"How Much Is That? How Much Do You Have? I Fold!"

If you see this guy at your table, there is something you should do. (a) Immediately put a bounty on him, and hope to God someone whacks him early (b) Prepare to beat yourself in the face with a sock full of nickels, repeatedly, for hours as he makes one RETARD call after another and somehow sucks out over and over and (c) Make sure you have a fully charged battery in your Bose headphones and/or your iPod is charged.

I know what you are saying. "But Monkey...you can't see his face, how am I supposed to know who this guy really is?" Good question. So I will help you. On any given hand, if a player, any player...should happen to raise, you can count on this fool to ask....every time (obvious tell coming here) "How much is that bet? How much do you have?" MUCK.

Let me also quickly address something. Some guy, with the name 'Anonymous' has decided to make some disparaging comments to and about me, then makes another today browbeating me because I wouldn't 'publish' them...saying I only post the GOOD ONES. Um...okay pal, there ya go, published them. Honestly, I don't even read those unless I accidentally click on that part of the layout editor. Um...I pretty much click on publish on EVERY comment, true there aren't a whole lot of 'bad' ones. But I don't give a rats ass if some a-hole with an anonymous name wants to take a shot at me. Why don't you get yourself an identity now, since you see fit to call me out! Oh and by the way...you want to criticize my game? Thats cool. But I will point to my results, take a deep breath, clear my throat...and say "Scoreboard bitch." Moving on....

Got perhaps the funniest, most inspirational pre-game pep talk EVER yesterday by Kai Landry, and then he followed it up with what amounted to a halftime locker room speech/email/text. Here, in its entirety...is the message:

Well, I'm sick of wishing you good luck, telling you to kick their teeth in, knock 'em dead, etc...only to see you land just inside the money and nothing big. So, I'm going to tell you something different today in a completely scientific experiment to turn things around for you. Ahem. You're a loser, you suck, you're half a fag, and I hope you get all 3 hepatitisis strains from an army of immigrant trannies. May you run into KTo all day long and have homeless people shit warm, liquid excrement in your mouth. Know who's not gonna win today? You. Knock, knock. Who's there? Nofy. Nofy who? No Final table's gonna have Monkey on it, that's fuckin who. Embrace defeat, asshole. Let it's cold arms wrap around you, sink in its teeth and drink the life giving blood from your veins with its sharp, crooked teeth. Visualize world Peace? Not you, motherfucker. Visualize KT. Visualize one last chip. Now visualize it gone. Now visualize the rail. Feel the rope wrap around your neck. Kick the chair out from underneath you. Embrace the sting of death as your body twitches, agonizing. Aw wait a second... is that the Seahawks game on over there on the TV? Aw shit, they're winning the Superbowl, and I'm hanging from this fucking rope... No, wait, they just lost to the Patriots. Their new kicker, Johnny Kingten, just made the winning fieldgoal. In overtime. How the hell did all the Seahawks players suddenly catch on fire anyway? Jesus, that's really gruesome. Isn't that really, really strange? AAARRRGGGGHHHH the rope's got me....it's got me..... my neck!!!....body stiffening...breath leaving body..... nnnngggghhh...

Now if that doesn't inspire someone to go on to do great things, they really need to re-examine how they are living their life!

Followed up with:

"Let me discourage u some more, it seems to be working in your favor" [text message]

Followed later with:

"You're an abject failure and your feet area too small. You suck. After you bust out next you're sure to get cock cancer and mop up at peep shows for the rest of your life. Die Monkey Die."

Classic. However, I kind of feel, also, that Kai is trying to horn in on Allie Prescott's strategy of inspiring and motivating me with deprecating abuse. Whatever the case, it made me howl with laughter and delight. Thanks Kai...you suck ass!

So, we went back at 4pm. With 47 players. I had 251k. After 5 orbits and no cards I had 175k. Lovely. Going to blind out of this thing? I get 10-10. Raise. All fold. Hmmm, okay. Then I get KK. Raise. All fold. Shit. Still hovering around 200k. But now down to 27. That was quick. Up to a whopping $1800 payout. Then I get KK again. For the tourney I would get KK 8 times. NEVER got AA once. Maybe that was a good thing. Not sure.

I raise with KK. Doofus up there is in the BB. "How much is that? How much do you have?" But this time he doenst muck. Nope, he re-raises me 120k. "I'm all in." He calls, with (what else) AK. I fade the Ace again and double up...nice! Now have around 350k. Sit there quiet for another hour or so. We get down to 22 and this is where the chop talk begins, initiated the first time by this clown, who had managed to get the chiplead. As soon as it looks like we are about to 'save' 10k for each player and leave 71k in the prize pool, he nixes it, or comes back with some weird, stupid proposal that makes no sense. Then tries to infer that I am stupid because I won't hear him out. Picture yourself on an ice shelf in Antarctica with 123,000 Penguins, all trying to tell you something at the same time...this is what it was like trying to decipher what this old moron was talking about.

"Now listen to me Monkey, you take the money that is in the pool from 9th to 22nd, add it up, divide it by this much, add in that much...then give them all the same amount....its a great idea." Um, no old man, its stupid. You are stupid. Hell, your kids are probably stupid.

I watch as all the guys I have a share with get whacked. Shit. Bad for Monkey. Kyle Milam is the last, as with 88 vs. AQ he gets rivered by a Q for a HUGE pot. Kyle and I at the Final Table would have been great. He is a really solid player, and of course there would have been a lot of good reasons for us to NOT try and whack each other, at least til we got down to about 5 or so. So what I had for the final 5 hours were my collection of rail bird/5%/15% share birds...which made for a very large contigent of 'sweaters.'

We get down to 12. We would stay on 12. FOREVER. Like two levels. We finally get the old retard to FINALLY do a save deal that benefits everyone. All 12 players are guranteed $8k, which is equal to 8th place money. You would think that would have sped up the action. Nope. Not at all. Dumb ass is on my right and is making brilliant plays, like calling in the dark on an 85k preflop raise. Calls a big raise by the chipleader (who has AQ) with A5. Flop comes A-K-3. Big bet. Calls. Turns the luckbox 5 and takes a HUGE stack of chips from the other guy, names Jamaal, who is a relatively decent player. The whole table puked I think when that hand went down.

There are SO many hands to write/talk about yesterday. But I always try very hard NOT to bore you people with hand play on here. We finally get to the Final Table, 10 of us. I order up the Ceremonial Snap Monkeys, reserved especially for the Final Table, and of course New Years Eve...and maybe for the after Wedding or Reception Ceremony. The Final Table Monkey Beads go on. Now, I went into yesterday with a very specific strategy. No drinking early. Why? Because there was no money at stake early. I wanted to ONLY play top 10 hands early. Get myself to the Final Table, when the money DID get good, then start drinking, slipping into my Confident Monkey Mode...the one who plays with total Ninja-Like disregard for all other players, making sick reads, sick calls and sick (did I just say 'sick' three times in a row? I apologize) laydowns when necessary.

So we make the Final Table. I am short stack. So? Who cares? Not me. Everyone is trying to save another $7k...which would STILL leave $29k on top. The floor is telling us "I have NEVER seen the structure get this high, this is insane." We play THREE levels without losing a player. Then, he says it. Old man: "I am NOT doing ANY deals until THAT GUY is knocked out. I refuse!" So this prick has basically put every player at the table at risk of losing out on another 7k solely based on his desire to see me get put out.

He almost gets his wish. Getting low, at 540k ( I know that SOUNDS like a lot but the average was 1.2 mil) I shove all in with 8s9s. Jamaal, who usually gives me a lot of respect on my raises...looks down at AQ, and I think, makes a good call. I think if I had JUST raised there he may have respected it more, but since I shoved, it was easy for him to put me on a small pair or a bad ace. Good call, sir. I even stood up and shook his hand. I flop four to the flush. Hmmmm. Nice. Turn the FLUSH! But now I am looking at his Qs. No spade, no spade. Jack on the river...and its black...NO!!!!! CLUB!!!!! Huge double up!!!!!!!!

Now of course, old man jackass is ALL excited to save another 7k. I am not going to be a douchebag. I take the deal. So now we all have 15k in our pocket, with another 29k on the table. So now I start dreaming about a fat 42k score! That dream is starting to look like a reality when with 99 I make maybe my best play of the tourney.

Guy behind me raises. I look down at 99. The raise is 240k, with the blinds at 40k/80k. I deliberate. I have a pretty good line on this player and suspect its very likely he is very strong. So Instead of re-raising him there, I decide that with 1.2 million I can flat the raise and see a flop. The table gasps when I JUST call that raise. We get heads up. The flop comes 9c7c3c. He moves all in. I instantly call. The whole table KNOWS I just flopped a set...he turns over JJ, and I fade the Jack. After the counting of the chips, he and I have the EXCEPT same number. Weird yeah? He was a very good sport, shook my hand, drank the shot of Patron he and I had ordered and left with 15k. Real nice guy. In fact, all the guys at the table with me were pretty cool. Some didn't start out cool, but they would become cool. All except the old guy. He was just a prick. Guy next to me, Chip, gave me mad props for how I played the 9's, and that always makes you feel good as a poker player.

Next comes the hand that should have made me a HUGE chipleader, and erradicated the old bastard from the table, finally. With 2.5 million, I raise with AK. He calls, as he almost always does now when I raise. He is holding Q10 offsuit. The flop comes K-J-5. Good flop for both of us. I bet out half a million. He smooth calls. Great, here we go again. I am kind of putting him on KQ there. So when the turn pairs a 5 I just move all in on him...its 700,000 for him to call. I win this hand and I am well over 5.5 million! HE CALLS! And he rivers a fucking 9 for the straight. The whole table sinks in their seats. It cripples me, bad...back down to 540k. Jeezuz.

On the VERY next hand, A guy shoves 580k into my BB, holding AKd. I call. He has my K9. I never saw guys shove with my favorite hand yesterday and have it win. Guess it only works for me. He lost. I was back.

I really can't tell you guys much more. We got down to 6. I went card dead...which at 60k/120k wasnt possible to do for very long before running out of chips. I finally moved all in on the old jerkoff with Q9 and he woke up with A9 and called. Whatever, nothing I could do about that. It held up, and I was out 6th. Had we not done a 'save deal' I would have ended up cashing $14,879 or something...so CardPlayer will report that I won pretty much what I won. I got with everyone I had shares with and watched $3400 leave my bankroll. OUCH! Exchanged text messages with Squirrel about it...listened to her tell me how bad that is, how I am always the one paying out. But in all honesty, I have had SEVERAL situations where I was the recipient of the nice, fat save payout. Its about 50/50 over the last two years, I would say. And you know...when a guy like my current roomie Mike is running horrible, and he spends all day there sweating me...NEEDING me to cash big so he can essentially STAY here and keep trying to get his train back on track...it doesn't make me feel bad to hand him $700 so he can stick with it. He is a good player, and he is just running into land mines everywhere he steps. Its not his fault. I have been in the same situation. And yeah...it stings to dole out 60% to my backer, then another $3400 to 'the guys' but what comes around goes around. And plus, my backer is tremendously supportive and to get her a nice pop again (after a couple in New Orleans when we had been running bad/unlucky all year and was close I think to losing her) felt great...especially since I was about to 'make the phone call' requesting more money. Good timing indeed.

Another thing I did was to take care of the floor and dealers, AGAIN. It was pretty funny, because I had promised the floor that if I were able to go on a heater and take down the WHOLE remaining $29,000 that they were going to get $1500 from me! They come over to me and tell me (jokingly, of course) "Hey Monkey, so and so said you now have permission to push the next bust out who only tips us $25 down the stairs!" Really!??? Sweet! I will do it with GLEE! So the next couple who bust out I kind of said something suggestive to them about it. Did it help? Nope. What assholes! I end up leaving $250 for the floor and $150 for the dealers. So what amounted basically to 10% of my own personal take. Thats right! I won $15,000 and I litereally got about $4000 of it. Thats fine though. I'm okay with it. Feels good to get everyone back in my corner!!!!

So...then we go to Tao. It was kind of lame. And frankly, I am getting pretty burnt out on the whole club thing. Really kind of missing Squirrel! We go play a little cash game. I plop a couple hundo on the table with Mike. Night ends there when this red-headed dealer whose name escapes me Raises me with KQ. I have A7. Flop comes 10-5-7. She bets out. I call. Turn is a 5. She bets 10. I raise her to 40. She insta calls. River is a K. She checks. I go all in, really the only play I think I can make there...other than check behind and hope I'm good, but I think I'm pretty much on a semi bluff. She calls. Ridiculous. Nice call on the turn there lady. Whatever, I don't say anything, nothing at all, just tell Mike I am ready to go.

Just woke up. Its noon. Today is a $2100 at Venetian. Not putting that much into a tourney right now. Thinking of (gasp) going over to Ceaser's and playing that $340 donkfest. We have to get out of this room (again) but Pat Fogleman (one of the guys in the share pool) managed somehow to score us a 3-night comp at Venetian, so NICE...we are heading over there...to be followed by another 3-night comp at MGM. So for this trip...which is now over a month old, I have managed STILL to pay for just TWO nights so far. Awesome!

SO thats it! Thanks to all of you who were supporting me yesterday! And thanks Wild Bill for the shout out on the front page regarding me and Squirrel locking it up! She's awesome, and it feels great to be married! Even greater to follow it up with a nice Vegas cash! Hey! Good luck to Fish too, man is HE running good!

Talk to you all soon! Hopefully with some MORE good news!!!!

Married Monkey (Day 4)