DOYLISM OF THE DAY: “Be slow in choosing a friend, be even slower in changing friends.”

Sometimes you hear things that make you appreciative. A lady came up to me to get an autograph and told me her husband had died a couple of months ago. She said he was my biggest fan and had asked that a picture of him and me be placed by his coffin. We had made the picture at the 2008 WSOP. Of course, I couldn’t remember it but I was touched by the thought. The lady said, “You were with him even to the end.” Wow!

The Champions Tournament is over with Tom McEvoy winning it. Tom broke me in the 8th position with me missing a flush draw with an overcard on his two jacks. I was happy to see one of the older players win and there was only one young gun at the final table. Hoorah for the old guys!
This picture of all the winners will be poker history.

Speaking of old timers, I had a nice long visit with Amarillo Slim. I’m now completely sure that the charges of “child molestation” were false. In fact, nothing like that was ever in Slim’s indictment, only referring to inappropriate actions. Anyone who knows Slim knows he cannot be embarrassed about anything and almost always says things that would make a normal person (including me) blush. Slim and his family are intact again, more evidence it was a trumped up charge against a famous guy.

I thought it was hilarious that my cousin sent me an e-mail about colonoscopies, because I am going to have one after the WSOP. Everyone over 50 years old should have one every year and it’s been 7 years since I had one. This is the truth – the doctor who did it was named Dr. Goldenrod so help me. So here are some of the comments I’m going to tell my Dr. when he puts me in the stirrups letting people walk around and shredding all dignity. There were 12 sayings, I’ll put the next 6 in my next blog.

1. “Take it easy Doc, you’re boldly going where no man has gone before.”
2. “Find Amelia Earhart yet?”
3. “Can you hear me now?”
4. “Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?”
5. “You know, in Arkansas, we’re now legally married.”
6. “Any sign of the trapped miners?”

I really don’t mean to keep writing about Casper, but he got number 47 on his bite list. With Louise being gone, I hired a model who isn’t working right now to babysit him. She is my nephew Ken’s girlfriend and she has been around Casper and Casper loves her. But Casper is getting old and Sasha tried to move him while he was asleep. Bam, #47. Please beware of the Brunson dogs if you come to my house.

Jenny Woo, who writes for gambling911.com, picked me as the sexiest poker player for the second straight year. Obviously, she picks me because I’m the only one that won’t bring heat on her. It’s pretty obvious that Jenny and I haven’t been intimate because if she had seen my naked body, she would be even more embarrassed than me. Thanks anyways Jen, it’s good for my image. What is really funny is she had Patrik Antonius #2. I’m probably the most heterosexual person God ever put on earth, but Patrik is so handsome, when I look at him I go hmm-

-DB

DOYLISM OF THE DAY: “The time to win a fight is before it starts.”

After seeing all the robberies on TV along with home invasions, I decided to get a concealed weapon permit. I’ve always kept a pistol in every vehicle I own and that is legal in Nevada. It’s also legal to have weapons in your home. With this new permit, it’s legal to carry a gun you have qualified with on your person. So my daughter Pam and I sat through a 4 hour class on what you could and could not do with a permit. Then we went shooting. I qualified with a Kimber .45 caliber automatic and a .357 magnum revolver. 53 years ago, I qualified as a marksman with a pistol at Camp Polk, LA. I blacked my bullseye out on my target, close to my shooting ability long ago. Pam also qualified with a revolver.

There is a lot of speculation about what effect the swine flu will have on the World Series of Poker. Hopefully it will be contained by then but it’s impossible to not be concerned. Personal hygiene should be observed and if anyone is sick, they should stay away from the crowds.

I’m having some dental implants Tuesday. It’s something I am really not looking forward to but I’ve got a lot of confidence in my dentist and he recommends it. I hope it doesn’t knock me out of going to Montana to Todd’s poker tournament. If I do get to go, I’ve got to take my dogs because I don’t want to leave them with the house sitter. I need a little rest before the WSOP starts and there is no place like Montana to get away from everything. Louise is still in Hawaii having trouble with her asthma.

My publisher tells me my autobiography will be out in October. I haven’t seen the finished book yet, but I have high hopes for it. I’m also putting out a revised Super System. I hear most book sales that pertain to gambling are down but my books are doing well. We also give away a lot of them on special offers at DoylesRoom.

This Twitter craze is something else. My sister called and asked what I was doing. When I told her I was tweeting on Twitter, she told me I was going crazy.

-DB

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

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