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Sorry, kid. You’re just not ready for me yet.”
-The Cincinnati Kid
Half of the pool area is populated by beautiful twenty-something girls in tiny bikinis that make me wonder why they bothered to put anything on in the first place.The other half is populated with middle-aged men and their unfortunate wives who may as well be wearing housecoats. Throw in a few frat guys unsuccessfully trying to put the moves on the aforementioned beauties, and it makes for great people watching.
When I rolled out of bed at the crack of noon today, I threw on a PokerStars cap and my bathing suit, covered myself with two pounds of SPF 9000 sunscreen, and traded the cool, smoke-filled casino air and gaming tables for hot, dry desert air and sunshine. I spent the afternoon on a lounge chair, listening to podcasts and trying to drown my World Series sorrows with Anchor Steams. I had about as much success as the frat guys.
fourteen hours earlier
My cards were hot as hell in the first two levels, but they didn’t help me build much of a stack. I got pocket kings twice, and they held up both times, but only won me very little pots. I peaked with 11000 near the end of level 2. I lost about 3000 of that when I made a couple of second-best hands against my new nemesis, Paul Darden, who had position on me and made me his bitch.
The hand that killed me came halfway through the third level, when I was in the Big Blind with pocket tens. One or two players limped, and Darden made it 600 to go. I think the gap concept says that I should probably fold there, but he’d been picking on my blinds since he sat down, so I defended with a re-raise of 1200. The limpers folded, and he called.
I begged the poker gods for baby cards, or a miracle flop, which was a mistake, because in pokergodspeak, “miracle” apparently means “Fuck Wil in the ass.” The flop came out A-K-x.
My heart sank. “Of course. The poker gods hate me today. Pocket nines see a flop of A-K-Q, so I have to fold to any bet. AQ sees a flop of K-x-x and loses to King-fucking-four, and AJ catches a Jack on the flop and loses to a set.”
I looked at the board for a minute, and thought this through. “If he called my re-raise, that flop must have hit him. Shit! Unless he’s bluffing, every hand he could have called with beats me. Even if he’s got Jacks, I’m dead. If he’s got a Queen, a straight beats me. Unless he’s on a total bluff, which can only be 20% or so, I’m probably drawing dead to two tens. Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Forty-fucking-seven cards that can come off, and it’s got to be overs to my pair. Goddammit!”
I had 7100 in chips, and the pot was 3500. Darden had the big stack at the table with close to 17000, so if I was right about the flop hitting him at all, it’s not like I could even make him seriously think about folding with anything less than a pot-sized bet, which would commit me. I didn’t think this was the best time to take a chance and push, either.
I decided that I was done with this hand. I took my shot, and I missed. It’s time to minimize my losses and hope for better luck later on.
I looked at the dealer and tapped my hand on the felt. “Check,” I said.
Darden unexpectedly checked behind me, so I held my breath and I prayed for a lucky ten on the turn, which didn’t come.
I checked again, and Darden checked behind me a second time. For the first time in the hand, I wondered if he actually was on a bluff. He’s certainly capable of doing that, and I did not have an aggressive table image, so a big trap was also unlikely. I put the chances of him bluffing at about 20%.
The river was another brick.
“If I bet at this, can I push him out? Only if I move all-in, and I don’t think I can risk my tournament on this hand.”
I checked it again. This time, Darden bet 1100. Now there was 4600 in the pot, so I was getting just over 4:1 if I called. “This is the moment that separates the pros from the amateurs,” I thought. “Is he pulling a post-oak bluff? Do I make a great call, or a great laydown here?”
There was no way I was raising, so I needed to figure out if I could call. I did something I never do: I talked through the hand.
“This is going to be a huge laydown,” I said to nobody in particular. “If I call you and lose, I’m crippled. If I call and win, I’m in great shape.”
A floorman came over, and told the dealer that our table would break in ten minutes.
I drummed my fingers on the felt, and counted 1100 off my already-pathetic stack. It left me with one lavender and a few black chips. I picked up Darwin and chewed on his head. I sighed, sat back in my chair, interlocked my fingers around my neck, and looked up at the poker gods. “Why have you forsaken me!?” I thought, and smiled at the thought of those words coming out of Chris Ferguson.
I leaned around the back of Avy Freedman and said, “Did the flop help you, Paul? It would really make my decision easier if you could tell me that.”
The guy behind me, who had doubled up when he moved all-in on the second hand and rivered an unprobable boat over boat laughed, and a pro who I’ve seen on TV countless times but don’t know by name said, “You can’t ask him that. If you talk about the hand, your cards could be dead.”
“Dead like me?”
“Oh,” I said. “I didn’t know that.” I turned to the dealer, who had long ago finished counting off the cards remaining in the deck, and now sat with his hands folded in front of him. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know that.”
“It’s okay, sir.” He said.
A guy in the 8 seat with about 14000 said. “Hey, are we going to get to play another hand before we break this table, or what?”
My back shot up. “Excuse me, sir,” I snapped, “but this is an incredibly important decision for me, and you’re not in this hand.”
His eyes widened and his pupils dialated. His cheeks flushed and he opened and closed his mouth two times. I don’t know why I remember those details, but I can see them as clearly as I can see two queens hit the flop at Bellagio. “Sorry,” he said. “Take your time.”
“Time? Oh shit. Someone’s going to call the clock on me. I have to just make a decision and go with it.”
I counted the pot again, to make sure I had it straight. “Okay, I’m going to hate myself either way, so I think I’ll take the 4:1 odds and the chance to get some of my chips back from you.”
I picked up 1100, and hoped they’d be coming back into my stack.
“I call you, Paul Darden.” I said.
He flipped over a red ace and a black ten. Disgusted, I mucked my worthless tens. The dealer pushed the pot to Paul Darden, who traded me for a pack of smokes and a case of beer to Humble Pie.
“Did you have queens?” Avy asked. “I put you on queens.”
I didn’t answer. I felt like I’d been kicked in the gut, which had been telling me I was beat from the fucking flop. Why do we work so hard to develop instincts, just to ignore them when they do their job? Instead, I asked him, “Did I at least make the right call?”
“You were getting the right odds to call,” he said. The other pro at the table agreed, and Avy added that there was a very good chance Darden was bluffing me. “In fact,” he said, “I was going to e-mail you later tonight that you should have called if you’d folded.”
The floorman dealt out table assignments, and dropped a stack of chip racks in front of me. “I’m pretty sure I can handle my three chips on my own,” I said.
“Don’t put them in your pocket, sir.” He said. He looked at my card and pointed across the room. “You are at table 148.” I hoped against hope that I wouldn’t be the short stack when I arrived.
I thanked him, and looked up to shake hands with Paul Darden, but he was on his way to his new table. He didn’t even leave a rose on my pillow when he left.
to be continued . . .

A couple of years ago, in the acknowledgements to Dancing Barefoot, I wrote

My wife, Anne, patiently supports everything I want to do, whether it’s writing a book or playing in the World Series of Poker

To be entirely honest, I never thought it would happen. I never thought I’d be good enough to earn my way in (via satellite, online qualifier, or as a member of Team PokerStars) and I wrote that mostly as an example of how my wife is awesome, and loves me no matter what. But my mom, who has told me that thoughts are things since I was a little kid, insists that I created this reality when I wrote that . . . so I wish I’d written something about winning the World Series instead!
Just kidding. Like I learned in Just A Geek, and just like Geocaching, to focus only on the goal and not enjoy the ride would be to waste The Journey. And this is going to be a hell of a ride.
I’ve spent the last two weeks doing everything I can to prepare for the WSOP. I’ve played countless tournaments online, I’ve highlighted, underlined, post-it-noted, read, re-read and reviewed Dan Harrington’s first book (and done everything I can to cram his second book, which is about playing the Endgame, when you’re down to the last couple of tables — I should be so lucky to cross that bridge when I come to it!)
I am so excited, and so nervous, I don’t even know what to do with myself. I’ve done everything I can to prepare for this tournament, and now that it’s finally here, I have to let go. Once I start playing, all I can do is get my money in when I have the best hand, hope that I make fewer (and less costly) mistakes than my opponents, and play as smart as possible.
I start at 11am on Thursday the 7th. If any WWdN readers can spare some Monkey Mojo, I’ve left a subspace port open, so you can just ssh ~/mojo to wil@wsop. I’ll take whatever you can spare. 🙂
I’m taking my Powerbook with me, and I’ll do my best to update my blog at least once a day. You’ll probably be able to hear how I’m doing from Otis, The Poker Prof, PokerWire, or Dr. Pauly, too.
This is a dream come true for me, and I know that — like all my dreams recently, it seems — it wouldn’t have happened without WWdN, and all you guys who read my stuff. Thank you all for helping to create this amazing opportunity.
Now, I have to somehow convince my brain to slow down enough to let me sleep until 6am.
Until Vegas . . .

I’m doing a million things today so I can leave tomorrow morning for the World Series of Poker . . . so this will have to be a very brief entry.
As promised yesterday, the pre-release of Just A Geek: Teh Audiobook is now available. This is exactly like a performance of the material, rather than a boring reading, so it includes the complete text of the book, as well as tons of the asides (audio footnotes probably sounds better, right?) that audiences hear at performances, and a bonus “making-of” CD with outtakes (how many times can I say “Fucking shitass crap! Let’s pick that up.” in the course of a year? The answer will shock and surprise nobody who knows me.) Until Sean Bonner and I finish the artwork, it’s available at a discount, because Uncle Willie loves you.

Three quick bits of Just A Geek news:

• I noticed that both of my books got a little bounce on Amazon when my Slashdot interview ran last week. Thank you to everyone who picked them up. I hope they are worth your time and money. 🙂
• The Just A Geek charity auction that I blogged about last week is in the last mile. As I write this, the bidding is up to $202.50. That’s awesome!
• I saved the biggest news for last: Just A Geek: Teh Audiobook is finished! David Lawrence and I completed a year’s worth of work last week. Sean Bonner and I are working on a supermegaawesome cover design, but I’m leaving for the World Series of Poker, and Sean’s leaving for the World Series of Not Being Available To Work On The Audiobook Cover, so it won’t be done for another three or four weeks . . . but David and I have decided that, rather than make people who’ve waited a year sit around for another four weeks, we’re going to offer a pre-release version of Just A Geek: Teh Audiobook starting at noon Pacific time on Tuesday, July 5th. Because this is essentially a white label release, it will be offered for a limited time, and at a discount. I’ll post a link, and more details on Tuesday, when the audiobook becomes available.

I’ve gotten generally positive feedback about the recording of my Just A Geek reading from Gnomedex 2004, even though I can hear how terrified and uncomfortable I was in front of that audience. If you’ve heard or seen the Gnomedex performance, and liked it, I’m positive that the studio version won’t let you down.

Hey, baby, it’s the Fourth of July . . . and that means it’s time for the annual reprint of Fireworks:

As the sun sank lower and lower, sparklers were passed out to everyone, even the younger children. I politely declined, my mind absolutely focused on the coming display. I wanted to make a big impression on the family. I was going to start out with something amazing, which would really grab their attention. I’d start with some groundflowers, then a Piccolo Pete and a sparkling cone. From then on, I’d just improvise with the older cousins, following their lead as we worked together to weave a spectacular tapestry of burning phosphor and gunpowder for five generations of family.
Dusk arrived, the family was seated, and the great display began. Some of the veteran fireworks lighters went first, setting off some cascading fountains and a pinwheel. The assembled audience cheered and gasped its collective approval, and it was my turn.
I steeled myself and walked to the center of the large patio, casually kicking aside the still-hot remains of just-fired fountains. Casually, like someone who had done this hundreds of times before.
My hands trembled slightly, as I picked up three ground flowers that I’d wound together. My thumb struck flint and released flaming butane. I lit the fuse and became a man. The sparkling fire raced toward the ignition point and rather than following the directions to