Can't Think of a Good Headline

How is that for a headline?

There are a couple that come to mind, but none of them will probably serve to assist my current case against Harrah's. So I opted for that one.

It's Friday. I haven't made an entry in almost a week. I've been reminded about this by about 6 of you. Wow. People 'jonesin' for a Monkey Blog. Interesting. I just crossed over 5000 hits this month. Sweet. Might as well go for the record. 5362. Set last month. Three days to do it.

Watching "The Perfect Storm" on HBO. What is it about this movie? I never get tired of watching it. Its based on a true story. I wonder how much of what they portrayed during their actual 'voyage' really happened? The guy going overboard. Them catching all those fish. I mean, how would anyone know? The boat and the crew were never found. Did some script writer just make it all up? I know one thing. It makes me never want to be out at sea during a hurricane.

Stanley Steamer came yesterday. Guess Cheryl got tired of the house smelling like animals. Two rooms, $175. Damn. But it does look a lot better.

Got my broken crystal monkey back from Swarovski today. The one with the yellow bananas flung over his shoulder. Cost me $140 to buy. $55 to get fixed. The good thing was that I got a new foam encased box to keep him in, maybe I will quit breaking it. That's twice now that one has gone back to Toronto to get fixed. Total cost, one crystal monkey, $250.

Did you know that in Rhode Island, girls only have to be 16 to work in a strip club? Also, and this is pretty creepy...there is a long-standing law in Rhode Island where prostitution is 'legal' if it is conducted 'indoors.' What? Are you thinking what I'm thinking? I predict a '60 Minutes' feature coming.

Who has one of those drawers, or file cabinets, or just a box...where you manage to accumulate shit...for months, and months...and even...years? Old cell phones, old chargers, batteries, headphones, office supplies, trinkets for you car? You know...everything imaginable. A drawer where if you added up the cost of everything's original price you could most likely buy groceries for three months? Yeah, I have one of those. Two black file cabinets. Sat and weeded through it yesterday, for two hours. Why? Was looking for a wine opener. Found that. Almost everything else got tossed. One man's junk another man's treasure? Well, some dude hit the motherlode last night or this morning at the city dump!

Companies who make sod do NOT sell sod in the months of July and August. Does this make sense? Their reason? It sits around and burns up. Why? Because the stores like Home Depot and Lowe's can't buy it in any fewer than 7 pallet drops. Great. So my dog Mollie has destroyed my back yard. I spent hours chopping it up, filling in the holes, spreading it and flattening it all out...so I could go get about a half a pallet of sod and fix my yard. NO SOD. So now...I have a yard of half grass, half dirt. Hey sod companies, SELL THEM two pallets at a time, put 10 pallets on your trucks and drop 2 pallets each at 5 locations. How stupid.

ACE COMBAT 6 on Xbox360 has been conquered. Level 13, 14 and 15 took me an eternity to beat...but finally after playing from 2am to 10am Tuesday night/morning....I finished it! You know that feeling you get when you have finished a good book. It's just....OVER? You feel kind of empty? Alone? Sad? Same kind of feeling. It's okay...I have other games to go and destroy. But Ace Combat was really a kick ass aviation game. I'll miss it.

Okay if you've read this far without clicking on KILL ME at the bottom and awaiting another one, I commend you, and now...I will give you the dirt.

POKER STUFF (a.k.a. bullshit)

Beau Rivage. They STILL have not called/emailed/texted/Facebooked me to let me know if I am allowed back in there. I have no idea what the delay is. I really don't. It would sure be nice to let my backer know what my poker plans are for the next month and to make travel arrangements. I mean, what? We are down to like, less than a week before the event starts right?

Whoa, just realized I have a Fantasy Football online draft about to start. Knew it was 7pm...didnt know if that was ET or CT...just looked, CT...good, 48 minutes till it starts, just long enough to finish this.

Anyone notice that two guys from the November Nine made the Final Table at the Main Event at the Legends tourney in L.A.? That's pretty damn impressive, I'd say. Gives the WSOP event a little more 'prestige' now. Kind of like Demidov last year, in between, going to Europe and Final Tabling that event. Some good players are making the Final Tables now I think, due to the great structure of the Main Event. I've always said, and I will continue to say...if you give players that are good a great structure, then they can weather the storm of bad players and bad luck and still win. Which brings up a pretty interesting point.

Hmmm...I have to present this carefully. Somebody I talked to didn't like seeing their name in my blog, even though I talked very highly of them. So I will call him...Mr. X. Mr. X and I were discussing structures. His concern was that since he left his old employer and joined his new one that his structures were amongst the best in poker. That no one complained. Until just lately. I agreed with Mr. X. His structures WERE good. WERE being the operative word there. Just like anything in human existence though, there is a degree of evolution that occurs in just about everything, poker included. Texas Hold'em is not a very old game. It has just recently been played by millions of people. I think through trial and error you eventually figure out what the 'ideal' tournament structure is where you can accomplish the goal of (a) offereing the players a good product and (b) assuring the top players, skill-wise, of a chance to make the Final Table on a regular basis.

When I first got in my car and drove to Tunica (grrrrrr) to play my first official WSOP circuit event back in 2004, I was buying into an event for $340 and getting 1500 chips to play with, with half hour blind levels. Maybe it was 40 minute levels. Anyway...1500 chips. It was a joke. But I didn't know it was a joke at the time, because 1500 chips then was normal. You had your cash game players, who went in trying to chip up early or get back to their cash game. So they were very aggressive. Raising a lot. Moving all in a lot. Making people really decide..."do I want to gamble here?" Then you had your super tight guys like me (at the time) sitting there waiting for AA or KK so they could hopefully double up and stay around. There were only a couple ways to play these tourneys. I would cash often. But never very deep. You were always one bad beat away from being out. That wasn't poker.

Poker, that is what we have now...at some venues. More and more as time goes by. Starting us out with between 6000 and 10,000 chips in $1000 events and less, and 10,000 to 25,000 chips in events over $1,000. Levels that are 40 to 60 minutes in length on the lower buy ins and 60 to 100 minutes on the higher buy ins...complete with ALL the levels..

.( 25/50, 50/100, 75/150, 100/200 w-25, 150/300 w-25, 200/400 w-50, 300/600 w-75, 400/800 w-75, 500/1000 w-100, 600/1200 w-100, 800/1600 w-200, 1k/2k w-300, 1200/2400 w-400, 1500/3k w-500, 2k/4k w-500)

You get the idea. We have FOUND our IDEAL structure for tournament poker. There really isn't much more need for tinkering. This is what all GOOD players (with very few exceptions) are looking for, and it's what the game requires to make it just that...a GOOD GAME. For as much as I HATE online poker...due to the influx of gawd-awful players and software designed to reward terrible players with huge suckout beats and late tourney bad beats....I will say this: They have KILLER structures. The days of people running tourneys with bad structures just need to end!

A lot of casinos are running nightly tourneys designed to be 'quick hitters' where they 'get em in and get em out' as fast as they can. Those tourneys, in a word, SUCK. I just don't get them. Especially in poker rooms where they aren't even full. Looking around the room and seeing 4 to 8 open tables, and playing in a hyper-turbo tourney, makes me puke. But then again...if you are showing up to play these things, you are just perpetuating the problem. So don't complain about it when you get there. I've quit doing that, while I am there playing them. If I do go to play one of those...I go KNOWING the structure is dogshit...and just taking with me a sense that I am about to donate whatever the buyin is to whichever fish gets lucky that night, very infrequently am I ever that lucky fish.

So there ya go! My diatribe on "what makes poker GOOD and what makes poker SHITTY." Any questions?

HARRAH's NEW ORLEANS. And this week's shitstorm. Then I have to go draft my team. I have 19 minutes to finish this. Meanwhile, Billy and his crew are about to get hit by the last wave and all die....

First this. I wonder who the haters are out there and their reasons for trying to fuck me. Is it that they truly hate me? Or do they just hate that I win tourneys and get to enjoy that. So they go out of their way to do everything they can do to fuck me? Are they miserable human beings? Is it jealousy? Do their kids hate them? Is their wife fucking the milkman or the boy at the video store who is so 'interesting' and gives her the attention she craves? What is it? Did their dog bite them after toying with a rabid raccoon and now they are suffering neurological episodes that preceed the eventual full blown rabies? I don't know. I do, however really want to understand what energizes some of these pathetic fucks to sit down, and write an email to the manager of Harrah's New Orleans 'informing him' that a guy named Monkey was '86'd this summer at Ceaser's Palace in Las Vegas, and Monkey claims he was only 86'd at Harrah's west division. But he thinks that Monkey should REALLY be 86'd at all of the Harrah's and can he please 'look into this.'

Why do I say this? Well, because that is EXACTLY what happened. Some asshole emailed Larry Barnett from Harrahs over there. How did I find this out? I will tell you. BTW, this just became another ridiculously long entry I think. Before I start...I will say this. I LIKE LARRY BARNETT. Have nothing, zero, nada...zipppppo reasons for being mad at Larry over this.

Keith had been hounding me to go play the Wednesday 'noon' tourney at Harrah's for weeks. Due to my inability to go to sleep before 3am every night, I was never able to pull it off. I pledged to him on Tuesday that I would definitely go this week. So I set my alarm for 9:30am. I actually got up, got ready, and went. We drove over. We arrived at 12:05pm. A perfect Monkey Tourney arrival time.

That's about the time we hear..."players and dealers, at the conclusion of the hand blinds and antes will be going up." Huh? I look up. Level 4. Godaaaaaaaaamn it Keith! I THOUGHT their tourney started at 11am. But Keith insisted it started at noon. Well it didn't. Great. I was ready to leave. Fuck it. But for some reason, I caved in and decided to play some 1/2. Wild Bill, he of the new baby, and early exit from the tourney with KK vs. AA...was at my table. I bought in for $300.

Aggressive table. And also very tight table. Strange combo. Well, there were three really horrible, aggressive players. I was missing every flop. Got down to 240. I was willing to be patient, knowing I would felt one of these three guys if I ever hit a flop. That finally happened. I was up to 600. Nice. You all know the drill here. That was when I should have left. Ahhhh but then I would have missed out on all of Harrah's BS shenanigans. Oh and BTW, let me say this...I had made the decision NOT to write anything about this for several days...for two reasons.

(1) to not give you fucking haters who read this more ammunition to scream out "I told you so Monkey! I told you that you were banned from ALL Harrahs! Ha! Good luck finding a place to play...sounds like your almost out of places to play...hahahaha". Yeah you people have your own little private chat room to circle jerk each other, I know.

and

(2) I didn't want to bash Harrah's here. Mainly because I like a lot of the dealers and tourney supervisors over there, and they did just run an excellent tourney this May, and the one in December (tentatively set for Dec 8th to 20th I learned while there) looks to be equally good. I thought that as assinine as this story is ( that your about to hear)...that surely their head guy there would get this cleared up ASAP...thus preventing me from having to reveal to all of you just how FUCKED UP they are over there.

Back to the cash game. I told this guy I would write about him. Seat 10. Black kid. Very nice kid. Sitting there with a poker book. And dice. Pretending to read the book. Rolling the dice in between each decision on a hand. Reacting to the numbers he rolls. I had NO idea what any of this meant. If, in fact it meant anything at all. A black lady in the 1 seat would give him chips over and over again. She was terrible. She was nice too. I felt bad for her when she finally busted. She bought in three times, all for $100 (really a terrible 1/2 strategy we've discussed here before!) and she would bust three times. At one point, after losing another hand to the kid, she said, "That's how your gonna treat your Mother?" and it got me to wondering...'is that really her kid?' Strange.

Well, somewhere between the time I switched seats to go sit next to Bill and get away from the guy at the table behind me who kept slamming his chair into the back of mine...and the time I lost 400 of my 600 chips when my KK lost..after raising, getting called by BIG LOOSEY down there in 8 seat...with AJ...getting a flop of J-8-5, two hearts...betting, getting raised by Big Loosey, putting him on a flush draw...calling...fading the turn heart, but which was another J...and moving all in...only to get called. Duh. He had AJ. FUCK....oh yeah, in between those two events, the kid in the 10 seat switches from the dice to a mini flat-head screwdriver, and starts scraping all the paint and dirt off all of the white chips.

I notice this, and ask what he is doing? Cleaning them? Nope. Just a nervous tick. Guy next to me, who remembers me from long ago, and is literally telling me that I used 'to live in Montana, that I had a dog named Pepper, who died...and then I planted a pepper grove over her burial site in the back yard in Pensacola.....' all true, wow...now says 'wow, you are THAT guy? I've sat at a table after you've played at it before, and wondered what in the hell was all over the table when I sat down to a pile of white flakes everywhere. Yep. This was a fun table.

Here comes Larry. And your story that you have patiently been waiting for. My draft just started. But I have the LAST pick so...I have more time. Wow, 12 team league...wonder if any STUD will be left at pick #12? At least I have the #1 pick in the 2nd round. WOW! The #1 pick was Adrian Peterson. What a shock! (not) Now this was a shocker. #2? Maurice Jones-Drew, followed by Drew Brees? I don't mind Brees there, I guess...but Jones Drew at #2? Weird.

Back to Larry. Larry got an email. Already told you that. Something about someone saying I am supposed to be 86'd from their. I told him EXACTLY what happened at Ceasers in June. I also should add this. Two weeks ago, my buddy called his host to inquire if I was okay at Harrah's. Gave him my players card number. Yep. Fine. That day (this Wednesday), we went over to his OTHER friend, who is a freaking Table Games Floor Manager, gave him my players card...and had him check it out before I even attempted to play there. NOPE! Nothing. Not even showing an 86 in Vegas! Which really makes me wonder if I was EVER EVEN trespassed there. After all, they are supposed to send you (by certified mail) a letter stating as much. No such letter has arrived here at Casa de Monkey.

[Faced with taking Frank Gore and/or Stephen Jackson back to back or taking Tom Brady and Larry Fitzgerald...I again (like last year) took the top two skill guys, another year of no good running game]

So...equipped with the comfort of not facing the 86 thing, I sat and played cash game. So when Larry informed me of this email, I wasn't really concerned, but did feel the need to explain it to him. And told him about the pending nonsense at the Beau Rivage. Well, he decides to 'go investigate the matter with security, just so he can make sure everything is cool so I don't have any problems in December.' Whatever man. Do what you gotta do.

So he comes back. About half an hour later. Trailing Charles Goodson, who works for security, and requests my presence. Hmmm. Whats up Larry? "This is Charles...blah blah blah." Yeah yeah...whats up Charles. 'Well, sir, it doesnt say why, but there is an '86 on you in our system but its from November of 2006, not sure what it was for, but it is still in there.' WHAT? Oh, well Charles, that would be from the worst day of my life in poker. See, I got one-outed that day three times, Two outed 4 times. Rivered a total of 23 times. Lost two tourneys, and 11 SNG's. On the last one, after having this little Asian chick 4 to 1 when we went heads up...she sucked out on me on the river THREE times in a row. I flung my cards in the air, walked away from the table...down the stairs, to a booth in the theater...took my hat off (my favorite hat at the time) and threw it in the air. It never came down. Players in the SNG's laughed and clapped. It was lost. Stuck in the false ceiling where the lighting fixtures reside. Thats when a security walks over and informs me that I have to leave. But only for the night. I almost kiss him. You mean...I don't have to stay and keep getting the shit kicked out of me by the poker gods? Really? But just out of curiousity why am I being made to leave? He couldn't give me a reason. No one could. No one wanted to take accountability for having me tossed for the night. It was funny, and just added to the hilarity of the entire day. But it was expressed that I was welcome back the next day. No paperwork. NONE. Just a 24-hour ban. Those were pretty prevalent at this year's WSOP in Vegas. The one day ban.

But I didn't even go BACK the next day. I figured as bad as I was running, and as retarded as they just handled THAT...I was recieving a sign from somewhere that I should get in my car and just get the hell out of New Orleans, which is exactly what I did. I went home!

But I would return to New Orleans. For other events. Finished 3rd in a big event there in 2007. Then in 2008 had back-to-back 2nd place finishes. Acted like a good boy. No problems. Had fun. Cashed again 3 or 4 times this year in May. Again, no issues. Aside from me kicking a chair and blowing out my knee. But that was between ME and a CHAIR. Pretty sure Larry even laughed at me over that one. Oh there was the ONE accusation I got that I had taken someone's picture (a woman's) and posted her on here and clowned her. Kind of tough though, considering I had not taken any pictures, even showed Larry all the pictures in my phone. He sided with me on that one. I left New Orleans in May on a good note. Handed out some thank you cards and tips to staff members and got ready for Vegas.

At no time was I EVER approached by security about an existing '86 on file. And hmmm, I'm pretty sure that during those two and a half years worth of tournaments I walked in the front door (didn't sneak in through the employees' entrance), right past their facial recognition software, and swiped my players card...that has MY NAME on it probably somewhere close to 200 times.

So when I tried to explain all this to Charles...he handled it like most people I try to have a normal conversation with when I'm ever in New Orleans. Badly. Didn't matter that I stayed calm. Didn't matter that I tried to offer ideas on how to handle this stupid situation. When I asked him to escort me to the office of the person who could fix this, I was told that I had to WRITE A FUCKING LETTER or make a phone call. Yeah a phone call. I called the number he gave me that day...which is supposed to be to the office of the casino's VP of GAMING OPERATIONS, David Pipkin. I called Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. I got a voice mail. For a girl (his assistant) named LaKreisha...spell it however you want. LaKreisha's voice mail states that she works for Mr. Pipkin and also offers to the world that she has 'stepped away from my desk.' Where did she step away too? Australia? I've left 4 messages now. Both detailed and short. I've heard NOTHING back. When I asked Charles, "Say man...how is it that a 24 hour ban, that happened 3 years ago...isn't just that? A 24-hour ban? Why would we even be talking about this now?" You know what he said? "Well, it should have been taken out of the system, but it wasnt, so you have to go to the right people who can get it taken out for you." Common Sense in New Orleans? Child Please!

What planet am I living on? Listen, my IQ, after doing numerous tests throughout the years is somewhere between 135 to 142. That is significantly above the norm, but not close to genius level. I am finding it increasingly difficult to leave my house and interact with fellow human beings due to the fact that I am almost certain that 85% of the current crop of morons floating around out there are operating on an IQ of less than 40. I think now, that I understand why Albert Einstein was such an introvert and why (alledgedly) in his later years he went berserk mentally. I seem to be almost always finding myself leaving New Orleans, driving over that elevated roadway as you leave town, and fantasizing about (and I know this is sick, and I apologize to those of you who I like, and who I know live over there) a nuclear device suddenly going off and the entire city being leveled. If there was a way to evacuate all the wonderful people of New Orleans first...and then doing it...I would say ' let'er rip!'

So that is where I now stand with Harrah's. Harrah's West, Harrah's East, North, South...fucking Harrah's Inter-galactic! So to that guy who insisted that I was really out of ALL Harrahs (and who I suspect of writing that email, which btw, Larry told me, was sent anonymously, although Larry also had a good laugh as his email address, with his name as part of the address, was displayed) took it upon himself to make this a reality. Congratulations Hater! In that breath..this too was kind of funny. Charles Goodson, security 'extraordinaire' wrote the names of the people I needed to call on the back of his own business card. He scribbled out HIS name (for some stupid reason) but left his email address on the bottom, which of course was cgoodson@harrahs.com Now how funny is that? Why did he cross out his name? Is he doing something he isn't supposed to be doing? Well, its a good thing I won't be able to figure out that I talked to him....Charles Goodson. "Sir, we have an IQ test we would like you to take for us, please."

I'm done. And my draft is almost over. Luckily, I have three more teams to draft...come Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. Then Tuesday I go to the doctor finally for my physical, to find out how many ways I might be dying in the next five years. I'm certain my cholesterol levels are off the charts. What else might I be suffering from? Guess we will find out. I really don't expect to hit 60.

[T.Brady/J.Addai/T.Jones/L.Fitzgerald/B.Berrian/J.Shockey/R.Birondas/NYG D ] Hope I find some good bench guys.

See ya.

MONKEY