Muck Marissa Cooper

"Dude, find a girl who looks just like her. Nail her. And dump her." - from Say Anything

Dear Ryan,

You don't know me, but I'm a fan of your show The OC. I guess you can color me a borderline stalker because I've been watching your every move since you first came on the air and you have no idea who I am. Well, I never miss a show and have skipped out on big events just so I can watch a new episode.

Since I know everything possible about you, I can automatically assume that we have this unexplained connection and a bond. I know you like my best friend. That's why I can freely dispense some relationship advice to you. Here it is as blunt as I can say it...

Muck Marissa Cooper.

That's right. Walk away. Let her go. It will be the best decision of your life. Don't draw out three to five years of more melodrama and fall in and out of love a half a dozen times and be caught in triangular relationships where the outsider comes and goes just like the ebb of the ocean's tide and causes emotional distress for everyone in the cast.

Take my advice. Girls like Marissa Cooper are bad news. I'll get into that more specifically in a second. But let's quickly run down her history.

Marissa Cooper's ex-boyfriend is the school bully and picks on minorities and nerds. During his reign of terror she fully supported his vision of tormenting social outcasts. She gets off on watching other people share in her misery.

Marissa Cooper was a virgin and gave it up to her Neo-Nazi and homophobic ex-boyfriend all because she was crushed by the sight of you kissing a girl.

Marissa Cooper tried to kill herself in Mexico after a late night of clubbing in Tijuana. She couldn't stand seeing her Neo-Nazi thug of a ex-boyfriend kiss some floozy. She OD'd on a hefty combination of valium, tequila, and some sort of horse tranquilizer that trainers at Belmont usually give their two-year old thoroughbreds. She not only wants attention, she's willing to commit suicide of the epic Sylvia Plath proportions.

Marissa Cooper got involved with a psycho kid who tried to hold her hostage and shoot her. Even after you told her that he was bad news, she insisted that she be friends with him because it was important for her to be a good friend. That's horseshit because we all know the only reason guys are friends with women so that they can have an opportunity to fuck them at a later time.

Marissa Cooper also endured a eating disorder, suffered through divorced parents, and she even shot your fuckin' brother for Christ's sake. I know he tried to rape her, but still, she shot him when she could have easily missed and shot you. You're lucky that you're still alive. Besides, how we can be 100% certain that she was hit the guy she was aiming for? Hmmmm. Makes you think right?

Now add the whole Johnny the Surfer drama. What total bullshit. You should have bitch-slapped her or broke up with her the second she started making gaa-gaa eyes at surfer stoner dude, who we all know (casting director included) that he's supposed to be a thinly veiled replica of you. She never really fell for Johnny. She fell for the stoner/surfer personification of you. She knows she's not good enough to have you so she lashed out in that way of befriend stoner-surfer dudes with bad knees and sidekicks named Chilly.

Plus Marissa Cooper has a 15-year old pothead of a sister who makes Britney Spears look like Mother Theresa. That's just bad news altogether. Mary Jane toking trailer park vixens wearing short plaid skirts and seducing older men always ends up with us in prison for up to a decade. Marrissa's gold-digger for a mother and a sexually-disturbed younger sister is a dangerous mix for anyone to have to endure. Get out now before you knock them all up and have to deal with a psychologically taught dinner scene that reminds me something from of a Fellini flick on four hits of acid.

And let me tell you a thing or too about dating rich women. It never works. They have no concept about money and make you feel like shit for not having any of it. What kind of chick like that lets you walk around in wifebeater t-shirts all the time? Even the poorest of girlfriends that I had at some point took me shopping to buy a new item of clothing. I can't explain why but the third time after you sleep with a woman, something clicks in her head that says, "I need to buy you a new shirt." Marissa would never cook for you either. Another reason to dump her.

Look, I know you've had a tough life living on the other side of the tracks in Chino. But in The OC, it's a different world. You got big issues. You knocked up another psycho chick, this one from the barrio and she never told you she kept the baby. Oh shit! You're not supposed to know that part of the plot, but yeah it's true. And your brother has one kidney and one testicle left over after Marissa Cooper took target practice on his ass. He fled to Las Vegas and Grubby told me that he's dealing blackjack at the Klondike and has developed a festering addiction to Vicodin. And don't forget about your best friend Seth Cohen. He's the biggest tool in school and President of the Comic Books Club. I dunno how you guys roll in The OC, but when I went to school, kids like that got stuffed into lockers and their underwear ripped to shreds. When are you gonna wise up and realize that the Cohens are only using you as muscle? To keep the bullies away from their Ivy League bound son. Oh yeah, he's a closet pothead too. Just like Marissa Cooper and even her mom, Julie Cooper. She smokes the reefer too. Flee the land of incestual potheads.

What can I say, you gotta dump the girl and walk away for good.

One day in college about 12-13 years ago, I woke up and found a knife stuck in my door. I lived in my fraternity house and everyone was anticipating a scene out of Fatal Attraction. If I had any bunnies, this chick would boil them. She left a refusal to break up with me note pinned to my door with a knife. Not just a steak knife, but one out of a set of 31. The sharpest of which she said she'd use to cut my balls off if I attempted to break up with her again. If she never got picked up by Atlanta Police for shoplifting tampons at Kroeger's, then I'd be whipped for sure.

Another ex-girlfriend dumped me on my birthday of all days. She was French. No compassion from those cheese-eating surrender monkeys. She waited purposely for my birthday because she knew that for the rest of my life, I'd have to celebrate knowing that I had my heart ripped out on the same day. Talk about torture. I recall her last words were something like, "Happy Birthday. Fuck you. I hope you die."

Then there was another girlfriend who stole forty of my favorite CDs. The snake of a woman took the CDs out of their cases and left them behind, so that over the next few weeks I'd slowly discover one by one that she pilfered a quarter of my CD collection. I'm still bitter about losing Blonde On Blonde and Maceo Parker's Life on Planet Groove.

Sorry I got side-tracked. Here's my point... you need to ditch the rich broad. Quick. Otherwise, you're gonna get you junk kicked in no less than 126 times, lose three teeth, have five ribs broken, and lose all your dignity, pride, and integrity in the process. Love is a powerful drug, opiate, and necessity. Don't waste it on her. Find a nice girl on the rebound, because let's face it, the world is full of scumbag guys who probably just fucked over some nice girl from the Valley. Punch your weight, kid. And stick with the chicks from the 818 area code. They are more your speed. They'll eat Jack in the Box and still give you a beejer in the parking lot of the bowling alley after you take her there for your second date. They'll even pay for the shoe rentals.

Just like in poker, sometimes you get too attached to a hand and you can't let it go. It's pretty obvious from my perspective, that you need to leave the girl. It's hard to see that from your end. that's why you're on relationship tilt. Take my advice. Fold when you know you are beat and save yourself some money. Say good-bye to the girl and move to Dawson's Creek.

Thanks.

Your biggest fan,
Pauly


P.S. Can you give me Marissa Cooper's younger sister, Kaitlin's cell phone number?

Gilligan's Island Theory of Ending Losing Streaks

"Losing is a disease, like gonorrhea or syphilis." - Sports psychiatrist from The Natural

Hello. My name is Pauly, and I'm a losing poker player. I try to make up my losses at the tables by betting on women's curling and short-selling the Malaysian stock market. My only solace is that the Winter Olympics are just around the corner, which means I get to clean up in prop bets against causal gamblers. I'll take action on any Olympic sport except figure skating. So fuckin' rigged, just like online poker.

I'm down 50% of my bankroll since Halloween. I took a hit in January. I didn't lose as much as I did the previous two months, but I also didn't play for nearly two weeks when I was working at the Borgata otherwise I would have lost more. In fact, the Borgata was the only place I won in over a month. I never had four losing months in a row. And I'm not going to start now. Whenever things get too freaky, you hunker down and go back to the basics.

ABC poker. No fancy play. By the book. What would Pablo do?

I reeled in the aggression. At the Borgata, a player named Action Bob mentioned how he rarely tries to read players at the tables. "It's all about the math."

Action Bob also plays a lot online in a void where there are no physical tells. He bases all those tough decisions strictly on math. If the numbers are in his favor he raises or calls. If it's not so favorable, he folds and waits for a better opportunity to get his money into the pot.

I tried to adhere to Action Bob's philosophy. It seemed so simple. I needed to eliminate my mind out of the decisions and act like a bot. Sometimes the ego takes hold and although the math dictates a fold, I call anyway because I "know that fucker is bluffing." That's the over-confident side of my personality where I think I can fly and read people's minds and sometimes dodge bullets.

Most of the time, I'm wrong and I bleed away a little more of my stack. I'm a mere mortal and my testicles are scarred with dozens of black and blue marks from when it was viciously attacked by an onslaught of suckouts and badbeats. Those are battle wounds that will never heal. Bankrolls will fluctuate. But my balls will never be the same.

The last few days ago I turned on my Action Bob bot and tried to clean up at the tables. I didn't win, but I didn't lose that much. I stopped the bleeding. Right now I just need to keep playing solid poker and have faith that the principles of mathematics will prevail. As longs as I get my money in the pot when I have the best hand statistically, I will win over the long run.

It's hard to keep reminding myself that everytime I cash out with less chips than I started with. Last year I had a conversation with F Train during one of our games at the Blue Parrot. He told me that he tracked all of his online hands and he had not gotten A-A in a ring game in over 2200 hands. You're supposed to get aces one in 220 or so. By his estimation, he should have has A-A no less than ten times.

"You're due," I said trying to reassure him.

I'm due. I'm just waiting. Time to go back to guerilla poker. Hit and Run sessions. Sit down at a ring table, scoop a pot and bail. I've been trying to log long sessions and that's been killing me. How many times do you decide to leave and say, "Ah, one more orbit and then you take a big hit?" That happens to me all the time.

At the end of a two week writing binge, I printed up 130,000 words worth of text. It's one thing to read a manuscript on Word. It's a whole other thing to physically read a copy. I held the physical manifestation of two weeks of work in my hands. It's a sense of accomplishment. Although it wasn't perfect or far from being complete, it was the first time I saw my project as a whole. Just when I had doubts of whether I could pull it off, seeing hundreds of pages that I wrote was enough to inspire me to keep on moving forward with my goals and to complete the project.

That's tough to do with poker. I can look back on the first four weeks of 2006 but I can't physically see the results. And when you lose you feel hopeless about the money lost. Vanished from you pocket or from your bankroll. I used to think that the world was divided into good players and bad players. It's not. There are winning players and losing players.

I'm a losing player... over the past three months. Since the Summer of 2003, I've been a winning player.

Whenever I'm in a tough bind, I turn to television to solve my problems. This time I'll use Gilligan's Island to help pull me out of my losing streak.

Seven strangers stranded on a deserted island. Hilarity ensues. As much as they try to get off the island, they can't. The secluded island resembles the my current state of poker play. I'm trapped and can't get away from my losing mentality.

I realize that at some point, my poker play has taken on the personalities of everyone from the cast of Gilligan's Island.


The Skipper

The Skipper has been around the block several times. He's a war veteran. He's been stabbed in a bar in Calcutta. He's banged tranny hookers in Bangkok. He's fought hand-to-hand combat with pirates in the Caribbean and even fought of the advances of sexually confused sailors. He knows how to play poker but sometimes he gets too bossy and becomes the table captain. No one likes playing against the table captain and you never get action. The Skipper also has a big ego. It's hard for him to accept that he still makes mistakes and often blames it on his underlings. His unwillingness to accept responsibilities for his actions is what got everyone stranded on the island in the first place and is why I'm still losing at poker. Plus the Skipper is secretly in love with Gilligan. After all he's his "Little Buddy."

Gilligan

Gilligan was the Skipper's dumb-ass boy toy. Gilligan's inept abilities as a first mate was often questioned by television scholars and many believe that's why the castaways were shipwrecked. But we all know that's not the real reason why the got stranded in the first place. The Skipper hired him and should sholder the blame for surrounding himself with an incompetent crew. Gilligan's faults specialize in his inability to follow through on a specific game plan. He ends up goofing off and fucking stuff up. I play like Gilligan all the time. I start out down the right path and the next thing, I'm caught in quicksand or being molested by a menagerie of horny apes.

The Millionaire

Thurston Howell III likes action. He'll make retarded calls because he has the bankroll to sustain short term and long term losses. I find myself playing too much like Thurston. My bankroll is not unlimited. I better start paying more respect to how I handle it otherwise I'll end up MC Hammer broke.

The Millionaire's Wife

Lovey Howell was a selfish tart. She was a black hole of wealth and was so drugged up on uppers that she had no idea that her husband was cornholing the Movie Star behind her back. That unawareness and inability to pay attention to the little details is why she's a horrible poker player. I'm playing blind most of the time like a ditzy wife of a millionaire who walks around a deserted island in pearl necklaces and a parasol.

Ginger the Movie Star

Ginger was the most overrated character in sitcom history. Don't play like a ditzy Hollyweird star. Be careful or you might become a former Star Trek actor who lost his house playing Badugi with Cuban drug dealers. Ginger was more concerned about how she was perceived that she forgot that over the long run, people judge you based on your competence, and not the image that you are trying to project. On a whole, most people look like total idiots at a poker table. Ditch the iPods and shades. People like that help pay professional poker player's car payments and house mortgages. Don't be a Ginger.

The Professor

The Professor read every poker book ever written. He even penned one of his own. The Professor is a math and science guy. He believes in playing by the book. I need to let the Professor make more of my decisions. But part of me just doesn't trust him. If he's so friggin' smart and can make a radio out of a coconut, how come he couldn't patch a hole in the boat and never got to show his "Oh!" face to Ginger or Mary Anne or Mrs. Howell for that matter?

Mary Anne

She seems innocent but she's not. Everyone knows that farmer's daughters are some of the best sexual partners on the planet. That's why there are so many jokes about them. Anyway, Mary Anne pulls off the sexy and innocent look. She appears to be harmless yet alluring at the same time. She's a cagey player. You never believe her when she raises and still doesn't believe when she check-raises you on the turn and river. Plus she made the best coconut and cream pies. The island had tons of coconuts, but where the hell did they get all the whipped cream?

Cousin Oliver

I know what you're thinking, "Pauly, Cousin Oliver was in the Brady Bunch, not on Gilligan's Island." You may be correct but Oliver plays an important role in breaking my losing streak. Do you remember that one episode when the Brady kids thought Oliver was a jinx? It was all cleared up after they got into a big food fight and Oliver got a pie thrown in his face. So all I gotta do to break my streak is to go Hollyweird and find the actor who played Oliver and smash him in the face with a pie. I got a "Map of the Stars" and a coconut cream pie. My quest begins.

What have I learned from this losing experience? Accept responsibility for my losing streak. It's not because online poker is rigged or because I am playing against inferior opponents. Err on the side of math and avoid going with my gut because over the long run, mathematics has proven to be more profitable than "impulsive feelings." I have to respect my bankroll and manage it more efficiently. I have to pay more attention at the tables and be more deceptive in my play. Lastly, I have to stick to a gameplan and not call any audibles at the line of scrimmage.

Sounds easy. Shit talking always is. Time to see if I can blow my entire bankroll or double up before I head back to Las Vegas for the 2006 WSOP. I have a few months and it's time I started acting like a winning poker player.

Recent Poker Playing Music...
1. Jerry Garcia and David Grisman
2. Matisyahu
3. Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane
4. Johnny Cash
5. Wilco

Save BG



Twenty years ago, the kids from a tony suburban neighborhood rallied around their sick classmate Ferris Bueller. That was 1986 when Abe Frauman was the Sausage King of Chicago. Today, I'm trying to rally all the bloggers to help me Save BG.

If you don't know, Boy Genius aka BG has a tear in his colon and had surgery on Monday. He's going to be out of work for the rest of the month. When he gets out of the hospital, he's gonna have a ton of medical bills. That's where I'm asking you to help out.

I'm asking you to please donate $20 to BG.

Where do I send BG the money?

GamblingBlues = Full Tilt
HeyKidsItsBG = Poker Stars

If you have an online poker account, please transfer $20 to one of BG's online poker accounts. If you don't have an online poker account and still want to help, then please shoot me an email and I can tell you about alternative options.

And you don't have to give $20. That is just a suggested amount. Feel free to donate as much as you want. But if I can get 100 bloggers and readers donate $20, then that's $2,000 less that BG has to spend in medical bills.

BG is not just a good friend, he's one of my favorite writers and bloggers. Yeah, one of our own is sick. I'm asking every blogger to help out in some way. Donate what you can and please spread the word about the Save BG fund.


2005 WPBT Holiday Classic in Las Vegas
(Photo courtesy of Poker Resource Network)
Click to enlarge
If you have not done your one good deed of the year, here's your chance to do something altruistic. I kinda feel helpless, but this is the least I can do to help. So help spread the love and show BG how you appreciate him and donate to the Save BG fund!

Lounge Lizards

"I got my mind on my money and my money on my mind." - Snoop Dogg

My middle name should be "Aloha" because I've been coming and going so many places, I don't know whether I should be saying "hello" or "goodbye." I just got back to New York City and in little more than a week I have to get ready and hit the road again. Atlantic City was a lot of fun, but it's hard living in a casino for two weeks. Thank God that Derek came down last weekend along with AlCantHang and EvaCanHang. They preserved my sanity. Also thanks to a timely Chris Halverson suggestion, AlCantHang picked me up a very exquisite bottle of scotch. The Hangs graciously hung out while I had to finish up covering one of the final tables. When the event was finally over, the Hangs kidnapped me for a night of drinking. We headed over with Derek to Harrah's to drink heavily.

I had been outside a couple of times a day, but only for a few minutes and never past the front lobby entrance. I never left the Borgata property for ten straight days when I headed over to Harrah's for the first time. There was a bar that featured live music and that's where they wanted to take me. AlCantHang's buddy Phil's band played there the week before. And they all went and had a fun time.

As soon as you walk into Harrah's you notice the atrocious floor. "It's like the universe puked on the carpet," explained AlCantHang.

As soon as I set foot on the casino floor of Harrah's I saw two awkward signs of desperation. Foreshadowing? An omen? Or just part of the usual Saturday night scene in Atlantic City? An old man busted at a slot machine and slowly limped off in defeat. The dejection on his face nearly kicked me in the junk. Immediately to his left, a tiny bald lady with just a few strands of white hair sprouting out of her age-spotted lumpy head took a huge drag of a Marlboro red and pulled the slot machine lever. The 100-year old broad was hooked up to an oxygen machine. One bad move and she could have blown us all to Ramallah.

We made our way to the bar as the band set up on the stage. There was a small dance floor in front surrounded by a semi-circle of small lounge tables and chairs. Behind that was the Cheers style bar and in the corner were more tables. Eva wanted us to be close enough so we could see the scene. I read on Al's blog a few days earlier about the type of people who came to Harrah's on a Saturday night to drink and dance. His buddy Tony described it as a "bad wedding reception." Fitting. It was more like horny and drunk forty-year olds dancing like an extra from a Village People video.

As soon as we sat down, the same waitress from the week before popped up out of nowhere. The Hangs ran up a huge tab equivalent to the GNP of Luxembourg and tipped her accordingly. AlCantHang has every waitress paid off within a 87 mile radius of Philadelphia. The rules are simple: Keep the SoCo flowing and they made their biggest tip night of the year.

Al quickly recognized a friend of his.

"Holy shit, that's Vinny! Yo Vinny!"

Yep, Al and Eva knew the guitar player and the lead singer of the cover band. He had been in the band Crystal Roxx and wrote the infamous AlCantHang song. Vinny was there the night AlCantHang got his nickname and almost died.

"He should be dead," Vinny explained. "No one drinks that much and lives."

The center of amusement and entertainment for the night had to be a guy who looked like a cross between Frank Zappa and Max Cady, Robert DeNiro's character from the film Cape Fear. If you saw Cape Fear, you know how much of a slimeball that guy looked like. Our hero had a handle-bar mustache and a slicked back mullet-type of long hair. He wore a blue Hawaiian shirt and white slacks. He reminded me of a used car dealer who's a part time pedophile.

Vinny's band played a series of 1980s and 1990s cover songs. After they got warmed up, the freaky looking guy jumped up and started displaying his amazing drunken dancing skills. He pretty much humped anything that moved on the dance floor. It was as though he learned all of his dance moves from watching porno movies. He did things that resembled various sex acts as I laughed and shook my head at the same time. His main target was a 60 year old woman who looked like Bea Arthur. He humped her for three straight songs and looked hornier than Bill Clinton on the first day of Spring. During the band's cover version of Nelly's Hot in Herre, he repeatedly spanked Bea's ass as he humped her doggie style.

We all sat back and laughed and enjoyed the show. It was for free too. Just like Tony said, it looked like a bad wedding reception. I don't recall too much after a while. I know that the SoCos kept coming and everytime I looked down, there was a new drink. Eva befriended a hooker at the adjacent table and she had no clue she was a lady of the night until Derek clued her in.

The second band was this group of chicks from Montreal with three musicians. They sang 70s and 80s pop and disco tunes. Three of them were blonde and I'd do all three singers, not because they were blonde, but because they were French-Canadian and I was drunker than Jenna Bush on Cinco de Mayo. One of the singers looked like a healthy Tara Reid with hipster glasses. She was the sexy one. The other looked like a younger version of Diane Lane. She was the smart one. And the third one didn't wear a bra. I couldn't tell you what her face looked like because I stared at her nipples during their entire set.

I don't recall leaving Harrah's but when Derek woke me up the next day I was still drunk. Lucky for me the showers had benches and I sat down for a few minutes in a hot shower as I sobered up.

Drinking with Al past Midnight causes serious lapses in your memory. I lose spacial consciousness somewhere between 2am and 4am. That's the peak time for alien abductions and random drunk dialing where I spew out obscenities onto people's voicemails and call up ex-girlfriends and persuade them to divorce their husbands so they can go hiking in the Himalayas with me.

Moving on...

I've been trying to maintain my Silver Status on Poker Stars. Over the past four days I racked up almost 1,000 VIP points so I'm 2/3 of the way there to keeping my current social status. If I don't lose my bankroll, I'm gonna give Gold status a shot. I played in a VIP freeroll. Actually I had been eligible for three. Derek played for me in the first one. I posted & folded the second one (that's when AlCantHang and Derek were in AC). And I started the third one on Saturday and had to dinner plans at 6pm. Luckily Change100 was playing on Stars at the time and offered to take over for me. I was one of the short stacks, but just made the money. She played two hands and busted out when Q-Q ran into a middle pair who rivered a set. Oh well. As I was ordering my food at the diner, she sent me a text and told me how she busted. I told her she could keep half of what I ended up winning. She kindly declined my super generous offer of $2.50.

During the Super Bowl, I played in a 600 FPP freeroll for the EPT Monte Carlo on Poker Stars. I'm gonna play in one of those satellites/free rolls at least once a day. I wanna go to Monte Carlo badly, more so than any other event I tried to win a seat into. Anyway, I took 41st out of 82 in the satellite. I played one hand on 51 minutes and you think when I moved all in over the top of some guy that he'd fold knowing that I folded every damn hand prior to that. Nope. He called and beat out my Big Slick when he paired one of his undercards.

The losing streak continues and I'll address that topic in a post later this week. For now, the goal is hit and run on the limit tables and try to win a seat to the EPT Grand Finale in Monte Carlo on Poker Stars. In the meantime, I'll be writing a few freelance assignment the next few days and trying to finish up the Vegas book before I head out to the Left Coast in 8 days. I'm trying to get Grubby to come out to California so we can hit the lesbian bars in Venice Beach to try to pick up confused starlets.

Recent Poker Playing Music...
1. Grant Green
2. Beck
3. Phish with George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic
4. Wu-Tang Clan
5. Jerry Garcia Band

Sunday Pimpage

Have you gotten any SnailTrax official merchandise? I scored some. Take a peek at some of the very best of SnailTrax gear. Be the first kid on your block with a bumper sticker that sayd... Daddy likes 'em stout.

By the way, Charlie Shoten's book No Limit Life is finally available on Amazon.com. And it's only $15!

Ed from Openers ended his blog on a bittersweet note. Take a peek at his last post. I had the pleasure of meeting him in Las Vegas. I wish him the best of luck.

The Poker Geek has a new url. Make sure you update your blog roll.

Also check out Absinthe's Troubles. That's the real live-blogging digity from Ryan.

Lastly, sorry to Change100 losing her job. You have to check out her latest post called I gave Hollywood my twenties and all I got was this lousy severance check. My career in Hollyweird ended before it even began! Someone has to give my favorite junk grabber a job.

Ok, I know it's late, but I finally published the Januaray issue of Truckin'. Take a peek at the first issue of 2006. It features several new writers such as John "Falstaff" Hartness and Sean A. Donahue. I'm hoping that they contribute more stuff later this year. Change100, my buddy Sigge Amdal from Norway, and the Human Head returned with epic stories. Sigge was in Estonia and we're lucky to read about his travels. I also wrote a hybrid subway story.

Truckin' - January 2006, Vol. 5, Issue 1

1. Subway Bitch Slap by Tenzin McGrupp
Pedro eventually graduated from low level thuggery to middle level drug dealing. He started out at the bottom as a look out, then a runner, then a full on dealer.... More

2. Two Inches of Banana by Change100
"All I know is that if I were a homosexual, I'd have to be a feeder. Two inches of banana and I'm gagging!" he said... More

3. Anniversary in Italy by John "Falstaff" Hartness
It was our anniversary, and we had ditched the tour group to do a little shopping and have a nice romantic dinner all to ourselves. So we meandered through the cobblestone streets of Taormina.... More

4. Taste by Human Head
Doug and I were long time tripping buddies. Both of us typically shied away from tripping with our group of friends, well, because we felt like the drugs were wasted on them. Not only did we love our drugs, we took them seriously... More

5. The West Texas No by Sean A. Donahue
The simple West Texas attitude is infectious. Give me a beer, George Strait and a karaoke machine to sing Hotel California or The Chair and a West Texan has found Nirvana. For they love to drink, smoke, chew and party... More

6. Living la vida Estonia by Sigge S. Amdal
My second fuck-up was leaving my camera at home. I despise tourists and consider myself a traveler. A traveler sees what he sees, a tourist what he came to see.... More

I ask that if you like these stories, then please do me and the rest of the writers a huge favor: Tell your friends about your favorite stories. It takes a few seconds to pass along the URL. I 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.

P.S. The February 2006 issue will be released in less than two weeks. I'm seeking submissions for March and April 2006.

Turn This Mother Out

"Can I hit it and quit?" - James Brown

After the Grinder won the WPT Borgata Winter Open, I had one final meal with Spaceman, Friedman, and Frank where we all had an amazing conversation on several topics including what it was like working for a casino and the perceptions (or skewed views) that the media can present to uninformed masses.

The main event ended and my two week assignment was officially complete. All I had to do was catch up on some closing paper work. I had an article to write about the final table, but the deadline was over a week away. I finally had time to relax. We all partied it up to about 2am. Spaceman had to go because he had to get up like at 5am to get the train to Philadelphia so he can go to the airport. I went up to my room to finish up some work and realized that I was too wired to sleep. It was my last few hours in Atlantic City. I only played poker on the first day I arrived so I headed downstairs to the poker room.

The poker room was not as crowded as it was all day, or all week for the matter. There was an open seat on a NL table, I bought my chips and nodded at the dealer at the table next to mine since we both recognized each other. I sat in seat 3. At first glance I decided that my table was going to be tough. Drunks and dipshits are tough to beat at 3am. That's the "Do Not Fold" hour and unless I caught cards, it was gonna be a challenge to make some real money.

Most poker rooms are broken up into several categories of people:

1. Players who know what they are doing.
2. Players who think they know what they are doing.
3. Players who are there to gamble.
4. Players who are there for the cool entertainment value a.k.a. hipsters
5. Beginners and newbies.

I had all five at the table. Heck, I'm a combination of three or more of those stereotypes. I'm really #2. As much as I talk shit and can boast about having consecutive winning years, I still have no clue what I'm doing at the tables. Sure I can quote Sklansky verbatim like it's a line from Fletch, but just like how the notion of God evaporates from the bottom of a foxhole during the middle of a war, anything that Sklansky writes about poker gets thrown at the window when you are playing at 3am against drunk Russians from Brighton Beach and guys in sweatpants named Anthony that bootlegged cigarettes from the South into the greater Philadelphia area. I was also #3. If I wanted to make real money I would not be playing $1-2 NL in Atlantic City. After working for two weeks straight and seeing luck box after luckbox beat out great players, I wanted to gamble and drink for free.

There's also a part of me, the humblest side of my poker acumen, that reminds me that I'm still a student in life as well as in poker. Andy Black spoke about how it's a very fine line between being under-confident and over-confident. If you are one of two much at the tables, you're fucked. The key is to be confident in your abilities, yet maintain a semblance of humbleness. That way you do stray too far off the center line. I absolutely deserve to sit at that table, but I'm conscious that I'm one bad move or bad beat away being sent to the rail.

Inside of a few minutes, I had to quickly profile and size up the other eight at the table.

Seat 1: Old guy with hairy ears
Seat 2: Hot Russian chick
Seat 3: Your Hero
Seat 4: Anthony
Seat 5: Russian guy
Seat 6: Drunk Russian guy
Seat 7: Hipster from Brooklyn
Seat 8: Ghost 1
Seat 9: Ghost 2

Sometimes playing against drunks is like trying to juggle hand grenades with Charles Manson. You know that some weird and crazy shit is going to go down at some point. This time, one guy spilled his cocktail. The dealer was pissed because she warned him at least five times in the first minute I sat down. He had an empty cupholder but was so polluted that he kept putting it on the other side of his stack. And he had a stack. A monster stack. It was dirty for sure with a few $1 and $25 chips grouped together in a sea wall of red $5 chips. Seat 6 was the sucker and I wanted him to double me up. He wasn't friends with the other two Russians and my table. And they had been badgering him all night.

"Call me Nicky," he insisted, "I want you to know the name of the guy who is going to take all your money!"

He began taunting me early on. He had the hipster kid from Brooklyn on tilt and must have run through at least 4 or 5 buy-ins according to the Russian chick sitting next to me. She reminded me of a young Meryl Streep. Her accent was thick and she smelled like flowers and blueberries. She sipped on a sea breeze or some sort of vodka-cranberry concoction. She was shortstacked and if I spoke better Russian, I would have figured out that she was the table captain and part of Group #1. She thought she knew what she was doing and she was screaming at Nicky, the drunk Russians guy everytime he scooped a pot. I like feisty women. I prefer feisty drunk women with a penchant for gambling and playing cards at 3am.

Everytime she entered a pot, Nicky would raise. She seethed in anger even more so. Nicky had the most of the table on tilt. He event got the dealer on tilt after he knocked over his drink.

I'll spare you the bad beat. Pocket pair busted by an unsuited two gapper. Before Nicky could scoop up the pot, I dug back in for a rebuy.

"He is stupid," she said. Actually it sounded more like "stew-pet."

I quickly became her table friend. The old guy with the hairy ears to her right was in a daze. I couldn't tell if he was heavily medicated or just tired after a long session.

"What's your name?"

Always ask hot women what their name is and follow it up with something quick. If it's exotic say something like "What does that mean?" or "How did you get that interesting name?"

If it's a common name like Jennifer or Michelle, just say, "You've got to be one of the best looking Jen's I ever met."

It sounds corny, but it works.

"What's your name?" I asked.

"Nadya," she said.

"That's beautiful. What does it mean?"

She smiled. "Hope," she said.

"Like you hope that assclown is going to double you up eventually?"

She laughed and then cursed at Nicky in Russian. The other Russian at the table laughed. Nicky fired back something and by the look on Nadya's face, I'm sure he called her a pig or a dog or dropped a Ruskie C-bomb.

Nadya doubled through Nicky twice in one orbit. She had the best hand both times. A-K and J-J held up for her against A-3 and 3-5s. I doubled up against Nicky and lost a big pot to the old guy with the hairy ears. The hipster dropped another buy-in when he chased a baby flush and Nadya filled in a full house on the river. All of a sudden she had chips and starting talking smack with everyone at the table.

"People are so stew-pet," she said.

I was about even when I was heads up with Nadya. I raised with A-Js and missed my flop. She checked to me on a ragged board and I bet the pot on the flop. She muttered something like she knew I had A-K and re-raised me.

Hot Russian chicks drinking Sea Breezes at 6am in the morning check-raising me in a $30 pot is a total turn on. I moved all in on her.

"You are a good player. Not one of those stew-pet players like Nicky," as she pointed and cursed at him in Russian.

She folded and showed me her small pair.

"Since I like your face, I'll let you see one card for free. Pick one," as I spread out my hole cards. She pointed to one and I flipped over the Jack of hearts.

She groaned and said something in Russian. Nicky taunted her for the next ten minutes before Nadya racked up her chips and left. After I cashed out she stood at the top of the escalator smoking a menthol cigarette.

"Think I can hit it and quit?" I joked.


Recent Poker Playing Music...
1. Phish
2. Jedi Mind Tricks
3. Karl Denson
4. Radiohead
5. Miles Davis

Thanks Wil!

Wil is hosting a tournament on Poker Stars tonight and you are all invited!

What: WWdN Dr. Pauly Appreciation Tourney
Where: Poker Stars
Tournament Info: #19063218 (Check under Private Tourney tab)
When: Feb 2 @ 11:30 PM (or 8:30 PM on the West Coast)
Buy-in: $10 + 1 NL
Password: monkey

I'm back in New York City after 15 days in Atlantic City working for the Borgata. Man, I missed NYC. Anyway, I'll be playing tonight and so should you!

I'd like to thank Wil, Gracie, AlCantHang, Derek, EvaCanHang, BG, JoeSpeaker, CJ, BadBlood and everyone else who did a live-blogging attempt in showing their amazing support last weekend. Special thanks to Gracie, who's idea to make life a bit easier for me certainly worked! Words like thank you are not enough to tell everyone how much I appreciate your support. And thanks to Otis & Wil for the uplifting emails. And to Halverson for picking out the Scotch.

See you all tonight.