Born to Gamble Part II: Southbound

"Like most New Yorkers, my family did not believe that a glass of beer or a game of cards imperiled their souls, and there was something ugly and silly about those who insisted they did." - Edward Conlon, Blue Blood

When my internship at the NY Commodities Exchange ended in late May, I was offered a full time position with the brokerage house that I had been working with. At the age of 17, I made $500 a week plus overtime. That seemed like all the money in the world to me. (The sad part is that a decade later at age 27 as a struggling writer and artist, I'd make substantially less per week including inflation than when I was 17.)

I picked up at least $40 a day in prop bets on the floor of the exchange. For $20 a pop, I'd make crank calls to brokers' ex-wives and ex-girlfriends. I'd willingly say things like, "How would you like to make $14 the hard way?" or "How many cocks have you sucked today, you dirty slut whore?"

Most of the time, I pretended to be a doctor suggesting that one of their ex-lovers tested positive for the AIDS virus and that they should get tested immediately. It was a fucked up thing to do, but I was 17 years old and that was probably the least crazy thing I did. After work, I would go to the bars with the other brokers and clerks. Yeah, I wish I was 17 again drinking $1 mugs of beer at the Dugout in the East Village and trying to pick up rich stoner girls from schools like Fieldston or Chapin.

During my last week of work in August of 1990, the markets went completely crazy. The stock market and gold market were at new highs and oil futures went through the roof when some insane guy in Iraq named Saddam invaded an oil rich neighboring country. That was the first time I understood how international politics and war affected the financial markets. I saw it with my own eyes. During the seven months I worked on the floor, I never witnessed that much chaos as I did when Saddam attacked Kuwait. Everyone who had an account was gambling on the future. War is good for the economy and everyone was trying to position themselves to earn as much (or lose as little) money as possible during the impending showdown in the first Gulf War.

"You're lucky you're going to college," my supsenders-wearing boss with slicked back hair told me, "otherwise they'd be shipping your ass off to the desert."

* * * * *
Parts of college were a blur for me. I blame the mushrooms and Jim Beam, which caused partial memory loss. I didn't learn all that much in Atlanta while I dabbled in hedonism for four straight years. Although you can make a solid argument that 16 years later, I'm still caught up in my Dionysian lifestyle. The foundation of my intellectual knowledge was given to me by the Jesuits who taught me a classical education in high school which included learning four languages (Latin, French, Russian, and Greek), while studying Russian, Victorian, and early American literature, Advanced Calculus, Economics, and four years of theology.

Since my prep school was so rigorous academically, my classes in college were a joke. I took classes like Bowling, Stress Reduction and Flexibility, Social Problems in Modern Society, and the Presidency. No wonder I'd show up to class stoned, drunk, or both.

I wasn't challenged. College reminded me of watching Wheel of Fortune just after watching Jeopardy. It was a waste of time. I spent less time in classes and most of my time drinking in Atlanta bars, sitting on the porch of my fraternity house make cat calls at the sorority girls who jogged down Fraternity Row, or roadtripping to New Orleans or following the Grateful Dead throughout the South.

I also gambled in my late teens. Heavily.

My fraternity held a football pool and a March Madness pool, and I was in contention for both every year. I won the March Madness pool when UNLV beat Duke and guys in my house were verbally abusing Christian Laettner as they shouted homophobic references at the TV about his "close relationship" with point guard Bobby Hurley.

Most of us gambled on football every weekend. I had a bookie back home in NYC. Karate Tony started his own book during college and we used his services. My buddy Chicago Bob had a bookie in Atlanta and we'd phone up both bookies and go with the one who had the better spread. During my senior year, we had an amazing run and won seven weekends in a row. I have still yet to match that rush.

Sometimes on weekends when there wasn't anything going on, we'd roadtrip down to the riverboats in Biloxi, Mississippi to play blackjack. That's the first time I played poker in a casino, was on a riverboat. I was down to my last $30, so Chicago Bob and I played Seven-card Stud with a bunch of WWII vets.

During senior year, eight of us rented an RV and drove to Mardi Gras. We parked the large beast on Chartes Street in front of a church and went on a three day bender which included the consumption of massive qauntities of liquor, narcotics, and groping half-naked college girls from Texas. On the way back to Atlanta, we stopped off in Biloxi and headed to a riverboat casino. We needed to win enough money at the tables to pay for gas for the ride back.

My friends and fellow fraternity brothers started asking me to place bets for them. I would phone in their bets to Karate Tony or Chicago Bob's bookie. They lost more than they won and I started booking their action... myself. I stopped passing the bet along to Karate Tony unless it was so huge that I was afraid to cover it myself. Although I had one or two problems collecting money (and it was always from the rich kid who drove a nice car that refused to pay), I made enough scratch that I quit my part-time job cold calling alumni for donations. At best, I was a low level thug making a couple of hundred bucks of the degeneracy of the rich kids in my fraternity who would drop $100 on the Eagles because they were rooting for their hometown Philly team and betting with their hearts instead of their brain. All my bookie money went to pay my bar tab at Dooley's Tavern and to pay for tickets to Grateful Dead shows.

We played cards all the time in my fraternity house. There was a period of time when everyone played Spades and we even had a house-wide tournament. Spades is played with four players comprised of two-person teams. Rib was my partner and we were one of the best teams in the entire house. We would spend hours and hours playing and drinking cheap beer and smoking bad weed while listening to Widespread Panic bootlegs on the stereo in Rib's room.

We would play drinking games with freshmen girls who would wander down to the house. We'd try to get them hammered drinking Malibu Rum or some other conncoction that I came up with... lemonade and Southern Comfort. We'd play Asshole most of the time and some of the girls would be doing the "Walk of Shame" sometime around 8am.

We also played poker in college and the games were intense. We'd play in the living room of our fraternity house. One weekend we had a huge party where a band played in the formal room. After the party ended, we left the stage there for a week maybe longer. We threw green felt over one of the dinner tables and we started a poker game. That game lasted for a week straight as brothers and friends of ours would sit down and play rotating in and out. It was our version of the Big Game. Playing up on the stage under the bright lights with a small crowd gathered around made the players in the game feel like they were doing something extra special. We'd drink Jim Beam like it was water and chug Beast Lite, tossing empties into the fireplace or out the window. We made pledges go fetch us food, buy us more liquor, and clean out the gravity bong for us. Guys were afraid to go to class, take a nap, or have lunch with their girlfriends because they were worried they'd lose their seat in the game.

When it got too big we moved the game off campus. One of the dorky brothers in my fraternity complained that we were gambling in the open and that we could get our charter revoked for such aberrant behavior. It was just cards and not a big deal, but we got yelled at anyway. I thought it was a hypocritical decision since our other degenerate behavior was still allowed like the rampant drug abuse, giving our pledges alcohol poisoning, and the occasional date rapes.

My buddy Jerry lived off campus with Rib and his three-legged cat, Smooth, that was addicted to marijuana smoke. I guess if you were missing a leg, you'd get stoned all the time too. During the spring of 1994, two NYC teams were in the playoffs. The Rangers ended their 44 year drought and brought home the Stanley Cup. And the Knicks were bounced by the Houston Rockets in the NBA finals after John Starks went 1-87 from the floor in game 7.

Every night for a month straight, a NY team was playing in the playoffs so there was a different game to watch on TV. We'd be huddled around the TV and when the games ended, we'd play poker until sunrise. There would be 14-16 people playing with two tables going. The girls who lived across the hall got hooked. This went on all summer long.

We played dealer's choice with the emphasis on a four card guts game called Four Barrel where 4s and 8s were wild and flushes and straights don't count. Those games would get ugly and it would not be uncommon to lose a couple of hundred dollars in a Four Barrel pot. This was a lot of money considering we'd start out the night with nickel and dime antes. Even the sorority girls across the hall were hooked on Four Barrel. The second table would break around 2am when the people with "real jobs" had to crash. The first table would continue until sunrise when we'd go back to campus, pass out, then wake and bake and start the routine all over again.

I didn't work at all that summer. During Memorial Day, I went on a rush and won $2K playing two hands of blackjack at the same time at the Casino Magic in Biloxi. I made enough money to cover rent and food for the entire summer. I guess you can say that my first job out of college was being a professional gambler.

One guy in our game had spiraled into in a big losing streak. Dutch lost so much money that he had to use IOUs, which he scribbled on yellow Post-It notes. We nicknamed those IOUs "Dutch Bucks." They were as good as gold. My friends and I would use Dutch Bucks as currency. If Jerry bought me a twelve pack of Beast, I'd pay him with $5 in Dutch Bucks. At one point I had almost $200 in Dutch Bucks and I traded that in for a free round of golf (cart included) at Pinehurst, NC, a ticket to a Phish concert, and a big bag of mushrooms.

We'd all bring cash or jars of change to play in Jerry's homegame. Dutch would bring Post-Its. I still have a few Dutch Bucks to this day.

One night Teddy B (our version of G-Rob) got so drunk that he gambled away gift certificates that his girlfriend gave him for his birthday. She was still in school and didn't have much money. She knew Teddy B loved watching flicks, so she bought him $50 in gift certificates at Blockbuster. He was stuck pretty bad one night trying to bluff at a big pot in Four Barrel and "Zeke" got the best of him. He didn't have cash to buy back in and busted out the book of gift certificates. He promptly lost every single one. When his girlfriend found out she was furious. When we offered to give them back, she refused to accept them.

"Don't give them back. Let him learn this valuable lesson," she said. They broke up soon after.

... to be continued


Editor's Note: FYI, check out Born to Gamble Part I: Where It All Begins if you haven't read it already. Part III of the Born to Gamble series will be posted on Monday.

Born to Gamble Part I: Where It All Begins

I was born a gambler. I crashed the party of life in 1972, the Year of the Rat. Chinese and Japanese astrologers have believed for centuries that the rat is a symbol of good luck and wealth. If you have credence in those sorts of hokey superstitions, then that explains part of the reason why I've been extremely fortunate in life.

One of my earliest memories was watching the Superbowl XI in 1977 with my father. The Raiders beat the Vikings and my old man was extremely enthusiastic about the win since he had both the Raiders and the over in the game. He hit his parlay and that unstuck him for the NFL playoffs. Watching my first televised sporting was coupled with my first experience with gambling. The two began symbiotic relationship, that still exists in my mind today. From the moment Super Bowl XI ended, I presumed that my father had bet on every sporting event on TV over the next several years. Instead of asking him who won the Jets game, I'd say, "Did you win your bet?"

One of my first sad childhood memories involved my parents getting into a huge argument over gambling. My father's best friend wanted to go to see the Belmont Stakes. He could only go if my father went. I dunno why that was, but the guy's wife was a hardass. My mother wanted to go shopping and told my father he couldn't go. My uncles went to the track and OTB all the time. So did my father and I didn't think it was such a big deal. My overbearing mother thought otherwise. The transcript from that argument has long been forgotten, but I do have vivid memories of my mother throwing things at my father. He skipped the Belmont Stakes that year.

There was an OTB near the subway station in my neighborhood where I grew up. If you don't know, OTBs are legal spots where you can place horse racing bets in New York City. Before the internet and cable TV, those were the only places you could catch the races unless you physically went to the track. I had many humiliating memories of those testicle shrinking moments when your parents boldly reminded you that you were just a kid with absolutely zero rights and that adults will always rule the world. By New York State Law, I was not allowed inside an OTB. I'd have to wait outside while my father or uncles would place a bet or cash a ticket.

As soon as I was old enough (or tall enough), I could peek into the window where I'd see a crowd of degenerate gamblers shrouded in a thick veil of cigar and cigarette smoke as they had their blood shot eyes glued to the monitor as the 3rd race at Aqueduct was about to go off.

I didn't have an infatuation with horses or betting on the ponies. But I desperately wanted to be inside the OTB. Like so many things I'd experience in life, I wanted to do it because I couldn't.

Before I could ride a bicycle, I learned how to read a racing form and spent hours memorizing the sports pages from the newspapers. My parents read the Daily News everyday and the NY Times on Sundays. Before Sportscenter and the internet were ever invented by Al Gore, the newspapers and the four minute segment from Warner Wolf on the nightly news were the only two outlets for me to get my sports fix. I'd read and re-read every page of the papers, memorizing records and point spreads. I studied the stats page in the NY Times sports section on Sundays because they listed the batting average of every player in the majors.

I played cards when I was a kid, but mostly Crazy Eights, Rummy, and Spit. We played some poker, but most seven year olds didn't have a chip set or disposable income to gamble with. We'd flip for baseball cards in the schoolyard, but that was the only high stakes action that I got as an adolescent. I attended Catholic school and there was a phase were we all played Spit religiously during recess and before school started. The nuns actually allowed that card game to be played.

As children, Derek and I only played board games and card games a small percentage of the time. We were Atari video game junkies but spent a large amount of time outdoors playing various sports. We were both somewhat athletic and we didn't have too much space growing up in an apartment so we spent a large portion of play time in the playground attached to our apartment building or in the schoolyard. We played football, basketball, baseball, Stickball, and Stoop. Nobody plays Stickball anymore. All you needed was a bat, a ball, an imagination and at least two people and you had a game. And I don't think anyone who didn't live in an urban environment understands the concept of Stoop. All you needed there was a ball and a bunch of steps.

Man, I'm starting to sound like one of those grumpy old people...

When I was a kid growing up in the Bronx, we were so dirt poor that the only thing we could play was Stoop where we'd roll up the carcass of a disease-ridden cat and hurl it against the front steps of the soup kitchen while the shoeless, lice-infested, starving neighborhood kids shoved each other out of the way. Whoever snatched the dead mangled feline out of the air would get to take it home and eat it for dinner that night. The rest of us would go hungry until the local parish priests offered us bread and soup if we played "Touch the Monkey" with them behind the rectory.

On Wednesdays during football season, my father would come home from work with betting slips. They were either yellow or white parlay tickets that I thought a guy in his office ran. I found out many years later that the Mafia ran the betting slip ring at the local bar called the Leprechaun where my old man spent many of his waking hours knocking back beers with cops and firemen.

My father gave Derek and I one betting slip each and we'd pick anywhere from 3 to 10 teams for a parlay in both college and pro-football games. Being Irish Catholic, my father was a huge Notre Dame and Boston College fan. I found myself picking them and Army a lot. I usually stuck to college games. I can't explain why, but I liked the bigger point spreads. I always took one of the biggest underdogs every week and began my system on picking home dogs. That was also during the same era when the Steelers dominated football. You bet your ass I picked them every week.

I attended a prestigious all-boys Catholic high school downtown and one of the priests ran a football pool. He would give out 5% to the winner and send 95% of the prize pool to a mission in Africa. Father Duffy had been running that pool for decades and I won it a couple of times. It cost 15 cents to enter and one week I took down a whopping $2.65. It was all for a good cause, but among my friends, we were competing for bragging rights. These were some of the same kids who were in the Young Economists Society where we'd have contests to see who'd earn the most money with a mock portfolio of stocks. And yeah, I was a member of that club.

Freshman year I played Stratomatic baseball in the cafeteria and I drafted the 1985 Kansas City Royals. I played them for most of the year and held my own against some of the biggest dorks in the five boroughs. By then I had a Commodore 64 and started playing video games on my computer. I had a copy of Strip Poker and quickly developed excellent skills playing Five Card Draw because I was a horny teenager who wanted to whack off to pixelated images of naked women, who would only get naked if I beat them heads-up.

Sophomore year I discovered two things that would change my life: Liquor and Girls.

Particularly Catholic high school girls. I'm 33 and things haven't changed since I turned 15. I still have an unhealthy penchant for girls wearing plaid skirts and knee socks. Bobby Walters, the coolest kid from my homeroom, once told me that the girls from St. Michael's were all loose sluts who would give you hand jobs in Central Park if you got them stoned and sauced up on wine coolers.

Well, like most rumors you heard in high school, it was a vast exaggeration. And like many of our first sexual experiences, it was confusing and unsatisfying. After Colleen McMurphy chugged a Bartles & James strawberry wine cooler and smoked three hits off a joint, she only let me feel her up for fifteen seconds before she said she felt dizzy and threw up in the Sheep Meadow.

Our basketball team was pretty good and we'd travel frequently to play in various Holiday festivals in Virginia, Alabama, and Connecticut. In the postseason, we'd usually qualify for the NY State regionals in the small schools division and we'd play upstate in Albany, Glens Falls, or Buffalo. We were on the road a lot and the guys on the team would play poker to kill time. The games of choice were Baseball and Chicago which were variations of Seven Card Stud. That's when I started playing for money the first time and developed my skills as a Stud player. I don't recall winning much, but I definitely didn't lose much either. I was a break even player. Where I made all my gambling money was on the betting slips.

When my father would come home with the slips, I'd take them to school and photocopy them. Then, I'd pass them out to my friends before school and collect the tickets and money by the end of the day. Later that night, I gave them to my father who dropped them off to the Westies a.k.a. the crazy ass fuckers in the Irish mob (I recommend State of Grace, a film starring Ed Harris, Gary Oldman, and Sean Penn that's about the Westies).

Once Karate Tony found out about the racket I was running, it quickly ended. We called him Karate Tony because he knew karate. By the age of 10 he was a black belt and appeared on the show That's Incredible busting bricks with his roundhouse kicks. Karate Tony was an Italian kid from Staten Island. His family was in the waste management business and since he knew karate, I was doomed. I was getting squeezed by the school bully and the extremely hairy son of a reputed mobster. There wasn't anything I could do about it.

When we were in the 9th grade, Karate Tony was the only kid in our class who shaved everyday. He looked 21 when he was 15. He would buy beer and porn for all the kids in school and mark up the prices. No one was going to argue with a guy who could kick your ass in two seconds. He also took over my book making operation without any resistance from me. I was such a pussy I continued to photocopy the slips and collect the money which I gave to Karate Tony. All I got in return was $5 which barely covered the cost of the copying fees. I was afraid to tell my father because then I'd end up igniting a war between the Italian and Irish mafias.

During the second half of my senior year in high school, I had a full-time internship where I worked as a runner on the floor of the New York Commodities Exchange, located on the 8th floor of the World Trade Center's south tower. That was one of the most amazing experiences in my life. Everyday for seven months, I witnessed legalized gambling as commodities brokers, corporations and the world's wealthiest investors speculated on the futures of precious metals, livestock, oil, natural gas, and orange juice. I marveled at the lights on the big boards and got goosebumps listening to all the brokers and traders shouting orders at each other. I was caught in the middle of the mayhem, darting in and out of the labyrinth of desks and phone booths to hand brokers orders in the trading pits.

That was when I first was introduced to prop bets and Liar's Poker (which inspired the title of Michael Lewis' book Liar's Poker) where you use one dollar bills and try to form the best poker hand with the serial numbers. The guys in the Silver Options pits were total psychopaths. They were Ivy League coke fiends who partied all night in clubs in the meatpacking district and banged 16-year old Danish models in the back of taxis. They played Lair's Poker all day for $1,000 a hand. One broker had such a horrible week that he lost his Porsche after going on mega-tilt. I was afraid to play and only watched.

One afternoon during a slow trading session, one of the brokers I worked for in the gold pit was in a tremendous slump. He decided to bankroll me against his nemesis in heads-up Liar's Poker. I only won a couple of hands, but nothing can compare to the rush I got bluffing that trader from Paine Webber. That's when I was first introduced to the intoxicating rush of gambling, where the outcome didn't matter as much as the orgasmic feeling that seized my entire body. It was all about the rush, and the moment of jubilant euphoria that seemed to last forever. I tasted the grandiose gambler's high and was addicted. Immediately. I've been addicted to many things in life, but the gambler's high is one of the hardest to kick. I'd end up chasing that titillating surge of adrenaline all over the world during the next decade and a half of my life.

... to be continued


Editor's Note: Yes, that is me who appears in all three photos. And to my knowledge, no cats were actually harmed during the blogging of this entry.

Truckin', May 2006, Vol. 5, Issue 5

We're back with the new issue of Truckin' featuring five new short stories and some poetry.

1. Kentucky Waffle House by Tenzin McGrupp
That Waffle House was the late night magnet for the lowest strata of society which included raccoon-eyed meth dealers, repugnant hookers, Glock-packing pimps, drunken frat boys, and several deranged members of the local homeless population... More

2. Losing Grip by Sigge S. Amdal
The skin around my nails was always hard and white. You could pull off chunks, but it wouldn't bleed noticeably, and another layer would grow. I could never stop picking it... More

3. Ten Years Later by Novice
The stage is almost bare. There's just a couch, with some hideous print upholstery. I walk out, sit on it. I realize that it's the same couch that once had the moss green velveteen... More

4. Violent by Sean A. Donahue
I couldn't stand him for whatever opinion he misspoke he infuriated others and drove me crazy. All Ken did was pick at people and give them a reason to hate him... More

5. Sheet Lightening by John Beck
Sheet lightening. Rippling waves of black blank black blast. What the fuck is that cat trying to tell me... More

6. The time trials a poem by Barrett Crawford
Obscure and misunderstood
If you only knew what I know
of the fibers of time
I have been trapped in thought of these... More

Thanks for returning back to another issue of Truckin' featuring several of your favorite writers including Sigge, Sean Donahue, Novice, and yours truly. The May issue includes two new writers John Beck and Barrett Crawford.

Here's where I ask you, the reader, for a huge favor... if you like these stories, then please tell your friends about your favorite stories. It takes a few seconds to pass along the URL. The other writers certainly appreciate your support. Feel free to shoot me an e-mail if you know anyone who is interested in being added to the mailing list.

Thanks again. I am grateful that you wasted your time with my site. Until next time.

* * * * *
Happy Belated Birthday Tao of Pauly

My main blog turned four on Thursday. Happy Belated 4th Birthday to the Tao of Pauly!

And I totally forgot. Thanks to Jenna who pointed it out to me.

Encouraged by my old college roommate and author of The Daily Dave 2.0 (at the time it was just The Daily Dave), I began the Tao of Pauly in May of 2002 to use as a notebook and scratch pad during my time at work on Wall Street.

Since then, I started numerous other blogs. I always wanted to start my own literary magazine and did so. Truckin' will turn four years old next month and in August my poker blog will be three years old. I also wanted to start a music blog, and at the end of this summer, my group Phish blog will be two years old. In about seven or eight months, I'll start up my political blog again to gear up for the 2008 elections. I've also started up a couple of photo blogs.

The past year has been a special one for the Tao of Pauly. Although its sister site the Tao of Poker has been mentioned in numerous publications and drew one million visitors in a week last summer, the Tao of Pauly will always be my favorite blog. Over the past few months I made a bigger effort to publish better writing on the Tao of Pauly. The results have been positive. It's becoming more and more popular everyday.

The Tao of Poker is by far the Tao of Pauly's biggest referral, followed by AlCantHang. Thanks, Al! It feels good to know that the daily readers of this blog are clicking over to the Tao of Pauly. If you don't have the Tao of Pauly linked up on your blogroll, then what are you waiting for? Feel free to subscribe to the Tao of Pauly feed via Bloglines.

As Joaquin the Rooster once said, "I read the Tao of Pauly first. Somedays I'm sick of poker and sick of poker blogs. Thank God for the Tao of Pauly. Besides, I think that's where your best writing is."

Thanks always to Dave for inspiring me to blog. Without the Tao of Pauly being born, the Tao of Poker would never exist.

World Blogger Championship of Online Poker

Thanks to Poker Stars for setting this up. All you need is a blog to be eligible. Any blog. If you don't have a PokerStars account, then you can download the software here.

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code: 7330476

Here's what you can win...

(1) World Series of Poker Main Event Seat (worth $12,000!)
(8) World Series Of Poker $1,500 Certificates For Any Event
(1) $1,000 Online Heads-Up Match With Team PokerStars' Wil Wheaton
(10) $370 Seat In The PokerStars WSOP 150-Seat Guaranteed Tournament
(20) 4GB iPod Nano
(10) $215 Seat In Sunday Million
(4) PokerStars Letterman's Jacket

What? No phone call from Daddy for 65th place?

Here is how you can enter:

1. Download the PokerStars software and create an account (if you don't already have one).

2. Sign up for the World Blogger Championship of Online Poker by clicking here.To sign up you must have a blog that is at least two months old and regularly updated. PokerStars reserves the right to determine player eligibility.

3. When you receive confirmation of your entry, you will receive a code that you will need to place somewhere on your blog so PokerStars can identify you as the legitimate owner of the blog. You will not be notified once you have been registered as this is a manual process. You can check to see if you are registered by clicking "Events," "Special" and then "World Blogger Championship of Online Poker" in your PokerStars game lobby.

Gate 4 and Nolan Dalla

I'm sitting in those uncomfortable grey chairs at Gate 4 again. I've been wasting too much of my life sitting in random airplane terminals waiting for my flight to take off. This is one of the main reasons why I bring my laptop with me, so I can catch up on email and reading blogs. The only time I have to read through my bloglines folder is when I'm in airports.

Long Beach has wifi which means I can play a few orbits of Party Poker and skim poker and political blogs while I multi-task writing this post and praying that the old Jewish lady that looks like Bea Arthur with the dog will not be sitting next to me on my flight back to JFK. I'm liking my chances of winning that coinflip.

I spent almost a week in Hollyweird and I have a few good stories. I also finished a recap of Knit Ball if you are interested in reading about a night of music and weirdness that I endured last Friday.

The other night, I played a $5 HORSE SNG with Change100 on Full Tilt after some heavy partying. She would play Hold'em, Omaha 8, and Razz. I took over during the Stud and Stud 8 rounds since I'd rather shave my testicles with a cheese grater than play Razz and Omaha 8 back-to-back. Change100 was in 4th place when Stud came along. I picked up a lot of chips to move up to second. By the time Stud came around a second time, she was second with three players remaining. The shortstack busted in third and I took a monster pot heads up to take over the chip lead. I ended up busting when the other guy rivered a backdoor flush on me. I started out with A-J/A and picked up two pair on 5th Street, yet he kept calling me down with junk until he caught his card on the river. Second place is better than bubbling.

Heading back to NYC for a few mellow days before I have a crazy month of June that will take me to Foxwoods, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Boulder, LA, and finally Las Vegas for the 2006 WSOP.

Make sure you listen to Hold'em Radio with Lou Krieger and Amy Calistri. The guest on Thursday's show will be Nolan Dalla. Those are some of my favorite three people in poker and I was fortunate to meet all of them last summer at the WSOP.

Ripples

Right now some friends of mine are hurting pretty badly. This post is dedicated to them. If you guys need anything... just ask. I'm here for you all.

The Up for Poker guys lost one of their close friends this past weekend. I encourage you to stop by and read everything they had to say about Gulfman.

Last night, Flipchip's grandmother (and the Poker Prof's great-grandmother) passed away. She was 101. Flipchip is a guy who rarely displays his emotions in public, but he opened up his heart in a post called A Sad Day.

Over the last year, I really got to know Flipchip very well. We spent everyday at the WSOP in the trenches together and I can't think of any other photographer that I'd want to work with. Flipchip has also taken over the father figure role in my life offering me up advice and emotional support during difficult times. I'm grateful that he's always been there to help me deal with the curveballs that life throws at you everyday. He's hurting right now, I know that the Poker Prof is too and that affects me as well.

I'm incredibly sad today because I know so many close people in my life that are grieving. On days like today, things like poker and blogs and my stock market loses seem utterly meaningless to me. I spend too much time worrying about life instead of living it. We all do. It takes these tragic moments like this for us to realize how lucky we are to be alive.

Bloggers on TV and Gapped Toothed Hookers

My Type A personality sinks to a B- whenever I'm on the West Coast for more than two days. I kept putting off writing two freelance articles and found myself having to crank them out in less than 30 hours. I had to write a concert review of Friday night's Knit Ball for a German music magazine. Knit Ball was one of the best parties I've ever been to in Hollyweird, featuring two of my favorite bands Lotus and Particle in an event that the promoters described as "A mix of '70s space rock ala Pink Floyd, the swinging wah wah sass of a '70s porno soundtrack, and the speed, grandeur, inspired soloing and dexterity of '70s fusion." Along with my tournament column at Poker Pro Magazine, I had about 2000 words to write by Monday at 6am and I was unmotivated. The sun, smog, music, and medicinal marijuana tweaked my brain.

On Saturday afternoon, I sat at Change100's dining room table desperately trying to write about the Mirage Poker Showdown when my cell phone rang.

"Dude, are you in front of a TV?" Derek said without saying hello.

My initial thought was "What the fuck just blew up?"

"Put on the Game Show Network. Joe Speaker is on."

Derek was right. I flipped on GSN and Joe Speaker's episode of Greed was being aired. It was awesome to see Mr. Speaker on the boob tube. He was even dressed better than host Chuck Woolery.

"He looks so young!" commented Change100.

The other night I caught an old episode of The Weakest Link featuring Star Trek actors including Wil Wheaton. The chick host was tooling on Wil for only having one "L" in his name. I was waiting for him to ask her to remove the trout out of her twat that John Bonham shoved up there in a drunken stupor back in 1969.

I've been begging, tricking, and prop betting my way to get Change100 to show me episodes of the TV show she worked on as a former child actor. No such luck.

* * * * *
I dropped about $150 playing 5-10 on Party Poker this weekend. I made a call that makes me a 10 on the Fish Scale. With four aces on a board, I called a river bet with Queen high. I raised preflop with Q-9o on the button. Daddy calls Q-9 the "Gapped Toothed Hooker." The BB called and three aces flopped. We checked the flop and the turn. The case ace fell on the river and he bet out. I called. He had a King and I got properly fucked by The Gapped Toothed Hooker.

I watched the final episode of the Heads-Up Championship. Gabe Kaplan is hilarious. I almost pissed my pants when he made the Linda Tripp joke. The first televised poker I ever saw was almost ten years ago on ESPN2 at 4am. I was sitting on Senor's couch in Murray Hill and we were coming down after a night of partying with liquid sunshine. His roommate's girlfriend (who's now a suburban soccer mom) had too much to drink. She was passed out and rolled up in the fetal position on the floor of the bathroom. We couldn't find anything to watch when we stumbled upon televised poker. Kaplan hosted an old WSOP main event (I'm not 100% positive but it might have been the year that Stu Ungar won) and we thought it was the strangest thing in the world to see a poker tournament on ESPN.

I was bummed out that ESPN replaced Kaplan. The last WSOP that Kaplan announced was the year that Robert Fishkonyi won. For the past three years, I had to listen to those other two douchebags. OK, that's harsh. One douchebag and one stiff. I never met Lon but talking to a doorknob seems more exciting. Norman Chad was a complete dick to me at last year's WSOP. Gabe Kaplan never would have barked, "Get the fuck out of my way!!"

If I could have my dream poker broadcasting team, it would be Gabe Kaplan and Otis.

* * * * *
By the way, my buddy Senor wants to name his son Kain. I'd take a bullet for Senor. I'd donate a kidney to him if I had to. And I wouldn't be a good friend if I allowed him to ruin his son's life by giving him an awful name of negative biblical proportions. It's the only name that he and his Thai wife agree on. If he names him Kain, I'll refuse to call him that. Since he's Senor's second kid, I'll be calling him "Dos."

Do you have any name suggestions? I'll send them to Senor.

Tao of Keno: The Answers

TripJax asked but I'm not one for structure. Here are my answers:


1. What is the biggest mistake people make at a NL Keno table?

Not playing enough cards.


2. Why do you play Keno?

Keno offers up everything that's great about America. For a very small investment, you can get lucky and without any skill or intelligence you can win millions of dollars and get your own reality TV series. In addition, I hate my country's leaders and rather sit on my ass and play online Keno to buck the system and screw Uncle Sam out of his potential tax revenue.


3. If you weren't playing Keno, what would you be doing?

I'd be trying to pick up pothead sorority girls off of MySpace by playing Satellite by the Dave Matthews Band on guitar for them in Central Park.


4. What is your favorite Keno book and why?

Play Keno Like the Pros by my good buddy and professional Keno player Neil Fontenot. Neil is nihilist. He believes in nothing. That's why he plays all the numbers. His Top 10 Keno numbers should be memorized by anyone who wants to become a better Keno player. My other favorite Keno book is the Theory of Keno by David Sklansky.


6. Who is your favorite Keno player and why?

Without a doubt my buddy Neil. He's the most successful Keno pro that I know. He's not a degenerate and fuck up like the average Keno pro. He's got his shit together. He's engaged to a JC Penny model. They live in a two bedroom starter house in Glendale, but he just purchased a jetski. He's also using his earnings on the World Keno Tour to buy a new condo in Del Bocca Vista in Florida.


7. Which Keno player do you dislike the most and why?

That dumbass Dutch Boyd. I hate it when he does tricks with Keno crayons. So rude.


8. Do your coworkers know about your blog?

Hell no. They'd never let me hang out with them. Admitting that you are a blogger is the most embarrassing thing you can tell someone you have to see five days a week. Seriously, the next time you meet a hot chick (or guy or donkey) in a bar, the first thing out of your mouth is NOT going to be, "I spend all of my free time blogging about my hobby and playing online in my underwear with my malcontent online friends." The only thing more embarrassing is having a MySpace account.


9. What is the most you have won in a KENO cash game or tournament (both live and online)?

I won $420 once when I went for Abdul's bunching strategy and took four numbers close together.


10. What is the most you have lost in a Keno cash game or in one day total (both live and online)?

I lost my dignity online during a dark night when I spiraled to that evil and hellacious place that we don't like to talk about. That's the tipping point where you take one of three paths...

1. You go suicidal and kill yourself.
2. You go pyschopathic and kill other people, then yourself.
3. You get your shit together and finally realize that the fat fuck Buddha was right all these years... that life is all about suffering. So suck it up. Smoke a joint. Fuck a stranger. And stop taking yourself so seriously.

11. Who was your first Keno blog read?

I found Guinness and Keno and was hooked ever since. Iggy would get drunk and repost excerpts from hilarious Keno trip reports on RGK. I also found the Keno Grub at the same time. Grubby got me hooked on online Keno. He'd show me how to Keno-whore in Las Vegas and get free stuff like windbreakers and tickets to see Kool & the Gang at the Klondike. One of the first blogs I read was Professional Keno Player Chris Halverson. My favorite all time is The Crayon Speaks. HDouble's musings are sensational. His series "HDouble and Keno at the Movies" is some of the best writing you'll find on the internet. My favorite post all time is Brokeback Mountain and Keno: Why Vaseline Is Your Friend.


13. Why do you blog about Keno?

I read on 2+2 that if you have a popular Keno blog, then hot and horny women come out of the wood work to have sex with you and give you blowjobs in the Bellagio's parking deck. Because you know, there's some really intelligent and super hot Brazilian lingerie model out there who's addicted to online Keno and loves my Keno blog. She's been reading me for three years and holding back her infatuated crush that have bubbled over into a sea of volcanic lust that is ready to burst after she stalks me at the World Series of Keno. Plus, If you have a popular Keno blog, online Keno sites pay you ten dollars a month to put up their banners and shill their sites. I also heard that Keno tournament writers make $17,000 a year! If I did that for a living, then I can quit my job writing about poker and make a real living. I won't have to stay at the Castle anymore. I'll be able to afford the Luxor.


14. Do you read blogs from an RSS reader like bloglines or do you visit each blog?

I have all 347 Keno blogs on Bloglines. And I skim them all except SirFKenoman. I re-read his post at least three times a day. When I try to pick up old hookers in poorly lit casino bars in Atlantic City, I often quote stuff I read from my fellow Keno bloggers.


15. Would you rather play Keno for a living than do what you currently do for a living?

Yeah. I think if I work hard enough, I can become a world class Keno player, like my buddy Neil Fontenot. He used to work at Dairy Queen and drove a Geo Metro. He had a pregnant girlfriend, who already had two kids from two previous marriages. Now he's got a Ford Tarus and he broke up with the pregnant chick. Now he's going to marry a model and recently signed an four figure endorsement deal with Crayola. He's the new spokesman for Crayola the official Keno crayon on the World Keno Tour.


16. Do you wear a tin foil hat on occasion?

No. But I wrap my penis in foil because I heard that's what Bobby Bracelet, the 23rd Greatest Keno Player in the World does for good luck.


17. If you had to pin it down to one specific trait, what does a great Keno player have (or do) that separates them from an average player?

Balls. A pair of testicles. Enough guts to say, "Fuck it. Working at Dairy Queen is for sheep. And sheep get slaughtered. I'm good enough to be a professional Keno player. All I have to do is read every Keno book, watch Keno on TV, and play forty Keno cards at once. Then I'll win the World Series of Keno and go on the Jimmy Kimmel show. Then and only then will all the guys who hang out on the Keno message boards will respect me and stop sending me soiled condoms in the mail."


18. Is Drizz the coolest person on the planet for naming his baby Vegas?

The Keno Nerd is cooler for naming his new kid Keno.


19. What is your primary Keno goal and are you close to accomplishing it?

To get invited to the Playboy Mansion and sell my screenplay. It's not just about Keno, it's about life and the frailty of friendships. An up and coming Keno player loses all his money to an Albanian Mafia boss in an underground Keno club in Hilljack, Indiana, then solves an enigmatic riddle to discover that it leads to a trail of clues hidden in the works of Andy Wharhol, clues visible for all to see, and yet ingeniously disguised by the painter. I don't want to ruin it for you, but Lou Reed is really Jesus' kid. He speaks the truth in the Velvet Underground's song Heroin:

I don't know just where I'm going
But I'm gonna try for the kingdom, if I can
'Cause it makes me feel like I'm a man
When I put a spike into my vein
And I'll tell ya, things aren't quite the same
When I'm rushing on my run
And I feel just like Jesus' son

20. What is your primary online site and why?

The fish play on Party Keno so that's where I play. I also shill for a few other sites. I earned enough points to get a free oil change at Jiffy Lube. I gave it to my ex-girlfriend for Valentine's Day. I also like playing online at Keno Stars because former child actor Claire Danes hosts weekly tournaments called My So Called Keno.


21. What site do you dislike and why?

I hate Noble Keno and Titan Keno. The worst software in the industry. I should be shot for shilling for them, but I was running bad at Keno that month and was starving. They offered me $25 and a pecan roll.

On the Road and Quality Posts

I won $40 in an American Legion daily raffle last week. I usually win once a year. The most I ever picked up in one drawing was $100. The Bronx County American Legion mailed me a check and everything. I guess I'm feeling lucky. My mother had a free room at Showboat in Atlantic City and left this morning. I almost went with her but I'm flying out to the left coast in a few hours. I'm heading out of pollen-drenched NYC and going to Hollyweird for several days. I'll be at the Knitting Factory in West Hollywood on Friday night to catch Knit Ball which is a collection of several groups of the space porn genre, including two of my favorite bands Particle and Lotus.

Last night, I dropped a buy-in playing 10-20 on Party Poker even though I cracked A-A with J-J and busted A-K with A-Qs. I dropped down in levels and won it all back. Go figure. I lost a PLO SNG when I flopped quads and made a terrible decision and slow played them only to get busted by runner runner quads over quads.

I also watched some of the WPT Borgata Winter Open last night. The Grinder beat Erick Lindgren heads up this past February and I caught the action live from media row. Check out my live blogging coverage of the WPT Borgata final table which includes photos. John D'Agstino made a huge laydown with 10-10. The board was all rags, but Lindgren flopped a set of 4s. He raised two million and D'Ags eventually mucked. The dealer rabbit hunted and Lindgren would have rivered quads.

The new WPT hostess and former model Sabina Gadecki

By the way, Flipchip took this photo of the new WPT hostess Sabina Gadeki last night during the taping of the final table of the WPT Mirage Showdown. He posted it over at Las Vegas and Poker Blog. Thanks for the pic! BJ posted something called Introducing Sabina Gadecki. Take a peek.

Check out Grubby's Red Rock Casino Poker Room Tips. He offers some great advice including some food tips! Grubby and I played at Red Rock on my last night in Las Vegas. It's one of the few places on the planet that spreads Omaha Hi. I can't wait to return and win my money back from Capt. Glass Eye.

Yesterday, I cleaned up the side bar and added several posts to my Quality Posts and Best of the Tao of Poker category. There are over 30+ posts in there. Here are the new additions:

Haleywood Homegame
Hammers, Hilton Sisters, Dial-a-Shots, and other Post-Modern Poker Vernacular
Circles & Poker
Bloggers in Wonderland: Part 4
Turn This Mother Out
Gilligan's Island and Poker
Market Corrections, Bozos, and Bolos
Bukowski & Poker
Strippers & Blow
April Sojourn
2006 WPT Championship
Glass Eyes and Red Rocks
Taoism and Bruce Lee Part I
Through the Looking Glass: April Maelstrom
Wall St. Game

Those quality posts are why Felicia mentioned me in her recent post where she listed her favorite poker blogs. She admits, "He writes the way I like. He runs the gamut of writing styles, maybe because he's stoned all the time, go figure."

I wonder if my bad allergies can qualify me for a medicinal marijuana card in California?

Hump Day Pimp Day: Grinding Limit, Sabina Gadeki, and WSOP Bound

Been writing about poker, music, and competitive eating over the last two days. Worked on two freelance articles with deadlines this Friday and Monday. One assignment is my online poker column for Poker Player Newspaper and the other is a recap of the WPT for Poker Pro Magazine.

I've also been playing online like a spider monkey jacked up on Ritalin. I've been sticking to cash games. Grinding is not fun. It's not glorious. The details are hardly blogworthy. But as Joey Knish said, "It's pays my bills. Alimony. My kids eat."

He's right. Lucky for me I have zero ex-wives and zero kids, at least that I don't know about. I have this fear that there's a dark haired five year old kid running around Iceland that looks like a mini-version of me, but with an Icelandic accent. One of my greatest nightmares is that a leggy blonde Icelandic Air stewardess with high cheek bones shows up at my door with my illegitimate offspring. Blondes and booze impair my judgment and withdrawal skills.

"You left this inside of me five yeas ago. You can have it back now."

Moving on...

For the first time in several months I cashed out a small percentage of my bankroll from my Party Poker account to spend on myself. I'd rather use that cash for personal enjoyment than have some assclown and fucktard bad beat it out of me. I've been following a winning formula. I play 10-20 at nights and weekends when I'm ultra focused. I usually play 5-10 when the right fish are biting. And I multi-table 3-6 on Party Poker because according to Poker Tracker that's where I'm the most profitable.

To keep my poker mind fresh, I've been playing PLO SNGs on Poker Stars. If you don't know, Poker Stars is running several promotions such as double VIP points and a shot at winning a bonus if you get dealt the 5 Billionth hand. So I've been lurking on Poker Stars getting my PLO fix and trying to get lucky with the jackpot.

I've been playing Limit on Full Tilt when I sweat friends in tournaments. I was on the rail when Change100 took second place (out of 151) in yesterday's MTT action. The night before she cashed in two huge multis taking 15th and 16th. The 15/2000 on the $3 rebuy on Poker Stars was impressive since she was shortstacked most of the tournament. Looks like everyone's favorite Hollyweird Junkgrabber found her groove in MTTs. Like I suggested to her, you need to figure out where you are most profitable and maximize that aspect of your game.

For me it's Limit and as I said earlier, playing limit is plebeian and not titillating. It's ABC poker where you're folding lots of hands, raising when you are ahead, and calling (or raising) when you have big draws. Unlike NL, you can pound the hell out of your draws in Limit and those are usually the biggest hands that you scoop, especially when you catch those cards in multi-way pots.

For a while I felt ashamed that I was a Limit player since NL is sexy and popular. But I decided that being a winning Limit player was more fun than being a losing or breakeven NL player. I play for enjoyment and to make money and to take out my frustrations. Sure there's more money to be made in NL, but I'm still prone to making too many mistakes and somedays I can't control my descent into tiltdom. I started playing Limit online about a year ago because I made too many poor decisions at the NL tables. I folded way too much to players moving all in on me and I bluffed to much out of position. Bottom line... I don't trust myself enough to play NL consistently, especially online. If I do play NL it's always live where I'm a much better overall poker player. Besides, NL tournaments are fools gold.

I still play NL and I play the occasional NL tournament online, but I don't rely on that to pad my bankroll. Those games along with PLO are for fun for me, while the Limit tables are all business. But then I can use the money I grinded away in Limit for fun things like concert tickets to Bonnaroo or to Widespread Panic.

* * * * *
The fifth season of the WPT began this week with the Mirage Poker Showdown in Las Vegas. I skipped this event. I'm not going to cover any poker tournament between now and the WSOP. I need to rest up.

Here's the final table chipcount (courtesy of Poker Wire) which included my favorite ass-worshiping, feet jizzing pro David Williams:

1 Stan Weiss $2.437M
2 Robert "I'm the brother of the Grinder" Mizrachi $2.019M
3 Devin Porter $964K
4 David Williams $921K
5 Harry Demetriou $822K
6 Steve Frederick $545K

If you're looking for chipcounts visit my friends Jen, Heather, and Amanda at Poker Wire. And if you want live updates, check out Spaceman's coverage at Bluff Magazine. Plus Flipchip has taken some photos so stop by Las Vegas and Poker Blog to see them.

Of course the buzz around the WPT this week is that the lovely Courtney Friel has been replaced. I dunno if she got the ax or she quit. The first time I ever met Courtney was at the Borgata in Atlantic City last September. It was my birthday and she was standing around BJ and the Poker Wire girls who wished me b-day greetings. Courtney turned around and gave me a big birthday hug. To which I replied, "How yooooooo doin?"

Of course, there were the tickle fights with BJ and Courtney (both pictured here at the five Diamond Classic at the Bellagio) in press row and that made me insanely jealous. Whenever I'd see Courtney she'd always say hello calling me by my first name. Steve Hall said that she's a bright girl and reads your name on your press badge before she says hello and that Shana Hiatt was never quick enough to pick up on that. Everyone called Shana Hiatt the girl next door. I always saw Courtney Friel as that popular cheerleader in high school or the hot sorority chick that you gave your Chem notes to because you were convinced that she was going to repay the favor by going down on you.

Now, we have a new girl named Sabina Gadeki. She's a cutie. Wicked Chops Poker has some of the first photos of the new WPT hostess including a student film that she did in NYC. She's a former Miss Teen Poland or something like that who's an aspiring actress. She's got a sweet gig. She gets to travel all over the world and get hit on by scumbag overweight poker players who haven't showered in days. But at least she's on TV and gets to have tickle fights with BJ.

* * * * *

Finally, I was happy to see this email in my inbox. It's from one of the executives at the WSOP. I'm officially going to be covering my second WSOP in a few weeks and I can't wait!

Dr. Pauly,

Thank you for your interest in the 37th annual World Series of Poker. I am pleased to inform you that your application for press credentials has been approved.

You can pick up your press badge at the media credential office in the World Series of Poker tournament area beginning June xx.

Please note, you will need to provide a photo identification that confirms your age in order to receive your credentials. Also, please be aware you will need a wi-fi enabled laptop computer if you plan to file reports from the World Series of Poker media center. "Hard" data lines will not be available this year.

By submitting your application, you have agreed to abide by the media guidelines posted at www.worldseriesofpoker.com/press. Please review those terms in advance of your arrival at the World Series of Poker and feel free to contact the media relations team with any questions.

We look forward to seeing you at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino this summer.

Nicole

Be sure to take a peek at the revised 2006 WSOP schedule.

* * * * *
Recent Poker Playing Music...
1. James Brown
2. Particle
3. Tea Green Leaf
4. Grateful Dead
5. John Coltrane

LaFelta Vermouth and the Village Drunk

Last year I traveled to the Midwest for a three day bender that spread across three states. Inside of a 48 hour period, I won a tournament in Hilljack, Indiana, puked in Daddy's car, saw a Reds game, attended a concert, and played cornhole at the Hoffbrauhaus in Kentucky at 2am. After that memorable trip, I returned for more hijinks. We had several returning characters in the sequel, including a couple of new and familiar faces.


Thursday

It had been a while since I flew an airline other than JetBlue, which doesn't fly into Cincinnati. I booked Delta, which I used to fly all the time when they were one of the best in the industry. These days, JetBlue gets all my business... 11 flights since November and I have two coming up in the next week. Since Delta doesn't offer free TV, I listened to my iPod and read Chuck Klosterman's Killing Yourself to Live.

If there's one guy I want to be... it's Klosterman, that lucky fuck. He's has both Spin magazine and ESPN on his writer's resume and gets paid to write about music, pop culture, and sports. Anyway in his recent book, Spin sends the neurotic pot smoking Klosterman to random locations all over America where famous rockstars died. He headed out on a roadtrip to several infamous landmarks such as the Chelsea Hotel in New York City on 23rd Street, around the corner from where I used to live. The Chelsea Hotel was the spot where the Sex Pistol's talentless bass player Sid Vicious killed his girlfriend Nancy Spungen in an alcho-narcotic-driven stupor. Klosterman also visited the field in Mississippi where Lynard Skynard's plane crashed and at the intersection in Macon, Georgia where Duane Allman was killed in a traffic accident when his motorcycle was (supposedly) hit by a peach truck.

Iggy picked me up at the airport before we drove around Kentucky looking for a Cracker Barrel. We didn't find one and took the backroads to Belterra Casino. I spotted a sign for a tractor pull just before we crossed the Ohio River into Indiana. The Belterra is a riverboat casino and degenerate gamblers from Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky flock there because Indiana is the only state in the area that allows gambling.

The Belterra's luxury hotel is located on land, but the casino is on an actual riverboat connected to the hotel. The casino floor area is small with hundreds of blue hairs shoving their social security checks into the maze-like rows of slot machines.

"Heaven's waiting room," is what one friend of mine called the slots area in casinos.

Iggy frequently plays poker in the crescent moon shaped room at Belterra. We arrived just after lunchtime with four tables of action going. As we waited to be seated, I found a copy of Poker Player Newspaper. That particular issue featured the first running of my new column on online poker. I was a little bit giddy as I showed it to Iggy. It took me a year to get promoted to regular columnist. Click here to download the current issue.

We played poker for a few hours. Iggy and I sat at the same 3-6 and 4-8 tables. I lost $73 against a bunch of elderly good old boys with Southern accents and rural twangs. We quit to go eat and drink. Iggy ordered two beers at once at the bar because our bartender was slow. She was horrible.


Friday

After eating at a Cracker Barrel in Kentucky, we picked up Maudie at the airport and checked into the hotel in Covington, Kentucky just over the river from Cincinnati. Last year, Daddy and I walked over the bridge to go to the Reds game. And just like last year, Iggy rented out a suite. We actually had the same exact suite. Daddy and BG drove in from Indiana for some pre-partying before the evening Reds game. BG told us about his tryst the night before with a gal wearing a trucker's hat while we played a variation of Chinese Poker that had a few Go Fish elements. It's basically Chinese Poker but you can draw up to 4 cards. We played three-handed and I lost quads over quads on several instances. BG picked up a few bucks from both me and Daddy, who got smoked.

Iggy's buddy Dann works for the Reds and hooked us up with amazing seats. He helped Iggy put out the message on the Jumbrotron welcoming for us to the game. It was cold and soggy night, but we drank and ate through it, despite the Reds loss.

After the game I played six handed NL in the suite with BG, Maudie, Daddy, GMoney, and Iggy. I got felted three times and never bought back in after I went on serious tilt. I was playing Iggy's mucked cards since he was two seats to my left. On two instances I went broke, one time with SMTL against BG's Hiltons. Maudie knocked back tequila and walked away the big winner the first night.

At 4am, I accompanied a very drunk Daddy to the Waffle House a few blocks away. On the way to the Reds game we were told by our cab driver that the Waffle House was considered the dirtiest in the area and was cited for several health code violations. That Waffle House was the late night magnet for the lowest strata of society which included raccoon-eyed meth dealers, haunty hookers, Glock-packing pimps, drunken frat boys, and several deranged members of the local homeless population.

My friend Lori (who went to law school in Covington) warned me, "That's were people disappear from. You know, like so-and-so was last seen at the Waffle House before going missing for three weeks. Then the police find their rotting and raped corpse floating in the Ohio River."

Alas, you can't keep a drunk fat man away from hashbrowns and pecan waffles, despite the dangerous circumstances.

We survived our dining experience with no problems as Daddy hit on all the waitresses including one scary looking chick with gang tattoos behind her both of her ears. I have enough material for a Truckin' story, perhaps two. I'm going back to Hollyweird this week so I can pitch them a new reality series where Daddy and I travel around America eating in Waffle Houses and Denny's at 3am after we drink beer and huff airplane glue in the parking lot. It can also be a ground breaking documentary film. Degenerate cinema. I might even pitch the idea to European venture capitalists. Those Germans with film almost anything.


Saturday

I woke up early to buy Widespread Panic summer tour tickets at Red Rocks, Colorado and for two shows in LA. We drove to the Anchor Grill for breakfast. Five hungover souls squeezed into a small booth in the 24 hour dive that specializes in goetta, which is oats and sausage. It looks like a fried, flattened horseshit but is considered a delicacy.

"Goetta is an acquired taste," I'm told from the locals.

I took two bites and that was enough. I should have tried it with syrup but I was scared. They had a jukebox and Iggy played Patsy Cline for Maudie.

We played poker in the suite and drank for about 10 hourswhile some of Iggy's buddies showed up to play such as Huggie Bear, Dann, Jim, The Sheriff, TDub, Mr. Fabulous, and GMoney who brought all the kick ass tunes. We also had a special guest blogger... Duggle Bogey!

The real drama started when the infamous Fast Eddie arrived. I've seen pictures on Iggy's blog and heard the stories. Fast Eddie was an admitted redneck and hick with a six figure bankroll who played 10 SNGs at once.

"Is the entire floor revolving, or is that just the restaurant?" Fast Eddie asked in his slow drawl as he stared out the window of the suite. Two floors above us was the rotating restaurant. Our floor was stationary.

Fast Eddie would go on a tear after he had just $8 in chips remaining. When he tripled up, he left faster than he walked in. Lucky for me we had 12 players at that point and had to split the game up into two tables. I sat at the "kiddie table," a nickname that we (Daddy, TDub, GMoney, Duggle, and Dann) gave our game since the average pot was about $4. The other table (Iggy, Fast Eddie, Mr. Fab, Maudie, BG, and Sheriff) had players going all in on almost every hand. The pots were huge and everyone in that game had to rebuy at one time.

I started out winning a few prop bets from Duggle after we started picking "high card" out of the muck. When I was heads up with Daddy, we'd play Vegas Hold'em rules where we both got to see one of each other's hole cards. I bluffed him out of a pot with the Hammer. He had A-Q. His ace was exposed and my 2 of diamonds was exposed. The flop was K-Q-x with two diamonds. The turn was the 2 of clubs. I moved all in and Daddy mucked his A-Q face up because he thought I turned a set with 2-2. I did a similar move with 3-3 earlier in the night. I showed the Hammer bluff. Grubby would be proud. He's the originator of both the Hammer and Vegas Hold'em and I utilized both in the same hand.

After singing the lyrics to The Band's Don't Do It for the 347th time, Daddy admitted he was going to name his first born daughter "LaFelta Vermouth." That would be a great name for my jazz band. I think that Daddy was inspired from Drizz naming his newborn daughter Vegas.

I was down early and came back when I put GMoney on slight tilt after I sucked out on him twice. We eventually combined the two tables and I ended up winning back the money I lost the night before. Daddy lost a few bucks doing Roshambo with Iggy on Friday night. He picked up some cash on a prop bet when he chugged an entire grape Smirnoff Ice. It was one of those nights when everyone was drinking, laughing, and playing cards. I'm glad that I had the chance to party it up with my friends, hang out with Iggy's Cincinnati homies, watch Maudie shoot tequila, and play in a homegame with Duggle.

Just before 6am, we returned to the sketchy Waffle House so Daddy could eat another plate of triple hashbrowns topped with Bert's chili. He hit on the same pear-shaped waitress from the night before along with every female employee inlcuding the one who was missing a few teeth. The sun slowly crept above the Kentucky hills as we stumbled out of the dirtiest Waffle House in the South. Folks were getting up to go to church, as we capped off another epic night of drinking and gambling.

Klonopin and Kentucky Bourbon

I completed a three day, three state bender. No one got arrested. No one puked. The following paragraph is what I scribbled into my notebook. It sums up my last 70+ hours...

5:30am... Sunday... Covington, KY... Daddy hit on 3 different Waffle House waitresses while he devoured a triple order of hashbrowns topped with chili and a pecan waffle on the side... the 20 year old pear-shaped waitress with three kids had a tattoo on her wrist that read "Total Bitch" in faded aqua ink...

I gambled this weekend, playing poker at a riverboat in Southern Indiana and then donking off chips with bloggers in Kentucky. Post pending. You can look at some random pics of the weekend over at the Tao of Pauly.

By the way, thanks to Iggy for making this possible:

Tips for Spanish 21

Spanish 21 is a variety of Blackjack getting popular in Europe. It is owned by Masque Publications Inc. Unlicensed, though equivalent versions of Spanish 21 is popularly called Spanish Blackjack.

Regarding the rules of Spanish 21, many of them may appear liberal as opposed to that in conventional blackjack. For example, Spanish 21 permits payout bonuses for five or more card 21's, 6-7-8 21's, 7-7-7 21's, late surrender, doubling down any number of cards with the option to ‘rescue’ or surrender only one wager to the house, and player blackjacks and player 21's always winning, at the cost of having no 10 cards in the deck (though there are kings, queens and jacks). To sum them up, if the player can have a fool proof basic strategy in place, Spanish 21 guarantees a definite lower house edge than any other blackjack game.

Now let's look at some useful tips that may come in handy while you play blackjack.

• The first thing every player must consider is to understand the house rules clearly. It will come in handy while forming strategies. Remember, house rules may vary from one casino to another.
• It would be better to learn the game before trying ones luck in the casino. Hence try your mettle playing some free online games before graduating yourself to the real game.
• Use the strategy chart to the maximum advantage even if it takes some time to do so. In such a game that includes many decks, it is vital to use it until you reach a comfort zone.
• In the game, it is advisable to keep off from trying the Super Bonus bet as it has extremely high house odds.
• It is better to play in those casinos where redoubling is permitted. If redoubling is not in the house rules, then you may almost double the house edge, even though it is still a comparably low .76%.
• Finally, keep in mind that if you fail to draw to split aces, you increase your house advantage by 0.29%.

It is true that the rules of Spanish 21 are generally liberal than the original blackjack game. But one should make oneself thorough with the basics of the games before actually start playing. And that is the most important of the tips this article would like to give to a prospective player. Good Luck!

Blackjack Websites

Here are some blackjack websites that I can recommend. I'm a big blackjack lover, in fact, I started playing blackjack before I took up poker. I definitely would consider myself a poker player first and a blackjack player second now, but the soft spot for the game of 21 is still there.

Blackjack Info by Ken Smith is the coolest blackjack site on the web, and it includes a basic strategy generator where you can input the casino conditions and the site will spit out a customized basic strategy chart that's perfect for your situation. He also operates a cool forum about blackjack tournaments.

This is a cool new site about blackjack strategy which shows a lot of promise. The young man who's working on this site is really putting a lot of effort into it, and I'm expecting big things, even though the site isn't finished yet.

I've got a site I helped work on with some cool blackjack articles too. Like the blackjack strategy article I mentioned above, it's not quite finished yet either.

Blackjack Palace is a pretty complete blackjack portal too, with information about the history of the game and how to play, along with some recommended online blackjack casinos.

Blackjack Professor has some recommendations for online black jack casinos too. Be sure to check him out also.

Casino Gambling Websites

This blog is mostly about poker, but a lot of poker players are into casino gambling too and love casino games. So I've got some recommended sites here related to online casino games and online gambling for your surfing pleasure:

My favorite site for casino game strategies is this one, because it's so well-designed and easy to navigate. This is the best site I've found for learning how to play online slots and online blackjack. Worth checking out, for sure.

If you're interested in online casino gambling games, then Casino Geek is a site not to be missed. Not only is the site full of cool information about where to play, but it also includes information about how to play and how to best take advantage of the casino bonuses and comps that are available on the internet.

If you're interested in hunting casino bonuses and taking advantage of casino comps, a great guide to online casinos and free casino bonuses can help get you started. Generous Casinos is one of the oldest and most well-respected bonus guides online, and for good reason. The author is reliable, the site is user-friendly, and the information presented is useful.

This online gambling guide includes a detailed description of Golden Palace and also recommends some other online casinos at which to play. The site also features strategy for different casino games and rules for some casino poker games.

Probably the best designed and easiest to look at site, as far as gambling guides go, is Choice Gambling, which is also full of solid information that any online gambler is going to find interesting. Whether you want to find an online casino, a sportsbook, a poker room, or a bingo hall, Choice Gambling has got the information you're going to want to review before making a decision about where to play.

This is another great guide to online casino poker, as well as other casino games and issues. OnlineCasinoReviewer includes reviews of online casinos and a forum where players can compare their experiences at some of the different casinos. The site also features recommendations related to Las Vegas casinos and a section for aspiring gambling webmasters.

If you're looking for a really straightforward way to pick out your next casino at which to play, then be sure to visit Online Casinos Ranked. It's a simple site, consisting of a list of casinos ranked and rated by a team of professionals who know all about what to watch for when choosing an online casino.

Casino Gypsy is also a neat online casino guide, with an especially good list of casino bonuses you can take advantage of. They also feature casino game tips for every casino game imaginable, from slots to blackjack.

These gambling forums are pretty cool too, especially the section with the casino recommendations. Definitely a good site to check out.

And if you like roulette, then this site will give you the lowdown about how and where to play roulette online.

Slots Websites

Here are my recommendations for some cool websites about slots and slot machines:

Slots Hero Online - One of the biggest and riches sources of information about slot machines I've ever seen.

SlotTips.com is one of my favorites for slots and online slot games. Not only is the site beautifully designed and easy to read, but it's loaded with cool information about where to play slots online.

One of the oldest and most reputable guides to online slots is Slots Mania. You won't find much of anything about traditional brick and mortar casinos on this site, because the information is exclusively related to online slots and online slot machines, but man, is it comprehensive. It doesn't matter what kind of online slot game you're looking for, you'll be able to find it faster at Slots Mania than on any other slots website.

Slots Palace is another cool guide to online slots and online casinos.

Slots Patrol consists exclusively of recommendations for places to play online slots. Like Slots Mania, you won't find anything here about playing slot machines in a normal casino, but there's plenty of good stuff about online casinos here.

This website about slot machines is a little more diverse - there is plenty of information here about online casinos and online slot machines, but there are also articles about playing slots in Vegas, slot machine cheats, and news from the world of slot machines. It's a cool site with a lot of high quality content.

Slots Queen is another online slot machine guide, with details on where to find 3 reel slots, 5 reel slots, bonus slots, and more. Very cool, and very well designed.

Slots Jam is another cool slot machine website that focuses mostly on the online slot machine aspect of the subject. Worth checking out.

Video Poker Websites

I've got too many recommended sites in my sidebar, so I'm going to move some of the into some posts on the blog and then just link to those posts. That should make the sidebar a little more user-friendly, and it will be easier for folks to find what they're looking for in the recommendations too. This is the first in that series of categorized recommendations, the video poker sites:

Video Poker Player is the first recommended video poker site on the list. The site has full details about the game of video poker, including a short history of the game. That information is followed by instructions how to play and an analysis of some of the different online video poker games available, like Microgaming, Realtime Gaming, and Playtech.

Video Poker St is another site similar to the first, full of information about online video poker and online casinos, especially. The site is well-designed and it's easy to find the information you're looking for there.

You can also learn how to play video poker at Video Poker School. Great info about where to play online, how to take advantage of online casino comps, and a video poker tutorial are included.

Video Poker Treasure focuses almost exclusively on recommending good online casinos at which to play video poker. The casinos recommended there are all solid, reputable places to play.

Finally, if you're looking for information about video poker strategy and video poker games, you might really enjoy this new site, Video Poker 365. Lots of unique and high quality video poker content available there, including an interview with Jeff Lotspiech, who launched one of the first video poker websites on the internet a few years ago.

Video Poker 247 is another cool site about video poker that's refreshingly light on the flashing casino ads and has lots of basic information about how to play.

The Routine: A Guest Post from Daddy

Editor's Note: As you know, I'm away for the weekend and Daddy has control of the Tao of Poker. Here's another one of his guest posts.

"Never play poker when you're tilted."

"What's up? Bad night again?"

"Yeah, I lost seven buy-ins. My head wasn't in it."

"Do you ever think about giving up the game?"

"Of course not. I only played bad because I threw off my daily routine."

"Oh yeah? And what kind of routine is that?"

"Well, I always masturbate in the shower, and yesterday I couldn't because I had just taken a shit and it smelled so bad I couldn't tug one off."

"Wow. That's powerful."

"Yeah, I tried to start, but it wasn't happening. My poop was pretty foul. I haven't shit a solid turd in months, and this last batch would've passed right through a screen door.

"So, you've never had sex in a cow pasture?"

"Can't say that I have. Why would I?"

"It's exhilarating."


Daddy is a donkeyfucker from Hilljack, Indiana. You can buy an official Snail Trax shirt and merchandise by visiting the SnailTrax Store.

How to Beat the 6 Max Texas Holdem Tables

I found a really cool site today, with a cool narrow focus: how to beat 6 max Texas Holdem games. The site starts off with some pretty basic information, like poker rules and poker odds, but then gets into specific strategies for play at all stages of the game, preflop, on the flop, on the river, on the turn, etc. They also offer a ton of recommended reading links in each section, which is extremely user-friendly and helpful. Very cool poker site, and it's also not loaded up with a ton of affiliate advertising links either. Strong on information, low on advertising; that's a winning combination in my book.

A Bad Beat Story: Part II... A Guest Post from Daddy

Editor's Note: I'm at the gate in LaGuardia airport about to leave NYC for four days. I'm sitting next to a guy that smells sour milk and cat piss. With my luck he'll be sitting next to me on my flight into the heart of darkness. Anyway, I begged the suits at Fox Sports to send me on a non-poker assignment. Since I'm the low man on the totem pole, I get to visit Northern Kentucky to cover a competitive eating contest. If all goes well, I'll have enough material to start up my new competitive eating blog... the Tao of Fink. (I know Mean Gene got that obscure reference!)

I'll be back on Monday. For now, I'm handing over my blog to Daddy for a few days. He returns with the follow up to his classic guest post from January. If you don't know, Daddy erased his blog and I'm fortunate that his rare public apperances have been here on the Tao of Poker. You should reread Daddy's original guest post A Bad Beat Story.


A Bad Beat Story: Part II

"Hey man, what's up? I haven't talked to you since the day after New Year's. How are things?"

"Good. Certainly a lot better than the night you last saw me. I still have nightmares about that bitch, and I haven't had Mexican food in over four months."

"Yeah, man, that was a truly horrific beat. I've told tons of people about that, and they all laugh, but only because it didn't happen to them."

"Sure as shit it didn't happen to them. But that's not the point. I was calling for two reasons. First, to see if you are going to Eric's wedding, and second to talk 'friend to friend' about a problem I've been having."

"Yeah, I'll be at the wedding. I'm flying in Thursday, and flying back out Monday morning. You want to talk then?"

"No. I need someone to talk with now. It's poker. It's driving me insane."

"How much are you down?"

"It's not about being down. It's about poker controlling every single thing that I do. I have dreams about flops, turns, and rivers for crying out loud. It always ends badly too. Usually it's a two-outer, sometimes a miracle backdoor runner, but regardless it's always bad. I wake up every night in a cold sweat not knowing where I'm at or who I am. Candice thinks I need professional help, but I ain't gonna go see no shrink. Not for this."

"Jesus, dude. That's way fucked up. Maybe you should just take a break from the game for awhile or something."

"I can't. It's everywhere. If I'm sitting in traffic I'm playing license plate poker with every tag that I can see. Dollar bills, credit cards, raffle tickets, anything that has numbers represents a hand. I can't separate poker from my real life, and it's scaring the shit out of me."

"And you're not losing?"

"Of course I'm losing, but that's not the point. The point is that I think I'm losing my mind. These nightmares happen every night, and sometimes they don't involve actual poker hands that I'm playing, but have something else relating to poker. Last night for example, I had a dream that I was watching a World Championship of Poker where every country had a poker team kind of like the Olympics. I don't even know if this exists yet, but it was real vivid in my dream."

"Who won the gold?"

"That's the thing, bro. I didn't even see the final match but I do know that it was between Costa Rica and Vietnam. They started to announce the teams, and each guy came running out of a tunnel to loud music as their name was called. First it was Humberto Brenes, Alex Brenes, and Jose Rosenkrantz for Team Costa Rica. The crowd was going nuts and they were waving flags and singing Costa Rican fight songs. The announcer introduced Team Vietnam next and Men the Master, Scotty Nguyen, and Chau Gaing came out. But for some fucked up reason when it was time for Chau to come out of the tunnel a group of like twenty hairy fat guys came running out."

"Man, maybe you do need some help. Do you have any idea what that signifies? I'm horrible at interpreting someone else's dreams. I can't even translate my own."

"Oh, I know what it signifies. All of the big fat guys were wearing shirts that said CHOW GANG and they were running over everyone in their path and eating everything in sight. Next thing I know I'm transported to my house where I'm sitting on my porch reading Harrington Vol. II, and I hear this rumble coming from down the street."

"The Chow Gang?"

"Sure as shit. By this time there were probably fifty of them. They ran right into my house and I tried to stop them, but two of them threw me down and started in on me pretty good. I remember not being able to get up, but I could hear the carnage coming from inside my house."

"Christ, man, that's crazy."

"Yeah, that's not even the best of it. Finally, I'm somehow able to get up, but they have my door blocked off with three fat guys. I walk around my house and look in my kitchen window and my fridge is on its side, and it's completely empty. There's just boxes, jars and food scraps all over the floor. There were also two guys standing over my stove pouring every can of soup I had into a giant pot. They just kept chanting 'Chow Gang! Chow Gang! Chow Gang!'"

"That'd be a pretty sweet T-shirt to have now that you mention it. Of course it would only be funny to us."

"Dude, that's not the point. This isn't funny at all. Next thing I know I'm walking around my house and I climb up over my back fence and I see six of these guys standing around my fire pit. I snuck up to get a closer look, and there it was, my oldest cat, Frank, skinned and skewered roasting on a spit. Poor Frank, roasting like a Memorial Day hog surrounded by a bunch of fat guys chanting 'Chow Gang! Chow Gang!'"

"Aw fuck. I loved Frank."

"Yeah, me too. I loved it when he would lay on my chest and watch the World Poker Tour with me. Anyway, so, instead of jumping back over the fence and getting the hell out of there, I pulled out my cell phone and called information asking for PETA’s phone number."

"PETA?"

"Yeah, like I said, these dreams have been getting crazier by the day."

"What did PETA say?"

"Well, I got this old lady on the phone and I tried to best describe what was happening at my house. She asked for specifics, and when I told her about Frank I could practically hear her fainting on the other end. That's when I finally asked her if she knew anything about this Chow Gang and if they've ever been reported before."

"What did the old lady say?"

"She said, and I quote, 'Chau Gaing? The poker player? Those fucking Cambodians will eat anything.'"


Daddy is a donkeyfucker from Hilljack, Indiana. You can buy an official Snail Trax shirt and merchandise by visiting the SnailTrax Store.