June 4th, Las Vegas: I wake up at 10:45am in the Vegas house. I take a shower, get dressed, and go downstairs for breakfast. Again I am the first one up, though Joel and Stevo soon find their way into the living room with me. Eventually we take the drive into the Rio, and I rush over to the registration booth so I can get in before the tournament starts.

I find my way over to my table in the Amazon room. I do not recognize anyone on my table. We start the $2000 no limit hold’em tournament with 6000 chips and 25/50 blinds. The first couple orbits go by quietly and I lose a small amount of chips in irrelevant pots, and then get involved with a young guy who doesn’t appear to be a serious online player though I can’t be sure:
My stack: ~5500, UTG+: ~6000, I hold TdTh in MP1.
Preflop: UTG folds, UTG+1 raises to 250, UTG+2 folds, I call in MP1, folds to the button, button calls, SB folds, BB calls.
Flop: Qd 9d Jc
Everyone checks to the button who bets 625, the BB folds, UTG+1 calls, I call.
Turn: Qc
Everyone checks.
River: Ks
UTG+1 checks, I bet 1500, the button folds, UTG+1 thinks briefly and calls, then mucks when he sees my hand.

For a considerable period of time almost nothing happens. Orbit after orbit goes by and there is little change in my stack. I’m moved tables during the second level and wind up next to a woman who is the mom of the kid I took a pot off with the straight. Online player JasonGray is across the table, and the three of us talk for quite a while between hands. She is really nice, and I joke around with her considerably. We get on the subject of dating and JasonGray and I start discussing what personality traits we like in a woman. I tell her that I’ve got no regular girl in Vegas and I’m going to go out and look for one, preferably with a great sense of humor. Her card protector has a picture of her son on one side and a picture of her cute 19 year old daughter on the other, which she picks up and points to when I make the sense of humor remark
“She’s really cute, does she like well traveled men with appalling morals?” I ask her. The mom cracks up; I guess sense of humor is genetic.

Not long after our extended chat I get involved in another pot when I get JJ all in pre flop against a short stack with 2150 who turns over AK. The board runs out T 8 6 5 2 and my stack slides up to about 12,000. Not long into the next orbit I get involved again:
My stack: ~13,000, HJ: 4125, UTG+1: ~15000 blinds 100/200 with 25 ante. I hold AhKh in the SB.
Preflop: UTG folds, UTG+1 raises to 550, folds to the HJ who makes it 1700, it folds to me in the SB and I think my options over then make it 3000 since UTG+1 is the kind of player who will only five bet jam with KK and AA in that spot, UTG+1 folds, the HJ puts the rest of his stack in and I call. He shows QQ and the board runs out 9 3 4 5 6 to double him up.

Not long after losing the flip I’m moved tables yet again, and find myself across from the friendly Scott Montgomery who I immediately strike up a conversation with. There’s also a middle aged woman named Melissa who starts talking to me about real estate and fashion, and as I’m in a suit she remarks how well dressed I am. She is good friends with Perry Friedman, a super friendly guy I’ve known for a few years now who has the tendency to screw around and grab my ass just to mess with me. He comes over to the table and tells her referring to me “Yea Tony is a nice guy, and the second best dressed man in poker.” I instantly explode in a joking tone at him
“EXCUSE ME!? What did you say? Second best? What the fuck Perry?!”
“Sorry buddy, Marcel Luske is the best.”
“Oh come on, don’t get me wrong Marcel is a super well dressed guy but he never mixes it up. It’s a suit and tie every day, like clockwork. Where’s the element of surprise?”
“He’s right, it’s like a uniform for him” adds Melissa.
That said; Marcel has the sickest suit collection in poker outside of maybe Jeffrey Pollack and they are all impeccably tailored, so much love for him. Shortly after my sartorial scuffle I get involved again:
My stack: ~9500, BB: 6700, Scott: ~20,000, I hold AsKd in MP2 at 100/200 blinds with 25 ante.
Preflop: UTG folds, Scott raises to 550, two folds, I reraise to 1600, it folds to the BB who is an old guy who has been super weak and a mix of tight (with aggression) and loose (with calling.) The BB thinks for a bit and calls, and Scott thinks briefly then folds. I have no fucking clue what the old guy is doing or what his range is.
Flop: Ac 7h 8h
Guess it doesn’t matter. The old guy leads out 2000, leaving himself 3100 behind. Because it’s live poker he might actually fold if I shove, so I call.
Turn: 5s
The old guy shoves and I instantly call expecting to see a chopped pot or AQ. Then he tables Ah6h. Oh God I am so incredibly fucked here.
River: Qh
I count out 3100 more in chips and slide them over, leaving me quite short. A few hands later I get moved to another table, making me now forever unable to take advantage of the excellent play of the old guy. The table is playing quite aggressively and when the blinds go up to 150/300 with a 25 ante I find myself very short stacked but helpless to do anything about it because there is constantly aggression in front of me and I’m too short to resteal.

After being inactive for a while I find AJ in late position and it’s folded to me. I shove 2450 and a young guy on my left quickly reshoves about 6000 in total as well. The blinds fold and I table my AJ while saying “I miiiiiiiight be ahead?” He reluctantly turns over his AT. The board runs out 4 6 Q 5 4 and I double up. Again I go absurdly card dead after that, and then we are sent off to dinner.

When we return I find JhJs UTG with 4800 in chips at 200/400 with a 50 ante. I open shove and it folds to a guy in late position who slides out a giant stack of yellow ‘1000’ chips to isolate me. Everyone else folds and he flips up his QQ. I stand up and button my jacket.
Flop: Qh 5h 2s
“Well guys I’ll be seeing ya” I say as I take a step away from the table
Turn: 7h
“Errrrrrrrr hold on a second then maybe not.”
River: 5d
“Okay now I’m done, best of luck guys!”

I walk away from the table and text Stevo to let him know I busted. He gives me a ride back to the house and I hang out with him and Joel for a while then grill us some food. I’m in the mood to meet some women tonight, so I text Luckychewy and Plattsburgh and tell them to swing by and we’ll go out and chat up some girls.

The two of them make their way over around 10pm and we decide to first go out to The Yardhouse over at Town Square just south of the strip. We walk in and immediately realize there are no women around, so we walk upstairs to Blue Martini, a cocktail bar that has live music. Before I can give him the slightest encouragement Chewy sits down at the bar next to a girl who is a solid nine and starts chatting to her. I keep walking with Plattsburgh towards the far end of the bar and Chewy soon joins us after getting blown out. There is a group of three girls behind us and I tell Chewy to go approach them. He chats for a bit but unfortunately has to eject when he finds out one is married and the other two have boyfriend’s.

We walk around the club and realize there are very few girls. We take a table outside and I see a group of four girls at a table not far away. I walk over and say
“Hi girls, I saw you from across the bar and thought; well there’s a table of four rather attractive women and no men, that’s a pretty bad ratio, so I came over to even things out.” They quickly accuse me of being a car salesman. They give me a little shit at the start of the interaction, but I keep my cool and give it right back. We all start joking around considerably, though it’s unfortunate that up close they are clearly all well into their 30’s and not particularly attractive. The most outgoing girl in the group starts engaging me considerably and tells me I’m on a one to four scale, and if I reach four I have to leave. I ask her where I am now; she says I’m at two. She tells me she works at the immigration department. I ask her if she uses the same ranking system when deciding whether immigrants get to stay in the country or not.

Eventually the girls get up to go salsa dancing and I don’t bother coming. I go back to the table and the three of us start chatting up our waitress. Plattsburgh has trouble with approach anxiety (quite common and fixable through experience) though is very natural once he’s already talking with a girl, though during one part of our interaction with the waitress he drops that I won a tournament in Asia, which I did not. When she eventually leaves I tell him
“No more made up shit dude. We’ve got enough going for us that we don’t need to bother with that kind of crap, and if we’ve actually got ability with women then we should assume we can attract them through direct means.” I hit on a shit ton of women, but I stopped lying to them a long time ago, and can profess from experience that building any relationship with a woman (or any person really) on a foundation of lies feels awful and is mentally exhausting.

We decide that our current bar is not happening so we’ll go over to Voodoo in the Rio. As we’re walking out there are three hot girls behind us and I start talking to them. They engage me for a moment, but then I fuck up what’s known as a “compliance test” and they suddenly eject, leaving me standing there looking dumb. Live and learn.

Plattsburgh drives us over and once in the hotel we take the long elevator ride up to the top of the building and club. We get out onto the floor and I tell Chewy to approach some girls who are dancing, which he instantly does. They don’t dance with him. We go to the outside dance floor, which is disappointingly devoid of women without men around them. I hit on some Asian girl on the dance floor who is talking to her friend, but it seems her boyfriend or husband is around or something and she’s not going to dance with me. I walk through the crowd and run into two girls dancing together and tell one of them that she needs to dance with me. She starts to and we grind for quite a while and I start chatting her up. This goes on for a while, and things escalate in terms of physical proximity, though no make out happens. I tell her to put her number in my phone and that we’ll hang out tomorrow. We exchange kisses on the cheek and she leaves with her friend. It is getting late so the three of us decide to call it a night and drive back to mine.

Back at the house Plattsburgh drops Chewy and I off and we hang outside for a little while discussing when we’ll go out and do it all over again. Eventually Chewy heads home and I sit around reading and eating health foods. I start feeling tired.

June 3rd, Las Vegas: I wake up naturally at 10:30am in the house. I take a shower, put on a suit, and go downstairs for breakfast. I am the first one up and sit quietly on my computer while eating cereal. Eventually Sirwatts and SEABEAST wake up and get ready to leave. We’ve all bought in so there’s little rush, and we leave in time to arrive about ten minutes before the event.

I find myself seated in the Miranda room for the beginning of the $1,500 six max no limit hold’em event. We start with 4500 in chips and again I find no familiar faces waiting for me at the table. I play a few small early pots with the 25/50 and wind up talking to a chill guy from Arizona on my left that I see play a flush draw extremely aggressively. He seems pretty aggressive overall, and with that read I get involved in my first major pot:
My stack: ~4000, BB: ~9000, blinds 25/50, I hold TdTh in the SB.
Preflop: Folds to the CO, CO raises to 150, button folds, I call in the SB, BB calls.
Flop: 3s 9s 5c
I check, BB leads 300, CO folds, I call.
Turn: 2c
I check, BB bets 800, I call.
River: Jh
I check probably intending to call if he bets given his image and how many draws blanked off, plus he might think he can value bet a strong nine and it’s questionable whether he’d flop donk sets. He checks behind and when I table my tens he mucks.

We continue chatting between hands and he tells me about the time he was bitten by a rattlesnake at age nine and how it was the most absurdly painful thing imaginable, then about the time a car accident at age 14 left him a liver cut in half from the seatbelt and a one percent chance of living according to his doctor. I tell him I broke a bone once and feel like the lesser man. We talk until the blinds go up, and I get involved again:
My stack: ~5,300, BB: ~7,000, blinds are 50/100, I hold As Ad on the CO.
Preflop: Folds to me on the CO, I raise to 300, two folds, BB calls.
Flop: Qc 6d 3d
BB checks, I bet 400, BB calls.
Turn: 6h
BB checks, I bet 1000, BB calls.
River: 7s
BB checks, I shove for 3500, BB goes into the tank, calls, and flashes a queen when I table my aces then mucks.

After doubling through I steadily bleed chips in small pots for a while. Near the end of the level I find myself involved again with a guy who has been open raising fairly frequently:
My stack: ~8,500, HJ: 3,800, blinds 50/100, I hold AcJd in the BB.
Preflop: UTG folds, HJ raises to 275, folds to me in the BB, I call.
Flop: 2c 3c Tc
I check, HJ bets 325, I checkraise to 1050, HJ shoves for 3500, I call, HJ shows Qc8c and stands up from the table.
Turn: Qs
River: 9h
I tell him nice hand and slide over the necessary chips, then go back to talking to my table mate on the left. We discuss which school is a better party school, Arizona State or Wisconsin. Stories are exchanged. Just a few hands later I am involved again:
My stack: ~5,500, BB: ~2,500, blinds 50/100 I hold AcQc on the HJ.
Preflop: UTG raises to 300, I call, folds to the BB, the BB shoves, UTG folds, I call. BB shows ATo.
Flop: 5d Qh Jh
Turn: 6s
River: 5h
He taps the table and walks away. I stack my chips over 8000. Not long after I get moved tables and find Gobboboy and Pacman on my immediate left. I greet them enthusiastically then naturally start fucking around with both of them. A few orbits into my stay I get involved with Pacman:
My stack: ~8,500, Pacman: ~12,000, blinds 75/150, I hold Kh8h on the button.
Preflop: Folds to me on the button, I raise to 400, SB folds, Pacman calls in the BB.
Flop: T 6 4 rainbow with a heart
Pacman checks, I bet 600, Pacman thinks for a while and checkraises to 1800. I have almost never floated a checkraise in my life, but I think this spot is interesting. He never has two pair, rarely has a ten worth checkraise/calling on a board that has little I can three bet shove, and is aware there are few hands I can bet/3 bet all in. I decide that if I flat him and he’s bluffing he’s going to have to give up the turn a ton since there’s little I can be peeling on. I call.
Turn: 5
Pacman fires out 3,500 and I fold and immediately feel like a retard.

Only a couple orbits after my hero float attempt find myself involved again:
My stack: ~6,000, SB: ~7,500, Button: ~1,100, blinds 75/150 I hold JdJh in the BB.
Preflop: Folds to the button, the button moves all in, the SB quickly reshoves, I move all in immediately. The button tables Q5o, the SB KK.
Flop: K 7 2 rainbow
Turn: X
I shave his hand, have a good laugh with Gobbo and Pacman, and walk away from the table.

I walk over to the Starbucks in the Rio and find TT from 2+2 and Adam Schwartz still sitting in the café where I’d had a coffee on break with them. TT is one of my fellow few haberdashers in poker and we spend a while discussing the best places to get a suit in town. There is a cute blonde girl sitting literally against the outside wall of the shop
“Guys that girl is cute right? I’m gonna go talk to her” I say
“Oh for sure, go for it” says Adam. TT says he doesn’t like the brand of shorts she’s wearing (I can’t remember which)
“Wait, are you crazy? You don’t want me to approach her because she’s wearing straight forward shorts? I mean, she’s genuinely attractive right, how are shorts relevant.”
“Eh, you can do better, I don’t care for her shorts, she won’t interest you.”
“Damn dude that’s crazy talk, I’m going for this.”
Adam is equally confused by TT’s suggestion.

I walk outside the coffee store and take a seat sitting next to her against the wall
“Excuse me, but wouldn’t it be more comfortable to sit down inside the café?”
“Oh well I’m just charging my phone while waiting for someone to come meet me.”
“Ah, a boyfriend playing in the World Series?” (Which is a super common problem with Rio approaches, though it is not recommendable to ask about a boyfriend in most scenarios.)
“Yea”
“Ah alright then I won’t get you in any trouble then, have a good one.”

I walk back into the café and tell the guys I want to go into the city to try and find some better situations to approach. TT says he’s going to the press conference of Mario Botelli and a cocktail party afterward and I can get into plenty of trouble there. I agree to join instantly.

Twenty minutes later we are driving over to the Venetian in his silver Miata and we’re talking about everything. As a result of having spent time in and around the fashion industry he’s one of the best dressed and informed guys I’ve ever met, and knows as much about the goings on in poker as anyone I’ve spoken to. Then we discuss our taste in women and go on at length about preferences. He tells me I will have trouble finding an intelligent and humorous woman in Vegas and that most of the women he’s dated are from out of town.

We arrive at the Venetian and walk over to the atrium near the escalators where they have set up a farmers market. We go upstairs to get a drink, and then rejoin the crowd back downstairs where we meet Entity and Deathdonky from 2+2. Mario Botelli gives a speech of some kind but I don’t hear a word because I’m trying to tell if the woman in the blue dress in front of me is with the guy standing next to her. When I walk up next to her I find the situation to be much worse; she is wearing an enormous diamond wedding ring. I say nothing.

After the speeches finish we go over to the cocktail party. The guy to girl ratio is horrible so I just drink a couple glasses of red wine to get me in the right mind set for the kick ass dinner we’re about to have. We decide to leave the party due to the lack of women to talk to. We go upstairs to the restaurant area and stand out by the bar and I spot a group of four attractive women sitting at a table in the outside area of the next restaurant over. I tell Adam I’m going in and walk out of the bar, over to the restaurant, past the host, then straight up to the table and say to the four girls who I now realize are way older and plastic looking than I thought
“Hi girls, I’m sorry to interrupt dinner but I was at the bar over there with my friends and we were all remarking how gorgeous this table all looks tonight. We’re about to head down to dinner fairly soon, but you all should meet up my group later, I can assure you my friends are more outgoing and interesting than I am, I know I’m quite a bore.”
I make a fair bit of small talk about where they’re from, why we’re all in town, and crack a joke or something before I get them to agree to meet us out. I take out my phone and direct it at the younger looking one and have her plug her number in while I continue to talk. I thank them and walk away. I get back to the bar. I tell the guys we will not be intending to meet them out for drinks.

We go to dinner at a restaurant in the Venetian that is having a special three course set menu for the special Botelli farmer’s market launch thing. I see Gavin Griffen and what turns out to be Hoss_TBF across the restaurant and we have them come over to join our table. We get some wine and enjoy a hell of a meal. I’m getting a bit tipsy and TT offers me a ride home. I accept.

When we arrive I get out of the car and tell him I’m going to drag his ass out for a big night on the town soon. When I walk inside I find Stevo and Joel waiting for me. They say I should call the weed delivery guy about getting an order. Stevo gives me the number and I call the guy up and tell him I’m a poker player in Vegas for the WSOP and that some Canadian friends (such a good people) recommended that I call him for “supplies”. He says he lives only minutes away and will be over shortly. I play a game of pool with Joel while we wait; he thrashes me.

Five minutes after the call the dealer shows up with a cooler of weed. He has a variety of different types that he lays out
“Head high, body high, fuck I can’t tell the difference” he says. We buy a bag of each kind. I say to him “I’m going to ask you what I ask all my drug dealers, wanna take a picture with me?” He has a cool ass sense of humor and tells me to feel free to call anytime we need a delivery. What a lovely situation.

We roll up a joint and three of us smoke it. It’s a fairly high functioning high so I start ranting and raving about getting us food, putting meat on the grill, and what sauces I’m going to “Lay all over that shit, boo yah!”

We drive to the grocery store and I stumble about the aisles high and giddy. I grab all kinds of healthy munchies (including the raspberries I am currently eating.) I get pork and steak for the BBQ.

Back at home I spend time marinating the meat and we fire up the grill. And it is a damn good decision.

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.