Today I woke up incredibly excited to play poker after taking a bunch of time away from poker the past couple of weeks. The reason for the excitement is because the Poker Stars World Championships of online poker begins today. Now granted, I am not primarily a tournament player, but just as I was excited to go to the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas this summer, I am equally as excited to play the World Series of poker online equivalent. Heck, I am a mostly an online poker player anyway, so this naturally suits me more anyway, and either way you are competing for a world championship.

I played in the WCOOP today and unfortunately it didn’t go very well for me. I did all I could getting all of the money in with AA on the flop against a flush draw, but the flush card came in for my opponent on the turn and the tournament was over for me. But that’s OK because the series goes on for over 3 weeks and today was just the first day. Sure, I would have liked a good start to the series, but there is a long way to go and many events ahead of us. I have a few speaking engagements to attend right in the middle of the series, but other than those 2 days my next 3 weeks are going to be filled with playing the world championship events at Poker Stars as well as hosting the final tables at many of the events. I hosted the Sunday Million a couple of weeks ago and apparently I did a good enough job to not get fired and so they asked me to host a few of the final tables. I am honored to do have the opportunity to host a final table of a world championship event and I am grateful that Poker Stars has chosen me for that role.

The past 2 weeks I have only played 3 days of poker. Luckily it went pretty well with me pocketing about $6,000 over those 3 days which probably covered all of the fun I had over the past 2 weeks. The past 2 weeks has been filled with some great times. I played golf at my old club and with many old friends. I also got to visit a couple of friends who were in town. After coming back from California, my wife and I went to an amazing new hotel in the Willamette Valley wine area here in Oregon for our 4th anniversary. This place was called The Allison and it was just flat our awesome. For anyone who is looking to taste some great wine in a less stuffy environment than a place like Napa, I would HIGHLY recommend taking your spouse to The Allison. The service and quality of everything at the hotel was on par with some of the best places in the world. In fact, over the past 3 years I have stayed at a number of places widely regarded as some of the best in the world and they didn’t have anything on The Allison in my opinion. In fact the spa was up there with just about anything. It was so relaxing and had so many amenities along with some fantastic masseuses that you could just feel your blood pressure dropping as soon as you walked in there.

We booked a driver through the hotel and went around to a half a dozen different wineries one of the afternoons we were there. It was really awesome to go around to all of the great wineries and taste so much great wine. I made sure to get at least a bottle from every winery mostly because it would’ve been hard not to walk out with at least one, they were all so good. Our favorite bottle we found was a 2006 Archery Summit Red Hills Estate. It scored a 95 and was named wine of the year in Oregon for 2006. We bought it to commemorate our anniversary year and the wine makes assured us that it would be near it’s best on our 10th anniversary in 2016. So we are going to put that one away and crack it open in 2016. Our favorite winery overall was a winery called Natalie’s Estate. The wine was great, but really what we enjoyed so much was the people who owned the winery. It is a smallish winery that certainly isn’t cranking out 100,000 cases of wine every year like some of the bigger wineries, but the man who owned the winery was so kind to us he just made the experience awesome. He was such a nice guy and you could tell he was there not to make a buck, but really for the wine. I’m sure everyone starts out that way, but I’m sure many are tempted to lose sight of what got them into the business and tends to get caught up in the financial side of things. But this guy was all about the wine and I don’t think he has ever lost sight of why he does what he does. Anyway, they are a private winery so you can’t just walk in and expect a few pours, but if you call up they generally will take you right in with no problems. I would definitely put that winery on your list if you ever make it out that way.

Yesterday was what I call the “most, wonderful time, of the year.” Yeah, my buddy and I tend to sing Christmas songs on the first day of Oregon football because, well, screw actual Christmas, for grown up Duck fans, there is nothing that beats the first game of the year. When you wake up, it is like waking up on Christmas morning. I woke up and all I could think about was getting inside that stadium and seeing all of our Ducks on that field ready to start a new season where there are sure to be many ups and downs ahead. The season never disappoints me. There are always so many great thrills and tragic heartbreaks. It’s simply an amazing team to follow.

Well, I better wrap up this blog. My daughter is downstairs with my wife and she is getting VERY close to taking her first steps. And no offense to you all, but I’m not going to take a chance on missing her first step to write a blog haha.

I suppose it’s just the nature of online poker being a lot harder now than it has ever been before, but it took some late month heroics for me to continue my month end winning streak. I have never had a losing month in my poker career, spanning 64months now. I had a huge scare in February where it took my best day of the year on the 2nd to last day of the month to squeak out a $9,000 profit. Late into August, I was stuck about $18,000 when I finally got hot over a 3 day span when I won nearly $30,000. I had a couple of other nice days after that to end the month up about $19,000. It is my 2nd worst month since sometime in 2006, but it still felt good to come up with a win.

All in all the year has been pretty disappointing in terms of results. I’m up around $350,000 or so on the year, so it’s not like I’m doing awfully, but I certainly has expected more starting the year. I can’t say i feel bad about my results nor do I feel like my game is off. I am so much better of a player than in 2007 and 2008 when I could practically make a million dollars a year with my eyes closed. But the thing is, there are now a lot of other good players and the bad players are now where near as bad as they used to be. It’s pretty amazing when you think about it. In 2007 there would be 5/10nl seats with legitimate fish sitting in them that would sit open for 5-10 minutes sometimes. Now if even a kinda bad player sits the table insta fills and the waiting list gets jammed. Sometimes I wonder what happened and why it is so hard for me to win at poker the way I used to. Sometimes I will get pretty down about it for a little while and feel like maybe I’m playing crappy poker or something. But I always soon remind myself that it is just basic economics at work here.

Online poker right now is kind of like the real estate market here in the US right now. Early in the decade everyone was making a ton of money in the housing market. Mortgage brokers and Realtors were doing great. So then naturally there was a rush to become mortgage brokers and realtors. Then as soon as everyone and their brother got into real estate, the housing market collapsed and then there were too many brokers and realtors and no where near enough inventory to sell. So the strongest survived, while the newbies and many of the mediocre ones faded off into the distance. Poker is the same way if you think about it. There was a huge rush to become a pro. Everyone wanted to teach their friends to make the easy money. Then once everyone and their brother taught each other how to play for a living, the UIGEA comes along as well as a general decline in high stakes action and now we are left in a situation where many will die off and only the strongest will survive. Once that happens, the “market” will become more balanced. It is just a basic economy sort of sorting itself out, no different than lots of other economies.

Either way, I am happy to have had my 64th consecutive winning month, even if it wasn’t what I was hoping for. I got to have a nice little vacation for a few days last week in California as well. I had a great time there and played a little golf at my old club. I got to see a ton of people I hadn’t seen in years which was a lot of fun. Golf wise I played OK. Not great, but decent anyway. I did get a LOT longer over the past 4 years. I was hitting the ball 15-20 yards past where I used to drive the ball. I flew a 3 iron over the green for my 2nd shot on our 7th hole which is an uphill 510 par 5 that used to take me two pretty good pokes to get there 4 years ago. I also drove it 95 yards from the green on our 11th hole which is a 410 par 4 that I can’t remember ever being less than 110 yards into. It was a lot of fun to hit it way out there and make some birdies. I shot 71-72 for the 2 rounds and won a skin in our little money game we play (like a $20 buy in. I may play poker for $20k, but in golf I play for $20 lol).

On Friday I took my uncle to Vegas and we hung out for a day. It was great to get to see him and I am glad we got to hang out. He had some issues health wise earlier in the year that had us all scared, so it was good to spend some time with him.

Well, that is about all I’ve got. Tomorrow my wife and I leave for a couple of days to go to a hotel in the Willamette valley wineries and spend some time there. This is our 4th anniversary which seems kind of amazing when you think about it. Before I met my wife, I never went out with anyone for more than a year. So to think we’ve been together over 5 years and have a baby who is near her 1st birthday blows my mind. Next year I turn 30, so wow, yeah time is flying. I guess I’m not a kid anymore, which seems weird. I still don’t think of myself as a grown up, but I have a child now so I better start trying haha.

If you’ve read my blog for very long, you know that I’m a HUGE fan of ‘Way of the Poker Warrior,’ by Paul “GiantBuddha” Hoppe. I loved the book so much when I read it that I decided to publish it. To read what I wrote when the book was released, please click here.

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As of today, you can get Way of the Poker Warrior FREE when you sign up for three months at DragTheBar.com, the poker instruction site where Paul and I coach. The cost is $30/mo., and when you sign up for three months, you get a fourth one free. So all in all, here’s the offer: Four months of top-flight poker instruction at DragTheBar + one of the best poker instruction books I’ve read in years, all for $90. That is a modest investment relative to what you have to gain.

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Here’s Hand Analysis #10 from our daily video instruction series. To see a graphic representation of this hand, click here. For more of my instruction, please visit DragTheBar.com.
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Here’s hand analysis #9 from our daily video instructional series. For more instruction, go to DragTheBar.com. For a graphic representation of this hand, click here.

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The past little while has certainly been memorable for a lot of reasons. Some good, some bad. Last week I took my family on vacation to the beach. We went to Seaside, Oregon, which turned out to be a huge disappointment. We made the best of it and had a good time, but wow, apologies if you live in Seaside, Oregon, but that city is a dump. Not only is it a dump, but it may very well be the largest congregation of morons I have ever seen. The people there just blew our minds. We would go to a restaurant and the best result we had all week was 3 mix ups on our order! No joke. We had between 3 and 7 mix ups every single meal! And that was if we even got one. One time I went to a restaurant and asked if I could place an order for take out and they waiter said, “Yes” and turned around and walked in the other direction. It was like he thought he answered my question and that I was not implying at all that I may actually want to place an order haha! I never was able to track him down again, so I ended up leaving without even ordering.

While the hotel we stayed in was pricey and had a spectacular ocean front view, the hotel service was awful. Unlike any other hotel I have stayed in, the housekeepers were all male. Not only were they males, but they were creepy looking dudes. They knocked one day to provide housekeeping and my wife answered the door and said no thanks and we did not let them in at any point during our stay. It is just not a comfortable situation when you have creepy looking dudes knocking on your door. I hate to say certain genders own certain types of jobs, but what the hell I’m going to say it anyway. Dudes should not be doing housekeeping. If you are a hotel manager and you have a bunch of dudes working for you in housekeeping, you are making a huge mistake. The women staying at hotels HATE men coming in their living space whether they are present or not. No one feels comfortable.

Oh that reminds me, while we were on the trip we went to see the movie “Inception” with Di Caprio. He’s the best actor in the biz right now if you ask me. It doesn’t hurt that he gets all of the great roles, but man he is good. Anyway, when we were at the theater we went up to the concession stand to order something and the guy standing behind the counter asked us if we would like anything. We started by asking if we could get 2 bottles of water. He said, “Yes, we carry bottled water.” We then looked at him and we were both thinking, “Yeah, we aren’t just asking if you have any, we are placing an order here.” He just stared and stared and finally we said, “We would like to order two bottles of water.” He said, “Oh, ok. I thought you were just asking if we had any.”!!! I mean, how on earth do two different people on that trip just assume that we are only asking for things out of curiosity and not to actually place an order? It’s like they put a large dosage of brain dead in the water over there in Seaside, Oregon. That’s definitely the last time we are going to that town.

One very memorable thing was that I got to have dinner with the inventor of N.E.T. N.E.T. is an acronym for Neuro Emotional Technique. I will avoid trying to explain exactly what N.E.T. is since you can google it and learn all about it if you are interested, but that technique that I have used with his protege, Dr. Demaris here in Portland, Oregon has dramatically improved the health of myself, my wife and is responsible for the life of my daughter, Lennon. Shortly before my wife became pregnant, she was told that she would not be able to have children due to medical issues she was having. They said becoming pregnant would be next to impossible. Dr. Demaris asked if he could do some work on my wife and see if he could fix the problem. Through a combination of N.E.T. and natural supplements, several months later my wife became pregnant, to the complete shock of her gynecologist, who defined it as a miracle. We knew better of course, since we did not tell him we did work through Dr. Demaris, but it was a pretty sweet surprise nonetheless.

So to get an opportunity to meet Dr. Scott Walker, the inventor of N.E.T. and someone whose work was responsible for the life of my daughter, was pretty incredible. I view him as someone who will go down in the history books as one of the most important figures of the last 1,000 years once his work becomes accepted as mainstream. Right now there are plenty ok skeptics on N.E.T., but take it from a poker player that deals in probabilities all day, the likelihood that N.E.T. is a pseudoscience like some docs will suggest is almost nil. It has worked so perfectly for the 2 years I have used it that it is several million to one against that all of the benefits my friends and family have experiences from it could be due to randomness.

This month has really sucked poker wise. Worse than that is my luck with computers. I literally had all 4 computers I own go to shit on me. All 4 needed to be repaired within the last 2 months. In fact the brand new computer I bought won’t even boot up..lol. I am returning it today to the company and getting a new one. Unreal! I thought the fact that I have run $400,000 behind all in EV according to my Holdem Manager over the last 28 months was monumentally unlucky, but it’s got to be a close race between having all 4 computers you own become unusable at virtually the same time. I’m not going to lie, being $400,000 behind EV and not being able to get your computers running properly has had me wondering if I should do something else with my life, but that could open a huge can of worms that I don’t want to get into today. For now I think I will just wrap up this blog and hit the tables and see if I can’t start getting a little luckier and chip away at that massive EV deficit. Man would it be nice to actually run good for the first time since early in 2008. Getting on a nice run would sure be nice, but I guess whether I run badly or not, I get to play a game for a living, so I am pretty lucky right there.

Lastly, I wanted to let all of the smaller stakes and recreational players know about a wildly popular event going on at Poker Stars. The PokerStars Lamborghini Freeroll has become so popular that they are actually restricting people to one entry per day because so many people were entering it that others weren’t getting a chance to play. That is not something I have ever seen in poker since the year that so many people entered the WSOP main event that they had to turn players away! Well, I’m headed to the Poker Stars tables here in a few minutes to fire up a bunch of cash games, but definitely check out what is going on at Poker Stars because apparently everyone else on earth is!

Here’s installment #8 of our daily video instruction series. If you’d like more of my instruction, please go to DragTheBar.com. To see a graphic representation of this hand, please click here.

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Hey everyone,

Here’s Hand #7 from our daily video series. I hope you enjoy it. If you’d like more instruction, please click here. Also, to see a graphic representation of this hand, please click here.

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Hey everyone,

After some retooling, the hand of the day feature is back for good. I may miss a few days due to random issues or being on vacation etc, but I am putting my best foot forward to try and get a new one up each and every day. Below is the first hand back from our little break. For those of you who want to see the hand in a hand converter, click this link. This will visualize the hand for you in case you are having trouble following it when I am explaining it.

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For those of you who may be interested in watching more of my poker instruction on a much more formal basis, please check out DragTheBar.com

I haven’t gotten too political in a long time, so I guess now is as good a time as any. I have been closely following the gay marriage case in California over the past year because for one I am genuinely interested in the case, but also because I loosely know Paul Katami, the gay man who filed the case along with the two Bush/Gore rock star attorneys.

I think the issue of gay marriage is incredibly difficult and while I do think there are several almost laughable flaws in the logic of those opposing it, I don’t think it is a clear cut issue by any means. First off, just like the “governator”, Arnold Schwarzenegger, I do appreciate that California will soon allow gay marriages to take place. I do think in some respects it is a civil rights issue and to deny people who clearly are in love and it is within their personal biology to be physically attracted to each other, is wrong. I do agree with Arnold that to do otherwise would be discriminatory. All meaningful relationships between two individuals who love each other, should be treated with dignity and respect, regardless of whether you believe it should be considered a “marriage” or not. Two people who have decided to join together and share their lives, regardless of their sex, should have every right to do so. They should have every right to have that relationship recognized by the government in the same way a traditional (whatever that means) marriage is recognized. Because the problem is that if you don’t allow that to happen, it creates a divide within our nation, it can create unnecessary pain in peoples lives when they can’t do things like visit each other in a hospital and other absurd things like that, and it doesn’t allow people to protect themselves (by law) should their partner and them decide to separate.

I also do agree that this is a civil rights issue, for the most part anyway. I don’t think it is as clear cut as Brown vs. the Board of Education, however, it is clear that to allow people of the opposite sex to “marry” but not people of the same sex, when there is nothing in the constitution that allows for such blatant discrimination, is a huge mistake. Opponents have tried to come up with a plethora of arguments that they say “clearly” show that marriage should be between a man and a woman, but that is usually when I read and burst into laughter. One argument is that it is important to mankind that marriage stay between a man and a woman for the sake of the children that a couple may choose to have. But the obvious counter argument is that A. it is not a prerequisite of marriage to reproduce B. studies on kids being raised by same sex couples and opposite couples, and how that affects their development, is fuzzy at best and C. What do you say about two 65 year olds who want to become married and are incapable of reproducing? Long story short, children should not be part of the argument when people are allowed to marry who have no designs on having children.

Another laughable argument is basically anything where the bible is quoted. Now I actually happen to consider myself a Christian, but that is simply a belief I have that I am only hoping is correct. I did not see Jesus with my own eyes. He did not give me a whole lot to go off of other than a book where anyone with half a brain knows down deep has a lot of complete nonsense in it. The evidence for Christianity is fuzzy at best and most of the world does not believe in Christianity. And even if none of the points I just made are accurate, there is something in our constitution that so many people conveniently forget that says there is a “separation of church and state.” So basically no matter if Jesus came down to earth tonight and said marriage is defined as being between a man and a woman, it is irrelevant. It is as clear as can be, there is a separation of church and state. Religion has absolutely nothing to do with this. This is a matter of whether it is discriminatory to allow a man and a woman to “marry”, but not a man and a man or a woman and another woman.

So while this may all look one sided and that I am completely pro gay marriage, let me carry on. I think there are a few flaws with current law and logic of those who are in favor of gay marriage. First off, the numbers show that the majority of people actually are in favor of at the very least allowing gay people to create a “civil union” of some kind. So clearly the majority does not want to create undue hardship on gay people even though they may not want to see them allowed to be “married.” People still are hung up on the word “marriage” as having some sort of sacred meaning. But the mistake I think the country is making is even “marrying” anyone in the first place. I think any two people who can demonstrate that they are in love and committed to each other should be allowed to officially form an official relationship with the state that entitles them to the perks what a civil union or marriage currently affords. But I do not think that the state should call it a “marriage.” If they just called it something else, I think this whole debate would be way less heated. Because most people who are anti gay marriage are probably of the mind that their heterosexual relationship is superior to a gay relationship and somehow feel that calling a gay marriage a “marriage,” cheapens the word somehow. But you see the problem is, heterosexual couples have already cheapened the word and gay people have nothing to do with that. When over half of marriages end in divorce, that cheapens the word. When people have 3 or 4 or 5 marriages in their lifetimes, that cheapens the word. When people get married in a courthouse and not in some kind of church, that cheapens the word to a lot religious folks. When people get married for publicity reasons (like those two psychos Spencer and Heidi aka “Speidi”) then that cheapens the meaning of the word marriage. Sorry to all of the heterosexuals out there, but we already cheapened the word ourselves.

Another MAJOR flaw I see is directly comparing this case to Brown vs. the Board of Education or other landmark civil rights cases. There seems to be this notion amongst those in favor of gay marriage that those who oppose it will one day be shunned the way an outrageously racist person might be today. Well, as I say that, it depends where you live. I think the closer you live to the middle of the country the more inclined you are to get away with being obviously racist, but along the coasts anyway, you would be treated as an outcast if you were to fly a confederate flag or something along those lines. My prediction is that down the line, while more and more people will be much more lax towards the idea of gay marriage, I reject the notion that people will be treated as being borderline nuts if they are not in favor of gays being allowed to be “married.” I think the word “marriage” can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. For some, marriage may only be between a man and a woman and conducted in a church. For others, they simply believe that the word marriage is quite literally defined (as in there is a dictionary definition) as being between a man and a woman. To others, they may think that anatomically it only makes sense that a man and a woman should be together and therefore they are the only ones who should be allowed to “officially” join together. There are others who believe that allowing men to marry may open up a can of worms. They may go so far as to say it is a matter of national security. If men are allowed to marry other men, then an American with terrorist ties could just marry an Al Qaeda extremist which would then make the Al Qaeda guy an American citizen!

Clearly there is a lot that needs to be worked out from a legal standpoint before this became a nationwide thing. Also what is clear, to me anyway, is that people should not be made to feel bad ever for opposing gay marriage. I think there are very good arguments that can be made (although it seems that few people actually make the good ones, they usually make the retarded ones, at least publicly anyway). I think time will prove that people will have varying opinions, but that most will agree that allowing gay people to “marry” does not affect their own heterosexual marriage nor will it “ruin the perpetuation of the human race” as one of the defense attorney put it LOL. News flash to that moron, we have 6 billion people on earth and ALL scientists will agree that humans multiplying at this pace will cause great harm to the earth and to human beings in general over time.

This is a difficult issue and when this case makes it to the supreme court and wins, (I am confident they will not overturn it) then ultimately to the lawmakers, that to me is when the debate will actually get interesting. Because at that point we will all debate what protections we need to have to keep someone from gay marrying an Al Qaeda leader and what do you do about transgenders? While it is obvious that almost all gay people are born gay, the research appears fuzzier when it comes to transgenders. I think that is not going to be a slam dunk decision by any means, and there is potential for people on both sides to get hurt no matter what is decided.

So to wrap all of this up I think we need to all respect each others relationships, the constitution, and to put it in the most basic terms, be kind to each other. This is a tough call, but clearly trying to make each other feel like less than a human if we happen to be on one side or another is not helping anything. If we were talking about race, then I don’t mind bashing the hell out of the other side because anyone who thinks that because someone is black (or Hispanic or Asian etc.) that they are stupid or that they steal or whatever else they use to justify their beliefs, they are a moron and deserve whatever comes their way. But this is clearly a much more complex and difficult issue and you shouldn’t be made to feel bad no matter what side you are on. I think what frustrates gay people is not when they oppose them, but rather when they oppose them for reasons that make no sense. But those who have well thought out logical reasons for opposing same sex marriage should not be made to feel bad. If your argument is “I don’t want them to get married cause they disgust me”, well then you probably deserve the same treatment as the openly racist guy. But if you have obviously legitimate concerns, I think you should stand by them, but do so with an open mind.