To the Tustinrounders.com people

Recently, word has gotten out about my blog to the people that play in my homegame. For a looong time, I kept it quiet.

In part, because I wrote whatever I wanted in this blog. And in part because I'm not a good writer, and didn't want to censor or alter my account of things. When I started it years ago, I didn't think anybody would see it at all. If it weren't for the acceptance of the poker blogger community, nobody would have.

Blame them. Ha!

So, Tustin Rounders... the accounts here are biased and incomplete, poorly written and unedited. Perhaps I didn't write about how you taught me to play limit holdem, or failed to mention how you transformed your game from retarded to tricky. I apologize for not painting a fair and unbiased picture of you. But it is my blog. They're free... go start one.

Good Poker Memories, Part 1

So I was thinking... what pokery stuff should I write about? My mastery of $5 sng's? Boat over boat with Gordo and Poison at a $2/4 limit game, in the room right next to where Joe Awada was slumming at a $2/5 NL game? The adventure that is Bruiser playing on my screenname on Full Tilt?

Maybe someday, but not now.

I want to talk about one of my favorite characters in my homegame. We don't know his actual name... we prefer nicknames around here. He goes by "Pops". He's not a senior citizen, as you might expect somebody with that name to be. He's probably not even 25.

Pops is wired a little funny. He doesn't play every week, but he had been coming for a few months when the following hand came up...

There's been more trash-talking on this night than usual. Pops and Skipper, our resident punk kid know-it-all (who now reads this blog!), are in a big pot at the river. The flop had two fives, and two hearts. The third heart fell on the turn or river. There is a bet and a call on the river. Skipper rolled over his hand, showing two hearts, declaring plainly, "I've got a flush."

Pops slammed his cards down, face-up, and countered triumphantly, "Trip fives, bitch!!"

We had to remind him that three of a kind did not beat a flush. And then we had to laugh...

Picking Back Up

So February and March have come and gone, without a post to this blog. Things have happened, a few of them good things. I'll start with the important ones.

My dad would now appear to be on the other side of his cancer diagnosis with a clean bill of health. He had the tumor cut out of his tongue, spent some time in hospital, healed up, starting talking normally again, and took a cruise to Egypt with my stepmom. And he knows I love him.

I quit my job at Steak Restaurant. The new management decided, after some deliberation, that they would prefer to go forward with me as a server, not a bartender. Bartending there was the only thing that was keeping me there, as the restaurant rapidly went into the shitter after the new management tried to fix the old mistakes, creating a multiplicity of new ones. I have a college degree (chemistry!), three years of field sales experience... it's long since time I got a "real" job.

I spent a weekend bartending at the Nissan Senior's Open in Newport Beach, which was pretty sweet - greenside at the 18th and 17th holes on Saturday and Sunday, respectively. I spent the following weekend in Vegas with Gordo and Poison. My first time meeting Gordo, and the guy gives me Guinness and buys a fuckin' UNC t-shirt cuz his shirts are dirty and we're gonna watch hoops in the Sports Book? That guy's more than OK in my book.

I have another of what I call "freelance bartending" assignments coming up. $25/hr plus any tips at a wedding on Wednesday? If you're reading this, thanks TonyD!

And yes, I'm aware it's a very bad thing to quit a job when you don't have another waiting for you. The guys at my poker game have told me I could be bartending/serving (50/50) at A Different Steak Restaurant. I love the offer, but I have a hunch I shouldn't be in that line of work anymore.

I'm a funk. I don't think it's depression so much as being frozen. My life needs to change, to move somewhere... but I DON'T KNOW WHERE. There's a bunch of things I could do, but what do I want to do, and why am I so afraid of starting... and failing?