Taking a Break

I'm a little burnt out on poker right now so taking a break. Our weekends have gotten real busy between Joshua's soccer games and football (mainly the Dawgs). This pretty much takes up our Saturdays. I have been really excited the last couple of times I've played on Sundays and actually only played 4 tourneys, so it is probably just better to take a break a little while and enjoy my family on the weekends. I'll get back in the groove and get rejuvenated after a little break away.

I am quite busy with the publication business. I am finishing Internet Texas Hold'em 2nd edition this week and that book should be out in November. I've added some new chapters on multi-way pots as well as short-handed play. I actually think the two chapters on short-handed play are probably my best job at writing. I feel really good about them and received some great feedback from a few top players who reviewed the chapters. The book will end up being longer than the first book even though I have cut out some of the content about Internet-related topics. There are also updated Starting Hand charts as well as new Short-Handed Starting Hand Charts. Other than the new content, everything ought to read much better.

I should also be announcing next week a new author that will be writing two new books for Dimat, the publishing company I own and manage. This will be the fifth author that Dimat has published. I am really enjoying working with others on their books to help them make the best product possible. I believe that my publishing company is creating a nice niche for potential authors who are interested in very competitive royalty rates, good distribution, and an excellent product from book cover, paper, typesetting, and grammar and style. Winning Poker Tournaments is a great example of the type of product I hope we will consistently put out. The new author joining Dimat is an established author who will be a great addition to Dimat. I'll have more news on this next week.

I've also started reviewing some hands for Winning Poker Tournaments II which will come out in the Winter/Spring of 2009.

Catching Up

The last month has been rather slow - still have the WSOP hangover but starting to get back into a routine. First some poker stuff. I've played a couple of Sundays. This past Sunday I finished 300 something in Sunday Millions. I was 2nd in chips with 1300 players left and then got very cold. My last hand I was slightly above average and simply donked off my chips with T-5. It was ugly.

I few weeks ago I finished 4th in the Cake 100K guarantee. I had a very good shot at winning the tournament. With 11 left, I lost AQ vs A3 which would have put me 2nd in chips. With 4 left I lost 4s 4c to Ad 3h on a board of Js 8s 5s. All the money went in on the flop so my opponent effectively had two outs. Still a nice payday - I love that Cake tourney.

Near the end of August I realized I was short on earning my poker Stars reload bonus so I played about 8-9 hours of short-handed at the 15-30 and 30-60 level. My game is rusty but I managed a nice 2K win for the week so was pleased with that.

I'm finishing up the 2nd edition of ITH, starting to review hands for Winning Poker Tournaments 2, and reviewing the draft of World Poker Travel Guide. So publication stuff is keeping me quite busy right now.

I was suppose to play in Biloxi this week but the hurricane ruined those plans. I'm now planning on going to Indiana in October for the WSOP circuit event.

Outside of poker- my son Joshua has his first soccer game this Saturday so we're really looking forward to that. Should be interesting as they've only had two practices.