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: “Be who you are and say what you feel. Because those that matter…don’t mind and those that mind…don’t matter!”

My daughter called me about a thread on 2+2 about me voting for McCain.  According to some of them, I’m a racist and am going to hell because I did so.  What a sick topic on which to start a thread on a public forum.  First, I’m about as far away from being a racist as you can get.  I’ve had black friends all my life, and I mean really good friends.  That was back before it was “fashionable” to have blacks as friends.  And if I go to hell, it won’t be because I voted McCain.  I guess it was only Democrats that posted and they blasted me for being a Republican.  They said I betrayed poker and I’m supporting the UIGEA.  That’s a joke.  Did anyone hear either candidate take a firm position on internet gambling?  I didn’t and I sent e-mails and phoned both Obama & McCain camps and never got an answer.

Hopefully the Democrats will reverse everything, but I guess these posters think that none of their senators voted for the UIGEA.  They say Obama is a poker player.  Has anyone seen him play?  Has anyone seen him on the inside of a casino?  Supposedly, John McCain shot craps for 30 hours in a Las Vegas casino and I heard he said internet gambling wasn’t a priority of his.  McCain isn’t George W. Bush and that is how everybody judged him.  I knew when I voted that Obama was going to win the election.  I enjoy pulling for the underdog and one reason I backed McCain is I enjoyed the friendly e-mails and banter with my friends.  Daniel Negreanu, Jennifer Harman, Eric Seidel and Howard Lederer and I verbally sparred for the past months.

I’m not backing off from supporting McCain but I’m not entirely against Obama, either.  McCain is a genuine American hero and has experience and leadership qualities.  I was concerned about Reverend Wright, Obama’s spiritual leader for 20 years, Obama’s inexperience and his choice of association with controversial people.  Anyone who doesn’t share those concerns are lacking in brain cells.  However, he is our president-elect.  By the way, did any of you 2+2 posters go to any of the fundraisers for the politicians that were pro-gambling?  I did, I went to every one of them and gave as much money that was allowed and supported each and every one of them.  I also support the PPA and do everything I can to help their cause.  So how did I betray poker?

Kudos to Hoyt Corkins, DoylesRoom online poker, Hogs and Heifers and Harley Davidson for their great charity tournament at the new Harley Davidson showroom in Red Rock.  Over 6,000 people showed up and the bikers with their chicks came from everywhere.  The guys in their leather coats and caps, bandanas and Levis made quite an impression on me.  Some of those dudes looked really mean, but all of the ones I talked to seemed like nice guys.  GreasieWheels put the tournament together and did a phenomenal job.  The charity, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation got a nice check.  Be sure and go to it next year.

-DB

DOYLISM OF THE DAY: “It’s choice, not chance, that determines our destiny.”

The most I had ever paid for a hamburger was $10, which I thought was foolish.  Yesterday, I went to Red Rock Casino to go to a movie with my pal Jack Binion.  We stopped in a gourmet hamburger place in the Red Rock and got a $14.75 burger.  It was a big restaurant but almost completely empty.  The way the economy is right now, this is going to be tough for them to survive.  The first thing people cut out is going out for lunch and dinner.  I personally would rather have a whopper from Burger King, anyway.

The election is finally over and I’m glad.  Martin Luther King said that someday, men would be judged by the content of their character, not by the color of their skin.  Looks like that day has come; with Obama being our first African-American president.  I voted for McCain because of some personal beliefs, but now that America has spoken, Obama is my president and I’ll support him in any way that I can.  I can only hope he will be able to turn our country around.  President Obama is one of the best speakers I’ve ever heard.

I get asked a lot where I get the Doylisms I use to start my blog.  A few of them are from me, but most of them are from things that I have read.  They come from all walks of life and from different folks.  I read a lot when I have time and I’ve taken the thoughts of a lot of authors, all the way from Will Rogers to Winston Churchill.  There is a lot of wisdom in books if we take the time to find it.

I didn’t go to Foxwoods for their WPT tournament.  Besides the fact I’m trying to stop traveling so much, my plate is so full now I don’t have any time.  I have to do a book signing at the Rio that I committed to and also have to appear in their “pro pit”.  The Hall of Fame induction is Sunday and I have to make the introduction speech for my pal Dewey Tomko.  I also have to do two shows for the Real Deal because most of their pros are out of town.  I’m also addressing some issues with Microgaming, DoylesRoom’s software provider.  Everything will work out, but it takes time and effort.

Daniel:  What do I do wrong?

Caddie: Sir, you spend so much time in bunkers, you get mail addressed to Hitler!

-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.

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