I’m writing this literally in flight on the Monday night redeye from LA to Toronto, but God knows when I’ll have the strength and time to post it.

Let’s see if I can get through this painful rehashing of a lost weekend in as few words as possible. I truly doubt it.

SATURDAY

I could’ve bought back in for Day 1C of the main event for another $1700, but I just wasn’t feeling it. I wasn’t thrilled with how I played in Day 1B on Friday, and I was sleep deprived and dog tired. Why are dogs so tired, mine sleeps like sixteen hours a day?

So, I took the morning off, did some work on the treadmill, got some sun, and walked up to the flourishing Citadel Outlet Mall, about a fifteen-minute trek up the road. If we made a list of the least depressing outlet malls in North America, this one on Telegraph Road in Commerce, California would be at the top of the list. The place is packed, I mean pa-acked with happy, eager shoppers, literally with stacks of US greenbacks jammed into their greedy little fists just scrambling for outlets within which to spend their hard-earned cash. (and not so little fists, Lord, Americans are big people).

I didn’t really want to buy anything, but everyone seemed so happy literally filling their Chrysler Pacificas and Dodge Caravans with last year’s fashions that I eventually caught the bug and bought two matching Adidas sweatsuits. I’ve long felt it’s high time I started dressing like Tony Soprano.

I also bought some fast-food Pho – or PHAST PHOOD PHO as the franchise owners so charmingly refer to their tasty product, the PH-‘s apparently making it phar more appetizing, albeit with inphlatable price points.

By the way… the Pho was Feh.

Back to poker.

At 4 PM I played in a $400 tournament, and I honestly can’t recall exactly how I lost but I’m sure it was ugly. I’d love to report all the grisly details but please understand that I have been doing A LOT of losing this weekend! It’s hard to keep track! And really, who cares? Did the giraffes on Noah’s Ark really sit around describing the shape of the clouds, as they were getting drenched?

At that point, the only thing left to play was a little $200 nightly tournament starting at 7:00 PM that attracted a mere 44 people. So, I played in that one.

For most of the night I played with these two classic, loud and proud, verified and authentic nerds. You know when people just seem to be striving to overplay their stereotypes? These two were flying their Dweeb Flags high, man. Honestly, it was like I was in an episode of The Big Bang Theory, only the director would have instructed these two to bring it down a notch. The only thing missing was a canned laugh track. I snuck a pic of them below as I’m fairly certain they won’t be reading this blog while playing Dungeons & Dragons.

Anyway, we all ended up at the final table together.

With only three of us left, it came down to me and The Red-Shirt Dweeb and this older guy. (or should I say OTHER older guy?) Anyway, I was so poised to win the $2500 first prize. I just needed one tush-push to propel me over the goal line, but my front line let me down (My all-in AT bowed to the old bastard’s pair of eights) and I finished a respectable 3^rd for a $1000 cash.

A mere dent in what was otherwise a lost weekend.

But I ask you, who doesn’t like a good dent!?

SUNDAY

Oh, Sunday. Oh, you forgettable Sunday. Get thee behind me, Sunday. The contemporaneousness of wretched cards and rueful timing is anathema to a poker player. If I did one good thing this weekend it could be writing that last sentence. And even that wasn’t that great.

Sunday, I played in Day 1A of the $400 Senior’s Tournament, and as I’ve pointed out in the past, strategically speaking, playing with old poker farts is not that different than playing with young poker farts. There’s just a lot more farting going on in the room.

People do tend to be generally friendlier, though, which is how I met my new best friend, “Bob From Santa Barbara”, who has the rare ability to never ever stop talking, combined with a rather impressive arsenal of Dad Jokes, all of them as dry as his wife’s Thanksgiving turkey. Ba-dum-bum! It took me a bit to figure who he reminded me of and then it dawned on me that he was The Jewish Barney Rubble incarnate. I swear, if Betty Rubble herself walked into that card room, she’d do a double take when she saw Bob.

Suffice to say, that tournament did not go well for moi. Nor did the next one, a $600 buy-in. The consistency of non-playable hands I was being dealt (T5, J3, 94) seemed to defy all the laws of logic and probability. And when that happens, it becomes difficult not to overplay the very few hands you do get. Which I did. And I take full responsibility for that. Yes, my luck was terrible this weekend. But I also coulda played better.

MONDAY

Even though I was scheduled to fly out on the Monday night redeye, I decided to take one last shot at Day 1B of The Seniors Tournament, just to see if there was any room left in my humiliation compartment. Turns out there was!

I played great. And with 25 people left and 17 to make the money, I had a modest but not insignificant stack of about 60K. Blinds were up to 4K. I had no intention of limping into Day 2 with less than an average chip stack. I was in “go-big-or-literally-go-home” mode.

I found myself in the BB with AJ suited. This garishly dressed guy with a bad toupee was on the button. He’d been playing uber-aggressively all day and had a huge stack to show for it. He raised to 11K. I shoved. He tanked and then finally called and turned over A9. Bad call by him. But perfect for me. Exactly the hand I was hoping he had.

Until a 9 hit right on the flop.

Of course it did.

Let me tell you, it’s one thing to lose. It’s quite another thing to lose to a guy wearing this jacket. Nice fella, though.

So that’s my sad weekend. Listen, you can’t win ‘em all. And I’ve still had a pretty profitable poker year, last weekend notwithstanding.

I’ll be back.

It’s not the end of the world. It’s just poker.