stevesbets

We are well into January which means that Football is sadly ending and the excellent new seasons of my favorite shows (Lost, 24….American Idol) are starting leaving my TV schedule about the same as it was before. I have tried to find productive ways to use my extra non poker time in the new year which so far includes spending more time with my family and studying for the LSATS (which I take in a couple weeks). I will probably only apply to Fordham law school so that if I get in I can cross register and do the JD/MBA program saving time and money over getting both degrees separately. The older I get, the more it becomes clear to me that legal discourse is really what interests me and what I should have been doing all along.

Speaking of Fordham, one thing I find amusing is that people insult me in very different ways than they used to online. They used to call me a nerd or some other form of word that meant smart and socially awkward simply because they knew that I went to Penn and therefore assumed I was at least somewhat intelligent. Now I get called a blockhead for not getting into a top tier B-school. I am not sure if it’s because I grew up in a Quaker education system where they taught us that everyone was special or if I just have an overinflated ego, but these sorts of insults do not bother me at all. Just as I never felt going to Penn was a badge of honor, I do not see the rejection from top flight B-schools as any sort of personal slap in the face; I honestly just view it as their loss. If I look at things from purely an academic standpoint, my High School class was by far the smartest group of people I’ve ever been a part of and neither Penn nor Fordham come close. I was not even close to the top of that group of 80 or so students despite my strong test taking skills. Anyway, the reason I’m rambling is tibster24 on full tilt (I think the number is 24, it’s whoever plays high stakes with the name tibster) started going after me for my school and then challenged me to an IQ test bet. I said I would take him up on that and he instantly switched it around to any standardized school test. I jumped at the opportunity to bet on the LSAT since I have to study anyway and he said, you don’t want to do that, “I got a 179″. I offered to bet him anyway and predictably he backed down. All I ask is that if you are going to come after me academically just follow through on your talk tibster.

With all that ranting aside, one thing I’m realizing the more time I spend out of school is that academic talent means very little. I know tons of Wharton grads who cannot get business jobs, tons of Harvard grads who are penniless and many very wealthy people that could not make it through college. All that seems to matter is how you present yourself and who you know which is unfortunate for me since I’m not particularly well connected to any sort of desirable career path.

On the poker front, I have decided to try to become supernova elite on pokerstars in 2009. I never went for it before because I had a pretty good rakeback deal on full tilt which they abruptly ended for no reason. Now since I just have the common reward deal across all sites, pokerstars is the clear choice. On top of the fact that the elite program ends up offering a very high % of rakeback, I also excel at the heads up sit and goes. I will no doubt get bored of grinding out thousands of heads up matches but sometimes it is better to look at poker as a job instead of a source of excitement. I have 77k vpps so far and I will keep you all posted on my progress.

For the post midnight portion of New Year’s eve I went to a club called Gustavinos between at 59th and 1st. The night was bitterly cold, I cannot imagine standing in Times Square for 8 hours as so many people did, being outside for longer than a couple minutes was pretty intolerable, with windchill it felt like 2 degrees. Tickets for this 2.5 hour event from 1230-3 were $75.

There was a fairly large tent set up outside that was heated, the whole thing was probably about 40 by 40 split down the middle. On one side, all of the people entered, gave their tickets and then proceeded to the coat check. The tarp separating the two sides of the tent was undone in one corner where people were asked to check their coats. Not only were they asked, in fact they were required to check them and pay a $5 fee per item which is pretty ridiculous to begin with. I had a bad experience with a coat check a few weeks prior, so I implored my friends to go someplace else and just try to get our money back for our tickets since I thought an utter disaster was coming. I was denounced as a pessimist, we all paid and handed over our coats and headed in.

The club itself was pretty nice, not overly loud or crowded and I have to say they did a good job. The only thing worthy of note is that the bouncers seemed a bit crazy. They weren’t your stereotypical 400 lb behemoths, they were normal sized people with above average egos and tempers. I would not know this of course based on my own experience since I am fairly averse to confrontation and would never be foolish enough to get into random fights in a club. However when I witnessed bouncers dealing with others, it seemed like they did things fairly harshly, screamed unnecessarily and had major trouble keeping their cool. At 230 I convinced my group to get going to try to get to a surely crowded coat check a bit early.

Upon entering the coat tent, I realized it was going to be way way worse than I had even imagined when I wanted to not go into the club beforehand. The side of the tent that the patrons were allowed on was shoulder to shoulder with people already, many drunk and belligerent. The scene resembled a stock trading floor from many movies. Everyone was frantically trying to get closer and closer to the little open slit where they could hand their tickets to the one or two people retrieving coats. If it were up to me I would have stood as far back as possible for as long as it took (probably 4 or 5 hours though I couldn’t have guessed at the time) until everyone cleared out and I could get my coat without getting involved in world war 3, but 2 of my group took all of our tickets and jumped in. I have some videos that will make the scene a little clearer, I will try to get them uploaded over the next couple days.

Anyway, we wait for approximately a half hour as the scene gets crazier and crazier. Bouncers have entered the tent and are trying to create some sort of actual line rather than just a mass of people but they are totally unsuccessful. The result is them screaming at people to “Back up” or “Move” when there was actually nowhere for people to move. The tent got even more crowded as people piled into it from the closing club and no one left it because coats were unavailable and it was bitterly cold out. One of my friends returns almost in tears because she was elbowed in the face by a bouncer who was flailing around. The other returns disheartened by an utter inability to even get close to the coat check opening. Eventually they go off once again to try to get close to the coats.

As time passes in the tent, conditions become more and more intolerable. It is dangerously packed in a way that must have been a violation of several laws. People were jumping on top of each other fighting and in simply trying to wiggle around the tent, people were bumping into others. The bouncers’ vicious behavior was noticeable and unacceptable, they were throwing punches randomly and screaming incoherently. One human behavior that I really struggle with is putting the blame for something on the wrong people. Clearly all of the club patrons were screwed by an absurd and intolerable coat check system, but they blamed each other through pushing, shoving and fights. As I stated, it was impossible to be in the tent and not bump into people, but some people would get bumped and whirl around ready to punch someone. At one point there were actual fistfights going on immediately to my left and immediately to my right simultaneously. I felt as if civilization was devolving around me minute by minute. It offered me anecdotal evidence that when rules are stripped away and people feel they will not be held responsible for their actions, they just have no concern or respect for anyone around them.

About an hour in, word got back to me that one of my friends had handed in our tickets but the coats were lost so she was in the back looking for them. I wasn’t sure she knew what all 6 of our coats looked like and I feared just how bad the situation must be getting back there if they were letting random people back there to find coats because their ticket system had broken down. I have since heard that it is actually against the law to allow people access to everyone’s property as Gustavino’s did on this night. I found out from my friends that the coat side of the tent was pretty much a huge pile of coats and random people sifting through them some heard saying, “just take the nicest one”. A couple of my other friends attempt to get back there to help find the coats.

An hour and a half in, the scene has totally devolved. People are screaming, fight and even smoking in this unventilated, small tent. Others are throwing up, sprawled on the ground getting trampled on, and generally creating a prison like environment. Most offensive of all however is that now people were holding up their coat check tickets along with 20 dollar bills to try to get one of the powers that be to take note and find their coat for them. People were made to give bribes just to get their own property back!!

Finally all of our coats were found and we all left. The tent was still packed with people, it was now 4:30 AM, it had taken a full 2 hours. Since that time, neither the venue or the event planners have taken any responsibility for this debacle. I am totally amazed at how little responsibility businesses take for dangerous incompetence. I will have the videos up soon.

This is a placeholder blog, what i witnessed tonight as people were leaving the club and going through the coat check was totally unparalleled, I would not be surprised to learn tomorrow that multiple people died or sustained serious injuries. Whoever owns the place and made the decisions should never be allowed to operate a business again. I will post the full story and hopefully some videos tomorrow.