Author Archives: java

Nov
15
2009

The Pollack Legacy: The Good, The Bad and The Silly

The dealer barely put down the deck on the 2009 WSOP when it was announced that Jeffrey Pollack, the World Series of Poker Commissioner, had resigned. In 2005, Harrah’s hired Pollack on as the Vice President of Marketing. In January 2006 he got bumped to the new position of WSOP Commish. Pollack excelled on a […]

Posted in WSOP | Comments (1)
Nov
09
2009

Hans “Tuna” Lund Musings

“You’ve got to have the heart of a lion — play fearless, don’t be afraid and, when you roar, they better back up.” – Hans “Tuna” Lund. It was probably arrogance. But by early 2007, I figured I had met most all of the “old school” players who still had game. A lot of them […]

Posted in Professional Poker Players | Comments Off on Hans “Tuna” Lund Musings
Oct
24
2009

Wil’s Big Bang and Pauly’s Finger

“Game over, Moonpie.” If you missed The Big Bang Theory this week, you missed this line getting deliciously delivered by Wil Wheaton. Wil plays his “delightfully evil” alter ego while tilting Sheldon in a card game called the Mystic Wizards of Ka’a. Up until this week, I had only ever seen Wil play poker. It […]

Posted in Poker Bloggers | Comments (1)
Oct
21
2009

Embracing Uncertainty: Civil War Generals and Poker

This 2005 PokerPages article was inspired by a chat at a cocktail party. Poker was all the rage and people were curious about the way in which I made my living. While much has been written about the similarities between war and poker (as in David Apostolico’s Tournament Poker And The Art Of War), a […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (3)
Oct
18
2009

Poker and Nudity: Show Me Something New

Using a Swimsuit Edition-esque model, ESPN Magazine has released its Body Issue, featuring athletes in various stages of undress. Poker gets its due, with this picture of Scotty Nguyen, Jennifer Harman, Phil Hellmuth and Daniel Negreanu. I have no beef with the magazine’s selection. I feel our fearless foursome pretty much represent the field of […]

Posted in Professional Poker Players | Comments (4)
Oct
14
2009

Protecting Your Assets

Note: I wrote this article for PokerPages in 2005. It started from a pitch I made to Capital Sports and Entertainment (the company that represents Lance Armstrong). I wanted to see if they would start a business unit dedicated to representing professional poker players. As part of my pitch, I wrote three commercials: Phil Hellmuth […]

Posted in Professional Poker Players | Comments (3)
Oct
10
2009

Bye Bye Birdie and PokerPages

I sat on the steps of my back deck, talking on the phone to Michael Casselli in the UK. He was part of the effort to start up a new poker magazine. It was 2004 and the post-Moneymaker poker boom was in full swing. They were looking for a “gossip” column — sigh. Lou Krieger […]

Posted in Online Poker, Poker Media | Comments (4)
Oct
04
2009

The Omaha Tell: Andy Beal Kicked the Oracle’s Ass

It’s an age-old adage in the investment world: Buy low and sell high. Everyone rolls their eyes when they hear it — as if it were that easy. The latest Forbes 400 has been published, listing America’s top 400 richest people. It was no surprise that the sub-headline was “Almost all of America’s richest citizens […]

Posted in Investment, Professional Poker Players | Comments (5)
Sep
27
2009

I Think Bob Stupak is Dead

The news used to be a public service; now it’s mostly a thinly veiled ratings grab where octamoms and brainless starlets get more air time than messy issues like war and unemployment. Empty soundbites, rehashed talking points and emails from uninformed listeners rule. There’s more hard news in a half hour of The Daily Show […]

Posted in Poker Media | Comments (7)
Sep
20
2009

Casting Mike and titty bingo

Since I can’t obsess about Mike’s book anymore, I’ve taken up obsessing about the movie. Part of my obsession has to do with wanting to learn how to write a screenplay. Every writng genre has its own unique challenges. The limitations of haiku are vastly different than an article. An article is vastly different than […]

Posted in Mike Matusow | Comments (14)