Well, I cashed in my first tourney of the trip.

It was the $300 WSOP Gladiator tournament. My heat of the tournament attracted over 9600 entrants of which 1482 got paid. I finished 1103^rd for the minimum cash of $600.

I made $300 in 12 hours.

And yes, I realize that I could’ve made more money bussing tables.

Which reminds me of a story…

When I was 16 my friend David Black was going away for Christmas holidays and asked me if I could fill in for him at his job bussing tables at Yitz’s Deli on Eglinton so that he wouldn’t lose this coveted position. Up until then my only earning source had been booking my friends’ bets, so I jumped at the quaint and novel opportunity to actually make money legally.

But I didn’t know what a busboy did. I woulda googled it but it was 1975.

I got there and was instructed that my job would incur scraping disgusting remnants off the plates the customers had eaten from. Relocating half eaten schnitzels and kishka and chicken noodle soup (that had literally touched strange mouths) from dish to garbage. Well, you can imagine that after 45 minutes of stomaching this trauma-inducing, life-changing task I threw my dishtowel at Yitz, spouted the emancipation proclamation, and promptly vacated the premises never to return.

And David Black came back from Florida to no job.

I didn’t even feel bad at the time. I do now, though. See how we change?

I’ll be back at the tables today. The POKER tables.

I’ll let you know how it goes.