With 42 crisp hundreds lining my pocket and child-like wonder pulsating, Vegas was summoning me from the bowels of hell. But first, I had to take a little detour by Morongo Casino for no particular reason other than recently reading up about Jackson's Seminole Wars and Cherokee policy; felt like the right thing to do.
I smoke a few bowls from my apple piece and do some Tai Chi in the parking structure to immerse into the zone. Within the zone, I am as objective as a poker player as I can comprehend; once the zone crumbles to ego, I am a PLO donk from the pit of eternal suffering and going all in on long shot stock options. It's a perplexing duality to rationalize and live with, though I wouldn't have it any other way. I lost a wee bit under 10k two weeks before with said degeneracy; regardless, there I was harnessing my Chi in the parking structure to redeem myself - maybe I should have been volunteering at a soup kitchen or raising malnourished kittens instead of this self centered quest, but the journey had already commenced..
The only game with an open seat is a 5/10 and I sit down with $666 for my own amusement. The villain of this hand had accidentally revealed his cards to my peaking eyes a few hands before where he floated 2x and bombed a paired board with nothing against a nit. Having known this, I flatted his 3b to 105 with my QQ's because his range is too wide to rip it and checked to him when the board came T95 rainbow, surprisingly he checks back. Turn is a 4 (bringing in clubs) and I lead for 60 to hopefully induce - he flats. River is an offsuit Ace and I check it, he insta rips all in for 550 effective. I ruminate on quantum theory and my mother's abuse, then make the crying call only due to the fact that I saw his donkalicous play before. Sure enough, he flops over 57h and the trip is off to a BANG. After playing tight for another hour and as the table slowly began to break, I walk out with nearly a grand more to my name.
I sat in my Volvo wagon with an American spirit fading to my finger tips and Bach's E Major Partita emitting from mere mm's of my phone's speakers, I realized I had completed the most objective objective of this trip.. The only reason I set off was because my cello "broke" the day before and the degen tingles were too convincing without a bow in hand, now I had more than enough in profit to get my baby tuned up. But who the fuck has the time to act upon their conscience, I'm tryin to GAMBOL! "Vegas, here I come darlin."
I stopped in Barstow to force myself to vomit and then gently placed a tab of LSD under my tongue in ode to Dr. Gonzo. I tried deciphering some meaning in the vast array of stars as I wandered the barren Mojave and after coming up short, I was back to flooring it on the 15. My optics were melting a tad and the road did permeate with my breath, but not an ounce of fear radiated within. I sang my favorite songs from "O Brother Where Art Thou" and didn't think about my ex at all with "You Are My Sunshine," baby steps. With the dusk hue fading as rays of light mustered over the horizon, our beloved capitalist wasteland was within eye shot. Before I could render the inclination of a responsible thought, I was in the Bellagio parking lot smoking weed with some drunk broad beggin for a few bucks to throw on slots - "Ganja is the only charity I provide hon."
After a few orbits at 5/10 with a far too many regs that I recognized and getting a walk with Aces, I stand up right there n then and get the hell out of that nit fest. My soul was aching for 4 cards and there's no forsaking such a ravenous urge, Aria was my destiny.
Due to the fact that live 1/2/5 PLO is actually abbreviated for BINGO, most of my play was incredibly standard and not worth typing out. There was only one hand for which wasn't a cognitive snap decision against a 10/20 pro for whom I had top set and let 3 potential straight combos get there from foolish slow play; after a minute of deciphering the hand and his perception of my image, I called his $400 river bet and got the good news. Aside from that single hand, any domesticated chimp could have been in my seat and it wouldn't have made a difference; the hands played themselves out. After 72 hours of continuous grinding and gettin lucky at 5/5/10, I reached the sacred $4,200 in profit and doubled my trip's first stop loss amount (which I had no intention of adhering to).
With 84 mildly crumpled hundreds in my pocket and that same child-like wonder pulsating; here I am wandering the strip looking for the stories in all these confused faces. But conceptualizing the seemingly infinite dimensionality within even the simplest of folk is futile when I am just as confused; I hope the find what they are looking for or find that the looking is the fun part, who the fuck knows. I appears as though the next leg of my journey is to visit my childhood home in southern Utah and commit Felony arson in spite of my mother - or I might just keep degening away. Only time will tell.
​
Safe travels comrades.

Following his release from prison, Danny Ocean violates his parole by traveling to California to meet his partner-in-crime and friend Rusty Ryan to propose a heist. The two go to Las Vegas to pitch the plan to wealthy friend and former casino owner Reuben Tishkoff. The plan consists of simultaneously robbing the Bellagio, the Mirage, and the MGM Grand casinos. Reuben's familiarity with casino security makes him very reluctant to get involved, but when he starts to think of it as a good way to get back at his rival, Terry Benedict, who owns all three casinos, he agrees to finance the operation. Because the casinos are required by the Nevada Gaming Commission to have enough cash on hand to cover all their patrons' bets, the three predict that on the upcoming night of a highly anticipated boxing match, the Bellagio vault will contain more than $150,000,000.
Danny and Rusty recruit eight former colleagues and criminal specialists: Linus Caldwell, a young and talented pickpocket; Frank Catton, a casino worker and con man; Virgil and Turk Malloy, a pair of gifted mechanics; Livingston Dell, an electronics and surveillance expert; Basher Tarr, an explosives expert; Saul Bloom, an elderly con man; and "The Amazing" Yen, an accomplished acrobat. Several team members carry out reconnaissance at the Bellagio to learn as much as possible about the security, the routines, the behaviors of the casino staff, and the building itself. Other members create a precise replica of the vault with which to practice maneuvering through its formidable security systems. During this planning phase, the team discovers that Danny's ex-wife, Tess, is Benedict's girlfriend. Rusty urges Danny to give up on the plan, believing Danny incapable of sound judgment while Tess is involved, but Danny refuses.
On the night of the fight, the plan is put into motion. Danny shows up at the Bellagio purposely to be seen by Benedict, who, as predicted, locks him in a storeroom with Bruiser, a bouncer. However, Bruiser is on Danny's payroll and allows him to access the vent system and join his team as they seize the vault, coincident with activities of their other team members in and around the casino. Rusty calls Benedict on a cell phone Danny dropped in Tess's coat earlier and tells him that unless he lets them have half of the money in the vault, they will blow it up; Benedict sees video footage confirming Rusty's claim. Benedict complies, having his bodyguards take the loaded duffel bags to a waiting van driven by remote control. Benedict has his men follow the van while he calls in a SWAT team to try to secure the vault. The SWAT team's arrival causes a shootout that sets off the explosives and incinerates the remaining cash. After affirming the premises otherwise secure, the SWAT team collects their gear and departs.
As Benedict arrives to examine the ruined vault himself, his men stop the van and find the bags were only loaded with flyers for prostitutes. Benedict studies the video footage and recognizes that the flooring in the vault on the video lacks the Bellagio logo, which had been added only recently to the vault. It is shown that Danny's team used their practice vault to create fake footage to fool Benedict. Furthermore, they themselves were the SWAT team and used their gear bags to take all of the money from the vault right under Benedict's nose. Benedict goes to see that Danny has seemingly been locked up in the storeroom throughout the heist and thus innocent of any crime. As Tess watches via CCTV, Danny tricks Benedict into saying he would give her up in exchange for the money. Benedict, unsatisfied with Danny's plan to get back the money, orders his men to escort Danny off the premises and inform the police that he is violating his parole by being in Las Vegas. Tess leaves Benedict and exits the hotel just in time to see Danny arrested. The rest of the team bask in the victory in front of the Fountains of the Bellagio, silently going their separate ways one-by-one. When Danny is released after serving time for his parole violation, he is met by Rusty and Tess. They drive off, closely followed by Benedict's bodyguards.

US Department of Astral Affairs Log Book
NEVER TRUSTING, ALWAYS WATCHING
NOVEMBER 2005
​
Welcome, Recruit:
This is introductory course five of Lucid Dreaming. Practice is essential, and completion of this course is mandatory for admittance to the more advanced Dream Walking and Astral Projection wings. Training process is highly dangerous and experimental. Failure may result in permanent brain death or physical demise.
​
Foreword: On Sandmen:
Ever experience Dejavu? Dream of an event before it happens or of a person before you meet them? Dreams are not mere musing of the mind. Classified experiments have shown that dreams have the ability to influence "destiny", or future events. Human consciousness is connected, and the more people who dream of the same event, the more likely it is to occur.
Under the skin of reality, the United States fights another war for the soul of the future. Our enemies are so far shrouded in mystery. We call them the "Sandmen", and they work to influence humanity's dreams to further their interests. From them we adopt our motto: "Never Trusting, Always Watching."
Lucid Dreaming is being conscious during your dreams, taking control of it, and molding it in your image. It is the foundation of highly advanced techniques like Dream Walking and Astral Projection, which involve penetration into the Astral Plain. Recruit, you have been chosen to learn this weapon of the future.
The following transcript on the department's first contact with the "Sandmen" is from one of our finest: Staff Sergeant P. Sherman, one of our pioneering operatives in the Astral Plain, and was appointed Chief of Dream Walking in 2005, heading the fight against the Sandmen and the Collective Consciousness.
​
On Sandmen:
Staff Sergeant P. Sherman, astral excursion log dated ... dated fifth November ... in the Year of our Lord two-thousand-and-two. I - I have just woken up from my latest Lucid Dream, ten minutes ago. S - sorry, I'm still rattled. I've encountered something, and it tried ... to kill me. I’ll start from the beginning.
I followed excursion routine perfectly. Left Fort Knox at 1700 and pulled into my driveway at 1830. An hour of cardio on my wheelchair followed by six sets of push-ups, sit-ups, and pull-ups. Ate dinner at 2000 and relaxed with Beethoven and a book until 2300. Began meditating in pitch darkness on my bed until I fell asleep. My alarm woke me at 0300. Dead tired.
Nothing new, just standard protocol. Popped my anti-acetylcholine pills and fell back on bed. Immediately felt myself sinking into the mattress, hallucinating, seeing red and green, then blue. Kept chanting in my head “Be Lucid. Perform reality checks, Sherm.” Soon, the mattress fell away. Felt like my body was suspended in air. Couldn’t hear anything, or feel anything. Sleep paralysis check, I confirmed. I meditated to remain calm and let myself slip further. Began seeing more splashes of colour and then faces: my wife’s this time, when she was younger. Hallucination check, I thought.
A stark breeze brushed my cheek and I opened my eyes. Sure felt warmer than 20 degrees. Reality check one, failed. Pinched my nose and tried to breathe; no problem whatsoever. Second reality check failed. I then stood up; no wheelchair. Final reality check, failed. Three for three. I’m dreaming, all right, and fully lucid. I control my breathing. Don’t need air in here, but it tricks the mind to be calm. Get too riled up and I could wake up, even under the pills.
I lift my eyes to survey the dream. I’m just outside Sam’s Town, an old red casino teetering on the edge of Vegas. Not in the golden lanes where all the glitzy gaming hotels are, but nowhere in Vegas is it dark anyway.
“Sherm, what’s wrong?”
I hear. And something soft presses against my arm. Haven’t felt it in years. Caroline wore the same red spotted blouse as on our honeymoon. I’m dreaming of ’97. Been dreaming of Caroline an awful lot lately.
“You keep spacing out Sherm,” she says and … oh God help me. She looks at me with those sapphire eyes, like a captured galaxy. She puckers her lips, and I … I meet them. I know it’s just a dream, but it feels – felt so … so real.
A – anyway, I push her away after a moment – or two: mission comes first. Haven’t been so Lucid before in any dream. I turn around: tons of people going in and out of Sam’s Town. The music is blaring, and the neon too. But I don’t see a target. Makes sense, most people wouldn’t dream themselves to the entrance of Sam’s Town. It isn’t iconic enough.
Down the lane, I see the arching citadel of the Bellagio hotel. In the real world, it wouldn’t be so close to Sam’s Town, but in this dreamscape, it was just a stroll away. I feel Caroline wrap around my arm again, and we walk along.
“Let’s go back … hey,” she pines, and Caroline squeezes closer than I had thought possible. “Sherm, we already saw the Bellagio yesterday!” She tries to pull me back, but I gently usher her along. I could leave her and run ahead, but in dreams, it’s best not to act too differently than you normally do. Sends your subconscious warning signs, could wake you up.
“Well, what’s one more time? Come on, it’ll be quick,” she grumbled loud enough for me to hear. Entirely by design, Caroline. Well, in retrospect, I’m certain it was.
Together we walk towards the Bellagio’s majestic fountain, now jetting diamonds in the sky, framing the hotel behind with celestial gates. The crowd thickened as we neared, a dense mass of phones, pointing at the fading jets.
“You know what? This is nice,” she says softly.
“Yes it is,” I smile, but my eyes are scanning the scene. Bingo, my intuition was right. Everything about this place is all wrong. When me and Caroline came here years ago, the Bellagio hadn’t even opened yet. If this is my dream of ’97, the Bellagio should be a skeleton, and the fountain, a mud yard. Even if I’m dreaming of what I saw on TV, it shouldn’t be this vivid. Too vivid to be my own. And more importantly, the people. Hoodies, flipflops, tube tops, Chinese silk … People didn’t dress like that back in ’97. And the gadgets, I’ll be damned if we had I-phones back then.
I feel the ivory balustrade next to the fountain. It’s pockmarked and my fingers bump along a firm surface. It’s cold and slightly damp too, like after a brief shower. Odd: it didn’t rain a drop when we came in ’97. Which means … someone else is here – someone who visited Vegas after ’98 when the Bellagio opened – and this fountain is his or her dream.
I scan the clearing. A great way to tell a Lucid dreamer apart from dream characters is the way they move. Dream characters only move when the dreamer is aware of them. Otherwise, they remain frozen in place; and the whole left wing where Caroline and I were standing was completely stuck.
“Let's see it from over there” I point to the far end of the gallery. The fountain is moving too, so the dreamer must be watching it. As we stroll along, I see more active dream characters, and the camera snapping gets louder too. Finally, at the end, the crowd at the balustrade is abuzz. Yet, the group behind them is frozen. In the middle of the two is a lone girl in denim and black tights, just watching the Bellagio through the fountain spray, now forming starbursts in the night sky.
“What’s your name?”
She whips around, eyes forming a question, but too startled to ask. She sweeps her chestnut bangs over her right ear. “Erm … Lucy King”
“Lucy, I need you to be calm. My name is Penn Sherman.”
“And I’m Caroline, his wife” my wife interjects, shooting me a questioning glare.
“I was getting to it, honey.”
“Maybe we should get back, dear?” she tugs again, far harder this time. Harder than Caroline ever could when she was alive. It nearly trips me.
“H - hello, I guess?” Lucy says, taking a step back.
“I’ll get to the point. Do you know you are dreaming?”
“Honey … please, I’m begging you,” Caroline gives me a pained smile.
Lucy’s eyes narrow at me, and I continue: “This is the Bellagio fountain, but you can’t be here in real life right now, can you?”
Lucy looks to the sky, and all-round. Dream characters spring into action around her. The sound of snapping cameras and idle chatter picks up, as if Lucy had only just noticed it.
“I was … at home,” she whispers, then her eyes widen in shock.
I grin at her. “You see, I’m dreaming too, Lucy. This means the world of sleep is connected! I’m doing a test for the US mili...”
“ENOUGH” Caroline screams, but her voice rips at the seams, sounding … queer. “We are going back, NOW.” She readies herself for a huge pull. I blink. Are dream characters normally this pushy?
I slip out of her grasp. I blink again. Did she get bigger? My 5 foot Caroline is now 7, with spindly arms hanging down to her knees and her neck arching forward towards me at an impossible angle.
“Holy shit, this is a weird dream,” Lucy mumbles.
And Caroline’s voice breaks, morphing into something harsh, like a hundred shattering plates. “YOU HAVE GONE TOO FAR.” The flesh on Caroline’s hand melts into a flat sickle. Lucy never had a chance. The creature that was Caroline swung that cruel arm, cutting Lucy’s head off, eyes still wide with shock. There was no blood. Lucy’s body just shimmered away, waking her from the dream.
“What the fuck,” I shout. The creature snaps its head towards me and smiles, like Caroline. Grains of … sand seemed to be falling out of her body everywhere, but then circulating into her stomach, then out again. The ground was littered with the stuff.
“We can’t have you interfering with the dreamscape any further,” the creature grates at me, sending shivers down my dream body.
“What the hell are you?”
In reply, the creature brandishes its sickle arm at me. Not wanting to be intimidated, I force a laugh out of myself for bravado. “You got nothing on me. This is just a dream. Like Lucy, even if you cut off my head, I’ll just wake up.”
The creature chuckled. Then its harsh, otherworldly voice came. “Correct, if it is your dream, but where are you?”
The Bellagio; Lucy’s dream! And I start running back towards Sam’s Town. The insectoid skittering of the creature’s pointed feet sounded a step behind. I run as hard as I can, and I make it back past the fountain to the street. The block of buildings where Sam’s Town begins is just four strides away.
But then I just … fall. My legs are all busted again like after my second tour in Afghanistan, and the creature is closing in. All around it, Lucy’s dream of the Bellagio is collapsing, falling away into an empty black void below. Fountain waters poured into eternity along with Lucy’s dream characters, like mannequins. Cars and streetlamps folded down with the ground. But ahead, the block of buildings with Sam’s Town’s shimmering neon remained intact, just as bright as I left it.
I start crawling towards my dream – three strides away – but a shadow casts over me. The creature with Caroline’s face was there, with a street lamp at its back, bleeding sand all over the sidewalk. The streets were empty: no cars or people. It was just me, and it. I could already hear Sam’s Town, the whistles, the Michael Jackson they always had on, everything. And the sickle-shaped arm stabbed into my chest. I howled with pain, but I kept going, kept crawling – two strides away. I jerked and cried out as it stabbed me again in the arm – one stride.
One arm left, I grip onto a streetlamp and heave my body forward, but the bladed arm pulls me back, slicing down my dangling forearm. But I manage to gain an inch. My head passes the boundary and suddenly I feel my legs again. I hear rumbling, and my dream of Sam’s Town begins to fall apart; the neon sign crashes to the ground.
I need to be quick; get back in before the dream collapses without the rest of me. I’m almost there. And the creature stabs me again, this time in the chest, but I manage to kick off the asphalt with my legs and launch myself into the sidewalk. Sam’s Town’s music blares loudly, as if welcoming me back, and the neon sings in a dazzling spectrum which quickly fizzles away. The sound system fails. Buildings are crashing down around me. And I look at the creature. The street is like a damn beach from the sand pouring out its stomach. Behind it, the dream world is darkness as the creature’s unblinking eyes fix on me. My vision fades, and I flip the bird at it as I die.
I wake up and my body’s on fire. Something warm is running down my thigh: Blood, I recognize the smell. The emergency lights are on. My left arm refuses to move; it looks like a half-eaten chicken wing, but it doesn’t hurt. Adrenaline is pumping through my veins. The heart-rate monitor I’m hooked up to is going mad, and I can feel my chest go. My cell is ringing and nearly rattling itself off the bedside drawer. Home base must have picked up my readings, which means that paramedics are on the way. I just need to wait.
So here I am, bleeding all over my corridor, back against the wall and feet bracing myself upright. Patched myself up as best I could, but I hope the doctors can save the arm.
Trust no one. I repeat. Trust – no – one. These things can be anyone, even your wife, and they are hunting Lucids. HQ, we’ve made first contact. I recommend that all future Lucid dives take place monitored on base. I see headlights through my window. The paramedics are here to pick me up. Staff Sergeant Penn Sherman, signing out … and Caroline, I’ll be back.
END OF TRANSCRIPT: ON SANDMEN
5TH NOV 2002

Part 8 (has access to parts 1-7 in it)
For some reason it would not post the last day or so.
It is early 2017. I have been carrying on my usual playing 10-20 hours a week to survive. Still lethargic is best term I suppose. I just dont get excited to play anymore. I consider getting a job to remind me how shitty working is so it gives me a kick in the teeth to play poker. Then it dawns on me, I hate playing poker now.
Poker has been tainted. Everything bad that happened to me I can associate with poker. The rise and fall was poker (the fall part). The oxycontin started as a performance enhancer to log more hours. Everything I consider to be wrong in my life I trace back to poker essentially, even if just a butterfly affect reason that had I done something else I wouldnt be here.
Hating poker is not the greatest realization considering its my only means to income outside of grunt labor. I seek a job in a couple places to no avail which was fine, I didnt wanna do that either.
Several months earlier I had started playing on SWC (bitcoin site) and became familiarized with bitcoin. Thought nothing of it, it was just the currency I was winning or losing. I dont read a thing about it, I learn nothing of it. I wasnt playing a ton or even big stakes, my intention for playing online was to just stay sharp in case it ever comes back full fledge. I have 5-6 btc on this site at the most (2-3k) and I flush it playing plo and big o not thinking much of it.
Back to 2017. Its March/April~ of 2017. I am playing cards one night dicking around probably had a couple drinks and was needling the usuals etc. A guy I do not know is in the game. Looks Russian. I bet he interfered in our election... fucking commies. I dont remember how I got to talking to him but crypto had been brought up. I talk about SWC. Tell him I had a few btc but not anymore. The only other thing I remember well from the conversation was bitching about going from an iphone4 (yes I had an iphone4 from 2010-17, the same one. It barely worked. Many oxycontins snorted off the back of that phone, texts dating back to when I got it in 2010) to the 6 or 7 or wtfever I have now, which is bigger and its harder to text and drive. He just responds by saying “first world problems are the worst”. Amen brother, those Africans and Venezuelans have no clue of our struggle.
I end up talking to him a bit and it turns out he mines crypto. Has a website that sells mining equipment. He has a hell of a back story too. I tell him I am interested in mining. I have about 20k to my name at this time and I realized recently that I dont like playing poker so why not? He eventually tells me not to do it. Regardless we become friends and he is ultimately the most important friend I have ever made. I have made more positive strides mentally since meeting him (mostly work ethic, realizations, reality checks and aspirations) As silly as it sounds, when he told me “first world problems are the worst” it stuck with me. He was saying it as a joke but jokes are funniest when true. He is genuinely the smartest guy I have ever associated with also. If you run into him at a poker table youd think he was a high functioning autist. Then you talk to him and go “ohhh hes just one of those Einstein type geniuses”. His hair is usually a mess, he cuts his own hair for or has his girlfriend do it. He wears cheap clothing usually since it all covers your ass or nipples I suppose. He virtually never instigates conversation with people he doesnt know. He is really deliberate with his actions. Talks really calmly and knows exactly what he is saying. He is just on the same level at all times it seems.
Meeting him has definitely changed my life for the better. We become friends pretty quickly. I know I went on a downer after meeting him because I couldnt afford to buy mining stuff and remember wanting to (again, he told me not to do it eventually anyways).
Which will lead me to another good friend to have. Between 2015 and this point in 2017 I have shot myself in the foot not logging hours a couple times. A friend has bailed me out with a loan or short term stake a few times. He is a well off restaurant owner who loves poker more than just about anything not related to him. Every time I see him we talk about hands he played and he just eats it up, has photographic memory and never butchers a hand history which is nice. He is as good hearted of a guy as I have ever met. (Sorry if this is getting long winded giving praise to people close to me, I intend on sharing with a few people and would like them to know what they mean to me as corny as that is because I suck at doing it in real life. Plus it is kinda gay to get mushy sounding in real life, but I digress. Theyve heard virtually none of the content of this whole thread either, a ton of this stuff I have never shared) In fact he is too kind hearted. He has helped people who wouldnt piss on him if he was on fire, and people have burned him on many occasions. My only complaint about this person is he never kicked my ass and told me to log more hours or fuck off. I needed it. If I just logged hours I wouldnt need the help. Its as simple as that. I have no leaks other than the unwillingness to play (leaks as in drugs/pit games/strippers/wtf ever else) and it has hindered me immensely over the these last couple years. (Ok I do have one embarrassing leak that has been fixed for a year and change, mobile games... I have spent like 30,000$ on mobile games between late 2016 and late 2018, Lords Mobile specifically clocked me for 20k. This definitely hindered my ability to build a roll and got me into a few jams. When youre not logging hours playing youre sitting around gaming and these games arent cheap obviously)
It is around May now and my friend who messes with crypto tells me that Bitcoin is going to 10,000$. Its like 800$ at the time iirc. I own a couple from Ignition cashouts. I kind of trust him. I cant argue him on it as I have literally no mental fortitude on the subject, but I essentially shrug it off. I start watching the price on poloniex and am watching prices jump like crazy. Light bulb in head! I can buy the dips sell the peaks and have more BTC! Lets load the 2.5btc I have onto poloniex! Sell peak but it keeps climbing... “FUCK! gotta get it back before it goes to 10k! Whew. Still have 2.45 BTC. FUCK! Its dropping! Get it out before it goes to zero!”
Yea I turned that 2.5 BTC into .4 BTC. No joke. I think I ended up throwing it onto SWC and losing it once it was almost gone. I honestly forget. I had nothing when it finally hit 20k other than some shit alts worth about 800$ at most (worth 35$ now but they still reside in my locked poloniex account, maybe I will give poloniex my ID if they ever become worth more than 1k)
So I am now annoyed I didnt turn every free dollar I had into BTC. I didnt trust the guy enough and to be fair I would have been using the money I play with. Had I met the guy a year earlier (know what I know of him now) I would probably have just locked it all up and sat around waiting.
I never really get my act together in 2017. I continuously log just enough hours to get by. I just dont care. I just want a way out of this. I catch myself saying “I hate playing poker” and sometime around the end of 17 or early 2018 I start trying to censor myself and quit saying that. Saying it will only make it fester deeper. I have to retrain myself to love poker. I remember the days of playing 18-24 hours straight because I love playing. I love watching for everything I can find to get an edge. I love a situation to present itself where I can step out of line. But now I just sit down and count the minutes before I can tell myself “way to go! You put in an 8 hour shift lets pack it in!” I leave good games often times. I celebrate when games break. This is where I am mentally while I play. I cant break out of it.
Late in 2017 a close friend of mine passes away. Will call him J. He was the guy who gave me a place to stay after the shutdown in Joplin. I was still doing oxy and he never once touched the stuff knowing what has happened to me. He doesnt judge me, he is somewhat of an enabler I suppose. He just drinks does shitty coke sometimes and has a script of adderol and xanax. Literally never once does he do any with me (ive warned him xanax and opiates will kill you if you mix, which is likely part of the reason he never did it) He was a marginal poker player (relative to modern game, he was just good enough to beat the rake live but he had too many pit leaks) and took great pride in being my friend (I was the slayer in the area for years leading up to this, anyone considered the best in their area can relate, you just have the respect of the local poker community). One of my earlier live poker memories involved him. I am like 18 or 19 playing a 1-2 game at a small casino and he was there with a friend. They were the good players in the game at the time. They were having a few drinks eating nice food and laughing having a good time. I remember thinking that I want this lifestyle. Care free gambling fast paced lifestyle. I had told him this story years later and he just ate it up, constantly tried to get me to rebound, but as I have stated many many times in the last few of these I have basically waved my white flag and accepted the result of my fall.
Anyhow after living with him we always talk every few months at minimal and have something to eat when we see each other at the casino. He was somewhat disingenuous sounding he was so nice and honestly it got to a point it started rubbing me the wrong way. I still talk to him of course but less frequently. In December of 2017 I get a phone call from my friend who owns the restaurant and he is distraught. He has been at the hospital and J has passed away. The back story on this is he had gotten a phone call from old friend who was getting out of prison in Arizona with no where to go (a female). J being as nice a guy as he is drives the 20+ hours to get her and gives her a place to stay. Well shes a junky and actually convinces J to do opiates/heroin. He overdoses and dies. I hadnt talked to him in a few months. I regret it. Had I known I would have beaten him senseless and got him to quit before things actually get bad.
Going to his funeral hit me up side the head too. The way I started feeling he was disingenuous just got destroyed. I cant fathom as many people showing up to my funeral with as nice of things to say. I wrote something to say but opt out after a few people say everything I had written (except better). I regret not saying them anyways. I think I still have what I wrote tucked away with the card and his money clip that made its way to me. I stumbled across his casino players card in a box one day and it resides in my wallet ever since. This was the first close friend that has passed away in my life, knock on wood. It woke me up a bit and caused a lot of self reflection because I felt I had let him down. I lived a few miles from him and didnt drop in to see him, didnt stay in contact as well as I should have. All because I felt he was disingenuously nice when he was actually just nice, which is actually because I am a cynical hermit who hates social life these days. That was the real reason I didnt stay closer. Him being too nice was just my excuse to blow him off essentially.
Only other thing I can add is that chick he helped out didnt even go to his funeral and on top of that had tried to take his truck and clean his house out. Junkies are the worst. I was a junky but I proudly say I never robbed anyone or cost anyone anything other than emotional distress, which isnt much of a brag obviously.
2018 starts and I have been decreasing my methadone every week for about 3-4 months now. I am on a low dose. Makes sleeping at night hard (get restless legs and sneezy). So I am having a few drinks any time I am at the casino playing (still just two days a week for the most part) to help get through those late night sessions when its worn off and I feel crummy. I get down to 15mg then 10mg and in March of 2018 I get asked if I wanna work for a week with my crypto friend. His friend is setting up a farm with 500 miners and needs help. I agree. The pay is in excess of the work (in my opinion) at 3k and I have no expenses, but I dont argue obviously. Before we leave town I have to pick up my week of methadone (at 4mg now) and so I do that. I never take any of them, I have the box still. Never opened it. They remain at my apartment as a reminder, the box carrying the 6 doses and a stack of receipts for every 75$ week that I kept in the box, several years worth, at least 9-10k worth of receipts, and that shits CHEAP compared to oxy. So I am finally off of opiates. I take kratom still but its essentially non addictive in comparison. Ill cede that I am reliant on kratom but if it disappeared tomorrow I wouldnt panic, I would be fine.
So I fly to Denver with my friend and meet his friends half brother who was instructed to rent a box truck and the three of us were to drive from Denver to Washington carrying like half a million dollars worth of hardware. Its early March, the roads arent exactly great. Half brother of his friend rents a truck with no middle seat though. Its absolutely miserable. Whoever sat middle was sitting like a fem boy legs closed and knees up high from the drive shaft hump. It was un fucking real how uncomfortable the middle was. So like I stated the roads were not great, we drove on ice for 5-6 hours straight (while my crypto friend did about 30 minutes of it before I decided I value my life and banned him from driving, he was literally doing over 70 on this ice sheet when I checked the gauge. I forget what he said, I will fail to make it sound as good but he said that he is protected and can not die, if we wreck he wont get hurt because of some universe stipulation that protects him. He said we would get hurt but he wouldnt. *** Ok here is what he said.
“quantum immortality. if i die in this universe, my conciousness will shift to others where i am still alive”
He just couldnt assure us ours would.
I end up driving like 18 of the 24 (one shot) hours it took as letting crypto friend drive was out. We make it set up a farm over a couple days then we go to Vegas. Not only do we go to Vegas but we fly a private jet. Not only do we take a private jet but his buddy has all four of us our own room at the Bellagio for 5-6 days. I remember having a 4500$ win at Bellagios 500$ cap 2-5 game... ran pretty salty. I only remember one hand worth bringing up, but I closed action and called 400$ pre with 67o with 3 others all in. Just flop 77X and send me the money. (Was drinking, gamble gamble). I cold called that also, some fish had opened massive and a 300$ stack just ripped a 400$ stack rejammed and I had called out of bb knowing fish will call off his 400~. This is actually a leak I have in poker. I will go over it because it has history.
Dating back to online my biggest leak was playing vs short stacks. Everyones biggest leak obv (6m setting). There were a few min buyers on Carbon and I got to the point I put them in pre every time they opened my bb from button, so long as they opened 75%+ from button or close to it. This has carried with me live, if I can gamble 3-4 ways (4 specifically) I will basically do it any time its 100bb~ or less with about 40% of hands if I can close action safely. I am a bit of a degenerate in this sense. I will flip for 1k if I have 10k to my name. It mostly came as a way to loosen up tables (the flipping blind preflop) at my local casino with players who give action. I am pretty snug in general but I cant refuse a flip when it presents itself and I cant refuse a fun gamble with short stacks.
I spend the month in Vegas during WSOP and run absurdly bad. Lose every big pot I play it seems. Switch to PLO the last half of the month and go a week straight without tripling my buy in up at any point. Just insane. Looking back I play rather poorly in PLO. I have been spoiled with my PLO games back home (which have been dead for about a year) and could get away with playing 50% of hands and no one ever bet big draws or anything not the nuts basically. I didnt adjust at all is what the issue was. Was just a frustrating month.
So I return and take a stake from a friend. I barely play still. Same ole same ole.
The last thing I will cover for this section is an incident late in 2018. One of the girls who is the floor at my local casino takes kratom also, we talk about it a fair amount. She has some 10mg percocets (mini oxycontins essentially) she gives me two of them. I havent had one in several years. I have been off methadone for 6-8 months at the time. I am eager to feel what I felt all those years ago, having no tolerance. So I take them home even though I know I shouldnt.
I get home and take both of them. What transpires is almost depressing. It frustrates me to no end that I realized that I have no desire for these. It affirms that all the money I flushed wasnt about the high, it was about the not withdrawing. I basically stated this in an earlier post but this is the event that I learned this from. I dont even enjoy it. I just sink knowing that I gave my life away for these. I have never recovered thanks to pain killers. Never once after 2011 have I ever looked in the mirror and said “finally, I have finally recovered what I fucked off”.
I am going to finish this thread off on the next post most likely. It will likely be long and take me a while to compose as it will cover my current year, and put a bow on it. The story basically climaxes a couple posts back, these surely have slowly lost their luster but I will finish them anyways. Nothing exciting about hearing about a guy who can beat games but wont sit in the chair to do it. Its a bit more upbeat in 2019 though andd I feel my future is bright and redemption nears though. I dont think I would have written these if not for a change of mentality recently, so look forward to a positive summary next post.

Ranking - Event - Location @ Venue - Attendance

• 1 - UFC 193: Rousey vs. Holm - Melbourne @ Etihad Stadium - 56,214
  
• 2 - UFC 129: GSP vs. Shields - Toronto @ Rogers Centre - 55,724
  
• 3 - UFC 198: Werdum vs. Miocic - Curitiba @ Arena da Baixada - 45,207
  
• 4 - UFC on Fox: Gustafsson vs. Johnson - Stockholm @ Tele2 Arena - 30,000
  
• 5 - UFC 124: GSP vs. Koscheck 2 - Montreal @ Bell Centre - 23,152
  
• 6 - UFC FN: Hunt vs. Oleinik - Moscow @ Olimpiyskiy Stadium - 22,603
  
• 7 - UFC 97: Redemption - Montreal @ Bell Centre - 21,451
  
• 8 - UFC 83: Serra vs. GSP 2 - Montreal @ Bell Centre - 21,390
  
• 9 - UFC 188: Velasquez vs. Werdum - Mexico City @ Arena Ciudad - 21,036
  
• 10 - UFC 180: Werdum vs. Hunt - Mexico City @ Arena Ciudad - 21,000
  
• 11 - UFC 144: Edgar vs. Bendo - Saitama @ Saitama Super Arena - 21,000
  
• 12 - UFC 205: Alvarez vs. McGregor - New York City @ MSG - 20,427
  
• 13 - UFC 158: GSP vs. Diaz - Montreal @ Bell Centre - 20,145
  
• 14 - UFC 229: Khabib vs. McGregor - Las Vegas @ T-Mobile Arena - 20,034
  
• 15 - UFC 171: Hendricks vs. Lawler - Dallas @ Ameri Airlines Center - 19,324
  
• 16 - UFC 68: The Uprising - Columbus @ Nationwide Arena - 19,079
  
• 17 - UFC 231: Holloway vs. Ortega - Toronto @ Scotiabank Arena - 19,039
  
• 18 - UFC 203: Miocic vs. Overeem - Cleveland @ Quicken Loans Arena - 18,875
  
• 19 - UFC 207: Nunes vs. Rousey - Las Vegas @ T-Mobile Arena - 18,533
  
• 20 - UFC 140: Jones vs. Machida - Toronto @ Air Canada Centre - 18,303
  
• 21 - UFC 200: Tate vs. Nunes - Las Vegas @ T-Mobile Arena - 18,202
  
• 22 - UFC 217: Bisping vs. GSP - New York City @ MSG - 18,201
  
• 23 - UFC 127: Penn vs. Fitch - Sydney @ Acer Arena - 18,186
  
• 24 - UFC 225: Whittaker vs. Romero 2 - Chicago @ United Center - 18,117
  
• 25 - UFC 206: Holloway vs. Pettis - Toronto @ Air Canada Centre - 18,057
  
• 26 - UFC 211: Miocic vs. JDS 2 - Dallas @ American Air Center - 17,834
  
• 27 - UFC 110: Nogueira vs. Velasquez - Sydney @ Acer Arena - 17,831
  
• 28 - UFC 227: Dillashaw vs. Cody 2 - Los Angeles @ Staples Center - 17,794
  
• 29 - UFC 115: Liddell vs. Franklin - Vancouver @ General Motors Place - 17,669
  
• 30 - UFC 184: Rousey vs. Zingano - Los Angeles @ Staples Center - 17,654
  
• 31 - UFC 113: Machida vs. Shogun 2 - Montreal @ Bell Centre - 17,647
  
• 32 - UFC 218: Holloway vs. Aldo 2 - Detroit @ Little Caesars Arena - 17,587
  
• 33 - UFC 226: Miocic vs. Cormier - Las Vegas @ T-Mobile Arena - 17,464
  
• 34 - UFC 103: Franklin vs. Belfort - Dallas @ American Air Center - 17,428
  
• 35 - UFC 101: Declaration - Philadelphia @ Wachovia Center - 17,411
  
• 36 - UFC 154: GSP vs. Condit - Montreal @ Bell Centre - 17,249
  
• 37 - UFC 166: Velasquez vs. JDS III - Houston @ Toyota Center - 17,238
  
• 38 - UFC 185: Pettis vs. RDA - Dallas @ American Air Center - 17,160
  
• 39 - UFC 120: Bisping vs. Akiyama - London @ The O2 arena - 17,133
  
• 40 - UFC 210: Cormier vs. Johnson 2 - Buffalo @ KeyBank Center - 17,110
  
• 41 - UFC 96: Jackson vs. Jardine - Columbus @ Nationwide Arena - 17,033
  
• 42 - UFC 223: Khabib vs. Iaquinta - Brooklyn @ Barclays Center - 17,026
  
• 43 - UFC 230: Cormier vs. Lewis - New York City @ MSG - 17,011
  
• 44 - UFC on Fox: Werdum vs. Browne - Orlando @ Amway Center - 17,000
  
• 45 - UFC 111: GSP vs. Hardy - Newark @ Prudential Center - 17,000
  
• 46 - UFC on Fox: Evans vs. Davis - Chicago @ United Center - 16,963
  
• 47 - UFC 153: Silva vs. Bonnar - Rio de Janeiro @ HSBC Arena - 16,844
  
• 48 - UFC 152: Jones vs. Belfort - Toronto @ Air Canada Centre - 16,800
  
• 49 - UFC FN: Silva vs. Bisping - London @ The O2 Arena - 16,734
  
• 50 - UFC 105: Couture vs. Vera - Manchester @ Evening News Arena - 16,693
  
• 51 - UFC 147: Silva vs. Franklin II - Belo Horizonte @ Mineirinho Arena - 16,643
  
• 52 - UFC 214: Cormier vs. Jones 2 - Anaheim @ Honda Center - 16,610
  
• 53 - UFC 194: Aldo vs. McGregor - Las Vegas @ MGM Garden Arena - 16,516
  
• 54 - UFC 82: Pride of a Champion - Columbus @ Nationwide Arena - 16,431
  
• 55 - UFC 123: Rampage vs. Machida - Auburn Hills @ The Palace - 16,404
  
• 56 - UFC 135: Jones vs. Rampage - Denver @ Pepsi Center - 16,344
  
• 57 - UFC FN: Werdum vs. Volkov - London @ The O2 Arena - 16,274
  
• 58 - UFC 75: Champion vs. Champion - London @ The O2 arena - 16,235
  
• 59 - UFC 215: Nunes vs. Shevchenko 2 - Edmonton @ Rogers Place - 16,232
  
• 60 - UFC 136: Edgar vs. Maynard III - Houston @ Toyota Center - 16,164
  
• 61 - UFC on Fox: DJ vs. Dodson - Chicago @ United Center - 16,091
  
• 62 - UFC 149: Faber vs. Barão - Calgary @ Scotiabank Saddledome - 16,089
  
• 63 - UFC 102: Couture vs. Nogueira - Portland @ Rose Garden - 16,088
  
• 64 - UFC on Fox: Shogun vs. Vera - Los Angeles @ Staples Center - 16,080
  
• 65 - UFC 77: Hostile Territory - Cincinnati @ U.S. Bank Arena - 16,054
  
• 66 - UFC 189: Mendes vs. McGregor - Las Vegas @ MGM Garden Arena - 16,019
  
• 67 - UFC 220: Miocic vs. Ngannou - Boston @ TD Garden - 16,015
  
• 68 - UFC 204: Bisping vs. Hendo 2 - Manchester @ Manchester Arena - 16,000
  
• 69 - UFC 232: Jones vs. Gustafsson 2 - Inglewood @ The Forum - 15,862
  
• 70 - UFC 119: Mir vs. Cro Cop - Indianapolis @ Conseco Fieldhouse - 15,811
  
• 71 - UFC FN: Manuwa vs. Anderson - London @ The O2 Arena - 15,761
  
• 72 - UFC 168: Weidman vs. Silva 2 - Las Vegas @ MGM Garden Arena - 15,650
  
• 73 - UFC 208: Holm vs. de Randamie - Brooklyn @ Barclays Center - 15,628
  
• 74 - UFC 199: Rockhold vs. Bisping 2 - Inglewood @ The Forum - 15,587
  
• 75 - UFC 145: Jones vs. Evans - Atlanta @ Philips Arena - 15,545
  
• 76 - UFC 202: Diaz vs. McGregor 2 - Las Vegas @ T-Mobile Arena - 15,539
  
• 77 - UFC 165: Jones vs. Gus - Toronto @ Air Canada Centre - 15,504
  
• 78 - UFC on Fuel TV: Gus vs. Silva - Stockholm @ Ericsson Globe - 15,428
  
• 79 - UFC 212: Aldo vs. Holloway - Rio de Janeiro @ Jeunesse Arena - 15,412
  
• 80 - UFC 90: Silva vs. Côté - Rosemont @ Allstate Arena - 15,359
  
• 81 - UFC 85: Bedlam - London @ The O2 arena - 15,327
  
• 82 - UFC on Fox: JDS vs. Miocic - Phoenix @ Talking Stick Resort Arena - 15,300
  
• 83 - UFC 69: Shootout - Houston @ Toyota Center - 15,269
  
• 84 - UFC 159: Jones vs. Sonnen - Newark @ Prudential Center - 15,227
  
• 85 - UFC FN: Bisping vs. Gastelum - Shanghai @ Mercedes-Benz Arena - 15,128
  
• 86 - UFC 70: Nations Collide - Manchester @ Evening News Arena - 15,114
  
• 87 - UFC 148: Silva vs. Sonnen II - Las Vegas @ MGM Garden Arena - 15,104
  
• 88 - UFC 87: Seek and Destroy - Minneapolis @ Target Center - 15,087
  
• 89 - UFC 114: Rampage vs. Evans - Las Vegas @ MGM Garden Arena - 14,996
  
• 90 - UFC 196: McGregor vs. Diaz - Las Vegas @ MGM Garden Arena - 14,898
  
• 91 - UFC 104: Machida vs. Shogun - Los Angeles @ Staples Center - 14,892
  
• 92 - UFC 94: St-Pierre vs. Penn 2 - Las Vegas @ MGM Garden Arena - 14,885
  
• 93 - UFC 167: GSP vs. Hendricks - Las Vegas @ MGM Garden Arena - 14,856
  
• 94 - UFC 121: Lesnar vs. Velasquez - Anaheim @ Honda Center - 14,856
  
• 95 - UFC 84: Ill Will - Las Vegas @ MGM Garden Arena - 14,773
  
• 96 - UFC 60: Hughes vs. Gracie - Los Angeles @ Staples Center - 14,765
  
• 97 - UFC 161: Evans vs. Hendo - Winnipeg @ MTS Centre - 14,754
  
• 98 - UFC 88: Breakthrough - Atlanta @ Philips Arena - 14,736
  
• 99 - UFC 71: Liddell vs. Jackson - Las Vegas @ MGM Garden Arena - 14,728
  
• 100 - UFC 190: Rousey vs. Correia - Rio de Janeiro @ HSBC Arena - 14,723
  
• 101 - UFC 131: JDS vs. Carwin - Vancouver @ Rogers Arena - 14,685
  
• 102 - UFC on Fuel TV: Silva vs. Stann - Saitama @ Super Arena - 14,682
  
• 103 - UFC 146: JDS vs. Mir - Las Vegas @ MGM Garden Arena - 14,674
  
• 104 - UFC 65: Bad Intentions - Sacramento @ ARCO Arena - 14,666
  
• 105 - UFC 192: Cormier vs. Gustafsson - Houston @ Toyota Center - 14,622
  
• 106 - UFC FN: Gustafsson vs. Manuwa - London @ The O2 Arena - 14,604
  
• 107 - UFC 52: Couture vs. Liddell - Las Vegas @ MGM Garden Arena - 14,562
  
• 108 - UFC on FX: Alves vs. Kampmann - Sydney @ Allphones Arena - 14,537
  
• 109 - UFC on Fuel TV: Mousasi vs. Latifi - Stockholm @ Ericsson Globe - 14,506
  
• 110 - UFC on Fox: RDA vs. Cerrone 2 - Orlando @ Amway Center - 14,459
  
• 111 - UFC on Fox: Bendo vs. Diaz - Seattle @ KeyArena - 14,387
  
• 112 - UFC 169: Barão vs. Faber II - Newark @ Prudential Center - 14,308
  
• 113 - UFC 91: Couture vs. Lesnar - Las Vegas @ MGM Garden Arena - 14,272
  
• 114 - UFC FN: Shogun vs. Sonnen - Boston @ TD Garden - 14,181
  
• 115 - UFC 118: Edgar vs. Penn 2 - Boston @ TD Garden - 14,168
  
• 116 - UFC 92: The Ultimate 2008 - Las Vegas @ MGM Garden Arena - 14,166
  
• 117 - UFC 228: Woodley vs. Till - Dallas @ American Air Center - 14,073
  
• 118 - UFC 78: Validation - Newark @ Prudential Center - 14,071
  
• 119 - UFC FN: Belfort vs. Gastelum - Fortaleza @ Olímpica do Nordeste - 14,069
  
• 120 - UFC 134: Silva vs. Okami - Rio de Janeiro @ HSBC Arena - 14,000
  
• 121 - UFC 107: Penn vs. Sanchez - Memphis @ FedExForum - 13,896
  
• 122 - UFC 163: Aldo vs. Zombie - Rio de Janeiro @ HSBC Arena - 13,873
  
• 123 - UFC 139: Shogun vs. Hendo - San Jose @ HP Pavilion - 13,832
  
• 124 - UFC FN: McGregor vs. Siver - Boston @ TD Garden - 13,828
  
• 125 - UFC 59: Reality Check - Anaheim @ Arrowhead Pond - 13,814
  
• 126 - UFC 141: Lesnar vs. Overeem - Las Vegas @ MGM Garden Arena - 13,793
  
• 127 - UFC 76: Knockout - Anaheim @ Honda Center - 13,770
  
• 128 - UFC 40: Vendetta - Las Vegas @ MGM Garden Arena - 13,770
  
• 129 - UFC FN: Nogueira vs. Davis - Seattle @ KeyArena - 13,741
  
• 130 - UFC FN: Whittaker vs. Brunson - Melbourne @ Rod Laver Arena - 13,721
  
• 131 - UFC 66: Liddell vs. Ortiz - Las Vegas @ MGM Garden Arena - 13,671
  
• 132 - UFC 219: Cyborg vs. Holm - Las Vegas @ T-Mobile Arena - 13,561
  
• 133 - UFC 155: JDS vs. Velasquez 2 - Las Vegas @ MGM Garden Arena - 13,561
  
• 134 - UFC 108: Evans vs. Silva - Las Vegas @ MGM Garden Arena - 13,529
  
• 135 - UFC 54: Boiling Point - Las Vegas @ MGM Garden Arena - 13,520
  
• 136 - UFC 174: DJ vs. Bagautinov - Vancouver @ Rogers Arena - 13,506
  
• 137 - UFC on Fox: Bendo vs. Melendez - San Jose @ HP Pavilion - 13,506
  
• 138 - UFC 172: Jones vs. Teixeira - Baltimore @ Baltimore Arena - 13,485
  
• 139 - UFC FN: Edgar vs. Faber - Pasay @ Mall of Asia Arena - 13,446
  
• 140 - UFC on Fox: Machida vs. Rockhold - Newark @ Prudential Center - 13,306
  
• 141 - UFC 95: Sanchez vs. Stevenson - London @ The O2 arena - 13,268
  
• 142 - UFC 157: Rousey vs. Carmouche - Anaheim @ Honda Center - 13,257
  
• 143 - UFC on Fox: Shevchenko vs. Peña - Denver @ Pepsi Center - 13,233
  
• 144 - UFC 73: Stacked - Sacramento @ ARCO Arena - 13,183
  
• 145 - UFC FN: Rothwell vs. JDS - Zagreb @ Arena Zagreb - 13,177
  
• 146 - UFC 209: Woodley vs. Thompson 2 - Vegas @ T-Mobile Arena - 13,150
  
• 147 - UFC on Fox: PVZ vs. Waterson - Sacramento @ Golden 1 Center - 13,136
  
• 148 - UFC 183: Silva vs. Diaz - Las Vegas @ MGM Garden Arena - 13,114
  
• 149 - UFC 132: Cruz vs. Faber - Las Vegas @ MGM Garden Arena - 13,109
  
• 150 - UFC 150: Bendo vs. Edgar II - Denver @ Pepsi Center - 13,027
  
• 151 - UFC 8: David vs. Goliath - Bayamón @ Coliseo Rubén Rodríguez - 13,000
  
• 152 - UFC 117: Silva vs. Sonnen - Oakland @ Oracle Arena - 12,971
  
• 153 - UFC 162: Silva vs. Weidman - Las Vegas @ MGM Garden Arena - 12,964
  
• 154 - UFC 125: Resolution - Las Vegas @ MGM Garden Arena - 12,874
  
• 155 - UFC 99: The Comeback - Cologne @ Lanxess Arena - 12,854
  
• 156 - UFC 213: Romero vs. Whittaker - Las Vegas @ T-Mobile Arena - 12,834
  
• 157 - UFC 130: Rampage vs. Hamill - Las Vegas @ MGM Garden Arena - 12,753
  
• 158 - UFC 116: Lesnar vs. Carwin - Las Vegas @ MGM Garden Arena - 12,740
  
• 159 - UFC FN: Gustafsson vs. Teixeira - Stockholm @ Ericsson Globe - 12,668
  
• 160 - UFC 128: Shogun vs. Jones - Newark @ Prudential Center - 12,619
  
• 161 - UFC 187: Johnson vs. Cormier - Las Vegas @ MGM Garden Arena - 12,615
  
• 162 - UFC 98: Evans vs. Machida - Las Vegas @ MGM Garden Arena - 12,606
  
• 163 - UFC 63: Hughes vs. Penn - Anaheim @ Arrowhead Pond - 12,604
  
• 164 - UFC 32: Meadowlands - East Rutherford @ Continental Airlines Arena - 12,500
  
• 165 - UFC 221: Romero vs. Rockhold - Perth @ Perth Arena - 12,437
  
• 166 - UFC FN: Hunt vs. Nelson - Saitama @ Saitama Super Arena - 12,395
  
• 167 - UFC 160: Velasquez vs. Bigfoot 2 - Las Vegas @ MGM Garden Arena - 12,380
  
• 168 - UFC on Fox: DJ vs. Reis - Kansas City @ Sprint Center - 12,171
  
• 169 - UFC FN: Bendo vs. Masvidal - Seoul @ Olympic Gymnastics Arena - 12,156
  
• 170 - UFC FN: Cejudo vs. Dillashaw - Brooklyn @ Barclays Center - 12,152
  
• 171 - UFC 49: Unfinished Business - Las Vegas @ MGM Garden Arena - 12,100
  
• 172 - UFC 222: Cyborg vs. Kunitskaya - Las Vegas @ T-Mobile Arena - 12,041
  
• 173 - UFC FN: Dillashaw vs. Cruz - Boston @ TD Garden - 12,022
  
• 174 - UFC 56: Full Force - Las Vegas @ MGM Garden Arena - 12,000
  
• 175 - UFC 53: Heavy Hitters - Atlantic City @ Boardwalk Hall - 12,000
  
• 176 - UFC FN: Arlovski vs. Barnett - Hamburg @ Barclaycard Arena - 11,763
  
• 177 - UFC 41: Onslaught - Atlantic City @ Boardwalk Hall - 11,707
  
• 178 - UFC on Fox: Dillashaw vs. Barão 2 - Chicago @ United Center - 11,663
  
• 179 - UFC on Fox: Velasquez vs. JDS - Anaheim @ Honda Center - 11,607
  
• 180 - UFC FN: Rodríguez vs. Penn - Phoenix @ Talking Stick Resort Arena - 11,589
  
• 181 - UFC 133: Evans vs. Ortiz - Philadelphia @ Wells Fargo Center - 11,583
  
• 182 - UFC 182: Jones vs. Cormier - Las Vegas @ MGM Garden Arena - 11,575
  
• 183 - UFC on Fox: DJ vs. Benavidez 2 - Sacramento @ Sleep Train Arena - 11,573
  
• 184 - UFC on Fox: Lawler vs. Brown - San Jose @ SAP Center - 11,482
  
• 185 - TUF Latin 3: RDA vs. Ferguson - Mexico City @ Arena Ciudad - 11,460
  
• 186 - UFC 47: It's On! - Las Vegas @ Mandalay Bay Events - 11,437
  
• 187 - UFC FN: Zombie vs. Rodríguez - Denver @ Pepsi Center - 11,426
  
• 188 - UFC 179: Aldo vs. Mendes 2 - Rio de Janeiro @ Maracanãzinho - 11,415
  
• 189 - UFC FN: Hunt vs. Bigfoot - Brisbane @ Brisbane Entertainment Centre - 11,393
  
• 190 - UFC on Fox: Poirier vs. Gaethje - Glendale @ Gila River Arena - 11,382
  
• 191 - UFC 197: Jones vs. OSP - Las Vegas @ MGM Garden Arena - 11,352
  
• 192 - UFC on Fox: Teixeira vs. Evans - Tampa @ Amalie Arena - 11,273
  
• 193 - UFC on Fox: Weidman vs. Gastelum - Uniondale @ Nassau Coliseum - 11,198
  
• 194 - UFC 61: Bitter Rivals - Las Vegas @ Mandalay Bay Events - 11,167
  
• 195 - UFC FN: Cowboy vs. Till - Gdańsk @ Ergo Arena - 11,138
  
• 196 - UFC 177: Dillashaw vs. Soto - Sacramento @ Sleep Train Arena - 11,100
  
• 197 - UFC FN: Maia vs. Usman - Santiago @ Movistar Arena - 11,082
  
• 198 - UFC 79: Nemesis - Las Vegas @ Mandalay Bay Events - 11,075
  
• 199 - UFC 51: Super Saturday - Las Vegas @ Mandalay Bay Events - 11,072
  
• 200 - UFC 74: Respect - Las Vegas @ Mandalay Bay Events - 11,065
  
• 201 - UFC 173: Barão vs. Dillashaw - Las Vegas @ MGM Garden Arena - 11,036
  
• 202 - UFC 112: Invincible - Abu Dhabi @ Yas Island - 11,008
  
• 203 - UFC 86: Jackson vs. Griffin - Las Vegas @ Mandalay Bay Events - 10,990
  
• 204 - UFC on Fox: Bendo vs. Thomson - Chicago @ United Center - 10,895
  
• 205 - UFC 126: Silva vs. Belfort - Las Vegas @ Mandalay Bay Events - 10,893
  
• 206 - UFC 191: DJ vs. Dodson 2 - Las Vegas @ MGM Garden Arena - 10,873
  
• 207 - UFC 100 - Las Vegas @ Mandalay Bay Events - 10,871
  
• 208 - UFC 138: Leben vs. Muñoz - Birmingham @ LG Arena - 10,823
  
• 209 - UFC on Fox: Diaz vs. Miller - East Rutherford @ IZOD Center - 10,788
  
• 210 - UFC 67: All or Nothing - Las Vegas @ Mandalay Bay Events - 10,787
  
• 211 - UFC FN: MacDonald vs. Saffiedine - Halifax @ Scotiabank Centre - 10,782
  
• 212 - UFC 109: Relentless - Las Vegas @ Mandalay Bay Events - 10,753
  
• 213 - UFC 46: Supernatural - Las Vegas @ Mandalay Bay Events - 10,700
  
• 214 - UFC 224: Nunes vs. Pennington - Rio de Janeiro @ Jeunesse Arena - 10,696
  
• 215 - UFC 57: Liddell vs. Couture 3 - Las Vegas @ Mandalay Bay Events - 10,659
  
• 216 - UFC 216: Ferguson vs. Lee - Las Vegas @ T-Mobile Arena - 10,638
  
• 217 - UFC FN: Belfort vs. Hendo 3 - São Paulo @ do Ibirapuera - 10,628
  
• 218 - UFC 142: Aldo vs. Mendes - Rio de Janeiro @ HSBC Arena - 10,605
  
• 219 - UFC on Fox: Alvarez vs. Poirier 2 - Calgary @ Scotiabank Saddledome - 10,603
  
• 220 - UFC FN: Nelson vs. Ponzinibbio - Glasgow @ The SSE Hydro - 10,589
  
• 221 - UFC 81: Breaking Point - Las Vegas @ Mandalay Bay Events - 10,583
  
• 222 - UFC FN: Belfort vs. Hendo - Goiânia @ Goiânia Arena - 10,565
  
• 223 - UFC on Fox: Johnson vs. Bader - Newark @ Prudential Center - 10,555
  
• 224 - UFC 178: DJ vs. Cariaso - Las Vegas @ MGM Garden Arena - 10,544
  
• 225 - UFC on Fox: Maia vs. Condit - Vancouver @ Rogers Arena - 10,533
  
• 226 - UFC 106: Ortiz vs. Griffin 2 - Las Vegas @ Mandalay Bay Events - 10,529
  
• 227 - UFC 62: Liddell vs. Sobral - Las Vegas @ Mandalay Bay Events - 10,503
  
• 228 - UFC FN: Cowboy vs. Medeiros - Austin @ Frank Erwin Center - 10,502
  
• 229 - UFC FN: MacDonald vs. Thompson - Ottawa @ TD Place Arena - 10,490
  
• 230 - UFC FN: Bisping vs. Leites - Glasgow @ The SSE Hydro - 10,451
  
• 231 - UFC FN: Overeem vs. Arlovski - Rotterdam @ Ahoy Rotterdam - 10,421
  
• 232 - TUF Latin 2: Magny vs. Kelvin - Monterrey @ Arena Monterrey - 10,410
  
• 233 - UFC 44: Undisputed - Las Vegas @ Mandalay Bay Events - 10,400
  
• 234 - UFC FN: Machida vs. Muñoz - Manchester @ Phones 4u Arena - 10,355
  
• 235 - UFC on Fuel TV: Barão vs. McDonald - London @ Wembley Arena - 10,349
  
• 236 - UFC 137: Penn vs. Diaz - Las Vegas @ Mandalay Bay Events - 10,313
  
• 237 - UFC FN: Blaydes vs. Ngannou 2 - Beijing @ Cadillac Arena - 10,302
  
• 238 - UFC 195: Lawler vs. Condit - Las Vegas @ MGM Garden Arena - 10,300
  
• 239 - UFC on Fox: Holm vs. Shevchenko - Chicago @ United Center - 10,287
  
• 240 - UFC 156: Aldo vs. Edgar - Las Vegas @ Mandalay Bay Events - 10,275
  
• 241 - UFC FN: Condit vs. Kampmann - Nashville @ Sommet Center - 10,267
  
• 242 - UFC FN: Brunson vs. Machida - São Paulo @ do Ibirapuera - 10,265
  
• 243 - UFC on Fox: Jacaré vs. Brunson 2 - Charlotte @ Spectrum Center - 10,249
  
• 244 - UFC FN: Magny vs. Ponzinibbio - Buenos Aires @ Mary Terán - 10,245
  
• 245 - UFC 201: Lawler vs. Woodley - Atlanta @ Philips Arena - 10,240
  
• 246 - UFC FN: Volkov vs. Struve - Rotterdam @ Ahoy Rotterdam - 10,224
  
• 247 - UFC 170: Rousey vs. McMann - Las Vegas @ Mandalay Bay Events - 10,217
  
• 248 - UFC 64: Unstoppable - Las Vegas @ Mandalay Bay Events - 10,173
  
• 249 - UFC FN: Pettis vs. Moreno - Mexico City @ Arena Ciudad - 10,172
  
• 250 - UFC 186: DJ vs. Horiguchi - Montreal @ Bell Centre - 10,154
  
• 251 - UFC FN: Machida vs. Anders - Belém @ Arena Guilherme Paraense - 10,144
  
• 252 - UFC FN: Swanson vs. Lobov - Nashville @ Bridgestone Arena - 10,144
  
• 253 - UFC FN: Barnett vs. Nelson - Saitama @ Saitama Super Arena - 10,137
  
• 254 - UFC FN: Edgar vs. Swanson - Austin @ Frank Erwin Center - 10,131
  
• 255 - UFC on Fox: Emmett vs. Stephens - Orlando @ Amway Center - 10,124
  
• 256 - UFC 175: Weidman vs. Machida - Las Vegas @ Mandalay Bay Events - 10,088
  
• 257 - UFC FN: Stephens vs. Choi - St. Louis @ Scottrade Center - 10,052
  
• 258 - UFC FN: Nelson vs. Story - Stockholm @ Ericsson Globe - 10,026
  
• 259 - UFC FN: Werdum vs. Tybura - Sydney @ Qudos Bank Arena - 10,021
  
• 260 - UFC FN: Gonzaga vs. Cro Cop 2 - Kraków @ Tauron Arena Kraków - 10,000
  
• 261 - UFC 48: Payback - Las Vegas @ Mandalay Bay Events - 10,000
  
• 262 - UFC 36: Worlds Collide - Las Vegas @ MGM Garden Arena - 10,000
  
• 263 - UFC 9: Motor City Madness - Detroit @ Cobo Arena - 10,000
  
• 264 - UFC FN: Rockhold vs. Bisping - Sydney @ Allphones Arena - 9,904
  
• 265 - UFC 43: Meltdown - Las Vegas @ Thomas & Mack Center - 9,800
  
• 266 - UFC 181: Hendricks vs. Lawler II - Las Vegas @ Mandalay Bay Events - 9,617
  
• 267 - UFC 35: Throwdown - Uncasville @ Mohegan Sun Arena - 9,600
  
• 268 - UFC 58: USA vs. Canada - Las Vegas @ Mandalay Bay Events - 9,569
  
• 269 - UFC FN: Hunt vs. Mir - Brisbane @ Brisbane Entertainment Centre - 9,552
  
• 270 - UFC FN: Barboza vs. Lee - Atlantic City @ Boardwalk Hall - 9,541
  
• 271 - UFC 89: Bisping vs. Leben - Birmingham @ National Indoor Arena - 9,515
  
• 272 - UFC FN: Holohan vs. Smolka - Dublin @ 3Arena - 9,500
  
• 273 - UFC FN: McGregor vs. Brandao - Dublin @ The O2 - 9,500
  
• 274 - UFC 33: Victory in Vegas - Las Vegas @ Mandalay Bay Events - 9,500
  
• 275 - UFC FN: Diaz vs. Guillard - Oklahoma City @ Cox Convention Center - 9,490
  
• 276 - UFC FN: Santos vs. Anders - São Paulo @ do Ibirapuera - 9,485
  
• 277 - UFC Live: Cruz vs. DJ - Washington @ Verizon Center - 9,380
  
• 278 - UFC 93: Franklin vs. Hendo - Dublin @ The O2 - 9,369
  
• 279 - UFC FN: Swanson vs. Stephens - San Antonio @ AT&T Center - 9,227
  
• 280 - UFC 45: Revolution - Uncasville @ Mohegan Sun Arena - 9,200
  
• 281 - UFC 164: Bendo vs. Pettis II - Milwaukee @ BMO Harris Bradley Center - 9,178
  
• 282 - UFC on FX: Belfort vs. Bisping - São Paulo @ do Ibirapuera - 9,116
  
• 283 - UFC FN: Diaz vs. Neer - Omaha @ Civic Auditorium - 9,103
  
• 284 - UFC FN: Bader vs. Nogueira 2 - São Paulo @ do Ibirapuera - 9,028
  
• 285 - UFC 143: Diaz vs. Condit - Las Vegas @ Mandalay Bay Events - 9,015
  
• 286 - UFC on Fox: Lee vs. Iaquinta 2 - Milwaukee @ Fiserv Forum - 9,010
  
• 287 - UFC 50: The War of '04 - Atlantic City @ Boardwalk Hall - 9,000
  
• 288 - UFC 34: High Voltage - Las Vegas @ MGM Garden Arena - 9,000
  
• 289 - UFC 7: The Brawl in Buffalo - Buffalo @ Buffalo Memorial Auditorium - 9,000
  
• 290 - TUF Brazil 3 : Miocic vs. Maldonado - São Paulo @ do Ibirapuera - 8,986
  
• 291 - UFC on Fox: DJ vs. Moraga - Seattle @ KeyArena - 8,967
  
• 292 - UFC on Fox: Lawler vs. RDA - Winnipeg @ Bell MTS Place - 8,862
  
• 293 - UFC FN: Bigfoot vs. Arlovski - Brasília @ Nilson Nelson - 8,822
  
• 294 - UFC FN: Bendo vs. Khabilov - Albuquerque @ Tingley Coliseum - 8,775
  
• 295 - UFC FN: JDS vs. Tuivasa - Adelaide @ Adelaide Entertainment Centre - 8,652
  
• 296 - UFC FN: Lewis vs. Hunt - Auckland @ Spark Arena - 8,649
  
• 297 - UFC FN: OSP vs. Okami - Saitama @ Saitama Super Arena - 8,571
  
• 298 - UFC FN: Thompson vs. Till - Liverpool @ Echo Arena - 8,520
  
• 299 - UFC: Fight for the Troops - Fayetteville @ Crown Coliseum - 8,500
  
• 300 - UFC FN: Poirier vs. Pettis - Norfolk @ Ted Constant Convocation Center - 8,442
  
• 301 - UFC 122: Marquardt vs. Okami - Oberhausen @ König Pilsener Arena - 8,421
  
• 302 - UFC on Fuel TV: Franklin vs. Le - Macau @ CotaiArena - 8,415
  
• 303 - UFC FN: Holm vs. Correia - Kallang @ Singapore Indoor Stadium - 8,414
  
• 304 - UFC 80: Rapid Fire - Newcastle upon Tyne @ Metro Radio Arena - 8,412
  
• 305 - UFC FN: Cyborg vs. Lansberg - Brasília @ Nilson Nelson - 8,410
  
• 306 - UFC Live: Sanchez vs. Kampmann - Louisville @ KFC Yum! Center - 8,319
  
• 307 - UFC FN: Jędrzejczyk vs. Penne - Berlin @ O2 World - 8,155
  
• 308 - UFC Live: Jones vs. Matyushenko - San Diego @ Sports Arena - 8,132
  
• 309 - UFC FN: Lewis vs. Browne - Halifax @ Scotiabank Centre - 8,123
  
• 310 - UFC FN: Bermudez vs. Zombie - Houston @ Toyota Center - 8,119
  
• 311 - TUF: Joanna vs. Cláudia - Las Vegas @ MGM Garden Arena - 8,115
  
• 312 - UFC FN: Te Huna vs. Marquardt - Auckland @ Vector Arena - 8,089
  
• 313 - UFC FN: Maynard vs. Diaz - Fairfax @ Patriot Center - 8,078
  
• 314 - UFC FN: Muñoz vs. Mousasi - Berlin @ O2 World - 8,000
  
• 315 - UFC 55: Fury - Uncasville @ Mohegan Sun Arena - 8,000
  
• 316 - UFC FN: Miocic vs. Hunt - Adelaide @ Adelaide Entertainment Centre - 7,984
  
• 317 - UFC FN: Nogueira vs. Nelson - Abu Dhabi @ du Arena - 7,963
  
• 318 - UFC 72: Victory - Belfast @ The Odyssey - 7,850
  
• 319 - UFC 39: The Warriors Return - Uncasville @ Mohegan Sun Arena - 7,800
  
• 320 - UFC 1: The Beginning - Denver @ McNichols Sports Arena - 7,800
  
• 321 - UFC FN: Shogun vs. Smith - Hamburg @ Barclaycard Arena - 7,798
  
• 322 - UFC Live: Kongo vs. Barry - Pittsburgh @ Consol Energy Center - 7,792
  
• 323 - UFC FN: RDA vs. Alvarez - Las Vegas @ MGM Garden Arena - 7,760
  
• 324 - UFC on FX: Guillard vs. Miller - Nashville @ Bridgestone Arena - 7,728
  
• 325 - UFC FN: Marquardt vs. Palhares - Austin @ Frank Erwin Center - 7,724
  
• 326 - UFC FN: Maia vs. LaFlare - Rio de Janeiro @ do Maracanãzinho - 7,707
  
• 327 - UFC FN: Florian vs. Gomi - Charlotte @ Bojangles Coliseum - 7,700
  
• 328 - UFC on FX: Belfort vs. Rockhold - Jaraguá do Sul @ Arena Jaraguá - 7,642
  
• 329 - UFC FN: Swanson vs. Ortega - Fresno @ Save Mart Center - 7,605
  
• 330 - UFC FN: Chiesa vs. Lee - Oklahoma City @ Chesapeake Energy Arena - 7,605
  
• 331 - UFC FN: Lauzon vs. Stephens - Tampa @ USF Sun Dome - 7,596
  
• 332 - UFC FN: Teixeira vs. OSP - Nashville @ Bridgestone Arena - 7,539
  
• 333 - UFC FN: Machida vs. Mousasi - Jaraguá do Sul @ Arena Jaraguá - 7,511
  
• 334 - UFC 42: Sudden Impact - Miami @ AmericanAirlines Arena - 7,500
  
• 335 - UFC FN: Hendricks vs. Thompson - Las Vegas @ MGM Garden Arena - 7,422
  
• 336 - UFC FN: Cowboy vs. Cowboy - Pittsburgh @ Consol Energy Center - 7,330
  
• 337 - UFC on Fuel TV: Struve vs. Miocic - Nottingham @ Capital FM Arena - 7,241
  
• 338 - UFC FN: Mousasi vs. Hall 2 - Belfast @ The SSE Arena - 7,222
  
• 339 - UFC FN: Holloway vs. Oliveira - Saskatoon @ SaskTel Centre - 7,202
  
• 340 - UFC 37: High Impact - Bossier City @ CenturyTel Center - 7,200
  
• 341 - UFC FN: Bendo vs. RDA - Tulsa @ BOK Center - 7,119
  
• 342 - UFC FN: Shields vs. Ellenberger - New Orleans @ Morial Center - 7,112
  
• 343 - UFC on FX: Browne vs. Bigfoot - Minneapolis @ Target Center - 7,049
  
• 344 - UFC FN: Bisping vs. Le - Macau @ CotaiArena - 7,022
  
• 345 - UFC FN: Rockhold vs. Branch - Pittsburgh @ PPG Paints Arena - 7,005
  
• 346 - UFC FN: Shogun vs. Hendo 2 - Natal @ Nélio Dias - 6,828
  
• 347 - UFC Live: Hardy vs. Lytle - Milwaukee @ Bradley Center - 6,751
  
• 348 - UFC FN: Florian vs. Lauzon - Broomfield @ Broomfield Event Center - 6,742
  
• 349 - UFC FN: Rodríguez vs. Caceres - Salt Lake City @ Vivint Arena - 6,689
  
• 350 - UFC on Fuel TV: Zombie vs. Poirier - Fairfax @ Patriot Center - 6,668
  
• 351 - UFC on FX: DJ vs. McCall - Sunrise @ BankAtlantic Center - 6,635
  
• 352 - UFC FN: Maia vs. Shields - Barueri @ José Corrêa - 6,621
  
• 353 - TUF: Edgar vs. Penn - Las Vegas @ Mandalay Bay Events - 6,500
  
• 354 - UFC Live: Vera vs. Jones - Broomfield @ 1stBank Center - 6,443
  
• 355 - UFC FN: Cowboy vs. Edwards - Kallang @ Singapore Indoor Stadium - 6,419
  
• 356 - UFC FN: Condit vs. Kampmann 2 - Indianapolis @ Bankers Fieldhouse - 6,417
  
• 357 - UFC FN: Gaethje vs. Vick - Lincoln @ Pinnacle Bank Arena - 6,409
  
• 358 - TUF: Redemption - Las Vegas @ T-Mobile Arena - 6,308
  
• 359 - UFC on Fuel TV: Nogueira vs. Werdum - Fortaleza @ Paulo Sarasate - 6,286
  
• 360 - UFC on Fuel TV: Sanchez vs. Ellenberger - Omaha @ Civic Auditorium - 6,283
  
• 361 - UFC FN: Volkan vs. Smith - Moncton @ Avenir Centre - 6,282
  
• 362 - UFC FN: Lineker vs. Dodson - Portland @ Moda Center - 6,240
  
• 363 - UFC FN: Boetsch vs. Hendo - New Orleans @ Smoothie King Center - 6,231
  
• 364 - UFC FN: Lewis vs. Abdurakhimov - Albany @ Times Union Center - 6,216
  
• 365 - UFC FN: Brown vs. Silva - Cincinnati @ U.S. Bank Arena - 6,143
  
• 366 - TUF China : Kim vs. Hathaway - Macau @ CotaiArena - 6,000
  
• 367 - UFC: The Ultimate Ultimate 2 - Birmingham @ Fair Park Arena - 6,000
  
• 368 - UFC 5: The Return of the Beast - Charlotte @ Independence Arena - 6,000
  
• 369 - TUF: Jones vs. Sonnen - Las Vegas @ Mandalay Bay Events - 5,918
  
• 370 - UFC 4: Revenge of the Warriors - Tulsa @ Expo Square Pavilion - 5,857
  
• 371 - UFC FN: Rockhold vs. Philippou - Duluth @ Arena at Gwinnett Center - 5,822
  
• 372 - UFC FN: Bendo vs. Thatch - Broomfield @ 1stBank Center - 5,807
  
• 373 - UFC FN: McDonald vs. Lineker - Sioux Falls @ Denny Sanford Ctr. - 5,671
  
• 374 - UFC FN: Shogun vs. OSP - Uberlândia @ Municipal Tancredo Neves - 5,671
  
• 375 - UFC FN: JDS vs. Ivanov - Boise @ CenturyLink Arena - 5,648
  
• 376 - UFC FN: Poirier vs. DJ - Hidalgo @ State Farm Arena - 5,624
  
• 377 - UFC FN: Machida vs. Romero - Hollywood @ Seminole Hard Rock Hotel - 5,604
  
• 378 - UFC FN: Mir vs. Duffee - San Diego @ Valley View Casino Center - 5,471
  
• 379 - UFC FN: Mendes vs. Lamas - Fairfax @ Patriot Center - 5,417
  
• 380 - UFC FN: Bader vs. OSP - Bangor @ Cross Insurance Center - 5,329
  
• 381 - UFC FN: Evans vs. Salmon - Hollywood @ Seminole Hard Rock Hotel - 5,287
  
• 382 - UFC FN: Saffiedine vs. Lim - Marina Bay @ Marina Bay Sands - 5,216
  
• 383 - UFC FN: Almeida vs. Garbrandt - Las Vegas @ Mandalay Bay Events - 5,193
  
• 384 - UFC on FX: Sotiropoulos vs. Pearson - Gold Coast @ Convention Center - 5,133
  
• 385 - UFC FN: Teixeira vs. Bader - Belo Horizonte @ Mineirinho Arena - 5,126
  
• 386 - UFC 13: The Ultimate Force - Augusta @ Augusta Civic Center - 5,100
  
• 387 - UFC FN: Bigfoot vs. Mir - Porto Alegre @ Gigantinho - 5,080
  
• 388 - UFC FN: Rivera vs. Moraes - Utica @ Adirondack Bank Center - 5,063
  
• 389 - TUF Nations : Bisping vs. Kennedy - Quebec City @ Colisée Pepsi - 5,029
  
• 390 - UFC 38: Brawl at the Hall - London @ Royal Albert Hall - 5,000
  
• 391 - UFC Japan: Ultimate Japan - Yokohama @ Yokohama Arena - 5,000
  
• 392 - UFC 14: Showdown - Birmingham @ Boutwell Memorial Auditorium - 5,000
  
• 393 - TUF: Rousey vs. Tate - Las Vegas @ Mandalay Bay Events - 4,853
  
• 394 - TUF: ATT vs. Blackzilians - Las Vegas @ MGM Garden Arena - 4,844
  
• 395 - UFC on FX: Maynard vs. Guida - Atlantic City @ Revel Casino Hotel - 4,652
  
• 396 - UFC 16: Battle in the Bayou - New Orleans @ Pontchartrain Center - 4,600
  
• 397 - UFC 11: The Proving Ground - Augusta @ Augusta Civic Center - 4,500
  
• 398 - UFC 10: The Tournament - Birmingham @ Fair Park Arena - 4,300
  
• 399 - UFC on Fuel TV: Muñoz vs. Weidman - San Jose @ HP Pavilion - 4,250
  
• 400 - UFC FN: Cerrone vs. Miller - Atlantic City @ Revel Casino Hotel - 4,115
  
• 401 - UFC FN: Jacaré vs. Mousasi - Mashantucket @ Foxwoods Resort Casino - 4,086
  
• 402 - UFC 37.5: As Real As It Gets - Las Vegas @ Bellagio - 3,700
  
• 403 - UFC FN 6.5 - Hollywood @ Seminole Hard Rock Hotel - 3,510
  
• 404 - UFC FN: Condit vs. Alves - Goiânia @ Goiânia Arena - 3,500
  
• 405 - UFC: Fight for the Troops 2 - Fort Hood @ Fort Hood - 3,200
  
• 406 - UFC 12: Judgement Day - Dothan @ Dothan Civic Center - 3,100
  
• 407 - UFC FN: Sanchez vs. Riggs - San Diego @ Air Station Miramar - 3,000
  
• 408 - UFC 30: Battle on the Boardwalk - Atlantic City @ Trump Taj Mahal - 3,000
  
• 409 - UFC: The Ultimate Ultimate - Denver @ Mammoth Gardens - 2,800
  
• 410 - UFC 6: Clash of the Titans - Casper @ Casper Events Center - 2,700
  
• 411 - TUF: McGregor vs. Faber - Las Vegas @ The Chelsea - 2,566
  
• 412 - TUF: Carwin vs. Nelson - Las Vegas @ Hard Rock Hotel - 2,500
  
• 413 - TUF: US vs. UK - Las Vegas @ Palms Resort - 2,217
  
• 414 - TUF: Undefeated - Las Vegas @ Palms Resort - 2,123
  
• 415 - UFC FN: Silva vs. Irvin - Las Vegas @ Palms Resort - 2,071
  
• 416 - TUF: Lesnar vs. JDS - Las Vegas @ Palms Resort - 2,053
  
• 417 - TUF: Tournament of Champions - Las Vegas @ Palms Resort - 2,044
  
• 418 - TUF: Heavy Hitters - Las Vegas @ Pearl Theatre - 2,020
  
• 419 - UFC 2: No Way Out - Denver @ Mammoth Gardens - 2,000
  
• 420 - TUF: Bisping vs. Miller - Las Vegas @ Palms Resort - 1,909
  
• 421 - TUF: GSP vs. Koscheck - Las Vegas @ Palms Resort - 1,903
  
• 422 - UFC FN: Swick vs. Burkman - Las Vegas @ Palms Resort - 1,900
  
• 423 - TUF: Nogueira vs. Mir - Las Vegas @ Palms Resort - 1,853
  
• 424 - TUF: Rampage vs. Forrest - Las Vegas @ Palms Resort - 1,853
  
• 425 - TUF: A Champion Will Be Crowned - Las Vegas @ Palms Resort - 1,800
  
• 426 - TUF: Heavyweights - Las Vegas @ Palms Resort - 1,791
  
• 427 - UFC FN: Stevenson vs. Guillard - Las Vegas @ Palms Resort - 1,734
  
• 428 - TUF: Liddell vs. Ortiz - Las Vegas @ Palms Resort - 1,708
  
• 429 - UFC FN: Namajunas vs. PVZ - Las Vegas @ The Chelsea - 1,643
  
• 430 - TUF: Live - Las Vegas @ Palms Resort - 1,628
  
• 431 - UFC 29: Defense of the Belts - Tokyo @ Differ Ariake Arena - 1,414
  
• 432 - UFC FN 6 - Summerlin @ Red Rock Resort Spa and Casino - 1,412
  
• 433 - UFC 26: Field of Dreams - Cedar Rapids @ Five Seasons Events Ctr. - 1,100
  
• 434 - UFC Ultimate FN 3 - Las Vegas @ Hard Rock Hotel - 1,008
  
• 435 - TUF: The Comeback - Las Vegas @ Hard Rock Hotel - 1,000
  
• 436 - TUF: Ortiz vs. Shamrock - Las Vegas @ Hard Rock Hotel - 849
  
• 437 - UFC Ultimate FN 4 - Las Vegas @ Hard Rock Hotel - 843
  
• 438 - UFC Ultimate FN 5 - Las Vegas @ Hard Rock Hotel - 606
  

These Events Have No Reported Attendance Record

• TUF: A New World Champion - Las Vegas @ Park Theater
  
• UFC FN: Machida vs. Dollaway - Barueri @ José Corrêa
  
• UFC: Fight for the Troops 3 - Fort Campbell @ Fort Campbell
  
• TUF: Hughes vs. Serra - Las Vegas @ Palms Resort
  
• UFC FN: Thomas vs. Florian - Las Vegas @ Palms Resort
  
• TUF: Pulver vs. Penn - Las Vegas @ Palms Resort
  
• UFC FN: Stout vs. Fisher - Hollywood @ Seminole Hard Rock Hotel
  
• TUF: Hughes vs. Franklin - Las Vegas @ Hard Rock Hotel
  
• UFC Ultimate FN 2 - Las Vegas @ Hard Rock Hotel
  
• UFC Ultimate FN - Las Vegas @ Cox Pavilion
  
• TUF: Couture vs. Liddell - Las Vegas @ Cox Pavilion
  
• UFC 31: Locked and Loaded - Atlantic City @ Trump Taj Mahal
  
• UFC 28: High Stakes - Atlantic City @ Trump Taj Mahal
  
• UFC 27: Ultimate Bad Boyz - New Orleans @ Lakefront Arena
  
• UFC 25: Ultimate Japan 3 - Tokyo @ Yoyogi National Gymnasium
  
• UFC 24: First Defense - Lake Charles @ Lake Charles Civic Center
  
• UFC 23: Ultimate Japan 2 - Chiba @ Tokyo Bay NK Hall
  
• UFC 22: Only One Can be Champion - Lake Charles @ Lake Charles Civic Center
  
• UFC 21: Return of the Champions - Cedar Rapids @ Five Seasons Events Center
  
• UFC 20: Battle for the Gold - Birmingham @ Boutwell Memorial Auditorium
  
• UFC 19: Ultimate Young Guns - Bay St. Louis @ Casino Magic Bay St. Louis
  
• UFC 18: The Road to the Heavyweight Title - New Orleans @ Pontchartrain Center
  
• UFC Brazil: Ultimate Brazil - São Paulo @ da Portuguesa
  
• UFC 17: Redemption - Mobile @ Mobile Civic Center
  
• UFC 15: Collision Course - Bay St. Louis @ Casino Magic Bay St. Louis
  
• UFC 3: The American Dream - Charlotte @ Grady Cole Center
  
• UFC 233 - Anaheim @ Honda Center
  
• UFC FN: Lamas vs. Penn - Pasay @ Mall of Asia Arena
  
• UFC 176: Aldo vs. Mendes II - Los Angeles @ Staples Center
  
• UFC 151: Jones vs. Henderson - Las Vegas @ Mandalay Bay Events
  

Weeks/Months before:
LVMPD gets 35 new officers
CEO of MGM Resorts sells 80-85% of his stock in MGM
Soros buys $42M put-option on MGM Resorts*
Paddock makes $5M in one year as a 'professional gambler'*
Paddock purchases 33 of his 47 firearms in the last 12 months*
Paddock's girlfriend/roommate (Marilou Danley) flies to Asia on September 21. Danley claims Paddock booked the trip without her knowledge and "sent" her there to visit family in the Philippines.*
Paddock wires $100,000 to Danley in the Philippines*
Leading up to Event:
Paddock has 32-134 comped to him and after 3 days decides to add the suite 32-135 with his own cash [it is still unclear as to which room he was comped and stayed in first, as pointed out the room service bill was for 32-135]
Paddock never seen with anyone on any surveillance
Paddock has access to the service elevators, which are confirmed to have cameras on them
Room service lists 2 guests with 2 Pepsi's and a mineral water ordered (if you're drinking mineral water it could be to replace soda, but that's speculation)
Valet attendant greets Paddock on multiple occasions; claims never had to carry anything out of the ordinary for him. That article has been scrubbed from Hawaiian ABC affiliate and the valet attendant is missing and has deleted all social networks "valet isn’t missing, just overwhelmed by situation and went on vacation to California. The news station removed his interview because he asked them to"*
Report of 'you're all going to die' crazy lady with male friend at event 30-45 min prior to shooting
Paddock's pass was used to leave the parking deck. 15 minutes later while his car was out, his key card was used to enter the room*
Just before Event:
Multiple reports of fireworks moments prior to shooting
Campos is sent to investigate an open door alarm (probably a guest door) unrelated to the shooter.
Campos comes up the stairwell by Paddock's door but finds the stairwell door can't be opened (Paddock has sealed it). Campos may have heard drilling at this time.
Campos calls in to engineering to fix the door.
Campos goes down stairs, up elevator and investigates the open door alarm as planned.
After the investigation (outcome not known) Campos proceeds to investigate drilling.
Campos gets fired at in hallway on approach to the suite. We do not know if this was sustained gunfire. He is hit in the thigh.
It is reported that Campos called for help via radio and house phone but there is no evidence of this yet.
Building engineer Stephen Schuck arrives on floor via elevator without any knowledge of gunfire. Shots fired down hall as he is 1/3 of the way there.
Campos, taking cover in door alcove in hall, tells Schuck to take cover, saving his life.
A sustained barrage of gunfire ensues.
Schuck radios in report.
Campos and Schuck escape hallway during a lull in fire.
Engineering manager arrives. Gives keys to Schuck. He goes down stairs to turn off elevators. Returns and gives keys back. It is not known if this occurs before or after the main event.
~200 rounds are fired from Paddock's suite into the hallway
Campos is still present on the 32nd floor when SWAT arrives *(most of this section added thanks to 2ndSaturdaysWarrior and the info checks out as facts)
The Event:
Paddock, acting alone, fires semi-automatic rounds from 134. He then fires rapid fire rounds from the same window, despite the under-sheriff saying otherwise. Reason being is there is photographic and video evidence that shows the suite window was still in tact at least up until the 3rd automatic-type volley
Paddock then uses multiple weapons, and multiple types of cartridges (confirmed by the under-sheriff) and fires over 1000 rounds into the crowd at R91, while at some point breaking out the suite window, hurricane glass, with a hammer.
He also switches between rooms often (taxi driver video explained as him switching rooms for audio discrepancies) and before he calls it a night, locks the adjoining door, walks around back into the suite, and kills himself firing a (.357?) revolver twice over about 15-20 seconds.
After the Attack:
Zebra 20 (SWAT) is on location for about 40 minutes prior to executing the first breach on the suite, finding Paddock dead, executing their second breach to 32-134, and moving furniture around (as witnessed by the man staying in 31-134 via New York Times interview)
EMS reports taking fire near the Tropicana casino (After Paddock is dead)
Shots reported at Bellagio
Shots reported at NYNY/Excalibur
Shots reported at Aria
Shots reported at Caesars
Random helicopter is filmed in the Harley Davidson parking lot behind Mandalay Bay. Assault rifle is on the ground and a masked man enters a vehicle*
Armed mercenaries (Metro?*) escort person and/or items outside of the Tropicana while their point man clearly aims his muzzle at casino guests
Jesus Campos does not speak to media. He does not get bullet removed from leg. He has armed guards at his residence from a company that has had their business license expire in January
One of Paddock's homes in Reno is broken into, but nothing is reported missing*
Authorities found tannerite in Paddock's car, which was parked in hotel garage, as well as gas mask(s) and bulletproof vests in the suite*
At least two cell phone chargers were found in his room (police later say they matched all to his devices)*
Marilou Danley is placed on no-fly list on October 11*
Campos cancels interview with Sean Hannity October 12*
Did I miss anything?
Any edits after original post noted with *

Hi guys, first time traveller to vegas here. I'm planning to go w/ a friend during Thanksgiving break, and here's our tentative plan so far. Any advice would be welcome, and i'm also wondering whether we should buy the 4-day monorail pass?
Priorities:

- After arrival, go to Walmart and buy lots of bottled water! - Also buy alcohol there - Make sure your phone works so you can Uber 

Food & Drinks:

 Alcohol - Fat Tuesday Japanese - Kabuto (NEEDS RESERVATION) $48 - $120 * 2 = $100 Minimum French - Le Cirque (NEEDS RESERVATION) $100 * 2 = $200 Probably Steak - Gordon Ramsay @Ceasar (NEEDS RESERVATION) Steak-Tasting Menu $155/person * 2 = ~$350 net 

Things to do:

- Gamble (obviously) - Bellagio Fountain Show (FREE) - Las Vegas sign photo - Walk the strip (FREE) NEEDS TO BE DURING DAYTIME - Cirque d' Soleil? - Tour the various casinos - Hoover Dam & Lake Mead (Maybe?) 

I'm in Las Vegas, leaving tomorrow. I have been staying at Mandalay Bay and attending a conference here. I have been here during the terrible mass murder.
In the hope that this would be somewhat cathartic, I've written out what happened below. I'm not doing this to be a karma whore or to get reddit gold. Don't gild me. The text below is just a brain dump of what happened and how I feel - I haven't really tried to make it presentable or anything. Hope this is OK. Times aren't super accurate as I'm going from memory.
My manager, his son and I were finishing our meal at "The House of Blues" (a restaurant within the Mandalay Bay complex - just off the casino floor). At around 10:10pm local time, our waitress yelled out that we were to all evacuate immediately, that there was a shooting taking place in the hotel. At about the same time we heard screaming and saw people running past the front of the restaurant. We were evacuated to outside the hotel, to a loading zone or rear entry of some sort. While outside, we heard some gunshots and more screaming. It sounded like someone with a gun was pretty close to us. At this stage, we had no idea what was going on - people thought that there were gunmen shooting people in the casino and on the streets like an execution squad. As everyone thought we were in danger, we were then evacuated back into the hotel through a service entrance to another restaurant (RM Seafood), where we (about 15 of us plus a handful of staff) were sitting at tables in a function room towards the rear of the restaurant.
We sat with a pair of ladies who were attending the conference with us, from California. One of these ladies (we will call her "A") was becoming hysterical with panic, so I started talking to her and trying to calm her down; asking her about her family and pets, and trying to get her to think of something other than the situation we were in. I crouched in front of her and positioned my body to offer her some protection if shots were fired. At this point, police/military started storming the casino. We could see men with guns (who turned out to be police/military but it was hard to tell at the time with all the confusion) running past the restaurant shouting for people to get down. This was terrifying, as we expected bullets to start flying at any minute. "A" started going into shock/panic again. We all crouched around her to offer her some security/protection in case something happened and tried to put on a brave face to stop her from becoming more panicked.
After twenty seconds or so, we crawled under the tables back to a service area which led to the Michael Jackson Theatre. At this point I got separated from my boss. He (and some other people) had stayed in the restaurant and crawled behind the bar. The ladies we were with had also left their bags in the restaurant during the panic. We burst into the theatre and were told to find a seat. It was apparent that the people in the theatre had no idea what was going on - many of them were clapping and cheering as if us running in all panicked was part of the show. The people in front of us turned around and asked what was going on. We told them there was shooting going on and we'd been evacuated in here, but to keep it quiet so as not to incite panic. Three heavily armed police entered the theatre and instructed the theatre staff to lock the exit doors from the inside. They spoke over the public address system that they were responding to "an incident in the casino", and that we needed to all stay in our seats, keep quiet, and keep the exist clear. They asked that the lights be kept off.
Some people got up to see what was going on. The police yelled that they needed line of sight to the exits and for people to return to their seats. At this point, someone tried to open the door from the outside. The police officer yelled "GET DOWN NOW!" and raised his machine gun to the door. Everybody got down onto the floor in front of the seats, there was a lot of screaming. We expected a gunman to burst through the door an open fire. After a minute or so of nothing happening, we got back up. "A" started to panic again, and said she would feel more comfortable sitting near an exit, so we went with her and crouched down by one of the exit doors that led to the outside of the casino, next to the car park. I positioned myself in front of her to try and offer some protection and comfort her, and asked her to show us pictures of her children on her phone to try and help her calm down. At this point I think everyone in the theatre realised that something serious was going on, and started to take the situation very seriously. Shortly after, several more police officers arrived, and broke into teams of 2-3 per exit. They were armed with rifles, shotguns and machine guns. The police didn't seem to know what the threat was, and were acting like people with guns might burst through the doors at any minute. They kept the theatre in lock down for 2-3 hours. During this time we were not allowed to leave the theatre under any circumstances. People that needed to use the restroom had to urinate in plastic cups. We could overhear the radios that the police had on them, saying things like "reports of shots fired at New York New York, the Bellagio, the MGM Grand and several other hotels". We all thought that this was a coordinated terrorist attack. It was truly terrifying.
During the initial lockdown, the police made an announcement over the PA system along the lines of "we have heard some people saying they are carrying concealed weapons. If you are carrying a concealed weapon DO NOT DRAW IT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES OR WE WILL SHOOT YOU".
After 2-3 hours of lockdown, the police now thought that there were two shooters coming from the roof of the hotel, and that the reports of shootings on the streets and at other hotels were false. They secured the lobby of the theatre and assembled a strike team outside the lobby for our protection. They then allowed people to visit the lobby to use the restroom. At this point they moved the remaining people from the restaurant into the theatre. My boss was not allowed to bring the ladies' bags into the theatre, so he stashed them in a cupboard so they were safe. The theatre and lobby was kept under lockdown for another three hours or so while the SWAT team were clearing the casino floor and each floor of the hotel room by room. People from the conference who were still in their rooms were texting us saying that SWAT had burst into their rooms guns up, made sure there was no threat, and then left. This spooked many of the conference attendees who later required counselling (put on by the conference organisers).
We were told that the entire hotel had been marked as a crime scene, and that we would be unable to return to our rooms. The police arranged for busses to evacuate the 1500-ish people in the theatre to various places - a site near the airport, a local university, a local sports field. They asked that the elderly, people with young children, and people requiring medical attention please line up for the first lot of busses. During this time, one lady started going into a seizure as she did not have access to her anti-seizure medication. The police made an announcement over the PA system asking if anyone had any of the specific medication she required. That was the last I heard of that so hopefully she was OK.
As we were all able bodied and staying in the hotel, we stayed behind and did not evacuate during the initial rounds. The evacuation process took place over the next few hours. Over this time, through twitter, reddit and listening to the police scanner, we learned that there was only a single shooter, he was firing from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay to a country music festival "Route 91" that was over the road from the Mandalay, that he shot himself, that there was over 50 dead, they had found a bomb in the killer's car, and that, thankfully, we were never in any real danger (although I would later find out that the killer's car was filled with ammonium nitrate explosive, and it was parked metres away from the theatre in the hotel's car park).
Throughout the lockdown, people were sleeping in aisles, sleeping on the floor, trying to call and message loved ones, eating and drinking food/drink from the concession stand (we were told to help ourselves at no charge), etc. People were sharing phone chargers to try and make sure we could all stay in contact with friends and family. A lady ("D") in front of us was worried about her one year old, who was in a hotel room with her grandmother. She was concerned that when her child awoke in the morning, there would be no substantial food in the hotel room. The manager of the theatre did everything he could - people were cold due to the air conditioning - had nothing to offer but napkins but did everything he could to try and make people comfortable. The theatre staff (who must have been equally terrified) were handing out water. I had a chat to some of the police, who mentioned they were getting tired and hoping that a new shift would come to relieve them soon. They had been on shift for about 14 hours.
At around 6:30am, a new shift of police came to relieve the team that had been protecting us all night. We thanked them for keeping us safe and they promptly left, thanking us for being cooperative.
At around 7:45am, the evacuations had finished. There was about 12 of us left in the theatre. My boss, his son, the two ladies we ran into, and a few more people. We were told that the SWAT team had cleared the hotel, and that we could go back to our rooms (with the exception of people staying on level 32 - I would later learn they were given new rooms). We were locked in the theatre for a total of around 10 hours. We went to RM Seafood with the ladies to retrieve their bags. We made sure they were OK and then we all went back to our rooms.
From this point forward, there were guards posted in the lobby, many more guards patrolling the casino floor. Guards with sniffer dogs walking around the hotel and conference area. Impromptu metal detectors were set up at the entrance to the conference facility. Everyone entering for the remainder of the conference would be subject to airport-style security - metal detector checks and bags searched.
We found out through talking to the hotel security staff that:

• The killer had ordered room service, and then put the room service tray outside his room, camouflaging a security camera on the tray giving him a view down the corridor leading to his room.
  
• The killer had a camera set up in his room, capturing the entire murder.
  
• They knew the killer was on level 32, as the smoke from the machine gun set off the room's smoke alarm.
  
• They had found around 23 guns and thousands of rounds of ammunition in the killer's hotel room. That the guns he used for the mass murder were mounted on tripods and fitted with scopes and "bump stocks", effectively making them into fully automatic assault rifles.
  
• The killer would use one gun and shoot at one side of the crowd. The crowd would run to the other side of the festival field. He would then switch guns/windows and shoot them on the other side of the field. Sickening.
  
• During the shooting, the hotel head of security went up to level 32 to try and evacuate innocent people. When the killer spotted him on the camera, he shot 200 rounds through the door of his room. The security guard was shot in the leg, but still managed to evacuate people.
  
• When the SWAT team breached his room (with explosives on the door), they found him already dead due to a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
  
• The SWAT team found a large quantity of ammonium nitrate explosive in the killer's car (apparently a black audi), which was parked sickeningly close to the exit of the theatre where we were hunkered down. They believe his plan was to perform the shooting, arm the car bomb and escape, meaning for the car bomb to explode and demolish part of the hotel. I'm very thankful this didn't happen as it would have probably killed me. I feel sick just thinking about it
  

My hotel room overlooks the concert area. I've kept my windows shut as I did not want to see the bodies of the victims. I was told that they were still there to allow forensic investigators to document the crime scene. The front entrance of the hotel has remained closed, and there are road closures in place still.
About half of the conference attendees left, including "A". Many have had counselling that was arranged by the conference organisers.
Since this, Trump has come and gone, and today the vice president has come and gone. The death toll is up to 58. The hotel and casino is very quiet. The hotel staff are visibly shaken.
That's my story. I'm so thankful that I'm alive and can come home to my wife and children, pet bird and the rest of my family. When I look back at the ordeal, the only thing that really happened to us was fear through misinformation and confusion during the shooting. I am not a real victim. The people at the festival that were shot are the real victims, and the people that were injured trying to help the fallen.
Through this tragedy, I have seen both how disgustingly evil humanity can be, but also how amazingly selfless humanity can be. The red cross have more blood donations than they can handle. Seeing everyone look after each other in the theatre was amazing - everyone was looking after everyone else. Seeing the footage on the news of people helping the fallen get to safety, while bullets were raining down on them from above ... Words cannot describe the bravery of these people.
The gun control debate is raging here. I have heard people say things like "after this, I will never leave home without my gun again", which to me is complete madness. I read in the news that sales of guns have skyrocketed, and that "bump stocks" have sold out of gun shops everywhere as people fear they will be banned. Again, this is madness to me. I will never return to America after this. I simply do not feel safe here knowing that people have access to these unnecessary weapons.
Take care of one another.
Love Mike.

Part 8 (has link to all before it, part 7 link has each individual link)
I expect this one to be the least popular one. Just wanted to be a cynic to open it up. I have been busy and this ones prob a bit sloppy, I didnt really proof read it or clean it up. The next one will likely be my last and hopefully the best one.
It is early 2017. I have been carrying on my usual playing 10-20 hours a week to survive. Still lethargic is best term I suppose. I just dont get excited to play anymore. I consider getting a job to remind me how shitty working is so it gives me a kick in the teeth to play poker. Then it dawns on me, I hate playing poker now.
Poker has been tainted. Everything bad that happened to me I can associate with poker. The rise and fall was poker (the fall part). The oxycontin started as a performance enhancer to log more hours. Everything I consider to be wrong in my life I trace back to poker essentially, even if just a butterfly affect reason that had I done something else I wouldnt be here.
Hating poker is not the greatest realization considering its my only means to income outside of grunt labor. I seek a job in a couple places to no avail which was fine, I didnt wanna do that either.
Several months earlier I had started playing on SWC (bitcoin site) and became familiarized with bitcoin. Thought nothing of it, it was just the currency I was winning or losing. I dont read a thing about it, I learn nothing of it. I wasnt playing a ton or even big stakes, my intention for playing online was to just stay sharp in case it ever comes back full fledge. I have 5-6 btc on this site at the most (2-3k) and I flush it playing plo and big o not thinking much of it.
Back to 2017. Its March/April~ of 2017. I am playing cards one night dicking around probably had a couple drinks and was needling the usuals etc. A guy I do not know is in the game. Looks Russian. I bet he interfered in our election... fucking commies. I dont remember how I got to talking to him but crypto had been brought up. I talk about SWC. Tell him I had a few btc but not anymore. The only other thing I remember well from the conversation was bitching about going from an iphone4 (yes I had an iphone4 from 2010-17, the same one. It barely worked. Many oxycontins snorted off the back of that phone, texts dating back to when I got it in 2010) to the 6 or 7 or wtfever I have now, which is bigger and its harder to text and drive. He just responds by saying “first world problems are the worst”. Amen brother, those Africans and Venezuelans have no clue of our struggle.
I end up talking to him a bit and it turns out he mines crypto. Has a website that sells mining equipment. He has a hell of a back story too. I tell him I am interested in mining. I have about 20k to my name at this time and I realized recently that I dont like playing poker so why not? He eventually tells me not to do it. Regardless we become friends and he is ultimately the most important friend I have ever made. I have made more positive strides mentally since meeting him (mostly work ethic, realizations, reality checks and aspirations) As silly as it sounds, when he told me “first world problems are the worst” it stuck with me. He was saying it as a joke but jokes are funniest when true. He is genuinely the smartest guy I have ever associated with also. If you run into him at a poker table youd think he was a high functioning autist. Then you talk to him and go “ohhh hes just one of those Einstein type geniuses”. His hair is usually a mess, he cuts his own hair for or has his girlfriend do it. He wears cheap clothing usually since it all covers your ass or nipples I suppose. He virtually never instigates conversation with people he doesnt know. He is really deliberate with his actions. Talks really calmly and knows exactly what he is saying. He is just on the same level at all times it seems.
Meeting him has definitely changed my life for the better. We become friends pretty quickly. I know I went on a downer after meeting him because I couldnt afford to buy mining stuff and remember wanting to (again, he told me not to do it eventually anyways).
Which will lead me to another good friend to have. Between 2015 and this point in 2017 I have shot myself in the foot not logging hours a couple times. A friend has bailed me out with a loan or short term stake a few times. He is a well off restaurant owner who loves poker more than just about anything not related to him. Every time I see him we talk about hands he played and he just eats it up, has photographic memory and never butchers a hand history which is nice. He is as good hearted of a guy as I have ever met. (Sorry if this is getting long winded giving praise to people close to me, I intend on sharing with a few people and would like them to know what they mean to me as corny as that is because I suck at doing it in real life. Plus it is kinda gay to get mushy sounding in real life, but I digress. Theyve heard virtually none of the content of this whole thread either, a ton of this stuff I have never shared) In fact he is too kind hearted. He has helped people who wouldnt piss on him if he was on fire, and people have burned him on many occasions. My only complaint about this person is he never kicked my ass and told me to log more hours or fuck off. I needed it. If I just logged hours I wouldnt need the help. Its as simple as that. I have no leaks other than the unwillingness to play (leaks as in drugs/pit games/strippers/wtf ever else) and it has hindered me immensely over the these last couple years. (Ok I do have one embarrassing leak that has been fixed for a year and change, mobile games... I have spent like 30,000$ on mobile games between late 2016 and late 2018, Lords Mobile specifically clocked me for 20k. This definitely hindered my ability to build a roll and got me into a few jams. When youre not logging hours playing youre sitting around gaming and these games arent cheap obviously)
It is around May now and my friend who messes with crypto tells me that Bitcoin is going to 10,000$. Its like 800$ at the time iirc. I own a couple from Ignition cashouts. I kind of trust him. I cant argue him on it as I have literally no mental fortitude on the subject, but I essentially shrug it off. I start watching the price on poloniex and am watching prices jump like crazy. Light bulb in head! I can buy the dips sell the peaks and have more BTC! Lets load the 2.5btc I have onto poloniex! Sell peak but it keeps climbing... “FUCK! gotta get it back before it goes to 10k! Whew. Still have 2.45 BTC. FUCK! Its dropping! Get it out before it goes to zero!”
Yea I turned that 2.5 BTC into .4 BTC. No joke. I think I ended up throwing it onto SWC and losing it once it was almost gone. I honestly forget. I had nothing when it finally hit 20k other than some shit alts worth about 800$ at most (worth 35$ now but they still reside in my locked poloniex account, maybe I will give poloniex my ID if they ever become worth more than 1k)
So I am now annoyed I didnt turn every free dollar I had into BTC. I didnt trust the guy enough and to be fair I would have been using the money I play with. Had I met the guy a year earlier (know what I know of him now) I would probably have just locked it all up and sat around waiting.
I never really get my act together in 2017. I continuously log just enough hours to get by. I just dont care. I just want a way out of this. I catch myself saying “I hate playing poker” and sometime around the end of 17 or early 2018 I start trying to censor myself and quit saying that. Saying it will only make it fester deeper. I have to retrain myself to love poker. I remember the days of playing 18-24 hours straight because I love playing. I love watching for everything I can find to get an edge. I love a situation to present itself where I can step out of line. But now I just sit down and count the minutes before I can tell myself “way to go! You put in an 8 hour shift lets pack it in!” I leave good games often times. I celebrate when games break. This is where I am mentally while I play. I cant break out of it.
Late in 2017 a close friend of mine passes away. Will call him J. He was the guy who gave me a place to stay after the shutdown in Joplin. I was still doing oxy and he never once touched the stuff knowing what has happened to me. He doesnt judge me, he is somewhat of an enabler I suppose. He just drinks does shitty coke sometimes and has a script of adderol and xanax. Literally never once does he do any with me (ive warned him xanax and opiates will kill you if you mix, which is likely part of the reason he never did it) He was a marginal poker player (relative to modern game, he was just good enough to beat the rake live but he had too many pit leaks) and took great pride in being my friend (I was the slayer in the area for years leading up to this, anyone considered the best in their area can relate, you just have the respect of the local poker community). One of my earlier live poker memories involved him. I am like 18 or 19 playing a 1-2 game at a small casino and he was there with a friend. They were the good players in the game at the time. They were having a few drinks eating nice food and laughing having a good time. I remember thinking that I want this lifestyle. Care free gambling fast paced lifestyle. I had told him this story years later and he just ate it up, constantly tried to get me to rebound, but as I have stated many many times in the last few of these I have basically waved my white flag and accepted the result of my fall.
Anyhow after living with him we always talk every few months at minimal and have something to eat when we see each other at the casino. He was somewhat disingenuous sounding he was so nice and honestly it got to a point it started rubbing me the wrong way. I still talk to him of course but less frequently. In December of 2017 I get a phone call from my friend who owns the restaurant and he is distraught. He has been at the hospital and J has passed away. The back story on this is he had gotten a phone call from old friend who was getting out of prison in Arizona with no where to go (a female). J being as nice a guy as he is drives the 20+ hours to get her and gives her a place to stay. Well shes a junky and actually convinces J to do opiates/heroin. He overdoses and dies. I hadnt talked to him in a few months. I regret it. Had I known I would have beaten him senseless and got him to quit before things actually get bad.
Going to his funeral hit me up side the head too. The way I started feeling he was disingenuous just got destroyed. I cant fathom as many people showing up to my funeral with as nice of things to say. I wrote something to say but opt out after a few people say everything I had written (except better). I regret not saying them anyways. I think I still have what I wrote tucked away with the card and his money clip that made its way to me. I stumbled across his casino players card in a box one day and it resides in my wallet ever since. This was the first close friend that has passed away in my life, knock on wood. It woke me up a bit and caused a lot of self reflection because I felt I had let him down. I lived a few miles from him and didnt drop in to see him, didnt stay in contact as well as I should have. All because I felt he was disingenuously nice when he was actually just nice, which is actually because I am a cynical hermit who hates social life these days. That was the real reason I didnt stay closer. Him being too nice was just my excuse to blow him off essentially.
Only other thing I can add is that chick he helped out didnt even go to his funeral and on top of that had tried to take his truck and clean his house out. Junkies are the worst. I was a junky but I proudly say I never robbed anyone or cost anyone anything other than emotional distress.
2018 starts and I have been decreasing my methadone every week for about 3-4 months now. I am on a low dose. Makes sleeping at night hard (get restless legs and sneezy). So I am having a few drinks any time I am at the casino playing (still just two days a week for the most part) to help get through those late night sessions when its worn off and I feel crummy. I get down to 15mg then 10mg and in March of 2018 I get asked if I wanna work for a week with my crypto friend. His friend is setting up a farm with 500 miners and needs help. I agree. The pay is in excess of the work (in my opinion) at 3k and I have no expenses, but I dont argue obviously. Before we leave town I have to pick up my week of methadone (at 4mg now) and so I do that. I never take any of them, I have the box still. Never opened it. They remain at my apartment as a reminder, the box carrying the 6 doses and a stack of receipts for every 75$ week that I kept in the box, several years worth, at least 9-10k worth of receipts, and that shits CHEAP compared to oxy. So I am finally off of opiates. I take kratom still but its essentially non addictive in comparison. Ill cede that I am reliant on kratom but if it disappeared tomorrow I wouldnt panic, I would be fine.
So I fly to Denver with my friend and meet his friends half brother who was instructed to rent a box truck and the three of us were to drive from Denver to Washington carrying like half a million dollars worth of hardware. Its early March, the roads arent exactly great. Half brother of his friend rents a truck with no middle seat though. Its absolutely miserable. Whoever sat middle was sitting like a fem boy legs closed and knees up high from the drive shaft hump. It was un fucking real how uncomfortable the middle was. So like I stated the roads were not great, we drove on ice for 5-6 hours straight (while my crypto friend did about 30 minutes of it before I decided I value my life and banned him from driving, he was literally doing over 70 on this ice sheet when I checked the gauge. I forget what he said, I will fail to make it sound as good but he said that he is protected and can not die, if we wreck he wont get hurt because of some universe stipulation that protects him. He said we would get hurt but he wouldnt. (I will have him tell me this stuff again and leave it in comments, it was pretty funny and I kinda want to think he believes what he said as it was clearly not something he just came up with).
I end up driving like 18 of the 24 (one shot) hours it took as letting crypto friend drive was out. We make it set up a farm over a couple days then we go to Vegas. Not only do we go to Vegas but we fly a private jet. Not only do we take a private jet but his buddy has all four of us our own room at the Bellagio for 5-6 days. I remember having a 4500$ win at Bellagios 500$ cap 2-5 game... ran pretty salty. I only remember one hand worth bringing up, but I closed action and called 400$ pre with 67o with 3 others all in. Just flop 77X and send me the money. (Was drinking, gamble gamble). I cold called that also, some fish had opened massive and a 300$ stack just ripped a 400$ stack rejammed and I had called out of bb knowing fish will call off his 400~. This is actually a leak I have in poker. I will go over it because it has history.
Dating back to online my biggest leak was playing vs short stacks. Everyones biggest leak obv (6m setting). There were a few min buyers on Carbon and I got to the point I put them in pre every time they opened my bb from button, so long as they opened 75%+ from button or close to it. This has carried with me live, if I can gamble 3-4 ways (4 specifically) I will basically do it any time its 100bb~ or less with about 40% of hands if I can close action safely. I am a bit of a degenerate in this sense. I will flip for 1k if I have 10k to my name. It mostly came as a way to loosen up tables (the flipping blind preflop) at my local casino with players who give action. I am pretty snug in general but I cant refuse a flip when it presents itself and I cant refuse a fun gamble with short stacks.
I spend the month in Vegas during WSOP and run absurdly bad. Lose every big pot I play it seems. Switch to PLO the last half of the month and go a week straight without tripling my buy in up at any point. Just insane. Looking back I play rather poorly in PLO. I have been spoiled with my PLO games back home (which have been dead for about a year) and could get away with playing 50% of hands and no one ever bet big draws or anything not the nuts basically. I didnt adjust at all is what the issue was. Was just a frustrating month.
So I return and take a stake from a friend. I barely play still. Same ole same ole.
The last thing I will cover for this section is an incident late in 2018. One of the girls who is the floor at my local casino takes kratom also, we talk about it a fair amount. She has some 10mg percocets (mini oxycontins essentially) she gives me two of them. I havent had one in several years. I have been off methadone for 6-8 months at the time. I am eager to feel what I felt all those years ago, having no tolerance. So I take them home even though I know I shouldnt.
I get home and take both of them. What transpires is almost depressing. It frustrates me to no end that I realized that I have no desire for these. It affirms that all the money I flushed wasnt about the high, it was about the not withdrawing. I basically stated this in an earlier post but this is the event that I learned this from. I dont even enjoy it. I just sink knowing that I gave my life away for these. I have never recovered thanks to pain killers. Never once after 2011 have I ever looked in the mirror and said “finally, I have finally recovered what I fucked off”.
I am going to finish this thread off on the next post most likely. It will likely be long and take me a while to compose as it will cover my current year, and put a bow on it. The story basically climaxes a couple posts back, these surely have slowly lost their luster but I will finish them anyways. Nothing exciting about hearing about a guy who can beat games but wont sit in the chair to do it. Its a bit more upbeat in 2019 though and I feel my future is bright and redemption nears though. I dont think I would have written these if not for a change of mentality recently, so look forward to a positive summary next post.

Part 8 (has link to all before it, part 7 link has each individual link)
I expect this one to be the least popular one. Just wanted to be a cynic to open it up. I have been busy and this ones prob a bit sloppy, I didnt really proof read it or clean it up. The next one will likely be my last and hopefully the best one.
It is early 2017. I have been carrying on my usual playing 10-20 hours a week to survive. Still lethargic is best term I suppose. I just dont get excited to play anymore. I consider getting a job to remind me how shitty working is so it gives me a kick in the teeth to play poker. Then it dawns on me, I hate playing poker now.
Poker has been tainted. Everything bad that happened to me I can associate with poker. The rise and fall was poker (the fall part). The oxycontin started as a performance enhancer to log more hours. Everything I consider to be wrong in my life I trace back to poker essentially, even if just a butterfly affect reason that had I done something else I wouldnt be here.
Hating poker is not the greatest realization considering its my only means to income outside of grunt labor. I seek a job in a couple places to no avail which was fine, I didnt wanna do that either.
Several months earlier I had started playing on SWC (bitcoin site) and became familiarized with bitcoin. Thought nothing of it, it was just the currency I was winning or losing. I dont read a thing about it, I learn nothing of it. I wasnt playing a ton or even big stakes, my intention for playing online was to just stay sharp in case it ever comes back full fledge. I have 5-6 btc on this site at the most (2-3k) and I flush it playing plo and big o not thinking much of it.
Back to 2017. Its March/April~ of 2017. I am playing cards one night dicking around probably had a couple drinks and was needling the usuals etc. A guy I do not know is in the game. Looks Russian. I bet he interfered in our election... fucking commies. I dont remember how I got to talking to him but crypto had been brought up. I talk about SWC. Tell him I had a few btc but not anymore. The only other thing I remember well from the conversation was bitching about going from an iphone4 (yes I had an iphone4 from 2010-17, the same one. It barely worked. Many oxycontins snorted off the back of that phone, texts dating back to when I got it in 2010) to the 6 or 7 or wtfever I have now, which is bigger and its harder to text and drive. He just responds by saying “first world problems are the worst”. Amen brother, those Africans and Venezuelans have no clue of our struggle.
I end up talking to him a bit and it turns out he mines crypto. Has a website that sells mining equipment. He has a hell of a back story too. I tell him I am interested in mining. I have about 20k to my name at this time and I realized recently that I dont like playing poker so why not? He eventually tells me not to do it. Regardless we become friends and he is ultimately the most important friend I have ever made. I have made more positive strides mentally since meeting him (mostly work ethic, realizations, reality checks and aspirations) As silly as it sounds, when he told me “first world problems are the worst” it stuck with me. He was saying it as a joke but jokes are funniest when true. He is genuinely the smartest guy I have ever associated with also. If you run into him at a poker table youd think he was a high functioning autist. Then you talk to him and go “ohhh hes just one of those Einstein type geniuses”. His hair is usually a mess, he cuts his own hair for or has his girlfriend do it. He wears cheap clothing usually since it all covers your ass or nipples I suppose. He virtually never instigates conversation with people he doesnt know. He is really deliberate with his actions. Talks really calmly and knows exactly what he is saying. He is just on the same level at all times it seems.
Meeting him has definitely changed my life for the better. We become friends pretty quickly. I know I went on a downer after meeting him because I couldnt afford to buy mining stuff and remember wanting to (again, he told me not to do it eventually anyways).
Which will lead me to another good friend to have. Between 2015 and this point in 2017 I have shot myself in the foot not logging hours a couple times. A friend has bailed me out with a loan or short term stake a few times. He is a well off restaurant owner who loves poker more than just about anything not related to him. Every time I see him we talk about hands he played and he just eats it up, has photographic memory and never butchers a hand history which is nice. He is as good hearted of a guy as I have ever met. (Sorry if this is getting long winded giving praise to people close to me, I intend on sharing with a few people and would like them to know what they mean to me as corny as that is because I suck at doing it in real life. Plus it is kinda gay to get mushy sounding in real life, but I digress. Theyve heard virtually none of the content of this whole thread either, a ton of this stuff I have never shared) In fact he is too kind hearted. He has helped people who wouldnt piss on him if he was on fire, and people have burned him on many occasions. My only complaint about this person is he never kicked my ass and told me to log more hours or fuck off. I needed it. If I just logged hours I wouldnt need the help. Its as simple as that. I have no leaks other than the unwillingness to play (leaks as in drugs/pit games/strippers/wtf ever else) and it has hindered me immensely over the these last couple years. (Ok I do have one embarrassing leak that has been fixed for a year and change, mobile games... I have spent like 30,000$ on mobile games between late 2016 and late 2018, Lords Mobile specifically clocked me for 20k. This definitely hindered my ability to build a roll and got me into a few jams. When youre not logging hours playing youre sitting around gaming and these games arent cheap obviously)
It is around May now and my friend who messes with crypto tells me that Bitcoin is going to 10,000$. Its like 800$ at the time iirc. I own a couple from Ignition cashouts. I kind of trust him. I cant argue him on it as I have literally no mental fortitude on the subject, but I essentially shrug it off. I start watching the price on poloniex and am watching prices jump like crazy. Light bulb in head! I can buy the dips sell the peaks and have more BTC! Lets load the 2.5btc I have onto poloniex! Sell peak but it keeps climbing... “FUCK! gotta get it back before it goes to 10k! Whew. Still have 2.45 BTC. FUCK! Its dropping! Get it out before it goes to zero!”
Yea I turned that 2.5 BTC into .4 BTC. No joke. I think I ended up throwing it onto SWC and losing it once it was almost gone. I honestly forget. I had nothing when it finally hit 20k other than some shit alts worth about 800$ at most (worth 35$ now but they still reside in my locked poloniex account, maybe I will give poloniex my ID if they ever become worth more than 1k)
So I am now annoyed I didnt turn every free dollar I had into BTC. I didnt trust the guy enough and to be fair I would have been using the money I play with. Had I met the guy a year earlier (know what I know of him now) I would probably have just locked it all up and sat around waiting.
I never really get my act together in 2017. I continuously log just enough hours to get by. I just dont care. I just want a way out of this. I catch myself saying “I hate playing poker” and sometime around the end of 17 or early 2018 I start trying to censor myself and quit saying that. Saying it will only make it fester deeper. I have to retrain myself to love poker. I remember the days of playing 18-24 hours straight because I love playing. I love watching for everything I can find to get an edge. I love a situation to present itself where I can step out of line. But now I just sit down and count the minutes before I can tell myself “way to go! You put in an 8 hour shift lets pack it in!” I leave good games often times. I celebrate when games break. This is where I am mentally while I play. I cant break out of it.
Late in 2017 a close friend of mine passes away. Will call him J. He was the guy who gave me a place to stay after the shutdown in Joplin. I was still doing oxy and he never once touched the stuff knowing what has happened to me. He doesnt judge me, he is somewhat of an enabler I suppose. He just drinks does shitty coke sometimes and has a script of adderol and xanax. Literally never once does he do any with me (ive warned him xanax and opiates will kill you if you mix, which is likely part of the reason he never did it) He was a marginal poker player (relative to modern game, he was just good enough to beat the rake live but he had too many pit leaks) and took great pride in being my friend (I was the slayer in the area for years leading up to this, anyone considered the best in their area can relate, you just have the respect of the local poker community). One of my earlier live poker memories involved him. I am like 18 or 19 playing a 1-2 game at a small casino and he was there with a friend. They were the good players in the game at the time. They were having a few drinks eating nice food and laughing having a good time. I remember thinking that I want this lifestyle. Care free gambling fast paced lifestyle. I had told him this story years later and he just ate it up, constantly tried to get me to rebound, but as I have stated many many times in the last few of these I have basically waved my white flag and accepted the result of my fall.
Anyhow after living with him we always talk every few months at minimal and have something to eat when we see each other at the casino. He was somewhat disingenuous sounding he was so nice and honestly it got to a point it started rubbing me the wrong way. I still talk to him of course but less frequently. In December of 2017 I get a phone call from my friend who owns the restaurant and he is distraught. He has been at the hospital and J has passed away. The back story on this is he had gotten a phone call from old friend who was getting out of prison in Arizona with no where to go (a female). J being as nice a guy as he is drives the 20+ hours to get her and gives her a place to stay. Well shes a junky and actually convinces J to do opiates/heroin. He overdoses and dies. I hadnt talked to him in a few months. I regret it. Had I known I would have beaten him senseless and got him to quit before things actually get bad.
Going to his funeral hit me up side the head too. The way I started feeling he was disingenuous just got destroyed. I cant fathom as many people showing up to my funeral with as nice of things to say. I wrote something to say but opt out after a few people say everything I had written (except better). I regret not saying them anyways. I think I still have what I wrote tucked away with the card and his money clip that made its way to me. I stumbled across his casino players card in a box one day and it resides in my wallet ever since. This was the first close friend that has passed away in my life, knock on wood. It woke me up a bit and caused a lot of self reflection because I felt I had let him down. I lived a few miles from him and didnt drop in to see him, didnt stay in contact as well as I should have. All because I felt he was disingenuously nice when he was actually just nice, which is actually because I am a cynical hermit who hates social life these days. That was the real reason I didnt stay closer. Him being too nice was just my excuse to blow him off essentially.
Only other thing I can add is that chick he helped out didnt even go to his funeral and on top of that had tried to take his truck and clean his house out. Junkies are the worst. I was a junky but I proudly say I never robbed anyone or cost anyone anything other than emotional distress.
2018 starts and I have been decreasing my methadone every week for about 3-4 months now. I am on a low dose. Makes sleeping at night hard (get restless legs and sneezy). So I am having a few drinks any time I am at the casino playing (still just two days a week for the most part) to help get through those late night sessions when its worn off and I feel crummy. I get down to 15mg then 10mg and in March of 2018 I get asked if I wanna work for a week with my crypto friend. His friend is setting up a farm with 500 miners and needs help. I agree. The pay is in excess of the work (in my opinion) at 3k and I have no expenses, but I dont argue obviously. Before we leave town I have to pick up my week of methadone (at 4mg now) and so I do that. I never take any of them, I have the box still. Never opened it. They remain at my apartment as a reminder, the box carrying the 6 doses and a stack of receipts for every 75$ week that I kept in the box, several years worth, at least 9-10k worth of receipts, and that shits CHEAP compared to oxy. So I am finally off of opiates. I take kratom still but its essentially non addictive in comparison. Ill cede that I am reliant on kratom but if it disappeared tomorrow I wouldnt panic, I would be fine.
So I fly to Denver with my friend and meet his friends half brother who was instructed to rent a box truck and the three of us were to drive from Denver to Washington carrying like half a million dollars worth of hardware. Its early March, the roads arent exactly great. Half brother of his friend rents a truck with no middle seat though. Its absolutely miserable. Whoever sat middle was sitting like a fem boy legs closed and knees up high from the drive shaft hump. It was un fucking real how uncomfortable the middle was. So like I stated the roads were not great, we drove on ice for 5-6 hours straight (while my crypto friend did about 30 minutes of it before I decided I value my life and banned him from driving, he was literally doing over 70 on this ice sheet when I checked the gauge. I forget what he said, I will fail to make it sound as good but he said that he is protected and can not die, if we wreck he wont get hurt because of some universe stipulation that protects him. He said we would get hurt but he wouldnt. (I will have him tell me this stuff again and leave it in comments, it was pretty funny and I kinda want to think he believes what he said as it was clearly not something he just came up with).
I end up driving like 18 of the 24 (one shot) hours it took as letting crypto friend drive was out. We make it set up a farm over a couple days then we go to Vegas. Not only do we go to Vegas but we fly a private jet. Not only do we take a private jet but his buddy has all four of us our own room at the Bellagio for 5-6 days. I remember having a 4500$ win at Bellagios 500$ cap 2-5 game... ran pretty salty. I only remember one hand worth bringing up, but I closed action and called 400$ pre with 67o with 3 others all in. Just flop 77X and send me the money. (Was drinking, gamble gamble). I cold called that also, some fish had opened massive and a 300$ stack just ripped a 400$ stack rejammed and I had called out of bb knowing fish will call off his 400~. This is actually a leak I have in poker. I will go over it because it has history.
Dating back to online my biggest leak was playing vs short stacks. Everyones biggest leak obv (6m setting). There were a few min buyers on Carbon and I got to the point I put them in pre every time they opened my bb from button, so long as they opened 75%+ from button or close to it. This has carried with me live, if I can gamble 3-4 ways (4 specifically) I will basically do it any time its 100bb~ or less with about 40% of hands if I can close action safely. I am a bit of a degenerate in this sense. I will flip for 1k if I have 10k to my name. It mostly came as a way to loosen up tables (the flipping blind preflop) at my local casino with players who give action. I am pretty snug in general but I cant refuse a flip when it presents itself and I cant refuse a fun gamble with short stacks.
I spend the month in Vegas during WSOP and run absurdly bad. Lose every big pot I play it seems. Switch to PLO the last half of the month and go a week straight without tripling my buy in up at any point. Just insane. Looking back I play rather poorly in PLO. I have been spoiled with my PLO games back home (which have been dead for about a year) and could get away with playing 50% of hands and no one ever bet big draws or anything not the nuts basically. I didnt adjust at all is what the issue was. Was just a frustrating month.
So I return and take a stake from a friend. I barely play still. Same ole same ole.
The last thing I will cover for this section is an incident late in 2018. One of the girls who is the floor at my local casino takes kratom also, we talk about it a fair amount. She has some 10mg percocets (mini oxycontins essentially) she gives me two of them. I havent had one in several years. I have been off methadone for 6-8 months at the time. I am eager to feel what I felt all those years ago, having no tolerance. So I take them home even though I know I shouldnt.
I get home and take both of them. What transpires is almost depressing. It frustrates me to no end that I realized that I have no desire for these. It affirms that all the money I flushed wasnt about the high, it was about the not withdrawing. I basically stated this in an earlier post but this is the event that I learned this from. I dont even enjoy it. I just sink knowing that I gave my life away for these. I have never recovered thanks to pain killers. Never once after 2011 have I ever looked in the mirror and said “finally, I have finally recovered what I fucked off”.
I am going to finish this thread off on the next post most likely. It will likely be long and take me a while to compose as it will cover my current year, and put a bow on it. The story basically climaxes a couple posts back, these surely have slowly lost their luster but I will finish them anyways. Nothing exciting about hearing about a guy who can beat games but wont sit in the chair to do it. Its a bit more upbeat in 2019 though and I feel my future is bright and redemption nears though. I dont think I would have written these if not for a change of mentality recently, so look forward to a positive summary next post.