Jen Versus the Wii

There are many things Jen and I discuss regarding our coming baby. We hope it has Jen's positive outlook on life, and 'always happy' persona. We hope it gets my 'street smarts' for lack of a better word. We hope it acquires Jen's sense of adventure, and we hope it gets my.......coordination.

Jen played for the second or third time on the Wii tonight, playing Wii tennis and getting her skill score up to around 500. Then.....tragedy struck. As she wound up for a big topspin backhand, she swung with all her might....and hit it solidly. And, by "it" I mean the 1950's vintage atomic drinking glass we have (one of a set that was once eight. I think we have 5 left). Throwing the glass violently against the wall some 10 feet away.
Let this be a lesson to you all. And, now - a note from Venus Williams Leo and her possibly broken finger.


Back into Blog obscurity for me!

Poker World, WTF???

Yeah, I never post, but this one has brought me out of the woodwork. When you type all day for a living, the last thing you want to do is type recreationally.

The last couple days have been particularly disturbing to me in the poker world surrounding a couple young and maybe not all that stable players.

Dutch Boyd, and Brandi Hawbaker have been ‘holding court’ on the deck outside the Fontana room, and on various chat forums.

Brandi has posted some really wild stuff on 2+2, and caused the one of the bigger insta-stirs on that forum in recent memory. WARNING - This is a ridiculously long thread, even though its only a day old.

The post

She accuses Captain Tom of trying to take advantage of her physically, taking her bankroll, and a lot of other stuff. She has been on camera on various poker media sites a lot over the last couple months, and since she is attractive she gets the coverage. It’s really difficult to tell if she is a naïve woman learning the hard way, or a young woman trying to use her charms to their fullest extent. Either way, she is clearly going through a tough time in her life, and doing so very publicly.

It goes without saying that if the Capt Tom stuff is true (Tom has not responded – there could be – and likely is – an entirely different perspective out there), he is out of line, and the woman has a big time point.

Dutch Boyd has been very publicly showing off his ‘flaws’ in the tournament and on the deck outside the Fontana room over the last couple days. He has a bracelet, and got a lot of play from ESPN in 2003 because of his ‘crew’, but watching his conduct is really hard to take.

We at PokerNews.com won’t cover any of this stuff, and I hope the rest of the poker media will follow suit. Part of the reason these folks act out is because they get the coverage. In the old days, stuff like this was handled away from the bright lights, mostly because there were no bright lights. But in the new, hyper-competitive world of the poker media, every flaw comes to light…and its often not very pretty.

Let’s let these folks work out their stuff on their own, and figure out who they are. Both are still very young, and giving them the spotlight doesn’t do Poker or them any good.

Quality of Life

Jen and I have spent the last four days in a small town on the coast of Spain called Cadaquez. It was originally supposed to be my first actual days off in two years, but I still haven’t found anyone who can fill in for me with respect to creating the news stories at PokerNews, so I had to work two or three hours a day, but we definitely made the most of the rest of those days.

We rented a scooter, and drove all up and down Costa Brava. A place that particularly fascinated me was a place called Cap de Creus. It’s the point of land near where the Atlantic, and Mediterranean meet, so the winds can get to 140 mph, and are often in the 20-30 mph range. This place is essentially untouched, and you have about a 140 degree view where you literally cannot see one sign of civilization. Just like it was about, oh, 1,000 years ago. There is a lighthouse at the top of the cape, and, oddly enough, an old, beat up Indian restaurant (at least a restaurant that serves Indian food). The view is unique among all the places I have been in my life, and I’m not sure I wanted to leave.

In Cadaquez, you hear people talk about quality of life…..a lot, and you realize they have it in spades. Sure, there aren’t many places with high speed internet, and there are maybe 10 or 12 restaurants in the whole town. But, the people here lead full, rich lives. Lives that simply aren’t possible in Los Angeles. They manage to make a living, have kids, laugh, and have a roof over their head….all in one of the most beautiful places on Earth.

The words ‘quality of life’ are dirty words to some people I know, and I think my visit here has prompted me to seek more of it. I hope I can hold to this, and the desire doesn’t disappear when the views do. See you all soon.

Viva Espana!!

I landed yesterday in Barcelona for the EPT tournament here. Jen and I had a big question facing us, which was the host hotel was a ridiculous $500/night (for a Hilton??....I don't think so. I wouldn't spend $500/nt for Paris Hilton. Nicky....maybe. But, I digress), and so we needed to sort out some accomodation. The travel queen came up big, and landed us an apartment right on the water for about $130 a night.



This place is right in the sweet part of town, actually in a park (parca Diagonal Mar), and 5 minutes from the biggest shopping food place in town (also 5 minutes from the host hotel).

the Wifi was broken at first, which sapped my soul for day one, but I am up, and in business now for day two. The apartment is awesome, with Hardwood floors and a great view. There is a court right below us for this fascinating game....1/2 paddle tennis, 1/2 raquetball. There is no out of bounds, and the back wall on each side is in play, so the defensive play is to play a lob off the back wall. Can you tell I was partially raised in a tennis family?



I really want to give it a shot, and my Spanish is probably just good enough, but alas, the 35 pounds working in the poker world has 'given' me probably tells me I should stay on the sideline.

The tournament starts tomorrow, and I am off to the beach. See you soon.

Mansion and FSN do know how to throw a party

I'm not much of a party person. I normally stand against the wall, and talk to the three people in the room I know.

But, last Thursday I went to a party a Tao in the Venetian that was one of the better parties I had been to in a long time.

Instead of the requisite three, there were about 30 people I knew, and a lot of the Poker World was there to see a 'presentation' of the Mansion Poker Dome show.

I'm not really into nightclubs, but Tao was really, really impressive. The decor was fantastic, and they had dancers, and one person I was particulary fascinated.

The girl in the tub



I don't know her name....don't want to know, actually. But it was nice to 'hang' with her for a few hours. As my friend Peter from Liverpool might say "Mmmm - More Vinegar, Please"

It was nice to see a bunch of people I knew, and chat them all up. I spent nearly the entire night talking with people, and while normally I can only be charming for about 90 minutes, tops - I managed to chat people up all night.

People I saw, and chatted with included Gavin Smith, who was about to get on a redeye, and miss by one card going wire to wire at the circuit event, Kristy Gazes, Robert Williamson III, Matt Savage, and a cast of thousands. It was nice to finally meet Mike Friedman in person, after speaking to him every day for a year, and never meeting face to face (one of the few downsides of the internet).

There was poker. We had a shootout format that had one pro at each person's table. Chip Jett was the pro at my table, and he wound up taking Kelly Flynn down heads up. I got my money in good twice, and couldn't get there. Jen's uncle essentially busted me. Man, did I want a piece of Chip heads up, but it wasn't meant to be.

All in all, a fun time was had, and man....did FSN and Mansion throw the dough around. My lovely parting gift was an iPod Shuffle.



Schecky chats up Kristy Gazes, and Karen Williamson

Schecky the talking head

G4 is a national cable network devoted to video games. They have a show called 'Attack of the show'. I was on there yesterday with current World Poker Tour player of the year Gavin Smith, and Shawn Shiekian discussing online poker. This show was LIVE, and I had never done 100% live TV before, so it was interesting.

I was really happy with how it went, and I felt I represented the online game well. Those TV things are always so interesting. They move so fast, and everyone is so stressed out. The poor producer was sweating it until the very end.

Here's the funny part. I was 'live' via Satellite....but I was 10 feet away from the host. Ahh....the magic of television.

Big party at Tao tonight to launch the poker dome. I will try to blog about that a bit in the next day or so.

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code: 9272996

Why do I have a blog? For nights like this…

Yeah, it was time to go to the Playboy Mansion on Saturday, and I must say, it was a good time. But, I think the quote of the night comes from Erick Lindgren, who as we boarded the shuttle back to our cars, said ‘This was so much better in my mind.’. Not that it wasn’t a pleasure to be there – it absolutely was. Cheers to Brian & Chris of Poker Royalty for making a young boy from Redondo Beach’s dreams come true.

The event was sponsored by PokerHost, and was a benefit for the Urban Health Institute. A lot of top pros were there, and every one saddled up for the fastest structured poker tournament that wasn’t played at Binion’s 2 minutes before the main event started. We started with 3,000 chips, the blinds were 100/200. I started on the button, and by the time it was my Big Blind, the blinds were 400/800. Nice.

The mansion is really cool. Its hard to believe places like this exist in Los Angeles. Just the sheer acreage boggles the mind. Reportedly, if you stay here, you can order anything you want…..at any time….and I quote

“Hi, I would like a Ribeye Steak with Baked Potato, and a bottle of Gentleman Jim…Yes, I know its 7:14 am” - Jonathan Gray.

The grounds are immaculate, and there is more bling in the driveway than most people will earn 10% of in their entire lives. We didn’t get to go inside the mansion, or go down and see the monkeys, but it was still top notch.

A lot of money was raised for a good cause, and there were a lot of cool people there…though to be fair, the next trust fund kid I see wearing a sportcoat and a baseball hat sideways gets punched in the face.

But, I digress.

People I saw at the thing – Don Cheadle (who won the event), Anthony Anderson, Tara Reid, Mekhi Phifer, Shannon Elizabeth, Ted Forrest, David Williams, Daniel Negreanu, Grinder & Lily, Gavin ‘life of any party’ Smith, Oliver Hudson, Hoyt Corkins, Amir Vahedi, Josh Arieh, Johnny World, David Oppenheimer, and more.

Apparently, there was nakidness in the grotto pool, but long after I departed. I got to hang with Pauly, and met people like CJ, and Spaceman, and Al Can’t Hang, who couldn’t have been more drunk….10 minutes into the party.

This would have been something Jen would have absolutely loved. But, I was forced to fly solo, and play a very poor wingman for a marketing director of an online poker site.

Oh, the poker – yes. Let me give you my hand history for the entire night. 9c4c FOLD, 10 2 – Fold, 4d 6d - fold (that was the mistake), J 2 – FOLD, Q7 consider….FOLD, 2 4, FOLD. K 8 Off suit (Big Blind) – Call All In. Goodnight, now. GG Schecky.