Julie summed things up and straightened them out for me so easily last night that I'm almost embarrassed that I didn't figure it out myself sooner. "You can't live scared." So freaking simple, and yet so true. Guess I was stuck in a bit of a depressed funk yesterday and couldn't see that at the time. But I do know, and feel a bit better for it.

Helping this out was going out to play poker with some friends last night. And let's face it, doing well in poker (or anything that you enjoy) and having a few beers is a great way to relax and let some of those negative feelings slip away. I finished second last night, and all I can say is that I'm half convinced that the river should be outlawed. If it wasn't for getting three outed on the river a little before the end of the night, I would have easily cleaned house and won the whole thing. But three outers happen (at least 2 or 3 other times that night to me. Not that I'm still a bit annoyed by them), and I've certainly had my share of three outing people (but it's never as bad when you're the one doing the outting, right? lol). So I guess I can't complain too much. However, I do have one thing that I can complain about:

What kind of lowlife idiot cheats at a free poker game?

Well, as it turns out, a very drunk one at our table last night. This idiot, whose name I never got, so I have nicknamed Drama Jr. (Drama got kicked out of Badger Poker for cheating a year or so back) was already annoying our whole table before he got caught. He was talking a lot of shit, and kept hitting the leg of the table so people's drinks were getting sloshed and spilled all over the place. You know that kind of drunk guy. To make his reputation worse, we find out that he's dating the most obnoxious, loudmouthed, annoying blond idiot at BP. They're a perfect match made in hell. I just hope they don't breed, because I'd hate to see what the demonic spawn of those two would be like. But I digress... So we just come back from a break and DJ (Drama Jr.) has the deal. As he grabs the cards, he even draws attention to himself by saying "I stacked the deck while you guys were away from the table at break, so I'll just shuffle a little more." As he starts to shuffle, he drops the cards on his lap. He picks them up, glances around a bit, and says "yup, that's all of them" and starts to deal.

When the action gets around to Tony, who was seated next to DJ, Tony looks over at him and says "stand up!" DJ sputters and makes some noise and eventually says no. We're all confused at this point, but Tony kept on him, and then adds in "Stand up. You've got two cards under your leg. Stand up and show everyone." So now that we know where this is going, some of us stand up and surround DJ in his chair. Drama Jr goes "I'm not standing up. Fine, here, I'll fold. See, now I'm done. I'm out of the hand." as he tosses the cards in front of him into the muck. But at this point, none of us are going to let up on him until we see if Tony was right or not. And truth be told, we were all believing Tony, even though we hadn't seen anything yet. When DJ sees that we're not going to let him off the hook, he then shoves all of his chips in the middle and says "fine, I quit. Here, take all my chips, I quit, I'm done." A few of us are trying to get Scotty's (the guy who runs BP) attention to come over and help deal with this. I pull DJ's chips aside so they don't mix with what's already in there, and when Drama Jr sees Scott coming over, he says again "I quit, take my chips, I'm done. I fold" and he suddenly throws two more cards into the muck. I didn't see him pull them from under his leg, but I most definitely saw the second set of cards get tossed into the muck by this loser.

Of course he doesn't just leave. He stomps around for the next half hour, and any time his path takes him near Tony he starts getting all pissy and curses at him. I was starting to get to the point of hoping this idiot would throw a punch so I'd have an excuse to jump in and take a shot at him myself. I'm not one to start fights or throw the first punch, but if someone else does, I have no problems whatsoever in finishing them. Luckily for Drama Jr, he never got dumb enough to actually take a swing, even though you could see that he wanted to. For his efforts there last night, he's been banned for at least the next month, and hopefully much longer.

All of this at a free game. Nothing on the line except some points that if you get enough of you get to play in an invite only tournament. Oh, I forgot that you get a pint glass for making the final table. Yeah, that's worth cheating for. (insert sarcastic look here) Yup, for those elusive points, this idiot has permanently gotten himself labeled as a cheat, and won't be able to get a game with anyone at BP. I'm reminded at this point of George Carlin, who said "Think about how dumb the average person is, and then realize that half the people out there are dumber than that!" This idiot is definitely pulling down the curve.