Golf, A Movie, and Mushu is in love!

Golf: I’ve been practicing pretty hard for this upcoming golf tournament on ESPN. It’ll actually be my first ever “tournament style” event and I’m looking forward to it. I’m not sure if we are getting a fair shake or not, with me being a pretty pathetic golfer and all, but I’m hoping that I don’t embarrass myself too badly and take E-DOG and Josh down with me. I’ve mentioned it before, but here is the rundown of what’s at stake: 3 man scramble: There is a total of 9 players in this event, 3 teams of three. Each golfer is putting up $1 million for a $9 million prize pool. That sounds really huge, but it’s actually not as big as it seems. The format is a scramble with a “two tie all tie” format, meaning, if two of the three teams make birdie, there is no blood for that hole. I’m guessing that at most, a team would lose maybe 3 holes since it’s only a 9 hole round.
There are no actual handicaps, only tee spots and “other benefits” I’ll get to later. I’ll be playing from the “super red tees” which on many of the holes is right in the middle of the fairway. Also, since I’m awful, I also get to tee my ball up from anywhere (except a bunker). So essentially I’ll be able to hit driver-driver if need be. 2 man best ball: In this event I believe we have 9 teams of 2, each golfer risking $100,000. In this format, the only handicap is again, the tee spots, and on each hole the team will use the best of their two scores. So for example, if Erick makes 5 on a par 5 and I make, oh… like an 8 🙁 then our score for that hole would be 5. Mine gets thrown completely out the window. The over/under on the winning score is 71 according to Doyle, and if that’s the case I don’t think Erick and I have a good shot at winning, but we could squeak into the money if all goes well. I believe there are four money spots that go something like this: Winning team: $1,000,000
Second place team: $500,000
Third place team: $200,000
Fourth place team: $100,000 That’s not official, that’s just my guess as to the payout structure. As for my team, well, it’s me, Josh Arieh, and Erick Lindgren for the scramble, and then Erick and me are playing the two man best ball together. I had a terrible time of it hitting the ball yesterday, but was better today. I had a bad case of the shanks with my irons and on three different holes shanked three straight shots ob or in the water! I don’t have a full list of entrants, but I think the teams look something like this: 3 man scrambe:
Daniel Negreanu, Josh Arieh, Erick Lindgren
Dewey Tomko, Doyle Brunson, ?
Phil Hellmuth, Russ Hamilton, Billy Walters 2 man best ball:
Daniel Negreanu, Erick Lindgren
Doyle Brunson, Dewy Tomko
Phil Hellmuth, Russ Hamilton
Vince Van Patten, Janet Jones
Phil Ivey, David Oppenhiem
David Grey, Huck Seed
John Hanson, Mickey Appleman
(I forget the last two pairings) So for the last week, all I’ve been doing during the day is hitting balls, putting, and trying to get a feel for the course. *************************************************************** Down in the Valley: Just watched that movie and my goodness, that Edward Norton guy is a pretty brilliant actor. It’s one of the better movies I’ve seen recently and I didn’t expect that after reading the preview for the film. It seemed like it would bore me but it did nothing but. It was so cleverly done, essentially staging a western in modern day Los Angeles. That may seem to make little sense, but I don’t want to give away any of the plot line for you.
I will tell you that it’s about a father who isn’t happy about his daughter’s new boyfriend at all. I’d never even heard of the movie until this week, but apparently it was released in 2005. I was pleasantly surprised. *************************************************************** Marley is scheduled to me spade, but now that she is having her first period we are going to wait until it’s over to do it as it’s slightly safer to do it that way. She’s been on it for a week, and has about two more weeks to go. In the meantime, Mushu is going batty! It’s the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. He’s trying to wrestly her to the ground (he’s 6lbs and she’s closer to 20lbs) and is so protective of her. All he wants to do is be near her and will literally bite your finger off if you try to get him away from her. Mushu doesn’t even have his “stuff” anymore, but he is a crazed animal at the moment. Wants nothing to do with me or Lori, it’s all about Marley for him. Totally obsessed! We have Marley in a diaper so she doesn’t make a mess everywhere, but when we put it on her Mushu goes bananas, sniffing and sniffing like he wants to rip it off, lol! Oh my, on one hand I’m really glad to see them “getting along” so well, but on the other hand, I feel sorry for him. He’s just been acting so strange lately…]]>

In the meantime, I’m keeping busy as usual. I’m writing this blog from the airport in Denver on my way back home to Las Vegas after a corporate appearance in Vail, CO. Vail is absolutely gorgeous and I keep meaning to come out here just for a vacation but every time I come it’s in and out. The night of the 6th I had my buddies over to the house until 5:00am after playing 36 holes over at Bali Hai (more on that later). I had a 6:00am flight to Denver, so I rushed out the door and headed to the airport, just making my flight. When I get back to Vegas the plan is to practice at Bali Hai everyday. It’s a very different course from my home course, TPC Summerlin. The greens are slower and it’s a lot more hilly. I’m practicing for an event that will be filmed for ESPN I believe. Sort of a bad golfers/sick gamblers convention of poker players playing in a couple interesting formats, from scrambles to a best ball team game. As far I’ve heard there is a 3 man scramble and a 2 man best ball competition. Neither of which will have any handicaps as far as strokes are concerned, but instead, significant tee spots. For example, since I suck really bad I get to play from the front of the fairway on every hole but the par 3’s where I’d play from the reds. On top of that, I’ll be able to tee up my ball from anywhere except the bunkers. Also, a new twist for me and something I’m really not a fan of at all, but we’ll be playing gamblers rules, which in some ways just seems more like their ain’t no rules! You have to play it where it lies, cart path or not, but you also are allowed to grease your clubs. For those unaware, greasing your clubs is a form of cheating, but in gambler’s rules it’s considered legal. You basically take a gob of Vaseline and put it on the face of your driver before hitting. If you have a slice or a hook, voila, you will now hit the ball exactly where you aimed it, with no spin at all. The grease takes the spin off the ball which also allows the ball to keep rolling, and rolling down the fairway. I tried it, and it does work although I wish we weren’t playing that way at all. For the rest of the week me and my new SkyCaddie (a birthday present from my wife) will be at Bali Hai practicing and trying to get to know the course a little bit better. I tried practicing there the other day, but boy, it didn’t look too good. I’d have to shoot a waaaay better score to have any chance against these guys. *************************** In other unrelated bad news, my Treo just went screwy on me! All of a sudden all of my contacts, my memo’s, my schedule, everything was erased and this new look screen replaced my old one. I have no clue what happened, but MAN am I annoyed! I called Sprint and was on hold for over 25 minutes and finally someone sent me a text, and boom, my phone went dead. Arrgh… anyway, plane is boarding, more later…]]>

My birthday was a lot of fun. Me and my buddies played 18, then an emergency 9 with an interesting scramble match. I played horribly despite practicing for almost two hours prior to playing. I started out on the range hitting the ball very well, but then chipped and putted for over an hour. After that, I went back to the range to hit a couple before the round

Tomorrow the weather seems perfect with a high in the low 100

The first day I got here it was beautiful and sunny. Since then, the rain has not stopped for even a second. Normally that would probably annoy, buy I’ve spent almost everyday indoors. I’m actually having a great time despite having to work pretty hard. I’m working on a project out here that calls for long days and late nights but it is well worth it and the final product is going to look just awesome. There are some other poker players in town also apparently. Last night Brad Booth texted me and asked me if I wanted to hang out with him and some of his friends. His condo was just two blocks from where I’m staying so he picked me up and we headed over there. I didn’t know anyone at his place outside of him, but his friends were all really cool, laid back people so I felt at home pretty quickly. We hung out at his pad for a little bit before heading to a night spot called Caprice that was within walking distance. Brad had a “hook up” at the club so we were able to get everyone in and took over the VIP area. Joining us later was Van Nguyen and Tuan Lam, second place finisher in the main event this year. After talking to Tuan about the tournament, while obviously disappointed in not winning, he didn’t sound too broken up about it and genuinely seemed extremely happy for Jerry Yang. Noah and David Williams also showed up, they are in town for a wedding apparently. So bizarre that so many poker players are in town for random reasons? I hear that Phil Laak will also be here playing against a computer. Brad got me hooked on a new drink, it’s called a Vodka Expresso I think and it went down real smooth. I honestly didn’t know Brad all that well before last night but seeing him with his friends, the way he treats them, and the vibe they have together, you can totally tell that he is a really, really, good dude. Entering the VIP room later in the night was NBA MVP Steve Nash and his “crew.” He is from Vancouver and is doing a charity basketball game tonight. I spoke with Raja Bell for a bit, but didn’t approach Nash at all. As you should know from previous blogs, “I just don’t do that.” I left the club at who knows when, and had to be up at 7:30am for a quick photo shoot. When I woke up, I’m pretty sure I was a little bit tipsy as Brad and the owners of the club were continuously force feeding me Vodka Espresso. It was a lot of fun, but man, did I pay the price this morning! I have a day off today from work which is really nice after steadily working long days. The plan is to hang out in the room and probably play on Pokerstars. When I got to Vancouver I had my laptop with me and actually put a ton of hours in playing online when I had any downtime at all. In fact, with just $200 in my account I decided to see whether or not I could “run it up” by playing in small games. I started out pretty high actually, playing $3-$6 pot limit Omaha which is a game that’s way too big for a $200 bankroll. I won a couple hundred in the game, though, and took that to some other games. Anything from: $15-$50 Stud H/L
$30-60 Omaha H/L
$30-$60 Stud H/L
$20-$60 H.O.R.S.E.
$30-$60 2-7 Triple Draw
$5-10 No Limit Hold’em
$5-10 Pot Limit Omaha
$50-100 Limit Hold’em
$100-$200 Stud H/L I was able to run it up to about $5000 in about a day and a half and I think I’ve got $4600 in my account now. The safest game for me to play and protect the bankroll while trying to double it, is guaranteed the $100-$200 Stud H/L. If you are bored and want to rail, it’s easy to find me. From the lobby you can click on requests and then click on “find a PokerStars Team Member.” That will take you to any table I’m on as well as any other PokerStars guys you might want to rail. The ultimate goal is to get to $20,000 at which point I’m going to try and play in the $25-50 No Limit Hold’em and Pot Limit Omaha games. On that note, I’m going to head over there now…
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August 28th-Sept 1st EPT Barcelona September 2nd Fly to London
September 6th WSOP HORSE
September 8th WSOP Pot Limit Omaha
September 10th WSOP No Limit Hold’em
September 16th Fly to Las Vegas
September 22nd Fly back to London
September 25th-29th EPT London
September 30th fly back to Las Vegas October 5th Fly to Baden, Austria
October 7th-10th EPT Baden
October 11th Fly to Spain
October 11th-15th WPT Spain
October 16th Fly to Las Vegas
October 25th Fly to Toronto
October 26th-30th WPT Niagara Falls
October 31st Fly to Las Vegas November 7th Fly to Foxwoods
November 8th-12th WPT Foxwoods
November 13th Fly to Las Vegas December 13th-18th WPT Bellagio January 3rd Fly to Bahamas
January 4th-11th EPT PokerStars
January 12th Fly to Las Vegas
January 19th Fly to Tunica (yippee! I always do well there)
January 20th-23rd WPT Tunica
January 24th Fly to Las Vegas
January 27th Fly to Germany
January 29th-Feb 2nd EPT Germany February 3rd Fly to Las Vegas
February 17th Fly to Copenhagen
February 19th-23rd EPT Copenhagen
February 24th Fly to Las Vegas
February 24th Fly to Los Angeles
February 24th-28th WPT Commerce March 1-3 WPT Celebrity Event
March 4th Fly to Las Vegas
March 9th Fly to San Jose
March 10th-14th WPT Shooting Stars
March 15th Fly to Las Vegas
March 30th Fly to tba tournament in Europe April 6th Fly to Monte Carlo
April 10th-17th EPT Championship
April 18th Fly to Las Vegas
April 19th-25th WPT Championship That’s what I have SO FAR, but it could change in a hurry. There is a WPT Borgata event, a Dublin event, and an EPT Poland event that I may get to as well if I can squeeze them in. I’ll also likely be adding the Aussie Millions in January. In the meantime, I’m flying out tomorrow afternoon to Vancouver for 10 days to shoot some commercials and stuff for PokerStars. I used to have some friends in Vancouver but they moved back to Toronto so I have no clue what I’ll be doing with my free time, suggestions welcome! I might even bring my golf clubs, but I wouldn’t even know where to go, or with who? If I don’t do much of anything with my free time it will at least be a good opportunity for me to catch up on my writing and stuff like that. *************************************************************** Oh, and I’m out of the WSOP, lol. It was a tough day for me all of day 2 and it wore me down until I finally cracked and made an error for my last 40,000 in chips. Here’s how it all happened: I was cruising, starting the day with 40,000 but quickly seeing my stack rise to over 200,000. Every time I got my money in I was a huge favorite, in fact the key triple up was a hand where I had my opponents drawing virtually dead on the flop (bottom set vs. both players top pair). Then things went the wrong way fast. The button, a former poker dealer made it 4,000 in the button with Kh 9h. I re-raised from the small blind to 12,500. He decided to take the flop despite only having 25,000 left to play with after the call. This my friends, will NOT be in the book! 🙂 Anyway, the flop comes Kd 6h 4h. I hesitate and check to him hoping that he will see that as a sign of weakness and bluff at it. He bet 10,500 and I moved him all in. The turn was a blank, but the river heart put a dent in my stack. Just three hands later I raised with Ac Kh and the big blind moved all in for about 40,000. I literally beat him in the pot, fully expecting him to show me a bluff. I’d been raising his blind pretty consistently and felt like he was gearing up for a play. I was right. He turned over Qh Jd. The flop came Jc 9c 3c. I’m still a favorite on the flop needing an Ace, King, or a club, but once again, I lost that pot too. That theme held true for most of the day following. Hand after hand I was in a difficult situation having to make a really tough decision, but I think I was 100% right on every single one. Seriously, if I’m wrong I’ll eat my hat! Finally, though, late in the night fatigue started to set in and I wasn’t able to keep it together one more time. I raised pre-flop from late position with 10-8, which is a fine play considering the big blind was the tightest player at the table. The button called my 6,000 raise and we took the flop heads up. The flop was 6h 7s 8h giving me top pair and a straight draw. I bet 12,000, leaving myself with 40,000 left. After lots of dialogue, my opponent went all in. Here’s where I became what I call a “price sucker,” something I often accuse most math players of doing. I was getting 2-1 odds for my last 40,000, but I still should have folded. This guy didn’t look like he was all out bluffing, so my best case scenario was close to a coinflip situation, whereas if he flopped a set I was in terrible shape. I ruled out 9-10 based on a tell that led me to believe he didn’t flop the absolute nuts. I was sure he had a strong hand, I was just fooled for some reason and had no clue what he had. After having laid down so many hands in a row, I just didn’t have the fight in me to lay down another one. I called, and he had 8-8. As bad as that call was, it was still really an unlucky situation for me. The only way he is going to play a big pot with me after the flop were if he flops an 8, giving me a pair and him a set. Any flop without the case 8 in it and I don’t go broke at all, in fact I’d win the hand over 50% of the time. It’s a shame that I wasted an excellent day of play by ending the tournament that way. In a sense, “I gave up.” I couldn’t take the heat and got out of the kitchen. Not intentionally at all, I wanted to win badly, but I passed my threshold and turned what was an easy lay down into my end. Oh well. Seriously… oh well. It really ISN”T the end of the world and it isn’t something I’ll be losing any sleep over. If I’ve learned one thing this year from playing poker it’s that getting over mistakes quickly is the key to long term success. There is one WSOP Champion, an absolute genius of a player that’s routinely sabotaged himself after making even a marginally bad decision. He has the belief that if he isn’t playing perfectly that he shouldn

The main difference is that we start out playing high enough where if you run really bad, you could easily go broke in the first two hours. Here is the structure for this event: Starting chips 100,000 Hold’em 600-1200
Omaha HL 600-1200
Razz 800-1600
Stud 800-1600
Stud H/L 800-1600 Hold’em 1000-2000
Omaha H/L 1000-2000
Razz 1200-2400
Stud 1200-2400
Stud H/L 1200-2400 Hold’em 1500-3000
Omaha H/L 1500-3000
Razz 1800-3600
Stud 1800-3600
Stud H/L 1800-3600 Hold’em 2000-4000
Omaha H/L 2000-4000
Razz 2500-5000
Stud 2500-5000
Stud H/L 2500-5000 Hold’em 3000-6000
Omaha H/L 3000-6000
Razz 4000-8000 That’s a total of 11.5 hours of play and I think that’s about what we’ll get on day one with a 90 minute dinner break and a 15 minute break every two hours. By the end of day one the starting stack will have a total of 12.5 big bets to play with. So if you play break even poker for 11.5 hours you’ll officially be on a rather short stack at the end of day one. If you happen to take a few beats and lose half of your stack going into the Razz section, you’ll have about 6 bets to play with. This structure is actually just fine, but in comparison to the other events I worry that many players may complain that this particular event starts out a little too fast? After day one the structure continues to move fluidly with every blind increase imagineable, but I think many will be surprised to see that unlike last year, we will lose a large percentage of players on the first day. Assuming we have, say, 200 players for the H.O.R.S.E. I’m guessing that we’ll lose anywhere from 60-75 players on day one. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 1/3 of the field. Compare that to the other limit events and you’d be left puzzled as the percentage of players eliminated in that same time frame would actually be smaller. I think the H.O.R.S.E. structure is excellent, but as I said, my main concern is that people will be comparing the early stages of this event to those other limit events that start out excessively slow. The most extreme example being the $3000 Stud H/L starting with 120 big bets, while in this $50,0000 H.O.R.S.E. event, players will start with 83.3 bets. Knowing that we’ll likely end after the 4000-8000 Razz level, I’ve been thinking about what kind of stack I’ll need to have to feel comfortable for the next day’s play and it’s a pretty big number. To feel REALLY comfortable I’d need to have more than 30 bets, which means I’ll have to win 140,000 on day one to feel like I’m not in any present danger. That’s a tall order, but it’s not impossible by any means. The pressure will be on from the get go, with even that first 600-1200 hold’em section being meaningful. In other words… I won’t be skipping any levels for this one! It’s about midnight right now and I’m anxious and excited to get started. I feel “due” to run good in this particular H.O.R.S.E. and I can see myself doing very well in it. I’m well rested, ate well today and yesterday, and feel like my batteries are charged and ready to focus on playing great. On that note, I have a few e-mails to take care of and then plan on getting a solid 8 hours of sleep. I’ll also be sending text updates to a friend who will be posting them in the General Forum at www.fullcontactpoker.com. They’ll be sporadic, with chip counts, who’s at my table, and any interesting hands and/or insight about what’s been happening. ]]>

www.fullcontactpoker.com. I’ll be doing video blogs almost daily so check back regularly. As for the WSOP, so far so good. I have played two tournaments, and while I have failed to cash in both I’m pretty excited about my play so far and feel good about the rest of the WSOP. In both events it wasn’t me who broke myself, it was the cards: Event #1: A player made a terrible play with 88 pre-flop against my KK going all in pre-flop, then flopping an 8. Event #3: I raised to 2000 with 5d 7d got a caller behind me and both blinds called. The flop was Qs 4h 5h. Both blinds checked and I bet 4000. All folded to the BB who called. The turn was a Qd and the big blind went all in. I was absolutely certain that he was on a draw so I called for my last 9000. He showed 6-7, and hit a 3 for a straight on the river. Had I won that pot I’d be close to 40,000 in chips and rolling in the tournament with about 450 left. Today I’m not playing until the 5:00pm Omaha HL/Stud HL, and am looking forward to it. In the meantime, I’ll likely head over to TPC Summerlin to hit some balls and maybe even do a video blog from there. *** Also check out the forums at FCP for text updates from me during play. Click on forums and then look in the General Forum.]]>

Jun 2: 12:00pm $1500 No Limit Hold’em
Jun 3: 5:00pm $2500 Omaha HL/Stud HL
Jun 4: 5:00pm $5000 Pot Limit Omaha (RB’s)
Jun 5:12:00pm $1000 No Limit Hold’em (RB’s)
Jun 5: 5:00pm $1500 Omaha HL (if out of other event)
Jun 6: 5:00pm $5000 7 Card Stud
Jun 7: 12:00pm $1500 No Limit Hold’em Short Handed
Jun 8: 5:00pm $5000 Pot Limit Hold’em
Jun 9: 5:00pm $2500 H.O.R.S.E.
Jun 10: 5:00pm $5000 Limit Hold’em
Jun 11: 12:00pm $2500 No Limit Hold’em
Jun 11: 5:00pm $2000 Stud H/L (if out of other event)
Jun 12: 12:00pm $1500 No Limit Shootout
Jun 13: 12:00pm $5000 No Limit Hold’em
Jun 14: 5:00pm $3000 Stud H/L
Jun 15: 5:00pm $5000 H.O.R.S.E.
Jun 16: 12:00pm $1500 No Limit Hold’em
Jun 17: 12:00pm $3000 No Limit Hold’em
Jun 17: 5:00pm $1500 Razz (if out of other event)
Jun 18: 12:00pm $2500 No Limit Hold’em Short Handed
Jun 19: 1:00pm $5000 No Limit Hold’em Heads Up
Jun 20: 12:00pm $1500 Pot Limit Omaha (RB’s)
Jun 20: 5:00pm $3000 Limit Hold’em
Jun 21: 5:00pm $5000 Omaha H/L
Jun 22: DAY OFF
Jun 23: DAY OFF
Jun 24: 12:00pm $50,000 H.O.R.S.E.
Jun 25: Still in H.O.R.S.E.
Jun 26: 12:00pm $2000 Limit Hold’em
Jun 27: 12:00pm $2000 Omaha HL
Jun 28: 12:00pm $5000 No Limit Hold’em Short Handed
Jun 29: 12:00pm $2000 No Limit Hold’em
Jun 29: 5:00pm $1000 2-7 Triple Draw (RB’s) (If out of other event)
Jun 30: 12:00pm $1500 No Limit Hold’em
Jul 1: 12:00pm $10,000 Pot Limit Omaha
Jul 2: 12:00pm $1000 No Limit Hold’em (RB’s)
Jul 3: 12:00pm $1000 Limit Hold’em Shootout
Jul 4: 12:00pm $5000 2-7 Single Draw No Limit
Jul 5: DAY OFF
Jul 6: DAY OFF
Jul 7: DAY OFF
Jul 8: $10,000 No Limit Hold’em Main Event All of this is subject to change, with the exception of the fact that if you don’t see a tournament on this list, there is zero chance that I will play it. I will likely skip a few of these even to avoid burn out. In addition to playing the tournaments, I won’t be playing in the cash games unless I change my mind sometime between now and the end of the WSOP. It drains too much energy out of me. I actually played at the Bellagio once this week for 8 hours and I played pretty well. I was very unlucky in triple draw not winning any real pots in that game. When you can’t make a hand in triple draw in a mixed format, it usually means you are destined to have a losing session as the game plays bigger than a game like, 7 Card Stud for example. I ended up losing $95,000 and the game broke after Chan, Tuan and myself played three handed for a while. Other than that I haven’t played poker much at all, and that was my intention anyway as the WSOP will be grueling. On days when I start at 5:00pm, I may decide to golf that day, or, if I play a noon even and am out early I may head to the course for a late round. I’m assuming there will be some big golf matches throughout the WSOP, but I’m so bad now that it would be difficult for me to match up with anyone as they’d have to give me a TON of strokes to make a game even remotely fair. Not only strokes, but since I don’t hit the ball anywhere off the tee, I have to get a tee spot also. Who knows, we shall see… Aside from that, I won’t be drinking during the WSOP. I may entertain guests one or two nights during the month, but aside from that I’ll be home working out, playing pool, hanging with the wife, and mostly just relaxing in between play. I offered, and am still offering anyone a price on me winning a WSOP bracelet this year. I had several offers the first time I posted it, so here is a reminder to those interested: you can lay me 5-1 and I’ll be willing to bet up to $100,000 that I’ll win a bracelet in 2007. For those who don’t know how that works exactly, you’d put up $500 if you lose, and win $100 if I’m unable to win a bracelet. Here’s to a great WSOP in 2007, good luck to all!]]>