DOYLISM OF THE DAY: “Poker is not a game where the meek shall inherit the earth.”

Congratulations to my pal Daniel Negreanu for winning the B.C. Poker Championship.  Maybe he can’t play golf so well but he is really performing well in the poker tournaments.  I used to laugh at Daniel’s and Phil Hellmuth’s “small ball” approach, but I’m a bottom line guy and it looks like they are the two best tournament players right now.   My background is cash games and I don’t think the “small ball” play would do very well.  It’s too late for me to change my style so I’m still going to try to bust my opponents at the poker table.

I must be behind the times because I lost two friends in the past few months and didn’t know it.  Orville Moody, a former U.S. Open golf champ, passed away at the age of 74.  Last time I saw him, he was telling me about all the course records he has in Texas.  My other friend was Don Haskins, the basketball coach at UTEP.  Don is in the basketball Hall of Fame and was the first coach to start 5 black players.  He did that in the championship game against Kentucky in the 60’s.  I played many a round of golf with Don when I lived in El Paso.  My condolences to his family.

Speaking of El Paso, it reminded me of one day when one of my golfing friends offered to bet me $20,000 I couldn’t make 50% of my free throws on a basketball court.  I laughed to myself because I thought I could with either hand or even underhanded.  As I hadn’t touched a basketball in 30 years, I decided to go shoot and be sure.  I also had injured both shoulders trying to water ski.  When I got to the gym by myself, I was totally shocked.  The basketball felt like it was a watermelon and I could barely get the ball to the rim.  Good thing I went to practice because I could never have made half of them.  It made me think of the old saying, “buzz, buzz, what you usta wuz.”

I’m off to Costa Rica to make some plans for DoylesRoom.  I’ll be back for the Bellagio tournament.  I hope some of the “small ball” boys work up enough courage to come play in Bobby’s Room!

Caddie:  Sir, why do you play so much golf?

Daniel:  It’s the most fun I’ve ever had with my clothes on.

DOYLISM OF THE DAY: ‘Even if you are on the right track, you will get run over if you just sit there.’

With no high limit games in town it seems all my time and energy is going into the Real Deal at the Venetian.  Our show is getting better and better.  Five o’clock is a little early for a show on the Las Vegas Strip and the producers are trying to get a later starting time.  The audience is bigger each week and they seem to enjoy the show.

After researching when my father died in 1957, I am the same age today as he was when he passed.  It certainly doesn’t seem like it was fifty years ago and it makes me consider my own mortality.  The reality is that we should appreciate and enjoy every day we live.  I think I take after my mom’s side of the family. They (all 10 of them) lived into their 90s with three of them breaking the 100 year mark.  At least that’s where the family tells me I got this bald head.  Perhaps the people who say I am getting old and senile are right.  I can’t believe I responded to what people posted on a public forum.  I should have learned my lesson a few years ago on Rec Gambling when some nut accused me of cheating and running all the high limit games in Las Vegas.  According to him, no one could play unless they had my or Chip Reese’s permission.  He said all the games were fixed.  I tried to defend myself but lots of the folks that posted there seemed to believe it.  You can’t win in a situation like that so I won’t make that mistake again!

After Dewey Tomko and Harry Ornstein were inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame it made me wonder which of the young guys will wind up in there.  There are some obvious choices right now but time has a funny way of changing things.  At best we have a pretty good idea who the first African American will be.  I think Dewey was a worthy choice because in the 80’s and early 90’s he was a force to be reckoned with in both the cash games and poker tournaments.  Henry, if for no other reason, deserved it for the invention of the hole card cameras.  He wrote a great book, I Want To Live, about his survival of a Nazi Concentration Camp.

CADDY:  Sir, why do you carry two pair of pants when you play golf?

DANIEL:  In case I have a hole in one.

-DB

DOYLISM OF THE DAY: “The best way to escape from a problem is to solve it.”

What has happened to me?  I’ve done four “Real Deal” shows, two “Poker After Dark”, a TV cash game and every time I look up, someone wants me to do a charity tournament or be on some radio broadcast.  I’m really getting discouraged with all this stuff.  I really enjoy the cash games for TV, but the sit and gos on PAD aren’t my cup of tea.  The structure is too slow and it seems I never hold a hand in them.  I’m going to do my best to start promoting the cash game at the Bellagio.  It seems the economy is reaching down to the poker games along with everything else.

I went the entire spring and summer and never hit a golf ball.  There were some good action golf matches I would have loved to been a part of, but along with all my other commitments, my leg is getting worse and I’m determined to get over to the Jobe Clinic and try to get it fixed.  Trouble is, that is no guarantee for success.

I just read where Michelle Obama is redistributing the wealth by having a $447 lunch at the Hilton Hotel in New York.  She had lobster, caviar and champagne.  I guess she was really hungry!

I went to a site called luckbox.com and watched Vegas history.  It had a video of the late Puggy Pearson talking about the “old days”.  I had a lump in my throat as I watched and remembered when I first came to Vegas.  Puggy was the man in those days and all the games revolved around him.  He was a totally fearless all around player and should be remembered as one of the pioneers of poker as we know it today.  He was a ruthless player who would do anything to win but he never pretended to be anything else.  I miss the guy, I would have loved seeing him and Phil Ivey go at it.

We only have a few days left to get out and vote.  If you don’t vote, you don’t have the right to complain about the economy or anything else.  I’m Doyle Brunson and I approve this message

Caddie: Sir, how are you playing?
Daniel: I’m hitting the woods great, but I’m having a terrible time getting out of them.

DOYLISM OF THE DAY: “Accept the fact that sometimes you are the pigeon and somedays you are the statue.”

I don’t know if everybody is following this extortion attempt that is going on in Kentucky.  The out of state attorneys that started this attempt to seize the urls of internet gaming sites are making ridiculous claims that internet gaming is hurting Kentucky’s citizens and prevents them from having money for horse racing.

I’m not going to go into all the legal issues but Kentucky is in for a hell of a battle and every legal opinion I’ve heard says they don’t have a chance of winning.  I’m sure all the poker sites have backup domain names in reserve.  The judge has taken 7 days to give a verdict and I certainly hope he gives a just and favorable decision.

I’ve been home from London for a week now and while I’ve recovered physically, I still feel it would be hard to focus enough to play high stakes poker.  I can’t get caught up with my e-mails, snail mail, phone calls, and appointments.  Chip Reese and I used to laugh about the fact we can never get our desk cleaned up.  A real gambler just isn’t programmed to take care of business matters.  It seems like I have to take all my time with different business opportunities, my obligations to DoylesRoom online poker, and worrying about what to do and when to do it.  When I look back ten years at what my life was like and then look at what it is now, I get sick.  There is no life that is as good as being a pro poker player with no other concerns.  I could play when I wanted to and didn’t have to answer to anyone or anything.  You might not get mega rich but a good poker player would always make plenty of money.  I wish I could get a time machine to take me back in time, I would do a lot of things differently.  One thing I know for sure, if I could do that, I would leave myself time to play the game that I love.

I watched the debate between McCain and Obama tonight and it appeared to me that McCain won.  That is in stark contrast to what everybody thought earlier in the campaign.  Obama was supposed to destroy McCain but it looks like McCain was underestimated.  I’m still not sure who I am going to vote for because to tell you the truth, I don’t like to think of either one of them being my president.  I will vote however and if you don’t do the same, don’t complain about the economy, the war, or anything else.  Nevada is a tossup state and a few votes might be the difference.  It looks like Obama has 13 states, McCain 23 with the rest undecided.  Obama has the important electoral lead and is probably going to be our next president.

Barry Greenstein started his own debate about an Omaha 8 or better hand on Poker Road.  It seems I had a different opinion then most of the other pros but i feel they all followed Phil Ivey’s lead of three betting a hand.  I’m a real bottom line guy and I only know I’ve lasted 50 years following my gut feelings.  So until some of these players come to the cash games for a few years, I’ll reserve judgment.

I get more comments about the jokes about Daniel’s golf games.  It’s amazing, all the way to Macau and back to London, lots of people comment how much they like them.

Daniel – Please stop checking your watch all the time.  It’s really a distraction.

Caddy – It’s not a watch – it’s a compass.

DOYLISM OF THE DAY: “Time is nature’s way of keeping everything from happening at once.”

Seventeen ex basketball players that were my teammates from 1950 to 1954 at Hardin Simmons University descended on Flathead Lake this week for a three day visit. The years rolled back and it wasn’t like we had been apart for over 50 years except for a couple of earlier reunions. The guys brought their wives and we had a terrific time. What a great group of people! We had a cookout on the lake each night and we had a lot of laughs and memories. We took a lot of rides on my pontoon boat that seats 15 people. A couple of us got on the jet skis and I called the rest a bunch of wimps because they wouldn’t get on them. Those things go 60 miles an hour and really give you a rush when you hit a few bumps caused by the wind and other boats. The ex-teammates came from as far away as Florida but most were from Texas. The youngest was 71 and the oldest, who was an army vet before he entered school, was 82.

Even though it was nice to get together, I felt my real age, perhaps for the first time. There is no getting around it, I’m as old as most of them. I do happen to have a youthful spirit, but the body is getting older and older. Oh well, it’s supposed to.

Now it’s back to Vegas and getting ready to go to Macau with Todd.  We are going to play in the APT and promote DoylesRoom online poker in Asia.  We are looking forward to going and enjoying ourselves.  It’s a long plane ride and it will be my first time there.  The farthest east I have been is the Philippines and I remember how surprised I was that the public seemed to know who I was. They tell me to expect the same in Macau. We also plan on playing in a big cash game while we are there. The minimum buy in is $150,000 but a lot of the rich Chinese buy in for a million dollars. Should be interesting!

As I look out my window, I see a bunch of Canadian Geese walking on my boat dock. Every time I see them I think of Brad Booth and Daniel Negreanu. Could it be it’s because they are both Canadian poker players? Speaking of Daniel, I’ve been reading his blogs about his golf games. I asked his caddy how he was playing and he told me he was so bad he tried to drown himself but he couldn’t keep his head down that long! -DB

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