Hello dear readers! I’m writing today to ask for thoughts and advice. I want to go abroad next month to play the WCOOP, and I’m thinking of going somewhere other than Canada. Nico and his flatmate Soeren have actually invited … Read more…
This is a conclusion of a series of posts that starts here with an introduction to who these people are and why I’m driving to Las Vegas with them. Objective: Drop me off in Las Vegas. Optional: Continue on to … Read more…
Objectives: Spend the day in Zion National Park! Complete an appropriately challenging family-friendly hike, swim in the Virgin River, and get back to the campground before the gate closes at 9PM. The Emerald Pools After five days of heavy driving, … Read more…
Objective: Drive approximately 8 hours from our campground near Golden, CO to the vicinity of Zion National Park. Find a place to camp on near the park. Optional: Find a place to swim. I woke around 3:30AM. Despite the fact … Read more…
This is a continuation of a series of posts that starts here with an introduction to who these people are and why I’m driving to Las Vegas with them. Objective: Drive approximately five hours from Hays, Kansas to a campground … Read more…
Objective: Drive about seven hours and camp at Kanopolis State Park in Western Kansas. I woke around 6AM to find Jerica and Henry freshly showered and packing their things. A quick count confirmed that everyone was still alive and well, … Read more…
Objectives: Drive approximately seven hours from Pittsburgh to Hoosier National Forest, where we’d camp for the night. An Early Morning Upon telling people about this trip, Jerica and I were both bombarded with advice about long drives with kids. Much … Read more…
Objectives: Finish Packing. Retrieve Rental Car. Drive to Pittsburgh. Keep kids out of apartment during my walkthrough with landlord. “Camp” in my empty apartment. If you don’t know what I’m talking about or who these people are, see this post. … Read more…
It’s been a hectic few days. I wish I had more time to share some of the craziness with you, but the truth is that I’m not at all prepared for the Vegas road trip on which I’m about to … Read more…
I’ve driven from the east coast to Las Vegas several times, including in 2007 and 2013, but this year is going to be different. In the past, my girlfriend was my only companion. This year, I’ll have three children under the age … Read more…
After the boys went to sleep, Carlos and I stayed up well into in the night talking with my cousin. As I suspected, he and Carlos hit it off well. Both share a desire to live frugally and thereby give … Read more…
If you’re in or around Atlantic City this weekend, don’t forget to join Carlos, Sean, and me in the Borgata cafeteria tomorrow. We’ll be there 10AM – Noon: https://www.thinkingpoker.net/2013/10/atlantic-city-nitcast-meet-up-november-23/ I picked Carlos up at the airport, and with a few hours … Read more…
About three months ago, my girlfriend and I left Baltimore driving west. My destination was Las Vegas for the World Series of Poker, hers Austin, Texas where she’d be working for the summer. I documented that trip here and was … Read more…
If you listened to Episode 34 of the Thinking Poker Podcast, then you know that Gareth Chantler was in Istanbul during the recent protests in Taksim Square. The following is a guest post by Gareth about the experience. He didn’t … Read more…
On Wednesday morning we drove down the mesa and set off into the Arizona desert bound for Flagstaff. The way this road switchbacks through the canyons is really something and makes for some extraordinary views: Though long, hot, and largely … Read more…
My original plan for this point in the trip was to catch a flight to Vegas while Emily continued on alone, stopping at several national parks before reaching Austin. This would have put me in Las Vegas in time for … Read more…
With the luxury of a house and a driveway, we took some time Sunday morning to rearrange the car a bit make sure things were packed up right. We don’t exactly travel light on these road trips, and keeping the … Read more…
Sorry, despite my valiant efforts to keep up, this blog is a few days behind my actual progress. I arrived in Las Vegas last night and am playing my first WSOP event, the $1500 6-max, today at Noon. Now back … Read more…
Thursday began with the Truman Presidential Library and Museum. Though head and shoulders above the Lincoln one, it still wasn’t as good as some others we’ve visited, especially the Johnson and Eisenhower Museums. It was more broad historical information about … Read more…
With a lot to see on Wednesday, we got an early start. The Illinois statehouse was the first stop. Of all the statehouses we’ve visited, which is well over half of them, we found Illinois’ to be among the most … Read more…
Tuesday morning came on bright and sunny, with barely a cloud in sight. Even the ground wasn’t as wet as we expected – it was almost as though the storm had simply been a bad dream. Drying off the tent … Read more…
We woke to a foggy, humid Monday. Columbus, Ohio was our first stop. Emily is into government and politics, and she used to work at the Massachusetts state house, so we try to visit state capitols when we travel. With … Read more…
My cousin‘s oldest son was the first person awake on Sunday morning, and when he accepted that his parents weren’t ready to get out of bed yet, he came out to wake my girlfriend and me. We played with him … Read more…
I suppose the Atlantis resort is an appropriate place for a poker tournament, because the whole place is built on value betting the shit out of rich fish. Everywhere the trappings of luxury convince people to fork over absurd sums … Read more…
Sorry for the lack of updates – holidays and such, you know. It’s going to continue to be spotty through mid-January, as I’ve got a guest visiting for the next few days, then I’ll be visiting friends for a few … Read more…
Nate and my recent conversation with Gareth Chantler inspired me to continue chronicling here my travels in Europe earlier this year. When last we left off, Emily and I were in Paris. Our next destination was Munich, but I think we … Read more…
Liesse We took a bus to the Keukenhoff with the intention of visiting the world-famous tulip garden. Before going in, however, we rented bikes intending to spend an hour or two riding around the nearby tulip fields, but we ended … Read more…
I enjoyed meeting all of the other Team Online members at the PCA this year, but Richard “Tzen1” Veenman was one of my favorites. As you might imagine, these grinders were not the most extroverted bunch. It generally fell either … Read more…
This is another photo dump/trip report from my travels in Europe. If you didn’t like the last one, you’ll probably want to skip this one too. Emily and I were already planning to be in Amsterdam for the entirety of … Read more…
This is going to be a blockbuster photo dump without too much commentary and with zero (well, almost zero) poker content. If you don’t give two shits what some guy you don’t know is doing on his vacation, then you … Read more…
The weather in Berlin looked iffy, but after nearly an hour on the train to Oranienburg, the sun was shining and the sky was a clear and beautiful blue. Foregoing the bus, we had a nice stroll of about 1.5 … Read more…
When I first posted our tentative Europe itinerary, a lot of people questioned why we were spending so much time in Amsterdam. Well, there are only so many countries from which one can easily play on PokerStars.com, and we found … Read more…
Part of the impetus for Emily’s and my Europe trip is a friend’s wedding, to be held this June in a small town in Germany called Diez. Since we needed to bring formal wear for that anyway, we decided to … Read more…
Despite my previous rant about the tourist’s dilemma, Emily and I did do a few more classically tourist things in Prague, like the castle, the Charles Bridge, and the St. Vitus Cathedral. Even at the opera, the audience seemed to … Read more…
Easter is a beautiful time to be in Prague, except for the weather. On Easter Sunday, temperatures dipped below freezing, but the atmosphere was otherwise festive. In public squares around the city, vendors set up stalls for weeks-long Easter markets … Read more…
…because I am lost! Actually I’m just trying to find a restaurant near the Frankfurt train station. We found it, but it was closed, so we ate cold sandwiches sitting on the floor of the train station. Yummy!
My girlfriend and I have been without a permanent residence since September 2009. First we were drifting around the continental United States. More recently, we were in Canada. Now, we’re going to Europe. I’ll be playing some poker, both live … Read more…
I had a bit of a rude surprise when checking out of my room this morning. Apparently my hotel package did not actually include the $1000 non-refundable folio that I thought it did, and on which basis I purchased a … Read more…
Cheers to Jason at the Bluebird Microcreamery in Seattle’s Capitol Hill district! He saw my tweet about how I had a few hours to kill in Seattle and invited me out to the shop where he hooked me up with … Read more…
After a low-key Friday night, Nico and I resolved to live it up on my last night in Madrid. We started off having dinner and watching the Barcelona-Seville game at a restaurant/bar across the street from his apartment. It was … Read more…
My flight from Madrid back to North America includes an overnight layover in Paris. I get in at 11:10 PM and don’t leave until 10:30 AM. Obviously it’s an awkward time to see the city, but ideally I’d like to … Read more…
We left Cannes yesterday and drove to Barcelona where we saw an FC Barcelona game and spent the night with a friend of Nico’s. She’s at work and Nico’s in the shower now, so it’s just me hanging out with … Read more…
The rest of the trip report will have to wait until the next 2+2 Magazine, but here’s a little write-up from the WSOPE party, which proved pretty amusing: The night before the start of the main event, the WSOP hosted … Read more…
After all the hassle, the money did successfully make it to Cannes, so I am all bought in and ready to go! Play starts in a little over two hours, but I´m already having a great trip and have the … Read more…
Sorry I haven’t posted much this week, it’s been busy with moving from Canmore to Vancouver and sorting out logistics for the WSOP Europe. The good news is that I got to spend the night at the mansion occupied by … Read more…
We’ve left Canmore and are now en route to Vancouver, but before departing we snuck in one more hike that proved to be one of the best we’ve done. There are these trees up here called “larches” that are like … Read more…
We woke up early on Thursday morning with plans for an all-day hike in a nearby alpine meadow, but we were looking at the worst weather we’d seen since we’d been in Canmore. Massive gray clouds were hanging over the … Read more…
I know I never finished my Montreal story but it just feels like really old news now so I’ll just give you the short version. Emily and I were in Montreal for about two weeks, and while it was a … Read more…
I played five tournaments yesterday and whiffed them all, nothing remarkable about that. And it wasn’t a particularly frustrating day or anything, cash games went well so I was up despite the tournament losses. What was remarkable was that after a long day of playing, I had a ton of awesome hiking opportunities to choose from just a few minutes’ drive from my home.
What’s more, the new Euro-friendly schedule on Stars suits my preferred playtimes perfectly. I can start playing between like 11:00-14:00, play for several hours, and have time for an hour or two of hiking in the evening. Right now it’s staying light out until ridiculously late, like 22:00, so there’s plenty of hours in the day.
After yesterday’s session Emily and I hit the trail. We bootlegged it a bit to get on top of the canyon wall for a vista of Grotto Lake with the Canadian Rockies in the background. Then we hiked through a canyon (the creek was running extremely low) to a small waterfall, which seemed a good turning around a point. It was a very fine way to decompress from a long three days of poker!
I am totally addicted to this 2+2 thread “Stingiest Thing You’ve Seen Someone Do“. In between some stupid arguments about tipping and such, there are some truly jaw-dropping stories: my ex gf’s mother finds overripe fruit at the store, takes … Read more…
As I recently mentioned, some old friends came out to Seattle to visit us over the weekend. We had a great time camping on Orcas Island, hiking, kayaking, drinking beer and making S’mores (the secret ingredient is Hershey’s Special Dark … Read more…
Emily and I left Missoula, Montana this morning, passed through Idaho, and crossed the border into Washington, bound for Spokane. With that, I can now say that I’ve been to every state in the continental United States. No immediate plans … Read more…
It’s hard to keep track of the proper procedures for encountering various potentially dangerous animals in the wild. With someone you are supposed to wave your arms and appear threatening, with others you are supposed to back away slowly, etc. … Read more…
While I was in Germany, my girlfriend was hanging out in Northern Minnesota (long story). One night, she ironically attended a monster truck rally where she ironically purchased this camouflage hat for me. We’ve been camping in the Badlands of … Read more…
Before leaving Leipzig this morning we visited an excellent museum dealing with the Stasi, the secret police of the East German government. The museum was located in their old headquarters and preserved the look and feel of the place complete … Read more…
Sorry for the lack of posting this week, I’m currently traveling around Germany with sporadic internet and frankly better things to do. I spent my first few days in Berlin and Potsdam, then two days in Dresden, and am now … Read more…
The girlfriend and I were driving yesterday from White River Junction, Vermont to Burlington, and is par for the course for us, we consulted the GoogleMaps application on her Blackberry for directions. To our pleasant surprise, Google actually suggested a … Read more…
We were looking for a place to stay last night in Estes Park, a resort town just outside of Rocky Mountain National Park. During the summer, the place is apparently over run with tourist families, but in December it’s a … Read more…
So I kind of have a second blog, though so far it’s mostly been my girlfriend posting to it so I haven’t really been promoting it as much as I should have. It’s nothing to do with poker but about … Read more…
Driving through Topeka this morning, we stopped at the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Landmark. Unlike the iconic Central High School in Little Rock, which we visited on a previous road trip, the physical location of the Brown … Read more…
Emily and I are currently camping in Nickerson State Park on Cape Cod. It’s a huge campground with hundreds of sites, and even past peak season it’s nearly at capacity. There just a few building with showers for the entire … Read more…
Awesome town! I had this preconception of a kind of shallow California surfer dude town, but I actually found a surprisingly friendly, welcoming, and charming place with a strong sense of community and civic identity (as a California surfer dude … Read more…
A few days ago, as part of our cross-country road trip, Emily and I spend the better part of a day in Little Rock, Arkansas. I found it to be quite an interesting place, kind of a hip and relatively … Read more…
Last month, my girlfriend and I spent a few days at the Grand Canyon. I know most of you probably don’t care, but for those of you who know me or who enjoy looking at pictures of other peoples’ vacations, … Read more…
I’m just back from three wonderful days at the Grand Canyon with Emily. It really is an amazing place. I’d been once before, about fifteen years ago, but didn’t remember too much about it. We took a lot of pictures, … Read more…
I flew into Las Vegas last night for a hastily scheduled vacation. I may be the only person in the world who comes here in order to take a break from gambling. This afternoon, Emily and I are leaving for … Read more…