Marriage Hasn't Changed Anything!

Well, any hopes I had of things changing when I got hitched went out the window at 4:43pm Tuesday.

Got Squirrel to the airport on time for her to catch her flight home. Arrived at Venetian at 5 minutes to noon. As soon as I arrive I see a massive line, then Dan telling me "Monkey, did you talk to Tim? You need to talk to Tim before you register." Wonderful.

I had talked to Anthony Chester two days before and had thought we had smoothed everthing out from the other day. We had. Everyone just hadn't gotten the memo. So I called Anthony, he had me pass the phone to Daniel, and everything was okay. I managed to miss the first four hands though, so any hopes of seeing my FIRST TWO hole cards went out the window.

Mike would bust in the first level. He continues to run bad. I would pick up AA, raise behind two limpers, get one call...flop Q-J-5....bet, and get a call. J on the turn. Guy checks. I just move in, with a paired board and two flush draws...and this guy calls with KQ, and misses the two-outer Q. Puts me over 20k.

But there were big issues working. They kept taking one alternate after another. We topped 950 players. But at the end of Level 5 we still had 800 players. So with the average barely inching up, the blinds were climbing rapidly. Meanwhile, this little bastard kept raising my BB from cutoff every time he had the chance. A couple times he was raising limpers with crap like Q8, K7 and J2. I was convinced that he was nothing but aggressive.

With the blinds 400/800, and the average 21k...it was quickly becoming a shove fest. This little punk raised my BB twice, with me folding. Then he does it again, and I look down at Ad10d. I am fed up, so I shove 28k on him. And he announces that "I'll gamble with you" and calls. ???? He turns over AK. Shit. I miss everything, and it leaves me shortstack. Dammit. I get it in a couple hands later with 89h on the button and get called by 102 off. Nice. He hits a 10. I'm out.

I did get a free book from Tony Korfman. Some of you may know this guy. He is old, maybe 70. Very tall, usually wears a very loud red sportscoat, sometimes a Tony Stewart/Home Depot racing jacket. For a couple years him and I have tangled verbally. I used to call him Colonel Sanders. Well, he comes to my table late. Turns out he chopped the 1k from Sunday with 6 other players. Nice little score. My buddy Maurice Hawkins has now won TWO Venetian events on this trip. Damn! I'm happy for him, but also envious, as I continue to hit nothing, and slowly run out of money. Grrrrrr!

So I start paging through this book. And what I discover is that its hilarious. If anyone is interested in checking it out, or buying it....go to his site at www.pokergas.com. I obviously have no vested interest in this project, but all profits go to some kind of scholarship fund he has set up. The bottom line is, its hilarious.

So with all the tables taken up, and no SNG's to be played, we decide to go to the Rio to play SNGs. Yikes. We agree that we will split 50/50 whatever profits we make in SNGs.

We play a $175 together. He takes a couple bad beats and loses. I stick around until we get 3-handed. I get a guy on my left who's breath could stop a clock. I keep trying to beat him and keep not accomplishing this. I have AK, raise him, he shoves, I call.....Flop a K...only to go runner runner J-10. (*&!@(*&#(!. We exchange chip leads back and forth. At one point I have around 7500 to both of their stacks under 1000 and still cant close the deal. It was very frustrating. We finally end up just chopping it 3-ways. And with my pre-arranged deal with Mike, I barely made shit, so I didn't take much joy out of that one.

We decide to go play the 7pm $340. Big mistake. As I'm sitting down I'm watching Doc (from Mississippi) getting his AA cracked by some clown in the 3 seat who has limped, then called a raise and a RE-RAISE with 10d7d then won with a flush. This same clown would raise UTG vs my SB AK, then call my 3x re-raise. The flop would come A-3-5. I lead out for a substantial amount. He puts me all, feeling chip drunk. I call, somewhat reluctantly...but not really having any odds to fold, and look at POCKET TWOS. He asks the dealer to 'let him get lucky.' Yeah, well, the dealer throws a four on the river. Thanks dealer. The guy smacks his hands together..."Yes!" I tell him what a great play he made, both preflop and after the flop...and he says "I know! It was a great play!" Then I ask him if he just won the Main Event with his stupid celebration.

I hate assclowns. I wish they would all crawl up, as a group, into a large ball, and roll themselves off the face of the Earth. They make good players doubt themselves, their abilities, their place on the planet. I hear this quote at least three times a day..."without assclowns, it would make it hard for us to make a living in poker." I totally disagree. I think they just make it that much harder.

I leave to go play a SNG, Mike is still in the $340. I buy into a $120 and what happens is one of those things we wish would happen EVERY TIME we sit down in a SNG or for that matter, a tournament. I win. In 57 minutes. I hit about every flop. Every big hand holds up. I have all the chips...from early til the end. No chops. No saves. No...I completely ran over this SNG. I felt invinceable. Granted, every player at this table was Gawd-awful...and that made it even more satisfying!

Flash to the next one. Same table. Same buy in. Samn lousy-ass players. But this time, I didn't win. I didn't win every hand. In fact, I was the FIRST player out. Lose two hands when ahead, and I am on the rail. Talk about a reversal of fortune. Another humbling experience to remind you of your place in the universe. You mean I can't just win two like that in a row? Of course not!

I go one to lose two more. And on the last one I get a bogus save for 3rd, my money back. I haven't even done the math to know if I won or lost money yesterday, if I lost, it wasn't much, if I won, it wasn't much either. Going to bed and getting some sleep seemed like the best option, so that's what I did.

For those of you spreading the rumor that I was 86'd from Venetian, STOP IT! Its simply NOT the case! I was simply booted from that SNG. Everything is fine. No reason for anyone to be UPSET with the Venetian. We are all good. I do wish they would get that damn perfume out of the ventilation system though!

Squirrel got home from here, checked the mail and I STILL haven't gotten my rent money from my Pensacola tenant. Lovely. Just spend 20 minutes on the phone listening to her panic-stricken voice construct a whole 'nother stream of excuses and lies to explain why I haven't gotten her money yet. Don't people realize that us poker players can see right through that shit? It irritates me to sit there and listen to her because I know she is full of crap. "look lady, just send me the money, all these stories mean nothing to me, and I have to go write a blog and get to today's tourney...so wrap it up!!!!"

Once again, I find myself wishing Gawd would turn everyone into Black Labradors! I miss my dogs.

I guess thats pretty much everything. I expect another whopper of a field at Venetian today. Ceasers only got around 250 yesterday. From what I hear they are even getten beaten by the tourneys that are running at BOTH Binions AND Golden Nugget, of all places! Thats bad! But hilarious.

I need to have a good day today.

Married Monkey (Day 2)