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

^ Just realised that Dirk shot at 0.8788 (18th all time) so hustle unlikely to get off the ground.

Maybe what strikes me the most about Joel is his seemingly endless fascination with not just the gambling world, but with life itself. And that fascination is infectious. I could listen to him go on and on. I agree his obsession with casino culture and APing is a little sad, as is the commitment to "the hustle," but the game is the game, I suppose.

Poasting a link here for folks who want to hop back onto the Joeltrain: https://www.thinkingpoker.net/2025/10/ep...

Brief storytime: I believe it was the spring of 2014 when I reached out to Joel about interviewing him in AC. He agreed, I hopped on a plane, and spent two or three days hanging with him and exploring the city. One of my favorite experiences in the gambling world was when Joel invited me to join him on a slot run. We spent a whole evening going from machine to machine as Joel explained the intricacies of APing (much like he does on the podcast above) and then we caught a jitney, hit another casino, caught another jitney, hit another casino, and so on. I've long forgotten whatever it was that Joel taught me, but at the time it felt like a netherworld's netherworld was being unveiled to me, one machine at a time...

confirmed free throw prop bet fish here. I've only wagered money on myself one time. Back in grad school a guy bet me fifty bucks that he could take me one on one. I snap accepted and suggested that we dubble the stakes.

I was sitting amongst a forest of slot machines yesterday while face-timing home and felt uncomfortable. Daily I walk back and forth through this EGM forest, thick with vape and tobacco smoke, on my way to the bathroom. It is clearly wrong, morally, in my mind: the non-wealthy sliding bills into these slots with almost certainly "no advantage". There is an art and method to what Joel's doing and I can understand the fascination (like watching a heist movie), with the morality of hustling the "corporate house" not an issue, obviously. But the idea of sitting at those machines all day, giving life to the hidden EV, makes me feel queasy. Then again maybe some think the same about me sitting at the poker table, employing a similar part of the brain, seemingly adding little to society.

No reveal of how close you got to Dirk's 0.8788 average? Or can we give you a pass based on insufficient sample-size? I mean Joel claims he shot 8/10 and still lost ... In the end $50 is a probably a decent return on the emotional investment of putting your basketball status on the line.

There's a quote I saw somewhere that I wish I could recall precisely, but the gist is: be infinitely skeptical towards systems, and be infinitely compassionate towards individuals. This is my position (or more accurately, my aspiration). To the extent that casinos and slots (and poker) are "wrong," I'd locate that wrongness in the rigged systems that hack human weakness and shape our behavior in ways that we'll never fully realize, let alone control. If this seems excessively deterministic, well...

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My best guess is that I was a touch under 80% lifetime. Good, but not stellar.

Speaking of beeball, let's all tip our caps to Berkey &co, who called out Chauncey Billips and shady po....

And speaking of morally bankrupt systems...

Trying to locate that logic somewhere in moral or political philosophy ... would be interested to know its home. There might be some exceptions, for example if democracy is considered a system, although perhaps it's one that has skepticism built into its design. The judicial system could also be placed in that category, with its right of appeal and adverserial procedures. Philosophers build systems of thought although these seem to inevitably fail/remain unfinished. Funny to think that gamblers will claim to have a "system" that beats the "House". I mean being "systematic" is synonymous with being rational and organised, which as we know, can also devolve into a state of being unsympathetic, deluded, mean, unforgiving, narrow-minded and so on.

I'll never play poker against a basketball pro again ... even if offered rakeback.

"Again"? Who we talking about?

Playing basketball against a poker pro on the other hand...

Do You Even Read, Bro?

It occurred to me last week that I haven't picked up a book outside of what I "should" be reading in a few months. Started a new novel in an effort to remedy that, but in the meantime I've come across some wild magazine pieces. The first one,

https://harpers.org/archive/2025/11/the-goon-squad-daniel-kolitz-porn-masturbation-loneliness/

Harper's Magazine

The Goon Squad, by Daniel Kolitz

[quote=]Gooning is a new kind of masturbation. More precisely, a new kind of masturbation at the heart of an internet-based, pornography-obsessed, Gen Z–dominated subculture every bit as defined and vibrant as the hippies or punks in their prime. The act itself resembles “edging”—repeatedly bringing oneself to the point of climax without actually climaxing. But gooning is more goal-oriented and more communal. The gooner goons to reach the “goonstate”: a supposed zone of total ego death or bliss that some liken to advanced meditation, the attainment of which compels them to masturbate for hours, or even days, at a time.[/quote]

But Kolitz, the author, eventually pivots to a larger point about the search for connection in a world that's increasingly mediated by technology and screens.

[quote=David Velasco]Think about it for a second: What are these gooners actually doing? Wasting hours each day consuming short-form video content. Chasing intensities of sensation across platforms. Parasocially fixating on microcelebrities who want their money. Broadcasting their love for those microcelebrities in public forums. Conducting bizarre self-experiments because someone on the internet told them to. In general, abjuring connective, other-directed pleasures for the comfort of staring at screens alone. Does any of this sound familiar? Do you maybe know some folks who get up to stuff like this? It’s true that gooners are masturbating while they engage in these behaviors. You could say that only makes them more honest.[/quote]

Another sex-drenched (but somehow less depressing) Harper's piece,

https://harpers.org/archive/2025/10/the-good-pervert-david-velasco-brent-sikkema-art-friendship/?src=longreads

Harper's Magazine

The Good Pervert, by David Velasco

[quote=]A few weeks after Brent is murdered, I host a small memorial, mostly Fire Island family. My old partners Ryan and Sam—both also close with Brent—bring a six-foot-long loaf of bread to make into a submarine sandwich, recalling the centerpiece of one of his legendary birthdays at the house on Shore Walk. Ryan shares a memory of arriving early to an official gallery holiday party at Brent’s apartment and Brent pulling him aside with relief, because he needed to tell someone about a hustler he’d ushered out of the apartment just before the first guest walked in. Everyone touches on his magical hospitality, the way he could say “mother****er” with a laugh, the worlds he created, how he knew everybody—the Castros, Michelle Obama, Alicia Keys. His bluntness—meeting Brad Pitt and casually saying, “I haven’t seen any of your movies.” As his friend Sharon put it: “People would say, ‘Your best friend is seventy-five years old?’ And I’d say, ‘But he’s ageless.’ ”[/quote]

There there's one in which the title sez it all:

https://thetrek.co/appalachian-trail/betty-kellenberger-just-became-the-oldest-woman-to-thru-hike-the-at-at-age-80/

The Trek

Betty Kellenberger Just Became the Oldest Woman To Thru-Hike the AT at Age 80 - The Trek

Finally, to circle back to theme of lolreading, people have been gushing about Listers, a documentary about extreme birdwatching. As someone who knows nothing about birds, I found it a very entertaining watch.

October Recap

The weather has finally turned! This month flew by, mostly a blur of teaching and writing. More poker will be played next month.

Take some time to REST!

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Pensacola Sunset

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No Kings part deux

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Regal fluffball

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Gamboling fluffball

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Bob's November Mini-Challenge [0/30]

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There was a 2/5 reg I played against who was a former semi-pro and looked very much like a basketballer (as confirmed by his skill in tossing the dealer button across the table as well as his height). Tbh he wasn't particularly intimidating in terms of poker-crusher vibes or potential mafiosa links but appeared to be a winner in the game.

I did play PLO against Andrew Bogut a few times ... but no story there except to say the first thing I noticed was his size 15ish shoes and the secondly that he wanted to remain anonymous. He seemed competent at PLO albeit a little splashy (hey but small sample and maybe he was getting some legit hands).

Now curious to know the best former-NBA poker player? I've played against many ex- tennis and golf pros, many current and ex- AFL footballers, an ex-BMX pro, an ex-Tour de France cyclist, a former ping-pong Olympian, a Melbourne Cup winning jockey as well as some who claim they were champion boxers. Only a few of these could be thought as potential long-term winners. Surely there's another Patrick Antonius somewhere living (and slowly confirming) the poker dream.

I vaguely remember Andrew Bogut appearing on some poker podcast. Sounds like he's at least a semi-serious player. I can't think of any former NBA players who are serious poker players—or, at least, who you'll commonly see on live streams and the like. Jimmy Buckets showed up on the HCL stream with Neymar and Keating and behaved atrociously, my opinion of him plummeted after that.

I've played with a few beeballers in my time, mostly down in Nola. One of the Collins twins is a Pels assistant, and I've seen him around four or five times. Played with Russell WestGoat back in the day, and before that Seth Curry. Hard to glean much based on such a small sample, but Seth seemed the most competent of the three.

My money for the best poker-playing-former-athlete would have to go to ping-pong Olympian!

Ozzy's Back

Outside Harrahdise, an Oompa Loompa’s sipping a Red Bull beside a young woman in a donkey onesie. It’s around six in the evening, and most passersby are in street clothes, although it isn’t hard to spot a spindly witch’s hat here, a gleaming pirate’s saber there. A couple strolls up the steps, the guy's wearing a gray teeshirt that reads, in pumpkin-colored lettering, THIS IS MY HALLOWEEN COSTUME.

Mostly street clothes inside, too. I scan the bustling playing floor and spot a Fred Flintstone playing blackjack, his hand propping up his burly chin in what appears to be weary contemplation. There's Mario dealing roulette, a Luigi dealing craps. In the cardroom Dealer Maria’s dressed as Wonder Woman and Dealer Frank’s wearing, for some reason, a sombrero. Five $1/$3s, one $5/$5 PLO, one $5/$25 filled with the usual suspects somberly dressed in dark-hued jackets and shirts, it's just another day, shut up and deal.

I take $500 over to a costumeless $1/$3 and sit next to the Professor, the cheeriest endboss you’ll ever meet. It’s possible that he’s never not stoned. We fist-bump, he asks if I’ve been playing, I tell him not much but I’m planning to at Poker Gras. “Yeah, I’ll fire a tourney or two. Got to,” he says with a giggle—that’s his signature verbal tic, expressed at the end of almost every sentence. His semester’s ending at the beginning of December, a bit earlier than mine, and won’t start back up until mid-January.

“Plenty of time for the Heater,” I say.

The Professor nods, says he’ll be out there. “It’s boring, though.”

“Tournaments?”

“Yeah. I’ve been playing astronomically big games here, in South Florida, in Texas. Firing a $400 tournament doesn’t exactly get me excited.” He giggles and turns to Chip Runner Marc, who tells him his PLO seat’s ready. He tips Marc a red, and then he’s gone. Buddy replaces him, sitting down with a bright orange zip-up and a pineapple juice. At the podium, a dude strolls in dressed in a full skeleton onesie—skull mask on, completely incognito—and polished black dress shoes. He strolls past us sits down at another table.

“Yeah, I’m working on the World Series TV,” Marc reassures the guy on my right. “You’re like the third person.”

I want more costumes. Within ten minutes I table change into a game with the Dude and Disco Steve on my direct left, before I can unrack I’m dealt Ace-King UTG and toss out three reds. “You look like an action player,” the Dude says as he cuts out reraising chips. I’m not in costume, but I’m dressed in a silly Planet Hollywood button-down. As action folds around, I’m planning to just call the reraise, but then a short-stack cold-calls and I give myself the green light. “I don’t usually have the chance to do this,” I say, pushing my rack of chips across the betting line.

The Dude tanks. Behind his curly brown wig and dark shades, his bushy brow’s furrowed. “What’s your favorite Halloween movie?” he asks, squirming in his beige bathrobe. This gives me pause. Come to think of it, I’m not much into Halloween movies. I ask if Scream qualifies. A few players nod, and so I lock in my answer.

Eventually the Dude folds Jacks, I flop an Ace and beat the shortie’s pear of Tens. Two hands later I bink a gutshot and win a nice one against Disco Steve. The Owl, sitting on my direct right, asks if I’m gonna win every pot. I raise two Aces and one of the limp-callers binks his gutter, I’m drawing dead on the turn. Not every pot, I tell him.

"The straight giveth, and the straight taketh," says Disco Steve.

To see better, the Owl moves to the 7 next Vietnam Wayne, an old white guy wearing a graffiti hoodie and a black hat with two revolvers pointing at each other and the words, STICK TO YOUR GUNS AMERICA (on the brim, in white lettering: IT’S YOUR RIGHT). Another local endboss strolls in sloppily dressed in a wolf onesie, hood off, the snout lolling down his back. He sits down at a nearby $1/$3 table with a stack of blacks and hoodies up.

“Behave yourself,” Dealer Jack’s telling someone at the podium, waving a police baton. He’s dressed in full uniform, silver badge, handcuffs, aviator shades, his Caesars badge jouncing on his snug blue trousers. On a whim, I order coffee with cream from Waitress Molly. She has cat ears and a frizzy black tail that dangles from her black miniskirt.

The Owl moves again, to the 10, and a white guy sits down with a frizzy black wig and black glasses. Three costumes in a row: lucky table. I ask if he’s Wayne from Wayne’s World. “Ozzy’s back,” he replies with a grin.

“That was my next guess,” the Dude says.

Bob's November Mini-Challenge [2/30]

Unfortunately her game diminished significantly as she moved from beer to bourbon. Hard to see Seth Curry not being at least half-good even without basketball in hand.

Poker seems so much more enjoyable in your stories than in real life! I guess much depends upon what literary conventions you believe are governing your fiction. Is the narrator really you? I mean, are you, the author, and the author's "I" one and the same? Did Ben, in actual reality, ship a rack of chips with AK from utg? I mean, I keep thinking the Professor is Professor Longhair for some reason (he seems just as cool/always stoned).

PS. It must be all the Halloween costumes that placed me in the above readerly space; that is, the logic of carnival, etc., seems to matter, which is strangely reassuring.

I'm glad an enjoyable impression is being conveyed, Dr.! Much better than a gloomy grind—although there can be some enjoyment in that, too, in the form of gallows humor etc. Whenever I log my mini-seshes I try to focus on the little things in cardroom life, which, in turn, will hopefully communicate poker's reality far better than any lengthy, abstract treatise (it certainly helps when you're gifted carnivalesque Halloween entertainment!). To quote the great Yo-Yo Ma:

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"If you look deeply enough at any object, any story, any song—no matter how familiar—you will find the world."

Is the narrator really me? Well, yes—and no. I think all narrators, whether fictional or nonfictional, are constructions. But to answer your question directly: it was indeed I, bob_124, who in reality shipped his rack into the middle two days ago. Pretty much everything I write is "nonfiction" in that sense. Where fictionalizing comes in for me, at times, is finessing and sculpting time for the sake of the story. Even if it's more factually true to recount A --> B--> C, I have no problem recounting A--> C --> B in order to reach a deeper emotional truth.

Maxine

I make the rare decision to enter through Harrahdise’s “back” entrance, the one that opens onto Convention Center Boulevard, so I can see where the donkaments will be happening. After I clear security I see dozens of empty cardtables by the food court, so I know Poker Gras must be in the main room. On my way over, I see a cane-clutching oldster with a back so bent his top half’s almost horizontal. He’s shuffling past the main cage with an unopened Ninja blender in his other hand—a Friday night trinket for Diamonds and Seven Stars, I’m guessing.

Six $1/$3s, two $5/$5 PLOs, one $5/$25 hold ‘em in the corner closest to the sportsbook, filled with the usual Big Boys. Table 6 has two open seats, the 2 and the 5, and today I feel like sitting in the middle of the table for a change. “I’m moving to that seat,” a Ninja-less oldster declares from the 8 Seat. With her frizzy gray hair and dark shades, she’s a dead ringer for Maxine, the sourpuss granny from the Hallmark cards.

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“You’re taller than me sitting down,” Mike G says, as I slide into the 2. I tap the table in greeting, fist-bump the superreg younghead on my right, and unrack my usual five bills. The table’s mostly populated by regs I vaguely know, apart from Maxine. You don’t often encounter players like her. She’s pushing eighty at least, and she involuntarily twitches when she enters a pot—which, it turns out, is every time she’s dealt two cards. Limp-calling's her forte, but occasionally she’ll toss in a raise. I figure she’ll be busto in an orbit or two.

“Hey, sweetie pie,” Mike says, leaning back in his seat to Waitress Justine, “I’ll have a glass of Chardonnay.” A few minutes later she brings the wine in a small plastic cup. Mike tips her a white.

After losing five small pots in a row, Maxine overlimps the button with pocket Jacks and wins a decent one. Back up to a hundo or so.

I feel a hand on my back, it’s Prissy, dressed in a black-gold blouse and black jeans. She tells me she’s hijacking tonight’s Gulf Coast Poker awards ceremony, all week she’s been collecting money to put towards gifts and a trophy for Wild Bill and Gene, as a way of thanking them for doing so much for the community over the years. I tell her I’ll see her upstairs at the party.

“I don’t know if I can do it, Bob,” Darlene tells me. She’s pitching cards to us with a black brace on her right wrist, a look of concerned exasperation on her face. “I don’t know if I’m gonna make it to retirement.” I ask how many more years she has. “Two more years. I don’t know if I can do it. I don’t know.” She tells me about Dealer Kathy—our cardroom’s resident grandmother, one of three remaining OG dealers who opened Harrahdise in 1999—how Kathy recently had a stroke and the casino wouldn’t pay for her short-term disability. Darlene shakes her head. “That’s sad. You been there that many years, you have a stroke, and they won’t pay you.”

Card dead for an hour. Instinctively reaching for my phone between hands, for no good reason. Maxine takes her two hundred from the 5 Seat back to the 8.

There's commotion at the Big Boys Game. Junior, the broiest of bros, a pudgy James Harden wearing a rapper's sweatsuit and hightop tongue-popped Jordans, is trash-talking with another burly black guy twenty or so years his senior, like poker father like poker son, it’s not clear if they’re bantering or legit beefing. They keep lobbing insults from one table to the other, Junior's out of his seat now with a ****-grin on his jubilant face, not so much addressing his frenemy as broadcasting to the whole room. “I ain’t never played baseball. I ain’t never played basketball. I ain't never played football. But this right here?” He points to his stack—towers of blacks and greens—"this is my SPORT! This is how I COMPETE!”

Then it’s Tiger Woods this and Michael Jordan that, Junior's gesturing at the dozens of screens behind him in the sportsbook, filled with large men carrying balls and hitting each other, most of us are rolling our eyes or wincing in delight at the flagrant unsurprising display of gigacringe. Even the semi-regs know Junior's gonna Junior.

I’m still card dead, swipe swipe swipe. A text pops up from Corvette Steve with a link to a clip of some poker influencer doing a bit. The video's titled POV: Your Friend is A Full-Time Poker Player, with the same youngish white guy playing both the coffee-sipping friend and the sleepy-eyed pro.

It’s weird, the pro tells his friend over breakfast. The more I play, the less I smile.

Fast-cut to the sympathetic friend saying, Oh, crap.

But it’s nice not dealing with co-workers. Only my inner demons. I do love the freedom. I can lose money anywhere in the world. And I don’t have to worry about 401Ks and health insurance. Because I don’t have any.

Fast-cut to the friend looking on with surprised concern.

And I actually prefer not having a steady paycheck, the pro continues. It’s more exciting.

Fast-cut to more concerned disbelief.

I’ve learned great discipline and patience. And pretending everything’s just fine. And I’ve met so many interesting joyful people. Just like me. And I finally learned how to control my emotions—by not having any at all. Honestly, it’s been great for me. I almost made minimum wage this month.

Well, congratulations, the friend says uncertainly. That’s awesome.

Spot on!!!!! I reply, along with a laugh-crying emoji.

“Hello. Welcome,” Supervisor Tim whispers into my right ear. He’s dressed in a lavender mobster suit, his spiky black hair pointing in about six directions, I concede the loss and tell him he got me good.

“You have your name upside down,” Mike tells him.

“Oh, no, I can read perfectly fine,” Tim says, glancing down at his inverted name tag with something like pride. “But thank you. Good looking-out.”

I ask Tim if he can think of another tournament series that’s gone for three weeks instead of the usual two. Aside from the World Poker Open at the Gold Strike Tunica back in the day, he can’t think of one. “Obviously Bill and Gene can do whatever they want,” I say. “I guess it’s just a question of”—I search for the right word—“buy-in fatigue? I don’t know what you’d call it.”

“That’s exactly what it is. That’s a good word for it.”

“Only so many bullets people can fire,” I say.

“Yeah. Unless you’re Mihail.” We both glance over at the Big Boys Game, where a bushy-bearded Greek guy’s yukking it up with Junior.

Tim returns to the back area, where he’s overseeing the final two tables of Event #1’s Flight C. A few minutes later I take a break to chat with Wild Bill. If I hadn’t randomly checked Facebook earlier in the day, I tell him, I wouldn’t have known the party’s tonight. I thought it was tomorrow. Which is good, because I’m playing a beeball tourney tomorrow. The tourney's got eight teams—three round-robin games followed by single-elimination playoffs. I’m not sweating whether we win or lose, these days it's all about playing hard and having fun and fading injury. “I’m not sure I could do that,” Bill tells me. “I might be the guy who tears his ACL going for a rebound.”

“That used to be me,” I say. I tell him about a grad school game when, after an especially atrocious call by the ref (who was just an undergrad, an unschooled volunteer), I started screaming at the kid, really laying into him, and almost in real time I caught myself thinking, Really? Is this really who you want to be? From there it was only a hop-skip from becoming one of those obnoxious fifty-something has-beens yelling at the refs during slow-pitch softball games, or an embittered Little League parent screaming at the ump from the stands.

“It’s nice that we have this,” Bill says, nodding at all the has-beens and never-beens who, like Junior, are seeking fleeting former glory or doing what they couldn’t do in the athletic arena: the cardroom as an outlet for competition. For winning. For crushing souls.

Maxine’s still on a stack of four bills now, still involuntarily twitching and playing one hundred percent of hands. Watching her play terribly and get rewarded, I'm reminded that only at the highest levels does poker resemble a sport (and even then, rarely). Here, in red chip hell, we're doomed to a perverted sort of competition. Seeking out the weakest opponents possible. Preying on the incompetent and the addled. For another thirty minutes I sit in my seat, feeling slightly sorry for myself because of all the trash I’m collecting and telling myself that I could use a break. But the main reason I don’t leave is because Maxine’s poised to punt, and I want to be here to make the catch.

Finally the big hand happens. For the last three hands she made it twenty to go, following up each pre-flop raise with a big flop bet that earned her the pot. Now she bumps it to twenty again and gets called in a bunch of places, flop Ace-Ten-Three, she bets big again and a younghead makes it $60. Maxine's twitching in her seat, pouting behind those big sunglasses, sloppily sliding in calling chips. Turn brick, the younghead shoves for a little under two bills and she snap-calls, he shows Ace-Queen, she shows Ace-Ten, easy game. Before Dealer Jack can push her the pot, she’s peering beneath the table for a rack. I’m sorry to see her go, but I have to admire the speed with which she’s hitting and running.

I play for another hour, and head upstairs to the GCP awards ceremony.

Bob's November Mini-Challenge [6/30]

I played my first real hockey game in 21.5 months last week after recovering enough from an injury to get back to it. I don't even qualify for the "playing hard" part any more, it's simply about getting out there / having fun / fading injury now.

GcluelessnotdeadyetnoobG

Every once and a while I'll catch myself chatting up one of the marks in the game and then think "oh cripes, how fricken predatory am I in this pursuit?!?". But an honest evaluation of my overall tablemate interaction convinces me I'm not as predatory as I think, as I chat up / joke with / etc. anyone who'll reciprocate, including the most winningiest players in our game.

Gnot100%evil,maybeonly75%?G

I'm anticipating a grudge match between sleepy-eyed pro and Maxine. It's conceivable that both players have "frizzy gray hair and dark shades". Neither has a 401k (Maxine spent hers on donkaments two years into retirement) but her unlikely edge consists of her still having health-insurance and the fact that she hasn't lost the ability to smile and/or show emotion, plus she generally avoids any kind of existential dread. Sleepy-eyed pro, despite being 40-odd years younger, is more susceptible to a stroke, due to the physical-emo cluster of undiagnosed stress, asociality and poor diet, and more likely to make a bad "hero" fold due to bankroll issues (for instance, laying down AK to Maxine's 4bet shove with KQ, the anti-climatic "ending" that would likely render the grudge obsolete, unless Sleepy-eyed manages to get lucky before blinding-out, but that's almost impossible to imagine, given Sleepy-eye's experience of variance up until this point in his life).

congrats on the return! Hope you felt good out there.

I played hard and had fun, but wasn't able to fade injury at the beeball tourney. Maybe, as Meat Loaf once sang, two out of three ain't bad?

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are pump fakes evil? asking for a friend

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thanks for providing even more evidence that you MUST start making content! (preferably Tik-Toks of beefs between poker world D-listers)

On the bright side, dead time is more often than not break even.

loldonkaments

Bob's November Mini-Challenge [16/30]

You're thread is epic. I have a lot of catching up to do. I probably haven't logged into 2+2 in 3 years.

Glad to see you are still golden sir.

Thanks for the kind words, Zombie! I'm grateful for readers like you. As you might guess from three years away from 2+2 (and perhaps poker): the more things change, the more they stay the same. Would love to hear how things are going with you.

Happy Thanksgiving, yall!

Stuck in the Middle

Thursday afternoon and I'm pulling a rare move, visiting Harrahdise after class. In at five, I’m sent to a sleepy $1/$3 in the corner. With only two donkament tables going, it looks like the Poker Gras Main Event's off to a slow start. One table away Wild Bill’s sitting alone on his phone, I go over and tell him it looks like he's working hard or hardly working.

“I’m just in my head.” Bill smiles wryly and says he doesn’t want to see any more Sevens. Rattles off a Seven-centric hand history about trip Kings losing to a rivered boat, then another, then another. Says he’s been on a downswing the last few months, which gets me speculating about how, regardless of whether you’re promoting tourneys or reporting on them, both modes are different from really playing, from being in flow. Before you know it the cardroom turns into happy hour or customer service, and playing well is just about the last thing on your mind.

The Sheriff wanders over with a registration slip, asks I’m playing the tourney, I shake my head and tell him I’m retired. “Semi-retired,” I add quickly, revising myself. "Gotta know your weaknesses."

He playfully raises an eyebrow. “Really? I thought you were some kind of legend.”

“Bad read, sir. I’m just here for some cash. And to support the team.” I give Bill’s shoulder a squeeze as I get up.

“I just told Bob three bad beat stories in three minutes,” Bill says.

I wave him off. “Bill’s like a priest at confessional, with all the bad beat stories he hears,” I tell the Sheriff. “He’s gotta let it out somehow.”

Bob's November Mini-Challenge [19/30]

Quack Quack

Late November, and the Beau’s holiday decorations are on full display. Fifteen-foot tall Nutcrackers, yipping huskies pulling sleds overflowing with wrapped presents, a sports car wearing a festive gold bow, the usual stuff. I hold my breath as I pass through Buffalo Zone, all the Sunday afternoon slot players tapping and puffing away, and make the left up the wheelchair ramp to the cardroom. Supervisor Kurt tells me it’s been too long, we fist-bump, he sends me to Seat 8, Table 1. I was here two days earlier, a short choppy session where I took almost an hour break to walk to the Hard Rock and sweat the end of the Pels game. Today I vow to institute my phone rule—the use of which is permitted only from utg and utg+1—so I can at least pretend to pay attention. Button straddle, the small blind folds, the big blind limps, I bump it up with Eight-Seven sooted, only the big blind calls. He’s a weathered southerner with the face of a disgraced Confederate general. Flop Ten-Six-Deuce, he checks I bet, quick call. Turn Five, he checks I bet, another quick call. The river’s a Queen, he checks I overbet jam all in. He folds, I instantly break my phone rule and type up the hand.

Lineup check. All men, unsurprisingly. I only recognize Seat 5, a portly talkative Latino guy I’ve played with many times—how many, I don’t know—who can’t get enough of PLO. In a limped pot he overshoves on an Eight-high flop and gets heroed by the general. “I only have one pair,” the Omaholic says, showing Queen Eight. “Do you have two pair?” The general shows a pair of Sixes and mucks in weary frustration, takes two bills from his wallet, requests green chips from the dealer. Now he’s sitting on $400.

The room’s humming, thanks to the noon donkament. Standing by the far wall next to the donkament crowd is another Latino guy, a Harrahdise-turned-Beau reg from the pre-pandemic days. Seeing him reminds me of the time when he came back from the bathroom one morning with a train of toilet paper stuck to his shoe. The other regs pointed and hooted for a while before telling him, and then he laughed sheepishly as he took it off.

I can’t remember his name.

The guy on my left, an east-Asian businessman, bumps it up to $16, the Omaholic makes it $35, the businessman makes it $135. “I can’t beat you,” the Omaholic says as he calls. The flop comes rags, the businessman jams and gets sigh-called. The Omaholic asks, “You have pocket Kings?” No. “Pocket Aces?” Yes. The businessman flashes the Ace of hearts. Turn brick, the Omaholic turns over two Queens, perhaps preparing to gloomily launch into bad beatisms, but the river’s a Queen.

“That’s why I showed it. So you put it out there,” the Omaholic tells the dealer.

I raise-fold Deuces from utg. Then I raise Ace-King, the businessman calls, and the small blind, a somber floppy-haired younghead, rips in his nub. I re-jam and beat his Tens.

Ace-Jack off in the small blind facing six limps, I 10x it and get two callers, flop Ace-Jack-Ten. I smallbet and get minraised by the 4 Seat, a Packers fan with only $100 behind, after I jam he can’t call fast enough. I tell him a straight’s good and table my hand. He shows Jack-Ten and can’t believe he’s behind.

The general pushes his stack over to the now-empty 4 Seat. I wish him luck and he shrugs. “Caint be any worse than right here.”

The 9 Seat moves over to the 1. He’s a lightskinned black guy with a kind, dreamy face—a gambler’s face—dressed in a black tee and sweats and Nike crosstrainers. He keeps glancing at the betting slip in front of him, I ask him what he’s got today. “I got a parlay. Seven-teamer.” He slides it closer. Five bucks to win twenty-two hundred.

"Oh, my Lord. That's a sick one," I say. Looking a little closer, I add, "You know the Thunder are gonna win."

"And I got a little upset special,” he says, pointing to the Jazz-Lakers. “The Lakers always get comfortable, they relax against easy teams.”

“You ready for this? I got ten dollars on the Jaguars to win the Super Bowl,” the Omaholic says. “They do it, I get $800. I put ten dollars on the Mavericks to win the NBA Championship. They do it, I get $800.”

“I like the Jaguars more than the Mavs,” I tell him.

“You never know! Everybody could get hurt.”

Jacks in the big, the somber younghead makes it fifteen over a limp, we get it in and it’s another race. Your turn, I tell him, and it is: his Ace King wins.

One table over, there’s a guy I played with two nights earlier who has one of the coolest tattoos I’ve seen in a while. He’s a white guy in his sixties or seventies, another stoic southerner, with a black crow perched on his left forearm. What makes the tat cool is how the crow’s two legs and its tail resemble a dagger, the long sharp end of which points at his big gold wristwatch.

The businessman on my left busts, he’s replaced by a dapper deeper-pocketed clone of himself. The clone doesn't worry me. I’ve seen him around.

Folding, thinking about the dream I had last night. It’s about thirty minutes before tipoff at a college beeball game and I’m missing part of my uniform—my shoes, I think, or maybe my shorts—and I’m wandering through the bowels of the away team's stadium, searching for our locker room. I can’t find it. The more I search, the farther away I get. Soon I’m outside, frantically wandering into and out of a nearby middle school, and then back into the stadium where hundreds of fans are streaming inside, someone recognizes me and helpfully offers to show me the locker room, but I lose him. In the back of my mind the whole time is the grim knowledge that it doesn’t matter whether I can dress and warm up before tipoff, I’m not going to play anyway.

I take a pee-walk break, and when I get back there’s some new players, one of whom is a yet another old white southerner in a black derby fleece. On a Queen-Eight-Eight-Deuce-Six board, he bets a hundo into $75 and gets two folds. Before he drags the pot he reaches into his fleece's pocket and takes out some sort of wooden whistle, which makes a quacking sound when he blows on it. Then he shows pocket Deuces and smiles.

A little later, I flop a set of Deuces and get all the money in. “I could use that whistle,” I say, tabling my hand. Back out comes the whistle and the smile.

QUACK QUACK

Bob's November Mini-Challenge [24/30]

November Recap

There was an interesting graph in a recent Washington Poast article about the mega-outsized influence that "The Magnificent Seven" tech stocks are having on the S&P 500.

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Thankfully the vast majority of my net worth is in gold and baby dogecoin #grateful #foolmeonce #betonyourself

Speaking of smart betting, this month I belatedly flicked in my first-ever online sports bet. A buddy told me about a DraftKings promo in which, if you place one $5 bet with odds of +200 or longer, you unlock three free months of NBA League Pass. If you lose the bet, you lose your five bucks; if you win, you earn eight $25 Bonus Bets. Intrigued, I downloaded the app and flicked in the Lakers -12.5 against the Jazz (#inLehhbronwetrust). The Lakers won—by 14!—and suddenly I was deluged by Bonus Bets. Long story short, I turned the $200 in theoretical dollars into $123 of cold hard digital cash, which can only mean one thing.

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more baby doge incoming.

where are we and how did it come to this

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the front of his shirt says...

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fluffballs begrudgingly reunited

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nom nom

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I had a familiar moment this weekend when, upon waking up from a nap, I had absolutely no desire to follow through on my plan of playing poker. Knowing that I would fail to hit my November mini-challenge, I blew off the evening sesh in favor of the gym + swimming + getting high + canoodling. It appears that I'm improving at failing. Progress?

Bob's November Mini-Challenge [24/30]