Playing Full Time, Jenny - 2013 Part 1
At the beginning of 2013, I had broken up with Kelly, as we just didn't see eye to eye. To her, poker was gambling, and when she wanted to see some opera at $125 a head in Naples and I wanted to go down to Bonita to chase the promotion chasers, we essentially had parted ways. The problem was I lived 85 miles away from her place, and still rented her land out for my nursery. It was not a viable commute, and I didn't want to make things awkward, so I came just to sell things off, and at this point, that was my only option. I was tired of moving plants all over South Florida whether it was a failed relationship, land deal, or other. For the second time in 5 years, I was going to sell off my nursery stock and move on - this time I was going to play poker full time. No more potting up plants in the 95F heat, trying to dodge the downpours. No more customers haggling me over a few dollars on a thousand dollar plant. I wanted the freedom that poker could give me. No customers I had to listen to and talk my ear off, no more squirrels chewing up my profit by eating my seedlings. I remember spending the last night of 2012 sitting at Bonefish Grill with Casey and her new boyfriend Andrew. Andrew and I were talking, and he was quite a weird guy. He worked for his mom doing checkups on foreclosed homes as well as insurance writeups, and he was very monotone and boring. When I told him I played poker he said he had paid for college playing on Full Tilt, but couldn't tell me what stakes he played or even his screen name, so I just called BS in my head. He wouldn't eat much besides hamburgers, hotdogs, and bacon. He hated all forms of music, and had been married for five years to some Argentinian girl who had been a New Kids on the Block groupie. When I say groupie, I mean she literally would travel with them like Deadheads did for the Grateful Dead. She had a tattoo of the group on the side of her torso, and she was also particularly manly. Sitting there around midnight I realized I could have moved in on Casey and we could have been friends with benefits, but that time had passed by – it was probably for the best.
I was happy to be back by the water, around my friends, family, and maybe the most important thing to me at the time, poker. Selling the nursery off gave me a proper bankroll for 2/5NL and enough to take shots at 2/5 and 5/5 PLO. I would give Tim rides in my Veloster (think Trooper's car, just in black) and we would play all night. I had to counter Tim's weight in the small car, but it still handled like a champ and was always good to me. I would sometimes take the kidnapper van at night because it could handle his weight much better and no one would go near it due to its appearance. Our usual routine would be me waking up around 4pm from a nap, calling him to ask him if he wanted to play, which was just a formality, and getting on the road around 530. I would stop and get a banana and a soda, and he would get an XXL Monster which for him was a heart attack waiting to happen. We usually played until 2am, which was close at the time, then head home and hit up the 24 hour Taco Bell, eat, watch poker, rinse and repeat. Tim insisted I play 2/5NL because there was much more money to be made. After a month or two, I finally gave in and sat down at the Sunday game, booking a $400 win. Being there 5 days a week was a grind, but it had started to become a home as well. In the Spring of 2013, after talking to Mike during his downs at my table, I talked to him outside on his smoke break. We had discussed PLO at the table, his ex-fiance (Batwoman) who at the time was living with some guy in St. Pete, and shooting pool at a place near his apartment. I took him up on his offer, and we would hang out Tuesday nights in his neck of the woods, play $20 games with other guys, and it was also the official hangout night for many of the dealers. During these months, I had started to get to know the dealers and floor pretty well, and the cardroom had become my new second home. There was many a drunken night of him dumping a paycheck onto Bovada and we would switch off playing 2/4PLO and run it up nicely, only for him to chase losses in BJ and slots. I vividly remember getting into a hand were I flopped bottom set on a dry board and after getting 3 bet on the flop, Mike grabbed the mouse and tried to get 200BBs in with no draw, and me yelling "NO, HE HAS A SET OF 9s, don't waste your ****ing money!" Of course he clicked pot and we were shown 99 and he went silent.
It was also during this time I was on the prowl to meet someone new in my life. I was not trying that hard because I cared more about my poker passion, and knew that most women around my age wouldn't respect my decision to play full time. I countered that by just hitting on the 21-25 crowd, and it seemed to work well. I spent very little time at the house I rented from my mom on the southside of town, I would usually be on the north end staying over at Mike's or a couple of the girls' places I had met. The spring and summer of 2013 were the glory days of my friendship with Mike. We would hit up Derby Lane where I would either play the $120, $200, or the 1-3 game and the 5-10 PLO game when it ran. I would put Mike into the 1-3 game there and he would rarely be left with any chips at the end of the night, but he always paid me back on Thursday night at 2am, when his check hit the bank. It was also during this time I kept on running into Dustin and Dave around the Tampa poker scene. They first started showing up at the Sunday $5k guarantee in Sarasota, where Dustin saw me get coolered with Aces, and then he knocked me out of the Derby $200 when I shoved A2 into JJ BTN vs. SB. I saw him go on to get 5th place and congratulated him, telling him that I was glad my chips went to good use. During one of the summer series at SHR Tampa I got a seat at one of the 2/5 PLO games and sitting in seat 7, he was sitting in seat 2.
“So you play this game too, eh?” I asked, curious where this guy had come from.
“Honestly this is my first time playing live.” I thought he was joking but his play showed otherwise. He somehow got in a 3 way all in with K9xxhh on a 678hh board vs 88xx and 910xx and hit the gin Ah on the river. After proclaiming he had the nuts, the two players looked at their hands in disgust and left the table, and he scooped the pot non-chalantly like he had made the right shove there. I started laughing because it was almost as if the cards had trolled the two players and Dustin had no idea he could have been drawing stone cold dead. An orbit later I had JJ73 in the big blind and called the $5 BTN straddle and a $15 raise from MP and saw a QJ2dd flop, which I had no diamonds. I led out for $45 into a $50 pot and Dustin said “pot” and got a cold caller. I knew he was not an experienced player and could be doing this with AK10xdd, bottom set, but likely was underolled for the game and wanted to protect with top set. I fold, and he gets it in again with QQ against a combo draw, of course J on turn and I pound my chips in disgust. In retrospect it was probably the right fold, I don't know. I did start talking with him a lot about the game, including the hand he was drawing thin on.
“I had an open ender and a flush draw, what could I do?” He proclaimed, and I realized he needed some help. Between them, Mike, Tim, and a few others, I had gathered up a decent group of poker players that was now my life. I had managed to sell the entire nursery and was living off just the poker profits. I binked a few tournaments, including busting Dave on the bubble of a $120 with AA vs JJ and he was in disgust. I had a feeling he was not rolled for these and once I got to know them, I realized they were up and coming in the poker world. Dave is now playing $1k-10k buyins and is holding his own, he has come a long way.
In May I had been talking to a girl who I met at the front desk at a resort out on one of the barrier islands. Her name was Jenny and she might have been one of the funniest people I have ever met. I offered to take her out to a local hangout by the water one night, and was goofy enough to wear a fedora to the date. With a mostly shaved head I actually didn't look bad, and I managed to impress her, though she seemed hesitant to hook up the first night we met. She seemed to get a little sloppy drunk and we went to Dennys where she ate a ****load of food and professed that she and her ex still lived together, but he was getting deployed soon. Ah, very nice, that was just a recipe for disaster, but of course I tried even harder. We would hang out a lot at local bars, go to adult trivia, and would always end up at her house buzzed in the early morning. I'm sure if I was a little more aggressive it wouldn't have been a problem, but she was usually pretty drunk and I didn't feel so inclined. That was until one night where we closed down a local bar, then bought a bottle to go out to the beach with. We were drinking quite a bit and next thing I knew I was going to have to sleep in my car again. She started getting really touchy feeling and we ended up getting it on right there on the public beach. By 530am, I was ready to go home, and I didn't know the area well and she had lost her way too. I finally jumped a few yards and found my car, took her home, and felt bad, as if that wasn't supposed to happen. It turned out we both felt that way, and decided to be friends, but continued to hang out regularly despite the awkward hookup. I figured it wasn't a big deal, and could always happen again down the road if things were favorable. I got a call from her a week later, she was very upset and couldn't stop crying.
“Liam, I need you to come over here. Brian is moving out and I just need someone here.” I had no idea what I was getting into.
. I remember I was not double suited.
