Wandering Skanks of Las Vegas, I apologize.

There’s a lot of dead money at the tables now, players who watch a little poker on TV and think that they’ve got hold 'em figured out. Generally, these players lose and lose and lose. Then they break for dinner and come back later, when the losing and losing and losing resumes. I love these people because, even if I don’t get a taste of their money, they leave it behind and it’s out there to get. Amen.

Tattooed Applebee’s Server Guy With Probably Too Much Gel in His Hair, wherever you are, spread your wings and fly.

Today I decided that, since we were all in the game (of poker and of life) together, I was going to call everybody “bro.” Here's an actual sentence that I uttered : “Can I get some ketchup, bro?” To the guy who gave me my order at McDonald’s, where I ate twice a day.

Las Vegas for five days. Forty-one hours of poker. Free food. Freeway driving at two in the morning. Watching Cloutier play in the $5,000 buy-in no-limit at the World Series of Poker and win it all. What did he win? $600,000. The whole experience was great, and the homies and I are going back in about three weeks.

I made some pretty funny jokes, but most of them were pretty off-color, and I felt cheap and dirty (but not in a good way) afterward. I seem to recall something about my being willing to poke an old lady in the eye for a pair of aces.

What happened, transpired, went down? There’s no gentle way to say this: my big bro beat the fuck out of me, almost as if we were little kids again and I had pissed him off.

It’s pretty clear: all my fancy poker learnin’ isn’t doing it anymore. No matter what techniques and strategies I use, I’m not winning the big pots like I used to. It’s time to put the books away. New poker strategy? Get them drunk.

Last night, Burt kept his pimp hand strong, and he kept us in check the entire game. Every time one of us got uppity, he put the smack down with a quickness.