FULL TILT POKER BLOG

#634 – Engulfed by Biloxi #4 – Penance in Mississippi

Posted by Editor | Filed under Uncategorized

I now see, as I wait in line to register for the tournament, a woman sitting behind a desk bearing the sign “MGM Mirage Players Club.” I could have saved 25 hyperventilating minutes if she had been at her post at 12:45. In her place back then was a guy in a soiled Atlanta Braves baseball cap smoking a cigarette. He was definitely not an employee of MGM Mirage.

1:28 PM – Still in line, not really moving. I see Ken Lambert, the tournament director, rush by, looking harried. I decide now is not the time to re-introduce myself and think him for introducing me to the people responsible for helping poker players get nice rooms at a reasonable rate.

So what am I doing here – really? Believe it or not, I think I’m doing Full Tilt a big service by my presence, even though they didn’t ask me to come here, assented only reluctantly, and have shown no sign of appreciation for my sacrifice. But I sure hope that’s how it turns out.

Standing in line, not moving, to register for today’s tournament, which was started 30 minutes ago, I can tell you this: I’m not here to play poker.

Sure, at some level I know I should play live, and I know I’m good at it. But my idle thoughts in line are like this: “If I miss this, I can play the $75,000 Guarantee, the $65,000 Guarantee, the Winner’s Choice Qualifier, and the Fifty-Fifty, all for half the price of this tournament.” Then, of course, toss in the waiting, the running around, all the travel to get here, etc. etc. etc.

I came to Biloxi in the naive hope that I can find something good enough to write about to justify my continued authorship of The Full Tilt Poker Blog.

For careful readers of this Blog, this may sound like a change of heart. To quote one reader from last September: “Are you TRYING to get yourself fired?”

Although I have always tried to put it when it matters – like for the Million Dollar Cash Game, the NBC Heads-Up Championship, my contests, reporting on legal developments related to online poker, etc. – I’ve generally treated this gig as temporary. Maybe deep down inside, I’ve always been afraid Full Tilt would decide I wasn’t worth what they were paying me. So I have maintained a detached attitude, probably to protect my psyche when the hammer falls.

Well, blame it on the economy being in the toilet or my coincident poker losing streak, but I’ve come to the inescapable conclusion that this job is worth holding on to. Apart from the obvious – excellent pay, independence, good people to work for, an opportunity to write about and play poker – I have to be realistic about my employability. I’m 50. I let my bar membership lapse (and that’s in Illinois anyway). I have too many speeding tickets to get a job in pizza delivery or driving a cab. Book publishing is a dying business. All of a sudden, writing a blog for a shadowy offshore enterprise operating in a legal twilight zone doesn’t seem so bad.

After almost two years on the job – my second anniversary is coming on February 2 – I’ve decided to become a model employee. I just pray it’s not too late.

Six months ago, they asked me to help write some Pro Tips. I said, “How much?” and laughed at the number. Now? I’m offering to write some. Gratis. And they’re not responding.

If I didn’t know better – well, I don’t – I’d think Uncle Tilty is sitting back in his Mayfair apartment, laughing and telling his minions, “Let him twist in the wind a little longer.”

So, to some degree, I’m doing my penance in Biloxi. I figured no one would take my offer in the right spirit if I asked for a business-class ticket to Australia for the Aussie Millions, or for a week at Paradise Island.

But Biloxi? Biloxi? In the week since I signed on for this, I been flooded with e-mails pointing out that Mississippi was recently named the national leader in teen pregnancy.

If I can complete this gig, they have to keep me around, right? They HAVE to.

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