Well quite a few things to talk about this time.  It’s been awhile since I blogged last, but now that I have a baby, when I am done playing for the day rather than sit at the computer and blog after I play, I just want to get home as fast as possible to see my baby girl.  Anyway, enough with the excuses….

The last 36 hours I caught a massive, massive heater at the tables and I actually met my goal of making over $100,000 before the I leave for the WSOP!!!  I ended up making about $104,000 overall.  For those who aren’t aware, I made a goal of making $100,000 in May to take as my WSOP bankroll.  I said I didn’t care how I made it, so I am counting bonuses and backing deals.  Basically any poker related income.  Well, I was at +$64,000 with only 4 days to go.  I caught a nasty downswing right off the bat to drop over $11,000.  But then I caught an amazing heater.  I went on an over $30,000 tear the last 2 days AND to top it all off, I had a big piece of a buddy who did good in one of the big Sunday tournaments on Poker Stars and my share of the winnings brought it to over $100,000!!  So I made it!  Sure, I had a nice break with the tourney backing, but I also had a horrible run the first 2 weeks of May so all in all I am pretty pleased.

Tomorrow I am hoping in the car and driving with the family to play the World Series of Poker!  Doesn’t get much more exciting than that.  I get to play the entire WSOP with my family there.  We are renting a house in Vegas for the month so I will have everyone there which is awesome.  I am going to be giving TONS of updates while I play for anyone interested in following the action.  I am going to play about a dozen tournaments throughout the month, and then play the main event before we head home.  I am really excited because while I played the main event in 08′, I have been almost exclusively an online cash game pro.  I am really hoping that my online success translates into live tournaments.  I have been working on my tournament game quite a bit lately.  I hope the work pays off and I win a bracelet while I am there.  That would be sweet!

Since I have a budding publishing company, Imagine Media, that has gotten off to an amazingly good start with the success of Treat Your Poker Like A Business, I have rekindled my interests in reading.  I used to read a lot, but haven’t as much in the past few years.  But the past month alone I read 5 books.  I went on amazon.com and ordered a bunch of interesting poker books and I will have to say I have really loved all of them.  I read Checking Raising the Devil which is basically Mike Matusow’s autobiography.  It is a really fun read.  That guy has had a hell of a life!!  Let’s just say he is the antithesis of Treat Your Poker Like A Business, but he has done pretty darn well for himself so what do I know?

I also read Doyle Brunson’s autobiography and I really enjoyed that one as well.  We have a number of parallel’s in our stories which is pretty cool. He told his story very well I would say it is a highly recommended read.  In fact some will blow your mind.  I honestly have no idea how he was able to stay alive with all that has happened to the man.  Once you read his story, you will begin to understand why that man doesn’t fear a quarter million dollar check raise.

Professor, The Banker and the Suicide King was awesome as well.  I really enjoyed that book as has about half of the poker population.  I have come to understand that it is a very popular book that has had great acclaim.  If you don’t have it, I’d recommend getting it.  It is a great look into the lives of the poker greats as well as an inside look into the biggest poker game in history which took place at the Bellagio against Andy Beal.  Very fun read.

I am almost through with Gus Hansen’s book.  This is the best instructional book I have read in the last few years.  I would highly recommend it for tournament players or even if you’re not one, it is still a worthwhile read.  Gus can play some poker, that’s for sure.

Well that is all I have for now.  I am going to get some sleep and then get ready for a long day leatherassing it in the car to Vegas.  I will make a bunch of blogs posts about the WSOP and will give a link for live updates

Well, since it seems like debating about sunglasses in poker is all the rage and I rarely pass on my chance to toss in my 2 cents on just about anything, I figure I will give an online poker player’s point of view.  What strikes me as funny about the whole sunglasses debate is that it seems quite obvious that those who read people really well are going to be inclined to want sunglasses gone, and those who are more afraid that they are being read more often than they are reading someone else, want to keep their shades.

Being around poker and poker players for the last half decade now, one thing has become quite obvious.  Poker players want what is best for themselves.  Whether they are on the right side of the morality of the argument or not, they want what is best for themselves.  So when you hear a poker player argue something one way or another, understand that they are usually like attorneys in that they will just argue which ever way that pays the bills.  I mean for Christ sakes, our entire profession is about getting people to do things that are not in their best interests.  We want them to go all in when we have AA so they can lose money.  We want them to go on tilt so they will make stupid plays and lose their money.  I could go on and on until I ran out of space in my blog with things us poker players try and get people to do that is solely in our own best interests.  The bottom line is that poker players just argue pocketbook, period end of sentence.

I think to compare wearing sunglasses at the tables to some of the other banned items/substances in other sports is a bit of a stretch.  I mean I get what people are saying and I do think that in poker we should start to look at the big poker events (and the rules of these events) the same way a major professional sporting organization would, but I just don’t think wearing shades at the table is at all like taking a banned HGH substance or greasing your driver so the ball goes further.  People who argue that reading people is a fundamental part of poker are the same as people who think marriage between a man and a woman (and not a man and another man or a woman and another woman) is a fundamental part of marriage.  And what I mean by that is that to some people, marriage between a man and a woman is a fundamental part of marriage.  And they are perfectly entitled to that opinion.  But if you ask a gay person, they would say that all that matters is if two people love each other and want to commit to each other.  In their mind the only fundamental aspect of marriage is love and commitment.

To a guy like Daniel Negreanu, reading people is a fundamental part of poker and therefore he doesn’t want people to be allowed to wear shades at the felt.  Shoot, I don’t blame him for feeling that way, because he is such a damn good reader of people.  I am a poker player too after all, so I’d argue the same way if I were him. But to me, I don’t care about trying to read people.  I am not good at it and I would prefer to let the (hopefully) fundamentally solid strategy that I have developed for a given situation dictate the action, not whether my left nostril flared.  To me, having a read on someone allows someone who has merely picked up on a physical tell use that to trump actual poker skill.  So if you ask me, I wish everyone had shades and no one said a word.

In sports, there are things that are fundamental to the game.  Putting a ball in a basket is a non negotiable rule in basketball.  In golf, it is a fundamental aspect of the game that you put the ball in the hole.  But as my great friend Casey Martin proved in the United States Supreme Court, walking is NOT fundamental to the game of golf.  I’m sorry, but the ability to see a man or woman’s face is NOT fundamental to the game of poker.  To some it may seem like it should be, but it simply isn’t. If it was, my sponsor, Poker Stars, would have to change their name to something else because they would not be allowed to call the games they spread “poker” because they would not be allowing something that is fundamental to the game to take place.  Betting, folding, etc. is a fundamental part of poker, seeing a person’s face is not.  And for those reasons, I think the shades are here to stay.

The night before the Big Game is one I will not soon forget.  Jared Tendler, Barry Carter (from Poker News acclaim) and I were sitting in the bar at the Chesterfield Mayfair and in walked someone who I had never met before, but was immediately drawn to.  His name was Marty Wilson.  Or “Mad” Marty, as he is known across poker circles.

Marty recognized my Poker Stars gear and correctly assumed I was part of the tournament and walked up and introduced himself.  He sat down, ordered a drink and that was the beginning of a night filled with some of the most amazing stories you could ever hear.  Most of us barely even spoke for the next several hours as we were glued to the next thing that came out of Marty’s mouth.  He told us amazing gambling stories, random (but interesting) trivia and gave us some almost impossible to guess questions that has us scratching our heads.  Marty is the first person I have ever met where I can say what I am about to say.  He is a larger than life personality.

About half way through the night, Robert Williamson III walked in the bar jet lagged and exhausted, but that wasn’t enough to stop him from joining us at the table.  If we had been sans Marty, I suspect he may have just headed to bed, but with Marty in the group, he probably figured it would have been a crime to not take advantage of the situation and he joined us for some drinks.  It was great getting to know RWIII.  He seemed like a genuinely nice guy and another person, like Marty, who has a thousand stories to tell.

Being an online pro for the most part, I have always been intrigued by the old school gambler/poker players.  I have mostly stuck to my circle of online poker buddies and haven’t met too many of the Marty Wilson’s and RWIII’s of the world.  But I have always been fascinated by them.  Sometimes I have to remind myself that it wasn’t very long ago that I was watching these guys on TV and would have given my left nut to be in their position.  Now I am a peer of them, which is pretty special.  In fact I remember the first time I played poker in Las Vegas my friend Matt Amen and I decided to check out the World Series of Poker and watched a final table for PLO and it included RWIII, Phil Hellmuth and Phil Ivey.  I believe Ivey took down that final table, but it was on that day that I learned about “Mr. Omaha,” RWIII.  So I will have to admit it was a pretty cool moment to just sit in a bar and share a beer with him as two fellow professionals.

The Big Game didn’t go that well for me at the tables.  I lost about $12k pounds and my bankroll got a little light after taking the beating and the stakes getting constantly bumped up at the tables.  Once the stakes got so high that I only had enough money with me to play one big pot, I decided to take the job as commentator for the remaining 24 hours of the show.  So Jesse May (who is a fantastic person btw) and I sat in the booth calling the action for over 24 hours straight!  It was really cool and a job that I would actually like to do more of if the opportunity ever arises.  Going over 24 hours straight was pretty brutal for me though.  I had already been awake for probably 8-10 hours before I started, so doing the 24 hours was no easy task.  In fact I actually fell asleep several times while I was commentating!  I remember at one point Jesse asked me what I thought Phil Laak should do with his hand and I was like, “I think this is a good spot for Phil to check raise.”  Jesse said, “Well, Phil has the button in this hand so that might be pretty hard to do.”  I was damn near hallucinating by the end and had no idea what was coming out of my mouth.  I guess when the show airs I will find out!

Well, I’m playing in a mixed game SCOOP event as I write this and am itching to start a cash game session so I am going to wrap it up here.  In my March to $100,000 I am up only about $21,000 at the moment so I have my work cut out for me.  I still have about 2 1/2 weeks so it is not impossible that I can get on a nice run and still make it.  I will certainly give it my best.  Even if I don’t make it, I am still going to be super excited to play in the WSOP this summer.  I am going to bring a big bankroll and see if I can’t turn it into something huge.  I have a house rented in Vegas for the entire WSOP.  My family is going to come down with me so it will feel more like a home game and I don’t have to deal with missing my family for an entire month.  I should feel comfortable and ready to play some poker.  Between now and then I will work on getting my game to peak for the WSOP through lots of hard work on my game.

I have been plowing through playing a ton of hands. Haven’t gotten a ton of momentum so far, but have been making progress nonetheless. Today I won $3,857.95 bringing my total to $14,445.52 since I began my journey 7 days ago. I guess I am a little behind pace, but at least I am not down $20,000 or something and need a miracle to pull it off.

I am wrapping it up a little early today in anticipation of a long day tomorrow when the SCOOP begins!! It’s finally here. I have been looking forward to the SCOOP since I decided to put in a little more effort in trying to learn tournament poker earlier this year. I feel like this is the perfect way to prepare for the WSOP this summer. That reminds me, I just booked a house about 2 hours ago for the entire month of June in Las Vegas so I can bring my entire family with me and play all of the WSOP events.

Well, I am going to run. My 7 month old daughter actually gets really, really excited to see me when I come home now. Her heart starts pounding and she can hardly control herself. So I figure since she has to be about the only human being on earth that is actually excited to see me, I better take advantage of that opportunity and get home.

Good luck at the tables.