Annie Duke

Join me to support 1736 Crisis Center

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 23:30:02 -0800

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

February 05, 2010

Contact: Tobi Quintiliani, Senior Director, 1736 Family Crisis Center (310) 543-9900 ext. 210

Times New Roman

The Annie Duke Texas Hold-Em Poker Tournament to Benefit

1736 Family Crisis Center

April 3^rd, 2010 2:30pm

Los Angeles, CA - Please join Annie Duke, Poker Celebrity famous for her poker victories and contributions to promoting the game, and Celebrity Tournament Director Dianna Donofrio-Trigatzi along with sponsors Toyota Financial Services, TB Wineries and Gallery of Dreams, for a fun-filled evening of poker, laughter, an international dinner buffet and celebration - and victory against domestic violence. Annie will be hosting a Texas Hold-Em Poker Tournament and each hand played will be a strong step forward in ending domestic violence. All proceeds from this tournament will go to benefit, 1736 Family Crisis Center.

"On Saturday, April 3, 2010, I will be hosting a poker tournament with all proceeds going to 1736 Family Crisis Center. This tournament will take place at the Bicycle Club Casino in Bell Gardens, CA. I invite you to consider joining me as a sponsor, player or spectator and help this nonprofit agency whose work I admire. 1736 Family Crisis Center offers life-saving services to domestic violence victims and abused, homeless youth. I firmly believe that every man, woman and child has the right to live their lives in a healthy and safe environment and to conduct their lives without emotional, physical, or sexual abuse or the fear of such abuse." Annie Duke

1736 Family Crisis Center operates an emergency youth shelter in Hermosa Beach and four shelters for domestic violence victims and their children who are escaping severe abuse, located throughout Los Angeles County in confidential locations. Through the Center's five shelters, three clinics, five 24-hour emergency response stations and outreach services, 25,000 abuse victims and children were helped in 2009. The most severe cases seen in hospital emergency rooms, courts, public protective services and social service agencies throughout LA were taken into 1736 Family Crisis Center's Care.

1736 Family Crisis Center relies 100% on grants and donations to provide these much-needed services to domestic violence victims and abandoned youth. In this uncertain economic climate, the nonprofits are being hit the hardest, and sadly an unstable economy statistically fuels domestic violence across the country. So help out by joining in to play poker, and with each hand played, be a part of the progress of peace as we help to end domestic violence.

Annie's Texas Hold-Em Poker Tournament will be April 3^rd at 2:30 pm at the Bicycle Club Casino. The buy-in is $350.00 with $100.00 re-buys available for the first hour. 1^st prize is $10,000.00 cash, 2^nd prize is a private poker lesson with Annie Duke. The final 10 players will receive prizes. Buy-Ins or donations can be sent to 1736 Family Crisis Center, 2116 Arlington Ave., Suite 200, Los Angeles, CA 90018, Attn: Poker Tournament. Buy-ins or spectator admissions can be purchased by accessing 1736 FCC's website - www.1736fcc.org or at the Bicycle Club Casino's website www.thebike.com.

Please contact Tobi Quintiliani, Senior Director, for more information on tournament buy-ins or sponsorship opportunities. (310) 543-9900 ext. 210. www.1736fcc.org

Sugar: The Bitter Truth

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 18:50:02 -0800

Right after I posted my rant about the High Fructose Corn Syrup commercials, someone shared this wonderful video with me. In it, Dr. Robert Lustig walks you through a thorough explanation of why fructose is so bad for you. I will warn you, this video is 1hr 30 mins long. But it is well worth the time to watch it the whole way through. I have never seen such an eloquent explanation of the difference between glucose and fructose. This video really shows you how ridiculous and evil those HFCS commercials really are. Lustig demonstrates that it is clearly fructose, not fat, that is responsible for the obesity and diabetes epidemics in our country. Even baby formula has fructose in it! And we are seeing overweight 6 month olds now. No wonder!

Anyway, please watch this. It is eye opening.

Click here to view the embedded video.

What the hell is up with these corn syrup commercials?

Sun, 24 Jan 2010 02:20:02 -0800

Ok–so I seriously have to rant here. These high fructose corn syrup commercials on TV are seriously driving me out of my mind and making me so angry. It is so sick that they are even allowed on the air. Recently, I just finished reading Michael Pollan’s brilliant book In Defense of Food

By total coincidence, I happened to see the latest in these commericial abominations right as I was finishing up this book about why processed foods are so bad for you. The latest commercial from the high fructose corn syrup people goes something like this:

Mom 1 is pouring some sort of neon red food colored corn syrup filled water concoction into cups that are clearly for her child’s birth day. mom 2 sees this.

Mom 2: Wow! You must not really love your kid.

Mom 1: Why?

Mom 2: Because you are serving that stuff and you know what they say about high fructose corn syrup.

Mom 1: What do they say?

Mom 2: (looks confused) Um…Um…Um…

Mom 1: That it is made from corn. It is all natural, just like sugar? That just like sugar it is fine in moderation?

Mom 2 then smiles, embarrassed, and picks up a cup of the corn syrup water and begins drinking it.

When I saw this the first time sitting alone in my hotel room at Caesars I actually yelled at the tv. I mean there are so many things wrong with this bullshit commercial but I will highlight a few here.

1) Somehow there is an assumption here that because Mom 2 can’t actually articulate what it is that is wrong with high fructose corn syrup that the HFCS is not bad for you. That her lack of knowledge about the metabolic problems with the stuff some how takes away any validity to her initial assertion that it is bad for you. First, that is like saying that because I don’t know exactly what it is that cyanide does to you other than that it is poison that somehow it can’t harm me. Second, and more importantly, this really speaks to advertisers ability to prey on people’s lack of critical thinking skills. They are counting on the fact that many people actually will believe the BS that because Mom 2 can’t explain the problem that the corn syrup is then fine to eat.

Her answer should have been something like, “I don’t know the exact metaqbolic processes that are involved here but I do know that since the introduction of HFCS America has gotten super fat and 1 in 3 people have Type II diabetes now which is directly related to the introduction of high fructose corn syrup in our diets. The fact that I don’t know why that is doesn’t mean that the relationship just goes away.”

2) I think that regardless of what you think about HFCS an appropriate response would have been, “Hey…you could have fed your child JUICE instead of this crap sugar water. Are you seriously trying to tell me that you think water dyed and filled with HFCS is the BEST choice for your child? Over JUICE? Really, lady?” Now, I know juice has its issues. I don’t let my kids drink juice almost at all. But that aside, juice..made from actual fruit, is surely better than fake sugar crap regardless of your take on corn syrup or whether you can express that it is bad for you. I mean…seriously…the lady is choosing empty sugar water over juice. Come on, people.

2) I am very angry at the misuse of the word “natural.” The ad people are manipulating that word equating natural with good for you. But hemlock is natural. poison mushrooms are natural. HEROIN is natural. Could you imagine a commercial where the mom 2 says,”I can’t believe you are giving your child heroin” and mom 1 says, “Why? Because it is natural? Because it comes from a plant, just like spinach?” That is basically what they are saying here. HFCS comes from corn which is natural and, they are implying, therefore good for you. But natural does not mean good for you. It just means occurring in nature. Like big, angry hippos that charge and kill you.

(BTW, there is a similar issue with the label “multigrain” on packages. We assume that means whole grain and, therefore, better for your health. But it actually just means more than on type of flour, all of which could be bleached and white and stripped of all nutritive value).

3) In saying that high fructose corn syrup is just corn there is an implication that the effect on the body HCFS has is the same as corn. But that is patently ridiculous because that asserts that the form in which a substance is delivered to the body does not change the effect it has. So that assumes that chewing coca leaves, for example, has the same effect on the body that smoking cocain has which has the same effect as shooting up cocaine. Cocaine…all natural because it comes from coca leaves. Retarded. Snorting heroin is not the same at shooting it. Eating an apple has a different effect on the body than drinking apple juice. Cheese and milk are not the same. The sugars in the corn delivered in absence of the corn itself (with all its fiber and other nutrients) have an effect on the pancreas that is quite different that eating corn whole. And according to Mark Bittman, there is at least one study that has found a compound in HFCS that directly causes diabetes. Not so for corn alone. If you are interest in Mark Bittman’s books check out

Now, I am not saying that corn itself doesn’t have problems. It does. You can read Bittman or Pollan to learn more about the problems with corn and soy and the subsidies and whatnot. But corn is certainly much better for you than high fructose corn syrup just like juice is certainly a better choice than some crazy neon red water filled with sugar.

Anyway..the issue I am having with the stupid commercials is that they just assume most Americans are stupid enough to throw all critical thinking skills out the window. They assume we are not smart enough to figure out that juice would surely be a better choice, that we are too dumb to know that an inability to articulate why a product is bad for us does not prove that it is not bad for us, that we don’t get that natural does not equal good for you and that we are so dumb we couldn’t possibly figure out that the solid form of a food (corn) might have a different effect on the body than the liquid form of its distilled sugars.

These commercials are, in a word, insulting.

Ringing in the new year with bad decisions

Mon, 04 Jan 2010 17:50:02 -0800

Okay so it is a New Year and to ring it in we found out that our government is still not as good as most poker players at decision making. I am talking about the TSA's response to the Nigerian guy who tried to blow up a plane headed for Detroit. If you wanted to give a text book example of resulting you would use the TSA's response to this to demonstrate why resulting is so bad. So, this guy decides he is going to light his underpants on fire to blow up an international flight headed for Detroit in the last 20 minutes (during its descent). I just love saying the guy tried to light his underpants on fire. That is fun. I mean you can't make that stuff up. Luckily, the underpants bomb malfunctioned and some astute passengers managed to wrestle the guy to the ground before any real damage could be done.

So, what was the TSA's response to this? Well they decided they would stop people from being able to do ANYTHING during the last hour of a flight. And by anything I mean using laptops or playing games on your phone or getting up to go pee (yes, no peeing no matter how urgent during the last hour of the flight). Why is this so stupid? Because it is classic resulting. You can't fight terrorism by putting policies in place that only prevent attacks or attempted attacks that have already happened. Trying to protect against specific scenarios doesn't work. First, someone can certainly blow up a plane in the first hour of a flight too (and still be near dense population). They could also blow the plane up in the middle of the flight or 61 minutes before the flight ends. Second, if you protect against very specific attacks you are being ineffective because terrorists will just work around whatever security you have in place because there are too many ways for terrorists to attack. Third, and probably most importantly, the threat of terrorism is actually quite small. The chances that you will die by terrorist attack are minuscule. So to inconvenience so many to protect against some specific scenario makes no sense and is, in fact, just fear mongering. Because aside from making us all afraid the protections don't really do anything.

Take the example of the prohibitions on liquids put in place as a reaction to an attempted attack on a plane with a liquid explosive (resulting again). The prohibition against bringing liquid in a container more than 3 oz doesn't do anything. Someone could bring many 3 oz containers of liquid and mix them up into enough explosive to bring the plane down. We all know that. If it takes 12 oz of liquid to create an explosive, the rules don't prohibit 12 oz of liquid from coming on board. They just prevent it from all being in the same container. So the rule it silly and just an inconvenience to all the people not trying to blow up planes because it doesn't do anything to stop the people that are. On a more important note, just because one person tried to blow a plane up using a liquid doesn't mean that someone won't try to blow a plane up using a solid (see underpants guys for details). So the prohibition on liquids doesn't really keep us any safer, just more inconvenienced.

The fact is that there are too many specific targets and specific plans to protect against. The only way to really keep us safe is to use all the money wasted on these silly procedures borne of resulting and put that money into intelligence and surveillance. That is how you actually prevent attacks because if you have good intelligence and surveillance you can catch the bad guys no matter what they are targeting who how, even if it is a target you never thought of or a completely new method of attack. Good intelligence is blind to method. And that is why it actually works where resulting does not.

Part of the reason that resulting is so bad is that terrorists don't care if they get caught. That is because there are only two results to attempting an attack: 1) it works which is a win for the terrorists. 2) The terrorist gets caught which that becomes a huge news story which then freaks out the public and makes the target country or population terrified and scared. That is also a win for the terrorists. Security measures only really work if the perpetrator does not want to ever get caught.

Anyway, there is a fantastic article on this here

It is really a good read.

Oh…and Happy New year!

Vegan Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 23:20:05 -0700

Yesterday I did a ton of baking for Joe’s homecoming from New Jersey. As you might recall, Joe spent the weekend in New Jersey dressed like a giant cockroach.

I can’t get enough of that picture.

Anyway, Joe had been really down lately because he just got tested for food allergies and, not surprisingly, he is allergic to dairy. He also happens to be allergic to a few other things like malt and baker’s yeast and tomato but it is the dairy that has been really bumming him out because it really eliminates a lot of food that get served in restaurants and we all know how much Joe loves going out to restaurants.

So, for his homecoming I decided I would bake up a vegan storm so he would have lots of yummy goodness to eat and maybe he would feel a little better about his dairy allergy. I started off with a ridiculously good marble cake and then made these pumpkin chocolate chip cookies:

I posted that picture to twitter and facebook and got a ton of requests for the recipe so I am posting it here. I adapted the recipe from this awesome book I found at Barnes and Noble this weekend which really inspired the baking frenzy.

These cookies are so yummy and 100% dairy free. You wouldn’t guess it as my kids have declared them amazing. Even Maud, my 14 yr old, who is hardly effusive with her praise told me tonight that they were the best cookies ever. I am sure it pained her terribly to do so

So here is the recipe:

2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup margarine (softened)
1/2 cup unbleached cane sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a small bowl combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt.

In a large bowl bowl cream the sugar, brown sugar and margarine with an electric hand mixer. Add the pumpkin and vanilla and mix well.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until just incorporate then fold in teh chocolate chips.

Grease your baking sheets or line with parchment paper. Drop heaping tablespoons of the dough on the baking sheets 2 inches apart. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until cookies are lightly browned on the edges. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheets about 15 minutes then finish cooling on a rack.

If storing the cookies, make sure to store in a container with a loosely fitting lid as the cookies are very moist.

Makes about 3 dozen cookies.

Web Surfing when Joe is out of Town

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 13:30:02 -0700

Last night after putting the kiddies to bed I found myself a little bored because Joe is out of town in New Jersey filming a web series pilot for a friend. He is mainly spending his time dressed as a giant cockroach.

Don’t ask But I love him!

Anyway, so in my surfing I happened upon Jason Calacanis’ blog and while surfing through that discovered Improv Everywhere. If you aren’t familiar with them you should check out their You Tube page but basically the idea is that they do guerrilla improv out in the world. It is pretty cool. Here is my favorite:

Click here to view the embedded video.

I just love the concept of doing basically art installations but using people. The reactions of the crowds to the guerrilla improv is probably the best part. People really enjoy it in a completely unexpected away.

This morning when I woke up my daughter, Lucy, shared this video with me which made for an awfully nice way to start my day. Enjoy!

Click here to view the embedded video.

As you can see, I get a lot accomplished when Joe is out of town.

Momversation!

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 19:40:04 -0700

I am really excited about getting involved as a guest panelist with this site Momversation I have a lot to say about parenting, having raised 4 kids. And the biggest thing I have to say about it is that everyone has their own opinion and there are definitely many ways to the right answer…the right answer being a happy kid who knows their parents love them. I think Momversation captures that perfectly, allowing parents to have conversations on all sorts of parenting issues from homeschooling (my kids are not homeschooled) to circumcision (my son is not circumcised) to homework, which is the topic a started a conversation about.

My son just started 6th grade and he has 2 hours of a homework a night which I think is completely bananas. Whatever happened to study hall? What happened to family time? What happened to after school activities? I can tell you what happened to after school activities: when we went in for orientation this year they told us to strongly consider eliminating after school activities so that the kids could get their homework done before dinner. That’s ridiculous but in LA the school my son goes to actually assigns less homework than other schools so I feel like I don’t have much of an option outside of homeschooling which is not an option for our family.

Being subversive I still have Leo in woodworking and a fitness class after school and my ex husband often plays racketball with him in the afternoons. I guess we are just rebels

So here is my Momversation episode about it.

Funny Billy Ray Cyrus Send Up

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 11:30:03 -0700

Man…it has been a long time since I posted a blog. I have been without a computer for two weeks! Long story short: Apparently some housekeeping staff at hotels think it is wise to move people’s laptops to the top shelves of closets so said people can’t find them at 6 in the morning. So I ended up down in Aruba for the Ultimatebet.com Aruba Poker Classic with no computer which was, frankly, quite liberating. What wasn’t liberating was coming back to 1200 emails that needed attention. Oh well…

Anyway, I want to blog all voer the place about The Feast but that will have to wait till later as I am getting ready right now to head out to San Manuel Indian Bingo and Casino to announce our next big Ante Up for Africa event. ON October 29th we are having a celebrity filled and poker pro filled tournament that starts at 7pm. The tribe is donating $500K to our cause! It is going to be amazing so I hope everyone can find the time to come out and support the event.

In the meantime, I don’t really watch the late night talk shows but I just found this video from Jimmy Fallon and it is definitely worth sharing. Enjoy!

Baking baking baking

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 18:00:05 -0700

In the interest of complete procrastination (and it was the kids’ first day of school today so wanted to do something special) I spent the afternoon baking. Believe it nor not, I do quite a bit of that. First, I am not a believer in processed foods so I tend to make most of the food we eat from scratch. Second, my kids have a variety of food allergies so I kind of have to make things from scratch even if I didn’t have some sort of stance on processed foods. That means I have to make everything dairy free, egg free and vanilla free.

So today I made homemade cornbread which I will serve with the pork chops for dinner tonight.

Yum! Dairy Free/Egg Free Cornbread!

And then for good measure I also made pumpkin cupcakes with crunchy streusel topping.

Joe has already declared these delicious!

Joe had one warm, right out of the oven. mmmmm. I am cleansing today so I have to wait till tomorrow to try them but they smelled good anyway I have to say, it was all better than working. I need to finish the curriculum for the new cash game academy I am teaching the 19th at the Bicycle Club in LA. Ali Nejad will be there and I only have the first day written. When faced with the challenge of writing the second day’s courseware, baking seemed like the obvious answer.

By the way, my favorite go to cookbooks for cooking for these allergy laden kids are:

This has the best cupcakes ever. Most people who try them like them better than cupcakes made the regular way. Even if my kids were not allergic I would use this book for my cupcakes. They are ridiculously good.

I don’t actually use this book much for baking but it has some amazing recipes for entrees and appetizers that are all dairy free. The herbed shrimp is amazing and the book has one of the best chicken parmesan recipes I have ever seen…yes…dairy free!

This is my go to baking cookbook and is the book I used to make the cornbread and muffins today. It does have entree recipes but I haven’t really ever used it for that. The banana bread recipe in this book is amazing as is pretty much everything else I have made from the baking section. I swear, dairy free baked goods are actually better. I know it sounds crazy but I really believe that.

Anyway, thanks to a heads up from Rafe Furst, here is a TED talk about processed foods that is pretty eye opening:

Just discovered That Mitchell and Webb Look

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 22:40:03 -0700

Emily Jillette pointed me to this sketch about homeopathy a while back…

Click here to view the embedded video.

So I was showing it to someone today and I started exploring what Mitchell and Webb have on youtube. These guys are funny as hell and I particularly liked this sketch…

Click here to view the embedded video.

I am not sure why I have never heard of these guys before but they are as funny as Mr. Show with Bob and David which no one seemed to know about while that was on either. Here is my favorite sketch ever from that show…

Click here to view the embedded video.

Obviously, you recognize David Cross in the sketch. That is the first place I became aware of him. I think you can get the DVD’s of the Mr. Show with Bob and David.and I would highly recommend that for anyone who loves off the wall comedy. Kids in the Hall is awesome, too. Speaking of which…

Click here to view the embedded video.

Ante Up for Africa on ESPN Tuesday Night!

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 22:10:03 -0700

Tomorrow night is the big night! Ante Up for Africa is its own episode this year as part of the World Series of Poker coverage so please tune in and check it out. I am so excited for the awareness that this episode of TV will create for the humanitarian crisis in Darfur. Here is a video that the folks over at Enough! created that shows how amazing the event was this year. We had so many A-List celebrites come out to support the cause and even more amazing poker pros. So tune in tomorrow night to get the full scoop!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Greg Rutter Part 2

Sun, 09 Aug 2009 14:50:03 -0700

Well…after practically not having left my computer I have finally finished the second half of Greg Rutter’s list. Here are some of my favorites from the second half.

Click here to view the embedded video. Click here to view the embedded video. Click here to view the embedded video.

I don’t think Pinky is getting adopted

And last but not least there is this crazy wedding toast. I must say I think it is really cool that this woman’s friends did this for her but if anyone did that to me I would kill them. Then again, I walked out of Wicked.

Click here to view the embedded video.

And here is a last one not on the list that my assistant pointed out to me…dumbest cop ever…

Click here to view the embedded video.

Dude stole the pot from his police station. Duh.

Greg Rutter's Definitive List of The 99 Things You Should Have Already Experienced On The Internet Unless You're a Loser or Old or Something

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 02:00:02 -0700

Well...I have been completely wasting time for three days now with Greg Rutter's Definitive List of The 99 Things You Should Have Already Experienced On The Internet Unless You're a Loser or Old or Something

This is a list of 100 cool things to see on the net...from the dancing baby to numa numa. I am embarrassed to say that I hadn't seen most of them before finding this list (thanks to Emily Jillette over on twitter!). Maybe I should be proud of that because it means that when I am generally on my computer I am working. But I am not proud dammit! I am embarrassed because I feel really, really unhip right now that I was unaware that most of this stuff existed. And the majority of this list is really, really funny so I was missing out on some pretty good hilarious crap by being so out of the hip internet inner circle. It makes me feel old. Poker News

Okay. Enough of my own neuroses pouring out of me here. I am half way through the list...yes in three days I am only half way...and here are a few of my favorites:

Click here to view the embedded video. Click here to view the embedded video. Click here to view the embedded video.

And...don't watch these two if you are easily offended but boy are these super funny if you're not easily offended...

Click here to view the embedded video. Click here to view the embedded video.

Enjoy...I will post more when I get through the last half!

Drunk History

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 17:00:05 -0700

Well...this is a pretty sick idea but, as with many sick ideas, so funny. Joe showed me these videos from Funny or Die last night where the premise is some guy or girl gets drunk and then relates an incident in American History. These are hilarious because they have actors like Michael Cera or Jack Black reenact the drunken version of history. I'd love to hear your comments on which one you like the best. I really loved Michael Cera as Alexander Hamilton in Volume 1 using a cell phone. But my favorite is Volume 3 because the girl's hiccups are incorporated into the reenactment. So...enjoy! Poker News

Drunk History Vol. 1 - Featuring Michael Cera from Michael Cera

Drunk History vol. 2 - Featuring Jack Black from Jack Black

Drunk History vol. 2.5 - Featuring Jack Black from Jack Black

Drunk History vol. 3 - Featuring Danny McBride from Danny McBride

Drunk History 4 - Featuring Paul Schneider - watch more funny videos

Lobbying in Washington for Sudan

Sat, 01 Aug 2009 18:00:02 -0700

I’ve been away from my blog for over a week because I was so busy in DC. On the 20th I arrived in DC with my kids in tow to start a three day stint lobbying for Poker and Sudan with a DC vacation planned after I was done. The first two days I was lobbying the poker issue (I’ll get to that in my next blog). The last day of lobbying was spent on Sudan, in specific The Comprehensive Peace Agreement between North and South Sudan and what can be done about Darfur. I lobbied with representatives from both Refugees International and The Enough Project. It was an amazing day. I was moved by the passion that the representatives of both of these organizations have for the issue. Melanie Teff spoke on behalf of Refugees International and Omer Ismail and Maggie Flick spoke on behave of Enough Project. Omer also on the executive staff of Darfur Peace and Development Organization, an NGO that Ante Up for Africa gives funds to. All of these individuals are remarkable and passionate.

Matt Dillion created this moving video on the issues facing South Sudan. The video really shows why the CPA is not working right now and the challenges that South Sudan is facing.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The issue, as Omer so eloquently put it, is that Sudan cannot be approchaed piecemeal, trying to solve Darfur while ignoring the South or focusing back on the South while ignoring Darfur. If Sudan isn’t approached as a whole, the conflict will never be resolved and if Sudan collapses into conflict then the whole of East Africa is at risk. Omer Ismail, of course, talks much more eloquently on the topic than I could ever hope to.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I wrote a blog for Enough on my experience. You can read that here. Omer and I also shot some video recapping the experience.

Click here to view the embedded video.

All-in for Kids Tournament this Sunday at Hollywood Park!

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 13:10:02 -0700

Please come join me for the 6th Annual All-in for Kids Poker Tournament benefiting The Alliance for Children’s Rights. Last year I won this baby so I am looking to get dethroned by someone When we got heads-up last year, I had a flight to catch. So I asked the guy if he was going to donate his winnings back to the charity (they withhold half the prize pool for the charity and half goes to the players). Now, of course, it is a personal choice whether you donate the money back. It is not required and the charity benefits no matter what. But I fully intended to donate all my winnings back. The thing was, though, that I had a flight to catch so I really just wanted to chop the tournament and get out of there. But the guy I was playing told me he was not donating all his winnings so I felt I had to play the tournament out. I won the heads up match and donated the money to the charity then ran out of there to catch my flight!

This year I have another flight to catch since I am heading to DC on the red eye that night for National Poker Week. I am going to be part of the Poker Players Alliance fly-in where PPA members from all over come to DC and lobby Congress for a few days. I have done a big fly-in before and it is an amazing experience and very effective for getting members to pay attention to the rights of poker players.

But before I head off for that, Joe and I are coming to Hollywood Park this Sunday (the 19th of July) so I can try to defend my title. Check-in is at 12:30 and the tournament starts at 1:30 pm. The buy-in is $500+30 and there is a second chance tournament for $150+15. It is a great cause and I hope people will come out and support it and have fun playing poker at the same time. Please explore the website and if it is a charity you find some passion for hopefully you can come out and join me Sunday See you there!

Warning: Do not watch if you are easily offended

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 21:00:03 -0700

Okay..I seriously think I am crushing on James Gunn. First off, his tweets are really freaking funny (I particularly enjoyed his #tweetsfromthegrave) Second, he is the brains behind PG Porn which is just one of the seriously funniest concepts I have ever seen. I even spent a good part of an afternoon making my mother watch all of the episodes. Yes. My 69 yr old mother. Now, to be fair, my mom has a really good sense of humor and loved every one of them. But I would have to think something is so well worth it to show anything with the word "porn" in it to my 69 yr old mom. Now that I think of it, that is actually kind of creepy. I watched something parodying porn with my mom. Ewwwww. Whatever. Look. It's funny. Okay? get off my case. Sheesh.

So I present to you Squeal Happy Whores. If you are easily offended **please do not watch this** I hope you aren't actually easily offended because if you are you are really missing out. Squeal Happy Whores is one of the funniest things I have ever seen as it marries the silliness of most porn with my absolute hatred of most musicals (Chicago and All That Jazz notwithstanding...really anything Bob Fosse to be fair). Honestly, I walked out of Wicked. No. Really. I walked out of Wicked.

Poker News

Moving Story of Escaping the Khmer Rouge

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:20:03 -0700

This talk is from TED and is the story of Sophal Ear's escape from Cambodia. Stories like this affirm why we all should care about refugees.

Poker News

Last dose of Matusow for WSOP 2009

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 02:00:03 -0700

Well, my WSOP 2009 has come to an end and left me sick as a dog. I started feeling punky during the Ante Up for Africa tournament and went on a serious downslide since then. Stuffy nose, cough, headache. All around nasty cold. And to add insult to injury I got sick just as the Main Event was starting. I went in to play on Sunday, day 1c, after considering if there was any real possibility that I would be significantly better for Day 1d on Monday. I determined the answer was no after waking up on Sunday morning and was obviously right since it is now Tuesday and I am still sick sick sick. The weird thing is I actually played really well on Sunday just ran into some ugly hands and by ugly I mean opponents calling raises with K6 and hitting 66 both times. In one case my opponent called a big reraise with the hand. Bleh. That is why I love the main event! The good news is that Joe is still in with over 65K in chips heading into his day 2 tomorrow. My brother also lived to fight till day 2 and Erik Seidel is currently hanging on by his finger nails playing Day 1a. Chris Ferguson is still in as well. Lots of people to still root for Poker News

Sadly, Mike Matusows's WSOP came to an end today as he got knocked out on day 2a. That is mainly sad because it means I won't have another opportunity for a while to video him again. So as a parting gift, here is the last video I managed to capture of The Mouth before he headed off into the sunset. As an extra, you get a taste of Phil Hellmuth tilted by Matusow's chicken wings. Yes, you heard that right. Chicken Wings. Is there nothing that won't tilt Mr. Hellmuth?

Click here to view the embedded video.

Ante Up for Africa is a huge success!

Sun, 05 Jul 2009 16:50:04 -0700

Thursday was our 3rd annual Ante Up for Africa tournament at the World Series of Poker and it was a huge success. Three years ago Don Cheadle, Norman Epstein and I founded Ante Up for Africa, a charity to raise money for relief efforts in Darfur through poker events. When we founded the charity we approached Jeffrey Pollack, the Commissioner of the World Series of Poker, who was so enthusiastic about the cause that he jumped in with both feet and had the WSOP partner with us. AUFA became an official WSOP event and our first year we raised $700K. Before Thursday our charity had raised $2.1m for the Darfuri people.

This year we were lucky enough to have the addition of ESPN covering the event as a full episode of their WSOP coverage. We knew that would be amazing in terms of increased participation in the event but more importantly the increased awareness that the coverage will create has immeasurable value. The way to make lasting change in the region is through education and awareness because that creates passion in people, passion that gets communicated to governments and governments ultimately create change.

This year we had 138 players pony up $5K to play. We had a huge poker pro presence with Jennifer Harman, Chris Ferguson, Erik Seidel, Rafe Furst, John Hennigan and Phil Gordon all making the final table. We also had a bigger celebrity presence than ever before. Some of the celebs in attrendance were Sarah Silverman, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Jason Alexander, Nelly, Cedric the Entertainer, Herschel Walker (I love you Herschel!), Charles Barkley, Dean Cain and Brad Garrett. I, of course, went around and took pictures of a bunch of them.

Don and I giving interviews before the event

There's Don playing next to Ultimatebet.com pro Matt Graham

Cedric the Entertainer started at my table and cracked my TT with QJ!

Brad Garrett deep in thought during a hand. Maybe he is thinking about crushing me during the NBC Heads Up Challenge!

There's Superman, Dean Cain. I gave him a poker lesson a couple of months ago...

Nelly. He played in our Monte Carlo event as well.

Here's Matt Damon.

Here's Matt Damon after I asked him to give me the finger!

Jason Alexander didn't fare too well in our event but finished day 1 of the main event with 90K in chips!

There's my darling Herschel Walker.

Our event is very different than most charity events in that we withhold nothing from the prize pool. We depend on the winners to donate back a portion of their winnings and every year we have gotten very lucky with the generosity of the players. This year was no exception. Our winner, Alex Bolotin, donated half his $170K win back to us. 18 people cashed and the total money donated back topped $360K! That is what I call a successful event. The money will go mainly to Refugees International and Enough Project.

Don and I congratulate our winner, Alex Bolotin!

Thank you to everyone who came out and supported the cause and to all the generous players who ponied up $5K to play. Thank you to the poker, sports and entertainment celebrities who came out to play. And, of course, a huge thank you to all of our winners who were so generous with their donations. The money and awareness we raised Thursday will go a long way to finding a long term solution in Darfur.

I won’t let the people behind the scenes go without mention either. Without Norman Epstein we could never pull this off. Of the three founders, Norman is the one who really keeps this organization ticking while Don and I get most of the credit. Believe me, that is totally backwards! Brandon Rosen and Jeff Goldenberg get a huge nod as well for running the event on the ground. Danika Berry and Roxanne Romero did a great job on the publicity side. And, of course, there are the folks at the World Series of Poker without whom this event would never happen: Jeffrey Pollack whose vision it really was to integrate AUFA into the WSOP gets a huge shoutout. And his team is amazing with a special mention to Seth Palansky. Without all the people working behind the scenes AUFA could never be the success that it is.

Let me just say again we raised $360K! Every year I am overwhelmed by the amount of money we raise in just a single day.

Our next event will be October 29th at San Manuel Casino. Please, come join us there and help Ante Up for Africa continue to do this very important work.