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 K
J
on the toothless character and he snap-called with Q
Q
, 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?"