Garry Gates

Last week I had the priviledge of showing my younger brother Zack around Las Vegas for the first time. In fact, it was a week of many firsts for him... First plane ride, first time traveling any further west from Pennsylvania than Ohio, first time seeing mountains, first time playing single deck blackjack, and first time being in a place where you can legally walk down the sidewalk with an open bottle of beer in your hand. Needless to say, we had a good time!

But now that he's gone and now that I'm almost over the cold I picked up from one of my students on Friday (rat bast***), I'm dedicating a majority of my time between now and June 2nd to pumping out as much as I can for Wise Hand Poker while getting ready for my first ever World Series of Poker event. Some of my best friends from back home have already booked their plane tickets - it's going to be one hell of a week.

In other news, a few weeks ago I met Dr. Alan Schoonmaker, author of The Psychology of Poker and regular columnist for Card Player Magazine. He sat to my left, playing in the infamous $50 buy-in no-limit hold'em cash game at the Luxor. After a bit of small talk, he invited me to his weekly poker discussion group on Monday nights. Next week will be my first meeting with his group and I will certainly report on any useful information I draw from the session.

Until then, it's back to work for me. If you're using Internet Explorer to view this page, do me one quick favor. At the top of your browser, you should see the word "Favorites." Go ahead and click on that. Did a little drop down menu appear underneath it? Great. Now click "Add to Favorites," and a little box should pop up. Simply click "OK" or press the "Enter" key on your keyboard, and you're all set to visit us again soon.

GG

"If the power to do hard work is not a skill, it's the best possible substitute for it."
- James A. Garfield