Como

So I'm back in Columbia, MO with Bobby now... we got here yesterday. Also I made some calls and got a lot of cool things donated for this event and want to say a big thank you to the following companies :

All-in Magazine
Bluff Magazine
Card Player Magazine
I'm Allin Wear Clothing

Thanks to these great companies, we're going to be able to give some cool things away. Each person who comes to the event is going to be given current issues of each magazine. They also threw in some subscriptions for us to give away as door prizes and as part of the silent auction lots (more about that in a second). Every poker player should have a subscription to these three great publications. I heard some good advice about the value of information in poker... suppose you spend $50 on a book (which is what super system was going for back in the day before it went paperback). Well, if you win even a single pot because of what you learned from that book, it has paid for itself. Books and magazines are investments that serious poker players NEED to make... all three of these magazines have had little tidbits of gold that have definitely improved my game. Go to the sites, sign up for a subscription, and email them and let them know that you signed up because you saw their link after they donated to this charity event. ;)

And then there's I'm Allin Wear aka IAI. Their "imallinwear.com" domain name is hardly radio friendly... so you might be asking yourself how these cats can still be in business. The answer is simple. In the last year they have produced what is in my opinion the best poker t-shirts and other clothing items available on the market. About a year ago, they signed Scott up to promote the product and from what I can gather he has a little piece of the company in return. I've worn their t-shirts, hats, hoodies, and custom hockey jerseys to plenty of tournaments (including the ESPN ones this year). I don't have any interest in the company and have never been given an incentive to wear the clothes... quite simply, I don't need one. These items look and feel so cool. Words and pictures don't do the items justice... you have to wear them to understand. They look good. They feel good. And they have lots of cool poker wear for the ladies (and even babies!). So do yourself a favor and give yourself a fashion makeover... hell, buy extra t-shirts and give them away as prizes in your next tournament. Then you'll look better AND be more popular!

So yeah, this charity event is shaping up pretty nice. We have some lots that we're auctioning off including two really cool packages. The first is a Vegas experience and includes tickets for two to Vegas, two nights stay at Harrahs, tickets to a show in town, VIP treatment at one of the hip nightclubs, and dinner with me and my little brother where we teach you everything we know about poker (should take about forty minutes) and follow it up with a little poker excursion to one of the cardrooms. How cool is that lot? My favorite lot, though, is the one that includes that signed Coolidge poster with autographs from Doyle, Hellmuth, Chan, Matusow (who just won a major televised tournament... I won't spoil which one for people who want to pretend like those broadcasts are live), Tony Ma, The Grinder Mizrachi, Susie Isaacs, and several other players. I carried that poster around with me for awhile and I wish I could keep it for myself, it's that cool. It would make such a good addition to any game room. And what's more is this... Doyle Brunson is THE poker legend and is largely responsible for the game being taken out of seedy backrooms and legitimized. He's getting up there in years, and knock on wood I hope he'll live long enough to win another nine bracelets. But the awful truth is that he might not be around much longer, and the opportunity to get his autograph on a huge poster like this right alongside Chan and Hellmuth and the rest of these great players just simply won't be there for long. Besides the poster, that lot also includes some books, poker dvds, and autographed items from Phil Gordon and I *think* Greenstein even sent some things out. Those guys are great, and I'm starting to understand why they spend so much time on their charities... it's an addictive little high feeling like you're making a difference (even if the difference I'm making is a fraction of what Gordon and Greenstein do).

So if you're in the area, come out to the event. It's kicking off at 5:30pm tomorrow, November 12th, at the Holiday Inn Expo Center on Stadium and Bernadette. It's $100 a ticket for the best dinner ever and entertainment to boot. There's a free tournament afterwards where you'll get a chance to play with me and the rest of the crew. And most importantly, you're helping to cure cancer (all proceeds are going to the American Cancer Society, earmarked for breast cancer research) and help out a really great highschool group (the FCCLA... formerly FHA but I guess calling young women "future homemakers" became outdated).

Also, if any of you out there are interested in placing a little bid on one of those two lots I described... well, I'm not completely sure it's possible. But you might be able to bid over the phone. So if you're interested, shoot me an email at dutch@rakefree.com with your bid amount and your phone number and I'll get back to you.

Finally, if you have anything you can donate... doesn't matter how crazy it sounds... maybe you're a tv celebrity and you can donate an hour for dinner... or maybe you're in the movies and can give someone a small walk-on role. Maybe you're a website designer and can offer someone a free website design or logo design. Whatever it is, there's still time to put together more lots to auction off. It doesn't have to be items... experiences work just as well.

Hope you're all well and giving them hell. Here's to a great weekend!

Karma

One of my new guilty pleasures is watching My Name is Earl... the new sitcom starring Jason Lee as a guy who starts doing all these good deeds so that karma will stop screwing him over. Maybe there's something to it, because after working for a few hours running errands and making calls for this charity event, I logged on to Pary and took down the nightly $20 NL tournament with 2400 entries.

Save Our Breasts

I'm going back to Columbia, Missouri this weekend. Besides just wanting to see family and old friends, my mom and my little sister Suzie are working on a charity event for a club that Suz is in called the FCCLA (formerly the FHA, but I guess calling young girls "future homemakers" isn't too PC these days ;). They decided to throw a dinner and a poker tournament, and have me as a special guest (along with Bobby and crewmembers Joey and Dorf).

I was pretty eager to help with the event because all the proceeds are being donated to the American Cancer Society. Last year my mom came down with breast cancer... she's doing well now after a few weeks of chemo (she didn't lose her hair) and is cancer free. But when she called and gave me the news, that was about the most scared I think I've ever been in my life.

The event is called the Know When to Hold'em Dinner and Poker Night, and for a hundred dollars you can come and chill out, enjoy an incredible lobster and steak dinner, get a share of some of the door prizes being offered, and play in the tournament afterwards. You also get to chill we me and my crew. If you're anywhere around Missouri, definitely hit it up because it's for a good cause and will be tons of fun. It's on Novemeber 12th at the Holiday Inn Expo Center right there by the Columbia Mall. You can pick up tickets at Schmidt Billiards, which is one of the sponsors for the event and is located right there next to the Expo Center.

My mom and sister have been fretting about the night because a couple of their sponsors backed out. So today I've been making some phone calls and trying to help out... finding companies to sponsor tables and donate giveaways and prizes and what not. Special thanks to CardPlayer and Bluff magazines who both agreed to donate some magazines and subscriptions. If you have a business and would like to help out with the event by donating items for the silent auction, sponsoring a table, or whatever you can do... please shoot me a line at dutch@rakefree.com.

Another cool thing... I'm getting a poster signed by as many of the high profile players as I can for the event. I'm not sure what they're doing with the poster... but it's one of those Dogs Playing Poker prints. So today I went down to Ceasars Palace where Harrahs is hosting the WSOP Tournament of Champions and picked up a few autographs for the event. Doyle Brunson, Johnny Chan, Phil Hellmuth, Mike Matusow, Hoyt Corkins, Tony Ma, Mike Mizrachi... so many names.

So yeah... it should be a great time and hopefully we'll raise a bunch of money for cancer research. If you're around the area, be sure to make it.

Here's an update...

So yeah, it's been awhile... pretty much the only cool thing that happened to me in the last month was going to The Killers in concert at the Hard Rock. They've got to be my favorite band right now and pretty much the only one that I really wanted to see live lately. Other than that, just playing tons of poker online.

Saturday, I talked Bobby into hitting Fry's with me and helping me build a new computer. I had ordered a couple of 20" LCD monitors so that I could play 8 tables at once without any of the windows overlapping. Then it was just a matter of finding a computer that can handle two monitors (which my crappy laptop can't do).

So rather than buy a desktop, we went and pieced the thing together... bought a new P4 processor, a kickass harddrive, the best video card and motherboard I could find, a DVD player/writer, and a kickass case to put everything. We brought it home and started putting the beast together... thought it would only take a couple of hours but it ended up taking about 12 because of some windows screwups (which sucked because we had to backout of some clubbing plans for that night... sorry Dottie). But now I'm the proud owner of the coolest system ever thanks to my wizard brother.

I've been working pretty hard online trying to build up a roll to go for the POY race in 2006, and it's going well. Hopefully it will go a lot better the next few weeks now that I can double how many games I'm playing. Looks like I'll probably be starting in Tunica (unless Bobby wins a seat to the Pokerstars thing... then I might bite off that WPT tournament first). My tournament game is sharper than ever and I'm really hoping to make some waves this upcoming year. Wish me luck.