Did you keep the teeth? Because, ya know, she could make a clone and you gotta protect against that.

need moar storeez

Amazing read I did not realize there was still some quality threads like this one that I had not discovered yet Definitely up there with MM and Scansion, me thinks. Will obviously be following.

I have realized it has been a month since my last chapter. I sit here now, just getting off a few days of work on this large consulting job I got which may be my biggest undertaking ever as far as consults go. Driving back and forth all over the West Coast of FL, sleeping on couches, hotels, little sleep, it leaves me drained. My tooth extraction turned into a dry socket and I couldn't even think straight the pain was so bad. You know when you sweat from being in pain so much and breathe heavy? It's the worst feeling ever. I've also had to be the caretaker for two people in my life that needed surgery so between work and life, there's been a lot of variance. The next week is somewhat quiet, as soon as this pain subsides I will start back up again.

I could also write a story totally out of my mind on painkillers if people would prefer that?

Sure, it will just read like it was written by any of them Florida druggies that you say are everywhere there

TST, sounds like your getting spread pretty thin with business but i guess that's a good thing. If your ever want to take on any extra help or have a project that requires an extra set of hands, I do live in Lake worth and am highly employable lol

i think an opiate/benzo induced story would be seriously worth it and would be well received

I can only relate to the tooth ache problem, I went through 4 months of surgeries due to complications in both my jaws. Luckily I am not in the US, as it would have cost me over $100k.

Anywho, looking forward to your stories, keep it up!

It's ok tst we still luvs ya


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This week of no sleep because of early work and pain from the tooth is coming to a close, so I celebrated by staying up all night and vlogging downtown Fort Myers. I also ate 2 10mg Lortab on an empty stomach so Im pretty sure my writing would be pretty interesting ****ed up now, but Im so tired Id have to wait until tomorrow. When I get back up north to meet up with my dad I'll have a night off for writing and get this nasty pack out of my mouth that tastes like the cloves I used to smoke in high school.

I can't believe I just admitted to that.

I will Pm you about this - I do business with a guy who lives near the intersection of Lantana and the Turnpike and may be able to use your help in the not too distant future.

Sounds good, looking forward to the next installment of the story

Who's In Charge?

During the past decade plus that I had been playing poker, relationships had always taken a beating in one form or another. When I took poker more seriously and played full-time starting in 2012 with the PLO games in Naples I really chose the game over Jenny and I was conscious about that and she knew it. It was something that I had feel guilty about for over a year after. Nicole, on the other hand, knew what she was getting into from the minute that I brought her to Vito's game on our second date and I had let her know that this was my life and had been for a year now. I had felt a little bit betrayed and insulted when I was confronted with the questions she had for me but I knew why this had happened. In the plant industry I would often get people making large purchases and having me deliver them to their office and it was so their significant other would not know they were spending the money that they were on collector plants. I would always explain to them that there were much larger vices in life, but too many of these people never understood really what was out there besides what they had heard on the news. Nicole had had a history of two of her long-term relationships ending in the guy cheating on her so it was only a matter of time before those insecurities came to the surface. As much as I would like to sympathize with her I was not going to be a victim of past experiences in her life. I made this very clear to her and I talk that we had after she popped the question when I had returned home that night. For the time being all was good.

What wasn't good however was the current state of affairs that existed in the home games in the area. A sort of power vacuum had come about and now that the game that Fish and I had started was now sucking up a lot of that void and Tim was making it very obvious he was upset but never threatening any of us - just in a rare occurrence actually talking out his feelings. The problem was that his discussion was like a broken record and there were things that he wanted to do such as work together to make one large setup, the problem was that we had nothing to benefit from his poor credit rating and lack of players with actual cash to play poker. Because we did not accept his initial offers he done became much more upset about the whole situation and for the first time since 2011 Tim and I had stopped talking on a regular basis. For a few weeks the games would run and Tim would have his credit players show up and try and offer incentives to the cash players. It was obvious to the cash players that they were sometimes getting freerolled as Tim could not afford any longer to pay them out fully when they did cash out a good amount. As a result the games at Fish's house became the primary game in our area and things were good throughout the holiday season. After 6 months of being left a bit high and dry from Paulie and his lack of ambition for the game I felt like I could get back into working full-time in the game as well as playing more poker. I always played poker but I wanted all of my action at 5/10 PLO and couldn't properly be bankrolled without this income coming in as well. I knew the game had reached a milestone when even Donnie showed up with 100% cash to play with and did not even ask for credit even when he busted. He did however try and make a move on me which I will discuss at a later time.

The lifeblood of the game depended on the constant influx of new players being invited coming in and enjoying the experience. When games were this good we tried to limit pro players to a minimum because it actually hurt the game's feeling and ambiance and scared recreational players away. One place that we could not regulate but needed to be in order to keep the game's juices flowing was the local card rooms to recruit these players. This is the also only place that we would run into Tim and other people who are sympathetic to his game, usually people on the book who were trying to work down a debt that they owed. One night in mid-December Fish and I went up to play to 5 at the local card room with Rad and sure enough when we got there we saw the black Escalade parked in valet. I could only imagine what Tim did to get the car to the room, it had needed serious work last time I had seen it. As we all got on the waiting list for 2/5 we saw the familiar figure in the one seat with about 300 in chips short stacking the game. As the names were called we awkwardly filed into the game one by one until 5 out of the nine players were Willy, Tim, Fish, Rad and I. Things were relatively calm and we were just talking like it was any old home game in the small room until a hand went down where Tim over bet a double paired board and Fish called with ace high. Tim had pocket fours which was his favorite hand and having been counterfeited he began to go on a tirade of how much of a donkey Fish was. At first I thought it would calm down just like any other situation where someone got rivered and got caught bluffing but there was no end to this one. Tim started to threaten something involving Fish's line of work and Fish can become hot blooded very fast, I believe due to the fact that he was half Colombian and half Italian. Yayo may or may not have been a factor as well but the argument heated up and Tim got up out of his chair as if to walk over to attack Fish and Fish preemptively got up to start to walk over to him. One of the weaker floors showed up just in time to try and address the situation which had essentially frozen the game now that we had all gotten involved and half the table was not paying attention to the cards.*

Both sides tried to explain what happened and it was your classic mob mentality trying to force the floor to come to a decision and I could see the floor not gaining control of what was going on. That was until Peter had shown up and this was odd as he did not work nights but I had taken on a shift apparently.

“He's talking **** at the table and won't stop, he doesn't know what's good for him,” Rad said in defense of Fish. Tim was walking around the 4-5-6 seat and Rad was trying to avoid Tim who was waddling after him, it was like a game of musical chairs. Tim was in his “get up and slap a bitch” mode and I decided not to get involved in this little love triangle. That was until Peter was approaching me instead of the situation at hand.

“What the **** did you create here?” He asked, like I was a middle school trouble maker. I had to tread carefully and keep my cool, at least enough to not get physically involved. I gave him a “WTF are you talking about” as these three stooges were going on behind us. Peter proceeds to walk by the table and slaps a stack of redbirds from my chips over, I can't imagine unintentionally. Well, maybe I was going to jail tonight.
“If you're going to knock over a stack of my chips, at least make it count and hit the greens too. What's the matter, is your boyfriend not giving you rides in his Benz anymore?” Did I ever mention poking the bear is a favorite pastime of mine? While Rad, Tim, and Fish were reenacting the Three Stooges, Peter tried to physically restrain me in an effort to leverage the power he had at the cardroom. Some well placed chairs kept his paws out of my reach and at this point, the game was just over. Everyone who wasn't involved in this had either cashed out or asked for a seat change to 1-2. Peter then told all of us to “get the **** out” or he was going to call security, which then had me smiling. Security at this place was two or three old guys with guns on their hip that I am not even sure they knew how to load, much less use their weapons. Add to that, they definitely did not get paid enough to get involved in any sort of fight that would require them to actually use their gun.

In the end, two of these guys on duty escorted the five of us to the cage, then out to the parking lot to make sure we didn't continue this circus. On my way out I said some choice words that I can't even remember because I was pissed these rent-a-cops with guns were telling me what to do. There's no point in getting up in a security guard's face and screaming – that will just get you 86'ed for a while. What does work is some subtle needling for just doing whatever Peter wanted, he was not their boss but he was telling them to jump and they were saying how high. As we were pulling out of the parking lot towards one of the three exits in Fish's 4Runner, security tried to ambush us in one of their ****ty old golf carts, saying that Peter wanted to talk to us over the radio. Fish's Italian/Colombian blood was boiling and was in no mood to talk – he said something to the effect that he would run over the cart if he didn't get out of the way. In the meantime, Tim was behind us in the Escalade and leaning on the horn, not knowing what was going on. Fish just stepped on it and in a little zag maneuver, barely brushed the cart and pulled onto the main road heading back to the highway. Tim followed suit and tried to keep up with us to no avail. Peter was trying to cause just as much a problem as we were at the poker room, and staying on the property was the worst thing we could do. The death threats were flowing like water between Rad and Tim on text, and if we saw Tim on the road again on our way back South, someone was going to end in a ditch. Rad had his Glock 20 on him, a rare 10mm model that was a beast of a gun, once turned down by the FBI as being “too powerful” and he was just itching to use it from the look on his face. Tim was armed with a 13 year old, 6000 pound American SUV that was in bad mechanical shape and would be happy to collect some insurance on an “accident”, I'm sure. We never did see any Escalades on the road, and for the better as nothing positive was going to come of this already ****ed up night. As fun as it was messing with Peter and Tim, this was very bad publicity for the game. We were lucky it was a slow Sunday night, as if we had found any new players, they were definitely not going to show up to any game any of us were running. We were just going to have to see who could pull more players in the coming weeks.

This thread is amazing! It is one of my favorite threads (not just on this forum, but on any forum). Thank you for taking all the time and effort into making these posts; I think you mentioned before it takes 3 hours from start to finish, and it shows; this is high quality stuff. Like most people, I find myself rooting for you will hit you up if I am in the south Florida sometime. Sorry to hear about things with Nicole, but it sounds like it may be for the best. You did say how she is super supportive though; so maybe there can be some reconciliation despite her demons related to her ex bfs and crazy mom (therapy?). Keep up the great work and one last thing; MOAR!

I might have missed it, but whatever happen after you locked Nicole out on the deck that night?

I am glad that you enjoy it and I can contribute to this site. I remember reading Matt Moore and Chuck Bass, WarmDeck, etc. and just glad everyone finds my story of poker and life through the years interesting enough to read all the way through. If anyone wants to meet in Central/Southwest Florida, I am busier than normal but am going to Miami regularly for my new consult - I would be happy to meet up.

Redbuck - Nicole slept outside on the pool deck that night

Finally all caught up. Great stuff TST.

Ive read this whole thread and your stories are f awesome man. should write a book

Thanks man, I am thinking about publishing it as a book when I am at the end.

+1

does that boat game still run with all those 1 per-centers ?

The Incident - Part 1

The weeks following the shenanigans at the local card room were somewhat uneventful other than our game thrived at Fish's while Tim and Rhett's game was floundering. This was causing an internal strife between the two of them, as Rhett paid a good chunk of change for half the action and was getting no ROI at the moment, and when they did run a game, he was a pay off wizard and would often break even or lose money. Willy, Tim, Rhett, and some of Rhett's buddies were all in this gig of flipping huge quantities of diabetic testing strips from the West Coast to the East Coast of Florida. It was somewhat of a pyramid scheme, with Rhett's buddies sitting at the top, Rhett in the middle, and Tim and Willy at the bottom. You had to buy in large quantities and then flip really fast, say 20k+ worth a week to make 24k, if you didn't you were stuck with the product. It was sort of like day trading, but at first it was making Willy and Tim a few hundred bucks a week. At some point around New Year's 2016, Tim was effectively broke.

Every Tuesday and Saturday there was a $25 tournament at a local establishment, and it was a great place to get players, because it was very local to the area and the owner didn't care if we solicited. I had been playing every angle to find "hidden" players - guys who didn't make the trip up to the cardroom, but would play all the local Moose and Elk games. One week Tim and I bumped into each other, and Tim wasn't afraid to get rowdy and loud and scare off players if he was angry. Tim wasn't angry though, when he got dropped off in his mom's Cobalt, he looked like a defeated man. He walked up to me with no expression on his face.

"You mind if I borrow $10 for a rebuy if I need it?" As much as Tim and I weren't getting along, I had made a lot of money at Tim's house, and there was nothing wrong with showing compassion for the guy, especially if he could get his act together. We talked for a bit and he said he hadn't been doing much. The games had put him into debt, as he had too much credit out, and he spent some of his last money getting a gym membership to get in shape with his daughter. That part was hard to believe, but the guy had to start somewhere. I didn't even want to ask about the Caddy, I could just imagine it was broken down in his driveway, possibly for good. He got knocked out pretty fast in the tournament, rebought, then busted again. I didn't even get a chance to talk to him, he got up and 10 minutes later the Cobalt was back to get him.

There was, however, a new group of guys that I had seen around town playing poker in the tournament tonight. They were your classic weekend warriors but decent tournament players. I didn't know them that well, but the whole point of playing in this game was to get to know people like this better. One of them named Matt was talking about playing poker later at his house. I had hung out at the bar a few times 4 years ago and played with Matt in some bigger tournaments, so I asked him if he had any room for another player. He said to come on by, gave me his address, and it was about as far as you could drive out of town and still be considered in the suburbs of the metro area. After most of the guys who were going to play had busted out, I started shoving blind, and all of the super tight OMCs were losing their minds. The average age in this tournament was over 65, and they weren't making any attempt to break the stereotype of old = tight. The tournament structure was so fast that my lucky shoves were getting called and I was doubling up and knocking players out with a huge stack. I ended up min-cashing, took my $50 and sped out to the boonies with the intention of recruiting a few players possibly in this 25/50c $50 buy in game. I picked up Nicole on the way, she wanted to visit a friend who happened to live down the street in a shocking coincidence in the middle of nowhere. By the time we had pulled off the main road into the neighborhood, it was clear the roads had never been kept up, it was half pavement and half potholes. My car had low clearance so I am zig-zagging all over the road at 5 mph to keep from scraping the front lip and curbing the tires. I drop Nicole off and go to the address I was given, which was easy to find with all the cars out front. I find some spot that was halfway in the woods and back it in with the front on the road so I don't get blocked in.

As I walked onto the driveway, I see a couple of vehicles that looked like they had seen better days. A center console boat with a motor that was missing a lot of pieces, and a Mazda 626 that was so molded from sitting around and I assume had leaks from the windows. It still had a current plate on it, I was curious if it was still being driven in this condition. I walked towards the front door, it was a double door that was frosted, I could see a mass of people inside sitting around a table. Walking in, I instantly realized I was the only person that was not high as a kite. There were 2 separate people rolling joints on the poker table in the middle of the room while discussing both strategy and how great their strains of bud were. The first thing I recognized were two familiar faces - Donnie, and an old dealer of Tim's that was about as backwoods Florida as you could get. Toothless, smelly, and a general ****ty attitude got him kicked out of Tim's business relatively quickly, but like Donnie, he thought he was an excellent poker player. Both of them were relatively serious, and I felt like I was going to have an excellent time splashing around in this game that was about 1/10th the stake I usually play. I don't remember too many hands, but I did 4-bet shove KJ on the toothless character and he snap-called with QQ, and a K doorcard made him lose his mind. Donnie did 3-bet shove the river with a 10 high flush when I had the nut flush and then asked for a $40 loan to which I declined. If it were anyone else at the table I would for player recruitment sake, but Donnie was not a unique snowflake. I finally had cashed out up $80 or so even though I did try and donate a bit back to possible new players. I did realize that this was not the right venue for recruiting players - losing $100 in a night was a big deal, there was no rake, and only 1 or 2 of them had ever been to a poker room to play poker. At around 1130 I said goodbye to them, intending on coming back to play for fun with the occasional suckout. Everyone was in a good mood and they were all here for the social aspect, and I respected that. I did get Matt's number and he was interested in coming to play, so at least I had accomplished something. I pulled out of the wooded spot I had placed the car, carefully zig-zagged down the street, and picked up Nicole. Our 35 minute ride back brought us through one large suburb, into the boonies for a bit, then back into the main metro area.

Around 1215am on January 17th, 2016, I stopped at a stoplight on 41 on the southern edge of town, the first stoplight in the city for that matter. The speed limit dropped from 55 to 45 here, and the police were known to inhabit the area to lie in wait for would be speeders. This light was usually short this time of night, just a simple entrance to a subdivision. What seemed like minutes was cut short by something that I don't remember completely, even to this day. There was a slamming of my car forward and sideways, and next thing I know, my car is sitting in the middle of Route 41 stuck sideways and the light was green. I didn't even know if I had been knocked out, but Nicole seemed to be somewhat out of it as I realized what had happened. There was a Chrysler 200 also stopped in the intersection with the engine running but coolant was leaking from the front fender. My first thought was I was getting robbed via hit and run and pulled my gun out of the center console, backed the car up onto the grass, and got up out of my car, which was still running and seemingly okay. I surveyed the area and saw my tires skidded through the intersection, but the Chrysler 200 had no skidmarks - it had never put on the brakes, nothing. I had my gun drawn towards the pavement with my finger on the trigger and saw one person in the car, it was hard to see who they were, age, size, etc. because of the tint, but I kept a distance. The figure seemed interested in getting out of the vehicle so I walked around the side of the 200 and had a good vantage point for when the person got out of the car. Not a single car had passed in either direction and I was wondering if the person was getting out at all, when finally I hear the door open. With my finger on the trigger I kept it right at the driver door, and I saw a small figure come out and promptly say in a female voice.....

"What the hell happened here?"

great update; MOAR!

waddup gangsta!

Do robberies happen often this way? Seems like an extreme reaction to a traffic accident, but the time of night may have made you more suspicious of the other party.

Even so, from your description of events (which I understand I don't know the details of in full) I might have stayed with my vehicle and put my engine block between myself and the other car if I felt there was a potential threat. No reason to go out into the open away from cover to investigate a potential threat.

This **** just got real