Catching Bugs, but No Cards in Tunica

I picked up a respiratory infection and fever last week while here in Tunica. Spent nearly 30 straight hours in bed and missed a lot of dealing down opportunities over two days, and I'm a little behind my pace on the blog because of it. The same thing happened to me in Vegas last year, just after dealing in the frigid players pavilion. My immune system was probably already struggling, but I am convinced that the conditions at the table lead to my illness. Same thing happened here at the Gold Strike. For a couple of days there was a maintenance issue that caused a very strong cold draft on two of the back tables in one of the tournament side rooms. The players at the tables were complaining constantly and some even wore parkas and knit ski caps (which were needed outside). I am not a germ-a-phobe, but I suppose the mix of people at most casinos expose me to a wider variety of bugs than my body is used to as well. So, I guess I really need to be more diligent about protecting myself at these events. Lots of vitamin C, airborne before getting started, make better use of the purell hand disinfectant that I carry, lots of rest, etc. I don't want this to be a recurring pattern.

I played in the midnight tourney twice, once before, once after feeling ill. First time I made it through about half of the 150+ field. Last night I went out 17th of 90-some. Down a little from the couple of occasions that I played cash games before the event started as well. I probably won't get much of a chance to play anymore, though, as things will pick up again and I really need to catch up and work as much as possible.

Several Houston area players are doing well here. I haven't dealt all that much to most of them yet, but I did have a couple of really nice downs with Bill O'Conner at the table, and although I don't think he knows me, he did call me "Jim" instead of what's on my badge (James). There haven't been many known celebrity players at the event yet. Paul 'Eskimo' Clarke has been wandering around, but I haven't seen him play much (usually a sign that a player has had hard times and is looking for backers). Robert Williamson III has been playing some Omaha and Men Nguyen has been in a couple of tournies. I know that a lot of the touring pros are in Australia or The Bahamas right now and expect many will show up later. I wonder how things are down the street at The Grand, with respect to pros with lots of TV exposure. I do recognize a lot of regional rounders that played at the Beau Rivage last fall.

One funny did occur the other day. During a player break late in the evening of one of the no-limit events, an enthusiastic railbird came up to me and said "How's Chris Moneymaker playing?" I responded, "don't know," and he said "looks pretty tight to me", points to the stack in the five seat (right across from the dealer) at a pretty decent stack and added "he sure looks different, doesn't he?" I was stunned and didn't know how to respond. Had I just dealt 20 minutes to a world champion and not even recognized that he was sitting across the table from me? Nah, I don't believe it. But Moneymaker is from Tennessee and it was at least conceivable that he was here playing in a $500 event as I dealt a few satellites to him in Biloxi last fall. When the players returned, I couldn't stop giggling inside. The guy in the five seat was at least 20 years older than Moneymaker and I couldn't even imagine much of a resemblance beyond him being male and white, with short hair and a bit of a goatee. He did have reflective glasses and a ball cap, at least. Stupid fans.