Last Table At Binion's

Since I now live in So Cal, I usually play live at the Commerce Casino or at the Bike, depending on my mood. If I’m going to be playing late at night, I usually go to the Commerce, where drunken maniacs make it an interesting experience. The thing I love most about CC is the Boba drinks they sell (open until 2AM also); I am addicted to Taro Milk Teas and can’t recommend them enough. One night, I came rolling in after visiting my now ex-girlfriend in Orange County (hi Natasha!) and just missed the boba cutoff. Since I was already there, I decided to jump into game of $2/4 LHE and wait for the stand to reopen. I’ve never played with a more motley assortment of characters in my life than that table. There were only 2 tables going when I sat down, and the contrast between them was hilarious. Our table was rowdy, wild and full of lousy players just there for a good time or trying to work off a tequila buzz. The other table was seriously quiet, only talking when there was a quarrel going on (and there were several). I was having some serious ups and downs due to the wild nature of my table and had to visit the ATM for a reload (I began to question my hobby when I looked at my watch and saw it was 4:30AM and then read the “Are You A Problem Gambler?” sign posted about the cash machine that talked about setting limits). I went on a nice run and recouped my initial buy-in and continued to enjoy the banter and personalities at my table, while the other table was beginning to resemble a funeral procession. At one point, the guy sitting next to me looked over at the somber proceedings and commented, “That looks like the Last Table At Binion’s”, upon which our table burst out laughing; the other table gave us dirty looks, as they somehow knew we were laughing at them.

Eventually, their table broke up and several of their players ended up at ours. This one particularly bitter woman began to berate everybody for their bad play and the dealers for their lousy skills and talked about how she’d been playing for 20+ years and that Commerce was the worst casino in LA. I asked her why the hell she was playing there if it was so bad and moreover, why was she still playing $1/2 if she was such an “expert player”? So, of course, I became her favorite target at the table. This prompted me and the guy to my right to incessantly abuse her every time she lost a hand, and eventually, the whole table was ganging up on her. After even more unpleasantries between the two of is, I got up to use the bathroom. Unlike Dr. Pauly, there were no famous poker pros urinating next to me, unless you count the old codger wearing a Gardena Club hat. When I came back, the evil bitch was in a major argument with the floorwoman (person?) and this culminated in her forcible removal from the casino. After she returned, I asked her what happened; it turned out that she’d gotten in a huge abusive argument with the floorperson (woman?) two weeks before and had been banned from the casino. When she came on duty at 7AM, the floor told her to get the hell out of the casino and that’s when the argument started. The whole table cheered the floor, and it made it a much more pleasant experience.
For some reason (gambling addiction), I stayed all morning, waiting for the boba stand to open. The last two hours of play, in which I consumed three Taro Milk Teas and a Lychee Slush (yum!), saw me hovering around a $10 loss for the session. Around noon, I was the last person standing from the earlier group at my table, so nobody realized how long I’d been there (over ten hours). I hit back to back boats and now had over $100 in profit. When the blinds came around, I got up; this old guy looks up at me and says, “Oh, one of those hit and run artists, huh”. I just said, “Yep!”, cashed out and drove home in a state of mind that can only be described as somewhere between coked up Henry Hill in “Goodfellas” and Tony Montana when he shoots the hitman toward the end of “Scarface”. Boba Teas are the only way to fly!

Who Am I? Why Am I Here?

I promised autobiographical material, so I figured I’d try to keep my promise. Here are my basics (this is going to sound like a personal ad; nothing makes me want to stay single forever like reading the LA area Yahoo Personals):

I’m 36 years old, a dude, born and raised in Santa Clarita, CA. Growing up, I was a typical underachiever, focused on geek stuff like videogames and AD&D instead of school. Consequently, I did well on my college boards but had a 2.0 GPA in high school. To punish myself, I joined the Army. I lived in Germany, had buku adventures, drank, caroused, got laid for the first time, and generally wasted mass quantities of brain cells. I came back to So Cal, went to Cal State Northridge, moved in with my girlfriend, fucked off school, went crazy, broke up with my fiancée, dated one of her friends (we didn’t meet until after we broke up; I’m no playa), and then got a job offer in Chicago. I took my girlfriend, fell in love with Chicago (she didn’t), got married, came back to California (another big mistake), and ended up in San Jose. I lasted up there until I got laid off and then my wife and I moved down to Pismo Beach. I went to work in the wine industry, which was great for a social drinker/borderline alky like me. It wasn’t great for my wife, who drove me insane, so we split up; I moved down to Santa Ynez and basically lived the movie Sideways long before it came out (wild trivia: the building I lived in was used as the HQ for the crew on that movie; I moved out during the filming and missed my chance at film stardom playing an extra; they also filmed the scenes at “Frass Canyon” at the winery where I worked – Fess Parker).

While in Santa Ynez, I lived next to and started playing poker at the Chumash Casino; I made it to the final table at my first limit Hold ‘Em tournament (although they had an annoying format where the final table was NL and was real money; I was awful at NL so some old sharpie sucked me out and took all my winnings). I was hooked. Since then, I’ve played a ton of live and online games and now play $3-6 limit primarily. I’ve done pretty well in tourneys, but between school, work and other annoying things (like life), I don’t get to play that often. Lately, I’ve been playing a lot of Stud 8b and PLO and even Razz, so I hope to one day win the WSOP H.O.R.S.E. event (if they ever bring it back). Poker appeals to my masochistic nature, so I am hooked for life. Okay, that’s enough about me.

Coming soon: Part 2 – More About Me

Time To Relaunch

Okay, I think it's time to relaunch this "blog". I haven't been updating this thing for two main reasons: one, I have a 28.8 (best case scenario) connection at home in the boondocks, and two, I am one lazy ass bastard. But, I have slowly become a motivated lazy ass bastard, and I really need some kind of creative outlet. So, hopefully, I will update this thing regularly, some people might stumble upon it, and I'll be instantly revered as one of the blogging cognoscenti, women will flock to my mansion in rural Fillmore, CA, and I will end up writing for a major media outlet (my dream is to write the headlines for Weekly World News or about old videogames for The Onion A.V. Club - damn that Wil Wheaton, he has my dream job already). So, without further adieu, here is my new blog "Declaration of Principles" (feel free to print and keep them in case they become an important document someday):

1. I will publish an entry at least three times a week
2. While this site will mainly be about my poker misadventures, I reserve the right to talk about anything I feel like talking about. You have the right to click on the X in the corner of the screen (can't blame you either).
3. I promise not to publish hand histories or bad beat stories (very often).
4. I will try not to hit up the single women reading my blog for dates, but I will offer them some nice wine from my "cellar" if they forgive me for breaking this rule.
5. I promise to make you laugh as often as possible, although it'll probably be with contempt for my feeble attempts at humor.
6. Free The West Memphis Three

Next up: my autobiography (at least the poker part of it)

WPBT H.O.R.S.E Tourney

Although this "blog" is woefully rusting away, I decided that since I definitely qualify as a reader, I would go ahead and play the latest WPBT event on Full Tilt. I had planned on playing all week, but my scene partner from acting class showed up at the last minute and almost ruined those plans. Luckily, the weather turned really bad, and she had a panic attack about being trapped out here at the "mansion" aka the boondocks; at 5:55, she freaks and starts to stress out about crashing into the quarry ravine that one must travel through to reach my pad. I asked her to wait one minute and ran downstairs at breakneck speed, logged on to Full Tilt and entered with one minute to spare. Then, I ran back upstairs, told her to get out and settled in for the rocky ride. Rocky, indeed. I've played all of the H.O.R.S.E games at one point and am pretty decent in O and S, but the R and E always kick my ass. I despise those games. So, my game plan was to play aggressively in Hold 'Em, relatively tight in O8B and Stud, and UBERTIGHT in the others. Things went well until about level 12, when I stupidly abandoned my successful strategy (I was in 7th place at this point) and decided to play Razz. Moron! My stack dwindled from the mid 4,000s to $1800 faster than you can say AAA23. Some of my Razz hands would have won me a lot of dough at the Stud tables. Stud went badly, as every starting hand I had turned to complete and utter shite. And then came S8B. I announced to my friends watching, "That's it, I'm not playing until Hold Em!" And I made good on my promise - until the very last hand of E. I got (TT)9 with two suited cards. This shortstack to my right bets out, so I raise...everybody folds around until the chip leader, who I had just implored to stay out of the hand, raises me. At this point, I figure I am pot committed and besides, the CL was representing a low. So, I figured , raise it up. Things looked up on 4th street, when I hit another 9 but nothing touched me after that. So, showdown, and the chip leader turns over rolled up Aces and a higher two pair. Hello 37th place. All in all, I loved this tourney and for $5, it was one hell of a time. My only complaint about the tourney was the rapid expansion in blinds. It was difficult to even get involved in the lowball games after the first 5 levels, and although I am definitely not an expert in them, I would have enjoyed a little more action before it got too expensive. I have really grown to love the Full Tilt interface, and it works really well with my 28.8 dial up connection (seriously, I live in the boondocks). The players aren't as fishy as those at Party, but the variance hasn't been as bad either; thus, less tilt for me and I still have my bankroll (compared to the void that is my Party Poker account). I am actually enjoying stealing a lot of pots in limit, because these guys are the tightest low-limit players I've ever seen. I rarely see a $1-2 table go to a flop with more than 4 players if there's a raise.

Anyway, a big thanks to Iggy for putting this tourney up, and I hope this is the first of many blogger tourneys I enter (and hopefully, the last where I only consider myself a reader).

A Subject Far More Important Than Poker

Before I get to poker-oriented stuff, I really need to sound off about a subject much more important than pocket Aces getting cracked by 7-4 offsuit. Maybe you've heard about the West Memphis Three, the subjects of the award-winning documentary "Paradise Lost: The Child Murders At Robin Hood Hills" and the book "The Devil's Knot", but if you haven't, then I hope I can help to increase your awareness. There's a website, www.wm3.org, that can do a much better job of explaining the full details of the case, but I want to tell you how I feel about this situation. First, a short summary for those too lazy to click on that link above. In 1993, three eight-year old boys were abducted and murdered in the town of West Memphis, Arkansas (a truck stop town right over the border from the Tennessee home of Graceland, bar-b-q and rivers that claim the lives of drunken folk-rock singers); the murders were particularly cruel and brutal, exhibiting the signatures of a sexually-sadistic offender(s). Almost any rational police department would have been on the lookout for a suspect with multiple offenses of sexual brutality (one of the boys was raped and castrated), as the murders were obviously the work of someone quite efficient in their vocation. Unfortunately, the early 90s was an era when "Satanic Panics" were quite in vogue, especially in small towns in the South, where a dead cat brought home by a coyote was likely to be attributed to Satanic Cult sacrifice instead of the more rational possibilities. Anyway, this Salem-like atmosphere led many to conclude that these were Satanic murders, and through a very F$&*&D up set of circumstances, fingers pointed out to three teenagers in the community. One of the teenagers, Damien Echols, was long suspected of Satanic activity by some of the medieval-minded members of the community, and his friend Jessie Miskelley, with a mid-70s IQ and no legal counsel, "confessed" to the crimes (read the site for details on this joke of a confession). Charlie Manson would have received a more-balanced trial, so you can surmise what happened. Damien, whose sole crime was wearing black, reading books by Stephen King and Alistair Crowley and listening to Metallic, was cast as the "Dark Overlord" by the prosecution and was sentenced to the gallows, or chair, or guilliotine or whatever middle-ages killing method they use in Arkansas. The other two, Jason Baldwin and Jessie, got off with a lighter sentence, since they only have to spend the rest of their lives in prison. Sweet, huh.

Oh, in case you're thinking that I'm another bleeding-heart liberal who can't ever believe that they got the right guys, you're quite wrong. In fact, after seeing the documentary, I researched the case thoroughly to avoid this trap. After several years of studying everything available, I've never been more convinced that the right guy(s) are sitting at home phoning in their votes to American Idol while three innocent, now almost 30-year olds, are spending their prime years in the Arkansas penal system, while their appeals drag on and on. Okay, enough background...back to my original point, which was why I (and you) should even care about this case.

I call this case the "Anti-OJ" story. In the OJ trial, you had smoking guns up the wazoo, motive, means, circumstancial evidence and behavior that exhibited guilt in every fashion. Yet, OJ proved that money, good lawyers and fame could snowblind a jury, and proving once and for all that a black man COULD get a fair trial in this country (as long as he was the right sort of black man). Contrarily, the West Memphis Three consisted of dirt poor, anonymous, uneducated white boys who couldn't afford any defense and therefore received some of the worst representation that no money could buy. With absolutely ZERO physical evidence tying them to the crime, no eyewitnesses to the murders and no compelling motive other than a far-fetched Satanic Cult theory, the prosecution managed to get three convictions, including a death sentence, because these people were everything OJ wasn't. Justice didn't matter nearly as much as offering up sacrificial lambs so the rattled nerves of the West Memphis citizenry could be settled. This case sickens me more than I can express here, because I just can't believe that the legal system in this modern age could allow such an egregious travesty of justice; Reverend Paris and his cronies in Salem couldn't have been prouder of their modern-day compadres in West Memphis.

However, as tragic as this case is, it's not too late for the West Memphis Three. Time is ticking away, as these men have been imprisoned for more than a decade. Appeals are underway, and DNA testing is finally being done on the evidence. But there are people whose careers were made by these convictions, and they will stop at nothing to ensure that the WM3 never see the light of day. Why does this matter to you? Well, if you were ever an iconoclast in your society, choosing a path that your peers couldn't quite understand, if you had a spiked mohawk during the disco era, if you voted for someone other than the major candidates, if you ever drank RC Cola or drove a Gremlin, then you can relate to Damien, Jason and Jessie. These were guys who walked along the train tracks in trenchcoats, dyed their hair black, read books that scared their neighbors and hated sports in a society that deemed any or all of those activites dangerous. And, when the opportunity arose, their society found an excuse to blame them for acts they couldn't understand; someone had to pay, and if not the true perpetrators then why not some of the other usual suspects. If you thought the Salem Witch Trials were some event in our nation's ancient past or just a nice symbol for political oppression, then think again. It has, and can, happen again; next time, maybe they'll be looking at you, or your kid who dyes his hair pink, or some friend of yours who reads the wrong book in the wrong part of town. Follow the link, read everything you can, watch the documentaries and read the book, and if you have any rationality in your body, then you too will pledge to Free the West Memphis Three!

Oh yeah...another poker-oriented Blog

Voiceover (in best Trailer Dude voice): "In a world of poker blogs, one man has to fight to survive."

Yeah, I know exactly what you're saying, "There's so many poker blogs out there that I just don't have time for another." I can live with the rejection, since my raison d'etre for this blog is purely selfish. People always ask me what I want to do with my life, and I respond that I want to be a writer of some sort (or I did, before I began telling them that I want to be a professional poker player - I'm not sure which long-shot pipe dream they scoff at more). But, when I analyze my writing habits, I realize that I never frigging write any more. I had 70+ pages of a book written last year, but I never backed it up and then my piece of crap IBM hard drive pulled a "Buddhist Monk in Vietnam circa 1962" act of self-immolation; suffice to say, I completely lost my writing jones and vowed not to do it again until it returned from its self-imposed exile. Well, it's finally back again, but I am not sure where to focus it this time. While I figure things out, I might as well talk about the activity that replaced writing and golf as my primary focus over the last year: poker. So, even though I intend to discuss poker more than any other subject, I will also be writing about anything else that catches my fancy. This could be film (my one true love - sorry poker), baseball, politics, music or some random idea that flits across the ice rink in my mind. I think I am a pretty interesting person, have opinions on a lot of subjects, and can keep a conversation going, so who knows, maybe you'll like this little blog and come on back once in a while. Anyway, enough about me...let's talk about me some more.

Testing

Well, I feel like have finally joined the real world by creating my own blog. I'm supposed to be some great writer, but I never seem to do anything with it; maybe this will be the start of something great (or maybe this will be the subject of some "Abandoned Blogs" story on Slate in five years - who knows?).