Questions

Chad asked the following question over on his blog, so I thought I'd give my answers in my own little way.

1. If you're participating in your first WPBT event, how are you feeling right about now? (looks like about 20 or so newbies, not sure any are reading this right now) I guess this is my first official WPBT event, and I'm stoked! But let's flash back to the summer...

After a 15-minute rant about lack of laundy and not being able to find my lucky "Freak Parade" T-shirt and the ill-fitting poop-brown T that my loving wife had bought me being the only thing clean, I cruised down I-85 with no small amount of butterflies bouncing around my overdeveloped tummy.

WTF was I trying to do? I was driving two hours away to play poker in some guy's house that I had never met, with a bunch of people I had never met before for more money than I could really afford to play around with comfortably. I am so f'n out of my league, dude. Some of these guys play poker FOR A LIVING!!! And most of them have been playing a lot better, and totally a lot longer than I have. And what if I get sat with Iggy? Bad enough he's the blogfather, how hard can you play against a midget housewife and not feel bad? So there may have been a little bit of nerves involved.

Then I meander around BFE suburban G-Vegas, where I'm pretty sure they have to FedEx in sunshine every morning to find Casa de Otis. There's already a pile of people there, and I'm pretty sure most of them are smarter, funnier and better poker players than me. Is this what that nancy-boy Mike felt like walking into Teddy's joint? Did I really just have a random Rounders reference? I gotta get out more! How am I gonna know who anybody is? Have any of them even ever read my miserable excuse for a blog? What will I have to talk about with anyone? Will I be expected to drink like Al? That would certainly reveal me as the one incapable of hanging. Oh wait, that's Al, he looks just like the photos on his website.

Funny how that works, people wandering around the yard drinking looking just like online photos of themselves drinking. So I introduce myself to Al, he's cool, the barbecue is unveiled and I end up in a conversation with Wes about the relative merits of SC and NC barbecue. And it's a noun, fuckers. Then I realize that the woman we've been chatting with is Maudie, and all my fears of nothing to talk about go away, while I have a great chat with Lefty and then Maudie about theatre and its merits (and lack thereof). This is cool, it's like I've known these folks my whole life. Oh, That's Otis. And the tall guy is G-Rob. This might be okay after all. Now if I can just NOT embarass myself on the tourney, it will all be fine.

We won't discuss runner runner quads again. But we will talk into the night about Eva's bartending abilities and the consolation beverages she was mixing for everyone. Then it's time for the cash games. Thank god for cash games, right? Yeah, right. You try sitting into a cash game after playing cards for less than a year with the people who you read about strategy with. I'm sitting at a cash game with Heather, Maudie, BadBlood, G-Rob, Gracie, Frank the Tank and TheMark. I'm doomed. Okay, the buy-in is $60. I brought enough for 2 buy-ins. I never play more than $20 a night. This is gonna huuuuurt. G-Rob raises. Blood Calls. Table folds. G-Rob raises, table folds. G-Rob sucks out on Maudie, table folds. G-Rob has half my chips. STOP CALLING G-ROB YOU JACKASS!!!

Half an hour into this I realize that my buzz is gone and I can play poker. I wonder how much G-Rob bribed Eva to get us all liquored up before the cash game? After a good 3 hours of poker, maybe the best 3 hours I've had playing poker, we're done because the food is there. I realize that I can play with these folks. At least today. Okay, got out of that, and covered my miserable tournament loss, too. God, these guys are fun.

In essence, it really was like walking into a home game and sitting down with people you play cards with every week. It's like you've heard the same jopkes before and you don't mind. I was afraid that it would all be DoubleAs-level poker thinking, but no worries about that with G-Rob dropping the Hammer like it's going out of style. There was crazy play, there was solid play, there was gear-shifting that would make Gus Hansen proud. I learned more sitting at Otis' dining room table about poker than I have in the year I've played. I was warm and fuzzy to be able to sit there and hang out, and felt like Indiana Jones outrunning that big frickin' boulder to have escaped The Mark and BadBlood's 3-handed NL Omaha Hi/Lo lemur-fest with any money at all.

It was an evening like a family reunion. At least if your family is kinda insane, and mine is, so it felt right at home. Even the Drunk-A-Lympics reminded me of, well, every weekend in high school.

So that's how I felt walking into my first blogger gathering, and now I feel like if I was in the neighborhood, I'd be perfectly comfortable calling up any of those folks and saying "wassup? Let's go catch a beer!" Which reminds me, almost time to shut down here at the office and stop by the liquor store on the way home. WWdN Up4Poker Tourney tonight at 9, and I think a few Chat-a-shots may have to happen. IM is jhartnessnc, I'll be online for shots tonight after 8.