DOYLISM OF THE DAY: “Life involves risk. You can’t steal second base and keep your foot on first.”

I’m sitting at my desk at 8:30 at night wondering if I should go to bed, watch a movie and go to sleep.

Good Googa Mooga! What in the world has happened?  Poker games are getting to be scarce in Vegas and all the players are going to tournaments in other cities and even other countries. It’s my opinion that these tournaments may be the end of the high and medium stake poker games. Back in the 80’s, 90’s and the early years of 2000, there were games everywhere. If there wasn’t a game going, Chip Reese, Pug Pearson and myself would sit down and start games that would fill up and run for days. Now between tournaments and the internet, you could shoot a cannon through the high limit sections of Vegas cardrooms and not hit anyone.

Thank goodness for NFL football and the college bowl games. With no poker games going, they fill the time in nicely. I always bet the underdogs in the college bowls and I had a banner year as the underdogs won by a 3-1 margin. The NFL is a little trickier and you have to be lucky to pick the winners.

The Brunson family has a tradition of making Kentucky Colonel Bourbon candy for the holidays. We haven’t done it for a couple of years, so our family, Todd and his wife Anjela and my daughter Pam joined Louise and I to start making the candy again. We made the best tasting candy you ever ate. It was so good I made another batch the next day that was even better. Maybe I’ll join the Food Network on TV.

I took some of my candy down to my doctor and he showed me the results of my last checkup. I’m one lucky guy! All my blood levels were in the normal range and on an echocardiogram they made, everything about my heart was perfect. I know it sounds crazy, but I’ve always felt that  a poker player’s heart pumps so hard it keeps your arteries clean. After all the chit I’ve been through, mine are completely clear. You probably shouldn’t quote me on that . On the flip side of that, seems like we are losing a lot of poker players in the past few years. We lost Amir Vahedi a few days ago with complications from his diabetes. Amir was in the Iranian army before coming to America and becoming one of the more popular poker players. Amir represented DoylesRoom.com for a year and always did anything that was asked of him. He did everything with an infectious laugh that made everybody love him. I hope they put a box of his trademark cigars in his coffin because I know how much he liked them. RIP my friend.

-DB

DOYLISM OF THE DAY: “May the work that you have be the play that you love.”

There is finally some poker action in Bobby’s Room at the Bellagio.  We have lowered the stakes and more players are coming in. It’s really dumb to play so high no one except the ultra rich guys can play. I was completely exhausted when I got through traveling but after playing poker for 4 straight days, I feel great again. It is really amazing how playing helps me. I guess I’m a junkie after all these years.

DoylesRoom.com is putting on a “Twitter Followers Freeroll”  because I’ve got over 100,000 followers on Twitter. The winner gets a weekend in Vegas, dinner with me and partying with the young DoylesRoom pros. I guess they decided I couldn’t handle the partying and they may be right. The tournament is on this Sunday at 6pm Eastern time. I’ll tweet the password at 4pm Eastern the same day because our tournaments hold a few thousand players at a time. You have to have an account at DoylesRoom along with the password to play.

Cardoza publishing has already ordered the second printing of my autobiography because of the unexpected number of advance sells. It is going to hit the bookstores Nov. 10th and I’ve still got mixed feelings about writing this book.

I appreciate all the tweets, emails and phone calls expressing concerns over my toy poodle Casper. Casper jumped off a desk and knocked both his hips out of socket and Louise has to carry him everywhere because he can’t walk.  I should say couldn’t walk because he is able to walk on level ground now, he just can’t jump or put any weight on his back legs. Casper is tough and I expect him to last a lot longer as he is only 13 years old.

I’m back in retirement on pro football. I bet on Minn +6 points when Pitt made 2 defensive touchdowns in the last 5 minutes to beat me. I had Miami +6 against N.O. Saints and was ahead 24-3 at the half and lost. Then, I had Houston -3 and was ahead 21-0 at the half and managed to tie that one 24-21. I’m sure I’m going to get lots of sympathy, all poker players are unlucky when betting on sports.

-DB

DOYLISM OF THE DAY: “You can’t send a duck to eagle school.”

Here it is Sunday night and I thought I would be on my way to the Commerce Tournament in Los Angeles.  But when I think of fighting the Sunday traffic on its way back to L.A., I’ve decided to pass.  I don’t really feel like going and sitting through a long poker tournament.  I’ve got lots of stuff to do here and I know I wouldn’t play my best.  As my Dad used to tell me, “If you chase two rabbits, both will escape.” Hopefully I’ll make the final event at the Commerce.

I’ve made it a full week trying to eat healthy.  My main goal was to feel better, but a side benefit is that I lost 8 pounds.  I do feel better and I turned the heater back on in my pool and have had a couple of good workouts.  It costs about $15,000 a year to keep the water at 90 degrees but it’s well worth it.  The weather got so cold a couple of weeks ago; I turned it off, but no more. Swimming is the only real exercise I can do with this bad leg.

I made it through Valentine’s Day with Louise.  We cooked in because the restaurants are so busy during holidays.  I even stuck to the healthy meals, cooking salmon on the grill with lots of veggies.  Every Valentine’s Day I think of my Dad because Feb. 14th is his birthday.  He would have been 125 years old and has been gone 50 years.  I still miss him and my Mom.

Time Out!  I had to take Louise and my oldest daughter Cheryl out to dinner.  We went to one of our favorite spots, the Outback Steakhouse.  Even though I guess we can afford the gourmet dining spots, we prefer the local eating places that have good food like Applebee’s, Outback, Egg Works, etc.  We got a bottle of wine with dinner and Cheryl and Louise both had a small glass and I finished the bottle, and then ordered another large glass.  Nobody ever said I was conservative about anything.  As always, after all that wine, my eye started roving to all the attractive women in the restaurant.  After 47 years, Louise saw what I was doing and gave me a look that would have melted the iceberg that sank the Titanic.  I told her, that at my age, be thankful I still have an interest.  Just because there is snow on the rooftop, it doesn’t mean there isn’t fire in the furnace.  I’ll try to cool her out later tonight.

One reason for my “festive” mood is I went 4 for 4 in college baskets tonight.  I have started taking any team that is playing at home and getting points.  Kind of tough sometimes, but if you close your eyes and do that, you will be winner after the season is over.

My book publisher, Avery Cardoza, called and said my autobiography would be ready in October.  Man!! I hate for that to hit the stands.  Lots of things I’m not proud of will be in that book.  Some things just can’t be told, but lots of old facts are in there.  I kinda hoped they would wait until I was dead before they published it, but I guess they can’t wait another 27 years

-DB

DOYLISM OF THE DAY: “Don’t be afraid to take a big step if one is required. You can’t cross a chasm in two small jumps.”

If you have ever driven over 1,000 miles in two days, you know the exact same feeling you have experienced with jet lag. I’ve been sitting around the past few days just chilling out and enjoying the slow paced life here in Montana.

Reflecting on the drive up here, it was pretty boring driving out of Vegas on Interstate 15 North. Mesquite was a nice break in the scenery but when I got to St George, Utah things really changed. The mountains and deep passes were breathtaking with their change of colors. I guess whatever ore was present gave a different hue to the land. There were blue, black, gold and red streaks running through the mountains and all of them were nice.

I had a bittersweet memory as I drove through St George. There is a health spa a few miles outside of town, and my pal the late Chip Reese and I were determined to stay there a few weeks until we lost some weight. It was an expensive spa and we paid a month in advance, about 6,000 dollars each. It was baseball season and we were betting a lot of games so we put a 4,000 dollar satellite system in our rooms where we could sweat the games. We felt it was well worth it. The next day we went to all their exercise classes, even the swimming classes. We ate all our meals at the cafeteria where the diet food was reasonably good. The second night Chip asked me if I had noticed the Sizzler Restaurant where we turned off the highway. When I said yes, he suggested we go eat our last meal there before we really got into this diet. Naturally I said yes, let’s go, so we went there and knocked a hole in their salad bar along with 2 or 3 entrees each. When we finished Chip looked at me, and I looked at him. Without a word being said, we got in his new BMW and drove 120 miles an hour back to Las Vegas. We laughed about that many times afterward because we never attempted to recover any of our money from the spa.

As we drove into the upper part of Utah, I was surprised to see the landscape change from mountains to plains and rolling hills. It looked like a scene from a Western movie with mesas on the hills and the ridges were almost crying for an Indian or a Cowboy riding across the skyline.

When I was a kid I used to read all of Zane Grey’s books about the old west. I always wondered what he was talking about when he talked about the purple mountains. When I got into Idaho it was obvious because the mountains had a deep purplish color. They were gorgeous and the farms were everywhere and the crops, mostly Alfalfa, were in full bloom. Each farmhouse had trees planted on the north side of their houses to keep the cold winter winds from blowing directly on the house.

We saw every kind of animal on our trip. We saw all kinds of cows and horses, lamas, buffalo, sheep, elk, deer and believe it or not, we saw a camel farm near Butte, Montana. I saw an old Texas Longhorn Steer as we came into Montana and I couldn’t help wondering if his ancestors came from Lonesome Dove with the old Texas Rangers Gus McRae and Woodrow Call.

Don’t be surprised if Obama or McCain neither one win Montana in the upcoming presidential election. There are Ron Paul billboards and posters everywhere. All the locals are talking Paul up and encouraging everyone to write him in when they vote. I kinda wish some other states would do the same because he is pro gambling.

Louise Brunson worked her way through the University Of Kentucky and pharmacy school at the University Of Georgia. She was the number 1 pharmacist at a chain of 150 drugstores. She gave birth to 4 great children and she has been a terrific wife and companion to me for 46 years. I say all this so you can see the good far, far outweighs the bad. But she had me captive in an automobile for two long days and she talked my ears off. My eardrums felt like Sitting Bull was having his tom-toms send out messages to all his tribes and I was the messenger. I’m sure some of you guys out there know what I’m talking about!