The concept was simple enough.
I had a free room at Winstar Casino, about a two hour drive down I-35 from my house. The plan was to meet my friend Brian Ray (aka Lil Kat, B-Ray) at Riverwind Casino at 2 p.m. We'd make the drive, play poker for two days, and drive back. Easy enough.
At 2:10 I receive a text message from B-Ray. "Just woke up from nap. Will be late."
Really? The single guy with zero responsibilities needed a nap to freshen up for an evening of sitting on his butt playing cards? That's cool, I was hoping to sit in the Riverwind parking lot for an hour.
At about 2:50 I get another text. "I'm here." I text back, "I'm in the east parking lot, next to the hotel. Third row." He responds, "I'm out front."
At this point I'm just ready to go so I grab my bag, lock my car and start walking to the front. The casino faces Highway 9, which is right by I-35, so it would be convenient for him to be there so we could just hop on the road. But I get there and he's not there, so I call and ask where he is. "I told you I'm out front." I say, "I'm out front and you aren't here." He then clarifies that he is outside the poker room, which is at the back of the casino. So when he said he was "out front" he really meant that he was "out back." He also informed me that he couldn't find my car because he didn't know which direction east was. This is what an engineering degree from OU gets you these days.
I had asked him to drive because my car, an old Honda Accord, had its check engine light on a few days prior. It was driving fine and the light hadn't been on (in fact I had canceled an appointment to the car shop), but I didn't want to get stranded two hours from home. This would prove to be quite ironic.
About 10 miles down the road, Lil Kat's temperature warning lit up. The gauge was past the H and the car was obviously overheating.
At this point Brian thought it was a good time to let me know this his car had been also been acting funny of late. He told a tale of a drive-though encounter at Taco Bell, whereupon the cashier notified him that he was leaking a huge amount of anti-freeze. He figured the guy was an idiot since he worked at Taco Bell so the warning was ignored. Good thinking, let's just let the car blow up in Thackerville, Oklahoma.
We did, however, make it down to Winstar, where I lost the biggest pot I played. To Lil Kat. Good times.
The next day went better for me and I ended up having a profitable trip (alas, Lil Kat cannot say the same). At about 11 p.m., we decided to head back home.
Less than 10 miles into the 110-mile return trip, however, the temperature gauge lit up again. Not a surprising result since nothing had been done to fix it. But this time several other warnings lit up. Actually, just about every warning function on his piece of crap 2007-ish Chevy Malibu.
First, allow me to describe the current driving conditions. It was about 30 degrees outside with a rather dense fog. And we are the only car on I-35.
The check engine light came on. Then a warning that said, "Oil is at zero percent." Then something that said, "Energy saver mode activated." Brian couldn't get the car to go more than 50 mph and the heater wasn't working. More alarmingly, the car was making an awful clanking sound and smelled like burnt sausage.
Lil Kat asked what the chances of us making it home were. I estimated 40 percent.
Somehow, we plodded for over two hours at 50 mph but made it to the Highway 9 exit where Riverwind is located. We would have made it to the casino but, to quote our friend Tim Widowski, "Lil Kat is the worst driver I know."
First, he almost missed the exit. More amazing than that, he chose the wrong direction to turn after exiting the highway.
Riverwind Casino, where B-Ray spends roughly 70 hours per week, is a huge, bright building just West of I-35. The Highway 9 exit puts you on the east side of I-35. To get to the casino you have to cross over the highway. Or you can drive the opposite direction of the casino.
So after making a last-second swerve to exit the highway, Lil Kat then veers right at the fork in the road, taking us away from the casino and straight toward absolutely nothing.
I point out that we should be going the other way. To be fair to B-Ray, it was quite foggy and you couldn't see much. It did appear as if there was nothing but pavement in front of us, and there wasn't a clear designated area to turn around.
So B-Ray gets the car in position to turn around and then -- thump! splash! -- we drive over a small ledge into a puddle of mud. His back tires weren't totally off the ground, but we were stuck pretty good. After Googling "car in a ditch" I chose the image above to most closely correlate to the crappyness of B-Ray's car and the ditch we were stuck in.
When it became obvious that we weren't going to get out of the ditch, Brian called AAA. While he was on the phone, a McClain County Sheriff's car came by. The cop was really nice, asked if we needed any help, and even remarked about how easily someone could drive into the ditch because of the fog. When I told him we were calling AAA, he said he was going to leave but that we should call 911 if we need anything else.
AAA said the tow would be there in an hour, and Brian had to wait for them to get there. I decided to walk the quarter mile over the highway to Riverwind and head home. But as I was leaving, another McClain County Sheriff's car pulled up. This cop was not as cool.
"How in the hell did you get in there???" he yelled after jumping out of his car. He made it sound like we had damaged his personal property or that he would in some way be helping us out of the situation.
Brian explained the wrong turn and the fog, but this guy wasn't interested.
"All I care about is whether you guys have been drinking," he said. "Have you been drinking?"
"No," Brian said. "Not one drop actually."
"Okay, well I still don't see how you ended up in that thing but all I really care about is whether you've been drinking."
As he walked back to his car, I tried to seize upon the opportunity for a free ride back to my car.
"Any way I can get a lift back to Riverwind?" I asked.
"I'm not going that way," he said, driving off.
As I walked across the highway in 30 degree fog, I thought about how much money my family could get from McClain County if I got ran over because this jerk wouldn't go one minute out of his way to drop me off at Riverwind.
It all just goes to show you that Brian Ray is a terrible driver.
P.S. The tow truck Brian called drove into the same ditch, which is pretty funny. But it got out and got B-Ray's car back to his place. He took it to a shop, where it got some much-needed anti-freeze. According to Lil Kat, that was all that was wrong with the car. But coming from someone who knows less about cars than a Taco Bell cashier, I don't think I'll be rolling the dice in that thing for quite some time.
Wednesday, December 18, 2013
Sunday, November 10, 2013
Tournament Co-Co-Co-Co-Champion!!!!
Anyone who knows me knows that I love poker and hate poker tournaments.
Anyone who knows poker knows that only cash games are true poker and tournaments are stupid. This is science, don't argue with it.
Anyway, over the past five years I have steadily lowered the number of tournaments I play in. I used to play maybe 5-7 per year, but this year I played one in Vegas this summer and decided I would be a non-participant for the rest of 2013 and possibly forever.
I broke my oath the other day, made a couple thousand bucks and met some d-bags worthy of a blog.
On Thursday I drove the two hours to Winstar Casino, home to the biggest poker room in Oklahoma, arriving at 12:30 p.m. This is typically about the time that the cash game I play in begins. On this particular day, however, there were only a few names on the list and it looked like it might be an hour or more before it began.
A few tables away, a tournament had begun. There was a small weeklong series of special tournaments going on, and Thursday's tournament was half no-limit hold em, half pot-limit Omaha. The tournament was only $230 and I enjoy Omaha, so I came up with a plan. I would enter the tournament and try to win a big pot within the first hour. If I lost it wouldn't cost me much and I could still play the cash game, but if I won I would have a chance at making some good money in the tournament.
The timing worked out perfectly. Just as the cash game was about to start, I was dealt a strong draw and moved all in against two other guys. I made my draw on the last card and now had three times the tournament starting stack.
From a starting field of 54, I coasted into the final table. The tournament was only set up to pay 6 places, but as soon as we got down to the final 9 everyone wanted to change the payouts so that 9th, 8th and 7th got a little money. This is reason #2213 why tournaments are stupid. There's always going to be someone who is the first person not to get paid. Why not just go with how the tournament was set up? Yet this is standard tournament fare.
Changing the payouts like this requires a unanimous vote. Someone suggested it, everyone else loved it, and then I voted against it. The whole table turned on me like I was a leper who said bad things about their mommas.
"That's fine. This guy doesn't wanna do it. We'll just bust him," one dude said.
"You're gonna regret that when you get busted and get nothing," a lady said.
"We've played for 6 hours now, we all deserve to at least get our money back," an old codger said.
"Blah blah blah tournaments blow," is what I heard.
I had an average chip stack at the time, so it wasn't like I was guaranteed to even make the money, yet everyone seemed to assume I was being a selfish jerk by wanting to play by the rules they set up. Every few hands, I was again offered the chance to pay everyone at the table. I continued to decline.
One guy folded a pot and said, "I would have played that hand and probably gotten busted, but this guy (pointing at me) must not like action so I guess we'll all keep folding."
Whatevs bro.
Someone got knocked out and we were down to eight, and they started it up in full earnest again.
"You still gonna be heartless and not let everyone get their money back?" one guy said. To prove I didn't care about the money, I moved all in on a bluff and showed my hand. This only proved to the rest of the table that I was stupid. They promised I would regret the decision.
They were right, I regretted my decision to enter a tournament.
Someone else got busted and we were down to seven, and now the urgency was like we were on the Titanic and there were seven spots left on the last lifeboat.
"Please, sir, just $200. Let the guy get his money back. We've been playing too long to walk away empty-handed."
At this point I figured saying yes would be as close as I'd ever get to the feeling of curing cancer or achieving world peace, so I finally acquiesced and one guy literally let out a huge sigh of relief.
Just as soon as I had them on my good side, I lost them with a snide comment I couldn't help but make.
"It seems like you probably shouldn't be playing a $230 tournament if $200 is such a big deal to you."
Cue silence, dirty looks.
We kept playing and soon we were down to four people. All four of us had relatively equal chip stacks, so naturally someone brought up the idea of chopping (splitting the remaining prize money equally).
The same guy spearheaded the $200 payout and the 4-way chop. He was the definition of a tournament drooler d-bag, about 40 years old with sunglasses he wore every time he was involved in a hand, a crew cut and an attitude that made it clear he thought he was better than the rest of us in every aspect of life.
I was hoping that by caving in on the $200, I would be able to get out of the chop scenario more easily. Wrong.
This dude gets out his phone and says, "I just did the math. It's $2200 for all four of us to just walk away right now. Let's all win."
The other two players immediately agree, leaving me to be the jerk again. Evidently when you enter a tournament, you are not allowed to choose to actually play the tournament out until someone wins. You go cut-throat until you get down to half a dozen, and then you are required to turn into a Communist and make sure everyone wins the same amount.
"I guess you guys make these final tables all the time," I said. "But this is new to me so I kinda want to play it out and see what happens."
That excuse didn't fly, so Douchey McGee kept at it. After saying no six times, I started ignoring him, which only made him madder and madder.
Out of nowhere, one of the other two guys says, "So, did we all agree on the $2200 yet?"
Serenity now.
McGee got more aggressive in his tactics. First it was, "You're going to regret it when you walk away with $1000 when you could have had $2200." Then it was, "I'm just trying to be nice. No matter what, I'm going home to great job and three kids and a great life. I win no matter what. I don't know if you can say that, but I'm just being friendly." Then finally, "I'm going to make you regret not chopping. I'm gonna bust you and then the three of us can chop it."
When that didn't work, he went into terrorist mode.
"OK buddy, here's the deal. This is your last chance. If you don't agree to the $2200 right now, then I'm not doing any deals at all. Don't even talk to me about it."
I just rolled my eyes at him. Then I tried to bluff him in a pot and that didn't work.
So now I have less chips than anyone else. McGee has the most, but not much more than the other two guys. He immediately reneged on his promise of non-negotiation.
"OK guys, I have the chip lead now. I'll take $2600, and the three of you can chop up the rest of it." I suppose in theory this would have been a good deal for me, but the other two guys would have been getting screwed. Besides which I would rather get 4th place and less money than cave in to this dude.
So we kept playing, and soon I found myself all in with about a 20% chance to win the pot. When we turned our hands face-up, McGee yelled, "We're down to three! We're down to three!" Unfortunately for him I got extremely lucky on the last card and won the pot. Without saying a word, I gave him a nod and a wink as I scooped the chips.
We played some more, and nobody busted out. Finally around midnight the blinds got so high that there was virtually no element of skill left. We all four still had roughly the same amount of chips. After several hours of saying no to these same three guys, I finally said, "OK boys, I give up. I'll chop it."
Douchey McGee says, "Hold on now. I want to see if that's a good deal for me. I think I'm still the chip leader."
So he makes us all count our chips. Turns out, I had the most chips, but just barely. Still, I made him acknowledge my chip lead when he agreed to the deal.
Thus ends the story of my final tournament of 2013. A free $100 to anyone who catches me playing one before then.
Anyone who knows poker knows that only cash games are true poker and tournaments are stupid. This is science, don't argue with it.
Anyway, over the past five years I have steadily lowered the number of tournaments I play in. I used to play maybe 5-7 per year, but this year I played one in Vegas this summer and decided I would be a non-participant for the rest of 2013 and possibly forever.
I broke my oath the other day, made a couple thousand bucks and met some d-bags worthy of a blog.
On Thursday I drove the two hours to Winstar Casino, home to the biggest poker room in Oklahoma, arriving at 12:30 p.m. This is typically about the time that the cash game I play in begins. On this particular day, however, there were only a few names on the list and it looked like it might be an hour or more before it began.
A few tables away, a tournament had begun. There was a small weeklong series of special tournaments going on, and Thursday's tournament was half no-limit hold em, half pot-limit Omaha. The tournament was only $230 and I enjoy Omaha, so I came up with a plan. I would enter the tournament and try to win a big pot within the first hour. If I lost it wouldn't cost me much and I could still play the cash game, but if I won I would have a chance at making some good money in the tournament.
The timing worked out perfectly. Just as the cash game was about to start, I was dealt a strong draw and moved all in against two other guys. I made my draw on the last card and now had three times the tournament starting stack.
From a starting field of 54, I coasted into the final table. The tournament was only set up to pay 6 places, but as soon as we got down to the final 9 everyone wanted to change the payouts so that 9th, 8th and 7th got a little money. This is reason #2213 why tournaments are stupid. There's always going to be someone who is the first person not to get paid. Why not just go with how the tournament was set up? Yet this is standard tournament fare.
Changing the payouts like this requires a unanimous vote. Someone suggested it, everyone else loved it, and then I voted against it. The whole table turned on me like I was a leper who said bad things about their mommas.
"That's fine. This guy doesn't wanna do it. We'll just bust him," one dude said.
"You're gonna regret that when you get busted and get nothing," a lady said.
"We've played for 6 hours now, we all deserve to at least get our money back," an old codger said.
"Blah blah blah tournaments blow," is what I heard.
I had an average chip stack at the time, so it wasn't like I was guaranteed to even make the money, yet everyone seemed to assume I was being a selfish jerk by wanting to play by the rules they set up. Every few hands, I was again offered the chance to pay everyone at the table. I continued to decline.
One guy folded a pot and said, "I would have played that hand and probably gotten busted, but this guy (pointing at me) must not like action so I guess we'll all keep folding."
Whatevs bro.
Someone got knocked out and we were down to eight, and they started it up in full earnest again.
"You still gonna be heartless and not let everyone get their money back?" one guy said. To prove I didn't care about the money, I moved all in on a bluff and showed my hand. This only proved to the rest of the table that I was stupid. They promised I would regret the decision.
They were right, I regretted my decision to enter a tournament.
Someone else got busted and we were down to seven, and now the urgency was like we were on the Titanic and there were seven spots left on the last lifeboat.
"Please, sir, just $200. Let the guy get his money back. We've been playing too long to walk away empty-handed."
At this point I figured saying yes would be as close as I'd ever get to the feeling of curing cancer or achieving world peace, so I finally acquiesced and one guy literally let out a huge sigh of relief.
Just as soon as I had them on my good side, I lost them with a snide comment I couldn't help but make.
"It seems like you probably shouldn't be playing a $230 tournament if $200 is such a big deal to you."
Cue silence, dirty looks.
We kept playing and soon we were down to four people. All four of us had relatively equal chip stacks, so naturally someone brought up the idea of chopping (splitting the remaining prize money equally).
The same guy spearheaded the $200 payout and the 4-way chop. He was the definition of a tournament drooler d-bag, about 40 years old with sunglasses he wore every time he was involved in a hand, a crew cut and an attitude that made it clear he thought he was better than the rest of us in every aspect of life.
I was hoping that by caving in on the $200, I would be able to get out of the chop scenario more easily. Wrong.
This dude gets out his phone and says, "I just did the math. It's $2200 for all four of us to just walk away right now. Let's all win."
The other two players immediately agree, leaving me to be the jerk again. Evidently when you enter a tournament, you are not allowed to choose to actually play the tournament out until someone wins. You go cut-throat until you get down to half a dozen, and then you are required to turn into a Communist and make sure everyone wins the same amount.
"I guess you guys make these final tables all the time," I said. "But this is new to me so I kinda want to play it out and see what happens."
That excuse didn't fly, so Douchey McGee kept at it. After saying no six times, I started ignoring him, which only made him madder and madder.
Out of nowhere, one of the other two guys says, "So, did we all agree on the $2200 yet?"
Serenity now.
McGee got more aggressive in his tactics. First it was, "You're going to regret it when you walk away with $1000 when you could have had $2200." Then it was, "I'm just trying to be nice. No matter what, I'm going home to great job and three kids and a great life. I win no matter what. I don't know if you can say that, but I'm just being friendly." Then finally, "I'm going to make you regret not chopping. I'm gonna bust you and then the three of us can chop it."
When that didn't work, he went into terrorist mode.
"OK buddy, here's the deal. This is your last chance. If you don't agree to the $2200 right now, then I'm not doing any deals at all. Don't even talk to me about it."
I just rolled my eyes at him. Then I tried to bluff him in a pot and that didn't work.
So now I have less chips than anyone else. McGee has the most, but not much more than the other two guys. He immediately reneged on his promise of non-negotiation.
"OK guys, I have the chip lead now. I'll take $2600, and the three of you can chop up the rest of it." I suppose in theory this would have been a good deal for me, but the other two guys would have been getting screwed. Besides which I would rather get 4th place and less money than cave in to this dude.
So we kept playing, and soon I found myself all in with about a 20% chance to win the pot. When we turned our hands face-up, McGee yelled, "We're down to three! We're down to three!" Unfortunately for him I got extremely lucky on the last card and won the pot. Without saying a word, I gave him a nod and a wink as I scooped the chips.
We played some more, and nobody busted out. Finally around midnight the blinds got so high that there was virtually no element of skill left. We all four still had roughly the same amount of chips. After several hours of saying no to these same three guys, I finally said, "OK boys, I give up. I'll chop it."
Douchey McGee says, "Hold on now. I want to see if that's a good deal for me. I think I'm still the chip leader."
So he makes us all count our chips. Turns out, I had the most chips, but just barely. Still, I made him acknowledge my chip lead when he agreed to the deal.
Thus ends the story of my final tournament of 2013. A free $100 to anyone who catches me playing one before then.
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
Postscript to the last Focking Blog
A few things have happened since the last blog, about a week ago.
There's a fair amount of good news.
Twice last week I called our warranty company, American Home Shield, and asked to speak to a manager about our ongoing A/C troubles. Twice they said one would call me back in 24 hours or less, and twice that didn't happen.
The third time I gave the receptionist a fire and brimstone speech, telling her the next call would be coming from my lawyer. This was kind of a bluff, since I had contacted two lawyers and they didn't see enough money there to mess with it at this point. Nevertheless, it did have the effect of getting me a prompt call back from a manager, who was quite courteous.
In fact, once I dropped the L bomb on them their tone changed 180 degrees. I have received a call from the supervisor at AHS for three straight days, asking if the A/C was working properly. Each time I said the same thing -- it's working much better than before, but the house temp during the afternoon is still 3 to 5 degrees hotter than what we have it set on. I understand that it's very hot outside but I would like to have someone confirm that it is functioning as best it can and that there isn't long-term damage from the terrible company First Time Heat and Air's incompetent work. And if there is, fix it.
Evidently, AHS called our second A/C company, All About Comfort, after each of their three calls to me. AHS wants someone to come out to our house, but AAC is surely sick of having to come to our house four times to re-do First Time's crappy work, so they blew them off. Finally I got a call from All About Comfort, and it was pretty funny.
AAC receptionist: "Hello, Mr. Franklin, I've received several calls from AHS about your A/C service but I haven't heard any complaint from you directly so I just wanted to confirm that everything is working OK.
I repeated what I said above, said I was happy with their service and sorry that they had to cover for First Time, but said I would like someone to come out and double-check everything since the warranty company was paying for it and since there was the 5 degree discrepancy on the temp.
Receptionist: "Well, you know it's very hot outside. Do you have the blinds open? The sun coming in can make it very hot inside."
Me: "Yes, we've kept them closed during the day."
Her: "Because, you know, here in our office we have the temp set at 70 and it was 81 in here the other day until I put a curtain up and now it's fine."
Me: "You work at an air conditioning company and they can't get the temp under 80 in the office?"
Her: "Ummm...It's much better now that I've put the curtain up. That's why I asked you about that. Maybe that's all you need."
One of their supervisors is coming to check on our unit tomorrow.
While things on the A/C front are hopefully (fingers crossed) looking better, our bad luck has not run out quite yet. I'll rank these new developments from least serious to most serious.
There's a fair amount of good news.
- The laptop needed only a new power cord
- Poker be good
- The doorknob has remained intact
Twice last week I called our warranty company, American Home Shield, and asked to speak to a manager about our ongoing A/C troubles. Twice they said one would call me back in 24 hours or less, and twice that didn't happen.
The third time I gave the receptionist a fire and brimstone speech, telling her the next call would be coming from my lawyer. This was kind of a bluff, since I had contacted two lawyers and they didn't see enough money there to mess with it at this point. Nevertheless, it did have the effect of getting me a prompt call back from a manager, who was quite courteous.
In fact, once I dropped the L bomb on them their tone changed 180 degrees. I have received a call from the supervisor at AHS for three straight days, asking if the A/C was working properly. Each time I said the same thing -- it's working much better than before, but the house temp during the afternoon is still 3 to 5 degrees hotter than what we have it set on. I understand that it's very hot outside but I would like to have someone confirm that it is functioning as best it can and that there isn't long-term damage from the terrible company First Time Heat and Air's incompetent work. And if there is, fix it.
Evidently, AHS called our second A/C company, All About Comfort, after each of their three calls to me. AHS wants someone to come out to our house, but AAC is surely sick of having to come to our house four times to re-do First Time's crappy work, so they blew them off. Finally I got a call from All About Comfort, and it was pretty funny.
AAC receptionist: "Hello, Mr. Franklin, I've received several calls from AHS about your A/C service but I haven't heard any complaint from you directly so I just wanted to confirm that everything is working OK.
I repeated what I said above, said I was happy with their service and sorry that they had to cover for First Time, but said I would like someone to come out and double-check everything since the warranty company was paying for it and since there was the 5 degree discrepancy on the temp.
Receptionist: "Well, you know it's very hot outside. Do you have the blinds open? The sun coming in can make it very hot inside."
Me: "Yes, we've kept them closed during the day."
Her: "Because, you know, here in our office we have the temp set at 70 and it was 81 in here the other day until I put a curtain up and now it's fine."
Me: "You work at an air conditioning company and they can't get the temp under 80 in the office?"
Her: "Ummm...It's much better now that I've put the curtain up. That's why I asked you about that. Maybe that's all you need."
One of their supervisors is coming to check on our unit tomorrow.
While things on the A/C front are hopefully (fingers crossed) looking better, our bad luck has not run out quite yet. I'll rank these new developments from least serious to most serious.
- I was mowing our lawn and stepped on an uneven spot in the land. I've had a lot of ankle problems in the past, so this small bulge in the ground was enough to roll my ankle and send me right to the ground, where I took a couple of full-body rolls toward the street. The mower slowly starting coming down the hill toward me, but it hit the same bulge I rolled my ankle on and stopped. It would have been a pretty hilarious scene for someone driving by.
- After a successful poker session, I was feeling pretty good as I left Riverwind at 1:30 a.m. Those good feeling were replaced by angry words when my car wouldn't start and I realized I was trapped at Riverwind at 1:30 a.m. Luckily my friend and superior poker player James was there to help. We tried jumping it but that didn't work. He gave me a ride home and tomorrow we will have the car towed to a garage where it will hopefully be fixed.
- Missy was fixing dinner the other night when she noticed that the gas oven she had preheated wasn't heating at all. She opened the door and stuck her hand in to gauge the temp when a fireball jumped out at her and slightly burned her arm. It also filled the house with gas odor. This despite the fact that the oven was not hot at all. More than anything, we were just scared. A guy came out but couldn't figure out what was wrong with it, so someone else is coming on Friday. Luckily, this is covered by our fantastically crappy home warranty.
Thursday, August 1, 2013
What a Focking Week
One of the first movies I ever watched with Missy was "Meet the Parents," the Ben Stiller/Robert de Niro comedy about a young man trying to impress his soon-to-be father-in-law (lot of hyphens there) with plenty of comedic obstacles getting in the way.
Missy hated it. She kept saying it was stressing her out and totally unrealistic because all of this stuff could never happen to one person on one weekend and if it did, they would boot Mr. Stiller out of their lives forever instead of giving him 32 second chances.
Not that I thought it was cinematic genius, but I thought the movie was decent. Hard to go too wrong with de Niro. My only problem with it was that was that Stiller's character's name was Gaylord Focker, which they exploited for its resemblance to dirty words for about 50 cheap laughs. They followed that up with sequels called "Meet the Fockers" and "Little Fockers" so people could be cracking up just seeing the title on the marquee. It was funny the first time I heard it, after that not so much. Surely we can do better than relying on one half-witted name to make an audience laugh these days.
(An aside: Missy and I rarely watch movies together because I only like about 10% of them and I make fun of the rest of them, which annoys her since she likes 90% of movies. So it's ironic that I found this one bearable and she didn't. Also, I find it funny that she thought "Meet the Parents" was totally unrealistic but she's watched every episode of "Charmed" more than once. Love you honey!)
If Missy and I somehow decided to watch that movie today, unfortunately I would have to predict that she might find it a lot more realistic.
Ever since we moved into our new house in February, we've had quite a bit of trouble with our air conditioner. Before we even moved in, the compressor was busted and it had to be fixed. It was (supposedly), and we also got the standard one-year home warranty.
About two months after we moved in, the A/C started acting up a little. It functioned, but the house would be about 75 when we wanted it at 70. So we called the warranty people and they sent out the same company that had replaced the compressor, and they seemed to fix the problem.
That worked for about two more months, until it didn't. Again, it would be like 75 in the house. So they sent this company out again. The Focker they sent out this time tried to tell us that the problem was our air filters, which were only four months old and not overly dirty. I found this hard to believe but we replaced them anyway. He also said there were some burnt wired in the unit and replaced them. I guess the air filters snuck out at night burned up some wires on our outside unit. We had a spate of cool weather and didn't need the A/C much over the next two weeks, but when we did need it, it couldn't seem to get the house under 75 if it was over 90 outside. Also, the unit started making a loud screaming noise when it was running. This started immediately after he "repaired" it.
I called the Fockers over at our fine warranty company, American Home Shield. They send the same dude out, from First Time Heat and Air (which seems like the Gaylord Focker of heat and air company names). Now he tries to tell me there must have been some kind of brownout in the unit that happened after his last visit, causing the screaming and the inefficiency in it. I told him the inefficiency was just the same as always, so it was quite unlikely to be the magical brownout that occurred after you Focked up our unit the last time you showed up.
Showing quite a bit of nerve, he proceeds to tell me that he thinks our compressor just isn't very good. That it's running the best it can but it needs to be replaced. He says he can install a new one for us for the bargain basement price of $1500, but I shouldn't bother trying to get the warranty to cover it because he doesn't think there is anything mechanically wrong with it and that's what his report to them will say. (My report to the Better Business Bureau will read a little differently, but I'll screw with that after we have some air conditioning in our house).
I told him that his company installed the current compressor a mere five months ago, and if they can't stand by their work or install a compressor that lasts more than five months, I think it's time to move on down the road.
I called the warranty people back and said I wanted someone else to come out. Of course, every time you call the warranty company, you sit on hold forever and then they tell you they can't get anyone out until the next day, which means another day of it being 75 in the house. One day it was particularly hot and the house got up to 81 so we got a hotel room. That might have been a fun and cool experience if it only happened once and our A/C got fixed the next day. But it didn't.
Just as Mr. Focker at First Time Heat and Air had said, his report stated no mechanical failure with the unit. So the warranty company said they'd send someone out for a second opinion, but if they didn't find a problem we would be billed for the visit. Fine. Go.
So they send us All About Comfort, and their repairman seems to know his stuff. He says First Time used a wrong part and botched the initial compressor installation. He also said the brownout and air filter theories were total crap. He said he'd send his report in and then the warranty company would call me back and we'd proceed from there because he couldn't actually fix anything until they approved it.
Of course, you never hear back from the warranty company. You have to call them if you want anything to happen. I gave them a generous 24 hours and then I called. "That report just hit our desk 15 minutes ago! We were just about to call you!" Sure. Of course they can't get the guy to come back out until the next day.
So he shows up with a disappointed look on his face. "I told them I thought the compressor needed to be replaced, but they only authorized me to change the bad part First Time installed. That should at least stop the screaming sound and hopefully your unit will work better, but I wouldn't expect this to be a long-term solution."
Whatever, not surprising that these jerks want the cheapest way out every time. I figured I'd let him get the screaming stopped and then fight their decision. But 15 minutes later, the repairman knocks on the door and says that during the process of trying to replace the bad part, the whole compressor is now broken. In other words, no A/C at all. This is Tuesday.
So as our house temp climbs into the mid-80s, we pack our stuff and get another hotel room. At the same time, we drop our car off to get an oil leak fixed. We'd just bought a used car with high mileage and at the pre-purchase inspection the mechanic said it had an oil leak that would cost $175 to fix. So we took $200 off the purchase price, closed the deal and now two weeks later I was finally getting around to fixing the leak.
We take care of that and I decide to head to the office and try to win enough to pay for some of this BS. Long story short, I lost enough to buy a compressor from First Time Heat and Air. I'm much happier that I lost it in a poker game than if I would have given it to them.
The next day (Wednesday) I get a call from All About Comfort.
"Hello Mr. Franklin, I'm calling to let you know that your compressor has been ordered. It will be here Friday morning and we will install it then."
I'm not happy but there's no use arguing with this dude. I figure I'll call American Home Shield as soon as I hang up with him and let them know that this is not acceptable.
"Now, Mr. Franklin, while I have you on the line I'd like to give you another option to consider. This is going to be your second compressor in five months, and your condenser likely has been damaged too, but your warranty isn't covering that right now. Now, you can keep calling us every five months and go through the hassle of calling your warranty company and paying $75 every time we have to come out and fix it. Or you can purchase a new compressor and condenser from us that will be guaranteed for five years. This would normally cost $5999 but I'm offering it to you for $2500."
Me: "This is almost as fun as being upsold by the other company that screwed me over last week. I'll pass." Hang up.
I call American Home Shield. After being on hold for the standard 20 minutes, I immediately ask to speak to a manager.
"Hmmm....(pause)....my supervisor is off today."
"I don't care whose supervisor it is, I want to talk to one right now."
"Hmm....(pause)....well....he got off at 4 today (I look at my watch, it's 3:05 p.m. central, 4:05 on the east coast where I presume they are located)....hmmm.....this one also got off at 4.....hmmm......she got off at 11 a.m......hmmm....this one was off the entire day. I'll send out a message to have the next available supervisor call you."
About 30 minutes later, my phone rings. But it's not American Home Shield, it's the Fockers at the car repair shop.
"Mr. Franklin, we've fixed your oil leak, but we want you to know that there are actually two separate leaks. Repairing the second leak would require removing your transmission, so the labor on that would run you about $1200. Would you like us to do that?"
Of course not. Goodbye.
Later, I pick my mom up at the airport and we move all our crap into her house for the night. Just what she was hoping for after a long day of air travel, I'm sure. After mom and the girls go to bed, I open the laptop. It won't fire up. Says it's not getting any power even though everything is plugged in. I seriously almost just started crying.
I have no idea what's up with the laptop, it's still broken. Maybe the old air filters got it.
I still haven't heard from American Home Shield, and this is 8 hours later. I decide to go to our 87 degree house and grab a couple items for the next day, and I call them back on the way.
"Can I get your account number?"
My favorite part of every call. It means I am not on hold any more. I give it to her.
"I'm not seeing an account under that number."
"Well, I've probably called in 20 times this month so I'm confident that this is it."
"Hmmm...I'm not seeing anything."
After five minutes, we realize that she had accidentally typed an extra digit onto the end of my actual number. Hallelujah, I do in fact have an account with one of the worst run companies in America. I tell her I need to speak to a manager. She says my request has been submitted but it sometimes takes up to 24 hours to receive a call back, so I just need to be a little more patient.
Deep breaths, deep breaths.
I grab the items in the house I came for and head back to the car. I attempt to open our front door and the door handle comes flying off entirely. I wish I was making that up. It seems unreal, like the Focker burning his in-laws house down and then marrying their daughter a week later. But it happened.
I did manage to get my door knob back on (at least for now). And I realize that compared to many, many people in the world, my problems are microscopic. My family is healthy and I can't even count all the ways God has blessed us.
But, Lord, I would really prefer to have air conditioning. Love you :)
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
The Most Underhanded and Conniving People You'll Ever Meet
Why did I let my daughter have ice cream and a snow cone on the same day? Why did I let her watch back-to-back episodes of Octonauts when she needed to be cleaning her room? Why did I let her kick me out of my own bed at night so she could sleep with her mom while I was slept in the recliner?
Because 4-year-old girls are who's being described in the title of this blog.
Seriously, does God expect you to ever say no to the girl in the picture atop this page? I don't see how. I just played consecutive games of Memory, Candyland and Chutes and Ladders, and that was after being convinced that Chick-Fil-A would be a much better lunch than the peanut butter and jelly sandwich I had planned.
If Addison had it her way, she would never sleep in her own bed. One night, I was working late and Addie called on Missy's phone to ask if she could sleep on my side of the bed until I got home. I might as well have powdered some crack cocaine onto her Lucky Charms. Now it's a daily battle to get her to enter her own bedroom for any reason other than to try on every outfit she owns and leave the clothes in a 3-foot pile of destruction all over the room.
A few days after getting her first taste of Tempur-pedic, Addie called and asked again. There's no saying no to these requests. You would have to be Satan himself to refuse a "Daddy? I love you soooo much. Can I please sleep in your bed until you get home? Pleeeassse?" If I did say no, it would mean leaving my wife with an over-tired, screaming 4-year old while I hurry back to play a game of cards. This would seriously diminish the chances of ever having another 4-year old girl in the near future.
But after I said yes a few times, Addie knew she would get what she wanted, so her calls became slightly less adorable. "Daddy? I'm gonna KICK YOU OUT OF THE BED!!!!!!!" followed by an evil laugh.
Finally, Missy and I decided Addie needed to stay put in her own room. So she changed gears again. One night when I was home with the girls and Missy was at work, Addie asked if she could sleep on Mommy's side of the bed until she got home. I said no. She then thought for a minute with that cute puzzled look on her face that you know means she is seriously grinding the wheels in her head.
"Can I call Mommy at work and tell her good night?" I said, "Are you going to ask if you can sleep on her side of the bed?" She again got that look on her face while deciding whether or not to lie. Finally she scrunched her face up and said, "Yeahhhhhhhhhh"
I didn't recognize it when Addie was younger, but I now realize that little girls begin developing their manipulative qualities very early in life. We are doing foster care for an 8-month girl. The adoption process is underway and we hope to have good news in the not-too-distant future, but until then we aren't allowed to post her picture or her name in a public forum like this.
All she can do at this point in her life is eat, sleep, roll around and put everything in our house in her mouth. And yet she is already something of a diva.
During the day, she is the most pleasant 8-month old you can imagine. She smiles and giggles and doesn't even fuss when she's hungry or has a dirty diaper. But in the evening, when she is starting to get tired, she often gets in these moods where she is only happy when she is being held.
This can be annoying when I am trying to make dinner or take care of Addie, but our little infant sometimes gives me zero options. A blanket on the ground with some toys -- not good enough. Her bouncy horse thingy, which she usually loves -- no bueno. She will scream and cry at the top of her lungs until you pick her up and hold her, at which point she immediately quits crying and usually breaks out a smirk.
Occasionally there is a less severe occurrence of this phenomenon, one I like to exploit for comedic gain. Sometimes I'll put her in her horse-bouncer thingy, and she'll be fine as long as she can see me. But if I turn a corner it's Armageddon. When that happens, I like to pop in and out of the room every two seconds to see her go from giggly to my-world-is-ending over and over again. Moments like these either keep me sane or prove that I've already lost it. Hard to say which.
Anyway, I love my family and have every intention of being easily manipulated by these ladies for at least the next 20 years.
Because 4-year-old girls are who's being described in the title of this blog.
Seriously, does God expect you to ever say no to the girl in the picture atop this page? I don't see how. I just played consecutive games of Memory, Candyland and Chutes and Ladders, and that was after being convinced that Chick-Fil-A would be a much better lunch than the peanut butter and jelly sandwich I had planned.
If Addison had it her way, she would never sleep in her own bed. One night, I was working late and Addie called on Missy's phone to ask if she could sleep on my side of the bed until I got home. I might as well have powdered some crack cocaine onto her Lucky Charms. Now it's a daily battle to get her to enter her own bedroom for any reason other than to try on every outfit she owns and leave the clothes in a 3-foot pile of destruction all over the room.
A few days after getting her first taste of Tempur-pedic, Addie called and asked again. There's no saying no to these requests. You would have to be Satan himself to refuse a "Daddy? I love you soooo much. Can I please sleep in your bed until you get home? Pleeeassse?" If I did say no, it would mean leaving my wife with an over-tired, screaming 4-year old while I hurry back to play a game of cards. This would seriously diminish the chances of ever having another 4-year old girl in the near future.
But after I said yes a few times, Addie knew she would get what she wanted, so her calls became slightly less adorable. "Daddy? I'm gonna KICK YOU OUT OF THE BED!!!!!!!" followed by an evil laugh.
Finally, Missy and I decided Addie needed to stay put in her own room. So she changed gears again. One night when I was home with the girls and Missy was at work, Addie asked if she could sleep on Mommy's side of the bed until she got home. I said no. She then thought for a minute with that cute puzzled look on her face that you know means she is seriously grinding the wheels in her head.
"Can I call Mommy at work and tell her good night?" I said, "Are you going to ask if you can sleep on her side of the bed?" She again got that look on her face while deciding whether or not to lie. Finally she scrunched her face up and said, "Yeahhhhhhhhhh"
I didn't recognize it when Addie was younger, but I now realize that little girls begin developing their manipulative qualities very early in life. We are doing foster care for an 8-month girl. The adoption process is underway and we hope to have good news in the not-too-distant future, but until then we aren't allowed to post her picture or her name in a public forum like this.
All she can do at this point in her life is eat, sleep, roll around and put everything in our house in her mouth. And yet she is already something of a diva.
During the day, she is the most pleasant 8-month old you can imagine. She smiles and giggles and doesn't even fuss when she's hungry or has a dirty diaper. But in the evening, when she is starting to get tired, she often gets in these moods where she is only happy when she is being held.
This can be annoying when I am trying to make dinner or take care of Addie, but our little infant sometimes gives me zero options. A blanket on the ground with some toys -- not good enough. Her bouncy horse thingy, which she usually loves -- no bueno. She will scream and cry at the top of her lungs until you pick her up and hold her, at which point she immediately quits crying and usually breaks out a smirk.
Occasionally there is a less severe occurrence of this phenomenon, one I like to exploit for comedic gain. Sometimes I'll put her in her horse-bouncer thingy, and she'll be fine as long as she can see me. But if I turn a corner it's Armageddon. When that happens, I like to pop in and out of the room every two seconds to see her go from giggly to my-world-is-ending over and over again. Moments like these either keep me sane or prove that I've already lost it. Hard to say which.
Anyway, I love my family and have every intention of being easily manipulated by these ladies for at least the next 20 years.
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
A Month in Mulvane
There are a million great quotes from Seinfeld, but one of my favorites is when George casually mentions the city of El Paso, Texas, and Kramer says, "El Paso? I spent a month there one night."
Well, I think I spent a month in the city of Mulvane, Kansas this past weekend.
We hadn't been up to see Missy's family in El Dorado, Kansas for quite some time so we scheduled a weeklong trip. There's a fairly new casino about 40 minutes south of there with a poker room, so we figured I could get a couple of sessions in.
I had heard they had good Omaha games, and I had also heard that I needed to get there early if I wanted a seat in them, as they fill up quickly. On our way up, I stopped into the casino to check it out and talk to a poker manager. It was 5 p.m. on a Thursday and the casino was packed to the gills. Unlike most casinos, there were nice restaurants and the air smelled fresh, not the stale smoky smell I usually get to enjoy. There was already an Omaha game going with a decent list.
We continued on to El Dorado and I decided to come back Friday to play. On Friday, I called the poker room number but nobody answered, and it sent me to an automated messaging system that proved to be a good source of frustration for about 15 minutes until I finally gave up on talking to a live human being and decided to just go to the casino.
Pro poker tip: On days you intend to play poker, make sure to get really annoyed right before you play.
I got there at 2 p.m. and was surprised to find that there were zero people on any Omaha list. In fact, there was only one list going, for $1-$3 no limit hold em, which was not something I wanted to play. Oh well, I figured the Omaha would surely get going later, and since I had just driven 40 minutes I might as well play the no-limit hold em game.
Pro poker tip: Always waste several hours playing a game you don't want to play. That way you are both irritated and tired when you get into the game you actually want to play.
So I sit down in this $1-$3 hold em game. I fold my first hand and pull out my phone to text Missy and let her know I made it safe and that I'm dutifully playing this hold em game instead of playing craps or just setting my money on fire, both of which seemed like reasonable alternatives at the time.
"Sir," the dealer said, "I can't allow you to have the phone out while you're at the table."
I gave a disbelieving stare to the dealer before standing up to complete my text. I noticed that players at other tables had their phones out, so I went to the front desk to inquire. The dealer up there said there was a loosely-worded policy about phones but as long as I wasn't involved in a hand it was fine, and most of the dealers would never say a word about it anyway.
I was starting to feel like I was in an episode of Seinfeld, because there are always random people being jerks for no reason at all. This would be a recurring theme of my weekend.
I glanced up at the waiting lists and noticed that there were now interest lists forming for nine different games, all of which had the same one person on them. These were all variations of Omaha, but with slightly different rules or buy-ins. Essentially, however, they were all one list, because the same people were going to get onto all of the lists, and if they opened one of these games, the other lists would die out.
I asked the poker manager which Omaha game would run. He said he had no idea. Different one every day. You never know.
Needless to say, this is a pretty stupid way to run your poker room. It would be the same as Sonic offering the following drinks: Ice Tea, Coke, Vanilla Coke, Cherry Coke, Cherry Vanilla Coke, Caffeine Free Coke, and Caffeine Free Cherry Coke. Nothing else. And then telling their customers, "We have Ice Tea available right now, but you'll have to get on a list to get any of the Cokes, and you'll end up with whichever one gets nine votes first." Just pick one Coke for each night so that people know which game is going to run.
Pro poker tip: I'm sorry if that didn't make any sense at all.
Being the genius that I am, I figured I could manipulate the list slightly by not getting onto the two or three lists I least wanted to play, even though they were all very similar. That way my game of preference would be more likely to get chosen.
I ended up playing the $1-$3 hold em game for several more hours, and I was doing pretty well. After awhile I got thirsty and asked a waitress for a bottle of water. She came back with one and I grabbed a $1 chip off my stack to tip her with, since water is complimentary at every NORMAL casino in the world.
The waitress looked at me sideways and said, "The water is $1.75, and we don't accept poker chips." What?...and WHAT? I've probably played in 20 or so different poker rooms in my life, maybe more, and never heard that one before. Why couldn't they accept poker chips as payment? Kansas state law, they said. Good law. Glad they got that one on the books here in the Sunflower State.
So I grab my wallet and notice I only have $15 in there. I gave 20% of it to the waitress for A FREAKING BOTTLE OF WATER and decided I'd have to go get tap water myself for the rest of the night.
I glance back up at the Omaha lists and notice that there are 7 or 8 names on all of them now...except one. This list now has 20 people on it, and the casino is going to start this game. What the smoke?
Luckily, it's one of the three lists I WASN'T on. I go to the front desk. What the heck, bro?
"Oh, Charlie and AJ called in. We let them start a private game."
Every poker player in Oklahoma knows Charlie and AJ. They really should have their own reality show. It would be the Duck Dynasty of poker. These guys are crass and funny. They have a lot of money and they like to blow it playing poker. They have double-handedly springboarded the poker careers of some guys I know who now play at the highest levels in the world.
Evidently, they are allowed to start a game with whoever they want, so they get some of their friends who are also bad at poker and they start a game. As soon as they call in, the poker manager alerts the local professionals, who send out a mass text and all show up at the same time. They have an arrangement with the poker manager to put them at the top of the list. Then all the idiots who actually signed up at 2 p.m. are at the bottom of the list.
Pro poker tip: Don't get left on the outside when the best poker game you've seen in 3 months opens up 3 feet away from you.
Luckily, I don't know these Kansas poker pros or the poker room managers, so I was about 21st on the list.
At about 7 p.m., they did open up another Omaha game, a small-stakes one. I had won a bit at the hold em game, so I just figured I'd go over and win a little more at the Omaha game. Plan B was not winning a pot the entire time I was there.
I played one pot against a dude who obviously didn't know what he was doing. He was dumping money left and right. I got all in against him with what I thought was the best hand, and I had a good draw to improve my hand as well. My draw didn't come in, and it turns out this dude had the best possible hand.
As this guy takes the pot in, an older black guy on my left offers his analysis. Talking to the guy who won the pot, he says, "I'll be honest with you, I didn't think there was any way you were going to win that pot. I wasn't sure you knew what you were doing. But now it looks like this other young man might be the one who doesn't know what he's doing."
Thanks.
I tried to exact revenge on the poker analyst. I got all in with him in about as good a shape as you can ever be against someone, but he found the right card on the river and spoiled my plans to bust him for spite.
Pro poker tip: When someone says something to anger you, make sure you immediately double him up. It's good for team morale.
So, Plan B was going along perfectly, and by now it was 10 p.m. so I was getting hungry. I decided to splurge for a quality dinner. It cost $15 after tax and tip.
The waitress brings it and I absent-mindedly grab $15 in chips off my stack to pay her. I forgot this was a felony in Kansas. So I grab my wallet. I forgot that I now have only $12 in cash in my wallet. Not wanting to break a $100, I shrug my shoulders and give her a credit card. Now she has to walk back to the restaurant, run my CC, bring me back a slip to sign, then walk back to the restaurant again. As George Costanza says in another favorite Seinfeld quote (after randomly stealing a clock from an ex-girlfriend), "That's one for our side!"
At 2 a.m. I finally got my seat at Charlie and AJ's table. Of course, I'm now playing with Charlie, AJ, and six professional poker players who have 90 percent of the chips on the table. All the other amateurs have left. I'm also totally exhausted from already having played 12 hours of poker. And this was after not sleeping much the night before because Addie kept waking me up.
Pro poker tip: Sleep is very important when you are winning. When you are losing, it's irrelevant. You just keep playing. And if you can play for higher stakes than when you weren't tired, that's even better.
When I sit down, the guy next to me says he recognizes me from Riverwind. I don't recognize him, but he seems like a cool guy. He proceeds to tell me how stupid it is for me NOT to come up here every time Charlie and AJ show up, and he is curious as to why I am not regularly playing nosebleed stakes poker. I tell him I can't afford to play nosebleed stakes poker, and he proceeds to act like I just told him I have leprosy. He pretty much didn't talk to me the rest of the night.
Which is what I wish the rest of the pros had done. Instead, they all team up on the outsider to make fun of me for playing very conservatively. Never mind the fact that I've only been at the table 30 minutes and haven't had any good hands. Charlie and AJ make fun of me too, but I actually know them. At this point, however, I am so tired that I neither care nor respond.
At 6 a.m., Charlie and AJ called it a night and the game was over. I broke even at their table but I had lost earlier so I was still down a decent amount. After playing for 16 hours on no sleep, I was a walking zombie.
My plan was to drive back to El Dorado, but after wandering around the parking lot looking for my car, then sitting my car staring straight ahead for 5 minutes not remembering where I was, this didn't seem like a good idea.
There's a hotel attached to the casino, so I decided to go in and see if they had a room. I also wanted a late check-out, for obvious reasons. They had a room and I could check out at 2 p.m. There is a God.
The room cost $108 after taxes, and I was sick of having $12 in my wallet. So I peeled off two $100s from my poker roll to pay. The lady went into her office and brought back my change -- all in $5 bills. That's all they had. So my wallet went from a size 0 to Lane Bryant in 30 seconds.
It was 7 a.m. by the time I got back to sleep, and despite my 2 p.m. checkout time the front desk decided to repeatedly call my room phone beginning at 1 p.m. How sweet of them.
Pro poker tip: When your sleep bank account is at 0, and you just lost a decent amount of money playing poker for 16 hours, you might as well get 6 solid hours and an annoying wake-up call and go right back at it.
I got on all 9 different Omaha lists and went to grab a bite. I ordered a burger and fries. Nothing else, and not a special order. I was Order #42. They called #39, 40, 41, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47 and 48 before they called mine.
I'm telling you, These people hate me for no reason.
I played all day, got back most of what I had lost the night before, and went home. I put in a solid 24 hours of work for a net profit of -$250. That's what you call Living The Dream.
Pro poker tip: Find a real job.
Never have I been so happy to see my in-laws.
Well, I think I spent a month in the city of Mulvane, Kansas this past weekend.
We hadn't been up to see Missy's family in El Dorado, Kansas for quite some time so we scheduled a weeklong trip. There's a fairly new casino about 40 minutes south of there with a poker room, so we figured I could get a couple of sessions in.
I had heard they had good Omaha games, and I had also heard that I needed to get there early if I wanted a seat in them, as they fill up quickly. On our way up, I stopped into the casino to check it out and talk to a poker manager. It was 5 p.m. on a Thursday and the casino was packed to the gills. Unlike most casinos, there were nice restaurants and the air smelled fresh, not the stale smoky smell I usually get to enjoy. There was already an Omaha game going with a decent list.
We continued on to El Dorado and I decided to come back Friday to play. On Friday, I called the poker room number but nobody answered, and it sent me to an automated messaging system that proved to be a good source of frustration for about 15 minutes until I finally gave up on talking to a live human being and decided to just go to the casino.
Pro poker tip: On days you intend to play poker, make sure to get really annoyed right before you play.
I got there at 2 p.m. and was surprised to find that there were zero people on any Omaha list. In fact, there was only one list going, for $1-$3 no limit hold em, which was not something I wanted to play. Oh well, I figured the Omaha would surely get going later, and since I had just driven 40 minutes I might as well play the no-limit hold em game.
Pro poker tip: Always waste several hours playing a game you don't want to play. That way you are both irritated and tired when you get into the game you actually want to play.
So I sit down in this $1-$3 hold em game. I fold my first hand and pull out my phone to text Missy and let her know I made it safe and that I'm dutifully playing this hold em game instead of playing craps or just setting my money on fire, both of which seemed like reasonable alternatives at the time.
"Sir," the dealer said, "I can't allow you to have the phone out while you're at the table."
I gave a disbelieving stare to the dealer before standing up to complete my text. I noticed that players at other tables had their phones out, so I went to the front desk to inquire. The dealer up there said there was a loosely-worded policy about phones but as long as I wasn't involved in a hand it was fine, and most of the dealers would never say a word about it anyway.
I was starting to feel like I was in an episode of Seinfeld, because there are always random people being jerks for no reason at all. This would be a recurring theme of my weekend.
I glanced up at the waiting lists and noticed that there were now interest lists forming for nine different games, all of which had the same one person on them. These were all variations of Omaha, but with slightly different rules or buy-ins. Essentially, however, they were all one list, because the same people were going to get onto all of the lists, and if they opened one of these games, the other lists would die out.
I asked the poker manager which Omaha game would run. He said he had no idea. Different one every day. You never know.
Needless to say, this is a pretty stupid way to run your poker room. It would be the same as Sonic offering the following drinks: Ice Tea, Coke, Vanilla Coke, Cherry Coke, Cherry Vanilla Coke, Caffeine Free Coke, and Caffeine Free Cherry Coke. Nothing else. And then telling their customers, "We have Ice Tea available right now, but you'll have to get on a list to get any of the Cokes, and you'll end up with whichever one gets nine votes first." Just pick one Coke for each night so that people know which game is going to run.
Pro poker tip: I'm sorry if that didn't make any sense at all.
Being the genius that I am, I figured I could manipulate the list slightly by not getting onto the two or three lists I least wanted to play, even though they were all very similar. That way my game of preference would be more likely to get chosen.
I ended up playing the $1-$3 hold em game for several more hours, and I was doing pretty well. After awhile I got thirsty and asked a waitress for a bottle of water. She came back with one and I grabbed a $1 chip off my stack to tip her with, since water is complimentary at every NORMAL casino in the world.
The waitress looked at me sideways and said, "The water is $1.75, and we don't accept poker chips." What?...and WHAT? I've probably played in 20 or so different poker rooms in my life, maybe more, and never heard that one before. Why couldn't they accept poker chips as payment? Kansas state law, they said. Good law. Glad they got that one on the books here in the Sunflower State.
So I grab my wallet and notice I only have $15 in there. I gave 20% of it to the waitress for A FREAKING BOTTLE OF WATER and decided I'd have to go get tap water myself for the rest of the night.
I glance back up at the Omaha lists and notice that there are 7 or 8 names on all of them now...except one. This list now has 20 people on it, and the casino is going to start this game. What the smoke?
Luckily, it's one of the three lists I WASN'T on. I go to the front desk. What the heck, bro?
"Oh, Charlie and AJ called in. We let them start a private game."
Every poker player in Oklahoma knows Charlie and AJ. They really should have their own reality show. It would be the Duck Dynasty of poker. These guys are crass and funny. They have a lot of money and they like to blow it playing poker. They have double-handedly springboarded the poker careers of some guys I know who now play at the highest levels in the world.
Evidently, they are allowed to start a game with whoever they want, so they get some of their friends who are also bad at poker and they start a game. As soon as they call in, the poker manager alerts the local professionals, who send out a mass text and all show up at the same time. They have an arrangement with the poker manager to put them at the top of the list. Then all the idiots who actually signed up at 2 p.m. are at the bottom of the list.
Pro poker tip: Don't get left on the outside when the best poker game you've seen in 3 months opens up 3 feet away from you.
Luckily, I don't know these Kansas poker pros or the poker room managers, so I was about 21st on the list.
At about 7 p.m., they did open up another Omaha game, a small-stakes one. I had won a bit at the hold em game, so I just figured I'd go over and win a little more at the Omaha game. Plan B was not winning a pot the entire time I was there.
I played one pot against a dude who obviously didn't know what he was doing. He was dumping money left and right. I got all in against him with what I thought was the best hand, and I had a good draw to improve my hand as well. My draw didn't come in, and it turns out this dude had the best possible hand.
As this guy takes the pot in, an older black guy on my left offers his analysis. Talking to the guy who won the pot, he says, "I'll be honest with you, I didn't think there was any way you were going to win that pot. I wasn't sure you knew what you were doing. But now it looks like this other young man might be the one who doesn't know what he's doing."
Thanks.
I tried to exact revenge on the poker analyst. I got all in with him in about as good a shape as you can ever be against someone, but he found the right card on the river and spoiled my plans to bust him for spite.
Pro poker tip: When someone says something to anger you, make sure you immediately double him up. It's good for team morale.
So, Plan B was going along perfectly, and by now it was 10 p.m. so I was getting hungry. I decided to splurge for a quality dinner. It cost $15 after tax and tip.
The waitress brings it and I absent-mindedly grab $15 in chips off my stack to pay her. I forgot this was a felony in Kansas. So I grab my wallet. I forgot that I now have only $12 in cash in my wallet. Not wanting to break a $100, I shrug my shoulders and give her a credit card. Now she has to walk back to the restaurant, run my CC, bring me back a slip to sign, then walk back to the restaurant again. As George Costanza says in another favorite Seinfeld quote (after randomly stealing a clock from an ex-girlfriend), "That's one for our side!"
At 2 a.m. I finally got my seat at Charlie and AJ's table. Of course, I'm now playing with Charlie, AJ, and six professional poker players who have 90 percent of the chips on the table. All the other amateurs have left. I'm also totally exhausted from already having played 12 hours of poker. And this was after not sleeping much the night before because Addie kept waking me up.
Pro poker tip: Sleep is very important when you are winning. When you are losing, it's irrelevant. You just keep playing. And if you can play for higher stakes than when you weren't tired, that's even better.
When I sit down, the guy next to me says he recognizes me from Riverwind. I don't recognize him, but he seems like a cool guy. He proceeds to tell me how stupid it is for me NOT to come up here every time Charlie and AJ show up, and he is curious as to why I am not regularly playing nosebleed stakes poker. I tell him I can't afford to play nosebleed stakes poker, and he proceeds to act like I just told him I have leprosy. He pretty much didn't talk to me the rest of the night.
Which is what I wish the rest of the pros had done. Instead, they all team up on the outsider to make fun of me for playing very conservatively. Never mind the fact that I've only been at the table 30 minutes and haven't had any good hands. Charlie and AJ make fun of me too, but I actually know them. At this point, however, I am so tired that I neither care nor respond.
At 6 a.m., Charlie and AJ called it a night and the game was over. I broke even at their table but I had lost earlier so I was still down a decent amount. After playing for 16 hours on no sleep, I was a walking zombie.
My plan was to drive back to El Dorado, but after wandering around the parking lot looking for my car, then sitting my car staring straight ahead for 5 minutes not remembering where I was, this didn't seem like a good idea.
There's a hotel attached to the casino, so I decided to go in and see if they had a room. I also wanted a late check-out, for obvious reasons. They had a room and I could check out at 2 p.m. There is a God.
The room cost $108 after taxes, and I was sick of having $12 in my wallet. So I peeled off two $100s from my poker roll to pay. The lady went into her office and brought back my change -- all in $5 bills. That's all they had. So my wallet went from a size 0 to Lane Bryant in 30 seconds.
It was 7 a.m. by the time I got back to sleep, and despite my 2 p.m. checkout time the front desk decided to repeatedly call my room phone beginning at 1 p.m. How sweet of them.
Pro poker tip: When your sleep bank account is at 0, and you just lost a decent amount of money playing poker for 16 hours, you might as well get 6 solid hours and an annoying wake-up call and go right back at it.
I got on all 9 different Omaha lists and went to grab a bite. I ordered a burger and fries. Nothing else, and not a special order. I was Order #42. They called #39, 40, 41, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47 and 48 before they called mine.
I'm telling you, These people hate me for no reason.
I played all day, got back most of what I had lost the night before, and went home. I put in a solid 24 hours of work for a net profit of -$250. That's what you call Living The Dream.
Pro poker tip: Find a real job.
Never have I been so happy to see my in-laws.
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
All I Want Is A Haircut
Friends, I have a confession to make.
I get my hair cut at the Beauty Boutique.
This, from what I understand via clever marketing and advertising campaigns, is the LAST place for a REAL MAN to get his hair cut.
My experience at the Beauty Boutique is as follows: I walk in, Christine cuts my hair, I leave. However, it appears I am missing out on some vital components of a proper manly haircut.
The other day I ate at the Schlotzky's in Moore, which is located next to a SportClips. On the window of the SportClips was painted, "Home of the LEGENDARY steam towel."
I don't get a steam towel at Beauty Boutique, but I imagine that if I did, it would be only an ordinary steam towel, as opposed to the LEGENDARY steam towel offered at SportClips. Surely it's not just a regular towel with some warm water on it.
But a steam towel is small potatoes compared with what ManXscape offers. I drove by a billboard for them the other day, and it read, "Home of the Haircut and free beer."
Is this a bar that offers free haircuts or a barber shop that offers a free bar? Either way, it sounds like the best place in the world. I know that when I go to a bar to drink, I am consumed by the thought that my experience would be better if there were a strong smell of formaldehyde and hair product. And it would be even better if there were a 97 percent chance some freshly clipped hair would find its way into my beer.
And surely nothing could ever go wrong if I'm drinking a beer while my hair is getting cut. No way I could tip my bottle back for that last swig of hairy Natural Light and end up with my own blood all over my face.
I sure hope I can hang out and have another brewski while my headski is getting stitchedski. I mean, who likes to drink ONE beer? The ad makes it sound like I only get one free beer with my haircut, but surely I can belly up to the L'Oreal counter and have a few more while I ponder what to do with the newly-created bald spot in the middle of my head. Maybe, over shots of Jeagermeister and Axe Messy Look Paste, the hairtender and I will have a good laugh about how everyone will be having a good laugh looking at my head the rest of my life.
I'm sorry if I sound cynical. I haven't always had the best luck with haircuts.
Lawton was a dreamland for a decent, cheap haircut. Because of Fort Sill, there was a massive supply of guys who needed regular haircuts. Thus, there were about 10,000 barber shops in Lawton, and the ones near the Army post would only charge $5. You weren't going to get a fancy cut, but I didn't need a fancy cut. I like to be in and out in 15 minutes with minimal damage to my wallet, so Lawton was perfect.
I was still living in Lawton when I got married to Missy, but our wedding was in Oklahoma City. When I got to the rehearsal, she said I needed to get my hair trimmed up. Nothing drastic, just a little spruce-up.
I hadn't had my hair cut in OKC in about eight years, so I wasn't really sure where to go. There was an old-school barber shop near my mom's house where I grew up, and I had gone in there occasionally.
I decided to see if it was still up and running the morning of my wedding. Sure enough, the same two old codgers were in there BSing about golf. Seemed perfect to me.
The old barber who owned the place recognized me and asked what brought me in. I told him I needed only a slight spruce-up for my wedding and he was more than happy to help. Turns out, the old man's skills and mouth filter had slipped quite a bit over the course of eight years. First, he told me that the problem with basketball was that African Americans were not smart enough to make sound decisions on the court. He pretty much said everything backwards and offensive you could ever say about African Americans without using the "N" word.
He then proceeded to screw up my hair. Somehow, I ended up with almost a full inch of bare skin above both of my ears, which is forever memorialized in our wedding pictures. You know how brides are supposed to be bubbling with excitement upon seeing their groom for the first time on their wedding day? As I ran across the room to embrace Missy, she stopped me and asked what the heck happened to my hair.
Missy and I lived in Lawton together for two years before moving back up here. When we got back, I didn't know where to get my hair cut. I just knew one place where I definitely would NOT get it cut.
There's a Super Cuts within walking distance from our house. I figured they were convenient and couldn't be that bad. I was wrong.
Somehow I got the craziest son of a gun on the earth to cut my hair there.
The guy seemed friendly enough, and we made a little small talk before he asked me if I knew anything about the town of Paradise, California. "Do you know anything about this province?" he asked.
"Nope, never heard of it."
"My brother is in jail for attempted murder there..." And we're off.
He tells this long-winded story about how his brother got framed for attempted murder because someone else used his guns to try to try to kill someone. But they didn't die, and his brother had nothing to do with it, and now he's in jail for 20+ years because of that three strikes law in California. Yes, his brother used to be a drug dealer and that's how he got the other two convictions but he doesn't do that any more. I'm offering nothing more than "Mmmm hmmm" and "Oh wow."
Our discussion is interrupted when a woman returns to the shop from her dinner break and is ready to resume cutting hair. He yells at her for leaving him alone in the shop. It was supposed to be his dinner break. Nancy had told him so, and if she thought Nancy wasn't going to hear about this, she was dead wrong. He was sick and tired of covering for her sorry behind all the time, and he wasn't going to take it any more. He informed her that he was leaving an hour before his scheduled shift ended and she had darn well better accept that fact.
Now, back to business. We resume our conversation.
Him: "Do you know the judge in Paradise, California?"
Me: "No."
Him: "You don't know his name?"
Me: "No."
Him: "Do you know anything else about this province?"
Me: "No."
Him: "Do you know how long it would take me to drive out there?"
Me: "No."
Him: "Do you know how much it would cost to take a bus out there? I can't afford to fly. This place doesn't pay anything."
Me: "No."
Him: "Well, I'm going to go out there and talk to the judge. And I'm going to bring my gun. I'm from Texas and I think he needs to know how we operate down there. You know what I mean?"
Me: "You did a really great job on this haircut. It's exactly how I wanted it to look. How much do I owe you?"
Him: "You know what? Nobody tips their barber these days. It's ridiculous. They tip those stupid carhops at Sonic for bringing them an iced tea but nobody got a dime to give their barber."
I tipped him $5 for the second-worst haircut I've ever had and got the heck out of there.
I just wore hats for a couple months after that, and when that got too annoying I went into a random hair place in Moore. One of the ladies was free and gave me a good hair cut. She wasn't crazy or racist. She did a good mohawk when I went that direction. I've stuck with Christine since then.
It was convenient when she quit her old store for a new one closer to my house. I'm not thrilled that her new place is called Beauty Boutique, but I won't be trading her in for a LEGENDARY steam towel or a free beer anytime soon.
I get my hair cut at the Beauty Boutique.
This, from what I understand via clever marketing and advertising campaigns, is the LAST place for a REAL MAN to get his hair cut.
My experience at the Beauty Boutique is as follows: I walk in, Christine cuts my hair, I leave. However, it appears I am missing out on some vital components of a proper manly haircut.
The other day I ate at the Schlotzky's in Moore, which is located next to a SportClips. On the window of the SportClips was painted, "Home of the LEGENDARY steam towel."
I don't get a steam towel at Beauty Boutique, but I imagine that if I did, it would be only an ordinary steam towel, as opposed to the LEGENDARY steam towel offered at SportClips. Surely it's not just a regular towel with some warm water on it.
But a steam towel is small potatoes compared with what ManXscape offers. I drove by a billboard for them the other day, and it read, "Home of the Haircut and free beer."
Is this a bar that offers free haircuts or a barber shop that offers a free bar? Either way, it sounds like the best place in the world. I know that when I go to a bar to drink, I am consumed by the thought that my experience would be better if there were a strong smell of formaldehyde and hair product. And it would be even better if there were a 97 percent chance some freshly clipped hair would find its way into my beer.
And surely nothing could ever go wrong if I'm drinking a beer while my hair is getting cut. No way I could tip my bottle back for that last swig of hairy Natural Light and end up with my own blood all over my face.
I sure hope I can hang out and have another brewski while my headski is getting stitchedski. I mean, who likes to drink ONE beer? The ad makes it sound like I only get one free beer with my haircut, but surely I can belly up to the L'Oreal counter and have a few more while I ponder what to do with the newly-created bald spot in the middle of my head. Maybe, over shots of Jeagermeister and Axe Messy Look Paste, the hairtender and I will have a good laugh about how everyone will be having a good laugh looking at my head the rest of my life.
I'm sorry if I sound cynical. I haven't always had the best luck with haircuts.
Lawton was a dreamland for a decent, cheap haircut. Because of Fort Sill, there was a massive supply of guys who needed regular haircuts. Thus, there were about 10,000 barber shops in Lawton, and the ones near the Army post would only charge $5. You weren't going to get a fancy cut, but I didn't need a fancy cut. I like to be in and out in 15 minutes with minimal damage to my wallet, so Lawton was perfect.
I was still living in Lawton when I got married to Missy, but our wedding was in Oklahoma City. When I got to the rehearsal, she said I needed to get my hair trimmed up. Nothing drastic, just a little spruce-up.
I hadn't had my hair cut in OKC in about eight years, so I wasn't really sure where to go. There was an old-school barber shop near my mom's house where I grew up, and I had gone in there occasionally.
I decided to see if it was still up and running the morning of my wedding. Sure enough, the same two old codgers were in there BSing about golf. Seemed perfect to me.
The old barber who owned the place recognized me and asked what brought me in. I told him I needed only a slight spruce-up for my wedding and he was more than happy to help. Turns out, the old man's skills and mouth filter had slipped quite a bit over the course of eight years. First, he told me that the problem with basketball was that African Americans were not smart enough to make sound decisions on the court. He pretty much said everything backwards and offensive you could ever say about African Americans without using the "N" word.
He then proceeded to screw up my hair. Somehow, I ended up with almost a full inch of bare skin above both of my ears, which is forever memorialized in our wedding pictures. You know how brides are supposed to be bubbling with excitement upon seeing their groom for the first time on their wedding day? As I ran across the room to embrace Missy, she stopped me and asked what the heck happened to my hair.
Missy and I lived in Lawton together for two years before moving back up here. When we got back, I didn't know where to get my hair cut. I just knew one place where I definitely would NOT get it cut.
There's a Super Cuts within walking distance from our house. I figured they were convenient and couldn't be that bad. I was wrong.
Somehow I got the craziest son of a gun on the earth to cut my hair there.
The guy seemed friendly enough, and we made a little small talk before he asked me if I knew anything about the town of Paradise, California. "Do you know anything about this province?" he asked.
"Nope, never heard of it."
"My brother is in jail for attempted murder there..." And we're off.
He tells this long-winded story about how his brother got framed for attempted murder because someone else used his guns to try to try to kill someone. But they didn't die, and his brother had nothing to do with it, and now he's in jail for 20+ years because of that three strikes law in California. Yes, his brother used to be a drug dealer and that's how he got the other two convictions but he doesn't do that any more. I'm offering nothing more than "Mmmm hmmm" and "Oh wow."
Our discussion is interrupted when a woman returns to the shop from her dinner break and is ready to resume cutting hair. He yells at her for leaving him alone in the shop. It was supposed to be his dinner break. Nancy had told him so, and if she thought Nancy wasn't going to hear about this, she was dead wrong. He was sick and tired of covering for her sorry behind all the time, and he wasn't going to take it any more. He informed her that he was leaving an hour before his scheduled shift ended and she had darn well better accept that fact.
Now, back to business. We resume our conversation.
Him: "Do you know the judge in Paradise, California?"
Me: "No."
Him: "You don't know his name?"
Me: "No."
Him: "Do you know anything else about this province?"
Me: "No."
Him: "Do you know how long it would take me to drive out there?"
Me: "No."
Him: "Do you know how much it would cost to take a bus out there? I can't afford to fly. This place doesn't pay anything."
Me: "No."
Him: "Well, I'm going to go out there and talk to the judge. And I'm going to bring my gun. I'm from Texas and I think he needs to know how we operate down there. You know what I mean?"
Me: "You did a really great job on this haircut. It's exactly how I wanted it to look. How much do I owe you?"
Him: "You know what? Nobody tips their barber these days. It's ridiculous. They tip those stupid carhops at Sonic for bringing them an iced tea but nobody got a dime to give their barber."
I tipped him $5 for the second-worst haircut I've ever had and got the heck out of there.
I just wore hats for a couple months after that, and when that got too annoying I went into a random hair place in Moore. One of the ladies was free and gave me a good hair cut. She wasn't crazy or racist. She did a good mohawk when I went that direction. I've stuck with Christine since then.
It was convenient when she quit her old store for a new one closer to my house. I'm not thrilled that her new place is called Beauty Boutique, but I won't be trading her in for a LEGENDARY steam towel or a free beer anytime soon.
Monday, March 11, 2013
Poker and My Faith
Disclaimer: The picture at the top is the only funny thing in this blog. And even that will probably be offensive to some people I know. The next blog will be funny, and it won't be another three months between blogs, I promise. So feel free not to read this -- it's kinda long anyway.
I got a Sports Illustrated a few weeks back that included a very interesting story about NFL players balancing their Christian faith with the violence involved in the game of football and the wealth and fame that come with playing in the NFL.
The violence part irritated me -- it made no sense at all. The author implied that you couldn't be a true Christian and deliver hard hits during the course of a game. Because Jesus said to "turn the other cheek", he would never condone the violence that takes place every Sunday between the lines.
To me, Jesus' teaching would apply immediately after the game. After losing a playoff game this season, a Washington Redskins player punched a Seattle Seahawks player in the face when the teams met at midfield. This would be a great time for the Seattle player to "turn the other cheek" and not retaliate when most of the world would call him a sissy for walking away.
During the game, the players are not doing anything to disqualify them from the kingdom of God. They are playing a rough game, but they are all well-compensated and trained men playing against other well-compensated and trained men. Nobody is on the field that doesn't choose to be on the field, and that choice alone doesn't break any scripture. There aren't 85-year-old women wheeling over the middle of the field on a crossing route, getting blindsided by a 260-pound linebacker.
There are lots of times during the course of a game when a Christian player can choose to honor God with his decisions. I'm not talking about pointing to the sky after scoring a touchdown. The words used when addressing teammates and opponents, and the sportsmanship shown on every snap make a difference.
The SI story pretty much said that in order to be a true Christian, you need to be a spineless pacifist pushover. Plus you are automatically sinning by playing on Sunday. Obviously the author hadn't read 98 percent of the Bible.
The wealth and fame aspect of the story, however, definitely got me thinking. How much easier is it for a schoolteacher who makes $35,000 per year to follow Christ than an NFL player making $15 million? It's not hard to think of the differences in lifestyle.
Even if the NFL player gives 10 or 20 percent of his income away, he's going to have a lot of money left over, and it will be easy to put those toys and possessions ahead of Christ. Plus, even if he is married, he will have women throwing themselves at him in every city. Not to mention the male fans and autograph-hounds that can make someone feel like -- hmmm -- like God himself. Also, playing any sport at the highest level is no picnic. During the season, players work six days a week, and many players watch film on that one day off. Doesn't leave a lot of time for anything else.
There's no doubt that it's hard to follow Christ as an NFL player. Jesus himself says as much: "I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." (Matthew 19:23-24)
It didn't take me long to find a bunch of parallels between the story on Christians in the NFL and Christians playing poker for a living.
Just as the author of the SI piece seemed to think you couldn't possibly be a Christian and play football for a living, many people -- including a fair number at the church I belong to -- seem to think you can't be a Christian and play poker for a living.
Just as I believe the SI writer's logic was terrible because he had no knowledge of the Bible, many Christians (especially those one or two generations older than I am) have no knowledge of poker. Or the knowledge they do have is false.
Poker is just as close to 100 percent skill as anything else in life -- chess, football, or any job at all. In any given chess match, a world class player might make a major mistake or a novice might play nearly perfectly. That's luck. In football, a blown call by a ref or a tipped pass lingering in the air might be the difference between winning and losing. A middle manager at any job at all might get a huge raise or get laid off, just because his company was bought or sold by the higher-ups. Those things are all luck, but in the long run the top chess players will win the most matches, the great football players will be recognized as such and the cream of the crop of any profession will eventually rise to the top. (Actually, doesn't it seem more likely that luck plays a bigger role in the real world than in either of my other examples?)
If poker were a game of luck, nobody could do it for a living. The casino gets its cut out of every hand, not to mention the costs of food, gas, tipping, etc. But unlike any other game at the casino (slots, blackjack, craps, et al), the players aren't competing against the house, they're playing against each other.
Of course, on any given night, one turn of the card can be the difference between winning and losing. Obviously that's luck. But over the long term, you will either win or lose at poker based on how good you are. Nothing else. Thus, there are at least a dozen people who play poker for a living who regularly show up at Riverwind Casino (where I usually play) and thousands more around the world.
After graduating from OU with a journalism degree in 2002, I spent seven great years as a sportswriter at the Lawton Constitution. Basically, I was paid to watch games, listen to bawdy humor from other sportswriters and then write about the games.
When people in the church (or my family, for that matter) would ask about my job, they always thought it was the coolest job in the world. When I started playing poker for a living, suddenly the reactions from that group of people split 50/50. Half of them still thought I had the coolest job in the world, but the other half acted like my new job was as a crack mule.
Funny thing is, my job now is almost the same as being a sportswriter. Now I play in the game instead of just watching. I listen to bawdy humor from poker players instead of sportswriters. I make more money -- though that's not saying much (sportswriters at smaller papers like the Constitution are literally at or under the poverty line.) And I don't have to write.
I spent a lot of time praying over the decision. Part of me expected God to shoot it down. But I felt more than just peace about it. I felt this was what I was supposed to do. Not for the rest of my life, but for this season, however long it may last. I felt it was an opportunity to better support my family and make a positive impact on a lot of people. Poker is an intimate game -- you get to know people pretty well after a few years of sitting at a table with them for hours on end.
There is a great opportunity to reach out and be a difference maker. But it's awfully hard. This is where I see the other big parallel between poker and the story on being a Christian in the NFL.
The temptations, at least for me, are different than the ones seen by NFL players. One of the criticisms launched by the anti-poker Christians is that poker worships money. While poker is certainly a cash economy, I have never felt it came anywhere close to being an idol for me. I enjoy giving 10% of my monthly profits to various ministries and I don't cheat on my taxes even though it's kind of stupid not to when the government can never prove exactly how much you make.
I also don't have to worry about women throwing themselves at me like NFL players do.
But although I don't face the same temptations as an NFL player, poker presents unique problems for someone trying to serve God. For starters, it's a self-absorbing endeavor. Unlike football players trying to help their team win (or sportswriters trying to help get a newspaper out), I'm playing an individual game with the goal of beating other people out of their money. I spend 10 or 12 hours constantly thinking about the best outcome for me on a given hand. I eat when I want to. I leave when I want to (most of the time). If the game is really good, I might play all night. If I feel like not playing one night, there's no boss telling me I can't. Lots of reasons why it's easy to get my priorities out of whack, and I really struggle with that.
I'll also be the first to admit that there have been many times when I have been the exact opposite of what a Christian should be at the poker table. Whether it's succumbing to peer pressure or getting irritated at the outcome of a hand, I have made poor decisions and said things I wish I hadn't said.
Obviously I wouldn't be a perfect person regardless of my profession, but I have to think there might be a few less bumps in the road had I chosen something else.
I don't really have a good conclusion for this one. I love certain things about my job, mainly the flexibility and being able to spend lots of time with my girls when most people are working. But I also constantly struggle with the thought that my life is flying by and I am not doing much to serve God or others. I know that someday I will do something else, but I don't know when that is or what it will be. I've always been interested in coaching, perhaps that will be it.
Ultimately, I suppose I just need to make the most out of every day, and be grateful for the grace God has given me.
"For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." (Romans 3:23-24).
"'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart." (Jeremiah 29:11-13)
I got a Sports Illustrated a few weeks back that included a very interesting story about NFL players balancing their Christian faith with the violence involved in the game of football and the wealth and fame that come with playing in the NFL.
The violence part irritated me -- it made no sense at all. The author implied that you couldn't be a true Christian and deliver hard hits during the course of a game. Because Jesus said to "turn the other cheek", he would never condone the violence that takes place every Sunday between the lines.
To me, Jesus' teaching would apply immediately after the game. After losing a playoff game this season, a Washington Redskins player punched a Seattle Seahawks player in the face when the teams met at midfield. This would be a great time for the Seattle player to "turn the other cheek" and not retaliate when most of the world would call him a sissy for walking away.
During the game, the players are not doing anything to disqualify them from the kingdom of God. They are playing a rough game, but they are all well-compensated and trained men playing against other well-compensated and trained men. Nobody is on the field that doesn't choose to be on the field, and that choice alone doesn't break any scripture. There aren't 85-year-old women wheeling over the middle of the field on a crossing route, getting blindsided by a 260-pound linebacker.
There are lots of times during the course of a game when a Christian player can choose to honor God with his decisions. I'm not talking about pointing to the sky after scoring a touchdown. The words used when addressing teammates and opponents, and the sportsmanship shown on every snap make a difference.
The SI story pretty much said that in order to be a true Christian, you need to be a spineless pacifist pushover. Plus you are automatically sinning by playing on Sunday. Obviously the author hadn't read 98 percent of the Bible.
The wealth and fame aspect of the story, however, definitely got me thinking. How much easier is it for a schoolteacher who makes $35,000 per year to follow Christ than an NFL player making $15 million? It's not hard to think of the differences in lifestyle.
Even if the NFL player gives 10 or 20 percent of his income away, he's going to have a lot of money left over, and it will be easy to put those toys and possessions ahead of Christ. Plus, even if he is married, he will have women throwing themselves at him in every city. Not to mention the male fans and autograph-hounds that can make someone feel like -- hmmm -- like God himself. Also, playing any sport at the highest level is no picnic. During the season, players work six days a week, and many players watch film on that one day off. Doesn't leave a lot of time for anything else.
There's no doubt that it's hard to follow Christ as an NFL player. Jesus himself says as much: "I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." (Matthew 19:23-24)
It didn't take me long to find a bunch of parallels between the story on Christians in the NFL and Christians playing poker for a living.
Just as the author of the SI piece seemed to think you couldn't possibly be a Christian and play football for a living, many people -- including a fair number at the church I belong to -- seem to think you can't be a Christian and play poker for a living.
Just as I believe the SI writer's logic was terrible because he had no knowledge of the Bible, many Christians (especially those one or two generations older than I am) have no knowledge of poker. Or the knowledge they do have is false.
Poker is just as close to 100 percent skill as anything else in life -- chess, football, or any job at all. In any given chess match, a world class player might make a major mistake or a novice might play nearly perfectly. That's luck. In football, a blown call by a ref or a tipped pass lingering in the air might be the difference between winning and losing. A middle manager at any job at all might get a huge raise or get laid off, just because his company was bought or sold by the higher-ups. Those things are all luck, but in the long run the top chess players will win the most matches, the great football players will be recognized as such and the cream of the crop of any profession will eventually rise to the top. (Actually, doesn't it seem more likely that luck plays a bigger role in the real world than in either of my other examples?)
If poker were a game of luck, nobody could do it for a living. The casino gets its cut out of every hand, not to mention the costs of food, gas, tipping, etc. But unlike any other game at the casino (slots, blackjack, craps, et al), the players aren't competing against the house, they're playing against each other.
Of course, on any given night, one turn of the card can be the difference between winning and losing. Obviously that's luck. But over the long term, you will either win or lose at poker based on how good you are. Nothing else. Thus, there are at least a dozen people who play poker for a living who regularly show up at Riverwind Casino (where I usually play) and thousands more around the world.
After graduating from OU with a journalism degree in 2002, I spent seven great years as a sportswriter at the Lawton Constitution. Basically, I was paid to watch games, listen to bawdy humor from other sportswriters and then write about the games.
When people in the church (or my family, for that matter) would ask about my job, they always thought it was the coolest job in the world. When I started playing poker for a living, suddenly the reactions from that group of people split 50/50. Half of them still thought I had the coolest job in the world, but the other half acted like my new job was as a crack mule.
Funny thing is, my job now is almost the same as being a sportswriter. Now I play in the game instead of just watching. I listen to bawdy humor from poker players instead of sportswriters. I make more money -- though that's not saying much (sportswriters at smaller papers like the Constitution are literally at or under the poverty line.) And I don't have to write.
I spent a lot of time praying over the decision. Part of me expected God to shoot it down. But I felt more than just peace about it. I felt this was what I was supposed to do. Not for the rest of my life, but for this season, however long it may last. I felt it was an opportunity to better support my family and make a positive impact on a lot of people. Poker is an intimate game -- you get to know people pretty well after a few years of sitting at a table with them for hours on end.
There is a great opportunity to reach out and be a difference maker. But it's awfully hard. This is where I see the other big parallel between poker and the story on being a Christian in the NFL.
The temptations, at least for me, are different than the ones seen by NFL players. One of the criticisms launched by the anti-poker Christians is that poker worships money. While poker is certainly a cash economy, I have never felt it came anywhere close to being an idol for me. I enjoy giving 10% of my monthly profits to various ministries and I don't cheat on my taxes even though it's kind of stupid not to when the government can never prove exactly how much you make.
I also don't have to worry about women throwing themselves at me like NFL players do.
But although I don't face the same temptations as an NFL player, poker presents unique problems for someone trying to serve God. For starters, it's a self-absorbing endeavor. Unlike football players trying to help their team win (or sportswriters trying to help get a newspaper out), I'm playing an individual game with the goal of beating other people out of their money. I spend 10 or 12 hours constantly thinking about the best outcome for me on a given hand. I eat when I want to. I leave when I want to (most of the time). If the game is really good, I might play all night. If I feel like not playing one night, there's no boss telling me I can't. Lots of reasons why it's easy to get my priorities out of whack, and I really struggle with that.
I'll also be the first to admit that there have been many times when I have been the exact opposite of what a Christian should be at the poker table. Whether it's succumbing to peer pressure or getting irritated at the outcome of a hand, I have made poor decisions and said things I wish I hadn't said.
Obviously I wouldn't be a perfect person regardless of my profession, but I have to think there might be a few less bumps in the road had I chosen something else.
I don't really have a good conclusion for this one. I love certain things about my job, mainly the flexibility and being able to spend lots of time with my girls when most people are working. But I also constantly struggle with the thought that my life is flying by and I am not doing much to serve God or others. I know that someday I will do something else, but I don't know when that is or what it will be. I've always been interested in coaching, perhaps that will be it.
Ultimately, I suppose I just need to make the most out of every day, and be grateful for the grace God has given me.
"For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." (Romans 3:23-24).
"'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart." (Jeremiah 29:11-13)
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