The Nightly Hundred Grand

I'll tell you all right up front that this is going to be a poker related post. So if you have no interest in this kind of reading material (JoAnn), feel free to exit. With that said, I've mentioned here before that I sometimes play poker online at Pokerstars. You know.....like son, like mother!! I usually lose more times than I win, but when I do win, some of them have been some decent cashes. I think the most I ever won in a single tournament was about $8400 which was followed very quickly thereafter with another win for $2400. I used that money to rent our house this summer so it was definitely put to good use. So that was the most I had ever won until.............last Thursday night when I finally won the nightly hundred grand. Now before you all get excited, it doesn't mean I won $100,000 but it did pay a decent amount. Well, here's a copy of the email I received from Pokerstars right after the win....

Dear TheReader23,

You finished the tournament in 1st place.

A $20,304.00 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

That's right, you read correctly, I won $20,304.00 playing in an online poker tournament. It's still so surreal to me. It took me seven hours to play and seven hours to win that kind of money.

It never fails, however, that whenever I'm doing well in a tournament, I can't find Michael anywhere. As I was playing in this one, he was in Hawaii. He and some of his friends had rented a house in Kauai for the month of September. I had spoken to him a few hours earlier so I knew he would be reachable as he wasn't going out anywhere that night. I think about 800 people started the tournament and as it approached 20 people left, myself being one of them, I thought I'd give Michael a call to let him know so he could watch me online. At this point, he didn't even know I was playing.

I dialed his cell and got his voicemail. I tried again ten minutes later, again his voicemail. Then I saw one of his friends on AIM (Ryan Daut) and instant messaged him. No response from Daut either. Now it's down to 14 people left and I still can't reach them. I'm beginning to text Michael and instant message Ryan at the same time. The messages would read something like this....well I'm still in the tournament with eleven people left...it would be nice if any of you were around to watch me. Or, just in case any of you are interested, I'm about to win a lot of money. Then I reached the final table and still can't find them. Now I'm getting mad and I'm typing the messages to them in rapid succession. When there were 6 people left, Ryan finally saw my instant message and I can just imagine the screaming that went on down in that house in Hawaii as he's there with Michael as well.

So for the remainder of the tournament, with six people left, I had the best of the best watching me from Hawaii. There is no one in the world who could have this kind of poker knowledge behind them when they're playing in a tournament. My rail included Smokey, Ozzy, Michael, Daut, Bushman and Roman. Seriously, it doesn't get any better than that. These are by far some of the best tournament players in the world and they're Michael's friends and, consequently, my friends as well. When they started watching with six left, Ryan Daut said to me in an instant message...."You are going to win this!!" And he was right. It was so exhilerating when it was over at 4:15AM in the morning. Michael immediately called from Hawaii to tell me how awesome it was and Smokey got on the phone to congratulate me. What a great feeling.

I didn't get to bed until about 5AM...who could sleep after this. I wanted to send emails to Bryan and Liz and Pat and Maryann so they would see them as soon as they turned on their computers in the morning. I knew Bob was getting up at 5:15AM so I just waited for him to arise. He said, "You're still awake?" I said, "I just came to bed...I was playing poker." He said, "On a Thursday night?" I said, "Yeah and I won." His next words were the obvious, "How much?" When I told him, he was speechless.

It's been such a bad year for real estate and every deal I put together is like pulling teeth. So to get this win was so rewarding. I know Liz is wondering just how rewarding it's going to be for her. I'm going to go to Long Island one day next week to go shopping with her and Brady so I guess she'll see at that time just how rewarding it's going to be for her.

So I want to say a special thanks to my boys in Hawaii not only for all their support but also for teaching me how to play this game. Mahalo nui loa!!!