WWdN: In Exile

like the doo-dah man

"Together, more or less in line, just keep truckin' on . . ."
    -The Grateful Dead

I talked with Anne late last night, just before I planned to leave the Rio and go back to my hotel.

"The kids really miss you," she said.

"I really miss them, too," I said.

"Ryan told me that all he wants for his birthday is to come out and see you."

That was all it took. Tears filled my eyes and fell in huge drops down to the marble floor beneath my aching feet as my heart broke.

We know that they can't come out, because the kids are still in summer school, so I composed myself and talked with both of them on the phone for a few minutes. After I hung up, I saw my friend and fellow PokerStars blogger Otis walking out of the media room. I really didn't want to be alone just then, so I invited myself along to follow him outside, where we engaged in a nightly ritual that I call "talking each other off the ledge." It's a good talk, and all the writers have it at least twice a week.

After we talked, we headed back into the Amazon room together, and I found the best story I wrote all day:

Meeting bati99, while Fossilman and Pokertrip Build their Stacks
We traded the ninety-four degrees of hot pavement in front of the poker kitchen for the quiet din of the tournament room, and noticed that they are still running satellites for Main Event entries. The cash games, while on fewer tables, are still taking up at least a quarter of the room though many tables are empty. (I note this because I thought that the entire room had been transitioned over to Main Event tournament play. Oops.)

On our way down the rail, as we got dangerously close to table 20 and my post traumatic stress disorder that was certain to ensue, we hung a quick right at table 40, where a couple of PokerStars players were seated.

One of the players looked up at us, and said, "Hey! Are you guys with the PokerStars blog?"

"Yes, sir, we are," Otis said.

"When are you going to come by and put us on it?" He said.

I don't know about Otis, but even though I know lots of people are reading our work, all the six digit stats in the world pale in comparison to the one guy who sees us walking past his table, and interrupts his play because what we do matters to him.

[. . .]

A few more tables into the room, we found ourselves next to Greg. He appeared to have more chips than his current count online, but he was in a hand -- cool fossilman glasses on and everything -- when we walked up, so we left him alone and continued to prowl the floor.

A few steps later, I saw that Greg's wife, Cheryl, was standing by the rail with her sister, so I zagged when Otis zigged, and walked over to talk with them.

"It looks like Greg has about 7500 or so," I said.

"He just texted me a few minutes ago," Cheryl said, "and he's up just over ten thousand."

"Oh? That's great!" I said. "I'm supposed to be covering him today, but I don't want to get too close while he's playing."

"Oh, you should just go over and talk with him. He likes you and it wouldn't bother him at all."

I didn't tell her that I'm convinced that if I walk too close to Greg, one of his opponents will pull an Aaron Kanter on him because I happened to be there. This is an entirely rational thought.

[. . .]

The security goons began sweeping out the room, and I walked with Cheryl, her sister and her sister's husband, until we got to the intersection of Main Street and Wil Wheaton Kicks Ass Drive. They went down WWKAD, and continued down Main toward the hallway and media room, glancing at tables my whole way.

When I got to table 153, I saw Jon "pokertrip" Friedberg in seat 2, facing the rail.

His hands obscured his chipstack, but I noticed that he was wearing his bracelet, which made me very happy.

I watched a couple of hands, holding security at bay with my press badge, and Jon looked up and saw me. He smiled and waved, and I waved back. I looked at his chips and made the international face for "how many chips do you have? I don't want to walk over the rail and bother you while you're playing, and the stupid media rules prohibit me from explicitly asking you. Besides, you probably know and can just hold up a few fingers for me and make everyone happy while keeping us on the right side of the rules." This motion was accomplished by cocking my head to the right, and arching my left eyebrow. Yes, we actors can convey a lot in the most subtle of motions.

He held up his two index fingers, indicating eleven thousand. His huge smile indicated that he was very happy to have that stack in front of him.
--

Walking through the room and finding and writing those stories, also gave me my mojo back:

For the last 48 hours, I've felt like a complete failure, and I really haven't liked it. After walking the floor with Otis, seeing Greg, talking with Cheryl and checking up on Jon, I feel like a writer again. I don't believe it's a coincidence that I don't feel like throwing up for the first time since Friday, either.

The next time I think about picking up a deck of cards and some chips, I think I'll reach for my notebook and pen, instead.
--

This morning, my friend John Vorhaus called me and invited me to play in a charity poker tournament that would air on Live at the Bike. Against my better judgment I agreed, and found myself in a one-table SNG with Gavin Smith, Joe Sebok, Liz Lieu, a pornstar (NSFW), jv, and a few online sharks. Yes, I was the dead money, and yes I busted first when I lost a race with AQ to The Gavin's 77. Yes, I was outlasted by a pornstar. No, it's not the first time.

Shortly after I got set up in the media room, Michael Craig called me, because he was with Richard Brodie and Rafe Furst, both of whom wanted to say hello. Richard and I have been trying to meet in person for a long time, and Rafe and I know each other from the BARGE list, but have never actually met in real life. I talked with them for a few minutes, then I got to listen in as Rafe taught Mike basic roshambo strategy for a book that Mike is writing.

After about twenty minutes, Andy Bloch came over, and they all headed upstairs to Richard's suite to work on a tournament PLO chapter for the book. I really wanted to go along, just to hang out and learn about poker (also, I really like Andy and Rafe; I suspect that Richard and I would get along very well, too, if given the chance) but I felt a responsibility to get back to the media room and work on some stories. The big one today is Joe Hachem: his battle to defend his bracelet begins today, and of course he's at the featured table.

Las Vegas is equal parts Nirvana and Tenth Circle of Hell, and every day I visit both places several times. Right now? I'm on my way to the good place; at this very moment, Pauly, CJ, Otis and I are recreating Edgar Winters' Frankenstein by drumming on the table, humming and grunting, and making wah wah noises. I love the esprit du corps we have on Team Blog; it reminds me of the camaraderie we had at ACME during the Love Machine show, and that's a feeling that leads to great work. I'm really proud and happy to be part of this team. Like I said yesterday, we're poker's Voltron.

i am waiting for that sense of relief

I'm covering Greg Raymer and Tom McEvoy today, but the Amazon room is so packed with spectators and players, it's very, very hard to get close enough to them to talk when they're not at the table. I wanted to write something for the blog anyway, though, so I went out in search of a story, and found it in the expo:

The Frogurt is also Cursed

I found myself in the expo, which is much more crowded today than it was last time I was in there on Friday. Like all trade shows, there are the obligatory booth babes, the thumping music and the piles of giveaways that will end up under the passenger seat and stolen by a car wash guy months from now. The difference between the relative tranquility where players are competing for their share of over eighty-six million dollars, and the chaos where online poker rooms, magazines, T-shirt vendors and others are competing for their share of a billion dollar industry was striking. With so much at stake, it's remarkable to me that anyone can be calm in any of the rooms here.

Aside: I've just found out that there's a monkey playing poker in the expo right now. Apparently, some genius tried to enter the monkey into the Main Event, and they were -- wait for it -- denied. Shocking. I'm not going to go back in there and watch for two reasons: as far as I am concerned, there is only one monkey who plays poker and, as one of my colleagues here just said, "Why play a monkey? If you win, so what; you beat a monkey. But if you lose? Dude, you lost to a monkey."

I saw my friend Chris on my way in.

"How are you doing?" He said.

"The same," I said.

"I'm sorry to hear that. Barry Greenstein is signing his book in the PokerStars booth, though, so you should go see him and get one."

I thought that was a great idea. If you haven't read Barry's book, and you have any intention of playing poker seriously or for a living, you must. If you enjoy poker and would like to see the most beautiful poker book in the history of life, you must pick up Ace on the River. If you are the kind of person who does what a blogger tells you to do, then you must send me a dollar, then pick up Barry's book.
--

The rest of Team Blog is kicking all sorts of ass today, too. With so many players in the field, it's amazing that they can find them all, then pick out some of the more interesting stories they have to tell.

In other poker news, my friend Ryan finished yesterday with just over 40,000 in chips, putting him just above average for play on Tuesday.

In addition to the great reporting and writing he's doing for the PokerStars blog, Dr. Pauly continues the work that made him famous (I'm serious -- we can't walk down the hallway without running into at least two of his fans) over at Tao of Poker.

Okay, I think that's it for me today. Sorry for the lack of decent content today, but I've felt really nauseous all day long, and I'm heading back to my hotel to have some chicken soup and call it an early night. (I think I may have eaten some bad pizza or something at dinner last night. Happy birthday to me.) This is a marathon, not a sprint, and I'm not going to be any good to the team if I end up with an ulcer or something like that, so even though I feel like a major slacker heading out of here before the end of the day, it's probably best to lay down this hand so I can play some more later, when the blinds and antes go way, way up.

tomorrow may come, tomorrow may never come

After a day off to celebrate my birthday, I'm back to work at the Rio. In fact, I'm typing this from the media room across the hall from the tournament area, sitting at the same desk as the rest of PokerStars' Team Blog. I've decided that we're poker's Voltron, and I'm lucky and grateful to be part of this giant robot.

I'll cover Greg Raymer and Tom McEvoy's progress today, and I'm working on two non-time-specific features that should hit the Intertubes within the next 36 hours.

Here's my first post from today:

Forgive me poker, for I have sinned
. . . they say confession is good for the soul, and I hope they are correct, because I need to exorcise some poker demons now.

Forgive me, poker, for I have sinned against thee. It's been too long since my last confession.

I got eliminated from the main event because I got stupid. That's really what it comes down to. I got stupid, made two total rookie mistakes that I know not to make, and didn't even make it to the third level. I was the sucker. I was the dead money. I was the idiot who shouldn't even be on Celebrity Poker Showdown, because he fell in love with top pair -- twice -- early on in a deep stack tournament. And called off all his chips. Twice. Complete. Idiot.

The worst part of the whole thing is that I completely beat myself. I wasn't trapped, or tricked, or masterfully outplayed; I just got stupid and made two completely idiotic donkey moves. I played like a stupid celebrity poker player.

Every time it mattered in this year's World Series, in every event I played, I choked. I'm disgusted with myself. I let myself down, and I feel like I let PokerStars down (even though my friends who I work for and with will tell me that I shouldn't beat myself up about it, we all know I screwed up.) I'm sorry, everyone. To everyone who believed in me: I'm sorry. I sucked, and I blew it.
--

I'm actually really happy to be back writing. The day off was nice, and hanging out with my wife was awesome, but the truth is that I've gone from homesick to heartsick, and if I have too much time to sit around and think about it, I miss my kids and my house and my dogs so much it hurts. When I'm focused on finding and writing a story, I don't have time to miss them. Look for about fifty brazillion words to come from me in the next two weeks.

i get one every year

YES! I made it to 34! (I avoided Caesar's Palace, just to be on the safe side.)

I'm taking today one hundred percent off to goof off with my wife, but she's taking a nap right now so I can type quietly without getting The Wrath.

I made the same mistake twice yesterday to get busted out of the Main Event. I'm almost off tilt (a new kind of tilt, which I call "why did I talk myself into playing like a fucking moran" tilt) and I'll write all about it for the PokerStars blog tomorrow.

Anne came into town yesterday, and after an awesome dinner with my friend Ryan (who is kicking ass in the WSOP today) where we watched a propane station get hit by lightning and explode Jerry Bruckheimer-style, we started my birthday by losing at blackjack at midnight. Why I played a -EV game in the first place is best answered by the guy who makes really good very dirty Grey Goose martinis down in the casino. Yes, they were the best one hundred dollar martinis I ever had. Damn you, Vegas.

Thanks to everyone who has wished me a happy birthday, either in comments, in e-mail, or at Fark.

Wheee!

anyone who's ever had a dream, anyone who's ever played a part

I'm a little freaked out about playing in the Main Event tomorrow, especially after a really lousy performance in the last World Series event I played a week ago.

But "a little freaked out" is much better than "entirely freaked out" as I was about five hours ago.

What changed?

Silencing the Voice of Self-doubt
There are countless parallels between acting and poker tournaments, and there are a lot of feelings that come with them both that I'm not crazy about, but there's also this thing that I've had to learn to do my best in auditions: I prepare as much as I can, and have to just let everything else go. All that stuff I have to prove to myself and other
people? Just let it go and do the best I can do, without regard to results. The enormous pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? Sure, I'd like to get it, but it's a long journey to get there, and I'd hate to waste the walk because I'm overly focused on the destination.

As a writer, I'm always looking for the story; I'm also always looking for symbolism and meaning where it may not always be obvious to anyone else. When I got back here and saw that 800 words of anxiety and self doubt were all gone, I found my story, and I found my "A" game, too.

I'll get to try it out in about 12 hours.

I turn 34 on Saturday, and I asked to play on day 1A because I didn't want to play poker on my birthday. I realized this afternoon that if I make it to Day 2, I'll certainly be playing past midnight, so now I'm actually hoping that I am playing poker on my birthday, or at least at the beginning of it.

There will be updates at the official PokerStars blog all day tomorrow, so check there after noon pacific time if you want to see how I'm doing.

the dealer keeps on joking as he takes my last token

Last night, Otis, Spaceman, Absinthe and I watched Phil Hellmuth win his tenth bracelet in the World Series of Poker.

For those of you who aren't big poker fans: it was a very big and incredibly historical event, and watching it from about fifteen feet away is like being ringside for the Rumble in the Jungle, or in the dugout when the Sox finally won the World Series.

Buoyed by the celebratory atmosphere (and perhaps encouraged ever-so-slightly by an Arrogant Bastard Ale or, uhm, two) we decided that we would play some tournament poker of our own. At 1:15 in the morning.

And that, my dear friends, is how I ended up at Binion's, playing against a former WSOP final-tabler in their 2am tourney, and watching the sun come up as my friend made the final table.

I'm working on the story about that, and it should be finished sometime tomorrow (you can read Absinthe's first installment of what is sure to be an epic Roshomon if you just can't wait to hear it from me. He's already set the bar damn high, which is why I'm waiting until tomorrow when I'm off tilt to write it up. Yeah, that's right, I'm on tilt because I just lost another fucking PLO buy-in when I flopped a full house and the only fucking card in the deck that beat me came on the turn for the other guy and he stacked me. Again.)

Until then, though, here's some stuff I've recently done for the official PokerStars blog (as of Midnight Pacific on July 27, the blog is having network issues, so the links may not work, but come back and keep trying, mmmkay? There's a lot that I can't excerpt here):

How I spent my Summer Vacation is a mini photo essay featuring some of the places Otis and I hang out when we're not working.
--

Fossilman makes the final table
"Hey!" I said, as I hung up my phone, "how are you?"

"I'm great," he said. "Do you want to grab some lunch?"

I had just gotten into work, and I had a private consultation set up with Barry Tanenbaum just over an hour later, but there was no way I'd turn down lunch with Greg.

"Sure," I said, "can I be back in an hour?"

"Yeah, we're just going around the corner," he said.

I picked up my stuff, and we walked out of the Rio together. Just like crossing the Amazon room, we were stopped every ten or twenty feet, until we got to the valet.

"You car is on the way, Mr. Raymer," the valet, a twenty-something kid with sandy blond hair and a huge smile said. He held a deck of cards in his hand.

"Hey, do you want to high card for a million?" He said.

"How about a hundred?" Greg said.

The valet looked at his tips, and laughed. "Sorry, man, I don't think the rest of the guys would be happy about that if I lost."

Greg smiled back at him, and shook his hand. "Maybe next time," he said.

We drove out to lunch, and on the way I asked him if he was off until the Main Event starts later this week.

"I'm going to get into the deuce to seven lowball at three," he said. "I'll just wait until we get back to buy-in, because I think the line at the cashier will be shorter then, if there's a line at all."

"Cool," I said. "I'll try and keep track of you on the blog."

We had lunch, where I unsuccessfully tried to convince him to try Geocaching (no dice; Greg was adamantly opposed to anything involving hiking) and to explain why people didn't like Wesley Crusher on Star Trek. (Greg said that it just didn't make sense. Clearly, Greg hasn't spent a lot of time around Trekkies.)
--

Fossilman takes a break
I turned around and scanned the room. The no-limit 2-7 lowball rebuy (yeah, you read all of that right) has a very small field of just around eighty players, and I knew that Greg Raymer was one of them because he told me on our way to lunch today that he would be playing. I scanned the tables, and saw him. They were on a break, so I made my way over to his table.

"Hey," I said, "do you have a minute to talk to me for the blog?"

"Sure," he said. "Come walk with me for a bit."

He picked up his stuff, and before he could take a single step, two people came up and asked him for autographs. Greg graciously obliged, smiled and shook their hands, and we started to make our way out of the room.

Ten feet later, someone stopped Greg for an autograph and a picture. He graciously obliged, and we continued on our way, single file with me following behind. This happened every ten to twenty feet for the next several minutes, until we got to the center of the room and a guy held out a signature-covered T-shirt and a Sharpie pen to me.

I took it, and turned to hand it to Greg when he said, "Oh, I wanted your autograph."

"Really?" I said.

"Yeah!"

"Oh, I thought you wanted Greg's."

"I already have it." He said.

"Ah, now this makes sense," I said. I took his pen and signed my name as best I could on a T-shirt, which is something I've never been particularly good at.

I caught up to Greg, who had managed to make it about twenty-five feet before he was stopped this time, and waited while an older man in a tan cowboy hat told him how much he loved watching him play.

Aside: I've been around a lot of celebrities in my life -- hell, I was even one of them a long time ago -- and it's rare to see someone handle himself with the grace, poise, kindness and generosity that Greg has. There are a lot of very young self-professed professional players here, many of them in their early twenties, and with rare exception they are arrogant, immature, entitled, and entirely without honor or respect for the history of the game. It was so refreshing to walk with Greg through a writhing mass of his fans, and see him treat every single one of them with kindness and respect. Some of these "professionals" would be well-served to take a break from "investing" in Dolce & Gabbana and listen to him.
--

Fossilman Makes the Final Five
While chip runners collected and racked the player's chips, Men "The Master" Nguyen talked with a friend at the rail about a huge call that Phillipe made with a ten nine to take a massive pot, and David Williams talked on his cell phone with a smile on his face -- pretty easy to do with all the chips he had stacked up in front of him.

"Is position as important in this game as it is in hold'em?" I said.

"Oh, it's more important. Knowing how many cards your opponent is going to draw is a huge advantage," Greg said.

The break was nearing an end, and I felt like I was dangerously close to imposing on Greg, so I put my notebook into my pocket, and said, "Good luck, man."

"Thank you," he said.

"Have fun," I said. It's such a stupid thing to say to a professional player, who has just been crushed by bad luck, and is tantalizingly close to winning another World Series Bracelet, but it is also something I tell my friends when they're playing, and I said it automatically. "Er, I mean, have fun if you can," I said, and walked out of the tournament area before I messed up his mojo.
--

Fossilman Finishes Fifth
A few minutes after the dinner break, I walked into the Amazon room and saw that the final table had resumed. Men The Master ran up to the rail to celebrate winning a hand with some people as I walked in, and it cracked me up that he was having such a good time, and acting like me and my friends do in a tourney with one hundredth the buy-in.

I made my way down along Main Street until I found a spot where I could get close enough to the rail to go under the rope, when a voice called out, "Cowboy Wil! Cowboy Wil!"

I turned around, and saw John Vorhaus in one of the 2-5 no-limit games. We talked for a minute or so, and when he sat down to play his blind, I looked back to check on Greg's table.

Okay, a small problem: Greg wasn't there.

"Oh shit," I thought, "Greg busted out."

"I have to go," I said, and I pushed my way past some tourists and beyond the rail. I walked past several empty tables, and an empty seat where Greg had sat confirmed my fears: he was eliminated in fifth place. Evelyn Ng sat in a chair at an empty table as she sweated her friend David Williams.

"How did Greg go out?" I said.

"David just busted him," she said.

"Do you know how the hand went?" I said.

"No, I missed it."

Aside: I checked on Pokerwire when I got back into the media room (where I've moved to do all my writing today; it's just too crazy and crowded in the halls) and saw that Greg once again got his money in ahead, and was outdrawn.

I pointed at David's massive stack of chips. "Not too bad for someone who says he's never played the game before today, huh?"

Evelyn smiled. "Nope."
--

I want to take a second and thank everyone who has left comments or sent in e-mail about my work for the PokerStars blog. It really means a lot to me to get your feedback. I feel like I'm in some sort of weird writer's zone right now, and doing some of the best writing of my life (or at least in recent memory), and I can't wait to see what the Main Event brings when it starts in about 36 hours. Things are about to get crazygonuts here in Vegas, and I will do my best to capture as much of it as I can.

stone in love

Scalzi on Journey:

[F]or the vast majority of Suburban Americans between the age of 14 and 24 in the early 80s, when it was time to make out and you put Escape on the turntable, you were automatically spotted two bases. Honestly, if you didn't have a hand under a bra or massaging a button fly by the end of "Who's Crying Now," Steve Perry would stop what he
was doing, fly to your house and then beat the crap out of you for blowing a sure thing.

I'm laughing so hard right now, I just peed a little.

zen and the art of getting off tilt

I finally took my hair shirt off sometime in the middle of the night on Saturday. I couldn't pin down the exact moment, but I think it happened when Pauly bet Otis $400 that Otis wouldn't eat two keno crayons . . . and Otis picked them up and shoved them into his mouth.

Pauly wrote about our late night out after work on his blog:

3:30am is when things got interesting. All of us (Wil, Change100, me, Otis, April & Spaceman) were at the same Pai Gow table. Otis pulled out eight $100 bills out of his poker bankroll and tossed it onto the felt. Flora, out Pai Gow dealer from Vietnam, yelled out something to the pit poss. Otis was betting $800 on a single hand of Pai Gow. My $25 bet wilted in comparison.

Otis pushed twice as I barely paid attention to my cards. I sat right next to him and watched as he unfurled every hand. He won the third hand as the dealer paid him in eight black $100 chips. He took his cash and chips and tossed a green $25 chip into the betting circle.

"I'm still not close to being unstuck. Does that get me steak and eggs for all of my friends?" he screamed at the Pit Boss.

She nodded her head. Spaceman lost $200. April lost about the same while Wil, Change100 and I dropped about $100 each.

   After he ate the keno crayons, Otis said, through a mouthful of dark blue wax, "After winning this prop bet, I'm still not unstuck, and I think I have lupus from these crayons."

"Hey, you have a little bit of lupus in the corner of your mouth," I said.

He wiped the crayon bit off his face and said, "My mouth feels kind of . . . waxy."

"Yeah," I said, "that's a pretty common side effect of eating keno crayons."

It went on and on from there, and we were all laughing so hard by the time we left the cafe at the Gold Coast, I can't even remember everything we said, much less recreate it for my blog . . . but when I stood at my window an hour later and noticed that the sky was lightening and the Eastern horizon was catching fire, I didn't care that I'd miss at least half the day sleeping.

I have some very good friends here, and without getting too sentimental, I can say that we're all sort of a family, supporting each other emotionally while we're away from our real families back home, wherever back home may be, and when we blow off steam, we do it in crazy style, sukkas, because that's just how we roll.

Uh, I don't know what crazy style is, or why I felt it was okay to call you all sukkas, so while that hangs in the air, here are two things I wrote yesterday:

Swimming with Sharks
Jerrod Ankenman and Vanessa Rousso came in one after the other, and I was suddenly surrounded by a group of exceptionally talented poker players. This happens to me at least ten times a day, but I still haven't gotten used to it.

They all talked for a few minutes, while I stood by and tried to blend into the carpet during yet another moment where I realized just how much I have to learn and how much experience I need to get if I'm ever going to make it deep in one of these tourneys. They all figured out that Jerrod had the most chips with the fewest rebuys, and when someone walked by and mentioned that Negreanu had over forty thousand dollars invested in rebuys, none of them even blinked. I know I should be numb to this sort of thing, but I'm not, and I don't know if I ever will be. Forty thousand?

Suddenly, as if a silent alarm went off in all their heads simultaneously, the players began to make their way back into the tournament area. I wished them luck on their way out, and in less than a minute, the suite was empty and quiet again.

"How does someone turn a $1000 tourney into a $40,000 tourney?" I thought, as I pulled my laptop out of my backpack and sat down to work. I don't know the answer, because I don't have that thing that makes someone a big game player. I think that I'm okay with that, but I have to admit that I really like most of these people, and it would be really cool to live in their world, if only for a week, just to see what it's like.
--

The Usual Suspects
On my way down the hallway to the Amazon room, an older man, probably mid-sixties, walked toward me, and stopped me.

"You and I played together on Friday," he said.

"Right," I said, "in the two thousand no-limit."

He took an incredibly horrible beat from the guy who eventually busted me when he open-raised with pocket kings, and the big blind put him all in with ace king off. Of course he called, and the big blind spiked an ace on the river to bust him.

He was wearing a green cap with gold cursive lettering embroidered across the top that said Dad's Lucky Cap. I really, really, really miss my kids, and it touched me when I noticed it as he sat into our table, because it looked like something that one
of his kids made for him at one of those stations in the mall. (In fact, when I recounted his bad beat to Otis over beers last night, I told him that I'd given him a name and a back story, and everything, and I was devastated when he was gone. Just like Stewie Griffin and the camel.)

When that ace came on the end, he stood up and said, "Goddammit!" and threw his hat onto the felt. He picked it up, wished us all good luck, and walked away. At the time, I felt that it was a perfectly reasonable reaction.

"I wanted to apologize to you," he said, "for my outburst when I was eliminated."

"Oh, man," I said, "you took a terrible bad beat! He hit a three-outer to beat you, and then he was a jerk about it when he won."

He was. He sneered at this guy with the same contempt he threw at me, but at least I'd earned it.

"No," he said, "it was inappropriate and uncalled for, and I shouldn't have lost control of myself."

I wanted so badly to tell him my history with pocket kings, and how John Vorhaus calls me Cowboy Wil as a result, but instead I said, "Well, your apology isn't needed or expected, but I accept it."

I extended my hand, and he took it in a firm grasp. While I shook it I said, "You are a gentleman, sir, in a place where there are few."

He thanked me, and we continued down the hall to our respective destinations.
--

I'm up earlier than I've been up since I got here two weeks ago, because I wisely went to bed at midnight after playing twenty-five cent pot-limit omaha online for two hours. I lost my twenty-five dollar buy-in when I flopped a full house, pushed the turn, and got two other guys to put their entire buy-ins into the pot. One guy was drawing dead with a flush, and the other guy spiked a three-outer on the river to make a bigger full house. I was more upset about dropping that buy-in than I was blowing a hundred playing stupid Pai Gow Saturday night, and that has everything to do with my friends. Friends, it turns out, are a great overlay when you're in Vegas.

I want to face you with diamonds and gold in my head

The short version is: I played like shit today. I may have even played the worst poker of my life. I really, really, really miss my kids, too.

The longer version is:

Otis and I met up with Pauly and Change100, and headed up to the hooker bar for a beer. When we got there, Otis said, "How are you feeling, man?"

"I feel stupid," I said. "I feel like I played like shit, and I really hate myself right now."

"Don't hate yourself," he said. "Tell me again how the hand went down."

I did, and identified the really big problem with the whole goddamn thing: I lost focus at a key moment, because I was watching Joe. The writer and the player came into conflict, and the writer won. If the writer hadn't been watching Joe to get the story, the poker player wouldn't ever have tried to steal and end up in a crippling hand. It also turns out that the poker player just didn't bring his "A" game today.

"I can't see how I could have played it differently," I said, "unless I'm willing to be so tight, I give him credit for a hand he might have . . . "

" . . . and that's monsters under the bed," Otis said.

"Yeah," I said. "And while I'll tell myself that I would rather bust before the dinner break than nurse a short stack just to stay alive . . ." I shrugged and threw up my hands. "I don't mind going out of a tournament, but calling off my stack with top pair and not even a great kicker to cripple myself was just stupid. It was a goddamn Celebrity Poker Showdown move, and I really went out hating myself. No matter how hard I try, I just feel stupid," I said, "and the truth is, I'd much rather write than play poker right now, because I don't like feeling stupid."

The entire story, of course, is at the official PokerStars blog.

not because you love the song, because you love to sing

I took the day off on Wednesday, and spent close to six hours just floating in the pool with my wife, who flew out to spend the about thirty-six hours with me.

It was just we both needed: she needed a break from home, where she has been solely responsible for our kids, our dogs, our bills, and every other responsibility that we normally share, and I really needed a day to get outside, and give my brain a rest.

We headed down to the pool around eleven, with a plan to float for a little bit, and then head out to do something that we never really defined, but after an hour or so, we both realized that floating around and not doing anything was exactly the something that we both needed to do, so we stayed there and worked really hard on not doing anything at all. It was a glorious day.

I took Anne back to the airport yesterday morning, and went back to the Rio where I wrote some really cool stuff for the PokerStars blog:

What a Long, Strange Pokertrip it's Been
I took a couple of pictures, took out my pen, and asked him a bunch of really stupid questions that I'm sure he's been asked a hundred times since he won event seventeen a few days ago, and I began to see a lot of myself in him; not because I'm such a great poker player, but because I, like him, went from relatively anonymous to not-so-anonymous very quickly, too. It's a weird thing when that happens: suddenly, everyone wants to take your picture, and some jerk wants to ask you stupid questions you've already answered a hundred times. It feels like everyone wants a piece of you, and you suddenly don't know who you can and can't trust. It's an exciting time, but it can also be very, very uncomfortable . . . and a little scary.

"Hey," I said, "I'm sure you don't know a thing about me, but I was a big deal actor about a million years ago, and I think I know what you're going through: everyone wants a piece of you now, right? Suddenly you have a ton of new best friends who won't leave you alone, and all these people you don't know suddenly think they know you, right?"

He immediately softened, and smiled the first real relaxed smile I'd seen since we began to talk.

"Yeah," he said. "It's exactly like that."
--

Fossilman Cripples Mercier
The room is filled with chairs in anticipation of a capacity crowd for David Sklansky's talk in about ninety minutes. I wrote a post for my own blog, while I waited for David to arrive, and I noticed a beautiful woman was walking around the chairs and coming my way.

I looked up and found Isabelle Mercier standing next to me.

"Hey," I said, hoping that if she read my last post she wouldn't mention it to me, "how are you doing?"

"F---ing Greg Raymer," Isabelle said with a slow shake of her head.

"Uh-oh," I said.

"He raised me, I put him all-in with the ace king before the flop, and he called with queen ten to make a straight. Of course. He crippled me."

"Oh, jeeze," I said, grateful that she hadn't mentioned anything about my sighing.

"I'm going to start a new group," she said with a laugh, "boycott Greg Raymer!

"How about nomorefossilman.com?" I said, and we laughed together. We both like Greg a whole bunch, but Isabelle is a fierce competitor, and I doubt she'd have such good humor if it was anyone else.
--

I didn't write this yesterday, but I really, really like it, so I'm including it here. Nyahh.
Oh, Mercy Mercy Me
She smiled at me and said, "Okay, you also wrote about Bahamas on your blog wilwheaton.net, and I want to know what a word means."

Uh-oh.

We fired up my blog, and I searched for Mercier.

"Okay," she said. "Here, in this entry about the Bahamas."

She scrolled down, and read, " . . .we walked with Greg, Joe, Isabelle Mercier (sigh), Lee Jones, and several of the PokerStars staff over to the welcome party."

She turned to me, and I felt myself blush to eleven.

"What does this word 'ess eye gee ayche' mean?" She said.

Oh shit. I'm so busted.

"Well," I said, "uh, well, it's, uh . . . you know . . . " I felt a little light headed and the room began to spin as all the blood in my body got to work pushing the hottest blush my face has ever endured.

She looked back at me, as adorable as ever beneath a black "DEAL" baseball cap, and waited.

I exhaled and said, "Okay, this is really embarrassing. It means, 'I can't believe I get to walk with this beautiful woman,' you know? It's like," I put my hands out into the air, pulled them in and over my chest, and let out an exaggerated sigh.

"It, uh . . . it means that." I said. I hadn't wanted to just lay down and die like that since middle school, when I was Pam Hardy told Mindy Patterson that I totally
liked her.
--

I'm playing in event 31 which is $2000 No-Limit Hold'Em. I start in ninety minutes, so I guess I should stop writing, finish my breakfast (I always eat eggs benedict the morning I'm playing in a poker tournament) and get myself together.

Last night, I was talking with Otis over a beer (Tilted Kilt finally got Arrogant Bastard! Yes!) and I told him that, while I'm really excited to play today, it's going to be weird to spend a day at the Rio where I'm not writing, especially since Joe Hachem will be at the final table of the $2500 Pot-Limit Hold'Em event today. I really am here as a writer who occasionally plays poker, the same way I have become as a writer who occasionally acts. I just love it that I don't even think about it anymore when someone asks me what I do: "I'm a writer."

If you're interested in tracking my progress today, you can start checking Pokerwire and Cardplayer around 12:30, though there is no guarantee that they'll keep me in the chip count. The PokerStars blog will be the best place to go for entirely accurate, and up to date information, because I'll be talking with Otis during my breaks, or after huge hands. Of course, I'll keep notes and take pictures, and have a whole write up of my own whenever the event is finished for me.

My poker game has gotten better in the last few days, especially after spending so much time talking with Barry Greenstein and listening to seminars from Barry Tanenbaum and David Sklansky. I have new bullets in my poker gun, and I can't wait to fire them today. I've had this mantra on a loop in my head all morning: I'm relaxed, confident, and focused because I play good poker because I'm relaxed, confident and focused because I play good poker because I'm relaxed, confident and focused because I play good poker . . .