Tales from a Home Game, What I Did on My Summer Vacation

In honor of Card Player College not paying me to write any columns over the summer, I decided to play hardball and not have the home game. All right, that's not true. I spent the summer at the World Series of Poker again, working for Card Player. This time I was producing videos. We had a couple that went over pretty well, and a few that didn't. But while all the readers of Card Player College got to go home for the summer, I was actually away from home, and therefore the "Bellagi-Joe" was closed down for a few months. Now while I could be using this space to tell you about going to Pure with John Phan, waking up on the floor of Gavin Smith's house, or spending $5,000 of an unnamed pro's money at the Spearmint Rhino, my editor tells me this column is about the "home game" and not about jean-jamming with a stripper on FullTilt's dime. So, for now, until I get the green light for another column that will probably get me excommunicated from the poker world, I will instead give a rundown of the two home games in which I participated this summer:

Since most of us were living in hotels all summer, a "home" game will be considered any game that doesn't take place on a casino floor, or online.

Home Game No. 1
WPT Kickback Invitational

Location: Suite at THEhotel at Mandalay Bay

Game: No-limit hold'em

Buy-in: $100

Summary: Before the start of the WSOP, I attended the WPT Mandalay Bay Poker Championship event to get a head start on some of the videos. Every night, a couple of high rollers who were trying to get some of the players to sign on for a business deal had this massive suite at THEhotel where they unfailingly would have an open bar, and as much sushi and cocktail shrimp as I could fit in my pockets. There was inevitably a freezeout every night.

The only one I participated in was a small single-table tournament with some WPT staff members and a few others. Of course all these high rollers wanted to have a $100 freezeout, which made me absolutely sick. However, I had just won $100 off of Joe Sebok, when he exclaimed, "$100 to whoever can name who sings this song!" The song was "I Just Died in Your Arms Tonight," by, duh, Cutting Crew. I was giddy at the thought of being able to buy myself a massage from "Chastity" who had for some reason chosen my Honda Civic to leave her name, phone number, and photo. But, since it was found money, I didn't really have a choice, and I was forced to donate it as my buy-in.

I know there were a couple of WPT crew members who played, as well as Kenna James's agent, I think, but as a result of what had transpired immediately before the tournament, I will run down the players' names as follows: Jäger, Jäger, Joe Sebok, Scott Huff, Jäger, Sabina Gadecki, Alex Henriquez, Jäger.

Sabina is the new hostess of the World Poker Tour, and I was having a grand ol' time giving her some pointers on how to play, until Sebok started throwing around his "Hey, did you know I'm a professional poker player?" routine. I immediately threw out my business card indicating that I worked for a television show. Then Joe took out his business card - a 10-inch wad of $100 bills. I think I was the clear winner.

Huff ended up making a straight flush on the first hand, knocking out two people and sufficiently feeding his ego for the rest of the tournament.

A little while later, Sebok raised. I was sitting to his left, and since he had been raising with junk all night, I reraised all in with A-Q. He called with Q-5. The board doesn't really even matter here, does it? We all know I was promptly ejected from the tournament. That's why he's a pro.

Eventually Sebok and Huff took on each other heads-up. In a miraculous twist of fate where the rich didn't get richer, Huff ended up taking Sebok out and taking down the fairly large prize pool.

This was probably the worst kind of home game imaginable. Everyone was drunk. Blinds went up when people remembered it, and I was playing against people who both didn't care about the money and are ridiculous luckboxes (Huff). Interestingly enough, three of the six original members of my home game were in attendance. I couldn't help but be a little proud about that.

Highlight: Sabina Gadecki took both my and Sebok's business cards and went home to call her boyfriend.

Home Game No. 2
The Rich Belsky Invitational

Location: Card Player College Editor-in-Chief Rich Belsky's house

Game: No-limit hold'em

Buy-in: $30

Summary: At the start of the World Series of Poker, Card Player's Rich Belsky had a barbecue at his house to welcome the Card Player staff, including this year's batch of new interns. It was a good time. Mike Matusow showed up and I was immediately able to determine which interns I was going to hate, and which ones I was going to be able to tolerate.

My table was an absolute mess. People were misdealing and acting out of turn. It's a difficult thing to have a poker game with people who supposedly work above and below you. Poker is a game of wiseasses, goading, putting people on tilt, and so on. I didn't like interns doing it to me, and I'm sure my bosses didn't like the mouth I had on me either.

I think out of 29 people I was eliminated in 28th place, so that was a pretty good showing for me. Now, I wasn't about to sit around Belsky's house waiting for a three-table tournament to finish with little or no attention paid to me, so I tried to book a little action on the side.

Two Card Player reporters, Alex Henriquez and Matt Story, were still in the game, and I was able to buy half of each of them for half their buy-ins. At this point, I was into Belsky's game for $60. Story busted on the bubble, but Henriquez ended up making a deal at the final table, scoring me $55. Net loss $5. I could handle that.

All in all, it was a decently run home game, considering that I'm sure Belsky wasn't used to hosting three-table tournaments, and also considering that most of these jabronis were welcomed to their first day of a new job with gambling and free booze.

Highlight: This has nothing to do with poker, but after getting busted in about 27th place, Scott Huff went on a 22-match winning streak in Fight Night on the 360. Belsky's roommates offered anyone 2-to-1 on Belsky against Huff. They each lost $40.

I have to wrap this up, because I'm late for dinner with Daniel Negreanu and after that we're heading out to Lee Watkinson's birthday party. But in closing, while the summer was cool, I missed my home game. As fun as it was to hang out with the people that I did, it wasn't the same as playing in my regular Sunday game. Singing karaoke with Gavin Smith and getting bottle service with Erick Lindgren couldn't even compare to the good times shared with my good friends on my patio. In the end, I really missed … um … those guys. I'm not going to lie. I can't really remember any of "those guys" names at the moment, but I'm pretty sure one of them is named Mike or something.