In today’s poker tournament, I pissed off a guy I like, who was irritated that I said something about him that he thought he shared with me in private. I apologized, though it wasn’t anything to be ashamed of, but I shouldn’t haven’t have brought it up. It’s not like I told everyone he had Herpes. He said it was part of my snarky banter. So, yeah, I do talk too much. After he admonished me and declared me to be snarky Mark, I kept raising him in his blind, further angering him when we were 5 handed with 10 players at 2 tables. We needed to lose one more player to make in 9 handed and reduce it down to 1 table. We started with 16 entries. He had played against me 3 or 4 times in the last week. So, we’ve had our battles, but I’ve tried to keep it respectful, and pleasant, but I like to talk and joke, as I play.
There’s a famous poker player they call Mike the Mouth. He’s Mike Matusow. At the Pensacola Dog Track, I’m becoming known as Mark the Mouth who won’t shut up about his book, his stroke, or the estranged wife who tried to take him to court, because she accused him of having dementia. So, I tell everyone my brain looks like Swiss cheese on MRI, and I ask everyone their name, because the best way to prove you don’t have dementia is to repeat people’s names to them, but I won’t reveal the name of the guy what called me snarky, because I do feel bad about the way things went down between us today, because I was in the small blind. I called, because I was half in for the blind, and I had a lot of chips. I think I had 2-6 suited in diamonds. My nicknamer had raised. And the flop came 2-2-5 with 2 spades. I checked and he bet. I check-raised all-in. He called with pocket aces if memory serves. When you’re accused of dementia, you can’t be too sure. Consequently, I continued to apologize, as he walked away, and we redrew for seats.
I got to make new friends or enemies, but I continued to be Snarky Mark playing funky hands and winning. We were 9 handed at this point, and they were only playing four places. I had over 60,000 chips with blinds at 1600-1600-800. The large blind has to put up the blind plus the antes. Consequently, it would cost 4,000 per round to play poker. I had nice young lady to my left named Jennifer, who was asking me about poker tournaments and if I ever to shut up. I explained I had already earned the nickname Snarky Mark. To my right was a man named Michael who spoke with a German accent, so I started talking to him in German to protests by Dustin that we should only speak English at the table to which I responded I have to speak German to prove I don’t have dementia. I think Chief Petty Officer Jim who is retired now lost on the bubble when I called his all-in raise from the Large blind with Jack-10 suited. He had pocket Aces. I made a straight. It was the second time I had knocked him out of the tournament that day. He was cool about it. I thanked him for his service. I’m considered a disable veteran, but I tell people who were in harm’s way that they got shot, while I ate too many doughnuts, got diabetes, and had a stroke.
Dustin didn’t want to make a deal. He went all in, but I had him covered. So I called with Ace-king suited. I think he had pocket Jacks. He became the chip leader. We were heads up after eliminating the German. He wanted to play it out. We did and Dustin won. I shook his hand and expressed my admiration of his win. You can only conclude I got lucky. I repeatedly broke Aces . There’s a time try to be lucky, and a time to play a patient game. I’m running hot in tournaments right now. I’ve cashed in 4 out of 6 tournaments over the last 9 days. Good tournament players don’t always do well in regular ring games. That could be said of me right now. There’s an art to shifting gears when playing tournaments, but I’m not ready to divulge that right now, but I will tell you a fun story about when I was obsessed with playing poker tournaments
The Travel Channel had launched something called The World Poker Tour. They decided to televise certain poker tournaments, and I got on TV at least 3 times, because I targeted these events. It was 2002 at The Luck Chances Casino in Colma, California. There were like 200 entries, and I was nursing a moderate stack of chips. I was mover to a table with Phil Helmuth, the aforementioned Mike Matusow, and Tom McEvoy. Phil and Tom had each won The World Series of Poker main event. Mike Matusow has finished as high as 6th in the main event, and won other bracelets at the WSOP. He was famous for his talking. We were one table short of the money. They were going to pay 18 places There were 27 left and I had survive these legendary players. Mike raised, and I had Ace-King suited, so I moved all-in, and I had him covered. He called, and after we turned the cards up, he said, “I have three outs.”
He had something like King-7. He flopped a straight draw, and hit it. I was stunned. Phil Hellmuth had to count out the chips as I was delirious and distraught. Mike kept talking to me about how lucky he was to draw out on me. Somehow, I was able to make it to 18th place, because Tom McEvoy went out 19th. I had read his book on poker in 2001. I made the money somehow, but I went all in with Ace-King against another weaker hand, but lost. I was awarded $3,000 against an entry fee of $2,500. The cameras came up to me and asked me to show off the cash, which I found ironic in light of the fact my net win wasn’t even $500, because there was an entry fee on top of the buy-in, but I’ll always remember that day. That’s why I played.