Piss off, Kenny Rogers

I need to begin this missive by letting you know that I'm not a gambler. Not really.

Yet, at the chili cook-off at Dave's on Saturday, I didn't make it much past the first break after Timmuh! called my semi-bluff all-in for half his stack with a gutshot and what proved to be an over. (K-J vs. J-10 on a flop of Q-9-x.) Yeah. I concede it was an iffy play. But there was enough dead money in the pot that I would have nearly doubled up. Should have known better. It was Timmuh!

We started up a $1/1 table and doubled my buy-in fairly quickly before an eight-handed 8-game table formed. ($3/$6, $150 max). You've got to love the CPMG, where degeneracy reigns supreme. We had 58 runners for a $50 tournament, two full $1/$1 NL tables and 8-game -- with a waiting list.

While the skeptics insisted that 8-game was a fad that wouldn't last, it's been running every Saturday night for nearly two months straight. Apparently props aren't going away either. I hate props.

When my fellow 8-game players asked if I would be participating in the night's prop-bet action, I begged off. That's when I was told that Data, the only person in the world I thought had less gamble than me, would be taking a card. Reluctantly, I succumbed to peer pressure and paid the price.

The card you chose had to appear on the flop or as a door card -- $3 a man for each hit. While everyone else was hitting their cards, the fucking 5 of hearts went Osama on me. Totally Unfindable. It cost me $70, which wiped away my modest 8-game profit and generally pissed me off.

Again, I should have known better. I'm really not a gambler.

(My chili finished third among the nine entries. Diablo won with a pretty good mix. Doug Poker finished second -- with nine cans of Chunky Roadhouse chili. Too funny.)