I hate myself. And I hate ThreeUp.

So much for winning a WPT seat.

It's 9pm and I just got home. I haven't been home for 24hours. Of course that means I missed every Sunday tournament imaginable - all the big guarantees, the big overlays, the 50k freeroll and of course the only tournament I cared about - Winter Championship main event.

Last night was the birthday of one of my best friends and per our usual norm that means a lot of drinking, partying and debauchary. Yesterday I left the house nearly immediately after I had finished typing up the previous blog post. I woke up at 2:43pm on my friends couch, half nude, with a strange but cute and fully nude girl next to me.

Let me rephrase that, I was woken up at 2:43pm by the smooth melody of the Sopranos theme song - it's what I use for a ringtone on my NEXTEL. Barely understanding where I was or what I was doing there, I flipped open the phone and heard the following:

"Jay, you have 17 minutes to register for the winter championship tournament."
"What? Who is this?"
"It's wong. Register for the tournament."

Suddenly, I understood where I was. Quickly realizing I was about to throw away a WPT seat, BELIEVE THAT CAUSE I WAS WINNING THIS THING, I stumbled around the mess of passed out bodies to look for some sort of a computer while simultaneously calling ThreeUp in hope of him registering me.

"You've reached Mr.Diamond, stripper extraordinaire. Please leave a message after the tone."
Redial.
"You've reached Mr.Diamond, retard extraordinaire. Please leave a message after the tone."
Redial.
"You've reached Mr.Diamond.." Click.

Wouldn't you know it, not only did the jerk not answer his phone but he didn't register himself either. Awesome.

In a scurry to download the software, run the update and register for the tournament...I almost made it. And by almost, I mean I didn't make it at all and nearly threw someone elses laptop through a window.

Why the hell are there no late registrations possible? Better yet, why the hell does the tournament start at 3pm?! Why not the usual 6? Unbelievable. On Saturday they started at 3. Fine. I can understand...but on Sunday? Who's the fool who came up with that start time? Does he or she not realize that people go out on saturday night more than on any other night and usually get home either at the crack of dawn or later? Then there are some of us who pass out at other peoples apartments and need some time to sleep off the alcohol intake? I seriously thought it started at 6 and had my phone set for alarm for 4:45pm - ample time to get home, take a cold shower and win a WPT seat.

After failing to register, I wished wong goodluck and went to finish whatever liqour was left over from last night.

It's a funny thing - I got into poker as a way to escape some of my wilder drinking and partying and it worked out for a bit...but now, poker is getting in the way of my drinking and partying. Ironic, isn't it?

I really didn't mean to get that deep into my personal life because, while it would probably be a better read than whining about sucking in tournaments or how much of a jerk ThreeUp is, it's a tad over the top and would probably offend and shock 95% of readers. And besides, I'm saving it for a book.


- A very irritated Jay