Maudie at PokerWorks

And so I bid PokerWorks farewell. The last eight months has been a fantastic ride over here. I’ve been challenged to put my best writing foot forward and crank out content a few times a week - and I’ve learned that this ain’t easy, folks. If I didn’t already have respect for those who do this for a living day after day, my respect now is huge.

My undying thanks to Linda for having faith and giving me the chance. You will always be aces in my book, lady! Linda’s the engine that keeps this neck of the poker blogging world running and I wish her and the PokerWorks crew nothing but the best.

I’ve packed up and have headed back to my home - Poker Perspectives - and after a brief respite, I’ll be cranking away again over there. I’ll leave you with just a bit more of Atlantic City (you only thought that tale was done, hah!).

To wind this marathon report up, I leave you with one last little tale.

The next day after the Borgata session, I dipped my toes briefly into the Atlantic, strolled down a portion of the boardwalk and ogled the thousands of people at the shore for a beautiful Labor Day weekend on the beach. Did I join them? Nope. The rest of the day found me firmly planted in the four-seat of a 1.2 no-limit table at Caesar’s.

It was a far more subdued table than the night before, however they did have one thing in common - a chip architect. He sat in the nine-seat and looked like he’d been there for a few days. Another twelve hours later, he was still there and I only saw him leave the table once. Stoic, and tight is all I can say about him.

Not so a gent who landed in the seat to my right at some point in the evening. He wasn’t a particularly good player - always short stacked and in a lot of hands. He had an accent I couldn’t quite place until we found ourselves in conversation with each other.

He was from Dublin, Ireland and had been in the states - New York City, to be specific - for only a month. He was an electrician.

“You make good money as an electrician in New York?” I queried.

“Hell, ya could be sweepin’ the floor and be makin’ good money in New York,” he replied. His lilt was refreshing, his attitude, well, forgive me, leprechaun-ish. A delight.

I was struggling this session - swimming up-stream against a school of bad beats and bad card playing (on my part), constantly worried about my diminishing stack. My Irish friend, however, was doing even worse, but it never soured his attitude. When the flop appeared, he had an endearing habit of saying “Oh, I hit that. But, a wee bit.”

One particular hand I will forever remember. Not for the cards that were played, but for how Dublin finessed it. He was down to less than fifty dollars in  his stack. He was heads up with the chip architect who was sitting on about eleven to twelve-hundred. Chip architect had just put in a big bet, Dublin paused for a long while, fiddled with his chips, and then with impeccable timing said:

“How much ya’ got?”

For nano-second both the dealer and the chip architect made the motion to count before the rest of us cracked up. Dublin threw in his few chips. I honestly don’t remember if he won the pot, but let’s just say he did. After that, I loosened up and quit worrying so much about my stack size. I downed a couple of screw-drivers and enjoyed the rest of the session.

I ended up winning that night - both in money and in experience. Experience from the whole weekend, too. Another leg in this journey I’ve been on since 2003. I’ve met so many different people from so many different walks of life. It’s been nothing less then wonderful. You tell me, how often does a person get to experience that?

I’m one of the lucky ones. If only a wee bit.

It was born out of a session of intercourse mid-June. “Let’s do it” was the only motivation required. It ran contrary to my usual modus operandi which is one of care, consideration, detailed analysis, planning, budgeting, and thorough research. Which, come to think of it, is probably why I remain single with only a couple of fur-balls to keep my toes warm at night…

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