Fiction from the Poker Blogosphere: Pauly of Tao of Poker's...

Truckin - March 2007, Vol. 6, Issue 3

1. Slices by Paul McGuire
I'd spent most of my time partying hard doing blow with C-List actors while avoiding the daylight and roaming the city late at night during one of the most rowdy benders I'd undertaken in the past few years. We were vampires, sleeping during the days and partying every night until sunrise. I would not crash until 6 AM and by the time I'd wake up, everyone on the East Cast was leaving work for the day... More

2. The Next Block by Joe Speaker
The crowd was a stew of unwashed urchins. My kind of people: musicians, writers and hustlers. Feast or famine in this town; the middle class doesn't pass the velvet rope, or lead the newscasts. Sally from Chatsworth is home making fucking meatloaf... More

3. Killing Independent George by Wil Wheaton
We played on for another few levels, the clatter of shuffling chips frequently interrupted by the TD announcing the exit of famous actor after famous actor. I will admit that it felt good to be outlasting them., though I will also admit that it was the most Pyhrric of Pyhrric victories: where it really counts in Hollywood, they all have their names on call sheets, while I have mine on a blog... More

4. Everything You Need to Know About Driving in LA by Change100
In order to become a true L.A. driving warrior, you will sometimes have to be the asshole. This doesn't mean you're a bad person -- it only contributes to your overall savviness. By understanding that this attitude is just an unfortunately necessary part of your own survival, inner peace will come much easier... More

5. 15 Seconds by Dan Keston
With minimal experience and a microscopic budget, I found a way to make a movie about kids and guns that was not only interesting enough to be one of sixteen selections out of five-thousand entries at the most prestigious festival in the world, but also the topic of a story on NPR and the lovechild of the largest gun lobby in Washington... More

6. Three Strikes and You're In by Dr. Tim Lavalli
It was then that I realized I may have made a mistake trying to have a 'break-up' dinner here. Becca's gastronomic creations always put me at ease but ease was not the best place for easily ending a relationship. Besides the vaunted 'do it in public break-up' was a cowardly way out... More

Truckin' is a literary blog-zine that is published every month. Here's the latest issue that features submissions from some of your favorite poker bloggers.

1. Big Day Out by Paul McGuire
We did not have a hotel room in Surfer's Paradise with fewer than 18 hours before we were scheduled to board a flight to Coolangota Airport on Australia's Gold Coast. We were caught up with work in Melbourne and waited to the last minute to book a room... More

2. A.M. by Nick Cantwell
Disoriented at first, then a realization. Lisa. No Liz. Yeah that's it - Liz. She's naked. Sound asleep... More

3. My Clog by Gracie Logan
When my film's start time drew near, my clogs and I said good-bye to the sunny afternoon. We purchased one ticket (my clogs travel free) and entered the inviting cool darkness that is the lobby of the Music Box Theatre... More

4. Emilio Estevez Is Born by BTreotch
Joe Estevez was in a pickle, he knew Janet was in the midst of some invisible shrimp tickle. Scooping her into his arms, Joe got an erection and asked where the ladies room was... More

5. Title by May B. Yesno
On the inside boiled and roiled the heathenish and brutal trail of mangled flesh, from every direction, tokens of small bottles of human - and sometimes, from the early days, animals - blood... More

If you like these stories, then your friends about your favorites!

If we were cops, we'd pull over every car with dancing bear stickers and test them for pot. Seriously, is there anything dumber than advertising that you're a hemp-addled patchouli-stinking jam-band-loving hippie to an officer of the law? Wait, we might have just found it. Show up to our home game channelling His Royal Laakness and we'd be prone to assume you got your buy-in for the game by robbing a liquor store on your way over. Rating: Assumptive

We wonder at times if the days of the wild frontiersman are over, and then we visit Saskatoon and we're no longer in any doubt. We like guys like this at the poker table. After finally emerging from the broken frost of an Sasketchawanian thaw and trudging through forest and over dale to civilization, he's not about to lay down King-Ten to a preflop raise. Rating: Dan Haggertyish

In case you were curious, that's not a beer, it's a Fresca. Yes, a Fresca is refreshing, and yes it is remotely possible that the effervescence contained therein could shock one into hipsteresque surprise, but we're not entirely unconvinced he's just play-acting. Or Mormon. Doesn't matter. Rating: Straight-Edge

Hey! It's Fred Durst! Oh, wait a minute... This is the guy in your Tuesday night bar game that makes the baby end of a straight with a two-gapper on the flop, doesn't bet you off your draw, and threatens to kick your ass all over the parking lot on your outdraw, only after he's done with his Bud Light. When exactly did Brian Urlacher become synonymous with the suburban thug-lite anyway? Just take comfort in knowing that next time you get your oil changed, it'll be this dipshit holding your dipstick. Rating: Testosteriffic

We may be a little rough on the hoi polloi at times, but at least we don't anthropomorphisize our pets. Yes yes, "Dogs Playing Poker." We get it. Can we play now, or do you need another couple of minutes to set up your Ruby-Kills-Oswald hamster diorama? Rating: Someone Call PETA

We can't decide if this girl is really really hot, or trying way too hard to be cute. Right there would be our problem. We'd be staring at her with that sort of miasmatic cloud of uncertainty in our eyes as she teetered towards hot every time she furrowed her brow when peering at her hole cards, and went over to the other end as she kept on suggesting we throw the Modest Mouse album in after we finally get done listening to Zeppelin. You know, we should just avoid girls who are going to keep us on tilt all night and stick to dating strippers like Grampa told us. Rating: Never Ignore A Korean War Vet On His Deathbed

With all respect and inspiration due from The Black Table...

Thanks to Flickr users babybloo, candrie, phlippy22, stephen.wright, uhammer28 and vezollin for the pictures.

Las Vegas Vegas Rates Your Home Game I
Las Vegas Vegas Rates Your Home Game II

Jalopnik - Auto Blog

Fark

Tao of Poker

Neverwinpoker - Poker Forums / News

The Pokercoach, Robert Ciaffone - author of our Poker Rules Section

Allin Magazine

Poker Player Newspaper

Gambling 911

Poquer-Red

Check out Grubby's post on yesterday's protests (with video!).
If you missed out on BG's post on the Top Ten Best and Worst of the Poker Boom or Clark's post on Paris Hilton's Bentley be sure to check these items out.

Bill beat me to this but... the fine folks at all N poker that provided some of the swag for the blogger tournament are now offering up their business for sale via an eBay auction to raise the captial to play in the World Series of Poker this year.

From the press release:
All N Poker, the national line of poker clothing for poker fans, has been listed for sale on eBay. For the first time an entire clothing line can be purchased with the minimum bid starting at $25,000. Company co-founder Ryan "Goldenboy" Maloney will play in the 2005 World Series of Poker with proceeds from the auction.

It will be much more than 35,000 by the time I actually draw for the winner; but, I'm giving away all the ad impressions I've racked up over at blogshares. Details of the contest are here.

I don't blog much about my play unless I have a great example on hand to illustrate a particular concept or point I'm trying to make. The reason is simple, I am a very, very boring (and bored) player. I play ABC poker most of the time (the exception being when I've got a great read on someone, or I'm in a nice, loose-passive game). This type of play works well for me. An example, I was in a loose-aggresive $6-12 game over at Binion's a couple of nights ago and played for about 5 hours. In that time I played 4 hands (to the river) and won 3 of them. The one big loss was when I was trapped by a better set of trips. This comes to 4 hours 45 minutes of total bordom and 15 minutes of adrelinine. I'm not sure my play is that interesting; and besides, there are better players, better writers and better players and writers who blog about this, read them. If I get a ton of comments, of course, I'll give more room on this blog to my play; but, I think it's a better read as is. Another example is the 25/NL game where I now spend alot of time. I sit there for half an hour doing next to nothing and hoping to reel in (all-in that is) a nice fish and this happens often enough to keep me coming back. The last victim was an agressive player with me on the button with Kc 10c the flop came Jc Ac 4h, the guy bets out 2BB, I raise it to 4BB and he flat calls. Fourth Street brings a rag and he checks giving me the river for free. The river is a wonderful looking 4c. I wait about 10 seconds and move all-in, he calls and thats a healthy $22 and change for me. This is likely to be the only play post I'll put in for a while, unless readers really think fishing stories are that interesting.

One last item related to Vegas is the "political poker chip" that is Yucca Mountain. Flipchip is an expert on this subject so I'll hand the commentary off to him.
If the Poker Prof says I'm an expert on anything then I guess I should feel honored, after all, he is the Prof. Being an expert on the storage of high-level nuclear waste is not something I will usually discuss; but, I did work within that discipline for a number of years. I will probably not live long enough to witness the problems associated with nuclear waste storage since my health was severly damaged from my tenure and, unfortunately, since I don't have any of the exact diseases or health problems on the "cold war worker" approved list I have received no compensation to aid me in getting proper medical care, I am on my own. I listened to President Bush's speech here in Las Vegas today and found it disappointing he supports continued development of the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste storage facility located in Nevada. He said he agreed to listen to the knowledgeable and qualified people in making his decision and that is exactly what he did. Now, I am wondering how many of these experts live here in Las Vegas, downwind of Yucca Mountain? One? None? Remember, that one little traffic accident may make an area uninhabitable by human life for more than a quarter of a million years. Bush said that Kerry is making the Yucca Mountain issue a "political poker chip." You have to love his metaphors, if he were in Georgia I guess it would be a "political peach" or "political potato" for Idaho. At least it was "political poker chip" and not "political slot token." Maybe it would have been more fitting if he had said "glow-in-the-dark political poker chip." Do I really believe his expert advisors are making decisions based on good science? I believed them once. When they said there was no health dangers and even if there was we would receive health care and compensation for our efforts.

Cheers and check out the Ad Impression Giveaway,

PokerProf.

Anyone know what this is about? I found a brief news article, but neither side was talking to the press. This reeks of an ill conceived publicity stunt by Full Tilt Poker, of course, I could be wrong.

UPDATE: I just "got it" when I saw an ad for this on SpikeTV network. Basically I no longer consider it ill conceived, but a master stroke! You can't run ads for an on-line poker site anymore but you can run ads for your [insert cause here] (in this case Poker in the Olympics) site that is backed by your on line poker site. Genius! Sheer bloody genius!

I have spent the past couple of days working on a not-for-profit website called Art Quotient. In a nutshell this is a publication (and virtual publication) that promotes student artists and is dedicated to keeping art education in our schools. While uploading some of the 70+ pieces (I'm the artprof webmaster) I ran across a couple that are totally Vegas and thought I’d use them as a segue between the Poker Blog and the Not-For-Profit web site. These students are amazing artists! Check out the art galleries at Art Quotient for all the student submissions and if you have a web site and want to help promote the arts Art Quotient just isn’t a bad place to start.

The artwork to the right includes one of the more Vegas applicable pieces. It clearly shows the influence of being a kid growing up in Las Vegas. I included one of my personal favorites from a student whose work is reminiscent of Norman Rockwell. You'll find tons of cool artwork a lot from Las Vegas students. During your next break from the tables check it out.

Okay, I became very unhappy with the bland looking links on this humble blog, so I put together a little critter to make the links more interesting. There are some bugs (such as not picking up the fat guy's link, because he is using an external page) nevermind, fixed this one :). In theory, if there is a back-link to this blog it will show the little and if we're in the text of the blog the little tip of the hat (or tack, depending on how you look at it and how much you've had to drink) will show up. If one of these critters should be showing up and doesn't please e-mail me. I'd like to get all the bugs worked out. Comments, feedback and suggestions are very welcome.