Saturday afternoon I had plans to meet Gary and Marie for lunch/dinner at the Peppermill. The Peppermill is not a casino, it’s a restaurant in the front – great food, lots of it, nice atmosphere – and a super ‘love’ rendezvous spot in the bar in the back. Sure there are machines in the bar for the patrons seated at the bar, what bar doesn’t have them? But the rest of the place is cozy, suggesting romance and more – on the spot. You have to see it to truly appreciate it. A group of us, namely Carmen Bates, Pete Popovich, self, and a few variables used to meet there one night a week after work during our Mirage days. We didn’t meet there for love, we met there to drink. But back to Saturday. Continue reading Sunday, February 19, 2006 →

I could have sworn it wasn’t four days ago – that I was last here I mean. A lot of noise is going on in the poker world right now because of The Big Game – the game where Andy Beal takes on The Corporation, one player at a time. He took their buy-in this time and is basically waiting to see if they want to continue. Continue reading Saturday, February 18, 2006 →

I can’t help but drift through the memory channel every now and then when I suddenly remember someone that used to frequent the poker rooms. The funny part of it is that normally when someone pops into my thoughts, even if I haven’t seen them in a few years, I will see them within the next week or two. Don’t ask. I don’t know how or why it works that way. I wish I could track it, record it, plan it, and then I could utilize it in being able to avoid problems or being able to increase productivity and other variables in life. For some reason, last week, Mark Spirit just flashed through my mind. He was a regular at The Mirage high limit 7 stud games for years, and played at Bellagio the first few years we were open. He just drifted off or maybe he had a plan and gave up poker…yeah…right! Now I’m wondering if he will appear somewhere in the near future. Nope, not making book on it. Just wondering. Continue reading Monday, February 13, 2006 →

In a few hours I’ll be heading over to Greg and Amy’s place for the Saturday night card festival. Thankfully, our card game will continue – even if it is intermittently – and we will all stay in contact and see each other instead of drifting off into different life patterns that keep us apart. We may play: Pan, Big Deuce, Poker…and maybe try a bit of Badugi. Continue reading Saturday, February 11, 2006 →

Confessions of a Cubis Gold junkie. I’m addicted. If I don’t get to play for a day or two, I start going into withdrawal and feeling as if I’m deprived of oxygen. There are two different levels – Arcade and Puzzle. In Arcade, one must remove as many cubes as possible in a given time. In Puzzle, one must remove all of the ‘star cubes’ in a given time. There are six different games with increasingly difficult levels and the time becomes shorter as the difficulty increases. ‘Puzzle’ has me hooked. When I have a funky day and too much to do and can’t figure out where to start, I ignore life and play Cubis. There…I feel better! Should I play Cubis or should I write or should I play Cubis…oh hell, I’d better write! Continue reading Thursday, February 9, 2006 →

Amazing! Spammers are now requesting a ‘read receipt’. There must be some sick kind of irony to whole thing, they are a disgusting, sickening breed of virus spreading, bad, repetitive news that clogs everyone’s ‘in box’ and they want us to let them know we got their slop. If I could send a ‘BONK’ back with it, I’d be more than happy to acknowledge. Continue reading Tuesday, February 7, 2006 →

Andy Beal is back in Texas. The Big Game is over for now. I have the feeling that some of the players may strike out individually and go to Texas to play him, on their own. Just a feeling…but if you read Daniel’s blog, you’ll understand why I can see that happening. Continue reading Andy Beal goes home and I go hiking →

I made a trip into Wynn on Friday. It was my second visit to the place, I cruised in on Wednesday night, after work with Wayne, hoping to find Andy Beal and Craig Singer for a hello hug. They were nowhere on Wednesday. Thursday found me being too tired to fade the traffic and life to get there before work so I made it a point to visit again on Friday as I had the day off. The game was on. I got to say hello and get a hug from Andy and Craig. Other ‘hellos’ included Ted Forrest, David Oppenheimer, Michael Craig, Amy Calistri, and a few words with Marco Traniello. Continue reading Hitting the Wynn to look for Andy Beal and Craig Singer →

The only news I’ve heard on the match between Andy Beal and Todd Brunson is that the Flop, on the first hand, was 7-7-7. Appropriate. And that Todd made quad 10’s at one point and the pot was big, apparently Andy had a hand with enough value to be there to the River. They were Playing $50K-100K limit. Today the game was supposed to crank at 10:30 AM – Jennifer Harman and Andy. Continue reading Thursday, February 02, 2006 →