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A Phish Tale

Date: Thu, Aug 20, 2009 Tournament Women

I had a great time at my first live Phish show and a most totally awesome time catching up with and hanging out with everyone's favorite globe-trotting, soon to be book author, Dr Pauly.

You can check out my thoughts on the show over on Coventy Music by clicking here.

And this is just my two cents but local journalists should really be ashamed of themselves for this kind of reporting. I know more then a few poker bloggers who write better then this.

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PFRIDAY PHISHY PFORECAST

Date: Thu, Aug 13, 2009 Tournament Women


Sunday 8/16/09:

HIGH 90F LOW 66F

PARTLY CLOUDY
Times of sun and clouds. Highs in the low 90s and lows in the mid 60s.
Chance of rain 20%

Head over to Coventry Music at 4:20 AM for my guide to navigating Saratoga/SPAC during the busy racing season that is August.

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Hey Now I Still have a Blog

Date: Sat, Aug 8, 2009 Tournament Women

Twitter has definitely killed my blogging efforts. I also have played literally no poker in the last two, err actually three weeks except that 2010 WSOP seat freeroll I qualified for. That was held on the day I drove back from a music festival. I had it going on early and then ran my big stack into another big stacks turned flush. Yup online poker morons still call pot size bets on the flop with just flush draws. Its also what I expect for a freeroll.

I pretty much have decided to take the summer off from poker. Mostly because, Ive been busy doing other things. I went to Gathering of the Vibes on a day trip with BFF, Kim, stayed over night at my sister's in Westport CT. Shopped with Kim at Trader Joe's, Stew Leonard's and Whole Foods in Norwalk/Westport on the return. It was a good old girls day with a slumber party at my sister's. My sis had not seen Kim in 31 years since my High School graduation party. Suzie is an awesome gardener and sent Kim home with lots of succulent babies to get started.

I got stung by a wasp last Friday night. That resulted in me jabbing myself in the thigh with an epi-pen and a trip to on-call. They held me for a bit, gave me some prednisone and two prescriptions. I was no worse for wear next day. The prednisone took away all itching, swelling and in the morning I could barely see where I was stung. Amazing!!!

I will be headed into actual work for a two week training class in September as it stands right now. The good news, I will work a normal 5 day week of like 8 to 5:30 instead of my 9.5/9.5/9/8/4 schedule I work now. I have had every Friday off for the months of July and August though.

I have not made it up to the Race Track (Saratoga) yet and probably wont. I have an old running friend in town for the meet. She rent's a house for four weeks and I have to squeeze in a day/afternoon to catch up with her. She owns horse's in partnerships much like Snake5970. Snake's horse's are all on the sidelines right now. Two are recovering from injuries. If he's lucky he may see Hooked on Hope run at the tale end of the Saratoga meet. She is still stabled and training down at Belmont. She's been on the comeback trail since getting injured after her last race in late April.

I will make it up to SPAC however for PHISH 3.0 next Sunday 8/16/09. BFF Kim and I are on the lawn. Nephew Zack (Kim's 24 yr old) and his buddy Nate are in the Balcony and Dr Pauly is coming into town (balcony). WOOT! WOOT! WOOT!. Anyone who knows Pauly, knows its virtually impossible to catch up with him when he's working the WSOP. Since he's pretty much west-coast based when he's not traveling now and his trips to NYS/NYC infrequent its cool that he's literally going to be on my doorstep. Way cooler hanging out and catching up in a relaxing setting where people don't talk about bad beats. Plus its my first live PHISH show ever!! Pauly has already initiated a few of us poker bloggers into the way of the PHISH. The only poker-y thing I may even mention is his upcoming book LOST VEGAS. Much rather talk about music, food, travels etc. The only bummer is Nicky isn't coming on this east coast trip and I haven't seen her since the day we both played the 2007 ladies event.

Just for the record, I am not a complete Phish virgin. I did see the Coventry Simulcast in 2004 with California Rob and wife, Toni. I have seen Trey and Mike play with their own bands as well as them sitting in with Phil Lesh & Friends and I saw Mike join the Dead on bass and segway a few years back. This will be my first time seeing the fab four together. I'm going in with an open mind and no expectations. For years, I didn't get PHISH probably because they weren't the Dead. I finally came to appreciate them for the awesome musicians they are. Compositionally, they are nothing like the Dead so to compare them it isn't even fair. But man they can lay down some mind-bending jams.

I also scored tickets for the Mike Gordon Band at the Bearsville Theater in Woodstock on 09/11/09. The theatre sits like 250 people. Attached to the theatre are two well know restaurants one Chinese the Little Bear and the renowned Bear Cafe. I'm totally psyched for this because Max Creek/BK3, guitarist Scott Murawski is reprising his role on guitar. Max Creek put on a smoking show at Vibes and I'm going to try to catch them Labor Day weekend at CreekEnd, if i can set aside the time to stay on site as required. I can honestly say that as someone who has followed Creek for a really long time, Scott gets better with age. One of the most under-appreciated/rated journeyman guitarists out there. Time permitting, BFF Kim and I will first travel to the Museum at Bethel Woods, site of the actual Woodstock Festival in 1969. It's about an hour away from Woodstock proper. Plus there is also the Kaatskill Kaleidoscope (the world's biggest) in Mount Tremper.

All for now, time to check out the farmer's markets and stands for NYS's best produce. Tomatoes suck this year. Too much rain causing a major fungus. Fortunately I didn't try to grow any myself this year. The Albany area had the rainiest July in history. We had 9.91 inches which was 6.4 inches above normal. It's also been unseasonably cool.

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Midterm WSOP Main Event Fantasy Report

Date: Fri, Jul 10, 2009 Tournament Women

After four day 1's, two day 2's we are finally condensed to one day 3 of the 2009 WSOP Main event. Cant believe the WSOP started over a month and a half ago and we are already to the grand finale event 57.

I participated in Full Tilt Poker's Fantasy Poker Challenge. I'm currently sitting in the top 200 overall. I earned two full tilt hats for two top fifty finishes in individual events, entry into a bunch of free rolls for top 2000 finishes in a bunch of events and by virtue of a 4th place finish over 1000+ in the RAZZ Tourney the other night, I now play for a 2010 WSOP Main Event seat. The top 100 overall finishers plus the top ten in every free roll earn spots in this finale free roll. I was in the top 100 overall for most of the later half of the challenge but fell out when i had zero money finishers in the last donkaments. It also didn't help that in event 56 my picks didn't take and carried over from the prior event. Had they taken I should have been back in the top 100 overall as a lot of my horses cashed including eventual bracelet winner Matt Hawrilenko. I now don't really care about a top 100 finish since i have my spot in that grand finale freeroll already.

So, who did I take as my final horses in the Main Event? I went with players who had solid live poker tourney success in deep fields. In other words, warriors those who know how to survive a grueling multi-day event when its not won on the first second or even third or fourth days:

My line-up of 15:

Vitaly Lunkin on to day three with T135900

Phil Hellmuth on to day three with T142900

Daniel Negreanu - Busto day 1C. Daniel tweeted that he was sick sick sick. I only wanted to pick Negreanu or Ivey wrong horse picked as Ivey is still alive and doing very well. But does Ivey really care about the ME or would he really rather be over in Bobby's Room playing cash and winning outrageous prop bets?

Gus Hanson - Busto Day 2A. Not alot was reported about Gus on his day 1, largely as he was at the feature table and ESPN has the monopoly on reporting over there. Pokernews updates were few and far between.

Huck Seed - Busto 1D not alot said about Huck but I think he was in the area of the feature or secondary feature table hence the lack of updates. Some folks thought he was a shut-out but his bust-out was reported

Justin Bonomo on to day three T22330 - Solid player both online and live. He was my young gun horse. Chosen over the likes of Jimmy Fricke (who is still alive going into day 3) and Shaun Deeb (busto) and Isaac Baron. I've met Jimmy a couple of times at Turning Stone and like him a lot as a player and he's a nice young man. But Jimmy hasn't been running hot like Justin coming into the series, and in the early WSOP events. Shaun was actually an easy bench for the ME. He ran up a huge stack early and then busted on his day 2 when he 5-bet a9os into pocket AA or KK. In a prior post I mentioned the importance in the ability to change gears. Even Joe Hachem on the pokerstars blog mentioned this important ability in a large field live multi day MTT. I'm picking on Shaun here, but over and over again throughout the course of the early events many of the top online players succumbed to their Achilles heel: the inability to back off the aggression factor when they were not getting the best of it and coinflipping with hands they wouldn't fold after being played back at.

Mike Matusow - Busto day 2A. per his tweets he was card dead. I was rooting for you Mikey.

Lee Watkinson - on to day three with T62300. I'm not sure why I picked him, other than a few deep runs over the last couple Main Events. Lee was up over 100k in chips but lost two big hands on day 2B

David Benefield - busto day 1D. He cashed last year had some deep runs in other events. Fellow blogger and friend, LJ works for CardRunners and he looked to be the best of the CardRunners bunch as far as MTT ability and I wanted another young gun. (Sorry LJ you are not an option in Full Tilt's Fantasy Challenge, so I couldn't pick you!!).

Ylon Schwartz Busto day 2B. The one November Niner who had the best 2009 WSOP in the preliminary events. Sadly he is busto. Eastgate, Phillips, Suharto and Kim are still alive from last years original Novemeber 9.

Ivan Demidov - Busto day 1D (see above). He joins Ylon on the rail along with Scott Montgomery and Chino Rheem. I'm not sure if Craig Marquis even played this year

John Turner - Busto day 2A - I picked pearljammer much for the same reason I picked Justin Bonomo. Can play both online and live with success.

Greg Raymer - on to day three with T95900. A great finish in the 40k, plus hes proven his ability to go deep in Main Events more then once!

Eugene Katchalov on to day three with T183800 - He's a Russian, who lives in the US. if you notice a pattern of my picks, I picked Russians, young dudes who can play online and live, and a few former ME champs who have gone deep in other big championship tourneys.

Matt Hawrilenko on to day three with T65700 - Fresh off a bracelet and like Justin was running well coming into the main event. Plus his name sounds Eastern Bloc-ish, Russian.

So 7 of my 15 are alive heading into the meat of the Main Event. 6494 players began with 30k stacks. Total chips in play T194,820,000. total players remaining heading into Day 3 2044. Average stack size t93484. As you can see only two of my players are below average stack. Raymer is average stacked and the others are well above average.

I'm kind of sad we are getting to the end of this years series but at least I will have the TV coverage to look forward to.

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Due to Technical Difficulties.....

Date: Fri, Jun 12, 2009 Tournament Women

I apologize for the lack of updates. First, the cable modem went. I had phone and cable but sporadic Internet signal. At least that's how it all tested out when Time Warner got here. I was off the grid from a Tuesday night to late Saturday afternoon. Then a few days later my computer started turning off on its own and wouldn't restart. Thought it may have been a loose cord so I tried a new one. Still no computer. I had a new power supply put in back in late December but my Dell is 4+ years old and on borrowed time. I did get it going again bought a hard drive and backed everything up.

So now I'm shopping for a new desktop PC. Ive always owned Dell's but frankly their customer service is lacking and your lucky if you get someone in the United States. I'm no stranger to outsourcing as my original job at my company was largely outsourced. I'm thinking about an HP A6700F which is a relatively new model and I can get a discount on one thru my company as HP is a vendor for us. Then again I can also get a discount on a Dell.

I haven't played much online poker in the last three weeks short of 4 DON's and I cashed 4/4. Now of course we are faced with a whole e-check debacle of not being able to get money on and off PokerStars and Full Tilt easily. I've qualified for a few of the freeroll's Full Tilt has as prizes for the Fantasy Poker Challenge. I ran TT into JJ last nite in the first one so I failed to cash. Speaking of the Challenge, my ability to pick horses to finish in the money in the low buy-in NLHE donkaments is nil. I've goose-egged (no fantasy dollars) every NLHE low buy-in event. Yet I have three horses who final tabled the $10k deuce to seven Lowball event (all 15 of my horses actually played the event). Obviously in the NLHE events I've picked Internet young guns who have largely crashed and burned in their attempts to acquire chips early. I figure the big established names are playing the bigger buy-ins and mixing up their game selections.

I have noticed that the young guys who play fearless and ruthless early on and build up big stacks, seem to implode a lot later on. Seems like they just don't no when to change the gears back to medium speed mid-tourney when table conditions change and they run their big stack into someone else's big stack and are out shortly after. I'm sure that is why the big stack on a Day 1 or Day 2 normally isn't the chipleader or around on Day 3. Or they are not paying close attention to the players at their live tables.

Here's best wishes to CK who made it to day two of the $2500 Mixed Stud/Omaha 8 or better tourney. Play resumes at 5PM EST/2PM PST. I'm heading out to play live tonite at my friend Rich's place across the river. Actually make that two rivers, gotta cross the Mohawk and Hudson. I'll be checking up on you girl when I get back in.

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Full Tilt Fantasy Challenge -Events #2-#3

Date: Sun, May 31, 2009 Tournament Women

These were my picks for the 40k high rollers events (wsop#2) and I had to let them ride for the $1500 Limit PLO8 event (wsop #3) because of Internet connectivity issues all day Wednesday thru Saturday afternoon. Fortunately, I had gotten my first picks in before my modem conked out.

As you can see below, I took a mix of hot Internet players and seasoned pros. One thing I don't think is possible is write-in candidates. I just looked for Greg Raymer on the pick list as he has final tabled the 40k event to see if anyone had him. Don't think Team Pokerstars' Fossilman made the FTP powers that be radar. Team Full Tilt and red pros heavily make up the pick list. ******EDIT Greg Raymer found on list!!!!

What makes it hard is you actually have no idea if your picks are playing. Unless they tweet about it. And they then have to make deep runs in donkament size fields. For example, I didn't pick Eric Seidel for the 40k, because he announced on twitter that he wouldn't be playing till next week. I also no one pro is going to Hawaii this week so he's been dry docked. Obviously ZeeJustin (Bonomo) didn't play the Limit PLO8 tourney as he was deep in the 4Ok, but I was able to scrap him in time for event #3 (the stimulus special tourney) when my Internet service returned.



A Player Justin Bonomo $0
A Player Chris Moorman $0
A Player Allen Cunningham $0
A Player Kenny Tran $0
A Player Erick Lindgren $0
B Player Shannon Shorr $0
B Player Daniel Negreanu $0
B Player Tim "Tmay420" West $0
B Player Jeff Madsen $0
B Player Mike Matusow $0
C Player Vivek Rajkumar $0
C Player John Juanda $0
C Player Jimmy "Gobboboy" Fricke $0
C Player Michael Binger $0
C Player Jon "PearlJammed" Turner $0
Total: $0

I look totally brilliant taking Team Bodog's Justin Bonomo, as one of my A-listers. He was playing extremely well heading into the WSOP with a WSOP Circuit win. He's currently playing the final table of the event with 5 left. On the flip side, I don't believe Kenny Tran even showed to play. I also should have taken a harder look at Isaac Haxson as hes hot right now and should be a bracelet contender sometime during the series (think/hope hes on the list for future consideration)

Knowing my luck I win a FT baseball cap, which I already have but there are other fabulous prizes and swag including winners freerolls and top scorers will play for a world series 2010 seat. The games have begun!!

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Anticipation...........2009 WSOP

Date: Sun, May 24, 2009 Tournament Women

The media, photographers and poker players are all rolling into Las Vegas. I followed BJ Nemeth (@BJNemeth on twitter) and his cute doggy Rhapsody on their road trip from Atlanta to Las Vegas via twitter. BJ also posted some great shots of his journey. I can't remember if it was BJ who snapped my photo when I played the Ladies event. I remember Dr Pauly coming over to advise me of the two pros at my table (one I knew the other I did not as she was Swedish) and I remember CC coming over with a photographer to snap my picture for the article Carmen did on me for PokerWorks. I'm just not sure if it was BJ.

Dr Pauly will be splitting his time between Phish tour and the WSOP. He has an all-star line-up tapped to pinch hit for the days he's on tour. He posted pictures on his blog with the faces blotted out. I've identified 5 correctly including one person I hoped would contribute and is. I still have two to go. One I got only because I obviously have spent too much time reading poker blogs over the last 5 years or so and because I have a freaky memory. Not sure if he will introduce them before the start of the series or as they contribute. I spill no secrets as to the identities of these pinch hitters, I'm Italian remember and we have a code of silence, besides that's Dr P's job to do.

Wicked Chops will be covering the series in only the way they can, including their Girls on the Rail series and perhaps a return of the Ginger of the Day? I'm going to copy and paste from a recent WC post the outlets covering the series and add a few they missed and embellish on a few. I've italicized the WC original post so as not to bring the wrath of the entities down on my head. Follow the entities @wickedchops.

WSOP.com: Get chip counts and full tourney reporting. For a link to the full schedule of events go here.

You can follow Jeffrey Pollack (the commish of the wsop) on twitter @JeffreyPollack and wsop live updates @wsopliveupdates and the wsop @wsop.

BluffMagazine.com: Stepped up their online reporting efforts the past year or so, lots of timely and relevant news. Bluff Magazine will be live streaming the final tables of 12 events that will not be televised. You can follow Bluff on twitter @bluffmagazine.

PokerListings.com: Solid coverage, often with a funny take. This is a Canadian site I often forget about but have recently been spending more time at. Hopefully, I'll get Matt to invite me to the next PL Run good challenge!! Follow them on twitter @_pokerlistings_.

Tao of Poker: Dr. Pauly is the hardest working man in poker, and is a staple and fixture of WSOP reporting. The entities are on point there. Dr Pauly is to poker and music coverage what Warren Haynes is to Rock and Roll. Oh and he's got a book coming out too. Follow him on twitter at @taopauly.

Pokerati.com: Good scoops and perspective, tons of updates. Follow them on twitter @Pokerati. Pokerati's Dan Michalski & Dr Pauly team up on the Tao of Pokerati podcasts. The archived podcasts can be found here.

PokerRoad.com: More pro perspective than you'll find anywhere else, plus the awesome Poker Beat and other shows. Joe Sebok, Barry Greenstein, Amanda Leatherman, Scott Huff, John "Shecky" Caldwell, Jimmy Fricke have big things in store for this WSOP. Follow on twitter @pokerroad or join the twibe by clicking here.

ESPN.com: Aside from keeping track of the Fantasy Draft (oh crap that's today), the Poker Edge podcast are worth the price of admission (which is free, but whatever) alone. ESPN360.com will be live streaming twelve final tables not covered by Bluff. Unfortunately my ISP (the evil empire Time Warner) does not allow me ESPN360 access. This year ESPN TV coverage will only be broadcasting 4 events with coverage commencing July 28th. The same number of hours are planned but only the 40k high rollers event, the 10k buy-in Main Event, the Ante Up for Africa Charity tourney and the WSOP Tournament of Champions will be shown live. HORSE/Omaha/Limit events and god forbid Razz don't make for good TV.

Poker Stars Blog: Otis keeps this a great source of news for the site that most of you probably won your WSOP entries from. As of this mornings count, 922 qualifers have qualified thru pokerstars (not counting the multiple packages won by the dudes who are always in that Step 6 you want to play). Typically the Pokerstars blog covers Pokerstars qualifiers.

RawVegas.tv: Wicked Chops is behind Raw Vegas TV: Between our new episodes of The TOKE (our fave from last year below, the Girls of the GLE), plus Daniel Negreanu vlogs (and many, many more pros this year, more on that later), a great video source of WSOP action.

PokerNews.com Not sure who the 2009 line-up includes but my guess is the usual poker bloggers's such as Shamus, Change100, Mean Gene, Haley, and F-Train as well as the other PokerNews staffers. Follow on twitter @pokernews.

Full Tilt's Poker From the Rail: The new kid on the block. AlCantHang's new bill paying gig. Hopefully, the coverage Al has planned here will be similar to the Pokerstars Blog. You'll get a perspective on the Full Tilt qualifiers (251 as of this morning). Al just landed in Vegas a little lighter as he chopped off his hair.

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Annie Duke FTW!!

Date: Sat, May 9, 2009 Tournament Women



I haven't been a religious follower of the show but have kept up on it. If you read my archived post where I commented on the first episode, I stated, Jesse James, Brande, and Annie impressed me the most in that very first episode, other then Joan Rivers who I assumed would be the person to beat. Pretty good call by me, as all of the above mentioned players made the final four.

Love her or hate her Annie has proven herself as a formidable opponent or as Tyra Banks would say... FIERCE. I have been impressed with her work ethic. Joan on the other hand lost any respect I had for her and comes across as a total harpie. She has enraged every poker player with her "your kind, your people" remarks. Kind of reminds me when a police officer in Worcester MA told me they didn't want my people (meaning deadheads) around. Lets see if Annie can uber-TILT Joan tomorrow night during the finale.

Doyle Brunson doesnt mince words about his feelings for Joan Rivers:

Joan Rivers has a concussion. She was getting a drink and the toilet seat fell on her head.

I'll quit tweeting about Joan Rivers when she apoligizes to the poker world

Happy Mothers Day Annie & I hope you found a dress to wear for the finale. Show Joan how heads-up is played!!

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I want to see Dave at Jones Beach!!

Date: Sat, May 9, 2009 Tournament Women



I am alive just been busy with household maintenance and spring cleaning. The ADhD part of me only has time to tweet in 140 characters or less.

I must say Dave is looking rather hot. I see a big void whenever I see the band's picture without the great LeRoi Moore (RIP).

I love the New York Post. Even though it tends to lean right and Obama bash every chance the editors get. I just find it a guilty pleasure. Its kind of like a tabloid newspaper.

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Lazy Sunday

Date: Sun, Apr 19, 2009 Tournament Women

I've been a slacker blogger lately on my home blog. I have had a few posts up over on Coventry on the currently in progress Dead 2009 tour. My write-up of the Friday nights Albany show is posted here.

Snake5970's horse: Hooked on Hope is making her second career start. She is entered in the 9th race running on the grass at Aqeuduct TODAY, Sunday, April 19th, breaking from the 9 hole with Ramon Dominguez up. Post time is 4:55 p.m. She won her first outing at Gulfstream Park last month. Snake5970 is headed down. It looks like the weather will hold and she will run. She's a scratch if the race gets moved to the dirt.

I have been active on twitter though, and find twitter certainly is a fun way to journal ones activities in 140 characters or less. Lots of poker pros are on twitter. I for see a new way tournament reporting is done in the future. Although the news sources will still be the primary source to outline key hands as far as the flop turn river, suit, the amount bet on streets and chip counts (twitter space constraints). It doesn't get much better then Joe Sebok twittering about Shaun Deeb bluffing the shit out of Kevin Saul (BeLoWAbove) at the Bellagio WPT Championships yesterday. Oh and it was fun following along on Phil Hellmuth's drink by drink drunken Thursday night as he randomly tweeted his activities. You can follow Joe on twitter he is Joesebok, Phil Hellmuth is phil_hellmuth. Haven't looked for Deeb or Saul yet but lots of other pros tweet including Annie Duke, Evy Eng, David Williams, Jeff Madsen, Daniel Negrenau, Tiffany Michelle, Andy Bloch, etc.

Even though I don't drink or do any other kind of intoxicants any longer and haven't in 19+ years my body just doesn't recover like it used to. I spent yesterday recovering from my concert and went to bed relatively early. I am still sore and tired today. I cut the bottom of the back of my right foot near the heel slightly sometime Friday night. It's in the middle of an old callous from my running/triathlon days. My foot was sore as hell and I've been monitoring it to make sure I don't get cellulitis which I've had before in my toe. Much better today it is. Ahhhh, the joys of growing old.

I must play some poker today I haven't played since last Sunday. Today there is a big game WSOP qualifier but it actually sold out (first prize should be enough to buy into the Main Event if one so desires). I didn't want to pony up the $325 buy-in since I hadn't been playing all that well up until last weekend when things started turning around. I played live a week ago Thursday night and although no cash I did final table and finish 9th. That set me up to play rather well online last weekend. For some reason, I play much better online after I've played live and actually handled chips.

Happy Spring!! Time to go get the papers, some coffee and figure out if I should shop, play online later, check out the live tourney which is not at my club, head down to the club later tonite to play live or do some combination of all of the above.

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SCOOP Begins Today

Date: Thu, Apr 2, 2009 Tournament Women

Still not sure if I will be playing the NLHE low option rebuy starting at 2:30 PM today. I better make up my mind soon because 16851 are currently registered and the total is climbing. That is going to be one hell of a prize pool. I am registered for the 4:30 PM PLO8 Low option buy-in. And Gods of the Interwebs & Network Connections please don't let me disconnect during said tourney. I have already lost connection with your servers twice this morning and I'm not even playing yet. 95115 people have nothing better to do on a Thursday morning apparently. Oh and I know I mentioned that I will gladly take river beats for a month because I was smiled kindly upon and received Phish tickets for SPAC but can we please please please put that penance on hold for two weeks or so?

The First Annual SCOOP per Pokerstars is:

Spring Championship Of Online Poker (SCOOP) - All Stakes

With 66 tournaments, covering 22 different poker disciplines at three different stakes levels and a combined prize pool guarantee of $30,000,000, we’re bringing you a new poker championship not to be missed. Beginning on April 2, we bring you the Spring Championship Of Online Poker (SCOOP) - All Stakes. With buy-ins as low as $5.50, everyone will have the opportunity to play and the chance to win big cash prizes.

Running until April 12, SCOOP will have two events every day, and each event will consist of three individual tournaments based on different stakes levels: one for low-stakes players, one for medium-stakes players, and one for the high-stakes players. Every tournament has its own guarantee, so even low-stakes players could win big.

Otis, Change100, F-Train and Shamus will be covering the events over on the newly redesigned PokerStars blog along with a few other bloggers

Big congrats to Dr Pauly. It appears that Project Z is now titled so look for his upcoming book release LOST Vegas



And be sure to check out the great music coverage over on Coventry. I did a recap of The Dead's triple crown of shows performed 03/30/09 and Strawberry Shortcake (a ginger) has a post up on Suwannee Music Fest 2009. The Joker being a prankster and all had a great April Fools joke up too . I wasn't one of the lucky ones to get picked for the free tickets to the NYC shows, but you can bet your ass I would have driven to the city for the day/evening. With the Dead and Phish touring this summer and all the summer festivals: Rothbury, Mountain Jam Bonnaroo we will have some kick ass coverage coming your way.

I'm only working 4.5 hours of my normal 9 hour day today and will be signing off at 2pm to play some poker. If I bust out early I can always make a run down to the club to play the Thursday nite tourney I normally can never make. Good luck to all in the SCOOP's!

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One Man Gathers... What another man spills.

Date: Fri, Mar 27, 2009 Tournament Women

The other day I logged into my Bugsy's Club account and noticed the balance I had left of about $210 after winning $225 in a tourney on Easter Sunday 2007 was gone. When I checked my account activity it had been transferred to Bugsy's for an inactive account. I found that odd as I had received no email notification from them advising that a transfer had taken place. I will admit I rarely played on the site. Only a few tourneys since I had cashed back in 2007. I fired off a tactful email that asked where did my money go? Within 24 hours it was back in my account and I didn't have to fire off the threatening email that i would trash them publicly on my blog.

A few hours after receiving said funds an email from a forum notified me that Bugsy's was closing its doors. I figured my newly returned money was now gone for good. But when I logged into Bugsy's they had a nice post that explained the UIGEA had made it difficult to do business for players wanting to remove funds and deposit. I'm not sure why they didn't seek a merger with the growing Cake or Merge networks but all was not lost for my funds. Bugsy's Club had worked it out with Pokerstars that funds would be transferred to a players Pokerstars account. Major Woot Woot Woot for IG!!.. Within 24 hours of receiving the email from Pokerstars to enter my Bugsy's info the money was in my Pokerstars account.

It does appear that PokerSchoolOnline and PokerPages will remain in business. I'm sure most of us who play poker have accessed the PokerPages data base for player results at one time or another. Lately, I find myself utilizing the PokerDB or OPR more often then not, or the Hendon Mob database over on Full Tilt. PSO utilized the same software as Bugsy's Club which was the money site.

If you followed any of my twitter updates, you will know that Snake5970's horse he's a part owner of, won her debut race at Gulfstream Park on Sunday, going off at 20:1 odds from a morning line of 12:1. A $2 win bet paid $44 and change. I know my friend Action Hank is happy as he had her twice in the second daily double which paid a sweet $400 plus. Snake5970 was the only owner present on race day. At the last minute I didn't put any money down. The Italian in me didn't want to put the whammy curse on her. Hooked on Hope came out of the race fine and is shipping north to Aqueduct I believe where she will run against some NY breds on the grass hopefully we'll see her run this summer at Saratoga too.

Today I took the day off to once again try to attempt to score PHiSH tickets this time for my home venue of SPAC. I'm not sure most 48 year old women still do this but music is and always has been a big part of my life. SPAC is a Live Nation venue. Many of my phish phan phfriends had been shut out of Ticket Bastard for the Gorge and Red Rocks etc. California Rob and wife Toni both tried online and by phone and were able to score two out of the three passes they need for each night. I assume the third is for their daughter Lauren, now almost 6 (edited from 5 per her daddy) Ms Lauren accompanied us to the Coventry simulcast in 2004 with earplugs. The SPAC box office, a mere 10-15 minute drive away is closed till May 10th, so I couldn't get tickets by going right to the venue. I opened up one browser kept hitting refresh, wound up in the waiting room and....... waited. I decided a few moments later to open up another browser and literally I was taken right to the order form. My hands were shaking as I typed in my info and by 1:04 PM EST a mere 4 minutes after they went on sale I had a nice $250 charge on my credit card. Today pigs really do fly. As I said to Dr Pauly via email, I'll gladly take a months worth of river beats on PokerStars to watch a middle-aged man in a dress suck on a vacuum hose. I've seen TAB, I've seen Trey & Mike, I've seen Mike Gordon's band but I've never seen all four members of PHiSH together live. This will be my first PHiSH show.

Shortly after Pigs took to the air, I saw a twitter announcement from the good old Grateful Dead calling out for NYC fans. A sweepstakes entry for three surprise shows before they kick off their official tour. They are playing three shows on March 30th in NYC closed to the public. My entry is in with BFF Kim as my guest. I'll know by tomorrow if I earned a pair of tickets to one of the shows.

Now that its Spring and I'll soon be on work-free Fridays I plan to get a little more active. Tweeting with one of the Wicked Chops entities who is also a runner has me reminiscing about my days scampering up and down mountain sides and thru the woods. And I did once mention I would do another marathon sometime on or after my 50th birthday which is 18.5 months away. I've served as race director for more marathons then I've run. If only my knees and hamstring can take it. My Orca wetsuit hangs unused in my closet and is probably all dried out and my Specialized racing road bike suffers the same fate. I'm not even sure I would be confident/comfortable riding clip less pedals again. (edited from petals.... you can tell i spend more time gardening then riding these days)

And what is this crazy rule that the State of New Jersey wanted to ban Brazilian waxes? Obviously some man came up with that one. If I want to have hot wax applied to my nether regions by an Asian woman I barely know and then have it ripped off with muslin while I pull in the other direction its my right!! And yes, I've paid for the privilege.

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Too Busy to blog but you can follow me on twitter

Date: Thu, Mar 19, 2009 Tournament Women

Ive been anti-Face book and My Space but I jumped on the twitter bandwagon. Its perfect for someone who is always doing 3000 things at once.

Go check out my review of Jam Band Max Creek over on Coventry. And of course check out the awesome coverage of PHish's three night run at the mothership in Hampton, Virginia. I just took next Friday off to attempt to get tickets for PHiSH at my home venue of SPAC (Saratoga Performing Arts Center)for their August show date.

I completed an NCAA bracket for Dr Pauly's pub league. I don't know much about college hoop. I do get into the hoopla during March madness. So far I'm 7/8 in todays early games only missing Butler who i picked over LSU. Those 8-9 seed match-ups are tough. I did pick Maryland over overrated California. I listened to some upset videos by college coaches and a couple of them actually picked that one. Dr Pauly has been live blogging today's action over on Tao of Poker.

Just got an email from Snake5970 that his horse Hooked on Hope will finally be making her debut run Sunday in the 3rd at Gulfstream in a Maiden special weights race. Haven't talked to him yet but I'm sure hes going to be flying down to watch her run.

I will be playing an all ladies poker tourney Saturday afternoon. I will probably twitter expletives, chip counts and my bust out. So follow along Saturday afternoon sometime after 1 PM EST. Whats really cool about twitter is a lot of the pros jumped on the bandwagon and twittered updates from Bay101. Annie Duke even was posting updates faster then the WPT update team. Obviously twitter is the next wave of providing action from the tourney floor.

My work computer has been bogging down. Tomorrow I have to head into the office with it and swap it for a new PC. Its an older model and we are all due to be upgraded. When I called the help desk today to mention the noise it was making and that things were freezing he put in a ticket for me and I will get a new one sooner then later.

I've been working 5 days a week plus some overtime. The extra money is nice but I'm tired. Soon summer will be here and I will be back to 4 day weeks. I once again have every Friday off in the months of July and August so far.

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Rock of Love Bus - Cat Fight

Date: Mon, Mar 9, 2009 Tournament Women

Found this clip while amusing myself on my bed rest day off. (in reality I'm really sitting in a chair at my computer in my office, as my bedroom is normally a tech- free zone). I missed last nights episode opting instead for Celebrity Apprentice and following in on LJ's progress over on Pokerstars (go congratulate her).

The clip features the remaining members of the blondetourage vs the brunettes in a food throwing, foul mouthed clip. Just another day in the life for rocker Bret Michaels. Really, dude you cant be serious about making any one of these woman step-mother to your girls or your life companion.

I give kudos to Taya (penthouse playmate) or Mindy for holding back and only finger waving. I might have just aimed a few darts in the direction of the silicon laden blonde Ashley or was it Farrah who is equally as silicon laden. And Brittanya obviously a stripper name)with the front side tramp stamps is scary looking. Farrah was given the walk of shame off the tour bus, leaving Ashley the old blonde remaining



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Watching these women is like watching a NASCAR race on a super-speedway track and waiting for the big crash to come. You know its going to happen.

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