On the 13th and 14th, I played poker during most of my shift…my wrist still isn’t/wasn’t as happy as it could be and a very good friend of mine was in town that I’d met in Montana years ago…Tom Lind…he lives in AZ now. Also my friend, Jim AKA The Monkey, from Colorado was here.

On the 13th, Jim and I played in a $4-$8 game after he’d left the $30-$60 game. It was hysterically fun and zany as usual. He makes playing poker fun. We had our ‘hand ranking’ cards in front of us because one guy in the game didn’t know what beat what and I brought the cards to the table for all three of us.

At one point, Jim, me, and the New Player were all in a hand that had been raised, raised, raised pre-flop…on the River, Jim said, “Sir, I’m playing line five!”

Everyone cracked up as Jim pointed to his Hand Ranking Card. Line five is a flush. Of course I threw my hand away but the New Player called. Sure enough, Jim had a flush.

The New Player said, “I’ll admit that I don’t know shit about the game.” He was laughing as he said it.

With a straight face, Jim said, “Sir, if there’s any question, I’ll testify to the fact that you don’t know shit about the game.”

Everyone busted up…including the New Player. We took some beats, we put some beats on each other, and we laughed – we laughed more than we did anything else. This is the way poker should be.

On the 14th, I sat next to my friend, Tom, while my friend Jim was getting his brains beat out in a $30-$60 game. Jim stopped over for a visit a few times and when we left the room for the night, Jim was still there, strapped to the table with leg irons and a grim look on his face. Not a pretty sight for a guy that’s usually a laugh a minute. I haven’t heard from him yet this week so I’m hoping that he’s still alive and hasn’t called the Card Fairy to assist in poker suicide.

During this session of play, I got A-A beat by Q-10 off-suit. Aces are running 26-4 for me. The same guy beat A-A, three times in five hands. He was running pretty darn good.

A young beauty named Chris got in the game with her boyfriend. She was in the 6s and has my vote for winning the WSOP. She was as calm as a cucumber while she was raising the pants off of people and played A-K like it was A-A.

One hand I had Q-Q and raised pre-flop, it was raised and reraised with seven callers. The flop was Q-6-3 with a 6 on the turn…Chris and I ended up heads up and she raised me at least six times on the turn when the 6 hit. I was still sure I had the best of it so I never slowed down. I never saw her hand but at the end of it, she laughed and said, “That was a lot of fun!”

Sure, you’re thinking she was sarcastic…not even. She never blushed, shook or acted distraught, win or lose the hand, her demeanor was the same. We exchanged names and email addresses.