Me and a couple of guys I know decided to hit up a very nice dinner the night before last. I met up with “ActionJeff“, 2007 WSOP Main Event Final Tablist “RainKhan“, 2007 Aussie Millions runner-up “gobboboy”, #1 UltimateBet blackjack leader board better Shaun *censored* Deeb, and Skier5. We went to some upscale Michelin star rated or whatever restaurant called “The Capital”. It was sort of funny going there because we had three waiters for our one table and we were by far the youngest and most underdressed people there. It wasn’t awkward at all, we just pretended we owned the place, lol! Shaun speaks rather loud and tells a lot of funny jokes followed up by a hilarious laugh that I can’t get enough of. RainKhan also threw in tons of fun and humor with one of the waitresses. Overall, all of those guys are great and we had loads of fun with tons of champagne, wine, and like 6 or 7 courses. Afterwards we hit a bar and I called it an early night and went home to the new wife.

Well, I honestly thought I had a shot at going real deep last night in WCOOP Event #19: The $530 PLO. I got like 130’th or somewhere around there out of a little over 1,000 players. I was absolutely card dead for the last 2 ½ hours I was in the tournament. I got really shortstacked and doubled up when I hit a set of aces. Five minutes after that I took a horrendous beat unfortunately to triple up my stack which would put me in excellent position to go very deep. Here’s the hand of death: http://www.pokerhand.org/?1530598 . So that was that and I look forward to the WCOOP Main Event tomorrow.

I decided to skip the $5k HORSE and the $1k LHE WCOOP Events tonight because Game 1 of the NHL Season kicked off today right here in London. The 2006-2007 Stanley Cup Champions, the Anaheim Ducks faced off against the L.A. Kings in a premier game to kick off the 2007-2008 Season. Depending on how long you have been following my blog, I became a very big NHL fan last year and is the only sport I bet on besides a rare NFL game. I absolutely love the action in ice hockey games and frequently go to Tampa Bay Lightning games which is about a 1 hour drive from Orlando. The tickets were sold out more than a few days in advance, so I had to look on Craigslist to find some for me and Anita. I arranged to meet a guy to buy the tickets right before the game. He wasn’t at our meeting place and when I called him he said he had already sold the tickets!?!?!? WTF!!! I was pissed so we had to find a scalper. Well, we go over to a couple scalpers and then this undercover agent guy pulls out a badge and makes the scalper that we were about to buy from to give them to us for free because he wasn’t allowed to sell them! SWEET! So we got seats to the sold out hockey game for free! LOL.

We leave London tomorrow afternoon on the train to Amsterdam tomorrow for three days. After that, we will be in Prague for three days. Then it will be time for EPT Baden in Austria. We plan on doing a lot of sightseeing in Amsterdam. I’ve heard it’s great there and we should definitely have a good time.

Today I played in the WPT tournament here in Turks and Caicos. I must say this place is gorgeous! It very well could be the best beach I have ever stepped foot on. I hope they keep it on the map for next year because I’m definitely coming back.

About 2 hours into the tournament I looked down at the 8 5 off suit in the big blind. The blinds were 100 200 and the 2 hole had brought it in for 400. 2 callers behind I decided to take a flop for 200 more with the old 8 high. The raiser happened to be Lou White CEO of Pokertek. By the way, Pokertek is the company that makes the fully automated poker tables. The company is doing rather well with over 130 of their tables up and running in casinos all over the world. For those of you that have never played on them you will be surprised by their easy to use system and how incredibly efficient they are. However, those tables are only about half as cool as their “heads up” challenge tables, which will be coming soon to a bar near you. For a $2 entry you can sit at the bar and play a real heads up match on an actual WSOP edition fully automated table.

Ok, talk about going off on a tangent…back to the hand. Actually I’d rather not talk about the hand at all, lol! I NEVER WIN!!! The flop comes 3 4 7 rainbow. I have a gutter for the nuts. I didn’t think anyone really connected especially the original raiser considering he had opened in the 2 hole! He could have had an over pair but I thought to myself I could definitely get him off the over pair with that flop (maybe not on the flop bet but definitely w the turn and who knows maybe even the river). I bet 1300. Lou (2 hole) calls. Others fold. The turn is a J. I like that card. By making a decent bet here I am definitely representing 2 pair or better. I bet 3400. He calls. Now I’m thinking if there was ever a time in my life that I needed a sexy little 6, this would b that time. But we all know I’m not that guy…a tenball on the river. At this point I had put him on an over pair and just knew that he would fold if I moved in and that is exactly what I did. About 10 seconds later I heard what was maybe the two grossest words in poker (when you have an 8 high especially), “I call.” He turned over the 5 6 off suit for the second nuts and that was the end of Antonio. The river bet was 17k by the way ( a rather significant bet). Although everyone told me I was a donkey (which I probably was) I still defend my play. Unless he had a straight, which I could never put him on that he was folding almost anything but a set. oh well….that’s the end of that now I get to enjoy this incredible island.

Antonio

Favorites in the top 25 of college football went 7-13-1 yesterday, including 8 losses outright. In the top 10, it was even worse (1-7-1, with #6 Cal being a road dog against #11 Oregon). Pretty unbelievable, and a definite rarity…but an excellent example of my #1 Rule of Betting College Football (we’ll probably talk about Rules #2 and #3 in the next week or so):

College Football Rule #1: Bet the underdogs

I’m not saying to do anything rash or over-the-top, like betting every underdog. My Absolute #1 Rule of Sports Betting is to be selective. People who play the board go broke. But if you can’t make up your mind between a couple of different plays, the Underdog play should be your tiebreaker. Every time. Amarillo Slim says that any good bettor could make a living just playing ‘dogs, and I believe him.

It was also a fun day for other sports action, even the stuff I wouldn’t bet on. My beloved Chicago Cubs won the NL Central on Friday, a great birthday present for me…and followed it up with a national game on Fox where they shutout the Reds for a second day in a row. With a couple extra days rest to let any tiebreakers play out, their rotation should be set, bullpen rested, and the offense is hitting better than they did all year. Taking any Cub action would violate several rules of sports betting that I have, but as a fan, I’m very optimistic.

To close the night out, anyone who was lucky enough to see the Pavlik/Taylor fight (and the brilliant Berto/Estrada undercard) on HBO saw two of the best fights you’ll see this year. Find it on a replay, if you can.

I am a bit messed up with time… i just remember lots of fun stuff
happening the last week or so… first off… antonio lost to me in a
poker hand about 8k… that was about as good a start as it gets….

more later….

Every year I get very excited for the World Championship of Online Poker at Pokerstars. It feels just like the WSOP, but for online players. One of the first few events, I managed to get 8’th place. I was chip leader with 40 people left all the way down to about 12 people left. To be quite honest with you, with about 15 people left, I started playing very antsy. I wasn’t patient at all, and aborted the initial general game plan that had got me that far. That said, I didn’t necessarily play bad, I just got blind steal crazy and was playing much higher variance, hence with 12 people left, I was chip leader and did a coin flip on the flop for a 1.2 million chip pot against the second chip leader. Shortly thereafter, I got knocked out of the tournament on a bad beat.

Anita and I have done a lot of things in London so far, as London has a lot of stuff to do. We went to Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Regents Park and rented a romantic row boat, took a day trip by train to the royal residence of the Windsor Castle, Westminster Abbey, took an informative tour of the Houses of Parliament, saw the mighty clock - Big Ben, and took a tour of the Tower of London where King Henry VIII murdered his wives. We still have to see Buckingham Palace which we will do the day after tomorrow.

The day before Day 1A, Anita, Action Jeff, and myself headed to the Pokerstars Pre-Party for the EPT Event. It was a cruise down the river with a free bar and all the players, so of course we’re in! lol. As soon as I got on the boat, Daniel Negreanu spotted me and we sparked up a conversation. We ended up talking almost the entire time. After the party, Action Jeff, Daniel Negreanu, Anita, and I caught a cab back to the hotel. We decided to hit up the bar and lounge in the lobby of the hotel for drinks and ended up hanging out most of the rest of the night while engaged in very deep level/deep thought poker talk. Daniel, Jeff, and I all have very different ways of playing and I’m sure all of us learned a lot from each other throughout the conversation.

I busted out of EPT London yesterday. I just can’t seem to even make Day 2 of these large buy-in live tournaments. I don’t believe it’s my fault either really. Yesterday I played six out of the eight levels in the day, and each level was an hour. I had AA once, KK twice, JJ twice, AK three times, AQ two times, and TT once. I won with KK and JJ once each stealing the blinds, every other premium hand found some way for me to lose the pot. The final blow came with my KK vs. 77 all in preflop and he hit the flop with 997 board.

I’m playing the 6 max No Limit WCOOP Event as I’m writing this and hopefully I can win one of the WCOOPs by the end of the series. Something just as good as that would be to get deep in EPT Baden in three weeks. Other than all these tournaments, I’ve been putting in about 2,000 hands a day and definitely putting down some strong results.

Hey guys. I’m in Miami. I just arrived yesterday. Had a beautiful dinner at Prime 112 (one of my all-time favorite steakhouses) and then played cards ‘til the wee hours of the night at Michael’s crib, which I might add is not too shabby. It’s right on the water, and who knows how many gazillions square feet it is! My favorite moment yesterday was when Phil and I took out the jet skies and cruised around all over Miami. It was AWESOME! Now I’m getting ready to leave for Turks and Caicos.  Just wanted you all to know about a contest we are having for I Bet You.

Log on to www.mojohd.com for a chance to win an all expense paid trip for you and a guest to visit the set of “I Bet You” (Phil and I’s TV show) in Los Angeles for 4 days and 3 nights.

Support the show, and potentially win a free trip! Tell your friends!

Antonio

This was an interesting week in Fantasy Football.  Let me refresh some of you who may not know about my bet with Taylor.  We are playing Heads Up where we pick 3 teams, and it is winner take all each week for $1,000.  While I baited Taylor into the bet neither of us really has a monstrous edge because of what happened this week.  For him Brian Westbrook went off and by the 3pm games (CST) I was down 80 points.  Virtually everything went his way.  Then the afternoon games came and virtually everything went my way.  When it was all said and done my kickers and defenses really outperformed his and I won by a whopping 5 points.  The scores were like 360 to 355.  I do have to figure out how to do this without it intruding on my family with LSU playing on Saturday, Fantasy Football on Sunday and the Saints on Monday night I likely owe my wife a little alone time.

After my bad call I decided to visit www.cardrunners.com to brush up on my No Limit Hold em.  In order I would say my skills are best at tournament poker>>>>then limit poker, most forms>>>>No Limit and Pot Limit poker.  I am proficient at all but I am more profitable at the first two.  Some of the reason is because the first two actually reward you for playing like an idiot at times.  After watching a couple of videos I fixed a few leaks and I am up about 5k in the last 2 days playing mostly 5-10 NL on Bodog.  The change has been dramatic, I have been able to reduce my decisions to where I am reacting less to people’s plays and they are reacting more to mine. 

The last few days were pretty sick. Friday the 14th Antonio and I
wanted to prove who would be a better pilot. We decided to settle it
with an actual dog fight. So sick. Check out the web site
aircombatusa.com. This is where we settled the score. This place is
no joke. The pilots are ex-air force guys and the planes pull just as
many g’s as F-16s. Each of us had a pilot with us but out over the
ocean they were pretty much hands off.

Unreal. 5000 feet in the sky – flying a light attack aircraft – and
the pilot takes his hands off the controls. I have done a lot of
things in my life but nothing came close to this. This was about as
nuts as it gets. I was flying a SIAI Marchetti SF-260. I had laser
tracking for locking in on Antonio’s plane. And I had a heart rate
that I couldn’t keep down.

It was a day of barrel rolls, loops, multiple g’s, direct kills, and
nose dives. Nirvanah. I think I could do it every day. I was so
exhausted when we got back to the ground. I could barely make a
sentence. It was that intense. I am not going to cough up the victor
but that show should air in about 3 or so months.

Then the next day… or the day after. (cant remember).. my buddy bill
hardie hooked me up with concert tickets to kid rock / foo fighters /
smashing pumpkins…
i went with logan, pauly d, and parlay
why do they call prahlad by anything other than parlay is a big
question mark to me… (a long time ago, parlay told me about him
turning fifty bucks into 50,000 and from that moment on he was
parlay)(by the way… he did it in a weekend of gambling — always
having edge of course… as that is his nature)

parlay - prahlad - spirit rock - mahatma - aplusgame247 - all the same guy

that was fun…. really fun…
the concert was 40 miles from home and the ride home was very
nutty…. the alternator died and we had NO LIGHTS>…

i could have called AAA but there was something in me that just wanted
to get home… so there i was ….60 miles per hour… and no lights
at midnight going up the 405 …… logan and i were trying to find
the insurance price …. i wanted to give him a hundred … but if we
got pulled over he was to pay me x dollars… in the end he couldnt
get my return price high enuf for me to pull the trigger… it all
turned out good…. no hassels from the man….all home safe and sound

It is hard to explain my online situation to reasonable people.  I can go from one day having a great bankroll to the next day play 2-4No Limit.  Yesterday was different.  I had enough money to play in the games I am supposed to be in so I started the day on Bodog playing 10-20NL.  I saw a bunch of people from my old stomping grounds at p5’s and a bunch of my guys through UltimatePals.  My big leak in NL is that I call too much, while I have been playing in lower limits I have been working on my patience.  I jumped out to a good lead and got it all in on a 4 way pot with 8s7s, while some people might not like the play, I really didn’t mind it.  If you play 8s7s hitting a flop like 6h 9h 4s is about what you are looking to hit.  AA held up and I was down 2k, nice return off of the bench.  I rebought and won back about a thousand before I was exiled from the down stairs so my kids could watch “Freaky Friday”.  Why exactly is Lindsay Lohan so talented?

I watched D.L. Hughley comedy special on HBO for an hour before I got back on.  I decided to play a couple of games of 5-10, one No Limit and one Pot Limit.  Boy were the results different.  As I move back into playing higher limits there is a certain level of getting used to the play that I will have to just pay the price on but I made one call that I am even embarrassed about as I think about it this morning.  At Bodog I was real card dead for about 3-4 hours and in general I was feeling run over.  Which is a bad way to feel playing NL and I likely should have just left.  Anyway, I called in a multi way pot with 3c5c and the flop came 7h4h6h, not the nuts but no one else has 8 5.  I checked it from early position and one of my guys bangs it for the pot.  I call.  Turn is an Ace but no heart, I check he bangs it for pot.  Now I know for almost fact he doesn’t have the straight or the flush but I never really stopped and said, what exactly does he have? When the board pairs he moves all in like he missed his flush and like a big fish I bite for like $1200, this is 5-10, no one makes that play at 5-10, if I want to be serious about playing again this is a call I can’t make.  You could say that I could have banged the pot on the turn but frankly that wasn’t how I was going to play it given my table image and the fact that no one had me on 3c5c.  I can’t stop thinking about how bad of a play that was by me.  I ended up down 3k on Bodog.

FTP by contrast was the complete opposite.  I had 2 guys that had no idea.  I actually laid 2 sets when 4 flushes hit, which begs the question, why was I playing with such clarity in one game and not in the other? I did get in a tricky situation for a big pot that had me splitting the pot.  If I go broke there I would have been down 4k for the day, not a huge loss but would have been frustrating.  I tied the pot when I had 7 8 against his 7 6 on a 66 x flop.  One other really big hand was kind of funny.  You have to remember that I am looking to stack a couple of donkey’s, so I am looking to catch them with a weird hand while they are holding something like A K.  This is also pot limit, so post flop play is important.  I called a raise and a reraise with 3d4d, for about $125.  The flop came 4 K 6 with one diamond.  All of us had decent stacks, the first guy checked and the second guy bet half the pot, which was a pretty big bet but I called.  I am ideally hoping to hit a 4, which I realize might not be good but I tend to gamble with the bad players.  Even this morning I am certain the guy I was playing with thinks I am possibly the worst player he has ever played with.  The turn brought a 2, now I am not going anywhere, unless he bets pot, he doesn’t and I call his $200 bet into about an $800 or so pot.  I am still not ruling out a hand like A K.  The river bricks, I check and he checks.  He shows A Q for nothing and I take down the $1200 or so pot.  I really doubt that a lot of players get involved in these situations but I feel like that is a play you need to have in your bag. 

When it was all said and done I got most of the money from the bad players and won 4k on Full Tilt. 

Ultimately I won about a dime but I can’t stop thinking about how badly I played that one hand.  Overall I would give myself a B minus for the day.  I could have played more aggressively at times but I think I was playing a winning style against bad players.  Against winning players I think I would have lost money.  So I have some work to do.

Since the WSOP ended I haven’t played much poker, but in the times I have I’ve gone about 0-for15 in all-in confrontations. I’m not complaining. How can I? I had a wonderful three-day stretch where things lined up and I was lucky enough to win a bracelet. Some of my friends say I can never complain again. But, the truth is, although I’ve never considered myself a particularly lucky poker player, I’ve never wasted time bemoaning that fact. If I’d never won a bracelet, or if I’d won ten, my poker varience is relatively meaningless. I won my most important showdown a long time ago. Here’s my story:

 I grew up in upstate New York. When I was a senior in high school, one of my friends who was a year older had gone to college and joined the rugby club. During the summer he talked a bunch of us into playing the game and put together the Troy Rugby Club. Since he was the only one who had ever played, and only for one year, we stunk. However, especially back east, rugby parties were legendary. In fact, we recruited players through the parties, which usually worked because they were so good that guys wanted to be a part of the scene. While we never came close to winning a game that first year, we never lost a party. When I went to college I played at Cornell. The quality of play was much better, and the parties were as good as ever.

Besides being a great game, the rugby community is very open and supportive. When I got out of college in 1976 I put my shit in my car and, with $400 to my name, drove west. I didn’t know anyone, but I knew if I found a rugby club I’d find friends and assistance in finding my way. I bounced around California for a few years, working various jobs and joining rugby clubs in Riverside, San Jose and Palm Springs. I enjoyed the game and met many good people who remain close friends to this day. The only disappointing aspect was that the parties were pretty tame compared to what I was used to back east. In 1980 I had a job offer in Las Vegas and jumped at the chance. While, in general, post-college rugby clubs consist of mostly professional, responsible, solid citizens, the Las Vegas Rugby Club at that time was a collection of rogues, miscreants and maniacs, with a few normal people mixed in. I’d found a home. One of the guys played for the Raiders for a time, and was a scary man. But he was simply too crazy and is in jail, probably for life. Others had addictions and manias of varying types and degrees. In Vegas the party generally started before the game. Like my first club, we weren’t very good, but we never lost a party.

 One of the normal guys on the club was Mark Harrington, who was a professional pilot. In addition to flying some of the zanies to the away matches (who was going to drive?), he flew tourist flights to the Grand Canyon. He kept inviting me to take a flight with him, but at that time all I wanted to do was work (I was a craps dealer at the El Cortez), play rugby and play poker. I finally decided to take a day off and go with him. We took off early in the morning. I was riding shotgun and there were six Korean tourists in the back. The flight to the Grand Canyon airport was mostly through canyons. It was thrilling, but I couldn’t help thinking that this was a single prop plane and if something happened there was no place to land. We got to the airport and the tourists took a tour while we hung out. The flight back was over a plateau for a short time until getting back in the canyons. Suddenly I felt a jolt, but Mark never moved a muscle and the prop was still spinning so I figured it was nothing. Then Mark said to me very calmly and quietly, “We just blew the engine. See if you can find a place down there to land.” I looked down and saw a dirt road and told him as much. He expertly got the plane down on a road that was slightly wider than the plane and ended abruptly about 20 yards from where we finally stopped. Mark was so cool that I never had one iota of fear that we weren’t going to be ok. It was the most profound example of composure under pressure I’ve ever seen. When we opened the hood we saw that the engine had thrown a rod and there was oil everywhere. The hard part was that they sent a helicopter to pick us up and bring us back to the Grand Canyon airport. Then we had to board another single prop plane to get back to Vegas.

Benny Binion said that the only bad luck is bad health, and anything else is a temporary inconvenience. I’ve got my health, as well as a wonderful wife and great friends. As I look back at that Grand Canyon flight, I figure that during about 70% of the time there would have been nowhere to land and my health would have been in real jeopardy. So, ever since I sucked out on the Grand Canyon, I figure I’ve been on a freeroll, so I really can’t complain.

Another semi-hazy week…actually I was a very good boy this week. Saturday was my only real crazy night. I met up with Lonnie (owner of Les Deux and Geisha House) for dinner then off to the club for cocktails and dancing. I’ve gotta tell you Les Deux is one of my favorite spots. Saturday was the first time I was there and I was really surprised by how much I liked the layout. Half the club is indoors and the other half outdoors. We had a great table outside. The grey goose was stocked and so were the women! I could not believe how many girls were packed in this place. It was unbelievable! And QUALITY my friends! EVERY girl was attractive. Must be a Pre-requisite for entering the premises I guess.

Sunday I woke up and remembered my buddy, Bruce (we call him Dr Callaway) telling me the big boys were going to have a poker game down at the Commerce at noon. I was in the OC and had 30 minutes to get down to the Commerce otherwise I would I get shut out. I flew and made it within 30 seconds. I think the second I walked in they were about to give my seat away. It felt so good to actually play poker for a change.

Monday I had dinner plans w my buddy nick Cassavetes. He directed the Notebook, which I have to say is THE greatest love story of all time, and Alpha Dog among others. I met up with him at the Commerce Casino around 4pm. Dinner wasn’t until about 7, so why not play a little poker!?! I got a seat in Nick’s game. I play real hard against my friends, so we started battling right from the start. Around 6:30 the game was pretty good and it looked like we might even skip dinner and play cards all night until, of course, I looked down at the 10 7 of hearts. I limped 2 to the right of the button after 2 other limpers…Nick was talking to somebody and called the small blind without looking at his hand. Flop came 10 2 7 rainbow. Not a bad flop for the old 10 7. Nick bets out. I raise. He reraises. I reraise. He moves in for a pretty penny. Normally I might think about folding, I mean what is the guy putting the 4^th raise in with?!? However, since we were battling and going at each other and he had called without looking I thought he might have had the 10 2 or the 7 2. I called. 9 on the turn and maybe the sexiest 7 I have ever seen on the river. Turns out Nick actually had the pocket deuces for a set. And yours truly pulled a major suckout. So much for poker after that! It was on to Mr. Chow’s for dinner. (Mr. Chow’s is not the fast food joint you are thinking of. It’s a very high end Cali-Chinese food restaurant). It’s extremely good; a must try if you have never been. I’d have to say Nick is pretty wired. I mean as soon as we sat down Sean Penn came over to say hello. There I was sitting there with Nick Cassavetes and Sean Penn thinking to myself how in the world did I squeeze my way into this lineup???

Tuesday we resumed filming for I BET YOU. Episode 5 deals with who is the better singer. We each had a song instructor. And I must say I was impressed by both of them. Mine was Tiffany. She sang that song, “I Think We’re Alone Now.” Phil’s instructor was Frank Stallone, Sylvester Stallone’s brother. This guy was amazing with the guitar. After a 2 hour lesson we had a singing competition. We each wrote our own song. I wrote about how bigtime Phil is…lol, and by the way I will post the song on here as soon as I can find it. In the end one of us was the better singer. Tune into the MOJO HD Network to find out who it was.

Wednesday we wrapped up episode 5. Afterwards I went to meet up with a dear friend of mine Camryn Manheim at Ricki Lake’s b-day party. There were many familiar faces present but since I never watch TV I was pretty much lost in the who’s who department. I have to say Ricki was looking mighty good that night!

I had to bail on the party a little early to make a 10pm call time for the radio show, Loveline with Dr. Drew and Striker. Phil and I were to be guests on the show! I used to listen to Loveline religiously when I was a kid. I was very excited to be a guest. I thought that Phil and I did well on the show. The producers said it was one of their best episodes to date, but who knows they probably say that to all their guests! Either way we had an absolute blast. Striker was hilarious and Dr. Drew is the smart, laid back, cool doctor dude. After the show we persuaded striker to come out with us. We went to Les Deux for a drink and then called it a night.

Thursday Phil and I woke up and went down to the set of The Ghost Whisperer at Universal Studios to visit Camryn on the set. She had invited us down to check out the set and also to meet Jennifer Love Hewitt, who is supposedly a big poker lover. I was so impressed with Jennifer’s sweet energy. She is maybe one of the nicest people I have ever met. She was excited to meet us. We exchanged some poker stories and hung out for a bit between scenes. It was a lot of fun. I’ll never forget she said to me, “Hey will you autograph your book for me?” I just looked at her and smiled and said, “Shouldn’t this be the other way around?!?” Its Jennifer Love Hewitt after all!!

It’s Friday 9 am. I’m driving back to Vegas today with my cousin, Sam for the weekend. Sunday I’m off to Miami. Going to stay w Michael Kelly for a day before we all head down to Turks and Caicos on his plane. It’s going to be a blast.

Adios for now!

I’ve been running pretty terrible lately. Whenever I run bad, one thing I think is…. “Shit, when things were going really well, why didn’t i just say, ‘hold up, thing are going really well right now. why not just consolidate these gains?’” People never do that, they just push and push.

Here’s a major psychological difference b/w running good and running bad….
When you’re running good, you’re generally very in the moment. You’re entirely focused on the present and the future and you take very little time to reflect on your good fortune. This is a good thing to the extent that it makes it more likely that you will continue your run.
When you’re running bad, you’re focused on the past. You’re focused on your mistakes and your bad luck. You tend to look back at your path and note that changes in any number of initial conditions would have led to a more favorable outcome. All of this makes it more likely that you will make further mistakes and worsen your run.

Here’s one trade that blew up recently…
LKTJE.O CALL NETLOGIC MICROSYS $25 EXP 10/20/07 CALL NETLOGIC MICROSYS $25 EXP 10/20/07 -350 $9.701 +0.50 -$339,500.00 -$17,500.00
summary… when you write calls, you don’t want the stock to go up. i wrote a lot of calls and the stock went up huge, and these calls consitute just over half of my NETL position.

Looking at this past year, here’s the summary….
Jan/Feb/Mar. At one point, I lost 8 consec all-ins for more than 40k when I was an 80-20 fav or better when the money went in. Sometimes I’d be like 92-8. I played in very good games during this time and ran v v bad.
Apr. Good poker month.
May. Will go down as the best month in my poker life. Just silly.
June/July. Very good. Some big wins and only one huge loss. Did a bit better than breakeven in tournaments. Had a couple of big scores in the market as well.
Aug15-now. Ran terrible in both markets and poker.

Now in $ I’m right around where I was at the start of the main event.

BA

One day after I had been hanging out at Speeds pool hall for about a year, Stacy brought a cheap chess board in. The management had frowned on him dealing blackjack with his buddies, even though it was just for fun and to kill time while drinking. In Texas, public gambling was (and for the most part, still is) strictly taboo…even though everyone there knew a half-dozen guys that would take sports book, and you could gamble on just about any activity in the room from pool to darts to pinball. Just don’t LOOK like you’re gambling. Anyway, Stacy thought chess might be interesting, something out of the ordinary to fill the spaces when nothing else was going on.

So Stacy and I were drinking Shiner Bock, telling lies, and moving a chess piece from time to time. I hadn’t played much in a couple of years, but like most dorks in high school, spent some time in semi-focused study of the game and was still a better-than-average player as an adult. Tom the bartender looked over and saw the board and hollered, “Hey, if I get a break, I’ll play the winner!” I kinda scratched my head at that one…Tom wasn’t half as smart as he thought he was, and even he knew either one of us would slap him around the board. Sure enough, Tom got a break, Stacy got distracted with something else, and I set up the board for our game. I never mentioned a wager, and knew I didn’t have to. I don’t even think both ass cheeks hit the chair before Tom said, “Put $10 on it?” About 20 minutes later, a couple of knight forks, a queen gambit when I was already up, I had paid for my next couple of drinks.

Just as we were finishing up, some guy we didn’t know came by and asked if he could play too. At this point, Prof. James Acquaintance and I looked at each other and figured we might be on to something. Chess was, and still is, a perfect game to hustle…you can distract guys, talk shit to influence play, give people spots that look good but really don’t mean much, sucker them in with bad plays, etc. Over the next month or so, James, Stacy and I tried to line up games for each other. The end goal was to set me up for the biggest games, since I was pretty much the most experienced player, but it couldn’t look like I was sitting there waiting for the next lamb to slaughter. So we all circulated, we all talked, and we all played whomever we could find at $20 or $50 a game, buying each other drinks with the winnings and putting a couple of bucks in our pockets here and there.

We thought we had a fun little deal worked out…but it dried up before it really got rolling, much to our surprise. It seemed too good to be true, which of course means it was…but it took forever before anyone could hypothesize why. We never really came up with a great answer, other than that chess is just too much thinking to keep a casual person interested. In most great prop bets, the sucker takes the bet, loses simply and easily, and walks away. That’s their role, and for the most part, they’re OK with that. People who make bets rarely mind losing them…if they didn’t, there wouldn’t be a Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Macau, Monaco, etc., etc., etc. - players would go until they lost (usually just one trip) and never come back. But casinos are packed with regulars, almost all of whom lose with overwhelming regularity. People are OK with getting beat…they just don’t want to have to WORK at it.

Tonight I was watching Iconoclasts which is a show that unites two famous people and they spend a weekend or so in more or less a long interview format. The one I watched featured Laird Hamilton (extreme surfer) and Eddie Vedder (lead singer of Pearl Jam). It somehow moved me because both guys seem like strong family men. You can usually tell who they are because the minute you see them they start talking about their kids. They both have daughters and so do I. Earlier in the evening my oldest was struggling and even though she wanted to make amends to her little sister for a fight they had she was having a tough time toning it down. She is a lot like her father. I asked her if she wanted to sit with me for a little bit as I quietly held her as she was crying. She asked me if I ever cried like that when I was a child and I joked that I was a hiccup crier (I still am actually) and gave her some examples, which made her laugh. I pride myself on being able to outthink situations but I am most proud of the situations with my children where I am able to be a beacon in a storm.

My kids believe that they are supposed to see the whole world and the whole world welcomes them with open arms. While that might not completely be true I have not encountered a place where my daughters don’t melt the collective hearts of virtually any place. When they go somewhere they are like a team, it is them at their very best. I think that is one reason I like to travel with them so much. It is almost like the 4 of us against the world (including my wife). On the show there was a scene where the guys were flying in a helicopter and saw a circled rainbow, which had to be amazing. We have seen Bald Eagles in flocks, Iguanas the size of a motorcycle and too many things to even mention. That is what life is about and every day is a gift and that is why I have impatience with the world and what the world offers for my family. I act on a daily basis like tomorrow is not a guarantee and that there is an expiration date on the experiences my family can have. We are planning a trip to Hawaii this winter, to sort of take a break and relax but I am hoping to go to Galapagos next winter. My kid’s joke that every kid they know goes to Disneyland and they have never been there and that doesn’t bother them one bit.

On a day to day basis I may not always be the best dad, husband or person but I do think about it a lot. You may think that has nothing to do with poker and you might be right but I don’t think so.

Basically my hustle with Taylor worked. While it is difficult to gain significant edge in fantasy football it is less difficult in a heads up scenario. Taylor is a smart guy so I am going to assume he will catch on to how I am beating him relatively quickly. But if I go 3-0 it is over. Over all I doubt the $1000 a week will be significant, so ultimately this will come down to the WSOP seat.

Either way, I am not excited about the time it will take to beat him but I would say based on my past experience against one of the best at this exact thing I would have a pretty comfortable edge. I predict I will win 4 more games than he will, I believe there are something like sixteen games left. It would be a real compliment to his intelligence if he can win 6 of the matchups.

It is funny how this hustle worked out really. I was just goofing off but apparently Taylor really believed that the best I could do was pick Maurice Jones-Drew.

This will be fun. Funny how when you challenge someone’ s gamble they get all worked up.