2013 Part 3 - Women Make No Sense

By the Summer I had gotten into a normal routine at the apartment with Jenny. I would get up, do a little homework for my degree I had decided to finish up, then head straight to one of the many poker establishments on the West Coast of Florida. It could be Sarasota Kennel Club, Derby, Hard Rock Tampa or Immokalee, Naples-Fort Myers Dog Track, you name it, I went there. Mike and I had become much closer friends, and with him came many more drunken nights out shooting pool. Between playing poker and the sale of my nursery I was able to just do whatever I wanted and didn't care that much about getting any real job in the near future. Why was I even in college anyway? Well, I couldn't be the first in my family in a century to not finish up a four year degree. That was the monkey on my back. My degree was going to be useless, but it was a prerequisite for any respect from my family.

Thought I didn't consider Jenny any sort of relationship, I felt content at the time with what was going on – I wasn't looking for anything serious, I didn't know if I ever was. Mike, however, was heartbroken. His wife had left him and was staying an hour north with a couple dudes, and he was pretty sure she was banging both of them, and she had custody of the kids as well. I was taking him out on the local nightlife, and he would always wear the same button down shirt and oversized jeans with his belt hanging down like a cloth wang, I couldn't imagine this was a turn on with the ladies. One day at work, I was playing in a tournament while Mike was dealing, and one older regular's daughter was playing, her dad put her in, and she was just what Mike was looking for. She was not fat, but stout, 4-5 tattoos, loud and talkative, and looked just like Mike's wife. Chelsea was her name and I was talking to her on the 10 minute breaks the tournament had about meeting up with Mike – I was trying to play matchmaker. Sure enough, a few days later, Mike told me he had managed to chat up a girl at the cardroom while dealing and had himself a date. I'm pretty sure she had done all the talking, she was an very alpha female and could probably knock him out with one punch. At 5'8, 180, she was probably the skinniest girl Mike had gone after, Mike was a fan of the chubbier variety. We were deciding on where to go, and they both wanted to go to an area called Gulf Manor in town, it was a cool area with about two blocks of hole in the wall bars and semi-ghetto clubs, but it was nowhere I was going to find someone nice. There was a crazy woman on the prowl for me, her name was Lisa, and she had told me she went to jail for threatening to kill her ex-boyfriend. She also had done a ton of coke the night I had met her and was hanging around some shady characters, and Gulf Manor was her home turf. I wanted to go somewhere classier, so we head closer to downtown to a craft brewery sort of place where I didn't feel like I was in a meat locker. If you have ever watched Boiler Room, I felt like Giovanni Ribisi when he told the other guys “If I have to sit in another bar with housewives smoking Newport Lights again I'm gonna throw up”. That's how I felt about going back to the area.

We walk in and I can tell Mike and Chelsea were immediately intimidated – the floors were clean, the place was finished in a nice wood, people were wearing collared shirts, and they couldn't find Bud Light bottles for sale. The weekend before I had won yet another tournament at Derby and at $2486, it was my largest cash ever (lol). I had entered for fun, as I always do for tournaments, but just ran well I guess. I told them to get whatever they wanted and set up a tab. I knew Mike didn't have more than $50 on him and wanted him to make a good first impression. I ordered a Cigar City Jai-Alai and wandered towards the sitting area in the back. On one of the couches outside I saw a group of 4 girls that looked like your average female yuppies engrained deep in conversation. One of them in particular caught my eye – she was about 5'5, 130, but seemed like she worked out and was perfectly fit. She was very tan, and her shirt, which said Avicii on it, could barely hold her tits in, they had to be DD at least. I mentioned the Avicii part because I should go back to a few things I had been also doing at the time. I had been a sort of resident DJ in my dorms back in 2001-2002 and had been in the booth for many a keg party back at Conn College. I had a nice Technics 1200 setup, 2 EV 15” full range speakers, and a small following among the local community. A liberal arts school full of privileged kids wasn't a breeding ground for well known DJs, but I was the closest thing they were going to see to Mixmaster Mike and A-Trak, two of my favorite spinners of all time. Being a DJ in a college had its perks, including a very strong gravitational attraction for women (and some men unfortunately). Once I had broken up with Kelly at the beginning of this year, I decided I was going to get back into mixing and spinning and bought a DDJ-SR and a 15” EV full range speaker capable of shaking windows from a quarter mile away. I had been to Ultra Music down in Miami since 2009 and gotten into the new wave of EDM. Avicii was just starting to enjoy mainstream success at this time and I figured I could needle her into a good conversation. I walked over and the attention of the four girls on the couch was directed towards me, like I was going to pick one to talk to.

“I see your shirt there, have you seen him live?”

“Actually yes, in Vegas a few months ago. I saw Dannic and Hardwell too.” Damn, she really had me outkicked here. At the same time, I was immediately loving this verbal sparring.

“SO, who is your favorite DJ then?”

“Avicii, duh.” She replied as if there were no contest.

“I asked you who your favorite DJ was. Avicii is a producer.” I said it in such a tone to let her know she wasn't the boss of this conversation. Her friends had a look of “oh snap!” on their faces, like I had just schooled her on her music knowledge. I didn't know if she was going to blow me off or become more intrigued, so I offered a round of drinks for her friends, expecting a full menu, but they all ordered Jai-Alai, which was surprising. Jai-Alai is a heavy, slightly bitter IPA, 7.5% ABV, and these girls were pounding them down. I basically bought a six pack of them for $40, and proceeded to sit at the table with the girl I had needled – she introduced herself as April. We got into a big discussion about music, concerts, what we did for a living. She was a recently unemployed physical therapist and was a little bit embarrassed about it.

“No big deal,” I said, “I just play poker for money at the moment.”

“No way, one of my good friends is a professional poker player. He plays around here everyday.” I had to know this dude if that was the case, and asked who it was. She said his name was CJ, and I immediately recognized the guy from 2/5. He would come in to play PLO but was terrible and was a professional losing player – I was wondering how he got his bankroll. He was also fairly young and wondered how she knew him.

“Well he's uh.. my Molly dealer.” So that's how he was coping with the swings. I am not that knowledgeable with Molly prices, but if you buy the stuff wholesale and manufacture your own pills I'm sure there's a good profit in it. Good to know he was just another drug dealer masquerading as a “pro” in poker. I end up offering to show her some stuff I had been working on, and she was genuinely interested in going back to my place. By this time Mike and Chelsea had said goodbye and went to Ghetto Manor, probably to hang out with what I would find out to be Chelsea's meth head friends. Oddly enough I felt no intention of getting it on that night, and it was probably because I felt a little intimidated, which was rare when it came to women. She was well-spoken, naturally beautiful, and had worldly aspirations. She also seemed very sane, so much to the point that it scared me. We ended up talking until 5am, and it turned out she lived two blocks away, so I walked her home and said goodnight. She told me she hadn't been looking for any sort of relationship at the moment. I did manage to get her interested in an Afrojack concert in Tampa next week, and she took my offer to take her up there. It was a great concert, and things were like the week before, but during the end of the set, we had walked out of the front area and back towards the beach where she started making out with me. I didn't know if she was drunk or genuinely interested, but it was short lived, and around 230 I dropped her off at her apartment. I gave her a hug goodbye, drove the extra few blocks, and had already gotten a text which I almost didn't notice outside smoking a cigarette.

“Hey, you know you can always stay over here? ” It was a pretty open invitation and I messaged her back and nonchalantly told her I'd be there. She told me to get in bed and after grinding on me for a minute or two things just naturally fell their way. Oddly enough, we did not hang out at all until I invited her again to Steve Aoki at Raymond James, one of the craziest concerts I had ever seen. I was about six Miller Lites deep and the concert area was in an adjacent field in two tents. They were like greenhouses, attracting heat and soon we were soaked in sweat. Imagine a few thousand people cooped in a greenhouse while it was 80 degrees outside and no ventilation. Thankfully, we got home earlier this time and I had brought a change of clothes. We spent the entire night and morning in her bed and then as usual, heard nothing. We went to a few more shows – Alesso, Cazzette, Dillon Francis, and she seemed to drop off the radar. She invited me to a Christmas party at her friend's house downtown and asked if I could bring my setup for the party, which was well received. Around midnight, a familiar face had come to the party – Drunk Mike from the home game! He was a very Laggy 1-2 player that was probably breakeven at best. After 15 minutes it was very clear what was going on, and April's friend had confirmed it by saying she had played matchmaker with April and Mike. No one knew that April and I had been concert ****buddies for a few months, and though it did hurt, I realized I should have expected this at some point. Another 15 minutes went by, I told people I wasn't feeling well, and packed up my stuff and drove home in the Veloster.

During this time I had also run incredibly bad in PLO, and was probably experiencing a 12 BI downswing at 2-5 games. Sherri had a druggie girlfriend and after I told her to stay away from her she got all pissy with me for a few months. I was also dusting off money in high rake tournaments, and this added up. To add to this, Jenny was never around the apartment, but when she was, she was a raging *****. She had a boyfriend now and all she would talk about was how much his job and life was amazing, and I could learn a few things from him. I really didn't have any interest in anything other than poker at the time, and didn't need to learn a life lesson from her drunkie boyfriend. She would give me all the details of their sex life which was mostly her getting violated anally on a nightly basis. She would still grope me inappropriately for someone who was in a relationship, and I found it hilarious that when she was drunk, her tendencies never changed. At this point, I had met Sally's daughter and had started hanging out with her, but that is for another story. By February of 2014, poker was back on track, and the 5-5 PLO game at Hard Rock was my game to lose. After Jenny decided to bring her brother into the apartment who was eating my food, using my bathroom, and who I found sleeping in my bed, I told Jenny I was going to a tournament in Hollywood and packed up all my stuff and headed to my mom's rental place. I received about 60 texts from her in a raging fit that I had left her with the full rent, but she was just too ****ed up for me to deal with in any rational way. I had paid her a month in advance, and she had her brother there now to pick up her slack. About a week after I moved into my mom's place I got a call from Tim.

“I'm trying to get a game going tonight in town – you wanna play?”

Beautifully written story as always TST. For some reason this one was one of my favorites. The flow and transition of your story telling is uncanny. This story really ties everything together. My home town is Fort Myers and through your stories I Invision what my life could've been like if I stayed. I left for the army in 2005 and didn't get into poker until 2008. Been in central Texas since 2011 and been enjoying the juicy home games here ever since!! I'll be back in town June 7-11 so I'll be tempted to play some cards with you! Hope all is going well and keep them coming. Great job!

Sent from my Z963VL using Tapatalk

Definitely send me a PM and would be happy to meet up come June. I can smell the Caloosahatchee at low tide - that is how close I am to Ft. Myers.

Also, thank you for your service!

keeps getting better and better. Never disappointing. Actually working late in a south Florida boiler room as we speak. Their money + my experience = their experience & my money type thing. Not proud but i am what time and circumstance have made me... Anyways, keep up the great work.

Thanks guys, as always I appreciate the comments. As I write this my SUV is filled with my stuff, I left Nicole's place tonight after the 70th argument we had this month. I am at my sister's place about an hour north of where I am living - not sure if this will be temporary or permanent. Maybe I will have more time here to write, maybe less, I am not sure. The worst part is being in exile from my nursery. On the upside I can consider many options and go see old friends. Hopefully this will be for the better.

I know that feeling my friend. Good luck to you.

well done sir, well done. Chelsea sounds like a prize, any pics?

I could probably dig some up - I would have to find her on Facebook, her profile disappears randomly. I'll see what I can do.

After a late night of $20SNGs with some old friends, I drove back to Nicole's house. Couldn't get any sleep at my sisters because of her dogs, so I packed up my clothes and headed home to a very comfortable bed. I did have some good news - a customer wants me to deliver some plants just south of the Dallas metro area. I might haul ass to Dallas and then make some stops on my way back, possibly go Choctaw, L'Auberge, Harrah's NO, Beau? If anyone in the South has some pointers, wants to meet up, etc. I would love to get out of FL for a week or two and play some poker elsewhere.

I think you will be disappointed in all those poker venues compared to Florida.
Wsopc in Cherokee nc wrapped up today, record breaking fields in almost every tournament. Check it out online.
365 re-entry had over 3000 runners, 165k up top.
Multiple PLO games during this stop, six to ten 5/5 PLO games per day, a couple of 10/25 PLO games and one 25/50. Plus all the nl games you could ask for, great stop to say the least. This place is a gold mine during wsopc.

By the way this stop had more runners in the re-entry than vegas, Florida, and Mississippi combined, 1000 more. Wow.

So I had 80 percent of a chapter written and my computer crashes, so tilting. Also tilting is this guy down in the Keys who has it in for me and my nursery reputation. I may drive down there tonight to deal with it in the morning. This is all over $70 which makes it even more ridiculous. I hope I can rewrite everything as I was happy with remembering many minute details.

Damn that's brutal, given how much effort I've seen you put into each of your chapters. Take your time we're not going anywhere lol. This is one of the few threads I check every day.

Awesome stories TST, finally caught up with the thread. I'm currently living in Jax, and wouldn't mind checking out the scene in SW FL. Which parts would you recommend as far as living? Definitely would want to. E close to Hard Rock and Immokalee, those sound like the two best rooms. Keep up the great stories btw, this by far has been my favorite thread on 2p2!

Thanks, and to answer your question about rooms, SWFL is very poker heavy in the Tampa area, which is more Central FL. SWFL is basically Sarasota-Bradenton and south. As far as action goes, Tampa will have the most, but I live further south because the climate is better for plants - no freezes in a long time. Sarasota Kennel Club used to be a dump with really nice dealers, and okay action, they renovated it last year so it looks like a poker room now, but the action sucks above 1/2. Immokalee only has 7 tables, but there is always 2 games, and it feels like a home game, I like going there because it is out in the country. The Fort Myers-Naples Cardroom is probably the most consistent for action, and a lot of guys who play there will also shoot over to Hollywood/Miami to play as well. It's more laid back living here as opposed to a large city. Feel free to PM me about more info.

I have been waiting to comment on this thread!

1st and foremost excellent writing and great stories. I wish I could write as good as you. Right now I am writing in caps and punctuating solely because I am trying to seem like I have the potential but I am nowhere near it.

Almost every store I read made me think to myself like this was deja-vu, Like this has happened to me in the privately ran games in NJ that I frequent and also the girls you met along the way.

It took me 6 days at my desk to read this from start to finish and I would do it again.

It really pushes me along knowing people are reading this just as I have read other stories on this forum - Matt Moore's blog comes to mind, which I still read parts over again to this day. I was going to finish up my second attempt at writing up the story that got deleted, but had to go into beast mode with the nursery. With the heat coming in the past few weeks, things start growing fast again and with no rain its like literally putting out fires to keep plants from dying. I've made a habit of coming up to see my mom about 70 miles north of where I live on Thursday nights, hanging out with her and playing SNGs with old friends until late Friday night, then getting home before sunrise.

Also Frank Rizzo is complete gold - shipping pounds of yayo to Ireland and throwing roofers off his house, lol. The Jerky Boys perfected the art of the troll.

Here in Arizona with humidity in single digits the non-desert plants start to wilt in one day. Skip watering for three days and everything is dead.

I am amazed at how fast the soil dries out. Maybe not enough clay in the mix but I can soak it good and the next day there will be no moisture all the way down to a fingers depth.

Good luck and keep up the good work.

The Juice is The Action


Sometimes when you forget what time of the year it is in South Florida, the night can tell you a lot. From April until October, nights are hot and humid like the days, but it is bearable. The middle of the winter, you can feel the cool dry winds in the early morning, and even though it may be 60F outside, it feels like 45. In between is the nicest weather of the year, and I could feel the warm humid nights giving way to warm drier nights. It was around this time of year, just after Halloween in 2015, that the game over at Tim's had become basically a dealer's game. With other legitimate casino options more than an hour away, Tim's was a poker oasis for mid-stakes guys who had a bit of gambol in them. In fact, I think all dealers have a bit of gambol in them one way or another, it may not be poker, but they love the action nonetheless. Having been a dealer for a year now with no license, I started to give some real respect to the guys who did this gig five days a week all year long. Being a dealer is more than pitching cards. You are the adult babysitter for the people at the table. You will get asked about a hundred different topics and have to stay neutral on many political and religious discussions. You will also be called every name in the book because YOU put that last spade out on the river, it's YOUR fault. Fortunately, many grinders don't bother with the social interaction part, they are there for the money. They are not as good a tipper, but they don't need your services beyond the pitching of the cards. I guess you could say it was a pay as you go service.

The juicy 1-2 game was quickly turning into a double straddled 1-2-5-10, making 100 big blinds turn into 20 in just one hand. A bigger game meant people were losing more, and this in turn meant the book was becoming larger. On the positive side, dealers were usually excellent at repaying debts, and having a repayment plan was part of the game. One player in particular would bring a blank check and would just write out to Tim when he lost, and I can't count how many times he wrote him four figure checks and they were always good, which we later found out was linked to a trust fund set up for him. One of the newer players in particular was a dealer known as The Bear. The Bear was known as one of the nicest card pitchers at the local casino and was friendly with all regulars. In his late 40s, he was born and raised in Detroit and had been quite the degen in his earlier days. He won a half million on a scratch off, which was intelligently spent (partially) on paying off his parents' house, and the rest he wouldn't talk about. Considering his knack for women on backpage of Jamaican origin and 98 Kia Sportage, the fact that he rented a tiny cottage outside of town known as the Bear Cave, he did not invest the remainder of the winnings too well. Nonetheless, he was a very mild mannered and upbeat, easy going character that was fun to be around, not your typical degen.

One night as dealers were referring other dealers for free chips, The Bear made the trip down in the Bearmobile down to Tim's to come and play. Derek had also made a rare appearance, he had rarely been seen since Mike imploded his own game. He would try and get away when he could to have a few drinks so the wife wouldn't know, and Tim wasn't like Vito who would tell him to stop and get help. To add to this, Captain Jack had just gotten 5 cases (24 pints each) of Apple Cinnamon moonshine from a trucker friend in North Carolina. I have never discussed Captain Jack so I will go ahead and give you some backround. CJ was a Vietnam Vet and was wounded in combat, after which he became a “businessman” in and around the Charlestown, Boston area. The best way I can explain him is a nicer version of the Florist from the movie “The Town”. I had known him for 5 years, and as he had a son who was a homeless drug addict, he took me on as a son-like character to the point where we trusted each other and discussed possible money making situations. He had a TAGish image at the table and was quite aggressive for a man of his age. He would come early to the game and usually be the first to cash out, usually a small winner. I saw the case of crimson colored mason jars go into the outside freezer and Jack gave me a jar. I took a taste, and I have never quite tasted something so good and at the same time so brutal, it was like drinking an apple pie with an aftertaste of pure fire. Josh was messing around with a jar he bought and poured it on his hand and lit it on fire, managing to burn his hand and blister it up pretty bad. I wish I had it on video because he was freaking out and screaming like a girl as he tried to put out the fire.

The Bear bought in for $300 of his own money, and Derek played on credit that Tim owed him. While we were waiting for players, the 3 of us played 5/10 O8, which I proceed to double my stack off the two of them. They are both drinking Corona and having a good time though, the game is just a sideshow for them. The Bear gets a phone call, its a couple of girls, and asks Tim if they can stop by. Tim says no problem, and we start playing a full game. I managed to get the table riled up and tell them lets play half PLO half holdem, and Tim gives me the evil stare like I just tried to grab his junk. PLO is a rough game to spread as a house game because people can go busto too fast so we rarely allowed it, but Nice Shoes Ryan, Bear, Derek, and I, plus a few others wanted to get the action up a notch. The dealer, a guy who was recently fired from the track for powdering his nose with crushed Roxys in the breakroom at the local casino starts ****ing up the pot my terribly miscalculating everything. Derek steps in for a bit and we get a few orbits of PLO going. The Bear gets felted when I get it all in with him with a three-quarter wrap with a flush draw against his middle set and I improve on both boards. The Bear is now broke and Tim is now even madder at me. The idea of running a home game is to keep people playing as long as possible, not take all their monies, especially since everyone in the house knew Bear was about to go on the book, even the old lady walking her Shih-Tzu outside knew Bear was dead broke. After borrowing $300, we hear a knock on the door, and considering everyone just walks in the house, we knew it was the girls he had brought. You could hear the clanking of heels as they awkwardly walked forward and everyone at the table glared at them like they were out of towners that had just walked into a saloon in the Wild West. They were both in their late 30s, early 40s, and had that “I'm divorced so I'm ready to party, but I can be a raging bitch” look going on, it was honestly kind of a turn on. They knew nothing about poker, but they did know how to, as my sister would say, get “white girl wasted”. They asked if there was any liquor in the house, and Tim never kept any, but Jack chimed in “Well, I brought the case of moonshine, it's in the freezer.” That was the turning point to the night for the girls, Derek, and the Bear.

As The Bear and the girls started sipping the moonshine, Derek was drinking it like it was a shot. Taking one shot of 185 proof alcohol is quite a feat, the one time I did drink Graves' Grain Alcohol in college I was on the verge of puking. Watching women who usually drink Malibu and pineapple take down firewater was funny in itself, but furthermore, this was a social experiment in the process. These girls were well dressed and in good shape, and most of the table did not care about their presence. They would take the rush of an all-in over trying to talk to these women. Personally, I can't blame them. Poker can often trump any sexual interests, especially in the heat of the game. At some point in the night, The Bear had given up on any poker strategy at all, and was dumping money in a fashion that was worse than I had ever seen with Mike. He was calling all in with bad draws, two overs, stuff you only see at 4am at Hard Rock's 1-2 game by the table whale. He was reloading for $300 and it was keeping the game going, but it was all credit provided by the bank of Tim. If Tim was intelligent in any form, he would have stopped him at his 3rd rebuy. Someone thought it was a good idea to give him a Monster energy drink to counteract the moonshine, but it did nothing whatsoever. The Bear thought he was being served Corona but it was actually Monster poured in a Corona bottle. He proceeded to break open a fresh Corona and pour it in black coffee and pound that down, barely able to stand, and stir them together with a recently eaten chicken drumstick from the KFC we had for the game. The girls finally got an Uber and the game focused more on poker. Around 2am, Derek announced that he had to take a piss and went outside, presumably to smoke and pee on his favorite Coconut Palm. Derek hated using toilets and I am pretty sure he ****s in the woods if he has the opportunity. Half an hour went by and there was no sign of him, so I went outside to check, only to find him curled up around the trunk of his favorite palm, which looked like it had been recently pissed on. I tried to get him up but he was out cold. I made sure he was still breathing, as he had finished about 10 ounces of the moonshine – Derek can drink but it was the equivalent of 20 shots of whiskey and he was my friend. After the 11th rebuy by The Bear, it was clear he couldn't even see his cards or know where the action was, even being a professional dealer. He lost his 11th and final buyin on credit getting it all in with A3 vs 1010 on a 10 high board. The Bear was in for 3300 and continuously promised Tim he would deal it all back. Yeah, he was going to have to get in a line that included half his colleagues. Tim said he had to go sleep in his car, and he said he was fine to drive. We gave him a set of keys that looked like his, and after getting in the car and attempting to turn it on, he had given up. I opened the door to see how he was and he just had a grin on his face like one of his Jamaican hookers had just blown him in the driver's seat. As I closed the door and walked around his side of the car, I saw him attempt to roll down the power window with no power and projectile vomit all over his window, coating the whole driver's area. It was not a shining moment for the bear, he had just ruined the interior of his Sportage and was in deep to Tim's game. We left him there making sure he was breathing and okay, and proceeded to clean up the carnage. There were two pints of moonshine that were pretty much done, KFC chicken bones on the table, and a rake box that didn't cover even half the book for the night. I'm not sure what made Tim think it was a good idea to keep loaning money, but he sure wasn't happy with the whole situation at the end of the night. He locked down all credit for dealers besides the ones who paid right there at the end of the night, and in successive nights we had guest appearances from all the dealers who owed. It was great because the game went fast, Tim was getting out of the mess he got himself in, and there was no more funny money floating around the home game. There was, however, one more person that would throw a wrench in the game, bringing the game to a screeching halt. That man was Rad.

MOAR!!!!!

Just finished reading all the posts up to now, great read! Keep 'em coming and thanks for sharing.

i check this thread every day for updates. Keep this going for as long as you possibly can, you have all of our support.

Originally being from Charlotte, Nc i can agree that apple pie moonshine is no joke. Easily the most popular moonshine in the state but it definitely packs a punch and creeps hard

I've been MIA for a few days, I was out on an island off the coast from where I live. I posted on twitter that I was getting pretty sick of the normal life down here and just had to take the chance to GTFO. Should have brought my laptop with me.

There is a small chance I may take my dad up on an offer to drive a support van for a bicycle ride for charity from Northern Indiana to Vermont. He wasn't going to do it this year, but a major donator, his HS friend, got in contact with him and so my dad and his two brothers are going on the trip. The dude was the founder of Esurance, so I am guessing the donation was "favorable". It gives me a few weeks to get out of the humid hell of Florida summer and possibly play at a few casinos along the way. If anyone is in the area, I would definitely be up for meeting and/or playing.

If you end up at Horseshoe Hammond, I'd definitely be interested in meeting up

For sure, I would definitely be up for meeting there. It starts in Denver, Indiana, probably an hour away, but I have only been to the Chiraq area once on a connecting flight to Green Bay. Two things keeping me from going on the trip:

-I have a wisdom tooth I should have gotten pulled 10 years ago but waited forever and now its crushing the tooth next to it - two weeks to see a surgeon, then who knows how long for surgery to get them both pulled.

-I have an out of state customer coming sometime in June and have to accommodate him as he is spending a lot of money.

Will keep you updated and see if I can get out of here.

TST- island off the coast sounds extra chill man. Other than the key's, outsiders don't really hear about inhabitable FL spots like that. Definitely sounds relaxing, what are accommodations and the general vibe like? Also, closest inland town? I gotta get down this upcoming winter.