Sleep With the Fishes, Dine on the Whales

The tragedy in Connecticut obviously touched all of us, especially as parents of young children.  Scary, senseless, crazy, and every adjective used to describe it by better wordsmiths than me.  In the aftermath, I went to facebook to put out a little note from our GCP page conveying the heartbreak Gene and I both share as parents of young children. Before I could there staring me in the face was a message from Ruby Tuesdays in my feed.  I joined some sort of March Madness basketball pool Ruby Tuesdays ran and had to hit like on their facebook page to enter and every once in a blue moon I get some sort of update.  I think I might have eaten there once.  Anyway, they chose to comment on the situation and it left a bitter taste in my mouth. The first sentence extended their condolences and was the kind of message I was preparing to put out.  The second sentence repeated their name and the message.  On the whole nothing wrong with that.  T...

**I haven't been able to blog in a while even though I got a maelstrom of thoughts I've wanted to get out on a whole range of topics.  Obviously won't flesh them all out but here some tidbits... **15 comments waiting for review.  15 out of 15 spam.  Boo! **It's never fun to have the water go out on your block.  Less fun when you are dealing with a nasty stomach virus through the night.  Yeah, that recently happened to me. **Roger Goodell probably doesn't like Paul Tagliabue all that much.  Can you imagine if say Bill Clinton was called in to help Obama with some sort of impasse with Congress, and he was like "Yeah, that's a good effort and all, but NO!" **Hornets will likely be the Pelicans.  Back in the 70s and early 80s when all the mascots went for the cartoonish lovable aesthetic and not the edgy, menacing animals they are now, the Pelicans would have made sense.  Though I'm eager to see what a angry, intimidating Pelican looks li...

I've mostly kept my mouth shut about politics but time to weigh in a little bit in the aftermath of the election.  Feel free to skip if this isn't the reason you come here.  Poker Talk Below under "Donkley." Politics: My republican friends have greeted the election as the final push off the cliff.  My Democratic friends are ecstatic   As usual I'm somewhere in the middle.  My lack of passion centers around the fact that both parties despite their pontification and punditry are shades of the same color.  Obviously, neither candidate winning would have made me ecstatic, though this year I was leaning a lot more one way than the other.  It's the way I lean most election cycles, moreso this year than other years though.   What I do find particularly interesting is the question of whether or not the feedback on social media, the out right fear and horror of the republican base, is even registering on the democrats. ...

Uggh...  Hate that Hurricane Sandy has lived up to the hype.  I hope all of us who lived through Katrina and her aftermath will extend the same generosity the Northeast sent our way a few years back, now, in their time of need. If you want to make a small donation of $10 to the redcross text:  REDCROSS to 90999.  Really, that's the minimum all of us should do.  Times are tight but we can all afford at least $10.  If you want to make a bigger contribution and can afford it please go to their website.  Or if you have the time head north to help first hand, something my wife and I talked about me doing.  I have a friend from New York who every time he came down post Katrina for a Jazzfest or a poker tournament volunteered to do something in Mississippi or Louisiana. As I made mention in my last blog, I believe there is a lot of lingering resentment from Gulf Coasters to those small few idiots that questioned why people would rebuild d...

Harrahs had a whopping 92 people show up for the Saturday Donkley creating a prize pool with 2.5k up top.  I ran good and got to three handed where we chopped.  Previously, (last Saturday?), I made the final table and this young Brazilian refused to chop (and he won it).  I like the guy and had no issue with him not chopping (hooray for him winning it), but during the negotiation it seemed like only one player was against the chop.  He was silent. When the other player was talked into it (think we were going to chop four or five handed--can't remember) because everybody had about five big blinds he spoke up and declined saying he just wanted the experience of playing it all the way out and it wasn't about the money.  If that was the case, I'd rather he let his intentions known earlier because I played some hands differently then I would have. I know some players believe they have such an edge on the weekly players that you should never chop even if it's th...

--First, as always the Pokers.  Nope... just kidding a couple of far more interesting stories: 1.  .  Got a scout come to my door to see if we would let them use our house to film a Kristen Wiig movie. You might have heard of her, at least for her work in the underrated TV show Joe Schmoe, I mean SNL. Or that huge movie MacGruber, I mean Bridesmaids. Btw, I love that TV show Joe Schmoe. Genius reality TV. The scout came in and took pictures of the place and told us, we'd get paid for the service plus our house would be in a... Kristen Wiig movie. Then came two days of no phone calls..Like the 13 year old girl hoping for a call before the big dance, we were frazzled, disappointed, heartbroken and listening to Air Supply on the radio, though thankfully we were relatively acne free. Then, two guys break into a house a couple of streets over from us.  Want to case a joint?  Have I got a cover for you.  Tell, a dim house owner you want to put t...

-In a mere three days, I lost seven followers of my blog.  Maybe they  didn't get that I was joking about the Jonathan Vilma thing...  wasn't making fun of him, but moreso messing with the guy from ESPN on the witch hunt. -Lots of folks having nice scores recently.  Ashly Butler can't run any hotter.  That guy wins the coin flip when he shoved and a guy accidentally called him thinking he only raised (see gulfcoastpoker facebook page for link).  The double up gets him healthy again and from there he makes a World Series of Europe final table. Darryll Fish wins the High Roller event in the LAPT in Panama. Trishelle shows up in NOLA and wins a weekly then final tables a WSOPE event. My buddy Jeremy Halaska took down an event where they did a threeway chop and he got the most money and the first place trophy though he signed for third.  Great deal in my opinion. And big congrats out to Gene D.  Glad I bought a piece of his package.  Wh...

Aware of Goodell's overeating issues Vilma is trying to protect  the commissioner at his Miami restaurant. Below is a letter made in response to this story on Deadspin about a planned ESPN attack piece on Johnathan Vilma.  I decided to drop the correspondent a note in defense of Jonathan. Hi Barry, Somebody alerted me to your interest in Jonathan Vilam's character.     I have a number of eyewitness stories that speaks to the quality of person he is: -He successfully performed an emergency brain surgery on the sidewalk with a spork and a wrench.  Before he could be thanked he then immediately fed a block of parking meters that were within an hour of expiring.   -He trains quadruple amputee dogs how to wiggle to their food bowls and has coached them through their embarrassment of peeing without being able to lift a leg.  -During Hurricane Isaac Vilma held a levee up with his bare hands and since then spends ...

Recently, I've watched a word "catch fire" throughout the poker world.  Withered.  Another one that  is a close second and almost as rampant is "laxxed." Got to give credit for a trend setter.  Think Blake Barousse was the first I heard use this word about a year ago.  Then I heard Ross Leitz jump on it and use it A LOT, recently everybody is saying the word.  Saw twitter this last week somebody define it for Ben Lamb and then I saw Jason Mercier use both words in reference to the Internet kids.  So Blake, good job man.  You a leader the rest of the world followers. Withered for those who don't have a dictionary means... 1.  Tired, worn out and basically dried out.  And more recently it is used as a catchall to 2.  describe live pros and grinders.  In general, they are withered humps on a casino seat.  Maybe I fall in this category.  I hope not, but I feel and look withered a lot so probably so, especially after a...

Lots of poker to get to but going to lead with the important stuff: Drove home yesterday morning to share my son's birthday and got to go Chuck E. Cheese with him and his baby sister.  Lots of fun.  My children are at the age now that anything he touches she wants to touch.  So it makes my boy pretty angry when he wants to play with his new toys.  When I had returned for the Main Event my wife sent me this pic.  Bittersweet I think. My son loves this dinosaur movie from the sixties my father-in-law watches with him.  He knows the name of 30 or 40 dinosaurs and has wanted an Allosaurus forever.  An Allosaurus?  As he'll tell you it's like a T-Rex but has three fingers on each hand instead of two, Iguandon's in case anybody is interested have five fingers.  I knew one day my son would have a bigger knowledge base than me, didn't expect it to be as now three year old with Yesterday, before Chuck E. Cheese we went to Toys R Us and their dino...

Been on a bit of a hiatus.  If you come here just for poker you can skip this post because I really haven't played since Vegas.  Actually, here's a couple of paragraphs since this IS a poker blog: Poker Items... Did get in two weekly tournaments at Harrahs and bubbled one.  Trishelle of Real World fame played the other and took second.  We shared the same starting table.  She played pretty decent and I think stole a couple of pots from me in position. With the other weak spots at the table I wasn't really in the mood to test her with some check-raises or play back given it was the early levels.   Boards were dry and it felt like she was thieving.  If she keeps showing up to my "honey hole" and her steals becomes a habit I'll be happy to play back at her in the future. Turns out the IP isn't taking the 3% juice out of the initial tournament fee so the increase isn't quite as bad as I thought it was.  I plan on trying to get there to satelli...

Anatomy of a Hand: I called with Ten High In a World Series of Poker that was devoid of highlights except for a depressing cavalcade of bad beats and coolers, I left 2012 with one memorable hand:  I called with Ten High.  For the series I had been three for three with hero calls so my radar was tuned in.    Also, I really didn't make any bad or loose calls, so it's not like I'm some call station who got lucky three times and whiffed 20 others.   I'm pretty good at ferreting out when a story doesn't make sense, when a bet size is off, or a physical read just reinforces that my opponent doesn't have what he's representing.  When all three go together I'm willing to make a hero call when I'm really light.  One of my best skills in poker is winning money in these spots and sometimes it makes me feel like I'm playing the game backwards.  Everybody else wins with aggression while sometimes it's their aggression and not mine that g...

WSOP:  A Bad End Ugh... The World Series of Poker did not end the way I would have liked.  It also didn't begin or "middle" the way I would have liked either.  It was a bit like I'd imagine it would be encountering a three-boobed woman from Total Recall.  At first I'd be like "Hmmm... two are nice... three must be better" so there was all that awesome anticipation of the WSOP and the National Championship.  Then I'd get there and start to think besides the convenience of one being in the middle what's all the fuss about--it's the world's softest poker tournament series and there are still bad beats.  Then, you'd recognize, it's just one more boob, and besides the extra curve boobs are really for babies.  The World Series is in itself a trap.  Hundreds of good players run bad there every year.  Some bad ones run good.  Then finally, I'd be looking at the three boobs, thinking it's actually kind of gross... get me out of...