May 5th, Milwaukee: I wake up in Jenson’s apartment around noon. Jenson is nowhere to be seen but Rufio is outside in the living room playing Counter-Strike on his computer. I make small talk then take a shower and get dressed.

I take a bus into the city and stop off at Uhle’s to chat with Dave and Tamara over coffee. I walk down to the Badger bus depot and board the bus for Madison. I sit around and write for a while, then lay my head back and try to sleep for a while. It doesn’t work particularly well.

When we arrive in Madison my parents are there to pick me up. They drive me back to the West side and I steal their car to head to the gym for a while. I’m messaging with Isabelle back and forth about our date, and we agree that I’ll pick her up around 7:30 near her college. When I return to the house I tool around on the computer looking for an apartment with a kitchen in it around the center of Madison, but it turns out the only thing available is on the West side. I book an apartment for a few nights then take a car over to her college to pick her up.

When I get there I have difficulty finding her house and wind up parking in some random persons drive way then run around the street looking for the address, which seems to not exist. I call her and explain the situation, and it turns out that I had driven past her house numerous times since it was on the far end of the street. Unfortunately when I pull up she’s waiting outside and hops in the car. This is not a preference in being able to walk up to the door as then I can greet her with an appropriate hug and kiss on the cheek, where as her getting in the car is a more awkward beginning.

Conversation is smooth and playful as we drive over to the apartment. She’s a bit stressed out from having to study for finals all week, so hopefully the date allows her to unwind a bit. When we arrive at the apartment I start setting out everything I need to cook and begin preparing things
“Do you need any help with anything?” she asks
“Nope, my job is to bring the food yours is to bring the conversation remember?”

I offer her a drink; beer, wine, or milk. She goes for milk. I take a beer. She says she doesn’t like beer. Ah fuck.

We seem to have quite a bit in common, but one major issue is that our senses of humor don’t seem very compatible, which is a pretty mandatory condition for me when hanging out with a woman. That’s not to say she has a bad sense of humor, simply one a little more reserved and conservative than my own. Most of all though, when I discuss with her that I’m constantly traveling and am not going to be around for a while there seems to be a fairly noticeable change in her attitude from date to friend zone.


After dinner we go for a walk and stroll along arm in arm, but when I talk to her about what she’s looking for in a man she uses terms like “not afraid of commitment” and “doesn’t do drugs” which are not entirely descriptive of myself. I never lie about what I am to a date, and when I tell her what my life style is like she does not seem thrilled. When we arrive back at the apartment and we sit down to watch Family Guy and I lay my arm around her she goes rigid and does not lean in. Yep, friend zone time. I get up to get some strawberries and sit back down in my own personal space and munch down while zoning out and watching the show. I give up attempting to be charming.

Eventually I say that I’m getting tired and should drive her back. We make the short trip back to her house and we do the friends hug and discuss what a “nice” evening we both had. I go back to my house and change into gym clothes. Sure it’s midnight, but what better way to get over the annoyance of a failed date than by destroying myself in the gym for the rest of the night?

When I get to the gym I notice the cute Asian girl behind the counter, though simply say “Hi” and check in. I warm up with some basketball then go into the weight room, which is completely abandoned. I hit weights for about an hour, then go over to the track and run a mile while timing myself. I finish in slightly more than seven minutes; not bad considering I’ve always been a terrible runner.

I go upstairs to the aerobic room which has over 100 machines of cardio equipment, all unmanned except for one treadmill with the cute girl from the front desk on it. I jump on a bike and put it to level 8 and start riding as fast as I can. At some point I look back and see that the front desk girl is now stretching on the mats about 20 feet away. We are literally the only two people in the gym so I take off my headphones, lean back and say loudly to her
“Hey!”
She looks up at me curiously and I add
“Get a life” with a big smile. Hopefully she’s clever and realizes that I’m making fun of myself and not her, though it’s a long shot.
“What are you talking about?” she says at me in a fairly annoyed tone
“Heh, I’m just messing with you.”
I put in my headphones and go back to my bike. I don’t leave the gym until 2am.

May 4th, Madison: I wake up a little before noon. I immediately throw on some shorts, socks, and tennis shoes and go running around my neighborhood. Then I come home, eat breakfast, and challenge my dad to some more tennis. This time he beats me pretty solidly, and I’m feeling more sluggish today than in our previous match and he’s beating me soundly
“My legs are tired from the working out and running. That’s going to be my excuse for the day.”

We don’t get to play long because I need to be dropped off at the bus station. When we finish I grab a quick sandwich then take a shower and get changed into a suit. My dad drives me over to the bus station in the city and I purchase a return ticket for Milwaukee and back. The ride to from Madison to the center of Milwaukee is only about 100 minutes, which I mostly use to write or occasionally stare out the window while listening to music. May is a very nice month in Wisconsin.

When we arrive in Milwaukee I get off the bus at the city station and make the five block walk over to Uhle’s cigar shop on Wisconsin street. They are having an Ashton tasting today, which is one of my favorite lines of cigars. The place is quite packed compared to normal, and Tamara gives me the ticket she reserved for me. The tasting is $10 and you get an excellent cigar, walnuts, chocolate, and scotch, which I pass on because the slightest contact with brown liquor leads to instant vomiting no matter my sobriety level (so when I refuse whatever brown drink or shot you offer me in Vegas don’t get too offended.)

I hang around smoking my giant cigar flirting with Tamara and chatting to her coworker Dave, who is a movie enthusiast like me. We run down what promises to kick ass this summer, with both of us expecting Public Enemy with Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, and directed by Michael Mann to kick major ass. It’s about John Dillinger, who if you know your history was one of the most inventive and stylish bank robbers of all time that once cut a bar of soap into the shape of a gun, put black shoe polish all over it, and escaped from jail by mugging the guard with it. He was the kind of guy who was always going to get himself killed thanks to a woman. If you’ve ever heard stories of women in red being dangerous, it’s because of Dillinger.

Late into the tasting my friends Rob and Joe come to meet me at the store. Rob was my very first backer in poker, a friend I met through propping online when we both realized we were on the North East Side of Milwaukee. We hit it off very well and the last semester I ever did at Milwaukee I was living at his apartment. He and Joe now own and operate www.rakebacknation.com and www.neverbeg.com, the latter of which they have turned into the second largest poker forum on the internet in terms of traffic, a huge accomplishment. I buy them both a tasting ticket and we hang around the store catching up and giving ourselves and each other cancer. They have bought season tickets to the Brewers home games right behind third base and they offer to take me whenever’s convenient. I offer to wear a patch for their staking site throughout the WSOP for free. We all get along very well.

Once we finish our cigar we take a drive over near Brady Street for a burger at an Irish pub and restaurant. I am disappointed there’s not a town drunk inside. The burger kicks serious ass, as do the Brewers who are on TV. I have missed baseball and American sports culture in general. It’s not that Australia doesn’t have a great sports culture, it’s simply that they’re not the sports I grew up with and therefore I feel no legitimate alliance to any team or franchise. I’ve been to a few Australian footy games, but my most enthusiastic moments during those were shouting “COVER THE SPREAD!!!” near the end of the game. They did.

After the Irish pub we drive over to a bar next to Uhle’s where I’m supposed to meet Tamara to get the bag I obviously left in the store back. When we get there I find that I’ve missed her and the bartender is holding it waiting for me. We sit down to have a drink and my friends start rattling off names of big name poker players and asking if they’re a nice guy, scumbag, or douchebag in my experience. Not surprisingly, the scumbag/douchebag list winds up being considerably longer than the nice guy list.

They drop me at my friend Jenson’s apartment after the drink. Jenson and I decide to take a night walk like we used to and just chat about things. He discusses the difficulty of trying to figure out whether he should continue to pursue his film career or instead go back to school to do accounting. I’ve found this in a lot of my friends since returning home; they’ve finished college and entered a career path only to find it to be fairly lackluster compared to what they’d hoped or imagined. As a guy with no experience in the legitimate world since he was 18 I feel odd offering them any advice, though I normally state that “You should do whatever the fuck you feel like. If you hate your shit quit and find something else to do while you’re still young and don’t have any major responsibilities.” Easy for me to say I suppose.

May 3rd, Madison: I wake up at 11am. I have made plans to go to lunch with my dad and some of his old coworkers from before he retired last year. We’re to meet them as well as my little brother in the city but as I’m getting ready I get the sense that I have probably woken up slightly too late.

We drive into the city and park near the capitol. We walk over to the Japanese restaurant we’re supposed to meet at and find it closed and ourselves about 10 minutes late. Neither of us brought a phone and neither the coworkers nor my brother are anywhere to be seen. We get a coffee next door and wait around a while but nobody shows. We get lunch elsewhere, then stop by and visit my dad’s old place of work.

My dad has been playing a lot of tennis lately and I played competitively until I was 16. I used to play for my high school but when I was busted by my mom at my very first drinking party during homecoming of my sophomore year she insisted that I turn myself into the athletic department, who were a notorious bunch of overzealous rule Nazis. They suspended me for 25% of the season for having been at the party, and when I showed up that year to practice all the coaches treated me like shit due to my suspension. By the time I became eligible I was so sick of taking their crap that I just quit and never played competitively again. I think one of the most appealing aspects of poker is that there are no real authority figures in the game.
We go home to get changed then drive over to some very nice courts in Edgewood. I played quite often before I left Melbourne so my stroke is pretty sharp save my backhand which is especially difficult given that I mashed up my hand working a boxing bag with no gloves in Vegas last week. My dad is a good opponent for me skill wise at tennis as we’re roughly at the same skill level though I have a 40 year age and mobility advantage. The other factor is his competitiveness, which has him exploding at himself when he misses shots and claiming he wants to quit playing for the afternoon. I did not inherit this competitiveness, and after six years in poker I would describe my temper as something between comatose and nonexistent.

When we finish we head home and eat dinner. Then I suggest we go to the gym because I haven’t done any weight lifting in a few days and I intend on using my time in Wisconsin to try and get as physically fit as possible before the grind that is the WSOP. At the gym I spend the first half hour of my work out texting girls to set up dates and get one sorted with Isabelle for Wednesday. I will be cooking. I do a leg lift work out then hit the stationary bike for 20 minutes on level eight.

After the work out we return home and I take a shower. I get into decent clothes, pack up my computer, and go to do some work at the book store, which will give me the opportunity to both concentrate on getting some writing done and also perhaps chat up some women. When I arrive I am disappointed the only women around seem to be in high school, and I’m not Matthew McConaughey. I find a seat and start writing. I’m online talking to my friend Mike Graham that I grew up with, who has since joined the marines and done two tours in Iraq and I haven’t seen him in at least three years. He tells me he’s free for the night and it’s cool if I swing by. I do a bit of writing work then the stores speaker comes on and says they’ll be closing in 10 minutes. Shit, I barely got anything done.

I drive into the city to meet Mike. He’s got a nice apartment near the university and looks to be in very good shape. He tells me he’s been doing MMA for two years now, and having finished the active part of his service in the Marines is now back at school in Madison, which is being paid for by the military. He spends much of our conversation lamenting that since I’ve left most people have just settled into some shit routine where they have a job they hate, a girlfriend they tolerate, and the diet and exercise habits of Homer Simpson. Whenever we ever so rarely catch up I always enjoy asking him about war, as it is something I’m fairly positive I’ll never experience and so totally out of the ordinary. He tells me that his more recent tour was pretty quiet and boring, not unlike the last where he’s moderately certain he filled some guy with a string of bullets from a machine gun on top of a jeep, though he’ll never be certain. We are drinking Miller Lite.

When I get home I try to get a little more writing work in, but it’s getting late so I set the computer away and lie down. Hopefully with all the exercise sleep should come easy. It does, I drift off.

May 2nd, Madison: Today wound up being a very straight forward day, not particularly suitable for blogging. I sat home and grinded online tournaments all afternoon and evening as it is Sunday, and then I went to the gym for about an hour and a half. I cashed some of my tournaments but nothing particularly interesting happened, and my work out was obviously pretty straight forward. As such, I’d like to use this blog entry to make some WSOP predictions. I mentioned this entry to my friend David Huber at pocketfives, and we decided to use it as a front page article there for a day before I put it up here:

It’s that time of year again! As the WSOP fast approaches people have many questions and predictions, and after spending some time in Vegas I thought I’d drop in to offer a few of my own.

1. Field sizes will be down, but only very slightly: Many people seem worried this year that with the recession, swine flu, and almost zero preliminary events being filmed this year that the numbers will be down considerably. They point to how other tournaments have done throughout the continental US as their major piece of evidence. They are correct that US fields are down, but it seems globally that the game is doing very well. The EPT was enormous this year, and the LAPT and APPT both had respectable turnouts on top of the random events that weren’t associated with a major tour throughout the world. I think the WSOP will take a very small dip, but nothing noticeable or that should really concern anyone.
2. Online players will crush the NLH events, again: If you look back over the last few years NLH events at the WSOP you’ll realize that there is a considerable percentage of online kids who are winning them (though obviously not entirely.) I think this year with more small NLH events that plenty of guys can play or bet backed for, plus more and more kids coming of age, means we’ll see another year of the kids showing what they can do.
3. Devilfish will make hundreds of young women uncomfortable: But then, how is this different from any other six week period of the year?
4. Durrr will own fools: Oh God, so many fools will be owned by Durrr. He frightens me with his owning abilities. The question about Durrr is whether he’ll spend time playing many WSOP events instead of high stakes cash that gets together in Bobby’s room or other places, though how much big action gets up in Bobby’s is a question in it of itself.
5. As far as a few specific guesses for MTT guys who will crush; Shaundeeb, Zeejustin, Luckychewy: I feel like Shaun has really got his head in the right place to do some crushing this year. I mean obviously there is always a shit ton of variance involved, but in terms of picking a guy who has pretty much blanked out live to do something big I feel like Shaun is the clear choice. He is always sober when playing live these days and he’s put up some insane results lately I just wonder what kind of mental plane he’s on. While hanging out with him in Vegas I really got the sense that his memory for players and their tendencies and understanding of how to manipulate that history is something special that most guys simply don’t have or don’t have the focus to bother executing.

Zeejustin seems like a perennial threat to do something big, and he just showed off his skills by winning the Caesar’s $5,000 circuit event. Talking to other people about him you get the sense that everyone agrees that he’s a very switched on and capable guy with a really excellent game. When I discussed hands with him during my time in Vegas in April I could tell he was thinking over every detail and angle of the hand (particularly against Men the Master) and was essentially very impressed with his analytical skills. He’ll also be playing a high number of events including mixed games, which makes it likely we see him at some final tables.
Luckychewy is a guy I’ve been talking about for years. He’s recently had a couple of major results by winning the $2,500 heads up event in the WCOOP as well as a very deep run in the WPT championship. He’ll be playing a ton of events and my conversations with him was by far one of the most influential factors in the development of my own game, and there was a hell of a lot more learning from him than he did from me in those talks. Most don’t know his real name, but watch for Andrew Lichtenberger deep in WSOP events.

6. Phil Hellmuth will enter the main event with 20 women on each arm: Because entering it with five on each simply isn’t enough. Then they will all sit around looking pretty and clapping if he wins a pot and remain quiet when he loses and yells “HUNNY! HUNNY! HE CALLED ME WITH A QUEEN-TEN! GAAAAAAAAAAH!!!” at the crowd. Then when I hit on them they will claim they have no idea who he is.
7. The WSOP ME will get roughly 6,500 players: Following through on my guess about the WSOP being down slightly I think it will carry over to the main event. Last year got 6,844 and I think this year we’re looking at roughly 6,500, though for this event particularly an increase actually wouldn’t shock me.
8. The WSOP will be run quite smoothly throughout: The improvement in the operations between 2008 and the two years previous to it was enormous. My assumption is that by this year any minor remaining issues that were a problem should be ironed out, as they really seemed to pay attention to detail last year. We saw a considerable reduction in giant lines, no more tent, a separate room for satellites as well as a separate room that often held the day 2 of tournaments, plus an efficient cage room that rarely had a line of more than a few people for it.
9. Men the Master angle shoot over/under: Depends how many events he plays, but I feel like he probably fits in one solid angle per tournament. He plays a ton, so I’ll take a shot at about 30 over the course of the summer. That’s just on the table mind you.
10. Some truly insane prop bets will go down: As they always do around WSOP time. Ivey will probably make some bet so balla that it makes the cumulative ballaness of every rap artist ever appear meager and inconsequential by comparison, even Biggie. If people have ideas for really nutso ones I’d encourage them to contact me, as I threw away my dignity a long time ago and would be interested in some cool action.

May 1st, Madison: I am woken up at 8:10am by Semo standing over me telling me to “Get the fuck up.”
“Ooooooh God, are we really doing this?” I ask.
“Yes, we need to start drinking soon now get your lazy ass up.”
“God damn it Semo.”

Sarah slowly comes to consciousness and we both start cursing about how early it is. I go into the bathroom and brush my teeth, then step into the kitchen where four of us are standing around talking about our upcoming day. Semo says we need to head out, so I give Sarah a hug and kiss, and then we depart. We walk over to his apartment and find an already awake and drinking Chewy. He makes us all breakfast and David starts cranking tunes so we all dance around the apartment like a bunch of jackasses:



A few women friends of David’s come over and we all start drinking beers. Then we decide it’s time to hit the house parties and go to the end of Mifflin for a party in an apartment building on the end that has an outdoor beer pong table. Semo and I start challenging people and eventually get a game with Allison and Chewy. It’s very windy out and it makes the aiming difficult, but I get to drink plenty of beer so I’m happy. The guys hosting the apartment have a keg on the roof and are doing keg stands up there while we play. I feel too tired for such things.

We hang out for a couple hours then Semo and I break off to hit up another party on Mifflin. On our way there I suggest we take some pictures with the police so we walk up and politely ask for a photo
“Will you guys take one beating me with your canes?” I ask. They decline and we go with the nice ones:



I decide I need some food so we hit a sub place, then walk to another party. The street is starting to fill up with people, but it’s nowhere near capacity yet. There is a bunch of speakers set up in the center of the block cranking music that everyone is dancing to, and every single house seems to be having a party. We go to our next party and wait for my friend Mark and David’s friend Gurby to meet us up. We keep chugging the now semi warm beer that Semo is carrying around in his backpack, then take some group pictures:

We go inside the party and starting hanging with people. David has us meet up a group of about 10 very outgoing black chicks that also randomly has some white girl from Melbourne Australia in it as well. They are all fun as hell and we hang out in the kitchen flirting with them:



I chat up a girl named Isabelle (name changed) and get to the point that we’re calling each other hubby and wifey. We discuss cooking and she mentions that a man has never cooked for her before. I tell her I will and that she should put her number in my phone and I’ll call her about making dinner. She puts her number in and we go back to drinking and flirting.

After some now indiscernible amount of time we decide to go to another party and go outside. The street is now absolutely packed with people:


Even the back alley’s behind the actual row of houses is just packed with people:


We go over to another party and continue drinking beer out of the backpack. The largest problem of the day is finding a place to piss, as the line at the parties is always around 10 people long and if you go out back you risk being arrested, and I see several people get caught for it and dragged off in handcuffs. Everywhere is completely packed and everyone is totally wasted. I feel buzzed but more exhausted from lack of sleep than drunk. I see some girl at the party that used to like me in high school but she was 15 when I was 18 so I never did anything about it. I have forgotten her name so I walk up and say
“Hey, aren’t you Lindsay Walker’s little sister’s friend?”
“Yea, I’m Sam (name changed). You’re Tony”
“Yes that’s right, Sam. Sorry, it’s been so many years.”
“That’s okay.”

I chat to Sam for quite a while then say bluntly “So you used to have a crush on me in high school yea?”
“Yea I did, you’re still so cute.”
“Well it takes one to know one.”
We discuss why I never went after her in high school and I mention the age thing. She thinks it cool that jail bait wasn’t my scene. I tell her we should meet up later in the night and she agrees. She puts her number in my phone then runs off to another party.

We head back to the party we were at before and chill out in the back. Some guy sitting in a chair talking to us falls asleep as it seems everyone today is on around four hours sleep. Obviously he gets photos taken of him:


Semo and I decide to take a break from everything and go back to his apartment for a bit. It’s near 6pm and we have been drinking since 9am. I lie down in Chewy’s bed and take a nap.

I awake at 8pm the sound of Semo and Chewy talking. They are discussing what we’re going to do for the evening. After I stir myself to proper consciousness I find that I am feeling much better and definitely in the mood to keep the night going. Chewy says he knows of another party for us to go to, so we down a couple beers at the apartment then head out. On the way I pick up a sandwich so I have something in my stomach.

We arrive at the party and Semo and I immediately commandeer the beer pong table. We talk two girls into playing with us and we each partner up with one. It turns out mine is from Hawaii and knows my friend Cade London. She is very cool and we start crushing at beer pong. One of her friends comes up to me and says that she hears I play poker for a living. She is a cute Hispanic girl named Maria (name changed) and we talk a ton about travel. She mentions that she was a very serious gymnast and I say to her
“Well I have to confess, though it’s a secret, that I did gymnastics for three years of middle school…though I am heterosexual.” We wind up standing next to each other leaning against the wall talking for around 20 minutes. Her leg bumps into mine and she apologizes
“It’s okay, you can play footsie with me, I won’t tell anyone.” She is very curious about poker and I tell her we should play some time. She agrees and I have her put her number into my phone.

Eventually we tire of the beer pong and head out to my favorite bar in all of Madison, Maduro’s. It’s a cigar bar right off the capitol, and we meet my old friends that I met by hanging out in a cigar and wine store from the ages of 18-21 on the West side. We’re thrilled to see each other and spend quite a bit of time catching up:


The rest of our group makes it over to the bar and we all hang out drinking cocktails and smoking cigars:




I make a ton of plans with my friend Matthew (the blond haired guy in the pictures) to go down to Chicago over a weekend and tear the place up. He’s the kind of awesome guy to hang out with that seems to know everyone and somehow have all the right hook ups, and spending time with guys like him and Robert (the black guy in the pictures) did a lot to culture me at a young age and give me a knowledge base for cigars and wine.

I never quite get fully drunk over the course of the evening, which is quite fine as I’m not interested in having a serious hangover. Eventually I get tired and decide to just take a cab back to the West side instead of staying over at Semo’s again as I’d have to crash on the couch. I get home at 4:30am and make myself some food, then fall asleep exhausted.