The Grind

I've been less than faithful to this exercise since it's clear NONE OF YOU FIND ME OR MY WIT TERRIBLY INTERESTING!! If I could figure out how to link-up all poker related blogs to mine, I think I'd get some traffic. No one has read my posts but me. So, given this audience, I will not feel too bad about writing less frequently.

Now. Back to the casino -- equipped with five 100$ bills per the 'don't-change-a-thing' axiom, I wait at an empty table waiting my lot at the 10/20 H/E game. I grab a copy of CardPlayer and passively read about another young man's series of conquests on the tournament trail. Truly inspiring. I see that he is fairly spiritual. I will revisit this later as perhaps it is an underrated weapon in the Poker player's arsenal (after all, who better an ally than God would you like by your side heading all in down the River?).

My initials aren't exactly of the flattering variety, so upon hearing them, I quickly seek out seat#1 at the table to which I am dispatched. Standard fair of locals, knee high in either Wonton soup, or some variation of rice stir-fry. I'm waiting for the chip-guy when suddenly, Mr. VC in seat #3 and proud papa of at least $1000 in reds offers me a few black chips for three of my $100 bills. Oh man. I have but two superstitions at a poker table: First, never accept a seat-change at the same table no matter how good or bad things are going, and second, never buy another player's chips regardless of how many chips he has before him.

Having lost the nerve of my youth, I cannot tell Mr. VC to take his infected chips and invest them into a colonoscopy; furthermore, because I want to project a lamb chop, compliant-like table image and show nary an ounce of defiance, I effectively pawn my soul, accepting the bate of checks. What follows immediately is a sharp nauseating pinch, something that I imagine a full blown outbreak of e-coli to feel like, the moment I take possession of the contaminated checks.

I spend the next 8 hours going up and down with that dreadful $300 I accepted from the Keeper of the Valley of Pain. Seems he traded his cursed chips for my pixie dust of $100 bills because since I get the table, he owns all Turn and River cards in the deck.

Each time I went close to having to go all-in, I'd win a pot -- enough to perpetuate my constant receipt of 2nd best hands. Each time I threatened to crack the break-even barrier, I'd lose to the best hands in the entire fucking universe ... often courtesy of the Anti-Christ himself.

I thought I played alright, but if your hands don't show-down a winner from time to time, you are relegated ultimately to fish status. Just when I thought "it could be worse" and in for my whole stash, I get pot committed with two pair, and get whacked by a small set. I take out my last two $100 bills, but this time, I tell the dealer that I'm going to get chips from the cage. Before he has time to tell me that I need not get up, I am at the confessional, exorcising myself of VC's ill-will, and cleansing my cash and my soul in exchange for two humble stacks of low-society. And here's why I believe it:

The very first hand I'm dealt after 8 hours of toiling with the revolting sewage that is the excrement of someone else's bad mojo, is pocket Kings in medium position. I re-raise, and of course it gets capped due to a heightened perceived sense of my tilting over having been branded a loser for the last 8 hours and having to just re-buy chips.

Flop comes Ks-Kh-does it matter? I check-raise my stack all in and win a monster pot. Just a few hours later, I'm $350 in the clear, and VC looks like he's about ready to face the Vicar of Christ and go home about even by my guess, losing most of his wickedness and surplus chips to the sobering reality of statistical correction.

I lose $150 or so back to the field playing a bit 2Fast2Furious and decide that I will go home happy to have turned a profit (small as it may be), and successful defender of all that is holy and right.

As I go home, I do the math and see that I made 200$ tax free, inclusive of a confessional, hot & sour soup, tips, magazines, live Conclave coverage and free local calls. I then realize that 18$/HR is in fact fucking grind of a gig when it excludes health insurance, life insurance, accidental death or dismemberment, 401K, or vacation.

Important to note...not once was there a meeting, stupid email threads to delete, annoying colleagues looking for a fresh ass to kiss or a clock to watch down to 5PM.