AFTERWARD

Those were my notes, essentially as I wrote them that night in July as I tried to remember the details of the dinner with Jon Turner. The Main Event became my focus starting the next day and I never got back to that account. I’m sure you can imagine my reluctance in publishing an interview that I can’t confirm actually happened. But I should be able to confirm this nearly two months later, right? Continue reading »

THE GREAT JON TURNER CAPER

It’s near midnight as I try to make sense of what happened two nights ago. I’m trying to write a profile of Full Tilt Pro and online tournament superstar Jon Turner. The material for the profile was supposed to come from the dinner meeting that night at a sushi restaurant called Naked Fish. But I am stuck. Utterly stuck.

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PROSPECTUS

A poker player is supposed to be difficult to read. But Jon Turner takes inscrutability to a new level. I spent an evening with Jon during the World Series of Poker and came to a pair of inconsistent conclusions:  (1) All my stereotypical notions of the 27 year old online tournament poker legend are wrong; and (2) the experience of trying to learn about Jon Turner was so difficult that I am sometimes doubting whether we actually met.

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I started playing poker in casinos in 1991. For the next few years, when I could get to Las Vegas or Los Angeles, I would make a side trip into the poker rooms. I didn’t play much between 1994 and 2003, but I started playing again that summer and – well, I’ve written about most of the things that have happened to me since so I don’t need to repeat them now. Because I write about poker, I always have a notebook and a pen at the table. These items have gotten a ridiculous amount of attention over the years.

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Sorry the blog was down for several days, but everything is fine now. Despite all you’ve heard or suspected, I haven’t been killed, kidnapped, or fired. And despite my quick exit from FTOPS Event #22, I didn’t go broke. I’ve got blogs to post and a story to tell, so stay tuned.

But it wasn’t my fault. That’s the important message.

We are entering the last three wild days of FTOPS XIII. Steve Wong hosts the morning event, #20, $200 + $16 NLHE-6 handed. I am hosting the evening event, #21, $300 + $22 Razz. Then the series concludes with a flurry of five events this weekend. Here are some things to note:

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We have played the first fifteen events of FTOPS XIII and I am, as usual, miserable. This is despite making my first FTOPS final table. But the performance was bracketed by disappointments and, even worse, Aaron Bartley upstaged me by winning $70K in the Turbo FTOPS last night.

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Within a few days of the start of the World Series, Uncle Tilty came through and provided Shauna and me with an excellent work space. We had a long work table, comfortable chairs, and extension cords and power strips for all our computing needs. When you add the food and drink service and constant access to most of Full Tilt’s 170+ red pros, it was an ideal set up.

Almost too good.

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Even though “the Internet is everywhere,” I’m far, far from FTOPS XIII for the next couple days. In the heady time after I finished runner-up in Razz at the World Series, I promised my family anything they wanted. I assumed they’d choose cars, high-tech toys, maybe a working vacuum cleaner. The rats, they picked ME.

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In Part I, I explained how, after the star-studded charity tournament for refugees in the Darfur region, Ante Up for Africa, got underway, I chipped up by getting lucky against Superman and Walter Cronkite. That’s the way it went all day: I built chips by playing bad and getting lucky, then gave them all back on the rare occasions I decided to play good. I lost a bunch to Adam “Roothless” Levy when I was all-in with the best hand, and even more with A-K against some dude who called all four of my bets with pocket fours.

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