Sleep With the Fishes, Dine on the Whales

Email I sent for those that bought a piece of me: Fired several bullets to win our way into the Main Event on my own dime through Megas.  Those did not go well.  Several times I was a couple of spots away from the seat.  I also tried to arrange to buy a seat from a cash player that had won it to save us a little money in the package.  He asked for 1k and I hoped to get him down by negotiating.  Unfortunately, we missed each other (he no showed the first meeting) and when we finally did meet up I had to leave in the middle of one of my megas and rush over to the cash room.   (One of the floor people had been trying to help me out with this and called me when the player got there).  I told him let's discuss the seat.  He said sorry.  Despite committing to the floor person who set things up for me now he had changed his mind.  Now, he had been able to get off work for Saturday and was going to play.  (**I saw him bust a...

MY Package Update email: Hi all, Package update.  Every time I use the word package one of you Beavis and Butthead fans shoots me a text  telling me how you enjoys me talking about my "package."  You probably giggled at the name of Alabama safety Ha Ha Clinton Dix.   Well giggle some more because I'm talking about my package again. Some small good news for those that bought enough of the package to include the side action, but that comes last.   Now for the bad news. Anyway, the first three events went bad for different reasons, though a three on the turn was responsible for two of them.   1A 50k Guarantee:   Simply got coolered three times by fishy plays.   1.  Flop top two pair bet. Guy calls and hits his set on the turn. Think it was set of threes, I flopped K9.  Just call his river bet, lose minimum. 2.  In Big Blind with A4.  Multi way pot.  Flop comes 774.  I Bet one guy calls. ...

Why do they call little Snickers "Fun Sized."  There is nothing fun about them, unless fun means immediately have to look through the candy you are stealing from your Children's Halloween haul for another one to "partially" satisfy you.  I feel like I've heard "this" bit somewhere, my apologies if I'm stealing from somebody, but that's the train of thought I had this afternoon. Poker is going swell.  Continue to run good at cash and these weeklies.  Traveled up to Baton Rouge to play at LaBerg and see the new casino.  I was impressed.  The tournament was a little fast but enjoyable.  Finishing third made it sweeter.  That made three final tables in a row.  A lot happened in that tournament. I saw the local hotshot challenge me for hitting a flush on him, and ironically play a similar hand exactly the same way later.  I believe he muttered something about raising with the worst hand, then bluffing with it and then getting lucky. ...

Poker: Cash has still been going great.  So too, the Harrahs Weeklies.  Been bubbling a little too much there 13th, 12th, 16th, but a fair amount of top six finishes too sprinkled in recently, so I can't complain.  Sounds like the free roll may have as much as 29 or 30k up for grabs. I've put together a package that includes many of the upcoming events (IP's WPT events, Harrahs in house event, and the beginning of the Million Dollar Heater) that I've sold most of.  Feel on the precipice of some deep runs and am really confident with how I'm playing lately.  Been really locked in with where I stand in hands.  Minimizing losses on coolers and making some great calls, and thin value bets.  Kai Landry once blogged about live poker, and that just innate sense when you put someone on a hand, some undefinable moment of cognition, that your subconscious processes but you could never identify specifically.  That's been happening a lot.  It's weird...

So, in the past couple of posts I've been cryptic about a recent opportunity that presented itself that I said  was really cool.  It is... or I should say was really cool... as unfortunately, my involvement, ultimately, was practically zero. I met with the producer of a new poker show that is filming its pilot in New Orleans a couple of weeks ago over lunch at Mothers.  All this was going on just as I learned of the potential heart condition of my soon to be born son and the expedited delivery to find out if he'd need surgery.  So despite being in a bit of fog in my personal life, I still enjoyed a great conversation about poker, poker in New Orleans, and specifically discussed the pilot and premise of the show.  To be honest it was a really nice diversion.  We had a freewheeling exchange of ideas. I came away happy with the vision of the producer and impressed that one of the aims of the show to really highlight locals who play poker. We also came to t...

In tournament poker the short stack can go to the big stack and the big stack can be eliminated in the blink of an eye.  Reversals of fortune are common, you pray for one ride and wish the other against the jerk with the bigs stack.  Hmmm...  I sense a poker analogy coming, and those are generally terrible and lazy, so apologizing for the derailment, let me get to the point. First off thanks to everybody for the prayers and well wishes.  My wife and I were kind of blown back by the generosity of support we received as we struggled with the possibility our son might have some issues at birth.  Thanks to many of you in our little poker community who sent me positive thoughts, prayers and well wishes.  Means a lot. We got really bad news which just gradually got better and better until he arrived.  Our third child joined us, and his health and spirit surpassed anything we were advised his birth might be like.  Basically, we were given a couple of...

Been a hectic couple of weeks. Had some very bad news hit me right as I arrived in Austin for a college reunion type weekend.  My wife has been having some complications with the pregnancy.  She had an extra appointment slotted in and I understood that when I made the 8 and a half hour trek that I might have to turn around and come home.  Possible we'd have an early delivery or get some really bad news.  So five minutes before seeing all my old friends she told me there was some issues with our future son's heart.  A google search provided only scary and extreme causes for the enlargement. Now, normally when I get worried about my kids I'll do an Internet search and find only two things:  Take your kid to your doctor or probably nothing to worry about.  Just about anything you search for healthwise is 50/50 with those results.  This time, quite different results arose for my wife.  They consisted of scary ideas like heart transplant or ev...

This past weekend I had the opportunity to work the WSOP Academy in New Orleans.  Jeff Madsen was the lead pro with Layne Flack his right hand man.  I mean this in a good way... it felt like the seminars were led by a rapper and a rock star.  Madsen's grip on the microphone looked like he was about to segue into a Beastie Boys's lyrics at any moment, and Flack, he's just an affable and gregarious presence.  As some one in the class said he could have easily been a stand up comedian.  I got more a lead guitarist type vibe. Either way both presenting players had the presence to hold the attention of everybody in attendance, and both were able to impart a lot of excellent strategy and poker knowledge.  They quickly progressed the class from beginner stuff to thinking at a much higher level. I was there to assist with the hand labs.  I rotated through the class with Layne and Jeff.  We'd each have a table and deal out hands.  After a hand was...