Thank you to all my friends and readers who inquired about my father’s health: He was discharged from the hospital in Poughkeepsie earlier this week, and he is back in his NYC apartment doing fine. When I talked to him, he told me he was probably going to switch doctors to deal with his heart problems going forward, making a change from the Cardiologist Acquaintance whose house he was visiting when my father started to feel chest pain. Citing among other issues the fact that his cardiologist is semi-retired, my dad commented, “I thought maybe it was time to find a wartime consigliere.”

My father was also not pleased at his Cardiologist Acquaintance for reporting that my father resisted the idea of going to the hospital for one or two hours, and he thinks that the doctor should have insisted in no uncertain terms on that course of action (although my father does admit that he himself didn’t go out of his way to insist upon this either). In a letter to the doctors at Vassar Brothers Medical Center addressing some followup issues, my dad finished by writing:

Now, and this is the big point. I was led to understand by 2 people who had spoken with [Cardiologist Acquaintance] that I had somehow waited an hour before suggesting we get to the hospital. [The Vassar doctor in his report] writes that “The patient refused to go to the hospital.” The corollary to that would be [Cardiologist Acquaintance] insisted I get to the hospital the moment I felt discomfort.

Granted I was a house guest. Perhaps [Cardiologist Acquaintance] was in host mode, not doctor mode. The feeling I had I have never had prior. I hoped it would go away, yes. [Cardiologist Acquaintance] would have been happy to have it go away. His wife thought I had eaten too much sharp mustard. We talked about who to call. [Cardiologist Acquaintance] went to take a nap. I went outside to walk it off. Finally I asked him to make some calls. Then we drove to the E.R.

Had a cardiologist, even any physician, told me to get to the E.R., I would have gotten to the E.R. I sense there is a defensive posture here…in case there would have been an “if only we would have gotten to the hospital sooner” component to that day.

It all ended well. I am grateful. However, I never, ever refused to go to the hospital.

***

As for me and the World Series of Poker, I can vaguely remember building up a 20K stack in last Saturday’s $1,500 NL event before three-bet bluffing off all my chips shortly before dinner with Jh9h on a board that contained 864 and one heart. I managed to turn 15 outs for what would have been an epic suckout, but I missed them all. After Monday’s $2K NL event, in which I suffered my first bona fide cooler of the WSOP (QT vs 22 on a QT2-3 board), I took a trip back to my home in Santa Monica that coincided with a stopover by a childhood friend, now living in Thailand, who was heading from Bangkok to New York for a month.

Needless to say, it was nice to be home and breath in Pacific Ocean air, catch up with my friend and with the DVR, and going back to California during the WSOP is always a necessary respite that helps put things in perspective.

Even with four years’ WSOP experience behind me, Vegas in June always seems to have a disorienting, depleting effect. I am amazed by the people who seem to have all their shit together during this time, who probably wake up every day and exercise, post daily blogs on their progress at the WSOP, and who seem to find that perfect balance between grinding poker, resting and indulging.

One of the paradoxical aspects of the WSOP, I have come to accept, is that you are surrounded by countless friends and acquaintances, many of whom you don’t see often throughout the year, yet it is often logistically impossible to actually find time to gather with all the people who have said, “let’s do dinner” or “don’t be a stranger.”

For the most part, people are very busy and focused on whatever poker agenda they have outlined for themselves and coordinating free time is a true task: You bust out of an event early in the day, and your natural instinct is to look for someone to hang out with. But many of your friends are still in the event you just busted, while most of the rest are planning on playing that day’s 5PM event, are still in the previous day’s event, or they are sleeping off a long night of poker or partying.

It somehow feels like bad form to text someone and say, “If you bust out, call me” and the few people with whom I am comfortable enough to send such messages wind up being the same few people I socialize with.

As a quasi-loner (and someone who doesn’t really like large social groups, either), I don’t particularly mind the need for solitary activity, but the distance between people in the poker world despite our geographical proximity during this time winds up being another slightly frustrating facet of the WSOP.

For my part, I am mostly just disappointed in myself for not slipping into a well-balanced routine this summer despite being well aware of the need for it during the WSOP, and it feels like the sand in the WSOP hourglass is rapidly sliding. I haven’t been overtaken by any overriding negative impulses, but I also haven’t been living a particularly healthful existence–my diet is poor, I have been smoking again and too much, and I have hardly exercised, except for a couple of weak tennis sessions and the one day on Lake Mead.

For the first two-plus weeks here, the June Vegas weather was unseasonably mild, so I have no one but myself to blame for my level of sloth, whereas usually the oppressive heat is a major barrier in establishing a normal daily balance. Mostly, I am just disappointed in myself when I consider how much more vibrant I felt during the time period in February and March, when I was focused on improving my physical and mental health. I know that I’d be better poised to deal with the harsher aspects of the Series, would be better organized and happier, if I had stuck with it. Of course I should just get up tomorrow and do 30 minutes on the treadmill before going down to the Rio, but it never seems that simple in practice when I am in a dyspeptic mood.

Now the Vegas weather has finally broken, and it is 90+ degrees here every day and will probably get steadily hotter through the main event, which begins July 3rd. It’s been a disappointing, hapless WSOP so far, but my only option remains to find a way to deal with it and try to emerge successful.