Some nights, when I can’t make it to a card game, I am still thinking about going to card games, fantasizing about it really. Once in a while, to cure the pain, I’ll fire up some poker hand videos on YouTube, and passively play along. One of the things I like to do is search for videos of places I’ve played, I think it makes it easier to imagine being at the table. The other night I was looking at some videos of people playing at Foxwoods and saw in one a guy I’ve played with a bunch at Roger’s getting angry over a hand. He was getting bent out of shape and challenging the guy who (presumably) beat him to a heads up contest. Classic Teddy, I thought with a laugh.

Through this little fixation of mine, I’ve discovered poker vloggers. For the most part, this is a hard act to pull off. Poker on tv is great because of the multiple cameras, even on the whole cards, and the drama of the flop, turn, and river. Contrast this to a guy stuck in traffic en route to some casino in New Jersey talking about how he’s going to play a little more aggressive this afternoon, and it’s easy to see why DYI poker videos are tough to pull off. I was about to just say I’ve had it with these poker vlogs until I stumbled across Andrew Neeme videos on YouTube.

I suppose there’s a chance that if you haven’t slogged through other poker vlogs to get to Neeme’s videos, you won’t have the appreciation for them that I have. In fact, you might be better off without this appreciation, but if you find yourself looking for poker videos online, check this guy out.

Neeme plays mostly 5/10 games in Vegas and California. The videos begin with the standard montage of a guy getting on the road or at home getting ready for a poker game with the difference being the quality in production. Neeme is generous with the atmospheric music, and while I am generally not a fan of that genera, it fits in perfectly with the strolls through the luxurious casino environs on way to the poker tables. You feel like you are there, ready to mix it up, and as invariably seems to happen in Neeme’s videos, win. Most of the videos make it a point to have a shot of him cashing out, which is routinely multiple racks being filled and stacked with pristinely gorgeous poker chips. I find this effect to be intensely cathartic, and I supposed that’s its intention.

The videos generally run a little under twenty minutes, and also feature hand histories. Neeme’s thoughts are coherent and well thought out, but they’re not necessarily going to provide good poker players with anything they aren’t already familiar with via poker books and web forums. I often correctly guess what he’s going to do before he reveals it during the hand history section, and I don’t think I’d stand a chance making a living at Vegas 5/10 games, even if I was rolled for it. There are a few ways to think about this, of course. One, this qualifies more as entertainment than academic. A treatise on triple range merging wouldn’t fit with the overall vibe of the show. I also don’t think it would work with Neeme, who is far more like a friendly older brother showing you around the town than a poker savant. I’m not saying he isn’t a great player, he definitely appears to be in the aforementioned cash out scenes, but having watched a number of these videos now, I have to say that it’s very difficult, if not damn near impossible, to catch even the faintest whiff of arrogance from the guy. His YouTube channel appears to be wildly successful based on the comments and letters he gets from fans, and the biggest factor in this success I would have to imagine is the fact that he’s such a nice guy. You can’t help but like him.

If there’s one drawback to the show, and this is not a big enough one for me to stop watching, but I would say, it does seem at times like there is more to meets the eye with this channel. By that I mean, the recurring motif of waltzing through an immaculately fancy casino, followed up by a quick hand history in which you nod your head along, yes, Andrew, I would have played that exactly the same way has a very seductive “Let’s go to Vegas” quality to it. There are instances where he heads to a bar afterward and it seems keen to let you know where it is, etc. My hunch is, he’s getting paid to promote some of these places. I don’t have any issue with this, good for him, he deserves it. My only issue with it is that it makes it seem like winning big money at poker is just an easy thing to do like being a cool guy with a nice camera, but again, whatever, it’s all about the vicarious fantasy, which this channel delivers really big on.

So, I went to the Crescent Lounge’s new location in Waltham on Friday or Saturday night. I forget. On the very first hand I got pocket tens on the button, and it’s limped to me, so I make it $3 I think. Yeah, it was $3 now that I think about it. Everybody folds except Jeremy, who was in middle position. He three bets me to $10. I start wondering, if he has such a good hand, why isn’t he raising originally? I found it hard to believe that somebody could just originally limp with a better holding than tens. I know it happens, and that people do it, and yes, I’ve been a victim of it before, but I don’t think it happens often. Plus, this kid always wants to teach me a lesson. I know he’d love to turn over a shitty hand after I folded as a way to say, gotcha. He three bet me all in with Jack 4 the first hand I ever played with him. I convinced myself he was going for the 72 offsuit $2 from everybody at the table and so I made it $30. That’s half of my stack. He goes all in, and I call figuring I am probably beat.

That was how the night started. I basically ran even from there on out. The new place is great, Andy has all of his crazy campy Vegas poker-chic on the walls. You really could not expect more from a home game in terms of style. With the neon pink glowing lucite rail glowing off the deer head wearing a green tinted dealer’s visor, on the wall, you’re almost at, not so much a poker game, but a poker carnival.

And isn’t that what you want out of poker, out of life? The chance to roam off of, out of, the quotidian grind and graze on the carnival grounds. Heck, I remember what it was like when the carnival came to my town back in the day. I won a poster of Muhammed Ali punching Ken Norton in the face, causing Norton’s spit to splatter all over the place, and another one of some bikini clad vixen, who I only remember as not being Heather Thomas. Anyhow, due to the half life of Scotch tape, or the advice of my mother, neither poster lasted very long on my bedroom wall, but my point is, that via the carnival, there was this idea that you could get something for nothing, and not only that, but you could get something for nothing while in the arena of flashing lights. Your something for nothing would be celebrated.

That’s kind of what casinos want you to believe, I guess. That the glamor and glitz are there to highlight your new found ability to make money without working for it. You sit around idling pulling a lever, and there’s this possibility, a slim one, but still, that a few thousand dollars in coins, you heard me right, coins, could come spurting out of that glimmering box. Like vomit, am I right?

But you see what I am getting at, right?

I don’t think I do either, to be honest. I think it has something to do with the glamorization of labor, and the degree to which a preoccupation with luxury thwarts or subverts the ability to become what some brave philosopher once referred to as a species being.

Obviously, to answer your question, yes, I am still unemployed! But, I had a job interview at 1pm today. And, yes, that meant that, smarting from my $55 loss from Andy’s this weekend, I went to Twin River this morning thinking, well, since the interview is a phoner, I’ll just do it in the casino parking lot, and catch up on my losses. In case you’re wondering, I won about $100, bringing me up to +$69 on the year so far.

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While I appreciate your drooling envy, please do everybody a favor and wipe your saliva from the above box.

I think the interview went ok. I left the game about 15 minutes too early, probably because I was nervous about it, so I started driving part of the way back, before finding an off the beaten path spot to talk on the phone right before it was supposed to begin. I ended up in a nice spot. There was a pasture with horses in the distance, and the sun was resplendent through the clouds and all that Spring nonsense you get out here in late March. The conversation was somewhat confusing and cut with the sound of passing cars, which took the luster a bit off my new Ben Franklin. Oh well. Maybe 7-7-7 tomorrow.