Busy Busy Busy...

I hate making excuses. I feel like I'm making excuses about why I don't post to this blog as much (hardly at all) anymore. You know, the baby, blah blah blah, work has been hectic, blah blah blah, and all that crap.

I can tell you that I've put up some real monster posts on my VegasPokerPro blog, but that doesn't go real well, because even though I can tell you to go sign up for VPP and their forums, and that they give you free gifts just for signing up at a site and playing poker, it still means that I'm not posting here as much.

Here's what I can tell you: Having a 4-month old baby at home is rewarding, challenging, and exhausting all at the same time. I recommend it highly. I can also tell you that for whatever reason, I just can't seem to win at PokerStars anymore.

I played 5/10 LHE for the first time in months this morning and I proceeded to donk (?) off $120 in about 15 minutes. Mind you, this was a game that I crushed as recently as March of this year. Yeah, it was short term, yeah, it's just a session, but after dropping > $500 in very limited play at Stars, I think it's time for a bit of a break from my "home site." That's not to say that the games aren't soft. It's just to say that I've hit my own sort of mental block there, both in LHE and NLHE, so I'm going to finish clearing my bonus money there and take a little break from Stars. I'm making more than enough from other sites to keep me happy. It's just a mental block sort of thing...

With that being said, poker's going well, not great, just well. I go through spurts where I have supreme confidence in my game, and other times when I question whether or not I should even play. At those times, you'll find me basically teaching over at VegasPokerPro.com and their forums. I have my own forum over there, and I do quite a bit of NL and LHE hand analysis and PokerTracker stuff, and by teaching, I learn. It's a strange concept, but it's very true. Remember this: You can't teach what you don't know.

The other thing that has been taking up a lot of my time is Rockstar:Supernova. I'm obsessed with the show (being a rocker myself) and it takes up probably 3-4 hours a week of my previously spent poker time. I spend two hours watching and the other 1-2 hours arguing with my equally obsessed wife about who was good and who sucked.

Gratuitous picture of Alexis:



Isn't she adorable?

I am going to make a concerted effort to do better at posting here. Just remember though, don't be a stranger yourselves. Make sure you add my VPP blog to your bookmarks: http://vegaspokerpro.com/tiburon41 and stop by the forum. It's free, and you get free stuff!

Enjoy all, best of luck at the tables.

Looking Back on the WSOP, Ranting, and Je ne sais quoi...

First of all, thanks to all the great news sources out there that helped bring the WSOP home to us--some better than others (thanks, Pauly)...

So another year is in the books, and another amateur has won the big one--and in the process, Jamie Gold has become the biggest winner in the history of the WSOP.

Here's my question--Will a "name" pro ever win the Main Event again? And what will be the effect of any proposed legislation to ban online poker in the US?

I'm sure you can go read from anyone's blog about the uproar created within the community over the stupid legislation proposed by Jim Goodlatte and Jon Kyl. It's made especially MORE stupid by the fact that Party Gaming and Pokerstars have done everything but crawl into Congress' chambers and beg to be taxed. Apparently, our government doesn't need money.

What's made this laughable escapade even funnier is that Washington State has actually taken a step "forward," and banned online poker, etc on a STATE level. They've extended it to the point that if I lived in Washington State, my WRITING about online gaming would be a crime punishable by massive fines and potentially jail time.

Is it that online gaming is bad, or is it that the current idiocy in charge of our goverment is looking for something, ANYTHING to take the mind of Generation X, Y, Y-not, and whomever else is out there off its ridiculous failures in other arenas? They figure that if they keep us busy fighting the "good fight" against legislation that is nearly impossible to enforce that we'll forget all about the other ways our government has failed us.

Hysterical.

Even funnier that in two news-organization polls, CNBC and the Wall Street Journal discovered that 91% and 85% of respondents FAVOR LEGAL and regulated online gaming. Who are these people representing? Oh, I'm sorry--I thought we were a REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY.

But I digress. Congratulations to Jamie Gold, former Hollywood talent agent who won the ME...even though he'll be remembered likely as the suckout king of '06...through some actually dominating play. It is my hope that he's brought into the poker community's spotlight as more of a Joe Hachem or Greg Raymer-type of champion, and not solely as a Varkonyi/Moneymaker-type (who are thought of either correctly or incorrectly as luckboxes). Congratulations also to the multitude of other new stars born at this year's WSOP.