The Taste of Victory

"The banality of everyday life becomes edible when you recklessly attempt to gamble on the outcome of otherwise meaningless events." - Me

Victory. It still tastes like chicken. It had been weeks since I actually had a triple digit winning day online! I scorned the cash out curse after slowly liquidating my Party Poker bankroll before my two week Phishin' trip in mid June. When I got back in July, there was only a little left to tinker around with. I was playing way below the necessary bankroll needed to absorb any nasty swings, horrible bad beats, and the everyday insanity in the poker world. With every losing session in July, I was a step closer to the dreaded rebuy on my credit card. That's what degenerate gamblers do... reload using Visa. Real poker players gut it out and scratch together a few solid wins and pull themselves out of the dark, desolate abyss known as the rebuy. Sure, my bankroll still isn't anywhere close to a place of comfort... but at least I gained momentum, and I'm charging up the mountain, instead of sliding down head first with a slew of mathematically impossible suck outs and poor plays following me like a trail of dust and debris.



I won a $20 SNG yesterday. It was big for me. Money is money. But after a series of questionable fishy calls from yours truly, I started to doubt my poker play. And when you work on a high wire, the worst thing for you to do... is look down. Logging out of Party Poker after a winning session... is like swallowing a handful of happy pills. You cannot help but feel excited, good, and warm and fuzzy inside. For the first time in weeks, my head hit the pillow knowing that I was finally a winning player... albeit for just a day... but that's enough to get your fledgling confidence back. I can't wait to play today.



Yeah, despite the rumors... I am not a rich man and I am not sitting on a hefty bankroll. Sure I made some money in the stock market, but who hasn't? Alas, I don't have the neurotic, chain-smoking daughter of a semi-famous actress to mooch off of anymore. I scratch by, living day to day, without steady employment... and that's by my choice. I ditched the glitzy world of designer suits, $9 shoe shines, and 8am sales meetings for a less stable, rambunctious bohemian lifestyle and I don't have any regrets. Sure, I lost most of my bankroll in Las Vegas this past April and slowly built it up after a solid May of utilizing my new philosophy of hit and run poker. $20 win here. $40 win there. That all added up. The first two weeks of June were insane... I was still on a rush and was kicking ass in the $20 SNGs. All the fish on Party Poker helped pay for my Phish trips, tickets, party favors, rental cars, motels, and everything else. Fitting, eh?



And that's where I'm at right now. I'm trying to raise money for a series of trips. I have a few concerts to see this summer. The Dead are around the East Coast... the final five Phish concerts... then Atlantic City in September and Vegas in December. Historically, I have always supplemented my income by gambling. Wall Street was gambling with other people's money. All those cool trips I've taken in the last decade... were all paid by the bad fortunes of others. I've always tried to parlay my gambling luck into travel money which eventually gave me more perspective, more experiences, and more material to draw on as a writer. Has gambling made me a better writer? That's hard to say. But there's a definite correlation and relationship between the two. And this site is the illegitimate offspring of both of those passions... gambling and writing.



Some days I am really stuck in a bind. Part of me wants to consolidate my entire poker bankroll.... cash and online accounts... and buy that ticket to somewhere exotic and sit down to write my next two novels back to back. Right now... that's all a pipe dream. So it's back to the grind. Hit and run wins. The fish will pay for my Phish tickets this summer. When the weather gets really cold, when the football season ends, and when the snow gently falls... maybe then I'll think about that apartment in Paris or that houseboat in Amsterdam or that sandy beach somewhere where you get to sip on drinks with little green umbrellas.



Victoire. Il goute encore comme le poulet.