BILOXI Update from the I.P.

I am very tired. It is Saturday morning. Got in at 2am. Took a hot bath to soak the ugliness off of me.


I am going to be brief today. I think so anyway. Just finished making my 'Confidence Pool' picks...last minute again. Missed winning the pool ($300 weekly prize) last week on the basis of Tony Romo getting killed and Dallas losing. Tony also cost me my Fantasy Football matchup by getting injured. It was a fabulous week for all things monkey-related in football. NOT!

We have two days in the books at the IP. A few observations:

The tournament room and final table area looks great.

They have assembled a nice crew of dealers and floor people.

The tournament structures for the nooners are fantastic.

The chips are still the same set of 'bad times' IP chips that all look white...that they have been telling us they are going to replace, going on four years now. Figured they would for this event, since it's a WSOP circuit event. But...nope.

We are playing 10-handed, despite an abundance of tables and dealers. Hate 10-handed. Especially in the south...where 35% of the players are fat, 25% of them stink like shit, and 20% of them sit and chew tobacco...which always illicits a gag reflex in me. By the way...its supposed to be against the rules to dip at the table. Maybe they could start enforcing that before I throw up on one of my fellow players, or the table.

The SNG's are very, very strange. They are only spreading 4 categories...and three of them are a joke.

$45, $65, and $125....and in all of them...you get a total of 1000 in starting chips with which to play with. This is like back to 3 or 4 years ago. I don't get it. No one gets it. No good players are winning those, they take a ton of juice...and by level 3 they are a crapshoot. Why even play them?

In the 4th...it's a $180. And you get...ready? 5000 chips! Huh? And 20 minute levels. The catch? Its a one-winner, must-take seat into the Main. Ahhhh...I see...its a creation to ramp up entries in the Main. So this is a great play if you win one early, get your seat out of the way...then you can play them for $1600 in chips from then on.





Yeah, I should have won my first yesterday. But Garrett Jones...he of the mysterious no face on Facebook, and the constant wall posts that run on for hours sometimes...who likes to tell me and the world everything he has won...well, he was discovered this week. Credit goes to Michael Hallen. He decides he needs to be in a $200 last longer with me. So in this SNG I have a $100 last longer with the table and $200 with him. With 5 left...and me sitting on a decent stack I raise with AA utg. He calls in the BB with Q-10. He check raises me all in on a flop of Q-J-7. And of course, he rivers a Q. Lovely. So instead of crippling him...and having a massive chip lead...I was out.

It's kind of been like that the first two days. In the first nightly...a $225 to win $2000 in buy-in chips. I raised with AQd....got min-raised by AA...and flopped Q-7-6. Went broke.

In the nooner yesterday...a guy limps in with QQ. I raise on the button with 77. He flats my raise. The flop comes Q-7-Q. Neither of us bet it until the river...then it got nasty...and it all got in. And I went bye bye. Nice cooler. But also a nice play by my opponent. Credit to him.

In another sit n go, Mitch, and older guy who always wears a cool fedora, and who I like a lot...decides to push over my button raise...me with A10, him with A5. Dealer gives him a five. I left that one.

In the nightly last night...Neal, I think its Neal Hunt...who used to be my good luck dealer...once upon a time, cracks my QQ against 10-10...flops him a 10. But that didn't kill me. I went on a bit of a heater, raising incessantly on the bubble, and making the money...before cutoff raised with 68off...to 5100...and couldnt seem to fold to my 14,600 all in with A10 suited on the button...gives him an 8 and I was out...winning a whopping $259 on my $125 buy in.

I did manage to win my final SNG of the night...a $65 job, with a $20 last longer. It was a collection of some of the weirdest guys I've seen in awhile, and in the middle of it, I caught myself texting Kai Landry looking for some point of reality. He just made it worse...as I'm pretty sure I caught him in one of his Ambien induced mind-melds. By the way Kai...total money spent on hotel in Chicago was $908. Not sure what the car cost...but there is my side. Was going to repeat some of what he said...but notice I just deleted it.

Basically, I took a picture of these two guys at my table...sent it to him...and listened to him ramble on about what he saw. No...I am not going to post it here. I like my freedom at I.P. But one of them had NO NECK at all...weighed about 420 I think. Sporting a Bama t-shirt...he played maybe three hands...all of which he raised 8x the BB...all but one of which...he missed his AK/AQ and folded after the flop.

The other guy...he was a real honey. Wearing a t-shirt that said "Who dat? Who dat? Who dat say dey gonna beat dem Saints? Super Bowl blah blah blah....Final Score 31-17" One of those shirts that has way too much going on. Hate shirts like that. And this guy....whew...you know when you try to talk to your dog...and they just sit there looking back at you, head cocked to the side? Confused? That was this guy. Except he was also kind of like a deer in the headlights. You would raise...and he would sit there perplexed, before acting on his hand.

The $65 SNG's are hilarious. I don't play them thinking I am going to win. I play them out of sheer boredom, lack of anything else to do...and as a case study on the human condition. Oh...and to give you guys something to laugh about. Whenever I do manage to win one of them...no one is more surprised than I am.

One thing we have been blessed with. Allen isn't working the SNG area...so we don't have to listen to his 'frustrated strip club DJ' voice on the microphone. No sooner do I say this than I expect to see him there today.

Big day today in college football. We still need some things to shake out for Bama to get back into title contention. And here is what we need today...though I won't make any bold predictions like I did last week. Going 3-0 last week is going to make this week pretty tough to try and duplicate. We need Oregon to lose to USC. We need Nebraska to beat unbeaten Missouri at home...who was nice enough to beat Oklahoma for us last week. Thanks Mizzou. Then, we need Iowa...coming off a tough loss to Wisconsin last week...to knock off unbeaten Michigan State...who SHOULD have lost last week, but pulled off a miraculous come from behind win. And it wouldn't hurt if Utah lost to Air Force...and then go and beat TCU next week or whenever they play them. So then hopefully, when the Tide rolls down to Baton Rouge next week...they should just need to batter the Tigers...and set up what could be a #1 vs. #2 battle between the Tide and Auburn. Yep...I got this all figured out!!!

I got a new iTouch the day before the IP event began to replace the iPod I either lost or had stolen. Oh boy...what a fun little toy this thing is! I guess its just like an iPhone but without the phone feature. If you are in a place that has free wi-fi...like the IP does...you can sit at the table and really entertain yourself. I've been watching movies on NetFlix, accessing my Facebook, watching YouTube videos, today I will monitor all the scores. What a great piece of technology this thing is. Wow! I wonder if there is a way to subscribe to some form of internet access on it when you arent in a free wi-fi accessible area?

Oh...pretty sure I got a valet guy fired. Or rather, pretty sure he got himself fired. I got a call from some lady in management yesterday, who I never got back to...cuz I was in a hand when she called and forgot to call her back. For starters, I should have never parked in I.P.'s valet. For all the things about I.P. that I do like...they have got, hands down, the WORST valet in America...maybe the world. I walk up to hand the guy my ticket, and he is macking on this girl...this was a black on black affair, so clearly, I was going to have to wait til he was done dropping his smack on this 'shorty' before I got to give him my ticket.

He tells her 'I will have yo car down to you in 5 minutes or so.' Then he takes my ticket, tells me..."it will be about the same on yours....10 minutes.' Huh? I remind him that he just told her it would be about 5 minutes...then told me it would be 'about the same' on mine.

"Oh...well, you know...maybe it will be 15." WTF? Hey, pal...not sure what your problem is, but lets not play a game of chicken with my car okay? I've had a long day, and just want to go home. Didn't mean to break up your epidode of the 'Dating Game' but it IS your job to retrieve my car. And in return for that I usually leave an above average tip.

We had words. He calls security, and tries talking all tough. Only one problem. It wasn't security. It was his boss. Another problem. I wasn't saying anything to inflame matters. He was. He was rambling on like a crackhead. And at one point, offered to 'take his lunch break' and meet me outside. I just stood there, kind of in astonishment, and kind of laughing. Then I asked him if he would like a shovel. He didn't get it. For once, I felt like society finally was functioning properly, because seated in the waiting area were four other people....ALL black. And guess what? They all had my back! Yeah! I know! A couple of them told the valet manager that the guy was totally out of line...and that I had not said ANYTHING inappropriate.

It felt pretty good to FINALLY have things go the way they are supposed to go when something like this happens. I really didn't think this idiot thought he could lose. It gets so bad, and so stupid, in the south sometimes...that I really think that as long as its two opposite races in a dispute, the white guy always loses, due to the politicizing of everything now. I don't know, could things be changing? Or were the planets just lined up correctly that night? We can hope. I also hope that jackass loses his job.

I played some cash game the first night after losing early in that first tourney. I lasted about 42 minutes before boredom and complete disdain for my table mates set in. Then I left.

I really want to win a ring. And this is a good event to make it happen. The fields are going to be a lot smaller than Chicago. Yesterday we got 288. I kind of expected more. No telling what we will get today. Luckily I already bought in...so no lines to fight with.

Think I'm done for today. Thanks for another good month. With today and tomorrow still to go, you have all probably made this the 2nd best month as far as total hits go on this blog in 2+ years. Gonna be tough to top last month. Tomorrow is Halloween....also known as my brother's birthday. Also known as the anniversary of my first OUTRIGHT win...when, wearing a gorilla costume, I won the $50k Guarantee here at IP...was that last year? Or the year before? Must have been the year before I guess. I don't know...I'm getting old, and seem to forget more than I can remember these days. I just know that I will probably go visit that costume shop down the street from the I.P. and show up in something 'festive' tomorrow on Halloween. And maybe even bring a bucket of candy for you trick-or-treaters that should come by my table.

MONKEY