This is not a man with a blog.
My first day in the office of the new year is also the day I hung up my favorite art: a woodblock print of turbulent sea. It's very much in the tradition of The Great Wave Off Kanagawa by Hokusai. In fact, it may be by Hokusai [Amazon link to book of his work], but…
I have seen god in the eyes of live lobster sashimi on my plate at Sushi Taro. It really freaked me out. The Handsome Chef of Sushi Taro, Imamoto, greeted me and explained the day’s specials. “Live lobster” was #1. “It is delicious, but very expensive.” I am undaunted. I ordered it for Sarah and…
Eight years ago today I spoke these words in front of a few friends and family in St. Louis. I promise, to the end of my days, to take care of you; to return the love you've shown me threefold, and to always be your best supporter. I look forward to a life of anticipating…
Sarah and I haven't watched live television since we got a Tivo 4 or 5 years ago. But now, we're not really even tied to what gets broadcast on cable any more. For the last few weeks we've been working our way through Heroes first on iTunes, and then on Netflix. We're not watching actual…
[I love this photo of Vegas I took on the strip outside Planet Hollywood. Rampant overbuilding, sex blatantly for sale, and Salvation Army, all in the same shot. It's the epitome of the city to me. -Shabbir] Though I played a lot of poker, and met a new poker colleague who lives in the Bay…
So my coach and I have settled into a new routine. I play all week, pick a session at random, and then run it through a processor and add my notes and send it off. A day later he sends back notes on my notes and we get on the phone and talk for an…
As we watched the tragedy in Mumbai unfold through the Web (web tv coverage from India was better than CNN or MSNBC on cable), the horror of it all really sank in. When the first accounts came out that guests at the Taj hotel were being herded into rooms, locked in and then ignored, I…
Any denials that "I am not a degenerate gambler" just went out the window. I play sometimes on sportsbook.com, one of the Cake network poker sites that's really a sportsbetting website. I don't sports bet (if you know me at all, you know my aversion to anything else in a casino except poker) but I've…
IntroductionI’ve been playing poker since I was a kid, when my family played 5 card draw in between highly competitive games of Uno. (Cheating was a strategy, and mirrors were employed once to great effect.) However I’ve really only been studying poker since 2005. I’m at that level where if a handful of casual friends…
It happens all the time in Hold’em: you’re in the big blind and some jackass goes to steal your big blind. Stealing blinds is good money in a casino that doesn’t rake until the flop, but to be successful at it you have to be able to play after the flop or pick on a…