A couple weeks ago I took my brother to Vegas because he just finally turned 21, and has been playing internet poker for awhile but always misses out on the fun Vegas trips I've taken. We stayed at Bellagio mid week so it was pretty dead, but we managed to have fun anyway. I realized I really prefer Vegas to be a total zoo like when I was there for NBA all star weekend, but then I also want to leave after like 2 of 3 days of that. I can stay for longer if I manage to live sane, not drink, sleep plenty, etc. – this was not one of those trips.

We played a bunch of live poker, my brother ran terribly in live 15/30 games (he plays the same stakes online, so basically in a game 10x as tough) and I got stuck huge every day at 100/200 and got even almost every time! We went to B&B for an awesome dinner, though I was disappointed with my entree, their steak for one (had the steak for two before which was awesome), but I go there for the pasta course and desserts anyway. Private Joker and his GF came and we found some yummy wine to drink and food to share. I introduced them to bombolones (sp?) and caramel and sea salt gelato for dessert, and we gambled on the Amaro tasting flight, which was well worth the gamble.

Other than that we did a bunch of poker playing, a bit of touristy stuff like walking through a few casinos I normally just tear through trying to get somewhere else, and ate some more moderate meals, I had a nice relaxing time and I think my brother enjoyed it too, though he is convinced he can't beat live poker, I still think his sample size is useless but he should have such a huge edge, and he plays great every time I've played with him. Meh.

We flew home from Vegas and I had just one day before Courtney and I ran off to LA for MLK weekend, to see many poker friends and mostly to drink Daver's wine at a huge wine tasting dinner Dave and Mike L. scheduled at AOC Wine Bar. With a day to kill Courtney convinced me we clearly needed to go to Disneyland, and we took along Entity and his wife who had not been for years.  I was worried the park would be a total zoo on a holiday weekend but it was a more manageable-sized zoo, and we got on all must-ride rides in one day.  We took a smaller (lol) group of 15 to Ciudad in downtown LA that night, which has to be one of my favorite restaurants just because their menu isn't typical.  I drank way too much wine but had a yummy meal as always.

The next day Entity and I attended to some DeucesCracked business early in the day as our wives went shopping at the Beverley Center, oh joy! They both survived the trip and my bankroll did for the most part as well, so we lazed around the hotel a bit before the big wine dinner. It was great to have so many random poker people all in one place, from like 21 year old kids to old guys like Tommy Angelo and Andy Fox   Joe Tall and Michelle brought Baby Tall who none of us had met yet and all the girls had a great time taking turns with her.  Food and wine were great, Daver brought bottles as old as a 1978 dessert wine I think.

Since then I've been home working a bit on website stuff but sort of calm there for the time being. I've been playing a bit of poker, trying to find out what I want to play, I've mostly just been jumping around all sorts of games the last few days.  Trying again to learn and not hate omaha/8 but I'm still a fish I think, though now I'm a pretty tight fish.  I've been doing well playing stud/8 when I can find games, as long as I avoid the bigger games on Stars I think I'll do just fine there.  And yeah playing a bit of limit texas hold-them for short sessions. Hopefully I'll continue to dive back into poker a bit as I play pretty good when I'm enjoying the game, playing 1 or 2 tables and having fun.

February looks like I'll be doing more of the same with hopefully a couple trips up to Commerce for the LAPC side games, stay tuned.

As almost an aside to the work mentioned in the last post, my first year anniversary with my wife snuck in just before the New Year, and with her crazy busy at a retail job during the holidays and my previously recounted toiling, we were thrilled to get a couple days to go away for anniversary / New Year's.  Joe Tall highly recommended this spa / resort in Rosarita Beach, Mexico, so we went there for a couple nights, driving into Mexico for the first time.  I only got a little lost and we had no real trouble other than sitting around at the border for hours to get back into the U.S.

This month I have a couple trips coming up – my brother turned 21 in December so we are going to hit Vegas for a few days.  I have no expectation other than to eat some good food and play a bit of live poker with him.  He's been doing really well lately crushing the heads up games, I'm claiming its all due to the times we've discussed HU strategy and the few HU videos I've made, but the truth is he is quite dedicated to getting in hands, something I'm a bit jealous of, and he always manages to surpass me at things, so I shouldn't be surprised he's playing like the same stakes or higher as me now and doing fantastic.

As soon as we return from Vegas, Courtney and I are up to LA for MLK weekend, and will get to hang out with Entity and his wife who are coming down for a well-deserved vacation.  Friends and 2+2ers mike l. and Daver (who has written on this blog occasionally) are organizing a ridiculous wine tasting dinner at AOC Wine Bar in LA that weekend which should be a lot of fun and I am looking forward to seeing some friends I haven't seen in quite awhile.  I actually got this HUGE book about wine for Christmas but I don't know if I'll even make a dent in it by then, my knowledge is certainly lacking but I suppose I have a lifetime to practice

I hate to call it a secret, we just are of the mindset that there is no reason to hype something and make crazy promises when we ourselves aren't even sure what the final product will be. Until now, its finally done – DeucesCracked.com has re-launched with an expanded cast of characters and if I do say so myself, a snazzy new look.  We've been working on this for 6 months at least, and in the last 3 months I've worked harder than any time in my life (deadlines are funny like that) and haven't played any poker (good and bad).  At long last we can settle into a state of normalcy, and I hope to find a rhythm or balance between pokering, working on my next series for season 2 on DeucesCracked, and managerial tasks behind the scenes going forward.

Much as I'd like to recount the whole story of the expansion and our work, its really been done and if you are tenacious enough as a reader to check out blogs of my fellow DeucesCracked owners, you will find yourself quite inundated with a similar story.  So here are KRANTZ and Danzasmack's versions:

http://www.dangerlion.com/?p=31

http://justicewagon.com/?p=20

It's really been a lot of fun working on this project. I've been able to use my engineering and programming skills on problems that interest me and I have an interest in seeing succeed, and that's all I can really ask for in a job.  It's not the same as pokering, but to me its been like the best real-life example of engineering problem solving I've had yet in my life, working with a highly skilled team of site owners (you know them all) and programmers (who never emerge from the shadows but put in amazing work). The only disappointment I've had in the last several months has been having to more or less embrace the appearance of laziness as we sort of wanted to keep quiet until all was settled, especially when adding one of the biggest names in the NL Hold'em world in KRANTZ / pr1nnyraid.  In many ways its a testament to the good nature and respect from our DC members that there weren't more complaints about our limited production, and I thank them for their faith and hope they get a lot out of the expansion.  Only in the last few weeks did I see any sort of grumblings about the infrequency of videos etc. which I totally understand, and really can't hand wave away with a "look at the new site!" because we have / had an obligation to our customers. I'm learning every day about the right way to run a business (a skill I never was interested in when younger which I find quite silly now) and I think we all made our best effort to strike a balance between working on new things and keeping the old (I hate calling it "old" it was like 9 months "old" LOL) site going.  I'm very relieved to not have to worry about that anymore and just move forward getting back to what we do best, coaching and teaching poker, especially the limit hold'em variety, and I can just do my personal best to earn back anyone who felt wronged by our geared back production as we prepared for this huge upgrade.

I hope you'll check out the new DeucesCracked, we are in beta testing mode right now but all season one pilots are up!  If you don't have access and want it and know me well enough to have a way to contact me, feel free, as I have plenty of invitation codes to spare