Me: The girls.

Her: What girls?

Me: The groupies who’s asses I’m supposed to do lines of coke off of.

She just smiled politely and I went to bed in my room a short time later.

The next day was the “Celebrity” Poker Tournament. Nothing against the efforts of the casino. It raised a lot of money to combat Muscular Dystrophy. But when you start out by qualifying me as a celebrity, you’ve already set the bar pretty low.

The most famous people there were Gervase and Johnny Fairplay from Survivor. Fairplay is somewhat famous for being a douche and can I just tell you? He is without a doubt the Douchiest Douche in all of Doucheland.

The remains of the celebrities consisted of people who are famous to people in Oklahoma, but elsewhere the mention of their name earns a blank stare.

They had the guy who was the fire marshal during the Oklahoma City bombing and a couple of professional bull riders.

The players at my table were very nice to me. They introduced themselves and asked what it was like to be a comedian and they asked if I knew how to play poker. I told them the truth which is that I play in a weekly game and online but I’m not very good and fully expected to be the first person at the table to go out.

They responded that it seemed like something that a really good poker player would say. They thought I was bluffing at being a shitty player. They were about to call my bluff.

The tournament began and I was folding everything. I was playing very conservatively because although I knew I had no shot at winning, I wanted to avoid embarrassing myself.

Another comedian from the show was also playing in the tournament and we had agreed that whichever of us went out first would have to by lunch for us both.

Every player started with three thousand dollars worth of chips and after two hours I was down to about 1500. I looked over at the other comedian and he was sitting on about five thousand. It was looking like lunch was going to be on me.

A bull rider went all in and lost. As he walked past my table with his giant belt buckle and ten gallon hat I remarked sympathetically,

“Hey, at least you lasted longer than 8 seconds, right?”

Which earned a laugh from the people at my table and a resentful glare from the bull rider.

They had a waitress who was delivering drinks and figuring I had nothing to lose, I ordered a beer from her. When I went to pay her, she stopped me and told me that drinks were free for celebrities. I asked her to let me know if she saw one.

The players at the table raised their eyebrows at me because their drinks weren’t free and they weren’t thrilled about it. I shrugged sheepishly and the game continued.

They brought out a free food buffet for everyone and some of the guys at my table availed themselves of it. It was pretty ordinary fare consisting of meatballs and chicken wings.

I was invited to the V.I.P. area, which was far superior. When I walked in the room they pointed me toward a table that had a guy who was making sushi rolls and cutting pieces of filet mignon. I haven’t eaten meat in over a year but the steak proved too enticing to resist. I wolfed down two steaks.

When I returned to the table the other players had guessed what I had for lunch and they were less than thrilled at my lunch compared with their own.

Guys who had been my friend an hour before were now glaring at me with resentment.

I had downed a few more beers and was becoming a little bored and my chip stack was noticeably small. My comedian friend had just gone out of the tournament and he walked over to my table and said it was time to go get some food that he would be paying for.

I shrugged and started to play fast and loose. I was going all in with hands like jack nine off suit, in an effort to go out and be done with it. That’s when a weird thing started to happen.

I started winning.

A weird combination of the fact that I didn’t care about losing and that I was getting ridiculously good cards was what caused me to have about eight thousand in chips before I knew it.

What was earlier barely masked resentment from my fellow players was now open hostility. These guys fucking hated me.

These were guys who actually play poker for a living. They go from town to town playing in poker touraments and that’s how they pay rent. Here comes some punk kid who thinks he’s a celebrity, eating filet mignon and sushi while drinking free beer and going all in with crappy cards!

It had started out as ten guys playing cards and it turned into nine guys playing against one little shit. They couldn’t wait to take me out and I didn’t blame them a bit. I felt awful but I kept getting amazing cards. I was taking out players with every hand.

It was like watching the Discovery Channel

I finally wound up going out #60 in a tournament that started with 250 players. Believe me, it was dumb luck that I lasted that long. I’m just not that smart.

All in all it was a really fantastic weekend. It was like some bizarre fantasy camp where I got to pretend that I was a really funny rock star who was an ace at poker.

Minus the groupies and the coke.

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