Professional Poker Player
TeamUB Member, UltimateBet.com

	Annie's Book How I Raised, Folded, Bluffed, Flirted, Cursed, and Won Millions at the World Series of Poker
	Annie's DVDs Grab some cards and a bag of microwave popcorn.

Previous Entries


• Big Sunday and San Manuel Steps up Big Time!
• Joe is Out of Surgery and Doing Fine
• Green Dimes
• Down in Costa Rica
• Canadian Fun and then Debating Jom Leach...Even More Fun!
• Heading to NYC
• Coaching Week
• Doing a Cool Thing for The Humane Society with my Brother
• Special Day with Lucy
• London Calling
• Mulholland is a creepy place today
• Getting ready for London and Watch Craig Ferguson Thursday!
• Back from Australia!
• Werribee Open Range Zoo (and a little bit of poker)
• Penguin Parade!
• 19 miles! Holy Crap! Oh.. and heading to Australia today
• I might just run a marathon
• Testifying in Washington!
• Poker Camp Weekend
• PPA Fly-in
• Back from Aruba!
• Happy to be back in the US (for a few days anyway)
• Ante Up for Africa London Looks Like a Go!
• A Sad Day at Runyon Canyon
• What happens when you give up caffeine cold turkey?
• Ante Up for Africa
• Holy Crap! I'm out of Jail!
• WSOP Update
• My First Final Table at This Year's WSOP
• Damn...I'm sick before the WSOP
• Ante Up for Africa
• Mothers Day Breakfast is Improving but then I lost everyone toGuitar Hero
• North Carolina Court Decision
• Playboy Mansion Again!
• Over half a million for Children's Hospital of Boston
• It is a Dark, Dark Day
• Blades of Glory
• Hanging out
• I Think I Can Never Listen to The Kinks Again
• Busy Weekend
• Decision Education Foundation
• Playboy Mansion Party
• I hate my new internet connection!
• NBC Heads Up Challenge
• Another Demonstration of Skill in Poker
• Leo's Special Day
• Rincon WSOP Circuit Event
• Magellan Cruise Line Appearance
• Lucy's 100th Day of School Celebration
• 1 vs 100
• My Brother is a Super Genius
• Everyone is Sick Around Me
• Maybe Poker Really is all Luck
• Cory Lidle Foundation Event
• UltimateBet.com Emmy Party and Portland
• Mexico!
• The WSOP (Sigh)
• Roshambo!
• Lady in the Water
• Hanging in the UltimateBet Suite
• Lawsuit against the WPT
• I am so happy to be able to blog again
• Oh how I hate Computers (and Ringo Starr)
• It's a Bird! It's a Plane! It's Suited!
• Joe is the Pro in the Family Now
• First Day of the WSOP!
• OUCH!
• Make-A-Wish and oops!
• Lucy's Pretty Party
• Cool Poker Night
• Another Great Charity Event
• Poor Joe
• Head to Hollywood Charity Event
• Movies, DVD's and Kid Time
• What is it with me and hotels lately?
• Two Horrible Movies...Ugh!
• Joe's Birthday!
• Oh, the Humanity! Or the Rice! Whatever...
• Hanging with the Kids
• The Poker Camp was Awesome!
• I should have bet the peanut line
• Ultimate Blackjack Tour!

This morning we all woke up early to go participate in Big Sunday! http://www.bigsunday.org/ It is an awesome citywide volunteer day where you plant trees, weed, paint over graffiti and pick up trash.  So me and the kids (Joe obviously stayed home) went down to the Holly wood Schoolhouse and met up to volunteer in the morning.  Mike Syre, my running partner, was their with his son, Zach, as well.  All the kids went directly for the tree planting and graffiti painting and no one wanted to pick up trash so Mike and I took on the job.

Um....ew!  We cleaned up a lot of trash in the neirghborhood but the highlights were: 4 airline sized bottles of liquor, 4 needles, many codoms, some lube and the topper of them all....a used tampon! UGH!

Anyway, after we were done, Mike and I came back to my house to run but it ended up being a walk because my injury is STILL not better. After half a mile I just quit and said I have to see a sport medicine specialist which I am going to do as soon as I ge back from DC and the Bad Beat on Cancer event there. I met the Medical Supervisor for the Boston Marathon at the Children's Hospital of Boston event last week and I am going to write him because he said he could make some recomendations for me.  I am super bummed out because I feel like I am failing...my body is failing and I am failing :-(

The good news from the day is that the kids had an awesome time doing Big Sunday and they felt realy good about pitching in to make the neighborhood around their school cleaner and graffiti free!  They were so excited about it really.  And I am really proud of them.

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On May 8th San Manuel is stepping up to the plate in a big way for Ante Up for Africa.  They are hosting a freeroll event there and they and the Mission Tribe of Indians have pledged $75K to AUFA! Pretty amazing.  Last year we only had the one event at the WSOP.  Now we have this one coming up and another event in Aruba in October now that Ultimatebet.com has come on as a presenting sponsor.  I think will definitely break the $1 million mark this year which is our goal :-)

Also, the week after at San Manuel I am doing a one day WSOP style boot camp.  The two day camps cost $2K but the one at San Manuel only costs $500 so it is a really good deal.  I am going to cover pre flop NL Hold'em, tournaments, cash games,  pot odds and money management.  It will be a kick ass seminar and you can find out about the details here: http://www.sanmanuel.com/page.htm?pageId=10269

So I got back from Costa Rica late last night and immediately this morning woke up to a very nervous Joe.  Today was his total hip replacement surgery!  Poor thing was so nervous this morning and all the pointing out that this surgery is safe for an 80 didn't matter.  I can see how much pain he has been in lately though and I am nothing but relieved.  What the recovery process might be from the surgery it won't be as bad as the constant pain he is in now.  He can hardly even get bent don't to tie his shoe anymore it is so bad!

But I just talked to the doctor and he said Joe is just fine.  He is in recovery now so I am waiting to be able to go back and visit him.  The doctor said his hip was just really bad, one of the worst he has seen.  He said the arthritis in it was so bad that the bone had even begun to change shape.  No wonder he has been in such terrible pain for so long.

The doctor did say that when the other hip starts to go, which it will, Joe definitely won't wait this long again. He will feel so much better so quickly that he will get the other one done faster.  But, apparently getting the left hip fixed will buy a lot of time on the right one.

Anyway, I have been sitting in this waiting room for 7 hours now!  I want to go and see him. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

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On a more fun note: I have never made a secret out of the fact that I would like to see Ladies Events abolished.  I am happy to report that some friends of mine, The Tiltboys, all dressed up as women to play in the WPT Ladies Event at the Bellagio on Sunday.  If they had managed to cash (as if they had a chance with the hose and the heels on) they were going to donate all their winnings to charity.  While they didn't cash, none of them were turned away :-)  I was so happy about that!  the fact is that they can't stop men from playing in these events since that would be discrimination.  So I hope all you men out there will show up for the WSOP Ladios Only Hold'em and crash that party too!.  Maybe I will enter the Seniors Event...although, unfortunately, I am inching closer to being able to play that baby outright! lol

I think, in honor of my brother and Erik Seidel, I am going to an institute a Jews over 6'5" event.  Why Not?  It makes about as much sense to me as a Ladies Event since playing skill is as much determined by your height as your sex :-)

Anyway, here are the pictures of the Tiltboys from Sunday :-)

Check out this website: http://greendimes.com/  It is so awesome.  You sign up there and they make it so you don't get junk catalogs.  You can also donate to plant trees there. How awesom it that?  I do all my shopping online so I literally never look at a catlog.  And yet I have always gotten a ridiculous number of them.  This website makes sure you get off all those lists and imagine how many trees that will save.  It is awesome and I hope every goes to the site and does what I did.  My life is junk mail free and I planted some trees too :-)

So, I am back from Boston and pretty sad about it. I can't express adequately how amazing Boston was.  I had so much fun just hanging with the kids for 7 days straight and showing them the part of the country where I grew up.  it was amazing and everything we did was so much fun.  All the kids said their favorite was Old Sturbridge Village.  We got really lucky there because it was lambing season so the kids got to hold a 36 hour old lamb there!  That won them over.

My only complaint about the trip was that I wish we had more than 7 days.  We could have used at least an extra day in the Museum of Science and ditto for the Children's Museum.  I think everyone would have been happy to stay too.

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Now that we are back Joe is preparing for his big surgery.  He is getting a total hip replacement a week from Wednesday. He is pretty nervous and has been running around all week to doctors appointments and to get lab work.  Ok, well he hasn't been running...more like limping and hobbling, which is why he needs the surgery.  he was supposed to have the surgery back in January but had to cancel when he got the Craig Ferguson job.  Now he is back to it and I think it is going to be so life changing for him.  He is in so much pain all the time and I bet he feels better even the next day after the surgery.

Anyway, I am off to run.  The first time running in two weeks because of this injury I have.  I am hoping I don't screw up my leg again.  I am starting to get panicky about the marathon because I haven't been able to train for two weeks.  I am keeping up with Bikram so that is keeping my strength and endurance up but running today for the first time.  Wish me luck!

Wow!  The flight to Costa Rica really sucked!  So it starts with the fact that I am in Dallas and need to go south and west and the travel agent has booked me through Miami.  I didn't know this until the last minute so went and checked online and found out there was a flight through Houston but by that time it was booked so I was stuck going through Miami.  It seems to me that a relatively basically understanding of geography would stop a person from booking thorugh Miami but I may be asking too much.  Afterall, I am apparently just a boomerang!

So...I wake up at 4 am to catch this ridiculous flight to Miami and when I get there my flight is delayed 2 and a half hours!  And the Miami airport is under renovation and of course I am in the unrenovated terminal and it is hot and humid there and just basically gross and my stomach hurts and I am tired and mad! Phew! That was a long ass complaining sentence!

Well, I get to Costa Rica and get through customs and get to the hotel all without too much incident and woohoo!  Joe is here!  Looking quite tan and handsome I must say after his weekend getaway.  He came down here 4 days early to hang out at the coast (the bastard) while I worked in Dallas.  He looked very relaxed by the time I met him in San Jose which he really needed because he has now rescheduled his hip replacement surgery for the 16th of April.  Holy crap that is right around the corner, right?! So a little R and R for him as kind of a presurgery vacay.

So now we are in San Jose and I am working the whole time meeting with the new management team of Ultimate Bet to see what's up and what the plan is and what not and it is all going very well.  Can't say I am not ecstatic at the switch to this new regime.  Things have gone very well down here and today I am off for another round of meetings and then tomorrow I might, just might, have a day to explore...though I am not hopeful.  It doesn't matter though cause when I get home it is off to Boston with the kids for a real ass vacation!  That I have been looking forward to since last summer.

So....workout-wise my life sucks.  I worked out once in Dallas then realized my muscle pull was still bothering me so I took a day off.  Yesterday I worked out in Costa Rica but then this morning when I woke up I realized the pull was still bothering me again so I decided to take today off.  Basically I don't want to sacrifice any training for the marathon but I am started to get worried about it.  The marathon is only in two months I haven't been able to run in like two weeks.  I feel like a fat cow and I feel like I am going to lose all my conditioning.  I realy want this to heal though so I can hit it hard in Boston and run around Boston Common every morning.  That is totally my goal.  I hope my leg cooperates because I am in a massive panic right now.

I just got back from Montreal and Ottawa yesterday.  I arrived in Montreal late Friday evening to do a seminar there for UltimateBet.com's Cross Canada Tour.  Basically people could purchase a ticket or deposit money online to get a ticket to the event and they got an all day poker seminar in return of the quality of the WSOP Academies.  It was a pretty good deal.  Phil did the event in Toronto the week before but I lead the event Saturday and Sunday.  Basically I did 3 hours in the morning on No Limit Texas Hold'em preflop theory with some tournament theory and bluffing theory thrown in.  Then after lunch, Poker H0, Shawn Rice and Krazy Kanuck walked participants through actual sessions they had played and recorded of cash games and sit and gos.  It was pretty cool.  Each day ended with a Q &A.

About 150 people showed up in Montreal and over 200 in Ottawa.  Everyone seemed pretty happy with the content and I enjoyed Canada.  We ate some kickass Sushi in Montreal and some yummy Indian in Ottawa.  I also managed to work out in both places though I have had to keep that light because of this muscle injury which I just totally aggravated today and can now hardly walk.  I am an idiot for even running on it today.   Should have rested it more.  Of course that is how I injured it in the first place.

Anyway, this morning I had the please of appearing on a radio show on NPR with Jim Leach.  For those of you who don't know, Jim Leach authored the UIGEA, The Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act.  The good news is he was promptly voted out of Congress.  The bad news is the UIGEA passed before that and now we have to live with this seriously bad piece of government policy.

I really enjoyed being able to debate with him because it went something like this ( I am paraphrasing and exaggerating a little):

Leach: There are a lot of people addicted to gambling and internet gambling just makes it worse. Internet gambling makes it so easy to gamble and then everyone just gambles there homes away.

Duke: Both the UK Gambling Prevalence Study and Professor Howard Shaffer of Harvard have both shown prevalence rates for problem gambling of .4 to .7% of the gambling population.  And the UK study showed no increase in that rate with the introduction of internet gambling.

Leach: Well, but, internet gambling is a hot bed of money laundering.  Criminals are laundering money through these sites.

Duke: The representative of the Justice Department at the Conyers hearing testified that there was no evidence of money laundering other than laundering of the gambling money itself in any case they had prosecuted so far.

Leach: But money COULD be laundered on these sites.

Duke: Money could be laundered in any place where money changes hands.  Are you going to ban the stock market?

Leach: Well I know a guy who's family really got messed up by internet gambling.  This kid got bankrupt and tried to rob a bank because of it.

Duke: I hardly think internet gambling is the problem if you have a kid who tried to rob a bank to take care of $3k in debt.  I came out of college with more than $3K in debt and didn't try to rob a bank.  But even so I hope we aren't legislating on annecdote and conjecture but science and fact. Because I also know people who have been bankrupted by shopping.  We aren't banning that.

Basically it went like that.  leach would say I know I guy and I think this might happen and logically gamblig on the internet is bad don't you think and I would respond with facts and science and references to our Constitution and laws and what they say about it.  All in all I think it went quite well :-)