I used to say, "I have the bladder of a pregnant woman." Then, my wife got pregnant and still lasted longer between trips to the head than me. The Otis family bladder is pretty legendary. It defies all marketing plans about the distance between truck stops and laughs out loud at medical studies. If you were to put my father, brother, and me in a car for a road trip to Vegas and someone offered you an over/under bet on the number of times we'd stop to use the restroom, you should take the over--no matter what the line was.

Here's a confession I think I've only made to one person in my life.

Back in the late 90s, my relationship with Mrs. Otis was only a couple of years old. I lived in Jackson, Mississippi. She lived in Columbia, Missouri. I made the drive up to my old college town about once every two weeks. I'd get off work around 6pm, grab a bag of sunflower seeds and two one-liter bottles of Diet Mountain Dew. Even if I drove like a crazy person, the drive usually took around eight hours. I could cut 20 minutes off the trip if I only stopped for gas. I don't think I have to tell you that I saved the lids off the one-liter soda bottles for a reason.

Why do I bring it up now? Well, as I might have mentioned a few weeks back, I am an occasional reader of high-stakes no-limit grinder Leatherass9's blog. He recently made a confession on his blog to which I can relate--at least to the degree that I know where he's coming from, if not related to poker and EV. Here's a quick synopsis...the guy figured out how much he was costing himself to get up and go to the bathroom. He wrote, "So it essentially cost me $100 to pee. Twice a day makes that $200 and if I play about 250 days a year (very conservative estimate) that means it costs me $50,000 a year to pee which was more than I used to make at my old job!"

While I've never been serious enough about poker to pee in a bottle (I wonder what Jim Croce would've sung about that), I have put significant thought into how urination and poker go together. See, I've never understood people who take multiple breaks during poker tournaments. I know a couple of people who will take one or two smoke breaks per level (not including the official breaks) of major poker tournament. Leaving the table for a nic-fix or to go to the bathroom requires more than a "I want it" or "I gotta go." One should take into consideration a wide variety of factors. If leaving the table, it should be done in such a way that you give up as little positional advantage as possible while not missing any of your blinds. Thus, there are only a couple of times during an orbit when you can leave the table.

During that first year at the World Series, I happened upon this way of doing things. I'm happy to share it with you now.

The Otis Strategy for Urinating During a Poker Game

That's B.J. Nemeth, famous poker writer and now infamously-bad prop bettor. When offered $500 on his $50 to blow up a deflated soccer ball with his mouth, he declined, and then did it anyway. He won some pride, though, which has to count for something. Just not my $500.

That's the building where I spent many a night with a motley group of poker players and rabid drunks. You can decide on your own to which group I belonged.

For what it's worth, I don't use poetic license very much. First, I'm no poet. Second, if I have to have a license to do something, I generally don't enjoy it.

In December 2004, I was getting ready to go to Vegas for the first WPBT Holiday Gathering when a comment appeared on a post in this blog. It came from someone purporting to be Lee Jones, noted author and poker room manager for the then second biggest online poker site in the world. He had a proposal for me.

I went to Vegas with this in mind and was nervous as hell. I stood with my cell phone in the lobby of the Excalibur hotel--of all places--and talked to Lee for the first time. His offer: blog the 2005 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure and get paid for it. I didn't tell him I would've done it for free. Lee was candid enough to tell me I was their second choice after Wil Wheaton, who had quite unexpectedly recommended me for the job (something I've come to think of as akin to Kato Kaelin getting a job because Robert Redford wasn't available, but still). Lee was kind enough to not assume he could get me for pennies (in retrospect, he did--I wouldn't work for that kind of money again unless it was backstage as Norah Jones' finger masseur). Lee asked for an e-mail and a few other particulars.

I didn't have a laptop with me, so I sent everything from the Excalibur's television internet service. Somehow I ended up with the job. While on the week-long freelance gig, Lee established himself as a guy I could trust. Toward the end of the week, I saw him in frequent conversation with people I'd come to know as important within the company. At the end of the week, Lee pulled me aside and asked, in essence, "How'd you like to do this all the time?" After a few more words of advice, Lee sent me on my way. Two weeks later I'd quit my job in television and was looking for my lost luggage in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Over the past three and half years, I've seen Lee in more places than I can count. Several conversations stand out--one overlooking a nightclub floor in Monte Carlo in which he summed up the poker boom and our place in it, and one just a few nights ago in Monte Carlo are a couple that stand out.

Lee told me a while back that his time with PokerStars and time with the European Poker Tour were about to come to an end. It was not completely unexpected, but it still made me sad to see him go. Lee is always good for a calming word, solicited advice, and the occasional unsolicited entertaining opinion. He's a helluva teacher, too. It's amazing to watch players seek him out at live events. He's become an icon without trying to be.

That's what makes the next step in his life so cool. Lee is headed off to be the COO of CardRunners.com and will be responsible for the daily operation of the company. I'm impressed as hell with the young men who hired Lee. At a time in my life when I was spending three or four nights a week in a bar, these guys have put together an exceptionally cool company.

So, it's not a goodbye to Lee, but a good luck. There was a time in my life where I would've written nice things about the guy because he was an important person in poker. Now I can write this stuff because he's a friend. He's moving just 45 minutes north of my house and I hope to get a chance to sit out on his porch and pick a little before my life takes me elsewhere (if you didn't know, Lee plays some mean bluegrass and puts my abilities to shame).

So, thanks, Lee. You're good people and deserve every bit of success that comes your way.

***

Now that the SEO-palooza surrounding Hawbaker's death has reached the point that it's no longer as valuable to trade on the name, Brandi Rose news has hit the wane. I personally had just one experience with Hawbaker. I didn't know her. I can't claim to have treated her any better than anybody else in the poker world. I didn't know anything about her except to know she was the poker community's train wreck--the one who gets rolled by the old fucks, tries to fuck the young fucks, then gets what's she's been giving and gives what she's been getting. She wasn't the first person it happened to, and she won't be the last. But, as the world turns and the light guides us through the soap operas of the internet poker rags, she was a star. She was the young and the restless. She was the person who made every other person out there feel better about themselves.

I am no exception.

Church is an odd place to learn about poker, which is why I don't go except for weddings and funerals. At the last wedding that saw me sitting in a pew, the priest commented on our throwaway society. Like our constantly obsolete computers, our petrol-sucking bottles of water, and our tired old cliches, many of the people in our lives are disposable. Our celebrities--especially the ones we manufacture for the sole purpose of destroying--are merely there for our short-term entertainment, money-shot porn without all the messy clean-up.

Last year's World Series of Poker took a hole out of my soul that I'm not sure will ever get patched. It wasn't just watching Hawbaker whore herself out for buy-ins. It was watching Vinny Vinh get pushed into tournaments and disappear from tournaments--a real fear and loathing that looked more like Russian Roulette than poker. It was watching Paul "Eskimo" Clark nearly die at the table three or four times, then piss himself at the final table while his "backers" waited for their few thousand bucks. Poker has never called itself a nobleman's game, but sometimes it's nice to know we live and work in a world that isn't so overrun by disgusting people.

In a consumer society, poker players and their hangers-on are never more at home. They find something they can consume and they use every possible ounce of it, before briefly mourning its passing and moving on to the next consumable. There must be some karmic reckoning for me, for you, for everybody who is wallowing in public disingenuousness. We all suck.

Poker doesn't pick people. It's the other way around. There is nothing tying any of us to the game or the community. It belongs to no one and that's probably why it and its people wander so far from normalcy and decency. It's anarchy with just an ounce of control. It attracts people--me included--who like that edgy feeling of being right on the precipice of disaster.

Hawbaker, sick as she was, picked poker. With apologies to D.H. Lawrence, it's a jungle where wild things really do feel sorry for themselves. Redemption only comes in the destruction of others. Many people survive spiritually because they can see the dividing line between reality and the game. The people who don't are the people who die and the people who kill.

It's not the grace of God that saves us. There but for dumb luck go you and me.

If Hawbaker's death is even a glimmer of truth...if there is a God, he doesn't believe in poker.

I am naturally skeptical of people who go out of their way to tell me how good they are. I figure if you are taking the time to tell me how good you are--at poker, knitting, sex--you're wasting time you could be using to show me. Maybe it's my Missouri upbringing, but I don't give a damn what people say most of the time. I'm moved by what people do. Talent, like character, is defined by action.

I watched a rather candid interview with Tiger Woods this morning. One of the first things he said that struck me revolved around if it is at all possible for Woods to look at himself as others see him.

"I'm in the moment," he said. Then, as if he'd just realized it himself, he added, "I am the moment."

What impresses me about Woods is not only his ability. It's his ability to not stand on every street corner and tell everybody how good he is. Moreover, it's his abilty to believe in himself with 100% confidence, but not let that confidence get in the way of his ability.

In the middle of a bad run--a slump, a middle finger from Mistress Variance, mound of bad beats as high as your ass--most people take one of two roads. They either kick and scream about how their ability is not yielding the appropriate results, or they fall into an introspective and self-abusing hole. I, if you've not yet caught on, fall in the latter category.

I aspire to Woods' brand of confidence. No. I don't aspire to that. It's more than that. I have to achieve it. You should, too. Success, it seems, is the ability to believe you can without letting that confidence get in the way of actually doing it.

To be sure, there are people who defy this axiom. There are people who find success without finding the perfect balance. But I wonder whether those people will ever be considered great.

I don't necessarily seek greatness, but I am in search of the confidence that greatness requires. As Wood's says, "I will be better tomorrow than I am today."

In a series of questions toward the end, Woods is asked a series of questions. Kobe or LeBron? LeBron or Michael Jordan? Jack Nicklaus or Tiger Woods?

Woods, without much hesistation, but also without an ounce of cockiness, picked himself. A pregnant pause hung in the air, as if to ask how anybody could be so cocky.

Woods barely smiled as he said, "You have to believe in yourself, don't you?"

***

When I wrote The End, there was a pretty serious part of me that believed it would be the last thing I wrote on the Up For Poker blog. After four years of finding nuances of the game and inspiration in the romantic turn of a card, I had given up. It had been a losing year--my first-- and I barely knew why. Poker had become more of an addiction than a hobby. It wasn't as if I was blowing through wads of cash and endangering my family. I was not playing above my roll or on borrowed cash. In fact, a nice-sized chunk of my bankroll sat in the bank untouched.

No, it was not your typical sweating, tweaking addiction. I only defined it as such because I was playing, but didn't know why. I wasn't playing for profit. I wasn't playing for fun. I was playing because, in short, that's what I do. I play cards. It was still better than drinking myself into barstool grandeur or experimenting with firearms, but it was not serving a purpose. I found no spiritual or financial profit in the game. Even if I kept playing--which I knew I would--I didn't see reason to write about it anymore. I write about things in which I find beauty and passion. Even if it's beautiful tragedy or hilarious passion, it's worth a word or two. There is only so much one can write about autotonomous raising and folding, and even less when the lifeless time at the table is the means to an unprofitable and unhappy end.

What's more, the G-Vegas underground games had become no man's land for me. After two violent robberies and one unfortunate bust, I made a promise to my wife that I was finished. No amount of entertainment or writing fodder was worth her worrying about whether I was spending my night looking down the barrel of a cheap .380. The games died off for a couple of months and then started their comeback. I did not come back with them. Despite pleas and protestations from my poker friends, I stayed away. Those long, hyper-caffeinated nights in smoky underground rooms were now just a thing about which I could wax nostalgic.

Indeed, I had all but given up on the idea of writing about the game that played such a large role in my life since 2003. When people asked what I do, I stopped saying "I write about poker." Instead I muttered something along the lines of, "It's sort of a long story."

***

A few nights before the mini-epiphany, I was half-crocked and sitting in a hotel lobby bar with a semi-motley crew of people. I gave a fellow writer 10-1 odds on his $50 that he could not blow up a deflated soccer ball using only his mouth. He pondered it for several minutes before declining the bet. Half an hour later, he inflated he ball anyway, just to see if he could do it. I thumbed the $500 in my pocket and wondered how I had dodged losing it. On any other night, with any other person, I would've lost the bet, lost the money, and lost a little more of my mind.

I was in a pretty dark place. No matter what I did, it didn't feel right. Privately, I think of it as One-Pip Syndrome. It's that time at the table and in life where you can make the decisions that feel almost certainly right and turn out to be just one pip from success. Eights versus nines, AQ vs AK, it doesn't matter. It's either a winner or a loser and when you're one pip off, you might as well be drawing dead.

The night that I ended up in the hotel room, I let go. I stood outside and let the wind smack me in the face. Whatever it was--the booze, the breeze, the bravado--everything seemed more clear. I made one decision that wasn't even officially mine yet to make. Everything inside my head settled, sediment at the bottom of a river that had been running too fast for too long. I ate dinner with my wife and friends. I laughed, indulged, and let go of whatever it was that I thought had tied me up. We walked outside after dinner and did something those afflicted with good sense don't do. No sense in describing it either, because it was certainly more important in my head than in reality. Regardless, it was 15 minutes of pure and simple abandon. No matter the consequences, I was free.

Later that night in the hotel room, I sat across from the friend who had just won the $30,000 in a poker tournament. He was happy, but no happier than I'd seen him when he was badly stuck. As the room filled in and we settled on a private HORSE SNG, we worked out the stakes. I can't remember how much it was per person, but it was $100 or less. A few of us did a last longer that was the same as the buy-in. We would do another game for similar stakes a few hours later.

I looked around and realized that it was not the money that mattered. I was sitting with a guy who had casually won more than my car was worth. I was sitting with people who had enjoyed the glamour of playing on TV. I was sitting with people who are big players in the business. The money was incidental. Not only that, almost all of it was incidental. All that mattered was I was playing with friends who appreciated the game as much as I did. I was sitting with people who took poker--for any amount of money--seriously, and at the same time, could laugh, cut up, and enjoy the time they had to play.

I admitted to myself that, for whatever reason, I am not as good a poker player as I used to be. I admitted to myself that I probably am not as good a writer as I used to be. Neither realization meant, however, that I had to quit. Even now as I struggle to figure out where my game fell apart and my words became trite, I am, in a word, okay.

Though I found it hard to believe, I was actually having fun again.

***

The room we called The Gaelic Game ran out of a fireworks warehouse on one of the oldest and most traveled highways in G-Vegas. It was not prophecy, but The Last Poker Game told the story of the joint pretty well. I spent many a night there, albeit few of them big winners. Still, before The Depot opened, it was my house of choice and I went there as often as I could.

At the end of the summer in 2007, the local Sheriff's office raided the Gaelic Game, effectively shutting it down, at least in that location. It was the second to last straw in the my little pig's collapsing poker house. When the game disappeared, with it went the rest of my poker year.

The other day, I was driving down the same road and, as always, stole a look at the place that had been my poker home away from home. The giant, red "FIREWORKS" sign had fallen on hard times. The letters that remained: REWORK.

I'm not much of a believer in omens, but sometimes you just have to read the writing on the warehouse.

That next night, he would buy in several times. In a moment I'll treasure forever, I watched his girlfriend order two drinks for them. By the time the server had returned, Sox had all his money on the table and couldn't afford to buy the cocktails. He sent his back and paid for his girlfriend's in chips. Before she could finish her drink, he was broke and vowing to come back with more money.

We waited.

It took him a couple of hours, but he did return. Once, he called a huge re-raise with pocket deuces and flopped his set. He rocked and rolled for a couple more hours and his verbal abuse increased with his stack. The table devolved to a four-handed game. Two of us were only staying because Sox was there. It took us less than an hour and half. The guy left broke and quiet. We broke the game and watched Sox walk away.

Over the week since, I have thought about Sox more than a few times. I thought about how his life, his happiness, and his banter all hinged on his ability to be in action and be winning. I thought about how, without his good fortune at the table, he would be a life loser and nothing more. I thought I'd be more thankful for him than I am. Instead, I just feel sorry for the guy.

I outlined my reasons for thanksgving at Rapid Eye Reality. That pretty much says it all. Still, for a variety of reasons, I've been thinking about poker a little more in the past couple of weeks. It's not as integral a part of my life anymore, but since I've been running a little bit better recently, it's on my mind.

I am thankful for poker, but not for the reasons most people are.

Poker and the industry surrounding it pulled me out of a job that likely would finished off my soul before I got this old. It gave me an excuse to get out of the regular workaday world and dive into a realm that was so wonderfully odd that I still have a hard time understanding it. It gave me a new career that has lasted the past three years.

Poker probably saved me from myself. Prior to 2003, I was on a rather ugly self-destructive streak. Since then, while still not necessarily the smartest guy, I've becomme a better person. Had it not been for poker...well, who knows.

At the risk of getting too mushy, poker has introduced me to a circle of friends that I value more than I can express. They are people who I am just as comfortable discussing personal problems as I am discussing the value of mid-tourney aggression issues.

Though poker has changed my life in countless ways, if it went away tomorrow, I wouldn't be devastated. Sure, I would miss it, but I would survive happily. That's because, even without poker, I'm no longer working a dead-end career. I'm no longer on a road to ruination. I have poker friends with whom I'd rather see a show or go camping than play cards. Hell, who wouldn't be thankful?

So, sure, I'm happy I run into guys like Sox. I still love to play cards and am looking forward to getting into a lot of good sessions in Vegas. Poker is still an important part of my life.

But...and it feels so good to type this...poker is not my life.

That's what makes it so fun.

***

I made two rules for myself about a year ago: Never take criticism from someone I've just beat and never believe an opponent who says they respect my game. The rules exist for a variety of reasons. First, if I played a hand badly, I know it. I don't need someone else to tell me. Second, if someone says they respect me (especially in the midddle of a game), the chances that they are lying or shooting an angle are about 99%. Furthermore, it doesn't matter if someone likes my game. They are still trying to take my chips.

My psyche doesn't matter, though. The above is simply the way I protect myself from manipulation and, more importantly, ego. Pride and timidity are equally dangerous at a poker table and I want none of either. It's up to you how you handle your head.

What's on my mind today, however, is how people handle their mouths, how they handle beats, and the purpose of both. Purpose is the thing.

I do not hold myself out as an expert in poker, psychology, or any combination of the two. However, I am clear on one thing: Everything you do at a poker table, from the time you walk in the door or log-in online to the time you cash out must have a purpose. Every move you make, thing you say, or motion you make should have purpose, and better yet, a purpose toward the ultimate goal of making money.

Few people, least of all I, have perfected this. It's exceptionally difficult to follow this rule. Distractions like a TV, a waitress, or a beer can steal focus and render all of your attempts at a purpose-minded game. For some people, the hardest thing to contol is their mouth, especially after playing and losing against an obviously inferior opponent.

I wonder sometimes why more people don't consider how absolutely contrary that is to poker's first goal. Among the first thing a new player learns is to stay as far away from the aquarium as you can. You want your fish to be as still as possisble. Stasis, after all, is death. And yet, I see great players going to great lengths to pick up the fish and shake them until they completely understand how unreasonable it is to call a re-raise with ace-jack off.

What do you have to gain by doing that? Do you know? I only ask because you are making better the people I can conceivably beat and that is more than a little annoying. Plus, it's just a little rude.

I have a couple more rules. First, you will never hear me criticize your game. Second, if you hear me complimenting your game (beyond the occasional and polite, "nice hand"), be very wary, because I probably don't mean it.

There are five people with whom I would be totally honest about their play--and then only of they asked. There was a time when I could still teach my poker friends. That time has long since passed. They now all have a fundamental understanding of the game and have developed their own style. If they played a hand badly, they know it as well as I do. However, if they ask, I will offer my opinion, because, as friends, we hope to improve each other's game. We all know our respective strengths and weaknesses. We explot those in home games, but otherwise, we work to encourage each other to improve...without working to discourage our friends.

***

When Phil Hellmuth won his eleventh World Series of Poker bracelet this year, I was standing about 20 feet away. I couldn't see it happen, because Hellmuth sat in a live coverage void in the Bluff Magazine tent. Still, it was clear what happened. When the crowd rose in applause, I clapped as well. I have no love for Hellmuth's personality, table demeanor, cash game, or general life outlook. Regardless, I respect him as one of, if not the best, no-limit hold'em tournament player in history.

There is probably only one honest thing I could say to someone at a table: "I appreciate the way you handle yourself at the table."

I know tons of good poker players. I know some great poker players. Among those people, the only ones I care about are the ones I can respect. Phil Hellmuth has turned himseld into poker's version of a pro wrestling villian by criticizing his opponents' play. Everybody else who tries to emulate the Whining Badboy Poker Genius character is just slapping his man-part against the glass.

"Just as cold is actually the lack of heat...so is getting lost an entirely negative state of affairs. We become lost not because if anything we do, but because of what we leave undone." --Chapter 14, "Staying Found."

If you take the poker world's last year into account, there would be a lot more bad things about which to write than good things. Like the waning year of oversexed and hypercharged young love, the past year has been marked with a feel of cognitive dissonance that at times seems impossible to overcome. More times than not, the problems have not been because of what we as a poker community did, but what we did not do.

Congress stripped online poker funding options down to the bare bones and put us back in the dark ages. Amy Calistri and Tim Lavalli uncovered the Color Up Scandal at the 2006 World Series. Local games around the country (including a couple here in G-Vegas) were robbed and/or busted with unsettling regularity. All of these things happened because the poker world failed to prepare. Whether it was a too-late lobby on The Hill, to not hiring the kind of staff needed to oversee the world's biggest poker event, or not operating an underground game with a common sense level of discretion, the poker world didn't get lost because of its actions. It got lost because if its inaction.

Now, two huge scandals have rocked the online poker world within the span of one month. The first one was apparently perpetrated by the player. The second was apparently pulled off by a company insider. The latter case at Absolute Poker is the one that breaks my heart. We don't and likely won't know everything. Had it not been for people like Nat Arem, the Pocket Fives crew, and a few other industrious amateur journalists, we might not know anything. Instead, the biggest scandal in online poker history is raining down on the industry and players. Once again, the industry is being forced to react as opposed to acting in advance. If the allegations against Absolute Poker are true (and I have no reason to believe they are not), then Absolute Poker should cease to exist. Right now, there is no way to make that happen, because there is no one to make it happen.

"An unhealthy proportion of accidents occur because deep down, someone wants them to happen." --Chapter 21, "Emergency Aid"

It's all rather exhausting. It's such an emotionally tiresome experience that a lot of people might think about giving up. I'll admit that I have had those thoughts. Still, I also know enough about the business, its roots, and its heart that I can't make myself walk away. Sure, I've met a lot of bad people over the past three years. However, I have also met some of the most honest and hardworking poker people that I can't turn my back on the game or the industry.

I have to imagine that the troubles we have been fording are ones that we are meant to face to make this industry--and by extension, the game we all love--once again viable in the long-term. If we are to truly care about the game enough to fight for it, then we will win. If not, we might as well start looking for the next fun way to make money, because for the vast majority of us, it won't be in poker.

These are fairly trite observations, I know. It's all rather hard to consider. I've been sitting in a state of flux since July when I left the World Series. I've abandoned the local underground scene in favor of a couple of regular home games. I am barely playing online. My next trip to Vegas will either be December (hopefully) or...well, if not then, I don't know. I just don't know what to do or when to do it.

I remember a tumultuous few months with a college girlfriend. We'd maintained different pads, but had basically been living together for several months. Over the course of a few ugly weeks, things turned pretty bad. It started with walking in on her and a group of friends frantically tearing up the house in search of a lost tab of acid (it was in the freezer) and ended with her hurling a glass dolphin across the room. Suffice to say, we didn't see much of each other after that. Despite enjoying a relationship that had a lot going for it, it had a lot more working against it.

If poker were a college relationship, I'd probably be hitting the singles bars right about now. Fortunately, poker is not about a matter of the heart. We may love it, but we all know it's a business. You don't save a business with make-up sex.

"What people say you cannot do, you try and find you can." --Henry David Thoreau, as quoted in Chapter 1, "Every Necessity is Free."

At this time last year, I thought we were at a crossroads in the poker world. Now I don't think it anymore. I know it. For the poker world to survive and thrive as it did before it all started falling apart, two things have to happen and happen quickly.

1) The online poker lobby must convince the United States Congress to overturn the online gambling funding ban or carve out a place for poker.

2) Online poker must come under a regulatory body that has not merely oversight but punitive controls that will force out the rogue operators who give a black eye to the legitimate companies.

In the absence of accomplishing those two things, the outlook is not as pretty as it used to be. The industry will not dry up, but it will not thrive. For many years, it has simply seemed easier to stick with the status quo. There is no book on how to survive this. Bradford Algier can only teach us how to find food and stay warm. This new poker world uncharted territory. I am guilty as everybody else in believing that the good times would last far longer than they have. Now, we all have to be responsible. Otherwise, the poker community is facing a lonely wilderness where the game is not as plentiful and winter is coming.

But, thank you.

Thank you for taking the time to make your blogs what they are. Thank you for taking the time to write real stories. Thank you for offering good theory posts. Thank you for making en effort over the years to claim a real space in this ethereal world. Thank you for giving more than you get back. Thank you for taking an individual pursuit and forming a community out of a bunch of people who might not otherwise know each other.

In short, thank you for knowing what makes a good, and dare I say real blog.

I can't say whether I'll make it for the WBPT gathering in December, but if I do, I hope to thank you in person. You all may be a bunch of cantankerous misfits, but you are my kind of people and you deserve more recognition than you get.

That's all for now.

I was actually surprised at how speechless I was. I'd heard and read the same phrase before, but it had never been directed at me. If it was an attempt at tilting me, it was fruitless, as I was running well and in a good mood. If it was an attempt at bravado, whatever he gained was short-lived. He busted soon after and I never saw him again.

Still, I had no response. Yet, today, I still think about that guy, not because he was a good poker player, but because he didn't think twice about throwing out a line like that after playing his hand the way he did and losing.

I was me and I didn't want to kill myself. This guy, however, seemed pretty sure of himself.

And he's not alone.

***

Several months ago I spent a lot of time reading 2+2. While I got a lot of enjoyment and a sense of community from reading poker blogs, I felt like there were a lot of other voices and ideas in forum communities. I never posted on 2+2, but spent a lot of time lurking around the legislative and online poker forums.

One day, there was a particularly good post about the legal implications of the NETeller pull-out and what it meant for online poker players. It stretched down the page longer than the average forum post, but was insightful and I felt more educated for having read it.

The very next post in the thread spanned five letters: TLDNR.

I looked at the acronym and felt old. I had no idea what it meant. I checked in with Google and discovered the acronym stood for "Too long, did not read."

I sighed. A lost, illiterate soul, I figured. That was until I scrolled down further and found several people offering a heartfelt, "LOL" about the "TLDNR." I scrolled down a little more and found several people asking for a summary of the post.

Before long--much like seeing a new car for the first time and then seeing it eight times in the same day--I started seeing the same acronym and the same tired requests for summaries in posts all over 2+2.

It was not a lost, illiterate soul. It was a growing subculture that lived under a banner of "I don't have time for your shit. Either give it to me or get the fuck out of my way."

***

My work has offered me both the privilege of seeing some of the best things about poker and the sickness of seeing some of the worst. I've written in depth about the good things I've seen. Whether to protect my tenuous position in the industry or out of some hope I was wrong, I've never written much about the young guns.

I've been back from the World Series for a couple of weeks now and hoped it would be enough time to cool me off. Human Head might say it's given me time to get properly indignant, like a reformed smoker or drinker who spends hours telling you how you're killing yourself. I'm not sure either has happened. I'm not properly cool, nor am I indignant (even if I'm coming across as such). I'm just worried.

See, if you didn't know, "What hath God wrought" were the first words Samuel Morse sent across telegraph lines. It was a form of communication that required shorthand like SOS, 73 (best wishes), and 30 (the end). There was an economy of time based on how slow the new fast process was.

Once an indispensible form of communication, the Pony Express and other advanced systems of communication sent Morse shorthand the way of the dodo a long time ago. Now we live a century later and have more ways to communicate than we need. People like me like to think we've gained a lot more knowledge through technology. However, there are a lot of folks out there that may be suffering the opposite effect. Today, short-hand is not because of a literal lack of time. It's laziness and a feeling that our time is much better spent doing something other than actually communicating.

Now, you'd think this is the middle of a long rant about the kids refusing to read anything that takes more than five minutes to shove in their brain. However, it's not. The refusal to read is a mere symptom of a larger problem.

***

I need to preface the following with a pretty obvious statement. There are some damned good kids out there playing poker today. By that, I don't mean they are just good poker players. They are good people. The most obvious example is Jason Strasser. If you don't know him, look him up. The kid is ten years younger than I am and more mature by just as many. He knows his place in poker and he's finding his place in the world.

One night, he and I stood at the literal crossroads in the Amazon Room at the WSOP. We had a discussion that lasted longer than it should've based on how long he had during his tournament break. However, during that time, Strasser managed to reveal a lot about himself. Despite being wildly successful in poker, he's leaving the life for a while to try out a life on Wall Street. As we parted, he said something to the effect of, "I will still be able to play poker in three years. If I wait on Wall Street, I may miss that opportunity." Though Strasser has made more money in poker than he stands to make on Wall Street in his first year, he's looking for something else for a while.

Strasser is just one example. There are several other young guys out there who have made an honorable life for themselves in poker or businesses surrounding poker. Eric "Rizen" Lynch, Nat Arem, and Luca Pagano come to mind, as well as several others you likely have never heard of. However, for every one of the good kids, there seems to be five others who have fallen victim to the TLDNR culture.

Now, you might think this is a rail-job on poker. It's not, per se. I see it everywhere. It just so happens that most of the kids I meet, I meet at the poker tables.

Unlike naming the good kids above, I'm not going to call out names on the bad ones. If you're not part of the world, you wouldn't recognize the names anyway. If you are part of the world, you know who I'm talking about. But what am I talking about? I'm talking about a subsection of the 19-28 year olds who believe that they are entitled to whatever they can win, borrow, or steal. Their grasp on morality, etiquette, and the golden rule is as weak as their handshake. If there is a gray line, they are happy to cross it if they believe they can benefit from it financially. What's more, they feel more than entitled in doing so.

In most industries, these traits will get you fired, get you arrested, or turn you into a pariah fast enough. Only in the entertainment industry and poker can you be an immoral, egomaniacal kid and find quick success. And the success, it can get you high faster than any drug. I can't speak personally about the kind of success the kids are having these days, but there was a year or two when I was playing the biggest games online. When I was winning, I thought I was King fucking Kong. I discovered quickly enough that success can be fleeting. I figured it out before I went poker-broke, thankfully. Still, I know what winning feels like and, like Chris Rock says, "I understand."

I was fortunate enough to have a few things on which to fall back. I'm not sure that a lot of the younger folks do. Many of them are winning insane amounts of money right now. Many of them are buying $30,000 watches, $100,000 cars, and who knows what else.

I don't begrudge their winning. For their sake, I hope it continues. However, it might be good if they look around and see what guys just a few years their senior are in the middle of right now. Like, without naming names, one known pro standing on the rail at the WSOP and repeatedly pestering another known pro because the latter is into him for more than a hundred grand and refuses to pay back the money. Or another known pro who is well-known for his big cash play who is spending more time hawking a D-list energy drink at the WSOP than he is playing poker. Why? Well, you can guess the rumors. That's not even to mention the Vinnie Vinh and Eskimo Clark stories.

As you might imagine, though, I'm not writing this entirely out of an altruistic worry for the up-and-coming generation. I mean, really, as a poker player, I should be happy if these guys continue to play and refund the poker economy. My greater worry is this: in ten or fifteen years, if nothing changes, a majority of the poker world will be made up of the kind of people I'm talking about. They are people who don't think multi-accounting is wrong because other people do it. They are people who believe collusion is okay if they can get away with it. They are people who think it is okay to borrow money and disappear. They are the people who feel it is completely appropriate to write (a honest to goodness line from a poker forum), "I would have put up the money to abort you."

In a game that is so great on so many levels, they are the people who represent everything that's wrong with it. It would be different if they were dinosaurs we were sending out to pasture (pardon the mixed metaphor, but it sort of fit, I think). However, they're not. They are Generation Next.

Maybe my worry is unfounded. Maybe I just haven't met enough of the Jason Strassers and Eric Lynchs to make me believe it's all going to be okay. Over my few years in the business, I've put my faith in a few of the young guns. Out of four I honestly, truly believed in, two have held my faith and two have broken my heart. I'm tired of putting my money in on coin flips.

And, of course, I hope to be wrong. I hope the above is just the late-night ramblings of a guy who needs a serious break from everything. Poker has been so good to me and it's a game I hope to play for the rest of my life. I hope poker's success live and online will continue unabated for as long as any of us care to play. I simply hope that there are enough good people out there to keep an eye on a generation in which I've lost a lot of faith.

The thing about the poker world is that it lets anybody with money in. There is not a sign at the door, a test to take, a guaranteed mentor to follow, or a list of terms and conditions anybody has to sign. Even if there were, most of the people I'm talking about would just scroll to the bottom and sign their name without reading.

I figure I've run the risk of offending some folks with this post. I've nearly deleted it twice now. However, I finally decided that no one I'm talking about will have read far enough to see any of this.

And if they did, it will just have been to scroll down far enough to comment, "TLDNR."

As you'll see on Pauly's blog, Mookie (which is a name I've taken to calling just about everybody) whipped up a nice ESPN cover to commemorate Pauly's rise to fame.

As the hour grows late, I've decided if Pauly is working for the Worldwide Leader, I may still have a chance for the Worldwide Peter acclaim.

Last night, as I endured yet another day on the Cote d'Azur, our workday finished early (10:30pm as opposed to 4am). As such, there was a little more opportunity to delve into The 80%.

Maybe I'll write about it all some day, if it seems a good idea or a good story. Certainly, I'll have some stories when I get back home and have a little time to write.

Possibilities include:

--Well-known poker players in a nightclub bathroom playing a version of credit card roulette with hundred dollar bills for 500 euros a pop

--How one trip to the bar can cost the equivalent of $1,000 (no honey, this wasn't me).

--Americans searching for action on a city that closes at 2am (yes, honey, this was me).

--The return to McCarthy's and a full conversation with one guy who speaks only French and one guy who who speaks barely any

--Action starts at $25,000, sir.

And, for your interpretation, here's a mid-evening photo taken of me with Devilfish and my buddy Ed. He wasn't quite asleep yet.

My parents, I think, never expected me to be a drinker.

The summers in southwest Missouri were 100 degree saute pans, sizzled in 100 percent humidity and spent on my grandparents' slab concrete porch. Nearly everybody drank iced tea saturated with cheap sugar, the likes of which made for a syrup that would slide over a young boy's tongue and propel him up into a backyard tree. It was shade and it was cool and it was a sense of place.

Grandpa drank Busch beer, though, and drank just enough of it that it seemed there were always enough pull tabs to fill a small bowl. Uncle Randy looked like he was drinking coke, but when he let his nephew take a pull from the bottle, there were a lot of laughs. It might have been my first taste of whiskey, an imperfect compliment to the occasional sip of beer my smiling Grandpa allowed.

I was fine with iced tea, though. It cooled me enough to walk past the Indian's house, past Purple Lady's house, and down to the corner store to pick up some baseball cards for me and cigarettes for the adults. Back then, all you had to say was, "They are for my dad," and the store clerk wouldn't think twice.

My parents didn't keep booze around the house. Much later in my life, I'd ask my dad why he didn't drink more than the occasional scotch. He said, "One day I realized I needed a drink at the end of the day. And I didn't need that." And that was it.

I drank my first full beer in 1990. While memorable, the effect of seeing my mom's face when I came home with the beer on my breath made it an unhappy memory. It wasn't until the summer of that year that I tasted my future. The parking lot of the Ozark Empire Fair grounds was filling up. Two girls, one blonde, one brunette--both with natural breasts as good as you'd find in the Ozark mountains--were taking money from people in need of a parking space. And they were drinking beer in huge plastic cups full of ice. Later in life I'd find the idea of beer on ice ridiculous. That day though, it was cold, it was illicit, it was sex, and it was the best thing I'd ever tasted.

I would be a beer man.

***

September 8, 2000 was the first time I lost $50 in poker game. It was a Friday night. Through college, I'd remained a beer man, fancying everything from Stag to hip microbrews (unfiltered wheat being both my savior and executioner). I went through a scotch phase. I went through a gin phase. I always came back to beer. On that night, I was sober as a judge. The game mixed up everything from five-card draw to insane bastardizations of seven-stud. It was rotating game that lasted for years, but spawned only a few posts on Up For Poker, most notably my failed creation of a game called Timebomb Poker.

For that game and many of the next several years, I packed candy and Diet Mountain Dew to get me through the night. It was a different time for me, one in which $50 wouldn't break the bank, but felt really, really bad. In those years, I was working in television and getting paid in the neighborhood of $26,000 a year plus overtime. I wasn't bad at my job and gained the respect of my then-employers. I rarely disappointed them.

One afternoon, my boss called me into the office.

"We have had some complaints about your behavior," he said.

I'd been up late the night before on the scene of a horrible interstate car crash. People were dead, the interstate was shut down, and I was in the middle of it all. I'd seen some bad, bad stuff that day, but didn't think my behavior had been out of line.

"Okay," I said.

"People said they heard you use the word 'fuck' several times last night when you were on the scene," my boss said.

Again, I likely muttered it a few times to myself, more in the manner of, "Fuck, I can't believe what I'm seeing here," but never screaming.

"When was this?" I asked.

The boss read off of his notes and said, "Somehwere between 10pm and 11pm."

It didn't make sense. I'd been off the scene during that time, back in the office working on the story.

Eventually, I put two and two together. Team Scott Smith, a man who would one day become a friend, was working for the same TV station at the time and had managed to knock the power out to an entire neighborhood after raising live truck equipment into a bunch of power lines. He was reported to have said at the time, "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck."

Somehow, in the darkness, the people had heard the words uttered by a Gene Wilder look-alike and attributed them to me.

The worst thing I ever did on the air was identify the president of a ritzy homeowners association (an old white dude) as Priest Holmes.

It was football season.

***

And that was just a little more than five years ago.

I was about to play poker at the Bellagio for the the first time. I had not yet started playing poker online. Though I'd been playing for years, I think I can admit, I wasn't very good. Five years ago was the end of my old life, the time when I spent four nights a week in a bar, three days a week getting some sort of exercise, five days a week seeking out truth and justice, and maybe two nights a month playing poker. Back then, poker wasn't something that affected my mood. It was a pleasant diversion that, on a bad night, cost me $50.

Five years ago, I wouldn't have imagined that in 2007 90% of my recreational time would be spent playing poker. I would've laughed if you'd told me the kind of stakes I'd be playing for at times. Nor could I have imagined I would soon be making all my money writing about poker.

The are people who stay in the same job their whole life and there are people who bounce around and take risks. I'm not sure who is better off. A lot of people look at me and shake their head at how good my life must be. And, truthfully, most of the time it is.

These days, though, I am a vodka man. I still drink beer on most occasions, but if you give me a chance to have one drink with a friend, I'll more than likely order what I like to think of as a Dirty Goose.

It was in the middle of one of these drinks that a good friend and I had a long discussion about the pitfalls of defining one's self by what he does to earn a living. This friend is one of the people I know who puts in his eight hours and then leaves to live what he considers his real life.

I've not yet been able to do that.

Say you're a kid and you've been playing ball in the same sand lot since you could hold a bat upright. All the kids in the neighborhood play, and though it gets a little loud sometimes, most of the neighborhood parents put up with it. First of all, it's America's game. Second of all, if all the kids are in one place, it's pretty easy to keep an eye on them. I mean, from a parent's perspective, it's a hell of a lot better than the kids running off to some other neighborhood where they might get rolled for their milk money.

Like any neighborhood, though, there is that crazy old dude who lives in the house that everybody believes is haunted. He's a codger and, when the mood strikes him, he stands on his front porch and yells at all the kids to stop being so loud. He's a frightening son of a bitch, but he generally stays in the confines of his musty old place and doesn't do any more than put a scare into most people.

Of course, there comes a day when Johnny Two-Ears fouls one off and the ball lands on the edge of the old guy's property. Making the matter worse, the old dude's dog runs up, grabs the ball, and drops it on the guy's front porch.

Without a ball, you're left with your bat and your gloves. Your parents aren't going to get you a new ball this year. And so, if you want a game, you gotta go get the ball.

After much gnashing of teeth, Paddy Pug-Snout says he'll go up to the porch and get the ball, but only if everybody will walk into the yard with him and back him up.

Paddy hasn't done much for the ball game. Everybody puts him in right field. He rarely gets a hit. Nonetheless, he evens up the teams and his mom will sometimes send him to the game with cookies. So, you keep him around.

It doesn't take long for people to start whispering.

Joey Two-Ears says, "Just send him to get the ball by himself. If he gets it, great. If not, well, then we're no worse off than we are now."

Lance "Marmoset" McGill says, "Why should we bother backing him up now? It's not like he's done anything for us before."

Sally "In the" Stands says, "No one has ever really given Paddy a chance to do anything. Now is his first real opportunity. All you have to do is stand behind him."

So, I ask you...

What do you do?

The parabolas north and south met in the middle over Greenville, South Carolina. One began over the northern states and drooped down across the Mason Dixon line. The other crept up from the Gulf of Mexico. Even with the television sound muted, it was clear the weatherman was telling us to expect something akin to apocalypse. Then he shrugged his shoulders, as if to say, "But hey, whatta I know, right?"

As the bread and milk aisles filled up in the grocery store, scientists from around the world prepared to release their report on global warming. The predictions told us that billions of people would suffer from water shortages while my son is still alive. Chaos and disaster, man-made, but wrought by nature, they will say.

The smiling man in the expensive suit says my town will freeze over before Thursday. The wild-haired scientists say my world will fall into global warming chaos shortly after I die.

I'm going to go to a poker game.

***

My head was numb and it took me three trips to the car and back into the house to get everything I needed to take with me. The air was frigid--cold enough to keep the drinks in the garage cool and cold enough to remind me that I'd forgotten my jacket. I didn't go back, instead choosing to shiver my way down the dark highway, hitting every red light as I sped--late--toward the underground room.

Three hours after the room got rolling, I didn't expect to find a seat when I was buzzed in. The parking lot was full and the room was loud. I was surprised to find the two seat at the second table open. I slid my money to the dealer and pushed myself down on an uncomfortable chair.

The atmosphere was unremarkable, at first. Even when I called a short-stack's all in and hit runner-runner to bust his made under-boat, I found no pleasure in it. My opponent, however, looked pained, as if the small amount of money he lost would somehow change his future.

Future, I thought. Which future is that?

***

The door at this game is held tight behind a deadbolt. The windows are covered in black plastic and the parking lot is dark. It's both a bunker and a shelter. It protects the players from eyes that shouldn't see, and it is a place to hide from the other world--the world where real jobs, real families, and real friends reside. Someone has to recognize your face to let you in. When you go out, the door locks behind you.

Though the room is big, it suddenly seemed full.

A cheer erupted from the table closest to the door and somebody yelled, "Jackpot!" The man in the one-seat held a suited 6-9 and made his ten-high straight flush to win the high-hand jackpot. The man who runs the game announced how much the one-seat had won. Everyone applauded and cursed their bad luck.

***

I was getting no action. I was bored. Something in my head pushed $25 into the pot, an open raise in a straddled pot with the hammer, both cards red. The flop came 77Q. We went check, check. The turn was an ace. My opponent led, I raised. He called. The river was a seven. My opponent put out a blocking bet, I raised anyway, he called reluctantly. I didn't wait for him to table his hand. I turned over the hammer, shrugged as if to say, "Whatta I know, right?" and silently stacked my chips in concert with the table's tribal chant of "Ham-mer, ha-mer, ham-mer!"

By the time I left the room, I would have forgotten this even happened.

***

The Jester spoke through a mouth of rocks. Though always talking, he might as well have been speaking in tongues, a devotee of August Busch and whatever other assorted manufactured pharmaceuticals he'd found that day.

Though it was below freezing outside, he wore flip-flops, baggy shorts, a wrinkled shirt, and an ear-flapped hunter's cap. He danced with the music, played air guitar with ping-pong paddles, and spoke in his own language--one I've come to call Boomhauer.

I could not understand a word he said. Even if he was standing five feet away and speaking slowly, he was as incomprehensible in speech as the action at the table was in terms of real poker. But every once in a while, he would get up from the table, go over to the side of the room, and start playing guitar. His voice was strong and, suddenly, like Mel Tillis' transformation from stuttering doofus to country crooner, The Jester was an artist, a bard, a minstrel.

***

Out of the more than 30 people playing and milling around the room, only one of them was a woman. Blonde-haired and beautiful, her innocent face belied her body's frame. Every male eye followed the cocktail waitress as she moved from player to player, checking on drinks, and giving the players whatever they needed to ply their spirits.

Whether it was the woman in the green tank top, the game of poker itself, or the bunker mentality, the lady's movements seemed to be the only thing binding the players to their seats. Would but that she could stay, the eight-way pots in hands that have been raised and re-raised to 20 times the big blind might just stay in a locale we could call sane and real.

She sat down quietly next to the game's owner. Though she'd been working her ass off for the past eight hours, her face still looked clean and serene, if only a little troubled. It was as if she knew what would happen if she left, but she knew she had to go.

She tapped her watch and said, just barely loud enough for me to hear it, "Looks like it's about that time."

***

Tuesday had turned into Wednesday. There are those who believe the sun and moon were created on Wednesday. Mickey Mouse told us, "Wednesday is Anything Can Happen Day." To me, it still felt like Tuesday.

My table was the boring one, the one where the jackpots weren't getting hit, the one where the inability to combat the turn and river made all post-flop play tiresome.

The Jester's table was different. There was life, hope, and laughter. The jackpot had given the table a different spirit. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw nearly everybody at The Jester's table stand up at once. Not involved in a hand, I stood and went to take a look.

The chips in the middle of the table sat in piles of green and red, an extraordinarily big pot, making up much of the wealth at the table. The flop was all middle cards with two clubs. Two players were already all-in and Mr. Jackpot was thinking. Finally, he called, making the single pot bigger than his jackpot winnings for the night.

He tabled 56 of clubs, for an open ended straight draw and low club draw. One opponent turned over pocket kings. The Jester did not reveal his cards, but I saw them as he peeled them up. He held A7 of clubs for the nut flush draw.

The drama was over quickly. A red four on the turn and no club on the river pushed the entire pot to Mr. Jackpot.

That did it. Like the breaking of the seventh seal, like Richie Valens' plane going down, like that late night phone call to tell you somebody is dead, a line had been crossed. Nothing would be the same, even if we couldn't immediately figure out the difference.

Although there were thousands upon thousands of dollars on the table, nothing seemed to matter much to the players anymore. Raises of any size were called in seven or eight spots. Pot-sized bets were called with abandon. Chips moved back and forth, formed into huge towers, and collapsed just as fast. Sodom, Gomorrah, and Skull Island had nothing on the chaos inside that little room.

***

"Who has a dick so short they can't hit the fucking toilet?"

The scream came across the room, a crude but seemingly appropriate reprimand to whoever pissed all over the ladies room floor. I'm not sure why we'd all been using the ladies room, but we had, and it was a mess. The floor was a puddle and littered with paper towels. A sign hung above the open tank: "Please don't put paper towels in the toliet (sic). Thanks, The Management."

While somewhat interested myself, I was more caught up watching the beginning of a discussion between Mr. Jackpot and The Jester. Though they were being quiet, I could tell by the looks on their faces, the closeness of their chests, and the rapid movements of their hands, something wasn't right.

I looked back to see my first ace-paint in an hour. Because I've been made to understand AJo is gold, I raised the straddle to $20. The player to my left min-raised. The player in the ten-seat who had proven himself willing to play any two cards to a re-raise, called. I, knowing full well I was behind, but hoping in one hand and puking in the other, tossed out my call, as well.

That's when the screaming started.

Half the room followed the yelling and ran for the front door.

"Should we pause the action?" asked the re-raiser. I agreed we should, but said I wasn't moving from my seat. One thing I like about this particular room is that the dealers are top notch. They are always calm, smart, and on top of things. I'm never worried about the game going astray. The dealer this night was no different. He paused the action, but kept his seat to keep an eye on the money and cards.

It was apparent that the discussion between Mr. Jackpot and The Jester had evolved into something more than a little dispute. I didn't go watch. This would be the third time I've been witness to violence or near-violence in a poker room and I know the number one rule: Protect your chips.

Like most disputes, this one was finished almost as soon as it started. Mr. Jackpot, still steaming, walked back into the poker area. The Jester was apparently gone. And, frankly, that had me worried.

When the ten-seat made two little pair to beat my top pair, I didn't even care. I don't like people leaving an underground game angry, The Jester had apparently done so, and I said as much to the people around me.

"All it takes is one phone call," I said, assuming everyone knew what I meant.

I'm not sure anybody heard me, because, again, something in the room had shifted. The testosterone-level was at its peak. In what is often a reserved poker room, players were battling in any way they could. Players with crazed looks and maniacal screams were clashing in a wild dance of doubles ping-pong, slashing the air with their paddles, dancing with each point, cursing at each loss. At s