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

#themoaryouknow

Nice bounceback for OKC yesterday. I hope injuries don't determine the winner of what might be an epic playoff series...

Given his stupendously impressive Hendon, I'm sure Captain POB is available for both poker and life coaching! He did invent Pai Gow after all 😀

denying the cardroom to watch Wembee crush...sounds like something I would do

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Los Pollos Hermanos

“I’m about as good as I can be,” Supervisor Roy says from behind the podium, when I greet him on Saturday early evening. “If things get a little better, I might get out of here by six.”

Roy wishes me luck and sends me to Table 8, Seat 3. I’m in a good mood, was looking forward to playing today, I unrack my chips and fold a hand and scurry over to Fat City Nick’s table, where he’s swiveling his chair in preparation for a massage. I give his muscular neck a friendly squeeze, Mike G.-style, and tell him that his black white beater should be outlawed, people shouldn't have to be in the presence of someone this buff.

“There’s so much wrong with this shirt,” the massage therapist agrees.

I scurry back and fold another one. From a nearby table Work Harder comes over, asks me about the podcast I recommended to him a while back. DGAF’s Sessions, I tell him.

Within minutes Server Terry appears like a guardian angel with my coffee with cream, I tip him a white chip.

“Move! Get out of the way!” crows a superreg as he weaves between tables in his blue mobility scooter.

"Damn," Dealer Lyndon says with an amused smile, watching him scoot away.

“You know who you look like?" the out-of-towner on my left asks him. "Gus, from Breaking Bad!"

"Co-sign," I say.

Lyndon smiles knowingly, says he get it all the time. The out-of-towner starts cackling. "Gus is scary, bro! I always thought he's about to kill somebody. What's his restaurant?"

"Los Pollos Hermanos."

I'm coming in hot, typing up notes like a writing junkie. Time to institute the phone rule, only UTG and UTG+1.

The first hand I vpip is Seven-Nine of diamonds facing two limps on the button, raisy daisy, they both call. I bet a Nine high flop, get check-raised by a cowboy on my right. Fold.

Next orbit I button straddle, only the cowboy limps, I bump it up with Ace-Six of clubs, he calls. Flop King-Six-Five, I sprinkle in a little something, he calls. Turn Ace, oh hi there, I bet again and he whips out another check-raise for most of his stack. Not folding this one.

"Two pair," he confidently declares.

Sorry sir, Ace-Five off no good.

“It’s so loud in here,” Dealer Dan says when he arrives at 8:30. "Can’t hear nothin."

The Knicks are pulling away from the Cavs, and I'm torn. Stay til the end of the game, or head out early for a slice of pizza? I take out my phone, check the weather, see the evening thunderstorms rolling in. Pizza it is.

Bob's Spring Minichallenge
[45/150]

I like this. I'll be instituting this from now on.

Is that podcast still going strong? I gave up on it 1-2 years ago, but loved his blog back then and the 2+2-like community that he built up a few years ago and that was quite engaging with thought-provoking posters on there (but it died off a few years back, unfortunately...). The only thing that I disliked about DGAF's character - and I struggle to write this, as he gave A LOT to the poker community and seems like a kindred soul... -, is that he seemed stuck in a vicious circle as far as his mismanagement of money went/BRM combined with being too splashy on the streams (which affected his direct EV/overall money management imho...), hence the narrative of his podcast seemed to always loop as well... But I sincerely hope he is doing well though ♥

godspeed. what a treat it'll be to start my summer "challenge" and go off screen and off grid

part of his podcast's strange appeal, to me, is its plotlessness: you can tune into any episode in any season, zoom forward or backwards fifteen minutes and it won't matter, the content is always the same (what you've described is spot-on: reflections on bankroll mismanagement and variance and good-for-the-gameism, with some parenting discussion mixed in). To me it's the most accurate representation of what it's actually like to be a gambler—always chasing, always stuck in some sort of ludic loop.

cliffs: Nothing has changed in DGAFland

I think I was one of the first subscribers to Sessions.

I've known DGAF for a long time and feel for him in his never ending struggle to "come back up" and I used to listen to every episode but no longer.

Sessions in recent months has seemed to me basically a combination of stories about his kids basket ball endeavors and "poor me" complaints about working too hard and running bad at poker (and much of that run bad sounds at least to me somewhat self inflicted from the hands he describes).

I still pay the small monthly fee but rarely listen these days.

Nice description ♥

I too have a soft-spot for DGAF, in a similar way to Dubnjoy, having followed the earlier 2+2 thread and then listened to Sessions in its early stages for some years. Let's not forget the other podcast, with DGAF's psychiatrist friend, which was honest and revealing and very helpful. In some respects, even though I haven't listened to it for some time, I recall Sessions as a kind of dirty realism: a romanticised take on the poker lifestyle, with the broken marriage, coaching the kids basketball team, money issues, the borrowed accommodation, the once-celebrated Lexus on verge of collapse, the beer drinking etc., all tied together with wit and pathos in a timeless loop. It's not up to me to pass judgement on the role of variance and bankroll management in his life (since I don't know him IRL only "the DGAF persona") but I can say he has provided a longitudinal document of the poker-abyss, for which I'll be forever grateful.

Yes indeed, and I remember listening to his interview of you during those early days 😀

Good to hear from you jrr. How's Tucson and CDS? I miss our meetups.

well said as usual, Dr., esp the bolded. It sounds like the four of us, and probably many others, greatly appreciate DGAF and his contributions, warts and all

I'm always glad to see your posts appear - and I'm stlll waiting for your book on poker room life 😀 I too miss our yearly meetups when you came to visit your folks.

I haven't been out to CDS in some time - the "big game" died and I have not felt the urge to drive all the way out there for 1-3 games.

The good news is the new CDS on Grant Road and I-10 will open this summer it appears - I'm hoping the new venue will reinvigorate poker in Tucson assuming they have a poker room in the new facility.

Thanks for the updates 😀 If and when a western road trip presents itself, I'll be sure to swing back through. In the meantime, wishing you some rungood with the new casino opening and access to games. Harrahdise still continues to him along, but it's nowhere near where it was when I moved here ten years ago.

Nickel Slots

In at 640, squeeze between two OGs, I ask the Owl how he's making it. "Not bad, for an old man," he says. He's wearing a white bowler hat with a black band, but what always jumps out are those fierce, bushy white eyebrows.

“Four hands in a row,” Gandalf says, and I strap myself in. He’s wearing a black Hard Rock Biloxi windbreaker, blue jeans, thick gray socks pulled high on his shins. “Kings and Fours, I got run down by a diamond on the river. I had a high pair, lost to an overpair. I flopped a flush draw, saw a turn and a river and didn’t hit—that cost me three hundred dollars.” Before he can rattle off the fourth bad beat, he’s distracted by another hand.

Totally forgot the Weekly’s running tonight, I’m dangerously close to being retired from donkaments. Three tables, half-filled with people I recognize. Peace is sitting with his back to me in tight teal hoodie. Behind the Owl, the high hand promo's ticking. The current leader is Four Aces with a King. “How much time’s left?” the Owl asks Gandalf, who scrunches his craggy face and glaces at the clock: two minutes, twenty-two seconds. “That’s a long time to wait.”

“You’re retired. You can wait,” Gandalf says.

No last-second drama, the Owl scoops the promo for a black chip. In the donkament area Peace is out of his seat, he strolls over to the podium and fishes out a few chips for a rebuy. I make friendly eye contact and say, “They got you?”

“I just called a guy’s all in with pocket Threes. I was ahead!”

“There you go! But you gotta hold.”

“Didn’t hold.” He pats the Owl on the back. “You gotta watch this man right here. He’s a shark.” He heads back into the fray, sits in a seat facing me, head down. Bald in the front, strawberry man bun in the back.

The Owl eyes me and says, “Remind me his name.”

“Peace. Like War and Peace. He’s one of the most famous charter fishermen....”

Behind us, a woman's shrieking on the playing floor. “Somebody hit something,” Gandalf says, mostly addressing the Owl. “Jubilee Casino. This was years ago. I was playing poker. My wife was sitting there with, and people were screaming playing their nickel slot machines. I says, ‘Jesus! Lemme go see what they hit.’ So I go over”—

Another OG swoops in from a nearby table and captures the Owl’s attention. All night Frank’s been ping-ponging back and forth, trading tibits of hands and summer plans—he’s flying out to Vegas for the second weekend of the Senior’s Event—just as Gandalf's dealt a flop-worthy hand. I can feel his nickel slots story languishing, doomed to be forgotten forever unless I choose to rescue it from the Balrog’s abyss.

"So what happened?" I ask Gandalf, when the hand's over. He blinks at me. I try again. “What happened at Jubilee?”

“Oh! They was screaming. I told my wife I’m gonna see how much they winning. I went over there, they’re pulling on them nickel machines, one-armed bandits, we called em back then."

"They wasn’t hitting nothing, huh?” the Owl says.

“No no, they was hitting. They was hitting five, maybe ten nickels. If they hit twenty, I think that was a big hit for them. But they was putting in a nickel at a time, and if they hit something—whooooo!"

"Wherever you get the excitement," I say.

"Some people just go and have a good time. I used to do that playing Pai Gow. I played that for fun." Gandalf eyes his stack, down now to a nub. "I just screwed up. I had Ace-Ten, thought it was the Ace-Ten of diamonds, it was actually an Ace of diamond with the Ten of hearts. I shouldn’t have even played that hand."

Peace busts again. “It’s like the Wild West over there,” he tells us on his way to the podium. Time for bullet number three.

Bob's Spring Minichallenge
[48/150]

by DrTJO m

Props for encouraging Andrew Brokos to play live poker again (and to think about "villains" as being parts to a sum that amounts to a community, albeit with a few caveats, like not talking too much at the table):

https://www.thinkingpoker.net/2026/05/episode-498-sam-greenwoods-punt-of-the-day/

Thinking Poker

Episode 498: Sam Greenwood's Punt of the Day - Thinking Poker

I fear I don't remember the details of what we talked about, but glad to hear of a bob_124 shoutout!

I am, incidentally, a subscriber to Greenwood's punt of the day, and it's an enjoyable read—totally unique in the poker content creation space imo.

In the Year 2525

After his third bustout, Peace calls it quits. He hops into a $1/$3 around seven, just as Gandalf’s saying goodnight. Another old white guy replaces him, I ask how it’s going. “I’m here.” He’s wearing a Lodge hoodie and a green camo hat that reads, IRAQ-AFGHANISTAN VETERAN.

A few minutes later Mike G takes the 1 Seat, dressed in a snug black button-down. Along with his trimmed gray mustache, he still has tanned sturdy arms after all these years. UTG raises to 15, two calls, Mike bumps it to 65 from the big, only UTG calls. Flop Jack-Six-Deuce two spades, check check. Mike pots the Nine of spades turn and, after UTG folds, shows three Jacks. “Good start,” he says.

After he gets settled from stacking chips, he tells me about his newest creation. Over the years he's made a good bit of music—he's the lyricist, a good friend the vocalist—and they recently finished another collab. "I used Jenny, my red-headed Scottish friend, as my chief critic, because she was a professional opera singer and she don’t bite her tongue," Mike tells me. "Well, when we finished the CD, she said, 'Nah. it’s too monotone.' So my son comes to me and says, 'Dad, I can put that into AI. It can reproduce vocals and instrumentals.' I said nah. But he did it anyway, and he brought me two songs. I listened to them and sent them to Jenny, my critic, and she said, 'Mike, it went from dud to hit. The songs were making me cry!'"

I ask if he told her that they were AI-generated.

"Oh, yeah. She knew. Bob, I gotta tell you, the vocals they produce…it’s beyond unbelievable.”

“So you’re a convert.”

“Partially. I don’t like AI. It could replace my books.”

“It could replace more than just books.”

"What are books?” Dealer Jack asks.

“And militarily,” Mike continues, “it can be very dangerous. Robots will be making decisions. Along with people like Trump.”

“We’ve got a lot to look forward to,” I say.

“You remember the song '2525'? It’s about the robots taking over. Look it up."

“It’s supposed to refer to the year 2525?"

"Yes. It came out in the sixties."

"We’re like 500 years ahead of schedule."

Mike chuckles. "They had a news break yesterday that

https://www.cnn.com/2026/05/25/climate/new-orleans-sea-level-rise-relocation

CNN

Rising seas will swallow New Orleans. Relocation planning must start now, scientists say | CNN

“Yeah, yeah,” I say, waving off the story like an annoying fly. “I think the robots will get us before the ocean gets us.”

The PA clicks on, Mike’s table change is ready. He wishes us luck and gives me a look. “2525,” he reminds me. I assure him I’ll check it out.

Yeah the bob_124 shoutout was academy-award like. The back-to-back interviews with Andrew Lichtenberger and Sam Greenwood were a treat. Cliffs: to be a long-term winner/survivor/happy-being in poker you need to be somewhat abnormal, highly rational and open-minded (although the unflappable, cowboyish, cool-cat Phil Ivey/Doyle archetype is probably still dominant in the mainstream arena).

Yeah, both enjoyable. Don't forget the importance of, a la Chewie, a belief in aliens!

So, you're yet to receive an invitation to their game? Time to work on those soft-skills.

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the TROOTH is out there!

I admit I'm skeptical whenever I hear about alien encounters, as I was when listening to Chewy's, but it just so happens that I grew up in the once-UFO capital of the US (or perhaps second place to Area 51), a tiny New York town called

https://hvmag.com/life-style/they-came-from-pine-bush/

Hudson Valley Magazine

They Came From Pine Bush

Table Change

In at five, I’m sent to Table 1, Seat 5, in between the Human Solver and Miss Nikki. On her right is a math teacher I’ve played with plenty of times before. He gets into a hand with Seat 1, a sassy oldster wearing an Arsenal hat and a long white ponytail. The Arsenal fan bets on an all-heart flop and the math teacher, who’s wearing a solid black sweater and a gold fleur-de-lis by his heart, calls. Turn brick, check check. River Ace, check, bet, fold. The Arsenal fan flashes a card before dragging the pot.

About a minute goes by. “What did you show?” the math teacher asks.

“The Ace of hearts.”

“Anything with it?”

“Just a three. No flush.”

The math teacher nods wearily. “I’m zoned out. I spent hours in the tournament just to bust in seventh place.” He puts on a pair of black headphones, starts tapping on his phone.

King-Deuce: flick. Ten-three: flick. Queen-Four: flick. Over the years I’ve gotten proficient at the one-finger flick-fold. Check my cards, stack one atop the other facing the dealer, and flick—they dart across the purple baize to join the rest of the trash.

The Owl and Miss Joan arrive, and suddenly our table’s reg-infested. Tonight I’m hankering for a little variety, so I request a table change. Supervisor Stephen sends me to Table 8, Seat 3, facing the sportsbook.

“‘How you doing,’ said the spider to the fly.” Mr. Roy smiles and quickly says, to prevent any confusion, “I’m the fly.”

The rest of the lineup’s filled with unfamiliar male faces. The 4 Seat, a youngish bro in a Brazilian jujitsu hoodie, is wearing a black ballcap that I like. On the front—THE BIG EASY, etched in purple. On the side—a neon pink OPEN hovering above a purple skyline. Behind the ear lurks a grinning green gator. Earlier today, my girlfriend was lamenting how men don’t compliment each other’s appearance enough. And not only that: men should buy other men flowers. I don’t disagree, but I wouldn’t do such a thing. I occasionally will, however, compliment another man’s hat. I decide to time my compliment during a lag in the action, after we’ve both folded pre, but one of us keeps getting hands. Then he beats me to the conversational punch, turning to me with a glimmer in his eye.

“You got any bets in?”

I do, as a matter of fact. Spurs moneyline, Wembee 27+ points, Wembee 11+ rebounds. Another shitty parlay.

“That’s a good bet,” he says.

“I like that hat,” I say. “You from here?”

“Just down the road. Gonzalez.”

“I know it. Not far from Baton Rouge.”

“Yeah.” He leans back in his seat and gazes at the blindingly bright sportsbook. “I used to play at L’Auberge."

“I've played there. Every time I go, the room gets smaller and smaller.”

“Yeah. I heard it used to be quite the room.”

I play for another hour. Mostly uneventful apart from flopping trips against a shortstack who limps into my button straddle with Ace-King. Thanks to his gift, I’m officially unstuck for the year. With just a little more luck, the Spurs will pull out a win.

Bob's Spring Minichallenge
[50/150]

by bob_124 m

the TROOTH is out there!I admit I'm skeptical whenever I hear about alien encounters, as I was when listening to Chewy's, but it just so happens that I grew up in the once-UFO capital of the US (or perhaps second place to Area 51), a tiny New York town called

https://hvmag.com/life-style/they-came-from-pine-bush/

Hudson Valley Magazine

They Came From Pine Bush

. Communion, a memoir that inspired the film Fire in the Sky, happened a mile or so from my house. I never did ... See full post

Having alien-adjacent origins is worth the brag. All I can say is that I'm old enough to have seen ET when it was first screened. I didn't know what an "M&M" was until then, which, at the time, seemed more significant than the "we're not alone" narrative.

I think I'd have to go with Alien as my favorite alien movie, with Predator as a close second, but I'd much rather hang with ET

May Recap

Before I head for the hills, let's take a gander at my two Spring mini-challenges.

[quote=]Bob's May Mini-challenge: poast every day itt
penalty for failure: ship one lucky reader the entirety of my Draftkings balance[/quote]

this was fairly easily achieved, although there was definitely a non-zero chance that I'd simply forget to poast. But I didn't, and so I made it through the month (a) denying marknfw yet again; and (b) failing to incinerate my Draftkings account balance. Surely you deserve a $25 freeroll for participating, don't you, mark? Only stipulation is that action needs to be Spurs-Knicks related—just lemme know your preferred bet and if you win I'll ship over the moniez. I don't see any NBA boosts in my account at the moment (it's generally been a 25% boost up to $25), but if that changes I'll let you know.

Bob's Spring Minichallenge
[50/150]

Shoulda known this would be overambitious, given that I've mostly been in writing jail all spring. I'm not quite finished cardplaying, though. Will log one or two more sessions before I leave Nola, with the possibility a few more on my way up to Vermont. For now will continue updating.

moar free money

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fantasy poker roster

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bookshelf hijacking

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another road trip? really??

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