The Woman Who Broke Me - Part II

In the last issue, I shared with you parts of a personal story that helped me destroy a decent bankroll. I told you about a girl I met whom I called "Delilah." She's a girl who had never even heard of poker, but had an influence on the way I conducted my business - the business of playing poker.

I left off last issue by telling you that I rarely had the opportunity to play poker. I almost had to bargain with her to be able to go and do my job. Of course, as I told you in the last issue, she didn't consider "gambling" at the casino a job. I tried to help her understand how poker works, and although I made some breakthroughs, they were few and far between.

So, I'd go to Bellagio and play all night, knowing that it would be my only opportunity to play that week. I ended up playing too many "tired" hours, which had to have a negative effect on my results. "Playing hours and not results" seemed like an impossible task.

Then, there were the phone calls while I was playing: "When are you coming home? You know I don't like being alone in the house at night."

"I thought I told you before I left that I was going to play all night. I've been here for only two hours!"

"Well, are you winning?"

"Yeah, I'm winning about $5,000 right now."

"Ooh, then why can't you just come home now? What's wrong with $5,000?" It was my mother all over again. My mother had an excuse for me to come home no matter how I was doing. If I told her I was winning, Mommy would say, "Good, that's enough; why don't you take the money and come home now? I made some cabbage rolls, the ones you like."

If I was losing, she'd say, "Well, looks like today is not your day. Why don't you come home and I'll make you some mamaliga (a Romanian dish)?"

If I was even, it would be, "Well, if you see nothing is happening today, you should come home instead of wasting your time there with all that smoke in the room. I made some fresh vinete (eggplant salad). Oh, it's so good." That's Mommy, gotta love her.

Anyway, let's get back to Delilah. As I said, she wasn't a gambler, so she didn't understand the "theory of poker" no matter how hard I tried to explain it.

"Honey, I thought I told you that it doesn't matter how well I'm doing. What matters is that the game is good, and that I'm playing well."

"That's what you always say, and then when you come home, you've always ended up losing $20,000. If you listened to me and quit when I told you to, you'd do much better. Why can't you ever just listen to your girlfriend?"

These phone calls drove me up the wall. Trying to explain to Delilah that this was my job, and I'd been doing it my entire life, was similar to actually banging my head against the wall repeatedly!

Just as Delilah destroyed Samson by cutting off his hair, my Delilah was cutting off my ability to do my business the way I knew I needed to in order to be successful. Of course, she was out of line for behaving this way, but I tried to compromise with her, understanding that she wasn't a gambler, and that it would take time for her to understand and trust that I knew what I was doing. "OK, honey, I'll be home soon." Why was it that every time I said that, I'd lose three huge pots in a row? Actually, it seemed like every time she called, I'd take some horrendous beat. I'm not superstitious, really, but it had me wondering if I should even answer the phone at all after a while!

An hour later, she'd call again. "Honey, where are you? You said you'd be home soon."

"I know I did, but two really bad players just sat down and I can't leave right now." That was a lie probably 90 percent of the time, but, heck, can you blame me?

"Oh, how come you always say that when you are supposed to come home? And how come every time those bad players sit down, you always come home losing $20,000!?"

It was the same routine almost every time I went to Bellagio. Eventually, after playing so sporadically - and losing when I did play - I lost the capital necessary to play in the games I was playing in.

There were other issues with my relationship with Delilah, of course, but those issues aren't appropriate to discuss in this column. I'd prefer to stick to the issues that deal more directly with poker.

So, there I was broke again, and not looking forward to grinding my way out of the hole. In the past - when I'd come to Vegas to play $20-$40 at The Mirage - I'd always been more than willing to put in as many hours as it took to get out of debt. If I owed people money, they could be sure that I was going to work my butt off until I paid them back.

This situation was different, though. As much as I wanted to get in there and work, having Delilah around made it impossible for me to concentrate on doing what I knew was right. The right thing to do was to put my nose to the grindstone and pay off my debts as quickly as possible. Of course, Delilah wouldn't understand that, so I was left with an uncomfortable dilemma.

More on that dilemma in Part III.

Daniel can be reached through his website: www.fullcontactpoker.com.