The Sapphire Gentlemen's Club has their 7th anniversary tomorrow night (free food and drinks from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.)… which is when I would've been getting into town for the blogger tourney. Damn.

I'm sad that I won't be able to go -- I actually held off cancelling my room (and tickets to Ronn Lucas, which I was using as my bounty prize) in case I could win enough to justify going. Chicago is under its first bad winter storm with wind chill at 20 below, and the desire to flee (to, uh, 38 degree weather in Vegas) has never been stronger. But it isn't to be.

Changing the flight was easy. As for the hotel...

Harrah's: For further assistance, please say one of the following: change reservation, cancel reservation, get rates --

grubby: Cancel.

Harrah's: Sorry, I didn't understand your response. If you are a member of our Total Rewards players club, please say yes. If you are not a member, please say no.

grubby: Cancel.

Harrah's: Sorry, I didn't understand your response. If you are calling to change an existing reservation --

grubby: Cancel.


Later, after speaking with two hosts to cancel the room plus the tickets…

Harrah's: You do know that there's a 72-hour cancellation policy.

grubby: I just stayed at your casino last week and lost my soul.


Fortunately, they didn't hold me to their policy, which would've come off my Total Rewards points.

* * *
Thanks to BadBlood, Falstaff, Waffles, Dave R., and SheetWise for offering sympathy about my situation.

SheetWise recollected a touching story about his uncle who hit bottom and then kept a promise to only gamble 10 percent of his salary.

That's the foundation of maintaining a bankroll, which I need to stop ignoring if I want to stop going bust.

I redeposited to Full Tilt and have been doing okay the past week, not risking more than 10 percent at a time. I'm setting a stop limit -- win or lose, once I hit my Iron Man for the day, I'll stop. I'm also focusing on sit-n-gos and staying away from cash games. Now if I have a bad streak, I'll move down in SnG levels rather than tilt away in 8/16 6max like usual.

That's not to say I've been successful staying away from online gambling. I played over the weekend and also last night when I received a 25 percent bonus on the loss. They have a poker site, so the +EV play is to use the bonus to my advantage and just play poker. Whenever I deposit and win, I'll cash out. Whenever I deposit and lose, I'll just wait for the bonus and then play with that. I could just do multi-tournaments at a significant discount.

Then today I received this email from UltimateBet about my cashout (the one that paid for my rental car for 2 weeks):

Dear Customer,

Thank you for choosing UB.

This email is to expaling you that your check for $442 tr id 18779916 processed on 11/09/2009, was canceled.
Please accept our sincere apologies about this situation. This problem was provoked by the closing of one of our provider’s accounts and we still do not have the specific reason why it happened. We are no longer using that payment method and are working hard to reissue all payout requests and cover fees incurred due to this issue.

The funds, as you may already know, have been returned to your account including the fee you initially had to pay for the payout.

In case you already cashed the check, we will gladly reimburse you for any overdraft fee you were charged for this matter, provided you show us where the amount is shown on your bank statement.

We do not doubt your honesty, but we do need to see the charges on your statement before we can proceed with the request.

Etc., etc.

Figures.

Before I finish reading the email, I find myself re-installing UB, see the $450, and instead of cashing out again, I play blackjack and lose it all.

Frustrated, I deposit to another site, play blackjack, and surprisingly run it up to +$1300 (including $200 lost on slots). This covers the $450 from UB as well as what I lost over the weekend.

I then almost put a bet down on Pacquiao (even money against Mayweather) but take it back because my 25 percent bonus on losses ends in February, and the fight if it happens would be after.

I cashout.

Clearly trying to quit on my own is proving to be a struggle.