Welcome to the gambling ramblings of Pauly... a writer, traveler, and degenerate

 
Thursday Pimp Day: New WPBT WSOP Satellite and Other Extraordinary Things

First of all, Iggy set up a new WPBT WSOP Satellite for Monday night on Poker Stars. Here are the details:

What: WPBT WSOP Satellite #2
When: Monday, April 3rd @ 9PM EST
Where: Poker Stars
Tournament #: 21868191 (see private tourney tab)
Buy-in: $30 +3
Format: NL freezeout
Password: socoshot
Restrictions: Bloggers only
Attire: Pants optional

I've gotten smoked in my last two blogger events. A-A and K-K cracked viciously and I was out soon after each beat. At least I got knocked out early and instead of on/near the bubble. I'm hoping to make the final table in this event.

On the personal poker and writing front, I'm in Las Vegas and I've been doing more freelance writing than actually logging time at the tables. I penned articles about Doyle Brunson and Ted Forrest over the past two days. The Ted Forrest one is for Professional Poker, where I've helped build their entire player profiles section. It's taken me well over 15 months to write 41 bios and profiles. Talk about a long term project!

I'm working on an online poker article at Poker Player Newspaper. I may or may not become a regular columnist in their bi-monthly newspaper. It depends on the popularity of this piece. Let's hope I get it.

I do have a regular monthly column at Poker Pro Magazine, which can be found in your local card room. In the April issue of Poker Pro, I wrote an article about the WPT Borgata Winter Classic and they included several of my photos. In the May issue of Poker Pro, I have an article about the Heads-Up Championship that was won by Ted Forrest.

I have an article on poker blogs that should appear in the May issue of Bluff Magazine. I'm hoping that can give us a little more publicity.

And yes, the rumors are true. In the past week, I've been approached by Poker Pages, Party Poker, Bluff Magazine, and Card Player to join their respective teams. I need some time to think their offers through. Those organizations are seriously scared that I'll kick all their asses at the 2006 WSOP, just like I did last year. They all want to lock me up and I don't blame them. I'd prefer to work for the Tao of Poker and Las Vegas & Poker Blog just like in 2005.

Moving on...

Here's where I pimp several of other bloggers and let their hit counters go through the roof. Just kidding. However, you should make sure you stop by to see what's going on out there in bloggerdom.

Spaceman is busting his ass at the Reno Hilton covering the another WPT event. The final table starts later today and he'll be providing live blogging for Bluff Magazine. Take a peek.

Oh, happy birthday to Chops Wicked Poker!! Snake, Addict, and Chops blur the line between poker and almost-porn. Keep up the great work! I'll see you fucktards at the WSOP this summer. BTW, thanks for the pic of the Hilton Sisters' nipples!

Congrats to Double As who finished his poker book. I admire his commitment to complete the book despite getting dropped by a publisher a few months ago. I know how much it sucks to lose a book deal. I lost three last year. I'm still bitter. Anyway, I contributed a couple of chapters to Double As' book along with some of your other favorite bloggers like Iggy, Otis, HDouble and Grubby. I'll keep you posted on the details. And yeah, I can't wait to read it.

Otis had an interesting post on the "whys" of poker called Definition.

If you are in any sort of serious relationship, stop by and read an kick ass three part series on relationships and poker by CC. Check out Part I, Part II, and Part III.

BG is posting some great stuff over at Las Vegas and Poker Blog. Take a peek at his series called The Rake, particularly his latest installment.

Easycure is hosting a charity tournament on April 16th in conjunction with the WPBT-POY circuit. I'll post more details about "Hammer Out Cancer" when it gets close. But it's a worthy cause and you should play.

Change100 posted a funny scene from last Saturday and what she saw as the 8 of us stumbled out of the shuttle bus coming back from the Playboy Mansion. She also included her version of taking me shopping for new clothes called Outfitting the Doctor. By the way, I hate shopping. Here's a bit:

"Our first stop was Hugo Boss, where Pauly declared everything gay."

Joe Speaker also posted his version of our visit to a strip club last Thursday with myself, Change100, Grubby, and my buddy Senor. It's called Keeping Scores and here's my favorite part:

"The strippers were flocking to Pauly. He had the hardest-to-reach seat, the bottom of the 'u' in our semi-circle, but the man is a magnet. He turns strippers into bloodhounds. Every time I turned around, he had another female on his lap. And then every time I turned around, he had the same female on his lap: Nikki."

Lastly, make sure you stop by and read the other Playboy Mansion trip reports from... Spaceman, Bobby Bracelet, Chad, BG, Joe Speaker, CJ, and AlCantHang. I posted the first two parts over at the Tao of Pauly called Part I: The Arrival and Part II: Where's AlCantHang? I'll post Part 3 on Friday and Part 4 on Monday.
posted by Pauly at 3/30/2006 12:57:00 AM | Permalink |

 
Bloggers and Bunnies Part II: Where's AlCantHang?


Part II of my Playboy Mansion trip report has been posted over at the Tao of Pauly.

Part II: Where's AlCantHang?
Part I: The Arrival

Enjoy! Make sure you stop by and read other Playboy Mansion trip reports from.... Spaceman, Bobby Bracelet, Chad, BG, Joe Speaker, CJ, and AlCantHang.
posted by Pauly at 3/29/2006 01:47:00 AM | Permalink |

 
Friday Night in Vegas, Bad Blood Flexes, and Where's BJ?

Check back on Wednesday for a new installment of my Playboy Mansion trip report.

Congrats to Bad Blood who won the WPBT deep stacks event on Full Tilt Sunday night. Great job. The Balco seems to be working on your MTT game. I busted out early after I had K-K cracked by the Hiltons. Derek took 11th.

By the way, on Friday afternoon in Las Vegas a bunch of us headed over to the Aladdin to play in a tournament. Mr. Subliminal was there playing cash games. Anyway, Senor played in the tourney. He's a stud player and rarely plays NL tournaments. He ended up 16th out of 84 and outlasted all the bloggers including Joe Speaker, CJ, Change100, and myself. Aterwards we headed to Excalibur with Spaceman and played craps with BG where we all took a bath.

On Monday night after returning to Las Vegas I dropped a buy-in. A lot of bad plays from yours truly coupled with a few suckouts and badbeats. I decided that I was running bad so I walked away.

Be sure to check out Spaceman's coverage of the WPT Reno over at Bluff Magazine.

* * * * *
By the way, if anyone knows where BJ Nemeth is... please call me! We're worried about you BJ, especially Heather from Poker Wire. I know you read my blog BJ, so I hope you are some three day bender somewhere or knocking boots with a hot French-Canadian chick and that's why you haven't answered my phone calls!
posted by Pauly at 3/28/2006 09:55:00 PM | Permalink |

 
Playboy Mansion Trip Report and Poker Tournament



Don Cheadle won the celebrity poker tournament at the Playboy Mansion on Saturday night. The tournament was thrown by the Urban Health Institute. That concludes the poker portion of my Mansion trip report. To read the remainder of my trip report, visit the Tao of Pauly.

Bloggers and Bunnies Part I: The Arrival

Stay tuned for more updates, pictures, and installments.
posted by Pauly at 3/27/2006 04:20:00 PM | Permalink |

 
Veni. Vidi. Vici.

Here's my favorite conversation of the evening....

AlCantHang: "I used to spank it to you."
Julie McCollough: "Was that Growing Pains or Playboy?"
AlCantHang: "Both."

We survived our epic adaventure at the Playboy Mansion. No one got arrested, but Chad puked a few minutes ago. I won the prop bet with Boy Genius. I'll have some more updates soon, but nothing I can write can fully explain the experience of hitting the Mansion with some of my best friends and getting completely smashed.

Reports soon to follow from the Tao of Poker, Spaceman, Bobby Bracelet, Chad, BG, Joe Speaker, CJ, and... AlCantHang. Stay tuned.

Mucho thanks to Spaceman and Joy for hooking me up with the invite.
posted by Pauly at 3/26/2006 04:12:00 AM | Permalink |

 
Three Hours Away...

The lovely Mrs. Spaceman sent me an email the other day that I'd like to share with you. Enjoy!

Yo Pauly!

I hope you guys have a blast at the Playboy mansion. I have given Jason permission to do anything he wants, as long as he stays out of the grotto (I don't want him traipsing through 25 years of cum stains. Ewww gross!) And if things get really kinky, make sure he (and you!) wears a condom, for god's sake. I don't want any bunny funk, if you know what I mean. But really, are the bunnies going to want anything to do with youse guys? Hell no - they're looking for some millionaire dickin'. But I bet there will be plenty of Hollywood wannabe socialite strumpet types looking for a good time. Hence the "wear a condom" comment.

I read on your blog that Change100 picked out your clothes. We went shopping last night, and since I have no fashion sense, we enlisted my friend Lydia to be Jason's personal stylist. And guess what outfit he ended up with? A nice shirt, sports jacket, and jeans. So I have to ask - just what is so wrong about that? Is it too casual, or is it too predictable, or is it too nice? I have no idea what "LA Chic" is, and I don't want Jason to look..um.. like a Tennessean. Regardless, we dropped some mad cash on this outfit, and I think he looks FINE, so fuck em if he looks out of place. What are you gonna wear?

Enjoy the fake boobies! And please make sure Jason has a good time... I know while you guys are having a once-in-a-lifetime evening, I'll be enjoying fantasizing about Jake Gyllenhaal's fine ass.

Take care!

Mrs. Spaceman

posted by Pauly at 3/25/2006 07:38:00 PM | Permalink |

 
Strippers and Blow

Blonde Stripper: "Where are you from?"
Senor: "Rhode Island."
Blonde Stripper: "Awesome! I love New York."

Yes, it was one of those nights in Las Vegas, where everything you experience is blogworthy. To start, Senor flew in at 11am and Change100 and I picked him up at the airport. We checked into the Mirage and then Joe Speaker arrived soon after. We hung out at the bar near the sports book and watched the March Madness games. The place was super packed and full of gambling excitement. I had a blast with LSU. Not only did they cover, they beat Duke outright, which means that my team Strippers and Blow, has a shot at winning my pool!

Of course, I fucked up and took UCLA -4. Yeah, I don't wanna talk about it. Joe Speaker actually took them with the moneyline. The guy at the counter laughed at him when he cashed his ticket.

We ate dinner at Joe's Seafood and Steakhouse in Caesar's Palace forum shops with Flipchip, Grubby, and the Poker Prof. The filet mignon was excellent as well as the Jenny Potatoes.

After the meal, we headed to a strip club. I mean, that's what Grubby, Senor, and I do when we're in Vegas. Grubby drove and we took Change100 and Joe Speaker along. One of Grubby's friends is a dancer at Scores and we went to check it out. I've only been to the one in NYC. Strippers love Grubby and Senor loves Asian strippers.

"Holy shit, I'm going to a strip club with Dr. Pauly," Joe Speaker mentioned on our way to the Scores.

I have enough material for a new installment of Existentialist Conversations with Strippers. This one was named Nicki, and she was Vietnamese, Chinese, and Irish, What a combination! And she was from NYC. She dances at Scores there and she also flew into Vegas on Jetblue.

Nicki was smoking hot. Amazing ass. And I loved her hair.

"She has a crush on you," said Senor.

"I'm just a mark," I answered.

"Not this one. She's fallen for you."

Indeed, she did. She kept coming back. By the end of the night I must have paid for her flight from NYC to Las Vegas. The lapdances were average, but she was feisty and kept grabbing my nipples. I know that too much information to reveal, even on a blog, but I admit... I like have my nipples squeezed by hot strippers in Las Vegas at 1am. And she just didn't squeeze them, she molested them. I loved every second of it.

She gave Change 100 three lapdances. At one point, she was grabbing her breasts and pinching her nipples. They were all over each other. I admit, I got a chubby. Nothing beats girl on girl action. I love to watch.

"I can tell, you're a naughty one," Nicki said.

"Don't you know it," admitted Change100.

After it was over, I asked Change 100, "Were you making out with the stripper?"

She said no, but the look in her eyes said, "Yes."

Nicki was so good that I had to share her with the entire group, except for Grubby who was entertaining a dancer on his lap. They were talking about fashion. I paid for lap dances for Change100, Senor, and Joe Speaker. All of them had Nicki. I like to share.

She walked up to Joe Speaker and said, "I'm going to hurt you."

Joe Speaker turned to me and gave me a look like, "Holy fuck, what did you just get me into."

Afterwards, Joe Speaker jotted down some notes. I can't wait to read his post. After Nicki danced for Speaker, she headed over to Senor. She grabbed his belt and tied it around his neck, she used the end of it and was smacking him in the head.

"She was a rough one. We should invite her back to our room."

On our way out to the car, Joe Speaker said, "My God. I have not gotten a lapdance since 1986 at my first bachelor party! Twenty fuckin' years! And she had an amazing ass."

I realized that if I didn't gamble as much and didn't go to strip clubs, I would have paid off my school loan by now. Sure I'd be debt free, but I'd have nothing to write about.

Yes, there was no poker content in this post. I have yet to play a hand since I arrived in Vegas.

Editor's Note: This was crossposted to the Tao of Pauly.
posted by Pauly at 3/24/2006 04:48:00 AM | Permalink |

 
Please Don't Hate Me...

"The greatest cliche ever!" my buddy the Joker screamed into the phone when I told him about my invite to the Playboy Mansion on Saturday night. "I'm really curious about the Grotto. What's that all about? I get the concept of Heff putting on these parties with tons of hot chicks walking around. But are they lame? Please give me all the details. Oh, and are you gonna get high with Snoop Dogg? I'm glad I have a reporter on the ground embedded at the Mansion. I'm so proud of you. I can finally sleep at night knowing that you will be at the Mansion raising hell."

Yes, the rumors are true. I'll be heading to LA on Saturday to the Playboy Mansion with a group I'd like to call Pauly's 8 in homage to Ocean's 11... Spaceman, Bobby Bracelet, Chad, BG, Joe Speaker, CJ, and... AlCantHang. I'm still looking for an acrobatic Mandarin-speaking Chinese guy to fill the last spot on my crew. Oh and we need a wise cracking black guy for the zany one-liners. If you have any leads, shoot me an email.

A few weeks ago I turned down a free cruise to the Bahamas. The Poker Prof handed me a "gift assignment." And I declined. He was shocked and didn't know what to say. He ended up going himself and took lots of great photos. Make sure you read his trip report.

This past Sunday I found myself in another stressful situation. When Spaceman told me about the invite to the Mansion, I originally declined. I think he was shocked. It was bad timing... I'm here in Las Vegas to hang out with one of my best friends in the world... Senor. He's my Neal Cassady. He's my attorney. He's my Goose. He's my Carl. (Bonus points to you if you get all four references.)

Anyway, Senor works his ass off and hasn't had a vacation in a very long time. He lives in Rhode Island with his wife and 1.5 kids. He's got a second son due in July. We were both looking forward to our yearly trip to Las Vegas for March Madness. Gambling. Golf. Strip clubs. What could be better?

So when I found myself at a fork in the road... I was perplexed. Do I take the road that leads to the Playboy Mansion? Or do I spend time with my best friend? (Make sure you read this old story called... Amanda Dick.)

I made the decision and declined the invite to Hugh Heffner's paradise. I'm a good friend. You want me in that foxhole with you. I'm the guy you wanna be stuck in an elevator with for three hours. You need me on the wall...

Slowly, my friends and my brother all took time out to tell me how stupid I was skipping out on an invite to the Mansion. My buddy Jerry called me "retarded." Derek questioned my sanity. When I got Senor on the phone he was concerned, "Dude, you skipped a cruise to the Bahamas and a now trip to the Playboy Mansion? Are you OK?"

He talked me into going. That's why he's a great friend.

"It's a once in a lifetime opportunity," Senor said. "As a writer, you have to go."

He was right. The last thing I want to do is cover another charity poker tournament. I've done that and it sucks. But this one is different. So different that I needed to buy new clothes.

"What are you going to wear?" Change100 asked.

I mumbled something and she quickly disagreed with my choice.

"You have to go out and buy a nice outfit. This is not some hipster bar in the East Village you're going to. It's the Playboy Mansion. I dig your 'I'm a writer' look with jeans and a sports coat. But that's not going to cut it at the Mansion."

When she arrived in Las Vegas, she took me shopping. Two hours later I spent $400 on an outfit. $198 for a shirt. $148 for pants. $40 for a new belt. I haven't spent $400 on clothes in the last three years. I usually let Briana buy me clothes. I hate shopping. The concept horrifies me.

I discovered that Joe Speaker and CJ also bought new outfits. The spent about $400 too. That's $1,200 on new clothes since the dress code will be strictly enforced.

That's the skinny for now. Stay tuned for more details. In the meantime, I have to go win an extra $500 on March Madness games (I'm driving to LA and flying back to Vegas on Monday on JetBlue) just to cover expenses. UCLA is my team in the Sweet 16. If they cover against Gonzaga, my trendoid clothes are free.

Please don't hate me...

Editor's Note: This was cross posted to the Tao of Pauly.
posted by Pauly at 3/23/2006 02:48:00 AM | Permalink |

 
Pimp Day Wednesday and On the Road

I'm leaving for the bright lights on Sin City later today flying out of NYC on JetBlue, the official airline of the Tao of Poker. It's the start of a six-week West Coast excursion that will take to both Las Vegas and Los Angeles. Due to an unexpected last-minute assignment, I have to be in LA on Saturday and will be driving from Vegas to the City of Angels for two days before I return to Las Vegas for other work and business meetings. I hope to elaborate more about this weekend very soon. At any rate, I'm excited to be hanging out with my buddy Senor during our annual trip to Las Vegas for March Madness. We're staying at the Mirage and I expect to make back all the money I lost last week/weekend on the NCAA hoops games. Stay tuned for random updates.

Here are my picks (for now):

Thursday Games:
LSU +6.5 over Duke
Texas -5 over West Virginia
UCLA -3.5 over Gonzaga
Bradley +6.5 over Memphis

Friday Games:
George Mason -2 over Wichita State
Connecticut -6 over Washington
Georgetown +3 over Florida -3
Villanova -2.5 over BC

Moving on... it's time to pimp a few things inlcuding the new issue of Truckin'!

Congrats again to Gracie who won the first WPBT WSOP satellite on Sunday night! She rocked. This pic is my favorite pic of me and Gracie taken in December at the blogger's get together.

Byron has set up the second event of the WPBT-POY Circuit which will take place on Sunday at 9pm EST on Full Tilt. I'll do my best to make it.

When: Sunday March 26 at 9pm EST
Where: Full Tilt Poker (check Private Tourney tab)
What: NL Fat Stacks (T3000 to start)
How Much: $20 + 2
Password: wpbt72

Felicia has a new post up. It's Part 3 of her Psychology and Poker series called Be Yourself. It's a must read.

HDouble's posts these days have the frequency of the Hale-Bopp Comet. Check out... Learning to Beat the Game. And there's no coincidence that several mass suicides have been reported in Japan days after an HDouble post. Hmm....

Tonight, the Travel Channel is going to air the WPT Borgata Open which was won by Al Ardebili. Take a peek at an interview I did with Al Ardebili.

Last year, the guys over at Wicked Chops Poker profiled me for an installment of Blogfiles. They did something with Bill Rini this past week. Worth a look.

Thanks to my Top 10 Referrals in March. Keep up the good work.

1. Las Vegas and Poker Blog
2. Guinness and Poker
3. Up for Poker
4. Tao of Pauly
5. Wicked Chops Poker
6. Pot Committed
7. Aaron Gleeman
8. Maudie's Poker Perspectives
9. Poker Nerd
10. Jackmama Poker

* * * * *
Truckin' - March 2006, Vol. 5, Issue 3


Lastly, take a peek at the LA issue of Truckin' that includes a face lift and a new look! This issue features some of the best bloggers in the greater Los Angeles area contributed stories and tales about their beloved city.

1. Let's Do Lunch by Tenzin McGrupp
We were surrounded by a gaggle of trendoids and pharmaceutically bloated ex-actress-model girlfriends of semi-famous directors who carried around eight balls in their $2,500 Marc Jacobs purses... More

2. For Sale by Joe Speaker
Two stories, four bedrooms plus the den, four baths. Too big for the three of them, but they planned to live there a long while, growing both family, possessions and equity. Of the three, they only managed the last and that was nothing but serendipity... More

3. The Pitch by factgirl
From my office I can see downtown with its chewy cloud of smog. My boss's office has the better view – the Hollywood sign. The sign is much closer than downtown, which tricks the eye into believing the air here is better. Its not... More

4. Heat by Shane Nickerson
As I glanced around the party, I couldn't help but feel a certain sense of achievement. After all, I was on the Warner Brothers backlot at one of the hottest events in town... More

5. Paging Dominic Leare by Change 100
He hadn't showered in weeks. A poster of his Oscar-winning film hung behind his desk, itself buried within a hurricane of paper while an outdated laptop sat atop the mess, displaying a page of text... More

6. If I Was Homeless I'd Live In Los Angeles by Dan Keston
There are open air farmers markets in Los Angeles, everyday, that offer free samples of top quality meat, cheese, deserts, fruit, veggies and anything else you need to balance out your diet... More

* * * * *
That's it for now. Have a good day. Next stop... Las Vegas.
posted by Pauly at 3/22/2006 07:43:00 AM | Permalink |

 
A Blue Parrot Farewell

"I'm about as far downtown as you can get... Beaver Street." - Coach

The Blue Parrot will always be mentioned as an integral part of New York City poker lore. For the last two years, I've been fortunate to call the Blue Parrot "my home game." It's been the location of some of the wildest games I've ever played in. The seats at the Blue Parrot featured some of the best Ivy League legal minds in the city along with a rotating cast of characters that often reminded me of a bad Saturday Night Live skit on LSD.

The players came from all walks of life. Teachers. Sports writers. Corporate litigators. Mortgate brokers. Slam poets. Fashion photographers. Scienticists. Law clerks. Even a comedian, a screenwriter, and a few Columbia students. Swish was a Blue Parrot legend who was willing to see any two cards to the river. He was a famous sportswriter at prestigious NYC newspaper and has since moved down to Washington DC. Swish and I were involved in a lot of tough hands during late night sessions at the Blue Parrot. Things also got weirder after Midnight in some of the games that went until sunrise. When Rick Blaine and his wife moved out to San Francisco, he was certainly missed. However, in the same week that Rick left the Blue Parrot, it was the same time as F Train arrived from LA.

Over the years the Blue Parrot had welcomed bloggers such as my brother, Toby, Lady Falcon, Joaquin the Rooster, Diane, Spaceman, and Dawn & Karol from I Had Outs. We even had the first ever NYC Poker Bloggers tournament last year called The Blue Parrot Invitational. Lady Falcon and Julie ended up chopping while Derek took third place. In fact Julie represented NYC and the Blue Parrot at the first ever live WPBT tournament at the Holiday Classic in 2004 at Sam's Town. She came in 3rd place and lost to Max Pescatori and Felicia Lee. She also busted me on the bubble.

And now the final chapter is about to be written about the infamous Blue Parrot. Located on the 19th floor of a Pre-World War II building, it might be the locale of the highest poker action in the city. Luckily, it was never raided by NYPD or shut down by Bloomberg's thugs. The owner and proprietor Signor Ferrari is leaving on excellent terms. He's simply selling the Blue Parrot. But don't worry because in due time, he'll be opening up the Blue Parrot II after he buys a new place.

I first played at the Blue Parrot a little more than two years ago. Back then I was broke, unemployed, and dating a neurotic actress. Ugarte stumbled upon my blog and he played in a home game with a group of lawyers. A few of them wrote about a series of issues such as politics, movies, and poker on a blog called Rick's Cafe, headed by Rick Blaine. Ugarte invited me to one of their games and the rest was history. The first few times I played at the Blue Parrot, the games were super wild with a healthy mix of loose players with deep pockets and extremely skilled players. Within a few weeks, I had everyone dropping the Hammer while I got everyone hooked on the blog.

The last game came together on a rare Thursday night. Traditionally we played home games on Mondays. I always thought that Mondays and poker were an excellent combination especially during football season. Years from now when I look back on various homegames that I've played in, I'll always conjure up halcyon feelings of the football game on in the background with someone at the table sweating out a bet or two on the game. Anyway, we usually played poker at the Blue Parrot on March Madness Championship night. But since I was going to be away for 6 weeks in Las Vegas and Los Angeles, a game would not be possible. At the last minute Ferrari rescheduled for Thursday.

Yes, last Thursday would be the last time I played at the Blue Parrot. The photo below is one of the last I'd ever take at the Bue Parrot. It's the late night view of the city from the window next to the poker table.

The Players:

Seat 1: F Train... In the past few years he's made his living as a writer, a poker player, and as an attorney. He's had the balls and courage to write about various underground card rooms on his blog. F Train is a true NYC rounder. Whether he's playing in Atlantic City or risking his life in the various clubs in the city, he's consistently one of the best players at the Blue Parrot. He also won the Lewey Award for Public Intoxication at Bash at the Boathouse in September.

Seat 2: Pauly... Your hero has a weakness for donuts and blondes. The former bond trader, bartender, and ice cream man kept one eye on his cards and the other eye on the TV because he had action on a couple of the night games. Pauly has paid his dues in various homegames scattered throughout America including logging hours with jazz musicians at the Trout House in Seattle, playing with his Jim Beam guzzling and mushroom chomping fraternity brothers in the Phi Delt house in Atlanta, crashing Iggy's homegame in a hotel suite in Cincy, cashing in a tournament at the nefarious Murderer's Row homegame in West LA, chopping the Brad-o-Ween Open in the sweltering humidity of G-Vegas, and surviving a night of cards and whiskey with shotgun wielding rednecks in Hilljack, Indiana.

Seat 3: Ferrari... The owner of the Blue Parrot has been known to let his two cats run amuck and also dazzles his guests with homemade guacamole. Due to his hectic schedule the games at the Blue Parrot were less and less frequent. Both Ferrari and the Blue Parrot need to be enshrined into the NYC Poker Hall of Fame.

Seat 4: Coach... Also known as the Dan Harrington of the Blue Parrot, whenever Coach plays a pot, he almost always holds the nuts. He's a contributor to the Tao of Poker and writes Coach's Corner. He's an attorney, author, and trivia wizard by day and at some point down the road, he might become the next Judge Smails. And yes, he really works on Beaver Street and has appeared in Law & Order.

Seat 5: Marie... Whenever Marie plays at the Blue Parrot, she adds a tinge of grace and class to the games. The entrepreneur and savvy business woman from England always surprises the table when she drops a F-bomb or even the dreaded C-bomb on occasion. Oh, and the tight sweaters she wears are always a nice way to get the rest of the guys on mega-tilt.

Seat 6: Joel... Also known as Joel the Banker, he's one of the older regulars at the Blue Parrot. In one of those weird Six Degrees of Dr. Pauly, Joel's son and Pauly attended the same southern university together. They figured that coincidence out after his fourth or fifth game after Joel's son sent Pauly an email, "Dude, you play poker every week with my Dad? Make sure he doesn't lose all of my inheritance."

Seat 7: Ugarte... The former attorney turned stand-up comic was coming off of the best show of his career at Mo Pinkton's. He's a stickler for the rules and if you splash the pot when Ugarte's in the hand, you're gonna get hell to pay. He desperately needs a haircut as his "jewfro" resembles Samuel L. Jackson's locks in Pulp Fiction.

The game started a little late as we were more focused on setting up the laptop to get the games and making sure the TV was at the proper volume for optimal March Madness viewing. Poker with friends and college basketball on in the background? Does life get any better?

7:31... The games are dealer's choice at the Blue Parrot with entire rounds of limit Hold'em, Omaha 8, or Stud called. We started out short-handed and played Hold'em, just Coach, Ferrari, F Train and myself. We played Hold'em for a few rounds. F Train made fun of my tightness as we sipped on Coronas. "You're folding your button in a 4 way game?"

7:37pm... Ferrari cracked Coach's A-A with 7-5. In Ferrari's defense, they were "sooted" and it was in the big blind.

7:43pm... Ugarte and his jewfro arrived. Joel arrived a few minutes after. F Train and I had a bet on who the next player to show up was going to be. The doorman calls up to the apartment when a guest arrives downstairs. Ferrari picked up the phone to find out who it was and F Train and I began our prop bet. He picked "Julie or Marie." I went with Ugarte or Joel. I picked correctly and won the first prop of the night.

7:47pm... -23. My A-J lost to F Train's K-K. I flopped a Jack and I walked right into his pocket Hellmuths.

7:57pm... I had to fold A-10s on a board of A-J-x. F Train and Joel got into a raising war an I was caught in the middle. I bailed after the flop.

8:00pm... -20. I was in the hole and saved face after I scooped a pot with a junk hand. I flopped an open-ended straight draw with 10-7 on a board of K-9-8. The turn was the Jack and no one saw it coming.

8:03pm... The lovely Marie arrived to make the game full.

8:10pm... -33. I lost a big pot to Marie who rivered trips on me. She's going to call me down to the river no matter what after I bluffed her out of too many pots in the past. I flopped top pair and she flopped second pair, which tripped up on the river. When she popped me for a raise on the river, I knew I was doomed.

8:25pm... -68. I lost a huge pot in Stud 8. I had two pair and missed a flush. With no low draw, I mucked because Ferrari and Coach were in the middle of a raising war on the river. I put one of them on a straight or a higher two pair. Ferrari had the low and Coach won the high with... Ace high. Ouch. They chopped the pot.

8:26pm... -89. I lost another hand in Stud 8. My two pair lost to Marie's two pair. I actually missed a flush and low draw and backdoored two pair on Seventh street. I figured I might have the best hand and was shocked to see Marie had two-pair since Fourth Street. She also had the low and scooped another monster pot. She claimed in her intelligent, yet sexy Enlish accent that she didn't know how to play Stud 8. We all fell for it.

8:40pm... -60. I won a 4 way pot with trip Queens in Stud 8. With no qualifying lows, I scooped the pot.

8:50pm... -13. Anaconda got called for the first time. I hate Anaconda because I lose so much money on it. Sure I've won my fair share, but I've also lost enough since January 2004 to feed thirteen African villages for six years. I won a big hand from Marie. My Kings full of Nines were good enough as Marie called me all the way to the end with a smaller boat. It was a $120 pot for a 50 cent ante game. Yikes.

9:15pm... -69. I won a big hand with a full house Queens over 10s, then lost a pot to Ugarte who had Quad 9s.

9:20pm... Julie stopped by to watch her alma mater Syracuse play because she doesn't have a TV. I had money on them too.

9:35pm.. -21. Ferrari had a King high straight flush. Gonzaga was down most of the game and started a massive comeback. I needed them to win by 6 to save face after an ugly day of sports betting on the first day of March Madness.

9:40pm... I lost the Gonzaga bet in a horrible way. My testicles still hurt. I needed my poker winnings to cover my sports betting loses and decided to focus more on my game.

9:55pm... -13. I chopped a pot in Omaha 8 which is notable because I hate O8 and it was the only pot I won.

10:10pm... +2. Ugarte won a big pot against F Train when his 5s full of 3s beat out F rain's 3s full of Kings.

10:50pm... Daddy called for a dial-a-shot. He was with Gracie and Pablo at Sea World but got kicked out. I heard Daddy molested Shamu and was asked by Sea World officials never to come back. They found Daddy pissed drunk with several sea lions, a barrel of mackerel, a pocket knife, a can of WD-40 and his pants around his ankles. "Sir, please do not sodomize our marine mammals!" would become the mantra for the remainder of the night. I'm awaiting the follow up to his infamous post How to Fuck a Donkey, which is supposedly titled... How to Fuck A Dolphin.

10:51pm... -3. "I hate Omaha!" I shouted as Marie left. She was down a small amount.

11:00pm... -20. My J-5 lost to Ferrari's A-Q. He flopped a Queen and I flopped a Jack.

11:07pm... +25. I won a crazy hand where I cracked Joel's A-A with Q5s. I limped in from EP. Joel raised preflop and F Train three-bet from the BB. I knew it was gonna get 4 bet and decided I needed serious help. I called and like clockwork Joel capped the pot. F Train had the Hammer of course. I flopped a flush draw and it came on the turn. With three clubs on the board, F Train chased to the river with the 7c. He thought he still had outs. Joel knew I caught my flush yet called me on the river when I bet out. He dejectedly tossed his Aces into the muck as F Train yelled, "Fuckin' Hammer!" Yeah, my Q-5s won a monster pot.

11:23pm... +24 Anaconda. I folded Quad 9s to Ugarte's Quad Kings and Coach's Quad Jacks. Coach lost his buy-in on that hand and left soon after.

11:46pm... April called from Austin for a Dial-a-shot featuring Heather and EvaCanHang.

1:50pm... Julie left after Syracuse lost. I ended the day in the hole betting on March Madness.

12:01am... -24. I poorly played a low hand in Anaconda and lost a big pot to Ugarte.

12:09am... +5. Still playing Anaconda, I won a low hand against Joel with A-3-4-5-7.

12:20am... +40. I had a flush and Ferrari had the Wheel. He was trying to win both the high and low and missed. He put me on a bluff.

12:30am... F Train called Vegas Hold'em.

12:48am... +51. I hit a big straight in Vegas Hold'em with 10-7. My new favorite hand.

The Final Tally:
Ugarte +141
F Train +57
Pauly +51
Ferrari +27
Marie -35
Joel -99
Coach -140

I wish I could say something witty or funny about the Blue Parrot, but nothing comes to mind. I will admit this... I loved those late night games. Sometimes poker is not about making money or fulfilling a competitive edge or feeding an addiction. Sometimes, poker is all about being social and it becomes an activity that's 100% pure enjoyment. If anyone experienced those late night hijinks at 2:43am with Swish slow rolling a Royal Flush or Om cracking Aces with Q-2o, or Ferrari's cats almost jumping out the window, then you know what I mean. The Blue Parrot came along at the perfect time in my life. I was in desperate search of a home game and some of the folks I met across the felt ended up becoming good friends of mine in the process. The final tally doesn't really matter. Win or lose, we're all going to miss the Blue Parrot because it was the centerpiece for a plethora of fun and golden memories. I would not be here today without the influence and camaraderie of the Blue Parrot.


Buckeye's Aces
I'll be eagerly awaiting the opening of the Blue Parrot II.

* * * * *
Make sure you check out F Train's recap called Last Call at the Blue Parrot. If you want to see some more NYC views from th Blue Parrot, I have a day time view of NYC and another day time view.
posted by Pauly at 3/21/2006 12:15:00 AM | Permalink |

 
Paradise Lost and Gracie Shines: WPBT WSOP Satellite #1

"I had a great evening; it was like the Nuremberg Trials." - Woody Allen, Hannah and Her Sisters

Thanks to Iggy who set up the first WPBT WSOP event on Paradise Poker that featured 69 of your favorite bloggers. First place would win a seat to any $1500 WSOP event and places 2-4 would win some prize money. Congrats to Gracie who won it all. She's gonna be playing in the WSOP! It figures that a blogger hopped up on Nyquil and horse tranquilizers would end up winning the first WSOP satellite. I can't think of a cooler and finer representative of the bloggers than Gracie. Congrats again.

I was gunning to play in my third ever WSOP event by winning my seat via a blogger satellite. My day had started out bad and got worse on the gambling side of things. I lost a buy-in on Poker Stars and then lost two big bets on the March Madness games to slide to over $1K in losses during four-day massacre. I hoped that my luck would improve at the tournament tables. Of course, the gambling Gods were sending me a very clear message:

Stop gambling, you stupid fuck!

I had Donkey Puncher, Columbo, Joanne, Daddy, Crheada, SloeJax, TripJax, and StatikKling at my starting table. Linda from Poker Works, Vegaas, and Joe Speaker were all moved to my table before I busted out. Daddy kept everyone entertained with tables involving strawberries and licking out Jessica Alba's anal region. I played some Traffic and Widespread Panic in the background and ate a slice of crumb cake while I proudly wore my Snail Trax t-shirt.

At the first break Derek had chips and was in 16th place. Change100 went on a tear and busted Helixx KK to QQ and then busted the Rooster after she flopped a set. Derek got moved to Change100's table which included HDouble, Otis, DoubleAs, BadBlood, EasyCure, Drizz, Ephro, and ScurvyDog. Talk about a tough table! Derek would be short stacked late and he hung on to finish in 13th place.

Nothing of significance to report about my results aside from two bad beats. I hate blogging about bad beats, but here I am complaining that I never should have slowplayed pokcet aces. That was my first mistake. I found A-A UTG on the first hand back from the first break and I limped in. Everyone folded to the blinds who also limped. I ran into the dreaded big blind special and I promptly lost the majority of my stack. I also found A-A on the first hand of the tournament and another time just before I was busted. Both instances, they got no action. The one time I limped with A-A, I got fist fucked.

I hung on for 50 more minutes as the short stack until I made a move with T1500 and blinds at 150/75. I moved all in with K-Q. Sloejack called me with KQs, both diamonds. Instead of chopping the blinds, he flopped three diamonds and I was bounced in 47th place.

Geez that was fun, right?

I decided to listen to the message from the other world and ceased all gambling activities. I'll spend the remainder of the night masturbating to Swedish girls kissing and reading old Woody Allen scripts hoping to snag a few traits from his well-developed characters.

With that said, I'll leave you with one my favorite lines from Annie Hall:

"I feel that life is divided into the horrible and the miserable. That's the two categories. The horrible are like, I don't know, terminal cases, you know, and blind people, crippled. I don't know how they get through life. It's amazing to me. And the miserable is everyone else. So you should be thankful that you're miserable, because that's very lucky, to be miserable."

posted by Pauly at 3/20/2006 12:04:00 AM | Permalink |

 
Pauly's Pub March Madness Pool Round 2 Update: Upset City

Wow plenty of upsets so far this year as plenty of top seeds fell, but AlCantHang's Marlboro and Lungbutter still lead the pack after Round 2. Spider is second with Damon's My Bitch and Hector's warren coolidge all-stars jumped up into third after picking 12/16 of the Sweet 16 teams. There's a 5 way tie for 4th place.

Top 8 Overall (thru Round 2):
1 Marlboro and Lungbutter (AlCantHang) 480
2 Damon's My Bitch (Spider) 470
3 warren coolidge all-stars (Hector) 460
4 Oyster Bay Moore (JoeMoore) 440
4 Al Gore's Revenge (BoobieLover) 440
4 facty's money (facty) 440
4 Ugarte's Picks are Funny (CharlesStar) 440
4 Like DWright at 3rd (Spider2) 440

Visit the Tao of Pauly for complete standings.

If you haven't paid me, you owe me $20!

I'm getting my ass kicked betting on the games, almost down $1100 in four days. I'll have to make it back in Vegas! UNC losing hurt me big time. I picked them to win on one of my sheets and had them -7. That kick in the junk still stings.
posted by Pauly at 3/19/2006 11:36:00 PM | Permalink |

 
WPBT WSOP Satellite Reminder!

We're less than 11 hours away from the start of the first WPBT WSOP satellite on Paradise Poker. Thanks to Iggy who set it up. Now, why haven't you signed up yet?

Here are the details:

What: WPBT WSOP NL Satellite
When: Sunday March 19
Time: 9pm EST
Where: Paradise Poker
How Much: $30
Password: email iggy at allimcbeal_69 - yahoo.com
Restrictions: Bloggers only!

First place wins a seat into the 2006 WSOP $1500 event of their choice. Because of Paradise's software, we need 55 players to pull this off. The $30 buyin fee includes the juice, so in reality its a $27 + 3 event.

* * * * *
Last night, I watched Joe Speaker make a run at a seat in the WSOP main event over at Poker Stars. It was a 4000 FPP buy-in event, and Joe Speaker was the chipleader with 3 players remaining and the top 2 paying out seats. They did a $1K save for 3rd place, but only first and second place would go to the big dance winning $10K seats. Joe Speaker had one of the most brutal suckouts I've seen in a long time. He flopped a set of aces with A-A and some assclown with 3-4 caught a gutshot Wheel on the turn. That hand crippled Joe Speaker and he was out soon after in 3rd place. Ouch. I was rooting for him harder than I rooted for anyone.

Chin up Joe! You'll have a shot of winning a seat into a smaller event tonight, and I'm convinced that you have one of the best shots out of all the bloggers to win a seat in the big one.

Also last night, I played in one of those $20 180 person SNGs on Poker Stars with Derek and Change100 where the final two tables get paid. Change100 was busted in the mid 20s, and I took 20th. I missed the money by 2 spots. Derek had less chips than me and he ended up squeaking into the money in 18th place. The deck hit Derek in the face early on and he was in the top 10-15 in chips for most of the tournament.

Mid-way through, Maudie called me for a dial-a-shot. She was in Kansas of all places and called me from the Human Head's living room! I got to chat with Maudie, Mrs. Head, and the Human Head himself.

I got hands early and I had nothing late. If I didn't decide to take a coin flip with four tables remaining, I would have been busted a lot sooner. I had AQs and raised 4x the BB from EP and some loose-hyper-ADD kid who pushed all in on every other hand, moved all in right behind me. I had been playing tight. I hoped and prayed that he had a weak/middle ace, or at best a middle pair. I took a deep breath, muttered, "Fuck it!" and I called. He flipped over 10-10 and I flopped a Queen and turned two pair when an ace fell. I went from one of the short stacks to over 11K at that point. Too bad I went card dead. With not much of a stack, I lost most of my chips when I went for a steal when it got down to 22 players. I don't play to make the money. I play to win it all. Alas, I got busted on the button when I moved all in with a short stack. Of course the big blind had A-8s and the small blind had A-10 and they both flopped an ace.

Last week was a losing week for me, capped off by a horrible session last weekend. This past week I had been on a mini-rush kicking ass at the $5/10 tables on Party Poker plus a decent night at the Blue Parrot which I'll write up on Monday or Tuesday. I can't seem to book a winning session on Poker Stars it seems.

Recent Poker Playing Music...
1. Trey Anastasio Band
2. The Wood Brothers
3. The Band with Bob Dylan
4. Soulive with John Scofield
5. Eric Dolphy

For the March Madness pool, AlCantHang is still in first place. I finished yesterday 3-3 and hit two big bets to end up +205 for the day after Gonzaga pulled out a tough victory over Indiana. I'm -345 overall, which is great since I'm 9-13 in bets. I'm gonna try to make it all up with one team today... UNC -6 over George Mason. I also like Derek's team Bucknell gettting 8.5 over Memphis. The boys from Bucknell are also +350 with the money line and I can't ignore that juicy line! I took them with the points and with the money line two nights ago and prevailed.

That's it for now... don't forget to sign up for the first WPBT WSOP satellite tonight at 9pm. If I decide to live blog it... those updates will appear below.
posted by Pauly at 3/19/2006 10:36:00 AM | Permalink |

 
March Madness - Round 1 Update: All Hail AlCantHang!

There are plenty of online celebrities playing in the 6th annual Pauly's Pub March Madness Pool along with a poker pro or two and an well known actress. And out of all the sheets, one man has emerged from the pack as the Round 1 leader. All hail, AlCantHang!

If you don't know AlCantHang had a perfect Thursday and that put him in the top 300 pools overall on ESPN out of like 2 million! Congrats to Al for his perfect sheet thru Day 1. Of course he couldn't withstand the slew of upsets on Day 2 of the first round. Kansas and Iowa both fell and Bucknell is headed for a second round upset against Memphis on Sunday. Should be a great game!

Anyway, AlCantHang and his team Marlboro and Lungbutter is sitting pretty on top of the standings. Former lawyer turned comedian Charles Star and Ugarte's Picks are Funny are tied for 2nd place with Spider's Like DWright at 3rd. Spider's second sheet Damon's My Bitch and my second sheet Strippers and Blow round out the Top 5.

Top 5 Current Standings thru Round 1:
1 Marlboro and Lungbutter (AlCantHang) 280
2 Ugarte's Picks are Funny (Charles Star) 260
2 Like DWright at 3rd (Spider1) 260
4 Strippers and Blow (Pauly) 250
4 Damon's My Bitch (Spider2) 250

To see the complete standings, visit the Tao of Pauly

That's it good luck today. Don't forget to pay me! Shoot me an email for payment info.

* * * * *
I took it on the chin last night. I went 4-5 yesterday in bets and I'm 6-10 overall. I'm -550 for the first round. I got gunshy after a terrible Thursday and didn't put out bets like I wanted. I hit Bucknell and the money line, which was my only highlight yesterday.

I hope to make it all back later today.

Saturday's Picks:
Montana +10.5 ... Lost
Tenn -2.5 .... Lost
Gonzaga -4
Duke -9 ... Won
Texas A&M +5 ... Won
Illinois -2 ... Lost

posted by Pauly at 3/18/2006 12:11:00 PM | Permalink |

 
Happy St. Patty's Day and Day 1 of March Madness

Happy St. Patrick's Day to everyone out there. This post is going to be short and sweet. Last night I played in what might end up being the last ever home game at the Blue Parrot. It was a good-bye party of sorts to me since I'll be on the road for six weeks starting next week, in addition Ferrari is selling the Blue Parrot. Which means that when I return to NYC in May, we'll be playing at the Blue Parrot II. I'm excited. Anyway... check back Monday for a write up of the last night of action at the Blue Parrot. It's a gripping tale invovling your hero folding quads 9s in Anaconda to Coach's quad Jacks and Ugarte's quad Kings.

Here's a quick glance at the leaderboard in the Pauly's Pub March Madness Pool:

Top 8 Leaderboard thru Day 1:
1 Marlboro and Lungbutter (AlCantHang) 160
2 Like DWright at 3rd (Spider1) 150
3 Damon's My Bitch (Spider2) 140
4 Fear and Arrogance (Landow) 130
4 Strippers and Blow (Pauly) 130
4 Good Little Monkey (Gracie) 130
4 Black Tar Heroin (S. Lovelace) 130
4 Fook Dook (ScurvyDog1) 130

All hail AlCantHang who had a perfect Day 1 with a 16-0 run! I'm hanging around the top of the pack after going 13-3, but it's still early. I got slaughtered betting on the games yesterday. I went 1-1 in my big bets. Monatana prevailed but Gonzaga only won by 4 when the spread was 7. They were up by 6 and Adam Morrison missed a crucial free throw with 4 seconds remaining. They allowed Xavier to score an uncontested layup as time expired to kill the game for me. The Zags didn't cover and I felt a stinging sensation in my testicular region. I ended up going 2-5 overall and now I'm in the hole.... $470 at the start of day 2. I need to make it up today! Let's hope Derek's alma mater can pull it out today. Buckell is my horse on St. Patty's Day.

Today's bets:
Bucknell +5 ... Won
Kentucky -3
Cal +2
Iowa -7 ... LOST
Arizona -1.5 ... Won
Kansas -7.5
Pitt -6.5
S. Illinois +5 ... LOST

That's it for now. Go out and have a great weekend. Go get drunk. Get laid. Get into a fight. Drop acid and take a walk in the park. Go read a book and try to win some money on Party Poker!

* * * * *
Don't forget to sign up for the WPBT WSOP satellite that takes place on Sunday night. Thanks to Iggy, the organizer of the first satellite of the year to be held on Paradise Poker. They are offering up a 25% bonus with your first deposit.

Here are the details:

What: WPBT WSOP NL Satellite
When: Sunday March 19
Time: 9pm EST
Where: Paradise Poker
How Much: $30
Password: email iggy at allimcbeal_69 - yahoo.com
Restrictions: Bloggers only!

First place wins a seat into the 2006 WSOP $1500 event of their choice. Because of Paradise's software, we need 55 players to pull this off. The $30 buyin fee includes the juice, so in reality its a $27 + 3 event.

So what are you waiting for? Sign up today. Any questions? Shoot either me or Iggy an email.
posted by Pauly at 3/17/2006 11:37:00 AM | Permalink |

 
March Madness, WSOP Satellite, and MC Hammer's Blog

I'm going to stop blogging soon. After discovering that MC Hammer has a blog, I realized I can't keep up with the legend himself.

What has our world come to?

So it's March Madness and thanks to everyone who joined my pool this year. It's going to be a wild ride over the nest few weeks. I like North Carolina and I pick them to win every year. I'm always wrong and I can't ever pick Duke. I have UCONN in one sheet and UNC in the other.

Way before I started blogging about poker and improved my poker skills, I gambled exclusively on sporting events like pro football and college basketball. I always did well dating back to my days in high school. After college, in the late 1990s every year around late March and early April I'd clean up and have enough money to cover my summer travels. One year it was a trip to Europe. A big score in 2000 covered expenses for an epic excursion to Japan with Senor. Another nice payoff in 1999 allowed me to see almost forty Phish shows that year, all funded through successfully wagering on March Madness. A few years I lost and the rest of the year was rough. Sometimes I'd be covering my losses from the NFL season. Other times I was gambling with house money. When I win in March, I know it's going to be a bonus year.

Today's Bets:
Montana +6
Gonzaga -6
Marquette -3
Tenn -7
Oklahoma -3
Syracuse -1
LSU -7.5
San Diego State +2

I definitely like the Grizzlies from Montana to upset Nevada today. I hope that Syracuse gets hot in the first round. So how about some March Madness betting strategy?

I start with small test bets in the first round. So on the first two days of the tournaments (Thurs & Fri) I'm betting no more than $100/150 on a game. I don't bet on all 32 games, Although I'd like to get 20-25 bets down with 4 or 5 bigger sized bets.

The second round or the weekend games are where I'd bump up my minimum bet. With 16 games, I'd like to get action on 12 for $200/300 a game. At least 3 or 4 will be too tough to call or trap game. You want to focus on 4 or 5 teams with solid advantages. The only stats I look for are FT% and rebounding. If there's a toss up between two tough teams, I always go with the team that shoots better free throws, especially down the stretch. Millions of dollars from bettors are won and lost during the last few seconds of a March Madness game. A missed free throw might mean a loss for one team, but it means a brick full of cash for the dude sitting at the sports book at the Mirage who dropped four dimes on the winning team.

Round 3 or the Sweet 16 usually has 5 decent games to bet on out of 8. I bump up my betting limits to about $500/600 per game and I pick the four best teams and press my winnings (if I got any). If I'm up.... I'll double my current tournament winnings. If I'm behind, I have a shot of getting unstuck. I've seen them play twice and hopefully seen their opponents twice. At that point, you have to stick with the hot teams and the hot players.

The Elite 8 games are tougher to win money on than you think. With 4 games left to bet on in that round, there's the temptation to bet on all 4. I avoid that and pick 2 teams to wager on again focusing on the teams playing the best and the one team that's been the luckiest.

The Final Four is a dangerous time for gamblers, where you can lose your entire tournament bankroll on one bad call or walk away with enough money to buy into the main event at the WSOP. If the games are good, you're lucky that you good opportunities to make money since there's technically only three final games to find action on. If there's a tough matchup in both of the Final Four games, you're screwed. I usually like to put out the biggest bet of the tournament on one of the semi-final games. I'll bet 75% of my winnings on one game and 25% on the other, letting it all ride. And for the Championship game, I always scale back my bet. Anything can happen in those and I don't want to lose too much dough on some 19 year old kid who can't hold his mud on national TV.

That's my basic betting strategy for March Madness. Round 1 and 2 are always done through the local bookie or my account at Bodog. (If you set up an account, use my referral code: P1B5DB7) I'm always in Las Vegas for the Sweet 16 and Elite 8 and I'm usually placing bets at the Mandalay Bay sports book.

* * * * *
Don't forget to sign up for the WPBT WSOP satellite that takes place on Sunday night. Thanks to Iggy, the organizer of the first satellite of the year to be held on Paradise Poker. They are offering up a 25% bonus with your first deposit.

Here are the details:

What: WPBT WSOP NL Satellite
When: Sunday March 19
Time: 9pm EST
Where: Paradise Poker
How Much: $30
Password: email iggy at allimcbeal_69 - yahoo.com
Restrictions: Bloggers only!

First place wins a seat into the 2006 WSOP $1500 event of their choice. Because of Paradise's software, we need 55 players to pull this off. The $30 buyin fee includes the juice, so in reality its a $27 + 3 event.

So what are you waiting for? Sign up today. Any questions? Shoot either me or Iggy an email.
posted by Pauly at 3/16/2006 12:47:00 AM | Permalink |

 
Al Ardebili Interview and the WPT Borgata Open

Editor's Note: I made a mistake, the Travel Channel is airing the Legends of Poker from the Bike tonight and not the Borgata one. That will be aired next week. I apologize for the confusion! I'll leave this post up anyway. Make sure you tune in next week to see the Borgata Open.

Next week, the Travel Channel is airing a new episode of the WPT that was taped at the Borgata Casino Hotel & Spa last September. The final table of the Borgata Open features pros such as Kathy Liebert, David Singer, and John D'Agostino. It also featured three Jersey guys like Action Bob Hwang, Richard Festejo, and the champion Al Ardebilli.



I also live blogged the final table. Feel free to read along, I know I'll have it open to refresh my memory...

Here's my short Q & A interview with last September's Borgata Open Champion Al Ardebili. I met with him at the Borgata in January and he was nice enough to do an email interview with me. Here it is...

Pauly: What's your brief poker background? How long have you been playing? Are you playing full-time now?

Al: I played poker as a kid much like many players, nothing serious, just with buddies, etc. I started playing Limit Texas Holdem about five years ago and learned No Limit about three years ago. I'm not playing "full time" per se, but have played many of the circuit events going on for about a year now.


Pauly: What's the best part of Borgata poker tournaments?

Al: The Borgata is just a class establishment through and through. I felt that the first time I stepped in the building a couple of years back. It has the feel and vibe of a top-notch Las Negas property but right here in Atlantic City. So, enjoying the property is a start. As far as poker specifically, I think the dealers and staff headed by Stan and Tab do a fabulous job. And Tab's structures are very player friendly with generous starting chip counts.


Pauly: Do you play any other games besides No Limit Hold'em? What is your specialty? Cash games or tourneys? What attracted you to NL tournaments?

Al: I play Omaha H/L, Seven-card Stud, Stud H/L... all cash games, as well as tournaments. I prefer tournaments more, because of the high pressure of having it all on the line at any given point. The concentration level necessary to play at a high level and everything associated with a successful tourney run is very appealing to me. NL tournaments were particularly attractive because of its popularity recently and hence the big prize pools and payouts in return for a modest investment upfront. So I knew that if I was going to concentrate on poker I would have to get better at NL tournaments.


Pauly: You took 26th at a 2005 WSOP Shorthanded NL event. I prefer (playing and covering) short-handed events. Do you think that there should be more short-handed events?

Al: I prefer short handed at times. I think there should be and there has been a push to include more of them. That said, it doesnt really matter... what matters more is adjusting to the players at your particular table, whether the game is short or full.


Pauly: The WPT and the Travel Channel have not yet aired the Borgata event that you won. Are you enjoying your last few months of anonymity?

Al: I already get a bit more recognized, although it really doesn't matter to me. I'm the same person I've always been.


Pauly: What other major events do you plan on attending in 2006?

Al: I attended Commerce and I'll definitely be at the Bellagio in April. I'm gonna play in most of the 2006 WSOP events and see where it goes from there.


Pauly: Do you think poker has helped boost Atlantic City's popularity with 20-somethings?

Al: Not necessarily, though there are a lot of great young players that are based here and doing very well from the cash games it seems.


Pauly: Who are the players you admire? Who are you afraid of?

Al: Let's see... I admire guys like Daniel Negreanu, Carlos Mortensen, Phil Ivey, and Layne Flack. I especially like Layne Flack. He's tough.


Pauly: What was the best and worst hand you played in the 2005 Borgata Open?

Al: The best hand? Probably calling a monster bluff attempt by Steve Dannenman with about 47 players left and just 2 before money. Both of us had rather big stacks. It was all on the line there if I was wrong. Since I was right, it propelled me to the front as one of the chipleaders. I never surrendered that relative chip count from that point on. And the worst hand? There were many that I played poorly!


Pauly: What are common mistakes that you see beginner players make?

Al: New players tend to have too much aggression with mediocre hands like TT, JJ , and AK. Especially AK. They are not enough patience to take a pot post-flop. That's the first and only thing that pops into my mind.

Thanks again to Al Ardebili for taking time out for the interview. He's really one of the cooler guys I met on the poker tournament circuit. Don't forget to tune in next Wednesday to see Al's victory at the Borgata!

Oh, just a reminder that the Borgata is running the Ultimate Super Satellite Tournament this weekend where you can win a $60K prize package that includes a slew of seats into major tournaments like the WSOP main event and the WPT Championship. Stop by the Borgata's main website for more details.
posted by Pauly at 3/15/2006 10:42:00 AM | Permalink |

 
Horses Don't Bet on People and Neither Do I

I sat 11th in chips with 23 players left. A vile feeling infected my testicular region. My balls started to tingle and automatically shrunk. They knew a bad beat was coming. It had been two hours without one. I was due.

It was 2:30am. Widespread Panic melodiously played on my iPod. Their Halloween show from Las Vegas (which I happily attended) was keeping me fired up. I rarely played tournaments these days. And I never play the 180 person $20 SNGs on Poker Stars.

But there I was, unable to sleep on a lonely night in the big city and not courageous enough to summon the creative juices to write. I pathetically sat in a poorly lit room and accepted my fate.

I crave the action. I need excitement.

I was just one of millions of other junkies gettting their late night fix. Some were smoking tarless cigarettes. Others were masturbating to Malaysian elephant porn. Serious addicts shot junk into their veins in some flop house on the bad side of town. And in the basement of a suburban cul-de-sac a tweaker from Ineverheardof, Kansas brazenly snorted three lines of crystal meth and fired up his 23th table on four different poker sites and somehow cleared his mind for a nanosecond to get involved in a pot with me.

I made good calls along the way and the deck hit me in the face harder than Ike Turner used to lay the smackdown on Tina. I won three big coin flips. I hit a flop with AK vs. 88. I out flopped 10-10 with A-J. And then my 9-9 held up against J-10s. My pocket aces held up twice. I caught cards, hit flops, and persuaded my opponents to fold when I semi-bluffed. The field went fast. 20 gone. Then 45. Then 69. Then all of a sudden there were three tables left.

And things got ugly.

Tweaker from Kansas chased a flush. Just 5 more places from the money, I lost a big pot from a testicle and brain numbing bad beat. I had the guy dominated preflop too. If I won that hand, I'd be second in chips and have a shot at the real money. Instead, I lost and bounced in 23rd place. Two hours and five minutes wasted.

I could have folded and pussied my way into the money in 14th place after I got chipped down and made a steal with a weak ace only to get bad beated by another nimord. But I didn't.

At least I cracked A-A with the Hilton Sisters on my $3/6 table during the SNG. I flopped a set and turned a boat. All he had was A-A on a board that had a flush and was paired. He capped it on the turn and river. Nothing is sweeter.

I've made good decisions in the few tournaments that I played. MTTs aren't a heavy staple in my poker diet, so I pay more attention and focus when I'm playing them. With one or two a week my concentration level is at it's peak. There was a time when I'd try to squeeze 10 different MTTs a day in.

I hit a big pot in a $5/10 ring game on Party Poker to break even for the day. From the little blind I limped into a 6 way pot with J-9. I hit the monster flop of 10-8-7. Biggest pot of the week for me. Capped on the river. I love that rare and exhilarating feeling that consumes you when you have the nuts and it get raised back at you. That's the ultimate high.

Too bad I won an online pot, because I would have ejaculated in my shorts in real life. If that was a casino cash game and the dealer pushed that massive pot my way, I would have slowly fondled the chips like it was the soft and supple breast of that 19 year old sorority girl that stumbled into my room at the fraternity house after she had ten too many Jello shots.
posted by Pauly at 3/14/2006 02:39:00 AM | Permalink |

 
WPBT POY #1: PLO on Poker Stars

The first WPBT Player of the Year Circuit event kicked off. Byron did a great job setting it up, despite starting the tournament in the middle of the first episode of the new season of the Sopranos, which totally sucked by the way. I waited three years for a new episode and it was all rubbish. Anyway, 55 players showed up for the PLO tournament and the Top 9 would get paid prize money. Some of your favorite bloggers were playing, including yours truly. The top 28 players earned POY points.

My Starting Table:

Seat 1: Derek... The self-professed Don Swayze of poker bloggers was moved to the table mid-way through the first level. By day he's underwriting insurance for the porn industry and by night he's plotting to take over the Jets management with The Rooster.

Seat 3: Geek... He's the photoshop God among dorks and one of the many players you'd find donking off chips at the infamous Murderer's Row homegame in West LA. We think he overslept for the event, but my sources told me he was seen at a Star Wars convention in Van Nuys getting his light sabre autographed by Mark Hamill.

Seat 4: TripJax... The Greensboro, NC native used to work as for a minor leaue baseball team. Although he started out as the mascot, he eventually graduated to bullpen car driver and would take relief pitcher to the mound in a golf car that was dressed up like a badger.

Seat 5: Pauly... Your hero is actually the prototypical anti-hero. He's back from a three week stint in Hollyweird which fried his brain. His two secret addictions are PLO and writing poems about Scarlet Johansen's nipples.

Seat 6: DoubleAs... He's the best non-professional poker player around. An engineer and super-dad by day, he's a shark luring around the NL tables at night. He'll discuss all the poker strategy you want in the chat while taking your entire stack in the process.

Seat 7: Change100... The former sitcom child actor turned sleazy studio executive and everyone's favorite pot-smoking blonde from Hollyweird was here to donate some of her winnings after she cashed in the $1M Guarantee earlier in the afternoon. She giggled everytime some one bet "pot."

Seat 8: Spaceman... The man from Tennessee is deep in the heart of Dixie where the most PLO is ironically played here in America. He had Mrs. Spaceman riding shotgun in the tourney so they would be a tough duo to take down.

Seat 9: Drizz... The former silver medalist in the 1992 Olympics in men's fast-pitch softball team (it was a demonstration sport) is also an O8 guru. Can he make magic happen in PLO?

I had been working off my reload bonus by multi-tabling the $3/6 tables at Poker Stars. I randomly sat down at CC's table. I think I junxed him because he had a lot of big hands cracked. Anyway, back to PLO... I saw a lot of flops with hands I'd usually fold since everyone at my table was playing tentative. I had DoubleAs to my left which is good and bad. It's good because I can act before him. It's bad because even though it's PLO, he's still an excellent tournament player. Plus Drizz was the darkhorse. He plays a lot of Omaha 8, so he's used to playing games with four cards. Derek was moved to my table which a lot of railbirds were suggesting was a TV table. Meh.

My second table had Byron, Chops, FFLPlague, SpiderK, Iggy, Pauly, Bad Blood, and Change100. I had some good hands but didn't get any action after I hit a few flops. I had a boat against Iggy and he didn't pay me off.

I got moved to a third table that featured ResetDave, Vegaas, Wes, Jorgen, Gracie, CraigNY, Iggy, and CawtBluffin. (I apologize in advance if I can't think of your url off hand.) I wasn't there for too long. I was one of the shortstacks, sitting in 20th out of 30 when I arrived and action was so very close to the points bubble. I ran into Wes's quads and doubled him up. Two hands later I busted out by a straight flush. I raised on the button with A-A-5c-6c and got popped back by ResetDave. He had me covered and I was out.

I finished in 26th place. At least I lost all my chips to qauds and a straight flush. I made the cutoff and earned points in the event. The fuckin' pencil necked Poker Geek sat out and folded his scrawny ass "into the points." Bastard!



Congrats to StB who won the first event after he beat SpiderK heads up. If you don't know, StB took down a WWdN event last week too. The dude from the Beer City is fuckin' hot. H. O. T. Fear StB!

Thanks again to Byron again for setting this up.

* * * * *
Before I go, two quick things. TripJax and Jordan is hosting a short-handed event tonight. I can't make it. These tourneys are always schedule at a bad time for me.

Don't forget about Iggy's WSOP tournament next Sunday! Here are the details:

What: WPBT WSOP NL Satellite Tournament
When: March 19th - Sunday
Time: 9pm EST
Where: Paradise Poker
How Much: $30
Password: email iggy at allimcbeal_69 - yahoo.com
Restrictions: Bloggers only!

Winner wins a seat in the 2006 WSOP $1500 event of their choice. Because of Paradise's software, we now need 55 players to pull this off. The $30 buyin fee includes the juice, so in reality its a $27 + 3 event.

* * * * *
If you want to play in my annual 2006 March Madness Pool, shoot me an email and I'll tell you the password. It's $20 to enter and it's set up on ESPN. My brother and his team Chico's Bail Bonds is the defending champion.

Top 4 teams win prize money.
First place gets a phone call from Daddy.
Last place wins a Snail Trax t-shirt.

2005 Pauly's Pub March Madness Money Winners:
1 Chico's Bail Bonds (Derek) $200
2 Stop Your Begging (Coach) $100
3 Inside the Paris Hilton (Pauly) $60
4 Austin Paulbearers (Matt S.) $40

I'm a huge North Carolina fan, so I pick them every year on at least one sheet. I'm also going with Derek's alma mater Bucknell to go far.

Oh, and if you are looking to gamble on some of the college hoops games, you can set up a Bodog sports book account. I'm not an affiliate just a member, but if you use my referral code P1B5DB7 then I get a few bucks added to my personal account. Let me know if you sign up. I shall thank you in advance.

I posted some LA photos over at the Tao of Pauly called 21 Flavors: LA Picture Dump. Yes, there are 21 random pics. Take a peek. There's also tons of food pics that I posted there over the last few weeks.
posted by Pauly at 3/13/2006 12:40:00 AM | Permalink |

 
Final Tables and Bonus Whoring

I made the final table in a 400+ person tournament yesterday. I haven't played too many NL tournaments this year, preferring cash games instead. The few I played in were charity events or WWdN ones which are both a total crapshoot. Tournaments were killing my bankroll and I cut down on buy-ins to help stop the bleeding during my three-month losing streak. Besides, I'm a much better cash game player.

If you count making the final table at the LA Poker Classic media tournament (where a seat to the WPT Invitational on the line), that was my second final table in three plus weeks. I would like to think that I'm playing better poker. I'm not. Short term success in tournaments is determined by luck, not skill. Sure, I made the correct decisions but I have to admit that I have been getting lucky. My big hands held up. I hit a few draws. I caught a few lucky rivers. I didn't go on tilt when I lost big hands via suckouts. And most importantly, everyone folded when I bluffed.

I took 7th out of 486 and aside from two big hands early on, I had to bluff and steal my way to the final table. I definitely got lucky and had to maximize marginal hands like A-9, Q-10s, or 3-3 since those were the best hands I was getting. If just one person called my semi-bluffs, I would have been busted out on the bubble. As soon as play got close to the money, I played even more aggressively. With a lot of medium stacks at my table, they played like pussies and stayed out of my way. They wanted to fold into the money which gave me the opportunity to take down pots preflop. I'm not satisfied with just making the money. The only money place I look at in a tournament is for first place. That's the only pay out amount that really matters.

I fell short of winning my first MTT of the year. Early on I had A-A and doubled up. Anyone with a half a brain can play pocket aces. I scooped a big pot with a junk hand. In late position I limped in and flopped a gutshot. Five people were in the pot with me and I turned the straight. I busted two players on that hand. They never saw it coming.

I had one very big laydown when I folded 10-10. I raised preflop in middle position and got two callers behind me. All rags fell on the flop and I bet out the size of the pot. One called and another moved all in. I suspected that one of them had a higher pair or possibly a set. I mucked. The guy with J-J won the pot.

I finished in 7th and wasn't all upset. With one of the shortstacks, I made a move with K-5s as the blinds were about to go up on the very next hand. I pushed all in preflop and ran into K-10. I flopped two pair but got sent to the rail on the turn when he paired his kicker.

* * * * *
I've been bonus whoring since my return to NYC. Party Poker has a reload bonus! Use bonus code 25TO100MARCH when you reload between now and March 16 and you're eligible for a 25% bonus up to $100. It's convenient since I've been playing most of my poker over the last few weeks I've been grinding out multiple 3/6 full ring tables and hit and running at the 5/10 6 max tables. I like playing on Party Poker because my screen name is not DrPauly like it is on other sites. The anonymity is precious these days.

I got my ass kicked on Poker Stars the past two days multi-tabling 3/6 tables trying to clear their new reload bonus. If you don't know they are offering up a 20% up to $120 reload bonus until Monday, March 13th at 11:59 PM ET. Players must earn 5 FPP's for each $1 in bonus money. As always, bonuses at Poker Stars never expire. They are running this promotion because WSOP satellites started yesterday. I'm whoring there too after I reloaded.

Yeah, another way to break out of a losing funk is to do a little bonus whoring. If you sucessfully clear a bonus without taking a hit to the bankroll, it's free money.

Recent Poker Playing Music...
1. Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane
2. Jeff Tweedy
3. Cream
4. Galactic
5. Traffic

* * * * *
Thanks to my Top 10 Referrals for the past week.

1. Poker Prof's Las Vegas and Poker Blog
2. Iggy's Guinness and Poker
3. Tao of Pauly
4. CJ, G-Rob, and Otis at Up for Poker
5. Joe Speaker's Obituarium
6. Al's Al Cant Hang
7. Dan's Pokerati
8. Double As
9. Change100's Pot Committed
10. Chris Halverson's Chris Halverson

* * * * *
By the way, just a reminder that Biggestron set up a WPBT Player of the Year Circuit tournament tonight on Poker Stars.

First event in the WPBT-POY Race!

What: Pot Limit Omaha
Where: PokerStars (Private Tourney 20742121)
When: Sunday, March 12th at 9:30 PM EST (or 6:30 PM PST)
Cost: $20+2
Password: wpbt72
Restrictions: Bloggers only!

See you there for some PLO action.
posted by Pauly at 3/12/2006 12:18:00 AM | Permalink |

 
Borgata's Ultimate Super Satellite Tournament

Here's a press release that I got from the Borgata regarding their Ultimate Super Satellite where you can win a $60K prize package and seats into 4 different events:

Date: March 19, 2006
Start Time: 11AM (Players may enter till the end of level 2)
Rounds: 40 minutes
Starting Chips: 10,000
Where: Borgata Event Center (Same as WPT)
Buy In: $1000
Entry Fee: $100

Building on its outstanding reputation as a premier poker destination, Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa announced The Ultimate Super Satellite Poker Tournament, which offers players a one-of-a-kind prize not offered anywhere else in the poker world.

The one-day poker tournament will be held on Sunday, March 19th in Borgata's renowned Poker Room. Poker pros and regional poker fanatics will compete in a No-Limit Texas Hold'em poker tournament for a chance to win a $60,000 prize purse and a seat in the following major competitions:

• $25,500 entry into the WPT Championship at Bellagio in Las Vegas, April 18-24, 2006
• $10,000 entry into the WPT Foxwoods Poker Classic at Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut, April 6-9, 2006
• $10,000 entry into the WPT Borgata Poker Open at Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa, September 17-21, 2006
• $10,000 entry into the World Series of Poker Main Event at Rio in Las Vegas, July 28-August 10, 2006

In addition, $4,500 will be provided to the winner to cover hotel and travel expenses.

A qualifying event for Borgata's Ultimate Super Satellite Tournament will be held on Friday, March 17th beginning at noon with a $220 plus $20 buy-in. One out of every five entrants for Friday's event will advance into the $1,100 Ultimate Super Satellite Tournament on Sunday, March 19th. Players unable to make the March 17th qualifying event can enter the main event with a full $1,000 plus $100 buy-in on March 19th.

"Borgata is committed to providing poker players with an elevated experience along with the games they want to play," stated Stan Strickland, Borgata's director of poker operations. "On the heels of two highly successful poker tournaments within the last six months - the Borgata Poker Open and the Borgata Winter Poker Open - The Ultimate Super Satellite and the addition of our 85 table poker room exhibit Borgata's dedication to providing a preeminent poker program and exceptional facilities."

For more information, visit the Borgata's main site. Sounds like a pretty cool deal. For just $1,000 investment, you can win a seat into a future WPT event at the Borgata, a WPT event at Foxwoods, plus the $25K WPT Championships at the Bellagio, and you also win a seat into the main event in the 2006 WSOP!
posted by Pauly at 3/11/2006 11:30:00 AM | Permalink |

 
2006 WPBT WSOP Satellite #1

March 19. What are you doing on March 19th? I'll be playing in the first WPBT WSOP satellite.

It's that time of year again when bloggers battle it out for a seat in one of the many WSOP events. Last year a blogger named Bob from One Too Many went on to win a WSOP satellite. Now we call him Bobby Bracelet (thanks to Derek for that catchy moniker). Who will win the first one this year? Perhaps it can be you!

Thanks to Iggy who set the first one up. Our first event will be on Paradise Poker so all our blogger friends who work for online sites like Full Tilt and Poker Stars can play. I expect that we will be holding other events on FT and PS in the near future so if you don't like Paradise, then you'll have an opportunity to play on your favorite site. For the record, Paradise Poker is the third largest online poker room and they offer a 25% deposit bonus. Paradise Poker is also where I popped my online poker cherry.

Here are the details which I cut & pasted from Iggy's blog:

What: WPBT WSOP NL Satellite Tournament
When: March 19th - Sunday
Time: 9pm EST
Where: Paradise Poker
How Much: $30
Password: email iggy at allimcbeal_69 - yahoo.com
Restrictions: Bloggers only!

Winner wins a seat in the 2006 WSOP $1500 event of their choice. Because of Paradise's software, we now need 55 players to pull this off. The $30 buyin fee includes the juice, so in reality its a $27 + 3 event.

So what are you waiting for? Sign up today. Any questions? Shoot either me or Iggy an email.

* * * * *
If you are in NYC on Sunday, you should go see Ugarte's biggest gig of his life. Here are the details.


Charles Star (aka Ugarte) is a former attorney who quit his corporate gig and decided to pursue his life long dream of being in Michael Flatley's Riverdance. Despite all his valiant efforts to line-jig dance, he simply wasn't Irish enough to make the cast. Dejected, he turned to heroin and robbing check cashing places in Brownsville. After a short tint in rehab and a lost weekend hanging out with Scientologists, Charles Star discovered stand up comedy. Now he's living the dream. So stop by and support a fellow poker blogger in his quest to make people laugh. And yeah, Ugarte was the guy who got me invited to the Blue Parrot for the first time. He's a part of NYC poker blogging lore.
posted by Pauly at 3/10/2006 10:19:00 AM | Permalink |

 
L.A. Fadeaway

I'm finally leaving California after being here for 23 days. I'm looking forward to sleeping and recovering from a three week left coast bender. This weekend will be reserved for watching college hoops with my brother, finishing up a few freelance assignments, and posting photos like the one on the right from Zuma Beach.

Yesterday afternoon, I played in a PLO MTT on Poker Stars. I was top 10 in chips for most of the tourney after I doubled up in the first orbit. At one point, I rivered quad aces. I got all my money in the pot on the flop with A-A-K-J after I flopped a set of aces. One guy pushed with bottom two pair and another guy had a monster draw (OESD and nut flush). He promptly hit it on the turn. I prayed to Lee Jones that the river would pair the board even though one of my opponents held several of my outs in his hand. The river didn't pair the board. It was a much better result as the case ace fell. I busted out soon a little later after someone else caught some river magic on me. In the past week, I've also busted out of a PLO MTT when my opponent caught a gutshot Royal flush on me.

Last night around 2am, I had just finished up partying with Change100 and Showcase. Earlier in the night we saw his play for the first time. It had some pacing issues and technical problems with the lighting and sound, but Showcase was great!

Anyway, I fired up a $10 Horse SNG on Full Tilt and guess who was at my table? Jen from Poker Wire. I figured we were the best two players. So what happened? We both got bounced first. Jen had her aces cracked in the first level. There was a random reader at my table. My vision was blurry at the time and I forgot his name. He wanted me to live blog the SNG so he had something to read at work today. Jen and I got a chuckle out of that. Well whoever you were, here's your random shoutout!

The Human Head sent me this in a text message the other day:

Haiku of a Depressed Employee
That fuckface Pauly,
Basking in the LA sun.
Donkey Paradise.

That's it for now. I leave for the airport soon.
posted by Pauly at 3/09/2006 11:43:00 AM | Permalink |

 
Reminder: First WPBT Player of the Year (POY) Circuit Event

Thanks to Byron aka Biggestron for setting this up. I was the first (and only) player to sign up! What are you waiting for?

I cut and pasted most of this from Byron:

First event in the WPBT-POY Race!

What: Pot-Limit Omaha
Where: PokerStars (Private Tourney 20742121)
When: Sunday, March 12th at 9:30 PM EST (or 6:30 PM PST)
Cost: $20+2
Password: wpbt72

Requirements: Be a poker blogger who wants to take part in this year-long experiment. The poker blogging requirements will be light. Even if you post as often as Hdouble, or mention as much poker as AlCantHang, you are good. This rule will be enforced on an honor system. Non-bloggers will not be eligible for the title and the as yet unannounced prize at the end of the year.

POY-Race: From a biweekly series of events (buy-in between $15 and $20) points will be allotted according to the PokerStars tourney formula (buy-in, placement and number of entries are used to figure points). The winner will be announced at the December WPBT gathering, with the December WPBT event counting as the final event towards the race. See previous post for the origin of the rules. Events will be alternated between PokerStars and FullTilt.

Watch Biggestron or the WPBT calendar for events. Suggestions for events are welcome. The rules will remain as they have been laid out here. Minor changes may occur throughout the year based on majority voting.

I'll definitely be playing in the WPBT-POY event. Hope to see you there.

Moving on...

It's going to be a big Sunday as well for two LA bloggers. Joe Speaker and Change100 recently won seats into the big tournaments this weekend. Just the other night, Change100 picked up a victory in a double shootout to win her seat into the $1M guaranteed on Poker Stars. A few hours later, Joe Speaker won a seat in the big tourney on Full Tilt on Sunday, the $200K guaranteed. Best of luck to both.

I was fortunate to have lunch with Joe Speaker, Facty, and Change100 yesterday in downtown LA. Joe Speaker recommended this awesome Cuban joint. It was good to see the lean and trim Mr. Speaker as we tried to lift his spirits. Facty hooked me up with a box of girl scout cookies. They were all gone less than 22 hours later.

I dropped a buy-in at a $5/10 6-max on Party Poker the other night. It was a combination of a few suckouts, missing my big draws, and making a couple of rookie mistakes due to my overconfidence.

Congrats to StB for winning the WWdN tourney last night. He came from behind too after being seriously outchipped heads up.

I have one big prop bet today. I picked Panama over Cuba in the World Basbeall Championships. My boys are up 1-0 in early action.

Today is my last day in Hollyweird. I return to the big city tomorrow where I'll be bogged down writing for a week straight and watching non-stop college hoops. Time to catch a last few rays of California sunshine and tonight I'm going to see Showcase's play. And I have one more screenplay to pitch before I go, so wish me luck.

Enjoy my link of the day... random Swedish girls kissing. That was dedicated to the Rooster and the Donkey Puncher.
posted by Pauly at 3/08/2006 12:03:00 PM | Permalink |

 
Bukowski and Poker

"I tell the women that the face is my experience and the hands are my soul - anything to get those panties down." - Charles Bukowski in an interview with Rolling Stone

This post is dedicated to TC. He's an avid reader of my blogs and a friend of Daddy's. I met TC in Hilljack, Indiana nine or ten months ago when I headed out to visit Daddy & Iggy for a three state bender involving golf, drinking, baseball, drinking, cornhole, drinking, and poker. (You can revisit Part I, Part II and Part III of that epic trip later on.) I played TC heads up to win a tournament in Hilljack. That was the same tournament where I excused myself in the middle of playing and puked twice in the bathroom before I sat down to win it all. And yes, later that evening I puked in Daddy's car when he uttered the infamous line, "Dr. Pauly christened my sled!"

Great times. I have such fond memories of Hilljack and can't wait to go back.

One of the coolest things about my trip was meeting TC. He's an older guy with white hair to match his decades of wisdom. He lived in Greenwich Village in the early 1960s in a time where those streets were a hotbed for everything creative... painting, cinema, poetry, novels, and plays. He too was a writer who had some great stories to share. The more you live, the more you have to say. And TC did some serious living. After he read some of my blogs he sent me a lengthy email and gave me one of the best compliments I had ever gotten. He compared me to Charles Bukowski, who if you don't know is one of my writing idols. I'm often mentioned in the same breath as Hunter S. Thompson, but the core of my writing is pure Bukowski. When it's gut check time, there's no other single artist that had inspired me more than Charles Bukowski. To read TC's complimentary words helped pull me out of a creative funk that I fell into last summer when I was living in Las Vegas at the Redneck Riviera.

Last week, I got an email from a friend of TC that said TC's been sick and hasn't been feeling well. He's had over eight different surgeries on his heart. I'm hoping we can all send out some good vibes out to TC. I'm also hoping that this post can cheer him up as I hope to discover some sort of correlation between Bukowski and poker. I'm not promising you anything of poker substance in this post. I have no idea where this post is going. I'm just sitting down on a lazy rainy afternoon in Los Angeles and I'm writing and let the words flow. At the least, you'll get a quick bio of one of my favorite writers.

* * * * *
When I was 21 years old I moved back to New York City after college. I dated a suicidal painter from Paris. She chainsmoked and was on more Prozac than half the girls living in Orange Country today. She drove me crazy of the Nancy Spungen variety but always gave me books and encouraged me to write. She turned me onto Charles Bukowski. That was over ten years ago and I can recall that day with eerie clarity. I was smoking a blunt in Central Park with a few friends from work when she walked over to me and handed over a copy of Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions and General Tales of Ordinary Madness

"He writes from the soul," she explained to me with that sexy French pouty face of hers.

I quickly read through most of his books inside of two weeks becoming a Bukowski fan and fiend in the process. I began writing poetry at a frenetic pace, cranking out over a hundred inside a month. The words flowed because I tried to adhere to the Bukowski tradition.... write what you know.

To this day, those nuggets of Bukowski wisdom has been part of my personal philosophy.

1. Write every day.
2. Write what you know.

If you are a new poker blogger looking for a tip, or a veteran blogger who's caught in a funk, well here's a bit of free advice on how to improve your blog.... write what you know.

Bukowski wrote about his experiences of the pits of poverty, humping menial jobs, caught up in the corrupt system, being constantly hungover after binge drinking, losing at the race track, dealing with difficult women, and undergoing bouts of failure and deep depression. His words were as real as his emotions. Bukowski wrote about what he knew. James Frey had to fudge those details in his best selling book, while Bukowski's life had plenty of sad and horrifying real elements to it. How Oprah and the critics could extoll the fabricated tales of Frey while ignoring the real deal like Bukowski is another example of why most Americans wouldn't know what a good book even if I shoved it up their ass.

Now to apply Bukowski to poker, you need to play what you know. You can't play like a world class player unless you know how a world class player plays, so that means you need to gain much more experience and soak up as much poker as possible. That includes reading books while learning different styles of play. It also means dedicating hours to playing online and in real life, playing different games along with both tournaments and cash games. There's no coincidence that some of the best poker players in the world happen to be the best all around players in the world. Despite the circumstances, they always hold the edge. Put Doyle Brunson in a mixed-games cash game or a high stakes No Limit tournament, and he's going to be one of the tougher players to beat. Becoming an all around poker player will definitely make you a better thinker and allow you to make quicker adjustments to different styles of play.

Back to Buksowki. It took a very long time before he developed into a writer and poet. He had skills as a young man, but it wasn't until he gained life experience after being on the road for a decade before he truly developed into the celebrated writer that we embrace today.

Charles Bukowski grew up in LA during the Great Depression. His dad was in the army and met his German mother after WWI while he served overseas. His dad roughed him up from time to time and he suffered from a disease that left pock marks on his face due to a series of boils. Bukowski was disfigured some more in his late 20s after two hookers took turns scratching up his face with their nails after he passed out drunk. As a child, Bukowski was a quiet and enjoyed reading at the public library. Since he enjoyed solitude, Bukowski knew that being a writer would be a perfect fit. In his early 20s, he wrote several short stories and even had a few published. However, he wasn't satisfied with the status of the publishing world so he quit writing for a decade. His style was not a good mesh with the presitigous places he was sending off his work. He assumed that all those rejections meant that he was a bad writer. He threw away those manuscripts and he hit the road on a ten year bender.

That dark hole in his life was cluttered with empty beer cans, empty bottles of whiskey, and empty jugs of whine. He took on several menial jobs and once was the doorman at a whorehouse in Texas. He got into fights and spent numerous nights in jail. He attempted suicide on more than one occasion and eventually met a woman named Jane. She was several years older that Bukowski and was also a severe alcoholic. Jane that taught Bukowski how to perform oral sex on a woman for the first time in a twisted relationship that spanned several years. That love affair inspired the film Barfly which Bukowski wrote.

At the age of 35, Bukowski almost died from drinking. He had a bloody ulcer and the doctor told him that if he didn't stop drinking, then he'd die. He was so nervous about what the doctor told him that on his way home from the hospital he stopped off at the bar to have a few beers to calm himself down. That's my favorite Bukowski story.

Bukowski went back to LA and worked in the post office for a few years and started writing again after a lengthy hiatus. His work was finally picked up and his poems and novels were eventually published. After working at the post office for over ten years, he quit in 1969 after getting promised a $100/month stipend for the rest of his life by Black Sparrow Press. He was almost 50 years old before he could pay his bills and bar tab solely from with his writing. It took several decades and a lifetime of experience before Bukowski was recognized for his literary merits.

Bukowski's stories are hard to read for some due to their graphic nature. But the soul is not a very pretty place sometimes and he takes you inside the darkness of mankind with his sordid tales of debauchery as a lewd old drunk. His stories involve masturbation, getting drunk, degrading women, and gambling. My favorite book of his is Ham on Rye along with Post Office. There was a documentary film about his life called Bukowski: Born Into This which was released in 2004 and features interviews with Sean Penn, Bono, and Tom Waits.

Charles Bukowski wrote more than fifty books before his death in 1994 at the age of 73. Make sure you look at an article on Bukowski from Rolling Stone Magazine circa 1976.

* * * * *
Poker is not a glamorous activity. It might be fun for you, a job for some, and a drug for others but overall poker is a very dark and dangerous aspect of our culture. Poker has been thrust to the center of everyone's attention from the cops who are busting up home games in the burbs to the politicans in Washington who are going to have to come to some sort of decision on the legality of poker and online gambling. Whether it's in the shadows of the Hollywood Hills or the local VFW hall, everyone who can breathe is playing poker today and there's a horde of dream seekers on the horizon ready to crush anything in their view and squeeze every cent of money that the poker boom has to offer. New poker blogs are rapidly spreading like a ugly case of the clap in a trailer park. Shill sites are popping up faster than Bill Clinton's pecker on a visit to an all-girls Catholic high school. A slew of new poker related businesses, entertainment programs, and online poker sites are starting up every day. I can't turn on the TV without seeing some sort of poker program. Within the few months, the suits in Hollyweird are going to release their poker movie... Lucky You and it's awful. Dreadful. A swift kick in the junk to poker. Then there's the recent cheating scandals which is a shock to most people. That's a topic and fodder for another post which I'll save for next week. But of course there's cheating in poker. There's cheating in professional sports, in national politics, in the Olympics, and even in your children's schools.

We're all criminals. Doesn't matter if it's poker or Super Mario Brothers, we're all a part of a society built on the evil deeds of thieves, murderers, cheaters, and liars. Some of us get caught and the rest of us have to live with the guilt knowing that we are ruthless souls wandering throughout life. That's why we play poker. To either escape from the seriousness our daily lives for a few hours or to escape into orgasmic dream of winning it all and becoming the next World Series of Poker Champion. I'll see you at the tables.

Get well soon, TC.
posted by Pauly at 3/07/2006 12:14:00 AM | Permalink |

 
The Ides of March, Promiscuous Pauly, Chilean Schoolgirls, The Final 8, and The Real Life Simpsons

Stop by the Tao of Pauly to read about the 2006 Oscars. I sadly did not get to crash any bigtime parties. But I saved face when Crash won for best picture. That come-from-behind win tied me with Change100 for our Oscars Picks. And I won a few hundred Euros against the Norwegian Nihilists who had a hard-on for gay cowboy love. Not only did Crash come through for me as best picture. They were giving me 5-1 odds. It feels good that I'm not complaining about any bad beats from the Oscars.

Moving on...

It's been a good March for Pauly poker. So far. As soon as I figured out my most recent strengths, I decided to focus on that aspect of my poker game. I crunched my numbers and came up with a new gameplan. Plus, the change in my attitude was part of the foundation of my current winning streak along with sticking to games/limits/sites where I was a proven winning player over the last 100 days.

You have to be able to spot trends and determine if it's an aberration or something that's going to continue. Party Poker has been the only site I won during my three month slide. That information tells me a very simple fact... I should be playing more on Party Poker.

I was down on all the other sites except Sun Poker over the last 100 days. I got my junk kicked in at Poker Stars and on Full Tilt in a steady flow of testicle numbing sessions. However, the bankroll on Party Poker grew steadily. It was my mistress site. The site that I fooled around with late nights and for quickies. And the results? An improved bankroll. I guess you can say that I'm not monogamous when I play online poker. I cannot dedicate my heart to one site. I like to sleep around and can't keep my bankroll in one site. That's why I play (and shill) on multiple sites. Over the past two or three months I had been spending a lot of time with Poker Stars. It was a love and hate relationship and I realized that after losing a lot of my bankroll there... that we needed to spend some time apart and see other people. I might just move in with my mistress... Party Poker.

The $5/10 short handed tables on Party Poker have been my feeding ground over the last few weeks. I don't have any specific strategy. I log on and check my "fish finder" and try to sit at their tables. Otherwise I simply look for a quick score and bail. Hit it and quit. It's been working.

I know that winning streaks are just what the appear to be... streaks. The cards are falling my way. I'm flopping sets with middle pairs and getting a lot of action. I'm hitting my draws and my big hands have been holding up. It's amazing what winning one or two big pots can do to your confidence and bankroll. Alas, beware of the Ides of March. Bankrolls get obliterated during the Ides along with heads of states getting shanked on the steps of the capital.

* * * * *
I'm still in LA and will be here for a few more days before I return to NYC to finish my book. I want to hit up the loose tables at Hollywood Park and play another session at Commerce before I go. I also have two freelance assignments that I have to finish up this week including an article about the National Heads Up Championship. Stop by and read Flipchip's reports including some amazing pictures. My pick to win it all Gavin Smith was busted in the first round.

Here's the Final 8:

Clubs: James McManus vs. Chris Ferguson
Spades: Huck Seed vs. Barry Greenstein
Hearts: Daniel Negreanu vs. Sean Sheikhan
Diamonds:Ted Forrest vs. Sam Farha

Take a peek at what Chops Snake had to say about the Elite 8 over at Wicked Chops Poker. My Final Four picks... Jesus, Barry Greenstein, Daniel Negreanu, and Ted Forrest. Remember that quote from The Big Lebowski... "Nobody fucks with the Jesus."

* * * * *
Before I go, you have to take a peek at a video I came across especially if you dig The Simpsons as much as me. Thanks to Raymi who linked this up on her blog today!

Real Life Simpsons Intro

Insanely kick ass video! And it's one of the coolest things I've seen on the net in a very long time. It definitely beats out Chilean Schoolgirls. Which is so not safe for work and happens to be my second favorite video that I've seen in a very long time. Enjoy.
posted by Pauly at 3/06/2006 01:46:00 PM | Permalink |

 
Pimp Day Saturday: Radio Free Pauly, Maudcasts, Sir Waffle Day, and the Heads Up Championship

Thanks to Sean at the Lord Admiral Card Club Radio Show and Podcast for including me in last week's episode. They featured an interview that I conducted with Wil Wheaton at the WPT Invitational at Commerce Casino during one of his breaks. It's pretty funny, especially the part where we both drool over Jen Tilly's massive surface area of boobage.

You can download Episode 64.... Here

If you want to catch up and listen to previous episodes, please visit their archives over at Brainscat. Stop by Card Club at Lord Admiral Radio and check them out. Thanks again to Sean and Stacks for having me on the best damn podcast dedicated to poker.

Moving on...

In other parts of the poker blogosphere, there are some random things you should take a peek at. Let the pimping begin.

Listen to Maudie's latest Maudcast called "Missive." You can download it... here.

Felicia penned a quality post called Stud Theories Part II: Psychology. It is a must read for all novice Stud players.

Go buy some cool Snail Trax gear!


Fellow NY'ers Dawn & Karol started up a blog called I Had Outs. I love their tagline... "Women are the rake."

This is an old post, but it's hilarious and I forgot to post it. Go read StB's interview with my brother Derek. The topic? Me, of course. Derek sounds off on four important questions:

1. Does Pauly never really sleep?
2. How many strippers can he juggle at once?
3. Does he steal your stash when you are not looking?
4. Will he pass out at the Boathouse this year?

Sir Waffle's birthday tournament is going to be on Full Tilt Poker on Sunday night at 9pm ET. I can't make it since it was scheduled at a horrible time --- up against the Oscars. I have a few Oscars parties to crash with Showcase & Change100 and can't play. But you should play and try to get Sir Waffle on tilt.

Biggestron is putting together a WPBT Player of the Year event. Take a peek at his post called First WPBT-POY Circuit Event. First event is PLO starting on Sunday March 12 on Poker Stars. I hope I can play!

If you haven't been reading Joe Speaker recently, then you have no idea about the existentialist meatgrinder of emotional distraught that he's been going through. He's one of my favorite writers and he's been unleashing his heartache and feelings into blog form as he's enduring a horrendous divorce. Everytime I read his blog I just wanna reach out and give him a huge hug and then I go scrolling through my rollodex looking for a hitman to rub out his "X". Take a look at Joe Speaker's Divorcatorium, specifically two posts titled... This Is the End and Incomplete.

Check out BG's horse racing blog.

And yes... the Poker Prof and I hired BG to write for Las Vegas Vegas. BG is going to be an excellent addition to our staff, especially with the experience that he'll bring with him from writing for Nick Denton and Oddjack. Las Vegas Vegas also features a weekly column from April and Grubby is a frequent contributor to the main Las Vegas blog as our food correspondent. Seriously, Las Vegas Vegas is making a push to produce some of the best content on the web. Adding stellar scribes such as BG and Grubby is the best way I know how to make it uber-successful. Hopefully I'll have more time to get off my ass to contribute more to Las Vegas Vegas. Of course, LVV is the home on the web for Flipchip's magnificent photography, so take a peek at his extensive photo gallery.

Speaking of Flipchip, he's at the Heads Up Championship in Las Vegas covering the event for Las Vegas and Poker. He's already posted some photos. Check back to read more about the event. I have money on Gavin Smith going all the way.

* * * * *
Thanks to the Top 10 Referrals to the Tao of Poker for the month of February!

1. The Borgata
2. Wil Wheaton
3. Las Vegas Vegas
4. Iggy's Guinness and Poker
5. Up for Poker (CJ, G-Rob, & Otis)
6. Newz Junky
7. Tao of Pauly
8. Aaron Gleeman
9. Pot Committed
10. Chris Fargis at Twenty-One Outs Twice

Say tuned for my Oscars post over at the Tao of Pauly. That's it for now. Time for me to go play in some VIP freerolls on Poker Stars.

Freeroll Update: As of 3pm PCT, I took 650 out of 1120 in the Silver VIP freeroll that Drizz and Change100 played in. Change100 took 72nd and cashed. I also played in a Silver satellite to the $100K VIP freeroll and took 105 out of 352. So far, I'm 0-2 in freerolls.
posted by Pauly at 3/04/2006 12:20:00 PM | Permalink |

 
Ground Hog's Day in LA

I'm still lurking in the shadows of the Los Angeles. I've become a cliche that I've been dreading... the drug-addled writer from New York City who can't leave the City of Angels caught up in a bumbling pack of strung out studio execs, c-list celebrities, and former German golden showers porn stars. I feel like Bill Murray's character in Ground Hog's Day. I wake up everyday in the same place and I desperately try to get out. I can't seem to muster up enough energy to leave this town. A jaywalking ticket and a dead cat isn't enough to pull me away from the sunshine and loose poker players.

Otis sent me an email earlier this week. Here's what it read:

Don't leave LA. There is a book there for you.

Love,
Otis

Otis has a point. There's a good book to be written about the LA, but not by me right now. I still have a Las Vegas book to finish and as soon as I get back to NYC, I'm gonna crank that fucker out. My previous novels have had cities as backdrops... Sweet Nothing: The Baby & Winky Novel (Seattle and New Orleans), Jack Tripper Stole My Dog and The Blind Kangaroo (New York City), and Gumbo (a collection of cities/locales including Las Vegas, Amsterdam, Atlanta, Tokyo, Seattle, New York City, and Jamaica.)

No worries Otis. I'm hoping to collect enough material for a book about LA in a couple of years. If and when this poker bubble bursts, I'm hoping to crash land in Hollyweird and find work as a literary whore. I already have ideas for the sequel to Snakes on a Plane.

Yeah, I'm still in LA. I simply extended my trip an extra week. The first eight days or so I had to cover the LAPC and didn't spend too much time exploring LA unless it was hanging out partying on Change100's couch, or driving on the congested freeways, or sitting in media row at the Commerce losing prop bets with BJ and Spaceman. With the exceptional weather (by East Coast standards) I decided to hang around and enjoy the outdoors. I headed to the beach a few times and drove around the different posh neighborhoods and ghettos of L.A.. I'm going to Showcase's play next week and I even took a piss next to a indie rocker at a West Hollywood cafe. I didn't know if I should punch him out or pee on his new motorcycle boots that his Asian-boy toy stylist picked out.

I'm also staying here during the Oscars. Never done that before and I hoping to see what the buzz is all about. Change100, Showcase, and I are trying to come up with a gameplan on how we can effectively crash some bigtime Oscar parties. It will involve a tuxedo rental, some rope, a 2x4 and a pocketknife...

I've been offered a huge prop bet. I don't think I can pass it up. I'll discuss the details next week.

For now, I'm off to a casino to play some poker. I started out March hot and closed out February with the strongest poker I've played in months. The junk numbing bad beats have subsided. The donkolicious plays from yours truly have evaporated into the smog-driven sunsets. Full of confidence, I'm ready to play for hours on end.

Stay tuned for my Oscar prop bet post. I'll write it later tonight. In the meantime, stop by the Tao of Pauly for random LA food pictures.
posted by Pauly at 3/03/2006 01:28:00 PM | Permalink |

 
Charity Tournament for Leah

Don't forget to sign up for a charity poker tournament on Thursday. Click here for more details. It's on Noble Poker and they are kicking in a few bucks to help out. Hope to see you there.

Update....

I got an email from Chad this morning. Here it is:

Just wanted to drop you a thank you note for the plugs for the tournament for Leah. Just as an update she has finished round 1 of chemo and is at home resting. She has to go back in a couple weeks to do some evaluations, more chemo and maybe surgery depending on how the examinations go. Thanks for your help again.

Chad Olynick

P.S. (I created my own blog so thanks for being an "inspiration") I seriously don't know how you keep up with so many things on the go!

I'm still in California and I have a late lunch business meeting in Hollyweird this afternoon. Depending on traffic, I'll do my best to get back in time to play. I signed up and will be posting and folding if I get held up. Don't steal my blinds!! Hope to see you there.
posted by Pauly at 3/02/2006 12:14:00 AM | Permalink |

 
L.A. Prop Bets, Groovy Sunsets, and Fear the Jaywalker

"Who's the fucking nihilist here?! What are you, a bunch of fuckin' crybabies?" - Walter Sobchak, The Big Lebowski

An hour ago I got nailed by a L.A. motorcycle cop for jaywalking. He gave me a ticket. Change100 got one too. She was super pissed and went on ticket tilt. She doesn't deal with law enforcement types too well. Here's what went down... We were going to walk to the diner two blocks away. As soon as Change100 stepped outside her apartment she said, "It's too cold. Let's drive."

It was 58 degrees.

That's freezing by LA standards. Bastards. Alas, we drove and found parking on the opposite side of Pico Blvd. We jaywalked to the other side and as soon as we reached the sidewalk, a motorcycle cop drove up and told us to stop.

"Can I see some identification," he said as he took off his mirrored sunglasses at 8:10pm. "And sir, your zipper is down."

He pointed to my crotch. He was correct. My fly was down. The pair of jeans I wore had a zipper flaw. I liked them too much to throw them out, so I accepted the fact that my zipper would be down a majority of the time.

Change100 launched into a rant and I gave her a look like, "Calm down."

She was so angry she couldn't look at the cop. She turned her back as he slowly wrote us out citations.

"Ma'am," he said to Change100, "200 pedestrians die on Pico Blvd. every year. And over a thousand go to the hospital. You have to cross at designated cross walks."

I heard her mutter "Total bullshit," as she signed the ticket.

When the cop asked me to sign I asked, "No slack for tourists?"

"Nope. Same thing I told her. Do you want me to repeat my speech?"

I signed my name and put a smiley face next to it. That was my first autograph since I arrived in LA.

The cop who pinched us had an Irish last name. If that went down in NYC, the cop would have let my McCatholic ass off with a warning. Wait.... NYC cops are too busy chasing after terrorists to give pedestrian tickets for jaywalking. You would think that an internet celebrity like myself would be able to get off with a warning... but in LA the cops love arresting celebrities, especially ones that try to pick up tranny hookers on Sunset Blvd.

Change100 stormed off towards the diner. She flung the doors open and sat down in a booth. She slammed her fists on the table and screamed, "I'm too angry to even talk about this."

Her tilt lasted about ten minutes. Take a peek of her account of the events. Here's what she had to say:

"I couldn't fucking believe it. Do I have like, some fucking overdraft on my karmic account? Isn't getting unceremoniously sacked from my job bad enough for one month? And now this fucking bullshit. Fucking JAYWALKING! IN LA!! Unbelievable. I was steaming so hard I couldn't even LOOK at the douchebag fuckface cop as he scribbled away on his little cop notepad so I turned and leaned against a parking meter, facing the complete opposite direction. My blood pressure rose and my heart pounded as I tried to keep myself from screaming obscenities and finding the closest sharp object available and stabbing him in the testicles. Fucking cops."

The most fucked up thing about the situation... the same cop who gave us jaywalking tickets had just eaten at the diner. The owner's daughter said she gave the cop 50% off his tab too.

I kept laughing the entire time at the diner, while Change100 steamed over it during our meal. I was supposed to leave California today and fly back to NYC. I decided to stick around for two more days to play poker, take photos, and work on a freelance assignment.

I guess I could be upset about the situation. The way I see it, after all the debauchery I endured in L.A., jaywalking was by far the least illegal thing I did within the city limits. I avoided a feline homicide charge and I'm more than thrilled to be able to leave this town without a venereal disease or a B class felony.

Moving on...

I found myself at the brink of degeneracy in media row after partaking in nonstop prop bets with BJ during the LA Poker Classic and the WPT Invitational. BJ finally settled the score after a horrendous 2005 WSOP where he didn't win one pop bet during the first month. BJ finally came through when he picked Doyle Brunson on the night he picked up his 10th WSOP bracelet. He even got Texas Dolly to sign the $1 bill that he won from me. I took it on the chin in a few prop bets last week, especially the last one we did. I picked Jesse Jones a last longer against BJ's pick Allen Kessler and promptly lost.

Spaceman and I were doing prop bets involving my ringing cell phone. Before I'd answer it, I'd let him pick the sex of the caller... male or female. He ended up coming out on top overall in those wagers. "Easiest money I made in a long time," boasted Spaceman.

The biggest win I had in the past few weeks was Wil Wheaton lasting longer than Gus Hansen at the WPT Invitational. The Norwegians Nihilists gave me 6-1 odds as they went with a fellow Scandi. I had faith in Wheaton and he proved that he was prop-bet worthy. With that clutch win, I nearly wiped out my entire Torino Olympics loses.

I came out ahead in a prop bet involving overall medals. The Americans edged out the Norwegians 25-19 in medals and my reputation has been salvaged for now. I am no longer a laughing stock in Norway.

On Monday, I played a tourney on Full Tilt with Nickerson. We had a last longer. If I won, he had to buy me In & Out Burger. If he won, I had to babysit his kids. Just kidding... he wanted In & Out Burger too. Although, I just pitched a screenplay to Revolution Films called "Daddy Daycare 2" which stars Daddy (playing himself) as a former washed up baseball player who opened up day care business out of his house. Hijinks ensue. I have to cut out the donkey scene if I want the film to have a PG-13 rating.

Over the weekend, I played Change100 a series of heads up matches. We'd play for various things including who picked up the tab for lunch or dinner. I lost a best-of-three series. She flopped the nuts on one hand and I walked right into it, trying to bluff-steal on the turn with 9-7o. I didn't mind losing dinner bets because I won the big one where she had to reveal what TV show she appeared on in the 1990s. Our favorite junkgrabber and jaywalker has a dirty secret.... she used to be a former child actor before she became a Hollyweird film exec.

We also did various Roshambo for things like lunch tabs and who had to drive. She claimed that she knew how to get inside my head. But she was wrong because I used the Annie Duke method of randomization for my Roshambo tosses. That way I can't go on tilt. I might have to change that up because it's not working.

Change100 and I had a few props regarding Joe Speaker's first marriage. We did not know any of the details and we wagered on the length of his first union. We also had a bet on how many years were in between his first and second marriage. We ended up chopping. I guessed right that the time in between marriages was longer than 4 years. And Change100 won the length of the first marriage. She had the under which was set at 30 months. We're awful and should be shot. At least we had a fun time drinking with Joe Speaker and his cousin at 14 Below in Santa Moncia. We endured a horrible Journey cover band with the lead singer who reminded me of Roseanne Barr on trucker's speed.

Last month, I made a prop bet with Change100 over whether or not her actor roommate Showcase would get a blowjob or not. You see, he met a nice Jewish girl through J-Date. He was on the verge of his second date and Change100 was convinced that the chemistry was not there. I had faith in him and bet that he would close the deal and end date two with a beejer. I was wrong. He didn't close the deal and I lost.

Showcase met a woman Sunday night during dinner. I'll be writing up the encounter over at Tao of Pauly. Take a peek at LA Stories: Getting Showcase Laid. Anyway, Change100 and I had random props over whether he was going to have sex with the drunk girl (I lost) or whether she was going to leave before sun up or spend the night. She left before sunrise. We also had a bet on the O/U on how many text messgaes/voicemail she'd leave for Showcase throughout the day.

Oh and the psycho chick that Showcase bedded, she sent him 12 text messages within 30 hours of their sexual encounter. Yikes.


Before I go, I'll mention some random poker news. I'm going to end the month of February up playing poker! My current winning streak ended the slide of three consecutive losing months. That's enough to put me in a very good mood. Plus I went up to Zuma Beach in Malibu on Tuesday afternoon and took a sassy photograph of the sunset (see above photo). I'll post more later.

Corrupt cops, pothead actors, dead cats, prop bets, and smog enhanced sunsets... L.A. is growing on me.

* * * * *

Don't forget to checkout Jason Spaceman's coverage of the WPT Bay 101 for Bluff Magazine. He's doing an amazing job. See for yourself.
posted by Pauly at 3/01/2006 01:38:00 AM | Permalink |