WSOP Vampires and the Man Behind the Hat

Since the WSOP began, I start each day with a bitch-slap by my cat Sammy, delivered at 3:30am. Alarm clocks have nothing on Sammy. Sammy has extra big paws replete with extra toes, and his swat is like no other. Also, Sammy’s need-to-feed is timed more accurately than the CS2 atomic clock.

As I stumble through the dark living room, I click on the laptop. By this time the silent cat alarm has sounded. Blacula is hurling himself against the back door for food, while Java weaves underfoot. Needless to say, my mostly nocturnal cats are loving my new schedule. From there, I start a 12-cup pot of coffee.

While I am certain that no humans have stirred in my neighborhood, I know I am not alone. I envision Falstaff bumping around his house at the same time, although different time zone. Both of us will spend the next few hours pouring through WSOP reports and recapping the day’s most recent events.

I also have caught many of the WSOP bloggers online in those wee hours. BJ and I have used that time to catch up on the latest series doings. Pauly has also weighed in at the crack of dawn. And I try not to bother change100 when I see her online, as I know she’s still feverishly covering an event that is in its 13th or 14th hour of play. Haley and I conduct the vast majority of our daily online conversations at that time. But just as the sun is about to rise in Vegas, they disappear from my online view. They are, after all, vampires. They have fallen into the sport’s rhythm that thrives in the darkness and is loath to sunlight.

For me, recapping the events has been a double-edged sword. While it keeps me connected to the tournament I now find myself so many miles away from, it is also a constant reminder of what I am missing.

Recapping the $10K Stud event, I realized how long it’s been since I’ve seen Cyndy Violette. In 2005, Cyndy found out I had Celiac and was finding it challenging to live within my dietary restrictions while working the WSOP. She had her chef prepare gluten-free meals for me every day – for the entire WSOP. I think that’s among the nicest things anyone’s ever done for me. I also saw that Alan Boston was there, ready to sing to me..but I wasn’t. I missed witnessing Jay Greenspan’s first WSOP money finish. I know I will catch up with Mike Matasow later next month, but I really wanted to hear about his victorious weight loss bet while it was still fresh in his mind. And it’s killing me that I wasn’t there to see my long-time friend, MJ Bernstein, cash in his first two WSOP events.

For those of you that don’t know, it was MJ that led to my Stetson-wearing ways. I met MJ in January 2005 at the World Poker Open when he and I played a stud satellite together. Back then, he was an accomplished stud specialist and quickly carved up the table. I was lucky enough to take out the last player and pull close to even as we were about to go heads-up. At that point, he, thankfully, suggested a chop. (Later, he would finish 3rd in the WPO stud event).

The next day I bumped into him; I was wearing a ball cap instead of my Stetson. He told me to go change hats. He said that one of the reasons he chopped with me is that he was intimidated by the hat (I had already suspected that it wasn’t my stud prowess that motivated the chop). It was then I learned what Chris Ferguson and Hoyt Corkins had probably known for years. From then on, I left my hat on.

In the years that I’ve known MJ, he has developed a world class NLHE game. I’ve been one of many people telling him he needed to play the WSOP, but up until this year, his fear of flying kept him out of Vegas. This year, he drove out. And of course, this year, I’m not there. So I wasn’t there to see him money in his first two events. I have promised him, however, that I will fly out for his first final table.

The ultimate salt in the wound will come this weekend, however, as the bloggers start to spew out blogs detailing their semi-annual descent on Vegas. Miss y’all.

Photo Notes: Picture of Jen and Falstaff from the 2005 Winter WPBT. Picture of Cyndy Violette from the 2007 WSOP.