...an ace that I could keep.

Here it is - the last of the last. It's the touchy-feely part. Everyone hold hands, and join me in singing Kum-Ba-Yah. I'll solo the "Someone's crying" verse.

Seriously though…it seems as the most commonly asked question is if I enjoyed the experience. The answer is "mostly, no". The poker part, I did not enjoy at all. It was frustrating and demoralizing. And since poker was the entire reason for the trip, it made things miserable for the most part. However, I wouldn't say I was in agony, despite some posts that would imply otherwise. Before I left for Vegas, I checked out some other poker blogs and found that the ones I enjoyed most were the ones that talked about other aspects of life in addition to poker. There was one in particular that many other bloggers were talking about, and this blogger was describing, over a series of posts, an agonizing divorce from his wife. Based on the reactions of other bloggers, and the comments on the divorcee's blog, I saw that other people felt the same way as I did - that real, honest, and heartfelt reporting was interesting. So I decided to do my best to put it all out there, good or bad. Since it's unusual for a guy to be open about doubt, frustration, and similar feelings, it may have seemed like things were worse than they were. But I don't think I felt much differently than most guys would have in my position - it just wasn't filtered by machismo.

Perhaps a better question is, “Are you glad you did it?” The answer to that is definitely “yes”. My main goal was to see what it felt like to be a poker pro. To me, that existence would encompass a spectrum of two general states – running good, and running bad. Unfortunately, I did not go through the “running good” version, so I may never know what it feels like to “have to” play poker every day, while you are being successful. But I did get a feeling for the other part. And I can say with some authority, "Yuck." It was very difficult for me on a personal level, and it was difficult to get online and write about it for most of my friends, family, and even a few strangers. Still, I cannot imagine what it would feel like if the audience was comprised of your wife and children, and your winnings were needed to provide for their food and shelter. Talk about immense and relentless pressure.

As for all of the non-poker related aspects of the trip, I can’t imagine them being more enjoyable than they were. I was fortunate enough to have a long list (for me, anyway) of visitors, and people to visit with. Also, I will never forget the support, encouragement, emails, phone calls, care packages etc. sent my way by so many of you – that was incredible, it meant a lot, and it really, really helped.

Also, the whole experience of blogging has been remarkable. As you may have guessed, I like to write. It’s been gratifying to read your positive responses and hear that the work I’ve put into this has been appreciated. The posts and the comments were a major aspect of my “social life” and helped me feel connected to the real world. I have little doubt that I will be blogging again someday. In fact, one idea I’ve been tossing around is making a movie…camcorder quality, with ambitions of kitschy humor. I’m thinking along the lines of a zombie-based musical love story, but who knows? Anyway, the process of making a movie would surely make for an interesting blog, and the online community might also make some contributions. If you would be interested in following along with such an endeavor and I don’t already have your email address, send it to me.

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So my dad called the other night and wanted to get a summary of the trip. I told him what I thought. And then, I got to hear what he thought.

Now, you should understand that my family is, by today’s standards, rather firmly on the conservative side. I suppose I should clarify; my parents have certainly had their progressive streaks, but these forays into the “wild side” were always more along the lines of vegetarian diets, geodesic domes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geodesic_dome) and the like. That is to say, their adventuresome endeavors were related to the methods by which someone might live their life, but not the morality. The latter was always dictated by their devout belief in the Catholic faith.

That morality, combined with my father’s intellect, makes him an interesting person to talk with. He has the ability to arrive at his own conclusions, and not just select one from those that are presented to him. He also prefers to guide his opinions and actions with his strict principles and religious beliefs, neither of which change based on the circumstance or the audience. I admire his convictions and value his opinion, and over the last few years he’s given me several things to think about that I doubt I could have gotten anywhere else.



Up until a couple of nights ago, he’d never really said anything against poker. He’d listened to me talk about it on more than a few occasions, but had remained neutral. Of course, neutrality would have been the most favorable stance I could have expected him to take on such a subject. Yet I suspected there was always some amount of distaste; it just hadn’t been brought up.

Earlier this week, it finally did come out. The first part had to do with the nature of poker’s competition. He likened it to a bunch of little boys playing king of the hill, where the only way to be the victor is to step on everyone else on your way to the top. He brings up a good point. Most of the time, I don’t feel badly about this. But there have been occasions on which I was not sure about the ease with which my opponents could part with the money they were losing. And I can think of several players at the Hustler who I am sure are losing thousands of dollars a year, and they don’t look particularly well-to-do. The one that immediately comes to mind plays poorly and also loses his temper regularly (Mat, you will remember him as the gentleman who bizarrely refused to push his chips into the pot, after an all-in where I had aces full of twos, because he hadn’t heard me say “Call”). Anyway, if there were a true or false test with “That guy is a gambling addict” as one of the questions, I’d have to mark down a T. So yeah, there are times, when I’m winning, that I feel like I might be taking money from someone that needs it a lot more than I, and/or someone that can’t control themselves. And even if that’s not the case, it is always a game where in order for me to succeed, someone else must fail. That is why comraderie at a poker table, if it’s even real, is probably the shallowest of all. Everyone there is against you, and you’re against everyone else. For this reason, I don’t like playing for real money against my friends. Lose or win, I don’t feel good about it. Well, OK…lose, I don’t feel good about it. Ha!

That sort of feeds into my dad's subsequent suggestion. He talked briefly about a man who organized a softball team for some kids (or something like that) and said that I’d likely get more enjoyment, and be more fulfilled, doing something philanthropic – something that was good for people other than just myself. Again, I must agree. After so many evenings spent at a poker table, I can’t say I’ve ever walked away feeling fulfilled in a spiritual sense. In fact, it is really difficult for me to pinpoint exactly why I play. I do love competition, especially that which requires strategy, ingenuity, and mental toughness. I am sure that is a major reason why I go – to exercise these skills, and to test them against like-minded people. The other primary motivator is, without a doubt, money. It was really a strange thing last year, to discover that I could walk into a casino on any given evening and expect to walk out a few hours later with several hundred dollars more in my pocket. I wasn’t dating anyone then, and I had a lot of free time, so I went quite often…often enough, in fact, to make people allude to addiction.

But I digress. The point my father was trying to make is that there are certainly better ways to spend my time. When I told Amy about this, she initially thought of it as possible criticism, but I am sure that’s not what it was. My dad was trying to get me to think about other things, because he believed it would be better for me, and better for the people around me. And I go back to one of my first posts again – the one where my plan was being questioned, before I even left. I appreciate when people tell me what they really feel, if they are doing it in the spirit of guiding me towards what they believe is a better path.

Well, I’m not giving up poker. In fact, among my other silly ideas is a quest to some day get into the World Series of Poker main event, via one of these online satellite tournaments. I figure I would allocate a maximum of $1000 annually towards such a goal, and I’ll probably try at least a few this year. However, in regards to more wholesome activities, I was able to tell my father that Amy and I have settled on a goal of 72 hours (apiece) of charity work for this year. We’d set this goal in mid-January, and done one or two activities before I left for Vegas. Now that I’ve returned to Los Angeles, we will be picking up where we left off. The obvious joke here is that I should volunteer to help out the Gamblers Anonymous organization…etc. etc. Too easy! Anyway, hopefully the good deeds will balance out any negatives from poker, so I won't slide into the karmic abyss. Purgatory, here I come!

Oooh - I just had a scary thought. I bet all they play in Purgatory is $2-$4 limit. Aaaaauuuuggghhhh!!! That would drive me crazy!

Well folks, what do you say? One more Hand of the Day, for old times’ sake? Why not?

HAND OF THE DAY:
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(I'm going to ignore the hand in today's lunchtime tourney, in which I had Mary Kate dominated and all-in pre-flop (AK vs. KQ) and she sucked out a straight to cripple me. She'd told me she was going to do this on Wednesday. You've heard it all before...I made the mistake of going in with the best hand).

So let's go back in time, about 6 months. The reason this hand of the day is so interesting is that it supports my contention that, no matter how well you play, someone with no clue can come along and bust you. Since that is my excuse for the last five weeks, let me give you an extreme example. Due to the length of time, and especially the fact that I was not in the hand, I am fuzzy on the cards and details, but the essence of the hand is as written.

I was back in Virginia over the Thanksgiving holiday and staying with my sister (Kristy) and her husband (Babak). Babak is an enthusiastic and skilled card player (poker and other games), and he knew I’d been hitting the Hustler and winning. I’m pretty sure he’d been dying for a shot at the title, a la the fight scene at the end of Lethal Weapon (me being Mel Gibson, the titleholder, of course). Kristy wanted in on the action too, just to see what the fuss was all about with this poker thing. So we agreed to hold a three-person, no-limit Texas hold ‘em tourney in the kitchen.

The difficult part was determining the stakes. My conscience prevented me from making it monetary, but as I well knew, playing poker without meaningful stakes is like driving to North Dakota; it takes a lot of time, and there's really no point to it. So we had to come up with a strong, non-monetary incentive. Finally, I suggested that whoever lost the tournament would be required to sing Kenny Rogers’ tune “The Gambler” the next day, in front of the whole family, at Thanksgiving dinner. Babak and Kristy agreed, and it was on. Was it ever on!!

It soon became apparent that Kristy was the player to avoid. She played without remorse, without thought, and completely without fear. In retrospect, the tourney buy-in for Babak and me was a heck of a lot higher than it was for her. First of all, she’s a decent singer, and used to being a center of attention during musical performances. Second, her losing a tournament against the Twin Towers of Poker Ego would not be humiliating in the least; she would be expected to lose. For Babak and me, however, the prospect of losing to a sister, wife, or in-law is only slightly preferred to death, and death itself is slightly preferred to the prospect of singing "The Gambler" to a Thanksgiving dinner audience.

So we battled for a while, and Kristy had taken a decent chip lead. I was hanging in there with roughly the same amount I started with, and Babak was feeling the pressure with the short stack. So he fires out with a significant pre-flop raise. I forget the exact amount, but I’m going to put it at about 1/5 of his stack. This was a significant amount, and Kristy called. I folded, glad to be out of the hand.

Flop, I believe, was AKx, or something like that. Babak bets heavily again, and Kristy calls.

Turn – another A. Babak now goes all in, and Kristy calls.

Now Kristy turns over her hand and shows that she has absolutely nothing – no pair, no realistic draw, nothing. It was something like Q high or J high. Surely, there is no way she is going to win the hand…until Babak flips over his cards to show something like 6-2, with no pair either. Ha! I was dying laughing. He was bluffing like crazy against someone that didn’t know they were supposed to lay down their hand. It was even funnier when Kristy revealed that she had called because when she saw the pair of aces on the board on the turn, she had somehow interpreted that as meaning she alone was the beneficiary of that pair. To this day I am confused as to what her exact thought process was, but the end result (me not singing at Thanksgiving dinner) was pretty sweet. Just like that, I had yet another thing to be thankful for! For the record, Babak lived up to his end of the bargain.

Thanks also to all of you who have been with me throughout this journey. It’s been fun playing and writing, with you and for you. Hopefully, there’s an ace you can keep in here somewhere.

Play well, everyone!