Almossssssst!!!! DOH! Stupid Ace on the RIVER!!!!

Ahhhhhhhhh!!!!! So close!

Last year, on Halloween, after a frustrating run of 2nd place finishes, I snuck into the I.P. in my 'super secret' disguise of a gorilla costume....oh yeah, NO ONE knew it was me! :)

Ten minutes after sitting down I was told by security that I would have to remove my mask for surveillance purposes. I was a bit bummed by that, after having spent an hour shopping for it and $200 buying it...but after 16 dirty martinis, and my first outright 'notable' win of the year in their $50k Guarantee...that ended at 2a.m. I was happy as hell that I didn't have to leave that mask on all day!!!

I took my nice 'no chop' chunk of 15k...headed over to my buddy Tan's place, 'Venues' across from the Beau Rivage...met my honey (wait...did that sound like Hellmuth? Yikes!) and her friends, opened up a bar tab for all of them, on me...and blew it out! It was truly a very Happy Halloween. Especially to get the 'monkey' off my back. No pun intended! (this night would also end at Venues)

So as I drove to the IP yesterday, fresh off of Thursday's win in the Omaha Limit tourney...the thought occurred to me that a win on Halloween again would be really special. I was running a bit late, and fortunately Keith took care of getting me bought in before I got there...so I had my seat assignment already.

I was in one of my bizarre low bio-rythmistic (word? not sure...if not it IS now!) moods yesterday. Not even sure why I have those days...but I was super mellow, just...I don't know, calm. So of course...coming off a win the night before, I think everyone expected me to be all amped up and goofy. And, well, you guys who know me...KNOW that I am not one to gloat after a win. In fact, its kind of a situation I hate. Why? Well, while its VERY nice, and I do truly appreciate it when all you guys come up to me and shake my hand and congratulate me...its like, there is this state of mind I get where anything less than a repeat performance is going to constitute a bad day. Kind of similar, I guess...where if you won the Heisman, then the National Championship....and are projected as the #1 pick in the draft....and GO BACK TO COLLEGE for your senior year. Does that make sense? Without, of course...trying to even BEGIN to compare the two, clearly. But as far as the mindset....kind of similar. So what I am saying...is there is some pressure there, always.

So the noon tourney, the $340...that again attracted only 150...dang it! Where is everyone? Are you guys out there NOT getting my message? This is an awesome event! Why aren't you here! A tell-tale sign of a great structure is when you walk to the back of the room when its down to two tables and see who is still remaining. Same thing happened this summer at Venetian. You tend to see a LOT of good players still in it. That means a lot of good poker is being played. And if you appreciate good poker, then you love these kind of structures.

I get myself situated, and take an hour observing and sizing up my table. Pretty decent. Couple of bad players...but not too many. Not very much overbetting going on. In fact, the only place I have seen ridiculous overbetting taking place is in these goofy ass $45 (yes I actually sat in on a couple of those waste of time nightmares) and $65 SNGs...where at 25/25 raises of 150 to 300 are common place. But my favorite is when a guy makes a raise to say 200...and gets SMOOTH called...and then when the board comes out all rags...BOTH players literally check it all the way to the river. Oh...gee....can we call the two hands here folks? Maybe AK vs AQ? Idiots. But I don't even call attention to this stupidity any more. I'm getting better, see? I just take note of it. Maybe I smirk a little bit. But these people are merely branding themselves...for me to use against them later. And that...is what we SHOULD be doing with that information, instead of berating them and labeling them donkeys.

So oh yeah...back to poker. Kind of weird....I get the same guy sitting to my right (who would give me his chicken tenders that he couldnt eat! Thank pal! That really hit the spot!) in the noon tourney as I would have to my right in the 4pm Pot Limit Omaha H/L tourney. Ah ha! So...there ya go! Do I even need to share the rest of this story? Since you NOW know that I am going to bust out of this tourney!??

Well, yeah. I do. I have QQ early...and of course it loses....ace on the flop, c-bet...get raised...and fold. Then just hovered around 5k for two levels. Table broke, got moved to a table with this tall foreign guy who I think actually lives here...seem to remember him from some nightly tourneys at the B.R. He is seeing a LOT of flops. And doing a lot of chasing. And getting very lucky. And picking up a LOT of chips. He limps for 200....four people call..and I look at JJ. I have 5200 behind. Guess what Monkey is doing with THIS one!?? Yeah. You know it. No callers.

Then I get AK three times. Raise.....every time....NO CALLERS. Hmmm. And then....as I am finally getting healthy...up to around 7500....I get them again. The bitches. The Bully limps for 200. One other person calls. And with the whores... I really contemplate shoving again. But come on...you can't play scared of a hand forever. I need to win a nice pot somewhere if I plan on winning this damn thing. So I just raise it to 750. That should be...you would think...enough to get your typical player to fold 6-7 offsuit, right? Ha! Sure! He calls.

I'm gonna make this interesting. The flop comes all rags. He checks. I bet out 2200, with 2000 in the pot. He does this strange thing that I've been watching him do for the last hour....where he plays with his chips...first his green (huge pile) then his blacks (equally huge)...and finallly...stops...looks at my chips...and asks me..."how many chips you have left?" Thats right...I left out the word 'do' in that sentence to give you the sense of his accent. He puts me all in. I sigh. Come on! Then I look at my watch. 3:15. Omaha starts at 4. If I fold, I am back to being crippled, and probably just frustrated and bitter. So its kind of a lose/lose spot. But if he just putting me on AK..and making a play...which he has already done several times so far...having shown at least three bluffs....then I have him crushed and stand to double up to around 15k. In which case...I can really play my kind of game and coast.

So I call. Wanna guess what those rag cards were? Here ya go.  3-4-5. Isnt that nice? Well the turn IS a 5! So at least now I can catch a Q or  a 5 to clip him with a boat...but instead the dealer just drops a 2 out there...giving him an even LONGER straight. I just shook my head. The other guys at the table shook theirs, and gave me that look, you know it...that "dude, thats really fucked up!" look. I left, and retreated to a back hallway....where I cursed a few times....away from everyone...sat in the corner...and just chilled for a few minutes. Maybe 20!

Okay. Time to shake it off! No time to play a SNG....so I just read my book for awhile...watched some college football...and went and bought into the PLO tourney. Okay...lets go try and win that baby!

We end up having 5 tables. Smallish field, but HEY...easier chance to Final Table right? Sitting at the other table next to me is Johnny Groomes, from the Beau Rivage. Awkward, kind of. Its weird, I was thinking about something this morning. And then when I sat down to write this, I get a Facebook message from Johnny himself, congratulating me for the win the other night..and telling me he posted a message here, which he did. So ironic sometimes, how you can be thinking about something and then BOOM...that same person intervenes in your thoughts. I was actually going to write a whole themed blog about those thoughts. And it wasn't bad. Not at all. In fact...I will tell you what my thoughts were I guess. And at the same time thank Johnny for the nice comment on here, and for simply breaking the ice between us. Classy.

What  I was thinking...this morning, as I spent that first 20 minutes where you first wake up...and just lay there in bed thinking random thoughts, you know what I mean? We do ALL do that, right? Anyway, I was thinking about how stupid and petty humans can be. Johnny was sitting there, alone at a table in his Tennessee Vols gear...watching a game on TV...waiting on the tourney to start (by the way nice win by UT yesterday...is that coach gonna work out there afterall? Him AND the coach for Auburn NOT looking so bad now, are they!???) while other players are coming up to me and making snide remarks about him. Wanting me to pile on, return something ugly. And you know? I just don't have it in me. Why? What is it going to solve? Hell, maybe I'm finally growing up a little. Thing about it...is that I spent 4 years of playing poker REALLY liking and respecting Johnny, and Ken as well. I mean...its kind of like, I guess, spending your whole life worshipping Michael Jordan, and then one day turning on the news and seeing that he had done something you would have NEVER imagined him doing. And you are left there just feeling, I don't know...EMPTY. Right? Not mad. Not hurt. Not anything you can really put a finger on. Just EMPTY.

So when all this recent crap went down over there, and I was subsequently invited to NOT go play poker there until further notice...all centered around THIS blog...I didn't even know what or how to feel. I was just empty. So yesterday, sitting there...looking at a guy who was one of my heroes in the poker tourney world for so long...and was just kind of like...well, okay, what should I do? Should I walk over there and say hi? Make an attempt to break the ice? Would that make me a better man? Or would it come off looking like a desperate attempt to get myself back into the Beau? I don't know. Am I over thinking this? Am I a retard? So I just elected to not do anything. And that, falls into that petty category. As does all the hate mongerers who insist that I lash out. Stupid. Just stupid.

So I guess my point on that is this. Suppose we were on the same plane, like one of those smaller ones that you always have to fly on when you are taking that short flight to Atlanta, before connecting to a 'real' plane that takes you to somewhere like Vegas. Suppose our plane went down. Johnny was in seat 3a. Monkey was in seat 14b. Upon crashing...we both survive. But there are dead people all around us. And among them there are several others injured and needing to be saved. Do you think for ONE SECOND that Johnny and I wouldn't immediately risk our lives, and work as a team...to save all those people? And when that horrible day was over...where would we be then? We would be linked for the rest of our lives by that single event. People would call us heroes. Which I think is stupid. I don't understand that label sometimes. In life...when certain situations arise...you just DO THE RIGHT THING. People who DONT do that? What are they? Fucking cowards? Yeah. That is kind of a deviation from my point, I know...sorry. But any way...point being, this gap that exists between us right now is ridiculous. In the grand scheme of things, as to our relevance in the world? I'm a silly ass poker player and he is a guy who manages me and my other silly ass poker player friends and foes. And yet, there is this stupid divide between us. 

Don't get me wrong, I'm really NOT hoping that him and I go down on a plane together! I just really hope that we can turn the corner on all this and go back to being buddies and working WITH each other to put out a good product. I have no ill will towards either of those guys over there. At all. I just think its a matter of truly understanding one another.

At the end of the night, I actually walked into the Beau for the first time since this all happened a couple months ago. We went to the club in there, Coast...to hang out with Squirrel's girlfriends from work. It was nice to see a lot of the BR crowd. And it was fun to see all the various costumes.

So as I was getting started in the Omaha tourney I was occassionally taking note of his stack...wondering what it would be like if we got pitted at the same table together. How would that go? I was anxious to see. And apprehensive. It never happened though. He got pretty deep...got a feeling he just never could get that one big pot that you need in these things.

On the other hand...I was just kind of hanging around. Then I got really short again, just like the other night. Get a great hand...and scoop it for a double up. Win a couple more nice hands. Then had a huge hand where I kind of had to gamble...and got VERY lucky on a guy...to get a clean double up. That pot alone would propel me to another Final Table. I was pysched!

The problem is that it was only paying 5. So I had to be careful not to screw myself. I will just cut to the chase here, as this entry is getting long again. I would make it into the money. Yah! The guy I got heads up with the night before would again make the Final Table. His name is George, and he lives in Citonelle I think he said. Really a great guy. Well, he had his own cool little shot...and surprised me with a round for just him and I. Well... unfortunately, he didn't make it into the money. But he's such a good sport, I really don't think he cared. I think he is one of those guys who is pretty well off, and just plays the game for the love of playing the game. Really a great disposition this guy had.

A gal we all know, Maria...who either dates or is married ( I know I should KNOW this) to Tony...also made the Final Table with us..and she would fall short. But just as she always does, she handled it with a lot of class. You guys might remember me blogging some months ago about that guy at Hard Rock, in the cash game that one night...named Bob, who reminded exactly of the character 'Bob' in the sitcom 'Becker.' I think I knocked him out to get into the money.

Well, at four handed we all decided to give the chipleader $4000 (first place was $4200) and each take $1800...but to play it out so we could actually finish where we finished. Some of us actually LIKE WINNING! ;) It was a bit of a pain in the ass for the tournament director, because officially, I think...if you agree to a deal, its supposed to end. So we kind of had to 'pretend' that the deal was off! We all just got paid what we got paid and waited around til the end. Then got the money right, and then all tipped out the dealers (and some of us the floor...again, wink wink). This guy had a bazillion chips..probably 80% of the chips in play...exactly like me the night before.

At 4-handed I got a chance to run out to my car to get my two crystal monkeys, the ones who only come out for Final Tables. They missed out the night before. I had my Monkey beads working already! When I got back I was totally surprised by the presence of my TOTALLY hot wife! She was dressed in her sexy pirate costume. She was with Claw...or Count Clawcula! She was a vampire. Squirrel looked so doggone good. When she went to the bathroom I stared at her the whole way and a guy at the table said "You know you married right when you still catch yourself staring at your wife when she walks away!" Amen brother.

At three-handed, I raise pot on the button against the guy who was 3rd in chips...but not much. He goes all in on me. I have KK23...double suited. I am pretty much priced in, and am guessing he just has a nut low draw...that I am probably just fading an ace...and hoping NOT to have a low come out. I am dead on with my read. I think his hand was A3JQ. If not exact..more or less. The first four cards out were 9-3-10-9. NICE! His King for the straight is dead. He can only hit an 8 or an ace. There is NO low draw. I have a chance to whack him right here and get heads up for another win...with the guy who has that mountain of chip. Ironically he was also in the same seat I was in the night before...seat 8. Must be the lucky Final Table seat!

Well, we all know the guy hit an ace on the river right? Yeah. Left me with very little, though I WOULD double up on the next hand, giving me hope. But I got creamed on the next hand, and was out. In third place. Not too shabby. I didn't win, but I know that I have won a lot of respect from my poker peers, and that feels damn good. Today, I am going back at 4pm to see what I can do in the Stud tourney. Now, I happen to think my stud game is pretty sharp. And it is the ONE game where it pays to be sober, and as I try not to EVER drink on Sundays if I can help it, its a perfect day for Stud!

I gotta hand it to Sterling and Sommerfeld on the planning on today's tourney schedule. Very clever. Its Sunday, the day after Halloween. How many drunken, hungover players are there out there today? Im guessing...maybe a couple! So what did they schedule for the noon tourney today? The Seniors event! Brilliant! Doubt that the old-timers were out trick-or-treating or chasing tail last night! And speaking of that...their was some serious tail out there last night! Wow! But I had the finest! (another wink wink!) So anyway...yeah, perfect day for the Seniors tourney. And then, Stud at 4? Stud is a game that a lot of the old timers cut their teeth on...so you will find a lot of older people playing that game. So if they do bust in the Seniors, that is right up their alley. Good job on the planning boys! Unfortunately for those old guys...they are gonna have to wrestle with a very fine young stud player named Tim Burt...and my stupid ass! Good luck!!!!

Wow. Right off the bat today in the NFL....PHILLY 16-0 over NYG and SF 7-0 over INDY! Could this be the week when everything goes crazy in the NFL???? I hope so!

I hope you all had a great weekend, or are HAVING a great weekend. If you have kids, I hope Halloween went off without a hitch! Another reason I wish I had kids....they are so dang cute in their little costumes. But for now...its just me and my 'kids' Mollie and Jasper.

MONKEY