Authors note: In the interest of staying current while playing in the WSOP I’ll be temporarily skipping ahead to the current date. The entries from the remainder of the Wisconsin trip will be finished when I have time to hide out in some book store for 10 hours one day.

June 2nd, Las Vegas: I wake up on the second floor of the Vegas house in a corner bedroom at 10am. It’s not quite as much sleep as I would have liked, but I feel good enough and it’ll have to do. I take a shower, throw on a suit, and meet StevoL and Joel Dodds downstairs. We eat breakfast then drive over to the casino in the minivan has rented. Hello soccer mom pickup attempts.

There had been rumors circulating the last couple days that the $1500 event would sell out the night before the event. I find at the cage that is glaringly not true as of 11:15am, and the line only takes a bit more than five minutes to get to the front of and buy in. It appears things are being run quite well this year thus far. I get a ticket that seats me in the Brasilia room, and I wander over to my seat on table 188 and sit down behind my stack of 4500 starting chips. The blinds begin at 25/50 and my table contains nobody I am familiar with.

In my first major hand I get involved with the player on my immediate right that I had played a couple small pots and won both off of already:
Effective stacks: ~4500, blinds 25/50 I hold KsKc on the HJ
Preflop: Folds to MP2, MP2 raises to 200, I reraise to 600, folds back to MP2, MP2 calls.
Flop: 2 4 5 rainbow (Pot 1275)
MP2 checks, I bet 850, MP2 calls.
Turn: T (Pot 2975)
MP2 checks, and with about 3200 behind I shove. I debate whether this is better than betting 1300 now and shoving the river (and in retrospect feel it would be likely better) and MP2 thinks for a short while and folds, saying he had AK. He asks if I had the same hand. I stare blankly ahead.

I get up around 6000, but then find myself slowly bleeding off chips in small ball pots. I raise pre and get called by the guy on my left, or have the guy on my right limp-call me then not fold and bomb the river when I check the turn, and he’s the type to have it a ton when he does that. I’ve bled off 2000 by the time the next eventful hand comes up:

My stack :~4000, SB: ~6000, blinds 50/100, I hold 89o in the SB.
Preflop: UTG calls, folds to the button, button calls, I complete in the SB, the BB checks.
Flop: 6c Qc 7s
The table has been playing very tight weak so I lead 250, the BB calls, UTG folds, the button folds.
Turn: Kh
I haven’t pulled any double barrels since the kings shove and I’ve played a number of pots with the BB where I gave up after flop barrel so I go again and bet 550, he calls quite quickly and confidently. Shit.
River: 6h
I decide with that being a super safe card for him if he’s calling with a queen to check and give up, though I wonder if I should fire depending on how many draws are in his range, but his turn body language seemed very confident. He fires 1200 and I think for a couple seconds and fold.

I continue slowly bleeding and wind up with 2100 chips by the time I play another eventful hand:
My stack: 2100, UTG: ~4500, blinds 75/150, I holds As8s on the CO.
Preflop: UTG limps, UTG+1 limps, folds around to me, UTG has been limping quite a lot and UTG+1 is an old guy who is also pretty loose. I cram and it folds back to UTG who snap calls. UTG+1 now goes into the tank, and seems disappointed when he has to fold.
“You’d definitely be ahead” I say and flip over my As8s. He quickly tables AKo
“Oh wow, just by a little.” I did not see AK coming. I get up from my chair.
Flop: 7 7 8
Good way to start the WSOP.
Turn: 5
River: A
By winning that pot I improve back to starting stack and a playable 30 BB’s. The dealer sees me writing down the notes and playfully asks me to give him credit and points to his name, “Han”
“Well Han, I guess I gotta give you your props, you’re getting a mention damn it.”

I spend most of my time on the table talking to a dude in a red hat in seat 7 and cool half British half New Yorker chick Jenny in seat 8. We discuss how accents get fucked up when you do something like that, and how doing something creatively is vastly more satisfying doing shit your way than having someone edit and alter your content. She and her husband do a fair bit of travel and card playing, and she very nicely offers to make some night life recommendations and set ups in London when I arrive there. Unfortunately for her, I seem to flip better:
My stack: 3950, Jenny in MP2: ~9500, Blinds 100/200 with 25 ante, I hold TsTc on the CO
Preflop: UTG folds, UTG+1 calls, folds to Jenny in MP2, Jenny raises to 600, it folds to me and although I find her 3X raise over a limper pretty suspicious I’m not going to fold tens to someone as aggressive as her with 20 BB’s so I shove, it folds back to Jenny and she snap calls and tables AcKc.
Flop: 2s 4h 6h
Turn: 6h
River: Jc


Only a couple orbits later a short stack open shoves in early position with 1950 and it folds to me in late position with KK. I call and nobody else reshoves, and the kings easily hold up over his QTo to move me up to about 13,000 in chips. I bleed slowly then don’t play another meaningful hand until the next level:
My stack: ~11,000, BB: ~4100 blinds 150/300 with 25 ante, I hold AsQs in MP1.
Preflop: Folds to me I raise to 800, MP2 calls, folds to the button who is quite loose, the button calls, SB folds, BB shoves for 4100, I reshove, both other players fold. BB turns over KdKh. Fuck.
Flop: A 7 8 rainbow
Unfuck.
Turn: T
River: 3
I tell him it was nice playing with him and we shake hands. The entire table has been very cordial and pleasant today, and many people are actively chatting. Recreational player events are good fun if you’re willing to make them so. One of our dealers is from Boston and spends the entire time ripping the Yankees and cracking long winded jokes that amuse everyone. We trade fucking around with chip tricks. He knows some I don’t; bastard.

I win a few small pots in a row and go off to dinner with about 16,000. I meet Shaundeeb, Luckychewy and a Pokernews reporter named Anthony who I invited while chatting on the floor at the Indian place in the Rio where a number of waiters remember us from the previous years. We trade crazy stories from over the last month. Shaundeeb assures the suspicion in my mind that Michael Binger is a fucking wild man I need to party with more. I tell them some of the stories of my strange and enthralling month in Wisconsin. The food is so damn good. Chewy and I make plans to go out on the Strip to meet women during the day as soon as possible. Direct day game is about as high wire as it gets in pick up, and is vastly more efficient than the night stuff, though never quite as crazy and strange.

We return from dinner at 8:30pm and I have been moved tables. The guy on my right asks me where I’m going out to, calls me good looking four times in the span of about five minutes, and then decides to permanently call me Hollywood. He appears to have been drinking. I can’t tell if he’s screwing with me. There is a hot European girl watching him play; she comes over to give him a massage at some point and tells him the horse he has left in the 1k event with 12 left has doubled. When she leaves the guy across asks what the deal is there and he says
“Man I don’t know, I met her in the pool today being a drunken idiot and just screwing around and now she’s hanging around massaging me and giving me updates.” He casually sips more beer. I tell him he is having a very good day. He agrees. I get involved in a major hand a couple minutes afterward:
My stack: ~15,000, CO: 5,400, blinds 200/400 with 50 ante, I hold 6h3h in the BB.
Preflop: Three folds, MP2 calls, HJ folds, CO calls, button folds, SB completes, I check.
Flop: 6s Kh 5h
SB checks, I bet 1100, MP2 folds, CO shoves for 5,100, SB folds, I call. He tables KJo.
Turn: 9s
River: 2s
I drop to about 9,500 and find myself under 25 BB’s.

I fold for a while, and then play a pot with the guy who has been drinking. He has opened things like suited connectors in early position and showed the table for fun:
My stack: 7800, UTG+1: ~16,000, blinds 200/400 with 50 ante, I hold AQo.
Preflop: UTG folds, UTG+1 raises to 1500, I shove for 7800, folds back to UTG+1, UTG+1 snap calls and tables KK. Two players tell me they folded an ace. Ah shit.
Flop: 2 8 T
Turn: 6
River: T
I shake his hand and wish him and his horse good luck. He seems chill as hell.

I get on the phone with StevoL and he is coming down to the Strip to drop SEABEAST off at the Bellagio so he agrees to pick me up. I stand around outside waiting with a guy I knew from high school, catching up a bit. Stevo arrives in our ballin mini-van and drives us back to our place. We live near a house of cool ass Canadian dudes who have weed and a pool so we go over there to hang. We roll up a joint, blaze away, and then jump in the pool and play the most intense game of water polo in my life. StevoL has bet against us and winds up losing $250. In his face.

I walk home afterwards and turn on the computer, then begin to write.

May 12th, Milwaukee: I awake in the morning to Derek telling me to get up. I woke up several times during the course of the night because some part of my body got sore; the floor was a bad choice. I feel totally dazed and out of it, but since Derek needs to go to work I’ve got to leave with him so he can lock up. I have him walk me over to the nearest 30 bus stop so I can get a ride into the city, then he says goodbye and continues his stroll to work. God I’m so tired, fuck this morning shit. On top of the exhaustion it is very cold out and I’m wearing only a polo shirt and jeans which is not appropriate clothing for the East side of Milwaukee on most days in May.

Eventually the bus arrives and I do my best not to fall asleep on it. I get off in front of the Badger bus station and grab a sandwich at the Subway next door. When I get on the bus I fall asleep almost instantly.

An hour and 45 minutes later I wake up in Madison. My parents are unable to pick me up from the station, so I call Semo to see if he’s hanging around the city. He is not. I call my brother and he tells me he can give me a ride home from the Wisconsin Union in about 45 minutes. I walk down State Street and stop into a café for a glass of coffee to try and wake me up. After finishing it I do not feel much better.

My brother picks me up on the steps of the Union and drives me back to the West side. He says he has a final exam today and I question whether giving me a ride risks making him late.
“Meh, I don’t really care. If I get there I get there” he responds. We are definitely related. When he gets us home I go straight upstairs and lie down in bed. I am asleep within minutes.

I wake up at 7pm. Damn, that nap got a little out of hand, but I don’t have anywhere pressing to be so whatever. I get something to eat downstairs then ask my parents if I can take one of the cars to the gym. They tell me they don’t need it and I’m free to do so. I drive over to the club and spend an hour lifting weights then half an hour on a bike doing cardio and watching TV. When I finish the workout I drive back to my house, take a shower, and change into a suit for our Wednesday night Maduro’s meet up.

I drive into the city and park the car in front of the bar. When I get there Semo, Robert, and Matthew are all waiting for me. While we’re up at the bar a guy and girl come say hi to me, the guy is a waiter at Eno Vino named Ryan, and the girl is the woman I met outside before my date with Martina who gave me her business card, Ann (name changed.) They say they have been out at a dance lesson. Ryan asks who the girl I was out to dinner with the other night, and I tell him it was an old friend from high school that I haven’t seen from a long time and leave it at that since it’s true and a more forward answer of “The girl who became my drug dealer that I’m casually sleeping with” probably won’t do me any favors when he reports back to Ann. I chat up Ann a bit and tell her that I lost her business card (which I did, like a dumbass) and that she should give me another one. She sorts through her things a bit but then starts talking to Ryan and then either fails to find one or loses interest in doing so and never gives me another. I do not mention it again as that would come off desperate.

I spend most of the evening hanging out with the boys with a glass of wine in my hand and a cigar in my mouth. Because I have drive I only have two glasses of wine, and late into the evening Martina messages to see if we can meet up tonight. The stipulation is that I’ll have to pick her up from the house of the guy she is dating and apparently plans to turn into her boyfriend once I leave town, but I don’t particularly mind. We leave Maduro’s at bar time which is 2am in Madison, and I make the rather confusing trek over to the guy’s house. I meet them both outside and Martina is clearly quite drunk. I chat to the guy, Ryan, for a little while and he seems like a real chill dude and even has a Family Guy t-shirt on, something I compliment him on. In the car Martina tells me that she has I’m just an old friend from high school that is helping her out with a ride for the night, which I suppose is technically accurate. She is pretty torn up, and says that while Ryan is a nice guy and more mature than most guys his age, she found herself bored tonight around him and her mind wandering to when I’d come pick her up.

On the drive from the house to the apartment I am going about 10 over since it is 3am and nobody is on the road. Unfortunately, at a point where the speed limit goes from 55 to 45 there is a cop behind me and before I realize the drop in limit and slow down he puts on his lights and pulls me over. He walks over to the car
“Sir I’ve pulled you over for your speed tonight. You were going 65 in a 45.”
“Ah yes, terribly sorry about that, the limit went down back there and I didn’t slow down in time, my apologies.”
“Sir how much have you had to drink tonight?”
“I had a couple glasses of wine at the bar.”
“What bar was this?”
“Maduro’s, the wine and cigar bar right off the capitol.”
“I see, stay here I’ll be right back.”
He goes back to his car and we are left waiting for a minute. I smile at Martina and tell her I’m not too concerned about this. The officer comes back over
“Sir I’m going to need you to step out of the car to conduct a sobriety test”
“Certainly”
I step out and walk over near his vehicle with him. Please God don’t have him make him do the alphabet backwards, I couldn’t get past ‘y’ if I hadn’t had a drink in a year. First he makes me walk in a straight line, toe to toe, ten steps out and then turn then ten steps back. I do so with the grace of a gymnast. Then he holds up his pen in front of my eyes and tells me to follow it without moving my head even if he goes beyond my plane of view. I do exactly as he instructs, but once when he pauses and goes way out of view I slightly turn my head and he tells me not to, otherwise the test is without incident. Then he has me hold my right leg up in front of me a foot above the ground. I hold it up flawlessly and make small chat to him about how his night is going. He tells me I can put my leg down.
“Alright sir I’m not going to arrest you for drunk driving tonight, but I do want you to take a breathalyzer just to be certain.”
“Cool!”
“Have you used one of these before?”
“Oh yea, we have them all over the place in Australia.”
“Okay just blow until I tell you to stop.”
I take a deep breath and blow out for a while until the thing beeps and he instructs me to stop. When the reading comes back he tells me I’ve blown a .025, way below the legal Wisconsin limit of .08. Bond18: 1, Breathalyzer: 0. He tells me I’m free to go and to make sure to slow down then does not write me a ticket. I get back into the car and smile very wide at Martina then pull the car back onto the beltline.

I drive us over to the apartment and we go upstairs. She takes out a piece, packs a bowl, and we play the shotgun game. When the bowl is cashing we jump each other and take things over to the bed. Giggity.

May 11th, Madison: I wake up alone in the apartment in the early afternoon. I have plans to see a Brewer game in Milwaukee tonight but nothing to do for my afternoon, so I call my dad and ask if he’d like to play some tennis. As always he’s keen for it, so we make plans to have him pick me up from the Subway down the street. I pack up my things then go downstairs and checkout from the apartment. I walk over to Subway and find my dad waiting. We grab a quick sandwich then stop over at Martina’s work so I can drop off the makeup kit she left at the apartment.

At home I quickly get changed as we’re running out of play time. We go over to the park and play for an hour in windy conditions that makes the ball movement total havoc. When we finish my dad drives us home where I take a quick shower, pack up a few things, and grab some food. He takes me over to the Badger bus station and I purchase a return ticket. I text Joe on the bus to find out what time and where I should meet him and Brian for dinner and then spend the rest of my ride writing and wondering why the dude at the back of the bus feels the need to basically yell into his cell phone despite the woman with the child several rows in front of him constantly trying to shush him. Luckily after half an hour of said high decibel phone chatter he hangs up and goes to sleep, but not before he tries hitting on some woman 10 rows in front of him by yelling “Hey! What’s up” at her. When we arrive in Milwaukee he is still fast asleep and the woman with the kid jerks him awake with a high volume “SIR! WE’RE HERE!”

I walk down Wisconsin Street over to Uhle’s and greet Dave politely then exchange playful trash talk with Tamara and Trish. I rave at Dave about how much he needs to go see Star Trek for a while and have a brief cigar. I’m running out of time so I make a quick exit and hop on the 30 bus over to the North East side. There is an attractive girl sitting in front of me and I debate hitting on her but the bus is absolutely packed and I can’t think of anything socially appropriate to say under those settings (I guess I could always go with a simple hi how’s it going, but it’s always difficult with so many people in close enough proximity to hear.)

I get off in front of the restaurant, a Japanese place called Izumi’s. I find Joe and Brian waiting for me, so we grab a table and browse the menu. I order a pan fried pork dish, which winds up being more of a deep fried when it arrives. I immediately regret my decision and sort of pick at my food, annoyed with myself for my poor choice in ordering. Joe and Brian are interested in hearing what I’ve learned from my time spent pursuing pick up, and I spend a good 45 minutes unloading every piece of information I can for them. Like many guys who are well out of college, Brian has found meeting women increasingly difficult as a result of a social circle that has mostly paired up and been married and a job in an industry that is low on available options. I’ve spoke to many guys in the pickup scene with the same story, no problem meeting women throughout school, but then when they graduate and social circles splinter off and they get a job with no women around they start running out of the more traditional means of meeting women. Some flounder and go through multiyear cold streaks, something which would probably put me in an asylum considering it only takes about 48 hours without before I start losing my ability to concentrate.

After dinner Brian departs and Joe drives us over to the Brewer game. Joe and Rob have purchased 40 games of really kick ass seats at the stadium; the sixth row behind the visitor dug out along the first base line. We grab some food and beer and sit down to enjoy the game. The Brewers put on an awesome show by hitting four home runs including back to back blasts by Prince Fielder and win 6-3 in a game I spend much of running around and high fiving Joe when the shots go over the wall. It’s a damn good team they have this year.

During the game I made plans to meet my friend Derek after he finished work, so Joe drops me off at Twisted Fork on North Street. I thank him for the game multiple times and tell him to make sure to get me a patch that I can wear for him and Rob during the WSOP. Outside the restaurant a homeless lady approaches me
“Sir, do you have any change to spare? It’s cold out and I’m real hungry.”
“Yea I think I might, one sec let me check”
I fish through my pockets and find a quarter
“Here ya go, best of luck”
“Oh thank you sir! Thank you! Thank you!” she continues yelling thank you at me as I walk into the restaurant. I take a seat at the bar and order a glass of wine, then take out my laptop and set it up to write. A few minutes later the homeless woman comes in, takes a seat at the bar, and orders a drink. She turns around and sees me
“Hey! You’re that nice young fella that gamme the quarter! How ya doing tonight?”
“No complaints, how bout you?”
“Oh I’m doing fine, just fine!”
She returns to her drink. I always assume that any time I give a homeless person asking for money that it’ll go towards booze or something that’s not food, but it’s odder to watch it play out in front of you. Either way, once I give out the money what they do with it is of no particular interest of mine. Many people I talk to about it have polarized opinions on the subject and the homeless in general; I haven’t decided yet. Some say they are useless vagrants who put themselves in that situation with their laziness and apathy; others say they are the result of a combination of misfortunate and societal problems. My thoughts; well over 95% of the people who express their opinion to me on the subject probably haven’t done the research, homework, or critical thinking to come up with any real causality for the problem and should just shut the fuck up because their thoughts are clearly formed by a tiny, irrelevant sample size of interactions. The only concrete opinion I have is that I wish they wouldn’t bother me on the street so much, but given that we’re both going to spend that quarter on substance use who am I to judge?

At 10:30 I pack up my things and walk over to Whole Foods to meet Derek. He says he’d like to get a drink so we walk over to a local bar and he buys an enormous beer; I get a normal sized one. Derek and I discuss how much he hates his job, and I continue to pressure him to start writing online because I think he’s enormously clever. He tells me that since our last talk he has started to carry a pad and pen around with him so when he has a hilarious interaction or some witty thought he can write it down and use it later, and that guys like George Carlin did the same thing. We finish our drinks and then walk over to a convenience store to purchase munchies for upcoming pot use. Naturally I purchase milk and protein bars, though in order to have a nostalgic moment of when we were kids we also get a two pack of pop-tarts.

We walk back to Derek’s place and he quickly packs a bowl. We light it up and pass it back and forth. I do not ask him to shotgun. We cash the bowl then whip out the munchies and go to town on them. I am beginning to feel quite drowsy so I say to Derek
“Hey man I’m starting to feel real exhausted. Do you care much if I just crash on the floor instead of going to get a hotel room?”
“Ah, I don’t really know about that dude.”
“No worries then, I’ll go sort something out on your computer then.”
“Er wait, were you just going to go straight to sleep in a bit?”
“Yea, pretty much.”
“Oh man I’m so sorry, that was totally uncool of me. I thought you were gonna like call up some girl and pull her over here and start screwing on the floor while I’m right there on the bed. Sorry about that.”
“No offense taken, in fact I’d say that’s a pretty sick compliment if you think I could booty call a girl over here to have sex on this extremely uncomfortable floor in your trashed apartment with you like a foot away. I’m flattered. Damn, that shit would be epic.”
“Haha, yea it would. Let me get you a sweater for a pillow and a sheet.”
“Thanks dude, appreciate it.”

Derek gets me set up and I do my best to get situated. All that separates me from the hard floor is a very thin layer of cheap carpeting, and getting in a comfortable position proves quite difficult. I feel very tired however, and eventually I doze off despite the circumstances.

May 10th, Madison: I wake up in the apartment in the early afternoon. I make a quick run to the bathroom then jump back into bed, which wakes Martina up. Her hands start wandering, things escalate, and we start our day off way more right than those smug bastards in the breakfast cereal commercials.

(Mega random tangent moment because it’s my blog and I get to do whatever the hell I want: I’m writing in a Barnes and Noble right now and they have a rack of “Customer Favorites” magazines. One of them is People magazine and the cover is a picture of a smiling Bristol Palin, daughter of mentally handicapped Alaska governor Sarah Palin. In the photo she is in a red graduation gown with a beaming smile on her face, holding up her rather adorable looking new baby. The title reads “Gov. Sarah Plain’s daughter talks about her life with baby Tripp. ‘If girls realized the consequences of sex, nobody would be having sex,’ says Bristol. ‘Trust me. Nobody’.” In my last entry I used the word juxtaposition, which I now again find an appropriate term since young Bristol in the picture looks cheery as fuck holding up her baby, while the quotation beneath implies that the consequences of sex, which I’ll assume are said baby and not her boyfriends inadequacies at pleasing her, are the worst thing ever and so awful that she needs to be on the cover of People deriding the misery that is sex, though apparently only specifically for girls. Bristol has now become a major spokeswoman for teenage abstinence and for anyone reading this that is either a teenager or can remember what it’s like to be one, then you know telling teenagers not to have sex is as hopeless as having Bristol’s mother point out Africa on a map, which she was not aware was a continent during the time of the election, a story reported on Fox News of all places. More disturbing than the idea of these people procreating is their irresponsible attempt to prevent teenage sex with the ever powerful tool that is celibacy. While I agree that 14 year olds probably shouldn’t be going at it, many of them will anyway and the best way to stave off unwanted pregnancies is through education on preventative measures, the importance of their use, and making contraception available without it being a terrifying and embarrassing ordeal to obtain. Failure to do so will force me to make more obscure comparisons at the pointless idea of encouraging teenage abstinence, like say telling a convicted bank robber to “Please not steal the valuable contents of this vault that I will leave open while I put this blind fold over my face and listen to my Ipod on full volume for the next few hours.” Best part about all of this; Bristol origionally claimed abstinence wouldn’t work, then flip flopped on the issue after what I assume was a very slow realization that she could garner attention by supporting it. We now return you to our regularly scheduled self indulgence.)

We take a shower and get dressed. I fire up my laptop and start registering for tournaments then take a walk over to Subway and grab what will be breakfast for now and lunch for later. When we get back to the apartment my tournaments have started and I finish registering for every tournament I figure I can fit on my single 15 inch laptop screen for the next five and a half hours, which will result in roughly 10 hours of play on average. Several hours into my day I find myself heads up with thinking regular Voff Voff Voff in the Full Tilt 30k guarantee $129 knockout tournament. We play one fairly interesting hand heads up that I’d like to use to discuss a value betting concept (I don’t have the exact hand history available to me, but I remember enough details to draw out the concept):

The blinds are 15k/30k. We both have over 1 million in chips. I hold J2o on the button, in the small blind.
Preflop: I complete, Voff checks in the BB.
Flop: J 9 6 with a flush draw
Voff checks, I bet 42k, Voff calls.
Turn: A, not completing the flush
Voff checks. Now, many players would check behind here since they expect the ace to kind of kill their action if they barrel, plus they have the bottom kicker with the jack. However, Voff almost never has an ace here, and because he’s a smart thinking regular he’s aware that it’s very rare I have an ace since I wouldn’t limp too many of them on the button. He also knows that despite these conditions that’s kind of a scare card, and since I’m an aggressive player I might attempt to barrel it pretty frequently in order to push him off a weak pair when I have either air or some kind of draw. He also may think that many times I have limped an ace I might check back the turn since my double barrel will appear strong and I may think I have a better chance of getting value by checking back the turn and representing a missed draw if the river blanks. With conditions like these, I believe you should make the thin value bet on the turn, and you should overall be looking for situations against thinking opponents where they will expect you to bluff fairly frequently and have the balls to call down light, as Voff does. I bet something like 96k, and Voff calls.
River: X
Voff checks and I check behind, since I think it’s really unlikely he pays off three streets with third or fourth pair and sometimes I’ll wind up value betting myself when he has a J with a better kicker, which he will basically never fold. Voff turns up a pair of 9’s and I drag a respectable pot.

I wind up winning the tournament for $9,200 in a tough heads up match against Voff. As the day progresses Martina hangs out rolling blunts and smoking by the window, though I don’t participate as I do not mix work with any kind of substances, however she does blow weed smoke in my face once for her amusement. We watch a number of movies and Family Guy DVD’s, and Martina finds watching me play very fascinating, especially when I have 17 miniaturized tables going on my laptop. Late in the evening I also run deep in the Tilt 25k guarantee 30 rebuys, and three handed I take the chip lead. Unfortunately, I get it all in on the flop with top and bottom against the top and bottom of RoothlusJr who also has a backdoor flush draw, which winds up getting there for most of the chips in play. I finish third for $4,800 and have no complaints about how my first day of online play in over a week went.

Naturally, Martina has a blunt waiting for me upon finishing work for the day so we quickly light it up and enjoy its grape flavoring and THC delivering. This works us up an appetite so I make us some food in the kitchen at a rather slow place.

When we finish eating Martina drags me over towards the bed and starts unbuttoning my shirt. I start kissing her and things keep going. Having already gone once earlier the day combined with the marijuana causes me to be rather desensitized and I pound away for an hour before eventually giving up on getting there again. Whatever, she seems to have enjoyed herself so I have no complaints and figure I’ve had a very productive day at this point. I lie in bed exhausted for a while and she says she has to get home because she has work in morning. She messages her ex-boyfriend for a ride, then gets dressed and waits around for his call. He arrives 10 minutes later and she kisses me goodbye then laments that she has to leave me to go hang out with him. I’m too tired to come up with a witty return, and just lie back in bed and tell her I’ll see her soon. I fall asleep nearly immediately after the door closes.

May 9th, Milwaukee: I wake up in my hotel bed feeling surprisingly good at 10:45am; water is some kind of miracle drug. I quickly take a shower, get dressed, and pack up my shit. I find that my phone is basically dead so I have no way to contact my parents about exactly when they’ll be arriving. God I hate this phone.

I checkout downstairs and ask the woman behind the desk if there’s a phone I can use. She directs me to one on the wall and I attempt to call my mom’s cell phone since I somehow remember the number off the top of my head. She does not pick up and so I sit around in the lobby for a while confused. I try again 20 minutes later and she picks up and lets me know they’ll be there soon.

When they arrive I hand my mom the two bottles of Australian wine I got her with my right hand but clutch a bouquet of pink roses in my left hand and say “The wine is for you but you can’t have these, they’re for grandma, so don’t steal them. Happy Mother’s Day.” She seems appreciative of the thought even though wine is a cliché gift, but I’m never around to ask about what she’d prefer so I think it’s a respectable gift plus nobody ever really minds getting some good Pinot.

Over at my cousin’s house I get to catch up with family I haven’t seen in years, plus actually eat something since I haven’t had a proper meal since breakfast yesterday. As always my family treats the subject of my occupation with a mix of encouraging curiosity and unsure hesitance, and I do my best to explain how things have evolved for me professionally without getting too technical or esoteric. One thing I’ve recently noticed about talking to people outside of the poker world that I knew in my life in Wisconsin is that while they used to discuss poker with an attitude that said “Well that’s a quaint idea that you’ll pursue that, but one day you’ll get a job like everyone else” they now seem to have accepted that this is my job and I just might not be some crazy gambler with two pennies in one hand and a dream in the other. It’s very cool that people have started to come around, and honestly can’t blame anyone for the reservations they had about this a few years ago considering the public perception of gambling.

We drive back to Madison in the mid afternoon and upon arriving my dad and I go play a brief tennis match. The conditions aren’t great so we give up after an hour. I want more exercise so I take a car over to the gym and lift weights for another hour. Sunday is an awesome night to work out, especially on a holiday. The gym is almost totally empty and I’m able to get to all my machines without any wait, though on the flip side there are no girls to attempt chatting up, though I rarely bother most of the time anyway. I have yet to figure out any especially clever way of meeting women at the gym, and it’s one of the few places where I feel like I’d genuinely be kind of bothering a girl if I started talking to her. That said I like the idea of meeting girls at the gym since I know we already have an interest in fitness in common, which would be a great because I’d honestly much rather ask a girl to go for a run and a coffee than to go get slammed at some bar and further destroy my body. However, while at the gym Martina messages that she’d really like to see me tonight, so I guess no pick up attempts will be necessary.

I drive home and call up the apartment place I previously stayed at and book a room. I plan on working tomorrow so I pack up some movies and Family Guy DVD’s to watch while hanging out. I know Martina will want to smoke so before I go check in I make a run to the grocery store and pick up healthy munchies; raspberries, strawberries, cashews, skim milk, and vitamin water. There is something amusing in the juxtaposition of being both a health nut and a guy who consistently smokes and drinks, though I imagine when I get back to Australia those habits will fade off considerably. In the two months leading up to my trip I believe I had about three beers in total, if that.

I get to the apartment building which is locked at the front. I have to call in from the hallway phone and the Hispanic lady on the other side seems very confused as to why I’m checking in at 11pm and have some kind of strange accent. She gives me the key to my room and I head upstairs then throw the food in the fridge. Martina arrives a few minutes later and immediately whips out her piece. She packs a bowl and we start playing our shotgun game. As soon as the bowl is cashed we jump each other on the bed and go at it for a while. When we finish I feel totally dehydrated and leap up from the bed
“Holy shit yes, we have vitamin water! Ding ding ding, I am on top of this shit today! I’ll get the fruit and nuts too and bring them to bed. Wanna watch Family Guy?”
“Sure”
“Sweeeeeeeeet. They say marijuana ruins your memory yet I am totally prepared for this moment. Fuck those scientists and their tests, I got raspberries here fools, I planned this shit, I bet they didn’t remember the raspberries.”
“You’re ridiculous” she teases
“Oh I’m aware.”

I pop in a season of Family Guy and bring the munchies over to the bed. I sit up feeding her the berries and laughing really, really hard at the show, which is hysterical under normal conditions but absurdly hilarious at this moment.