> My flight was cancelled because of a thunderstorm in new york city.
> That had to be some kind of omen, I'm sure, but I ignored it and
> boarded the next flight out of town anyway.  There is a line from
> Positively Fifth Street we often quote to each other, about how every
> time a plane leaves for Vegas from Ohare, a little piece of my heart
> goes with it.

> The guy next to me on the plane was enormous.  He had a shaved bald
> head and a chinstrap beard and hoop earrings.  He looked like a giant
> black pirate.  He noticed me reading "How Good Is Your Pot Limit
> Omaha?" and asked "do you play poker?"

> "Yes, I play poker.  Do you?"

> "Actually, I play Texas Hold'Em."

> This guy wasn't the first person to distinguish for me Texas
> Hold'Em from the more generic 'poker.'  To this guy, and
> countless others entering our sick, sick world, the game of Texas
> Hold'Em has more reverence than garden variety 'poker.'
> 'Poker' is what you play in your kitchen.  Texas Hold'Em is what
> you play on ESPN.

> "You must be going out for the tournament then?" I asked him.

> "What tournament?"

> Great.  Just great.

> This is what really perplexes me about our yearly pilgrimage to the
> World Series of Poker.  Here next to me on the plane is just the kind
> of donkey I need to be playing against, yet probably won't be.  I
> take every penny of my bankroll and some more money I probably can't
> afford to lose with me to Vegas once a year for the WSOP and risk it
> against the best players in the entire world.  Why?  How on earth is
> that good game selection?

> It has to have something to do with a feeling of belonging, of
> membership in this deranged community.  As I walked in to the
> gargantuan arena that serves as this year's playing field, I can't
> tell you how little I felt I belonged.

> The railbirds were heavy in full force, all railbirding the usual
> suspects: Negreanau, Lederer, Raymer, Fischman, Duke, Matusow, all
> easily identifiable by their ill-fitting basketball jerseys with their
> last names spelled in 8 inch letters across the back.  In the crowd
> guys with "Im all in" t-shirts excitedly point and say "there's
> David Williams! Get a picture of him!" "What is this, Omaha? I need
> to watch this to see how this works." "Who is Jim Meehan?"

> Minneapolis Jim Meehan is only the guy with the healthy stack of chips
> in the final two tables of the Omaha 8 tournament when I walk up to the
> rail, and he's adding to it with gusto.  I heard a short while ago he
> was chip leader at the final table, going on as I write this, and it
> doesn't surprise me.  Jim the Nit is an unsung hero of this game, one
> who doesn't have and probably doesn't want his name across his
> shirt in 8 inch letters.

> I go sit down and play a $225 satellite, hoping to win some lammers to
> get into this Friday's $2k No Limit event.  This is the event we
> timed our trip this year for. The event we all plan on taking a stab
> at.  This is going to be my first ever shot at a bracelet.  But I want
> in as cheaply as possible, and so I must try a satellite.

> Or two, I suppose, as my three 9s are obliterated by a straight and
> I'm crippled in chips.  So I buy in for another, and last a little
> longer but the same result, zero lammers.  I try one more and finally
> cry uncle.  Its late in New York and I have yet to eat anything today
> but an apple.

> I go to the Horseshoe where we are staying for the next couple of
> nights (John met me out here early, and he convinced his friend Keith
> to come as well) until the gang gets in to town and we move over to the
> Mirage.

> The sad thing is that I always wanted to stay at the Horseshoe during
> the WSOP, and now that the tourney has moved, I finally can.  I'd
> rather be anywhere but here, though.  This place is just a poker
> mortuary, a fucking morgue.  The poker room is sad enough, empty and
> quiet and not even all that smokey.  The alley outside, once filled
> with excited smoking poker players regaling each other with bad beat
> stories and crackheads begging for change, is now only filled with
> crackheads.  Benny's Bullpen, once the most exciting place in the
> world for 6 weeks a year, is now home to the Vinnie Favoritio comedy
> revue.  The worst part of all is that for some unknown reason,
> Harrah's has stripped the name Horseshoe from the chips, the walls,
> the shirts in the giftshop, and is in the process of stripping it from
> the signs outside, opting for just "Binion's."  Criminal.

> This whole scene kinda makes me sick.  The popularity could be great, I
> suppose, but the whitebread corporatizing of this game is a real drag.
> Where is the mystique? Where is the danger?  Where is the allure of the
> seedy backroom, the wiseguy card sharp, the Texas road gambler?
> Getting your aces cracked by a twangy old cowboy who pats you on the
> back and tells you "the sun will even shine on a dog's ass every
> once in a while" is far preferable to getting them cracked by some
> goateed frat boy who wears sunglasses inside and tells you how some bad
> beat story about his aces getting cracked in the $215 on Stars last
> week.

> I'm shelling out two grand for the tournament on Friday, and taking a
> shot at glory, demons begone.  I won't be wearing sunglasses unless
> they make us sit outside away from the shade.  I hope I can keep my
> composure and chip my way to the money, but mostly I just want to feel
> like I belong.  Barring that, I may not ever play again.

> But the Upper West Side World Series is happening on Sunday, and I can
> always make a good showing in that.  There are some 15 people coming
> this year for our yearly capers.  I'll report on it nightly
> godwilling.  

> Dave Hill
> <a href="http://www.meatmachine.org/poker" target="_blank">www.meatmachine.org/poker</a>