Poker Articles

Well, skiing in Utah was great…until I crashed and broke my ankle!  I’m now forced to gimp limp around in my temporary cast.  This should sideline me from fighting for the next month (I was planning on taking some hardcore Japanese Ju Jitzu classes in Costa Rica per my usual), but I’ll welcome the break none the less.  I was going really fast (full of too much confidence, what else is new?) and crashed on the very last run of my second day skiing.  I ended up gathering myself and though it was painful…ended up skiing down the mountain with a broken ankle (not fun).  I went with a couple of poker buddies, Bevos_Nuts (who really is semi-nuts) and Graytambar (the nicest guy I’ve ever met and a great raw poker talent).  All and all the trip was great and I would do it all over again if I had to.  Bevo of course didn’t believe I was actually hurt and was ragging me, “Come on Maven, hurry up rock!”  At least I have the x-rays to now back me up…


A very memorable moment came the night after I crashed and burned.  We had intentions of going to eat at a nice steakhouse at the ski lodge we were staying at…only problem was, I couldn’t walk!  So, I bribed Graytambar into letting me piggy-back ride him for about a half of a mile all the way to the steakhouse in exchange for his meal (and wine, lots of it!).  This was after he’d already split a half gallon of Maker’s Mark with Bevo.  All and all a great trip and I’m looking forward to many more in the future.


I’ve spent the past couple of days in D/FW with my family.  I have a private training session lined up with a poker player in Dallas in a couple of days which I look forward to.  After that I’m off to Costa Rica for a week to pick up my girlfriend and take her back to Vegas with me.  Starting March 1st I’ll be competing in a Bluff Magazine challenge where they put $200 in my Lock Poker account and I’ll compete for one month with 20 other players to see who can run up the most amount of profits.  Winner of the contest gets the front cover of the magazine.  As usual, I plan on putting out 1000% effort and will do my best to win the contest and grace the magazine’s front cover (wouldn’t it be great if pocketfives had a monthly hardcopy magazine?).


Below is a quote from Chuck Liddell’s New York Times best-selling book Iceman which translates well to the field of poker:


“Being mentally tough is not a sometimes thing.  You don’t turn it on and off.  If you’re not mentally tough in the gym while you are training, then when you’re challenged in a fight, you will fold.  It doesn’t mean you have to be balls-out every time you work out.  But, when you are being pushed in training, you can’t just fold a couple of times because you feel that you’ve done enough that day.  Before you know it, when you get in a fight and are tired and beat-up and in a bad position, you will give up, too.  That was the point of the beatings.  If you were going to fight, you’d better be prepared—for anything.”