DOYLISM OF THE DAY: “The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.”

I see where Huck Seed took 33-1 he could run a 4 minute 39 second mile. I’m a former miler, having run 4:38 to win the Texas State Championship in 1950.  I ran 4:18 in college, not very impressive by today’s standards, but I never trained and never had a competent coach; and the world record was 4:01. I know how tough it is to run when you don’t devote a lot of time to it. But Huck is an enigma, a physical freak with so much athletic ability, you can’t believe it.

Ten years ago, I bet Huck $20,000 he couldn’t break 4:20 in the mile. He lost, then we bet $50,000 on a 4:30 mile, after a year passed. He lost but ran 4:38 at the UNLV track, so I know he has done it before.  We bet $20,000 his brother Leif couldn’t run 4:15 and he did it easily, running 4:12 at UNLV. So although he probably won’t win the bet, I will take 33-1 for a big bet if anyone is interested.

I’ve got to give kudos to the team at DoylesRoom.  In our weekly bounty tournament we have Mickey Rourke, Nicky Hilton, Jamie-Lynn Sigler and the rap artist Eve as celebrity bounties this week.  DoylesRoom is the only poker site that could have gotten these celebrities to play in an online poker tournament.

The NCAA basketball tournament is down to the Final Four.  Pittsburgh was my team and now they are gone.  If North Carolina wins the tournament, I may have to move to a foreign country. These college players are terrific.  The center for Oklahoma is the best college player I’ve ever seen.

Finally there is action in Bobby’s Room at the Bellagio.  The Five Star World Poker Classic is starting and there are lots of players in town.  We have lowered the limits so more players are able to play.  With the economy so bad, I’m not sure we shouldn’t lower them even more.

-DB

DOYLISM OF THE DAY: “The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time.”

Twelve years ago, through a mutual friend, I met the talented actor Mickey Rourke.  His life story should be made into a film because nobody has ever had more ups and downs than Mickey over the past 20 years.

Mickey was one of the hot new movie stars after his hit 9 1/2 weeks with Kim Basinger.  Then, because of some personal problems, he walked away from acting to pursue a boxing career.

He boxed from 1991-1995, proving he was indeed a rebel who marched to the beat of his own drummer.  Mickey then returned to his first love, acting, and with the completion of his new 2008 film, The Wrestler, he got rave reviews and won every award except the Academy Award.  Mickey, who is genuinely a nice guy, decided to try poker.  He remembered me, gave me a call and agreed to be one of the bounties in DoylesRoom’s weekly bounty tournament.  So come play with Mickey this Thursday at 9:30 eastern in Doyle’s Bounty tournament.

The NCAA basketball tournament is underway, down to the sweet 16.  My personal pick to win the championship is Pittsburgh and I’ve bet the family farm on them.  I really need to beat out North Carolina and that is going to be tough.  The Big East has 5 teams in the last 16 so it looks like they have the toughest conference; I think I’ve got a good shot with Pitt.

It’s hard to believe that only a year ago, 8,000 people were moving into Las Vegas each month.  We were the fastest growing city in America. This recession has hit us harder than any other city and business places are closing all over town.  Even some of the big casinos are overleveraged and are talking bankruptcy.  Surely we will recover and make our nation prosperous again.

I almost forgot, Nicky Hilton and Sopranos star Jamie-Lynn Sigler are also going to be bounties this week at DoylesRoom along with actress and Grammy winner Eve.  Eve has sold over 7 million records, had her own reality TV show, and acted in movies. All the DoylesRoom players talk about how nice the gals are when they play.  They are also darn good poker players that have gone deep in our tournament before. It should be fun.

-DB

DOYLISM OF THE DAY: “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”

After all of my complaining about how bad I was feeling, I found the cure.  I’ve been staying at home for the past 2-3 months because there haven’t been any cash games to speak of and I’m really cutting down on my traveling to poker tournaments.  I’ve decided the tournaments have to come to me, here in Vegas, so I won’t be in very many away.

Anyways, I went down to the NBC Heads Up Championship, got beat my first match and went home.  Next day, there was a nice cash game.  I went and played and again the next day. Now I feel like a 30-year-old again.  I need to keep playing and remember an old Texas saying,  “Burn brightly but don’t burn out.”

Congrats to Huck Seed for winning the NBC Heads Up.  Huck has the best record of anyone in that tournament at 18-4.  Huck was the next “great player” 20 years ago but had some personal problems and was overlooked the past few years.  He is a cool guy and I hope he continues to keep his head on straight and wins.  The Heads Up Tournament is fast paced and I don’t think it is a good barometer of how people play, but 18-4 is pretty impressive.  Eric Seidel is 0-5 in the tournament.  Does that mean Huck is better?  I’ll let you answer that.

Huck beat Vanessa Rousso in the finals and I don’t understand all the negative comments about Vanessa.  Anybody can beat anybody else but that don’t take away from the fact she beat five pros who are considered to be pretty good.  I thought she played well against me.  Vanessa is obviously very smart and I think she should command everyone’s respect for what she did.

I would never have believed that I would watch of the programs I have been watching on TV. I’m now into season 8 of Dallas DVDs.  I watched The Celebrity Apprentice because Annie Duke is on it. She kicked butt in the 2nd episode; she is a cinch to go a long way because she outclasses her competition.  Louise even had me watching The Bachelor, which I believe is the dumbest thing I’ve ever watched.  She likes it, and I guess that’s why they make chocolate and vanilla.

In our weekly Bounty Tournament at DoylesRoom, we often have celebrity bounties.  This week is Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Broadway star and Tony’s daughter Meadow in the hit TV show, The Sopranos. I’ve met her three times and she is really a down to earth lady, not to mention gorgeous.  We had Nicky Hilton last week and both of these girls are pretty darn good poker players.  Come play with us.

-DB

DOYLISM OF THE DAY: “Benny Binion believed in justice. He spelled it Just Us.”

I just watched a clip about the terrorists that were being held at Guantanamo Bay.  The question was if the United States did the right thing in torturing the prisoners to get information.  President Bush approved and caught a lot of heat about it.  I recently had a conversation with a couple of “famous” poker players about this very thing.  I can’t believe anyone would object to anything that might save thousands of American lives. It’s not that I believe torture should be used in most cases, but my gosh, if we can prevent another 9-11, anything should be accepted.  Ask any relative of the 9-11 victims what they think.  If someone had a gun to one of your family and the only way you could stop them from pulling the trigger was to torture or even kill them, would you do it?  I hope your answer to that is yes.

Was President Truman justified in dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?  I say yes to that even though thousands of Japanese civilians were killed.  We didn’t start that war and when you think of all the Americans that would have died in a conventional ending, you gotta say it was right.  There has been lots of speculation about that decision by Truman over the years.  The story about him deciding to drop the bomb was that he was playing poker at the time.  I’ll bet he was one tough poker player.

DoylesRoom is really rolling.  There are more games than we had before and the signups are easier.  We have our weekly bounty tournament and it is becoming more and more popular.  It is every Wednesday night at 9:30pm eastern and the players can win up to $25,000 in bounties.  We have guest bounties each week with Kevin Connolly being our guest this week.  Kevin is the star of HBO’s Entourage and the new movie He’s Just Not That Into You with Ben Affleck, Drew Barrymore and Jennifer Aniston. The Hilton sisters Nicky and Paris are lined up for future guest bounties.

I just can’t make myself get up and go to the poker tournament in L.A.  I keep getting phone calls from my fiends because they hear I’m not feeling well. That’s true, but I don’t feel bad either, just a little fatigued.  It’s incredible, I usually never get tired.  Maybe old age really is sitting in. Whatever it is, I sure don’t like it.

-DB