A Perfect Week Off

I've just had the perfect downtime between Vegas sessions. For most of my 9 days off, I've given up alcohol, surfed every day, and played very little cards. For the first time since the Panama trip I feel like I have insight into the financial markets and I've had a huge week, with my losing sugar and cotton positions bouncing back to even. Feeling frisky, I've shorted oil 3 times and been right each time. Yes, Oil! My family, and everyone else I talk to think I must be nuts to short oil here, but this only increases my conviction.

I played three short poker sessions and won every time. Yesterday, Sam, one of Zane's friends wanted to see how poker worked so I fired up a heads-up 100-200 limit hold'em session and won the first 8 hands! Ten minutes later I quit up $3000, wondering what impact this has on the three 15 year-olds watching me. Update: He's been begging me to sign him up for an account and give him lessons ever since.

Saturday we're getting close enough to my return date things start to fall apart a little. I drink a couple of scotches watching Tiger's epic US Open performance, ending with a really lucky birdie and an eagle to take the lead. Dana's cooked my favorite dinner (sausage and salmon over beans and kale) and the Chardonnay flows freely. Afterwards a few sips of tequila suddenly seems warranted. Obviously, I'm in no condition to play cards, but there's surely no harm in checking my Bloomberg to see how the Nikkei is trading and whether my oil short is working.

Next thing you know I'm playing two simultaneous games of 100-200 limit hold'em, one of them heads-up and one of them four-handed. It's not going well, so I sit down first at a couple of 200-400 tables. Next thing I know, a couple well-known pros sit down at each table. The now-trivial 100-200 games are suddenly both infinitely boring and totally distracting, so I leave. Not too much happens for a while and then I get hot on both tables simultaneously. For a half an hour I can do no wrong, and when the dust settles I have not only won back the $10,000 I was losing but $27,000 more. And although I have won over $20,000 several times, this is my absolute best poker night ever!

These circumstances take a little while to digest. The next morning I double-check my Pokerstars account to make sure it's real. I download the hand histories and study them for a few hours, checking to see how well I played (pretty well, but I got darned lucky). Even now, two days later, I still have difficulty reconciling that night's events, and the fact that that is my best win ever seems to make a mockery out of a poker career I take some pride in.

I know better than to press my luck, and I am on my best behavior for the rest of my week off. Now, on the evening prior to my departure, I am rested and ready. Between the poker and the commodities trading I am up nearly $50,000. Now if only I could get this lucky in Vegas!