Ship It Holla Ballas! (14 page)

For a nineteen-year-old kid from the Midwest, the trip to Italy is an Indiana Jones–style adventure. During a rare sliver of down time, Good2cu logs on to the Two Plus Two forum and posts a detailed trip report.

“This is how I roll,” he brags.

*   *   *

He’s home in Michigan less than three days when he gets a phone call from Apathy. “Road trip.”

“Can’t do it,” Good2cu protests. “I spent like four grand in Italy. I’ve got to get back to grinding. I’m pretty partied out too.”

“Who am I even talking to right now? Can you please put Good2cu back on the phone?”

“Seriously. I was living large in Italy. But now it’s time to punch the clock.”

“Dude, we’re not going to Mars. They have wireless in the Bahamas.”

“The Bahamas?”

“Yeah, you know, rum drinks, girls in bikinis. And, oh yeah, poker. Paradise Poker is sponsoring a five K on Paradise Island. What is there to even think about?”

“You only have to be eighteen to play there, right?”

“And only eighteen to drink. We’ll stop off in Texas on the way to see Raptor, then maybe spend a night or two with DonButtons in Miami.”

“When would this supposed trip take place?”

“I can be at your place in three hours.” Apathy hears silence on the other end and knows that he’s won. “Well?”

“Well, I guess I’d better tell my mom to start doing my laundry.”

22

Most people don’t understand. You have to lead this lifestyle to understand.

—Deuce2High

FORT WORTH, TEXAS
(April 2006)

Detroit Metro Airport is one of the world’s busiest international hubs, a heavy-flow spigot to Europe and Asia. Still, Good2cu and Apathy manage to stand out.

It’s not the way they’re dressed; there’s nothing about their uniforms—hooded sweatshirts, jeans, and sneakers—to distinguish them from any other college-age kids. It’s not the intense focus on their computers either; plenty of travelers are zoning out on their laptops, even if their eyes aren’t darting across every inch of the screen, rarely bothering to look up.

No, it’s the outbursts—

“Ship it!”

“Holla!”

—every time one of them wins a big pot, which seems like every few minutes.

Of course they missed their flight. After boozing all night with some of Good2cu’s friends, oversleeping was inevitable. But they lucked out: There’s another flight in two hours, and the airport has wireless. By the time they’re called to board their plane to Dallas-Fort Worth, each of them is more than $1,000 richer.

Texas doesn’t conform to their expectations—it’s surprisingly lush and green and contains fewer cowboys and less big hair than they’d imagined. Neither does Raptor’s place. If his posts on Two Plus Two are to be believed, he’s been doing
extremely
well at the poker tables lately, so Good2cu and Apathy are a little surprised when the taxi delivering them from the airport comes to a stop outside a ramshackle house in a sketchy neighborhood full of fast-food restaurants and car dealerships. They’re double-checking the address when Raptor opens the door and greets them with a smile.

“Welcome to Texas, y’all.”

Belying its ghetto exterior, the inside of the house could be a Best Buy showroom. A Nintendo GameCube and an Xbox 360 sit on the floor next to a tall stack of games. A sixty-inch plasma TV hangs on the wall, plugged into a state-of-the-art, surround-sound system. Spread around the living room are about a dozen high-end laptops and giant flat-screen monitors, most of which are currently in use. Good2cu recognizes most of the faces from his trip to Vegas: durrrr, TheUsher, Deuce2High, Bonafone, and FieryJustice. They all briefly lift their heads to say hello, then immediately return their focus to the poker games on their computer screens.

“Hey, you guys ever meet my buddy TravestyFund?” Raptor asks Good2cu and Apathy. “This is his place. I rent a room from him.”

“I thought you were living in Vegas,” Good2cu says.

“I was. I am. I kinda go back and forth,” Raptor explains. “Durrrr and I are actually thinking about buying a place together here in Fort Worth. He doesn’t really care where he lives, and my family and my girlfriend are here. Speaking of…”

A blond sorority girl emerges from one of the bedrooms, sporting the look favored by college-age females throughout the Lone Star State: cowboy boots, blue jeans, black camisole.

“So what’s the plan for the evening?” asks Good2cu.

“We goin’ to da club!” shouts Deuce2High.

“Not me,” says Raptor. “Haley’s dragging me to a country-western concert.”

She rolls her eyes. “
Dragging
you?”

“Just kidding, babe.”

“Shouldn’t you be in the shower?”

Raptor smiles apologetically at Good2cu and Apathy. “I’ll catch up with y’all later.”

“You know your boyfriend’s, like, famous on the Internet, right?” Good2cu says to Haley as soon as Raptor’s left the room.

“That’s what he keeps telling me.”

“Is it weird dating a celebrity?”

“A celebrity? Yeah, right. The celebrities I read about in the magazines don’t spend all their time sitting in front of a computer playing some dorky game.”

*   *   *

Good2cu and Apathy pull out their laptops. It’s easy to slip into the flow. Hours pass. Like the video games all of them grew up playing, online poker has a way of devouring massive quantities of time. No one really notices when Raptor and Haley leave. Or when they return, only to quickly turn around and leave again, this time for a party at Raptor’s old frat house.

“Anyone want pizza?” asks Bonafone whose hunger can be traced, at least partly, to all the bong hits he’s been taking in between hands.

“Get ten larges. I’ll buy,” says durrrr.

“For eight people?”

“Shit, you’re right. Get twelve.”

When Bonafone answers the door a half hour later, he can barely see the delivery guy’s face behind the enormous stack of boxes he’s carrying.

“Where are the Cokes?” Deuce2High asks.

Delivery Guy places the pizzas on a table. “You guys didn’t order any.”

Durrrr pulls a wad of bills out of his pocket and peels off $160 for the pizza. Then another $40 for the tip. “There’s a 7-Eleven next door. I’ll give you another twenty if you run get us some Cokes.”

Delivery Guy breaks into a smile. “Sure. Need anything else?”

“Just for my bottom pair to hold up against my opponent’s flush draw,” mumbles durrrr, racing back to his laptop.

Delivery Guy can’t believe how lucky he is to have stumbled across this pack of kids whose laziness is only exceeded by their total disregard for the value of money. What he doesn’t understand is that the five minutes it would take durrrr to walk over to the 7-Eleven and back might cost him hundreds of dollars in expected value. When time is money, life becomes a pretty simple series of mathematical calculations.

One by one they pull themselves away from their screens. Poker, when played correctly, is a boring game occasionally interrupted by heart-stopping moments of anticipation. Online multitabling filters out a lot of the tedium, distilling the game to a rapid-fire frenzy of intense decisions and a steady barrage of gut-wrenching showdowns. After toiling for several hours in this state, everyone’s nerves are jangled, bodies buzzing with adrenal residue. It’s going to take a while for the energy in the room to return to something resembling normal. A bottle of Crown Royal gets passed around. So do a bong and several tabs of Ecstasy.

Recharged, they arrive at an enormous nightclub in Dallas like a pack of wolves, howling, play fighting, battling for space. The club has four dance floors, each with its own particular music and vibe. There’s crunk rap for those looking to get down and hook up; techno for the voyagers rolling on E.

Good2cu chooses crunk. Soon he’s chatting with a pair of girls wearing identical T-shirts that read
TAKE ME TO AMSTERDAM
. He offers to buy them drinks if they can guess what line of work connects him and his group of friends.

“Auto mechanics?”

“Oil workers?”

“Cowboys?”

When the club shuts down at 4:00
A.M.
, the crew moves to an after-hours lounge. Deuce2High runs around the room playing with glowsticks. The rest of them plant themselves on a couch. Raptor joins them, having tucked his girlfriend into bed. The place is full of beautiful women, but these guys are content to hang out with one another.

They talk about poker.

They talk about girls.

They talk about life.

Before Irieguy’s tournament, each of them had been living in relative isolation. Their passion for online poker confused and, in some cases, terrified their parents and teachers. As for their friends, how could they possibly understand? They lack the insight required to appreciate the moments of inspired ingenuity, or the empathy to truly grasp the bad beats and the psychological ups and downs. What it feels like to suffer four- and, occasionally, five-figure wins and losses. The decision, and its attendant difficulties, to drop out of college. But now that they’ve found one another, a company of like minds, it feels like a revelation.

“It still blows my mind that I’m able to do shit like this,” says Bonafone. “Just hop on a plane and go to Texas. I mean, a year ago I was in high school. Now Deuce2High and I are talking about traveling to Thailand and hanging out for a while. Pretty fucking amazing.”

“I hear you,” says Apathy. “A year ago I was stressing about having to write papers and study for tests.”

“Now you’re a Ship It Holla Balla!” says Good2cu.

“Such an idiotic name,” grumbles Raptor. He raises a glass of scotch that costs as much as a tank of gas. “But you guys are all right in my book.”

Good2cu spots a trio of attractive women standing nearby and, hit by a flash of inspiration, hands his camera to durrrr.

“Follow me.”

Good2cu positions himself in the middle of the women, wraps his arms around their shoulders, and tells them to smile. Durrrr dutifully snaps a picture. Two of the girls think it’s the cheesiest move they’ve ever seen. The third smiles at him flirtatiously.

Life, like poker, is a numbers game.

“Sorry to scare away your friends,” says Good2cu.

“That’s okay,” she replies, putting her hands on his chest and feeling his upper body. It turns out the Ballas aren’t the only ones rolling on Ecstasy. “I saw you from across the room. I think you’re the best-looking guy here.”

“Thank you,” he replies. “You look like a model.”

“That’s funny. I just did a shoot for
Playboy
.”

“Yo, Good2cu!” Deuce2High calls from across the room. “We’re going to bounce.”

A drink in one hand, an honest-to-god
Playboy
model who clearly wants to have sex with him hanging on the other—Good2cu is living the dream.

But he’s no ladies’ man. At heart he’s still a socially awkward nineteen-year-old who spends most of his time playing a computer game. There aren’t many people in the world who understand him, and the few who do are on their way out the door.

“Nice meeting you,” he stammers to the Playmate before sprinting across the room to catch up with his friends.

23

This is what I get for: (a) leaving my laptop on, and (b) sleeping longer than other poker players you’re traveling with.

—Apathy

MIAMI, FLORIDA
(May 2006)

DonButtons lives in a luxurious condominium on Brickell Key, a man-made island in the waters east of downtown Miami. The building has an underground garage, where DonButtons parks his Lamborghini and his Range Rover, and a doorman, who carries Good2cu and Apathy’s bags into the apartment.

The condo’s floors are made of imported white marble, and every window provides a view of the Atlantic Ocean. A sixty-inch plasma TV hangs on the wall, as do various pieces of art from a noted gallery in South Beach. This could be the pied-à-terre for a successful Wall Street trader undergoing a midlife crisis. Instead it’s being rented by DonButtons, who won’t turn twenty-one for a few more months.

The glamour is, in large part, superficial. The artwork comes included with the rent. The cars are leased. DonButtons does not have a million dollars in the bank. He probably doesn’t even have $100,000. But by spending five hours each day playing ten tables of low-stakes no-limit Hold’em at the same time, he’s able to earn several thousand dollars a month, and as a twenty-year-old bachelor in Miami, what the hell else is he going to spend it on?

A balla condo. Pimp rides. Expensive dinners with gorgeous women. Bottle service at the clubs. The affluence, real or otherwise, is an eye-opener. For Good2cu, home is a spare bedroom at Mom or Dad’s house, and his ride is a Saturn with 150,000 miles of wear. Apathy’s Pontiac Pursuit—the fancy Canadian name for the very modest Chevy Cobalt—is, well, a Chevy Cobalt, and he still lives with five other guys in an off-campus flophouse near the University of Western Ontario.

DonButtons clearly knows how to live.

On their first night in town, he takes his guests out for a fancy meal that they wash down with several $100 bottles of wine. Good2cu can’t pronounce whatever they’re drinking, but he sure does like the way it tastes. That, and the feeling that comes with drinking something that carries such an expensive price tag.

After dinner, DonButtons leads them to a club, where the promoter, a good friend of his, hooks them up with a prime table and a bottomless supply of free cranberry vodkas. Good2cu spends the early part of the night dancing on the bar alongside fifteen women. He’ll finish it by spilling drinks on two of them, puking in a garbage can, and passing out on the sidewalk just outside the club.

The next night they hire a twenty-four-person stretch Hummer limousine and cram it full of champagne, Grey Goose, and DonButtons’s friends—fashionable club kids, most of whom are too young to drink. One of them tells Good2cu she’s worried that she won’t be able to get into the club without a fake ID.

“I don’t think that’s going to be a problem,” he assures her.