Seminole Hard Rock Lucky Hearts Poker Open 2018 recap.

I came down on a whim essentially to get out of the cold for
a few days. Ruth and I would fly down together, she would stay at her parents’
place in Pompano and I’d check in at The Hard Rock for a few days and focus on
Sun and poker. Perfect plan, right? Assuming you’ve got the perfect wife, which
luckily, I do.

Three little tournaments on Saturday for $350, $300, and
$350 respectively and I crapped out in all of them unmajestically. If that’s
not a word, sue me. And to make matters worse – in the words of the great Dr.
Seuss – “the sun was not sunny”. 

So, let’s call Saturday a write-off.

Sunday, I wake up early and hit the treadmill, worked out a
bit, and then took my excellent decaf Americano and my really mediocre muffin
(I knew I shoulda brought my own!) out
to the pool where the sun was trying its little heart out to peek through the resolute
cloud cover.

The $1100 turbo-tourney on Sunday was the one I had set my
sights on from the beginning.

At my first table there’s a guy who calls himself “Bear” or “The
Bear” depending on the situation. “The Bear” drinks a lot, talks very loudly,
and likes to refer to himself in the third person. And of course has the
requisite physicality to appropriate the moniker.

He drunkenly sing-songs things like “Don’t poke The Bear”
and “Bear likes honey” and playfully admonishes me several times for trying to
set “bear traps”. And somehow, even as people were eliminated from the
tournament and tables were consolidated, Bear and I kept ending up at the same damn
table. And the drinks kept coming. Apparently Bear likes beer.

Normally this kind of routine wears on me, but as the day progressed I admit I grudgingly found him borderline entertaining. He grew on me.

Anyway, six hours later, there we were at the final table together. It turns out
“Bear” is a top pro with over $5,000,000 in career winnings. I guess this
shtick works.

The final nine included four Europeans, four Americans,
and me, and ran the gamut of ages (although I suspect I may have been the elder
statesman).

Apropos of nothing, Bear decided that the “over-under” was 4
with regard to how many people at the table had seen the movie “Rudy”. Sean Astin’s
name naturally came up. I had this conversation with the young guy next to me.

Me: He’s John Astin’s son, right?

Young Guy : Yeah I think so. (pause) Who is that?

Me: John Astin! You know! Gomez from The Addams Family!

YG: Oh, of course. (pause) What is that?

Me: Yeah, I just googled it. Yeah, he’s actually John Astin’s
stepson. But I knew for sure his mother
was Patty Duke!

YG: Really?

Me: Yeah, you’ve heard of her, right?

YG: No.

I got to the final table with a healthy stack of about
275,000 chips, and then proceeded to go completely card-dead which is ruinous
in a turbo-tourney like this where the blinds are increasing exponentially. 

By
the time we’d dwindled down to five players, I’d dwindled down to 65,000 chips.
Blinds were 10K/20K so I had a paltry 3.5 BB’s. Barely alive.

Miraculously, I went on a LeBron-esque
roll. I swear, not ten minutes hence we were down to three players and I was
chip leader with 700,000 chips.

And then I slayed The Fucking Bear. Sad to see you go, big
guy. Don’t let your beer spill as you leave the table.

And now we’re down to two players and I’ve got a 2-1 chip lead.

My opponent is Michael Tureniec, a quiet, polite, 32-year
Swede with over $4 Million in career winnings. Everyone refers to him as “Shamus”
and I don’t much give a shit as to why.

I suppose, maybe he’d have accepted a deal, a split, maybe
something that involved us divvying up the money and me getting first place,
and the little heart-shaped trophy, and the audaciously framed photograph of me holding
up two winning cards with a stunned look on my face.

My heart veritably thumps at the thought of the various
places in my house or office I could have pridefully displayed those wondrous
and coveted items.

But alas, my “fuck-it gene” kicked in, and we played on. Manipulation
and gamesmanship ensued and in the end, with virtually equal stacks, we got all
our chips in the middle. I showed A6 of clubs to his Q5 of clubs, and well, you
know the rest.

Listen, bad break on the last hand notwithstanding, this is
a bona fide breakthrough, and I’m grateful for it. $20,720 American. I’ve had
bigger wins online, but this is my biggest live-play score. I can only hope it’s
an auger of things to come.

And next month I’m taking my annual business trip to Los
Angeles. And guess what? Coincidentally, the LA Classic just happens to be
running at The Commerce Casino. Stay tuned.