entry. I have been home now for three days and have gotten deep over and over again in MTTs on Stars. In the last two months I have gotten inside of 30 in big tourneys 12 times. I am going to clip one of these soon, I have to. I cant keep getting deep like this and NOT win ONE of them eventually. Yesterday, I went on a huge tear...as I write this I am sitting on a STEP 5 ticket and a STEP 4 ticket for the PCA trip. THAT close to winning that trip. And if I make Step 6 and get 2nd or 3rd I still get $2100 or $1600. So I can keep playing those $80 satellites into the $650 satellite. I HAVE TO WIN THAT TRIP! And in the meantime, hopefully a big MTT this month. My College Bowl Pool is about to start as well...and already have 75 people signed up for that. Should easily top 150 this year. I won it last year...and will be trying to take it down again this year!!!

In January, after I get done winning the Pokerstars Caribbean Adventure, and becoming a millionaire celebrity (ha! Hopefully) I have to go to Seattle on the 12th to spend about three weeks with my Mother, who is getting that gastric-bypass surgery done. She will require a lot of physical therapy and help around the house..and since I am the only one without a normal job, its pretty much my responsibility to take care of her...so I will do so and not feel the least bit bad about it. She has done a LOT for me in the past year. I can take a couple weeks off from poker. No big deal. They did just open a casino out there though, only a couple miles from her house. Snoqualmie Casino, and they have poker...so hopefully I will go there and terrorize their cash game! If I do not win my trip to PCA...I guess I will go to Ken Lambert and ask/beg the Beau Rivage to finally let me come back there to play. I still have never gotten any kind of response to my letters or emails to them. Whatever. They have their own issues right now. Every day it seems like Squirrel comes home talking about another round of layoffs. And Terry Lanney, MGM GRAND's CEO for around 20 years resigned last month. Their huge project, the City Center thing going up in Vegas...has been majorly downsized due to their struggling company. And now, rumor has it that there is a very good chance that Steve Wynn, the man who built and operated the Bellagio and later the Beau Rivage, before selling them both to MGM...is now in position to possibly BUY the ENTIRE MGM GRAND corporation! Wow, amazing how things can change isn't it? So, I know that right now...Will Souther being allowed back in to play poker isn't exactly their biggest problem right now!

Well, it looks like I got this whole thing re-written. Only took me two hours. The guys from Rounder Magazine have called and invited me to play in some Charity event at Ebro tomorrow I think...something that Hoyt Corkins is going to be there for. I had Hoyt at my table down at the WPT thing for most of Day 2. He's one of my favorite guys on the tour. Nice guy. Solid player. If there is nothing else going on, I might trek over there and have a fun little day in Panama City. For now...I am going to take Squirrel to dinner and come home and try to take down this PCA seat!!!!

Catch up with Y'all later!

MONKEY