Liquor in the front, Poker in the rear

In the beginning of ‘Eight Mile,’ Eminem is seen vomiting in the bathroom from nervousness in anticipation of his rap battle.  I, on the other hand, had the hard boiled eggs with breakfast repeat on me before my impending participation in a Texas Hold’Em poker tournament at the St. Croix Casino.  At least I didn’t leave any evidence on my clothes.  I didn’t want to show any weakness.

This was the sixth time I have participated in a poker tournament; the others being at a bar (where I won $50), at the Tropicana in Las Vegas (where I won $400 in one of the two tournaments I bought into), a WSOP satellite event at Treasure Island in MN (almost placed in the top 50 percentile), and another circuit event at the Horseshoe Casino in Council Bluffs, IA (where I was 5 seats away from being “in the money”).

I think my touchy stomach is a mix of the anticipation of possibly winning and the uncertain level of disappointment on losing, but mostly involves the anxiety of looking like an asshole.  In previous tournaments I have bet out of turn, folded rather than checked with the big blind, and got confused when changing a large chip for the blind and ante.  So, I’ve looked like a donkey before, but survived it, and I think that knowledge keeps me wanting to play.

This tournament was a $65 buy-in with a $10 fee with the option to re-buy should a player bust before the first break.  Every player received 10K in chips to start and had a chance to add-on another 5K in chips for $20 cash.  There were about 65 different players, but several re-buys drove the prize pool.  First place could have won about $1,500.

Blackjack, Stock Market, now Poker?! I may have a problem.



My recent post about investments made me think of another one of my forays into gambling – gambling.  Specifically, Texas Hold’em poker.  I tried (pushed) my luck in a local satellite tournament for the World Series of Poker (WSOP) back in April of this year.

I had the narrative already written in my head as I traveled south toward Treasure Island Resort & Casino in the ironically named Welch, MN.  The Cinderella story, coming out of nowhere, suffering through the effects of the flu and denied the chance to practice when the DOJ shut down the US operations of PokerStars.com and FullTiltPoker.com to win a spot at the Main Event in Las Vegas. 

A couple years ago, I had attended an annual sales meeting and the award dinner entertainment was a motivational speaker named Dan Thurmon.  Through the course of my professional career, I have attended several business meetings and have endured the bromides of just as many hired speakers, but I really enjoyed Dan Thurmon’s presentation.  One of his calls to action was to write down a list of everything you want to do in your life, no matter how seemingly impossible they are to achieve.  His point is, once you create your list, you will then start to develop ways to accomplish those goals. 

I imagine my boss thought I established goals like “grow sales by 20 percent” or “close a million dollar deal” or “win 'Distribution Manager of the Year' award," but I wrote down “bowl over 200 in a game” and “get under 100 in a round of golf” and “do stand-up comedy during open mike night.”  One other goal I had was to participate in a WSOP tournament in Vegas.  When I saw Treasure Island had a satellite tournament, I thought it would be my opportunity.