Live Poker

Back when the Neteller fiasco hijacked the online poker money train, I decided there was no way I was going to give up the game. Still, I came up with a back up plan that can be summarized in two words: Live Poker.

The consensus among online professionals seems to be that live poker is either boring or torturous, depending on the cards and the company. I'll admit that there are a lot of negatives to playing poker in person:

• Fewer hands per hour
• No shorthanded tables
• Smelly/obnoxious neighbors
• Having to wear pants

I've played thousands of hours of live poker in my life, largely because I appreciate many of the positives:

• More laid back
• Weaker players
• Physical tells
• Interesting folks to meet in person
• The feel of the cards
• Dragging a big pot and stacking the chips
• Carrying racks upon racks to the cashier
• Getting paid in crisp hundred dollar bills

Now don't get me wrong, I haven't given up on playing online. Black Chip Poker looks like a solid option for the US player. But I'm not going to throw five figures back on to a site until things cool off a bit. For now I'll play a few sessions here and there. I'll be spending the majority of my working hours in casinos and card clubs, though. Playing live poker.

Happy 420

I don't smoke pot. I never have. That's not to say I'm opposed. It's just not my thing.

The fact that the majority of my friends and previous girlfriends were potheads meant that every day at 4:20 there would be giggles and high fives and the refrain of "let's go smoke a bowl." I would roll my eyes, not because the smoking bothered me (it didn't), but because having some official time, like it was a holiday to get excited about - well, it just struck me as arbitrary and annoying, like somehow that was more their time than it was my time.

But I get it now. For almost a hundred years, marijuana has been criminalized and scandalized. And for what? Alcohol is a harsher drug, but that's legal. Cigarettes can kill people who don't even smoke them, but they're allowed. I've always been in favor of legalization. I even sponsored a bill in mock congress when I was 14. (When it lost 6-6-1, I literally fell backwards out of my chair in frustration. Ironically, the one dude who abstained from the vote didn't abstain from drugs. But I digress.)

What I understand now, on 4/20, is that when you're a group that's been fighting for your rights for the better part of a century, it helps to have a rallying cry. A rallying time. A rallying place.

It may be 4/20 today, but now is the time for poker players to rally as well. Now is the time and this is the place: Free Association

Villain's Lament Dot Com

After months of incubation, my band finally has a humble new internet abode. Right now, villainslament.com is nothing more than a glorified collection of social media links, but it exists and it functions. And isn't that what life's all about?