How is anyone supposed to do any work?

While jumping between blogs and Poker News Live reporting, how is anyone supposed to get anything else done? Why can't we take a cue from the Europeans and take the month off? This is going to be one very unproductive month.

It Begins

In just a few hours the first event at the WSOP will start. Who will claim the first bracelet? Will it be a named player or a one-hit wonder?

Thanks to the folks at Up For Poker have compiled a list of WSOP blogs for those of us who can't be there:

http://www.upforanything.net/poker/2008-wsop-poker-blogs-and-news.html

UB Making Good?

Terrence Chan just posted a blog about getting a refund from Ultimate Bet due to the Super User scandal that took place there. If the story as it is laid out at 2+2 is true, and I have no reason to believe it isn't, it was definitely a black eye for UB in the time they took to address the issue and the apparent steps taken to protect the accused or at least look the other way. Since I'm a nickel-and-dime player at UB, I was never really worried about being a victim of superuser but would have considered moving my money out of UB if that UIGA didn't make it near to impossible. Still, I have to admit a certain affinity to Ultimate Bet since it is the first site where I deposited money, and I still prefer the UI over the other sites I play (FTP). Plus, it's the only site where I seem to be able to hold on to my money. Hopefully this will close the chapter on the whole sordid affair and I can go back to UB without fear that someone can see my cards. Now if I could only be sure that the donkeys won't hit their 1-outers.

Siren's Song

Being the center of gambling world (for now), Las Vegas exerts a pull on all gamblers. The pull is similar to gravity in that the more gamble in a person, the stronger the pull. 1100 miles away from me, thousands of people are making their pilgrimage to the yearly event that is the World Series of Poker (WSOP). Every poker player dreams of being at the (3 month delayed) final table of the Main Event, but to play in any event something that everyone schemes to do, even if just once just to say they were there. I was in LV for the first days of the main event back in 2006. Even though I was just a spectator, the experience was amazing. The site of the row upon row of poker tables in the Amazon Poker room was staggering.

Unable to attend, I'll have to live vicariously through the legion of bloggers who will be in attendance. Always a perennial favorite of mine is The Tao of Poker. Pauly's untiring capture of the less seen side of the WSOP is something to look forward to every day. It truly is the next best thing to being there. In fact, even if I was in LV at the WSOP I'd still read Tao of Poker just to know what I was missing.

The first post

Now that I've been keeping up a fairly consistent pace over at Poker Night blog, I though I would go solo and start my own blog. This will allow me to comment not only on poker, but all the other games I like to play: Scrabble (and Scrabulous), Boggle, Settlers of Catan and the game of life.

Originally I wanted to call this "The Games I Play" but it looks like some spook already has that.

So we're off. Let's see how long I can keep this up.