Vegas Baby

Last night we booked our annual Vegas WSOP trip.   We won't be playing in any WSOP events this year but instead have opted for the awesome Venetian deep stack events.   They have HORSE, Stud, and a triple Stud tournament that is right up my and my wife's alley.  Wish us luck.  Thanks for reading and see you in Vegas baby!

Borgata HORSE Tournament and the WSOP

To play it or not, that is the question?  It's on a Tuesday and Wednesday in April.  Going to be hard to get off from work.  I love the structure of their HORSE tournaments so I will try.  As for Vegas this year we are booking our WSOP trip soon!  The Grand is having some HORSE tournaments and my wife wants to give the $1500 Stud at the WSOP another try.  I can't wait for the WSOP.  Thanks for reading and good luck at the tables. Tony

Ebook Preview

Here is another chapter from my Ebook, "Trouble in Atlantic City".  Really need to get the final proof done and put it for sale.  Sorry everything takes longer than planned!  Tony


Tommy Tootoria was having a bad week and he was in a foul mood.  Just hearing the name makes my skin crawl up!  Tommy lived in a suburb of Atlantic City called Absecon, where I happen to live in also.  It is a small town with some really nice expensive sections and some cheap ones filled with motels on Route 35, which is the area I happen to live in.  Tourists/Gamblers use these motels to avoid paying $200 plus a night to stay in an actual Casino.  Unless of course you are a high roller/big spender who gets their rooms comped, paid for by the casino.  Of course if that’s the case you most likely lose 10 times the price of the room in order to qualify for it for free.  Worse yet many of the motels in Absecon are paid for on a monthly rate by down and out gamblers.  Also some are used to deal drugs or by prostitutes to conduct their “business”.  So Absecon is a real contradiction in status.  On the one side of town you have $1.5 million plus houses and on the other side you have roach motels.  Back to Tommy, he’s a vice president of a company that got the contract to pick up Atlantic City’s garbage.  The contract was huge for $26 million a year and companies fight for a chance to win it.  You have to wonder why everyone wants the contract being garbage pickup is done all by Union workers some of which can’t be fired and make over 100K a year!  Not bad for unskilled labor.   So Tommy’s Company won the contract and on the surface it looked like he was on top of the world, just rolling in the dough.  Behind the scenes things for Tommy were anything but great.  In the previous football season he got totally beaten down.   Losing a huge sum of money for the last 8 weeks straight of the regular NFL season.  Then he chased his loses trying to make it back in the playoffs, only to fall deeper into a hole.  The Super Bowl was no better when a last second Interception caused his team to not cover the spread by a single point.  That point put Tommy so deep into the hole that his house or life might be lost to the bookies.  Of course he owed the money to one of the biggest mobsters in Atlantic City, NJ, and actually the whole country.  The head of the Bubouts family the infamous Vinny!  Indicted for every crime you can think of including 4 murders but none of them have ever stuck to him.  Maybe it’s because the witnesses always had a way of changing their minds or disappearing at very opportune times.   Tommy was in serious trouble the kind that your body could end up deep in the New Jersey Pine barons to maybe never be found again.  He could end up like Jimmy Hoffa, rumored to be buried in cement under Giants Stadium in East Rutherford New Jersey, but only the people responsible for his disappearance know for sure.

Carbon Poker Sit-N-Gos

I'm back to my old ways at Double or Nothing Sit-N-Gos on Carbon Poker.   Winning around 80% of the ones I play.  Granted I am playing low limit ones but once I build up the roll will move on up.  The survivor strategy suites my style just fine.  That and shove or fold when the time is right.  Try them out you won;t be sorry.  Thanks for reading and good luck at the tables.  Tony

Slow Recovery

I am still sick this week but better than last week.  Now it's down to some congestion and a slight cold.  Anything is better than have to run into the bathroom every few minutes for 2 days straight!  So close to finishing my book but something always comes up.  I am on my final proof reading of it.  Then it will be available at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.com.  Thanks for your patience.  Thanks for reading and good luck at the tables. Tony

Sick Time

I had a Terrible Stomach Virus for a 4 days this week.  Missed 2 days of work and am now trying to catch back up with everything.  Many people I know have been sick with the same symptoms.   Fever, dizziness and lack of being able to keep any food within you.  Basically the Toilet bowl was my best friend for 2 days, enough said!  Wouldn't wish it on anyone.  I will try to do some Poker posts this week. Just 3 more months until WSOP 2013, damn I can't wait!  Thanks for reading and good luck at the tables.  Tony

Another Ebook Sneak Peek

Here is a sneak peek of a section of my Ebook that I hope to have for sale soon.  Thanks for your patience.  Tony

Welcome to Atlantic City, faded seaside resort city and east coast Vegas, want to be. Playground to every jet setter, high roller, high stakes Poker playing smuck, sleazebag and little old grey haired lady trying to get a piece of the gamblers dream to make that one big score. This is my territory; my name is Frank Vagola, Atlantic City P.I. I’m an ex-cop from the New York suburbs of Ridgefield Park New Jersey.  After putting in my 20 years of service to qualify for a full pension I retired from the police force.  Things were getting too corrupt for my liking anyway.   Also New Jersey Policies were starting to get to me.  Over time we public servants have lost any amount of respect from the public, we are paid to serve.  Being there have been many scandals involving crooked cops I see why this is.   These days I spend my time in private practice as a private investigator, have an office above my garage in a small house I rent in Absecon New Jersey.  It’s not glamorous but it pays the bills and keeps me out/in trouble on a daily basis.  Mostly spend my time following cheating spouses around to motels alone the major highways of New Jersey.  Speaking of which I have lived in my whole life and intend on dying here too.

 If you tell people, from other parts of the country, that you are from New Jersey they make some bad joke by stating, “Oh yea, which exit”?  This  joke is referring to the fact that Route 95, called the New Jersey Turnpike, is the main road most people associate with our great state.  The reason for this is that the Newark airport is located on the New Jersey Turnpike.  Also that area is full of many chemical plants that emit bad smells and tons of pollution into the atmosphere.  So when people are driving or getting driven out of the airport they pass through this area and it makes a bad first impression on them.  We all know how hard it is to change a bad first impression of anything.  This is why it’s so important for restaurants to look clean and well maintained on the outside.  If it looks bad from the outside people won’t even give it a chance. So New Jersey is like a rundown restaurant that may never get a chance to show off how good their food is being the bad first impression ruins it.  Anyway I have gone off on a tangent about my lovely state of New Jersey back to the story of how I almost got killed investigating another routine case of a couple getting intimidated by mobsters they owed money too.   So I thought it was going to be another easy routine case for me.  I didn’t know what I was getting myself involved with for this case until it was almost too late.