Sundays with Dr. Pauly....
By Pauly
New York City
In 2005, I introduced Saturdays with Dr. Pauly which was an instant success. One week from today, I'll kick off Sundays with Dr. Pauly. Stay tuned for more details.
Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
Sunday, October 7, 2007
Saturday, October 6, 2007
Truckin' - October 2007, Vol. 6, Issue 10
By Pauly
New York City
And we're back with a brand spanking new issue of my literary blogzine!
If you like these stories, then please tell your friends about your favorite stories. It takes a few seconds to pass along Truckin'. The writers certainly appreciate your support. Feel free to shoot me an e-mail if you know anyone who is interested in being added to the mailing list.
Thanks to the writers who exposed their souls to the world, and did it for free. Thanks for inspiring me and taking that leap of faith with me.
Thanks again to everyone for wasting your precious time month after month with Truckin'. Until next time.
Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
By Pauly
New York City
And we're back with a brand spanking new issue of my literary blogzine!
Truckin' - October 2007, Vol. 6, Issue 10The October issue Truckin' features a gem from Falstaff and includes returning authors Sigge S. Amdal and Sean A. Donahue. I published another installment of the Existentialist Conversations with Strippers series in a piece titled AlCantHang and I walk Into a Bar.... Betty Underground is making her first appearance in Truckin' with an impressive showing by hitting a home run on her first submission.
1. AlCantHang and I Walk Into a Bar... by Paul McGuire
Whenever you walk into a bar with AlCantHang, you're immediately assuming full responsibility for your actions. You always know what you are getting yourself into. There's no false pretense. You will drink and drink and drink and drink as life unfolds around you. You surrender to the flow of the liquor... More
2. Morrissey by Betty Underground
I did my usual, obvious, snooping about, inviting myself in to use the powder room after the long drive. I knew my way around. I knew what it looked like the last time I was there. I was looking for signs. Girl things. Grown up girl things. A woman's touch in the decor. Pictures of the happy couple. Anything. Nothing... More
3. Driving to See Mama by John "Falstaff" Hartness
Well, there was six of us in that car, and we'd been drinking and smoking cigarettes since we left base, so when Briggs rolled down that window, all that smoke just chimneyed up out of that window and that policeman had to jump back... More
4. A Mawmag's Dream by Sigge S. Amdal
I was flirting, no, I was dancing with my own future's certain death. And why? There was no love to speak of. Love can come later in some cases, I know, but if there's nothing, no great emotion to ride on – why on earth was I still dancing? ... More
5. What Might Have Been by Sean A. Donahue
The struggles of life are few and far between. We walk through life looking for the elusive, looking for the elite, or looking to be the elite. Sometimes in our search for what we want, we find what we really need. But we are too self absorbed or blind to see it... More
If you like these stories, then please tell your friends about your favorite stories. It takes a few seconds to pass along Truckin'. The writers certainly appreciate your support. Feel free to shoot me an e-mail if you know anyone who is interested in being added to the mailing list.
Thanks to the writers who exposed their souls to the world, and did it for free. Thanks for inspiring me and taking that leap of faith with me.
Thanks again to everyone for wasting your precious time month after month with Truckin'. Until next time.
Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
Friday, October 5, 2007
BFFB and Fantasy Sports Live
By Pauly
New York City
Have you guys tried out Fantasy Sports Live? It's legal and you can fund your account with your credit card. Not only own a piece and pimp Fantasy Sports Live, but I also play on it. I have been participating in the Blogger Fantasy Football Battle (BFFB).
It's perfect if you don't have too much time to devote to a fantasy football team. You can play on any Sunday that you are free.
Welcome to the SNGs of the fantasy sports world thanks to Fantasy Sports Live.com.
The first annual Blogger Fantasy Football Battle (BFFB) sponsored by FantasySportsLive.com will bring together poker bloggers from around North America to compete in MTT style Fantasy Football contests that will run each week of the football season. $500 minimum will be added to the prize pool by FSL.
Every Sunday, FSL will run 10-player $10 fee contests with BFFB in the title. Each contest will pay out $90 to the top three finishers that week. The results of all bloggers will be pooled together each week to determine the weekly BFFB results. Points will be awarded to the top 50% of finishers each week based on the PokerStars TLB formula. Points will be accumulated throughout the season to determine the overall champion. Added prizes by FSL are listed below. Also, any weekly overall winners will be invited to a Tournament of Champions at the end of the season.
You can chose to compete weekly for your best chance at the season title, or just enter as many as you can. Even with a single weekly entry you are eligible for the highest score prize or with a win an entry in the tournament of champions. What we are doing with the BFFB has never been done before, and would not be possible without the daily contest format that we use. This format allows us to apples to apples compare 100s of fantasy football entries, which is impossible with standard fantasy offerings. Please help us make the BFFB a success, and spread the word about FSL.
Hope to see you there. If you do not have a FSL account, join today using my bonus code... pauly.
Bonus Code: Pauly
Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
By Pauly
New York City
Have you guys tried out Fantasy Sports Live? It's legal and you can fund your account with your credit card. Not only own a piece and pimp Fantasy Sports Live, but I also play on it. I have been participating in the Blogger Fantasy Football Battle (BFFB).
It's perfect if you don't have too much time to devote to a fantasy football team. You can play on any Sunday that you are free.
Welcome to the SNGs of the fantasy sports world thanks to Fantasy Sports Live.com.
The first annual Blogger Fantasy Football Battle (BFFB) sponsored by FantasySportsLive.com will bring together poker bloggers from around North America to compete in MTT style Fantasy Football contests that will run each week of the football season. $500 minimum will be added to the prize pool by FSL.
Every Sunday, FSL will run 10-player $10 fee contests with BFFB in the title. Each contest will pay out $90 to the top three finishers that week. The results of all bloggers will be pooled together each week to determine the weekly BFFB results. Points will be awarded to the top 50% of finishers each week based on the PokerStars TLB formula. Points will be accumulated throughout the season to determine the overall champion. Added prizes by FSL are listed below. Also, any weekly overall winners will be invited to a Tournament of Champions at the end of the season.
Prize Pool Breakdown:Results will be posted weekly at blinderspoker.blogspot.com, and more info can be found here.
1st Place Overall $100
2nd Place Overall $50
3rd Place Overall $25
1st Highest Individual Weekly Fantasy Score $100
2nd Highest Individual Weekly Fantasy Score $50
3rd Highest Individual Weekly Fantasy Score $25
Tournament of Champions:
$150 minimum added to prize pool
You can chose to compete weekly for your best chance at the season title, or just enter as many as you can. Even with a single weekly entry you are eligible for the highest score prize or with a win an entry in the tournament of champions. What we are doing with the BFFB has never been done before, and would not be possible without the daily contest format that we use. This format allows us to apples to apples compare 100s of fantasy football entries, which is impossible with standard fantasy offerings. Please help us make the BFFB a success, and spread the word about FSL.
Hope to see you there. If you do not have a FSL account, join today using my bonus code... pauly.
Bonus Code: Pauly
Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
Thursday, October 4, 2007
More Existentialist Conversations with Strippers: The Afternoon Shift
By Pauly
Key West, FL
"Never underestimate the afternoon shift," Lewey shouted those five words at the top of his lungs.
The weather was the culprit. The gang originally wanted breakfast at a French crepe place, however, the owners were away on holiday and the place was closed. They walked down Duval Street in search of alternative options and ended up at Sloppy Joes, where Hemingway used to get bombed back in his Key West days. After sampling every specialty drink on the menu, Lewey lost his volume control. I couldn't blame him. The drinks were delicious. The Key West Lemonade is by far the best, since you can barely taste the vodka thanks to the sour mix, which is why Lewey and company could drink eight in a two hour span.
It always rains at random times in Key West during the wet season. Sometimes it pours for five minutes then stops. In that instance, the rain kept coming. And coming. Most of Duval Street flooded within minutes. The boys were stuck at Sloppy Joes and continued to weather out the storm by drinking heavily. AlCantHang and I were stuck at the ACHC and eventually decided to make a run for it during a brief break in the rain.
The skies opened up as soon as we hit Duval Street. We were quickly drenched and stood under an awning to a jewelry shop for protection from the rain. We eventually said, "Fuck it!" and ran the last two blocks through the rain. We rushed inside Sloppy Joes and my entire shirt was soaked.
Lewey had lost all forms of volume control. He was drunk and fired up. We got odd glances from other tables from some of the drunken babble spewing from Lewey, who was in rare Lewey form. I ordered a couple of drinks to catch up.
"You're way behind," said our waitress.
The only thing that could calm Lewey down was The Classy Joint. It was not even 4pm on a Monday. Most of the people I knew were still at work. And there we were, running through the raindrops and up the slippery flight of wooden stairs to shower the strippers on the afternoon shift with small bills.
"Never underestimate the afternoon shift," Lewey repeatedly told me.
I was venturing into new territory. The afternoon shift. Sort of the Bermuda Triangle for strippers. It had been several years since I visited a strip club during the day. There were random exceptions like going to a strip club at 6am or 7am after an all night bender in Las Vegas or playing poker on the Strip all night with Grubby. But for the most part, it was the Wall Street days when I last I ventured inside a club during normal working hours. Sometimes the stress was so immense, you needed to escape from reality with a lap dance.
When I lived in Atlanta as a college student, my friends and I were frequent patrons of the crappy Sunday morning breakfast buffet at the Pink Pony strip joint located behind a Denny's. I was stuck behind enemy lines in the middle of the bible belt and instead of attending church services like a pious Christian, I smoked dope with Jewish frat boys and ogled strippers.
There's a definite difference from the girls who work on weeknights vs. weekends and girls who work the afternoon shift vs. the evening shift. I was fascinated and intrigued by the reasons that drove a woman to dance the Monday afternoon shift at a Key West strip club during the off season. A foul odor of desperation lingers around strip clubs during the day. And since there's a more natural light that appears every time the front door opens, the place never looks as sultry as the middle of the night.
It's also a frame of mind. If I was as shitfaced as I was the night before (think Dudley Moore drunk) when I stumbled in, I might not have picked up on the subtle differences. Like the geriatric patrons. There were only a dozen or so guys checking out the afternoon shift and we made up 60% of the total number. The rest of the clientele seemed much older. They were in their 60s and 70s. Retired guys. Waiting to die. Might as well have a rum cocktail and a lapdance while you're on heaven's waiting list.
Even though we were inside The Classy Joint, it definitely lost a tinge of class during the afternoon hours. The club was just the type of seedy place where you might find William Kennedy Smith or any other soused heirs to the Kennedy name, knocking back cheap scotch at 3pm in the afternoon while fondling the sketchy girls with visible c-section scars and multiple bruises all over their cracked-out body.
We didn't have much to choose from. There were three mediocre dancers at the time... the angry Latina, the voluptuous Jennifer Hudson look-a-like, and the pale foreign girl from an Eastern-Bloc country who would come over and ask, "Do you vant a dansh?"
The foreign girl had long brown hair and crooked teeth. She barely looked 18 and was fresh off the boat. Her moves were less than graceful. Her lack of sun tan hinted that she just arrived in town and was working her way up the stripper food chain. She was cute enough to dance at The Classy Joint, but lacked the experience on proper pole dancing and more importantly, the act of stage seduction. She needed practice. Hence, the afternoon shift.
A giant green tattoo on her stomach read "Milano." She didn't look Italian and I wondered what that meant. Lewey saw the same thing and we quickly discussed the origins of her tattoo while she danced on stage. She heard everything we said. I tried to talk in hushed tones, but Lewey continued to scream at the top of his lungs.
"What's that tattoo all about?" he shouted.
"I guess that's her favorite city," I said. "Or her favorite brand of Pepperidge farm cookies."
"Or her favorite actress," said Lewey as he shoved three singles in between her breasts.
She looked over at us and asked, "Do you vant a dansh?"
The Latina with the c-section scar took the stage next. She was about twice the age as the foreign girl and appeared pissed off at something. Despite her angry demeanor, she had the best pole moves out of the bunch. She performed a weird trick where she'd shake her ass and it would vibrate faster than a hummingbird could flap its wings. Lewey almost had his nose dislocated when he got too close.
The last entertainer on the afternoon shift was a black woman in her 40s who called her self Kat. She purred and seductively moved along the stage like a cat. Unlike the rest of the strippers I encountered, she didn't shave her snatch. She had a bad boob job and you could see the multiple scars underneath her armpits. That's what happens when you go to the equivalent of Dr. Nick from The Simpsons to get your breasts enhanced in the back of some dude's mini-van.
I was not drunk and thereby not turned on by any of the women working the afternoon shift. An inebriated Lewey had a blast with a stack of singles sitting in front of him next to his cocktail. His head would disappear for about fifteen seconds whenever Kat would come over and swallow up his head in between her humongous breasts.
"The girls on the afternoon shift pay more attention to you. Yes, they're not as good looking, but they work harder for the money. You're getting more bang for the buck," explained Lewey.
His drunken ramblings almost made sense.
As Landow put it best, "Save the afternoon shift. Save the world."
This post was originally written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Pauly at www.taopauly.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
Key West, FL
"Never underestimate the afternoon shift," Lewey shouted those five words at the top of his lungs.
The weather was the culprit. The gang originally wanted breakfast at a French crepe place, however, the owners were away on holiday and the place was closed. They walked down Duval Street in search of alternative options and ended up at Sloppy Joes, where Hemingway used to get bombed back in his Key West days. After sampling every specialty drink on the menu, Lewey lost his volume control. I couldn't blame him. The drinks were delicious. The Key West Lemonade is by far the best, since you can barely taste the vodka thanks to the sour mix, which is why Lewey and company could drink eight in a two hour span.
It always rains at random times in Key West during the wet season. Sometimes it pours for five minutes then stops. In that instance, the rain kept coming. And coming. Most of Duval Street flooded within minutes. The boys were stuck at Sloppy Joes and continued to weather out the storm by drinking heavily. AlCantHang and I were stuck at the ACHC and eventually decided to make a run for it during a brief break in the rain.
The skies opened up as soon as we hit Duval Street. We were quickly drenched and stood under an awning to a jewelry shop for protection from the rain. We eventually said, "Fuck it!" and ran the last two blocks through the rain. We rushed inside Sloppy Joes and my entire shirt was soaked.
Lewey had lost all forms of volume control. He was drunk and fired up. We got odd glances from other tables from some of the drunken babble spewing from Lewey, who was in rare Lewey form. I ordered a couple of drinks to catch up.
"You're way behind," said our waitress.
The only thing that could calm Lewey down was The Classy Joint. It was not even 4pm on a Monday. Most of the people I knew were still at work. And there we were, running through the raindrops and up the slippery flight of wooden stairs to shower the strippers on the afternoon shift with small bills.
"Never underestimate the afternoon shift," Lewey repeatedly told me.
I was venturing into new territory. The afternoon shift. Sort of the Bermuda Triangle for strippers. It had been several years since I visited a strip club during the day. There were random exceptions like going to a strip club at 6am or 7am after an all night bender in Las Vegas or playing poker on the Strip all night with Grubby. But for the most part, it was the Wall Street days when I last I ventured inside a club during normal working hours. Sometimes the stress was so immense, you needed to escape from reality with a lap dance.
When I lived in Atlanta as a college student, my friends and I were frequent patrons of the crappy Sunday morning breakfast buffet at the Pink Pony strip joint located behind a Denny's. I was stuck behind enemy lines in the middle of the bible belt and instead of attending church services like a pious Christian, I smoked dope with Jewish frat boys and ogled strippers.
There's a definite difference from the girls who work on weeknights vs. weekends and girls who work the afternoon shift vs. the evening shift. I was fascinated and intrigued by the reasons that drove a woman to dance the Monday afternoon shift at a Key West strip club during the off season. A foul odor of desperation lingers around strip clubs during the day. And since there's a more natural light that appears every time the front door opens, the place never looks as sultry as the middle of the night.
It's also a frame of mind. If I was as shitfaced as I was the night before (think Dudley Moore drunk) when I stumbled in, I might not have picked up on the subtle differences. Like the geriatric patrons. There were only a dozen or so guys checking out the afternoon shift and we made up 60% of the total number. The rest of the clientele seemed much older. They were in their 60s and 70s. Retired guys. Waiting to die. Might as well have a rum cocktail and a lapdance while you're on heaven's waiting list.
Even though we were inside The Classy Joint, it definitely lost a tinge of class during the afternoon hours. The club was just the type of seedy place where you might find William Kennedy Smith or any other soused heirs to the Kennedy name, knocking back cheap scotch at 3pm in the afternoon while fondling the sketchy girls with visible c-section scars and multiple bruises all over their cracked-out body.
We didn't have much to choose from. There were three mediocre dancers at the time... the angry Latina, the voluptuous Jennifer Hudson look-a-like, and the pale foreign girl from an Eastern-Bloc country who would come over and ask, "Do you vant a dansh?"
The foreign girl had long brown hair and crooked teeth. She barely looked 18 and was fresh off the boat. Her moves were less than graceful. Her lack of sun tan hinted that she just arrived in town and was working her way up the stripper food chain. She was cute enough to dance at The Classy Joint, but lacked the experience on proper pole dancing and more importantly, the act of stage seduction. She needed practice. Hence, the afternoon shift.
A giant green tattoo on her stomach read "Milano." She didn't look Italian and I wondered what that meant. Lewey saw the same thing and we quickly discussed the origins of her tattoo while she danced on stage. She heard everything we said. I tried to talk in hushed tones, but Lewey continued to scream at the top of his lungs.
"What's that tattoo all about?" he shouted.
"I guess that's her favorite city," I said. "Or her favorite brand of Pepperidge farm cookies."
"Or her favorite actress," said Lewey as he shoved three singles in between her breasts.
She looked over at us and asked, "Do you vant a dansh?"
The Latina with the c-section scar took the stage next. She was about twice the age as the foreign girl and appeared pissed off at something. Despite her angry demeanor, she had the best pole moves out of the bunch. She performed a weird trick where she'd shake her ass and it would vibrate faster than a hummingbird could flap its wings. Lewey almost had his nose dislocated when he got too close.
The last entertainer on the afternoon shift was a black woman in her 40s who called her self Kat. She purred and seductively moved along the stage like a cat. Unlike the rest of the strippers I encountered, she didn't shave her snatch. She had a bad boob job and you could see the multiple scars underneath her armpits. That's what happens when you go to the equivalent of Dr. Nick from The Simpsons to get your breasts enhanced in the back of some dude's mini-van.
I was not drunk and thereby not turned on by any of the women working the afternoon shift. An inebriated Lewey had a blast with a stack of singles sitting in front of him next to his cocktail. His head would disappear for about fifteen seconds whenever Kat would come over and swallow up his head in between her humongous breasts.
"The girls on the afternoon shift pay more attention to you. Yes, they're not as good looking, but they work harder for the money. You're getting more bang for the buck," explained Lewey.
His drunken ramblings almost made sense.
As Landow put it best, "Save the afternoon shift. Save the world."
This post was originally written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Pauly at www.taopauly.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker
Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!
This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.
Registration code: 4579957
Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
The Ghosts of Key West Gambling
By Pauly
Key West, FL
Change100's chip sculpture
The gambling ghosts over the past week appeared in three different forms during the Key West trip:
I eventually slipped into ultra-laid back Key West mode. I've been traveling so much over the last few years that I can quickly adapt to the vibe of where I am. It usually takes me 24 hours to adjust. The routine in Key West during the first few days was usually the same. Here's the 16 Steps to Island Insanity:
I forgot how boring grinding it out at the limit tables could be. Playing ABC poker is profitable but not fun. That's why the additional PLO table kept my inner action junkie entertained.
After blowing over $420 on the first night in Key West, I fired up PokerStars and Full Tilt in order to fund the rest of the adventure. Sadly, I couldn't win enough money to cover my strip club loses. The entire week, I kept looking for ways to get unstuck. That's when AlCantHang busted out the poker chips.
* * * * *
Starting Monday, we played a six-handed NL game that lasted until Thursday. The players included myself, AlCantHang, Brian, Landow, BigMike, and Lewey. I had been looking to exact revenge on Lewey. The first time I ever met him (along with AlCantHang and the rest of the crew) was during a poker game in Bucks County, PA. Lewey maliciously cracked my Kings with a junk hand and that sent me on mega-Lewey tilt. If you don't know, Lewey is a terror at the tables. They named a hand after him... the 6-4o. That crew plays The Lewey like it's A-A or the Hammer.
The game started out low stakes at 25c/50c blinds with a $40 buy-in. After the first orbit or two, I soon realized that this would be a "shove then rebuy" game. By the end of the first day, I was stuck a couple of buy-ins. I missed a couple of draws. I was outdrawn a couple of times and then picked up a cooler.
I had just rebought for the third time. I looked at my cards and found K-K. I opened up for a raise then AlCantHang on my immediate left popped me for a re-raise. I re-raised all in and he quickly called.
"Oh shit," I said. "That was quick. I hope you have Kings or the Hilton Sisters."
"Nope," AlCantHang said as he tabled his pocket Aces.
I didn't even bother seeing the flop and got up to buy more chips. That pot pushed AlCantHang into the chiplead. He never looked back.
On Wednesday, I finally made a comeback and won back all of my previous buy-ins. I doubled through BigMike and then I picked up two big pots from Lewey.
On the first hand against Lewey, I held 7d-5d and flopped bottom two pair on a Queen high board. We got it all in on the flop. Lewey called with Q-10. My two pair held up and I doubled through Lewey.
An hour or so later, I felted Lewey. I found Ks-9s in the big blind. AlCantHang limped from under the gun and Lewey raised. Five more callers for a family pot. The flop was K-J-3. I checked as did everyone else. The turn was a 5. I checked again. Lewey fired out a pot-sized bet. Everyone folded to me and I check raised him about 5x the pot. Lewey quickly shoved.
"Oh no," I said. "I hope you don't have 5-3 suited. Or worse, how about J-5? That's what I get for trying to trap you."
I called and flipped over Ks-9s. Lewey shook his head as he showed J-10. My hand held up and I found myself ahead for the first time all week.
When some other friends eventually arrived into by the weekend, the short-handed game was called. We settled up. AlCantHang was the big winner followed by Brian and myself.
* * * * *
I played in two more cash games. including a brief session on Friday after a visit to the Hemingway House and Museum, and then a group of us played a marathon session on Saturday where a game lasted from about 3pm to 1am.
I don't recall too much from the Friday game except that I sat in between BG and Sweet Sweet Pablo. I only remember one hand... where I busted my brother and my girlfriend at the same time.
Change100 opened up for a raise and Derek called. I found 8c-6c in the big blind and called. The flop was 7-5-4 rainbow. I looked up and said, "Someone is getting felted on this hand."
Everyone laughed and I checked. Change100 threw out a continuation bet. Derek called and I called. The turn was the Qh. I bet about 1/2 the pot. Change100 raised and Derek moved all in. I quickly called and Change100 went into the tank. She didn't have too many chips behind and couldn't put any of us on a hand. She reluctantly called. Derek flipped over A-A and Change100 showed K-Q. I tabled 8c-6c. I flopped the joint and it held up. Derek and Change100 had to rebuy as got unstuck for the session. The game broke about an hour later.
On Saturday, we all stumbled over to the ACHC for a massive cash game. Gracie and Pablo brought over their chip set and the game lasted for almost 10 hours with the a short break for food. BG cooked up some fish that a few of the gang caught on Thursday.
The players changed every few hours and included AlCantHang, Gracie, Sweet Sweet Pablo, Drizz, Derek, The Rooster, F Train, Change100, Maudie, Mary, Iggy, JoeSpeaker, Grubby, Donkey Puncher, and myself. The swings were crazy for a 25c/50c blinds game. It was a pushfest and some of the most fun I had playing poker in a very long time.
I play poker for different reasons. I play to make money. I play because I'm an action junkie and need the fix. I also play because of the social attributes which accompany a poker table. It had been a very long time since I spent time with my friends, especially at a poker table.
I rarely see my brother and my friends with a hectic work schedule and constantly being on the road. The people I met through poker four years ago have become close friends over the years. They have been extremely supportive of my endeavors and that makes me miss them more. Whatever free time I have is devoted to my career and personal writing projects. I have to squeeze family and a long-distance relationship in there as well. My free time has shriveled up and my friends get the short-end of the stick.
I never have a chance to play in blogger tournaments, so I don't see them online. They pop up in Las Vegas during the WSOP, but that is the worst time to socialize and hang out since I'm stressed out making deadlines and working sick hours every day and night. The WPBT gatherings twice a year have become too large. Some of my closest friends have skipped the last couple of them and even if they do make an appearance, I don't get to spend quality time with everyone.
Even though we ventured to the southernmost point in the continental US for AlCantHang's 40th birthday, I took it as an opportunity to spend time with everyone I missed over the past year. I busted my ass and cultivated a writing career and get flown all over the globe, but the biggest sacrifice I had to make was to spend less time with friends. That's why I soaked up every second of the Key West trip. I don't know when I'll get to be around these folks next.
The Saturday poker game was a definite highlight. Chips were flying around the table. Everyone was partying and having a blast. People were getting busted on every other hand and everyone was quick to rebuy. The game was crazy and I got felted by my brother a few times who ended up issuing a few bad beats to everyone.
Around 11pm or so. Derek tilted Sweet Sweet Pablo big time. Everyone straddled except Derek who was on the button. He looked at his hand and moved all in. Everyone folded to Pablo and he went into the tank for six minutes before he called with A-J. Derek flipped over 8-3o. The flop was A-7-3. The turn was another 3. The river was a blank and Derek doubled up against Pablo. Sweet Sweet Pablo had morphed into Tilt Tilt Pablo.
Two hands later, I became Derek's next victim. I sat out for about an hour when I ran down the street to the ATM and then the corner store. When I returned, I played with Change100's stack (she had about 11 bucks left) and I got $12 more chips from Iggy, Gracie, and Derek for buying them smokes at the store. I started with a tiny stack of 23 and ran that up to 350 in a short time. Then I ran into Derek's Bad Beat Machine.
Mary raised in EP. Derek called. I found Kc-Qc from the button and raised. Mary and Derek called. The flop was K-x-x. Mary checked. Derek bet the pot and I raised 4x his bet. Mary folded and Derek moved all in. I quickly called. Derek showed K-9.
"You know what's coming," said Grubby.
I shook my head. I knew what was coming too. I was the button and had to deal my own fate. I burned and then quickly turned the turn card. The fuckin' 9s. The river didn't help me and Derek doubled up with two pair.
Tilt!
At least I didn't have to rebuy. There were three other hands of note. One involved Maudie. Another was with Gracie. And the last one was with Derek and Mary (again).
During the first hour of play, Maudie raised and I re-raised in LP and Maudie called. The flop was all rags. She bet, I raised all in and she went into the tank. I took a picture of my hand.
Garcie and Mary at the far end of the table were whispering about my potential bluff. I said that I would show them the picture first as soon as Maudie made a decision. Maudie thought and thought. She had no idea what I held. I was playing lots of junk hands. When she eventually called, I passed my camera down to her and the rest of the table. They saw this:
"Aw shit!" said Maudie.
She had 10-10 and my Aces held up. I busted Maudie and she dug into her pockets for a rebuy.
This hand happened late into the session shortly after I left to reload at the ATM and pick up ciggies for everyone. Derek raised preflop. I re-raised. Mary, Garcie, and Pablo called. The flop was 7 high with all rags. Gracie bet almost 50 and I raised to 125 and was all in. Everyone else got out of the way. Gracie tanked for five minutes. I took another photo of my hand. She eventually called and I tossed my camera down to the other side of the table.
Gracie held 10-10 and I doubled through her. That's how I built up my stack.
The last hand I'm going to write about was one of the most interesting hands of the session. It involved a massive laydown. It was a three-handed pot with Mary, Derek, and myself.
Derek had been raising a lot of pots. He opened up from UTG with a raise. I re-raised him with Jd-5c. Mary re-raised both of us from the cut off. We both called. The flop was 10d-5h-3d. Derek bet about 1/2 the pot. I called and Mary raised. We both called. The turn was the 4d. Derek bet the pot. Mary let out a sigh. I knew she didn't like that card. I had second pair with a flush draw. I counted out my chips and then said, "Ahh, I just call."
Derek glanced over at me as did Mary. They both gave me that look like, "You just caught your flush. Boooo!"
Mary went into the tank as she agonized over the call. She said something about possibly folding the best hand. She's a tight player so I put her on a big pair. She eventually folded. Derek dealt the river card. It was a blank and didn't fill in my flush. Derek bet about 1/3 of the pot.
"Shit," I said. "I guess you have the flush."
I called and tabled Jd-5c. Derek flipped over the Ad and then showed the 7s. The tourist was no good for him. He missed his flush draw and I won the pot with a pair of fives. I'm glad that the flush didn't come on the river or I would have been in trouble.
Mary dug her cards out of the muck and showed K-K. Yeah, I got her to fold the best hand. She put one of us on two pair and the other on the flush. Despite the hit, she ended up among the big winners along with Sweet Sweet Pablo.
Me? I won a few bucks overall. But the fun factor was priceless.
* * * * *
Once my friends arrived on Thursday, the prop betting began. It peaked out on Friday night and started with the turtle races. Yes, they have turtle races in Key West. The gang showed up at the bar on the pier. We proceeded to get shitfaced and then wagered on the turtles.
The bartenders passed out tickets numbered one through five. It was only a five turtle race. Since we all got similar numbers we had to break off and play an SNG turtle race format. $20 per person. Winner scoops $100. I had StB, Derek, Change100, and Gracie in my pool. Change100's turtle won and she couldn't have been happier. It got her unstuck from the poker game. My turtle came in next to last place. Bastard. If he doesn't improve his performance, he'll become turtle soup for tourists.
After the turtle races, the action shifted locales. Below the Classy Joint, there's a sports bar. In the back of the sports bar, there are pool tables, videos games, and a "boxer" machine. The boys liked to bet on who could hit it the hardest. F Train and I stood on the sidelines as Drizz, Donkey Puncher, and Roberto Colunga were going apeshit.
(Editor's Note: Roberto Colunga is the artist formerly known as Bobby Bracelet. He's part of the crew that needs a new online identity. I came up with a new moniker for the guy and now he's named after a famous Mexican soap opera actor. FYI, I shall be making references to another friend of mine as Benny Hiroshima in a future post. I will no longer be referring to either gentlemen by their former names.)
Anyway, F Train and I wanted to get in on the action without dislocating our shoulders. The boxer game measures a punch by a point system. We decided to bet on the outcome of the last digit while the rest of the gang punched. F Train picked evens. I had odds. It was a coinflip. We love betting coinflips, especially at $20 a pop.
The boys went back and forth for almost an hour. I started out slow and found myself down 60 right away. I eventually broke even, then I went on a rush. I was up 160 for a while. We went back and forth and F Train cut the lead in half to 80. I won a couple of more punches. He was stuck -100 and that's when he asked to stop the prop betting. And guess what? The next four punches all ended in even numbers. He would have eventually got unstuck if he played another ten minutes.
I played pool with Maudie who is a shark. She tried the old routine, "Oh, I haven't played in a while." Then she wiped me out. I couldn't catch a break and missed a few crucial shots down the stretch. Maudie won and took over the table. It would be a while before someone beat her. Fear Maudie. If you ever see her with a pool stick in her hand... run the other way.
Grubby showed up and we quickly got in some action. We're always betting on something. We invented betting on wheel spins at The Excalibur in December of 2004, which had become a big hit among our friends. In the past, my former Las Vegas roommate and I have bet on weekend grosses of Hollyweird films (I won his car once betting on weekend grosses), the astrological signs of our waitresses, and even bet on the sex of the next person who walked through a doorway. Our degenerate prop betting continued in Key West when I told him about the odds and evens boxer game.
"Ooooooh! $20 on odds and evens? I'm in," he said. "It's just enough action to keep it interesting."
I offered him to pick any side and told him about F Train's issues with evens. Grubby didn't care and went with evens anyway. It got ugly for him. I was up a quick $100 before things settled down. An hour later, I emerged $40 richer.
We migrated over to the video games. There is a hunting game with shotguns where you shoot different things like deer, moose, and antelopes. Two play simultaneous and Grubby and I went to work. We bet on who could kill the most animals. Grubby lived in major cities most of his life. He's an urban guy like myself. We never shoot things like hunting rifles so I felt the game would be evenly matched.
I ended up the winner in the hunting game. Grubby kept shooting innocent animals, while I racked up points in the bonus round when we went duck hunting. Drizz took Grubby's spot and I got my ass handed to me.
"I'm a redneck from Minnesota," joked Drizz. "Of course I'm good at this."
Drizz admitted that he's been hunting before. I wish he told me before we started betting. Hustled at video games.
The latest big bet involved Grubby and myself. If you walked around Key West, you spotted the signs for mayoral candidates. They were everywhere. On picket fences. Inside the windows of stores. On random utility poles. I went with Jimmy Weekly and Grubby picked Morgan McPherson. We have $100 riding on the election. I joked that I was going to donate $99 to Weekly and pimp him on my blog so I can push him over the top... just to win $1 against Grubby.
And yes, vote for Jimmy Weekly for mayor.
Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
By Pauly
Key West, FL
Change100's chip sculpture
The gambling ghosts over the past week appeared in three different forms during the Key West trip:
1. Online pokerI squeezed in six straight days of online poker during the start of my trip. I played a little at my friend Jerry's house in Miami and then played several hours per day at the AlCantHang Compound (ACHC) in Key West. It had been five or six months since I could find unfettered chunks of time to play online poker without any distractions. A couple of years ago used to play 8 hours a day online... on a slow day. Now, I'm lucky if I can get in a couple hours per week.
2. Live poker
3. Degenerate prop bets
I eventually slipped into ultra-laid back Key West mode. I've been traveling so much over the last few years that I can quickly adapt to the vibe of where I am. It usually takes me 24 hours to adjust. The routine in Key West during the first few days was usually the same. Here's the 16 Steps to Island Insanity:
1. Wake up courtesy of a screaming rooster.By mid-afternoon in Key West, I found myself bogged down in three to four hour sessions of LHE multi-tabling at 10/20 and 15/30 on PokerStars and 8/16 on Full Tilt. I took a shot at the 30/60 tables and broke even. I also played a ton of 1/2 PLO and some 2/4 PLO over at PokerStars. Here's a look at my four-day slide at the ACHC:
2. Fight hangover and curse off all liquor products.
3. Ingest 2 Motrins, 1 Vicodin, and various herbal supplements.
4. Drink six glasses of water.
5. ATM to withdraw money for breakfast and the "Key West Save the Stripper Foundation."
6. Find something to eat that won't make me to puke.
7. Write for two or three hours.
8. Wandering over to the ACHC.
9. Consume alcohol and other bongolicious activities.
10. Play online poker on the deck until it's too hot or starts raining.
11. Go inside the house and watch the WSOP in HD on ESPN while playing online poker.
12. Dinner.
13. Bars on Duval Street.
14. Strip clubs; The Classy Joint followed by The Dive.
15. Pass out.
16. Repeat.
9.24: -312I won a bit playing PLO and that covered a few hits at the LHE tables. I consistently lost about $300+ over the first three days in Key West but those results are insignificant due to the stakes I played. All of that damage happened by three morbid beats; A-A and K-K and Big Slick were cracked by inferior hands via river suckouts. Bad beats in Paradise. That's life.
9.25: -323
9.26: -335
9.27: -100
I forgot how boring grinding it out at the limit tables could be. Playing ABC poker is profitable but not fun. That's why the additional PLO table kept my inner action junkie entertained.
After blowing over $420 on the first night in Key West, I fired up PokerStars and Full Tilt in order to fund the rest of the adventure. Sadly, I couldn't win enough money to cover my strip club loses. The entire week, I kept looking for ways to get unstuck. That's when AlCantHang busted out the poker chips.
Starting Monday, we played a six-handed NL game that lasted until Thursday. The players included myself, AlCantHang, Brian, Landow, BigMike, and Lewey. I had been looking to exact revenge on Lewey. The first time I ever met him (along with AlCantHang and the rest of the crew) was during a poker game in Bucks County, PA. Lewey maliciously cracked my Kings with a junk hand and that sent me on mega-Lewey tilt. If you don't know, Lewey is a terror at the tables. They named a hand after him... the 6-4o. That crew plays The Lewey like it's A-A or the Hammer.
The game started out low stakes at 25c/50c blinds with a $40 buy-in. After the first orbit or two, I soon realized that this would be a "shove then rebuy" game. By the end of the first day, I was stuck a couple of buy-ins. I missed a couple of draws. I was outdrawn a couple of times and then picked up a cooler.
I had just rebought for the third time. I looked at my cards and found K-K. I opened up for a raise then AlCantHang on my immediate left popped me for a re-raise. I re-raised all in and he quickly called.
"Oh shit," I said. "That was quick. I hope you have Kings or the Hilton Sisters."
"Nope," AlCantHang said as he tabled his pocket Aces.
I didn't even bother seeing the flop and got up to buy more chips. That pot pushed AlCantHang into the chiplead. He never looked back.
On Wednesday, I finally made a comeback and won back all of my previous buy-ins. I doubled through BigMike and then I picked up two big pots from Lewey.
On the first hand against Lewey, I held 7d-5d and flopped bottom two pair on a Queen high board. We got it all in on the flop. Lewey called with Q-10. My two pair held up and I doubled through Lewey.
An hour or so later, I felted Lewey. I found Ks-9s in the big blind. AlCantHang limped from under the gun and Lewey raised. Five more callers for a family pot. The flop was K-J-3. I checked as did everyone else. The turn was a 5. I checked again. Lewey fired out a pot-sized bet. Everyone folded to me and I check raised him about 5x the pot. Lewey quickly shoved.
"Oh no," I said. "I hope you don't have 5-3 suited. Or worse, how about J-5? That's what I get for trying to trap you."
I called and flipped over Ks-9s. Lewey shook his head as he showed J-10. My hand held up and I found myself ahead for the first time all week.
When some other friends eventually arrived into by the weekend, the short-handed game was called. We settled up. AlCantHang was the big winner followed by Brian and myself.
I played in two more cash games. including a brief session on Friday after a visit to the Hemingway House and Museum, and then a group of us played a marathon session on Saturday where a game lasted from about 3pm to 1am.
I don't recall too much from the Friday game except that I sat in between BG and Sweet Sweet Pablo. I only remember one hand... where I busted my brother and my girlfriend at the same time.
Change100 opened up for a raise and Derek called. I found 8c-6c in the big blind and called. The flop was 7-5-4 rainbow. I looked up and said, "Someone is getting felted on this hand."
Everyone laughed and I checked. Change100 threw out a continuation bet. Derek called and I called. The turn was the Qh. I bet about 1/2 the pot. Change100 raised and Derek moved all in. I quickly called and Change100 went into the tank. She didn't have too many chips behind and couldn't put any of us on a hand. She reluctantly called. Derek flipped over A-A and Change100 showed K-Q. I tabled 8c-6c. I flopped the joint and it held up. Derek and Change100 had to rebuy as got unstuck for the session. The game broke about an hour later.
On Saturday, we all stumbled over to the ACHC for a massive cash game. Gracie and Pablo brought over their chip set and the game lasted for almost 10 hours with the a short break for food. BG cooked up some fish that a few of the gang caught on Thursday.
The players changed every few hours and included AlCantHang, Gracie, Sweet Sweet Pablo, Drizz, Derek, The Rooster, F Train, Change100, Maudie, Mary, Iggy, JoeSpeaker, Grubby, Donkey Puncher, and myself. The swings were crazy for a 25c/50c blinds game. It was a pushfest and some of the most fun I had playing poker in a very long time.
I play poker for different reasons. I play to make money. I play because I'm an action junkie and need the fix. I also play because of the social attributes which accompany a poker table. It had been a very long time since I spent time with my friends, especially at a poker table.
I rarely see my brother and my friends with a hectic work schedule and constantly being on the road. The people I met through poker four years ago have become close friends over the years. They have been extremely supportive of my endeavors and that makes me miss them more. Whatever free time I have is devoted to my career and personal writing projects. I have to squeeze family and a long-distance relationship in there as well. My free time has shriveled up and my friends get the short-end of the stick.
I never have a chance to play in blogger tournaments, so I don't see them online. They pop up in Las Vegas during the WSOP, but that is the worst time to socialize and hang out since I'm stressed out making deadlines and working sick hours every day and night. The WPBT gatherings twice a year have become too large. Some of my closest friends have skipped the last couple of them and even if they do make an appearance, I don't get to spend quality time with everyone.
Even though we ventured to the southernmost point in the continental US for AlCantHang's 40th birthday, I took it as an opportunity to spend time with everyone I missed over the past year. I busted my ass and cultivated a writing career and get flown all over the globe, but the biggest sacrifice I had to make was to spend less time with friends. That's why I soaked up every second of the Key West trip. I don't know when I'll get to be around these folks next.
The Saturday poker game was a definite highlight. Chips were flying around the table. Everyone was partying and having a blast. People were getting busted on every other hand and everyone was quick to rebuy. The game was crazy and I got felted by my brother a few times who ended up issuing a few bad beats to everyone.
Around 11pm or so. Derek tilted Sweet Sweet Pablo big time. Everyone straddled except Derek who was on the button. He looked at his hand and moved all in. Everyone folded to Pablo and he went into the tank for six minutes before he called with A-J. Derek flipped over 8-3o. The flop was A-7-3. The turn was another 3. The river was a blank and Derek doubled up against Pablo. Sweet Sweet Pablo had morphed into Tilt Tilt Pablo.
Two hands later, I became Derek's next victim. I sat out for about an hour when I ran down the street to the ATM and then the corner store. When I returned, I played with Change100's stack (she had about 11 bucks left) and I got $12 more chips from Iggy, Gracie, and Derek for buying them smokes at the store. I started with a tiny stack of 23 and ran that up to 350 in a short time. Then I ran into Derek's Bad Beat Machine.
Mary raised in EP. Derek called. I found Kc-Qc from the button and raised. Mary and Derek called. The flop was K-x-x. Mary checked. Derek bet the pot and I raised 4x his bet. Mary folded and Derek moved all in. I quickly called. Derek showed K-9.
"You know what's coming," said Grubby.
I shook my head. I knew what was coming too. I was the button and had to deal my own fate. I burned and then quickly turned the turn card. The fuckin' 9s. The river didn't help me and Derek doubled up with two pair.
Tilt!
At least I didn't have to rebuy. There were three other hands of note. One involved Maudie. Another was with Gracie. And the last one was with Derek and Mary (again).
During the first hour of play, Maudie raised and I re-raised in LP and Maudie called. The flop was all rags. She bet, I raised all in and she went into the tank. I took a picture of my hand.
Garcie and Mary at the far end of the table were whispering about my potential bluff. I said that I would show them the picture first as soon as Maudie made a decision. Maudie thought and thought. She had no idea what I held. I was playing lots of junk hands. When she eventually called, I passed my camera down to her and the rest of the table. They saw this:
"Aw shit!" said Maudie.
She had 10-10 and my Aces held up. I busted Maudie and she dug into her pockets for a rebuy.
This hand happened late into the session shortly after I left to reload at the ATM and pick up ciggies for everyone. Derek raised preflop. I re-raised. Mary, Garcie, and Pablo called. The flop was 7 high with all rags. Gracie bet almost 50 and I raised to 125 and was all in. Everyone else got out of the way. Gracie tanked for five minutes. I took another photo of my hand. She eventually called and I tossed my camera down to the other side of the table.
Gracie held 10-10 and I doubled through her. That's how I built up my stack.
The last hand I'm going to write about was one of the most interesting hands of the session. It involved a massive laydown. It was a three-handed pot with Mary, Derek, and myself.
Derek had been raising a lot of pots. He opened up from UTG with a raise. I re-raised him with Jd-5c. Mary re-raised both of us from the cut off. We both called. The flop was 10d-5h-3d. Derek bet about 1/2 the pot. I called and Mary raised. We both called. The turn was the 4d. Derek bet the pot. Mary let out a sigh. I knew she didn't like that card. I had second pair with a flush draw. I counted out my chips and then said, "Ahh, I just call."
Derek glanced over at me as did Mary. They both gave me that look like, "You just caught your flush. Boooo!"
Mary went into the tank as she agonized over the call. She said something about possibly folding the best hand. She's a tight player so I put her on a big pair. She eventually folded. Derek dealt the river card. It was a blank and didn't fill in my flush. Derek bet about 1/3 of the pot.
"Shit," I said. "I guess you have the flush."
I called and tabled Jd-5c. Derek flipped over the Ad and then showed the 7s. The tourist was no good for him. He missed his flush draw and I won the pot with a pair of fives. I'm glad that the flush didn't come on the river or I would have been in trouble.
Mary dug her cards out of the muck and showed K-K. Yeah, I got her to fold the best hand. She put one of us on two pair and the other on the flush. Despite the hit, she ended up among the big winners along with Sweet Sweet Pablo.
Me? I won a few bucks overall. But the fun factor was priceless.
Once my friends arrived on Thursday, the prop betting began. It peaked out on Friday night and started with the turtle races. Yes, they have turtle races in Key West. The gang showed up at the bar on the pier. We proceeded to get shitfaced and then wagered on the turtles.
The bartenders passed out tickets numbered one through five. It was only a five turtle race. Since we all got similar numbers we had to break off and play an SNG turtle race format. $20 per person. Winner scoops $100. I had StB, Derek, Change100, and Gracie in my pool. Change100's turtle won and she couldn't have been happier. It got her unstuck from the poker game. My turtle came in next to last place. Bastard. If he doesn't improve his performance, he'll become turtle soup for tourists.
After the turtle races, the action shifted locales. Below the Classy Joint, there's a sports bar. In the back of the sports bar, there are pool tables, videos games, and a "boxer" machine. The boys liked to bet on who could hit it the hardest. F Train and I stood on the sidelines as Drizz, Donkey Puncher, and Roberto Colunga were going apeshit.
(Editor's Note: Roberto Colunga is the artist formerly known as Bobby Bracelet. He's part of the crew that needs a new online identity. I came up with a new moniker for the guy and now he's named after a famous Mexican soap opera actor. FYI, I shall be making references to another friend of mine as Benny Hiroshima in a future post. I will no longer be referring to either gentlemen by their former names.)
Anyway, F Train and I wanted to get in on the action without dislocating our shoulders. The boxer game measures a punch by a point system. We decided to bet on the outcome of the last digit while the rest of the gang punched. F Train picked evens. I had odds. It was a coinflip. We love betting coinflips, especially at $20 a pop.
The boys went back and forth for almost an hour. I started out slow and found myself down 60 right away. I eventually broke even, then I went on a rush. I was up 160 for a while. We went back and forth and F Train cut the lead in half to 80. I won a couple of more punches. He was stuck -100 and that's when he asked to stop the prop betting. And guess what? The next four punches all ended in even numbers. He would have eventually got unstuck if he played another ten minutes.
I played pool with Maudie who is a shark. She tried the old routine, "Oh, I haven't played in a while." Then she wiped me out. I couldn't catch a break and missed a few crucial shots down the stretch. Maudie won and took over the table. It would be a while before someone beat her. Fear Maudie. If you ever see her with a pool stick in her hand... run the other way.
Grubby showed up and we quickly got in some action. We're always betting on something. We invented betting on wheel spins at The Excalibur in December of 2004, which had become a big hit among our friends. In the past, my former Las Vegas roommate and I have bet on weekend grosses of Hollyweird films (I won his car once betting on weekend grosses), the astrological signs of our waitresses, and even bet on the sex of the next person who walked through a doorway. Our degenerate prop betting continued in Key West when I told him about the odds and evens boxer game.
"Ooooooh! $20 on odds and evens? I'm in," he said. "It's just enough action to keep it interesting."
I offered him to pick any side and told him about F Train's issues with evens. Grubby didn't care and went with evens anyway. It got ugly for him. I was up a quick $100 before things settled down. An hour later, I emerged $40 richer.
We migrated over to the video games. There is a hunting game with shotguns where you shoot different things like deer, moose, and antelopes. Two play simultaneous and Grubby and I went to work. We bet on who could kill the most animals. Grubby lived in major cities most of his life. He's an urban guy like myself. We never shoot things like hunting rifles so I felt the game would be evenly matched.
I ended up the winner in the hunting game. Grubby kept shooting innocent animals, while I racked up points in the bonus round when we went duck hunting. Drizz took Grubby's spot and I got my ass handed to me.
"I'm a redneck from Minnesota," joked Drizz. "Of course I'm good at this."
Drizz admitted that he's been hunting before. I wish he told me before we started betting. Hustled at video games.
The latest big bet involved Grubby and myself. If you walked around Key West, you spotted the signs for mayoral candidates. They were everywhere. On picket fences. Inside the windows of stores. On random utility poles. I went with Jimmy Weekly and Grubby picked Morgan McPherson. We have $100 riding on the election. I joked that I was going to donate $99 to Weekly and pimp him on my blog so I can push him over the top... just to win $1 against Grubby.
And yes, vote for Jimmy Weekly for mayor.
Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Existentialist Conversations with Strippers, Vol. III: Identity
By Pauly
Key West, FL
Editor's Note: This originally appeared on Tao of Pauly under the title AlCantHang and I Walk into a Bar...
Key West. It had the vibe of a Caribbean island without the color. The streets were flooded with sunburnt white people clutching souvenir bags and digital cameras. The AlCantHang Compound (ACHC) was off the beaten path, down a secret alley off a side street, definitely away from tourist central.
A few hours after the Sunday arrival, the guys hung out in the pool while I sat in the shade with AlCantHang and Big Mike. We drank and swapped Amsterdam tales. Most of the crew eventually wanted dinner. AlCantHang's primary objective was booze. They went for food while we walked over to Irish Kevin's, a bar on Duval Street which was an AlCantHang favorite.
From the view outside on the street, Irish Kevin's was located in the first floor of a two story structure, but from the inside, only one humongous space existed. We wandered inside the narrow bar, maybe three tables or four tables wide, with high ceilings. It was one of the longest bars I had ever seen running almost the entire length of the property which was at least thirty or forty yards.
A guy in a blue t-shirt and cargo shorts stood on stage with am acoustic guitar. He played popular cover songs like Jack and Diane and Sweet Home Alabama in a wacky manner. He interacted with the audience and encouraged them to sing-a-long and participate in his random goofiness like busting on people from New Jersey, changing the words to the songs, and guilt-tripping pedestrians to come inside and get shitfaced with everyone else.
It was exactly 8:08pm when I entered an Irish Bar in Key West with AlCantHang. Whenever you walk into a bar with AlCantHang, you're immediately assuming full responsibility for your actions. You always know what you are getting yourself into. There's no false pretense. You will drink and drink and drink and drink as life unfolds around you. You surrender to the flow of the liquor.
One of our friends described AlCantHang as a walking party. And when the party plops down at an Irish bar, you're knee deep in the depths of a serious mind-altering drinking binge. The best you can hope for is that your liver manages to escape with minimal damage and that the hangover the next day won't be devastating where you're clutching the porcelain god at sunrise with the worst case of the dry-heaves that you've had since the earliest days of the Clinton administration.
I knew the three basic tenants of the AlCantHang party-like-a-rock-star rules.
The musician onstage asked who was in the military. The kid raised his hand and said he was in the Army. AlCantHang quickly bought him a shot. That's when he discovered that the kid and his girlfriend lived in the town next to AlCantHang's. Small world.
Enter the Germans. Originally we thought they were Irish since they knew all the words to Irish Rover. As soon as the song ended, they screamed out,"Johnny Cash!"
The Krauts were fans of the man in black and over the next hour, that's all they screamed. In due time, AlCantHang bought them shots. The one German kid almost hurled when he downed a shot of Jim Beam black label. He told us that he'd been in America for two weeks and saw a bunch of cities, but none more fun than Key West.
AlCantHang pulled a $20 out of his wad and rushed up to the stage. He tipped the musician $20 to play Johnny Cash. Ten minutes later, he busted into Folsom Prison Blues.
"Since I got tipped $20 to play Johnny Cash from AlCantHang," the guy on stage said. "I'm going to play two songs."
The Germans went nuts. The entire bar sang along. Inside of a couple of hours, AlCantHang became the King of the Bar. Even the owner was buying him shots. If you've done any drinking under the AlCantHang Experience, you fully comprehend his magical powers.
The rest of the crew eventually joined us for a round or three in the back of the bar while a second musician took the stage. He was a black guy from New York City. He has some sick chops and was twenty-times the musician as the goofy guy, but he lacked the charisma of the first guy.
That's when AlCantHang said, "Time for some tits. And ass!"
Like Moses parting the Red Sea, AlCantHang darted through the crowd as the drunks in Irish Kevin's made a path for him to the front door. We walked fifteen meters and we reached the establishment that I will call, "The Classy Joint."
Editor's Note: I have been informed by my legal counsel to omit the actual name of the gentleman's clubs and change the names of the strippers in order to protect the innocent. Like they are giving me their real names anyway? I also refer to the first strip club as "The Classy Joint" because there will be a second establishment mentioned in this post that is made the first place look like the Rhino in Las Vegas.
The Classy Joint is located at the top of a slippery wooden staircase. Thousands of horny men and other wayward and desperate souls made the same climb. The cover charge was $5 but I got in for free since Lewey flashed his VIP card, which gave him and a guest free admission. I realized that the entire crew had a VIP card with the exception of me.
Big Mike scouted out a spot. The space was fairly large with a stage in the middle of the room with two stripper poles on opposite sides. Twenty or so chairs were around the stage while a long bar nestled against the back wall. There was a hallway off to the side which led to the Champagne Lounge. Next to that was a room with group of red velvet couches where the adult entertainers performed their infamous exotic lap dances under the sultry hues of red, purple, and pink neon.
We set up camp near the stage. One or two of us would take turns sitting at the stage and tipping the girls $1 bills. Except the AlCantHang crew were serious ballers. They were tipping a minimum of $5 or $6 and up to $20.
That's their game plan. It was the first night in town and they made it known that they were in Key West for a week. What at first seemed likethey (well I guess it's the collective 'we') we recklessly splashed money around, it was all done on purpose to establish the fact that we were not cheap tourists looking to see some ass for next to nothing. As Big Mike explained, we were conditioning the natives. That way the next time we ventured inside, we got quick and attentive service. (And that would happen when we returned less than 19 hours later and you'll read about that in another post.)
Overtipping became the norm and within minutes our crew got all of the attention in The Classy Joint, even though it was crowded for a Sunday night. Everyone became secondary to the AlCantHang Experience. Big Mike took care of our waitress with a nice pre-tip. She was an attractive Cuban woman and didn't look as skanky as the girls on stage. That made her the most sophisticated lady in the club.
"How come you don't dance," asked Big Mike.
"I'm a mommy. Mommies don't dance. Would you like to see your mommy dance?" she said.
"Are you kidding me? The fuckin' whore? I'd love to see her actually get off her ass to make a dime," Big Mike honestly said.
The majority of the girls were average looking strippers. They would be working a second-tier club in Las Vegas or stripping during the day at one of the bigger clubs. But in Key West, they were the cream of the crop. And even though they were some of the better looking pieces of ass in town, they still had the wild reputation that Key West strippers have. The word "dirty" comes to mind.
Most strip clubs in Las Vegas implement a strict hands-off the dancer policy. The majority of the girls at the Rhino or Crazy Horse Too don't shower you with special attention unless you shower them with $100 bills. It's all business for the Las Vegas girls and if you want any sort of extra attention or groping, you have to fork over big bucks for an adventure in the VIP room. Of course, that's the biggest scam in Las Vegas next to the 99 cent shrimp cocktail.
At the Key West establishments, all you have to do is pay $20 for a naughty session which includes (and not limited too) crotch grabbing and getting your face used as a punching bag as the ladies slap their poorly designed fake-breasts into your face.
Sure, we all had fun. But our primary goal was to make sure AlCantHang had fun. And he did. Of course, we lost Lewey for sometime. He went into the back and didn't come out for a while. And when he finally reappeared he had a wry smirk on his face.
I befriended a stripper from the Czech Republic. She stood about five-foot ten with dark hair and natural breasts. She reminded me of Phoebe Cates and had a tattoo of a scorpion on her ankle. What looked like four cigarette burns peppered the inside of her thighs.
By the second lap dance, we had been discussing lesser known Milan Kundera books like Identity as she stood upside down on her hands and rubbed her shaved crotch on my chest.
"Your country was invaded my the Soviets," I rambled on during the fourth lap dance. "They set up a puppet government that eventually crumbled after the Berlin Wall came tumbling down. Your formerly behind the Iron Curtain nation-state was broken up into two republics and instead of staying behind in your new land of freedom, you fled to Key West where you strip for a bunch of old farts who are in town for a few hours when their cruise ship docked. Or you're grinding away for horny servicemen on leave taking every cent of their slave wages that our government pays them?"
"I like the warm weather," she cooed. "And I'm trying to earn enough money to bring my mother here."
Of course, she was trying to sell the old routine, "I'm only let potential serial killers and politicians pull my hair and fondle my breasts for $20 a pop so I can bring my mother to America."
She was a hustler, a decent one at that. The vixen almost had me convinced. But I've been around the block a few times and been to enough strip clubs that I could write a book about it. The American bimbos use law school or business school as their faux cover. The foreign ones like to bring up their mothers and highlight the hardships in their motherland. This one was down here to hook a big whale. Perhaps a lonely and well off retired businessman with a yacht and a multiple million dollar homes.
"Everyone loves their mothers," I said. "Don't you love money?"
"Of course," she said as she continued to dance to a random hip hop sing with fellatio lyrics.
"But do you love money more than your mother?"
She paused and said, "I love them equally both."
"But your mother is still washing dirty underwear for tourists in Prague, right? Because if you really loved her, she'd be in paradise with you, washing dirty underwear for tourists in Key West."
She didn't blink and tried to get me off the topic. She grabbed my junk for four long seconds and twisted my nipples until I begged her to stop.
I don't recall how long we spent at The Classy Joint. I was shitfaced drunk when I left the Irish bar and drank steadily at the strip club. We finally left and walked down the street. We made a turn down a dark alley next to a couple of abandoned buildings. A faint pink light could be seen and that was the strip club on the other side of the tracks.
The Dive was a step down on the stripper food chain. A couple of rungs. It reminded me of those horrible and sad clubs in shitbag towns and third-rate cities where career strippers end up when they hit 40 or on their last breaths before they croak from a speedball OD in the tiny bathroom of a no-tell motel freaking out the chubby married business man from the Midwest who hired the strung out vixen to suck his toes for $20 a toe.
"This is the place where Key West strippers come to die," said Landow in a straight face as we walked inside.
There was no cover charge. For obvious reasons. The place looked the basement of my fraternity house, except with a stripper pole. There was one dilapidated stage off to the left and a tiny bar to the right. Several old guys sat at the bar. Two of them had girls sitting on their laps. One was atrocious looking as her double-D sized books spilled out of her top. The better looking one seemed out of place until she smiled and I realized that she was missing three teeth. I didn't want to touch anything because I was afraid of contracting an STD.
As soon as we walked in, the best looking dancer in the club wandered up. She looked gorgrous at first glance, but underneath the lights, the wrinkles gave her away. Twenty years ago she was the hottest stripper in town. The Dive is like her retirement home.
"Aren't you AlCantHang?" she asked.
AlCantHang told her that he was and she mentioned that one of the girls they knew was due to dance on stage next. Years ago, the crew befriended a stripper. I guess we'll call her N. When N saw AlCantHang and his crew, she bubbled over with excitement.
For the next hour or so, they all caught up over a couple of beers as I watched the various dancers take turns running to the bathroom to rip a few lines before it was their turn to dance.
The Dive was sketchy because they cut off all songs at the 2 minute and 10 second mark. I counted. So if you got a lap dance, you got cheated. The standard lap dance at traditional clubs is about three minutes or so. I refused to go into the back room with those ladies. At some point you have to draw the line somewhere. For me, it was The Dive.
I don't recall leaving the second strip club. I vaguely recall trying to find a slice of pizza. Then I blacked out. I woke up in my bed at the hotel. A fuckin' rooster woke me up. There are all these free range chickens and roosters wandering around Key West. One in particular caused me to awake from a dead sleep.
My head was ringing. I had a category three hangover on the verge of dehydration. I managed to avoid puking and chugged the rest of the water I had as I quickly popped two Motrin and one generic Vicodin. I looked at my digital camera. It was a scene out of Momento where I had to piece my life back together using a couple of random images, mostly from the Irish bar. The strip clubs had a no photography policy, so there were no shots of that debauchery.
I grabbed the wad of cash out of my pocket. It looked healthy until I unfurled it and began counting. Wait, were did all the hundreds go? And all those twenties were replaced by singles. I did some quick math and figured out between the Irish bar and the two strip clubs, I had blown about $420.
I sat down at the table near the window overlooking Duval Street. Despite the hangover, I fired up the pipe and the laptop and began writing about the previous 48 hours. That's when the tour trolley stopped in front of the hotel. I looked out of the window and a guy on a microphone pointed to the hotel. He muttered something about this being, "a historical landmark almost as old as Key West itself."
One woman snapped a quick photo. I wonder if the tour guide stopped his trolley at The Classy Joint or The Dive and said the same thing?
Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
Key West, FL
Editor's Note: This originally appeared on Tao of Pauly under the title AlCantHang and I Walk into a Bar...
Key West. It had the vibe of a Caribbean island without the color. The streets were flooded with sunburnt white people clutching souvenir bags and digital cameras. The AlCantHang Compound (ACHC) was off the beaten path, down a secret alley off a side street, definitely away from tourist central.
A few hours after the Sunday arrival, the guys hung out in the pool while I sat in the shade with AlCantHang and Big Mike. We drank and swapped Amsterdam tales. Most of the crew eventually wanted dinner. AlCantHang's primary objective was booze. They went for food while we walked over to Irish Kevin's, a bar on Duval Street which was an AlCantHang favorite. From the view outside on the street, Irish Kevin's was located in the first floor of a two story structure, but from the inside, only one humongous space existed. We wandered inside the narrow bar, maybe three tables or four tables wide, with high ceilings. It was one of the longest bars I had ever seen running almost the entire length of the property which was at least thirty or forty yards.
A guy in a blue t-shirt and cargo shorts stood on stage with am acoustic guitar. He played popular cover songs like Jack and Diane and Sweet Home Alabama in a wacky manner. He interacted with the audience and encouraged them to sing-a-long and participate in his random goofiness like busting on people from New Jersey, changing the words to the songs, and guilt-tripping pedestrians to come inside and get shitfaced with everyone else.
It was exactly 8:08pm when I entered an Irish Bar in Key West with AlCantHang. Whenever you walk into a bar with AlCantHang, you're immediately assuming full responsibility for your actions. You always know what you are getting yourself into. There's no false pretense. You will drink and drink and drink and drink as life unfolds around you. You surrender to the flow of the liquor.
One of our friends described AlCantHang as a walking party. And when the party plops down at an Irish bar, you're knee deep in the depths of a serious mind-altering drinking binge. The best you can hope for is that your liver manages to escape with minimal damage and that the hangover the next day won't be devastating where you're clutching the porcelain god at sunrise with the worst case of the dry-heaves that you've had since the earliest days of the Clinton administration.
I knew the three basic tenants of the AlCantHang party-like-a-rock-star rules.
1. Pace yourself.I followed two but not the third. I drank on an almost empty stomach and by the sixth or seven beer, I got hit with a sledgehammer. We were seated at the end of the bar next to a kid, who barely looked old enough to drink. He was with his pretty girlfriend and they sipped some sort of rum and coke drink.
2. Drink lots of water.
3. And eat as much as possible.
The musician onstage asked who was in the military. The kid raised his hand and said he was in the Army. AlCantHang quickly bought him a shot. That's when he discovered that the kid and his girlfriend lived in the town next to AlCantHang's. Small world.
Enter the Germans. Originally we thought they were Irish since they knew all the words to Irish Rover. As soon as the song ended, they screamed out,"Johnny Cash!"
The Krauts were fans of the man in black and over the next hour, that's all they screamed. In due time, AlCantHang bought them shots. The one German kid almost hurled when he downed a shot of Jim Beam black label. He told us that he'd been in America for two weeks and saw a bunch of cities, but none more fun than Key West.
AlCantHang pulled a $20 out of his wad and rushed up to the stage. He tipped the musician $20 to play Johnny Cash. Ten minutes later, he busted into Folsom Prison Blues.
"Since I got tipped $20 to play Johnny Cash from AlCantHang," the guy on stage said. "I'm going to play two songs."
The Germans went nuts. The entire bar sang along. Inside of a couple of hours, AlCantHang became the King of the Bar. Even the owner was buying him shots. If you've done any drinking under the AlCantHang Experience, you fully comprehend his magical powers.
The rest of the crew eventually joined us for a round or three in the back of the bar while a second musician took the stage. He was a black guy from New York City. He has some sick chops and was twenty-times the musician as the goofy guy, but he lacked the charisma of the first guy.
That's when AlCantHang said, "Time for some tits. And ass!"
Like Moses parting the Red Sea, AlCantHang darted through the crowd as the drunks in Irish Kevin's made a path for him to the front door. We walked fifteen meters and we reached the establishment that I will call, "The Classy Joint."
Editor's Note: I have been informed by my legal counsel to omit the actual name of the gentleman's clubs and change the names of the strippers in order to protect the innocent. Like they are giving me their real names anyway? I also refer to the first strip club as "The Classy Joint" because there will be a second establishment mentioned in this post that is made the first place look like the Rhino in Las Vegas.
The Classy Joint is located at the top of a slippery wooden staircase. Thousands of horny men and other wayward and desperate souls made the same climb. The cover charge was $5 but I got in for free since Lewey flashed his VIP card, which gave him and a guest free admission. I realized that the entire crew had a VIP card with the exception of me.
Big Mike scouted out a spot. The space was fairly large with a stage in the middle of the room with two stripper poles on opposite sides. Twenty or so chairs were around the stage while a long bar nestled against the back wall. There was a hallway off to the side which led to the Champagne Lounge. Next to that was a room with group of red velvet couches where the adult entertainers performed their infamous exotic lap dances under the sultry hues of red, purple, and pink neon.
We set up camp near the stage. One or two of us would take turns sitting at the stage and tipping the girls $1 bills. Except the AlCantHang crew were serious ballers. They were tipping a minimum of $5 or $6 and up to $20.
That's their game plan. It was the first night in town and they made it known that they were in Key West for a week. What at first seemed like
Overtipping became the norm and within minutes our crew got all of the attention in The Classy Joint, even though it was crowded for a Sunday night. Everyone became secondary to the AlCantHang Experience. Big Mike took care of our waitress with a nice pre-tip. She was an attractive Cuban woman and didn't look as skanky as the girls on stage. That made her the most sophisticated lady in the club.
"How come you don't dance," asked Big Mike.
"I'm a mommy. Mommies don't dance. Would you like to see your mommy dance?" she said.
"Are you kidding me? The fuckin' whore? I'd love to see her actually get off her ass to make a dime," Big Mike honestly said.
The majority of the girls were average looking strippers. They would be working a second-tier club in Las Vegas or stripping during the day at one of the bigger clubs. But in Key West, they were the cream of the crop. And even though they were some of the better looking pieces of ass in town, they still had the wild reputation that Key West strippers have. The word "dirty" comes to mind.
Most strip clubs in Las Vegas implement a strict hands-off the dancer policy. The majority of the girls at the Rhino or Crazy Horse Too don't shower you with special attention unless you shower them with $100 bills. It's all business for the Las Vegas girls and if you want any sort of extra attention or groping, you have to fork over big bucks for an adventure in the VIP room. Of course, that's the biggest scam in Las Vegas next to the 99 cent shrimp cocktail.
At the Key West establishments, all you have to do is pay $20 for a naughty session which includes (and not limited too) crotch grabbing and getting your face used as a punching bag as the ladies slap their poorly designed fake-breasts into your face.
Sure, we all had fun. But our primary goal was to make sure AlCantHang had fun. And he did. Of course, we lost Lewey for sometime. He went into the back and didn't come out for a while. And when he finally reappeared he had a wry smirk on his face.
I befriended a stripper from the Czech Republic. She stood about five-foot ten with dark hair and natural breasts. She reminded me of Phoebe Cates and had a tattoo of a scorpion on her ankle. What looked like four cigarette burns peppered the inside of her thighs.
By the second lap dance, we had been discussing lesser known Milan Kundera books like Identity as she stood upside down on her hands and rubbed her shaved crotch on my chest.
"Your country was invaded my the Soviets," I rambled on during the fourth lap dance. "They set up a puppet government that eventually crumbled after the Berlin Wall came tumbling down. Your formerly behind the Iron Curtain nation-state was broken up into two republics and instead of staying behind in your new land of freedom, you fled to Key West where you strip for a bunch of old farts who are in town for a few hours when their cruise ship docked. Or you're grinding away for horny servicemen on leave taking every cent of their slave wages that our government pays them?"
"I like the warm weather," she cooed. "And I'm trying to earn enough money to bring my mother here."
Of course, she was trying to sell the old routine, "I'm only let potential serial killers and politicians pull my hair and fondle my breasts for $20 a pop so I can bring my mother to America."
She was a hustler, a decent one at that. The vixen almost had me convinced. But I've been around the block a few times and been to enough strip clubs that I could write a book about it. The American bimbos use law school or business school as their faux cover. The foreign ones like to bring up their mothers and highlight the hardships in their motherland. This one was down here to hook a big whale. Perhaps a lonely and well off retired businessman with a yacht and a multiple million dollar homes.
"Everyone loves their mothers," I said. "Don't you love money?"
"Of course," she said as she continued to dance to a random hip hop sing with fellatio lyrics.
"But do you love money more than your mother?"
She paused and said, "I love them equally both."
"But your mother is still washing dirty underwear for tourists in Prague, right? Because if you really loved her, she'd be in paradise with you, washing dirty underwear for tourists in Key West."
She didn't blink and tried to get me off the topic. She grabbed my junk for four long seconds and twisted my nipples until I begged her to stop.
I don't recall how long we spent at The Classy Joint. I was shitfaced drunk when I left the Irish bar and drank steadily at the strip club. We finally left and walked down the street. We made a turn down a dark alley next to a couple of abandoned buildings. A faint pink light could be seen and that was the strip club on the other side of the tracks.
The Dive was a step down on the stripper food chain. A couple of rungs. It reminded me of those horrible and sad clubs in shitbag towns and third-rate cities where career strippers end up when they hit 40 or on their last breaths before they croak from a speedball OD in the tiny bathroom of a no-tell motel freaking out the chubby married business man from the Midwest who hired the strung out vixen to suck his toes for $20 a toe.
"This is the place where Key West strippers come to die," said Landow in a straight face as we walked inside.
There was no cover charge. For obvious reasons. The place looked the basement of my fraternity house, except with a stripper pole. There was one dilapidated stage off to the left and a tiny bar to the right. Several old guys sat at the bar. Two of them had girls sitting on their laps. One was atrocious looking as her double-D sized books spilled out of her top. The better looking one seemed out of place until she smiled and I realized that she was missing three teeth. I didn't want to touch anything because I was afraid of contracting an STD.
As soon as we walked in, the best looking dancer in the club wandered up. She looked gorgrous at first glance, but underneath the lights, the wrinkles gave her away. Twenty years ago she was the hottest stripper in town. The Dive is like her retirement home.
"Aren't you AlCantHang?" she asked.
AlCantHang told her that he was and she mentioned that one of the girls they knew was due to dance on stage next. Years ago, the crew befriended a stripper. I guess we'll call her N. When N saw AlCantHang and his crew, she bubbled over with excitement.
For the next hour or so, they all caught up over a couple of beers as I watched the various dancers take turns running to the bathroom to rip a few lines before it was their turn to dance.
The Dive was sketchy because they cut off all songs at the 2 minute and 10 second mark. I counted. So if you got a lap dance, you got cheated. The standard lap dance at traditional clubs is about three minutes or so. I refused to go into the back room with those ladies. At some point you have to draw the line somewhere. For me, it was The Dive.
I don't recall leaving the second strip club. I vaguely recall trying to find a slice of pizza. Then I blacked out. I woke up in my bed at the hotel. A fuckin' rooster woke me up. There are all these free range chickens and roosters wandering around Key West. One in particular caused me to awake from a dead sleep.
My head was ringing. I had a category three hangover on the verge of dehydration. I managed to avoid puking and chugged the rest of the water I had as I quickly popped two Motrin and one generic Vicodin. I looked at my digital camera. It was a scene out of Momento where I had to piece my life back together using a couple of random images, mostly from the Irish bar. The strip clubs had a no photography policy, so there were no shots of that debauchery.
I grabbed the wad of cash out of my pocket. It looked healthy until I unfurled it and began counting. Wait, were did all the hundreds go? And all those twenties were replaced by singles. I did some quick math and figured out between the Irish bar and the two strip clubs, I had blown about $420.
I sat down at the table near the window overlooking Duval Street. Despite the hangover, I fired up the pipe and the laptop and began writing about the previous 48 hours. That's when the tour trolley stopped in front of the hotel. I looked out of the window and a guy on a microphone pointed to the hotel. He muttered something about this being, "a historical landmark almost as old as Key West itself."
One woman snapped a quick photo. I wonder if the tour guide stopped his trolley at The Classy Joint or The Dive and said the same thing?
Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
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