StarF*cker

“Is that Isabelle?” I pointed to the girl in the black skirt who looked an awful lot like the girl on the PokerStars banner adjacent to the door into which she had just walked.

Otis nodded his assent. “I met her for a bit yesterday, she’s really nice.”

“Can you grab her for a picture next time she walks by? We’ve got to get one for Gene.” Actually, we had taken a picture of the banner with Isabelle’s image about ten minutes prior, just because we thought that might get Gene’s blood pumping. The other picture is what we really needed to piss him off.

We got our picture, she hustled off to nowhere in particular.

But a few minutes later, as the whole filthy lot of us are standing around the doors having a cigarette, I hear “Can I bum a smoke?” walking up behind me. It’s Isabelle. La Petite Fleur.

Maybe I’ve made a bad assumption about people who play poker professionally. I may have pessimistically de-romanticized the lifestyle as one that’s inhabited largely by those who seek solitude and have an inability to function socially off the felt. I mean, did you see the ESPN “The Nuts” segment during last year’s WSOP where Phil Ivey and a couple others went golfing together? How forced did their “good time” seem?

Isabelle was quiet, lovely, and disarming. She either had or played that demure personality beautifully. She was polite and accommodating, which I’m sure was genuine coming from a French-Canadian. In the course of conversation, Eva asked where she made her home. “I do not have so much as an apartment. No bills, I follow the games.”

Honestly, I wasn’t “star struck” with Isabelle, because I hadn’t actually seen her on TV before. It’s easy, however, to become instantly enamored with her. I’m reminded of one of my favorite exchanges in recent movie history:

Penny: I’ve made a decision. I’m gonna live in Morocco for one year. I need a new crowd. Do you wanna come?
William: Yes! Yeah.
Penny: Are you sure?
William: Ask me again.
Penny: Do you wanna come?
William: Yes! Yes.

That’s how it is with me and beautiful women. Had she, in the first three minutes I spent talking to her, asked me to go to Morocco, we would have had that same conversation. However, to quote William’s sister from that movie, “Someday, you’ll be cool.”

Maybe someday…

I don’t know that it would come to a surprise to anyone who’s met me that I’m a self-diagnosed borderline sociophobe. That’s the fancy way of saying I’m horrifically shy. The picture you’ve seen of Mrs. Can’t Hang molesting Greg Raymer? That started when I caught Raymer out of the corner of my eye walking by and pointed through my chest behind me while whispering to the rest of the group, “There’s Raymer.” Of course, G-Rob and America’s Wingman are up out of their seats calling after him, and I’m glad they did. Greg was one of the nicest people you could possibly meet, and was very gracious with his time. We spent a good five minutes with him, and I captured these two pearls of poker wisdom in my notes, just for you guys:

”You can’t always do it in a tournament, but I’m always going to chase +EV in a cash game.”

“If I think you’re going to fold, I’m going to bluff at you 100%.”

See? I am capable of delivering poker wisdom here from time to time. Even if it isn’t my own.

By the way, it goes without saying that beer and whiskey are being drank here, right? This, of course, leads into some semi-uncomfortable looks of horror by various passersby. Starting with…

“JJ!” Al spots John Juanda walking by, and when you see a guy who looks like Al yelling at you as you’re passing, it’s hard to immediately assess the level of belligerence that’s behind the goatee. He turns on his heel and tosses a weak smile that looks as much like stomach discomfort than anything. “Good luck John!” I yell after him, hopefully easing the perception that there’s some sort of bone to pick with us.

It’s not two minutes later when I see G-Rob perk up from the couch and yell “D-Dub!” It’s David Williams, and we get another uneasy smile. I’m just shaking my head.

A little while later it’s Daniel Negreanu who gets the business. He’s walking by and Al yells to him to ask if we can get a picture. His head is elsewhere, but he stops anyway and we get our shot. Because I’m actually just a little bit uncomfortable, I mumble something along the lines of, “There’s another starfucker moment for the memory books Al.” Daniel heard me, turned and shot me the weirdest look, but G-Rob later told me the whole thing was more funny than anything.

It was really quite amazing to be in the midst of the tournament like we were, and to see so many world class gamblers around. Speaking of world class gamblers…

“Dude, my brother and I go down to New Orleans every year for the SEC Tournament. You haven’t come close to doing New Orleans until you’ve hung out with my brother and I.” Can I give you a guess as to who uttered this unfortunate quote to whom?

That’s right, G-Rob had just called out Al Can’t Hang.

Look, I really don’t know who you guys think you’re dealing with, but if there were some sort of Alcohol Olympiad, I guaran-damn-tee you Al and Big Mike are on the team, if not carrying the flag into the stadium. You are not fucking around anymore, this is not a drill.

G-Rob knew what he was doing too. I have no doubts that he came into the batting cages swinging three bats and a fungo, licking his chops at the pitches he wants to knock over the right field wall. Problem is, he picked the wrong cage. Fastballs.

He does use Moises Alou’s strategy for gripping the bat though. Just so you know.

You know the old saying, “It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon?” Friday was a marathon being run at full speed. I think it was about 9PM that I caught up to G-Rob at the bar getting yet another round of drinks for the table when he said, “I don’t know if I can hang with the Can’t Hangs.” No kidding… I don’t really know who can.

Fast forward to about 130AM. We were done with poker for the night, and had migrated over to the Atlas Bar, approximately six and three quarter miles away in the casino. As was the custom in the Bahamas, most of the bars quit serving sometime around midnight. This made no sense to me, as the whole island was awake because of Jaganoo.

Jaganoo was the New Year’s parade that had gotten bumped out a week because it was a little windy outside on actual New Year’s. It started at 9PM, and ended sometime around 3AM. It was kind of like a Mardi Gras parade, in that the religious themes and imagery were right there alongside general costumed buffoonery. Sadly, no one was tossing beads around that I could see. We watched the parade on TV in the bar, and the only part of it I really found memorable was when a guy doing the Jesus/crucifix/crown-of-thorns thing was being danced around by a guy who looked like a black hobo version of Mr. Monopoly. I’m not really sure what the message was there. Maybe you had to be plowed.

G-Rob was plowed. Al was plowed. Eva was plowed. And Otis was on his way. As for me, I’m not really a drinker, so I was able to remember some of the good stuff along the way.

From much earlier in the evening…

G-Rob: I’d say there’s an outside chance tonight gets ugly.
Eva: Very ugly.
G-Rob: I’m “pro-ugly.”

And it did get ugly. For example, G-Rob did bodyslam Al in an attempt to wrassle the hiccups out of him. He also attempted some sort of similar thing with Mrs. Can’t Hang as well, who spent the latter part of the 2AM hour emasculating him with barb after barb. All the while G-Rob thought he could badger Otis into letting him crash in his room with non-stop begging (”Can I have the key? I swear I’ll go right up to bed. Just give me the key.”) but it wasn’t going to work. Otis, I believe, had a $14 Toblerone in the mini-bar that he was afraid G-Rob might eat in his absence.

G-Rob did, however, buy me a piece of cheesecake. He’s the man.

330AM hit, the bar had long since closed, and both G-Rob and Al have their heads down on something. Otis looked tired, G-Rob looked defeated, and the Can’t Hangs wanted to head back across the island. I can neither confirm nor deny anything that happened with Otis and/or G-Rob from this point, as we commandeered a stretch limo (only another $12 more expensive than a regular taxi) to take us back from whence we came.

Thank god it was winter in the tropics. Were it June, we’d be in danger of getting home in the early daylight at that hour. As it was, I crawled into bed and fell asleep to HBO’s Taxicab Confessions. It was still Friday, so far as I was concerned. Saturday would kick my ass soon enough.