note - if you haven't yet - read chapter 1 in my blog first

Carl Harris was an interesting man. As far as any of the faculty of Brandeis University knew he was a quiet, well spoken and often published professor who needed a social life. But, as I knew him, he was Midknight, top online poker player and tournament specialist. Pocketfives.com had ranked him in the top 50 as long as they’d had the list and for good reason. Carl had won over $250,000 playing in online poker tournaments over the last year alone. And he never played live. He was an unseen and unknown online legend, kind of a cyber poker ninja. <READMORE>

He had arranged for me to take my entire last semester as an independent study with him. And I thought college was great before! I got to play poker all day and get my degree without having to take any other classes. My new classroom was pretty cool too.

Carl had a big brownstone house a few blocks from the campus in Waltham. He had a huge plasma tv and three desktops and a laptop all connected to a cable modem hooked into a wireless network. Two of the desktops had dual monitors, each one a flat screen big enough to display 4 tables at the same time. Carl swiveled his padded massage chair around and smiled at me. “This is your third final table this week at a major tourney. ICThruU is getting some major attention and it’s about time for you to take a few bows. Log onto pocketfives.com and make a generic post thanking the p5ers for their support.”

Part of the strategy Carl had devised involved him building me a reputation so that when I burst out on the live tourney scene it wouldn’t seem too bizarre. To that end he was playing as my new online identity, ICThruU and winning enough to make some waves. Meanwhile I was stinking up the place playing as Midknight in a lot of low buy in games.

“Will do,” I said as I was logging onto pocketfives.com and registering as ICThruU.

I was getting the hang of doing three things at once and I was really enjoying being able to do something without having to concentrate at all. Carl didn’t even care that I had lost over a thousand dollars already and was showing no sign of slowing down. Meanwhile he had already won three seats into the main event at the wsop playing as me and he was closing in on a fourth right now. “Time to switch,” he said getting up out of his chair.

I slid smoothly into his spot and checked out the game. There were six players left and they were paying the top five, with the top two getting seats. The blinds were up to 10k and 20k and we were in second chip position with a bit more than 425k. My goal here was not necessarily to win another seat but to get used to playing for big stakes. I had to bluff at least once per round and bet the right amount of chips.

“Cant you just finish it out yourself?” I half whined and half pleaded. Even though I now knew the game well enough, I was still uncomfortable playing for such high stakes. At least I wouldn’t have to chat with any railbirds since the site had a policy that only players can chat at the final table.

Carl rolled his eyes and smiled. “You are such a royal pain in the ass. Please take this seriously and don’t worry about the money. Like I’ve told you many times a big part of this game is not having any fear.”

I sat in and the first hand I raised to 60k holding a J2 off and I was slightly relieved when everyone folded. Next hand I picked up pocket 10s and raised the same amount. This time I got two callers. Unfortunately the flop came AK3 and I had to fold when one of the callers went all in. And so it went on for about an hour, raise or fold until we got down to three handed. Since we were all about even in chips and both other guys still in were p5ers who hadn’t won seats yet I talked Carl into listening when they proposed a deal. There was a total of two seats and 8k in cash in the top three spots, so I agreed to take a little less and just get the cash. To be honest I felt a little relieved and a lot happy to take home 8k and end the madness.

Carl had made himself a ham sandwich while I was dealing and between bites he was letting me know what he thought about deals. “I’m telling you David, you have to be ruthless. There are no friends at the poker table. A famous pro once said he’d bust his own grandmother if she sat at the table with him and I agree.”

He popped the last bit of sandwich in his mouth and carefully wiped any trace of mustard from his lips. Always everything in its proper place with him. “On the other hand,” he continued, “There are already three posts up on p5s about what a great player and a nice guy you are. So at least you are getting good press out of this.”

I couldn’t resist looking into his mind and I was not surprised to find he was more than a little disappointed in me.</READMORE>