Note: readers who are unfamiliar with hold-em rules can find them at ultimate bet dot com. Readers who are unfamiliar with poker terminology may want to read This glossary from CNN first. Or don’t. I’m not the boss of you.
Part one of this story is here.
Part two of this story is here.

I get up, take a piss, and grab a Coke. My cell phone rings while I’m at the bar. It’s my stepson, and he wants to know how I’m doing. I tell him about the 7-4, and he says, “Don’t tilt, Wil.”
“Too late,” I say.
“Oh. That sucks. Well, don’t worry about it. I’ll see you when you get home. I love you.”
“I love you, too.” I say. We hang up.
For some reason, the conversation settles me down, and I return with new focus. I decide that I am the only person at this table who can beat me, even if the cards aren’t helping me win.
I keep getting junk, so I throw away the next several hands. Mr. Lawyer busts out Mr. Magician and Mr. Webmaster. Mrs. Beautiful takes care of Mr. Agent’s Assistant, and there are just five of us left at the table: Mr. Lawyer, Mrs. Funnypants, me, Mrs. Beautiful, and Mr. I’m In The Music Industry.
Finally, my cards start to come. I stick to my plan, and double through Mrs. Funnypants, the well-known comedienne. On the next hand, Mr. I’m In The Music Industry goes all-in against me with pocket tens. I’ve got a good chip lead on him, so I loosen up and call him with K-9. There’s a king on the flop, it holds up, and I bust him out. It’s the first time I’ve ever busted anyone out, and I feel like Howard Fucking Lederer. I sneak a look at Mr. Lawyer as I rake in the pot. He’s busy shuffling his chips.
When the blinds are up to 50-100, I’m briefly the chip leader, and I tighten up again. Maybe it’s not the best strategy, but . . . I’m the chip leader for the first time in my life, in my first real tournament. Where the hell is Shane?
Mr. Lawyer comes over the top of Mrs. Beautiful, all-in pre-flop. Mrs. Beautiful calls him before he’s done pushing his chips in. It goes something like this:
Mr. Laywer: “I’m all i–”
Mrs. Beautiful: “Call.”
Mr. Lawyer blanches, and turns over 8-9 clubs. Mrs. Beautiful flashes him a smile, and turns over KK.
“You do not have two kings!” Mr. Lawyer says. I wonder if that’s his “I object!” voice.
“I’m pretty sure I do,” she says. Overruled.
Mr. Lawyer stands up, and a vein throbs in his forehead. I could kiss Mrs. Beautiful right now.
He pairs his 8 on the flop, but that’s it. Mrs. Beautiful sends Mr. Lawyer home.
He looks at me, and says, “I had to take my shot.”
“Tough break,” I say, “Guy.”
Now it’s his turn to shrug. “Next time. Next time.”
I feel like a fucking rockstar for outlasting him.
When there are seven of us left, we take a break before we move to one table. The other players go to the bar, the bathroom, or just meander around the mostly-empty club. I walk outside and call Shane. He picks up on the first ring.
“Hey, Wil. What’s up?”
“I’m at the Odessa. Where the hell are you?”
“Have you seen the news recently? I’ve been babysitting executives all week.” He says.
“At ten o’clock on a Wednesday?”
“Yes. It’s that bad. So how are you doing?”
“Better than I thought,” I say. “I made it to the final table. The regulars wish your money was here.”
He laughs.
“Maybe I’ll play next time.” I hear a voice in the background. He puts his hand over the mouthpiece, and says something back. “Look, I gotta go. Good luck.”
“Thanks. Bye.”
The door opens behind me, and one of the big Samoan guys raises his fist at me. I wince, until I realize that he’s holding up his thumb, directing me back into the club.
“They’re ready for you,” he says, and walks back inside. I catch the door inches before it closes. It’s incredibly heavy.
We sit down, and the cards come out. On the first hand, I bust out Mr. Circus Clown. A few hands later, I bust out Mr. Drunk Guy. Goddammit, this feels great! I work hard to keep my focus, and hope my hands don’t tremble as I separate my chips into hundred dollar stacks.
The blinds go up to 100-200, and that takes care of Mrs. Funnypants, who was down to the felt when we moved. I try not to get too excited, but I’m currently one off the money. That’s pretty damn cool, but there’s a sobering reality: if I go out next, I have as much to show for my efforts as Mr. Lawyer, and I really fucking hate that guy.
Shortly after the blinds go up to 300-600, Mr. Director busts out Mr. I Won An Emmy, and I find myself in the money! I can’t believe it!
I look at my stack: I have about 2200, I guess. Mrs. Beautiful is stacked . . . and is also the chip leader with over 4000. Mr. Director has about 1000 less than she does. He reaches into his jacket, and takes out a Camel cigarette.
“You can’t smoke in here, sir,” the dealer says.
“What?” Mr. Director says.
“It’s against the law.” The dealer says.
“We’re in an illegal cardroom, and you’re worried about me smoking?”
“Sorry.” The dealer says. “House rules.”
For a moment, I think Mr. Director is going to punch him, but he laughs.
“Fucking California,” he says. We all laugh as he puts the cigarette behind his ear.
The laughter fades quickly. We all know that there is a substantial money difference between 2nd and 3rd place, so play is pretty tight. A raise before the flop is usually enough to steal the blinds. I take some chances, and grab one or two with marginal hands: 10-10, and K-7. I almost wish I would see 10-2 — the Doyle Brunson — so I could play it. What the hell is wrong with me?
This goes on for a while, until I look at my pocket cards and find AJ on the button. Mrs. Beautiful calls, Mr. Director checks, and I call. The flop comes J-4-7. The bet is checked to me, and I move all-in. Mrs. Beautiful looks at her cards, then to me. I take a deep breath, and look down at the board. I’m pretty sure I want at least one call, but it’s still nerve-wracking. If I blow this, I go home with nothing.
She calls. It’s about half her stack. Well, I got my wish . . . I think.
Mr. Director calls; it hardly makes a dent. Oh shit. Two callers? They’ve both got jacks. Please not a pair. Please not a pair.
Mrs beautiful turns over KJ diamonds. My hand involuntarily flies up to my chin, and pulls at the corners of my mouth.
Mr. Director turns over J9. I breathe for the first time in over a minute, stand up, and show my Ajax.
Here we go: the dealer turns a 6, and then a 3.
I won? I won! Wait . . . did I? Yes! Holy shit! I won!
I can’t help it. I shout, “YES!” as I double (triple?) through, and drop Mrs. Beautiful to third. I hope I can hold on.

Note: readers who are unfamiliar with hold-em rules can find them at ultimate bet dot com. Readers who are unfamiliar with poker terminology may want to read This glossary from CNN first. Or don’t. I’m not the boss of you.
Part one of this story is here.

The game starts at 8. My watch — a gift from Sean Astin when we were promoting Toy Soldiers in Japan — says it’s 7:55. The tables are starting to fill up, so I ask the bartender for a glass of water. I take it, tip him a dollar, and head for my table.
The blinds start out at 5-10, and double every 30 minutes. I have studied my Sklansky and Jones faithfully for the last ten days or so, and I have what I think is a solid game plan: Play extremely tight, but aggressive. Only premium hands, no chasing, and no raising before the flop unless I’m sitting on AA or AK. For the first two levels, whenever I have something worth playing, I’ll skip sandbagging and just bet into the raisers. No free cards, just survive. I thought it was a good strategy, and I hoped that my opponents wouldn’t catch on that I was only in the pot when I had the nuts. I figured that if I wasn’t the first one out, I’d be happy.
My seat is the only empty one at Table Two. I put my coat over the back of my chair, stack my chips, and sit down. Everyone at my table seems to know each other. They’re the regulars, I guess, and I’ve read enough to know that I’m already at a disadvantage.
The table looks like this:
Seat One: Mr. Lawyer.
Seat Two: Mr. Magician.
Seat Three: Mr. Agent’s Assistant.
Seat Four: Mrs. Funnypants.
Seat Five: Mr. Webmaster.
Seat Six: Mr. First Time Player.
Seat Seven: Mrs. Beautiful.
Seat Eight: Mr. I’m In The Music Industry.
When we cut for the deal, Mr. Lawyer gets the ace of spades. I draw the two of clubs. I hope it’s not an omen.
We play a few hands, but my cards are shit, and I don’t get into any pots. It’s okay, I’ll be patient. Stick to the plan.
For a game in Hollywood, there’s precious little coffehousing, until Mr. Lawyer says to me, “Hey guy, aren’t you an actor?”
I hate that question, because I always have to answer, “I used to be.”
“Whaddaya mean, ‘used to be?'” Says the guy to my right. He’s a Webmaster from Long Beach who could have saved an hour on the freeway and played at the Bicycle, but I find out later that he comes here because he’s a starfucker.
“I haven’t done any acting in a long time. I’m a writer now.” This answer doesn’t seem to satisfy them, so I say, “I only act when something really great comes along.”
(“That is, before my agents dropped me a year ago. Where the hell is Shane?”)
“What show do you write for?” Says Mr. Agent’s Assistant.
“Oh, I don’t work in the Industry. I write books.”
A knowing look passes among them. “You published?” He says.
“Yeah.” I don’t want to talk about myself any more. I look down at my cards and find more rags. I study them like they’re suited connectors and start counting my checks.
“How’d you find out about this game?” Mr. Agent’s Assistant says.
The bet comes to me. I give my rags another look, and throw them away.
“I’m a friend of Shane’s.”
They all laugh, and I find out that Shane is the deadest of dead money. Everyone likes him, but they like his poor play even more.
“I hope you play better than he does, guy,” says Mr. Lawyer.
I shrug my shoulders. I am beginning to hate Mr. Lawyer. First of all, he’s a lawyer. Second of all, he keeps calling me “guy.” Finally, I know that he’s stealing blinds, but I’m not going to move on him because I’m sticking to my plan.
Later: I’m four seats behind the big blind. There’s a raise and a couple of callers. I throw away 9-2 off suit, and the flop comes 9-2-x. Fourth street is a deuce, and the river is an ace. I’m pretty sure I made the right play . . . I would have been out of my mind to play 9-2 off-suit, especially with a raise before the flop, but Mr. I’m In The Music Industry wins it with AQ. Would have been nice to take it down, but I’m sticking to the plan.
I don’t see anything worth playing until the blinds are up to 25-50. I hold AJs in the big blind. Mrs. Beautiful folds behind me, Mr. Lawyer raises, and everyone else folds around to Mr. Webmaster, who calls from the small blind. All I can think about is Mr. Lawyer stealing the blinds, and calling me “guy.” I’m gonna sandbag this guy. I call. The flop is a rainbow: 5-8-J. Mr Lawyer checks, Mr. Webmaster checks, I bet 50. Mr. Lawyer raises me 50. I think for a second that he may be holding a jack, but I can’t stop thinking about that 9-2 I threw away, and I’m looking at top pair with a fucking bullet kicker, so I raise 200. He calls immediately, and Mr. Webmaster folds. Oh shit.
The turn is a blank, and the river is a 6. I look at the board: 5-8-J-x-6. I wonder to myself if he’s playing 7-4.
I think, “How in the WORLD can you call 200 on a draw, with four outs? There’s no way. No way at all. If he played 7-4, I’m dead, but I’ve got about half my stack in this pot . . .”
I’m first to act, and I think I’ll check raise. He checks back . . . and flips over 7-fucking-4.
“What the hell are you doing playing 7-4?!” I say.
“I guess I’m taking a whole bunch of your money, guy.” Mr. Lawyer says, and he does.
“The first thing we do is kill all the lawyers,” I think, and I realize that I’ve been on tilt since I sat down. I’m pissed at myself for not playing that hand wisely. I did everything wrong, because I let this fucking lawyer get under my skin.
I should have moved all-in on the flop . . . right?
I’m not sure.
The only thing I am sure of right now is that I played that hand like shit.
I’m better than this.
I’m not a fish.
Where the fuck is Shane?

A couple of weeks ago, I played in a no-limit hold-em tournament.
There were sixteen players at two tables. It was a freezeout, with the top three finishers taking home money. I had never played in a real money tournament before, and this was my first chance to test out the teachings of Doyle Brunson, Mike Caro, David Sklansky, and Lee Jones that I’ve spent so many hours studying.

The club is on the eastern edge of Hollywood, in a pretty seedy area where the cops are too busy busting crackheads to bother a poker game. To get in, you walk down an alley, and knock on the door with the big red bar painted horizontally across the middle. Most of the people who play here are in the entertainment industry, so it’s appropriate that it’s something out of a movie.
I show the doorman a business card with the club’s address written on the back, and he lets me in. I’m here to play in a no-limit hold-em tournament. It’s the first time I’ve ever played in an illegal game. It’s the first time I’ve played outside of a friendly home game. It’s the first time I’ve ever played for money.
I buy in, get 600 in tournament chips, and my table assignment: I’m seat six at table two. We don’t start for about ten minutes, so I get a bitters and soda from the bar, and try to act like I belong here.

“You play poker, right?” my friend said to me a few weeks earlier, as we waited for the subway.
“Yeah. You have a game?” I said. I’ve been looking for something similar to The Tuesday Night Game ever since I read Big Deal.
“Sort of. You ever heard of the Odessa Room?”
I shook my head. “I’m spectacularly uncool, Shane, and I live in suburbia. What’s the Odessa Room?”
“It’s an honest-to-goodness speakeasy in Hollywood. Twice a month they have poker tournaments.”
“What are the stakes?”
“You can afford it. Why don’t you come with me next Wednesday?”
“Because I’m not good enough to play for money.”
“You ever played for money?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know?”
“I appreciate the invite, but my wife would kill me if I played cards for money.”
He took out his business card, and wrote down the address.
“Think about it. If you change your mind, I’ll see you there. Show this card at the door.”
With a blast of warm, humid air, the Wilshire / Western train pulled into the station. Shane got into the car.
“Of course, if you’d rather, you can just give me 100 bucks and cut out the formality of playing.” He said as the doors closed.
I laughed and flipped him the bird. He gave it back as the train pulled away.
I turned his card over in my hand. His office at Walt Disney Studios on one side, the address to an illegal poker game on the other.
Sometimes, I love this town.

The Odessa is really just a bar, and its illegal nature means its unknown owners have forgone the interior decorating that would make it truly cinematic; the only thing of real value is a sound system that rivals any Sunset Strip night club. Three well-worn area rugs cover most of the cold cement floor. The indirect lighting is provided by those halogen uplights that were popular in the 80s. Twelve of them line one wall, and create a pretty good mood. Large cathedral-like candles sit in sconces that are nailed to the other walls. There are several enormous Samoan bouncers watching over all of us.
Everything is portable, including the bar. When I lean against it, it rolls back a few inches.
“Watch it,” the bartender says. His tone tells me that this happens all the time . . . when fuckin’ new guys like me show up.
“Sorry.”
I swallow hard. I think about leaving, but my money is already spent. Better not lose my nerve now. For the first time since I decided to come here, I wonder if the club’s name has anything to do with the Russian mafia. Then I wonder how many of these Samoan guys have guns. What am I doing here? And where the hell is Shane?

I wrote this hours ago, and I’ve debated whether or not I should post it. This is an incredibly divisive issue, and I’m sure that I will end up on more of those stupid boycott lists because of this, and that’s probably not the smartest business move, considering that I have a book coming out in less than two weeks . . . but I have to stand up for my beliefs, so here it is:
When I heard that George W. Bush had called for an amendment to the Constitution that would effectively codify homosexuals as second-class citizens, I recalled something Howard Dean said recently:

In 1968, Richard Nixon won the White House. He did it in a shameful way–by dividing Americans against one another, stirring up racial prejudices, and bringing out the worst in people.
They called it the “Southern Strategy,” and the Republicans have been using it ever since. Nixon pioneered it, and Ronald Reagan perfected it, using phrases like “racial quotas” and “welfare queens” to convince white Americans that minorities were to blame for all of America’s problems.
The Republican Party would never win elections if they came out and said their core agenda was about selling America piece by piece to their campaign contributors and making sure that wealth and power is concentrated in the hands of a few. To distract people from their real agenda, they run elections based on race, dividing us, instead of uniting us . . .

Dean was right. Just read that again, and replace “racial prejudices” with “sexual prejudices.”
I hate it when I agree with politicians, but John Kerry said what I thought as soon as I heard the news:

“This president can’t talk about jobs. He can’t talk about health care. He can’t talk about a foreign policy which has driven away allies and weakened the United States, so he is looking for a wedge issue to divide the American people.”

Personally, I don’t think the government should be involved in marriage in any way. I believe that marriage is between two people who love each other, who wish to make a commitment to stay together through good times and bad. I suppose that it can also be between those people and whatever god they choose to worship, but even then . . . wouldn’t it be stupid for the government to tell couples which god can bless their marriage? And who cares what sex they are?
An interesting thing has happened since San Francisco started granting marriage licenses to same-sex couples: my marriage is just fine!
That’s right. Even though there are thousands of gay and lesbian couples affirming their love for and commitment to each other, my marriage — my affirmation of love and commitment to Anne — isn’t threatened at all. As a matter of fact, the only people who can really “threaten” my marriage are . . . well . . . the two of us.
And this brings me to the first thing that’s so profoundly upsetting about this entire issue: it’s not about marriage, it’s not about love, it’s not about family, it’s not about commitment. It’s about hating homosexuals. It’s about treating homosexuals as if they are second-class citizens. It’s about dividing this country into those who support discrimination, and those who don’t. It’s about Karl Rove updating The Southern Strategy.
It comes as no surprise to me that, as part of that strategy, George W. Bush wants to take the Constitution, a document that is supposed to limit government and guarantee freedoms to all Americans, away from millions of our fellow citizens who are homosexual. I didn’t buy the “I’m a uniter, not a divider, compassionate conservative” bullshit during the 2000 campaign, and this is just another example of Mr. Bush revealing his true colors. And this argument that it’s a response to “activist judges?” That’s a huge load of crap too. Mr. Bush has a lot of nerve talking about “activist judges,” considering that he owes his presidency to five of them.
Ultra-Conservative writer Andrew Sullivan said it best, I think:

The president launched a war today against the civil rights of gay citizens and their families. And just as importantly, he launched a war to defile the most sacred document in the land. Rather than allow the contentious and difficult issue of equal marriage rights to be fought over in the states, rather than let politics and the law take their course, rather than keep the Constitution out of the culture wars, this president wants to drag the very founding document into his re-election campaign. He is proposing to remove civil rights from one group of American citizens – and do so in the Constitution itself. The message could not be plainer: these citizens do not fully belong in America. Their relationships must be stigmatized in the very Constitution itself. The document that should be uniting the country will now be used to divide it, to single out a group of people for discrimination itself, and to do so for narrow electoral purposes. Not since the horrifying legacy of Constitutional racial discrimination in this country has such a goal been even thought of, let alone pursued. Those of us who supported this president in 2000, who have backed him whole-heartedly during the war, who have endured scorn from our peers as a result, who trusted that this president was indeed a uniter rather than a divider, now know the truth.

Yes, I am shocked that I agree with Andrew Sullivan about anything, but that just illustrates how insane this idea is, and how it transcends political ideology.
Now, I have no doubt that this effort will fail. I believe that it will ultimately backfire on the Bush Administration, and contribute to his defeat in November. The United States just isn’t the Theocracy that Mr. Bush wants to create.
There is a wonderful opportunity here, though, that I haven’t heard anyone talk about, yet: we are now forced, as a nation, to acknowledge and confront the widespread discrimination against gays and lesbians, and I believe that Americans will unite against segregation now, just as we did during the Civil Rights movement.
I believe in America. I believe in the Bill of Rights, and the founding principals of this nation. I believe that goodness, compassion, and tolerance will triumph over hatred, bigotry, and ignorance.
And I am proud to stand up for these beliefs, whatever the consequences.

I just finished my two hours of Just A Geek rewrites for today, and I am so emotionally drained I think I’m going to fall over.
Because JAG is based entirely on my real life, and the foundation for the book is the WWdN weblog, I have to revisit some very painful times in the retelling.
For those familiar with The Hero’s Journey, I’m somewhere around the Resurrection portion of The Road Back, which took place around the end of April, 2002. The title of the chapter is The Bottom, and it’s all about how the shitty entertainment industry and my repeated failures as an actor threatened to really destroy me as a husband, son, and father. I use a lot of weblog entries to share the story, but the real inner thoughts haven’t ever been vocalized to a large audience, and it’s sort of extremely scary to be so nakedly honest about one of the worst times in my life.
I knew that I’d hit my wall today when I was looking at a paragraph and thought, “I really need to dramatize this, and turn it from dispassionate narration into a scene . . . but I just don’t have the emotional energy do it now.”