Bring on St. Louis.....

I have arrived to the 'Gateway to the West.'

First time in my life I have ever been to St. Louis. I have really been looking forward to this trip.

I spent all week doing things around the house. Really got my life caught up in the last two weeks. Got my property taxes paid, my hospital bills all paid, wrote my father a letter and sent him a birthday card...and finally got that backyard and patio project completed.

Then, as I was about halfway thru my drive up here, and Squirrel was getting home from work, she called to tell me that Mollie had been digging again. Unreal. How can you love a dog so much and then be stuck in that spot where you want to wring her neck? Its unmistakeable that her digging is due in large part to seperation anxiety. I don't know what to do about it. But if I go home and that yard is trashed after the 15 hours of labor I put into it I'm going to lose my mind!

I rented 4 movies from Red Box for the drive. Outside of Baton Rouge I stopped off at my buddy Charlie "Smoke" Olivers for a little visit. At one point a couple of those gigantic mosquitoe-looking bugs were in his house and we got into this debate about whether those things are actually mosquitoes, if they are in the mosquitoe family...or if they just look like them? He suggested I pose the question on here...since so many of you gulf coasters probably know the answer to this very important question!

I left Baton Rouge...and fired up a few screens on Pokerstars and slapped in a movie. About 15 minutes in...and after having already doubled up in a SNG...I get AA behind 4 limpers for 100. It's Pokerstars...whats enough to raise here? Probably need to go all in! Well, I'll gamble and only make it 500!  I get....ahem, FOUR calls. Hey! Whatever you bozos do, dont one of you go all in to isolate or anything. Everyone just CALL off a third or more of your chips. Felt pretty good when the flop came A-K-4 rainbow. Felt even better when the guy behind me goes all in for 2450...which had me covered by 100. I call, of course, and see a set of 4's. Hmmm...okay, what's Pokerstars gonna do this time? Give him fucking quads? Well...guess what the turn card was? Yeah...a four! I was out of that one. I would get creamed like that left and right for 400 miles...buying in for $6.50, $11 and $16 in everything I played...occassionally losing my signal...until I was down $180 on the drive. Then...near the end, I pick up a couple of 4th places in $11/45 SnG's and then actually win one. Yeah...they let me win on. For $154. And so...I ended up turning a ROBUST (thats a joke) profit of $34! Giddy-up!

I thought there was a noon tournament today, which is why I left Biloxi at about 3 yesterday. But after driving for about an hour...one of my buddies from Indiana called me and I learned that today's tourney is only the 7pm tourney...the nooners start tomorrow (Friday) which meant I could take my time getting up here, which I did.

I was originally going to stay at LaQuinta Inn..for $49 a night. The Harrah's has no deal for poker players. In fairness, they don't need to. They are close to 100% occupancy all the time, and their poker tournament is going to draw well anyway...so I guess if I were the hotel manager I'd be like..."hey...fuck giving a huge discount to poker players!"

So my buddy was staying at Wingate for $69 a night. I thought I would get clever and call and see if they do 'price matching' for their competitors. They did! So I reserved a room at Wingate instead. King size bed, microwave, refridgerator, safe. A/C that works. Spacious room, closet space. I couldnt be happier...at $49 a night. And only half a mile from the casino. And they offer a shuttle from her. Not that I won't drive...but its nice for those of you thinking about coming up here.

I got unloaded, unpacked...and tried to catch a few hours of sleep. It was going well, until 'The Claw' (Claudia Crawford to those of you who havent been reading this for a long time) called demanding Kai Landry's phone number...so once that happended, I was up for good. So now I will bang out my first blog in a while...and then head over for the nightly tourney and maybe some SNG's if that doesnt go well. I'm excited to see the turnout. I'm hearing nothing but optimistic forcasts.

On another note...there is another tourney going on down on the Gulf Coast this week. The Beau Rivage. My boy Dan Walsh won a nightly tourney...happy for him. He needed that, with a new baby in the house and all. I'm hearing from a lot of you about the turnout there and the structures. I won't comment too much about it...some things just kind of speak for themselves. I will just wish you all luck down there.  LUCK!

The I.P. has a tourney coming up after this one. I was initially pretty excited about it. After the fall event, and talking with Jim Sterling away from the poker room, I really thought they were going to put on a great event...promote it well...and attract a lot of players...which I thought, for them and for poker on the gulf coast, would be a great thing. Then I found out they got approval to run not ONE, but TWO WSOP circuit events out of there. Which is HUGE for them. These past tourneys havent been WSOP circuit events, but there has been some tie ins. What its been has been a satellite event, where they offer freerolls and/or satellite tourneys into the WSOP Main Event. Well these upcoming events, dates to be learned later, WILL be WSOP circuit events...which SHOULD mean they will draw well.

So I was hoping they would use that news...and the desire for local players to attend an event with a killer structure...to engineer a great event this month. But when I saw the structure I was kind of shocked. Now I just wonder what kind of player field shows up. And while all that is going on, The Borgata has a big tourney going on up in Atlantic City. So, as much as Squirrel wants me sticking close to home...and as much as I would like to STAY close to home...and represent the Gulf Coast...I just refuse to sit and dawdle in player fields of 50-100. Its pointless. I'm tired of playing for $6000-$10,000. Its a waste of time. I want to take stabs at $50,000 and up. With relatively low buys in...say $300 to $1000. Dropping $200 or $300, sitting down with 71 players...and slugging it out for $6200? I just can't do it anymore with any real passion.

March Madness is almost over. The Final Four is in Indianapolis...which, after looking at the map on my GPS while driving up here, is very close by. Maybe I will win Friday or Saturday's tourney here...get some guys together, and drive to Indy and try to get some tickets to Monday night's game. I think anyone who didnt attend or have deep ties to Duke, WV, or Michigan State has GOT to be rooting for Butler. Am I wrong. I think you have to just LOVE the parity in college hoops this year. I have bricked both of March Madness Pools...a LOT of brackets too...kaput, another year. Kentucky crushed my hopes and dreams. I have sold out 81 of my 100 squares in my $50 board for the Title Game. I guess I need to get that done! Then next week is my Masters Pool. That is a ton of work. Ugh. I need to get that done too.

Been trying like hell to get my housing situation in Vegas locked down. But there have been a lot of issues, like...shortages of houses out there to rent...and then last week, all of my housemates just kind of disintegrated. For various reasons...I am left now with just Joe Cutler and I. And he wants to be blocks from the strip...which makes it even harder. I have another buddy, Matt Murse, who was a housemate in 2008 when we had all the issues at our house...who has been looking for and finding a lot of possible hosues to rent. He seems to be finding a LOT too, and has 3 or 4 guys interested in doing a house. So...hopefully everything will work out. I don't know any of his guys I don't think...and yeah, I was really looking forward to the summer with Joe, and Jason Young and Christian Iacobellis and maybe Kai Landry...but now I might be doing with some other guys. So...well, maybe I make some new poker friends? Never a bad thing I guess.

I guess I will try to keep this initial entry short. The structures on the $300 tourneys up here are pretty bad...similar to the ones I just played in Reno last month...but...and this is a BIG but...the $550's, the $1080, and their Main Event...have got KILLER structures! So its going to be weird...because these $330's or whatever the juice is!!! are going to have these HUGE fields...but with relatively bad structures...so I'm really not sure how to approach them. Probably go in to them and play super, super tight....and just outlast about 70% of the field...then try to 'do work' in the later rounds. There will be a shit load of chips in play...so if I can accumulate chips later rather than earlier...I should be able to outlast the structure...and once we get into level 10 and deeper, we should all have a LOT of big blinds. Lets see if this strategy works or not!

I will try to give you guys another update in a day or two! Hope you all are getting a chance to enjoy the great weather we are having down south the last couple of weeks. I think we are getting rain this weekend, which I NEED for my new sod! But not much to make your weekend's brighter, huh? So here's an idea....come and MEET ME IN ST LOUIS!!!!

MONKEY