CARDRUNNERS

Hey Guys:

I'm writing to you again from DC after a very successful first day.  Though I didn't have much in the way of meetings (my activities were weighted to today) I've heard about great successes coming out of the member meetings.  Several new congressional members have agreed to support both both the Barney Frank bill and the Robert Wexler bill.  This is great news as it bumps the Frank bill to more than 40 co-sponsors.

Another huge develop is that the head of Judiciary Committee John Conyers has come on board as a co-sponsor of the legislation.  This is a huge coup because we now have two committee heads.  Frank, the head of the financial services committee and Conyers.  This basically ensures that the speaker, Nancy Pelosi, will have to take note of our legislation and needs because of the great names behind it.

Last night there was also a great reception in the House Rayburn building.  Hundreds of Congressional staffers and members came out to meet PPA players and the big name pros.  I know it doesn't seem like much, but the fact that a lot of the staffers who guide policy are in their twenties and really excited to meet Annie Duke, Howard, Barry Greenstein, etc makes a huge difference.  These are the guys who help the members form their decisions, so gaining they support is very important.  The reception was a ton of fun and I met a lot of interesting people in addition to giving out a few interviews.  Whee :) I'm famous.  If any of those interviews hit the internet, I'll be sure to link them in here.

Gotta run back to the hill for some panels.  I'll update you guys later.

Ezra

Hey Guys:

It's been way too long since I've had a chance to update my blog.  I've had an amazing few days, culminating with my birthday on Wednesday.

Last Saturday night, my girlfriend told me were going out to dinner and when we got there...*omg* a whole bunch of my friends were there to surprise me.  I've never had a surprise party so it was very, very cool.  I've posted a pic below...there were a lot of poker peeps there including Whitelime, Strasser, Kesselman and more.  It was awesome of Eric Kesselman to come out because he's never come out to any party I've had before, generally feigning illness or marital woes.  Wellllll, my girlfriend is obviously more convincing than me.  Thanks budday.  Eeep my eyes are closed in this picture.

After dinner, we got bottle service at this club that my friend Brian founded and co-owns.  It was a lot of fun.  Here's a group shot:

Shira (my girlfriend) is really incredible and planned a whole bunch of activities for me for my birthday weekend.  On Sunday she took me to the Belmont Race Track.  Now I'm only a partial degen and I actually think horse racing is kinda gross.  But I'd never been to a racetrack and I was kinda curious.  She booked lunch in the VIP section which is actually pretty nice.  The rest of the track was pretty and there was a cute park with geese in the back.  I really had a great time even though some of the people there blowing their welfare checks really depressed me.  That said, there's def a significant skill element in betting horses.  For instance, Shira encouraged me to beat on horse called David's Skye because her brother's name is David.  I thoguht this was a good idea even though the horse was a 32:1 dog -- the odds on loser.  Well, he won.  Booya.

The next day (and a continued surprise) we borrowed Shira's mothers car and headed to the Long Island wine country to check out some vineyards and do some wine tastings.  I've never done wine tastings before and it was really cool to drive around to all these different vineyards.  They're all gorgeous and I was unsurprised to learn that lots of people have their weddings at vineyards.  I also stopped at a fresh veggies/eggs stand where I picked up super fresh yummy foods and we snapped some pics of hens and rooooosters.

AS FOR POKER, well ugh.  The reason I haven't been posting is that I felt a needed to take a break in the middle of last week.  I'd been breaking even for 3 or 4 days after a huge heater and then started losing.  Only 4 or 5 buyins, but I was bluffing in poor spots and really pushing too hard.  So, I took 8 days off and came back fresh last night.  I won 6 buyins in about an hour playing a little lower stakes than I normally do just to get my feel back.  Nice!  So I hopped back up into my regular games of 5/10 and 10/20 and insta dropped 5 buyins.  I tried again this morning and dropped another 3 buyins.  I'm down like $14,000 in my last 4,000 hands or so.  It's really not good. 

I've been trying to analyze my play to see what I'm doing wrong.  I def think I'm pushing too hard and getting involved in too many pots with marginal hands just because the idiots I'm playing against are so bad.  They keep stacking me, and I watch them just give away my money to other players.  I really think it's tilting me.  Last night I played 3 handed with an 80/45 idioto.  He stacked me when I raised button with AJ, he re-popped bigish from SB.  I just called for value.  We flopped J95 and I went broke to J5o.  Then he doubled up again against the other player at the table shoving K3o preflop and amazingly got called by A6.  With his double stack he managed to somehow pick up KK vs my JJ, which I obv can't fold to a monkey like that.  Sigh :(

I almost seem to making incorrect decisions at every important opportunity.  Two hands I've played in the past 24 hours showcase this.  In one hand, I repopped JJ 3-handed to a button raise and saw a flop of AQ4.  I bet and the 80/45 maniac called.  Turn blanked, I checked, he overbet shoved.  I know he's capable of bluffing, but I just didn't feel I could call here.  He showed me J9o for no pair, no draw.  Then, earlier this morning, a re-popped a large button raise (i think $60) to $240 with QQ and we saw a flop of AK7.  I checked, he overbet shoved $750 into $500.  He'd been tilting and I figured he'd shove AK/AQ/AJ preflop so I called and he showed me A2o.  Ugh.  I know that people go through stretches like this where they can't make a correct decision to save their lives.  It happens and I'll survive.

I live a pretty sweet life, so I'm trying not to let the poker stuff dampen my mood.  CardRunners work is going great and hopefully you guys are noticing a lot of the subtle improvements.  There's lots of larger stuff coming....but for now I'm just immersing myself in my contacts and some new marketing ideas....

Lates yall, Ezra

Today was a super annoying poker day. I did CardRunners work for like 8 hours and then took a poker break. Except it turned into a 5 hour break. I quickly made like $1500 and then started some making poor calls and found myself stuck about $3000 30 minutes later. I continued playing somewhat poorly and erraticly throughout the night and finally quit down about $150 which is pretty frusterating. I wasn't playing that well, but it also just wasn't my night. I couldn't catch a safe flop...anytime I'd slowplay Kings, an Ace would drop on the flop. If I slowplayed 2 pr, the flush would hit on the turn, etc. But I've been running so well lately that it's hard to complain...sometimes you're just not gonna not win. Tonight was one of those nights.

ANYWAYS - next week is my birthday (hollaaaa) and as a sorta birthday present I'm going to see one of my friends bands Monty Are I open up for Red Jump Suit Appartus and Amber Pacific. They just got off a tour with Sum 41 and Yellowcard so they're starting to do really well. I've known these guys for like three years now. It's kind of a tradition that there's some sort of concert associated with my birthday and I couldn't pick a better band to celebrate it with. They're just the goofiest, most fun bunch of kids from Cranston, RI. I've embedded their new music video below. I hope you all like it...I think it's really tight. It's their first real music video ever and is called "Between the Sheets." I met the girl from the video at the last show I went to of theirs as she was dating Justin, the drummer, at the time. Hotttt.

Okay, I never play tourneys.  The few that I have played, I've had considerable success in, and my ROI is pretty solid lifetime.  But I dislike how long they take.  In fact, I haven't played a tourney since this summer's WSOP and I probably hadn't played a tournament in several months before then.  But I really like live tournaments and want to play more of them...when I was in Aruba, I had to force myself not to plop down the $5500 to play, but I just couldn't let myself do it because I knew I was too rusty.

Sooooo, I decided to play some Sunday tourneys today just to try and get back in form.  I normally don't have free time on Sunday's because I'm hanging with my girlfriend or friends, but I decided to veg out and be lame. 

The first tourney I entered, I busted pretty quickly, but I decided to play a couple more tourneys to warm up for the Sunday million.  There was an $11 entry $100k guaranteed and tho I subconsciously realized that would require 10,000 people, I hadn't really thought about it.  It ended up with 17,300 entrants, and I managed to come in 16th for a whopping $500.  That's kinda lame given that I made it through 17,284 people but what can ya do?  The hand where I lost of my chips was questionable...I shoved AQ vs a UTG raise and was facing AK.  I don't hate my play, but in retrospect I probably like a fold better.

I also made it deep in the Sunday Million on Stars finishing 130th out of 6,500 people.  And for my six hours of work, I received a whopping $1,500, blah.  Now I know why I hate tournaments.  I mean, winning $1,700 in six hours of tourneys isn't horrible, but given that first prizes were a respective $19k and $180k, my $1,700 just seems kinda lame.  But anyways, I ran really well in these tournaments and definiately had more than my share of good fortune.  I beat AA with KK -- though admittedly I smooth called preflop, and 90% of the money went in after I flopped my set.  I managed to pick up KK vs QQ and QQ.  I won a lot of coinflips and 60/40s, etc.  I can't really complain, but it would've been nice to final table one of these things and pick up some real money.

Oh well...I guess I'll try again in 3 months   back to the cash games i go...

<3,

Ezra

I got home from Aruba last night and man, lemme tell you, it was an action packed week.  I don't feel like going into super duper detail about any items in particular, so I'll just make a list of all the hilarity that ensued.

• Muddywater blacking out/nearly dying 5 nights in a row
• Ezmo continually complaining about hunger.
• Temperatures so hot that it hurt to breathe.  Brought paper towels with me everywhere I went to wipe off sweat.
• Sixpeppers/Brystmar houseparty with hired entertainment.  Majority of girls seriously busto.  Tcblade makes first move and is successful.  Green Plastic angleshoots Menlo on a tequila contest having been spotted 4 shots, despite the bottle only having 6 shots remaining.  Plastic, feeling bad, pays for Menlo's entertainment and writes it off as a business expense.
• Menlo winning $16,000 at $500/hand blackjack while so blitzed he couldn't make his own decisions and his friends had to tell him what to do.
• Hellmuth offering donkeys $500 to jump into a swimming pool with their clothes on.  Ups the ante to $1500 for girls with their clothes off.
• Muddywater challenges Hellmuth to $1000/hole golfing several times while tanked despite Hellmuth continually declining..  Hellmuth gets annoyed and says "kid, you're gonna regret this in the morning."  Muddywater regrets it in the morning.
• Muddywater drops $5k betting Red in Roulette.  Doesn't remember betting.  Bets the Patriots to try and get unstuck.  Patriots crush Bengals and Muddy wins $2500.
• Certain guest pros head to their rooms to partake of goods.  Cops follow.  Cops knock on door after several minutes to suggest putting a towel under the door.  Guest pros oblige.  Cops remain outside their door for several hours.
• Guest pros meet a blonde girl at the poker table.  She returns to their room and hilarity ensues despite her having a boyfriend...

More later?

Ezra

Hey Guys:

Just a note first off...if you've been confused about my blog since the new site launched, that's understandable. Somehow in the transition, my blog got merged with Andy Hasdal's (allreds23) blogs. So I should clear a few things up...I'm not busto and not playing 1/2nl (that was Andy). I don't have a girlfriend named Erica (my girlfriend's name is Shira). And I don't care about Rex Grossman...I'm a Redskins fan.

Anyways I wrote the following blog post a couple of days ago, but was holding off on writing it until we got some of the blog issues fixed.

So the new CardRunners.com is up and running and I hope you all like the improvements. It’s a faster, sleeker, more efficient site. I know CTS has been announced, but I guarantee you that in the next couple of weeks there are going to be some additional announcements that are absolutely gonna blow your mind.

My poker month is going pretty well. I totally rebounded from my few losing days and am having a nice, mid five figure month. Last night I played the big 10/25 live game in NYC. It was playing huge as there were normally $50/$100/ straddles on every hand. We were also playing the 7-2 game which really infused some action in the beginning. Literally 10 or 15 minutes into the hand I got dealt 7-2o on the button. Effective stacks were about 7k. This old guy opened to $150 (at 10/25), my friend Sean made it $550, and I thought forever before making it $1750. The old guy crying folded queens, and Sean quietly mucked some speculative hand. I showed the ol’ 7-2 and raked in a nice $1200 ($200 from each person). I ran a few other bluffs during the night, only one of which got looked up. In one really nice move, a raised pot god checked around on the flop and turn. On the river, I check-raised the button bet when the backdoor flush and straight hit. He crying mucked top two. Live poker is easy J . I was stuck about sixteen thousand within a couple of hours, but managed to rebound completely and book a win of a whopping $165.

I’ve been promising a post about some of my stock picks for some time now. I have a lot to learn about investing, but I feel like I have a pretty solid value-investing foundation. I’ve read everything Graham wrote and my market advisor has historically championed a value investing approach. I’ll start off with three companies that I’m invested today and maybe do another three in a couple of weeks.

RDI (Reading International) -- So remember when you were playing Monopoly like ten years ago and landed on Reading Railroad and groaned because the Reading Railroad was such a boring property on the Monopoly board? Right. Well this company is the remaining byproduct of the Reading Railroad. Except now they have nothing to do with railroads. When they got out of the railroad business, they had a lot of cash after selling off their assets. They started purchasing a lot of property in both New York City and New Zealand turning some of it into condos, some into cinemas, and some into miscellaneous.

This is a quintessential value stock and I’m really proud that it was the first company I ever invested in. I looked at the books along with my market advisor. And what was apparent was that not only did their liquid cash + property value equal more than its market value, but that the book value of its property hadn’t been re-appraised in nearly a decade. Which in New York City especially makes a huge difference. I think the stock still has a lot more room to move upwards. They haven’t started selling off some of the high priced New York property nor have they begun aggressively expanded with their available cash into the New Zealand market. They are being very cautious and looking to ensure that each move they make is absolutely optimal. I’m confident that in 2 years from now, this stock will be worth more than double what I paid.

Purchased: $7.99

Current: $9.81 (ran up to a high of $10.84 and has been selling off a bit)

TOD (Todd Shipyards) -- This is another solid value stock, but also has a huge positional upside. They are a ship contractor based out of Seattle that does a lot of government work and gets a large share of the submarine industry on the west coast. Their earnings are very consistently positive, and they seem to have impressive, steady flow of new contracts every few months or so. The $0.15 quarterly dividend is also a nice bonus.

Though they do not have huge expansion potential (I foresee them growing, but not at any overly exciting rate), they are a very attractive buyout candidate. There is a ton of information which you won’t see in their annual report that suggests that many larger nautical (as well as aeronautical companies looking to expand) companies are looking to take them over. If that were the case, the investors would be paid a nice premium. Furthermore, when I’ve purchased, the stock has traded at a value far lower than what it is intrinsically worth. It had a bit of a sell off this past winter due to investors losing interest and no major news. I tripled the size of my holding during that time. It has been steadily gaining since then, and I would probably be willing to get out around $30/share.

Purchased: $21.50 (33%)

$18.25 (33%)

$17.60 (33%)

Current: $23.60

JMBA (Jamba Juice, Inc) -- This one is a little goofy simply because I used to always write in my blog about how much I love Jamba Juice. But I loved it so much that I went out and bought a nice chunk of it. I’m pretty much even overall, but that’s not the point. I bought the stock when it first floated on the NASDAQ (literally the day it came out). I’ve never really received a satisfactory answer as to whether one should allow passions and anecdotal evidence to influence their investment choices. But I just can’t ignore how happy it makes me to stumble across a Jamba Juice on a hot New York day and just cool off. Not to mention I’ve been stopped plenty of times in my neighborhood in NYC by people who see my Jamba Juice cup and are eager to know where the nearest one is.

There are some problems with this company. Earnings aren’t very impressive. And more inherently, it’s a warm weather company. Will they ever have success in a place like Canada? Even in NYC where the stores are packed in the summer, sales trail during the winter. But in this company, the name of the game is expansion. And I’m very confident that Jamba will be able to expand from its current 650 outlets nationwide to several thousand. At it’s peak, TCBY had nearly 5,000 stores and I think that’s a reasonable goal for Jamba Juice over the next five years. I also like the fact that they plan to use their brand name and reputation to challenge Naked and Odwalla for a share of the refrigerated smoothie market. Not to mention that I think there’s a lot of room for growth within their stores -- they recently added Granola mixed with a breakfast smoothie to try to earn a share for the morning food market. I think that they could add a lot of revenue by finding a way to sell other healthy food or perhaps even partner with a fitness gym chain.

I’m enthusiastic about the future and although the stock has not been impressive, I plan to keep holding.

Purchased: $8.98 (66%)

$6.78 (33%)

Current: $7.61

Thanks guys, let me know if you have any feedback on these companies or anything else you think I should look into.

Best,

Ezra

I'm lying in my bed right now typing up this blog entry and let me say that it feels niiiice to be back in the States. I'm yet to return to my apartment in NYC as I went straight from the plane to my girlfriend's place in Philadelphia and now find myself home with the folks for the Yom Kippur holiday.

If you're wondering, yes, I did fast today. It wasn't as difficult as I'd remembered which was nice. I always enjoy fasting (it's about 26 hours) not merely for the religious reasons, but also because I find to be personally challenging and a real test of willpower and devotion.

Anyways, my final few days in London were a total blast. I want to send a huge thanks to Eddie at Matchroom Sports and Warren at Party Gaming for inviting myself and Brian to tape the Poker Den: Big Game in the UK. Eddie had us flown out to the studio on a private helicopter (yes, I took pics) and we were joined by Thomas Bihl (recent WSOPE bracelet winner) as well as Kasey Thompson, a businessman and owner of Allin Magazine. I felt that Brian played amazing, and dominated every table he sat at. I've always found Brian to be a great player, but being able to see everyone's hole cards and see how quickly and accurately he assessed every situation was really phenomenal. Everyone in the green room who knew Brian would just groan everytime someone decided to bluff him, because they know Brian would sniff it out. By that some token, every time Brian laid down a big hand or made a sick call, someone would turn around and ask "who is this kid?!" CardRunners made a great impression in Europe and I'm definitely looking forward to spending more time in your markets.

Also, I must say that it was a bit cool to meet and chill all day with guys like Jamie Gold, Roland De Wolfe, Devilfish, Robert Williamson, Ferguson, etc. I talked to most of these guys throughout the day and got their opinions on the poker industry, their sponsorship deals, etc. There's a lot of stuff going on out there and it was nice to get some firsthand information...

I thought I had a lot to talk about today, but my mind is just totally drawing a blank. I recently booked my plane tickets to Aruba so I'll be heading south for the Aruba Poker Classic on Saturday. I really don't want to be travelling anymore, but Taylor and Andrew offered me a cot in their rooms and Taylor really put the pressure on to come down. Taylor and Andrew have really become close friends of mine in the past six months while working for CR, so I'll admit that I'm looking forward to partying with them and just overall going crazy. I hate to spend more time away, but when you get like 10 IMs daily from the great Green Plastic threatening bodily harm if you don't show, you gotta bite the bullet. Na mean?

Poker has been pretty mediocre this month. At one point I think was +15k or so on the month, but I'm now closer to 7k I think. I think I've been playing really well and just running horrificly. I have been playing some ABSOLUTE MONKEYS headsup lately and it's really difficult to handle the variance. One guy I play against routinely opens preflop for 10-20bbs. I know it sounds simple, wait for hands and get paid, but it's not quite that easy....if you shove over his raises he will fold his junk and call his real hands. So while I loosen up my shoving ranges, I'm also aware that if I want to extract value I have to slowplay preflop and hope he catches a piece of the flop. But once he's caught a piece of the flop, he will generally have at least 25% equity. This particular player seems to have deep pockets and seems to have no problem getting it as a coinflip at beat for massively deepstacked pots. While I know that this sounds like a dream situation, his willingness to get it super deep really adds to the variance. I lost an allin preflop today for a 500bb pot with AK vs 33. The swings are simply massive. And over maybe 1,000 hands I believe this player is up a buyin or two on me.

I've also been taking some shots in bigger games lately just because the players seem to be so bad and I see soft spots everywhere. Unfortunately I just can't manage to win big pots. I keep getting it in with sets vs naked flush draws and going bust. It's annoying, but my equity lately must be through the roof and I'm confident it'll turn in my favor in the near future.

Till next time,
Ezra

I am proud to annouce that a site which I invested in just launched yesterday and really looks incredible. The site is http://www.instantfantasysports.com and is basically like sit n gos for Fantasy sports. So instead of season long leagues, we offer weekly leagues. You draft as soon as the sit n go fills and drafts only take like 30 minutes...it's a really cool idea and I'm really proud to be a part of it.

I encourage you all to head on over and check out the site. Admittedly, right now is our soft launch so I don't expect the games to be filled immediately. But I would keep checking back regularly as within a week or so, our marketing should kick in and we'll have a good amount of people on the site. I really think the software is top notch...I've already done a few drafts with friends and had a good deal of fun. We offer 10 man, 6 max, and headsup drafts. Also, if you want to do like a really high stakes draft, e-mail us privately and we can set it up.

As for London, this will be about day 9 here. I really have to admit that this city is starting to tilt me. I don't have a whole lot of friends here. Those few that I've been hanging out with are absolutely incredible. It's also been nice to get to know Brian a bit better as we see eye to eye on a number of issues. But admittedly, it's just so exhausting to be out here working, networking, all day long. I really can't wait until I head home and get to be with my girlfriend and my friends from New York.

I've been travelling so much that I feel as though I don't really even have any friends anymore. I can think of maybe 2 or 3 non-poker friends in New York that I would feel comfortable just calling up and being like "hey, can I come over and just chill?" It really depresses me as I used to be incredibly social and communicative. It's not that I've changed as a person, but rather that I've simply been unreliable. I'm not there when you need me. Because, frankly, I'm never there. I'm either out of town or with my girlfriend. And though my girlfriend is one of the happiest things in the world for me, I do really miss all my friends. I threw a party a few months back where all my old friends showed up and it just made me so happy to see everyone. Even a few weeks ago when I returned home for a friends' engagement party, I felt like a different person. I really miss the communities and groups I used to be a part of.

Being alone in London for so long has really allowed me to think through some of these thoughts and get them off my chest. It's kind of depressing to wake up, alone, in your hotel room every morning. It's equally depressing to fall asleep alone. I recognize that it's my job. I'm getting paid for this. I'm whiny. This is an all expense paid trip to an incredible foreign city. I know. I'm an idiot. But frankly, there's something special about being home -- being with those you love. And right now, I really miss it.

Ezra

This trip has been absolutely insane thus far. We've barely had a minute free. Our computers are all pretty much busto, and none of our iPhones work out here, so we're just entirely out of communication.

I flew in Friday morning, the 8th. I flew British Airways over American because for some horrible reason, the name British Airways implied some higher degree of class in my mind. Turns out that I was wrong...British Airways is equivalent to like AirTran in America. Not only could they do absolutely nothing right, it took them 1 hour to get the bags from the plane to the conveyor belt at Heathrow. Then, because bags were quite large (which they often are on international flights) they kept getting stuck coming out of the chute. Everytime a bag got stuck (which was every 30 seconds), they'd have to call a staff member to come remove it. This took 5 minutes and the staff member would open up the chute and run away despite our insistence that it would get blocked again momentarily. I landed around 1030 and did not leave the airport until 1245. Absolutely unacceptable.

Townsend has been really owning me all over the place this trip. It all started the night before we left for London. I've made all the preparations, set up all the meetings, everything. I've honestly been working my ass off for three weeks for this trip. At like 10pm on Thursday night Brian calls me...here's a breakdwon of the conversation:

Brian: Hey Ezra, listen quick question
Ezra: Yea, sup?
Brian: I can't rmemeber, do you need a passport to go to London?
**silence for 10 seconds**
Ezra: Yea....you do have one, right?
**silence for 5 seconds***
Brian: Well, I can't find it. But I can just pick one up at the courthouse tomorrow morning, right?
**I start to freak out as I see 3 weeks of work flash before my eyes**
Ezra: Dude, are you serious? You need to apply for a passport like six weeks in advance!
Brian: Oh, okay. Well what do you think I should do then?
Ezra: Oh my god, oh my god...don't do this to me Brian.
Brian: I'm sorry man. You just never mentioned this to me.
**silence for like 10 seconds**
Ezra: Wait........how did you get to EPT Monte Carlo? Doesn't your dad live in Monaco?
**Brian starts to crack up laughing**
Brian: Oh man, that was too easy. I really should've kept on going.

We've been doing a ton our here in London. Taylor flew home today which is sad, but we accomplished so much while he was out here that it was totally worth it.

We've been hanging out with a lot of big online poker players. On Saturday night we spent a good amount of time with Kaibuxxe (Nicolas) who is a super super nice kid and seems to have a really good head on his shoulders. It's not surprising that he has made so much at poker and really took the sick upswing in stride. He is slowly moving back down as he loses some back and isn't loaning out money or doing stupid stuff. The kid really seems to have his act together.

Last night, we hung out for a few hours at the Betfair players lounge with guys like Juha Helppi and Ziigmund (Illari). Illari is a ton of fun and is just as crazy as he comes off online. He is a sick gambler and a total type A personality...a lot of fun to be around, however. We then tried to go out to some clubs with like Jon Friberg but couldnt end up finding anything open at 2am on Sunday night.

Anyways Brian has just started day 1 of the $20,000 main event here and I'll try to get you guys some updates and pictures. Last night in Brian's hotel room he was playing 200/400 PLO and giving Tay and I some pointers. Was very useful and I took a couple of pictures which I'll post up here in a bit.

Lastly, I just want to commend Betfair Poker for a very impressive job out here at the WSOPE. The casinos are very small and this must've been a tough tournament to coordinate. But they are treating the players very well with a nice Player's lounge with massage chairs, free drinks and free sushi. There are also H2 Hummer Stretch Limos to take us between the different casinos in the country. It's really been a nice experience and I have only good things to say about their team and Ollie Bown in particular who has really been of tremendous assistance out here.

They hooked up these video interviews of Taylor and Brian yesterday...real nice stuff: http://betting.betfair.com/poker/video/ (we're all over Day 4, so click on it).

Brian also co-hosted the World Series of Poker Live! telecast last night with Max Pescatori to whom he dropped $50,000 in a sick prop bet which you can read about on his blog. You can also see the archived video at http://www.worldseriesofpoker.com


Cheers Mates!

More soon...

Ezra