The Poker Project (playing and writing about poker in the U.S.)

Not at the moment. We missed the competition in early summer, as she's been recovering from an injury and wasn't ready to compete yet. I think the next one is in February, IIRC.

February's a damn fine time to be in Nola. Hope you can make it.

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The Fun Zone

I park on the fourth floor, slip my parking ticket into my wallet, off to a better start.

In the WSOP area the reentry’s down to one table, $45K up top. Minraise is in the 9 Seat staring pensively at the action, hand propping up his chubby head, earbuds in, surrounded by eight other tight-jawed dudes with backpacks strapped to their chairbacks. Use the minraise! I text Minraise. Then I’m off to the cash tables.

Six $1/$3s and, because it’s Sunday, two $4/$12 half ‘n halfs. On my way to the podium Dealer Tim and I spot each other and yell HELLO WELCOME in unison. We smile and make a pushing motion.

There’s a seat right away, on Six or Seven. Seven is cold, Chip Runner Monica warns me, so I have an easy decision. I catch Jackpot Gwen and her husband on their way out around five p.m., we briefly chat about our summers, he tells me they’re still balling every Tuesday and Thursday on the Westbank. I take his open seat in the 2, unrack for three reds and three greens, scan the table. Mostly old men, none I recognize except for Wholefoods Bob on my right. I fold a few hands and wait till I’m UTG+2 to take out my phone. Today I’ve been thinking about structure more than usual, probably because I’m transitioning from one routine to another: the second half of today is about the gym and the casino, when to leave, what to bring, how long to stay. I was recently listening to Carlos Welch talking about how, at the table, you should reserve your mental energy for what he calls The Fun Zone—the cutoff, button, small blind, and big blind—and be more willing to chill in what I call No Man’s Land: UTG+1 and UTG.

Oh sorry man didn’t see ya! Minraise replies. We are becoming experts of the fold pre.

Say it aint so! No worries I just saw you on my way in. I’ll swing by in a bit

Jack-Seven in the big blind, fold, I put my phone away. Dealer John’s telling us about gigging, he’s got that charmed gambler-musician life, floppy hair, nerd glasses, an easy way about him. He’s been in Texas for about a month, grinding the Austin games. Plans to go back out after the Circuit.

Limp, I raise Ace-Nine of hearts and get two calls from the limper and the button, flop King-Ten-Nine. A gray-mustached oldster in a Red Chip Poker hat calls the button’s flop bet, check-raises turn, shoves river, shows the nuts after the button folds. “I’m wondering how much you woulda called,” he asks as he’s dragging the pot.

“I’m not very smart,” the button says. “It’s hard to tell what I’m gonna do.”

I raise two Sevens and get four calls, flop Ace-Queen-Deuce, check fold.

I raise Ace-Eight of hearts under the gun and get two callers, bet a low flop and win.

At 5:30 Tim stands behind Jon with his tip box and seat cushion, not sure if he sees me. I turn away and put my right hand on my head, hopefully shielding myself from view. As he sits down I bellow a triumphant HELLO, WELCOME—Victory!

Tim had a great summer, first at the WSOP and then on vacation in Thailand. Tells us how the WSOP App made his life so much easier as a supervisor. Before, you had to dole out seat cards. Now, everything’s streamlined through the app, you can break fifty tables in fifteen minutes, no sweat. “You going back next year, Tim?” the 3 Seat asks him.

“If they’ll have me.”

The 3 Seat gives him a skeptical look. “If they’ll have you? You’re the best.”

The game’s not great, maybe a five out of ten, but everyone’s pleasant, and Seat 5's a cartoon character. He’s a burly guy with a bulldog face in a cucumber-green buttondown, seventyish, balding with slicked-back reddish hair and matching glasses, scraggly goatee, tattoos of a black Ace-King and red dice on his right forearm. Lifelong gambler. Eight-three poker cruises and counting. He left the girlfriend at home, he tells us, to go on a three-month gambling road trip. Just spent eighteen days in Biloxi, five days here, about to spend a week playing at Champions in Houston, which is owned by one of his best friends, Dewey Tomko.

At six Dealer Alisha shimmies into the box like she’s on the dance floor, grooving to the faint bass beat of some faraway song playing in the Octavia Bar. She’s got a bright brown face and frizzy blond highlights blooming out of a spotted purple headband.

“I don’t know if I can handle this,” the burly road-tripper says. “But I’ll sure as hell try!”

A supernitty white guy wearing a Mayo Clinic sweatshirt makes it $60 to go from UTG, gets called by the road tripper.

“Young woman sits down at the table, everyone plays loose as ****,” says Red Chip Poker. That gets a laugh out of half the table.

Flop Ace-Queen-Ten with two hearts, the road-tripper donk jams for a few hundred effective, Mr. Mayo snapcalls and shows two Queens, the board runs out brick-brick. “No pair,” the road-tripper announces, tabling King-Jack of hearts. For an instant Mr. Mayo thinks his set is good until someone explains that he lost to a straight—a straight with a royal flush redraw. He shakes his head and reloads.

I put on my maroon hoodie and visit a water-fountainless bathroom, inside which I pee urine into the urinal and wash my hands and then nibble on an assortment of nuts that I’ve squirreled away in a plastic container in one of my hoodie’s pockets—more planning, more structure—as I'm strolling to the donkament area. About a dozen railbirds are watching the seven-handed action, Wild Bill tells me I just missed Minraise’s bust, turns out he ran Ace-King into Aces. Loldonkaments.

I mill around for thirty minutes or so, chatting about this and that with Bill beside the final table. Bill wonders if there's something special about the community in the Gulf South: the same faces around, everyone rooting for each other even as they're competing with each other, a lot of support. I agree that it does seem like that, although we've both been inside the community for so long that it's impossible to see it, and ourselves, from the outside.

Meterry John busts next, two pear < two pear, he looks disgusted as he leaves the table and collects his payout of just under $10K, which Bill hates to see: they're both part of a group whose members agree to treat everyone to a fancy dinner whenever they cash for over ten gees. I scan the scrolling payouts on one of the flatscreens. Numbers seem down from the pre-pandemic days, the prizepools seem lower, and the rake is definitely higher. Seeing $330+$70 and $240+$60 on the structure sheets makes me cringe. It’s unlikely I’ll be firing anything.

First hand back, I straddle into the action from the edge of The Fun Zone. Bunch of limps to me in the cutoff, raisy-daisy with Ace-Jack off. Red Chip Poker calls, Mr. Mayo jams for $60, Wholefoods Bob calls cold, and now I’m trying to figure out if my not-so-discriminate $35 preflop raise was small enough so that the betting is still open facing Mr. Mayo’s reraise. Even if I can’t quickly do the precise math, I know it’s close, so why not try? I ship for five bills.

“Can he do that?” Bob says, frowning at me. A few people say yes, others no, Florence does some math, and it turns out that, yes, since my raise was twenty-nine big ones and Mr. Mayo dubbled my raise, then I’m good to go. I'm gifted an ideal outcome: Red Chip Poker and Bob fold, I’m up against Mr. Mayo’s Ace-Six off, and I hold. Mr. Mayo taps the table and wanders away.

“He was looking for a reason to leave,” the road-tripper says.

Holla at Your People!

Today I’m zooming around more than I’d like, zoom-zoom for class, zoom-zoom to a meeting, zoom-zoom to the the gym, zoom-zoom downtown for a Harrahdise minisesh. Against all odds, I’m able to snag Geisha takeout and a cardroom seat a few minutes before six. Five $1/$3, 1 $5/$5 PLO. “I specifically requested this table,” I tell Wild Bill, as I slide into Seat 6 on his right. “There are certain people who are good for the game and I like to play with them.”

Bill smiles coyly and welcomes me to the table, which is filled with the usual cast of characters. In Seat 9 is an old man with Coke-bottle glasses, thinning white hair, and a trimmed mustache. I ask him if his name’s Leo and he nods, I extend my hand and reintroduce myself. I can still remember some of the stories he told me about growing up on the banks of the Missippi—just a boy living on the river and really enjoying himself. No need for shoes, because everything was sand and grass. Never wore a shirt, all you had were pants. When you went in the water, you already had your bathing suit on.

“We used to play $4/$8 limit, before they took it away from us,” I tell him.

“That must have been before the pandemic,” Leo says. “That was way back.”

Bad timing, Leo’s on his way out. After he wishes us well and heads home, he’s replaced by another legend of the cardroom, a stern-looking Black guy with thin-rimmed glasses and a long white beard. Buddy’s quick to laugh when he’s running decent, which, on this day, he isn’t: my Ace-King beats his Ace-King when I turn a diamond flush.

“I ain’t no legend here,” Buddy says later, after Bill tells us a legendary Buddy-story (that’s how Bill rolls, always talking people up, finding ways to compliment them), “but I been here for a long time.” Tells us he’s the patriarch of his family—six kids, 25 grandkids, 2 great-grandkids. He takes out his phone, shows us a family picture. He’s in the top right corner, smiling proudly amid a sea of grandkids. “That’s being rich right there,” Bill says.

Buddy says it wasn’t easy, putting six kids through school. Tells us they’re all educated, and they all stay close to home. I know that this must be true because one of his sons, a local lawyer and a Harrahdise semi-reg, boasts the best billboard in New Orleans.

“I have three,” Bill says. “Can’t imagine doubling that.”

I check my watch—Seven-thirty. I feel a little guilty, sitting here, because I don’t like to leave my Best Fluffball for more than six hours or so. I wonder how much harder it would be to take care of a kid than a pet. Five times? Ten times?

I decide to stick to the plan of leaving at 9 p.m. These are the sacrifices I make for foolish volume challenges.

Bob's WSOP Circuit Mini-Challenge
[10/25]

Happy Anniversary

In at 5:45, and the room’s hopping: seven $1/$3s, a $2/$5, a $5/$10 by the sportsbook (filled with the reggiest of regs, not one face out of place), two $5/$5 PLOs, a healthy $10/$25 waitlist. At the podium a few Harrahdise staffers are griping about something. "Maybe if Charles came early," Brandon's saying. Charles is listening with a bemused look on his face, Roy's rummaging through one of the drawers.

"Always nice to see yall running a smooth ship," I tell them.

"Machine," Roy mutters, opening another drawer. "Tight, efficient…"

"Well-oiled, as they say," I say.

It’s only when I sit down on Table 6, Seat 7 that I see I’ve been given one stack of red, two greens, and two blacks, which tells me the room’s short on red chips, that’s how busy they are. On my direct left's Jenny, Mike G’s poker wife. She’s wearing a black Saints sweatshirt, a silver Saints necklace, and gold Saints leggings. Reddish bowl cut, fancy black open-toed shoes. "Mike is now on his fifth table," she tells me, in an slightly formal accent I can't quite place. "Guess he isn't finding a table he likes."

Dealer Darrell arrives at six sharp, he looks a little tired but greets us with characteristic enthusiasm—a few fist-bumps, a smile and some laughter. “Sup, champ?” he asks me.

“Happy anniversary,” I reply, giving him a look.

“Huh?”

“If you know, you know,” I say. “And if you don’t know, you don’t know, I guess.”

He waits another moment, still confused.

“Twenty years,” I say. "Does that help?"

Darrell flashes a sheepish smile that says, Of course—that anniversary.

Twenty years. I started today on my porch, writing and thinking. Writing in order to think. Excavating scraps of memories from ten years ago. Back then I was gung-ho about putting my finger on the city’s beating bleeding heart. Biking all over town. Attending numerous memorials. Popping into Bullet’s Sports Bar and listening to locals share their stories. There were maybe ten people inside. I was the only white person, and I was also the only one who hadn’t been here when **** hit the fan. Still, an old woman offered me the microphone. “It’s your story, too,” she said, which felt both true and not. My Katrina story, such as it was, involved moving to Texas in the scorching August heat, with new beginnings on my mind. As thousands of Nola evacuees were being bussed to Houston, I dutifully burrowed my head into the academic sand. My Katrina story was a non-story. But even so, I felt gratitude that the old woman in Bullet's had offered me that mic. We seemed to share the same core belief: no one’s story is insignificant. No story is too small.

Then, as now, there’s debate about how much to celebrate and how much to engage. Is it appropriate to stage second lines and host barbeques? At first glance probably not, until you remember that this is how New Orleanians do. Here, second-line funerals are a thing. Here, cemeteries are above-ground. New Orleans fosters a reverence for life precisely because it’s a death-drenched place. Just this morning, I saw photos of photos around the city: old Katrina images projected onto the locations where they were taken. Poignant reminders of how memory and place are deeply connected.

Today, ten years after the Tenth Anniversary, I'm not as gung-ho as I used to be. I was going to go to a memorial in the Lower Ninth, but at the last minute, using the rainy forecast as an excuse, I decided against it. I went for a run and stopped at the grocery store and ate lunch and took a nap. I felt exhausted, as I usually do when I visit the cardroom for even a trivial amount of time, and when I woke up I felt groggy and unmotivated to log another sesh. I almost bailed, but I made it (the key is to keep moving): around the block for another Delwalk, cooking and packing dinner, and then to Mojo on Magazine, where I sipped a ludicrously-priced iced latte—$7.09, with tip—and wrote about a few thoughts I’d had after my run, when I was lugging groceries back home. I was thinking about how I feel weighed down by all the stories I’m carrying, so many of them still untold, and how most of them involve, however obliquely, the tragedy and trauma of the Storm. And how any writing that I eventually produce will be a sort of gift, or donation, to the Gulf Coast community, not unlike dropping a few bucks into the church collection plate.

What have I learned about how the city reckons with Katrina? Mostly that mourning doesn’t need to involve grappling with or confronting the past; it doesn’t need to involve “sharing your story.” Sometimes silence is enough. Sometimes it has to be. The first rule of Katrina club is that we don’t talk about katrina club, one local Redditor wrote in a thread called Ready for This Weekend To Be Over.

I am with you, 4EVAH-NOLA replied. I cannot, do not, will not. Even listening to the stories, music, dedications on WWOZ was too much for me. I just want it to be over. The Subdudes have a line in a song, ‘quick to laugh, quick to cry, slow to heal.’ They know my heart.

Over the last week it was easy to find similar sentiments on Facebook, in the New Yorker, and on email newsletters. Maybe that’s why, almost immediately after wishing Darrell Happy Anniversary, I regret saying it. Of all people, I should know by now that the cardroom isn't a place for reflection.

I feel a warm hand on my shoulder. It's Mike G., snazzily dressed in a glittery black button-down. "Is Jenny behaving?" he asks me. "She's on a day pass from the psych ward. I need to get her back by tonight."

"Oh, stop!" Jenny says, playfully slapping him. Then she says, to me, “he said the same thing in the elevator. Told the people I was a flight risk.”

"They kicked her out of Scotland for running a brothel," Mike says. "She applied for U.S. citizenship but can't get it. She refuses to wear her ankle brace.”

Now, finally, I can place Jenny's accent.

At six-thirty Darrell's replaced by Mary, who places her Hello Kitty seat cushion atop the dealer's chair before sitting down. As usual, she looks exhausted. I say whattup, she nods hello and pitches us another hand.

Bob's WSOP Circuit Mini-Challenge
[14/25]

August Recap

In at 5, only five games going. At the podium, as I slide forward a purple chip, I ask Dealer Margie and Floorman Roy if they're happy or sad to see the Circuit go. "I don't mind either way," Margie says.

"Happy," Roy says. "I'm getting old."

"More coming," I say. "Rungood next, right?"

"Yeah." He gives me a disgusted look. "You remember them? Brought all their sponsored players to the final table. They didn't tip, either. Some shady characters."

Margie slides me a rack of three reds and two green, sends me to Table 9.

"They stiffed us!" Roy says as I'm walking away, in case I hadn't heard the first time.

Bob's WSOP Circuit Mini-Challenge
[27/25]

Was enjoyable to get back into the saddle, on both the teaching and the pokering front, with a smidge of writing as well. Feeling settled after a busy month.

puzzle for the road

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shipping out

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bankroll on table @Tanglewood

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wait a minute—all I needed to do was get permission?

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battling legends @Ebro

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never again

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Decadence

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at the office

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Feel the same way about Bucees. What friggin zoo.

Oh indeed. I'd heard enough people raving about Bucees that I figured a stop was in order at their new location near Gulfport, and yikes. Total chaos.

I do feel more American now, having gone there.

It's like the bastard child of Disneyland and Walmart.

observe what thou hast wrought!

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Return of Amir

In the Beau at 7 pm, as I'm waiting for a seat I spot Amir. He's wearing a cream-colored polo and a plain blue ballcap hung low over his wrinkled face. It's been so long. With his trimmed black mustache, he still looks like Super Mario.

Shortly after he's seated at Table 1 they call a new game, on my way over we lock eyes and smile and warmly shake hands. I ask if he lives here now, he shakes his head, he's still in Nola. "But I never see you," I say.

"Too much crime," he says, still smiling. "And you?" He looks me up and down. "Have you lost weight?"

"Probably a bit," I say, "but I'm doing well." We shake hands again and wish each other well and then I'm off to my game.

But where is the endless line of gas pumps?

Better?

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September Recap

Mostly back in the teaching saddle with some writing mixed in. Just wrapped up a mini-unit on AI which taught me how colossally ****ed the younger generation is, like there's zero chance they'll be able to pay attention to anything ever. One of my students told me that she screenshots incoming texts and feeds them to ChatGPT to craft responses—AI mediates huge swaths of their experience, and we've barely rolled out the

https://www.wired.com/story/couples-retreat-with-3-ai-chatbots-and-humans-who-love-them-replika-nomi-chatgpt/

WIRED

My Couples Retreat With 3 AI Chatbots and the Humans Who Love Them

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/09/29/if-ai-can-diagnose-patients-what-are-doctors-for

The New Yorker

If A.I. Can Diagnose Patients, What Are Doctors For?

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Return to the Beau

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Frank Stella, Scramble

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Walter Anderson, Contented Raccoon

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Crescent City Connection Bridge Run, Round Three

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Temporary Bedmates

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Billion Dollar Ransom

I roll in around five and scope out the Rungood setup by the food court, which is still thirtyish tables sporting WSOP-logoed tables and chairs from the Circuit Event two months earlier. Only five tables are going, I recognize Preston and Joe the Pro and a few others, one of the dealers sidles up next to me in full customer service mode and and asks if he can help me. I tell him I don’t think so, although what I’m thinking is lol donkaments, and ask him what’s what. He tells me that this is a one-day tourney, pointing at the blue screen with the entrants at the bottom—32 of 87 left—and the prizes on infinite scroll. “$8K for first,” he says, giving me a look. But he’s got the wrong customer.

In the main cardroom four $1/$3s are going along with one $15/$30 Omaha in the corner, by the sportsbook. I slide into Seat 6 at the table closest to the podium, beside a book-reading woman in her sixties who has wispy strawberry hair and a colorful teal-pink hoodie.

“Is that a poker book?” the 9 Seat’s asking her. He’s a middle-aged Indian guy in town for the donkaments, sloppily dressed with lots of gold necklaces and bracelets and a black pinky ring.

“It’s a James Patterson,” she answers. She’s on Chapter 100 of Billion Dollar Ransom: A Thriller, with a one and lots of zeroes written out on the cover so we can see just how much a billion is.

It looks like a slow night, a few open seats at every table. I ask Dealer Jackie how the week's been going, she shakes her head. “Rungood hasn’t been that good.”

First hand Nine-Ten off from the big blind, the Eight-Eight-Six flop checks through, I half pot it on a Four turn and a King river and get tank-called by the 1 Seat, an East-Asian oldster. “Lucky first hand,” I announce, tabling my air. For a few moments no one says anything, trying to suss out what I have. Finally the oldster tables pocket Threes and takes the pot. “What did you think you had?” Jackie asks me.

It appears that I’m at an extreme rec table, filled with a mix of white oldsters and Asian men whose ages are impossible to guess. The Reader wins a nice pot, Mr. Leo smiles over at her from the 2 Seat and says, “So the book is just a ruse.”

She nods and says people write her off all the time. “But my thing is I don’t pay attention to what anyone else is doing,” she explains. “I just concentrate on my game.”

Dealer Tim relieves Jackie at 5:30 and beats me at Hello, Welcome, he's a gracious winner as always, tells me I’m still easily up lifetime. His baggy rolled-up sleeves hang loosely above his thin wrists, today his name tag’s upside-down.

The two Indian guys on my left are straddling constantly, I start straddling along with them, bump it up over a bunch of straddle-limps and the 1 Seat limp-jams, as action’s folding around I show the other Indian guy my cards and tell him I’ll need some advice, haha. I fastroll Ace-King and win.

Gandalf takes the open 8 Seat, slings a Boomtown fleece atop his chairback, buys in with a stack of reds. The Indian guy in the 7 leaves, Gandalf moves over and says maybe he’ll be able to see better, I offer to switch seats so he can get even closer to the cards. Plus, I tell him, I like the side seats. More room. He thanks me and we switch. A thin translucent wire droops from his bushy white hair into his left ear, supporting a barely visible hearing aid. “Oh, a good start,” he says, looking at his hand. He limps in.

A few hands later, he doubles up with Ace-King. “Lucky seat,” I say. He laughs and asks me if I want it back, I shake my head, tell him I won a pot with Ace-King right before he arrived, that seat doesn’t owe me anything.

A perennial candidate for the Who-Loves-It-More-Award, All-in Gui, takes the five seat, buying in with three stacks of red. He looks subdued, maybe a little woozy. “Troublemaker,” Gandalf tells me. “Genghis Khan.”

Dealer Frank relieves Tim, I play my button and walk to the bathroom with the water fountain, fill my bottle with water from the water fountain, piss urine into the urinal, get back just in time for my big blind. Gandalf’s sipping a Mich Ultra and scribbling numbers onto a blue notecard—his own eccentric personal accounting, I guess. “I won more hands today than I won in a week,” he tells me.

At 6:30, Mike G rolls into the 3 Seat wearing a burnt orange button-down with designs of snarling black dragons on the front, a crucifix dangles atop his hairy chest, he sticks out his tongue at Gandalf. “You want a piece?” Gandalf says. “I’ve had a beer, I’m loose.”

“Call the floor,” Mike says.

“Hello, Miss Nikki,” Gandalf says a few minutes later, and suddenly I'm officially at the OG Harrahdise Legends table. She waves to Gandalf and Mike and me and takes the seat on my direct left, reaches into her tan purse and takes out a bottled water, a pile of reds, and one purple chip, which she props against the water on the rail before stowing it back away. She’s wearing, as usual, a stylish outfit: sparkly brown-gold sweater, bedazzled gold painter’s cap, gold pushup heels, matching gold earrings and necklace. She keeps taking chips out of her purse and stacking them, now she has two stacks of reds. She takes out a tissue, blows her nose. Takes out brown shades and rests them on the rail. Takes out her phone, her lock screen’s filled with repeating emojis of a tent, a boot, and a pine tree. She drapes a snazzy white cardigan atop her sweater.

“Cold?” I ask.

“Always.”

A little after eight, Nikki orders a hot tea with three Splendas and asks if she can wear my hoodie, of course she can. She drapes it over her cardigan and her sweater, arms crossed. I optimistically suggest that it might be less cold at other tables.

“Nah,” Dealer Jay says, giving me a disappointed look. “It’s getting colder in here every day.”

Bob's Rungood Mini-Challenge
[11/25]

Set Over Set

Around seven, Mike G swoops into the 1 Seat on my direct right, greets me with a handshake. A band-aid rests beneath his swollen reddish right eye from a recent minor surgery, he gives my stack an appraising glance: three stacks of red, one stack of green, with some blacks and greens forming a second tower atop the first. “You winning?”

“I am winning,” I tell him. “I think I got into a pretty lucky spot. I might’ve set-over-set a guy, I didn’t see his hand.”

I started the afternoon by parking outside UMC Hospital and crossing Claiborne, where an aggressive gas station hustler tried getting my attention—Slim! Eyy, Slim!—and popping into Tulane’s clinic for a free flu shot. Then I drove downtown to the Harrahdise garage, parking as usual on the fourth floor and heading down to Poydras, across North Peters, and up Gravier until I reached Fourth Wall, one of the my favorite coffee shops, where I ordered a latte and started Baldwin’s Going to Meet the Man. "Sonny’s Blues" is one of my favorite short stories but I’ve never read the whole collection. One story per day's the plan. As I was reading the opener, "The Outing," a few nearly-forgotten details from yesterday's sesh came into view, and I wrote some of them down:

Last night Gui was wearing his puffy charcoal ski jacket and a matching cap, his gray hair peeked out from beneath it. Seeing me, his eyes brightened, but he didn’t say anything. He looked subdued, maybe a little woozy, but still with a hint of mischief.

***

Beverage, Waitress Janine calls out.

Beverage? Gandalf looks searchingly at Dealer Monique, who huffingly tells him she don't do bevvies. Then he sees Janine behind him, says he knew he heard something.

I left Fourth Wall at 2:45 and got into a $1/$3 just before three—Chip Runner Monica sent me to a game with full stacks but four empty seats. Joey, a superreg who’s trying to be a pro, I think, was sitting pointlessly in front of his seat. He's a young white guy who unapologetically presents as a grinder: duffel bag and ballcap and hoodie and just the right touch of sarcasm. We’re waiting for you, he told me with a smile. Just needed one more fish. We fist-bumped, he went over to the $5/$5 PLO in the back of the room to shoot the **** with another reg, a few minutes later he came back with a rack, I asked if he was waving the white flag, he shrugged and said he was already on the transfer list and already on tilt from half the table taking a walk, I told him that's no good, especially when he’s about to fire the opening flight of Rungood’s $800 Main. He racked up, we wished each other luck, as he was leaving, almost as an afterthought, he asked if I was writing a book about poker. Apparently one of the other superregs was talking about it, was saying that he can’t wait to read it. These hows-the-book-coming-along? convos still happened from time to time. It’s nice to remember that people are waiting for something. It makes me sad that it's been so long and hard—last week, over sushi, I told a friend that this is the hardest project I’ve attempted, definitely harder than my dissertation which was damn hard—but it still strikes me as well worth doing. I told Joey I'd keep him updated and sent him a link to our podcast.

The game wasn’t great—two competent youngheads across the table were mixing it up pretty well—but I generally don’t like to table-change: play the hand you’re dealt, so to speak. It took about two hours before the hand that I’m telling Mike about now: I returned to the table after a short break and straddled in from the cutoff, there were a bunch of limps, some guy bumped it up, some other guy called, I squeezed with pocket rockets and the button limper cold-called, we went multiway to an Ace-Queen-Ten flop, I bet, the button raised, we got the money in and after the board came brick brick he mucked facedown, claiming that he had pocket Queens. Unlikely but possible. I’ve seen crazier ****.

“Set-over-set is really rare,” Mike says. “I read something in a magazine where, if you hit a set, a higher set appears only three percent of the time. So if you have one hundred sets, you're gonna get chopped off three times.”

“Well if you need some comfort food while you’re on the mend," I say, changing the subject, "Josh is giving comfort food recommendations.”

On our left Josh, king of the superregs, erupts into a peal of sardonic giggles. He’s been half-trolling the table for the last ten minutes, telling us about the most amazing restaurants on the Westbank. “China Doll and Panda Express,” he tells us again. “AMAZING fake Chinese food. Fake meat. Dogs and cats. AMAZING.”

Five more minutes, and Mike’s off to another table. I’ll be here for another hour. Two, at most.

Bob's Rungood Mini-Challenge
[15/25]

Ten More Months

In at three, at the podium Manager Will gives me a fist bump, I ask how the numbers are looking. “Not good, if I’m being honest. I need you to play over there,” he says, nodding in the direction of the donkament area, “not over here.”

“Wanna stake me?”

"For $800?"

Will gives me a look, I give him a look, and for a moment it’s not sure who’s serious and who’s joking. Then he smiles and tells me he’s got a seat for me in cash.

I take Table 5, Seat 2 on George the Greek’s right in what looks like a juicy game, within an orbit I’m stuck seven bills. Compared to yesterday’s set-over-set cooler, this time I’m the one who flops second best: a set of Tens on an Ace-Queen-Ten two-heart board, and I can’t find a fold when an OMC just flats the flop with the nuts and shoves over my turn bet. Five playable hands in a row, all whiffs, just as Mike G’s rolling in dressed in his Saturday football best: royal purple LSU button-down with three buttons unbuttoned, gold crucifix.

“Ten more months,” Floorman Roy’s telling George and me, as he scans the room with that I’ve-seen-it-all expression of his. He’s got curly gray hair and glasses and an impressive paunch bulging out of a frumpy tan suit jacket and black trousers. “Ten months,” he says again. “Thirty-four years of this…”

“Wonderful experience,” I say, revising his thought.

“Every day’s gonna be Saturday,” Roy says, shuffling away. “I’m gonna go home and burn every deck of cards in my house.”

Bob's Rungood Mini-Challenge
[22/25]

Our room must have really good benefits / working environment / etc. as we have a very small turnover rate in the staff, with many of the dealers / floor / etc. being with the casino since it opened in 2005 (and some working for the company elsewhere even before that).

One floor finally retired earlier this year, partly because of a cancer scare.

Another floor has worked for this company I think for almost as long as I've had my job (I'm on 31 years this year). His wife has always been one of the biggest action players in the room, and all I can wonder is how this poor sap manages to breakeven every day.

GcluelessfloormannoobG

Really enjoying this new Geese record. I had listened to some of the earlier stuff but it never really stuck with me.

It’s cool to see young bands making such unique, challenging music. I would consider myself to be an aficionado of weird rock music and it’s hard for me to come up with comparisons for this band.

The employees down here remind me of when I worked at a Westin hotel in Boston: people in second or third careers, lots of first and second generation immigrants, sidehustlers looking to supplement their income. Not a great gig by any stretch, but easily good enough to stick around for years or decades, esp with union protection and benefits.

And of course you get more than a few lifers like Roy who are counting ever hour til retirement.

For sure! I'm really liking this album, will need to go back and listen to their first two. Have you heard Cameron's solo album? I think it's called Heavy Metal.

Yeah! I enjoyed that record when it came out but I feel compelled to revisit it after listening to this new record a few times.

That guitar melody is a thing of wonder.

It's lovely thought, but ... believe it when I see it.

Yeah, same. It's growing on me, although I think I prefer Geese's more upbeat sound.

High praise, coming from you!

[QUOTE=DrTJO]
It's lovely thought, but ... believe it when I see it.[/QUOTE]
Dreamers gonna dream.

LIstened to another two-part interview with Joel Porter-Dias on Thinking Poker this week. He still provides me with a sense of wonder and a little sadness too (due mostly to the emphasis upon advantage play and the world of casino culture). Hilarious how all three poker players on the podcast can't distinguish Robert Palmer from Peter Gabriel. Also wondering whether you've ever considered hustling for some extra cash via a free-throw challenge?