From the Ebro Dog Track to the Online Nosebleeds

Just a heads up that PGC hero Quaddeuce has enjoyed a meteoric rise through the stakes in the last year or so, to the point where he's battling against Tony G, Hannibal Getya, and some of the other online PLO highrollers.



For those of you interested in world travel and high stakes poker, he's documenting his journey on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nomad_poker/

February Recap


After a frigid paradeless Fat Tuesday in 2021, we were gifted a beautiful Mardi Gras this year. #backinbizness

Bob's Books [5/52]

Andrew Brokos, Play Optimal Poker and Play Optimaler
Jami Attenberg, I Came All This Way to Meet You

RAWR

Plant-Penis-Sculpture

Resting Up for 2023

March Recap


After a two-year Covid hiatus, we resumed our Vegas March Madness trip, and good times were had. More on that below, but first!...

In "Rags-to-Riches Stories are Actually Disturbing," Lydia Kiesling writes that, before Horatio Alger was a novelist,
For anyone interested in higher ed—that venerable vehicle of Horatio Algerian social mobility—you might wanna check out this outrageous story about how UPenn handled one of their students who was a victim of child abuse.

Bob's Books [7/52]

Jonathan Abrams, All the pieces matter : the inside story of The wire
Anna Wiener, Uncanny Valley

My favorite Vegas viewing spot--at the Sahara, of all places.

My favorite place to play (aside from my mainstay, Da Nugget) was at Resorts World, a newish casino not far from the Wynn. (lol @ folding top pear to 4x pot shove otf)

On brand

Back in Nola, I logged a few sessions at Harrahdise last weekend and kept my eyes out for bigtime beeball coaches gamboling at the casino (there was a Roy William sighting at the craps tables). Yes, the Final Four was in town, and no, I wasn't about to pay four figs for a decent seat. But then Duke lost, prices for Monday's game plummeted, and seeing KU-UNC for 37 bux was a no brainer

content fluffball

I'm just here for pictures of dogs in ties.

GlookslikeheloveshisjobG

I'm under no illusion about the value that this thread brings to the masses. Moar fluffball pics incoming!

April Recap



So many dramedies in the poker world these days. Will b interesting to see whether technology "saves" or "destroys" poker: on the one hand, we recently saw how valuable influencers like Mr. Beast and Ninja can be, in their ability to bring Gen Zers to the game. On the other hand, does anyone really want to play online in a climate filled with (cue ominous music and Bryn Kenney's smug smiling face) ghosting, multiaccounting, and RTAing?

Bob's Books [10/52]

Isaac Babel, Red Cavalry
Jia Tolentino, Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion
Gabor Mate, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction

Most of this month was spent frolicking at various festivals and roadtripping to Michigan and back for some family time and camping/hiking. I hadn't met my brother's youngest daughter, and she/her older sister hadn't met my fluffball, so we made the meetup happen.

Enid Lake (Missippi)

Memphis

Chicago

Hanging with the Fam

Hooper Bald (NC)

Sneaky Tiki (Pensacola)


I'll be hanging home for a month or so until I head west...for the WSOP? That's the tentative plan. We'll see. Hope everyone is having a good month!

Do you remember what beach that is in Chicago?

63rd street beach—close to Jackson Park

Thought around that area. My family is from 49th and LSD on the South side.

very cool. We walked around that area a good bit and stopped at a great dog park + a big museum.

How's the midwest treating you?

Nice, that is a big museum!!

Oklahoma has been good to me, like it here, not sure if Midwest though feels more south and a little west mixed in, but can see why some say Midwest. Poker here is meh in Tulsa though, to many OMC but there is a big O game been eyeing.

glad to hear you're enjoying OK! Maybe you can escape down to TX for better poker action

May Recap

Well, it finally happened. After successfully ninjafading the-virus-that-shall-not-be-named, I was cudgeled by Covid a few weeks ago. Fortunately my symptoms were mild and the timing was good (to the extent that getting Covid at any point is good timing). I'm already out and about and will hopefully fade the really ugly piece of this: long Covid.

Suffice to say that a good chunk of this month was spent laying low. I didn't do much, aside from watching some shows and visiting an old friend.



Thanks to the recent release of We Own This City, I've been on a David Simon kick recently. I enjoyed the new show—dozens of actors from The Wire make an appearance, often playing roles against type—and I also enjoyed The Plot Against America and Generation Kill.

I'm planning to visit Vegas in late June/early July to gambol and check out the WSOP's new digs. If any of yall are around and want to meet up, lemme know!

Bob's Books [12/52]
Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Good Squad
Jennifer Egan, The Candy House

meeting a new fluffball

Sorry to hear that the 'rona got you. Glad to hear that it was mild. The Omicron sub-variant (B12, or some ish) seems to do well at breaking through the vaccine, but mostly only mildly. Same thing happened to me last month.

Love the sign, though it would be nice if they told you what to punch in to get the GPS to actually send you to Mingo Falls.

Thanks for the good wishes, G! Seems like we both enjoyed some mild rungood.

I think I figured out what's going on with that sign. Mingo Falls is a popular hike just outside Cherokee NC, so it gets lots of traffic. There are two ways to get there, and for some reason the GPS tells you to take the residential, "off-the-beaten-path" road instead of the nicer two-laned road. My guess is that the locals got fed up with all the traffic and put up the NO ACCESS sign (even though there's access)

Bob Re-Re-Visits the Thinking Poker Podcast

I recently joined Andrew and Carlos for a chat about life during the pandemic, the WSOP, and stuff we've been watching/reading/listening to. Was an enjoyable convo, and I'm getting excited about Vegas!

Hey Ben, it was great to hear from your thoughts, life updates etc.

Here are my thoughts on the interview, albeit it might struck as a bit odd and it also does not pertain to your part of the show : I appreciated how the host was speaking of his anti-social tendencies at the live tables and how he was trying by all means to maximize his quietness AKA leave-me-the-f**k-alone-time. Hear me out : much has been said about the being-good-for-the-game in the past 5 years+, from peeps like DGAF and Limon, that perpetually insisted on what makes a game good, which almost always revolves around being extroverted. While I definitely concur and behave as such when immersed in English or French environments, I have recently found myself obligated to withdraw within when subjected to Spanish speaking poker fields (which has been 100% of the case for the past few years). Anyhow, I just found it refreshing a POV stemming from someone just being real/themselves, when the narrative has been (forcefully) the opposite recently.

Be well, peace.

hey Dubn, glad to hear you enjoyed the pod, and great to hear your thoughts as always. I agree that the "soft hustle" school of DGAF/Limon has created some unrealistic expectations about what makes someone good for the game, with an (over)emphasis on extroversion, chumminess, and gamble-gamble. If Limon is one extreme and Carlos (the introverted co-host) is the other, I'm definitely closer to Carlos, by nature. I think the important thing is to know yourself and your comfort zones, and to be conscious about which environments will naturally favor your tendencies. Is your decision to stay quiet in Spanish fields solely based on a language barrier, or is it also a cultural thing too?

June Recap


After being sidelined with Covid much like the fluffball above, June was a mix of writing, travel, and (virtual) teaching. Haven't read any book-length stuff (!), but here's a really good profile of Texas Dolly. I heard there's a documentary crew working with Doyle to tell the story of his life, and I really hope that project comes to pass. His early years are truly epic.

Oxford Missippi

Pride parade

The most pretentious store in the most pretentious city in the country? Or maybe I just don't get Art

A content fluffball in Cactusland


After adding some new music to my ancient iPod and cranking my Rungood meter up to 10...I'm locked and loaded for some Vegas WSOPing! GL to everyone who's still firing.

Yeah, pretty much based on language barrier at first - speaking in groups and even learning the Spanish poker lingo had to be cracked - and a bit culturally, in the sense that Argentinos are effervescent, this is not my country and I did not find as much the obligation to entertain the table as a pro. This said, Argentina now feels like my home, the language barrier is not that much of a thing anymore and I have notice myself opening up slightly more at the tables.

By interesting coincidence, I also ended up in Oxford MS last month. On my way home from the KC area, and no decent hotels showed up on Priceline in Memphis, so we went a few miles out of our way and stayed in Oxford. Nice bookshop in the town square there.

all makes sense. I love that you've traveled and played in so many countries. For the same reason, I'm FLABBERGASTED you've never been to Vegas for the WSOP! (iirc)

for sure. Somehow I've done 5-6 Oxford trips over the years, and it's a lovely place. Next time you visit you'll have to tour Faulkner's house.

Yup, been to Vegas 3 times, but always to play cash games. The 30% taxes on Canadians on any score above 5k just dissuaded me, especially when factoring in that, even if it is quite easy to get it back - barring 1-2% fees and whatnot -, the taxman was after me in Canada for a few years, so I did not want to draw more (financial) attention to myself. This said, they did increase the 5k threshold to 15k a few years back, specifically to permit the min cashes in the WSOP ME to not have to pay the 30% and, moreover - and perhaps more importantly... -, now that Duhamel won his case vs the taxman, I will no longer sweat having to hide a big score in Vegas So yeah, will probably make it for a half arse schedule in the upcoming years!

Lol, I thought I was the only one left with an ancient iPod. I always seem to be a good dozen+ years behind the music format of the time. Still used tapes well into the mid (late?) 90's before succumbing to CDs. Still purchasing CDs when everyone went to the iPod. But man I love my iPod now. I just officially stopped purchasing CDs (although I've only purchased a handful over the previous decade) due to my fave band's latest release (a disappointing effort where I only really like 2 songs, which of course got on to the iPod). Kinda hope I can support this iPod the rest of the way, although maybe I get around to this "streaming" thing by the late 2030's.

GcluelessiPodnoobG

nice to hear about some rungood for the Canadians

I just got back from my trip. You'll want to check out the new WSOP digs imo...a solid improvement from the Rio.

#OGIPOD4EVA

Yeah, I dunno what I'll do without it. Probably buy some other kind of portable mp3 player. I don't want to give in to (yet another) streaming subscription service, and I enjoy curating my music collection. Hopefully mine keeps on truckin...it at least 15 years old.