Playing With a Shill

I had one of those guys shilling the "Party Poker Secrets" e-books sit at my table. Hilarity ensued in the chat. I put it back in the archives if you're interested (and will be cleaning it up for content later, I'm still playing).

Chat Transcript

Bizarro World

The premise: What if Otis had turned the offer to blog a tournament in the Caribbean down, and what if (after presumably checking with every single other blogger) they got to me and offered me the gig? What would those posts have looked like?

By the way, the high school story below is totally fictitious, just FYI…

235AM Local, Thursday

It’s been a long day one. I still have chips, but we’ll get to that. I’m currently sitting in my room, alone, hopped up on Red Bull and adrenaline, watching Trinidad and Tobago play the Dominican Republic in a “friendly” on the one lousy channel I get down here.

I’m also trying to make myself comfortable in a wicker chair, which I think is a fundamental impossibility.

I’d be saddened by the preponderance of wicker furniture in my room if it weren’t so clichéd as to be amusing. My bed’s headboard? Wicker. The two chairs and a love seat? Wicker. The TV armoire? Wicker. Even the coffee table is wicker, and is presumably missing its glass top, which makes balancing my glass of water (glass not made of wicker) that much more of a challenge.

Well, whatever. I’m happy to be here and happy to still be alive in the tournament, despite all the ridiculousness it took to get down here in the first place. Let’s go back a couple weeks to the initial conversation I had with Roger from my sponsor, “All In Magazine.” After receiving the blog-pportunity of a lifetime, I’d assumed, I jumped at it and immediately accepted. However, there were some minor points to work out.

BG: You’re staking me into the tournament, right?
Roger: Yes, your entry fee will be covered, as well as your hotel room and incidentals, for the duration of the tournament, plus one night on each end.
BG: I’m going to need a suite. If you expect me to write, I’ve got to do it while it’s fresh in my head, and in a space where I can sit comfortably and work. I really can’t be sprawled across my bed doing this all weekend.
Roger: OK, I’m pretty sure we can do that.
BG: With a view. (Dead silence) Kidding, kidding… What exactly are “incidentals,” anyway.
Roger: Well, three meals a day, no room service, no in-room movies, and a per diem of $30 for tipping and drinks and such.
BG: $30 US or in Barbadoan dollars?
Roger: US.
BG: Do I get to raid the honor bar?
Roger: For a $12 Toblerone? I don’t think so. I think you can make do for $30 a day if we’re covering your meals. Also, you’ve got to be wearing our logo gear and be available for our photographer in your down time when requested.
BG: I’ve got to wear my lucky hat. I won’t play a tournament without it. It’s green with a white shamrock. I’ll wear a polo shirt, hell, I’ll wear a sandwich board with your logo, but I’ve got to wear my hat.
Roger: I’m not sure…
BG: Check, alright?

I couldn’t be kidding any less when I say that the deal was almost scuttled right there. Then again, who could possibly have been next on the list? Al? I’m not sure $30 a day would have covered the tax on his bar bill.

Roger called back, confirmed my hat selection, and we were all set. So long as I could maintain enough self-discipline to not eat the Toblerone.

The only other thing I tried to press them for, to no avail, was to let me bring a wing man down with me to Barbados. They said no about two hundred and fourteen times, and I decided not to press my luck from there. Although I’m sure I would have probably taken my brother along for the ride ultimately, I thought about taking this in a couple different directions. First, I could have taken Al, who I would have instructed to get as many top players as possible hammered before day one opened. But neither he nor my brother would have been a good one to run down my mistakes at the table in retrospect with at the end of each day. I thought about BadBlood, who I would have put in mirrored shades and one of those Secret Service earpieces right over my shoulder as a fake bodyguard. Then again, that would have probably been funny only to me. Hank would have been lost to the craps table, Iggy would have entered the tournament and busted me out, and Pauly would have just tried to find some local girl to score (Score what? Doesn’t matter…) off of.

Probably best that I’m flying solo.

Speaking of flying, and remembering that I mentioned the general ridiculousness I endured to get down here, “All In,” in their infinite wisdom, had me flying out of Chicago and not Detroit, which is an extra hour’s drive, and a brutal one at that, cutting through the heart of Chicago’s commuting corridor. And they had me flying out at 4AM local. So the day before the flight, the plan was to drive to Milwaukee to go stay at my dad’s new place, and have him schlep me to the airport (we’re not Jewish, but any errand that starts at 2AM is a schlep to be certain) the next morning.

Lo and behold, I get stuck in traffic. Just past Gary, Indiana – which isn’t nearly as chipper a place to pass through as Meredith Willson might have you believe – some manure spreader jackknifed on the Santa Ana or something. You should see my shoes. Whook! I’m dead ass stopped on the freeway, with cars stopped in front of me and behind me as far as my eyes can see. I’m furiously flipping through AM stations trying to find some sort of traffic report to figure out what’s happening, which brings me to one of life’s big irritations…

Why the ever living hell do these traffic reporters insist on calling freeways “The Wilson Northbound” or “The Lincoln Westbound,” rather than saying “I-80 East?” I have no idea where I am, and I have no idea what the hell fucking freeway I’m on, and there’s about, oh, umpteen fucking accidents they’re counting down with backups and delays up the wazoo, and I can’t fucking figure out which one pertains to me.

Whew…

Even when I lived in Detroit for five years and watched Fox2 Traffic Babe Rhonda Walker point to the little 696 shield every morning and call it “The Reuther,” I still was never certain that the radio guys were talking about the 696 I was on when they called it that. You’d have thought that would have sunk in after five years. Yes, I’m just that stupid.

So instead of getting to my dad’s at 5PM, I’m there at 8PM, and I’m all sorts of keyed up from spending three hours crawling along at a snail’s pace somewhere outside of Gary. I get zero sleep in Milwaukee, I get zero sleep in the car on the way to good old ORD, I get zero sleep on the way to Atlanta, and I get zero sleep on the way to Barbados.

But I am wearing a garishly sexy Hawaiian print shirt. So I’ve got that going for me.

I clear customs with my bags (Yes, it’s a laptop. Here, let me turn it on for you to prove it, and no – I’m not bringing any fruit or salamanders into your country.) and miraculously see the driver who’s holding a sign with my name on it, which is the first time something like this has ever happened to me. Short of having someone ask for your autograph, is there any little moment in your life where you feel more like a celebrity than in the “I’m BG, where’s the limo?” moment?

Of course, I would have felt safer bicycling to the hotel. The streets are approximately three quarters of a car wide, and somehow it seems like a good idea to drive around blind curves doing 60. After aging sixteen months in the twenty-two minute drive to the hotel, I tip the guy and hope to never have to ride in a car again.

The hotel is beautiful, and is like walking into the Rio or whatever other tropically themed Vegas casino is out there. Except there’s far more black guys here with those cool-ass Caribbean names like “Winston” and “Gareth.” I really do think that if you want to measure British contributions to society, you can look at bad teeth and awesome names for black guys in the Caribbean. Beats the hell out of trying to decipher how to appropriately pronounce “D’Auendray” or something.

As I’m checking in, I pick up a message from Roger that he wants to meet me in the bar as soon as I get in. Fuck that, I need a shower. Did I mention that it’s January in Barbados, and it’s ninety-fucking-two degrees? I’m not that chubby, but I’m sweating like Brando after eating two pounds of Prosciutto. I head up to the room, and wash up, changing into my second of nine garishly sexy Hawaiian print shirts and a pair of linen slacks for the meeting.

I forgot to mention… as soon as I told my family that I took this gig, they turned Xmas into BG’s Gag Gift Wonderland. Everything I opened turned out to be another Hawaiian shirt. Thanks guys. These’ll be useful five days from now.

I head down to the bar, and manage to spy the guy with the “All In” polo shirt sitting in the middle. Must be Roger. I walk up and introduce myself, and he manages to say, “Nice shirt, did you lose a bet?” as a first impression. Thanks mom. Anyway, we run down the game plan for the week. The tournament starts tomorrow morning, and I’m effectively not “on the clock” until I sit down at the table and the Bruce Buffer wannabe running the show bellows “Shuffle up and deal” into the microphone. I’m going to play in the tournament, and if (when) I’m bounced, I’m going to follow Roger’s direction and be given an opportunity to railbird top pros from the best seats in the house. I’m also going to be attending a couple of dinner meet-n-greets that Roger’s set up with various pros – who I’ll leave nameless for right now.

As almost an afterthought, Roger reaches under the table and produces a box for me. I open it up and pull the most god-awful polo shirt you’ve ever seen off the top. It’s white, has the “All In” logo over the breast, and has that “super cool” checkered flag pattern on the sleeve cuffs and on the collar.

Are you fucking kidding me? I look at my shirt, I look at Roger’s plain black logoed polo, and he just smiles. Right then I knew he was paying me back for the hat conversation. Thankfully, there are three shirts in the box and one of them is actually beige and plain with the logo. “You know, there’s no way I’m wearing that checkered collar. This shirt is going to reek after five days – any chance you’ve got some swag lying around? Toss me a t-shirt or another plain polo or three?” He said he’d find out.

I’m still waiting.

The next morning brings that bright Caribbean sunshine into my room at about 3AM. OK, it’s actually 6AM, but when you’re used to living a lot closer to the pole than the equator, 6AM January sunshine is absurd. Ridiculous. But I’m up.

I get showered, grab some breakfast (waffles are gooooood…), and since I have about two hours to kill until I need to be registered (and three and a half until “game time”), I grab $200 out of my wallet and sit down for some $10 blackjack. Ninety minutes later I look down and count up - $2200. The deck has been clobbering me, which is a good sign for my wallet, but a bad sign for poker.

Why? Well, I believe in card karma. I don’t like to see cards before I play cards, because I’m afraid I’m going to “use up” all my good cards. And with all the KK and QQ and JJ hands I was being dealt in blackjack, I’m officially frightened…

…But even moreso when I see my table draw for the tournament. I’ve got four pros at my table, and, well…

Have you ever seen Eskimo Clark in a floral print shirt? Not as intimidating. I’m in the three seat, with Eskimo to my left, Dutch freaking Boyd two seats to my right, Karina Jett and Phil Hellmuth across on the other side. First hand I’m dealt in, and what do you know, I’ve got the hammer. Yes kids, the thought does cross my mind to go all G-Rob and be a hero to the generations of bloggers who’ll follow me down my dark path, but I fold. Good thing too, as Karina comes over the top of some Moneymaker-wannabe’s standard raise with a healthy fraction of her chips.

The kid is staring Karina down, and she’s doing the patented poker pro poker face (not sold in stores), and more and more she’s reminding me of this girl I remember from high school, who we’ll call J. J had this boyfriend, who was friends of a friend of mine, and we all ate lunch together. Anyway, J was the playful type, and one night we’re hanging out late, and her boyfriend and my friend end up passing out, so she and I are basically drunk and alone, and I offer to raid my dad’s liquor cabinet and pour us some more shots. We get upstairs and I turn around to face the cabinets and she basically grabs my ass and starts nuzzling into my ear. I don’t really give a shit about her boyfriend’s friendship, and so I spin around and start kissing her back, and basically end up rounding second and sliding into third with her for the next hour locked in the bathroom. No one ever found out about this, and Karina’s vacant look just reminds me of junior year and four months of having lunch with this girl trying to not give away that she and I had a wild freaky almost monkey sex makeout session in my bathroom while her boyfriend was passed out.

I digress…

Day one was unbelievably uneventful. Very little happened of consequence at the table (pro makes a tourist pay for a mistake, blah blah blah), and every time I’d get premiums and raise, I’d sweep blinds. No action whatsoever. I treaded water all day and finished the day up T500, which isn’t terrible, but isn’t exactly what I was hoping for.

After they excused us from the tournament I met up with Roger, who had been watching me most of the day. “Not exactly a day chock full of excitement there BG… what are you going to write about?”

“Same thing I write about every day there Roger… I have no fucking idea.”

And with that, half a plate of jerk chicken and fries, and another two hours of blackjack (inexplicably up another $300 for that session), here I am at 345AM, dreading the sunshine in two hours, and eager to try to make Eskimo Clark pay for his fashion crimes against humanity.

A Word on This Thing

I don't usually do the disclaimer thing, but if I don't, I'm sure this next thing here is going to come off like amateur self-indulgent crap. I don't really censor, edit, or clean up much of anything I write. And sometimes this untrained writer of everything and nothing all at the same time just wants to try something.

I read something last night that was kind of intriguing style-wise and I wanted to give it a shot. I'm not saying this is "good," and I'm not looking for validation or anything on it. It is what it is...

Six-Three-Eight

I walk with an uncertainty, except at the track, where the templates of coiled tension in gait are personified in the jocks – little men to be certain, but sinewy and aggressive in their stance, in their stride, carrying a bravado that is often as much machismo as it is the understanding that on every day and on every mount they ride straddling the bounds of daring and mortality to urge these behemoth beasts from which they might easily be thrown into a plaster cast, maybe traction, even a casket.

I watch the jocks all cool and Napoleon and self-assured and corporeally aware and carry myself with that same swaggered precision into my place in the arena - mano y mano and mano y beast-o and beast-o y beast-o on parade in trot and cantor down the center of the circumference of the dirt oval with the colorful and silky costumed pilots of these significant machines a competition of Mardi Gras colors and jackpot numbers from exotic best estimations spinning through my eyes.

It all happens and it happens in my mind first, with ten in a row behind steel bars that spring open and turn these creatures loose with jock and tack held fast but chestnut brown and muddled grey and black with white socks faster and faster out of the chute eating up lengths and fractions – and the Three and the Five are there first, passing the quarter pole, the Eight and the Six inhaling the dirt thrown from their hooves in close pursuit – and I manage a cockeyed grin because I know the crowd is in favor of the One, a beautiful and contentious gelded roan, but I can see the One breaking sharply and laboring significantly running through the soft patch trench at the rail, finding no room to move and each stride laboriously difficult in comparison to my Three, my Five, my Six, my Eight…

…The One is not the One, not here, not today.

The Three can hold steady and stride true, but my Five cannot as he pushes through the backstretch and holds his lead to that final turn but will – must – give way to those in close quarters and around the turn into the stretch it will be the Six and it will be the Eight who will close with furious fractions on the Three and Dominguez will glance under his arm atop that Three and go to his whip, insisting the brindle grey give him everything he has left in that last half furlong, but Gutierrez will have the Six at top speed in top form about three wide from the soft ground at the rail and will have enough to close on Dominguez and the grey with Cabrera and the Eight just good enough to outlast the rest for the show.

My old man used to say that running the race on the reel to reel in his head to divine the winning combination was as “complex as calculus computations with a Cracker-Jack code key” and I know he wasn’t kidding when he tried in all his efforts to partner our long afternoons in my youth at the track, digesting every last piece of arcane and useless and useful data in the form and watching these regally bred thoroughbreds pick each other off time and time again around this oval, with the one single wish I’m sure he had but never was able to adequately articulate to his son whose eyes gleamed with fascination at nine, ten, and thirty years old at the shiny strong horses and the rolling numbers on the tote board – “Son, don’t grow up to be a horseplayer.”

It couldn’t be helped.

I walk through those doors with my racing form tucked neatly under my left arm, glyphed heavily with the notations made this morning, all computations and calculations necessary to prove pace and power true and unlock the solution to each of the eleven conundrums circling the oval today – and I’m one, and there’s two, three, five dozen of us that know the faces of our brethren, but work in solitude with our systems on speed, on pace, on class, on time, or on best guesstimation lucky names, numbers, and hot jocks to isolate the winner, find the overlays and the best plays and toss together the exotic bets and the pick threes, fives, and sixes to take our shots at glory, cash and pride.

Never, ever, in that order.

I play for pride and then cash but never glory, because the old man would have wanted it that way and whatever I’m doing here it’s because of him and his singular love of the game – but don’t confuse the game with the sport, because the sport is the effort of the beast to circle the track and the effort of the jock to make sure he arrives home ahead of the others, but the game is in the numbers and the divination, and the game is played in the heads and from the wallets of the five dozen of the regulars sitting with binoculars and forms and file folders full of past performance data, digging through the arcane, the useless, and the useful to adapt a number – pace rating, Beyer figure, percent in the money – to whatever system is in play in their head today.

Make no mistake, this is war – a war in logical proportions between men and women behind their racing form, scribbling madly or watching intently or casually sipping coffee from a foam cup as they await the call to post, each of whom has already run the reel to reel in their head, unfolding the fractions in stop-motion daydream imagery, most too clouded by desire and greed to allow the images to take absolute shape and focus.

I’m smarter than all of you is the satisfaction I have as I lay the bets, taking every single combination of my Six-Three-Eight certainty I can muster, blinking back the image of the Three trying to hold off the favored Gutierrez on the Six in the final strides and the satisfied grin I’ll be wearing when I watch my Six-Three-Eight prediction perform precisely to the form, the speed, the post, and the pace I dissected hours ago.

The shooter holds the dice in slick and sweaty fingers when he needs to make his point while the blackjack player waits with an adrenaline fueled nervousness for what the dealer might toss his way when he doubles on an eleven – but the moments before they open the gates treat a true horseplayer differently than a true gambler, for they are the last moments of perfection that I can expect before the gates swing free and ten tons of brute finesse tries to find daylight at forty miles an hour, they are absolutely the last moments where everything makes sense, and where the solution to the conundrum I’ve worked mightily to solve has a reasonable solution, which is – in some combination – Six-Three-Eight.

Six-Three-Eight. Dreams won’t be fulfilled with Six-Three-Eight, and Six-Three-Eight won’t bring glory to my name, but if and for the wake of Six-Three-Eight crossing the line, I can walk with the little Napoleons and carry their bravado to the window, cashing in the big bills to the envy of two, three, five dozen of my brethren who insisted on following the One that was not meant to be the One today down into the mire on the rail and chasing the dream off the wrong reel to reel, because with Six-Three-Eight I play for the pride of being the one to solve the riddle and know these creatures better than they know themselves.

My old man, against his better judgment, sired himself a horseplayer. And I’d like to think he’d be proud.

Rhymes So Loud And Proud You Hear It

Does anyone besides me miss the “Old Iggy?” He’s gotten all supportive and stuff in everyone’s comments, almost as if he’s watched too many Lifetime Network movies with his newfound time off or something.

Nancy McKeon is in trouble! Someone call Meredith Baxter-Birney! He’s rapidly turning from Ignatious J. Reilly into Alan Alda. Next thing you know, he’ll be openly weeping and calling Felicia and Maudie “Sister.”

Did I throw enough barbs your way to bring back the snarky Iggy I know and love? C’mon Cincy… you know you’ve got it in you.

I’m sure I have another Vegas story or two that I’m blocking right now, but at this point I just want to jump on the bandwagon and give my sincere thanks to The Las Vegas Vegas Crew and Dick Gatewood, not to mention The Good Dr. for all their efforts to bring the WPBT Tournament to life.

And on a more personal note, I couldn’t have been more flattered by all the warmth and support I got from damn near everyone I met out there. I’m happy enough just being considered part of this community, but am nearly overwhelmed to know that what I’m doing here is of interest to more than just my psyche. To have people whose writing and blogging I respect and admire* tell me that they enjoy this little jaunt through the foibles of my past really makes me happy.

I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again. I’d be writing like this even if no one came to read it. But there’s absolutely a part of me that is pleased to know I’m appreciated.

*(I didn’t mean to shortchange anyone else who paid me a compliment, I really do respect and admire anyone who takes the time and effort to put their life – even “just” their poker life – up for the world to see)

So this weekend marked the last one in town for my dad and his family. They packed up on Saturday and officially moved to Milwaukee. Although it’s a bit less than six hours away (Chicago traffic notwithstanding), this will be the farthest I’ve ever lived from anyone in my family.

It’s a good thing though. My old man is at that uncomfortable age of 55 and had a position just high enough in an industry just specialized enough that finding his next job was going to be difficult. He seems to have landed with a good group of people, and his wife was thrilled to be leaving conservative, god-fearing Dutch West Michigan for a place where the Polacks enjoy the shit out of their beer and brats.

Before they took off on Saturday, we exchanged Xmas gifts. I think I made out pretty well.

What’d BG Get?

- A blue sweater (pretty nice, my other sweaters were grey and black, so this helps me with all the brown shoes and khakis I have)

- The Gastronomy of Italy, a book picked out by my step-sister. I didn’t have it on my Amazon.com wishlist, but once I picked it up and thumbed through it, I realized that had I stumbled across it in the bookstore, I would have immediately picked it up. I don’t use cookbooks in the traditional sense, I use them more to learn technique. This one has some of that, along with history of the cuisine of Italy’s various regions, and two glossaries – one of ingredients, one of technical terms. It does have some recipes too, which led to this exchange between me and my step-sister:

(Thumbing through book, finding a recipe to point out) “Look at this one Sarah… ‘Fried Sweetbreads.’ You know what sweetbreads are?” She shakes her head. “Just looking at the title, does this sound pretty good?” She nods. “What if I told you that instead of using the liver and lungs, this recipe suggests you could substitute half a lamb’s brain? Sound good to you now?”

She turned grey at the thought. ”They’re not all weird recipes like that, are they?”

No, but I did find one that calls for half a pig’s head, cut into quarters. I’m just wondering what you do with the other half a pig’s head when you’re done. Great pickup by the step-sister though. Nice job.

- “Collateral” on DVD. Haven’t seen it, looking forward to it.

- The Greatest Gambling Stories Ever Told, from Bob. Ironically, this book features an excerpt from a story called “Bob the Gambler,” which is about a guy hooked on blackjack. Go figure.

- A nice can opener, also from Bob. I just can’t see spending my own money on a can opener, when I might pop less than ten cans a month. My old one was one of those $1.99 grocery store pickups, where your fingers start blistering after four turns, and bleeding after five. Bob was disgusted with my lack of a good can opening gadget, and came through for me with this one.

- A brushed chrome wine cooler. OK, I’m an asshole. This was from my dad and his wife, and the minute I popped this one out of the wrapper, the first words that came out of my mouth were, “You know I don’t drink white wine. At all.” Great… Can I have that four seconds of my life to do over again? Bob and my dad’s wife started telling me all the other things this would be useful for, so now this is sitting on my stainless steel kitchen workbench filled with my long handled kitchen utensils and tongs.

- A little garlic bulb pottery thing (for storing garlic in the kitchen). The running joke opening gifts was, “you can put your weed in there.” This would actually be fantastic for that, if that was a useful need of mine.

- A set of pasta bowls that are so egregiously large that I should immediately go on the Atkins diet should I ever fill one of these full of pasta for consumption.

It’s a beautiful thing to be able to do Xmas across two weekends like this. If the agony of divorce has wrought anything positive into the fabric of American life, it’s that holidays become duplicated. Just the important ones though. I leave Arbor Day solely for my mom, and my dad obviously has a claim on Columbus Day, but when we’re talking about the big holidays, there’s a great deal of joy in celebrating on consecutive Saturdays. Plus, even though the true dollar value of the presents in comparison to what was spent (adjusted, naturally, for inflation) fifteen or twenty years ago is probably marginally less, the volume of presents just goes up. Books, CDs, DVDs, whatever fills up a couple shopping bags full of new shit for me, that’s how I like to celebrate the birth of the son-of-god.

Of course, there’s also pepperoni rolls. Can’t forget about pepperoni rolls. Nothing says “Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Me” like some canned crescent roll dough wrapped around pepperoni. Mom actually does a terrific job of breaking out the appetizer spread on Xmas Eve, which usually results in me sleeping uncomfortably while silently ruing eating those last three shrimp at room temperature. Yes, I obviously regret much of what has happened in the past, but when life deals you tepid seafood, you only live once and regret three or four times in (literal) spurts over the course of the wee hours of the morning.

In the spirit of Lore Fitzgerald Sjoberg, I now give you…

BG’s Family’s Xmas Traditions

”It’s a basketball! / It’s an erection set!” - Ahh, memories. A long, long time ago my dad made Bob cry when, in a moment of flippancy, he correctly guessed that what was packed up in a shirt box was indeed a basketball. And my mom’s misspeakings around the yule log have become synonymous with Xmas fun. From “It’s a game for your Inten-do,” to her famous “It’s an erection set,” good fun is had by all. B+

The Xmas Eve Appetizer Spread - My mom raised three very hungry boys. Well, two extremely hungry boys, and one boy who needs food all afternoon to soak up the wine. Enter the Appetizer Spread. Shrimp, chips and salsa, cheese and crackers, and the world famous pepperoni rolls all work in tandem to keep us fed and keep mom out of the kitchen until the next morning. A-, if for no other reason than a distinct lack of fried foods.

The Xmas Morning Breakfast - Overrated. If you could get a decent bagel out here (read: if people of Jewish descent chose to live on my side of the state) I probably wouldn’t be complaining. Mom can kick out the breakfast to be certain, but as an example of how rarely I even eat before 1PM, I call my dog’s dinner “breakfast,” because I needed to pick a unique word I never really used unless talking about his food. Plus, no one but me likes the pulpy orange juice. D

No Names On Presents Under the Tree - For all the young families out there building their own Xmas traditions, let me suggest this one as a great one to incorporate. This was born in my late youth due to my incorrigible need to try to open presents, view the contents, and reseal them with “surgical precision.” That never worked. My dad made up this rule and it actually worked with dual purpose. First, it prevented me from pirating looks at what was under the wrapping of my gifts, and secondly it keeps everyone interested on who’s opening what gift on Xmas morning. Terrific idea by my dad, and one that has survived for at least 20 years. A

One Present Only Xmas Eve - I may be 30 years old, but I still feel jobbed that we can’t open more than one each on Xmas Eve. Plus, if you combine this rule with the “No Names” rule, you might get the shaft if no one opened a gift meant for you. C-

”Christmas in Hollis” Wakeup Call - Without fail, every Xmas morning for fifteen years (or more) has featured a five oh something AM blasting of Run-DMC’s “Christmas in Hollis” as the call to the post. I guarantee you that whenever I have kids (or Bob, or Mike), this nearly 20 year old rap song will live on forever in our traditions. Thankfully, I’m a morning person. B+

The Illusion of Santa - I don’t care how old I am. There’s still something cool about getting up in the morning and seeing more presents under the tree than when I went to bed the night before. A

What You've Heard

Everything you've read about my night last night is true.

Call me "Captain Suckout." I made $35 in a couple hours last night with some of the ugliest cards you've ever seen. The deck wasn't hitting me in the face, the flops were.

The first suckout hand from my perspective? I'm UTG with T3 of hearts. And yes, sometimes I play junk just to keep myself entertained in these home games. It costs $.20 to see a flop, and I'm not worried about limping and folding. So I limp. And I get the TT3 flop. Are you kidding me? Adding to that, Bob bets into me! I call, so does lil bro. 4 on the turn, and Bob again goes to his stack, betting $3. Lil bro folds, and I think about it before re-raising to $9.

The minute I do this, I kick myself in the ass. I'm thinking I over-raised Bob. I've got him on 44 or even 33, maybe possibly AT or KT, but I'm confident I have him beat. I definitely didn't want him to fold...

...and he doesn't disappoint. Re-re-raise all-in. Beautiful. I call, we flip, he's pissed, I'm rich (he had the KT, missed the river). Whoo hoo!

A couple of my other favorite moments? KTo against my lil bro, I turn the straight (to the King) against his AQ catching TPTK. He pushes, and in the middle of my run of catching with rags I call him and say, "Sorry, but I actually have a legit hand this time."

My other favorite was when Bob was looking at his stack late and wondering where the $5 chip he thought he had was. I just looked at him, gestured to my stack, and deadpanned "Pick a hand."

Man, that was fun. Gotta love catching with absolute shit sometimes.