Tao of Poker

Purgatory

I'm in purgatory which is that short period of time after a holiday ends. I'm in limbo wandering around between heaven (vacation) and hell (work). Over the past two weeks, I've roamed around Colorado, Las Vegas, Hollyweird, and now in NYC spending time with friends, taking photos, seeing bands, investigating the JonBenet murder case, reading books, and enjoying a well needed break away from Las Vegas.

I played some poker sporadically over the past two weeks. My last few days in Las Vegas were spent at the tables either at Red Rock or at Green Valley Ranch. In LA and Boulder, I played online grinding out my reload bonus at Full Tilt. I sat outside on a bench in the Pearl Street mall in downtown Boulder playing 5/10 and checking out all the cute hippie college girls from CU that just returned from summer break. I felt like Wooderson from Dazed and Confused because, "I get older and they stay the same age."

Last Wednesday, I was busy and missed the Gavin Smith Charity Tournament even though I signed up for it. I managed to come in 16th out of 45 without playing a hand! I think I did better than if I actually played. Thanks to AlCantHang for setting that up.

Two weekends ago, I hung out with Daddy in Boulder, CO. We saw Galactic, one of my favorite bands from New Orleans. We partied hard with my buddy the Joker and Professional Keno Player Neil Fontenot. I posted reviews of three of Galactic's Colorado shows over at the Tao of Pauly and at my music blog. If you like Led Zeppelin, then you have to check out the videos I show from one of the Galactic shows at the Fox Theatre.

Kashmir (8.26.06)
Shibuya (8.26.06)
Immigrant Song, Whole Lotta Love > Meter Maid, Manic Depression (8.26.06)
The Joker's Galactic Video (8.26.06)

Over the weekend, I played heads-up Chinese Poker with Change100. She had a nice lead early but I came from behind to win handily. I hit a stretch where my second best hand was beating out her best hand.

Two months ago I was in Tennessee and watched a dude with possum-made boots snort coke off a buck knife in the middle of the crowd at Sonic Youth during Bonnaroo. A month ago in Las Vegas, I lost $400 because Otis proved me wrong and ate two Keno crayons. And just the other day, I sat in Change100's Beverly Hills apartment and watched gay, nut-biting, toy humping sexually overactive dogs of famous actors while I played online poker.

Change100's roommate Showcase is a dog-walker to the stars and brings the dogs over in the afternoon. One dog was nicknamed Gay Mack because he only liked to hump other male dogs. One was a tiny red Dachshund named Billy. He was a pussy for a dog and could not leave Showcase's side. Billy would also chew and bite his testicles in order to masturbate. He did it for a few minutes while I sat on the couch and stared in amazement and jealousy. The other dog was a pug named Pug. He was the "biggest fuckin' pug" that I have ever seen. Pug liked to hump a squeeze toy that would moan when he mounted it. Those dogs kept me entertained in between folding hands.

On my JetBlue flight from LA to NYC, I watched the 2006 WSOP main event. I caught one of the rare moments I was in the shot... during Greg Raymer's bustout hand when his 8-8 ran into A-A. I sweated Raymer for almost four hours that day while working for Poker Stars Blog and was really bummed to see him go. I also saw Ryan bust Jesus.

I also saw CJ a couple of times with Dimitri Nobles. If you don't know the story, CJ was Nobles' good luck charm. I also spotted several of my fellow media friends in background shots such as Flipchip, Spaceman, Tuscaloosa Johnny, Jen Browning, Joy, Tom Murphy, PokerWire Amanda, Greg from Image Masters, Mad from PokerStars, and of course CJ.

Here's some quick poker pimpage:

Thanks to Jason Goldman for mentioning the Tao of Poker during his interview with LAist.

I signed up for the Tanner Evers Charity Event on Full Tilt. Mookie did a gracious deed and set this up. It's now your turn to do something to improve your karma.


April wrote a review of Jay Greenspan's book Hunting Fish. Check it out.

Michael Craig has been blogging some great stuff recently, specifically a piece called Free Richard Lee.

Speaking of the WSOP, Lou Krieger has a few suggestions for the 2007 WSOP.

Don't forget about checking out Flipchip's Las Vegas photos.

Lastly, the guys at the Lord Admiral Card Club are hanging it up. Listen to their last episode. There was a time in this world when Cinci Sean and Brent Stacks had the best poker podcast on the planet and I was fortunate to be a contributor on more than one instance. Thanks guys for all your hard work over the years.

That's it for now. The bad news is that I'm starting a new project in a few days that will take up all of my time and energy for the remainder of the month. The good news is that it's not poker-related.