I'm Sorry Sir, Your Money is No Good Here.

I am a damn good poker player. I'm good at reading people's tells, I can spot a bluff a mile away, and when I'm in my groove I'm good.

The problem is when I quit being on point, I forget to walk away.

Last night, in an attempt to repay a debt to a friend, I took a very small amount of money down to good ol' Tunica with me, the biggest poker spot between Atlantic City and Las Vegas. I usually sit at the 3-6 table and play 3-6 Limit Texas Hold' Em at The Gold Strike. Normally, if I sit with you, that's your ass at some point. Now, whenever I plan these trips to Tunica, I always do the same thing: I eat before I go, I get a BIG cup of coffee, and I prepare to settle in. This time was no different. I don't drink, and generally the people around me are enjoying the free drinks so much, they eventually forget they are giving me (or the other players) their money.

But I really need someone to go with me to drag me away when I'm doing good.

Yesterday's trip started at the Pai-Gow table. Now, for those who don't know, Pai-Gow is a Chinese 7-Card poker game. It has the best odds of any of the carnival games (Blackjack, 3-Card Poker, Craps, Roulette). You can take $40 and play it for hours without ever losing or winning very much. It involves a lot of pushes and very few real losses. In order to get a free meal, I usually start by playing this for an hour or so just to get the comp meal. Yesterday was no exception -- I played for about an hour and walked away from my $40 only $2.50 richer. The floor manager comped my meal, and I was off to the poker room.

Once I got a seat, my table was a lot of REALLY drunk people. On my right was a very well-known studio musician from Nashville named DeRay Harris. He had never played poker before yesterday, according to him. Further down, a couple of what I call "Tunica regulars" sat, making literally all the noise at the table. As the day wore on, they got drunker and drunker.

Two students sat with us, so lily white and fresh you'd swear they had never been kissed. I couldn't tell half the time whether they were checking me for tells or flirting with me. I think that's just my ego playing with my head.

In any event, I sat at that table for about 5 hours playing Limit Hold'Em, and I eventually turned my $100 into a whopping $220. I would come back from dinner, I thought, make that other $80 and call it a day! When I absolutely couldn't take the hunger any more, I decided to go and have a bite to eat. They held my seat for me while I left.

I went downstairs and gave a big hug to my friend Von Mitchell, enjoyed an enormous plate of non-buffet goodness, and we had a nice long talk about things.

Here's where things get a might tricky, though. I think, after dinner, all the food started to get to me. When I came back, the students were gone, DeRay had given me his well wishes and parted company with the table. But the table suddenly became filled with regulars.

The one guy making all the noise in the place had completed his 10th Crown & Coke, and he was so loud, obnoxious and drunk, that every single hand he would holler out "RAISE!" or "RE-RAISE!", even if he didn't have a hand. Nobody could tell what the hell he was playing, and even when someone had good cards, he was so unpredictable that people started losing. I started losing. The whole thing really threw my game off, put me on tilt. He and his friend, clearly working together, were screaming random things at the table -- nothing offensive, just stuff like "Doyle's Super System don't seem so super now does it, boys?"

After another six hours had gone by, I was down to a paltry $12, playing against nothing but Tunica regulars. I short circuited. I hit a brick wall. I dragged one last pot, and walked away from Tunica with a miserable $40.

As I was strolling out of the casino, I walked by the Pai-Gow table. It had filled with high rollers, playing huge amounts on each hand. One guy played $10,000 on a single hand of Pai-Gow, $5000 on the main spot and $5000 on the bonus. I became, literally, sick to my stomach when he got a straight and a pair, beating the dealer. That single hand paid him $15,000 on his bonus spot and $5000 for beating the dealer. Total take: $20,000 for one hand.

If you're ever in Las Vegas, it's never like you can escape -- you're on the strip, and unless you live there you don't drive home. You walk to your hotel room, you pass out, and start over again the next day. The long drive from Tunica is much different if you live in Memphis. Unless you've won, which I normally do, the depression that can set in when you're staring at a four-lane highway that is flat as a pancake is crippling. All I wanted to do when I got home was pull the covers up over my head and cry.

But then I realized that at the end of the day, this is just money. I didn't lose EVERYTHING. I still left with money in my pocket. It's not enough money, but I have so much to be thankful for in my life right now, the money will come back to me.

"Scared Money Don't Make None" goes the old saying. Next time, I'm not taking any "scared money" into Tunica with me. That's something you can bank on.