CARDRUNNERS

Nov 16, 09 03:55:12

I watch a lot of tv poker, not because its always quality play, but sometimes its just nice to mindlessly watch something like that and you can kind of feel the excitement of the people who are playing for a lot of money. For pokertainment and some truely bad play, watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHnTcxGDLOc

SubZero616

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November 12, 2009

Charity Tourney TONIGHT!

Hey all, I have a long-ish blog post coming later tonight, but because this is time-sensitive I'll post something short now. PokerNews is hosting a charity poker tournament tonight to help fight breast cancer. I'm not involved in any way other than hoping the poker community can raise a lot of cash for the cause, but you might want to check it out if you play on PokerStars. I'd love to play actually but my freaking PokerStars account has been locked for a long time. That's actually a funny story, PokerStars has called Cole, Stinger, and some other random CR people asking them "what their association is with the GreenPlastic." I'm not a bad guy!!!!

Anyway, here's the link, check it out. If someone wants to swap some money with me FTP -> Stars I'll donate something to the cause.

ttyl.

link: http://www.pokernews.com/news/2009/11/help-fight-breast-cancer--play-in-the-bad-beat-on-poker-7523.htm

Nov 13, 09 00:00:15

don't think I can play, but Ill swap money with you if you want.
shut a pm

D.Redstone

Dec 11, 09 12:28:58

Juha Helppi

Hi, Taylor.

I'm from finland and my friend has met Juha Helppi. I've understood that he's a real character.
That's a nice way of saying he's a bit of a asshole.

- LoveisHell

LoveisHell

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October 19, 2009

Serious Issue

I need a halloween costume and I need it soon. Soon as in by Thursday morning at 8am.

You guys have bailed me out of some big problems in the past so here is my idea and let's hope someone can come through! I want to be Craig Sager of TNT. If you don't watch sports you probably have no idea who he is but that's not really the point, google him if you are curious. If anyone can come up with a good store (ideally has a Chicago location) where I can get a ridiculous Craig Sager outfit or knows somewhere online that can ship something in a day or two, that'd be great. If I find the right online place I could probably just have them ship it out to where I'm going to be this weekend (LA).

If I can't figure out something good here I'll just go to a costume store and buy something standardish. I just want to be Craig Sager and I haven't had any time to make it happen.

If you help me out I will make it up to you somehow. Reasonable requests will be honored (note: i determine what's reasonable, suggested request = some free CR gear/months added to your subscription, if you play HUNLHE I'll do a leakfinder video for you, etc.)

Thanks!

Taylor

ps - i have a decent blog entry I have been working on but just haven't been able to complete. I'll post something legitimate later this week. xo

Oct 19, 09 20:09:25

Can't you just google Disco Suit Stores? I think a lot of his suits are from that era. No direct links sorry, but I dunno if you did a search through those style of stores.

Oh yeah, pictures are totally necessary imo.

Oct 19, 09 20:56:35

The stuff I found sucks. The guy wears really nice suits that are just ugly as hell. Ideally I need to find a deptartment store where I can buy a high quality ugly suit. I can't believe I just typed that.

Oct 19, 09 21:53:17

there's a store on clark and division right off the clark redline stop. check there.

Oct 19, 09 22:35:47

Hey Taylor, I pm'd you. didnt know u wanted it in comments.

chardukian

Oct 19, 09 22:50:28

uh goodwill.

nittany31

Oct 20, 09 00:01:09

yarly, you could do this costume justice from a thrift store. that and a come-over style wig and a microphone would do it

jarvisEG54

Oct 20, 09 00:05:51

Taylor,

I imagine anywhere you can find something along the lines of Elton John stage attire your in the ballpark, Craig Sager seems to fall neatly into that category with his own attire.

algernon

Oct 20, 09 00:35:24

So I know at least one person who isn't getting laid on Halloween.

Przytula

Oct 20, 09 01:00:06

if you look at his outfits a lot of his stuff is mixed and matched like he'll have a red jacket white shirt and a blue bow tie. You should do the same. This site is alright www.menswearhouse.com/ http://www.indochino.com/ www.paulfredrick.com/

Eazy83

Oct 20, 09 01:19:12

pregnant nun

streetfamep

Oct 20, 09 11:32:31

http://www.mopo.ca/2008/10/shocker-adult-halloween-costume.html

obviously this

closer

Oct 20, 09 14:11:22

http://www.ataghi.com/main.html

Here's where he actually buys his clothes. Probably expensive as shit though. Although I'd imagine they would overnight it to you.

pjj

Oct 20, 09 14:33:23

Costume Idea

Hi GP,

I cannot help you with your costume idea, but if that falls through and you need some backups. I have 2 ideas for you.

1. Nudist on Strike. You take a poster board, write the slogan 'Hell No We Wont Show' undeneath writing 'Nudist on Strike'. Punch 2 holes in the top corners for the rope to hang it around your neck. ANd dress normally.

2. This costume I borrowed from a friend and I am actually doing it this year. I think it's brilliantly funny. I am felting numbers onto a plain t-shirt. Ie, the number 1, 2, 3, etc probably to 9, and maybe 2 of each. When somebody asks me what I am, my response will be 'Someone you can count on'

Goodluck this halloween with your costume selection.

Dubois1212

Oct 20, 09 16:50:27

GOta go pink

C.R.E.A.M

Oct 20, 09 22:19:56

I went as Sager 3 years ago and found everything at the Salvation Army. I went to the one on Roosevelt in Oak Park. The key is to get the hair right. Obviously none of the girls knew who he was but all of the guys thought it was hilarious.
Also...get a mic to carry around and ask people questions.

Swami54

Oct 22, 09 15:07:01

My buddy goes as a sportscaster just about every year, mixed in with the bud lite guy last year. Sager wasnt that funny, no one knew who he was. I say suck it up and go as the jamaican bobsled team haha!

roche48

Oct 24, 09 11:41:02

go as "balloon boy" or Billy Mays.

dtkodak

Oct 29, 09 10:34:49

superfan

go as an snl chicago superfan, there are a bunch of resale shopws on the north side that sell the old ass bears knit sweaters, then all you need is a hareas hat, a mustache, and some aviators, then get a few guys to do it with you, easy cheap and awesome, have one guy do bears, one bulls, etc.

Rufus2785

Nov 1, 09 09:22:09

Chicago Poker Classic at The Shoe

Just wanted to give you a heads up that the Chicago Poker Classic at The Shoe is running a heads up tourney as one of the events. Thay are adding some money and a Porsche. Limited to 64 players.

Kid Gator

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October 05, 2009

CR Degens

Hey all,

First of all thanks to those in real life who have been giving me blog praise. I've had a few people say that my blog has been funny lately so that has inspired me to try to keep up a good blog. xoxo

Lots of stuff to get to. First I'll give an update on what I've been up to. I don't remember exactly when I last blogged but things have been very busy at CR lately. I had a fair amount of time to play poker in late August and early September. I played maybe 10-15k hands of heads up during this stretch and did pretty well. I have enough to either create a video series or a least feel very sharp when I am analyzing other people's play or doing whatever I am doing for this series. It is absolutely amazing how much better I feel about my game after really getting in there and grinding a bit.

Here's a good way of looking at it. Poker, depending on the games you are playing in, is either like riding a bike or weightlifting. Once you get to a certain level, you're never going to regress so much that you couldn't hop into a game with weak opponents and be a huge favorite. If I didn't play a hand for 10 years, drank 10 beers, then went to play against a bunch of Asian businessmen, I'd still bet on myself. There's just no way I'm going to forget to fold 4-9 offsuit and to play a lot of hands on or near the button. This is realistically all I need to know and I'd have a huge advantage over the average high stakes mega fish.

However, if I want to multi-table high stakes heads up regulars, poker is probably more like weight-lifting. As an aside, seeing as I can bench probably 210 pounds, I consider myself an expert weight lifter qualified to make an analogy between lifting and pokering. Seriously though, my experience with weight-lifting is that if you take time away and come back trying to lift the same amount you used to be able to, you 1) probably won't be able to do it and 2) are going to be very sore the next few days. Poker is a lot like this because if you, as a high stakes player who hasn't been playing much recently, come back facing strong opponents who are "poker sharp," you're likely not going to fare well and you are going to be sore for a few days after they figuratively jam a sharp object into your....bankroll.

That analogy is probably a long winded way of saying my game feels sharp and my ass is not very sore, relatively speaking. I have to say that feels good on both accounts. So now that I feel sharp I need to get this video series in ASAP before I feel the opposite of sharp, so let's see if I can do that.

Continuing on the update of what I've been up to in real life, Cole and Larissa came into town this weekend. We met up for drinks at the Dana Hotel and then met up with Andrew and Julia for dinner at Moto. You can find stuff online about Moto I'm sure but honestly the food was freaking bizarre. I guess the best way to start off explaining was that you actually eat the menu. Other things we ate included something that looked exactly like a Cigar (but was really a Cuban pork sandwhich), a duck sandwich that looked exactly like a cannoli, a bowl of corn flakes with strawberries that were frozen in (i think) liquid nitrogen so that when you bit into the food cold steam would literally shoot out of your notes and mouth, and the list goes on. In fact, it was a 20 course meal that took about 4 hours to complete, so by the end of 20 different foods and wines I was full and pretty tipsy. Thankfully I didn't lose credit card roulette which made the very enjoyable evening that much more fun.

So, onto CR/Degen story. We've been hiring some new people at CR over the past few months. Mainly just IT/web development people, as we have a ton of web development going on and it's expensive to outsource everything. It's pretty cool actually to have a full office of people everyday. It's pretty surreal to walk into the office and see a room full of people you hired. Actually, in some cases, I really wasn't even in charge of hiring, that's an even weirder feeling. We've got a pretty good office rapport, everyone is really laid back and friendly. We'll BS about stuff that's going on in our lives, poker, hobbies, whatever.

One of our new hires, name withheld to protect the guilty, is a DEGEN. It's awesome. He'll come in and be like "yeah, I busted my live roll at the Horseshoe (casino) this weekend." Or, "I was playing on FTP last night and had my bankroll on the line at 50NL table." Andrew and I took the office out to Dave and Busters last week to have some food, beer, and play video games. I thought it was hilarious that the entire office was stuck around this one game where you dropped tokens into a chute to try to knock more tokens off the ledge which the only value they provided was the ability to drop more tokens back into the machine (and earn tickets redeemable for prizes such as nerds ropes and gummi hot dogs). Literally there are hundreds of games and we are at the most degen possible game. I'm just thinking THIS IS AWESOME. We are a poker training company and we've got people that are still degening it up playing for the love of the game. I should be clear when I say I don't advocate playing with your entire bankroll on the line at anytime, but if you can afford the loss and you just want to have a little bit of fun, there's a time and a place for a little degen in all of us.

As I reflected on this funny little story I started to think about how I'm glad we are taking some risks as a company. We always shied away from bringing too much of the web development in house and we also were a little rigid with some of the content we were producing. I think for awhile some of the decisions I made were sort of from a "let's not mess up a good thing" type of mindset, rather than, "we're twenty somethings running on the ultimate life craps heater, let's keep it going!" It's truly a wild ride to go from college idiot with few redeeming qualities to post-college idiot but a lot on the line -- it's can be human nature to be cautious or dare I even say reactionary, but no more! I won't divulge our entire corporate strategy in the public domain, but it's sort of fun to be trying some new things, you know, rolling the proverbial dice.

Tomorrow I am leaving for London for four days. I'm playing in the Poker Million tournament, which means I will put up $20,000 of my money to play in an internationally televised 6-max 50BB SNG against name pros. My table, or at least as I was told, is me, Alan Cunningham, Gus Hansen, Chris Ferguson, Jennifer Tilly, and an online qualifier. I think this was probably an average draw at best considering that an invite only field is much tougher than a random MTT. Alan and Chris are probably much better than average in this field and will never be playing anything but their A game or close to it. I have not seen Gus play the short stack so I have no idea how he will play, and I think Jennifer and the online qualifier would be in a tough spot, expected ROI wise. Nothing like flipping some coins on the TV, so wish me luck, maybe I'll run hot.

I will probably try to go out and have some fun while in London. If any poker players are going to be there and want to go out for drinks/dinner/whatevs send me a PM. When I get home from London I've got about 18 hours to relax then I'm headed to Dallas for two days for a Stoxpoker partners meeting. After that I will come back home for about a week then I'm headed to the Playboy mansion for a halloween party. I was torn about posting that here because any guy that ever says "I'm going to the playboy mansion" sounds like a raging d-bag. There's really no getting around that but I'm trying to blog out the rest of my month. In November I am going to go to Las Vegas for a long weekend with Melissa and probably not do too much traveling besides that.

That's probably it I guess. Bye.

Oh PS -- if you haven't signed up for Truly Free Poker Training you are a fool. Sign up for it if you play on FTP or you like money: Free Poker Training

I've done a poor job self-promoting CardRunners in general over the last year or so, the least I can do is let people know that it's absolutely free if you play at FTP. You have my word that this is absolutely free and is the best deal in the world for getting high quality poker training.

Oct 5, 09 19:30:53

halloween party at playboy mansion sounds pretty terrible. ;-) def bummed i missed the dave n busters party!

lana

Oct 5, 09 20:10:13

Awesome blog entry - have a safe trip and enjoy London!

verneer

Oct 5, 09 20:25:15

Are you implying that Asians are fish? Should I be ashamed?

Safe travels man, hope you kick ass on international tv. Get Gustav to do a CTZ video with Wiggins!

Oct 5, 09 21:10:38

great blog, and his name is allen cunningham =)

impact69

Oct 5, 09 22:36:34

great post. glad you are blogging again. it's cool to see you take a more vested interest in what goes on in the day to day stuff with your members. really looking forward to whatever you have planned.

tilllttt

Oct 5, 09 22:47:30

I really love reading your blog, it is super inspirational to me to grind poker and get rich. Moar blog!

paymy22ition

Oct 6, 09 07:32:09

lol @ gus on ctz

Tay you absolutely have to make some kind of reference to the PA vs Tilly hand if you ever get in a pot with her.

Oct 6, 09 08:38:21

happy birthday man

Oct 6, 09 10:17:49

dude, that coin game has a good payout!

XxPanchoXx

Oct 6, 09 11:58:36

great post, keep it up.

Dahlig763

Oct 6, 09 13:15:34

While you are in London see if you can cop a feel on Tilly's ginormous (o)(o) hooters . That would be AWESOME!

jman73

Oct 6, 09 14:09:39

that coin game at d&b is a ticket goldmine. i have the entire cast of five foot tall stuffed loony tunes characters thanks to it.

cecil

Oct 8, 09 00:17:54

REMEMBER THE CRAZY kid from youtube you shows us

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rO6G6_hndbk&feature=player_embedded

This video is 10x better. the grandma actually hits the kid. its fucking brilliant

PokerSpaz

Oct 8, 09 00:18:56

refer to top

sorry, this is in response to a video taylor put in his blog a while back ago. i came across a better vid

PokerSpaz

Oct 8, 09 13:59:34

free training!!!

its great you hit the target and keep getting charged..awesome, I love it!!!!!

Oct 12, 09 13:18:30

Sorry about your loss on Saturday. Go Spartans.

MdP_52

Oct 17, 09 20:01:52

London

Evening Taylor - I am a student living & playing in london. I met up with Brian Hastings when he was in town. If you fancy going for lunch with some other student UK poker players it would be awesome.

Let me know by PM.

TilTJoshSum1

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October 01, 2009

Help with Chicago Restaurant!

Hey, this is going to be quick and I'll have a better update this weekend. The man/mtyh Cole is coming into town this weekend and Andrew and I want to show him a good time on Saturday night. We're trying to get a reservation at a really nice or cool restaurant but last minute it's really hard to do that.

If anyone reading this has any connections at a place like Moto, Alinea, Charlie Trotters, or something similarly impossible to get good last minute reservations, we'd really appreciate something. We'd need it for six people and anything before 8 oclock works. If you can help some brothers out we'll hook you or your friends up with CR gear, subscriptions, or anything else that's reasonable. Just PM me or email support@cardrunners and have them forward it my way.

Thanks!

Oct 1, 09 15:33:55

go to the restaurant with hundreds in your pocket.

approach host stand.

drop bills.

this works nearly 100% of the time.

Probability

Oct 1, 09 15:39:45

surprisingly it wouldn't at the places listed above.

Oct 1, 09 16:35:59

i can't, taylor, but i can recommend two places that are incredible.

avec (which is in the west loop)
cafe baba reeba

you'll need to make reservations by tomorrow afternoon if you'd like to hit either. cafe baba reeba is frequented by TONS of beautiful women.

Oct 1, 09 16:37:25

Try this: walk into the place, look around for the table you would like to sit at. Take your time, no rush. Once you're pretty sure you know where you wanna sit, pull out your gun...

ManWithBrisk

Oct 1, 09 16:55:24

mcdonalds

Oct 1, 09 17:53:11

been to cafe baba reeba. really fun place but we are looking for a dif type of place for this weekend.

Oct 1, 09 19:13:14

well, if you like tapas-style dining, Mana on Divison and Wolcot is fantastic. it's a vegetarian place.

Oct 1, 09 21:09:43

do you have amex plat/access to their concierge?

pakman370

Oct 1, 09 22:03:54

Send the cr assistant, hopefully a hot chick, and have her talk to the maitre'd of the restaurant, and with some "direct incentive" \$, im sure he can arrange something...

bazuko

Oct 1, 09 23:30:41

Fly to my house and I'll make ramen and Red Baron pizzas. BYOB though.

jeff218

Oct 2, 09 05:41:06

i have never been to a restaurant that pays the host so much they will not make room for someone with \$100.

Probability

Oct 2, 09 06:24:52

And if they won't let you in, get Cole to buy the restaurant...

matnewman

Oct 2, 09 07:20:46

+1 for either Jeff's house or for Cole just buying the restaurant!

desirae07

Oct 2, 09 20:49:11

go to the horseshoe and talk to me on saturday afternoon?

epdog

Oct 3, 09 12:14:20

I see Cr members are really connected...lol

I say go to the "King Of fries"...No major lineups

p.s. Im a extra large...ty

streetfamep

Oct 5, 09 11:07:25

I was in town the weekend before and don't recall being taken out for "a good time," that's prolly cuz I was too drunk to remember it though :P

SixPeppers

Oct 13, 09 00:44:08

bob chins crab house

its the 4 best restaurant in the nation in ahead of TAO in vegas which is 7 but i assume most that money is alcohol related.. if your interested give me a call or PM me. i run their retirement plan. the wait is usually like 30 min - hour on weekends. not sure i can get you in the first time, but i can get you a pass so future you wouldn't have to wait in line.

PokerSpaz

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September 23, 2009

Chat Logs

For a few weeks in mid 2006, right after I graduated college, I used a program called Trillian which aggregates instant messenger services so you can login with one name and be signed into AIM, MSN, etc. At the time, all of the Euros were using MSN and Americans using AIM, so it was annoying to have to go back and forth and having different windows popping up. Today, just about everyone I talk to regularly uses Gchat and most of the Euros at least have AIM if they don't have Gchat. A program like this really isn't necessary for me now, but man am I glad I used it. I was going through some old files and I found that I had AIM chat logs from 2006 still saved. On one of my old computers I know I have some for 2004/2005 as well, but I can't seem to find them.

I would give anything to be able to have an archive of all my old chats. It's hilarious to see some of the dumb stuff my friends and I used to say and do, and it's eye opening to me just how much has changed in my life in 3 short years. Just over this two week sample of chats, I talked to probably 5-10 people I haven't even talked to since those very chats, and it's almost painful to look at some of my conversation's with Andrew about CR. One in particular went something like this:

Taylor: Hey, we should start writing blogs at CR.
Andrew: Yea?

Taylor: Yeah, and give them away, for free. People will link their friends to them and visit CR.

Andrew: Yea, that sounds good. What would we write about?
Taylor: Mostly poker, but we could also talk about our lives.

Andrew: How often would we update them?
Taylor: Probably everyday, if not very close to it.

Andrew: Do you have any examples of poker blogs? I'd like to take a look at a few of them so I know how it's supposed to work.

Taylor: ::links Daniel Negraneu's blog::

Others:

Random person (3:30PM): Hey Taylor, what's going on?
Taylor: (3:31PM) Not much, just waking up.

Friend: Hey, when are you coming over to drink?
Taylor: As soon as my mom will drive me over.

Andrew: You been playing a lot since you graduated?
Taylor: Not really, maybe 1.5 hours a day or so.

Andrew: You should play more, the games might not always be this good.

Taylor: Yeah, you're right, but I'm pretty happy making 2-3k/day.

Andrew: Yea.

It'd be fascinating to grow up now when everyone is using services that are logging their IM conversations. I can only imagine going back to the AOL days in grade school or when I first got AIM in junior high. If anyone cares I'll dig through and find some better ones, but I got a real kick out of seeing these.

I've been playing a fair bit of heads up poker lately, results have been pretty good. Once I get enough hands I'll make it into a video or at least a thorough blog post talking about what's what.

Taylor

Entry Tags: Chat logs

Sep 23, 09 10:09:37

Andrew is a poker prophet?

paymy22ition

Sep 23, 09 10:17:05

"As soon as my mom will drive me over" is a fantastic quote.

SlevinKalevra

Sep 23, 09 11:26:54

to be honest I can't believe that there isn't a website devoted to old chat logs. I found them pretty funny and assume I have some funny ones

aisflat439

Sep 23, 09 12:25:19

fun blog. dig up some more. also tell andrew to blog or something. he was always one of my favorite blogs and its like he doesnt even exist anymore on CR.

TheTyman9

Sep 23, 09 12:57:41

Friend: Hey, when are you coming over to drink?
Taylor: As soon as my mom will drive me over.

Pure classic.

Hokulea

Sep 23, 09 14:18:22

i would love to hear what's what. also, my mom never drove me to my friend's house so i could get my drink on

epdog

Sep 23, 09 14:35:10

what stakes were you playin when you could avg 2-3k a day that easily. Dear god i hope poker legislation changes soon

COOLRUNNINGS

Sep 23, 09 15:55:10

lol @ Mom being the Designated D

Sep 23, 09 22:39:40

so good

vonMech

Sep 24, 09 16:37:38

Taylor: (3:31PM) Not much, just waking up.

little close to home with this one.

Probability

Sep 27, 09 04:38:41

more please. These are really interesting to read. Back in the day.

Benji2813

Sep 27, 09 23:56:18

Haha more please

MrAnderson

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September 21, 2009

Weekend

This weekend was a lot of fun. Friday I woke up and didn't feel like heading into the office. I had a few hours of phone calls to do and some emails to follow up on, so I spent most of the morning catching up on the latter and the afternoon doing the former. My new building doesn't have in unit laundry, so I put off doing laundry as much as humanly possible because the 30 floor trek downstairs to the laundry facilities sort of sucks. I'm still not sold it's much worse than having in unit laundry, actually, because although it is a huge pain in the ass to do not be able to do laundry 10 steps from your bedroom, it's nice to do three loads at once and have all of your laundry for two weeks finished in two hours. I go through a TON of clothes because I play basketball 3-4 times per week, which results in most days of the week wearing two different sets of clothes, more if I'm going out to eat or to a bar.

Speaking of laundry, I love telling the story about when the agent broke us the news about not having in unit laundry in what I would consider one of the nicer buildings in this area of Chicago. The background is that most of the larger buildings hire hot mid to late 20's women who I assume are the best at selling high-end apartments, or anything for that matter. Most are pretty good at what they do, and I would describe some of the sales practices as quasi-questionable. For example, I was repeatedly told by most agents that there were only "a few apartments left" in every building I visited, yet, every building offered 1-2 months free rent + 6-12 months free parking. Now, I don't know much about running a rental property in a big city, but I do know that if I literally only had a few available units in a building that was 40 floors tall I wouldn't be heavily discounting the units I had. I call BS on these agents, and next time I'm offered a deal like that I swear I am going to ask "why are you giving me such a good deal if there are only a few units available?" Anyway, when I asked where the washing machine in our unit was the girl said "oh, we're actually going green, all of the laundry is done on the second floor." Wait a second, you're telling me that in an effort to "go green," you've decided to continue to keep all of the appliances (as you've done for 40 years) on the second floor laundry? It's not that you're simply trying to charge people $1.50 per load of laundry and also avoid buying a few hundred extra wachine machines and dryers? We can also ignore the fact that high-rises are almost always inherently not "green." I guess I'll file this "going green" initiative under the "you can't buy these types of laughs" category.

Anywho, back to the weekend. Friday at five I finished up all of my stuff decided to grab a shower, crack open a beer, and play some Madden. I met up with four friends at Stanley's (decently good food+fun bar) for some drinks and a Friday night fish fry. If you are as effeminate as my friends and I are, I recommend the cactus-pear margarita. Don't worry, it comes in a glass that makes you feel a bit more in touch with your masculinity than you really are. The food was fine and as Joe says, we had a few drinks and a few laughs, a good night all around.

Saturday I went out to brunch at Clarke's with Melissa and Coop. Clarke's has been a Saturday/Sunday tradition for us for about a year now, I'd say we go there once or twice a month and I'm a pretty big fan. Afterwards I watched some football and took a nap, then cleaned up for dinner. Melissa and I went out to Ajasteak in the Dana Hotel. I think I had heard of this place before but I basically booked reservations on a whim as it had openings for twp on OpenTable. After passing the place twice (I'm a notoriously bad driver), we parked and were seated. This time I had a decidedly more "manly" gimlet martini with a 7oz kobe steak. I think I'm about done ordering steak from restaurants as 9 times out of 10 I tell myself "it was good but not great." It's not that I'm a picky eater at all, I just don't like steak as much as society tells me I should. Melissa had some cod that I thought was twice as good and we ended out trading a good amount of our order as she liked the steak more than I did. Ajasteak had a bit of an NYC vibe to it, although it was alarmingly empty for 730 on a Saturday night. Overall I thought it was fun, I'd go back.

Melissa and I came home, watched some of Dexter season one, then I decided to order the Mayweather fight and we were going to watch it in bed. My friends tell me what follows is just about as typical of a "Taylor" story as you can find. The background is that we don't have HD TV in our bedroom. I don't really care about HD much, expect when watching sports, and Melissa doesn't care at all. So we decided not to spend the extra cash on HD cable in our bedroom. I would also estimate I only watch about two hours of TV per month in the bedroom, so it's really not something I care much about anyway. So, because I'm not thinking, I order the HD version of the Mayweather fight on our bedroom TV. Well, we don't get HD in there, so the picture is blank. Now, I would argue that if you order the HD version, the non HD version should be available to you as well. Not the case. Furthermore, you can't watch the HD version on any other TV's, so when I went to the living room to try to watch it, it was blank as well. So basically I spent $50 on a fight I couldn't even watch, which was both stupid on my part and ridiculous on the cable companies (Comcast) part. I decided that out of principle I wouldn't re-order the fight and instead just went to bed. Looking back, I'm glad I didn't waste the extra cash as I heard the fight was pretty bad, but as I'm writing this out, it's hard to justify not spending 2.5oz's worth of overpriced japanese steak on some quality entertainment.

Sunday morning I got up and played some poker. Man the Euros are out in numbers on Sunday mornings. I've never seen so many hit and runs and Israeli poker players as I have that morning. I think I ended out winning about $1500 just playing a bunch of short stacks, not bad for a few hours work. I caught up on some work/email and then hit the gym with Melissa. At about 11, Scott (Irock) and Andrew "muddywater" Wiggins came over and we met up with some friends at Soldier Field to tailgate for the Bears Steelers game. This was fun. I had a burger and maybe eight beers before we headed into the stadium at 3. The Bears pulled out a miracle win which made me quite happy. The weather went from nice to rainy and back a few times, but since it was about 70 degrees it was never too bad.

I got home, ate some mac n cheese, and spent maybe three hours on phone calls for CR. That's the downside of working for an online business, there never is any time away from the business it seems.

Anyway, that was my weekend. I'll try to write something more interesting at some point this week. Good luck at the tables and in life.

Taylor

Sep 21, 09 18:24:15

who is melissa? your mom i take it?

Sep 21, 09 18:27:14

lol who is your intended audience?

Andrew "muddywater" Wiggins?

Is the <insert screen name> really necessary?

Sep 21, 09 20:18:14

WOW. NO HD = ME JUMPING OFF A BRIDGE

Nookx

Sep 21, 09 21:58:19

That's funny, I pretty much had the same exact experience when I got my apartment out here. The broker even told me heat was included, which wasn't the case. Oh well, being able to do multiple loads of laundry at once does rock though.

FakeSenatorKevin

Sep 21, 09 22:10:10

Yeah, watching a boxing fight always sets the mood for sex..

MoBeer

Sep 21, 09 23:36:40

I'm a huge nit about HD now after having it for over a year. "Going green" story is really funny. You messed up the namedrop though, it's Andrew "muddy trousers" Wigginton

Stinger885

Sep 22, 09 00:32:29

Comcast sucks

C.R.E.A.M

Sep 22, 09 12:49:31

LOL at rich guy walking 30 floors to do laundry!

fink494

Sep 22, 09 13:23:00

I was at the fight - the first two undercards were pretty good. The main event wasn't a great fight in the sense of being competitive, but it was a pretty awesome performance by Floyd. If you just enjoy watching the pinnacle of the sport today, then it's worth watching, if you want high drama about the result, then no. HBO will replay it this weekend if you want to watch....

bruechips919

Sep 22, 09 15:08:14

nomo -- i like to call people by their poker names when it's absolutely inappropriate to do so. i've known andrew for 7 years now, we hardly ever talk about poker, i just felt like calling him "muddywater" because no one calls him that.

stinger - you are right.

brue - i'll check it out this weekend.

all - love you love your show

Sep 23, 09 04:42:42

Quick tip for Comcast PPV ordering. You can get the PPV on all of your cable boxes, but you have to call in and order it over the phone (and make sure you tell them to put it on all of your cable boxes). It's a really stupid system, but if you order it through the box it only orders it for that box (and yes I think it should give you the HD and Standard too).

Dahlig763

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http://www.yourdailymedia.com/media/1143799745/Carlos_Mencia_Takes_Down_Kanye_West

FYP

September 15, 2009

Taylor's Gotta Stick Together

Many of the 15 year olds who read this blog may have heard that Kanye West dissed Taylor Swift the other night at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards. Well Kanye, that's for shit, you should know Taylor's stick up for each other. If you are older than 15 and did not see this, here:

So Taylor Swift won an award and was giving her speech when Kanye came in and basically said that Beyonce deserved the award. It was a pretty bush-league move by Kanye and I think he got thrown out of the building afterwards. Apparently Kanye went on Leno last night and apologized for the move, but I doubt he's actually too apologetic. Talking about Kanye reminds me of when I went to a Kanye concert in college. That was an experience, Kanye kept yelling about hating white people which made us feel really awkward at the show. It was actually a really good show, nonetheless.

On a slightly unrelated note, I have to say I'm a pretty big fan of Taylor Swift. I think she's 19 or 20 and writes a lot of her own music, is a great singer, and seems pretty cool in the five minutes of talking I've seen from her. I'm not a huge country music fan myself but a lot her stuff is really more pop music anyway. She's gotta be one of the biggest stars in music today and that's impressive at such a young age. After doing some googling it looks like Taylor even made out with some other dude named Taylor, so I guess she isn't worried about being namecestious. Yeah, I said that. If you read this Taylor, keep fighting the good fight and call me if you are in Chicago, we can go kick Kanye's ass (kidding, especially if you are my girlfriend or Kanye's entourage/lawyer).

Jim (CR's COO, founder of Stoxpoker and ThisIsTheNuts) and I got back Sunday night from a trip to Budapest, Hungary. Not too much that I care to blog about the trip actually. Meetings, a very little bit of sight-seeing, and a decent amount of booze and networking was the story of the trip. I did really enjoy the architecture, some authentic Hungarian food, and some authentic American food (McDonald's). If you're ever in Budapest, I definitely recommend going to the club "Bed." I'm not the biggest club guy around but it was pretty freakin' amazing.

Anyway, gotta work. Good luck.

Taylor

Entry Tags: Taylor Swift

Sep 15, 09 11:00:01

Kanye has to be the most arrogant person in music

Ted_Maul6

Sep 15, 09 12:31:22

Kanye is such an unreal raging douche.. His concert at Lollapalooza however many years ago was the most disappointing live music show I've ever been to, and it was in Chicago of all places. Taylor looks like she's about to cry :(

gordo16

Sep 15, 09 12:40:40

You have to admit...the incident is goin to make for great lyrics in the near future...

"Like at the MTV awards,I stole her mike, she starting crying, blah blah blah"

streetfamep

Sep 15, 09 13:03:46

Sep 15, 09 13:32:02

never understood the Kanye hype.. Bring back emeinem..

rookie

Sep 15, 09 15:07:48

"Kanye kept yelling about hating white people "

This made me lawl hard. Tay you should watch the Fishdicks episode of South Park.

Sep 15, 09 15:39:45

I hear he likes the white pussy tho. Just white dudes that he hates. He's black though, so he gets away with it

jjdodd27

Sep 15, 09 16:45:05

Oh man if she actually did cry when he did that on stage *gulp*

Definetly check this out: http://www.buzzfeed.com/ikickdogs/--46e1-lke/

Sep 15, 09 16:53:48

man, taylor, you're in hungary and you're eating mcdonalds! where's your sense of adventure?! there are like 10 of them in lincoln park.

Sep 15, 09 19:58:07

id hit that but i m never listening to her music

Playitlikeaset

Sep 15, 09 22:01:25

Classy imo =)

Sep 16, 09 15:55:33

I pity the fool who messes with Taylor Dayne

jtphila

Sep 16, 09 19:05:22

Yo Taylor (Caby), I'm happy for you, and I'ma let you finish, but Brian Townsend has one of the best blogs of all time!

..ONE OF THE BEST BLOGS OF ALL TIME!

And on topic, I thing a lot of people have gone too far on it. Yeah Kanye did something stupid, but tons of people are getting on their high moral horse and are threatening to never listen to him again, or never buy a CD of his, that's pretty friggin' extreme. I like his music, and if he acts like a prick off track then that's his problem, it ain't gonna stop me listening to him..

run.it.twice

Sep 16, 09 21:50:37

kanye can't rap. plus he's a whiner.

JudoJim

Sep 16, 09 23:40:25

http://i26.tinypic.com/2u9j03k.jpg

Sep 17, 09 05:49:36

shes 17 years old from what i hear.. might be wrong.. but kayne is the biggest dbag of them all. He belongs with the black panthers. I wish you (you went to his concert a while ago) and every other white person dont go to him shows. he spews hate towards white people. racist prick.

dtkodak

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September 08, 2009

This Blog Sucks

But why? There's a reason, in fact. I keep telling myself I want to get on here and post tidbits every day or every other day. That's how my blog used to be. When I started this thing, I really didn't think a lot of people would read it and it was just a place for me to goof off and give my life some sort of structure. Remember, back then, I was 22 years old, just graduated school, CardRunners had one employee (my college roommate), and all I really had to worry about was making sure I played poker a few hours a day so I could make a million bucks a year. Nice life.

There's probably a few reasons why things have changed. The biggest is simply that I am much busier than I was back then. CardRunners is 10x as big and probably requires 5x the work as it once did. Gone are the days when people I know are going out 4 days a week so I can pretty much pick and choose a time I want to have fun and it will happen. Poker is also considerably harder so to get good results you need to put in more time at the tables and also spend more time away from the tables. This is actually fine in my book, poker is more about the challenge to me now than just a pure money-making endeavor. It's funny in that regard, in 2003 it was such a great challenge to learn the game and a seemingly good way to make a few bucks for beer money. In 2004 I really came into my own and about halfway through the year realized I was better than anyone I had ever played online (results showed that too). In 2005-2006 it was all about exploiting that edge and getting the hands in, simply put, it was a challenge no more. 2007-2008 poker took a major backseat to CR as CR was a bigger challenge and I was searching for something to really devote my time and energy to. I guess I have a little bit of Brian T. in me because when something doesn't seem like a challenge anymore or if I am not really improving at it I get very bored of it. Maybe that's how everyone is, I don't know.

In 2009 I am lucky to be in a position where we've got some good people in place at CR and many of the things I used to stress over are now going pretty smoothly. Some people have noticed but over the past few months I've been putting some more hands in (when there is action!!) and I think I have really improved my game. I'm more confident about my HU game now than ever, I realized I was making a lot of mistakes over the past year or so. The results have been there as well, I'm not sure exactly what I am up as I am playing on different computers (some without HEM), but the results have been there (save one shitty 100/200 session where I got coolered across the board and lost a few buy-ins). I'd estimate I'm up over 250k since July from staking and playing, yay for positive variance. If only I could run hot when I take a shot at 100/200 or 200/400, I'm just waiting for that one +20 buy-in stretch so I can feel completely comfortable playing those games when there are softer opponents playing (there really aren't many these days, most people that those levels are very strong players).

Also there is this weird phenomenon where I'm very self-conscious about what I blog about. I wrote two blogs over the past few weeks that got trashed before posting this one. I'll be honest in that I hate loading up a poker forum and seeing someone trash either me or my company. The last thing I want to do is write some blog that's going to get negative attention so I sort of shy away from posting anything dumb or too controversial. It sucks, really, because it's a much better read if you do that. But what am I going to do? My parents and family read the blog, they also use google and in the past there have been random articles where I'll have lost a shitload of money and it's on the first page or two of google. When you go home to family and people mention they saw you had a tough day at the tables or they see fake article posted (they exist) about hands you didn't play where you lose tons of money, it's not the easiest of conversations to explain. God forbid your girlfriend's family reads stuff, it sucks.

Anyway, I think all those things have contributed to the blog not being as good as I think it can be. I'm trying though, if I get emo enough I'll post something interesting.

I made three CR videos in August. They all got good ratings and I think people enjoyed them. I'll be making a heads up series that should be out in October, if you have any interest in playing me or having me talk about some hands or concepts I recommend PM'ing me. I also recommend checking out jcl's first CR video -- we posted it last week and it's really one of the best midstakes videos I've ever seen. Joey is Australian so he can play on all of the sites, which is something many of you have requested. Seriously, watch the video, that's all I'm gonna say.

This past weekend I had my annual fantasy football draft with friends from high school. We played 18 holes beforehand, and after 6 beers on the front 9 I wasn't too concerned about how the golf went. If you care, it went poorly, I'd estimate I shot a 93 or so if I was keeping score. It was my first time playing since last labor day, actually, when somehow I shot an 82 or so after not having played for a year. Variance is fun. My draft went well actually, I didn't start reading fantasy stuff until the night before and my league is filled with sharks who spend a ton of time on fantasy.

Sunday I spent time at a family BBQ -- my family came in from out of town and my dad smoked some various meats. My family has met a few people who are CR members and have asked if they are related to me (caby is a pretty uncommon last name). Interestingly enough, both of the people they met are now playing professionally or semi-professionally so it sounds like they are learning something from us :). That always makes me feel good, that and knowing that your business is employing and financially supporting good honest people are the two best parts about this job.

Tomorrow I am headed to Budapest, Hungary, for a poker affiliate conference. It will be my first poker affiliate conference ever and I have heard they are a lot of fun and good for networking, so hopefully that is how it goes! It's going to be fairly brutal flying from Chicago-Memphis-Amsterdam-Budapest and then doing a similar path on the way back. I'm leaving super early Sunday morning so I can get back to Chicago in time for the Bears-Packers Sunday night game. I suspect some friends will have a party somewhere in Chicago so I might head straight from the airport to that on Sunday evening. I can't wait, I seriously cannot wait for that.

Okay, until next time, good luck at life and at the tables.

Taylor

Sep 8, 09 10:50:05

What a way to open the season. Let's see if the D can improve and if the receivers can do what Jay needs them to.

jeff218

Sep 8, 09 12:40:25

F Da Bears.

WhoDey All the Way

Btw, Budapest is probably one of the best names for a capital of a country. It just rolls of the tongue so nicely.

And if you want some video content, I'll play you HU at 50 NLHU....25/.50 blinds of course :o)

Sep 8, 09 13:30:52

whoa at your flight. i've got forte and bears D in two of my leagues, so i'll be cheering a bit for them this year. i've already found a place that shows nfl in london, thankfully. :)

lana

Sep 8, 09 14:01:11

I live in Budapest, how long are you staying here for?

I live pretty close to the Eastern Rail Station (Keleti in Hungarian), and as I see your conference is gonna be at SYMA center, which is a block away.

Pm me if you are interested in meeting up.

vanbasten9

Sep 8, 09 18:01:23

blah blah blah.

get your ass down to champaign

epdog

Sep 8, 09 22:56:42

nice nice

vonMech

Sep 9, 09 04:56:16

Dude,

I don't mean to be a jerk, but it seems like you got some growing up to do. It's shouldn't be your priority to care about what people who wish they were in your shoes say about you on the forums. It's all part of the fame and your family needs to understand that.

Write what you want because they will write crap about you as soon as you hit a down streak anyways. Look at what they said about Townsend and what they are currently saying about Durrrr and Lars. The rail is full of fickle idiots.

SOUPCAM

Sep 9, 09 11:11:01

suprised u went on high stakes poker if ur afraid of family members seein u lost a bunch of money in a session. seems like it'd look worse losing 100k on television.

Sep 9, 09 11:47:28

SOUP,

I could do that. Or I could just not write at all. That's what I choose to do sometimes, and I decided to write about it....because that's what I wanted to write about.

Sep 9, 09 13:29:44

.......because blog writer doesn't hustle fish into paying him to blog often enough

Stinger885

Sep 12, 09 10:31:15

Blog more. Rants included, in fact, rants encouraged. -Kevin

SlevinKalevra

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August 14, 2009

Christmas in July

It is Christmas time in August for me, ladies and gentleman. Please note that by "ladies" I mean my mother, who is likely the only female reader of this blog. Today at 12:01AM, Madden NFL 2010 hit the shelves. I would consider myself a Madden junkie, I've been playing it since 1991 and I'd say I've purchased about 13 of the 20 Maddens that have been made. Considering that they are about $50/pop, that's $650 plus tax that I have spent on John Madden's video game. That's pretty crazy when you think about it. When you think about it some more, it's almost a good investment because I probably play about 3 hours a week, putting the effective cost at about thirty cents per hour. The only time I didn't really play much Madden was sophomore-senior year in college, when I was addicted to internet poker. I'll take this time to apologize to my overlord John Madden, I will buy three copies of the game this year to make up for your missed royalties during '03-'06. I should also tell you that it was nothing personal, I didn't do much of anything those years besides play poker or go to school/bars.

Tonight I will pick up the game at 8:00 thanks to a friend of a friend who works at Best Buy. This weekend is the Air and Water Show in Chicago so I'll probably have some people over to watch it from our apartment.

This summer has been going really well for me. I blogged a month or so ago about how I was due for some good luck and man it has been rolling in. Staking/profit sharing has been going well, the summer is great, business is great, and I'm now living with my gf which has also been surprisingly enjoyable! That's not to say I didn't think living with her would be great, but I assumed it would take much more of an adjustment than it really did, which I think is a good sign for our relationship. I realize that as soon as I post this I'll go on a huge downswing and my gf will break up with me, but screw it, I'm feeling good!

Finally, a big "good job" shoutout to some of the CR guys who have been crushing at the tables. Gordo shipped an FTOPS, Isaac B consistently goes deep in every event he plays (WTF), and some of the other Team CR guys have been crushing PLO like you wouldn't believe. In some ways it sucks that we have pros that represent our company that don't self-promote like they could, but all in all they are great players and even better people. Watching us all learn and grow as poker players and people has been a great experience for me over the past few years. I'm really happy for them that they are finally getting the results in the nosebleed games that I feel they deserve.

Later,
Taylor

PS - I was reading some of my old blog archives and some of the stuff I said like 2-3 years ago was hilarious. I would just randomly post a sentence or two if something funny happened. Do you guys like when I actually take some time to think and write, or are more consistent, if not thorough and completely structured, updates more desirable?

Entry Tags: madden

Aug 14, 09 13:48:45

you mean christman in august?

dirty.brasil

Aug 14, 09 15:00:49

yes...august. my bad

Aug 14, 09 19:27:08

i guess im not one to comment when i cant even spell christmas lol

dirty.brasil

Aug 14, 09 22:49:21

I was walking through an electronics store today... and although I'm not a fan... I really thought it was a real game. Even when you get up close it looks phenomenal and I almost got it.

LJJones

Aug 14, 09 22:49:53

Christman sounds like an action figure... one that I would like to own

LJJones

Aug 14, 09 23:25:45

fewer wordy blog entries, more animated gifs. daut got it right on that one.

brystmar

Aug 15, 09 05:17:19

be yourself. let it show in the blog. its good as is imo.

charliemultitable

Aug 15, 09 06:27:40

"I realize that as soon as I post this I'll go on a huge downswing and my gf will break up with me, but screw it, I'm feeling good!"
LOL

yimc17

Aug 15, 09 13:00:03

i hope coop owns you this time around GP....

XxPanchoXx

Aug 24, 09 20:13:56

taylor, your blog is great as it is. You write really cool stories about whats been going on in your life and your perspectives. Its great.

Don't tailor it to us-- as someone else said-- just be yourself. That's what makes it a great read.

Thanks for the updates!!

killerbee112

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