The Poker Business

The Poker Business was simple. It was co-owned by Lil Mac and myself. He would call me whenever he woke up and simply say, "you want to go to work." I would haul my mangy ass out of bed and walk over to his house (we lived in the same complex, remember). We would sit at his computer, close the door and sign on to Poker Stars under his name and begin playing.

We discussed every hand and rarely argued about the final decisions. Whoever was sitting at the main chair at the time, doing the mouse-clicking, had the final say on 50-50 decisions. We took turns sitting at the main chair. We split all the profit at the end of the day and sent the money via my own Poker Stars account. If we lost on the day, I sent some back. We ate frozen chicken nuggets for breakfast lunch and dinner, took No-Doze when needed and drank lots of water. J.P. quit his day job. It was perfect. We would often play from about 10 a.m. to 5 a.m. with breaks after large hands or headaches. The consumption of time of this Poker Business occurred much to the dismay of our friends, who were often partying outside of our door. We were called names which I would rather not repeat. Often, some of them would come into the room and watch as the stakes got higher and higher. It was fairly exciting. We were involved in $300 pots on many occasions and won more than we lost. We were more hooked than ever before, and the home game was all but obsolete by a month into our spring semester.

We remained friends with Gus and he, too, began playing online poker using his Bodog gambling account. At parties, Gus, Lil Mac and I would discuss strategy. It was around this time that I invented my patented move: The Top Gun.