Tao of Poker

Dog Humpers

I went to the Verizon store in the Flat Iron District to buy a new cell phone. The saleslady, a young woman named Soozy with a nose ring and a back tattoo, asked me what kind of phone I wanted. I shrugged my shoulders.

I hate shopping and I hate talking on my cell phone. Shopping for cellphones was sheer torture. She waved her hand and indicated that I should follow her over to the far wall as I stared at her ass.

"This one is great of you like games. Do you know how to play the Dallas Texas Hold'em poker?"

I shrugged my shoulders.

"You know, Dallas Texas Hold'em. Like they play on the TV. Well, this is the best phone to use to play poker," she said in a poor attempt to convince me to buy that crappy phone.

I picked a different one and she rang me up at the counter. I went to the Tech Desk in the back of the store to get my address book switched. The guy at the desk reminded me of the pothead version of Theo Huxtable from The Cosby Show. After he transferred the data to my new phone, he checked to see if it worked and said, "You got Phil Gordon's phone number? No joke? That poker guy?"

I shrugged my shoulders and walked out of the store. It had been raining for two days straight and the early morning rain soaked me on Fifth Avenue. My flimsy umbrella, a thin green piece of shit with a silver Silverton Casino logo on it, provided very little protection against the downpour. I inherited the green umbrella from Grubby. It was one of the many casino gifts that he left behind when he moved out of Las Vegas. I don't know why I didn't question the durability of an umbrella given away as a promotion from a Nevada local's casino that Grubby got for playing through $2K in Mr. Cashman slots at Silverton.

* * * * *
Poker has not been on my mind the last few weeks as I delved into the non-gambling world. This past week, I've been embroiled in a time consuming creative writing project. I caught up on a few indie films when I was in Hollyweird at the end of the summer, such as Little Miss Sunshine and Factotum. I finally saw all those episodes of Entourage that I missed while on assignment in Las Vegas. I've been seeing plenty of live concerts in both Boulder and in New York featuring some of my favorite bands. I posted reviews of Widespread Panic's shows at Radio City Music Hall over at the Tao of Pauly and my music blog. And I've been switching back and forth between reading Chuck Klosterman's new book and a biography on Philip K. Dick called Divine Invasions that Ryan recommended to me

I've played some poker over the last few weeks which included a several hit and run sessions online at Full Tilt where I'm still working off that bonus. I'm 93% close to clearing it. By the way, Poker Stars has a reload bonus running through Sept. 19th at Midnight. Normally you can stack their bonuses but this one expires in six months.

When I was in California, I played on FT with Peter Birks. It was early morning for him in England as he tried to squeeze in an hour of play before he went to work. It must be strange to wake up in Europe to play against the East Coast Americans who've been up all night chasing loses and against West Coasters approaching the Midnight hour.

I played short-handed NL with Grubby at FT as we multi-tabled with Donkey Puncher at a 3/6 table. Puncher took it on the chin after losing a big pot set over set. I mucked the winning hand preflop to two raises in front of me. I also played a little 5/10 with Zeem and my brother.

Last weekend, I had Pocket Aces three times in 15 hands spread out on various limit tables. They all held up. I just checked Poker Tracker and my Aces held up 5 out of the last 6 times and 12 out of the last 15. That means I'm due to get them busted. I'm gonna muck them the next time I get them. My Kings tell a different and sadder story. I had one of those horrible sessions where K-K were brutally cracked twice at the same table with the same hand. Two different players rivered me with 10-7o.

Alas, the karmic pendulum swings both ways like a Phuket tranny hooker. In the last 50 hands that I played on Party Poker, I cracked Aces with Jacks and cracked Kings with Q-Js. Some days the dog humps you and some days you get to hump the dog.