Natalie's Been a Busy Beaver

Natalie has been working hard the last week. On the marketing front, she has managed to get me on the front page of PokerPages in a player highlight. She also got an interview set up with PokerListings.com. Somehow, she managed to get a guy who has an embroidery shop opening in two weeks to let her in early and get my new leather jacket (which she got for me) embroidered with the PokerHost logo on it. On the home front, she got her brother Nick in to town to visit, worked with the gardener on a broken valve, and is supervising the workers on some repairs we are having done in the house. We don't have a maid, so if it is dirty - she' the one to clean it up. Not to mention she makes breakfast every morning for me and suprises me sometimes at the Rio with a homemade gourmet meal for the dinner break. Unfortunately, yesterday I had to have her bring it back home since I couldn't make it to the dinner break.

Who knows what else she is up to. I see her on the phone all the time talking to people. She landed my deal with PokerHost and is trying to help guide them in the right direction. She mentioned something the other day about doing an instructional video. All this, and she still manages to sweat me in virtually all of my tournaments. Anyway, I have to quit talking, so she can quit typing for me and get back to work. LOL

Nothing too exciting

So I have had my two cashes at the WSOP and lately I haven't been doing that swift. I'm just trying to make a good effort at it. I busted out of the $2000 No-Limit today and decided to go to the Orleans to cash in a sports bet I made there. Then I got a craving for some Oysters. Nat and I got a couple of drinks and a dozen oysters. Then we went upstairs to the movie theater and watched Bewitched. I wasn't very impressed with it. The only reason why I went to the movie was for Nicole Kidman. It got my mind off of poker for a little while, so it wasn't a total bust.

Tomorrow we are in the Razz event. I don't expect a big turnout... maybe 100-150 players. We'll see how we do. After this event, I might not play at the WSOP again until the main event. I am tempted by a tournament on the 4th of July; but Natalie's brother, Nick, will be in town and I want to do some things with him.

Two cashes so far at the WSOP

As you may know by now, I have managed to cash twice at the WSOP. 25th for the $1500 Pot-Limit Holdem event, and 22nd for the $1000 with rebuys event. I would really like to win a bracelet this year...maybe more than ever. Keep your fingers crossed for me. Anyhow, I have today off and I think I will take Natalie out to the movies. The Palms had a huge sign up advertising that new movie Mr. and Mrs. Smith, so I think we'll watch that one. Maybe I can lay off the popcorn, and Natalie can stay away from the nachos. We have to stay slim and trim for the TV cameras. LOL

Oh, I almost forgot to tell everyone. My uncle, Dal, and cousin, Jim, made it over from Arizona the other day. They got to see me play and played a bit themselves. They also go to eat some of Natalie's great cooking, which is the main reason why I can't have popcorn at the movie theater today. Natalie took some pictures of us and put them up on the site. Here's the link. I hope you enjoy them. I'm going back to my day off and will give everyone another report when I get a chance.

First day at the WSOP

Natalie set the alarm clock for 5:30am and the second for 6:00am... or at least I thought she did. I don't know if we slept through the alarms, or she couldn't figure out how to program the hotel alarm clock. Anyhow, we woke up at 6:30, scrambled to get ourselves put together and the tun of stuff Natalie got yesterday. Then we ran out the door in order to get to LAX in time to make our 8:00am flight. We had a great cab driver. He could have challenged any race car driver and probably won. We still didn't make it in time to check in at the curb. Natalie went in and got us a priority pass and managed to get the security guard to let us in the first class security check line. Then we we got to the gate, we finally got our seat assignments.

It was a quick flight to Vegas, but I lost the valet ticket at some point along the trip. It took awhile to locate our keys, so we left the airport about 10am. We headed straight to the Rio to get my seat assignment. When we got there, Natalie got in line for me and I got me a fruit platter. I was going to sit down and eat my snack, but so many people wanted autographs and I didn't want to turn them down. Natalie got my seat card and we headed to the Denali. I was so hungry I scarfed the whole fruit platter down before we even made it to the house.

The tournment was bound to start late, so we got cleaned up and took it easy for a few minutes at the house before heading back to the Rio. We made it back to the Rio about 12:30pm and the event still hadn't started. That was a good thing, because then I don't feel rushed to get to my table. We started with $1500 in chips, so I don't really want to miss any blinds. Needless to say, I'm out. I had doubled up and got involed in a $5000 pot with a pair of Kings. The other guy had Ace King and hit the ace. Then I had only $700 left. So when I got an Ace Nine, I decided to play. I got called with a pair of Nines and got no help. On to the next event.

MTV Movie Awards

PokerHost had us come out to LA for one of the parties that they have right before the MTV Movie Awards. Natalie and I were hoping to be able to stay and go to the awards show, but we had to be back to Vegas to play in the $1500 No-limit event at the WSOP. Maybe we'll go next year.

We checked in to the Roosevelt Hotel, where we had a cabana room by the pool. We went for a swim and made the channel 11 news. We weren't quite sure why the news crew was out there. The next morning we found out that they were filming an episode of a show called Fight for Fame.

At the party, we had a blast. We met Andy Dick, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Pauly Shore, Mindy Cohn, Diedre Hall and many other starts. Natalie was in absolute HEAVEN. She must have gotten about $5000 dollars worth of stuff from these designers. She got some clothes that look really good on her. I got some neat sunshades that you can change the lenses out of because they are held on to the frame magnetically.

PokerHost set up a poker table at the party and I met lots of my fans. We set up little turbo tournaments where Mihn and I took turns letting people take their shots at knocking us out. I think people really enjoyed it. We gave them t-shirts, cigars, wine and food.. plus a really great time playing some fun poker.