Originally published July 1, 2007.

After my amazing victory in the demolition derby, I went and played poker with Joe Robinson and his buddies. Joe is an excellent poker player but he has one giant tell. Whenever he’s bluffing he puts in his mouthpiece. Other than that he’s impossible to read. I figured I was running lucky that day so my chances were good. Wrong answer. All my luck was used up in the Derby. I got roughed up pretty good. Joe was kind enough to show me a little mercy so I was able to salvage the night a little and only ended up losing 110 bucks. I got unlucky several times but I also didn’t play well at all. I think my problem was that I wasn’t drinking or eating junk food. I have been trying to lose weight doing the low carb thing here recently and if ever there was a night to cheat this was it. There was free pizza available, free beer, free pretzels, free chips, free cookies, free candy and I said no to all of it. What did I splurge on? The free squares of cheese! Part of me say’s that’s responsible of you Rob, but a larger part of me says that’s pretty fucking lame of you. Cheese when you could have had pizza and chocolate chip cookies? Diet Coke when you could have had Heineken? It’s real hard to be intimidating at the poker table while sucking down Diet Cokes and niblets of cheese. My table image was that of a nine-year-old boy with diabetes. Not quite KGB from ‘Rounders’. I deserved to get my ass handed to me that night. I won’t make that mistake next time I play poker with those guys. I’m drinking Jim Beam straight out of the bottle with a beef jerky chaser. We’ll see if they outflop my pocket kings then.