Play It Once, Sam -- For Old Times' Sake

Mr. Simpson, this is the most blatant case of fraudulent advertising since my suit against the film "The Never-Ending Story".
--Lionel Hutz

In March 2006, Signor Ferrari invited all of the regulars to shuffle up and deal "one last time" at the Blue Parrot. Coach, Joel, Marie, Chugarte, Pauly, Ferrari and I played into the wee hours of the night, toasting yet another home game gone belly up. At the time, I wrote, "God willing, we'll all meet again at The Blue Parrot II (The Search For More Money)."

God willed it. Over a year later, the Blue Parrot was back in business, at least for one night, at a new location, with a few new faces. We assembled for a Stud/8 tournament to give Coach some practice before he heads to the WSOP to take on the pros and the donkeyfish in the $1,000 Stud/8 tournament. The seating draw was as follows:

Seat 1: Chugarte, married since the last Blue Parrot game, with frequent phone calls from his wife asking him when he was coming home to prove it;
Seat 2: Joaquin "the Rooster" Ochoa, a cagey mofo;
Seat 3: Newcomer Mike, who Ferrari met in an underground poker club in NYC. Seriously Ferrari, we're inviting ringers to the game now?
Seat 4: yours truly, the classiest, most refined (not to mention ruggedly handsome) player at the table;
Seat 5: Coach, ready to take home a bracelet and playing the less-funny foil to Chugarte's rapier wit;
Seat 6: Dawn "Key" Summers, fresh from making up after her lover's spat with her co-blogger (we hear they're back to their old scissoring ways);
Seat 7: Derek, spotted chain-smoking cigarettes outside of the Blue Parrot before the tournament started in a desperate attempt to ingest enough nicotine to get him sanely through three hours of hearing Dawn Summers say "Huh? What's the bet? Doesn't matter, I call";
Seat 8: Signor Ferrari, the proprietor

Making a special guest appearance in the box was none other than Brooklyn's own version of Annie Duke, Mary. We attempted to conference in one of the Blue Parrot's regular patrons, Dr. Pauly, but he was too busy covering some itty-bitty tournament series in Las Vegas to fuck around with us little people.

Now, whatever else you may read about the stud/8 tournament on other sites, Dawn Summers did NOT win the tournament. Despite her "did does" calling station ways, she had the slimmest of chip leads when we got to 3-handed play. The stack sizes were roughly: Dawn - 3600; Newcomer Mike - 3400; me - 1400, thanks in part to a disastrous hand when I chased on fourth instead of folding, only to get myself absolutely clusterfucked when I made a flush, no low on the river, Dawn made a boat, no low on the river, and Chugarte made a low on the river. Oy. Since the tournament was intended to be primarily for Coach's benefit, and he went out in 8th place (we're all expecting big things from you at the WSOP after last night's showing!), a chop based on chip equity was proposed. All agreed. While Dawn was in the chip lead, she "won" nothing except the right to have me stack her with my mind TWICE in the .50/1.00 NLHE cash game that followed, and the right to be absolutely ridiculed for her calling station ways and total luckbox donkery.

Seeing her on tilt after the second stacking was totally worth the price of admission, which after playing like a jackhole in the cash game amounted to $45. Here's looking at you, kid!