I thought you’d all enjoy the latest tattoo from my home game. That’s William’s arm sporting a brand new hammer. He didn’t name names (Torres), but it was apparently in honor of the “any two” strategy successfully employed by some of our members.

You might think I take the moral high ground when I’m behind the lens. But you’d be wrong. Sometimes an unflattering shot captures a moment that I can’t resist, like my picture of Mike Sexton and Vince Van Patton in my last post. For just a second, they evoked every bit of the long, hot, and humid Aruba final table.

And of course, catering to a mostly male viewing audience, I feel compelled to take the money shot. I could have taken many far more flattering pictures of Victoria Coren, but instead I opted for cleavage as she leaned over the table. To be fair, I try to be gender neutral. I also have an impressive shot of Erik Seidel’s butt crack. I just don’t know what to do with it.

Allthough 2+2ers may agrue the point, Coren’s talents extend past her physical attributes — and even her enviable game. She’s a helluva writer. She’s objective and honest, but still lets us view the world through her distinctly personal lens. It’s the kind of writing William Zinnser encourages in his classic book, On Writing Well, 30th Anniversary Edition: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction, but that few people do well.

So while I was happy to read in her blog that Victoria was enjoying Mike Matusow: Check-Raising the Devil, I was thrilled to learn that her own book about the poker world, For Richer, For Poorer: A Love Affair with Poker, is scheduled to be released next month.

From her blog, I gather the book will focus on both the virtues of the game and the potentially harsher realities of the poker world. She wrote, “A big reason why I’ve spent the last two years writing my own poker book is because there are too few like this around these days, truly honest books that talk about all angles of the game and the lifestyle. Now, just one month away from publication, I see that Mike Matusow has done one, it’s brilliant and FAR darker than my life ever got.” I’m not sure she really needed to add that last part: anyone who led a darker life than Mike’s is probably dead. I’ve put Coren’s book on my must-read short list along with Pauly’s upcoming book Lost Vegas: The Redneck Riviera, Existentialist Conversations with Strippers, and the World Series of Poker By Paul “Dr. Pauly” McGuire.

In other news, I see that Matt Parvis has moved from Bluff Magazine to take the editorial helm at PokerNews.com. PN has had an outrageously good track record for editors. John Caldwell and Haley Hintze were fantastic to work with. But there’s no question in my mind, PN has another winner with Matt and I wish him the best of luck.

I see that Change100 has a secret. I think I know what it is. But I’ll wait, like everyone else, until she gets back from her Phish tour.

The Poker Shrink has announced he’s getting out of the poker biz. The last time I talked to him, he’d left Las Vegas, had a number of non-poker writing projects on the burner, and was cavorting with cats and deer in California. He’ll still be blogging at Keeping Your Head in the Game – which will be more shrinky and less poker.

I also wanted to give a shout out to my good buddy Dr. Snus. For those of you who have trouble making it through a session without running out for smoke breaks (but don’t want the mess of chewing tobacco), I think the good doctor may have a solution.

While I do write a subscription-based investing newsletter, sometimes I write freebies. So if you wonder what I do for a day job these days, here’s an article I wrote about how I find investment leads. My employers think I’m a bit odd, but they’re getting used to me. Either that or they put up with me for the +17% I’ve made on my real money portfolio for them in the last few months.