Saturday we play for BIG MONEY!

Been a few days since I blogged here.

And for good reason. I was playing poker. And sleeping, very little, but sleeping. New Orleans is the place where I always do and experience THE WEIRDEST SHIT on the planet, and again...it has not failed to disappoint.

Going to kind of cut to the chase because it is 6am and I am REALLY tired. However, I met about 5 readers today, a few of them who seemed 'let down' that I hadn't written anything in a few days...so I guess I felt somewhat obligated to slap something together. Again...to those of you who read this on a regular basis...THANK YOU! I am flattered, and its always great to meet you people! Thanks for coming up and introducing yourselves. Never too busy to meet y'all!

To summarize. I am playing a ridiculous number of hours in EVERY tourney with the exception of one. The 6-handed tourney. Wasn't even going to play. Kai and I were sitting out by the pool chillin. Then Steve Frezer tells me via text that he has around 180 in it. Then talk to Allie Prescott (via phone in Vegas) who tells me I would be a retard NOT to play this tourney...mainly because I am a spastic and should love the extra space at the table. Couldn't dispute that point. So with a minute left before registration closes, we decide to do it.

I would last 42 minutes. Kai would cash, like 18th I think. I had a complete shitstorm. Kept getting one good hand after another...only to get either outflopped, outkicked, outdrawn...whatever. It sucked, and I was out quickly. It was the first and only time I haven't made the dinner break on this trip...and a lot of that is due to the terrific structures in this event. A LOT of players (some for the first time) are making dinner breaks for every event.

Wednesday's $340 saw another good turnout, with 360 players. 36 getting paid. I played very solid all day, kept a stack around the average all day. I went to dinner with about 16k...with the average at 18k. A few hands after we got back...I wake up with AA. Sweet. Cutoff raises. Button re-raises, I smooth call the re-raise (who has a huge stack) and the first guy (short stack) goes all in....dude on button calls, I then ship...he calls with KK. Other guy has QQ. SHOCKINGLY....the aces hold, despite KK picking up a flush draw on the turn but missing. HUGE POT. I get to 80k (average at 34k) and am feeling like I will certainly cash.

Then I go, literally, 9 orbits without winning a hand. On those rare occasions that I thought about actually raising with mediocre to garbage hands to pick up a pot and regain some momentum...I get a raiser or shover behind me. UGH. So...I manage to drop 35k during this glorious period peering down at complete shit. Then....it happens.

But before I tell you the delightful ending to this tale, I must first tell you about "The Shithead." If you use your imagination you can most likely picture this twerp. Now work with me. Player in Seat 3 busts. In comes new player. "The Shithead". 22 years old. About 5'7 135. Old beat up ball cap. Scruffy hair. Probably never laid, and if so...most likely paid for it. Braces on his teeth. Has that 'poker doesnt have me, I have poker' cockiness found in a lot of these fuckbirds that live at home on their computers. Kind of imagine this kid could have been one of those little assholes posting threads on 2+2 that cause complete misery for actual human beings with a real purpose for existing. So...you have a picture of this kid now? He shows up. Likes to steal blinds. Likes to raise ANY time a player has limped behind him. Since I haven't played a hand in what felt like NINE MILLION HANDS...I had a hard time figuring out just HOW he arrives at this decision:

We have 41 left. 5 to the money. I have 40,500 now. He has 40,900. Blinds 600/1200. Player limps UTG for 1200. "The Shithead" raises to 5200. I look down at KK in the big blind. I look at his stack...ask if he has $40K? He smugly replies, "I don't know...one way for you to find out man"...I am now wanting to (a) bust this jackass (b) punch him in the face or (c) tie him up, and slowly...with pliers, remove his braces forcibly and use them to shove into his ears and nose. Oh...sorry, I digress...back to the action.

I raise half his stack. 20k. Limper folds. And the little moron does what every last player does on Pokerstars with AK...he shoves all in...and when he sees my KK after I call he declares, "I didn't think you had anything...thought you were making a move." Brilliant read there slappy. But hey...its all good, because Justina (dealer) delivers a nice little A-J-J flop...and Senor Monkey not only didn't win the hand...didn't become chipleader...didn't make the Final Table....no-no...didn't even CASH...after another 11 hour grind-fest!

So what do I do? I decide to storm out into the hall....to wrap myself up in that curtain out there and silently (as much as possible) scream internally and try to see if I can make myself internally combust! And of course curse the poker gods (again!) and question my plight on this miserable planet. But alas...on my way to perform these standard (lately) tasks....I encounter two chairs that have been lined up along the rail (and very much in the way) and for some stupid reason I decide it will be smart to punt on fourth and long instead of going for it. The chair flies about 5 feet (not a punt that will land me an NFL contract albeit)...and I immediately feel my knee 'explode.' Oh Shit. What did I just do? I nearly collapse, but manage to struggle to the hall...where I find a corner to roll up in, where I writhe in pain.

That is when a security guy shows up. Oh no. Not this again. He begins...I think...to toss me. Then Larry the poker room manager shows up. Side note. I had never really talked to Larry much until the other day...and we had a really nice 15 minute conversation. So he kind of had an understanding of what I was going through. He cut me some slack. Just told me to take easy and quit kicking chairs. No problem sir. Now I have to go crawl in a hole and die. Thank God for pain killers and alcohol. To ease my pain and suffering I would go play a couple sit n gos...winning one of them....as Kai kept sending me shot upon shot. Thanks Kai. Then at 4am I stumbled/limped/moonwalked to my hotel room. Where Keith..my current roomy...was again missing from. He has that cash game bug...the one that makes guys play till dawn. Tried to read my book. Read like..mmm...two sentences. Then spent the entire night waking up every time I turned my body even 1 degree. It felt like there were 12 of those little bastards from Gullivers Travel (the ones who tied him down) sticking knives in my knee all night. Every 5 minutes I would wake up in pain. It was not a good night.

Oh my God I am so tired...6:56am now....can I really get through this? Keith is laying over...SNORING. Oh no. Time to dig out the Ipod I guess. Is that the sun coming through that crack in the curtains? Please tell me its not. Keith, by the way...played the 5pm $340 PLO H/L tourney..that I would have surely played had I had the chance. He ended the day 2nd in chips out of 12...already in the money. Nice.

So being up for the trip a good amount...not a great amount...but good, I send a text to my backer asking for approval to buy into the $1k event. I never hear back. Great. Well...since I Final Tabled this thing last year...I feel obligated to play it. And when I hobble over there I see 250 players registered...OH HELL YEAH! Nice. Steve Frezer sees me right as I enter and is cool enough to send a dealer with my money way the hell over to registration to sign me up.

Tourney starts great. We get 10,000 in starting chips with 1 hour blind levels. KICK ASS! I pretty much win every hand I play....then move tables...where I continue to win every hand. By the end of the first session (3 levels) I have around 24k...with the average at 13k. Good start.

TK Miles comes by and we sit and chat about various things. A couple of them I can't delve into. We talked about that huge 40k WSOP event in Vegas and his desire to play it. He is trying to figure out a way to raise 40k from someone, anyone...to play the thing. I would have to say...if I had 1 million laying around, I would probably stick him in there for 65 to 70%....but that's me. We also talked....mused? About my buddy Brandon Jarrett and his, ahem (pausing so I don't start laughing) 'nomination' on Facebook for 'Poker Hunk of The Year.' Are you kidding me? How, exactly...does this deal work? I don't see it on the site. Who is eligible? WHo votes? What does THE HUNK win? Ohhhhhh Brandon....you cheeseball you.

Then...with me in the midst of my 'Period of Gloom' otherwise known as the requisite time that I will be required to sit there card dead...Larry comes to visit me again. Needs to talk to me. Oh boy. Starts with "I need you to take this serious...this is kind of a big deal." Great. Then I hear the first two words....STATE POLICE. Uh Oh...what now? Pretty sure I haven't robbed anyone or pulled any bank heists, sold drugs, killed anyone...so naturally...I'm very curious.

Apparantly some 'woman' has called the State Police and...wait. Lets stop right there for a second. Is it just me? Or when you think of the State Police of this place do you not picture those cops in the movie "Super Troopers?" Or, to an extent...Reno 911? Back to this major issue. Some woman has called and reported that some guy people call 'Monkey' (pretty sure this is me) is taking pictures of people against their wishes and ....well, that is kind of where the story fell flat. She explained that I was 'intimidating them' by taking their picture. Claimed that I took HER picture! At 1pm TODAY! Huh? Larry went on to explain all the various laws protecting patrons against being photographed on the property. That it is indeed a 'serious matter.' Okay. First things first. I first told Larry that I was "completely willing to honor whatever you guys order me to do....not here to cause trouble." To which he thanked me. Then I explained exactly WHAT the pictures were for. Told him that of all the players I have added to Monkey's Barn...that all of them were talked about kindly, that all of them were told by me that they would be appearing on my blog site...and that most of them loved it, loved the attention and had ZERO objection to it at all. That seemed to make it a little more acceptable to him. Then I buried the rest of this lady's accusations when I pulled out my camera from my bag and showed him the THREE pictures I have taken on this trip.

1) Joker from DAY ONE...who I encountered in a sit n go...who called two different all ins with ACE high then KING high...and mircle'ing his way to a suckout. I called him Wilford Brimley, because...well, he looks and talks like the old coot. Well, him and I would get into it last night because for some reason it was causing him great unrest that I had entered a SNG while still in another one (shortstacked in at the time but would eventually end up winning!). Not sure why exactly...just think he is one of those clowns who wakes up in the morning looking for something to belly-ache about. Well, now I kind of think it may have been him behind the phone call. I think he may have put his wife up to it. The gutless worm.

2) Some guy BJ McBrayer got donked by. Got the details on it later.

3) A guy who, with the blinds 25/25...raises to 125 UTG...only to be re-raised by me with 10-10...to 450...then stating "ah I'll gamble with ya..." and moves all in with 66....and flops a 6. His name is Ken Horn, and I got him at my first tourney table yesterday, and we ended up being good buddies. He is actually a helluva nice guy. Kind of hesitant now to add him to the barn. We'll see what happens.

But that was it! THREE PICTURES! No women. None taken today. He was convinced. Just another freaking hater out there trying to take down the Monkey. Oh and since we are on the subject of haters...not sure who the person was who left the comment about the Harrahs-Parking-Players Card snafu...but I'm not sure what you were driving at, unless you WORK for Harrahs. Look, if an EMPLOYEE recognizes me as a regular patron they want to satisfy by giving me a PLATINUM card...hey, am I supposed to turn it down? If my buddy who lives here...and is known by pretty much everyone...wants to give me a Seven Star card to use for nothing other than primo parking (and clearly NOT abuse it in other ways) I really don't see a victim here. ITS PARKING! I don't believe in paying money to turn my engine off. That's just me. I used to live in Atlanta..and when we would go out to Buckhead (back in the 90's) it used to drive me crazy to pay $10 or so to 'turn off my engine.' So I would park half a mile away sometimes and walk. It's not the money...its the principal. And yes, to answer your question...we DO get free parking for playing the tourney...it comes with your buy in ticket boner brain. Enough about that. Where was I?

Talking about the picture thing. Okay, so yeah...that was resolved. I go back to the table. I would literally hover between 15k and 24k for a ridiculous amount of time. We will call it 6 levels! Finally, with the blinds at 800/1600 and me holding 44 and 16k in chips...a guy limps in UTG. No one else calls. I call on the button. SB calls. BB checks. Flop comes J-4-3...two hearts. UTG bets out 3000. I decide to raise...thinking its very likely he has the J. He does. I make it 9000. He calls. Turn is...boinnnngggggg...a 4! Kaaaaaaaaaa wwwwaaaadddss! F-A-N-T-A-S-T-I-C! I do all the necessary acting required to procure another 12k from him. Sweet!

A few hands later, the same guy MIN RAISES! to 3200. Oh....when will you people FINALLY learn WHY you don't min raise? Button calls, SB calls...and with K8c...I call (of course, call all min raises!) The flop comes out K-J-7. Hmmm...think I might be good. Look at his stack..he has 18k. So I bet 7500 into him. He tanks....and finally goes all in. WHAT!??? BJ is behind me...and decides to fold. I end up flipping my coin and it lands on heads...which means..."I call". So I do.

Thats it.....I cant keep my eyes open.....I will have to finish this tomorrow. Sorry.

MONKEY