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#437 – WSOP Notebook #10 – The Malloy Curse
I am operating under the power of an ancient Italian curse. The curse was placed on me by a lovely young woman named Donna in Seat 3 during the $1,500 LHE event on Friday night.
At the time, it seemed humorous: all I’d done to merit the curse was raise in late position on her big blind. (I had 3-3, so it wasn’t really even a steal, per se.)
She pronounced the curse “malloy” and seemed insulted when I suggested maybe it was an Irish rather than Italian curse. She assured me it was Italian, though she didn’t know how to spell it. “We shorten these things, but it’s a real curse. The Evil Eye.”
During the next break, I sought out my expert on Italian curses, Marco Traniello. The actual spelling, he told me, was M-A-L-O-C-C-H-I-O. And Malocchio was the actual Evil Eye.
The whole thing seemed like such a joke, though something felt different during the last break … colder? On the first hand after the break, I raised with Ah-Jh. The short-stacked player in Seat 2 raised all-in and I called. He showed Q-9 and hit a queen. Two hands later, I was dealt pocket jacks and got into a raising war with Donna and another player, both of whom had A-K. The board was 2-4-5 … 3 … J. I actually lost the minimum on the last two streets, but still, it was close to half my stack. A few more hands went disastrously wrong and I was gone within an hour.
I still wasn’t inclined to believe it was the work of the Malloy-Malocchio curse, imposed on me simply because I raised on the button with pocket threes. But during the dreamless sleep that followed, I conjured a memory repressed for forty years.
One night, when I was nine, my father went to the racetrack with his brother, my Uncle Howard. They were both degenerate horse players, though their wives made peace with it in different ways. My mom sort of accepted it, though she and my dad divorced within a decade. My Aunt Charlotte simply refused to acknowledge it, usually believing whatever excuse my uncle gave her for coming home (a) late, and (b) broke. Their marriage lasted until my aunt died thirty years later. There’s probably a lesson there but not a very positive one.
In all that time, Howard and Charlotte had just one rough patch, and it started that very night. Sometime during the evening, my aunt called our house to find out if her husband was there. Being the honest, helpful, stupid nine-year old, I said, “No. I think he went to the racetrack with my dad.”
That was the wrong thing to say.
It was raining at the track that night, pouring by the end of the last race. My dad dropped Howard off at his house, drove the four miles to our house, found everyone asleep, and went to sleep as well.
About an hour-and-a-half later, he and my mom heard this pounding on the bedroom window. It was Howard. As my dad drove off, Charlotte met him at the door, handed him a pillow, and slammed the door shut and locked it. He trudged to our house in the downpour.
My mom made up the couch for him and he made himself at home. In fact, for the next several days, he never called his wife or indicated any interest in a reconciliation. He explained that Friday was Charlotte’s shopping day and, because she didn’t drive, she would call him and all would be forgotten. (She kicked him out on Monday night.)
On Thursday, Charlotte’s mother called our house. Thank goodness I didn’t take that call because she was furious – at my mom! “A shanda on you for taking him in and breaking up their happy home.” And then she invoked an ancient Jewish curse – Nehora, the Evil Eye. But she didn’t put it on my mom. She put it on my mom’s children.
My theory is that the nehora has been lying dormant all these years and was activated by the Malloy/Malocchio that Donna put on me. It’s certainly consistent with my finish in the $1,500 LHE and in the $2,500 NLHE on Sunday, in which I quadrupled up by the first break, only to lose it all on a series of very close hands in the next couple hours.
Fortunately for me, Jo Anne’s many talents and boundless knowledge include information on how to lift the Evil Eye. Hopefully, I will be able to return to the Series in time for the $3,000 HORSE on Wednesday, clear of ancient curses. In the meantime, because my writing seems unaffected by the pair of curses, I’ll try to catch up on blog entries. It’s been a bustling Series and I have lots to share.
