Aftermath

Thanks for all of the words of congratulations and encouragement. My boss was not thrilled when I delivered the news, but come May 14 it's not my problem anymore. I admit (as I told on_thg) that there was a moment after I left work Friday when a little voice in my head said, "What the fuck did you just do?" My solution was to drown that voice with crisp, refreshing, mind-numbing Yuengling lager.

Now comes the flurry of little tasks that need to be accomplished prior to our departure on May 15. I spent last night cleaning out one of my closets so that the subtenants will have enough space. Amongst the depths:

* three milk crates from when I was in college;
* the crappiest clock radio ever that I bought for $5 in my first year at the law firm so I could listen to Yankee playoff games at work (it didn't get good enough reception);
* eight of my grandfather's 60-year old golf clubs (1W, 2W, 3W, 2I, 5I, 7I, 9I, P);
* a mop;
* an umbrella dyed with water-soluble dyes (brilliant!);
* a badly worn area rug that was replaced three years ago yet mysteriously never made it into the trash;
* an unopened $6.99 roll of bathtub edge sealer;
* not one, not two, but three Dust Busters, none of which I bought.

I was hoping I might find my sanity buried underneath all the detritus, but no such luck. Guess CK is still stuck with me for the trip out to Vegas.

Read more...

It Is Happening Again

If you don't like your job, you don't strike. You go in every day and do it really half-assed. That's the American way.
--Homer Simpson

One of the benefits (and drawbacks) of living in the information age is that anything I've ever written is right at my fingertips. For example, I can filter all of the email in my inbox to discover that the very first email I sent CK is dated April 9, 2007. It was in response to a trip report of an email she sent me after I stalked her we met each other at the Borgata the previous weekend.

This instantaneous access to information has a heavy impact on my current job. I'm a corporate lawyer. I work for an investment company that invests in a mix of traded equities and derivatives, private equity and real estate in Eastern Europe. Sometimes we're buying or developing assets; sometimes we're selling them. For the last few years we've been investing in farms (I guess somebody in the organization saw the world food supply tightening long before the rest of us learned about it). When I'm not tending to the internal legal demands of a $7 billion enterprise, I'm involved in the deals that provide the legal framework for all of these acquisitions and dispositions.

This week we're preparing for the closing of the sale of a chain of Romanian retail stores we own. The buyers are based in Italy and the closing is scheduled to take place in Bucharest on Tuesday. There has been a predictable flurry of email (some attaching documents, some not) increasing day by day as we get closer to the appointed hour of the closing.

I have no idea how this deal would have been accomplished 15 years ago. I suppose people relied on fax machines to exchange drafts of documents and telephones for physical communication, but each seems terribly cumbersome for a deal that has a need for haste, some degree of complexity and a multitude of moving parts. Like trying to extract a tooth with only a flathead screwdriver. Theoretically it's possible, but if it were up to me I'd rather not.

The benefit of being able to more quickly and conveniently close a deal like this is touted as "increased productivity". And there's something to that. But it seems that a casualty might also be "quality of life". As it becomes easier to quickly close deals like this, the speed required to close the average deal increases. That translates into a more harried working life, longer hours, more stress. That in turn places a higher emphasis on really loving what you do. Because if you don't, there's no way to half-ass it.

The thing is, Bob, it's not that I'm lazy. It's that I just don't care.
--Peter Gibbons, Office Space

In summer of 2003, the New York office of the law firm that employed me was slowly driving itself into the ground. It should have been cause for a high-level personal alarm. I should have been pushing the pedal to the metal in terms of taking on work, developing relationships with partners and all that sort of good office political bullshit so that I could cement my place at the firm (or at least burnish my credentials to land a better job at a competitor). But the fact was that I just didn't care. And so on August 1, 2003 I bid adieu to law firm life. Five days later I boarded a plane with a one-way ticket to the city where, as M. Doughty once put it, "exit to freeways [are] twisted like knots" -- the City of Angels.

That chapter of my life has been well documented in this space. There's no need to rehash it. Suffice it to say, although I loved LA, I wound up moving back to New York and taking my current job.

The first sentence of the second paragraph of that email that I sent to CK in April of last year reads "I'm probably going to look for a new job soon." After two and a half years of corporate lawyering I had again reached the point where I just didn't care. It was a combination of factors. Most of all I think I'm just really not terribly interested in what I do. That's a problem in a world where people expect to be able to reach you at all hours of the day and where you can't go home until the task is done. It creates a resentment that builds to a point where eventually you're going through the motions for the sake of cashing a paycheck every fifteen days. That's no way to live, even if it *is* a comfortable life. Which brings us to today.

I'm giving notice at my job today. My last day will be May 14. From that point forward, I'm going to try to figure out how to do things that I'm interested in (and get paid for it). Phase 1 is to hand over the keys to my apartment to a subtenant, climb into CK's car, and drive to Las Vegas with her. This is the 2008 version of the aborted attempt at change in 2003, except this time I'm headed to Sin City rather than the City of Angels. We've rented a house in Summerlin. Our plan is to stay in Vegas for the duration of the World Series of Poker, and then return to New York.

Stay for a few months. That was my plan in 2003 too.

If ever there was a time to do this, it's now. I have no kids, no educational debt, no mortgage debt and no credit card debt. I have savings and I have some ideas regarding the direction in which I want to head. I'm not taking up the life of a leather-assed grinder. That's better left for the Crazy Asian Gambling Girlfriend. Nope, once again I'm pulling down my shingle and taking out my pen. This time it will be a little more structured than it was in 2003. I've accepted an offer to work for PokerNews, joining their crew of tournament reporters covering the WSOP. (Who knows what may come after the WSOP.) I don't know if I'm going to like it, but I'm excited to be trying something new and to be trying something that might just interest me. The irony that this is an opportunity that didn't even exist prior to the advent of the information age is not lost on me.

The convoluted process that led me to this point started back in mid-January. Late one night CK said to me "This may sound crazy but I'm going to say it anyway. Lets quit our jobs, pack up my car and drive cross country." [My response was basically "Um. OK."] Our plan morphed several times after that until I lit upon the idea of working for PokerNews. Things moved quickly from there. It was an easy decision once it was clear that the opportunity really existed, but there were several people who helped me along the way. Some were New York friends; others were friends that I've made through this website. All of them are friends who took fifteen minutes out of their busy lives for a phone call, or an email, or an in-person chat. Their words and insight were invaluable. In no particular order, huge thanks go out to: Falstaff, Change100, MeanGene, Spaceman, John Caldwell, Betty, TxApril, Iggy, Grubette, Amy Calistri (for not outing me last week) and of course CK, my compadre in this whole adventure.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna have to ask you to just go ahead and come back another time. I've got a meeting with the Bobs in a couple of minutes.

Read more...

Don't Take It From Me

Take it from the Giant.

More to come. Obviously.

Read more...

Hey All You "Blogger Dorks"

Read this. Then re-read it. Then read it one more time and let it really sink in. This is somebody who "gets it".

Read more...

A Story In Seat Selection

I've been in the 10/20 LHE game about an hour. KK managed to hold in a 5-way pot early on but otherwise I've been grinding my gears.

I'm in the wrong seat. You see, two to my left is the table maniac. He's frustrating my style with his constant pre-flop raises. I've had to muck some cards I'd play for one bet and I have no way of isolating or controlling him with a 3-bet.

The table is juicy though. I don't really want to leave. I just want to be on Maniac's left. My opportunity arises when the player to my right racks up to leave.

"I'll take that seat after my button passes," says a guy wearing headphones to the left of Maniac, pointing to the newly vacant seat beside me.

I'm dumbfounded. Headphones is on Maniac's immediate left. He has the best seat at the whole table and he is willingly leaving it? Never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I quickly inform the dealer that I will take Headphones' seat when he moves.

On the very first hand after the change I am dealt 99 in the cutoff. Maniac open-raises and I 3-bet him. The button and the blinds drop and we are heads up to a K-rag-rag flop. Check, bet, call. Turn K. Check, bet, call. River rag. Check, bet, call. I show my 9s. Maniac mucks.

Three hours later I leave the table, $720 richer then I was before the seat change. Headphones is still at the table, nursing a stack about the same size it was three hours earlier.

Read more...

Let's Meet and Have a Ball

CK and I never made it to Boston this past weekend. (Poor Waffles.) Seems that there's some form of legitimate gambling in eastern CT that ensnared us on the drive up I-95. It bills itself as "the wonder of it all". Pretty apt given that the only things within a day's walk are trees, more trees and some rocks.

Here's my ten-word review of the Foxwood poker room: "Better lighting would make all the WPT branding more noticeable." The room is I-shaped, cluttered and very dark, with low ceilings that heighten the sense of being cramped somewhere exceedingly unpleasant. WPT logos are *everywhere* -- on signs above the poker room (sorry the "WPT World Poker Room"), on the felt, on the cards, even on the dealer button. Proper drinks were difficult to come by. "Beer" cheap enough to induce heartburn was served in dinky plastic cups which were probably branded with the WPT logo.

To add insult to injury, there were only three 10/20 games going at 5:40pm on a Saturday. Despite being first on the list I had to wait almost 40 minutes to get a seat in the must move game (two main games). When I got broken to the main game at 8pm, the must move was down to 5-handed. It broke about 15 minutes later. Really, Foxwood poker room? You can't keep three 10/20 games going on a Saturday night despite there being no other competition within 250 miles? If that's not an indictment of the state of the LHE poker world I don't know what is.

It was even worse on Sunday. There were only two tables, one of which broke at about 4pm. Yeesh.

At least the players were predictably bad. I spent 5.5 hours in the game Saturday and 1.5 hours in the game on Sunday and left $895 to the good. Admittedly, $400 of that profit came on one pot when I flopped broadway in a 6-way pot against top and bottom two, bottom two, and top set (AA, the second time I'd cracked that guy's aces). But even without that $540 pot (net $400), $495 of profit in 7.5h is a pretty decent return.

I let CK talk me into giving Let It Ride another chance. I put up $100, figuring I'd either lose it or crack 4 figures in profit for the weekend. You can guess how it went after I tell you that I think the game should be called Let It Take F-Train's Money.

No worries. The presence of Biggestron and Evil Wonka (with whom CK and I shared lunch), and RakeFeeder and PokahDave -- who I really do have a vague recollection of meeting previously -- were all the sugar anybody needed to swallow the pill of a loss. Who knew when I started this site 4 years ago (yes, the 4-year anniversary passed a few weeks ago) that I'd be standing in the Foxwoods poker room 4 years later discussing oncology "deliverables" with a research scientist? Wackiness.

We were supposed to continue on to Boston to meet up with Waffles and Donkette to take in a Sox-Yankee game but a couple of wrenches were thrown in the works and it never came to pass. That's ok. We made it into a fantastic weekend anyway. "Life is short / Life is sweet / Grab yourself a front-row seat..."

Um, yeah. I'll shut up now.

Read more...

Thought of the Day

Live 10/20 players are just as bad in CT as they are in NJ.

Read more...

Time, Time, Time

See what's become of me?

I've been trying to get into a more regular posting habit for a couple of reasons but posting from work is problematic (though I'm doing it right now) and my infrequent home time has been focused on higher priorities. Part of the reason is that lots of ch-ch-ch-changes are coming for me. I've been chomping at the bit to post about them but discretion is the better part of valor. Or something. Need to wait just a few more weeks.

A few quick hits before I return to the salt mines:

Definition of frustration -- playing $3/$6 OE at Wall Street against people willing to play pretty thin hands to the river, and having every single monster draw to a scoop miss. That becomes expensive. Yet I managed to climb out of a pretty deep hole and post a whopping $2 profit for the night. Hooray for moral victories, I guess. Line of the night goes to Matty Ebs in the following hand: 4-9s-Js flop. He leads, W raises, I 3-bet with 44xx no spades. They both call. Jd on turn and he leads again. W calls. I'm concerned about xxJ9 and am not sure what to do with my hand. After a moment of talking it through out loud, Matty says "What are you worried about? You're in a hand with me and W." Right-o! Raise it is. (My full house was good.)

Dawn Summers is still evil. It had been a long time since I witnessed her donktastic powers in stud/8. How she isn't broke by now is a huge effing mystery.

CJ and BG are putting together another Pick 6 syndicate (that's horse racing, not lottery). The last time they attempted a Pick 6 we missed the jackpot when our horse in the first race lost by a nose to the longest shot in the field. A nose. Of course we ran the rest of the table. CJ and BG are no dummies. Get into the action for a mere $25! Details at UFP.

In the meantime it looks like I'm off to Boston this weekend to torment the worst poker player ever. I'd congratulate him on his Mookie win last night but we all know even a blind squirrel finds an acorn once in a while. More to the point, he was HU against LJ who appears to have some kind of "always a bridesmaid" curse hanging over her head in BBT events.

Read more...

Yes, I Am That Good

The guy standing at the pickup window in the Post Office has been waiting for the clerk to return with his package for a solid 10 minutes. He's getting fidgety and so are we -- we're next in line.

I turn to CK and ask her, "Where did the clerk go? China?" She shrugs and we continue to wait.

The clerk finally returns with Fidgety's package slip in her hand but no package. She leans forward to the microphone in the window and says "I'm sorry sir. Your package is in China."

--

Public Service Announcement: Those that can, do. Those that can't, teach (or loudly brag about how they can). I've seen an awful lot of "teaching" going on at the tables and on the blogs during the BBT3. Not the good kind of teaching by any stretch of the imagination. I know some people are passionate but this is way beyond passion. It's made me think of another old idiom.

If you walk like a d-bag, and talk like a d-bag, you're probably a d-bag.

And if you think I mean *you*, there's a good chance that I do. A handful of you just can't help yourselves -- you're d-bags through and through -- but the rest of you need to knock it the fuck off.

Read more...

Goodbye, Hello. Hello, Goodbye.

I can't believe we've made it to April and I've only been to Cracklantic City one time this year for all of about an hour. Part of me wants to say "I've been busy," but the more rational part of me knows that's just an excuse. What can I say? If AC were about 30 to 45 minutes closer to New York, I'd probably be down there three weekends a month and people would be calling 1-800-GAMBLER on my behalf.

I've even missed out on a bunch of home games. Last night was the Dawn Summers "How Many More Cards Do I Get? I Call" Invitational at Wall Street Poker. Family obligations prevented me from attending, and so another opportunity to play live (and stack Dawn with my mind) passed by the boards.

All that is going to change real soon, however...

In other news, last night was the final night for an old friend of mine: Magnetic Field, a pretty solid bar in my neighborhood that also happens to be the closest bar to my house. CK and I were there Friday night for a secret performance by indie rock legends Yo La Tengo, but last night was the official "There's No Tomorrow" party. After five years the owners were calling it quits and closing the bar. All the drinks were priced at $2 because all the booze had to be drunk.

And drink it we did.

I started out with a Makers and water, the drink of choice of Brooklyn's own Ugarles. He left shortly thereafter -- something about a pregnant wife waiting for him at home. Sounds like a whipped man to me. In any event, CK called on her way home from the Dawn Summers Invitational and I convinced her to come to the bar. After hanging up the phone, my friend Howard and I began our tour of Scotland's finest whiskeys. Laphroaig, still my favorite, but Talisker will do in a pinch.

Things started getting hazy at that point, as they inevitably do on any good bender. I do remember that this girl was at the bar. She was just as drunk as last time and just as amorous. In spite of her obvious intoxication (or maybe because of it) she was fairly attractive. Her amorous advances would therefore not have been much of a problem if only: (a) I did not have a girlfriend; and/or (b) said girlfriend was not on her way to the same bar.

You can imagine the reaction when said girlfriend arrived just after midnight and the drunken amorous girl was draped all over me. With her hand down my pants. Now in my own defense, I did not "do" anything inappropriate. But I didn't really discourage the lass either. After disentangling myself from her, CK and I went outside and commenced a rather heated "discussion" (more like lots of yelling from one side and lots of trying to be anywhere but there from the other). It ended with her deciding that an appropriate penance would be for me to display my boneheadedness to the world by writing it up.

So here we are. I still think she's being a bit unreasonable so I decided I'd offer up my own moral to the whole sordid mess. The moral is: if you're going to get drunk and let girls put their hands down your pants, don't invite your significant other out to watch it. Unless she gets off on that sort of thing. Then go whole hog.

(Ok, so maybe this isn't one of my better efforts. Check out this, this or this for something a little stronger.)

Read more...