A Busy Week

On May 11th I flew to Los Angeles for E3 (Electronics Entertainment Expo. I planned on flying out early the next morning so all I brought with me on my flight to Burbank was a Sports Illustrated, ESPN the magazine, The Hockey News, and a few copies of Entertainment Weekly. I didn’t even bring my computer bag which I always bring. I arrived in LA at about 3:00pm and headed over to meet the “X-BOX Dudes.” A good group of guys that either work with Microsoft or X-BOX. I’m never really sure, frankly, as all these titles sound the same to me. “Hi I’m Joe, VP of Executive Marketing and Accounting for the DVD division.” “Hey Joe, Nice to meet you.” “Hey Daniel, I’m Bill, Chief Executive Officer of the S Corp division of branding and merchandising for XYZ publishing and game development.” “Cool man, you know I have no clue what that means right?” Anyway, it was a cool bunch of guys who all had jobs. That’s about as much as I understand, but luckily for me, I don’t need to know much more than that. What I do know, is that this group of guys were all instrumental in helping STACKED with Daniel Negreanu create such a positive buzz with the video game websites, industry people, retailers, and the various video gaming magazines. The plan was to play a little freeze out tournament for bragging rights. I planned on playing my A game and make sure that I got deep On the first key hand I played I was the third limper with Kd 8d for 100. The big blind “meant to raise” but somehow screwed that up and accidentally checked! The flop came K-8-4 rainbow. The big blind bet out, and I raised it right away. He called, and when the turn came a 9 he fired out another bet. I stuck it all in. My opponent, shaking like a leaf at this point, finally made the crying call with… pocket nines! Sick, so sick! No King on the river, and I was the first guy out. These guys were good sports, though, and we decided that everyone would get to “rebuy” once. I built up my stack to the chip lead in the late stages, but when my A-10 went all in against Q-8 suited I was left short stacked and bowed out in fourth place…. oh well, while my ego was slightly bruised, at least it didn’t cost me a penny! From there, we went to our next stop at the Standard hotel in downtown LA. A very cool place. In fact, I had a lot of fun there the last time I was in LA. So anyway, this was another “poker party” with some industry people that all know about STACKED and are anxiously awaiting the May 30th release date (for real, no kidding :-). We set up a tournament with four full tables and on the third hand I played I limped in for 50 with 5-5. Nobody raised before the flop and we had five players to the flop: Ks 6s 5. Sweet, a set of fives and the small blind bet 200. The UTG limper made it 500 to go and I made it 1500. The first bettor folded as did all of the other players, and then the limper made it 1000 more. Well, we only had 5000 to start so I stuck it all in just hoping that my opponent had something to call with. He did… pocket kings!!! Are you serious? I was the first one out… again? Once again, these guys were troopers and let me back in. This time, I got on a roll all the way to the final table. Once again I made it down to the final four before I took just a ridiculous beat. With Js 3d in the blind I bet a flop of 9s 7s 3s. One opponent called, and the turn came the 6d. I moved all in for a huge bet and had my opponent covered. He just decided to call me with Kc Qd! No pair and no draw! Wouldn’t you know, a Queen hit the river. Yikes… *************************************************************** I got home in the afternoon of the 12th and… well, I don’t even remember what I did so let’s just skip that day shall we? On the 13th, my new prot