I'm currently sitting on an airplane headed to Houston, followed by a short hop over to Gulfport for the Beau Rivage 10k WPT main that starts tomorrow.  This will be my sixth and seventh takeoff and landing in the past ten days, with another two coming this weekend. 

Sorry it's been so long since my last update.  PCA was so awesome that I really never ever had an opportunity to sit and write a blog, and never really wanted to for that matter since I was having so much fun.  This'll be a long update blog, as I'm pretty sure I'm going to write until the battery on this lappy runs out.

Last I wrote to you I said I was going to kick some butt at hearts, but I was wrong.  Cantu, Seiver, Fuller, and Bax all won while I lost 6k.  That was Monday night, and they just fleeced me.  I didn't want to play hearts anymore and was really somewhat depressed, chalking up the biggest losing day of my life (16k if you count the 10k). Poker Videos

Tuesday was beach day.  Shelley and I met Cantu, Fuller, and Angie and headed out to the volleyball courts and the party just grew from there.  After the beach we wandered over to the lazy river, and I posted up on an innertube, smoking a (tobacco) pipe, drinking a Kalik in a can, ready to waste the next two hours away.  Turns out I can smoke a pipe in the lazy river but not drink a beer.  This was disappointing as I had already hid a bucket of 5 beers on ice in the bushes so I could re-fill every lap.  Naturally the two women lifeguards told me that I couldn't drink beer while the four dude lifeguards said, "Hi mon." 

So screw the lazy river, plus it was in the shade, and we headed over to the pool nearby the beach bar.  It didn't take us long at all for Shelley and I to start a game of beer pong on the stone ping-pong tables by the pool.  She beat me, then Madsen barely beat her, and just before the beach bar closed at 5pm I went over and bought a trash bag full of beer and ice, carried it like Santa back to the tables, and the party continued.  The band was gone but I had my Bose jambox which is loud as hell, and was loud enough to push the party into the dark hours. 

Wednesday was lazy river day, but this time we went to the other lazy river on the waterpark side of the joint.  This was the coolest water attraction I have ever been on.  It's mostly gravity run.  From the point we started at that day, we went down a section of rapids through a tunnel, and it was gnarly enough where many of my not-so-river-savy friends did everything from scraping themselves up decently to losing their bottoms.  Then we floated for a bit, another set of rapids, more float through some places to hang out, and my personal favorite part, the whole bottom section driven by this wave thing.  The river dumped right in front of this 30-ish foot Mayan style tower that had a wave/water dumper at the top of the 45 degree slope.  About every fifteen seconds or so it would release a significant amount of water and created this tidal wave effect that was enough to flip me and wipe out the worker mon quite quickly.  That created a series of waves through this windy section, and were strong enough off the walls to surf.  Super fun.  From there drift down for a while to a conveyer belt that takes us to the top, and then after a float you have two choices.  Left, down two rapids and back where we started, or right, into the "Power Tower."  You never have to leave your tube this whole time.  The power tower looked like something out of Lord of the Rings and had four separate water slides spitting out of it, two of which were accessible this way, the other two by foot. 

We ran into, like, everybody towards the end of the day, they showed us the cool cove spot to hang out at (after the 2nd rapid, before the wave section, there's a cove that connects both sides of the river, bypassing the entire wave section complete with an excellent lounge area.  This will be important later.), and we spent the rest of the day with them.  We tried to rally them to all go to the Fish Fry downtown with us, but they all bailed and it turned out to be Shelley, Cantu, Jess, and myself who went.  The food was a bit of a disappointment, but Senor Frogs was excellent that evening.  We headed back at 1am or so, tired and wanting to get sleep for the $5k in the morning. 

Good thing I did that.  Nothing could go right for me once again, I felt that I played well, but just, yeah.  They happen.  Good place to run bad though, and we got the rest of the day to hang out.  Fuller was chipleader in the 2k so we kinda hung around, and I got my one and only session of cash in, played for like an hour, played one big LOOOOOL pot. 
5-10 PLO, I bought in for 1500, had it up to $1865 when this hand happened.  I straddle for $25 (the let us and I love it), bunch of limpers, I pot AKK4 for $165 more.  UTG with about $1k calls, fold, guy in the 1 seat with like 6k calls, button calls, SB's turn.  He has like $400 total.  I think, "Shove."  He says, "All-in."  $280 more.  Perfect I can...

"I'm all in.  $1865 total." 

This is were it gets fun, cause obv I'm supposed to be head-up with the SB.  UTG shrugs his shoulders, sticks in all his chips, the guy with all the money takes like a minute and puts out $1865, button folds, and we're off four ways.  Board comes Q6x, 3, 6, I table my KK, SB tables 8653 with one suit (lol), and I win the ginormous ridicockulous wtf side-pot, net win of $2k when I leave 15 mins earlier. 

So, Fuller pulls a Devo and takes 2nd to Hevad Khan who is way underrated imo, ships over $100k anyways, and we all go to dinner/drink/watch game.  It turns into the Layne Flack Show with consistent Bahama-Mama service.  Layne went on a streak of stories and they were all honestly top-notch.  I thoroughly enjoyed hanging out with the group and listening to Layne. 

The next day Cantu, Layne, and Bobby went to Cuba.  Nice.  On my list, but I was already here.  We invited all the white people I knew for a daylight hour adventure on the island, and Shelley and I had a great time (nobody joined).  We started by wandering around downtown, found some food, and then hired a cab to take us to one of the nearby forts, Fort Fincastle.  Our driver's name was Brendalee, completely awesome, and she took care of us for the rest of the day for right around $100 all said and done. 

While at the fort hanging out, Shelley spots a group of runners.  She says, "Those are hashers!"  Hashers are a worldwide loose organization of "Drinking Clubs with Running Problems."  There's one in most cities, and there's a chapter in Las Vegas.  Shelley has been out with them, and they're the group that we did the Halloween pub crawl where I had a close encounter of the transvestite kind.  Turns out that these hashers are on a hash cruise on one of the boats in port, and are on a run with the Nassau chapter.  Turns out Shelley knows two of them, and turns out that I drank with these two on Halloween.  Small world.  They invite us to the Cricket Club for drinks, and when Brendalee picks us up we head that way.  Poker Radio

This place was conveniently located at the foot of the largest fort on the island, between the harbor and the main road.  It was one cricket field bordered by a large plantation style house, bar upstairs, and for two hours we enjoyed the sun, small world friends, and a very, very, beautiful place.  They all left at 4:30, we walked up the hill, checked out the fort, and were picked up at 5pm. 

On the way out we checked out third and final fort on New Providence island, took the bridge back to Paradise (formerly known as Hog) Island and the Atlantis. 

That night we were super excited to go to a restaurant named Greycliff.  This was hands down the best meal of my life.  Not even close. 

We get there and are greeted by the Maitre'D.  We are escorted to the main room of this old Colonial house dating back to the 1700's where a woman is playing a beautiful grand piano.  We are brought two glasses of excellent Argentinian wine and look over the menu.  After we pick out our order, which turns out to be a lobster thingy appetizer, caesar salad, a peppercorn steak, and my "Langoste por deux sauces" or something Froggish like that.   We order a bottle of some Pinot, which was perfectly amazing, and are moving on to dessert. 

At this point I request a cigar because Nick Binger told me about how they have this Cuban dude that hand rolls cigars during your meal.  We are asked how we like them, and the Maitre'd scurries off somewhere into the mansion.  Meanwhile, we are brought two glasses of this 1985 port at $36 bucks a whack, and I kinda wish I could have one right now.  It was the perfect crecendo to this meal, and complimented our Banana Foster (that they lit on fire) and later cigar perfectly. 

When the take away the desert, we are presented with his and her's cigars, and, LOL.  You'll see the pics later.  We take them and our port back into the lounge, enjoy ourselves, and then are asked about the wine cellar tour that I had inquired about.  Turns out this place has the third largest wine cellar in the world, as well as the oldest bottle of wine in the world.  It's a 1727 Riesling from Germany, tested back in the 60's and still good, re-corked, and for sale for a paltry quarter million.  Kinda feels cheap to me really, since it will always be the oldest bottle of wine in the world as long as you don't open it.  I have a sweet pic of Shelley holding it. 

From there we headed home, ran into some people, and then ended up at the club they have there.  After much insanity and what-not, we aparrently made it to bed, with pictures on my camera dating to 3:36 am.  That I don't remember taking.  GREAT F'N DAY!

Saturday morning we were hung over.  Surprise.  We drag ourselves down to the final table by around 2:30, at which time Kevin (Saul) is busto.  Bummer.  Lets go outside.  Run into Wretchy, and we all end up going back to that cove and have a good ol time.  We chat and drink and laugh until the sun sets, and then head straight to the sports book to watch the Raven's game (Go Ravens!).  From there to the italian joint Camile's, awesome dinner outside, back to the sports book to watch the Cardinals kick ass, and end up just hanging out until the night is over. 

Next day was travel home day, US Airways can still kiss my ass, in fact I refuse to ever fly them again (and you shouldn't either).  Worst airline experience of my life.  The Sir Lynden Pindling International Airport was a joke too.  Long line to check in.  Long security line.  Carry checked luggage through this whole line, clear security, straight to customs.  Takes forever.  Screaming child.  Understaffed, nobody working hard.  Hot.  Humid.  FINALLY clear customs, round the corner, up the escalator, and there's another f'n line?!?  WTF?!??!?!?!?  It's another security checkpoint.  One x-ray.  One medal detector.  Three employees.  Off with the shoes, sweater, empty pockets, laptop in separate bin, whole deal.  Half of Las Vegas' resident online poker players were going batshit insane.  We were at the airport 2.5 hrs early and barely made our flight, literally getting straight onto the plane after all this crap.

That said, battery is dying, Continental airlines kicks ass (and always has imo), and I'll see y'all later this week from Biloxi!

Peace and good luck,

Devo

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