As mentioned in a previous post, I’ve had a bit of a bacon backlog. I had received the Bacon of the Month packages for February and March but hadn’t had any opportunities to cook them in someone else’s kitchen. This weekend I was able to cook up the March package at the Wall Street Poker Second Chance Tournament at Jamie’s place. I was hoping to cook both month’s bacon but the Saturday event fell through for me. So I still have another package waiting to be cooked up - any volunteers?

March’s bacon was a peppered country bacon from Missouri. This bacon was sweet and chewy and not as peppery as I expected. I was hoping the bacon would be a bit more spicy.

Cooking the bacon in Jamie’s Kitchen

Once again Full Tilt Poker and AlCantHang (along with Hoyazo, Mookie, Miami Don, CrackNAces, and the Riverchasers) are offering up some great prizes for the BBT3. Through the generousity of Full Tilt, I was able to go to Australia to root for Jeciimd in the Aussie Millions in January. Maybe I’ll see you at the WSOP this year!

Brought to you by the Online Poker Room Full
Tilt Poker and the Dead Money Poker Blog by AlCantHang

One of my bounty prizes from the WPBT Winter Classic 2007 was the book Texas Poker Wisdom by Johnny Hughes. I won it from him when my AQ of hearts flopped the nut flush to his A9 to knock him out of the tourney.

A while back I had read quite a few stories on the 2+2 forum about poker games and players in Texas, little nuggets of poker wisdom from Johnny. I was excited that he was joining the bloggers for the Winter Gathering - I was looking forward to hearing some of these tales in person. Unfortunately I never really got the chance to socialize with the man, I just spent a little time with him at the opposite end of a poker table. Luckily I won his book.

I really won’t go into a full book review, I’ll leave that to the pros linked below. That said, it was a fun read filled with plenty of sage advice for all poker players as well as colorful tales of poker in Texas. As a former resident of Lubbock, Texas, the book brought back a lot of memories of my time there. Thank you Johnny for reminding me of some of the things I loved about Lubbock.

Buy the book

Some reviews:

Dr. Pauly
Gary Wise

Dawn Summers has posted her last hilarious report of trip so here’s my final synopsis.

Melbourne - yay! Civilization!

Lots of walking - Mad secretly torturing DS

Crown Casino - Pauly and Change100, lots of pros: Phil Laak - cute, Shannon Elizabeth - who cares?

Hotel keys - slippery in DS’s fingers

Mad’s birthday: Australian Open - Tsongas - lots of cute tennis guys (and of course I don’t mean those little boys behind us) - need I say more?

City Circle Tram - DS lifesaver

Poker - winning lots. Yay!

Restaurants - no ice for DS. More “bacon” for Mad

Touristy stuff: Melbourne Museum - fun and sad, Old Melbourne Gaol - no go

Poker - Mad - (not in DS’s post since she was playing Scrabble) I did pretty good that night, up $725. As I proudly took my $1K + to the cashier I noticed a guy in front of me cashing out racks and racks of black chips for over $50K. I felt really small when I saw all those racks. After cashing out, the guy turned around and I saw it was David Grey. Okay, back to the regularly scheduled synopsis.

Scrabble - DS - Kiwi Chris inducing giggles

Touristy stuff: Old Melbourne Gaol, The State Library

Poker - what else were you expecting?

St. Kilda’s Beach - rain rain go away. Restaurant - ice? service? escargot? Last bacon for Mad.

Touristy stuff: National Gallery of Victoria, Queen Victoria Market - who closes their market at 4 on a Saturday? , Chinatown

Poker - broken record now?

Last full day in Melbourne: DS - Scrabble tournament. Mad - stepping outside DS’s post again…I wandered around the city for the day, visited the Fitzroy and Collingwood neighborhoods and Melbourne’s 423 Smith Street (a shoe outlet). Took lots of photos of graffiti and visited Nick at the Lightning Ridge Opal Mines.

Poker* - um, problem with that?

Aussie Millions After Party with Pauly and Change100. Met Jeciimd as well.

Back to the synopsis…

Cab to airport - DS fascinated by roll down windows. Will slowly introduce her to lp records and rotary phones.

Melbourne to LAX to NYC - hot to warm to cold. Freezing to be exact.

Back home in time for work the next day.

* Number of times I got mistaken for Annie Duke - 2 1/2. Howard Lederer did a double-take when passing by my table, a drunken guy at the Aussie Millions After Party insisted on taking a photo with me, and even Ms. Duke gave me a bit of a look when I passed by her on the jet. Too funny!

Another synopsis of Dawn Summer’s hilarious posts about our trip:

Breakfast - DS - insane price, ate a bite of everything on the menu. Mad - my first serving of Australian bacon. My breakfast view:

On to Mansfield. You call this a resort? View from our cabin’s back porch:

Restaurants - order at cashiers, drinks from the bar, food served at table. Flies.

Second Australian bacon serving - lamb noisettes wrapped in bacon:

Internet access? Bugger off…

Bus Stop Cafe - DS ice cream lick, Mad look of horror. My third serving of Australian bacon:

Mt. Buller Beerfest - little beer, little elves and not so little arm wrestling.

Grocery Shopping - why the name change? Burger King = Hungry Jacks. Isn’t Hungry Jacks a pancake mix here?

Birds - SQUAWK!

Wine - good! Ian - nice!

Ceilidgh the Wine dog - cute to Mad, scary to DS

Mansfield Zoo - kangaroos and wallabies too!

Mansfield Country Resort - all the amenities you expect from a resort. Swimming pool, mini golf…

Bingo - no way!

Cemetery visit - beware of zombies!

Bus to Melbourne - yay!

Goodbye Mansfield

I interrupt the irregularly scheduled Aussie Millions cliff notes of Dawn Summers to bring you this PSA.

Most male poker players in Australia are hot. Looking around the room at the Star City Casino in Sydney I realized I was not surrounded by the overweight, smelly, obnoxious slobs I sometimes encounter in AC. These guys were fit and hot. Even the drinks were served by good looking men. And all that eye candy had accents to boot.

At the Crown Casino in Melbourne it was more of a mixed bag probably due to the Aussie Millions draw - but still lots of cute guys. In fact, a cute guy sat down next to me at a $2/$3 table - I looked at him from the corner of my eye and ohmigod it was Paul Wasicka. Slumming at my table!

He was really nice and I wanted to tell him that I’m a big fan but thought it was inappropriate at the table. I did, however, tell him while waiting for luggage at LAX. He blushed.

So, with the addition of Paul Wasicka, I have a “five” list similar to Dr. Pauly - no, I have not peed next to these pros, but here’s the five pros that I’ve played live poker with:

1. Paul Wasicka
2. Michael Mizrachi
3. Evelyn Ng
4. Phil Hellmuth
5. Antonio Esfandiari

Thanks Full Tilt!

I figure there is no need to rehash everything about this trip when Dawn Summers is doing a fantastic job. So for the rest of my AM trip reports I will be providing the Dawn cliff notes (apologies to Bayne for appropriating his creativity).

_______________

Flights - sleepytime for DS, hell for Mad. Stinky for both.

Sydney :

Luna Park - screaming

Harbor - pretty

Breakfast - spilled coffee

Loose animals terrify DS

The Rocks - has rocks but not as many rocks as DS expected.

Not The Rocks but some rocks in Sydney Harbor

Poker

________________

Dawn forgot to mention - while we were waiting to reboard the plane in Auckland, there was a grey-haired, balding bearded guy with a little girl playing with her barbie carryon. I told Dawn that it was David Sklansky with his latest girlfriend/protege. Here’s the proof:

Looking back at the photo I realize it can’t be his latest protege, she doesn’t look anything like a stripper.

I promised AlCantHang that I would provide bacon photos from the trip. Here’s my first full brekkie that I enjoyed at the Blackbird Cafe in the Cockle Bay Wharf.

December
I was in Maryland for the holidays when I got the email from AlCantHang about the available seats on the Full Tilt jet to Australia. I immediately wrote to him - “hell yeah, I want to go” or something like that. I sent an email to Miami Don telling him “let’s go crazy and run off to Australia.” We had been chatting sporadically since the Winter Gathering and I thought it might be fun to run away with an almost complete stranger. He said he already had beach plans with the Asshat Frat Crew - Buddy Dank, ScottMc, Hoy and cracknaces. I asked him to take lots of photos - you’ve seen this one, but boy oh boy, you should see the rest!

I didn’t hear back from Al so I figured the seats were already taken.

January
In the middle of the week before the flight to Australia Al asked me if I still wanted to go. I had pretty much pushed the thought of going out of my mind, instead thinking of a February trip to Vegas. I mentioned the offer to Tammy and she insisted I had to go. Thus started a frenzy of activity - booking a flight to LA, hotel accommodations in Sydney, info on things to do, places to see, digging warm weather clothes out of boxes. I rushed home knowing that my passport expired in 08 and thinking it may be January. Luckily it expires JUN 08 and not JAN 08. All was good. Until I realized the Al and Riggstad weren’t going, that Dawn Summers and I were taking their seats. Damn! I was so looking forward to drinking with Al down under.

Up next - NY to LA, LA to Auckland, Auckland to Melbourne, Melbourne to Sydney. In other words, hell at 35,000 ft.

No time to write up anything about my Australia trip - but check out these two blogs for more details (besides, anything Dawn Summers writes will be a million (an Aussie Million to be exact) times better than what I’ll eventually write):

Clareified
I Had Outs

I have put my photos up on flickr so you can look at them for now.

Damn it is so cold in Brooklyn!

I’m dreaming of the warm, sunny weather left behind in Australia…

Thanks again to Al and Full Tilt Poker for making this trip possible. More to follow…and yes, there are bacon photos!

Heave away, haul away…

I’m not a fanatical follower of horoscopes but at the beginning of each month I read what is in store for me for that month. I promptly forget what days are my “love days” or on which day I should ask for that raise. My December horoscope hinted that 2008 was going to be a phenomenal year for me, the luckiest year for my sign. And that December 21st through the end of January would be the luckiest of the lucky. I decided that I would make all of December and all of 2008 lucky for me.

At the beginning of December I joined about 125 poker bloggers for some good times in Las Vegas. I played in the WPBT Winter Gathering Tournament and although I didn’t win, I got lucky and won some great bounties from players that I busted out of the tournament. The first bounty I received was from Garth. He had seen a photo of me from one of the Crackhouse games and seemed to be taken with the hat I was wearing. It became a bit of a running joke among some poker bloggers. I was very excited to meet Garth so he could see the hat in person, however, when I ended his tournament run, I was a bit sad but I got this great bounty from him:

a replacement hat, and oh so appropriate for my upcoming trip to Australia. Thanks Garth!

The second bounty I won was from storyteller Johnny Hughes. I had read several of Johnny’s wonderful Texas poker tales awhile ago on the 2+2 Forum. He is sending me a copy of his book, Texas Poker Wisdom and needless to say, I’m really looking forward to reading it.

As for 2008 being lucky for me, Al has offered me one of the seats on the FullTilt jet to Australia! I’ve always wanted to go and this is perfect timing for me with work. I’m joining Dawn, California April and her friend on this jaunt down under. I’m hoping we’ll get a chance to have a drink with Pauly and Change100 although I know they’ll be busy with work. And of course we’ll be rooting for jeciimd to represent the bloggers and take down the Aussie Millions!

Right now I’m feeling like the luckiest person in the world!

I cooked the inaugural package of bacon from the Bacon of the Month Club (thanks Al!) this weekend at the I Had Outs tourney. Because Dawn’s cash games are known as the Crackhouse games, I thought I’d call the games with bacon the Smokehouse games.

The first package was an applewood smoked bacon from Vande Rose Farms. This thick, meaty bacon was a good combination of sweet and salty. More chewy than I like it (due to these hearty slabs) but very tasty nonetheless.

Photo courtesy of Dawn Summers

Cooking it up in Dawn’s kitchen:

Photo courtesy of Dawn Summers

Congratulations to the Rooster:

who won my bacon-y bounty:

when he busted me out of the WPBT Winter Gathering tournament in 12th place. He went on to win the tournament and maintain New York pride after the second-to-last New Yorker, Pauly, busted out in 11th place.

I had a ton of fun meeting so many new folks as well as hanging out with old friends. I look forward to the next gathering!

I’m heading to Las Vegas tomorrow and Matt from Ear Farm has kindly created a mix for me. I’m happy he chose The Dead Kennedys instead of Elvis!

photo courtesy of infohostels.com

Check out Ear Farm for even more mixes - the chemistry mix is fun!

Several months ago I entered AlCanthang’s essay contest to win a subscription to the Bacon of the Month club. Knowing that the competitors were talented writers, I thought I’d do a photo essay.

Although the competition was stiff (no double entendre intended) I won the grand prize.

So now I’m known in the poker blogger community as Bacon Bacini Mary. And for the big winter gathering of poker bloggers in Vegas I’ve been added to the list of prop bets for the event:

* Live re-enactment of the infamous Bacon Bikini
46. Yes +300
47. No -400

Hmmm…something tells me I might end up on next year’s list of surviving Vegas tips.