On the Eve of the Main Event

Where do I start?

Hmmmm....just left a very delicious Facebook status wishing death by knifing on the clown from New York...the one I mentioned last week, who was having that "only in Wal-Mart to sound important" phone call with quite possibly NO ONE....and on the heals of just finding out my place in the pecking order of the friend list of people I thought were my good buddies.

Was that a deep enough intro? Did I capture your attention? The last 49 and a half hours have been incredibly memorable. This trip is going to either end VERY good or VERY bad. This year is continueing to make me want to take a phone book and tear it in half....and then stand there and pose like the Incredible Hulk while screaming at the top of my lungs incoherently until I go hoarse.

Tick, Tick....tick......BOOOM! That was me...I just exploded.

Picture this. I am sitting in a raft. In the middle of a sea where there is no wind, no waves, no current...just sitting there. Up come all these talking fish. Surrounding me. Then all of a sudden they start talking to me. "Hey Monkey, great job in that tourney yesterday." "Hey Monkey...me and my friends would like you to come to dinner with us." "Hey Monkey...can I ask you a question about this hand I played today?" I start looking for oars. None. Is there a little inboard motor on this thing? Nope! FUCK! I am stuck here. Shit. They keep coming after me. Pestering me....

What is today? Sunday night? I've lost track. "I think I have set a record for cashes at one event! I have cashed 6 out of 8 on this trip." No. That is not me. ME? I have cashed 4 times. No. This is the fucking jackass from Brooklyn or whatever part of New York he claims as his hometown. I somehow managed to fade this fool all week, never having him at my table. Until tonight. In the Mega. My SECOND Mega. Kai and I made the decision on the break to go look at all the sheets that list the results to see if MAYBE this fuckbird is telling the truth. We only know that his name is 'Steve' and that he lives in New York. So we look at the results of EVERY event...and STEVE, which is a pretty common name...shows up ONCE! And that guy is from Texas. Busted. Total fucking liar. Just as we thought.

About ten minutes in to sitting at this waste of DNA's table, he says something that causes me to tell him that "I am not interested dude, nothing you say has any redeemable quality whatsoever, please pretend like I am not even sitting here."

I find myself sitting on 750 chips, down from the 4000 I started with, after a complete shitstorm to start the thing. Somehow I engineer an incredible comeback and get my stack (as I predicted I would) to a pretty amazing 6800. And then....2009 and its wicked head appear.

Dealer shoots me my first card in the BB. The second on he exposes. A six. I look at the hole card to see if its a 6. Its not. Its a Q. I dont look at card #2. UTG raises from 100/200 to 650. Thats when the imbecile MOVES ALL IN! For 9500! It folds around to me and I look at Q.....QUEEN. No freaking way. I start thinking. No way hes all in with AA or KK. Nope. He either has AK or JJ. I tell him this. Someone at the table says "He probably has QQ..." to which I reply, "Nope, he doenst have QQ...I know THAT for sure." Then he starts basically BEGGING me to fold. Okay, I'm right he has JJ....so I call. First guy folds, AK....he shows me. And our little guido turns over...shocking....JJ. The table expresses their amazement at my read (perhaps the easiest read of the trip) just in time for Curtis the dealer to put a Jack on the flop. It holds. Sighhhhhhhhhhh. Once again....JJ fucks me in the ass. Its 1:45am.

In the 1k I would end up making the final table. I played great that whole tourney. I could smell the 61k first prize. Down to 6 I was 3rd in chips...but it was 3 small stacks, and then us 3 big stacks. Big stack #2 raises my BB. I look down at 77. I call. The flop comes 7-4-3....two diamonds. I check. He bets. I raise. He asks me if "I am ready to gamble...." and I tell him "sure chase your flush....." and he goes all in with AJd.....I call of course...and on the turn we get the 5 of diamonds....which gives hime the damn flush,but also gives me the straight flush draw....6 of diamonds on the river? Do I fill up? Of course I don't. And I am out....6th, for $12k. All the excitement of the final table, and plans to go out with friends pretty much ceases to exist. I go into a 6 hour mourning period. This is when I am beating off people wanting to congratulate me for my finish. Its so awkward when you are just miserable...and sick at how things went down, and everyone wants to tell you how great you did. And you don't want to be rude...but jeezuz....LEAVE ME ALONE!!!!!

Then I play the $550 on Saturday. The day starts horrible. I get down to 1800 chips. Then gradually build my stack up. Then I get the 'courtesy double up' with KK vs QQ....puts me at about 10k. Get moved to a table full of psychopaths. Literally, the first THREE hands saw either 3 way or 4-way all ins. It was a circus. But it was the next table to break, so I knew if I could just survive a couple of orbits, I just might have a chance. I somehow manage to do this. Get moved again. 88, I double up against K10. Yeah! I beat K10. Get moved again. New table. I see the guy I call 'Colbert' becuase he looks like Steven Colbert. Holding 22k (with the avg 36k) he raises my BB from cutoff.

Hmmm...dude knows me. Knows I am tight. I know he is tight. But he has been card dead for awhile, or so everyone says. I kind of thinking he is finding a place to steal blinds and antes...against me, MR. SuperTight. So when I look at A10, I think I have a hand to play back at him with. So I do. I reraise him.....ALL IN. He calls! I turn over my A10 to find he has AQ. Shit. No big deal, I flop a 10 and it holds. Wow. Nice double up. Hard to fast forward, since a lot of shenagins went down the next four hours....but I will. At two we concluded with 28 players, having paid 36. They all wanted to pay the bubble guy when we had 37 left, but I refused based on the fact that this asshole who was the SHORTEST stack in the tourney had called clock on me about half an hour before. FORGET IT! And what would happen? He would go out on the bubble. SWEEET!

We bagged up the chips. I had a date on Bourbon Street, with Kai Landry and some other guys...to celebrate Kai's win in that days $340. At Ric's Cabaret. I walked in at 3:10am. There was Brandon Jarrett, Allie Prescott and Frank Kasella....no Kai Landry. He has already left. Great. Brandon was hammered. Trying to get me to drink Jager shots. No thanks. After about 20 minutes everyone was ready to leave. Great. Glad I did that trip. Never saw a single naked girl. Oh well. We all pile into a cab and go to our respective hotels, Allie and Frank to W and me and the rest to the Hilton.

I sleep. By the way, my knee seems to be okay. Still a little sore, but I can walk. So I guess that means I'm fine, right? No one mugs me with the 12k I am carrying on me. I sleep well. Wake up. Shower. Kai and I go eat the buffet. Its awful as usual. Buffet exits my body approxiamately 13 minutes after I eat it. Arrive in the theater at 1:52pm. The womens tourney is in full effect. Those things frighten me. I go on stage, unbag my chips. The action begins. We start with 27. On the first hand the lady to my left goes all in after the UTG donkey raises to 18,000 (3k/6k blinds) for 48k. He calls, with K10s....and she shows AA. She flops a set of aces. Good? Nope. One spade. Runner runner spades. Flush for K10. Goooooood 'ol King Ten. The devil.

I go from 86k to 150k through some pretty good play. We get down to 18. I am feeling another Final Table in my future. Then I pick up AA UTG. I raise to 24k with the blinds 4k/8k. Button hems and haws and finally calls. Ughhhhh.....he is one of the ones who has me covered. The flop comes Jc10c4h. I check. Why? Because I know this guy is going to bet. He does. In fact, he goes all in. Hmm...what does he have I wonder? Set of 10's? Jacks? Like everyone else? Well...I call. He asks me if I have AA? Yes, I do. He has AK.....of CLUBS! Oh no! I start to gather my stuff...he has the flush draw AND the straight draw. The turn is the 8 of clubs. Great....I start to leave when I hear them all gasp...I guess the Q of clubs hit on the river, giving him a ROYAL FLUSH! Perfect! I'm out. 18th. Big deal. I go get paid my huge payout of $1800.

Then I go play a $240. It stars out like a typical assclown-fest, with raises of 350 and 450 into 25/50 blinds. Sweet. Donkey to my right sucks out on hand #2 to be chipleader. He would go out 5 hands later. Total idiot. I make a read on a guy a while later...totally correct, call his all in...and he sucks out. Of course. 225 chips left. Go on a total miracle comeback run....turn it into 8500 chips. Chipleader. 5 left. Then get sucked out on twice. Great. We get to 3. I propose a 3-way chop. They agree. Good. $750 each. Game over.

Go and buy into the $550 Mega. Things start well. End bad. Play back at the WRONG guy...a dipshit. Instead of just calling his gross overbet and moving in on him post flop...I decide to re-raise him all in preflop on his cutoff raise. He calls. He wins. I roll my eyes. I leave. And buy into the 10pm Mega. Which of course ends with me losing to the AssClown. A beautiful day.

So....now I have to fall back on PLAN B. My backer and I do not play in Events over $1k if we don't satellite in, so now I am resigned to sell myself off to someone willing to treat me like their little monkey bitch. Kickoff is scheduled for 12...high noon....at the O.K. Corral. There is a lot of talk about how many will play. There are also a lot of people trying to sell their 5k chips. I am hoping in the morning to find someone desperate enought to sell one for $4000 to $4400...which would be a nice fat discount.

But more importantly, I am intent upon arriving on time, sitting down to my $20,000 chips, with 1 hour levels and orchestrating my best tourney of the year. The Main Event that JJ (thanks Dan Walsh) fucked me in at the Beau Rivage is now in the rear view mirror. All the big hotshots showed up today. Screw them. One of them is the reason I won't, apparantly, be staying with my good (thought so anyway) friend Allie Prescott in Vegas this summer....leaving me scrambling for a place to stay out there. I have been playing lights out all week. A couple of bad beats the last couple of days, coupled with the arrival of the "Main Event ONLY" players are not going to cause me any trepidation. 2009 can bite me. Its time for me to go out and kick some asses.

What will be interesting to me...is when this happens, how certain people will act around me after it happens. Yeah, if you are reading this correctly, you ARE sensing a bit of bitterness coming from me. You win a big tourney and everyone wants to be around you. To claim you as 'their boy.' You finish in the money....a lot...but never for BIG money...your just 'that guy' who plays poker. You find out who your real friends are. I am just not like that. My friends are defined by things that are truly important. I go into tomorrow's tourney carrying a big ax. And I am looking for a place to grind it. I am secretly rooting to have certain 'people' at my table tomorrow.

And in conclusion.....I will present an open letter:

"Dear Poker Gods;

So far you have really been testing my resolve. I am not sure why. But I respect you for whatever reasons you may have. I would like to request that tomorrow, you just leave me the fuck alone. When I am ahead, and I bet out...let them either fold, or miss their horseshit draw. When I get a big stack...please oh please do not let me go card dead for 14 orbits. You have been tormenting me all of 2009 so far. I would just like to say....OKAY, enough already! Lets end it already. Let me win this motherscrewer!

Love,
Monkey"