I'm just a drop in the bucket

The week I got laid off, I was one of 40,000 people to lose their jobs that week all across the country. This week, the one we're in right now, is already worse. Over 71,400 job cuts were announced just today! Um...scary.

AC trip - NOW!

It didn't take long, but succumbed to the devil's siren call.

I'm going to AC tomorrow morning (Sunday, January 25th) and returning sometime on Tuesday morning. Does anyone want to come with me? I'm staying at the Showboat for $50 a night.

Practicalities

When I walked into the conference room to be laid off, there was an HR person sitting there with a folder, my folder, in front of her. I walked in with my boss and she stood up and smiled and extended her hand in greeting.

"Hi Jamie, I'm Shirley. Nice to meet you."

I shook her hand and said, "Wish I could say the same."

The meeting took all of 5 minutes where she went over exactly what I would be getting and gave me my packet of information. When it was over, she said to me, "Don't worry about being able to get all of your contacts or any files off the computer. You'll have plenty of time for that and to say your goodbyes. We won't lock you out for about an hour."

The words rang in my head. An hour. Gee, thanks. I give you three and a half years and you give me an hour? I rushed back to my desk and was greeted by my teammates with sad expressions and condolences. "No time for that right now, I only have an hour" I scrounged up some boxes, packed up my desk and went down to say goodbye to the traders I've been working with for years now. They were all really nice and supportive, but it made me wonder, of course, which of them had a say, if any, in my departure. No time to think about that. Have to rush, rush, rush. I darted back to my computer and prepared to purge it of three and a half years of my personal life. First, all the emails can go. Ok, done. Now, the IM conversation threads. Ok, good. Now, find all the personal files (salary history, resume, performance reviews, etc...) and download them to my key drive. Now delete them from the PC. Great. What else? My mind was swimming. Oh yeah, contacts. I exported all my contacts and memo notes from Outlook to an Excel file and saved them to my key drive before deleting them.

Then out the door I went.

My boss walked me down and made a conciliatory speech about how I shouldn't be a stranger and I should keep in touch, etc... While he was talking, all I could do is look right into his face and remember how he probably had the biggest say in my being the guy to be laid off in our group. So while I don't want to burn bridges, you'll apologize if I don't hug you and cry about how much I'm going to miss you.

Back home, my first thought was to get everything in order. I was now phoneless, after having to give my only phone, the company Blackberry, back to them. I didn't even have a landline. I went to the AT&T store on the corner and within 10 minutes, I had a new Blackberry with a brand new phone number. I spent another few hours setting it up with email and such before I got down to the business of importing my contacts and memos. I downloaded the Blackberry desktop software from the Blackberry website and installed it. It took a while to load it all up but my info came over without a hitch.

Until today when I tried to email someone and found out that NONE of the email addresses had been exported. Are you kidding me? I still had everyone's address and phone numbers, but no email addresses. So I spent a good part of today rebuilding those from other sources, though I'm nowhere near finished.

Tomorrow, I'll think of something else I need to do, I'm sure. There seems to be a ton of little things I have to fix before I can feel I'm in the right sorts again. {Sigh}

Down comes the axe

Well, it happened. Yesterday afternoon, my boss called in my group (all 3 of us) and told us that big layoffs were coming immediately and there was a HUGE chance that our small group of 4 would be smaller come the weekend. Now I'm no stranger to the big corporate game, having been a victim of mass layoffs at Morgan Stanley following 9/11, so I know that reductions of this magnitude don't happen overnight. They take many weeks preparing this sort of thing and the managers involved know in advance who the victims are going to be. During my boss's long speech, he didn't make eye contact with me even once.

And that's how I knew it was going to be me.

Thank my poker skills for picking up on this 'read'. When someone avoids eye contact with you, it's because they don't want you to know something. It's ironic in a way, because I landed this job over a poker table 3.5 years ago and it's my very experience at the poker table that allowed me to figure out I was losing it too.

In the meantime, I got a pretty decent severance package and have a few months to worry about finding more employment. My phone number, which belonged to the company, is now kaput. I ran out to AT&T this afternoon to get a new phone and new number so hit me up with an email if you want my new contact details. I sent out all my contact info to the Wall Street Poker League list, but if I missed you, let me know by commenting.

Thanks to everyone so far who has expressed their condolences via Facebook.

Poker lives on! (And who knows, may be my sole source of income for a while)

New Links and a new gig

I added a link to The Poker Atlas (www.thepokeratlas.com) at the bottom right of the blog screen. Check this site out! It's the most important site I visit when I plan my poker trips. They have a comprehensive (or nearly comprehensive) list of all the live poker rooms in the U.S. and I wouldn't be able to complete my poker quest without them.

Brian, from the site, has engaged me to write for them and I will be doing so for the first time February 6 and 7th when I play in the Mohegan Sun Winter Chill tournament. It's an exciting new side gig and I'm happy to expand my poker writing into legitimate areas other than this blog!

Also, I took off my link to the My Poker Rooms map. This was supposed to be a Google Map filled with data points on all the poker rooms I've been to. But sadly, I've recently discovered that Google puts an annoying limitation of 100 data points on custom maps and I've already been to 120 rooms! Sadly, I'll have to input all the room data into a database and make that database available online when I'm done with it. There should be some interesting data in it.

Also, in other news, there is a really really good shot that I will be unemployed sometime in the next 48 hours. God, I hope I'm wrong about that, but if I'm not, there are going to be some drastic changes in my life. First, I'll certainly have the time to get to all of these little projects I keep talking about, like inputting 120 rooms of data into a database or, maybe, cleaning my closet out. More to the point, I probably won't be able to continue with the Wall Street Poker league simply because it will be very very hard to justify the enormous expense of living in this apartment.

So brace yourselves folks, the end may soon, indeed, be nigh. More updates to come.

Borgata Winter Open - Big Cash

Not by me. :-(

But congrats to Freddy K (A.K.A. FEDOR KHRAPATIN) who cashed for $40,765 in the Borgata Winter Open event #3 last week. Freddy, who made his first appearance at the Wall Street Poker tables just a few weeks ago, was actually my nemesis in my first solo underground poker game in New York. It was at the now defunct Pearl Room, on Pearl Street near where it intersects at Wall Street. The close proximity to my apartment made it ideal for some late night jaunts. I was still green behind the ears at that time, and my nervousness showed. I strolled in, got ID'd and made my buyin at the only table going. Freddy was an intimidating presence at the table and definitely the table captain. I can't recall everything that happened that night except that Freddy called my all in with something like J9o and crushed my QQ.

I went back a few more times, and even cashed in a few sit'n'go tourneys they ran, but I never forgot Freddy's face. It's good to see him do well (from someone other than me!).

Congrats!

January Quote of the month (so far)

I was explaining to Ali, a poker novice, how I got knocked out of a large MTT just out of the money because I had a shortish stack and I committed myself to a hand that I didn't want to give up. She said:

"Better to give up the hand than give up the tourney"

Could it be crystallized any better?!?

I go for the safety!

A recent article says that Las Vegas casinos (and presumably all casinos) are the safest place to be in case you have a heart attack.

That could explain why the buffets are like they are...

Great start to the year!

If I had just whomped the .50/1 NLHE cash game on Tuesday...it would have been enough.
If I had only hosted and dealt a spectacularly successful 1/2 NLHE game tonight...it would have been enough.
If I had only gotten a few new regular cash game players...it would have been enough.
If I had only taken 1st in an Omaha H/L Limit sit'n'go on Full Tilt...it would have been enough.
If I had only seen that my sit'n'go ROI is hovering over 90% for my last 12 sessions...it would have been enough.

But no, I got all of these things in one week. It is absolute BLISS to be running good, in poker and in life.

Crushed the cash game

Tonight's .50/1 NLHE game was mine. I owned it. Make that pwned it. Of course, like any other good poker session, I was helped out by a couple of fortuitous hands. My AA, which I raised $4 pre-flop, only to get 5 callers, flopped AK7, rainbow. I led out for $10 and got a raise to $20. I smooth called, after all the other folks had dropped out. Turn was another King. I pondered how to get all of his money in the pot, but I needn't have worried. He had K7!!! I bet out, he bumped big, at which point I knew he had a good King and pushed all in. He called and saw the bad news though he was still drawing live at the end, but missed.

My other hand, I was feeling saucy in a multi-way pot with 3c4c. Stephen P. raised to $7 PF and got two callers ahead of him. I came along, hoping to flop big, of course. One other person called for a $35 pot PF and the flop was Ac-2c-2h. I had the flush draw and the wheel draw. Stephen P. bet $20. I was the only caller. Turn was a blank. He bet $30. At this point, the pot is $75, so $30 is light and I'm getting about 3-1 to make the call (not counting implied odds on the river) for 12 clean outs, which is just exactly the right pot odds for me to call. I do call and the river is the 6c. I know he has a good King and I try to make it look like I'm making a bad bet to buy the pot. I bet $35. He ponders, but pays me off and is understandably pissed that I called on the draw. He didn't realize I had the straight to go with the flush, though he said out loud when he was pondering the river call that that might have been what I had. Either way, sorry Steve, but you bet too lightly on the turn. If you bet pot there, I can't call unless I'm a serious gambler, and it's pretty obvious I'm not (normally).

So I had a very good session and it was my first live session for the new year. $100 buyin = $424 cashout for a nice start to the year!