The Godfather Of Poker Keeps His Friends Close And His Frenemies Closer.Brunson Scoops $800000K

Date: Tue, Nov 27, 2007 Professional Live Tournament

"Don Dolleone, I am honored and grateful that you have invited me to your table on the biggest hand of televised poker history-Luca Brasi

Doyle Brunson took Cirque du Soleil billionaire Guy Laliberté to clown college last night on High Stakes Poker---to say it was a circus, would be an insult to the bearded ladies, mimes and interpretive dancers. A moment of silence was in order as Guy was nearly drawing dead.

Doyle did "that thing with the thing bada bing-all-in" to Guy aka Moe Greene. It was the difference between Doyle's lightning Ad10d Suited verses Laliberté's lightning bug, Ace Rag.

Doyle agreed to run lightning twice and it struck in the same place twice!--- taking down the largest pot of record so far in Season 4---- $818,100; keeping the HIGH in High Stakes Poker. Spot on Texas Dolly.

Eating What You Kill Is So Money but it wasn't personal. They were not playing together, but were not playing against each other either. It was like...the smell of Napalm in the morning---Victory.

When the minimum buy-in was raised to $500,000 a few weeks ago, it was only a matter of when not if a huge heads up pot would be contested. Doyle, however, has been pretty tight-is-right. While Guy was loosey goosey, mixing it up, splashing pots, and making good calls, like calling Jamie Golds bluff the other night.

Doyle raised to $11,200 with Ad-Td, and got called by four players, including Laliberté who held with Ah-5h. The flop comes rainbow Ac-Js-4d. Doyle bets $40,000 and only Laliberté called.

Brunson fires another bullet when the 2d fell on the turn, betting his nut flush draw--$110,000. Any easy fold for Guy. Instead, Laliberté raises! to $310,000; putting Doyle almost all-in. Brunson Makes the right mistake (a 75% favorite to win) and calls. They run it twice. Guy loses both times--Brunson takes down $818,100, keeping the HIGH in High Stakes Poker. Spot on Texas Dolly.

One thing is for sure---Infinite patience brings immediate results to your deep stack game, and Doyle proves this time and time again.

Let there be flop!

Doyle Gets his Freak-onomics On: Hay Mr. Laliberté---When you don't have good cards, somebody else probably does: "You can't lose what you don't put into the pot." Too much respect for money makes you a bad NLH player---does that make Laliberté, one of Forbes rated richest in the world, a good one?

Well in an upcoming (unreleased) Episode (15)---the largest pot in High Stakes Poker History $1.2 Million! --- Guy, Quebec's second largest cultural export after Celine Dion, lets fellow francophone David Benyamine off the hook in a "Let them live" move with top two pair and David shoving all-in on the flop, drawing to the nut flush, a huge dog. In Ben's case--you don't get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate.

Guy Laliberte Guy Laliberté Doyle Brunson High Stakes Poker Game Show Network GSN Forbes Richest David Benyamine

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Random High Stakes donks have been winning dontaskically on GSN

Date: Sat, Nov 24, 2007 Professional Live Tournament

When you're done with square one, pick it up and take it with you. Don't check it on the river!


Calling poker a sport is like calling bald a hair color. Yet this male pattern madness--- an 800 lb gorilla known as Texas No Limit Hold em (a.k.a. NLH)--- is getting a new haircut on High Stakes Poker. The artist formally known as Sammy Farha is the new Mr. Jennifer Tilly!


The new way to lose Holdem ASAP is the old way heated up in a microwave for 15 seconds—Cold pizza also known as The Sammy Farha Show : When both players got hit with the deck---Sammy's AA verses Gold's KK --- Farha had a chance to scalp Jamie--instead he gave him a buzz cut.

It was one of those boil the frog Mr. Science hands that plays itself. Bet. Call. Bet. Call. All-In. Call.


Jamie was practically broadcasting that he had Pocket Kings, And telling him he would call any bet, even an all-in. How Gold has any of his $10 Million left at first seems like an anomaly, but then you realize how great a bluffer he is.

You can't spell Manslaughter without laughter, so when Jamie eats what he kills, he makes sure his neighbors are having a good time. It's not keeping up with the Jonses, but dragging them down to his level. Sammy got spun with a no limit dyslexia, the inability to read the writing on the wall.

It was like Gold was asking Sammy "How many slices do you want your pizza cut, four or six?"--- Sammy's check on the river was like saying "Four, I don't think I can eat six". Mr Pabst Blue Robot, was playing under the influence...of Jamie's trash talk. Farha's failure to value bet ranks right up there with that Poker After Dark Rookie move----If you remember between Jennifer Tilly verses Patrik Antonius.

When playing deep stack poker, you will often find yourself on a draw after the flop. To decide how to play your draw, you should consider the pot odds, implied odds, reverse implied odds, and the chance of a redraw. Unless of course you are Sammy Farha. He is part Hugh Hefner, part Humphry Bogart, part James Bond. All the angry people from Iran and Iraq can make their own country--Irate---but Sammy (Isam) is from Lebanon, He rarely gets upset-, even when he gets played by Gold. Thank you for smoking! You even make that look cool.

On this weeks episode HSP It had that "Loyal Order of The Moose Lodge" -aqua velva stench to it---Playing poker like the Joes, -Karaoke Poker a cheap imtation of -The Phil Helmeuth Starting hand requirements for pre flop raises—AA,KK,AKsuited JJ---lots of banter and very little card playing.

The Randomness Of NLH Is Too Important To Be Left To Chance!

Driving Raisey Daisey--750K Largest Pot in High Stakes Poker History

Date: Tue, Nov 13, 2007 Professional Live Tournament

Episode 11 of High Stakes Poker had a minimum $500K buy in; making ATC-any two cards ok for implied odds.

Yet is was ABC high cards Poker- as Jamie Gold's KK took Patrik Antonius' AJ to school as over $700K was on the table for an all-in confrontation that left Patrik insta calling Gold's Trip Kings. Patrik's nut Broadway straight went from first to worst on the river as Gold filled up.



From Poker Listings:

Patrik Antonius picked up As-Jd and raised to $4,000. Jamie Gold looked down on pocket kings, and re-raised to $14,000. Only Antonius called.

The flop came 3s-Qd-Th. Antonius checked and Gold bet $15,000 with his overpair. The Finnish player called with one overcard and a gut-shot straight draw.

Amazingly, the turn brought the Kh. Gold now had top set, while Antonius had the nuts, an ace-high straight.

Antonius bet $45,000, and Gold moved all-in for $341,500. Antonius immediately called, and thus created the biggest pot in the history of High Stakes Poker: $743,800 was on the table.

"Unbelievable, but what am I going to do, right?" Gold said.

Since it's a cash game, the players are allowed to make deals in situations like these. Gold and Antonius decided to play the river three times, with almost $250,000 at stake on each card.

Being a 3-1 underdog, Gold was hoping to catch at least one lucky card, and when the dealer placed Qh on the table, giving Gold a full house, he shouted "Yes!"

The 2006 World Series of Poker Main Event champion's luck continued when the second river card was dealt. The 3d gave Gold another full house.

"Ha ha! Wow!" was all Gold said this time, while Antonius hardly reacted at all.

Gold was hoping for the case king to come the third time, but instead it was 8s. Antonius' hand finally held up, and he calmly collected a third of the gigantic pot.

High Stakes Poker host AJ Benza summarized the most massive pot ever by saying, "I tell you one thing: Patrik can take a punch. Imagine if that was Phil Hellmuth."

High Stakes Poker GSN No Limit Hodem Poker Patrik Antonius Jamie Gold poker listings

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Get Your BS in Poker ---Pimp My Harvard!

Date: Sun, Nov 11, 2007 Professional Live Tournament

The legends of Poker--- were at the West Point of Capitalism--- HLS Harvard Law School yesterday. Advocating for the Devil’s Advocate---Internet Gambling 101.

If Capitalism is creative destruction, than Destruction as Strategy is Poker 101. The mess is the message---winjuries--- Teaching an old dogma new tricks---Hate the win not the winners. Poker is anything you can get away with!

White angry software-Proud members of the vast poker conspiracy---Internet gambling---it's the white people version of looting. Get rich Click. Digital homeless are looking real homely these days-Home isn’t where their heart is, it’s where their computer is. The Geek fathers are in the house, and bringing it down. No one who is winning says "It's just a game". Online Poker is an experience, a concussion. Suit up!

Some of those sick Heads Up HU, like Tom Dwan (Durr) vs Patrick Antonius (Luigi66369) -- a 375K+ pot over at Full Tilt. deserve honorable mention.

I'll take things that I know for $200K Alex"

While live ABC cash and tournament games are the new golf. Internet Poker is the new dude sport. For the Young and Ruthless, online gamers are The Alpha Dogs of kitch; for sure singing a karaoke Poker, cheap imitations of the original 'Auld Lang Syne' bygone good old days of the smoke filled casinos---One Person To A Hand, No PokerTracker_Office_Stove_Player Notes--It's brick verses clicks. Ok, there is a competitive advantage to playing online-- so what. This kind of poker is less an exploitive, more an optimal one: a more down to earth multi-tabling game theory approach that brings not the math, but the strategy to the game.

While Poker Nation is experiencing the sin in sincere with the the noble experiment of prohibition, The fear of "getting Amazoned" is actually the in to the sane world of globalization, and the world is flat crowd. In the internet green felt jungle---you can be an ostrich and stick your head in the sand, or be a giraffe and stick your neck out.

The truth about internet poker will set you free but first it will piss cities like Vegas and Washigton off. It's the napsterization of poker---cutting the middle man out. Allow me to sound like a thing from another tax bracket--- Less Government. That's Reganomics getting its freakonimics on--The number #1 thing we hate about the game we love- government running interference.Pressing Ctrl-Alt-Delete won't make it go away. Having stand up guys with street cred like Barry Greenstein will. The Bear flew in to D.C. last week with some malignant optimism for the House Judiciary Committee. and Rep. R. Wexler's Bill H.R. 2610---The Skill Games Protection Act.

The don't worry be happy---Kid Poker Egonomics crowd still manage to play, circumventing the law, "living" in Canada. The Power Of New wired Americon Poker. White Angry Software is taking over from the location neutral user-friendly YOUniverse of Hotel @nyware.

Does it matter where you are anymore. We have electronic immigrants, info-workers who bang out software code in Hong Kong and India, and e mail us next day there work. They don't even need a Green Card to do that. Likewise, who cares if poker rooms are physically in Costa Rica or Gibraltar. There is no there there these days.

Don't Dog My Do, Dude!

There’s nothing ethical about the “work ethic” in poker. That rule that everything worthwhile is a result of struggle is not only false. There’s a bit of larceny in getting more for less, a bit of cheating the “system”. You feel like some black market wheeler-dealer., living in the underground economy of CASH. So what. You don’t need powerpoint to explain what you do---you play poker and make money at it.

It's so pre 9/11. The assumption that gambling is bad has outlived its usefulness. Now anyone can do it with complete ease, because it means nothing at all, thanks to the CNN effect of dealing with everywhere and everything at once, including the WPT and WSOP. When you start to read about the evils of NLH, you have to give up only one thing--- reading.

Few things are harder to put up with than a good example--- If it wasn't for pimps, prostitutes, hustlers, gangsters there wouldn't be any No Limit Poker as we know it today. There was a time when one could almost be afraid to call himself a poker player because it meant so much, now it means so little. You are not keeping up with the Joneses. You’re dragging them down to your level on the green felt jungle.


A great many people think they are thinking about poker when they are merely rearranging their bad habits. Part card sharks, part Mother Teresas’ it’s still nice to see the education outreach of legal elite F.O.P. Friend of Poker- Alan Dershowitz ; and, Charlie Nesson , a tweeds-to-riches—Crimson Prof high on silicon crack. The Professor Howard Lederer talked smack about the “Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act”, barring U.S. banks from transferring money to online gaming companies at the GPSTS.

Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

Why Be A Man When You Can Be A Success? Hay Bill Gates, Ronald Reagan, Harry Truman---you get the picture---they all play(ed) poker. The ban on online gambling is the lesser known "I Don't Have A Dream" speech because Poker is so 100% AmeriCAN; the bill is so AmeriCAN'T. More than that, If you want to call yourself American, you have to play NLH, it’s like applying for citizenship in the gambling world. It’s the most spectacular outbreak of mass delirium that we are likely to see in our lifetimes, and it’s happening on the green felt jungles of card rooms and computer screens everywhere.

Gambling is to NLH poker what paint-by-numbers is to art. Let's connect the dots people and overturn this.

Give em hell Harry! Ok heck
Calling poker a sport is like calling bald a hair color. Yet this male pattern madness--- an 800 lb gorilla known as Texas No Limit Hold em (a.k.a. NLH)--- has replaced baseball not only as the national pastime, but also America’s bellybutton.


ESPN’s WSOP (World Series of Poker) High Stakes Poker on GSN and the Travel Channel’s WPT (World Poker Tour) have done for poker what Jamba smoothies did for high fiber diets---it reinvented the often indigestible into an energizing and delicious (peak) experience that can no longer be ignored. This game has juice!



The Conference however, sounds like a bad SNL skit” “all about Da Bears. Ditka” A Super fans dog and pony show, putting the sin back into sincere.


Work is the curse of the drinking classes. Alcoholics go to meetings---Drunks have conferences at Harvard Law School! (ouch)

Let’s gentrify Poker. It is after all, a blur of energies and frequencies. Denial Is Not Just a River In Vegas. We are part of the best entertained and least informed people on the face of the planet, free to change spouses, jobs, careers, neighborhoods; but the way he gamble? Frequently wrong, never in doubt,Players don't resist change. They resist being changed!

“Hate the win, not the Winner!”

If it ain’t awful. It’s lawful and this shutdown of online poker is aweful! It screams “I am allergic to civilization” written in cursive by the digital homeless. It makes me wake up with headaches. It makes us less safe and less free. The Terrorists have won!


Play Poker ---It’s like applying for citizenship in the Gaming World. NLH is a form of patriotism, It is not the last refuge of a scoundrel, but the home of the free and brave declaration of independents who stick to the old school values: life, liberty, and the pursuit of a fast buck. There is no treason, You can not be a traitor to anything, except to yourself.

With a no limit dyslexia, the inability to read the writing on the wall, Hey Washingtonians— It’s just Poker. Today’s poker is not necessarily a lapse of morality, but the result of a great social injustice.


In your “W2” world, you name your own decimal dusted salary. He’s called Vinnie, and Mr. Bag-a-Donuts is always going to be having out of money experiences: because a funny thing happened while homeslice was pressing his nose to the grindstone: His world changed.---his joy-to-stuff ratio got out of balance, his office ennui Dilberted his Type T (Thrill) personality and he turned into an underemployed torpedo.


The casino is the ultimate playground of Free Agency. The plug-and-play low entry point is one that anyone from waitress moms to NASCAR dads can move into and put together a life---or at least a facsimile of a life ---in less than a month.

A criminal is a person with predatory instincts who has not sufficient capital to form a corporation. $100 bucks makes you the corporation. Eating what you kill is so money. Screw Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now: It’s what I talk about in the Power of NEW Americon Poker.

Money can’t buy happiness, but it can buy chips, which is kinda the same thing.
If you want to have “fun” then spin the wheel of fortune, phone a friend, buy a vowel, and get voted off the island. Deal or No Deal. If you want an “experience”, play NLH. It’s not a sport, it’s a concussion! Good NLH poker is not a "A-ha" experience, it is more of a "holy-shit" experience. Most playahs are experience rich and technique poor.


There is an educational component that can make your game better. The gambling world is a kind of gambling kindergarten where millions of bewildered infants are trying to spell "Poker" with the wrong blocks.

Every profession has a blind spot. Players have a mindset, just as lawyers, accountants, bankers, engineers, and scientists have their specific mindsets. He wants to win money, but ends up losing, that’s a problem.Winning also has a way of turning money into problems.

When you lose, you lose money and when you win you lose the value of money.


This kind of poker education is an STD, It makes you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and then you have the urge to pass it on.


The Money You Lose Playing Too Many Hands.
The Money You Lose By Not Taking the Initiative.
The Money You Lose By Not Recognizing You Are Beat.
The Money You Lose Not Taking Other Players Into Consideration.
The Money You Lose Making Incorrect Bets in Big-Bet Poker.
The Money You Lose With Poor Bluffing Habits.
The Money You Lose Making Mechanical Errors.
The Money You Lose Playing Only Half the Pot.
Losing Because You Don't Have an Adequate Bankroll.
Losing Because You Shouldn't Be Playing.
Losing Because You Are Not Properly Educated.
Losing Because You Don't Understand the Math of Poker.
Losing Because You're Playing in too many Tournaments.
Losing Because of Bad Luck
Losing Because You Don't Use Game Selection.
Losing Because You've Forgotten the Goal of Poker--making correct decisions


24 hour casinos-I haven’t got time for that.



If practice makes perfect, and nobody's perfect, then why practice? There is absolutely no substitute in gambling than for a genuine lack of preparation. Poker is different. A poker game is not static. It's a dynamic, living organism that changes from moment to moment. You have to respond to those changes. Survival of the fittest. Not like some CEO salary---you are distinct or extinct every moment to moment when you put your bankroll at risk in an NLH game.

Slots and house games hijack the game into unrelated territory of luck only. It doesn’t seem right, but NLH is as important cognitively as reading a book. Poker Genius is nothing more than constant attention. Everyone is a genius, it’s just that some of us are too stupid to realize it. It is easy to get de-geniused rapidly with all these house games.(pun intended).

Online Holdem’s Looney-tuned tension gets its storyline from the Cartoon Network. In a New York minute, an ACME anvil pancakes you, and then a split second later, you’re expanded - accordion-style - back to normal, like some tempurpedic mattress. It’s a formula of ins and outs, need and speed, aggravation and acceleration.

NLH is a game of domination. It rewards (selective) aggression. Infinite patience, however, brings immediate results to your game. The game has gotten faster, yet the faster you go, the longer it takes to beat the game. You spell success in NLH, hands played. T_I._M_.E_. not T.O.E. Time On Earth.

“First in” Vigorish is Annette_15’s Gibberish.

Date: Mon, Nov 5, 2007 Professional Live Tournament

WSOPE Champion Annette_15 ---Annette Obrestad- will raise ATC (any two cards) be re-raised by players also holding a range of hands from 88 to A 10, and re-shove back over the top of them.

That’s The Power Of New Americon Poker—the language of betting, a slang that rolls up its sleeves, spits in the street, screams strength possibly more than any other and gets the work done. Tells Don’t Tell – People Do with the language of their betting. Poker is a game of partial information and the language of betting "last in" is information dominance.

Making a bet that leaves no option available to the opponent other than to call is asymmetrical warfare. It disarms their can of whoop ass-- deep stack arsenal. Hands which are ok to try and re-steal from a loose aggressive player are frequently horrible hands to call that final bet with. No one likes calling big all-ins with hands like 88 or A-10 regardless of how sure they are that a player is stealing from them.

The Power of New Americon Poker is about being the last in the pot. It too can be an extremely effective way of accumulating chips in spite of your hole cards, not because of them. Lights Out Poker is about playing 'in the dark': betting that your opponents DON'T have the cards rather than that they do.

If Phil Ivey is the Tiger Woods of Poker, than Annette O is Norwegian Wood-"knowing she would" re-raise her own "first in" money with marginal holdings to be the last in the pot. You still can't call, unless you have a monster. Most opponents know nothing more than to fold out of position or out of flop weakness.

Two years after they first invaded America, The Beatles, John Lennon said "We're More Popular Than Jesus". Annette doesn't have to say it--she is already more popular than Chris"Jesus" Ferguson. Can our Lord and Savior be far behind? Like the Ed Sullivan" premiere, the WSOPE is her Ticket to let it ride. Annette is The Fifth Beatle. She's playing Rock Star Poker!

First in vs. last in the pot. First is worst. Last is first.
First in vigorish is Dan Harrington’s concept. Being the first player to bet, "creates" the edge of being the first to put your chips into the middle of a pot. OK.

Sklansky’s old school calls it The Gap Concept ---“you need a better hand to call a raise with than you would need to open the betting yourself”. Sure.

Obrestad's WMD’s--Weapons of Mass Distraction --- Thinking like a marine, it's asymmetrical crazy delicious Davey and Goliath warfare--get em scared and then keep the scare on em. Exponentially scared 10x- win without fighting. Is there a generational gap? Mos Def.

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Lights Out Poker: POW- Pearls Of Wisdom

Date: Thu, Nov 1, 2007 Professional Live Tournament

Ed Reif --- My top three insights from No Limit Holdem today---

Pain For Sale: but too much respect for money makes you a bad NLH player:
"When you lose, you lose money, when you win; you lose the value of money."

Eating What You Kill Is So Money but it's not personal:
"We’re not playing together, but we're not playing against each other either."

Get Your Freak-onomics On When you don' have good cards, somebody else probably does:
"You can't lose what you don't put into the pot."
SHIP IT HOLLA-
I wasn’t born with the math gene, in fact, I am a math atheist: but after "beasting out" both on The Theory Of Poker and The Mathematics of Poker, I realize that poker is less an exploitive strategy, and more an optimal one. Once having said that, we don't need to deify poker math and won't bring its math to the game ---we bring strategy to it, an optimal strategy, independent of opponents actions and tells. Well, sometimes...

Although mathematical formulas are unexploitable with optimal play, Big Stack vs. Short Short Stack, for instance does't give you a mathematical privilege---it's a psychological strategy of smashmouth leverage--- making small(ish) bets and using the threat of future bets to take pots down without actually risking a lot of your own chips, and, more importantly, Big hands for big pots--not committing your big stack with weak small hands.

Making the right mistakes— If you are a good player and you get it in good, bad players are going to draw out on you more than your hands are going to hold up because they are more often than not putting their money in with the worst of it.. Shuffle up and deal with it.

You play a hand only if it has a positive expectation- Probability is the chance of a favorable outcome. Odds are probabilities restated as a ratio of favorable to unfavorable outcomes.

Any Rounder knows--No Lmit Holdem is 100% Skill and 100% luck. Any Flounder can get lucky once 100% of the time. When you treat No Limit Holdem as only a game of chance instead of skill, it is not a law of probability, it's a fact for games with negative expectations: Risk of ruin is 100%!

Cowboy French Fries plays by the book--- He says "Raise more than call…Never Limp, Never Call…Fold more than raise…"

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The Power OF NeW-Americon Poker

Date: Fri, Oct 26, 2007 Professional Live Tournament

An Americon Dreamer’s guide to the Texas Hold’em Universe. The possibility of sudden significant change in your game.

The Secret is about the law of attraction and results—the secret of poker is the complete opposite! And opposites attract!

The way to get better is to think about process not results—focus on better decision making and ignoring short term results. This is extremely hard to do because neurons that wire together fire together--- that's the sex of poker ---Having fun.

You can fake it till you make it, and than it will break you. There’s a fine line between loving holdem and being greedy for it. The fine line we walk between success and self-destruction---the card lust - Lays Potato Chips--- "I bet you can't eat just one", --- You play too many pots!

When you treat No Limit Holdem as a game of chance instead of skill, it is not a law of probability, it's a fact for games with the "F" fun factor-- you may have great expectations , but you will get negative ones. Risk of ruin is 100%!

Losing holdem ASAP is about that default lottery- Ka-ching- mentality of wish fulfillment.It is a portable magic. you rent but never own. Take it to your game and you will leave through the revolving door of poker on the old gambling world of luck's PUSH, verses the New wor(l)d order of NLH's PULL. It's rolling the DICE verses Inviting CHOICE.

Teach Yourself Poker in 10 Years ---Why is everybody in such a rush!

Learn to play poker like the Pros….and go broke. If you play like Gus (Hansen), you will..

Learn to play poker like the Joes….Hay T-Mobile, calling station----You’re playing Rock Star Poker- U2 without Bono, that’s just karaoke, a cheap imitation. Obsolescence is in full bloom-- Caught in the headlights, this is your brain on money. You can, nevertheless, teach an old dogma new tricks.

It's closing time for the karaoke crowd, the old dogs of kitsch. Who actually cares that you can belt out,after three martini's , the loudest My Way: AK all in pre flop is still a drawing hand! --It's still the S.O.S. Same ole ___ bland copies of the original AKA Doyle's by/buy-the-book, Super System; or Sklansky's Theory Of Poker --Don’t bring math to the game, bring strategy.

NLH is too random to be left up to chance. NLH is senseless, common sense and it’s not so common. It’s crazy delicious! The fixed is replaced by an obsession with the here and now, The Power Of New. It's less about how do I play 3 3 in early position and more about how should I think about it.

Old wine in a new bottle is when you play ABC "I bought the book" holdem. "Money runs counterclockwise...You always lose money from the guy on your left and win chips from the guy on your right" or " Seat 9 only value bets here and only bluffs there." There is no there there! in the distilled experience of the veterans.

The quest is not in these Either/or questions:---Am I gonna win this hand or lose it? Is my hand better or worse than my opponents single hand? Will I play it as a stealing hand or a hitting hand? Either/OR even in terms of thinking Pre/Post flop. .This duality of up and down, playing optimally verses exploitively -- There is no right and wrong, good and bad. odds and even. Zero Sum Minus Some, is too pedestrian, too run-of-the-mill. It's more than mixing it up and shifting gears---the mess is the message.

You can't predict the flop, but you can invent it--Plan around commitment.

It’s hard to think probability. Info is Lost In Translation when we simplify yet the simpliest concepts in NLH are the most powerful. There are no best starting hands, only situations. Things should be made as simple as possible, but not any simpler. Think of it as a continuum, "AND". An infinite number of third options. This concept needs to be in your game.

Doing two things at the same time that apparently negate each other. NLH is 100% skill and 100% luck. The language of "and" is the language of NLH. The language of "and" is the language of passive and active, optimystical and materialistic, hard and soft. There’s a yang for every yin. It’s Fuzzy logic, and everything is a matter of degree and the player is fuzzy wuzzy to the nth degree. Get a clear, sharp view of the fuzzy.

E= MC2 Equity= More Chips Squared.

Equity—think in terms of what is my hypothetical share in this pot, not just “Am I ahead or behind”.

Commitment- Plan around it. Where is your equity coming from: Making the best hand by hitting or stealing it post flop.—to win the pot, but every hand has the potential for both. Most battles are won before they are fought. Consider the range of hands as well as the playah's temperament.

NLH revolves around the threat of an all in bet. It should be considered around ever decision. This may come at you. Play differently in big pots...Isolate hands that have a high showdown value, and overlimp in hands that have a positive and implied odds to invite more people into the pot.

1. The New Americon Dreamers--- This is the story of how Playah's are verbing that noun ---NLH, and dreaming with eyes wide open.

We are all in the right place at the right time. It’s the playah who want to put themselves in the game, who are prepared to be lucky, that get the prize. How do you position yourself to get lucky? Walk into a casino. Become one of the New Americon Dreamers.— An AmeriCAN not an American’t .
Dare to be naïve

If practice makes perfect, and nobody's perfect, then why practice? There is absolutely no substitute in NLH than for a genuine lack of preparation.. A NLH session is one long conversation run by C students, and Cash is their report card. NLH is like high school with money. This is a world beyond the classroom besides getting the correct answer. The important thing, nevertheless, is not to be in the know, but to be in the Power of NEW . The glass ain’t half empty, it ain’t half full, the glass is not big enough. Shuffle up and deal with it.

All uncertainty is holdem’s special invitatiion to enter the mystery of the ever-new---the POWER of NEW.

What everyone knows about poker is not worth knowing. Challenge the Myths of One-Liner NLH Formulas-Think long think wrong. Dump it or pump it. Suited and booted. Tight is right. All in to Win. No set, no bet. Go big or go home. Raise more than call and fold more than raise.

In my last post, I wrote The Power Of Paradoxical Thinking in High Stakes Poker This draws water from that wellspring--

Procrastinate now! Infinite patience does brings immediate results to your game. When was the last time you said "I think I'll go to the casino and fold 80% of my hands!"

In Poker the future is already here. It’s just not yet evenly distributed yet. You see, Poker is really a game of mistakes. The rules of Americon Poker are designed to achieve an important balance: an unskilled player(usually the guy with the three c’s condo, cash and cars) must be able to win just enough hands to keep him at the table losing his money. The Americon just look for opportunities, not guarantees. He is ready to make the right mistakes.

Come sideways at an issue instead of head-Short stacked you can't even pay attention-wo cares "deliberate inattention is required. The only baggage you bring is all that you cannot leave behind.
It's Not the Big that Eat the Small...It's the Fast that Eat the Slow

Don’t ca-cheng unless you ca-ch’i--Physical energy capacity is measured in terms of quantity---low to high; and emotional capacity in quality ---negative to positive.. It’s energy, not time, that's your street cred, your table image.

Managing energy, not time, is the fundamental currency of NLH. You can be motivated to play holdem that's good. You can be inspired to play holdem, that's great. Good, however, is the enemy of great.

Remember what Michael said in Godfather 1, "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer"---Stay motivated, but recognize those moments of inspiration.

Everyone is a genius, it’s just that some of us are too stupid to realize it. It is easy to get de-geniused rapidly with a attitude of " I just want to have fun". Walking into a game because you "feel" lucky is like walking into a sports bar because you "feel" athletic.

Denial just ain’t a river in Vegas. If you want to plug some of the leaks in your game, as Einstein said, "You can't alter a condition with the same mind set that created it in the first place" ---The power of NEW is the power of thinking without thinking, and knowing without knowing.

You don't get a second chance to make a first impression--Logic should yield to instinct. Rebuys are just rearranging the deck chairs of the titanic. The iceberg image, unless you realize something else is keeping the guy afloat who just took all your money , you are destined to become a human hangover, obscene and heard scareaming "I'm king of the world! The Emperor's new t-shirt says" But they were suited"...Check please.

There's a wonderful phrase in Gladwell's Blink--"the power of thin slicing"--which says that as human beings we are capable of making sense of situations based on the thinnest slice of experience. That's what I mean about the difference between having fun and "having an experience"---pure house games like black jack and slots, verses poker. NLH is not just a "sport", it's a concussion. The difference between lightning and a lightning bug.

It might be even easier change our religion than our style of gambling-play . Yet we Americans have put the ODD into God: Laziness has become the religion of the 21st Century gambler. Vene, Vidi, Velcro: "I came, I saw, I stuck around until I ran out of money...When the going gets weird the weird don't turn pro, they join the cult of the amateur. The casino is their water cooler. There's plenty of kool-aid for all to drink. Totemic discussion of the previous hand's bad beat are like sand at the beach--and Life's a bitch. This is poker not confession.

The truth will set you free but first it will piss you off

The secret of staying young is lying about your age---You must bluff to win big in poker. In other words---- Your fake plants will die if you don't pretend to water them---the language of betting is a slang that rolls up its sleeve and spits inthe street and gets the work done:NLH rewards aggression., selective aggression. Pick your spots. Bluffing works best heads up. Turn raises, or bets are scarier to most opponents than flop bets, and here are three: The Stone Cold Bluff---no pair, no draw. The Representing Bluff---betting scare cards, flushes and straights. The Semi-Bluff---drawing to the nuts, flush, straight or overcards.

Bluffing has more to do with an overall strategy than one specific hand. It makes the range of hands you can win with larger. There is a betting-to-bluffing ratio. The percentage that you’re bluffing should be proportional to the amount you’re value betting. For example, if you’re playing pot-limit and you’re betting the pot you should be bluffing about half the time that you’re value betting.

I want to show you my cards…I am a nobody in poker, but you have to be a somebody before you can truly be a nobody. I may not be in “who’s who” but I can tell you what’s what when it comes to Texas Hold em. .

2. The N Word—Normal--- Losing holdem A.S.A.P. is about being Normal.

Money can’t buy happiness, but it can buy chips, which is kinda the same thing.

Money is the most powerful and pervasive secular force on the planet.

Americon don't want to be normal. Normal playah's spend their lives avoiding tense situation, Americon-Poker Playahs spend their lives getting into them. NLH---It takes a minute to learn and a life time to master. It’s hours of utter boredom coupled and then a few moments of sheer terror. Your baseline trance of our everyday All-American life as you know it is over. You’re an Americon-Playah The clock reads “Now” There is no yes in yesterday. Honor your beginning.
Few things are harder to put up with than a good example

It is the ideal aim of the unsuccessful and unimaginative. Ask your mother. "Normal"is the setting on her washing machine---the spin cycle ad nauseum. Normal isn't a virtue. It denotes a lack of poker courage. It’s a vast, conforming suburb of the soul. You don’t want to be normal. Normal people spend their lives avoiding tense situation, Poker Playahs spend their lives getting into them.

The whole upshot of NLH is that it be a perpetual crisis that you create...
3. The harder you work the luckier you get! Quit work, play poker, sleep 'till noon

“L.U.C.K. is the acronym for laboring under correct knowledge, Follow your own inner GPS system. Knowledge won’t t be power, applied knowledge will.”

When you change the way you look at things the things you look at change. Blink!

If you want to be a gambler, you have to play poker. It’s like applying for citizenship in the Gaming World, and no limit Poker is a form of patriotism.

Going for broke is more poetic than calculating the odds. And crunching numbers.

When you play no limit hold em, you feel dangerous. It’s intoxicating. When you say those three words, “I’m all in” its chess plus luck. We really don't have any Poker enemies.It's just that some of our best friends are trying to kill us. Crazy Horse never played Holdem because the meaning of a poker life, is not to-- get one, the meaning is quite simple--don't die. Today, therefore: is a good day for someone else to die. There's a saying: if it doesn't kill you it will make you stronger---but it will kill you. Playing poker like the Joes says, "I am going to live through this even if it kills me."

The Urban Monk Ed Reif's Wise and Otherwise sayings:

When you have the best hand, make your opponent pay.
Rounders verses Flounders: “Do the math Asshole”, you went to NYU, or yea, NYU, Now You're Unemployed". Seat 9 says in his best Tony G.

"Why be difficult when, with a bit of effort, I could be impossible? I think, looking down on American Airlines, Pocket Rockets, Bullets,---Aces, larger than life , greater than the rocky mountain highs. I got 50 outs! I am so glad, I am not in some $3-$6 game, where if I don’t trip up--- hit 3Aces on the flop, no set no bet, I will be hunted down and stalked to the end by some river rat, and get those aces cracked with a baby flush or a low ball straight.

He says in some Franglish accent, “I’m all in”, baiting me, like I’m some fish.

I’m a Poker genius. Poker is situational--You wanna be heads up with AA.These cards will play themselves.. I like living in the now, and this was truly a gift, the “present” moment of my two hole cards---the best starting hand-----I couldn’t get any closer to “seeing” all of my opponents cards. I put him on Ace King, Big Slick ---so what- I have him dominated. QQ,Queens, KK, Kings, JJ’s Jacks, Big Deal. Let’s get it on.

I look down on my stack- Money is a Poker life’s report card and we keep score with it. I got chips! I’m about to graduate. I was feeling too good about this table, how weak they were, to leave, and besides I was winning.

Cool Hand French Fry, , must be thinking” Sometimes nothing is a good hand”. I was almost sure he would get nothing for something---his whole stack would be mine.

Without hesitation, I say, “I call!” and that’s “Mr Asshole to you” I quip “Show some respect”. The table laughs. I push in $400+. Hay I know it sounds like chicken feed, but hay $400 dollars is $400+ U.S. dollars. Oh yea, but these are just chips. It ain’t money until you cash out. Allow me to correct myself,----I push in 400+ chips.

Americon’s are not greedy, Americon’s are not noble. We don’t “need” anything. We just want to win, and you know how dangerous people like we are. Even if you kill us, with a bad beat, we’ll come back from the dead. Just like Jesus. We’re beachcomber Jesus’. We’ll just rebuy, but not with F You Money. . When it's a question of money, everybody is of the same religion, so excuse the Jesus metaphor---- We’re Americon’s—we play to win at all times---that’s why we never lost a war, and don’t give me that Vietnam stuff, that was a “police action,” a conflict, not a war. Poker is war, in disguise as “Fun” and “entertainment”. Americon/s have a real edge over players who want to have “fun”. The object of this war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his. Thinking like an old soldier … get em scared and then keep the scare on em. --Exponentially scared.And open a can of whoop ass.

It’s the The Lincoln Myth, going from outhouse to white house... log cabin, be a Paul Bunyan of poker, chopping wood, carrying water ---a legendary giant lumberjack of a playah! intertwined with America's entrepreneurial ---Free Agency--- spirit of itself of “anyone can play”. Poker is democratic; everybody on the table is going to win hands. That’s just the way it is. Maybe this is the one. Americon says, “L.U.C.K. is the acronym for laboring under correct knowledge, Follow your own inner GPS system. Knowledge won’t t be power, applied knowledge will.” Even a caveman or an 18 year old viking from Norway---Annette Obrestad---can do it.

I was gambling my car payment on that table, and the insanity of that risk filled me with a kind of awe inspiring rush. The next best thing to playing poker and wining is playing poker and losing. The $400+ bucks on the table is all I got. Until the end of the week. Who cares. I’ ve had AA cracked before. Well, I wouldn’t call it gambling, poker is a game of skill, of making correct decisions. Here are the cliff notes: I win the pot.

The flop is dirty---low ball 472 rainbow, nothing special. Things just got worse for Seat 9 , when I spiked an Ace on the turn for trips. He was drawing dead. Oh yea, he had AK, Big Slick. I had him at Hello.

Instant gratification takes too long.

Inspiration is wonderful when it happens, but you must develop an approach for the rest of the time... The wait is simply too long.
4 The Urban Monk Ed Reif's Wise and Otherwise sayings:

"The ultimate goal is to separate the fish from the sea, leaving it exposed to good play."

A year ago, I was Buddha Boy, in the touchy feely world of high vibrational foods in Las Vegan, slamming shots of wheatgrass and drinking Jamba juice smoothies, and doing yoga , starbucks and meditation--- hybrid cars and oxygen bars. and now I find myself in a quasi Las Vegas haze here at the Commerce casino in Los Angeles---- with Red Bull, Coffee but no neon ---abandoning my early to bed, early to rise---it turned me from wise to otherwise---an alternative lifestyle of all nighters, strip clubs, and hanging out with guys from Newport Beach, Ca’ Witness protection program, truck drivers, smokers drinkers, boozers,gamblers, womanizers, Guys that go on vacation and come back on probation. They weren’t growing up to become president, or even vice president, just Vice. In fact growing up was optional, growing old however wasn’t. Poker players are made from the same mold, but some of them were moldier than others. . Some of these guys looked pretty weathered.

The seductive game of poker is the licence of the brothel combined with the silence of the cloister. It’s not so much a card game as a game that happens to be played with cards, Poker is a game, essentially about psychology, and betting, and betting behavior is at the center of gravity of the game., and coping with probability and uncertainty. Tricks and magic will not work over time. Superior play will.

It is a game about solving imperfect information, partial information.

Poker is a game of partial information.

It is not static like black Jack, with a rock solid never yielding tried and true strategy. You have to switch it up. You are, above all else, playing against other people, and conditions change. You can be lucky on one hand 90% of the time, but over all, this is a game of skill. But there is a luck factor in hold em. Poker equals chess plus luck.

Poker is a game of imperfect in formation where players make inferences and investments under uncertainty. Bluffing a bad player makes you a bad player. Don’t go overboard.

5. The Urban Monk Ed Reif's Wise and Otherwise sayings: In Poker the future is already here. It’s just not yet evenly distributed yet. .

Eventually everybody wins a big pot. A broken clock is right twice--- That’s the seduction. I am a teacher by trade. A meager salary has led most of us to the game. I think poker is not necessarily a lapse of morality, but the result of a great social injustice. Formal education made me a salary, Self-education in the poker world, was making me a small fortune. Yet, the luck factor makes Holdem an equal opportunity offender.


Life is too long to play bad cards. Life is too short to not play poker. What’s the meaning of a poker life? Get one, Perhaps, The meaning of a poker life is don’t die, Right?

If you need money how come you play poker ---Poker Courage---doing it with heart, like Gus

In the United States of Unconscious living, I have finally found a higher life, ---poker. It is courage. It is art. It is skill. It’s like the classic western Showdown, high noon, mono et mono.

Counting chips is like a hooker who looks at her watch

We have on demand, anytime, anywhere poker. In L.A. Most beginner’s play every hand- no foldem holdem. It’s an obscenity pornographic-not so cheap and very nasty. If you are not folding 80% of your hands, there’s a problem. You are having fun instead of making money. The right way to play and almost the right way to play poker is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug. Welcome to the user friendly universe of Americon. It is lightning in a bottle. You can only quit once, so quit playing every frigin hand. This bolt that’s about to come into your life is both striking and alarming, and it will leave the entire landscape changed-as you will find out, irrevocably. Pretty flops become ugly real quick. If you can’t fold AK,(in a limit game) when you flop nada, you’re headed for a bad beat.

6.The Urban Monk Ed Reif's Wise and Otherwise sayings:

Poker is a great second job and a lousy first job.

Luck never gives; it only lends. I knew this, but I was on this winning streak. It was time to move up to the higher limits. What’s
the difference, nothing. It’s the same game, only the chips are different colors. Really. The players aren’t any better. In fact. Some of them are worse.

If you bet on a suited connectors , that's gambling. If you bet you can make 69 “Dinner for 2”, flop, that's entertainment. If you bet AA,KK,QQ will win , that's business.Playing on the button, that’s “My office” because position is so important, and on the button I get the feel for the hole cards others are laying. When I play hold em, with bad players at a 6 12, 4,8 table I am like a good therapist I heal everybody of all their daydreams and delusions. I felt a little bit uncertain though about leveling up.

I just look for opportunities, not guarantees. Helmuth’s starting hands AA,KK,QQ,AK Suited is tight solid. But tight isn't always right.

Good Poker is an acquirement, like music, a foreign language, paralysis. No body is born with it. Poker is never finished only abandoned. Poker is much less important than life, but what a poor life without it.It is like one long game. I got that fling when living in the sun of California for years. It felt like one long day, no seasons, just one long day.

Poker players, the really good ones, and prostitutes have the same thing in common; they are both trying to screw you out of your money and send you home with a smile on your face. The cardroom is the silence of the cloister with the license of the brothel. It provides the loophole for the whore to climb into your head. There is something so wrong about that, Yet it felt so right.

I started out as a chess player Poker players often mistakenly talk about strategy as if it were some kind of chess match. But in chess, you have just two opponents, each with identical resources, and with luck playing a minimal role. Poker is not chess, not checkers, not tiddly winks. Well, maybe it is chess plus luck, yea , that’s what it is Chess plus luck. The real world is much more like a poker game, with multiple players trying to make the best of whatever hand you are dealt them.It’s not what you have. It’s what you do with what you have.

7. Hold em is to stud what chess is to checkers.
After an all- nighter binge of Hold em, a bad beat trip Jacks cracked by a baby flush. I’m pissed and this is just the situation to get mad at: I buy a cup of coffee and they gave me a receipt for the coffee. I don't need a receipt for the coffee I give you money and you give me the coffee end of transaction. “We don't need to bring ink and paper into this.” I can't imagine a scenario that I would have to prove that I bought a coffee . I wouldn’t even act like I didn't buy this coffee I've got the documentation right here... It's going in my file at home. ...Under "C”. Killing all these trees for paper.” I know I’m on tilt, because no “Barista” deserves such treatment.

“Hay, no worries” dude”. He’s very understanding, as he goes back to reading his haiku poetry..
So I’m a dude. Great. I’m still thinking about poker. Clear your head. Get to the gym.Staying health is the slow way to die. Happy 120th birthday. Yea so what. That’s me. I have to exercise in the morning before my brain figures out what I'm doing.
My buns of steel could set off an airport metal detector, but I’d be satisfied with buns of cinnamon. In Las Vegas, Exercise is the yuppie version of bulimia.

8. I payed for my Poker Lessons:

--- Playing too many starting hands: in a standard $4-$8 NL game you should have a 20-30% view of the flop percentage. This means folding AJ in first position, KT in middle position and QT in late position.
--- "Pump it or dump it": fold or bet/raise (if the odds are with you). You should avoid calling unless you have a good reason (like trapping an opponent).
--- Respect most big bets and raises: this is particularly true on the turn and river as most players do not bluff.
---From Zero Hero---Firm hand selection =patience and patience almost equals power. Infinite patience brings immediate results to your game. It's not a matter of can or cannot, it's a matter of will or will not, every hand is a choice, choose wisely.
---Poker Courage--- to bet/raise/call down (aggressive with draws or perceived best hands) It’s always your next move raise or fold! Foldophobic. “Good poker is patience; great poker is courageNot vulnerable to go on tilt. If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance! You can’t control what goes on the outside, only the inside, and the guy that gets you angry conquers you. No Snowflake ever felt responsible for an avalanche.

---Good table selection (very important in all poker games)Discipline (the ability to wait for a good hand and not chase.).
9. Send the Bread to Fred---

American gambling is a kind of a great sort of dipstick to where our culture is or isn’t.
And Poker not baseball has replaced the national pastime. Dream---to become the Dian Fossey of the poker jungle. to become one of “them”, and then study “their” behavior from the inside. These McMonkey’s, Vinnie Bag-a-donuts, Joe Six Pack. John Q And bust them. Anyway. My Second Coming: When Bad things happen to good cards--getting sucked out on--when weak players make good mistakes, and call your KK with pocket 99, the german Virgin" Nein,Nein!" and hit trips on the flop to bust you---
Hate the win, not the winner---

because he will eventually give you back all his chips +yours! Exploit their affliction, the “house money effect” of "I'm playing with their money" He becomes his own personified tipping point, where his small mistakes actually effect his own game until he calls when he should fold, or he gets out drawn and becomes his own critical mass, and busts out.

Winning by playing badly is a way of turning money into problems. ---Don't make the "Wrong" mistake. by playing badly, but don't forget to always make mistakes-If you are not prepared to be wrong, you will never come up with anything original.

The law of large numbers says---With a large enough sample, any outrageous thing is likely to happen. And odd coincidences are likely to happen. The one chance in a million will undoubtely occur. The Naked aggression player is free balling, going commando, ----with a no limit dyslexia, the inability to read the writing on the wall. Once again, Poker rewards selective aggression.

In the United States of Unconscious Poker Playing, I wanted to be different and think in poker”, using my head to complete the puzzle of incomplete information, but also my somatic body to "feel" the cards. Always make new mistakes because you are not your mistakes. Doing things right the first time is an obsenity. It's not about learning but unlearningf rom them. It's subtraction, not addition.

There is a sophisticated class of professional Poker players with an interesting philosophy which is closely related to a deep understanding of basic probability. The rules of Poker are designed to achieve an important balance: an unskilled player must be able to win just enough hands to keep him at the table losing his money.

10. Troubleshooting? Every time I do that trouble comes shooting back at me.

Limit is a science, you shoot at the target, no limit is an art, it shoots back at you. The cardinal sin in poker, worse than playing the cards, worse even than figuring your odds correctly, is becoming emotionally involved.

You have to have your bad beats---Nobody is stronger; nobody is weaker than someone who came back. There is nothing you can throw at such a person because whatever you could do is less than what has already been done to him Yet, it's hard to make a comeback when you haven't been anywhere. I may not be in “who’s who” but I can tell you what’s what when it comes to Texas Hold em. The Urban Monk’s bad beat Flops a full house beaten by a high one.Ace high flush beaten by a nut straight flush, four of a kind deuces never loses, beaten by four of a kind 5’s! It’s not a user friendly flop, a user illusionary, because

Bad players can get lucky 100% of the time on one hand...
but it is an illusion, because they will always have worse cards then you, and will draw out, even if there is one card in the deck they need, and get it. For these types of absolute novice, everything is even money. The idea is to defeat that concept, making, for instance, balanced decisions---correlating the size of the pot to the strength of your hand.

There is considerable risk involved in not betting when one has the best hand. Slow play is no play.

We are always telling ourselves it’s going to rain, well ask Seminole Indian Chief Billy Cyprus (The Everglade is our mother"-yet he manages to build the mother of all casinos on it!) why the rain dance works—he’ll tell you I never stop dancing!
Some flashbacks--- from "F"-LA, where I took up "Second-hand" smoking at the Hard Rock Cafe...
Fat-It's not just for chicks anymore--I like playing against fat guys---They're such good losers. and dude. you are so not pregnant!

Seat one’s Aqua Velva Stench was getting to me. He had just beat me with 7 2 bluff and showed it, like licking the toilet seat at a Yankee Stadium restroom, I hate when these jerkaholics play garbage, and bust you with a premium hand like AJ suited.

I have two things on my wish list right now, hosting an episode of the O”reilly Factor naked, so the FCC can fine that windbag, and winning this hand.

Sick and tired of your one horse town poker game, big fish in small pond is swimming in the river…Queer Eyes for the straight flush…. Chasing straights and flushes go home on dirty greyhound buses. This guy was a chick magnet---300 pounds of fun, unemployed and graduate of the local community college. But played like a rock star,, a solid player. How could I budge him, all this inertia, I could set him off. I had to find his weakness and explot it with some table talk.

The flop comes 6 8 10 rainbow. Seat three has pocket sixes. Kiss your soul goodbye and say hello to your new best friend, Satan. The Devil’s hand. If you are an atheists, you don’t have anyone to thank when things go right---So I hear quite often,” thank be to the Poker gods”.

Speak Spanish, this is Los Angeles! Where you from I ask him, he say’s right here.. I say, I hate L.A.. if you need a fake ID -or an Abortion. Whore, then go east young man, east Harlem, east LA, East Norwick. the newest and hottest foot soldier on the front lines of the average Joe, Vinnie Bag-a-donuts, Joe Six Pack takeover of modern culture, turning us into a kind of crack addicted McMonkey. crack addiction in Larry Flint’s Gardena Hustler casino, and the Bike in Bell, and the mother of all poker rooms, the Commerce Casino in Commerce CA. I t's hard to make a comeback when you haven't been anywhere. I felt the need for speed, the Las Vegas trip I had never taken seriously.

Collateral damage of Poker. The guy from the trailer park, with the “Look at my Striped shirt” on, who wins a stack a chips. Acts like an opiate, distracts you from real issues like “Do you rent or own?”, Car Payments, credit card debt and the like

There was something so absolutely dirty about it all. I was nostalgic in my head-, bringing me back to a place I had never been before, the rat pack,listening to Sinatra’s New York New York or Luck Me A Lady Tonight, smoking cigarettes, drinking scotch, pinching waitresses asses and tip her a stick ($100) in her cleavage. , Calling all women dames. Or better yet banging hookers. Misogyny on tap. You know, old school, before the days of sexual harassment lawsuits and stuff like that. No judgment. A Man’s world. In the poker game of life women are the rake. Right or wrong, I had come to realize that, life is wasted on the living. I could face a crisis, it’s the day-to-day living that was killing me. . Setting too good an example was a kind of obscenity, not the neon, not the poker. I felt good about what I was doing.

People come to the casino for two reasons, to get away from or to move towards something. I still couldn’t figure out which one it was.

Yet, it was like I had my ipod, two radio stations and a pornographic movie going on at the same time. But I couldn’t stop, because I was winning. Every day. I knew I was winning because I came to the table to make money, not have fun. Having fun is playing King 4 suited; having fun is playing all your blinds no matter what two cards you hold. Having fun is staying in with AK, when the flop, 70% of your hand , come nothing and you go to the river. If I see an unhappy face at the table, scratching at the table, his bad beat story, I know for a fact, will start with these words, “But they were suited”. I want to get a T shirt, that sells that. Only people who play poker for fun would get it! (understand it). Getting nothing for something, that’s playing with “their” money, playing for fun. If you want to have fun, have sex, jump out of an airplane. Poker is hard work.

Nobody is always a winner, so I had to make a decision, play again or take a break. Pretty hands turn into pretty ugly hands but Poker is mostly not about cards, it’s about people. Out To launch-Fat America-The Weigh We Were. The four types of poker players I met.at Commerce Casino. In full-ring games (8-10 players)....

Shit-We're Toast--- A Toast to the Real Men of Genius

Calling Station. It was as if this clown prince of poker was wearing a t-shirt that said “Take My Money”, because after he lost a big pot he said the magic words that get many nebies in trouble, “But they were suited”. That should be the equivalent of “Take MY Money”. I’m gonna open a t- shirt shop and print that one up----But They Were Suited”.

Playing well is a happy accident. Follow the Poker plaha Guide and you will become accident prone.I gave up drinking but somehow it’s the same feeling- You go out for a night of drinking and you don't know where your going to end up the next dayYou could be a hero or a zero. Drinking and drugs are a bet with your mind! So is poker. I need a break. I’m going to the gym for a workout. Rule Number ##: Never Play poker when you are <