Avalanche
- Puddnhead
- 15 hours ago
- 11 min read
Wednesday
Nico whined the whole ride over to the Roberto's house in Saint Paul. He had hated car rides ever since I adopted him a year and a half earlier. Always excited to hop in the car. Always alarmed once the vehicle began moving.
I had been looking for someone to adopt Nico ever since I returned from the WPT Championship in December. Now that I was traveling half the year for poker I didn't think I could make it work as a bachelor dog owner. Boarding him all the time was expensive for me and stressful for him.
Roberto was an old friend from high school who had offered to adopt Nico. We were introducing Nico to their family's other dog. Then they would decide if they wanted to adopt him.
The Rodriguez home seemed perfect to me for Nico. Morty and Nico started playing immediately. They were both about the same age - Morty 18 months and Nico closer to 2 years. They had a big fenced in backyard with a forest behind them. How was this Saint Paul?
I hadn't seen Roberto in a long time. We shared stories about old high school friends. He also told me a story about an interaction I had forgotten. Apparently when he was interning at a local hospital he intubated me when I went in for surgery on my knee! They put me under afterward and I never remembered seeing him.
Nowadays Roberto is a fire captain. Which he thought made his house a good place to house relatives of his who were being targeted by ICE.
Roberto and his sisters are American citizens who were born in the United States. I think their dad is Mexican and their mom is German. Which in the USA growing up made them Mexican.
His youngest sister Theresa had married a Mexican who did not have citizenship. He was working legally in the United States - I guess he was a permanent resident - and had been for 10 years. But since ICE sent thousands of agents to Minnesota their family had become a target.
ICE agents had been following Theresa's car. Once they knocked on her door and when she answered they just said "nice car" and laughed and left. They had found footprints in the snow outside their windows. Roberto wanted his sister's family to stay at his place until the ICE terror abated. He thought that if ICE raided his house "the headline would write itself" due to his position as a fire captain.
Because he was expecting refugees he told me it would probably be a couple weeks before they were ready to adopt Nico. I suggested they take the night to discuss it and get back to me. I left not knowing if this was going to be Nico's new home.
The "Big Stack Avalanche" - a $500 2-day poker tournament - was just starting at Running Aces. After I brought Nico home I still had time to go late reg Day 1A. I needed something to occupy my mind anyway.
I arrived with a few levels of registration left. I don't have any notes from this Day 1 besides that I fired 3 bullets. I bagged a small stack on the third try so I guess it went okay.
The weekend forecast showed highs below zero and lows in the -20 range. So I was at least pleased to not be driving up to Aces every night the rest of the week.
Thursday
I was on my computer reviewing the poker hands from my Biloxi trip when I got a call from Roberto. He and his wife Naomi had decided they would love to adopt Nico.
Also Theresa's family had decided not to flee their house and hunker down at Roberto's. They hadn't done anything wrong and were just going to deal with whatever happened. So Nico could move in right away. Like tomorrow.
I had tried mentally preparing myself for all contingencies. This could move really fast and I would be giving up Nico in days or they could decide against adopting him at all and I would have Nico for the next several months. But there's no way to prepare yourself for giving up a dog you love.
That night I just stayed in and hung out with Nico. I spoiled him with treats and cuddled with him on the couch. I went to bed early and let him lay on the bed with me while I read.
Friday
I took Nico out for our last morning walk on a -20 nasty cold morning. We didn't go too far. When it gets that cold his paws get cold and he starts hopping around on 3 legs trying to favor the coldest one.
After he ate breakfast I packed up all his beds, bowls, toys, treats, leashes, meds, food, and an envelope with $3,000 cash for expenses. Roberto had said they didn't want any money but I guess it made me feel better to give it to them. If they didn't want it they could just donate it.
When we got to the Rodriguez house Nico was excited and immediately started playing with Morty. I wanted to say goodbye to him somehow but he was so preoccupied with Morty he was pretty much ignoring me. I didn't want to linger so I left pretty quickly. As soon as I closed the door he ran up to the glass and looked at me like why are you leaving without me? My heart dropped. I started to go back inside. Instead I turned my back and walked to my car.
There was a giant anti-ICE protest going on downtown where I live when I got back home. I was big into lefty politics in my 20s but these days I'm not much of a protester. And I really didn't feel like socializing. So I didn't go.
The labor community and other pro-immigrant groups had organized a one-day general strike and most bars and restaurants were closed that night. I probably wouldn't have gone out anyway. I spent the night watching TV, curled up on the couch.
Saturday
Saturday morning I showed up to the 10:30am $250 daily tournament at Canterbury Park eager to focus on some poker. This is the weekly tournament I started calling "The Puddnhead Invitational" a couple years back after I had a lot of success in it. It's the one daily tournament I play every week when I'm in town. Of all the local dailies this is the only one that has 30 minute levels, which makes it the best structure, even though it skips levels and is still turboey.
On this Saturday some of the better players were over at Running Aces playing the Big Stack Avalanche 1D. So for this one it was a bunch of old men and then a few regs who had already bagged the Big Stack Avalanche.
Early into the tournament I got a text from Roberto's sister Bee (who is a close friend of mine) with a link to a video of a man being shot by ICE agents in Minneapolis. This one looked even more cold-blooded than Rene Good's murder. It was a street execution with no possible rationalization.
Bee was texting me updates of conversations she was having with a policeman friend of hers. She said it looked like the man who was later identified as Alex Pretti had a holstered gun but was disarmed by one of the agents before they killed him. Her cop friend said this was worse to him than shooting a man who might be unarmed because you've actually ensured that he is unarmed already.
Nobody in the tournament was talking about it. Most of the players were 65+ conservatives who probably didn't care anyway. I was buried in my phone scrolling updates from what was going on in Minneapolis and not paying any attention to the poker tournament.
When we got back from the first break I found a spot to get it in with some kind of combo draw and busted versus some kind of pair. I was out of there in a flash.
I could have gone down to 26th and Nicollet where people were congregating but I did not. I watched a bit of Hasan Piker's livestream from the protests on Twitch. Then I went over to my friend Nick's house and started drinking.
Nick and our friend Erik had a few drinks and talked about Nico and ICE. Nick and Erik wanted to play poker so we played a little 0.25/0.50 cash game where we were buying in for $20s. Nick made a pretty good hero call against me at one point. Erik was way too bluffy. After Nick and I both rebought $40 we eventually got all the chips from Erik. I was up $20. Nick broke even. A lot of work to take Erik for $20.
After the cash game we walked down the block to the Chatterbox pub for more drinks and karaoke. It was a weird vibe at the bar. Really empty. There was only one of other table of people who wanted to karaoke.
When we first arrived some young guy was stewing in a booth by himself. He got angry at Nick for I'm assuming no reason and shouted "I'm for the people!" I guess he thought Nick was an ICE sympathizer or not revolutionary enough or something. I walked over and told him Nick is good people. Later I tried to find him at the bar and buy him a drink but he had already left. I just felt bad for him. Rough day to be a lefty revolutionary.
Since there was nobody there to karaoke and I was hammered I performed some really deep cuts. One from the movie Oliver. One that's an Argentinian pop song in Spanish. The last song I sang was a Hold Steady deep cut I was not expecting to have a karaoke version. Turns out there's one on Youtube now. Who knew?
Sunday
I woke up sobbing in bed.
Hangovers always make me more emotional. I used to tear up reading the newspaper back in my 20s when I was drinking like a fish. So that's probably a factor.
On this Sunday morning I was feeling heavy loss. I had only owned Nico for a year and a half, and I guess I was out of town for a big chunk of that. It wasn't as tough as when my previous dog of 14 years died. But he was still my best friend in this world. So that sucked.
I also felt awful about the Alex Pretti killing and all the other ICE atrocities. It felt so helpless.
A one day general strike is I'm sure empowering for the people doing the striking. But the federal government calling the shots on the ICE invasion doesn't give a shit. It's hard to imagine any action short of a prolonged nation-wide general strike that would actually pressure the feds to remove these thugs from our streets.
It felt like we were stuck playing defense. All we could effectively do was offer support to the victims. At its most passive that means gofundmes and food donations and sharing messages online. At its most direct it means blowing whistles and marching in the streets and erecting barricades. All that is cool but it does not feel like enough.
I decided that morning that if I shipped the Big Stack Avalanche I was going to donate the entire $47,000 first place prize to anti-ICE causes. I would share the Running Aces tweet with my picture and the prize pool and ask people to comment where I should donate it. I imagined that would cause a bit of a stir in the poker world which tends to tilt conservative.
I only had a small stack for Day 2 anyway though. So probably this would not be an issue.
I was in rough shape when I arrived at Running Aces for Day 2. I spent some time on the toilet with my head down taking deep breaths. I didn't even start off with coffee and went for tea instead because I didn't trust my stomach. My tablemates were cracking jokes like "nobody wake him up".
Nevertheless I came out of the gates on fire. Mostly it was just random card distribution. In the first couple orbits I got dealt a lot of playable hands. I went with it and played up a loose image like I had a strategy of playing every hand. Soon I had doubled up to average chips.
Then I played a hand against Erik Elkema where I check-raised 2nd pair and laid it down to a jam:
Shortly after losing the K7s hand I 3b MN legend Kou Vang's HJ open with 99 and called off vs his 4b jam for 40bb. Theoretically this is a call. I considered folding because live players will underbluff this spot but Kou is a reg so I thought I had to call. He had AK and we were flipping for a monster pot:
Just like that I was a big stack in the tournament.
On my way to the final table I played both sides of aces vs kings.
My AA vs KK hand I fast played and got the KO vs another big stack:
But my KK vs AA was probably even more clutch. This one was a single raised pot LJ vs BB. Flop was something like 655 and I checked back. I called half pot on a whatever turn and half pot on a river that I think did complete some draws. He tabled AA and I was shocked. I showed my KK and felt like this might have been the hand of the tournament. We were both massive stacks at that point. How did I only lose 13bb here?
By the time we reached the final table I was fairly sober and had the chip lead. Was this actually going to happen? Was I about to ship this and give it all away?
I won a flip 88 > AK to take us down to 7 and then KOed Matt Alexander KJo > K3o to take us down to 4:
Then 4-handed I got it in as the covering stack KK vs TT for like 75% of the chips in play:
If I had won that hand it seems incredibly likely I would have shipped the tournament. The remaining two players probably would have begged me for an ICM chop even. Alas Erik flopped a ten to take the chip lead.
He got a KO to take us down to 3 and then I KOed the other shorty AA > 22 to take us to heads up.
I entered the heads up something like a 4 to 1 dog but we played heads up for over an hour. A couple times I clawed back to even chips with him but I never took a big lead.
There was one hand where I was poised to take a massive chip lead after bombing flop and turn with bottom two pair but the river completed every draw and I had to let it go:
Erik told me after the tournament that he did in fact have a combo draw with the 5 that rivered a straight on that one. Oh well.
The hand he shipped the tournament on was decently interesting too. At this point I was under 10bb and felt like I had to go with a weak 2nd pair. He had a strong top pair and held.
So instead of first place I took 2nd for $30k.
I don't know if I would have gone through with my plan of donating all the first place money if I had won. It was an aggressively hungover idea.
I was kind of relieved to take 2nd and not have to make the decision. I am a selfish person. I don't know how I can survive playing poker if I give away all my winnings the times I do win.
Then again, I had given away $3,000 on Friday and it immediately came back to me as $30,000.
The next week I solicited friends online for causes to donate to and sent money to many different gofundmes and organizations. Then before I left for my next poker trip I dropped an envelope of cash off at the Smitten Kitten.
I had given away $3,000 on Friday and it immediately came back to me as $30,000. Maybe if I gave away $5,000 it would come back to me as $50,000?