MissT74

Spring Break Cruise Anyone???

2008-02-22T09:41:00.001-08:00

LAST MINUTE SO AT A GREAT PRICE!!

OK, so since I have become a RTA recently, I decided to start by planning a Spring Break Group Cruise. Here's the details/information:

I am wondering if there are any interested parties in taking a Mexico cruise over Spring Break week.

NO PASSPORT IS REQUIRED UNTIL JUNE

1. You should be from the West Coast area in order to save cost of traveling to the port.

2. The cruise is a Monday-Friday affair. 3/24-3/28, leaves from Long Beach.

3. It's on Carnival Cruise Line (Party boat!!) and leaves from Long Beach, stops at Catalina Island and Ensenada.

4. $475.03 per person which includes travel insurance, $426.03 per person without travel insurance. Must have 2 people to a cabin, if you are interested but it's only you, I can buddy you up with another person.

5. I believe they'll be a few people from RGP, 2p2, and some local friends where I live, perhaps a relative or two can go??

6. I need to know if anyone is really interested/serious in going, and if so, wouldyou be willing/able to book/pay (credit/debit card) by later today or tomm? What do you think? Let me know ASAP, I have a 24 hour hold on 5 cabins.

Anyone interested, email me ( travelwithmisst74 at yahoo dot com) or post a comment here, I'll give as many details as possible, just think it would be fun to set up a cruise for Spring Break

Super Bowl Weekend

2008-02-12T17:01:00.000-08:00

Eh, so it took me an extra day or two to post this but here it is!

Got the invite to join my friends from Phoenix, Lonnie and his girl Gail, at the RIO in Vegas for the Super Bowl. I figured, eh, why not...called my host and not only got a comped room but also got 2 wrist bands to go to their "Big Game" party.

It's held in one of their conference centers, held 3,000 people, about 20 HUGE screen TV's throughout the room, tons of free food and free booze, what more can you ask for? Um, how about another bracelet since there's 3 of us? Took some doing but my host came through, she's the best!

So we went to watch the game, it was awesome, had fun, was a great game but the best part, of course (ldo) were the commercials!! I actually made notes during the game of my favorite ones and as I mention them I will try to link them from YouTube.com.

1. My absolute favorite: "What is Love - Diet Pepsi Max"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJEVxfWpm7c

2. "Fed Ex Pigeon" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ycvf9E2cjRs

3. "Tide - Talking Stain" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgtfC5LBAW4

4. "Garmin: Napoleon" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnbKoZCeedM

5. "Planters - Ugly Girl" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4J52QaD6mw

6. "T-Mobile - Who's in your 5?" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnYPJDpgLIw

7. "Doritos - Mouse Trap" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0nliPWaCvA

8. "SoBe - Thrillicious" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anLqu77uTH0

9. "E*Trade Baby" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vW9gUmooFg
and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdfvWAp5GUw&feature=user

10. The ONE commercial that got a standing ovation, cheers and applause from the 3,000+ people watching the game:

"Budweiser - Horse in Training" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_Bst68fGvg

So there you have it, my list of the top 10 commercials, these were by far the best ones and really, the only GOOD ones.

HORRIBLE MENTION:

Any and all ads by SalesGenie.com sooooo stoopid, I'm not even linking them. Yucky yucky yuck.

Catching Up

2008-02-10T07:41:00.000-08:00

You all are in luck, I'm actually planning on posting not one but TWO entries today, woot woot! This post will actually just get some of you caught up with what's going on in T's world.

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Daughter is doing great, getting 3 A's and 1 B on her last report card. She has a new boyfriend, Larry, whom I adore and I also get along very well with his parents. They spend a lot of time together and since he's a Sophmore who's on the "popular" side, she's well know around the school now and they seem to be the "golden couple" of the school. Keep in mind there's only a student population of about 500-600, so it's not like my high school of 3K where you can go 4 years without knowing anyone!

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Business is going good in the medical billing field. The last new client I got, back in 4/2007 is really starting to take off, doing way better then I ever thought she would. My three contractors are still doing exceptionally well and I'm not quite sure where I would be if it weren't for them.

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Since business has been going well, I've decided, yet again, that it's time to persue other interests so I became part of the YTB family, making me a RTA, which is Registered Travel Agent. That's right folks, I decided to do a little part time work and in exchange I get tons of great travel deals and FAM trips, which are "Familiarizing" trips which RTA's get at RIDICULOUS prices in order to recommend those trips to future or current clients/customers. I'll make another post in a day or two with links and more information, that way if anyone who reads my blog travels or knows people who do, you can book off of my website. It works JUST like Expedia.com or Orbitz.com, so it would be easy to compare prices and know that you're getting the best deal out there. More info to follow soon.

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We've had another set back with the ex-husband. Bill had a very rough day in December and decided to check out of life again. I last spoke to him through email on 1/8/08, but then got a phone call from the Kingman police department that a friend in town had called and asked them to do a Welfare Check. Since I was his ex-wife they wanted to know if I'd heard from him, what his status was, etc. etc.

So I called him and he called me back within 5 mins, which is what he usually does...screens his calls then calls back only the people he wants to talk to. Apparantly for 2 weeks in Jan, I was that "one" person. Sigh. So not only did I have to deal with him and his eccentricies but I also had to deal with his ex-girlfriend, his father, his stepmother, his best friend, his friends in town.....it was enough to either drive me crazy or piss me off.

Then on 1/23 I'm at his landlords getting another key to his house so I can get the Kingman Police entry into his house to check for his dead body. While there he calls me for the last time and tells me he will be in Kingman the next day to take care of rent and the car payment. Apparantly he hasn't been paying any of his bills since the end of Nov/early Dec including rent. You guessed it, he never showed up and from that point on, refused to return my calls despite my threats and in fact his voicemail filled up by Wednesday 1/30 and was turned off completely (non-payment) by 2/2.

So on 1/29-2/1 I had the pleasant task of packing up his house and placing everything into a storage unit. I spent over $1k (that I really didn't want to be spending) to get his stuff into storage so that the landlord couldn't call it "abandoned property" and sell it. It also prevented her from putting an actual "eviction" notice on his credit report as I voluntarily gave her the keys to his house when we were done. What a pain in the ass those few days were. Have you ever packed a house of someone who wasn't planning on moving, and doing it in 2 days? It's tough.

We had filed a missing person report on 1/28 and since he's an adult, that's all we could do. They were able to put "mental illness" on the file but apparantly if you don't want to be found, you don't have to be found. So almost two full weeks go by and I'm going on with my business and life but have to stop it every time I get a phone call from a friend or family member. Which really got annoying because WHY ME??. I'm his EX wife, not his current wife, not his girlfriend, I'm DONE with him and his life so why am I the key center of this??

Anywho, to wrap it up. I get a call yesterday AM 2/9, from the Kingman police dept who got a call from the Maricopa County Sheriff's office that they've been in contact with him and he told them that he didn't want to talk to anyone and so they left him alone. However, his father got involved, called the Sheriff's office and they told him where they had seen him, at a rest stop area near Wickenburg, apparantly he had been there for about 3 days with no food, no gas, and no money. I still don't understand...instead of calling a loved one to ask for help what was he planning on doing, starving himself to death out in the middle of the desert, 15 miles from his dad's house? So. Stupid.

Anyways, so his dad went and picked him up, took him back to his house and that's where he's at now. Not sure what he plans on doing with his life now, because he seriously fucked it up. NO clients will talk to him ever again, as they've already given him a chance before, when he "checked out" of life after we broke up, he's probably going to be sued by several of them for not doing work he was already paid for and can't do because his computer not only crashed but it's in storage now anyways. I guess a retail job is in order now.

The last detail is the car he's in. We bought 2 cars together when we were married and they're both in both of our names. We agreed that we would each take one and then continue on payments as normal. I warned him last year though, when I was paying his bills that if he stopped paying and I had to step in AGAIN, then the car is MINE and I would reposses it. I'll be DAMNED if I pay for a car for him to drive around in because he doesn't want to be bothered with life or with working. I may sound callous and hard hearted, but you can only put up with so much and in the case of dealing with a mentally diseased person, if they refuse to help themselves, why should I step in and help them?

You can't help someone who won't help themselves.

As you can see, it's been a pretty rough last two weeks and while I've tried so hard not to let it get to me, eventually it does wear a soul down. I still took time out to go to Vegas for a Super Bowl party though, so that thread is coming up next!!

T

Anyone Out There?

2008-01-30T12:59:00.000-08:00

Just wondering if anyone still even checks my blog since it's been so long since I've posted and even then, I was posting sporadically.

Give me a shout out if you're still hanging around, now that my book is almost completed, I'm not so burned out with writing and will be updating my blog like MAD.

Including.....

News about the ex-husband (divorce was finalized in 11/07).
Updates about the daughter.
News about another new business venture I'll be experimenting in.
Updates about the book and when it should be available/published.

LOTS going on in my life, pretty weird actually, you would think my life would be calm now but still on the gogogogo.

Will update again within a few days......

Peace.

LOLCATZ, love em

2008-01-10T11:15:00.001-08:00

Merry Christmas!

2007-12-21T07:24:00.000-08:00

Today we leave for California, specifically Palm Springs area. Shopping ALL day long on Saturday, Disneyland on Sunday, back home on Monday, then probably Laughlin on Tuesday for Christmas movies and Christmas Dinner.

Have a wonderful holiday season and take care of yourself! Will post pics of trips and other stuff when I return!

T

Holiday Season!

2007-12-10T13:28:00.000-08:00

Christmas is almost upon us and I am 99% done with my Christmas shopping. Only last thing to do is to run to Safeway to buy a few gift certificates from their gift certificate wall. Cherissa and I ran to Vegas for a quick and last shopping trip. She brought her friend Larry with her and we hung out shopping for about 4 1/2 hours before finally heading home. That was a long day!

The family recieved some awesome news this weekend and that's that my dad finally proposed to his g/f Colleen, now fiancee ldo, and she happily accepted! I'm very happy for them both as I think they are great together and although I don't know Colleen that well, I feel I know her well enough to know that she will be great for my dad, and vice versa. I will admit to being extrememly disappointed though that I don't get to go to the actual wedding as it will take place on a cruise that he's had planned for a long time, right after Christmas. Well, at least it gets them married before the year is over for tax purposes and they will hold a reception when they get back. Although I was upset when I first heard about it, as I would REALLY like to be there, I'm over it now and wish them nothing but the best and a wonderful day that will be theres forever.

My sister Corrie called me and told me that she found a condo to buy, you GO girl! So she's happy to be moving and getting her own place, but Lorrie is missing her built in babysitter already, LOL.

I will be in Palm Springs from 12/21-12/24 for Christmas, anyone out there who wants to meet up, let me know. I already plan, hopefully, to run into Slim1Der, Omaholic, and will spend time with my best friend, Guido. I, of course, will also stop by and see my sister Jennifer and her family for a little bit, drop off gifts, etc etc. then Cherissa and I will be home for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, then it's back to work as not only is it end of month but end of year as well. Then we'll be going to Vegas for New Years as tradition dictates with friends Lonnie, his girl Gail, and Omaholic is going with his wife Cheryl as well. This will be the 3rd year, so it's tradition now and I plan on continuing it for as long as possible!

Hope everyone is doing well in their lives/jobs/home/health/holidays and have a great next couple of weeks!!

Update, blah blah blah

2007-11-27T17:00:00.000-08:00

Well it seems everytime I update my blog I promise to keep updates going, but then I fail to do so. What can I say, I'm a procrastinator and a lot of things I just leave until it HAS to be done. So I'll just throw out a few comments/updates on what's been going on.

************

My divorce has been finalized. Our wedding anniversary would have been 11/3 but instead we were officially divorced on 11/12/07. We still get along quite well though and we're both doing well, wish nothing but the best for him and I feel very confident that we will remain friends forever.

************

I have been wrapped up with College football. Go Devils! I am a huge ASU Sun Devil Fan and have gone to several games with my mom, her new husband Dane, and sometimes Cherissa. I went to the UCLA game, the USC game, the Cal game, and coming up this weekend is U of A. Our arch rivals/enemies.

Since UCLA destroyed Oregon last weekend, if they beat USC this weekend and we beat U of A then we are going to the Rose Bowl baby!!

I'm supposed to spend New Years Eve in Las Vegas with some friends (Hi Omaholic, Sheryl, Lonnie, and Gail!) but I told them that I wouldn't be making any reservations until I know for sure that we're NOT going to the Rose Bowl. Because if we are going,then that's where I will be. Sleeping on the street for the Rose Bowl Parade, then off to the game on New Years Day. I will know by this Sunday what my New Years Eve plans are.

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For Thanksgiving Cherissa and I spent it with Mom and Dane in Phoenix. Ate dinner at the Squaw Peak Hilton and then went to the ASU/USC game. Cherissa didn't care for the food at all, so I decided to surprise her and cooked her the "Curtis" traditional Thanksgiving meal on Saturday. She had two friends come over as well, so there weren't as many left overs as I would have liked, but there was still some for Sunday!!

On the way back from Tempe to Prescott to drop off Mom and Dane I realized, OOPS, I left my car keys in the hotel room. Sigh. Had to go to the Hyundai dealership in Prescott to get a key made in order to drive home and will have the hotel Fed Ex my keys to me. Thank goodness I didn't need any of the other keys right away!

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For Christmas this year I'm going to take Cherissa to LA area (Palm Springs) so that she can meet her boyfriend from MySpace.com and then I'll take them to Disneyland. She's looking forward to it and it gives us a nice little Mother/Daughter extended weekend, then we'll be home for Christmas Day then it's back to work for me so that I can do not only month end but year end as well.

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Speaking of work, it's still there. Going well, no big changes at all. Still the same clients, down to only 2 employees right now, but I have hired a part timer to start 1/1/08. I've also thought of a new business that I will be opening. Not going to open it or describe it until I do open it, but it will gross you out. : )

I'm going to partner with the new girl that I hire. I'll front the funds and she'll do the work and we'll split 50/50. Sounds good to me! Not much of a start up cost so we'll see how it does, but you know me, always multiple pans in the fire.

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Haven't talked to my publisher in awhile, still not done with my writing/reviews for the book, HOWEVER, I did set a deadline with myself of 12/31/07, so as long as he still wants to publish the book and is not TOO mad at me, I reckon it should be out in time for the WSOP.

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Well, that's it for now. One last note: I have FINALLY started a MySpace account. Here's my link, come find me and I'll add you as a friend!! www.myspace.com/tanyamichellepeck of course known as MissT74 for my profile name. Look me up!

Take care and I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!

A Star is Born (???)

2007-10-17T16:32:00.000-07:00

Cherissa just found out today that she got the leading female role in her schools play. This is actually quite amazing because she's only a Freshman and this play is being performed by Drama II, when she never took Drama I. My girl got mad skillz!! Play: Hooray for Hollywood! (not the musical). I am SO proud!!

Don't Ask Part II

2007-10-16T21:22:00.000-07:00

Don't Ask....

2007-10-16T21:13:00.000-07:00

Why I'm posting these, but it has to do with not knowing how to use photo buckets on the internet and me wanting to post these on a forum. : )

Don't Ask....

2007-10-16T21:01:00.001-07:00

Go Devils!!

2007-10-16T20:44:00.000-07:00

The people that are close to me know how much I love my Arizona State Sun Devils. Although my mom is more of a freak, and I do mean that literally....she has a seperate room devoted to her Sun Devil Memoribilia (sp?)...crazy, I used to be a season ticket holder along with my sister PJ, Mom & Dad but had to give them up when I moved to Kingman.

WHOOOO HOOO...8-0 Baby! Although we have a bye this weekend and the next 4 games are going to be HARD as hell (UCLA, USC, CAL....etc)I'm feeling pretty good. We went from not being ranked, to 3 weeks later being #25, to being #18 the next week, to being #14 the next week, to being #8 this week. We're doing pretty damn good. Could it be because we have a new coach this year?? Hmmmm.

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I've been posting a lot lately on 2 + 2, I know a lot of people that know me from RGP know that I used to always talk bad about that forum, but I figured since I'm used to posting on moderated forums other than RGP, why not?? Turns out there's a LOT more people on that forum then RGP. They have definatly surpassed RGP in people, material, wisdom, etc etc. Doesn't mean I'll ever agree with the owners viewpoints or business practices, but it's a good place to meet new people and even talk with people that I already know from other forums.

I think being new hasn't been as hard on me as it is for others as a lot of people already know me and have vouched for me, so I'm not being harrassed or slammed like most new people are...that's pretty cool!

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Still not playing poker or gambling, haven't even had the desire to do so. I've been reading a lot and since I'm all out of books, I'm finally going to go to the public library tomorrow in order to get some more reading material! The only problem is that I'm running out of authors. : ( I read too fast and reading 1-2 books a day, I'm running out of material here!!! Sigh.

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Nothing much more going on, I'm trying to write every couple of days just to update, will (of course!) write as soon as anything interesting happens, if it does, but because I'm taming myself right now, I can't see anyone else living vicariously through me right now, LOL.

Peace out!

Where to Begin.......

2007-10-09T17:39:00.001-07:00

Well, as you all know it's been an awful LONG time since I've last posted. I think I just lost interest in a lot of things, poker being one and blogging being another. I think I'll just throw out some random paragraphs to get me back into the swing of my blog.

Cherissa's Quinceanera was this past weekend. It was totally awesome! Photos can be seen at http://pecksweb.com/photos/cherissa/03/ Once I convert the video tape, I'll be posting some key moments on YouTube.com. These parties are very traditional and we had an opening waltz, the presentation of the shoes, giving and receiving of the traditional gifts and she sang a solo song as well. I am so proud of her and how she's turned out, I was crying several times during the party, I'm such a softie, LOL.

I went to Atlantic City for the Annual ITH Convention last month and didn't even do a trip report on it, but I had an absolute blast! The weird part, at least for me, was that I didn't even do any gambling (Well, about $40 on nickel slots and $200 on table games, but that was it and for me, that's NOTHING!!) I just hung out at this one bar every day, almost all day long and met people every day, all day long. This was when I wasn't playing in the ITH tournaments, of course. Good times.

I'm back to being single. Jordan moved back to Canada. We felt it would be for the best as we couldn't get him a green card or visa to work in the states, so he went back in order to get a job and start saving up his bankroll again and then make his attempt at playing poker for a living. Still very good friends of course, and we'll still date when we see each other but we also know that by us being so far away from each other, we'll be free to still meet and date other people as well. This also allows us our own space and individuality which is what I crave and love at this time.

My mom got married a few weekends ago. I went down to Prescott for the wedding, it was very simple but elegant and nice and I wish nothing but the best for her and Dane. Congrats guys!

My sister Lorrie had the lap band procedure a few months back, not sure on exact date but here's her blog: http://www.dramamamainqc.blogspot.com/ I saw her this weekend and DAMN she's looking good!!! I'm very proud of her and her husband was quoted as saying that he feels like he's cheating on her with her. LOL.

My other sister Patti (PJ to us!!) also had the lap band, but only a few weeks ago. She's doing great with no complications like Lorrie had, so I wish her well and can't wait to see the pounds melt off of her as it will with these procedures.

I've gained so much weight back since my gastric bypass, I feel horrible!! My self esteem is still AOK, that's not a problem and I still get the guys, but I hate the fact that I out ate my surgery and will be doing either a revision or moving to a different procedure such as the lap band. I figure I'll be able to get it done by Feb or March, just have to save up the money for it since I have no health insurance. Should cost about 10-12K depending on what I do, but I AM doing it. This way I'll be looking HOT again for the WSOP!!

Like I said above, I've lost interest in poker but mostly online poker. I hardly play at all and haven't made a deposit in many months. I've been playing $1 SNG's only when I'm bored and haven't even been too interested (for the most part) in playing the big tourneys. I still love playing live though, but I try not to travel too much anymore since I have a teenage daughter that is getting prettier and prettier which means I'm getting more and more scared. LOL

I've been reading TONS though. I love nothing more then to do my work during the day, have dinner with Cherissa, then while she's doing homework or talking with her friends I chill in my bed reading a book, it's absolutely fantastic. I'm in a really, really big reading kick right now. The only problem is that I've read so many books (sometimes 2 a day, I'm a speed reader) that I'm running out of books! I've read all of my favorite authors books and have been trying to find new authors but that can be difficult sometimes. I started reading V.C. Andrews and so I went to the used book store, bought out every single one of hers, she has a LOT, but by the 7th book of hers I realized they were all the same story line. (Kind of like Danielle Steele, can't stand her, LOL) VC writes about incest and rich family/poor family in every book and it just gets old. She must have one sick mind or have been through it herself to write about it so much. Yuck. Turned me off and so now I have no more books. I have to get to the library one day this week.

The business is going good, nothing new or different there, just the same old same old every day. One of my employees is about to have a baby though, so that will be great to be around one without having to have one to get the baby urges out of the system, LOL.

I started playing the local bar free poker tournament league and it's good for nothing but being able to get out of the house and have a few drinks. They all suck and a lot of them hate me because they know that I play (for real, real) and I think I set them off a few times when I try to play by the rules. I know now that I just have to go with the flow and I don't even bother arguing or calling the floor because it's pointless, noone there (even the floor) knows the proper rules. So I just go to drink and play drunken poker.

Well, I think that's it for now. I'm going to go make dinner now and now that I've gotten this blog off, I'll feel better about posting more now. I'll try to do a little something every day or every other day, so that at least the blog is back to being more consistant.

Peace Out!!

Happy, Happy Birthday, Baby

2007-10-06T13:54:00.000-07:00

Yes, my baby, my girl, is 15 today. FIFTEEN!! Wow, it's so hard to realize how quickly time goes by.

Happy Birthday Cherissa!!! I love you!

Mommy

2007-10-03T08:50:00.000-07:00

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code: 2062786

2007-08-28T08:45:00.000-07:00

WSOP/BCP TR #2

2007-06-14T08:42:00.000-07:00

Which you should have gotten a few days ago, but I wanted to make sure I typed something up for you all before I leave again today, back to Vegas. It's always hectic and crazy when I come home in between trips, getting caught up on work, getting ready to leave again, etc. etc.

I'm not going to go into too many details about last weekend but will instead talk about the "one" that got away from me.

On Saturday I played the $550 Venetian, 485 entrants, only 40 got paid. This in itself I don't understand as most tournaments pay out the top 10% of the entrants, so I believe 48-49 should have been paid, but from what I've heard the Venetian is very top heavy. I don't mind that, IF I were to get to the top. And man, was I on my way. I played solid, good, sometimes drunken (I got drunk while playing the first 4-5 hours then sobered up the final 4 hours. I played for 10 hours total, busting out right around 10pm on THIS hand:

Antes are 1K, blinds are 2K/4K. I have 120K in front of me after paying my antes, I'm UTG and look down to AcKc. There were only 7 players at the table, 44 players left in the event.

Everyone folds to the SB, which is typical, there all pretty much playing bubble style, as I was.....although I wasn't getting any hands, so that helped me but in each orbit I'm losing 13K, so I have to do something at some point or I'll just ante/blind myself past the bubble, and I don't want to pass the bubble (Well, I DO but I DON'T, ya know??).

Anywho, the SB looks at me (cute guy, in his laste 20's or early 30's, had already shared his spring rolls with me) and says, "You know what? This is the stupidest call I am ever going to make in my life, but I like you and I'm tired and if anyone is going to get my chips, I want it to be you".

Flips over 4c5c.

You know the rest of the story. Flop comes 3, 3, 5 Turn J River 10 and IGHN. SIGH.

I LOVED the call, when I saw it, just hated the flop, when I saw it.

Never found out how much 1st paid but that would have given me 260K in chips, well within chipleader range and from what I've figured out/heard, 1st place was probably anywhere from 25-30K. CRINGE.

Gawd, Sometimes I hate poker so much. : )

However, I digress and I'm off to Vegas. This weekend has RAZZ at Binions, so hopefully I can do good there since I love that game and today is $200 NLHE at Binions.

Have a great weekend, and I will write again on Monday when I return home. Ciao!!

Ohhhhh BTW......

2007-06-07T18:19:00.000-07:00

I met Trishelle this past weekend in The American Grill at RIO. For those that are in the know, she's the gorgeous blonde from Real World - Las Vegas, which is currently airing on MTV, at least the Reunion show is. She was very nice and after she told me that her boyfriend made it to Day 2 in a WSOP event, I pretty much ignored her and just talked poker with him. Of course, I was buzzed/drunk? at the time, but I think it was pretty cool.

AND

What the FUCK is wrong with the court system to let Paris Hilton out of jail after 24 hours???? Oh sure they SAY she was in fro 3 days, but she didn't turn herself in until midnight, so they gave her credit for the whole day and then she left last night at midnight, giving her credit for today. There is NO way in HELL you or myself would EVER get that treatment. A fucking ankle bracelet for home arrest due to a medical condition, give me a fucking break.

(But then again on the other hand, if I was rich and famous, I would want that treatment too. ; )

OK, off to Vegas! Next trip report coming on Sunday or Monday. Have a great weekend!!

WSOP/BPC Trip Report #1

2007-06-06T15:11:00.001-07:00

Left Friday after taking Cherissa to her orthodontist appointment, got her on the plane to Aunt PJ in Phoenix and then headed off to RIO after first dropping off 2 guys I had met at the airport at Harrah's. The taxi line at the airport was about a 1 1/2 hour wait and I felt it would bring me good karma to do a good deed for the day.

WOW. RIO was/is one MAJOR clusterfuck. Good lord, I can't understand how they (Harrah's) could have this golden egg on their plate (WSOP) and fuck it up every year. EVERYTHING was different, where to play single table satellites, where to play cash games, how the registration lines worked, it was horrid to see all the people standing in line for literally 4-5 hours just to register for an event. I moseyed around for a little bit, ran into a few old friends (Hi Foldem!) and met my friend GoPhish from PS for the first time. I commiserated with him while he stood in line. Tried to sneak him into the Diamond line (the ONLY thing I will like about the WSOP IF I play anything there) but to no avail.

So I left and headed over to Binions. Ran into some friends there, don't recall if I played anything...certainly no tournaments, but did end up going over to Polly Esthers, the dance club at Stratosphere I enjoy, for about an hour before heading home to the RIO and crashing, after a scrumptious shrimp cocktail at the All American Grill. (LOVE them, I eat 1 of those every day)

Saturday had me heading to Binions and arriving in time to play in the normal 10am event. Didn't do anything worth mentioning, but the goal is to have it finish by 1:30pm, so it's a turbo style with no rebuys. Played a little Video Poker, ran into some friends, just got reacquaited with Vegas basically before the 4pm BPC event. I didn't last much longer then an hour in that event, so I hung around until the 8pm normal event which I ended up chopping 5 (or was it 6?) ways, with all of them getting 2300 and my getting 4K. I was MAJOR chip leader and DRUNK off my ass, as normal, so they were wise to ask me what I wanted just so that I wouldn't knock them out, since I had knocked out everyone else so far at the final table at that point with horrid cards but LUCK was on my side as it usually is. Not a bad start to my first weekend in Vegas!! I also won the seat into the TOC event being held on 7/1, but gave the Tshirt to a tourist from England.

Sunday AM had me back at Binions and playing some more video poker where I hit my first 4 Aces of the weekend, no kicker, but still good for $800. Played in the 10 am and the 4pm BPC with no positive results. My Dad was in town with his new girlfriend, so I got to hang out with them for about an hour and had a few drinks before the 10am started. It was great seeing him again and he seems very happy with his new love. After the tournaments, I ran into some ITH'rs (Pauli, Nside, and KrazyTxn!!) so we decided to play the 8pm at Golden Nugget, where I ended up winning the last longer, but still couldn't make it to the final table. We headed off for a meal at the cafe there, which I adore, and then I played some Crazy 4 Card Poker before calling it a night.

Monday AM had me back at Binions and playing some more video poker where I hit another 4 Aces, then quads 3 times and so I cashed out with my $1200 profit and played the 10am normal tourney, then the 2pm BPC, where I ran into Felicia and Glenn. They stayed with us at the RIO that night, but Felicia forgot her seat cushion and was in so much pain, they decided to call it a trip and left for home on Tuesday, although they'll be back, especially for Stud which Felicia ROCKS at. This was my last day/night in Vegas, so although I started off slow, I ended up getting toasted again and found myself running around Vegas at 1am trying to find my damn spaghetti and meatballs. Finally found it at the 3rd casino I stopped at, Caesars, and after my yummy meal, went to bed and crashed. I was supposed to meet Dad and Colleen for dinner, but we couldn't set up a proper time so I ended up just playing Crazy 4 Card Poker before my 4th meal (which in reality was my 2nd meal as I always seem to forget to eat in vegas, or would rather be playing instead of eating, or drinking instead of eating, etc etc etc). I bought in for $200 and left with $2400. Another good session!

Of course, as a gambler and with the amount of tourneys I played in, I gave a lot back and I couldn't have won a lot that I won if I hadn't been gambling, but after arriving in Vegas with only $500 and leaving with $4400, I was very pleased and hope to win at least one tourney or good gambling session a trip.

I leave again on Friday and will only be there until Sunday night, when I pick up Cherissa from the airport around 8pm and head on home for another week of work, then leave again. This month will be a constant going back and forth traveling road trip for me, but I look forward to it. Boy, do I ever. : )

I know I probably leave a lot out, and I can't always remember everything, especially when I go for 3+ days and they all start blending in together, but I will try my best to give sordid details and post funny anectdotes when I can. I'm starting to think this might just be another boring blog entry, so I will have to work on my debauchery so you all can live vicariously through me. LOL

It's TIME!

2007-05-31T18:39:00.001-07:00

I leave for Vegas tomorrow PM, after first taking Cherissa to her orthodontist. Then I take her to the airport, she's flying to Phoenix to hang out with Aunt PJ and cousin Nick for 10 days, then I'll be headed to the RIO to check in and check out the beginning of the WSOP.

Saturday, Sunday, and Monday I will be playing at Binions Poker Classic then back home on Tuesday AM to get caught up with my work and blog, then back to Vegas the following Friday.

I promise to blog about each individual trip because if I don't, the details get fuzzy and lost. : )

If you're coming out to Vegas at any point during the WSOP, make sure to email me and we can exchange cell phone numbers and meet, perhaps over a cocktail?? : )

Have a great weekend to all you non-attending-WSOP-suckers. ; )

T

It's About Damn Time

2007-05-28T16:20:00.000-07:00

I am SOOOO sorry I haven't posted since my last post, I seem to have a little problem with Google, we're not getting along too well and I just didn't persue it as further as I should have.

I've been a little depressed/bummed out lately and just didn't care is another reason. : )

Soooo, where did I leave off. Oh yeah, The ATLARGE trip report.

OK, let's start from there.

(ATLARGE was the first part of March and man, that was a long time ago. I'm pretty sure that was my last trip for the book, to do my research, but I've also gone on another cruise since then...but not for vacation, for work.)

*********

WPS, which I've spoken about before, offered me a position as tournament registration and cashier. I took the job not knowing what I was getting into and 7 days after leaving harbor, got back home miserable and not really caring to go into details at this time. I'm sad to say that I no longer feel as if I can endorse WPS and as many friends as I have made with WPS, unless they come to other poker events, I probably won't see them ever again and that makes me sad. That was one thing that I loved about WPS...the people. They always accepted me for who I was, no questions asked. Sigh.

*********

Another sigh is that we had to close the store. I think the biggest mistake we made was "location, location, location". We had NO cross traffic so the only traffic we got were people coming specifically to our store. Retail works better when it's not that way and people buy impulsively. I got tired of putting my other business' money into the store, and made the decision to close it at 6 months vs. continuing on and possibly hurting myself more financially then I already had. I'm happy with the decision now, sorry that it failed, but not sorry for trying. Maybe another day, another location.

**********

As many know, I had started dating Fellknight (RGP) and he had moved down to Kingman to open the business with me, upon the closing of the business we decided that it would be best if he moved back to Canada so that he could get a job, as he has no working visa in the US and it's damn near impossible to get one. Before going back however, he is attending a dealer school in Vegas, learning poker dealing, blackjack, and craps. He worked the WPS and did a fine job dealing, so now when he goes back to Canada, he'll try for a job in a casino until he can get a US working visa. UNLESS, of course, he does well at the WSOP and wins lots of money, then he'll move to Vegas and become a professional poker player like he's wanted to do for a couple of years now.

**********

Speaking of the WSOP, I will be in Vegas for most of June and the first part of July, but due to increasing financial difficulties won't be playing at the actual WSOP, but rather at Binions Poker Classic. They run the exact same events as the WSOP, but at 1/10 of the cost and so I can go and play...since I already booked 24 nights at the RIO for FREE during June. (I'm a Harrah's girl, am I not??) I've had offers to be backed and have accepted and thus will be able to play a LOT more events at Binions then I could have if not backed. I sent an email out to certain friends with my offer, but don't feel comfortable posting it on RGP or here on my blog. A lot of people always construe it as asking/begging for money and I don't like that connotation, and so only felt comfortable sending it to people that I felt wouldn't feel that way about me or my email.

**********

Cherissa is thriving! Getting into typical teenager trouble and I'm getting more and more worried as each month goes by because she is one gorgeous girl and the boys have noticed. She graduates from 8th grade tomorrow night and I'm sure I'll shed a few tears....OMG, my baby is entering high school in 2 months!! YIKES!!

**********

Went into Laughlin the other day for the first time in a LONG time and actually chopped the Riverside tourney with 2 others and I was the short stack! Even chop, so I said, um OK. LOL

**********

Billing service is going good, got another client back in April, hired another girl last week, it's starting to pick up and due to this and the fact that work is coming in for Bill again, I'll be OK financially again in another month or so, but boy has it been a rough past 6 months. I really need to learn money management, I think I got so de-sensitized about money with poker/gambling and the fact that I was making way more money than I ever had, that I forgot about the bad months. However, things are going well and I'll be back on my feet soon. I'm a survivor, that's for sure and I've always prepared myself for the worse.

**********

That's about it for now, again, I apologize for not posting more reguarly. I do have a laptop that I know how to use now (lol) and will take with me to Vegas to post my WSOP/BPC trip reports so keep watching!! BTW, I hope I didn't lose to many readers, but I'll spread the word around again that the blog is back up and maybe win a few readers back.

For now, take care of each other and yourself. - Jerry Springer : )

OMG....FINALLY!!!!

2007-05-11T17:39:00.000-07:00

After SIX weeks of being hacked and not having access to my blog, I FINALLY got help from Google and was able to reset my password, allowing me access to my blog.

I bet you all have missed me, eh?

I will post the POST of the lifetime, TWO months of accumulated news and post again before the weekend is over.

I sure hope I didn't lose you all.

: )

ATLARGE Trip Report

2007-03-09T10:10:00.000-08:00

Took off for Atlantic City via Philadelphia on 3/1 but got stuck in Chicago overnight. Not too big of a deal as we found a nice hotel that had a lovely bar and restaurant. However, this did mean that I would miss the Smoker's Dinner and that was disappointing to me.

Got an early flight to Philly Friday AM and after picking up the rental car, finally made it into AC around 3pm. That day's tourney had already started so we missed that one, so we hung out at Showboat for a little bit playing 2/4 LHE and just basically hanging out. Finally got registered for ATLARGE and found out there was a banquet that night, so we headed over there. Food was great, the guest speaker was Nolan Dalla...absolutely loved him, but he was struggling up there. Good thing everyone had a great sense of humour and he got heckled quite a bit, from me included.

This is where I ran into Eric from the 8-2 MD club, we went out for a smoke and while we were gone, Nolan finished his speech and everyone had headed downstairs to play the pink chip game. We started making our way down to the poker room ourselves, but then got stopped at a bar. Eric stated "There is no way we can walk right by this bar without getting a drink!" I concurred. We got our drank, finished it, and started heading towards the poker room again where we came upon a dance club. "There is no way we can walk right by this dance floor without dancing!" is what I claimed and so we sat. Ended up staying there for several hours, well into the night. Eric drinking beside me, me dancing with others out on the floor and I will state that although he only drank beer (2 to my 1 martini) Eric can absolutely HANG!! Loved him, had a great time. Headed to bed around 2am.

Saturday found me lazy and not really wanting to get up and hurry to get showered and dressed to get to the tourney for the day, so I lounged in bed until about 2pm then went downstairs to sweat Omaholic in his 2nd final table for ATLARGE. He had finished 4th place in the Friday HOE tourney and then ended up out in 7th (I believe) in the NLHE Saturday event. Finally ran into Elg (Eric) on this day and after the tourney, we went and had a drink. Then Fellknight, Omaholic and myself went to dinner at the Chinese restaurant that The Taj has where Eric met up with us, then we went over to the pink chip game where I lost my buy in. Then we all headed upstairs and played some private poker games in Omaholic's room. Go Slomaha!!

Sunday I had to do my room reviews so 3 of us headed over to The Borgata. LOVED it! This is my 2nd favorite room so far. It was absolutely gorgeous, and the Bellagio of AC. Fellknight found a very juicey 10/20 Stud/Omaha game and ended up winning an insane amount of money. Omaholic and I went over to the Tropicana so I could do that room review, then we went right back to the Borgata where he then jumped into the game with Fellknight and I found myself playing 10/20 LHE. I don't know WHAT I was thinking playing that level, but I won! (Sidenote: the games are absolutely juicy on the weekends, during the week...very dry just a note for you all)

Monday we headed out to Foxwoods. Ran into snow in New York but I also got to see the Empire State Building in the skyline and I was tickled by that. I have never been out on the east coast, so it was all very new and exciting to me. That Empire State Building sure is tall, LOL, it was pretty cool seeing it against the other buildings in the skyline. Got to Foxwoods about 7pm, IIRC, and it was already dark so of course, I got lost. LOL. Missed the entrance to the hotel room, we stayed in the one that is seperate from the casino. Took the shuttle over and then I went to work and tried to do my poker room interview. I said "try" as this was the 2nd casino that refused an interview in regards to rake/structures, etc. Said I would have to contact their PR department. Sigh. I don't get it, this information is public knowledge, why make me jump through hoops to get it???

Met another RGP'r, dougmanct, had a drink or two with him, taught him how to play Crazy 4 Card Poker then went and sweated him and Fellknight in a single table sattelite. Once that was over, I figured it was time for 4th meal and had some delicious spaghetti and meatballs, then crashed into bed around 2am.

Tuesday we headed back to AC as we decided that we really much rather preferred Borgata over Foxwoods. We were supposed to stay there until Wednesday before heading home, but got a free room at Borgata so figured why not go back to the poker room we liked? Didn't do too well there that night though, but still a lovely casino and the rooms are absolutely gorgeous.

Wednesday I woke up to about 3 inches of snow blanketing the area....who woulda thunk? The sun was out and shining the day before!!! Got to the airport and after no mishaps at the airport(s) got into Vegas around midnight, stayed over because I was absolutely exhausted and then headed home back to work on Thursday.

It's Friday now and I'm just getting caught up on work, my clients, and home life. It's been a pretty stressful and hectic time the last few months with all my traveling and some situations at home. However, I am a firm believer in positive thinking and found out Oprah is too when she recommended "The Secret". This is a concept I TOTALLY believed in, just didn't know what it was called as I never heard or read about it, just knew that that is how I try to live my life. I recommend everyone get this book, and with an open mind, you'd be surprised at what you can positively attract.

San Francisco/Bay Area Trip Report

2007-03-09T09:58:00.000-08:00

"Finally", you're saying to yourself, "Finally she's updating her damn blog"

San Francisco was a very, very nice weekend. Landed in San Jose on Friday 2 hours late but then checked into the hotel and my sister, Corrie, picked us up and we went down to Pier 29 (I'm pretty sure that's the pier, the famous one??) Anywho, enjoyed a nice dinner with my sister, did a little shopping, was surprised and happy to see a Michael Goddard gallary on the pier, an original is only 40-50K but ONE day I WILL own one (or two : )

Saturday saw us going to Lucky Chances casino to do my review on the room. You'll have to wait for the book to get all the juicy details, but let me just say that this is, by far, my favorite casino/card room that I've reviewed so far. The dealers knew what they were doing, the floor knew what they were doing.....there for about 6 hours and only heard 1 dealer call for floor once during the whole day/evening.

I did get spanked in the 1/2 NL game though, but it really wasn't all my fault. I kept getting awesome hands, but the opponent always had better. Flush? No good! Full house? No good! So I moved down to 3/6 LHE and had much better luck/time there.

Sunday we headed to the wine country and spent the afternoon/evening with Dr. Gary Furness from RGP, had a lovely time meeting him and his wife and his 2 adorable children. We really enjoyed ourselves this day and low and behold I FINALLY found a wine that I liked. Of course, I couldn't tell you the name or even the vineyard but I LOVED it! Turns out it was a dessert wine and that's why I liked it due to it's sweetness, had a pear like taste to it and so I bought a bottle.

Monday found us at Bay 101, which I absolutely HATED. I don't really want to go into to many details but the floor was very condescending and rude to me, IMO, and also refused to give an interview for the book. This was the first time I had run across this and it kind of shocked me. The information that I'm looking for is not a secret, they actually had print outs with the information I needed, but they just simply refused to talk to me. That set me off to begin with, but then it got worse when the floor cut me off after a few shots and then the floor manager looked me right in the eye and stated "Oh please, you were drunk when you got here, you absolutely reeked!!" This stunned me as I had had only 2 drinks before getting to Bay 101 and that was at least 2 hours prior to getting there!!

Those 2 drinks were had over dinner with Porsche Dan from RGP, always nice to meet a fellow RGP'r and this was no exception. He made the reservations for a lovely restaurant not too far from Bay 101 and after a good meal and great conversation was when we headed to the card room.

Traveled home on Tuesday and got ready to head to Atlantic City with ATLARGE.

2007 RGP Donkey Starfest Announced

2007-02-16T09:07:00.000-08:00

Yes folks, the RGP Donkey Starfest is BACK.

Please feel free to check out the schedule and the rules atwww.LetsBuyPokerStars.com

The first event will be on 3/6/2007.

This is how it will work:

There will be 3 events each week, Tuesday/Thursday/Friday for 4 weeks each month, for a total of 12 events a month, for a total of 3 months.

The top 3 finishers from EACH event get automatically entered into the monthly championship. You cannot sell or transfer your seat if you win more than one, however, it will increase your odds of winning the monthly championship which DOES have a grand prize, thanks to the great people at PokerStars. (Maximum number of possible entrants = 36)

At each of the 3 monthly championships, the final table will win a seat to the Final Championship, which does have an even BETTER grand prize, again, thanks to the great people at PokerStars. (Maximum number of possible entrants = 27)

Read all about it at the website, and let me know if you have any questions. This is an event for RGP'rs but if you know me and because I set them up, tell them Tanya sent you. : )

I left my heart in San Francisco..

2007-02-07T10:02:00.000-08:00

...well, not YET, but I will be there this weekend! I land at 1:10pm in San Jose on Friday, and will be staying in Redwood City. Bay 101 is in San Jose and Lucky Chances is in Colma, near San Francisco, so I'll be staying right smack dab in the middle. Found an awesome rental car rate of $15 a day with unlimited milage, so I'm set!!

I've called my baby sister, Corrie, and will be hanging out with her on Pier 39 and doing the touristy stuff on Friday, then head to one of the casinos on Saturday, then the other one on Sunday, leaving me free to do touristy stuff again on Monday and then I come home on Tuesday.

If you want to meet up with me, please email me and I'll exchange cell phone numbers with you. I would hate to miss meeting anyone that lives in the area, so email me NOW!!!

tanya@pecksmedicalbilling.com

EDIT: I forgot to mention that I will be in Vegas Thursday night since I have an early AM flight out on Friday and will therefore be able to hang out with my WPC sisters as they are there for their annual Vegas Outing!!

Waxing Philosophy

2007-02-06T09:51:00.000-08:00

I had an interesting dream last night, I won't go into details but when I woke up it left me instantly thinking "When is the line drawn?"

Where do you draw the line on someone being confident and a "go-getter" vs. being selfish and spoiled?

For example, if I say "I deserve better" or "I deserve it" or "I deserve more" am I being confident or am I being selfish? Does it depend on the item/object/subject?

I'm truly puzzled about this and would like others input. My first reaction is, of course, that I'm just being confident and that dammit, I DO deserve it. (Whatever "It" is) but then I looked deeper, or more to the point, I look at how OTHERS would look at it and I'm thinking it might actually come across or appear to be selfish.

How do you draw the line? Where do you draw the line?

SuperBowl XLI

2007-02-05T12:15:00.000-08:00

So for some reason, I have made it a habit to turn SuperBowl Sunday into a "big" thing for me. I have made it a point to watch it for the past 6 years, even though I don't watch (for the most part) any football during regular season, except for College.

So, I headed to the store Sunday AM, got the makings for my chili-cheese dip, chips, pretzels, and fixings for a big spaghetti dinner.

Read a book and watched movies until Kick off Time, then decided to go into the kitchen and make a plate of my dip with chips and proceeded to drop the plate on the counter when I heard "...and he's on the 30!!!" coming from the living room from the kick off. Sigh. I did make it into the living room just in time to see him step into the endzone. What a run and I missed it, that sucked. Of course, reruns, but it's just not the same!!

Anywho, my tradition consists mostly of watching the commercials and the halftime show. My favorite halftime show, by far, is Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake, I LOVED it! The controversy! The denials! Pulease, it was obviously planned IMO and I'm OK with that as it was meant to cause a reaction and that's what it did, it made my jaw drop down!!

However, I absolutely LOVE Prince and was very eager to see the show. I will admit to being slightly disappointed in the performance, but I think it's because I expected too much, kind of like my first cruise. LOL. I kept waiting for him or one of his twin dancers to slip and fall due to the rain, but amazingly, they kept their balance the entire time. I was also waiting for him to get electrocuted with his guitars, but that didn't happen either. Bummer. Now, THAT would have made for interesting TV, LOL.

Now, my comments on the commercials as posted on ITH:

FIRST POST:

Loved the Blockbuster Mouse one even though I detest Blockbuster and have been running a boycott on them for the past 5 years.

The beard combover was funny at first, then flopped, however I've always enjoyed the Sierra Mist commercials, very funny and cute.

I absolutely loved the Oprah Winfrey/David Letterman promo, anyone who watches David would appreciate that one, I was tickled about it.

There was one that made my heart stop, a truck commercial (Ford, Chevy...who knows??) Where they clock him going from 0-70 in 4 seconds or something, with two doors closing, which he barely makes it through and then has to stop on a dime or go over the edge. The reason why it made my heart stop was because they had a disclaimer at the bottom that actually said "Real test performed" or something to that effect when it's usually "Stunt man on closed course, do not attempt". Only saw it once though, but it made me sit up and pay attention.

All in all, pretty disappointed. I can't even remember ones that I laughed out loud with, except of course the beer commercials (again, what brand...who knows??) bunch of different ones.

Oh, I did LOL to the Taco Bell commercial with the 2 lions and the one trying to teach the other to roll his "R's". LOL

SECOND POST (After darvon posted a link: http://www.cbs.sportsline.com/nfl/postseason/superads ):

Thanks for the link, it helped refresh my memory.

1st Quarter:

The Doritos commercial, LOVED it, I was rolling.

The Budweiser Rock, Paper, Scissor, I LOL'd.

The one I mentioned above was the Toyota Tundra: Ramp. Ohhh, good one, but I've always been partial to ones that made me laugh.

Very disappointed in GoDaddy.com, they usually have good ones but this years was hardly racey at all.

2nd Quarter:

Again, the Doritos, very funny.

The Chevy Car Wash was cute to me but because at the very end they show a very old guy wearing a wrestling type underpants only, carrying a guitar, and I met him in Vegas. He's the worlds oldest known male strip dancer. Kinda cool to see him in the commercial.

The Coca Cola Timeline was heartwarming and I liked it due to the significance of the coaching staff in today's event.

All others...>Bleh, but I'll admit I missed the Sierra Mist Hospital one, I probably would have liked that one.

3rd quarter:

The FedEx Shipping one was stupid, IMO.

I liked the Bud LIght Great Apes.

YES! The Taco Bell Lions one, that was the best.

The Bud Light: Movie; "But he has an axe!!" "But he has Bud Light!" that was funny.

Nothing else in that quarter.

4th quarter:

Not a single one. However, I will admit to losing interest in the game, I mean the Bears got slaughtered! (Yes, that's who I was rooting for, I just despise the Colts uniforms, way too ugly to cheer for them) So I started reading again but upon reviewing the website, I still didn't see one I particulary cared for.

Ohhh...not sure what quarter, but the Kevin Federline commercial was HILARIOUS, I love someone who can make fun of their self, shows confidence, IMO, and I never liked him or disliked him before.

So that's it, my SuperBowl report and now it's Monday so back to work!

Mom Needs Help

2007-02-02T15:15:00.000-08:00

As you all know, I live in a rural community, Kingman, Arizona, where we have exactly 10 child care centers in our town. Not only are ALL the centers filled to capacity, but ALL of them have a 1-2 year waiting list for accepting children.

My mother moved to Kingman last year to be near me and my daughter and decided to open her own child care center. She has a BA in Child Development and 20 years of experience in the child care field, including being Regional Director and Center Directors for national child care centers such as KinderCare, La Petite Academy and Children's World. She has opened many centers from the ground up, and all of her centers have been financially successful for the particular company she was working for at the time.

Mom has also designed a currivulum and has written a staff training manual that is currently being used in several centers throughout Arizona. Mom knows her stuff about child care and is a pretty awesome business woman. (Which is probably where I got my business sense from!)

Mom has found the perfect location for her center, and has had it secured since last October, using the past months to do renovations and getting the building up to local firecodes, passing inspections, etc.

During this time frame, Mom has put in over $30K of her own money, but needs 60-80K more to put into the business to get it opened. She had the financing secured before starting the process, but in the 2nd month, it fell through when the investor changed his terms to what was simply unacceptable.

I have been trying to help her secure more funds in the past 2 months, but have been having difficulties in raising the full 80K. We had the idea of finding 4 people to invest 20K each, if we couldn't find 1 person to do the full 80K, and now we're even at the point of thinking about finding 8 people at 10K each in order to get the center open. We already have 2 investors at 10K willing, (not including myself) but only if we get the other 6, obviously.

The biggest attraction that this investment would have is the fact that because we're in a rural community, we have a LOT of DES (Department of Economic Security) children. These are the children that the State of Arizona pays for their child care, due to the economic status of their parents/household.

Due to all the other child care centers being full and having waiting lists, we know that we could open the center with a minimum of 90% occupancy, if not 100%, due to the demand for this service. Of that 90%, at least 80-90% of them would be DES children which means guaranteed income for the center, as the State pays the center directly on a monthly basis.

All offers and terms will be considered. (We'll consider all offers just to get it going/opened since we already have the building and done renovations. We would hate to have to stop and give up when it's so close to opening.)

Alas, the SBA is not cracked up to what's it's suppose to be for and if any of you have dealt with them, then you know what I mean.

Just to let you know, she has an awesome business plan that would make any interested party swoon. (Noooo, I didn't help her do it. LOL)

I am trying my hardest to help Mom realize her dreams, just as she helped me with mine. I'm also trying hard to help her because I'm one of the people who wants to invest in this, I just don't have 80K in my back pocket right now, if you know what I mean.

Email me at tanya@pecksmedicalbilling.com for Mom's contact information, if interested, and if you've gotten this far, thanks for reading!

Cruise and L.A. Trip Report

2007-01-31T18:00:00.000-08:00

I'll be honest, not much to really report. I had a great time on the cruise, not much to talk about. After 5 cruises, a cruise is a cruise is a cruise. Stayed in L.A. to do my book research on The Commerce when I got back to dry land.

Few highlights:

1. Met Gary, a friend of Felicia Lee, LOVED him. The boy is like 7'4" or something like that, HUGE, keeps getting asked how tall he is (funny how I can't remember his exact height, but maybe I guessed right), gives great bear hugs.

2. In Aculpulco, found a very cute neighborhood martini bar called "Shake It!" and watched both of the "important" football games last Saturday that resulted in the teams going to the SuperBowl. (Can't remember the dates)

3. Finally won a damn trophy by answering a trivia question right, was trying to win one of those "24 Karat Gold Plastic Trophy" for the whole damn week. The trivia question had to do with Wheel of Fortune, and I love game shows, so was an easy one for me.

4. Got to try out the electronic poker tables, PokerPro or PokerTech or something like that. Decided I do NOT like them. Played on them quite frequently the first few days, but then pretty much left them alone after that, just wasn't interested in them. I don't like them, they have several glitches, no protection against collusion, just BLECH, BLECH.

5. Got really upset one of the last nights when an old guy was just really, REALLY rude and mean to me. Called me names, insulted me, etc etc and all because I sat next to him at 3 Card Poker. Good thing Felicia was there, she calmed me down, but DAMN, why do people have to be rude and treat other fellow human beings like that?? I just don't get it.

6. The Commerce is fantastic, very impressive! I did not know that they are the largest card room in the WORLD. I'll see if any other room claims that while I'm doing further research, but still interesting to know.

7. I did NOT get cut off at The Commerce, although I did get warned for being too loud when I was telling the table the Brandi story and explained quite happily what "POMB" meant. Tee Hee.

I'm home now for a week or so, will probably head to Vegas just for Sunday to watch the SuperBowl in the Diamond Lounge with a few friends that will be there from Phoenix.

I will be leaving for San Jose/San Francisco on 2/9-2/13, I will post a warning on RGP, but if you're in the area and frequent Bay 101 or the other big one (can't think of name) then let me know, I'm meeting people for drinks and/or dinner while there! AND OF COURSE, my sister...you know I couldn't forget you Corrie!!! : )

My "Stalker"

2007-01-15T21:38:00.000-08:00

Yes, it has finally happened. Well, actually, it's been happening for awhile (5 months?) I just never mentioned it before but since I spilled the beans this weekend at ESCARGOT, I figured I would make it public and hope for sympathy votes. (Kidding!)

I don't give out my cell phone number often. Not many people have it. I have given it to several poker players, several people that I've met online from my poker forums, and of course family.

However, the poker players and online people that I give it too are people that I have met in person or was planning the meeting in person (such as prior to BARGE, etc) and people that I feel I "trust" not to be stalkers.

Someone has my cell phone number and it shows up as "Private". Almost every single night, a minimum of 5 times a week, I get a call anywhere from 1-3am from the "stalker". No heavy breathing, no talking, just me saying "Hello?" and then hearing a click 5 seconds later as they hang up on me.

So to my "Stalker":
Please, stop. I'm an approachable person, you CAN talk to me, and I don't understand why the constant need to try and wake me up at 1-3am or for what reason. You don't bother me, you don't scare me, you don't concern me, you simply make me curious.

I was told that I can contact my cell phone company and that they can actually do record searchs and find the name and number of the person that keeps calling as "Private". This will be my next step and at that time, the police will have to be involved, and that's just too much of a hassle, so again, please stop now. Don't make me go through that hassle just to find out who you are, OK?

Thank you very much.

Traveling Woman

2007-01-15T21:28:00.000-08:00

So while I was in L.A. this past weekend, although the main reason was for ESCARGOT, it was also to do the L.A. card room reviews for my book. I only ended up doing one review this past weekend, but knew that I would be back in L.A. next weekend (1/25-1/28) so I will be doing the Commerce and one other one (Hustler? Hollywood Park? I'm undecided) while I'm there I will also play 1-2 events in the LAPC at Commerce.

Thursday (1/18-1/25) I am leaving for a week vacation with some friends, a 7 day Mexican Riviera Carnival cruise and upon my return will be in L.A. for a few days.

I then travel to San Francisco (2/3-2/5??) to review the card rooms up there.

I then travel to Houston, TX so that my daughter can meet her boyfriend under my supervision. (2/14-2/18)

I then travel to Las Vegas for an unofficial ITH meeting where I will finish my Vegas card room reviews. (2/22-2/25)

I then travel to Atlantic City which is also the same weekend as ATLARGE (3/1-3/4).

I then travel on to Foxwoods (3/4-3/7) where I do the last of my card room/casino reviews and come home to finally relax a little before leaving again in April for the WPS cruise (4/22-4/29).

LOTS of traveling and working to do in the next 6-8 weeks, but it will be so worth it when all my work is done and I actually have a book that is published. What an honor that is going to be for me!!

Sooooo, if you are in any of the above places and want to meet, hang out at a card room or casino with me, meet for dinner, meet for a drink, whatever.....let me know! You can email me at tanya@pecksmedicalbilling.com, but if I don't answer right away it's just because I'm not home at the time! : )

ESCARGOT 2007 Trip Report

2007-01-15T20:06:00.000-08:00

Disclaimer: As all my trip reports go, I report to the best of my memory and ability and if I get any facts wrong such as times, dates, or people it's simply due to not taking notes during the trip.

THURSDAY:

Left home early, around 5am and arrived at the front door of The Bike right around 10:30. TRIED to find the hotel that I had booked and went on tilt when I found out that the people who worked at the hotel (Best Western Montebello) couldn't tell North from South and tried to just tell me to "Just go straight...". 40 mins later, I finally found it. So, I checked in and headed over to the Bike where the very first person I ran into was my favorite ADB'r, Peter AKA Foldem. (NICE license plate by the way, and I'm so sorry I didn't get to say goodbye to you, I didn't know you had to leave until it was too late)

My first impressions of The Bike was very good, I had never been to an LA card room before and I was stunned by the amount of tables (120+), the amount of people, the overall "niceness" of the place. I was impressed and liked it very much.

I jumped into the daily "Nooner" that The Bike offers, which I decided has a TERRIBLE structure, 800 chips, blinds start at 10/15 (IIRC) and is simply filled with a bunch of donkeys and wannabes. In other words, I busted out early. Tee Hee.

Thursday's 7:00pm ESCARGOT tourney was 1/2 PLHE, 1/2 PLO. I was pretty happy as I love to play PLO and was looking forward to those rounds. Kyle had other ideas in mind though and ended up busting me on the very first hand with his KK vs my AQ. No, I was not drunk, I just had a bout of BSOD and so therefore, I was able to head over to the regular tourney area and jump into The Bike's daily 7pm 15 mins late.

This is when I decided to have some fun and started drinking just a little, but continously. We get to the final 2 tables (about 100+ entries IMO, but I never asked), and I get a 5 minute penalty after dropping the "F" bomb after finding out that the tournament director cut me off. He obviously did not know who I was!!!

"Where's the cocktail waitress?" - Tanya
Blank stare - TD
"Did you CUT me off??" - Tanya
Pause, then "Um, yeah" - TD
"Are you fucking kidding me?" - Tanya
(Laughter all around, it was a fun table, even the TD laughed)
"OK Tanya, that's 5 minutes for you" - TD
"No problem, can I go to the bar while I'm sitting out?" - Tanya
(Laughter) "I can't stop you" - TD

So I, of course, ran over to the ESCARGOT tournament room to relay the story and to show how indignant I was. No matter what Scottro says, I did NOT "stumble into the room", I was walking quite fine and in fact wasn't even close to being drunk, although I did have a very active buzz going on.

So 5 mins pasts, I go back to the tourney, and about 30-40 mins later, near the bubble, I end up raising in MP, LP moves all in, I instant-call with my AA, he shows his QQ and the Q on the flop sends me home. Sigh.

So, I decided to head across the street to Applebees for a Fried Chicken Salad to go, took it back to my hotel room and fell asleep around 1am.

FRIDAY:

Discovered the baby $40 NLHE tables, where the max buy in is $40, what FUN tables!! I spent a lot of time at these tables over the weekend, even moving up to the $80 NLHE tables at a few points. Didn't really win, but was able to play for awhile with a limited/smaller budget which was nice.

Played the Nooner again, blech, I REALLY don't like their Nooner structure. In other words, I busted out pretty early.

This is the day I did my research on The Bike for my book, so I was busy interviewing, finding out information, etc for a few hours, then I started playing some CHORSEL with the ARG'rs, where I actually got to not only meet but sit next to BJKareoke (sp?) aka Barbara Gallamore. WOW, what a lady. I LOVED her. She was one my favorite people that I met this weekend. She was me 20+ years ago and I will be her 20+ years away. I liked her a lot, tons of spunk, great personality, don't even try to bullshit her, she's got cajones AND brains, loved her.

Got a little sleepy and wanted to take a nap before the 7pm tourney, just a little power nap, I had started drinking pretty early, and my 2nd wind hadn't caught up to me yet. You know you have it good when the Card Room Director not only lets you sleep in his card room, but gives you his leather couch in his office. 45 mins later, I was woken up and raring to go again!

Played in the 7pm ARG event, lord knows what it was, I can't remember and am too lazy to look it up, but again, I did not last long so I headed over to the cash game areas. However, on my way over, I hear music. It appears that the Sushi Bar/Restaurant that is inside The Bike has a DJ that performs every Friday night. Sign me up! So I didn't have to go anywhere, and decided that I would probably save money by just sitting in the bar all night long and dancing vs. playing cash games.

OHHHH, that brings me to a quick point. Drinks are not free in L.A. I did not know this. I did not plan on this (a liquor budget). I was quite bummed. I was able to get quite a few drinks bought for me from local players (They love playing with the "drunk" people) but um yeah, I spent some money on drinks this weekend. Being a Vegas girl, I just wasn't used to this. Ah well...I digress.

So I'm sitting at the Sushi Bar where Slim1Der aka Mark, Omaholic aka Rich and his wife Cheryl join me and while they eat sushi I just listen to the DJ and relax, have a few drinks, etc. Mark ends up leaving to go to bed (2 words: Cannot. Hang.), Rich heads over to the CHORSEL game and I stay at the bar enjoying the music with the other 4 people that were hanging out in there. LOL (Can you say DEAD??) So Cheryl hangs out with me for quite some time, got to know her and I must say Rich lucked out because she is one cool girl. Liked her a lot.

Once the DJ was done (1am or 2am, don't know) Cheryl and I head outside with this guy that I flirted with in the bar (Don't know his name, can't remember, maybe she knows...) to smoke a cigarette. (Oh calm down, I am a flirt, I flirt with everyone and will flirt back with anyone who flirts with me, it's just part of my bubbly personality) Anywho, we go back inside (Cheryl and I) and find out 3 mins later that I lost my purse. It's gone....not in the Sushi bar, not outside, and I had it in the Sushi bar because I paid my bar tab from my purse so it was literally lost within a 10 min timeframe and so then of course, in my mind, stolen would be a better word.

The thing is, I actually had all my money on my person, but the whole idea of cancelling credit cards, getting a new ID, etc, is just SUCH a pain, not to mention the fact that this was my Dior purse that I just bought back in October, so I was mad. Spoke with Security and they started to run the tapes because the floorman said that if they see who took it, they would ban that player from life from the casino.

LUCKY ME when the guy who I was flirting with comes up to me and says that he had been looking for me ever since I went back inside from smoking because I had left my purse outside and pulled my purse out from inside his jacket. (I think he didn't want to be seen carrying a purse, so he kind of "hid" it, LOL). I was SOO thankful, gave him a big hug and felt SO relieved.

Of course, I will admit that I was intoxicated at this point, but for some reason my bar tab inside the Sushi bar was only $37.....I STILL can't figure that out, but whatever....so I looked at Cheryl, said "Help Me" and her and Rich drove me to my hotel where I crashed around 4am, I'm guessing.

SATURDAY:

The ARG tourney started at 11:15am, no problem, I was there by 10:30am and proceeded to play (LHE??? Hmmm, can't remember), didn't do too well again so went over to the cash games and just had fun on the $40 NLHE tables until it was time for the Banquet.

The food was OK, IMO, not much of a selection, but it wasn't bad. Jerrod was our guest speaker and since his talk was mostly about his (and Bill Chen's) new book, he lost me several times as I am just NOT a mathematical person and there were a few times where he started speaking about equations, 9/44 is something I remember distinctly, and he just started losing me. Not his fault, he did fine, it was me, I just wasn't following very good. I do, however, disagree with his and Bill Chen's thoughts that Tourneys and cash games are NOT two different "animals" as most poker players believe. Being that I am a tournament player and not a cash game player, I KNOW they are two different "animals" and just couldn't grasp his concept on why they thought it wasn't. Maybe I'll talk about it with him or Bill one day to better understand their position.

Anywho, after the banquet it was time for Chowaha or however it's spelled....

My first time playing it and it was a BLAST!! We ended up with 13 playing, with Don aka SuperSteamer graciously offering to run the event, and Barry and I graciously did the liquor run. OK, OK, so it was actually Bob, but I thought he looked like a Barry instead so insisted on calling him that and he thought it was funny and laughed every time I did it, so I know I didn't offend him. (Besides, a lot of close friends of mine already know that I have a habit of doing this....I will actually "Re-Name" you and then that's it, your stuck with that name by me, even though it's not your name. Don't ask, it's just one of my quirks)

I ended up getting busted out by Kyle (AGAIN!!!) when my full house got spanked by his STRAIGHT FLUSH. Good grief!!!

Quick lesson of game:

You get 2 hole cards, just like in Hold Em.
There are 3 flops laid out, like so:
XXX

XXX

XXX
A round of betting, then 2 turn cards are laid out, like so:
XXX
X
XXX
X
XXX
A round of betting, then 1 river card is laid out, like so:
XXX
X
XXX X
X
XXX
The trick is you have to use both hole cards and then the flop, turn and river that you use has to be connected. That's all I can say, if you don't get it, sorry!!

So after Chowaha was over (damn, am I even spelling that right??) We started playing a game that Rich aka Omaholic invented called Slomaha. FUN. GAME. Everyone who played loved it! You start with 6 cards, then you discard 1 after the flop, then 1 after the turn, leaving you with 4 cards in your hand, and you then play the game like normal Omaha by the time the river card is produced. It was great fun.

We also played some Chinese poker before we started the Chowaha, I started but then Rich took over for me when I ran to the liquor store and ended up winning us $14!!

By the way, everyone who tried the Hypnotiq loved it. It's good, you should buy a bottle and try it yourself!!

Party ends around 1-2am and I head to my hotel room where I enjoy another drink before hitting the hay.

SUNDAY:

ARG tourney starts at 12, it's NLHE, I actually lasted longer in this even then the others, but ended up getting busted by Scottro when he had KK and I had QQ. I know he would have NEVER have forgiven me if I had sucked out on him, as he was at my table the whole time and literally only played 3 hands in 3 hours, but it was QQ!!! He actually moved all in after an UTG raise, and I thought he was overbetting to protect a 1010 or JJ so I really didn't hesitate too much or put him on KK or AA once I saw my QQ, I knew I was going. He had me covered, so I was out.

At this point, just went over to play some $40 NLHE, but then we started a CHORBSEL game (Crazy Pineapple, LHE, Omaha H/L, Razz, Badugi, Stud, Stud H/L, 5 card Low Ball 1 draw), played that for several hours until the game broke up.

Slim1Der ended up in 9th place, you GO Mark!! So although he was planning on leaving for home Sunday afternoon (San Diego??) he didn't get out until about 5-6pm, and then with no money to boot, LOL. (sorry Mark. : )

Said our goodbyes to ARG'rs as they were leaving, then said goodbye to our game as once it broke up, that was it! No more ARG'rs left in the building!!!

Except for me that is, I knew I wasn't leaving for home until Monday afternoon so I decided to stay and play some $80 NLHE and drink! Had to stop drinking at 2am (damn CA laws) and ended up leaving The Bike around 4:30am, slept for 5 hours, then woke up and drove home!!

All in all, a great trip. Nothing compared to BARGE or even ATLARGE, but I wouldn't miss it again. I always have a great time at the ARG events. This was my 3rd official one, and I will be attending ATLARGE again coming up in March and would highly recommend anyone and everyone coming. You may not like or get along with EVERYONE but you will like and get along with MOST, and that's good enough for me!!

I enjoyed the staff at The Bike, found them all very nice and plenty of them. Although not enough cocktail waitresses, or they were just too slow for me, but I loved the floormen, the card room directors, etc. Nice group of people that really seemed to WANT us there which was pretty cool since they obviously didn't NEED us there.

On a final note, it has been stated that I have been trying too hard to become an ADB'r this was my comment to that on the BARGE list today:

"Let the record show, that while I have made it known in the past that I would like to be an ADB'r, I've given up on actively seeking membership as it would take years anyways, and if people really think that when I go to ARG events I'm deliberatly drinking WHAT I drink, WHEN I drink, then you really don't know me.

I live life to the fullest, I enjoy drinking, and I can handle more than most normal beings can, and I don't get hung over, so why not?

Anywho, I did discuss this at ESCARGOT with a few people about the exclusive "ADB" club and how it's just not as important as it was for me to "belong" as it was before BARGE. Hmmmm, maybe it's because I actually got to know a couple of them better. (wink wink)"

ESCARGOT 2007

2007-01-10T08:11:00.000-08:00

Yes folks, it's that time again, another -ARG event, which means, you guessed it, another fantastic poker/gambling/alcohol/what-not trip report due upon my return.

I figured out you all were right and just pure poker blog is boring as hell and that's not how my blog became popular, so why stop a good thing now?

I leave tomorrow, Thursday, for Los Angeles, planning on arriving in time to play The Bike's noon tourney. I'll be staying at a hotel that is literally 2.1 miles away from the card room, which should make it a snap coming and going and since I'm driving, I'll have my car with me. However, taxi's are the way I'll be rolling after drinking.

I'm SO looking forward to seeing my RGP friends, am happy about who's going, sad about who's not going, but I will make it a fun time again for myself, and anyone who chooses to hang with me. On a lesser scale than BARGE I've heard, but not with Tanya in da house!!!

I'll be home on Monday with the glorious trip report. At least, it better be glorious, I'm expecting some serious fun over the next 4 days! : )

1/4/06 $300/$20 $150K PS Guaranteed

2007-01-03T18:01:00.000-08:00

Well, just got back today from Vegas and apparantly someone (don't know if he wants to be named, so I won't for now) who regularly backs me emailed me and wanted to back me in tonights $320 $150K guaranteed event on PS, since he's been doing so well in cash games. OK, sure, sign me up!

Since this is getting back to poker mode blog now, I decided to keep myself busy and blog my tourney, just like I used to do in the old days. I will only document hands I actually play. Enjoy and GL me!! : )

731 players, 2500T starting chips, 90 get paid, 1st = $48,903.90

Level 1: 10/20 blinds, 2500T Stack

9Kos BB, button raises, I fold.

9Aos SB, all fold to me, I raise 3x, BB folds.

KdQd LP, all fold to me, I raise 3x, all fold behind.

AcQc BB, one limper in EP, caller in LP, button calls, SB folds, I raise to 160 total, 1st 2 limpers call, button folds. Flop is 7c,K,K; we all check. Turn is 8c, I bet 225 (1/2 pot), one caller. River is 3s, I check he bets $560, I fold.

79os in SB, I fold.

As10s UTG +1, I raise 3x, guy in LP reraises another 165, I decide to call to see the flop. 9, 6, 6 is the flop, I check, he bets $325 I fold.

67os BB, LP raises 3x, sb calls, I call for 60. Flop 3,9,Q. The blinds check, LP bets, we fold.

Level 2: 15/30 blinds, 1825T Stack.

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 26 hands and saw flop:
- 2 out of 3 times while in big blind (66%)
- 0 out of 3 times while in small blind (0%)
- 1 out of 20 times in other positions (5%)
- a total of 3 out of 26 (11%)

28os SB, I fold.

88 MP, a raise in front of me to 90 (horryclutch, good player), I call. Flop is Q, 5, 9. He checks, I check. Turn is 7, he bets 150, I call. River is 2, he bets 390, I call. He shows KQ and I lose.

910os SB, 1 limper, mini raised to 60, I call 45, BB calls, limper calls. Flop is A,3,K. Sigh. I check, it's bet from the miniraiser and I fold.

VERY next hand, JJ on the button, LP (horryclutch again) raises in front of me to 90, I reraise to 330, all fold.

Qc5c in BB, 2 limpers then LP mini raises, I call as does the limpers. Flop comes 6,9,J. I check, all check behind me, mini raiser best mini, Button calls, I fold. Good thing too as one of the first limpers check raises 300 more, LOL.

29os SB, I fold.

Level 3: 25/50 blinds, 1165T chips.

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 46 hands and saw flop:
- 3 out of 5 times while in big blind (60%)
- 1 out of 5 times while in small blind (20%)
- 2 out of 36 times in other positions (5%)
- a total of 6 out of 46 (13%)

AJos EP, UTG raises to 150 (horryclutch) I call, LP reraises another 250, everyone else folds, I call. Flop is Q,2,6. I check, he checks. Turn is 8. I check, he bets out 400, I fold. At765 now. Sigh.

A8os BB, raised to 200 with 1 caller so I fold. Flop was 7,9,K. One day, I will hit a flop, I swear.

28os SB, I fold. 690 in chips.

10Kos LP, 1 limper, I limp as well, as does button and BB. Flop is 8,J,Q. All check to me, I bet 150, Button mini raises me, 1 other caller, I decide to move all in. Mini raiser pushes all in, other caller folds, He shows JJ and I catch a 9 on the river. Finally, a damn hand, back up to 1805.

33 EP, I limp, as does 2 others and the blinds. Flop is 5,6,K; checked around. Turn is 3. BB bets 200, I raise to 500, all fold, he calls. River is 7, BB bets out 200 again, I just call and he shows 2,4 for the turned straight, down to 1055 now.

46os BB, all in raise from EP, 280 to call, I have to fold, sorry RGP. ; )

58 SB, I fold.

KQos LP, 1 limper, horryclutch raises to 200, (he's just so damn aggressive) I push all in with 980. I'm tired of horryclutchs aggression. All fold, he calls with 6,6. Flop is 10,8,5. Turn 2, River 2 and I'm out. Didn't even make it to the first break.

OK, criticisms welcomed, just don't be too harsh. ; )

Happy Holidays!!

2006-12-28T09:21:00.000-08:00

I know I didn't post over the Christmas holiday, but with so much going on and so many different little things to do, it didn't seem worth it to put another "to do" item on my list.

However, I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and spent the holiday with loved ones, as I did.

The New Years has come upon us and also my 2 year blog anniversary has come and gone. Amazing how time flies and amazing how many readers I've acquired and what the blog as resulted in from the point I started it. I basically started it just to talk about poker, but found it a tremendous source to also release my thoughts, ideas, problems, good news, etc. However, I have also come to realize the negative things that can come from posting my personal life on the web in blog format.

As many readers might have noticed, I've started to refrain from adding more personal details on my blog as it finally dawned on me (OK, OK, it was pointed out to me...) that by me putting my personal information on my blog, that it may not only affect me, but also affects my loved ones and that's not fair to them.

Therefore, my blog New Year's resolution is to get back to the purpose of the blog which was to talk about poker, and specifically, my poker playing. This will be my last blog entry of the year and starting in 2007, will turn back more into a poker blog and less of a personal blog. I know that may be heartbreaking to some as I know there are some readers who have loved the escapades that I've written about, and that some readers like to live vicariously through me, but alas, the time has come to stop all of that, so stopping is what I will be doing.

It will be kind of hard not relating details of my life, such as my family, my business, the new store, etc, but hopefully my readers will simply wish me well and hope things go extremely well for me, as I do for you, in this upcoming new year.

Happy New Year and see you soon in a poker context only!!

Love,
T

Gorgeous Diamond Ring for Sale

2006-12-15T11:27:00.000-08:00

From appraisal:

"One lady's custom made cast 14k white gold reverse tapered five stone ring measuring approximately 3.4-6.65mm in width, with rounded shank and squared central four claw setting containing: one round brilliant cut diamond....0.79ct, SI2 clarity, G-H (apparent) colour, class 2b make....."

Appraised in Canada when the dollar was weak at $8,100 retail. Looking to sell it for $3K, OBO.

Pictures of ring and appraisal are available if you are interested, email me at tanya at pecks medical billing dot com.

And the weeks go by....

2006-12-15T11:18:00.000-08:00

Lorrie, this post is for you. : )

My darling sister Lorrie has been pressuring me, DEMANDING me to post more often and then I get an email this AM from her twin, Corrie, telling me the same damn thing....so here it is.

The store is going quite well, in terms of new businesses. They say that most new businesses fail and that it takes 6-12 months to get out of the red. Well, we're doing better then that, we're breaking even. However, being the ever so optimistic person that I am, I set the bar (mentally) WAY HIGH and so have been having feelings of disappointment, even though I know we're doing better then we should be doing, as a new business.

9 days until Christmas, and one week left for shopping so we decided to saturate the air with commercials on two different radio stations in hopes that we can get a lot of last minute shoppers in the store next week and next weekend and have a slamming end of the month in sales! We shall see how it goes, and I will report back, so keep your fingers crossed for me!

*********************

My daddy is coming to visit me this weekend! He'll only be here Sat-Sun, but I haven't seen him in awhile so it will be great to visit with him. I'm making him go with me to one of my clients Christmas party, which is always a fun time, so it should be a great visit!

**********************

Cherissa and I were going to spend Christmas in Las Vegas, but we decided to stay home instead, it's cheaper. : )

We both discussed how there's really not much we need or want, but I was able to find a few things for her that I'm sure she'll enjoy and she'll have Grandpa or Grandma take her shopping to get a few things for me so that we at least have something under our 3 ft fake tree. LOL

***********************

So that's about it, just working and working and trying to "Do It" and make it in the world and in life. Rough bumps in the past few weeks, but I'm resiliant and I always get over my bad moods pretty quickly when I have them.

Have a wonderful weekend!!!

Stress

2006-12-04T19:11:00.000-08:00

People handle stress in many different ways. I've always been the type of person that gets stressed out, heavily, for a minute or so (ok, maybe up to a few hours or so) and then it goes away. It's usually a "HERE IT IS!! STRESS!!" kind of moment, then I get over it, or deal with it and it goes away.

Or so I thought.

I've been having problems sleeping for the last few months, and this is something that is very uncharacteristic of me. I have always had the problem of not being able to fall asleep quickly, usually taking up to an hour or so to fall asleep. Yet, once I am asleep, I'm there, I'm out...until morning or until it's time to wake up.

I noticed tonight, meaning I'm actually thinking about it...that I haven't had a full night of interrupted sleep in over four months. I always wake up about 1-2 hours after initially falling asleep (which still takes up to an hour) and then I wake up an additional 3-4 times every night.

I see my clock every night:

12:30 am

2:46 am

4:15 am

5:55 am

6:30 am

8:15 am

Until I finally get out of bed.

The only time I DON'T see this are the nights where I fall into bed in a drunken stupor, which I will admit, is not as often as some people seem to think it is and that is not the answer to my problem that I'm looking for.

I will be seeing my doctor tomorrow and will talk to him about it, but I'm fearful of sleeping pills as I already have an addictive personality by my nature, so I'm scared of taking them to sleep, then really getting addicted to them.

So I started thinking of what could be causing it and I've come to 2 conclusions, one of which I don't think is it so I'm disallowing it, but would like to hear what others think.

1. Iced Tea - Caffeinated (sp?) I drink about 1/2-1 gallon of iced tea a day. While others would say, "Oh yeah, that's it, too much caffeine!" I have to beg to differ because I've been drinking this much tea for over 8 years. Unless there is some magical 'build up' of caffeine that happens, then I can't see this being the answer as my sleep patters have only changed in the last 4-5 months.

2. Stress - While I feel I handle stress well, and I don't feel stress when I go to sleep, perhaps my subconscience is trying to tell me otherwise? I do believe stress is something that CAN build up, unlike caffeine (IMO), so I find this to most likely be the answer.

Ah well...we'll see what the good old Doc says tomorrow.

In the meantime..um, good night??

So I'm a Little Sensitive

2006-11-28T19:09:00.000-08:00

Email sent to support@pokerstars.com

Subject: Inappropriate Chat

I guess because I beat him in a hand he felt it was OK to chat inappropriately. I would like action taken please.

Player: WILDMANTEX
Tournament:#36700983
Table: 9
Hands: 7215010311, 7215020726, 7215036920, 7215043483

I am MissT74.

PokerStars Reply:

Hello misst74,

Thank you for taking the time to bring this to our attention.

I have looked over the chat logs, and agree that some of this player's
remarks were inappropriate.

Our goal at PokerStars is to be a fun place to play, where everyone
can feel comfortable. I have sent this player a warning asking that
he/she refrain from this type of behavior in the future. If this
warning goes unheeded, chat privileges will be revoked.

Regards,

Jeny
PokerStars Support Team

Hence my reply:

Jeny,

I'm extremely disappointed. As a known female player, I find it regretful that PokerStars finds that being called a "cunt" is excusable with a warning.

My apologies for misunderstanding your site's chat abuse rules.

Sincerely,

Tanya Peck
MissT74

If we (players and sites alike) don't take the steps to control abusive chat, or punish abusive chat, then what's the point of even TRYING to control it???

Grand Opening Weekend

2006-11-28T01:19:00.000-08:00

Well, the holiday weekend has past, as has our Grand Opening Weekend.

We survived, getting everything that needed to be done...done...at 11:30pm Thanksgiving night. Working hard always feels good, IMO, even though it leaves you feeling physically exhausted.

The weekend did not generate anything CLOSE to the revenue we had hoped, but being the ever so optimistic person that I am, I'm not "worried" or anything like that...YET. It takes months to get out of the red in ANY new business, so I'm trying to help the partner see that and not get discouraged.

It can be hard sometimes when both parties feel that way, so I'm trying to be the cheerleader, although it gets pretty damn old pretty damn quick.

The marketing ideas keep going through my mind though and I know we will find one that will be the "winner" and bring in the business that we were hoping for this weekend.

In a nutshell: Could have been better, but could have been worse too.

I'll post the pics I took in a day or so, the store looks slammin! I love our decorations and the way the clothes fit in the store. I think we did an awesome job, now we just have to get the people IN the damn DOOR!!

RagZ for TeenZ

2006-11-21T07:01:00.000-08:00

"Quality Resale Clothing Store Featuring Designer Labels"

This is it, the big week, the week my new business opens.

So about 8 months ago I had the idea of bringing a store to Kingman that was similiar to Buffalo Exchange. For those that live in Phoenix or Las Vegas areas, you are familiar with them, but for those that aren't, I'll briefly explain.

Buffalo Exchange is a consignment store for used clothing. You take your unwanted clothes in, they buy them off of you giving you 1/2 cash, 1/2 store credit. You would then shop in their store, buying resale clothes, paying 1/2 cash and 1/2 store credit. MUCH better clothes then what you would find in your local Goodwill, but still "resale" nonetheless.

I think their business model is a great idea and so I was going to try and adopt a similar version on my own. However, I decided to forget the consignment part and just sell used clothing! Not that big of a deal, nothing mind boggling there, but the kicker that comes in to play is the type of clothing that we'll be selling.

Kingman is a very rural community with only about 6 clothing stores to choose from, and absolutely no store in town sells designer labels. Truth be told, even if a store did sell the labels, Kingman also has a lower economy so it may not be possible for the majority of residents to purchase name brand clothing at the prices they sell for.

Sooooo, I decided to bring Tommy Hilfiger, Abercrombie & Fitch, Aeropostle and others to Kingman in the form of resale clothing, so that more people can afford to buy. When I say people I refer to teenagers, as that will be my target market.

It's worked out pretty good so far with Cherissa and her friends being my sounding board and letting me know when a particular piece of clothing was "Hot" or "Not".

We open on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, and will be giving away movie tickets to the first 100 customers and also having a Ipod Nano giveaway. Hopefully this will send the teens to our store this weekend in droves!!

So there you have it, the news and details of my new business. Today is Tuesday, only 4 days left. The store is coming together, but still so many small details left to be done. The goal is to be done by Wed PM so that Thursday can be spent celebrating Thanksgiving.

Once the store is ready to go, I will take pictures and post them. I'm very excited about this and can't wait to see how the first weekend goes.

Next stop?

RagZ for KidZ

: )

The Book

2006-11-05T20:13:00.000-08:00

As announced tonight on ITH (www.internettexasholdem.com):

"I am pleased to announce our next book project and newest ITH author. The tentative title of the book is The World Poker Travel Guide written by our very own Tanya Peck. This book will be every poker player’s guide as they travel around the world looking for the best poker rooms to play.

I am very excited to have Tanya working with me on this project, and for those who know her, you know she is the perfect woman for the job. Congrats (and thanks) Tanya!

Matthew"

Yes, yours truly has been commissioned to write a book that will be published under my own name (co-authered possibly by Matthew Hilger) in 2007.

I am, of course, ecstatic, and very honoured that Matthew has the faith in my abilities to write to actually publish me.

I view this as being the opportunity of a lifetime. I have secretly wanted to write a book for the past 4 years, but knew that without the proper connections, it would be very, very difficult. I now have the connections, and as long as I make my publisher proud, I know that I can then write the book that I've been wanting to write for 4 years.

This current project is a guide to poker rooms, so I will be traveling around the US and reviewing the most popular poker rooms. I will make it a priority to make sure I publish trip reports on my journey, and will post where I'm going and when so that any invites for home poker games or dinner or heck, just an apple martini, can be accepted.

I thank Matthew Hilger for this opportunity and know for a FACT that I will do him proud as that's just the type of person I am. Motivated and Driven.

(By the way, this has nothing to do with the new business that opens in less then 3 weeks, I will talk about that later. :)

Happy Halloween!!!

2006-10-31T16:17:00.000-08:00

Another Tuesday though, but due to it being a "holiday" (tee hee) I will be skipping my square dancing lessons tonight.

Cherissa is finally old enough now to NOT want to go trick or treating, so we'll be passing out treats to any kids that come by the house. Due to our location, I really don't think we'll get too many visitors, but am prepared with bags of chips to hand out.

Does that make me a dud? Cherissa wanted candy to pass out, I thought chips were a great idea!! You can only have so much candy, right?? RIGHT??!!

************

On another note, I have been browsing around and found a new website called Prosper.com. It's basically a website that is geared towards angel investors, and people needing angel investors. It's apparantly been getting it's fair share of press releases, I simply found it through a google search for business loans.

Very interesting, I would check it out if you were on either end of the lending spectrum.

************

However, if you are on the lending end of the spectrum and would be interested in making a loan of $5,000 to $20,000, with 24% interest (Arizona's interest rate cap), that would be paid off within 9 months, please email me at tanya@pecksmedicalbilling.com

I am currently looking for $20,000 in funds, but would rather not discuss the reasons on my blog, on any forums, etc. Needless to say, it is NOT poker related and I would have no problem explaining it all in email to people I know that are truly interested in hearing more about this.

4 people @ $5,000 each would meet my requirement, and that would be an easy $1,200 profit. It would be a risk, but I do believe I am very risk worthy.

*****************

Please notice that I still have links up to ACR on the left hand side of my blog, this means it is still "OK" to play on ACR, no matter what OnGame Network states. I have played there myself in the past week for a little bit, there are no worries with depositing or withdrawing. I can vouch for this site due to my relations with the owner.

*****************

End of month is upon me once again, DAMN, those months go by fast!! So I'll be busy over the next week getting all my clients closed and meeting with them, etc. I can't belive how fast the months go by, it totally feels like I was just doing end of month a week ago!!

****************

I was suppose to leave for St. Maartens on Friday. Sniff. Sniff. I'm so bummed that I can't go, but I know it's for the best! Business will prevail instead and I can always go to the next WPS event!!

So that's it for now, have a safe Halloween night!

Quick Post

2006-10-24T19:17:00.000-07:00

OK, I know I haven't blogged in a bit but I have something going on here at home that is BIG.

BIG news coming ahead!

Right now I'm simply trying to kill time while dinner is cooking so I thought I would post.

A few quick updates:

I am NOT going to St. Maartens for the World Poker Showdown 11/4-11/19. I am disappointed, VERY disappointed, that I'm not going but the reason why I'm NOT going is very, VERY good, and makes it worth missing St. Maartens. I'll just leave it at that.

I have not played a single hand of poker in probably 3 weeks due to the news that I'll be sharing soon.

Just so you don't think it's THAT exciting (to you, anyways) it has to do with opening a new business.

I'm an entrepeneur, always have been, just didn't know it until I opened my first busines, the medical billing service. Now, I'm branching out in other arenas, other business ventures, and I'm excited as hell.

Will post and keep you updated as soon as I can, but needless to say, when opening a new business, it's very time consuming and takes a lot of energy. This means that all the energy that I once put into poker is now going into this business so that I CAN put the energy again back into poker in a few months.

Time goes by so quickly, gotta grab onto every minute you have NOW, not later!!

For Poker

2006-10-13T08:44:00.000-07:00

Watch.

Video

It's Tuesday!

2006-10-10T17:59:00.000-07:00

That means it's time for Square Dancing lessons! I know, it's hilarious, but it's actually quite fun and it can be quite confusing as well. Makes you work your mind and your muscles at the same time, so killing two birds with one stone. Hey, at least it's exercise!!

************

Haven't been posting much lately, but that's because I haven't really had anything much to post about. I will give a little mini Vegas trip report from two weekends ago. I was a TOTAL. LUCK. BOX. I hit the Royal Flush while I was on the phone with Slim1Der from RGP, good for 4K, then I hit quads at least 10 times ($250 each), quad Aces with no kicker 4 times, and quad aces with kicker 3 times. There was one session I had at the Crazy 4 Card Poker table game, I bought in for about $300 and left with $3800. Insane!!

So I splurged a little and bought my daughter a pair of designer, Dior, sunglasses for her birthday and I bought a Dior purse for myself. I have never, EVER, paid $600 for a purse in my life. However, it felt GOOD. Thank you RIO!!

*************

My daughter's birthday was this past Friday, she had a mardi gras themed boy/girl party and I think it went over pretty well. At least that's what she and her friends said. FIVE hours long!! I was going crazy by the time it was over and retreated to my bedroom with my codeine cough syrup to relax the night and the next day away while she had two friends spend the night.

14 years old, going on 30!!

**************

I leave in about 3 weeks for St. Maartens and the WPS, remember to check it out at www.WorldPokerShowdown.com, it's not to late to go! It's also not to late to WIN your way into the event, so play the satellites at ACR (which will still honour American's!!) USE MY LINK to the LEFT!!!

**************

I have to go to Traffic Survival School this weekend. I've been putting it off for over 45 days, oopsies. 8 hours does not sound appealing to me at all, but what can I do? Apparantly when you speed and pay your hundreds of dollars in fines, that's not good enough. You have to go to a class too. Sigh.

**************

The WCOOP was almost a complete bust for me. I didn't cash in a single event, although I did make it pretty far in a few of them. Although it was a bust for me, I did cash out quite good when I backed a fellow RGP'r (Thumbers/PokerChimp) in HORSE and she came in 4th place!!! You GO girl!!

I also made a blunder when I publicly announced that I would back Fellknight in the Razz Event, but then actually watched him play one day, and rescinded my offer. That was a blunder when he ended up in 5th place. Sigh. That would have been a 9K payday for me!! SHIT!! I hate when that happens!!

**************

I'm not really worried about playing online anymore, I don't think it will be a problem for us common folks, Americans, sitting at home playing online. The problems though are going to be 1. No site will have direct satellites to American land based tournaments and 2. Firepay has backed out, I wonder if Neteller will? If they do, I have NO idea right now how I would deposit and withdraw funds. Neteller was so easy and fast, I hate the idea of having to go with mailing in checks for deposits, or waiting for a check for a withdrawal. Oh well, time will tell. I'm not panicking anymore though.

PokerStars said they are staying, as has FullTilt, ACR, and Absolute, so I should be fine with the choices of sites to play on.

*************

The Ultimate Poker Challenge is back and this time it's being held at Binion's. They are having 3 tourneys a week (Sat, Sun, and Mon) for $300/$30 buy in and they're ALL being televised.

AbsolutePoker, which I don't care for too much but will give it a whirl, is holding satellites. The package is worth 3 tourneys and $1800 spending money. SWEET! That would be awesome to win, as I plan on heading to Vegas as often as I can to try out the UPC. Apparantly, it's running for a very, VERY long time.

*************

That's it for now, sorry I don't update frequently. Work has been busy and I've been trying to stay sane. : )

Online Gambling Ban

2006-10-04T08:10:00.000-07:00

As we've all heard by now, good old Frist has been able to get an online gambling ban piggybacked onto a Port Security/Safety bill and was passed by Congress. Bush still needs to sign it into law (DARE we HOPE he vetoes it???) but then once he does, what does it mean??

This is what it means to me:

1. The online sites that stop serving US based customers will take a huge hit while other sites will gain those players, as US players (for the majority) will not quit playing online poker, IMO.

2. The only way I stop playing online poker is if I have no way to deposit or withdraw my money safely. I am going to watch carefully how Neteller handles this bill, and how my bank handles it. If I win money on a site, and get the money transferred to Neteller, but then can't get the money transferred from Neteller to my banking account, what's the point of winning money?

3. From what I've read I feel this law will not punish online players individually, but rather online site owners, representatives, employees, etc.

4. This law will affect the outcome of future live events, in terms of number of players showing up to play. Let's face it, it would be quite possible to get a sting operation going at next year's WSOP and have the US Marshalls come in and do a sweeping arrest of every player that publicly won their seat on an online site. THIS worries me. May not happen, but it's POSSIBLE, IMO.

5. The fact that this bill even passed saddens me. To think that our representatives, our government is now going to protect me from me, is just not right and it's not fair. The idea that they can tell me what I can or cannot do with my income, in my house, is just downright scary. What's next?? Big Brother, Big Brother.

That's pretty much all I have to say about this. It's been talked about to death on the online poker forums, but one point of view I would like to share is Nolan Dalla's. http://www.pocketfives.com/89BA2E32-D8BA-42D0-AC82-29D6226B40B6.aspx

A BIG Announcement and ACR ROCKS!!

2006-09-22T15:18:00.000-07:00

As my readers may have noticed, I have never been one to "pimp" a site or put banners all over my blog, or basically make any money off of my blog.

Well, folks, the times...they are a-changin!!

I found out that from a little blurb that I put on my blog at the beginning of the year in regards to the WPS (www.WorldPokerShowdown.com)in St. Maartens (back in April) that I actually got 11 of you fools (I say that in the kindest, most lovingest manner. : ) to actually type in my bonus code.

I went today to check out some banners and found real, honest to goodness, American money sitting in my account. Oh. My. God. You mean this "pimping" and putting up banners and letting my readers know about bonus codes, actually WORKS????

WOW.

Soooo, that's the scoop on the banners that you now see on my blog.

I am the official Female Poker Blogger PIMP for ACR (America's Card Room). I know the owner, Phil Nagy, personally and have partied with him and heck, I'll admit, I have even touched his girlfriend's breasts. (She let me!!!)

ACR has been the sponsor of WPS for the past 3 trips that I've gone on, and will be the sponsors for the St. Maartens event in November.

Here's the scoop:

You can qualify to WIN your way to St. Maartens ONLY on ACR.

Satellites are ONLY $100/$8 and run on Sunday's and THOSE qualifiers have qualifiers for $10/$1 that run every single night!!

One word: OVERLAY

Almost every week there is an overlay. Almost every night there is an overlay. You've got to check out these satellites to understand what I'm saying. You don't even have to sign up for one (yet) just go into the lobby and watch the sign ups for these events. Tell me I'm wrong.

So, if you're lucky to win the Sunday qualifier, then you win $750.00 for airfare, $750.00 for hotel, $500 spending money AND sponsorship by Phil Nagy and ACR for the Main Event, a $2600 buyin for an awesome split of 50/50.

NOT only THAT, but of course, a first time deposit bonus of 25% for all you fools that click on my banner ad, and if you don't WANT to click on my banner ads, then just use the bonus code of 11PlayNow74 when you register with ACR.

So, there you have it. All the information you could possibly need or want, but just it case it's NOT, go here: http://www.americascardroom.com/common/mahobeach.php and read more about it.

Also, don't forget to check out www.WorldPokerShowdown.com for the actual tournament schedule.

What are you waiting for?? Click on the damn banner for pete's sake.

It's WPS Time!!! St. Maartens....WOOT!!

2006-09-22T08:19:00.000-07:00

The World Poker Showdown (WPS) has scheduled their next event, and it is back in
St. Maartens 11/4/06-11/18/06. That's a full two weeks, but a lot of players
come and go different times during those two weeks, so whatever schedule works
for you is good!

As you may recall, I went to the WPS in St. Maartens in April and was lucky
enough to donk (or is that drank??) my way into 1st place in NLHE and 4th place
in PLO. I'm hoping for some kind of repeat, obviously. LOL

The restaurants are close by and delicious, lots of fine dining to be hand, but
also some casual dining with a Subway 5 stores down from the casino, and a
grocery store with a deli 5 stores down the other way.

The pool has a swim up bar which was loads of fun. That would have to be the day
that I got a little too much sun, lol. The pool area has entertainment with
daily Bingo, Trivia, a life size chess board/game, and of course, music.

The ocean is the bluest blue I've ever seen, and the sand is almost white. It's
just simply gorgeous.

Don't worry about your spouse or SO getting bored while you're playing poker, on
the island, life doesn't seem to begin until about 2-3pm, so you'll have all
morning to hang out with her/him and then you can head over to the casino for
some action.

The nightlife is FANTASTIC!! There's a club that is opened most of the days
right above the casino, so no walking far! There is also 2-3 more clubs within
easy walking distance and the music/dancing is wonderful.

With WPS, I've gone on a 7 day cruise, I've gone to St Maartens in April for 10
days, I've gone to Costa Rica for 5 days, and I'm about to go back to St.
Maartens again in November for (hopefully) the full 14 days, but will adust my
schedule as needed.

This year I plan on taking my daughter and my mother (as the "Nanny" : ) and I
know they will simply LOVE it.

Anyone wanting information about rates on hotel rooms, airfare, etc. contact
Trina Jackson, she's the WPS Travel Agent at 800-582-8069 and you can also go to
www.WorldPokerShowdown.com for more details.

If anyone has any questions about anything relating to St. Maartens or the World
Poker Showdown, feel free to email me!!

Do-Si-Do

2006-09-16T08:36:00.000-07:00

Yes, yours truly, Moi...has started taking....now don't laugh TOO hard...

Square Dancing Lessons.

Stop laughing.

My mom, who moved to Kingman about 6 months ago, gets a phone call from the woman in charge of the classes and then tells me, "Oh come on T, you HAVE to go with me, I'll be all alone!!"

So I sighed and grimaced and went along.

And had a fricking BLAST. That square dancing stuff is QUITE complicated. We learned about 15 different steps and by the end of the first lesson, 2 1/2 hours, not only did we actually have some sort of semblence to honest to gooodness, real live square dancers, but we had walked the equivelant of about 5 miles.

GREAT exercise.

Classes are every Tuesday with a huge "graduation" party, dance...no wait, it's called a "Hoe Down", in January.

I'm going to look damn cute in my ruffled skirt, not to mention my ruffled panties.

; )

Selling Shares of WCOOP Events

2006-09-14T07:51:00.000-07:00

I have qualified and won my way (so far) into Events #4, #5, #7, #8, #12, and #13.

The total of these 6 events is $1,815.00

I am selling shares of myself at 1% a share = $18.15 a share.

Winners would receive their initial investment back ($18.15) as well as 0.5% of the profits.

Example:

I cash for $1500 in one event, $1000 in another event, and $1500 in another event. Total won is $4000.00

Each share holder would get back their $18.15 per share bought (4000 - 1815 = 2185) then their cut (2185 X 0.5% = $10.93) which would equal $29.08 per share.

I win an event for $180,000 (let's face it, it's coming!!) 180,000 - 1815 = 178185.00 X .5% = $890.93, total of $909.08 per share.

According to www.ThePokerDB.com my ROI is 151.5%.

I'm throwing this out there to see if there's interest, it's pretty much the same deal I threw out for the events I played at the WSOP and that seemed to go over well, and was way more expensive.

If interested, email me at tanya@pecksmedicalbilling.com

EDIT:

These are more current stats that I just recieved. The ones that I listed above were from several months ago, approximately in April if I recall correctly. These are new and fresh and HOT off the presses! My stats have gone down so I guess it's time for a big win in order to bring them back up again. LOL (I still think they're good though, but I'm biased. : )

Est Winnings: $35,109 Total Played: 340
Est Buyins: $18,558 ITM Rate: 11.8%
Rake: $1,357 FT Rate: 3.5%
Est Profit: $15,194 Top 3 Rate: 1.2%
Avg. Finish: 49/100
Avg. Buyin: $55
Avg. Field Size: 647
ROI: 76.3%
Avg. Buyins Won: 1.384
Avg. Expectation: $45
Total TLB points (# included): 6,997 (57)

A Favor....

2006-09-12T21:21:00.000-07:00

Dan Goldman, of PokerStars dot NET, has always been a true friend to the poker masses. Both with RGP (BARGE and other ARGE sponsorships I'm sure, I just haven't been to any others) and allowing me to have my MissT74 Qualifiers, and of course the RGP homegames and a friend to bloggers as well.

Here's a chance to (kind of) pay him back.

Apparantly, some dear friends (Jaime & Irene) of his are in a contest to win a $102,000 Beverly Hills Wedding.

All they need are votes.

Sooooo, I figure if we get this out in the poker community and even if Jaime & Irene actually win, how cool would it be to know that poker players are the ones that allowed them to win the wedding of their dreams.

So go here:

http://www.kiisfm.com/cc-common/losangeles/wedding/vote.html

And VOTE for Jaime & Irene.

And fellows...this girl, Irene? One Word. DAMN.

Now go look. ; )

Good News Overshadowed....

2006-09-10T23:08:00.000-07:00

I had a really good day today with online poker, I'll talk about that later. For now though, it seems funny talking about good news when you've received bad news.

Jim Morris is a Physician's Assistant who works for and with one of my clients. He is also the P.A. that I normally see at the office when I need to see a doctor. Lately he has been having health problems and was about to start kidney dialysis in a month or so.

I received a phone call around 10:15pm that he was killed in a motorcycle accident on the way home to Kingman from Tucson around 9pm tonight.

It never ceases to amaze me how short life can be and how you just simply never know when it will be your turn to go. I believe very strongly that you should live your life to the fullest, have fun, enjoy yourself, enjoy your LIFE...you never know when it will be over.

As far as poker news goes, I entered the last $11/R Turbo satellite this AM for the Sunday Million, and ended up winning a seat. I was going to cash out the T$ and not play since my stomach has been bothering me and I wasn't feeling very well. However, I was getting antsy just sitting on the living room couch, so I jumped in and played.

And play, did I ever!! 5375 players and yours truly came in 116th place, good for a cool $1505 plus $25 from EstebanAA with a last longer. I was a little disappointed as I was chip leader and in the top 10 from about 500 players down to 150, then I just couldn't seem to get anything going. I will say that I received pocket aces no less then 7 times in this event and I believe they helped me get as far as I did. Of course, so did the 4 major suck outs that I recall getting. : )

It's off to bed now and tomorrow being Monday, I pray that my client and their office staff have the strength to endure what they are about to go through, what with the handling and notifying of all of Jim's patient's.

Rest in Peace Jim, you will be missed.

Catching Up....

2006-09-09T13:28:00.000-07:00

Yes, it's been a few days since I last posted and I AM home now, but it's been end of month for work and that always keeps me busy for several days at a time.

Last weekend, being that it was a holiday weekend and all, I decided to take Cherissa out of town. The debate was between Phoenix to visit Grandpa and Aunt Lorrie's family, or California to visit Aunt Guido's family. However, I received a phone call from a good friend (Lonnie) who told me that he would be in Vegas, so why don't I come down? Thanks to my good friends at Harrah's who hooked me up with a room at Bally's on Thursday night for the entire holiday weekend, I said, Why not??

Therefore, Cherissa and I headed for Vegas on Friday afternoon, arriving at approximately 4pm. Friday night we headed to Excalibur and had dinner at the Tournament of Champions. Very similar to the Medival Times of California, but I had never gone to it while living in CA and thought it would be fun. It was! We had a blast, eating our whole chicken with our bare hands, sipping from beer steins, rooting on our Hungary player. Afterwards we walked over to New York, New York and paid $12.50 to ride the roller coaster, ONCE. Sure, it was fun, in fact I had a blast, but $12.50 for ONE ride? That's 1/2 the price of admission to a whole day at Magic Mountain!!

Afterwards, I dropped Cherissa off at the room and then met Lonnie and Fellknight (who happened to be in Vegas) for a night of clubbing in our private booth at a new club inside Imperial Palace. Sure, IP is a dive, but it's a new club, the music was awesome, the girls (waitresses/dancers) were hot and it was CHEAP compared to other night clubs in Vegas. We all had a really good time, tried to get some local RGP'rs to show up by posting a thread that night, but noone showed up. Everytime I post about having a private booth and to come over and party, noone ever shows up. I'm starting to think people are scared of me. LOL

Saturday had me and Cherissa sleeping in until about 1pm, then we hit the mall girly girl style! Cherissa had asked me previously if she could get her upper ear pierced, I said "Sure, why not?" as I had gotten my upper ear pierced years ago with my best friend. She told me that Christina (her best friend) was also going to get it done, but instead of getting it done with Cherissa, she was going to get it done with her cousin and split the pair of earrings with her. This meant that Cherissa needed somone to get pierced with, in order to share a pair of earrings and (sniff, I love my baby girl) she asked me. So, instead of waiting for her 14th birthday (10/6) as originally planned, we decided to get it done on Saturday while we were hanging out at the mall!

One word: OUCH.

I do NOT remember it hurting that bad when I got it done with Guido so many years ago, but we got titanium hoops vs. studs, so that might be the difference. Both our ears are healing well though and there seems to be no more (or not much) pain now.

After the mall we headed over to the Venetian to watch Fellknight at the final table of the daily noon tourney. He ended up busting out in 9th place (thank God for saves, eh Fell? LOL) and so Cherissa and I departed and went back to Bally's for dinner. Afterwards, I did a little gambling while she watched movies in the room.

Sunday we went to the Live Price is Right! show at Bally's. We had a GREAT time, it was SO much fun and YES, you KNOW it, "Come on down...Tanya...Peck!!" I got to go up to the stage and bid on a rolling suitcase. It was a small one, one that you would carry on and being that I was first to bid, I bid $50 and of course, everyone bid higher after me and it was priced at $139 or something like that. Go figure, that much for THAT little thing?? Cherissa told me later, "It's not a Wal-Mart suitcase, Mom." (I rolled, I thought that was hilarious)

Anywho, the show was great and we had a wonderful time UP until the point where they had their little "Showcase Showdown". I was severely, and I mean HIGHLY disappointed in how they did it. The basically call 2 random people up and then present ONE showcase with about 5-6 prizes and 3 of them being HUGE. Like a 7 day trip to Paris, France; a giant (huge!) screen TV; and of course, a new car.

HOWEVER...the only way to WIN the entire package is to come within $100 without going over. Otherwise, you simply win an office chair. WTF??? What a rip off! There's like practically NO WAY anyone is ever going to win the grand prize, so it seemed like a fisherman hanging his line with the worm on it and then charging us $49.99 to try and nibble it. I'm disgusted with them for that.

So that was the weekend, we came home on Monday and I've just been keeping busy with work and what not.

The GOOD news though: I have won another THREE qualifiers (one a day for 3 days in a row, so far!) to WCOOP events and am tickled pink. So far I am playing:

#4 9/19 NLHE Match Play $215
#5 9/20 Omaha H/L $530
#7 9/22 LHE $215
#13 9/27 PLHE $320

It is Saturday and I am currently playing in two more qualifiers right now and plan on playing a few more over the weekend and will see how many more WCOOP events I can win my way into. Since it's the 3rd day in a row that I've won a qualifier, I'm pretty pumped right now and feel like I'm "in the groove". I'll be even more ecstatic if I can win another (or dare I say 2-3 more??) qualifier today.

I'll be online on PokerStars almost all weekend, come say Hi and have a great weekend!!

BARGE Trip Report

2006-08-30T20:23:00.000-07:00

(DISCLAIMER: To the best of my ability, the following post is true and correct. Keeping in mind that the BARGE Convention did take place well over 2 weeks ago and that I was drunk the entire time while I was there and it was right after the ITH Convention where I was drunk the entire time as well. Nevertheless, I have decided to go ahead and "ATTEMPT" to reconstruct this week and all that it entailed.)

Tuesday 8/15/06:

Arrived in Vegas around 4pm, the first tourney was scheduled to start at 8pm, Lazy Pineapple, which I was scheduled to play in. I vaguely recall playing it, but as the whole week went for me, there was no money in it for me, I wasn't even close to cashing, I bombed the event. However, life in Vegas during BARGE starts AFTER the tourney, so that's what happened.

Tuesday night...good lord, so long ago, who knows what the hell I did? It might have involved dancing or gambling...Definitely involved drinking, but that's a given.

Wednesday 8/16/06:

The Blackjack and Video Poker Tournaments were cancelled so there was nothing to do until 5pm which was when the (non) Smokers Dinner was to take place. I do believe I simply hung out at the Diamond Lounge this day, eating and drinking and using the internet..all for free! Gotta love being a Diamond!

The dinner was at Nine's at The Palms. Very nice restaurant, excellent meal; got to meet several ARG'rs, and I also got to re-acquaint myself with some other ARG'rs that I had already met out in Atlantic City during ATLARGE.

After dinner we all headed straight over to the Venetian where we proceeded to play Lobah. I. HATE. Lobah. Enough said. Never won a SINGLE hand, not ONE. It was disgusting and I was appalled at my playing, although it was really lack of luck that had me disgusted.

Around 9pm was when we were supposed to have the official Virgin Outing, starting with karaoke at Imperial Palace, then dancing at the Carnival Court. I get to IP and there was only one person there (so far), elg26. Then along came SuperSteamer (DPCondit) and a few others and that was it! We never did sing any songs, but sure had a great time sitting at the bar playing video poker and drinking.

We headed over to the Carnival Court around 11pm where we proceeded to dance until 3am, with one person dropping off at a time until I was the only one left and so what could I do but leave for bed myself.

Thursday 8/17/06:

The Team CHORSE event was scheduled to start at 11am, and due to the HORRIBLE parking/valet structure that they have at the Venetian, I ended up arriving right around 11:01am which caused some panic with RaidersFan (who had already paid for the entire team). Turned out I wasn't the only one late and the rest of the team showed up within that minute.

I played the Razz portion and although my first round went well, the 2nd round had me dumping off chips when SOMEONE (Quiet Lion) refused to lay down his hand, even with Q, Q on the board and proceeded to river me on a horrible beat. Sniff.

Anyways, we ended up getting $25 back of our entry, so I guess it wasn't as bad as it could have been. LOL

After CHORSE the next event wasn't until that night with the Stud Shootout. I can't remember what I did in between the two events, but I believe this was the night where I busted out of the Stud event pretty quickly and so I bought into the nightly regular Venetian tournament and ended up at the final table, finally coming in 8th place. This final table was one of the weirdest ones I've ever played at. I ended up arriving as the chip leader, if not then in 2nd and TWO hours later, was out in 8th. Lasted FOR EVER. A few RGP'rs came by to watch and sweat me once I got to the final table, but even some of them had to leave as it was dragging on forever. LOL

After that, I pretty much just went to bed. I was suppose to go to a hotel room poker game, but due to the final table finish I just headed to bed instead.

Friday 8/18/06:

This day had the TOC starting at 10am, I didn't do TOO bad, which just means I lasted a little bit longer then all the other tourneys so far, LMFAO. After the TOC we had the symposium at 4pm which I thought was an absolute hoot. Fellknight and I ended up being teamed up together and we sold for a whopping $150. We then decided to team up and purchase other teams, ending the night with 5 teams (9 players) under our belts. Turned out only one of our horses won, but it was nice to get that enveloped delivered after the TOC was over!

After the symposium it was time for the Craps Crawl and the wedding!!

We (about 15-20??) started at The Main Station and I just followed along with them, knowing that I don't play craps, but was mainly there to represent the virgins (as their Virgin Queen) and to drink with all the ADB'rs. After the Main Station we headed over to Binion's where Mark (Slim1Der) was finally able to meet up with me and I just love that boy! We had a great time, but that story is coming up later. : )

(Sidenote: As the Virgin Queen I had found a hat in the RIO gift shop that was a Queen's crown, it was cool wearing it all week and I got compliment after compliment on it. Another thing that I did as the queen was to have these really cool card protectors made for the virgins. One had "I busted a Cherry" inscribed on it that the virgin was to give out as a bounty prize. The other one had a "I busted my Cherry" inscribed on it for a token to keep. Both had "BARGE 2006" on it as well. If there were any virgins that missed purchasing these, I do have about 5-6 of each left over if you want to buy! I had to prepay for them, so just email me and I'll ship them to you. $15 each.)

OK, so the craps crawl is over, we head over to Fitzgerald's for the wedding and for some karaoke. Mark (Slim1Der) was deathly afraid of doing "his" song, as it was a rap song and being that he was the only black guy present, I could understand his apprehension. LOL. NOT needed. He TORE the stage up. Everyone loved him and he was a hit. He then came up to me and said he needed my back up for "Baby got Back". Well, what could I say but "Um, SURE!!" So there we were on stage. He was the lyrics, I was simply the back up dancer with a big butt and we were a HIT. There's rumours that there is video stream out there on the internet somewhere, but I haven't been given a link yet and it I do, I promise to post it. I enjoyed myself, even if I did feel like a fool for a little bit. : ) I thought everyone would hate us but it turned out to be the performance of the night, even surpassing the Virgins singing (what else?) Madonna's "Like a Virgin" and the ADB'rs singing (what else?) "One beer, one bottle, one something or another song that I forgot the title too"

I also did my rendition of "Fever" which went quite well, even if my voice was on the way to being GONE. (It came back about a week and 1/2 later, but that will be on my WPS TR too. I mean it, when I lose my voice, it's gone, not coming back for a bit, especially if I keep talking, smoking, drinking, etc.)

The wedding itself was very cool. I loved the fact that these two people (Chris and Amy) were willing to share their moment with people they've never even MET before (the Virgins)and with the friends they've made simply from a poker forum/newsgroup/email list etc. That was awesome, IMO and I'll admit to a tear or two.

After the crowd started thinning, Mark admitted to being a little bit too drunk to stay and had to leave for bed. I lasted about another 30 mins, then I headed to bed myself.

Saturday 8/19/06:

The morning event was NLHE (Finally!) I did better in this event, but still didn't do anything worth mentioning.

Spent the day at the Diamond Lounge with a few other RGP'rs and then headed over to the Venetian for the banquet that had Phil Gordon as the guest speaker. FUNNY guy. I had met him before the banquet, at the WSOP and all, but never had the experience of hearing him talk or talking directly with him and I thought he gave a great speech.

After the Banquet it was time to play those crazy BARGE games, so I immediately put myself on the $3/$6 "Must Drink" game and was there for about an hour or two until I decided that I had drunk enough and it was time to depart as Mark wanted to make sure we hit the Carnival Court. OMG, this was the night that SOMEONE (no names, but current RGP'r) got SO drunk, he not only vomited at the Carnival Court but also in the lobby of the Wynn as I helped him get checked in. I felt slightly guilty as I was the one who promised to "get him drunk" and sure enough, I did. By this night I had gotten or gotten drunk with SuperSteamer, Elg26, Fellknight, Omaholic, Slim1Der, and several others that I'm sure I'm forgetting to mention....

Good times, good times.

Sunday 8/20/06:

BARGE was officially over, but I was still in Vegas until my plane departed on Monday for the World Poker Showdown along with Omaholic, Slim1Der and Fellknight. So we all hung out together this day, eating lunch at the Outback inside the crappy hotel right next door to Harrah's...can't remember the name of it now. Anyways, that was all on this day. We all gambled a bit on the slots, drank at the Diamond Lounge and pretty much just settled down until it was time for everyone to leave.

WAIT! I do remember meeting Rich at this casino that was WAY outside town and found a new slot machine. Triple Draw Double Double Bonus Poker. Why did I hit 4 of a kind after 4 of a kind after 4 of a kind; giving myself an $800 win on a QUARTER machine!! NICE chunk to add to the bankroll that I was taking with me to Costa Rica.

That's the end of my BARGE TR. There, of course, is a LOT that I am leaving out. However, that should really be expected. Who, in their right mind, would write a trip report that includes EVERYTHING, especially when it's a trip report that happened in Vegas???

Come on, do I REALLY need to say it?

World Poker Showdown in Costa Rica Trip Report coming soon.....

A Nice Online Win, Finally!

2006-08-29T22:14:00.000-07:00

Although I haven't been playing much online, I had played some when home in between trips throughout the summer and I never really cashed in anything much. Looking at ThePokerDB.com, I haven't had a "nice" cash since 4/22/06 ($1908). Good grief, what the hell is going on???

It's finally nice to report SOME kind of win. I played an Omaha 8/B satty into the WCOOP Event #5, priced at $500/$30 and I WON, not only did I win one of the 6 seats given out but I totally dominated and decimated the final 2 tables. On the bubble I busted out the 7th place and the 6th place in the same hand. I think I ended with about 50K compared to the 18K that 2nd place had.

There are 18 WCOOP events, with the first one being Razz on 9/16/06. Since I am officially "home", I plan on playing as many of these as possible, making the next 18 or so days dedicated to winning qualifiers.

Day 1: 1 for 2. I busted out seriously from the HORSE satellite. I don't know why I try to play it, I can't seem to get the knack of that game. I play WAY too many hands, and I KNOW this. I MUST work on my strategy for this game. I MUST so I WILL.

Still, 1 for 2 with the 1 being a $530 event is NOT bad IMO. I'm excited and can't wait to see how many events I can qualify for vs. buying in directly.

Once the WCOOP events start, I will blog full and complete tournament reports like I used to. Last year I did pretty well in the PLHE event, but that was the only one I played...so...you can't WIN if you don't PLAY.

: )

ITH Convention Trip Report

2006-08-29T18:33:00.000-07:00

(DISCLAIMER: To the best of my ability, the following post is true and correct. Keeping in mind that the ITH Convention did take place well over 3 1/2 weeks ago and that I was drunk the entire time while I was there. Nevertheless, I have decided to go ahead and "ATTEMPT" to reconstruct that weekend and all that it entailed.)

Wednesday 8/9/06:

I arrived in Vegas, at the Imperial Palace, in time to hear that Matthew Hilger (ITH's god) was at the final table of a $1500 NLHE WSOP event (you know, the ones they hold AFTER the main event starts). This was his first final table so it was great to be able to go down there and sweat him along with about 10 other ITH'rs (give or take)

Matthew ended up busting out in 8th place, and then I hung out with him while he was being interviewed by Bluff Radio. Matthew's "Number One Fan" did call in though and she got great compliments on her voice and the fact that she was a female calling in and that most callers are male. Don't know WHO the hell she was though. Wink. Wink. (Gave Matthew a plug, what more can a friend do??)

Afterwards, they (Matthew, Ryan, Nside, Angel, and some others) invited me to join them for a very nice meal at the steak house at The Venetian. I complied and then left around midnight in order to go dancing at the Carnival Court, my favorite dancing spot in Vegas. Barely remember getting there (Taxi!!..no wait, I walked. I think) and then crashed around 2am if memory serves.

Thursday 8/10/06:

I decided to play in the Harrah's 11am event, since nothing really happened with ITH until the cocktail reception later that night. Didn't do anything worth mentioning, just couldn't get any cards working for me and busted out after the first break.

At this point I just hung around at Harrah's in the Diamond Lounge (Can you say free food, free drinks, and free internet??) before heading over to IP for the reception.

The food was great, the people were awesome, I got to see Torch and Ammbo again (My hero's from last year's entry titled "The $1,500 Meltdown". Seriously, read it if you haven't in order to get a good laugh or a nice cringe...pick one. : ) AND I got to finally meet the infamous Bulljami in person. VERY nice guy, I loved him, Of COURSE...I knew I would. However, he was a little bit more shy in person then he is on the internet. No need to hide the true personality dear, bring it out!!! A hilarious guy for sure.

After the reception it was time to head downstairs to play some drunken double flop hold em. Man, I LOVED that game. Had a great time, it was full of ITH'rs, we're all laughing, drinking, having a great time, what more can you ask for??

Friday 8/11/06:

The LHE Event was scheduled to start after the seminar, which was scheduled to start at 10am. Seriously. Who PLANNED this shit?? I was there on time, thus winning a $5 sidebet with Torch, and was actually pleased to find quite a few other ITH'rs there as well.

I think we should move it to AFTER the first event next year. 10 am?? In Vegas?? Please.

So we had a little trivia contest, it was fun. I think we missed them all but 1. LOL, I was in a dorky group who kept telling each other, "Well, I think it's "this" but you have a good answer too, let's go with that." Such polite people!!

The LHE event had me coming in 4th place after I kept hitting suck out after suck out. Seriously, I can't even remember some hands but I was catching 2 outers, 1 outers, rivering str8s, flushes, etc. etc. It was sick.

One major cool item of the day was getting to sit and chat with Dr. Alan Schoonmaker (Matthew asked him to grace us with his presence for the event and he did!!) who I thought was a nice, gracious, and humerous guy. He told me about the Wednesday lunch group (Which I had already heard about from Felicia, but told him that Wednesdays are hard for non Vegas residents) and then he told me about another group that meets on Monday nights, at a bar. How can I NOT go to one of those? So the next Monday that I'm in Vegas, I will be there, check it out, and if I like it then I will try to attend as often as I can, making it my last stop on my Vegas weekend trips on the way home.

Had a lovely meal in a wonderful restaurant that I cannot name located in the IP, then went back upstairs for our 2nd tourney, NLHE. I didn't do too bad, but was busted out in about 9th or 10th place, IIRC, and so then decided to go downstairs and play a little drunken $2/$4 poker with the other busted ITH'rs.

I was, at one point, completely past exhaustion and of course liquored up, so I decided to take little, what I like to call "Breaks" at the poker table. This involves my placing the head upon the hands in a resting like manner, on top of the stacks of poker chips in front of me. Every so often, I raise the head, see if I have a hand, if the action is on me, etc. then lay the head back down. Many have confused this with "Sleeping at the poker table" However, let the record show they are merely poker "Breaks".

About an hour after my continuous breaks, Torch looks at me sternly and states, "Tanya, go to bed, NOW!" So I left, but not before making a $5 sidebet that I could get an In 'N Out Double Double delivered to me at the table. It took them a little bit longer then planned, but an hour and 1/2 later, and while I was on my way to my room, I ran into my delivery guys (Nside? Ammbo?? Can't remember) and had the most delicious Double Double in my life, in my pajamas, in bed.

Saturday 8/12/06:

The 1st tourney of the day was LHE and nothing memorable happened in this event. No good for me, can't really remember any hands or anything, except for the one I busted out on. I thought I was SO slick with A, 4 os. Until Suited Pair showed A, A. Then kept apologizing to me for knocking me out! What a sweety!

We had a pizza party before the Main Event. IIRC, I simply hung out in the Diamond's Lounge at Harrah's in between the 1st tourney and the pizza party, so I was pretty blitzed by the time the pizza came around and it was DE - licious!

Then we had the Main Event, it was fun, but everything's fun when you're drunk. By this time we had a little clique going called "Shooter's Unite!!" and we would do shots throughout the tournaments. I won't say who all got into it because, of course, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, but I will say I was surprised at a few people that did them with the "known" drunks. (You KNOW who you are!!)

I did nothing remarkable (yet again, notice a trend here?) at the Main Event but the highlight was getting to see Matthew and Albert heads up at the final table of the Main Event. I mean how RIGGED is THAT??? After the event was over, I was able to get about 11 others to go out dancing at the Carnival Court and had a BLAST. This was the night I got to know NutJob the best and that boy is one AWESOME guy. Any girl would be lucky/happy to have him. Yet another new ITH best friend!!

Sunday 8/13/06:

Sunday found me simply laying in bed ordering room service and watching movie after movie from their pay per view until it was time to meet Bad Rob and Good Rob at RIO for the Penn and Teller show that they invited me too. After the show I simply went back to the room, ordered more room service, another movie and fell asleep around 2:30am, woke up around 9am and headed home.

I actually left again for Vegas ONE day later tomorrow for BARGE (That TR is one of my next entries, followed by the WPS Costa Rica TR) and even though I had a great time and got to meet a lot of really great people, some whom I've been chatting with online for over a year, I will never FEEL the way I do about RGP'rs the way I feel about ITH'rs.

To be an ITH'r is to love ITH, and I do.

The Legal Fight

2006-08-09T00:19:00.000-07:00

On 8/1/06, last Tuesday, I was pulled over for speeding (yes, AGAIN). Apparantly I was clocked at 34 mph in a 25 mph zone. The cop was very nice, and said he would give me a warning on the speeding, but that he would have to give me a ticket for not having proof of insurance in my car. (I had taken my insurance card out the DAY before and forgot it on my desk, no big deal, it's a "Fix It Ticket".)

He comes back to my car to say "Ma'am, did you know your license is suspended for Failure to Appear?"

OMG, NOOOO I did NOT know this and this is a mistake, I KNOW it.

So I ask him when the suspension went into effect and he states, "Just Today, 8/1/06". So, he gives me a ticket for driving with a suspended license (only) and I let him leave first, then I drive straight to one of the two court houses in town.

They tell me, "Nope, no warrants here, we did not tell the MVD to suspend your license."

So I drive to the 2nd courthouse where they tell me, "Nope, no warrants here, we did not tell the MVD to suspend your license."

Next, I drive to the MVD department where they tell me that my license was suspended due to a ticket that I received on 3/1/06. The SAME ticket that I paid on 4/20/06 after my license was suspended back in March, 2006. So, since all my paperwork was at home, and since it was almost 5pm, I had to wait until Wed, 8/2, to take my paperwork (PROOF that I had paid) back to the MVD.

On 8/2, Wed, I did just that. I took all my paperwork to the MVD and they proceeded to tell me that my license was NOT suspended due to the 3/1/06 ticket, but due to the fact that I never went to Traffic Survival School (due to the number of points on my record in the last year, WAY too many tickets in other words) So I ask her, "When was I notified by letter of the need to take the TSS class?" She responds, "The letter was sent 8/1/06".

Me: "Um, Yesterday???"
Her: "Well, um, yeah"
Me: "So, my license was suspended on the same day you sent the letter to me? Does this not sound wrong to you?"
Her: "Yeah, let me check with someone"
Her: "OK, looks like you were suspended yesterday, 8/1/06, due to your 3/1/06 ticket"
Me: "You mean the one I paid on 4/20/06 and have proof right here that I paid?"
Her: "Yes, that's the one. I can take your proof and mark it as paid but then you need to pay $35 for reinstating your license"
Me: "You mean I have to pay another $35, since I paid the $35 on 4/20/06, to reinstate my license because you guys suspended it in error on 8/1/06?"
Her: "Yes, unless you can get someone from the courthouse to call in and ask for a waiver"

Sigh.

So, after 2 days and 7 hours, I find myself at the first courthouse (AGAIN) and they called the MVD to let them know that there was no reason for the MVD to have my license as suspended when I paid my fines back in April.

So, I finally get the suspension lifted, without having to pay the $35, and everything is hunky dory.

Until I take the ticket to the 2nd courthouse:

Me: "This ticket was given to me in error, my license was never suspended, and I have proof from both the MVD and the [1st] courthouse that my license was not suspended. My court date is set for 8/28, but I will be out of the country on that date, can I take care of this now?"
Clerk: "So, are you pleading Not Guilty?"
Me: "Um, Yes, I WAS NOT Guilty, my license was suspended in error, but I have had the MVD correct it right away"
Clerk: "Let me show this to the judge, one moment please"

20 minutes later:

Clerk: "Since you're pleading Not Guilty you will need to set up an appointment with the County Prosecuter and explain it to him/her what's going on and then you'll have to set another court date"
Me: "But I gave you the proof that this ticket never should have been issued, it was a MVD error, it was not my fault, can't you just make the ticket go away?"
Clerk: "Nope, you're pleading Not Guilty which entitles you to a trial and a County Prosecuter must meet with you."

Sigh.

On my paperwork: "Since you are pleading Not Guilty you are allowing the County Prosecutor to PROVE that you are guilty. The burden will be placed on the prosecutor."

I cannot BELIEVE that they are WASTING our tax dollars like this when I have already presented PROOF that the MVD fucked up, NOT ME!!

Therefore, on 9/25/06, I will be showing up with my appointment with the County Prosecutor and will have him PROVE to the courts and to me that I am GUILTY.

I know that I am NOT. I have documented PROOF from both the MVD and the [1st] courthouse, so now, it's time for Tanya to get a little revenge and waste THEIR time since they've already wasted 10 hours of MY time, and that's not even counting the time that will be spent with the Prosecutor and in court.

Fuckers. They piss me off. I'm getting mad ALL over again, just typing this damn shit out.

Let the asshole PROVE me guilty, GOOD LUCK buddy since I already have PROOF that I'm NOT GUILTY. And I'm not going to give it to him either, I'm going to make him waste the court time, the county's tax dollars, etc. trying to FIND proof that I'm guilty.

Fuckers. I hate the legal system. I hate it and I fear it. I will let you all know what happens.

Sowwy

2006-08-08T21:14:00.000-07:00

So I'm getting yelled at for not giving a blog update recently, but I WARNED you all in one of my last posts that I would be busy!!

Anywho, I have moved now, and am 95% unpacked in TWO days. I rock. The only thing I have left to do is unpack my books and VHS videos (We have a TON!) but I need to buy a bookshelf or two before doing that, so they will sit in my new laundry room until I've gone shopping.

One thing that some people don't know about me is that I am a big, I mean HUGE, Princess House collector. For those that don't know, Princess House is crystal and is usually bought from home parties, although you can also buy from their website. I used to be a sales rep for them and I have hundreds of crystal pieces. I've been busy washing them in the last 2 days as my new house has pot shelves EVERYWHERE, so I will finally be able to bring out ALL of my crystal and put them on display and not have to worry about earthquakes destroying them! I still have one HUGE box left to unload and wash, but I will take care of that in September.

Tomorrow, Wednesday, I leave for Las Vegas for the 2nd Annual ITH (www.internettexasholdem.com) Convention, and will return home on Sunday for only a day or two before I leave back for Vegas for BARGE.

As you may have heard by now BARGE does not have an official home yet, The Plaza dumped us, then Caesar's Palace dumped us, and now the organizers are trying to get The Palms to have us. If noone wants us, then we've decided to just take over normal everyday tourneys, such as Binion's. That will be a hoot to have 150-200 EXTRA people show up for their normal tourneys. Whatever casino we hit, they won't know what HIT them. LOL

Once I leave for Vegas for BARGE, then I do not come home until 8/28/06 as I leave from BARGE on 8/21 directly for the World Poker Showdown in Costa Rica.

VERY busy month, and while I'm looking forward to going, I'm not liking the idea of being gone for so long. I will not do this again, not until I'm officially retired from my business that is. I feel so irresponsible leaving for long periods of time, even though I have my manager and employees on track and organized and they KNOW what they're doing. It's the power/control thing. I don't like it at all. Too bad it's too late to change plans...but I feel obligated to go to the 3 tourneys that I have planned, and while I KNOW I will enjoy myself while I'm there, there's still a part of me that feels "weird", stressed out, I'm not sure how to describe it.

So there you have it, sorry to say, NO BLOG UPDATES for several weeks unless I get near a computer and I'm bored enough to get online.

Thanks for your patience and try not to have Tanya withdrawals. LMFAO.

2006 WSOP Wrap Up

2006-07-27T06:27:00.000-07:00

Well, it's all over but the crying. OK, the crying is over too, as it only takes me a few hours to get over losing, if not less.

My final event was the $1500 NLHE event on Tuesday and I was EN FUEGO!!! to start with. I dominated my first table (about 2 hours), running over them left and right and they were generally scared of me. I know, they told me. LOL

I did get CardPlayer to follow me and Bill is going to send me a few screen shots to post with bragging rights. They had me listed as #4 once and then down to #7 and then I got moved.

Sigh.

My image was ALL set up, why did they have to go and do that??

The new table was hard to set up an image, they had been playing with each other already and knew each other's styles, moves, etc and I just could not fit in.

The hand that crippled me was A,K. I raised preflop on the BB after one limper had come in the pot. The limper stayed and then like an idiot I checked the A, K, x flop. I was, of course, going for the check raise, but the player was not stupid and did not fall for it and a 7 fell on the turn. I bet, he minimum raised me, and I just called. The river was another 7. I checked, he bet pretty big, but not TOO big, but enough to hurt me and I decided to call to see him holding 7, 7 for quads. Oye!

My final hand had me short stacked with 10d, Jd on the button so I went for it and ran into A, Q. A Q fell on the flop and IGHN.

It was a good run, and I'm happy about my play (in general). I truly loved the Razz event and am proud that I could finish so far, even if I did bubble. Event #4 was also good with me going to 150th place out of 1060, kinda bubbling as 99 got paid in that one.

Compared to last year, I have improved. I played 9 events last year and didn't make it to the dinner break in ANY of them. I only played 4 events this year, but made it far in 2 and then made it to about the 5 1/2 hour mark in the other 2.

Also compared to last year is the amount won/lost/spent, etc. Last year I won about 30K, but spent about 35K. This year I won about (rough estimate) 5K (satellites) and spent about 10K, so the loss is not that huge although it's not something I wanted to do, obviously, LOL.

I will be taking some time off in the next few weeks, will blog if anything interesting happens online but after the WSOP experience, online poker just isn't cutting it for me. I KNOW I prefer and LOVE playing live. I am going to try to win my way to the EPT in Barcelona in September online though.

August is going to be a busy month. I have the ITH convention 8/10-8/14, then BARGE 8/15-8/20, then Costa Rica for the WPS 8/21-8/28. Will try to post updates while I'm gone, but no promises!

Apology Accepted

2006-07-27T06:25:00.000-07:00

From Joe Sebok's blog on PokerPages.com

(Event #4, $1500 LHE)

"I have to add as a caveat that I was in quite possibly the worst mood of all time when the day started. I don't know what the hell it was that got me so irritated, but the combination of that feeling and playing limit really seemed to just rub me the wrong way. I was getting into fights and arguments with people left and right all day.

So let me be the first to apologize to all those who had the unfortunate luck of having to be seated with me today.

Also, there is something about limit that always seems to get me flapping my gums. When playing NL or PL, I never say a word, but for whatever reason I can't keep it shut when we shift gears to limit."

Hey, I'm female, I can understand bad moods. I recant my previous comments about Joe Sebok and accept the apology.

Monday AM

2006-07-24T12:04:00.000-07:00

Real quick update as the Stud Tourney is starting, but I wanted to post.

Yesterday found me relaxing in the Diamond Lounge, meeting up with Alex from RGP, and just hanging out, drinking, playing the 2pm tourney at Binions, then playing 3/6 with VeeRob from RGP, then a few of us headed over to Ceasers to play the 7pm, then I headed over to the RIO and played 2 satellites.

I lost the Binions, I lost the Ceasers, but I won both satellites (chopping), so not bad. Ended up crawling into bed around 2 ro 3 am.

It's now time for Stud 8/B. Time to kick some ass!!

Saturday, 7/22, RAZZ

2006-07-23T11:59:00.000-07:00

Well, as you may have heard by now, I busted out kinda on the bubble in the WSOP Razz event. Top 40 got paid, I ended up in 44th place.

When we were down to 46-48 players, I was about 9k in chips, nothing too bad, but I wasn't trying to "get into the money", I wanted chips. I wanted a stack.

There are 3 hands to talk about.

While I am a VERY aggressive Razz player, I did slow down when we got close to the money, but I wasn't going to through away good hands that I could potentially get chips on.

So the first hand I'm dealt A, 3 underneath with 2 showing. I complete, I'm called. 4th street is another low, I believe 8, I bet, he calls. Then what do I get but brick after brick after brick and end up folding the hand on 6th street. I'm hurt, but not crippled.

2nd hand, I get A showing with 3,5 underneath, I complete and get one caller. 4th street is a 9, ok I'll call 1 time. 5th steet is another 9. Sigh. Now I'm crippled. I had about 3K left, I have to pick a hand and go with it.

The hand I choose gives me a 6 showing with 8, 4 underneath. I'm all in by 5th street and I am ahead with a 10-8, he has J-8. 6th street gives us both nothing and on the river, that DAMN river, he gets a 2 to have an 8-7 low and I get another 10 so I'm out in 44th place.

It was a great ride and I am, of course, extremely disappointed. I'm not on "tilt" or anything like that, just a little bummed and more determined then EVER to cash deep in the next event, Stud H/L on Monday.

CardPlayer only started covering me when I told them too. They did ignore me pretty much until then and only after I bitched to them and let them know that RGP was following me did they finally start. I've learned this from the past, and it's probably my own fault for not going up to them sooner, I won't make that mistake again.

Yesterday was a roller coaster and while I'm proud of my finish, I'm also upset that I couldn't wait at least 4 more players to at least give my backers back their money. I ended up selling 21 shares of myself, which I would have been able to pay back almost 100% if I just ended up "in the money". Of course, my goals have always been to never just "make it" but rather build up my stack to make it "further". However, that did set on my mind that maybe there was something I could have done to try and squeak into the money for the backers.

Today is Sunday and I will be hanging out downtown at Binion's until it's time to go to RIO for some satellites and then meet up with a few RGP'rs for some dinner and fun tonight.

Tomorrow Stud H/L....LOOK OUT WCP'rs!!!

Friday 7/21/06 in Vegas

2006-07-22T11:57:00.000-07:00

I am going to try my best to do daily blog updates from the FullTilt Suite, otherwise, I might forget everything that happens. LOL

Yesterday afternoon had me arriving in Vegas around 2:30pm, I entered the 2pm tourney at Binions, $70 buy in, 1 $40 rebuy.
Only one hand that really sticks out and that's the hand that just seemed to take me to the end where I chopped heads up for $1700.

I was holding 4s,4h in MP, 1 limper in front of me, I limp, button raises. The original limper calls, I call as well, just trying to hit a flop. The flop came 10s, 7s, 9s. The original limper checked, I checked and the button took about a full minute before he decided to move all in, the 1st guy folds and I think.

I honestly put him on one of two hands, either high pocket pair with no spade, or high face cards with 1 spade. I decided to gamble and called (Hey, I still had a rebuy) I really thought that either my spade would be good IF another spade hit, or possibly my pair would be good if another spade didn't hit. He showed 10,10 for a flopped set and a spade came on the river. Go me. LOL He gave me shit about that call for the rest of the tourney.

I then moved over to the RIO, it was about 8pm at this time and I met Alex from RGP, more of a lurker then anything, but one of my backers, so he paid up and we played a satellite together where I then continued my streak from Binions and ended up chopping heads up for $500 each. (It was a $125 satty)

By this time I had introduced Alex to shots and so we were on our way to getting toasted. We took a taxi over to Plaza and played the midnight event where I ended up chopping 4 ways for $400 or something (I forgot really, I was way past toasted at this point) each and then it was off to bed.

Yesterday (Friday) was a great day, I am 3/3 and now I just pray that my luck and great playing holds up for the "important" events. I feel good and am on my way into the room to play Razz at 2pm. Wish me luck!

Back To Vegas

2006-07-20T13:01:00.000-07:00

I will be leaving tomorrow for Vegas again, playing in the following three events:

7/22 $1500 Razz
7/24 $1000 Stud H/L
7/25 $1500 NLHE

I come home home on Wednesday AM, unless I make 2nd day and/or final table of the NLHE event.

If you know you are going to be out there and want to meet, shoot me an email and I'll pass along my cell phone number.

I ended up selling 21 shares of my action for these events, and am looking forward to bringing home the money for everyone. Any last minute purchases can be made until tomorrow (Friday) morning.

I'll then be back in Vegas on 7/29-7/30 to pick up Mom and Cherissa from the airport and then I'm not back in Vegas until 8/9 for the ITH Convention, which leads directly into BARGE, which leads directly into the WPS in Costa Rica.

Yes, I am BOOKED for Costa Rica! This time I am going as a player, and not a representative of WPS as they have their own full staff there already, in the casino. It's still not too late and if you want any information regarding WPS, go to www.WorldPokerShowdown.com, I've also heard that the St. Maartens schedule for November is UP and VERY interesting. Go check it out, maybe you can make St. Maartens if not Costa Rica (Although Costa Rica is WAY cheaper, however, I'll still be at both.)

Have a great weekend and keep your eyes glued to CardPlayer, PokerWire, RGP, and ITH for any and all updates on my play! (I'm really good at getting them to give live updates on me ; )

CORRECTION!!

2006-07-18T10:54:00.000-07:00

Those that know me know that I am the first to admit when I'm wrong.

I need to clarify more of the "Tanya for Sale" thread as some flaws have been pointed out to me.

The bottom line is that:

"Any and all winnings will be divided amongst the backers in order to repay
their original investment first, then after the original investment has been
paid back, the backers would receive 1.57% of the remaining funds for each share
purchased."

Regardless of what is said about me on RGP by certain posters, I am not out to "con" my friends, or give them a bad deal, that's not my intentions AT ALL.

I am going to be playing these events, and just wanted to offset my risk a little which should be understandable to all parties involved.

UPDATE: 16 Shares Sold, 16 Shares Left.

7/19/06 UPDATE: 19 Shares Sold, I think I may stop at 25 instead of selling out at 32, get in now if you're interested.

Tanya For Sale

2006-07-17T12:39:00.000-07:00

I am playing the following events next week:

7/22 $1500 Razz
7/24 $1000 Stud H/L
7/25 $1500 NLHE

Buying in directly for $4,000.

I will sell up to 32 shares at $125 each which will get you 1.57% of all 3 events. I will be buying in directly regardless of number of shares sold.

I've only played in one event so far, #4 (LHE) coming in 150th place out of 1060, although CardPlayer had me going out late the 2nd day, so that counts for something, right? (ha ha ha)

In satellites I've chopped 4/9 so far.

Past online results can be looked up at www.PokerDB.com

I'm home for the week, commitments and funds must be in by Thursday night, I leave for Vegas on Friday.

Email me directly at tanya@pecksmedicalbilling.com

Contrary to popular belief, I will not be drinking during said events. I plan on going deep and I plan on getting my damn bracelet. It's my turn.

EDIT: There's been some confusion.

If a profit is made then the investors would get their original investment back,
$125, plus 1.57% of the profit.

If a profit is not made then the investors would get 1.57% of the winnings.

If nothing is won, then you just gambled $125 on me.

Either way, I'm playing the events, so I'm not looking for people to fund my
events FOR me, I'm looking for people who want to do this WITH me.

The BIG Day

2006-07-16T17:35:00.000-07:00

7/16/06.

The BIG Day. Two HUGE Guaranteed tourneys, one on Full Tilt, one on PokerStars. I, of course, played in both.

I busted out pretty early in the PS due to my QQ running into 1010 with a 10 on the river. (DAMN IT ALL TO HELL!!!) : )

I busted out of the Full Tilt in around 1100th place, and was feeling pretty good about the tourney. I decided to take a stand against a chip bully that was raising me all day long with crap hands (my blind) so I moved all in with K,Q. Expecting him to fold, but oh no, FT decided to give him Aces that hand. OOPS.

I am done with poker for the day and for the week. I will not be going back to the WSOP until next weekend, IF even then. I will keep you all informed when there's something to say, but other than that, I'll be taking a little time off for myself right now.

Cherissa is gone to Canada with Grandma for 2 weeks, so I'm going to keep busy with work and household chores so that I don't get bored.

See you in a few weeks, perhaps?

San Diego, Catalina Island, and Ensenada....Again.

2006-07-12T11:59:00.000-07:00

Yep, here I am on my 5th cruise since last August. Must be nice, eh?

The first day of the cruise, Monday, was a rough day. Had a few mental/personal issues so I decided to drink my cares away and drink I did. So Co Lemonade is my new favorite shot and after about 12 of them, it was time to get ready for dinner. So we go to the cabin (Me and Patti [PJ to family only], my sister) and while she showered and dressed, I laid down on the bed. OOPS. 6 hours later, I woke up to find out I had missed the entire first night of the cruise. Ah well, ces la vie.

Tuesday found us simply lounging on Deck 11 all day in the sun, in the shade, reading, eating, drinking, gossiping, etc. Had a nice day with my sis. Did the dinner thing, went to the art auction (BIG mistake, I always have to buy....I warned PJ not to let me go, but she didn't listen to me), then went clubbing until 2am. We heard the crew party was last night and we heard it was on the 4th deck, but we looked and looked and couldn't find the "secret entrance" so we went to bed around 3am after some room service for our "4th Meal"

Today is Wednesday and we are at Catalina Island, but we will not be getting off, just doing more of what we did yesterday. Wash, Rinse, Recycle and Repeat.

Tomorrow is Ensenada and we will be getting off the boat for the entire day. I am taking PJ to my favorite bar that I found there back in April, I'm pretty confident the bartender will remember me. : )

Enough for now, will post again if and when I think about it.

WSOP Event #4, $1,500 LHE

2006-07-07T08:19:00.000-07:00

I typed this report up this AM for the next issue of Women's Poker Player Magazine, so you are getting the "edited" version here, but it gives some hand histories and I'm not about to type up something new just for YOU. (ha ha ha)

WSOP Limit Hold Em Tournament Report

As I write this, the WSOP is underway and currently on Event #11. However, I would like to tell you my story about Event #4, the $1,500 LHE Event that was on Thursday, June 29th.

I debated about entering the event as I hadn’t won enough satellites to qualify, and if I bought in directly it would pretty much deplete my bankroll at the time. I’m fortunate enough to be able to replenish my bankroll from both my husband’s business and my business, so that’s why I decided to go for the gusto and buy in directly, knowing that if I didn’t make the money, then I would be done playing for a few days.

I started off at table 20 along with 1059 other players. I was on fire the first half hour, and was taking notes while playing, which I will share with you. The notes may be a little sketchy and if I don’t mention suites then it means that it didn’t matter for that hand.

I was in MP (middle position) when I looked down to Q,Q. I raised and had 2 callers behind me, both the BB (Big Blind) and SB (Small Blind). The flop was 9, 9, J. Both blinds checked to me, I bet out. The SB called and the BB raised, I re-raised, the SB folded and the BB called. The turn was a 7, he checked, I bet, he called. River was a blank, he checked, I bet, he called and mucked when he saw my Ladies. 450 won.

A few hands later I was in the SB with 6,6. Button (same guy as in my Q,Q hand) had raised, I flat called, as did the BB. The flop came 6, 4, 4. BINGO!!! I bet out, the BB folded, the button called. Turn was a 4, I bet and the button raised me. I certainly can’t put him on a 4, so I re-raised and he called. The river was a K. I worried a little about him having pocket Kings, but was too involved at this point. I bet out, he called. I show my flopped boat and he shows 9, 9 as he mucks. 600 won.

Two hands later, I’m UTG (Under The Gun) and look down to Ac, 7c. I decide to play and call, all fold to the blinds who both check. The flop came Ad, Kc, xd. The both check, I bet out, SB folds and the BB calls. The turn is a club, the BB bets out, I simply call. The river is another lovely club, he checks, I bet, he folds. 375 won.

So my stack is getting up there and I, of course, start playing a little bit looser and lose a couple of pots and then go card dead for awhile. A few hands that I lost:

I was in MP with 9c Jc, there is a raise in front of me with 4 callers, me being one of them and a total of 5 players in the pot. The flop comes down 8, 10, x. There is a bet, a call, a fold, then and a raise. I re-raise, the original bettor folds and two callers. The turn is a blank, there is a check, a bet, I call, the first player check raised, the original bettor calls, I call. River is another blank, I missed my open ended straight, there is a bet with a call and I now have to fold. I lose 225 on this hand.

I lost another 175 when I called with 7d8d and received 2 diamonds on the flop, stayed until the river and no other diamond showed up, had to fold.

I lost another 150 when I called with 5d7d and the flop came 2, 2, 7. I bet, he raised, I called. Turn was a 5, I checked, he checked. (Oops!!) River is a King, I check, he bets, I feel I have to call and I do in order to see his K, J. Damn river!!!

Before the first level was over I won another pot when I called from the button with 10, J. The flop came 8, 9, x. There is a bet, a raise, I call, original bettor calls. The turn is a beautiful Q, There is a check, a bet, I raise, the first player folds, the bettor calls. The river is a 10, he checks, I bet, he calls and my 10, J kills his trips as he shows Q, Q in the hole. 625 won.

At the end of level one (blinds were 25/25) I’m looking at a stack of 1800, (We started with 1500.)

The first 30 mins of level two (blinds were 25/50) had me card dead, only playing a few hands and after 1 ½ hours of play, my stack is down to 1275.

I pick up a small pot of 250 when my KsQs wins with a Q on the river. I also win a pot with K, K even AFTER an Ace showed up on the turn, which I hated to see!! I was also able to win another small pot with 10, J when all players folded to my bet on a K, Q, 8 flop.

However, in the last hand of level two, I give back practically all the chips I won when I refused to believe the player betting had a hand and I muck when I see him with A, A. End of level two and I’m at 1225 in chips.

We go on a 20 minute break and there is a mad dash for the restrooms. Even though the RIO has added restrooms this year, the poor men still have a mile long line to stand in as the women just breeze past them through the doors into our restroom. One of the benefits of playing in a male dominated sport, no lines!! (Well, except on the weekend of the Ladies Event!)

After coming back from break into Level 3 (blinds 50/100), our table is busted down and I move over to table 142 where I meet (or shall I say “run into”?) Joe Sebok, Barry Greenstein’s son. Now, I’m sure he may be a very pleasant gentleman away from the table, but AT the table? Don’t get me started. Apparently he didn’t like the way I played and made sure I knew about it. I advised him that him being who he was, he should be a little bit more gracious and not tap on the aquarium glass. If he thinks I’m a fish, why berate me?? After a few hours being with him at the table, he seemed to relax a little bit and calmed down, but I was glad to say, “Nice Game” to him as he busted out and I continued playing.

(EDIT: For my blog ONLY: In other words, Joe Sebok was an ASSHOLE. End Edit.)

I will admit that after taking notes religiously for the first few hours, the novelty of that bothersome task was getting old and I stopped taking notes around the 3rd hour. I will let you know, however, that I went quite deep in this event, busting out about an hour after the dinner break in approximately 150th place. Unfortunately, only the top 99 finishers got paid, so I missed the money by only 51 players. However, I was extremely pleased with my play and my placing as this was the first event that I played this year and I made it further then I made in any of the nine events I played last year, so I feel I am either improving or just getting luckier!

I hope you enjoyed reading this tournament report and in the next issue I will do a complete WSOP review/wrap up, as I will be there about 30 days of the 41 days that comprise the WSOP. I have not yet qualified for the Main Event, but will be working on that feverishly both online and live as I can. I wish nothing but luck and good play to any readers who are fortunate enough to be able to make the 2006 WSOP!!

R.I.P. Grandma

2006-07-07T08:12:00.000-07:00

Almost exactly 6 months after Grandpa passed away, Grandma left to be with him.

She passed away while I was at the RIO for the WSOP and was notified by my Mom on the cell phone at 10:30pm on Friday 6/30.

Therefore, I will not be leaving for the WSOP this afternoon as planned but instead will go down to Phoenix for the Memorial and to visit with family.

I plan on being in Vegas on Sunday after coming home to play an online tournament that I'm committed too, and will leave after I win it. (wink wink)

I then leave on Monday morning to take a 5 day cruise with my sister, Patti. I'm looking forward to that and although a part of me wishes I would be in Vegas for the WSOP, I also know that this will probably save me money and give me a good break so I don't "poker out"!!

WSOP 6/25-6/28

2006-07-07T07:56:00.000-07:00

I spent these days at the WSOP simply playing some satellites during the day and going out to dance and party every other night (instead of EVERY night, so I am cutting down!) Plus, I knew that I wouldn't be playing any events until Thursday's LHE Event (6/29) so I felt that it was OK if I cut loose a little bit in the evenings of the first few days.

Satellites offered:
$ 65 - Winner gets 1 $500 chip and $100 cash.
$125 - Winner gets 2 $500 chips and $120 cash.
$175 - Winner gets 3 $500 chips and $120 cash.
$225 - Winner gets 4 $500 chips and $120 cash.
$325 - Winner gets 6 $500 chips and $120 cash.
$525 - Winner gets 10 $500 chips and $120 cash.

On 6/25, Sunday, I played in 5 satellites, $65, $125, $125, $175, and $175. I lost 4 of them and chopped one $175 3 ways for $500, so I was down only $165 for the day.

On 6/26, Monday, I played in 2 satellites, both $325 and lost both of them. I then bought in directly to Event #1, The Casino Employee Event. Turns out that since I work for The World Poker Showdown and since Jimmy Sommerfield was out TD and is a WSOP TD, he verified that I did in fact qualify to play, so I did. However, I didn't last too long and was out before the first break. Oops. I then decided to buy into the 2nd Chance Tourney for $540 and didn't do well in that event either. Down $1690 for the day. ICKY day, bah.

On 6/27, Tuesday, I played in 3 satellites, $175, $225, and $325. I lost the first two but did very well in the $325 (the one to do well in, if you ask me!!) and paid off the last two guys $300 and $600 respectively, so I was left with $2220 for a profit of $1495 for the day. NOT bad!! I'll take it!!

On 6/28, Wednesday, I played in 2 satellites, $325 and $525. I decided to give the $525 a go since I still had 1 $500 chip from the previous day. I was lucky enough to find a table that had a gentleman, Toc was his name, who liked me. I say lucky, because when it got down to 5 players left, I was short stacked with 2 other guys when the suggestion of a "save" came up. Toc stated that only because I was still there would he do it (he was MAJOR chip leader) and so when I busted out in 4th place, I wasn't sad because at least I knew I would get my buy in back. Whew! I also won $150 in a chopped last longer pot with Toc, so for the day I had a loss of only $200.

This now puts me to 6/29, Thursday and I had a dilemma. I had enough funds on me to either play satellites for the day and hope to win one or more, or I could take the last of my money and buy in directly into Event #4, LHE. I decided to go for the gusto and bought in. I did this knowing that if I lost and didn't make any money, then I would simply have to stop playing for a few days as I waited for some checks from a few clients (both Bill's and mine).

Event #4 Tournament Report coming up!!

WSOP TR 6/22-7/5/06

2006-07-05T22:43:00.000-07:00

Get ready for a LONG read. I know I promised to give daily updates, or at least try, but it turns out the laptop I took doesn't work or I don't know how to work it, or whatever...so needless to say, I've had no opportunity of posting to the blog, but will try to find a way SOMEHOW to never leave for so long and NOT have a report for you all.

OK, here goes:

Thursday 6/22 through Sunday 6/25

I finished up with all my work early so headed to Vegas. On my way, I swear I saw some funny lights in the sky, but will wait to see if anyone else has said anything or will say anything before I do. (I was a witness to the Phoenix Lights and I believe!!) OK, so I get to Vegas in time for the 8pm tourney at Binion's. Of course, the first few days I'm in Vegas I plan on doing some partying as the WSOP doesn't start until Sunday/Monday. I think I ended up final table in this event, I say "I think" as I know that I made 3 final tables out of 6 tourneys that I played over the next few days at Binion's. I either bubbled in this one in 7th, with top 6 getting paid or I came in 5th for $160 or something like that.

Damn, notes would be a good thing to have, huh?

Anywho, played the midnight at Plaza, nothing there...went back to Binions for the 2am and I know I made the final table in this one as I didn't get through until after 5am, so I proceeded to share a meal with a new friend I made, Martin, and then headed to bed. Woke up in time for the 10am tourney and started drinking again to wake up the body.

I made another friend who introduced me to a convention that was in town called, and I kid you not, The Drunkard Convention. These people are MY people, I truly belong. They have a website, www.TheDrunkard.com with a magazine and all. On this day I was properly introduced to Southern Comfort and I know why Al Can't Hang loves it so much. That shit is GOOD. So after busting out early in the 2pm Binion's tourney, I headed over to the convention where I proceeded to volunteer for a game called "Name That Shot". 10 shots and 15 mins later, me and my new friend (Damn, what was his name???) headed over to Binions to play the 8pm. The alcohol finally caught up with me and at 8:20pm, I said Goodbye and simply left. I was asleep (passed out?) by 8:30pm.

Woke up on Sunday and felt kind of bleh, so decided to not drink that day and played the 2pm Binions, then headed over to the Rio to check out the satellites that were running.

For the whole time I was in Vegas, I probably played 10 satellites. I won/chopped about 4 of them, if memory serves. I did keep notes, but am too damn lazy to go look them up, in fact, I think I should just quit for right now and start a new post tomorrow so I don't cheat my readers.

I will pick up tomorrow where I left off.....

WSOP or Bust

2006-06-23T14:14:00.000-07:00

In a few short hours I will be departing for my first of many different trips to Vegas for the WSOP.

If you scroll down a bit, you will find my entire itinirary on when I will be there, although there have been a few adjustments, the majority of the schedule is still true.

Luckily, I have secured a laptop to take with me on my travels and will be doing daily blog updates, as long as I am able to. So, for those who can't make it to the Promised Land this year, feel free to live vicariously through me.

I will try not to have too many adventures and I will try not to have TOO much fun.

No, stop laughing, I'm serious.

; )

CheckNRaisePoker.com: Check, Fold

2006-06-22T06:22:00.000-07:00

As most of you internet people already know, CheckNRaisePoker.com (known herein as CnR) sent the following email out to 10 of it's players last week (6/12/06):

QUOTE:

We regret to inform you that CnR will be unable, at this time, to make a lump sum payment for the 10 WSOP seats that were won this year through the “CheckPoints to Millions” and “Freeway to Vegas” promotions on ChecknRaisePoker. However, we plan to make this up to you over the coming months. We will deposit into your player account 5% or more, as cash flow permits, of the value of your entry in monthly installments starting July 31st , 2006 until 110% of the cash equivalent is paid in full.

Unfortunately our cash flow did not allow us to set aside sufficient funds from the time that you won your seat in March. If you plan to attend the WSOP in any event, we wish you the best of luck and we are sure you will have a great time.

Please accept our sincere apologies for having to break this news to you just weeks prior to the event we promised you. Please do not hesitate to contact us by return email, if you have any questions or comments. If you would like to speak to us by phone, please suggest a convenient time and provide a phone number and we would be happy to call you and provide more details and answer any questions that you may have.

Best Regards,

XXXX and the ChecknRaise Team

END QUOTE

WOW! Talk about SCANDAL!! An online site, guaranteeing 8 different WSOP seats, then being unable to meet the financial requirements to buy these 8 seats (40K). Who on earth would continue playing on a site such as this??

(There is additional history to CnR, they used to be known as Dynamite Poker years ago, and had a private "community" group known as Victory Poker that has had some serious drama issues over the year which is why I left them pretty quickly after joining a few years ago)

THEN, a miracle occurs. Another website, completely unrelated, not even in the SAME network (OnGame Network, CnR is just a "skin") comes out with the following:

QUOTE:

Poker.com saves the day for World Series of Poker hopefuls

The home of online poker, Poker.com, has generously offered to provide the WSOP packages won by ten ChecknRaisePoker.com members who have been told that ChecknRaisePoker.com is unable to fund their World Series of Poker prize packages as previously won through their website promotions.

According to various press releases surfacing on online gaming news sites, ten ChecknRaisePoker.com members that had won World Series of Poker seats have been informed that their prize packages are not to be honored. Via an email from ChecknRaise management they have instead been offered a series of small payments over the coming months.

Poker.com has attempted to contact ChecknRaisePoker.com management by email and telephone to confirm this situation and offer to cover the prize costs, but as yet have been unable to get a response.

Both the tournament entry fee and spending money according to the terms of each promotion will be provided by Poker.com if any of the affected players come forward.

Poker.com Director of Gaming, Paul Cherry said, "I don't want to comment too much at this time, as we are yet to obtain confirmation that the reported situation is accurate. But if the story is true, we are happy to help these players however possible.”

”From most players’ perspective, this is a chance of a lifetime, and I can’t think of anything more upsetting than to be told you are not going to Vegas, after having already won the prize. It’s only a few weeks away and the players may have already planned and paid for their travel arrangements.”

”Our own players are like family to us and we'd hate to see these ChecknRaise players miss out due to no fault of their own. That’s why we are offering to help them get to Vegas as a part of the Poker.com family and enjoy the trip they have won and earned. A trip that includes the chance to win a World Series of Poker bracelet!”

”I know that at Poker.com we keep all guaranteed tournament prizes and player funds in escrow, separate from operational funds to avoid such a situation ever occurring.” Mr Cherry said.

Poker.com has released this information in an attempt to resurrect the WSOP dreams of the ten players affected. If you have contact information for any of these players, please forward this offer to them and ask them to contact Poker.com to arrange their compensation package. Spread the word to help us make sure that these players get the World Series of Poker experience that they deserve.

For anyone else with WSOP dreams, Poker.com has now decided to offer another seat to this year’s main event for free via a special freeroll tournament. Simply sign up at Poker.com and make your first deposit using coupon code WSOPFREEROLL before July14, and you will be given a 100% deposit bonus as well as entry to a World Series of Poker main event freeroll on July 15.

END QUOTE

WOW! Check, RAISE Poker.com, you go ON with your bad self. How smart was this move? A $40K PR/advertising move that has already generated players interest and talk about this site. Kudos to them!!

3 of the 10 players are actually in our ITH community, so this was most welcoming news as the original news was simply devastating, as I'm sure you can imagine. Not just the fact that the players won their seats, were all excited, an adventure coming up, etc. But they also had already made travel arrangements, bought airline tickets, booked hotel rooms, requested time off from work, etc.

A few last thoughts:

1. I will and would never, EVER play at CheckNRaisePoker.com again (Not that I ever did, but this certainly makes me not even want to DOWNLOAD their program. Icky)

2. Poker.com may and probably will get some of my business. (I actually found out I already have it downloaded on my computer and didn't even know it, LOL)

3. CnR responded to Poker.com stating that they would work with them to give them the 10 players information and would also STILL continue making their payments to the 10 players. While this is a nice move, "nice" does not make up for the original scandal and thought that an online poker site can guarantee prizes, then not come through with them due to financial reasons. SCARY.

So, congratulations to the 10 players from CnR and congratulations to Poker.com.

Full Tilt Report

2006-06-20T18:38:00.000-07:00

I haven't really played much on Full Tilt, the most exposure I've had to it was during the RGP events.

I decided to check out their WSOP events and deposited $200 into my account yesterday. I played about 7 tournaments and ended winning a $75 tournament chip and while I was playing my tourneys, I decided to play a little 3/6 LHE.

Now, we all know I'm not a cash game player, but I do enjoy playing a little cash game every once in awhile, as long as it's low limits. : )

UP 46 BB later (That's $278!!) I stopped playing and bought in directly to a WSOP qualifier for a $1500 event. Top 5 got a package, 6-7th got cash, and I got 17th place. Sigh...so close!!!

So all in all I ended up ahead for the night a few dollars, but had a great evening of entertainment.

Today is Tuesday and I've already sat at one 3/6 table, where I doubled my buy in of $100 to $200 in 5 mins, and left quickly.

30 mins later I sat down at a table where I got my K high flush beat by the nuts, and my two pairs of Kings and 10's beat by a flush by the same guy, and just like that, I'm down $100.

It's now another 30 mins later and I'm currently sitting at another 3/6 table and will see if I can turn my $100 buy in back into $200. I'm at $130 now, so I'm feeling pretty good about this table.

I will report back later on how I did for the night. Not sure if I'll play any tournaments, I'm kind of liking this break from tournaments with a little low limit cash game.

Cruise Trip Report

2006-06-20T18:04:00.000-07:00

So after carefully wrapping up my two bottles of premixed watermelon martinis with my bathing suits and clothes, I was all packed by Thursday night.

We hit the open road as bright eyed bushy tail travelers at 4:30am on Friday. Found out on the way to the pier that I didn't have the right directions so 4 phone calls later to my brother in law and my sister who live in CA, I finally headed for the 10 West from the 15 South to get to the 705 South which is where the Pier was.

We were considered VIP's due to the wedding party and were able to check-in in our own special line that was only about 10 mins of wait time. NICE! After that we were the first people allowed to board the ship, found our cabin, and then headed to the Lido Deck to grab something quick to eat before the ceremony started.

The wedding itself was beautiful and of course, there were a few tears, I just absolutely love weddings and that damn wedding march song gets to me every time.

The ceremony was nice and simple, and then we headed over to the reception area...can you say "Open Bar"?? I think I only had about 5 drinks, but I did get the bride (Heather) and the groom (Chris) to do a shot with Bill and I, and after 2 hours, the wedding/reception was over and we were set to cruise.

The boat left around 5pm and Cherissa and I watched it from the top deck. We also enjoyed the Calypso band that was performing on the Lido deck near the pool. Apparantly so did the camera crew that filmed different parts of the cruise in order to pimp it on Channel 19 in the rooms, in order to get people to buy the DVD of their cruise.

Turns out the camera crew seemed to like how I did the Electric Slide, and wouldn't leave me alone. Now, I knew they were there, but I had no idea why. I didn't realize that what they were filming was going to be played on Channel 19 ALL WEEKEND LONG. I found this out Saturday evening after being recognized all day long, even while we were docked in Ensenada.

So back to Friday night, after getting Cherissa checked in with her Teen group, I headed over to the nightclub, called Rex, and danced and drank until about 2am. I was actually ready to go to bed around 11pm and found myself falling asleep in the club. I was getting ready to leave when I ran into some of the wedding party and they convinced me to stay with them and do some more drinking and dancing until I just couldn't stay awake anymore. I couldn't figure out why I was so sleepy but then it dawned on me that getting up at 3:30am that day with only 4 hours of sleep the night before can do that to you.

Saturday had us docked at Ensenada and Bill and I headed out for some sightseeing and shopping while Cherissa stayed on board to meet up with the friends she had made the night before. Bill and I stayed in town until about 2pm, then got back to the ship in time to play Trivia where we both bombed. Who the hell knows what cartoon character has a sister named Red Rose?

After the ship set sail again, I checked out the poker room. Carnival cruise lines offers 4/8 and 5/10 LHE on two different tables, sitting next to one of my favorite bars that I found on board. I ended up exactly even that night, then headed over to the club again where I danced until about 2 am again and headed to bed.

Sunday was the fun day at sea and I enjoyed myself by sitting on the Lido Deck in the smoking area, right next to a bar, from 10am until 6pm. People watching, talking with new friends, just getting buzzed and staying that way for the whole day. It was relaxing. I did find a new drink, So Co Lemonade, and thought of Big Al while drinking them. I have decided that I like Southern Comfort. : )

Sunday night found me playing poker again and all in all over the course of the cruise, I won about $200. I then headed over to Rex again and this time I stayed a little bit later, but still did not close the club down like I normally do. It was actually kind of weird, I'm usually always the one there until the end, closing the club down but not ONE time on this cruise did I do that.

Monday AM we woke up around 6:30am and packed to leave. It took about an hour to get off the ship, we carried our own bags off the ship, and were on the road by 10:30am.

We stopped in Rancho Cucamonga to drop off Cherissa, she will be staying with my sister Jennifer until July 5th. Bill and I then continued on home and arrived around 3pm. I hopped right into work and here it is Tuesday, another dollar, another day.

Viva La Mexico!

2006-06-15T22:40:00.000-07:00

5 hours from now I will wake my lazy ass up, take a shower and get ready to drive the 5 hours to the Long Beach Pier.

Our 4 day 3 night cruise starts tomorrow, with my step daughter getting married first at the Queen Elizabeth, and then we are OFF to Ensenada.

I shall see you upon my return.

CST: Oh who the hell am I kidding, the quitting smoking shit is HARD. I probably had 17 today, but had more yesterday because I went to the damn bar. Sigh. I CAN DO THIS. I CAN. I just have to keep telling myself this. ; )

My Summer Schedule

2006-06-12T20:20:00.000-07:00

Here it is, in writing, my schedule for the summer. VERY busy! I will be home sometime in September, LOL.

6/16-6/19 Mexico 5 day/4 night cruise for step daughters wedding with Bill and Cherissa.

6/27-7/2 Las Vegas WSOP
(Event #2 and #4)

7/2-7/4 Chicago/Milwaukee for Mary J. Blige concert with Bill

7/7-7/9 Las Vegas WSOP
(Event #13)

7/10-7/14 Mexico 4 day cruise with my sister Patti for our much needed "Thelma & Louise" trip.

7/14-7/16 Las Vegas WSOP
(Event #23 and #25)

7/21-7/25 Las Vegas WSOP
(Event #31, #33, #35, #37)

7/30 Las Vegas WSOP
(Main Event, IF I qualify, I will choose Day1C, then go home once the day is done)

8/2 Las Vegas WSOP
(Day 2 of Main Event, IF I'm still in, then go home once the day is done)

8/4-8/7 Las Vegas WSOP
(Day 3 of Main Event, IF I'm still in. Otherwise Event #40, #41, #42)

8/10-8/13 Las Vegas ITH Convention
(www.InternetTexasHoldEm.com my 2nd home on the internet.)

8/15-8/19 Las Vegas BARGE
(www.RecPoker.com my 1st home on the internet.)

8/24-8/28 Family Vacation with Bill and Cherissa in Greer, Arizona. (In the White Mountains)

Cherissa's Summer Schedule:

6/16-6/19 Mexico 4 day cruise for step sisters wedding with Mom and Dad.

6/19-7/5 Vacation at Aunt Jennifer's house in California.

7/9-7/15 Summer Camp with cousin Nicholas in Phoenix

7/16-7/31 Vacation with Grandma to Canada for Polesky Family Reunion

8/15'ish 8th grade starts!

8/24-8/28 Family Vacation with Mom and Dad in Greer, Arizona.

Busy! Busy!!

CST: 17

Sunday PS $215 Million Guarantee Report

2006-06-11T16:16:00.000-07:00

Well, close to nothing in my PS account, but I did have enough to play 3 $29 SNG satellites for the big event today so I decided to give it a whirl and won my way into the event.

Played very well, IMO. I got a little too aggressive on my last hand and thought the SB was trying to bluff me with his preflop raise, so I pushed with K,10 and he instacalled with A,K. OOPS.

Here's my stats:

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 205 hands and saw flop:
- 16 out of 24 times while in big blind (66%)
- 8 out of 22 times while in small blind (36%)
- 15 out of 159 times in other positions (9%)
- a total of 39 out of 205 (19%)
Pots won at showdown - 9 of 11 (81%)
Pots won without showdown - 13

Pretty decent, IMO. Oh well, next time. 912th place out of 4829 players.

SMOKING UPDATE:

I had a backslide that started Friday. I smoked 2 more then I should of, then yesterday I gave up when me and Mom went out clubbing. (Yes, I got my mom to dance in the cage at Time Out Tavern, a local bar. We had a BLAST!! Got my mom drunk. : )

Anywho, I am human, I will backslide, but I get right back on the horse. New updates starting tomorrow. It's a new day, right?? Right.

Time For Another Dryspell

2006-06-08T22:53:00.000-07:00

Seems to happen all the time. Win a tourney, go a few months without winning, then win another, rinse and repeat.

The last tourney I won online was in April, $1900. The last tourney I won live was in St. Maartens, $4K.

I get so TIRED of going for such long stretches without winning, I must become more consistant! I HAVE to in order to get to where I want to go.

However, I also realized that I play a LOT of satellites online, more then cash prize tourneys and I think too much of my bankroll is being spent on those so I'm not "allowing" myself the opportunity of winning cash. I must control that better.

This weekend will be a poker filled weekend on BoDog. I plan on winning my seat into the Main Event this weekend, so wish me luck in that endevour!!

One of the good things about my reducing/quitting smoking is the fact that I am going to be posting way more often, LOL. Every night, in fact, to post the number of cigs I smoked for the day. I find it keeps me in check.

CST: 15

Nightmares

2006-06-07T23:09:00.000-07:00

Do you remember when you were kid and you would have a horrible nightmare and you would wake up screaming and then simply continue screaming until your Mom or Dad would come in, give you hugs and make you feel better until you could fall asleep again without fear?

Does this still happen to people?

Am I the only adult that still suffers from nightmares? I wonder sometimes. I also wonder what causes them. I have them way more often then I should, way more often then other adults (that I know of) and yet even though I'm old enough to calm myself down and fall asleep again without fear, I can't help but wish my Mom or Dad was still in the house, and that I was still a child, to soothe my anguish away.

Last nights nightmare was a doozy. It woke me up around 4:30am and I was scared to go back to sleep for quite some time. I was so tired, but yet so scared to close my eyes again for fear that the dream would instantly come back. I thought about getting up and just writing it all out on my blog, but as dreams are, they make no sense when you try to describe it or tell the story.

Needless to say it is but a distant memory at this point. I remember some key points, but not the whole scenario as I did when I woke up.

So I ask, does anyone else still experience nightmares or "bad dreams" and what do you think it means when someone has so many, so often? My last nightmare was just Monday and I had TWO of them back to back, not just one. Completely different dreams and I even woke up in between the two.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN????

CST: 17 (That's TWO less then yesterday TYVM)

Non Smoking Please

2006-06-06T23:41:00.000-07:00

I have made the decision to quit smoking. I know it will be difficult, and I also know that it would be almost impossible for me to quit "cold turkey", so I have a plan.

I am keeping track of the number of cigarettes I smoke per day. Every day, I am going to reduce the number I smoke by 1.

Eventually I will be down to 10 a day, then 5, then none. I am currently at about a pack a day.

I have had a lot of advice on RGP about how to quit smoking, but this is what I think will work for me and it's how I want to do it. I do not like Nicorette or patches or pills to do this, so I will do it on my own.

The toughest part will be to see if Bill can do it with me as well, as I know that having a smoking spouse in the house will make it more difficult for me, but I am determined to do it.

Therefore, I will be posting NIGHTLY, before I go to bed, the number of cigs I smoked that day. This will help keep me honest and in check.

GL me!!

Cigarettes Smoked Today (from now on known as "CST"): 19

$100 MTT on PS

2006-06-06T21:51:00.000-07:00

Another post for the night, how lucky art thou?? This might be hard because this one will be running at the same time as the $33R, but I'll try to manage.

Set up: $100/$9 buy in, NLHE, 256 players, first is $7K.

Level 1, 10/20.

BB: All fold but the SB, he limps in and the flop misses me so I fold to his bet.

SB: J,6. No raises, so I limp, miss the flop and fold to a bet.

(Just busted out of the 33R, so making comments won't be so hard now, eh? LOL)

Button: A,9 os. All fold to me, so I raise to 80. Blinds fold, I win a hand. Wow.

UTG +1: 6h7h, I limp. LP raise to 80, Button calls, blinds fold, 60 for me to call, I call. Flop comes 9h,3h,6. I check. Initial raiser bets 140, Button folds, I call. Turn is 2h, I check. He checks. River is ugly 10h, I check, he checks, shows AA but NO heart and I win 550 pot, at 1820 now.

BB: AhKs. 2 limpers, I raise to 100, MP calls. Flop is 8, 10, 4. I bet 100, he folds. 1940 now.

SB: Kd3d. 1 limper in front of me, I limp as well. Flop is K, 10, 4. We all check. Turn is 6, I bet 60, 1 caller. River is 5, I bet 80, he folds and I'm at 2040.

Level 2, 15/30

BB: 10,J. Now, usually I like this hand but with a raise AND a reraise in front of me, I have to fold. Flop comes 4,5,7, guy moves all in so I'm thinking GOOD FOLD!!!
(OMG, guy CALLS his all in with AK and the guy that moved all in...has AK. What donkeys)

SB: 9,5os. 2 limpers in front of me, so I limp call. Flop is A,3,3. I check as does everyone else. Turn is 3, I check and fold to the bet.

LP: K,10. 2 limpers in front of me, I limp as well. Flop comes K,Q,Q. All check to me, I try a bet of 90. SB calls, the rest fold. Turn is 2d. He checks, I check. River is 7, he checks, I check. I thought about betting but figured if he called it was only because he could beat me or tie me. He shows AJ, I win and am at 2190 now.

MP: A,7. 1 limper in front of me, I decide to limp, 1 limper behind me. 5 in hand, flop comes 7,9,Q. SB bets 30, limper in front of me raises, I have to fold. Limper behind me goes all in, the original raiser calls and shows KQ while the first all in guy shows 9J and loses when he gets no help.

BB: Ad8s. LP raises to 90, I call the 60. Flop comes J,K,3. I check, he bets 90, I fold.

SB: Qh8c. LP raises, I fold, weird for me, huh? LOL

LP: AQos, MP raises to 90, 1 caller behind him, I reraise to 270. I'm tired of messing around. BB calls, original raiser calls. Flop comes J,2,7. He bets 210, I call. Turn is x, he bets again, I have to fold now. DAMMIT. At 1575 now.

NEXT hand, AJ, raise to 90 in front of me, I call. SB calls as well. Flop is 2,8,6. SB bets 120, I call. Turn is 10. SB bets all in, I have to fold and am at 1365 now.

MP: 10,Qos. I limp call, blinds limp, 3 in pot. Flop comes 2,Q,7. SB bets 60 ,BB calls, I raise to 210. both blinds call. Turn is 6. They check I bet 325, both blinds call (heart draws?). River is 7. They check, I have to check as well and SB shows KQ and I lose. FUCKING DAMISST, I HATE THAT HAND. 800 now.

I don't know if I like this chronicling of my hands now, I feel like I'm playing horribly and everyone gets to see it. Talk about putting myself out there, geesh.

Maybe I'll go a round or two without making any comments and let's see what happens.

Well, we're at break now. I was able to get my stack from 750 up to 2600, but am down to 1600 now. Sigh. I really hate this game sometimes. LOL. Still, at least I'm still in it and have increased my stack from the 750. TIME for another drink!!! LOL

Back from break and I am in push mode now. Just calculated that I have 10.6BB, so I am PUSHING the good ones! GL me!

I decided to push with 6,6 after a mini raise by a MP. He called with 10,K and my hand held up. Whew!!! 3275 now, avg is 3555, I feel good now!

Bleh, lost a major hand with TP, and am in push mode again. I choose to go all in with 4,4 and am called by the BB with AK. K on the flop and IGHN in 94th place.

Sigh.

$33R WSOP Qualifier

2006-06-06T21:43:00.000-07:00

To keep myself in check, and less bored, I am going to chronicle my playing in tonight's (Tuesday 6/6/06) $33R WSOP Qualifier on PokerStars.

It is currently break time, and I am not going to bore anyone with the hands I had BEFORE the break, as we all know that this tournament doesn't start until the rebuy period is over. I will only chronicle hands I play, no need for you to know all the crappy cards I get and have to fold with, LOL.

Ok, here's the set up:

216 players joined, only 127 remain at the break. Only first place wins, and that is a 12K WSOP Main Event package. I have 7850 in chips, after my addon. I am going to be on the SB when we return.

Level 5, 75/150 blinds.

SB: Qc 4s, I call the 75 to complete. BB checks, UTG had called as well. Flop completely misses me, I check and fold to the BB's bet.

Button: 9c Jh, all fold to me, I raise to 450, BB calls. Flop comes 8, 10, A. He checks, I bet 600, he folds.

5,5 UTG +2, I raise to 450, 1 caller. Flop is A, K, J. We both check. Check the turn, check the river, he wins with 7,7 in the hole.

Next hand, UTG, I get 9h10h, I limp, miss the flop and fold to a bet.

BB: 2, 10. I fold to the raise.

SB: A, 8. All fold to me, so I raise to 600, BB thinks and folds.

Button: Qh, 9c. Raised before me, so I fold.

LP: 2,2. All fold to me, so I raise to 600, all fold behind me.

(Getting ready to play the $100/$9 simultaneously, will be doing a blog entry for that one as well and will try to manage both blog entries.)

BB: 7d9d, UTG flat calls, button calls, SB folds, I check. Flop is 10c, 5h, 4d. Button bets, I fold.

SB: 2,3os. No raises to me, so I limp call, 4 players in the pot. Flop comes Q, 10, 2. I bet 450, 1 caller. Turn is J. I bet 600, same caller. River is 9, I check, he bets 1200, I fold. At 6500 now.

(Very next hand has 2, 2, 3 on the board. Damn flop lag, LOL)

Level 6: 100/200

LP: 2,2. 1 limper in front of me, I raise to 600, he calls. Flop is A, 7. 4. He bets 200, I call. Turn is 9, He bets 200, I call. River is x, he bets, I fold. Sigh. 5500 now. What a donkey I am.

UTG + 1: 10, Q. I limp call. 4 players in the pot. Flop comes 8, 6, K. SB bets 200, I fold.

UTG: 6c7c, I limp call. (I can't help it, I love suited connectors) 3 players in the pot, Flop comes 8, 10, 3, 1 club. LP bets 600, I call. Turn is A. I bet out 800, he raises me to 2000 total, I have to fold. At 3700 now, and in trouble.

BB: 8dJd, SB calls, I check. Flop comes K, Q, 6. He bets 200, I fold.

SB: 6,9 os. 2 limpers in front of me, I limp call. Flop is 9,7,3. I bet out 1000. Button raises me to be all in, I call, and he shows Q,9. No more help to me and I am out in 106th place.

What a donkey, eh???

Holiday Weekend Report

2006-05-30T14:28:00.000-07:00

Has anyone else noticed that there hasn't been much poker on my blog lately? I think I need to get back to the roots of the blog and start posting some tourney blogs more often. My apologies to those who are looking for poker content, but getting personal bullshit instead.

Anywho, for those that do care in reading about my life....

Sunday afternoon Cherissa and I headed for Laughlin. We arrived around noon and headed straight for the outlet mall there for some clothes shopping for summer/next year for Cherissa. She wears uniforms at her school, so the basic premise was clothes for the summer as the girl has some serious plans this summer and will hardly be home, thus, new clothes are in order.

We shopped for a few hours, had some lunch, then headed over to Riverside to check in and so that I could play a little poker before the Boyz II Men concert.

I sat down in a $2-$6 LHE game (which I HATE, but it's Laughlin, what else can you find?) I started talking to the guys around me, told them I was going to be going to the B2M concert and one guy told me, "Oh, there over there at that table behind me playing NLHE". I looked and sure enough, both Nate and Shawn were at the NLHE table.

"FLOOR!"
"Yes?"
"I'd like to play with Boyz II Men please"
"You're in luck, we have one seat open"
"LOCK IT UP!!"

So, I headed over to the table and the seat that was available was to the left of Nate. (OMG!!) So I sat down, played and chatted with them non chalantly for a good hour before I let them know that I knew who they were. Told them that I was looking forward to their concert and that they still have fans even if it is 2006, so they needed to keep their website updated as it hasn't been since 2005.

They promised to check into that. (ha ha ha)

Anywho, after playing and joking with them for another hour or so, I felt comfortable enough to ask them to say Hi to Cherissa during the concert. I just knew that that would blow her away, they said they would see what they could do.

By this time, it's time to leave, they left about 30 mins before I did, but then I headed to the room to tell Cherissa the news, and she about blew a gasket. It was all very cool and exciting.

During the concert, Shawn came up to Cherissa and asked her her name, then asked her age, and then they asked about 2 other girls their names and ages and made a point of saying how appreciative they were that they still had fans, even NEW fans from a different age era and how cool that was. I say kudos to the parents, because these kids would never have heard of B2M if it wasn't their stupid Moms/Dads still playing 1990's music in the car. LOL

During one song, they passed out roses, and Cherissa got one from each of the guys. Here's some pics from the concert:

This is Nathan aka Nate, he's the one that was seated to my right in the poker game, great sense of humour, we laughed a lot together. He liked to make fun of Sean's poker game, because Shawn didn't have one. LOL. Nathan played pretty well.

This is Shawn. No poker player is he, but he was very nice and he's the one who remembered to come up to Cherissa, so that's an extra niceness bonus IMO.

This is Wayne. He's the lead singer, or at least was back in the 90's. Michael, the deep voice one, is gone now, so it's only these three now, but Wayne is still very into the music and you can see it in his face and demeanor as he performs. Way cool.

This is a good one that I got of all 3 of them. (Not counting the guys head in front of me, but it was the best I could do.)

At this point, my camera battery died and dummy me left the back up one in the room. Sigh.

After the concert, I went back to play some poker and so did Nate. However, they were due to leave around 12:30am to head for Vegas and he could only play for a little bit and ended up not playing at all as he was waiting for a NLHE seat and none became available for him. I chatted with him a little bit from my 4/8 seat while he waited.

I ended up leaving after about 45 mins, very tired and went to bed around midnight. VERY early night for me, very weird too.

Monday AM, Cherissa and I woke up, headed back to the mall for lunch, a movie, some more shopping, another movie, and more shopping. We then headed home and spent 3 hours cleaning out her room and her closet in order to fit all her new clothes in.

I love my daughter to death. I live for her. For anyone else to think otherwise or to imply otherwise, simply does NOT know me or even TRY to know me, as anyone would 1/2 a brain would know how much I care/love/live for Cherissa. (Gary Carson is an asshole btw, LOL).

Anyways, we're onto a new week now, it's end of month again so I may not have much time to play poker but I promise to start including more poker in my blog and will focus on trying very hard to include some tourney reports as I did in the past.

Holiday!!

2006-05-25T18:58:00.000-07:00

Well it's time again for another 3 day weekend thanks to Memorial Day. I plan on going to Laughlin with Cherissa on Sunday and stay over to Monday because...OK, now sit down for this....

Boyz II Men will be performing IN LAUGHLIN!!!

WOO HOO!! I LOVE them! And to think that they are so "old" and "not cool" now that they have to perform in Laughlin? Where is this world coming to?

I was going to make Bill go with me (and he was DREADING it) but then it turns out that Cherissa DOES know who they are, and loves their songs and there is no age restriction, so we are outta here!

We have to wait until Sunday though because she has a pool party to go to on Saturday. There is officially only TWO days left of school and then it's summer break. The girl is busy this summer. Cherissa will be going to a 1 week summer camp while I go on a 7 day cruise with her aunt, my sister Patti (PJ), then she comes home on a Saturday night to fly off the next morning to Canada with Grandma for two whole weeks. Then her aunt in California (Jennifer, whom I rarely speak about, in fact, I don't think I've ever mentioned her on my blog) wants to have her for a little bit, and I'm sure Aunt Corrie and Aunt Lorrie will want her for a little bit too. Then we spend a week in Greer, Arizona (White Mountains) as a family in August.

BUSY summer ahead of us, both for her, and then for me with the WSOP, ITH 2nd Annual Convention, and BARGE. Looking forward to it!

As you can tell, I have nothing much to write about, I guess I should talk a little about poker so here goes:

Played in the $150 on PS last night, was chip leader for a nice portion of the event and then crashed and burned in 47th place for $297 after deciding to move all in with KhQh (de), however.....he had AK, oops. I was short stacked at that point, so I don't really feel I have a choice but a Q on the flop would have been nice!

I haven't been playing much poker lately, haven't really felt like it. I've been in kind of a funk lately. Due mostly to my work/job, I feel like I'm getting so burned out and I would love nothing more then to quit, but know that I can't due to finances. It's basically like I'm stuck because I make really good money and to leave it would be to really cut my family's income, so I feel stuck...that I can't leave, EVER. It's depressing sometimes.

I do, however, have coals in the fire and I have some plans building in my mind, so we'll see what I can do about that depressing and "stuck" feeling in the next 6 months.

OK, enough rambling for now. I'm just basically trying to kill time before I have to pick up Cherissa from her last play performance and RGP is boring tonight. LOL

WAIT!! A few pics from my NEW camera!! (I LOVE it!!!)

A picture of Oscar just taken today after the visit with the groomers.

A picture of my "ride". A 2005 Hyundai Tucson, the "little brother" of the Santa Fe. I bought it in 2/2005 when it had only been out for 2 months, Hyundai introduced this make/model in 12/2004. I feel like I'm ready for another new car now though, but I'll probably wait another year. I'm the type of person who will ALWAYS have a new car. I figure that's one reward I can give myself for always working so damn hard. ; )

My baby girl from last night, fresh from the shower. Notice she's wearing an America's Card Room tshirt that I picked up for her in St. Maartin's (Thanks, Phil!)

OK, that's enough from me for now, but I have two questions that maybe an experienced blogger can help me with. Feel free to email me at tanya@pecksmedicalbilling.com so that my comments page doesn't turn into a HELP page. LOL

1. Every time I put a website address on my blog, or email address, it doesn't automatically "link" it for me, how can I do that?

2. How can I link to a page by using a word instead of the actual long link?

Thanks all!

It's TIME again!!!

2006-05-25T18:28:00.000-07:00

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code: 7330476

Check out the rules and registration here: http://www.pokerstars.com/blog_tournament/

Wicked Witch of the West

2006-05-23T10:13:00.000-07:00

MY child! What a STAR!!

Laughlin Trip Report

2006-05-22T13:16:00.000-07:00

So Bill and I get into Laughlin around 4pm, check into Harrah's and I gamble a little bit downstairs while he stays upstairs and naps/reads a book. I lost quite a bit, but wouldn't tell him how much, but was lucky enough to win it all back before going back upstairs to change for the concert.

I had a little problem when we checked in, turns out I reserved the rooms for Wed and Thurs night NOT Thurs and Fri night, and due to an AA convention in town, there wasn't a room to be found anywhere for Friday night, so I thought we would have to come home early. UNTIL I used one of my connections. Thanks Dan!

So we headed over to to the outdoor ampitheatre where BB King was going to perform and it was a pretty good show. I only recognized one of his songs, but his guitar playing and his band were pretty jazzy and soulful and I loved it. Had a great time.

We headed back inside for some dinner after the show and I guess the day caught up with me along with a few drinks (really, I only had about 5-6...I think) and right after dinner we went back upstairs and crashed. I fell asleep in about 4 mins which is really odd for me.

Friday we wake up and went out to breakfast and then I made Bill go shopping with me at the Outlet Mall across the street from Colorado Belle. Got a bunch of new clothes and found quite a few bargains. Also found a really cheap bookstore so we have tons of new books to read now. Went back to the hotel and Bill took a nap while I gambled a little bit more. We then had a wonderful dinner at The Lodge at River Palms, where we ended up staying Friday night.

After dinner we went to see United 93, which I found depressing but full of tension. Bill found it boring, said since he knew how it ended he wasn't that into it. I liked it, even shed a few tears too. Once we got back to the hotel we decided to hang out at the bar and listened to the local band. I actually really liked them but was quite bummed when they finished at 12:30am. The night was still young IMO!! However, not in Laughlin...so headed to bed and that was that.

Woke up Saturday AM, had breakfast and then headed home. I played some online poker for the rest of the weekend, but didn't win anything worth mentioning YET AGAIN. Sigh, this poker thing can really be a bummer. I can go months without winning something "big" and get all depressed and question my abilities, then I'll hit a big one and be happy and confident for a few more months and repeat the cycle.

Cherissa is performing in the Wizard of Oz today, she is the Wicked Witch. I will be posting some pictures, as I got a wonderful digital camera for mother's day from Bill that just arrived this weekend. Bill has already taught me how to use it and how to take the pictures off the camera and onto my computer, so you all are in trouble now!! Pictures galore will be coming at ya!! LOL Get ready.

B.B. King in da House!!

2006-05-18T11:20:00.000-07:00

Before my St. Maartin's trip I received an invite from Harrah's in Laughlin for 2 free nights and 2 tickets to see B.B. King. Well, since I know that Bill LOVES him (Bill even got to interview him AND played "Lucille" back in his college hay-days in Flagstaff)I booked it and we leave this afternoon.

We see B.B. King tonight and then tomorrow night we'll have a movie/dinner/dancing date which we so rarely do and will be home on Saturday, OR we might get bored and come home early on Friday. However, we'll be staying if I have anything to say about it, LOL.

Nothing else to report. I played on BoDog last night, they run $50/$4 satellites to a $2500 guaranteed WSOP event, I ended up in 5th last night. Had a few bad beats, but no bad calls, I was happy with how I played but just got unlucky a few times. That DAMN river!!!

The next MissT74 WSOP Qualifier has been announced, if you're interested, email me but don't expect a response until Saturday!

INFO:

Date: Sunday, 5/21/06
Time: 3:00pm EST
Game: NLHE
Cost: $75.00
Transfer: $65.00 to misst74 on PokerStars
Players: min 14, max 27
Prize: $1000 to $2000 WSOP event, depending on entrants.

Laughlin trip report upon my return!

Can the Week Get Worse??

2006-05-16T17:23:00.000-07:00

DAMN....I think I just jinxed myself. KNOCK ON WOOD!!!

Sunday PM: I spent about $300 playing poker and not winning a damn thing. Bad day overall, I couldn't even come close to qualifying for anything, blah blah blah. Bad poker day. Then I had to go to bed without my cough syrup so had coughing fits ALL NIGHT LONG.

Monday AM: I wake up to flu like symptoms, aching all over, joint pain, head all woozy, discombobulated feeling, a little diarrhea (TMI??) etc. All this AFTER I was up all night long with my dry, non productive cough. So I sleep on the couch until about 3pm then I head over to the Urgent Care Center. Turns out I don't have the flu but am suffering from withdrawal symptoms from my cough syrup (with codeine) that I ran out of on Saturday night. This was the reason for my coughing fits on Sunday night and my body protesting on Monday. So, I got back on the cough syrup but am in the process of tapering my dosage down so that if and when my cough finally goes away, I won't go through withdrawals. Nice! I also had a chest xray and everything looks normal, no pneumonia, bronchitis, valley fever, or TB. No explanations for my cough that I've had for over 4 months....sigh.

Monday PM: Boy that Doctor was RIGHT! I felt GREAT after getting my dose of syrup/codeine in me. Ended up working late into the night to make up for the work I didn't do while I was "lounging" on the couch.

Today: Oye!! I am a giant screwup. I accidentally changed the message on the statements that go out for one of my clients to read "You have been sent to an outside collection agency, please call them" and I FORGOT to change it back to "Please remit payment or you MAY be turned to an outside collection agency" before they were sent out on Friday. So I got phone call after phone call of irate patients (can you blame them??) all I could do was apologize and I'm sending out a corrected statment to everyone (a $500 mistake) tomorrow with an apology on it. Sigh.

I sure hope the week gets better!!

BoDog Review

2006-05-13T20:38:00.000-07:00

I had downloaded and played on BoDog many, many months ago. Deposited $50, lost it in the cash games quickly and then uninstalled it. Today, however, I was reading RGP and saw some posts regarding their WSOP satellites and the HUGE overlays that they have. So I decided to re-download it and check it out for myself.

They have several different ways of qualifying, the two that I played today were a $65 and a $125. Both events guaranteed a seat and both events had an overlay. The $125 event had 44 entrants and I ended up busting out in 14th place. I was severely shortstacked in the $65 event, which had 101 entries, but fought and clawed my way back up to final table.

I am currently playing right now, there are 9 players left, and only 1st gets the $12,500 prize package, so I am, obviously, playing for FIRST!!

I'll edit this entry once it's over, but as far as my review goes, I'm liking the site. I'm ending in the events pretty far down and I think it will/would be easier to win a seat on BoDog vs. PS or other sites that have hundreds and hundreds of players in each event. I can DO THIS!! Of course, I don't expect to win my seat on the very first day of my attempts on BoDog, but that certainly would be a story to tell if I did. LOL. The only negative thing about BoDog is that you can ONLY win one seat, other sites are giving the cash value if you win more then one, but not BoDog. Which is a bummer, especially if I win one and find it "easy". ; )

Still 9 left and I am in 8th position, I need to double up a few times!! ; )

EDIT:

Well, that was WAY too quick. I decided to push with Qh9h on the button, SB called pretty damn quickly and he showed 10,10. I got no Q and IGHN. 9th place. Still not too shabby for it being my first day playing on BoDog. I shall try, try again and see what I can do on this site!

Oscar

2006-05-11T20:10:00.000-07:00

Oscar is our Australian Shephard furry family member. We adopted him from the local shelter when he looked like this:

We've had him now maybe close to two years and this is him now playing with our other furry family member, Mohave (Mohave is the one laying down if you can't tell, LOL):

I decided to post a blog about him as today he had another "episode".

Oscar has Epilepsy. We found this out when he had been with us for about 4 months. Our vet had put him on medication and after realizing that the meds totally changed who he is and his personality, we made the decision to take him off the meds.

He has a seizure about once every 3 months and my heart breaks every time. It's no secret in our family that Oscar is "Bill's Dog" and that I'm honestly scared of him when he has food (DON'T go near him!!!) but I still love him.

Have you ever, EVER seen a pet actually look scared?

Everytime Oscar has a seizure he has a pure human scared look on his face that just rocks me to my core.

He had a bad one today, it lasted for some time, and then just when we thought it was over, he lapsed into another one. I hate to see someone I love in pain, especially when you can actually SEE it on his face.

My poor Oscar.

However, life is good despite an illness and here's a few more great shots taken by Bill of Oscar and Mohave playing together.

And one of my favorites: (By the way, can you tell I've figured out how to really post pics on my blog???)

A Brief Interlude....

2006-05-11T12:52:00.000-07:00

I need a little break from my work today sooooo:

Ten Things you probably don't know about me:

1. I will share a lollipop with anyone, but will not share an ice cream cone. The idea of sharing any kind of "milk" product grosses me out.

2. I am a registered Thespian.

3. I was caught shoplifting when I was about 12 years old.

4. I pick my toenails until they bleed. My pedicurist (is that a word??) hates me for it.

5. I lied to two men about being a virgin. They both fell for it.

6. I never carry cash on me, except for when on vacation.

7. I always point out errors in my favour to the bank teller, grocery checker, waiters, etc.

8. I am a reality TV show junkie.

9. It takes me 40-60 minutes to fall asleep, and I only sleep 4-5 hours a night.

10. I WAS Princes Leia when I was younger. (Star Wars Freak)

Can you tell I'm bored? OK, back to work now....

EDIT:

I have found out that I can never use the word "fell" as it leads people to believe I am speaking of Fellknight in a double entendre kind of way, which is starting to get very annoying and offensive.

So let me re-phrase #5:

5. I lied to two men about being a virgin. They both believed me.

I'm HOME!!

2006-05-10T17:07:00.000-07:00

After a long 26 hour trip back through Charlotte, Houston, and Phoenix, I finally made it back to Las Vegas where I then drove the 2 hours home and am already unpacked even!!

Tonight is a family night, we'll be going out to dinner, watching American Idol and Unan1mous tonight and just hanging out to catch up on the past two weeks.

For the next couple of days I'll be working hard to get everything caught up from when I was gone, but it's not looking to bad already. I have an awesome manager and crew!!!

Will post final thoughts and updates on the WPS trip in a few days.

Sunday #2 Update

2006-05-07T09:36:00.000-07:00

I just realized I haven't updated the blog since Wednesday, how awful of me.

Anywho, today is Sunday and where to begin....

First of all, after a rip roaring start to the week, the 2nd half has just been plain awful. I can't cash in a tournament or in a cash game to save my soul. However, I plan on winning today or tomorrow, so I'm not stressing too much. : )

On Thursday we ran the super satellites into the main event. After a few of us busted out we had this insane idea to do a single table satty with unlimited $200 rebuys. Only 10 players played and by the time it was all over, there were 2 $2600 seats produced and $1K to 3rd. I got stuck in it for about $800 until I finally got the hell out of there!!! Crazy stuff.

Friday started the Main Event, turned out we got 51 players, which is a lot better then what was in the Main Event on the cruise. A nice turn out and 35K going to first. It ran for two days with the winner taking it down last night around 1:30am.

A guy named Rick Fox ended up going heads up with some famous hockey player, Richard something-or-another from the Montreal team. Turns out that's the only way some hockey fans here on the island knew that Montreal was knocked out of the finals by seeing him here. His team lost and he hopped on a plane to be with the WPS, how cool is that??

The WPS events are so much different then your "typical" tournaments. They are ran very well, excellent structures, with a focus on having fun. I can play in every single WPS event and not be sad!!! LOL

I've done some dancing, well I say some, but I've been out almost every night. Finally stepped into the ocean one night on the way home from the club, 4am and the water was fantastic!! I also finally hung out at the pool one day, the one with the swim up bar of course! Got a little sun, but nothing too bad at all. Having a great time just hanging out, being relaxed and laid back.

I start my travels home on Tuesday, but will try to post at least once more before I do leave. It will take me almost 24 hours to get home and I'm not looking forward to that!! Bleh!! The things we do to have fun though!

Take care and happy Sunday to all.....

Wednesday Update

2006-05-03T09:59:00.000-07:00

Here it is, Wednesday afternoon and it is POURING rain. Major "freak" storm with tons of rain coming down hard. I'm trying to hang out in the hotel lobby until it stops long enough to walk across the street without getting soaked.

For those that have been following the link I gave previously that is giving live updates, then you already know the news. Tanya, the donkey, cashed/final tabled again. WOOT!!

The game was PLO, $300/$30 with unlimited rebuys, which kind of scared me and I actually debated about playing until 10 mins before it started. I ended up in it for $1200, but was lucky enough to catch some cards, outplay a few times, and ended up in 4th for $3085 or $3045, something like that. So I basically profited about $1800 from it. NOT BAD as I was just praying at dinner break to make the money so that I can at least recoup SOME of my $1200, LOL.

Today's event is $500/$50 NLHE with 3000 starting chips and 40 min levels. Should be a good turn out and I'm excited to play and see if I can cash again.

Nothing else much going on except KrazyKanuck (Jim Worth) and his girlfriend Monica showed up on Monday with another couple friend of their's from LA, another player who final tabled the PLO event at the WSOP last year. We went out dancing on Monday night, had a great time, of COURSE.

There's talk of a field trip with a group of people to Platinum, which is the local strip club, apparantly they import their girls from Russia and Scandanavia. Um, I'm thinking of skipping that field trip at this time. LOL

OH and I had the extreme pleasure of meeting a gentleman from London, who is here on vacation, not necessarily for the WPS. He came to the casino, to the poker room specifically to meet me as he states that he reads my blog from work every day. WOW, talk about an honour for me. It's amazing sometimes to me how many people actually read my ramblings. His comment: "Thanks for entertaining us."

Well, someone's got to do it!!!

More to come later....thanks for reading!!