The B.C. Poker Championship
B.C. Poker Championship: I’m headed out for the fourth annual B.C. championship that begins on Nov 20th-24th and is televised. If I’m eliminated from the event then I’ll be doing some commentary which I enjoy doing. The way I’ve been playing, though, they’ll definitely need to have a back up plan because I fully expect another deep run in Vancouver.
It’s fun to get back to Canada and I’ll be sure to have my Luongo jersey with me!
Online Poker: I’ve been trying to play more hours this week and have played a little bit of everything from $1-$2 no limit to shoot a video for www.pokervt.com, $0.50-$1.00 Badugi, $200-$400 2-7 Triple Draw, $500-$1000 HORSE, $5000 sit n’go’s, $25-$50 PLO, etc. When I don’t feel like paying any attention at all and am doing other things I’ll usually be sitting in the 2-7 triple draw game simply because I feel like I can get away with being a bit robotic in that game and it’s slightly less important for me to pay attention. If I don’t pay attention in any of the other games, well, I just lose.
The Real Deal: The show has really been picking up speed and with more marketing being done this last week the seats are really starting to fill up. That, coupled with the lower ticket prices (you can now get tickets for $45 online at venetian.com) has been a big reason for the bigger crowds. It feels good to see people leave the theater smiling after having a good time.
I did the show last night with Jennifer Harman and it was a great show with a good crowd. My next appearance on the show will be with Scotty Nguyen on November 25th so if you are in Las Vegas you should come by the show and say hello! When me and Scotty do the show together it’s always a really good time!
The shows start at 5:00pm which is a bit on the early side, but we are adding a late night show, The Real Deal After Hours at 10:00pm Tuesday nights. Those might just be the best shows because the host, Vinnie Favarito will let loose a little bit more and if you’ve ever seen his show at the Flamingo, you know what that means! Be prepared to laugh hard.
Vegging Out: That’s the plan for the next few days. Three nights in a row during the WSOP main event I was partying it up and the body and mind needs a break. Me and Mushu on the couch, watching hockey, playing a little poker, and maybe doing a bit of writing.
Family: My two aunts are in town. One aunt from Romania I haven’t seen in about 20 years and my other Aunt from Milan, Italy is also here to hang out with my mother. My mother came from a family with 10 kids, one boy and nine girls. These are the only three left and my mother is the oldest of the three.
My two aunts couldn’t be any more different. The one from Milan is very spicy and that often creates fights with my mother who can also be very opinionated. Likely my aunt from Romania is the cool, calm, and collected one so she can keep them from killing each other! I’ll probably take them out to dinner sometime this week.
Fantasy Hockey: My other passion, fantasy hockey is going extremely well this year. I have the best team I’ve ever had in the 13 years I’ve been in the league. In fact, my team is leading the league in most of the key statistical categories thanks to breakout player of the year Alexander Semin, comeback player of the year Simon Gagne, and goalies of the year Roberto Luongo, Henrik Lundqvist, and Evgeny Nabakov. I love this league so much!
Proposition 8: The last thing I wanted to talk about is a little more serious in tone and it deals with gay civil rights (or lack thereof). I have a very close gay friend who is planning to get married herself and she keeps me in the loop in terms of what’s going on with proposition 8 and it all just seems so unfair to me.
It just seems that it’s unfair to ask gays/lesbians to pay their taxes just like everybody else, yet because they were born gay they aren’t given equal rights. Gay marriage is a moral issue for many people, but your personal feelings about whether it’s right or wrong to be a homosexual shouldn’t influence your belief that they should be treated equally in terms of their rights.
The separation of church and state in this country allows people the freedom to choose their religious affiliation, or their life partner, and the government shouldn’t play the role of church.
My friend has been living with her partner for quite some time now and they plan on living together forever. I don’t expect any of you to accept their lifestyle or even condone it as something you deem morally kosher, but we can’t ignore the civil rights they should have in terms of being able to file taxes as a couple, the right to visit each other in a hospital when sick, and the legal rights in the case of death or divorce.
It would be wrong for the government to force churches to accept gay marriages. That should be totally up to the church if they felt comfortable performing the ceremony.
I don’t want to have the debate about whether or not God is OK with homosexuality. It’s not a debate that really applies to what the government should do in terms of giving gays and lesbians the right to marry if they choose to.
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