I just got back from Texas again. It’s like stepping into another world when I get there. The economy is thriving and the people are optimistic, quite a far cry from the doom and gloom you hear around Vegas. The oil wells, wind farms, dairy farms, cattle ranches and cotton and peanut farms seem to make the residents of West Texas have plenty of money. that translates into successful restaurants, shops, banks, etc. We tend to live in our own small part of the world and we just forget just how big our planet is.

Because I came from the farming country, I found some interesting changes. When I was young we used to watch the skies praying for rain to enable our cotton to grow. We had to fight boll weevil, lice, rabbits that ate the cotton, etc. We had to spray the cotton, chop the weeds out of it, then harvest it by hand. Today’s farmers have a new strain of cotton that eliminates the weevils and lice completely. They spray the young cotton one time which kills all the weeds. Most of the farms are irrigated and harvested mechanically. In the meantime, a single tractor can cost upward of $250,000. Farmers have to have lots of crops to afford all the machinery they have to buy.

Another interesting thing was as I was driving away from the Midland-Odessa airport, I could see hundreds of cars parking in a giant field. They were having a huge three-day concert by a group of rockers called Rock the Desert. I googled them and they play Christian rock music. Lots of Christian folks down in Texas, again a far cry from the majority of young people around Vegas.

My sister had just gotten a cast off her broken arm when I arrived. She had fallen on her patio and snapped the bone. I think falling is one of the primary dangers in older poeple’s lives. Puggy Pearson got up to go to the bathroom, slipped and hit his head, killing him. My old golfing buddy, Fred Barnes from Mobile, fell backward going up some steps, killing himself instantly. I saw a boy from Amarillo who told me Amarillo Slim had fallen down a flight of stairs, breaking 5 ribs. I know my crutch has saved me many times.

Nothing much to do in Andrews, TX so I watched a lot of TV.  While I was there I watched a couple things I had no idea about on 60 Minutes. turkey is 90% Muslim (I googled it and 98% profess the Islamic faith) and has mosques everywhere where they go to pray 5 times a day. If the current trend continues, Muslims will control the world in just over 1/2 a century.

The other thing that amazed me was that our country spends 55 billion dollars a year on terminally ill people during the last two months of their lives. Even if the patients in a hospital have a clause in their will or living trust (as I have) about declining any use of life support, the money is spent giving almost useless tests from head to toe. Good Googa Mooga! I know I won’t die tied down to some hospital bed hooked up to some machine.

I’d like to thank the hundreds, maybe thousands, of people that wished me Happy B-day on Facebook and Twitter. I ran out of room on Twitter trying to read the messages and my e-mail overflowed with messages on my wall from Facebook. I was surprised at the  number of folks that had the same birthday as mine. Even though I remember the old gambler/con man Titanic Thompson used to have all sorts of proposition bets about that. I believe if you take 22 random people you are a big favorite to find two with the same birthday. I’m pretty sure if you take 50 random people you will find one that has your B-day. Titanic had other props but I’m not sure what the B-day props were. Anyway, I know my lucky number has always been 7 and now I have a pair of 7’s to draw to

-DB

I got to play in a big cash game in L.A. last week. It was a bunch of fun guys (rich, too) and I really enjoyed it. One of the regulars was a friend of mine that I hadn’t seen for 35 years. He didn’t have two nickels to rub together when I knew him and now he has hundreds of millions. I’d say that is a pretty good success story. I played twice winning one time and losing once.

When I got to the house the game is played in, I couldn’t believe it. It was 5 stories high on the top of a mountain overlooking the city. The lift was broken and I climbed the five stories of marble stairways with my crutch. My legs and knees are so sore I have trouble sleeping at nights. I’m not going back until the lift is fixed.

At the top of the house where the game is sits a piano.  It was Nat King Cole’s instrument and I sat down and played a song my mom taught me when I was six years old. I didn’t know I could play anything besides chopsticks. Yep, me and Nat.

Every time I fly I think about how unfair our system is. I usually get a wheelchair to ride to my gate because of my bad leg. Every single time, because I have a metal implant in my shoulder and set off the alarm, I go through an intensive search that takes a long time because not only do they shake me down completely, they go over the chair with a fine tooth comb. I suppose it’s necessary but it seems a little extreme. The funny part is that almost all of the security guards must be poker fans and they recognize me. However it doesn’t keep them from being very thorough on their final examination. I even have to take my shoes and belt off along with the usual stuff. I guess it’s better safe than sorry though.

My publicist, Lara Miller, sold everything she owned except what she could carry in a backpack. She left her business and embarked on a 3-4 year journey around the world. She is currently in India and she regularly blogs and sends tweets about her trip. She has a $14 a day budget and plans on hitchhiking across Asia and Europe. I can’t imagine all the dangers she is going to encounter doing that. But, she is determined to do so even after I tried to talk her out of it. Can you just imagine an attractive 34 year old woman hitchhiking across some of those countries? I told her the only way she could possibly not get raped is to carry cards in every language and give them out at the opportune moment. The card would say, “Go ahead, but I have aids.”  That might save her but I really fear for what could happen, being all alone in foreign countries.

I just got a tweet from Lara saying she is having a great time. She says the only poker players the folks in India know are “texdolly” and the “unabomber”. Can you imagine that? The world is a funny place.

Someone sent me an e-mail about the World’s Shortest Books. I thought some of them were very funny so I tweeted a few of them on Twitter. The response was amazing. I got hundreds and hundreds of humorous jokes about short books. I retweeted the ones I thought were the best and they just kept coming and I kept retweeting them. I had 346,000 followers when I started and I lost 900 of them because they didn’t like it because of the volume. After two days of travel and no tweets, I’m back to 345,500. The one that I received the most was “Humility” by Phil Hellmuth. My favorite was “Different ways to comb your hair” by Doyle Brunson.

I’m almost through with my seven implants (yeaaah-). It’s time to make my way to Montana for a relaxing time with my dogs and my family. I’m gonna beat Todd at the shooting range this time. Adios 110 degree weather, hello 81 degree weather!!

-DB

The 2010 WSOP is over finally. At least my part is finished and I’m sweating Johnny Chan and rooting for him. I had a bad series, playing nine events without cashing. I feel I played reasonably good in six of them but played two poorly and one extremely bad. I was on a losing streak going into the World Series of Poker and I’m a complete bottom line guy and don’t believe in making excuses. I do still have a very good memory and I review my play in my mind after every game. While I can see a couple of things that I’ve been doing that are definitely wrong, it seems I’ve been unlucky and am playing well enough that I should be winning. But I’m going to take a little time off, come back to the cash games and re-evaluate my game.

For all the people that have asked about the results of Daniel Negreanu and my bets in the main event, I’ve won two and lost one. It was a lot of fun sweating the tournament and while our bets weren’t 7 figures, they were large enough to be interesting.

All my neighbors were referring to my backyard as Brunson’s Brothel because all the feral cats came to a spot over my waterfall to give birth to their kittens. My family was trapping the kittens and taking them to no-kill shelters and vets for adoption. The daddy of almost all of the kittens was a scoundrel Siamese cat. He is white and has the cutest offspring you can imagine. We tried to adopt two of them but my wife is so allergic we had to give them up. It’s really a shame because they were a lot of fun. I’m putting out cat repellent, which is nothing but pepper, to close down Brunson’s Brothel.

My high school class is having our 60th reunion this fall and I can’t wait to see some of my old friends. The class of 1950 has had a reunion every five years and we have really developed some strong bonds among us. We have lots of success stories from our class, all the way from State Senators, famous lawyers, award winning journalists, and lots of distinguished teachers and educators. I was the black sheep of the class but thank goodness, they finally accept me and my profession. Took a while though.

-DB

Bets for Daniel

I actually think Daniel, you need to change medications because I think you have lost it when it comes to these bets. But you certainly have your six world beaters I’ve never heard of against my three great old timers. But again, my old pal Titanic Thompson used to tell me that difference in opinion is what makes good gambling.  Would your bunch be interested in coming by Bobby’s Room and give us some lessons afterwards?  They have to leave their poker tracking, HUDs, etc at home though.

No, I wouldn’t bet on Dewey Tomko in golf against someone I didn’t know. It shouldn’t be too hard to figure out that I know there are plenty of golfers that can beat Dewey that I don’t know. However, I don’t believe there are very many players better than three proven world champions. Our bets are won on the amount of money cashed in the main event. Win or lose, I’ll be glad to be on my team any place, any time. It will be fun, we will work out how much we are betting.

1st Bet

My team is:

Todd Brunson
Hoyt Corkins
Dewey Tomko
Zach Clark
Steve Gross
Amit Makhija
Alex Kamberis
Chris Moorman
Dani Stern
Daniel Kelly
Faraz Jaka
David Sands
Michael Martin

Dan’s team is:

Jason Mercier
Dan Negreanu
Joe Hachem
Elky Grospellier
Ivan Demidov
Will Thorson
JP Kelly
Jose Barbero
Lex Velduis
Jude Ainsworth
Arnaud Mattern
?
?

Daniel needs to add 2 more PS players. In the event everyone doesn’t start, we take players from the bottom of the list until we have an equal number of starteres

2nd Bet

I have:

Johnny Chan
Phil Hellmuth
Barry Greenstein

Dan  has:

Bill Reynolds
Will Molson
Tom Marchese

3rd Bet

I have:

John Chan
Phil Hellmuth
Barry Greenstein

Dan has:

Vivek Rajkunar
Jason Somerville
Richard Lyndaker

I just got word that Daniel Kelly won the $25k tournament. That’s 1,300,00 for a 21 year old kid and it officially makes him the newest member of the Brunson 10.

Way to go Daniel!

Yes, I know I left myself off our team. My mouth hurts from all the dental work, my leg hurts, my back hurts, etc. I’ve been around long enough to know I’m not playing my best right now so I’m not going to let my ego hurt my team’s chances. I need a few weeks of rest in Montana.

-DB

I went to the dentist Wednesday instead of playing in the 25K tournament at the WSOP.  I desperately want to get this implant stuff out of the way because it’s driving me crazy. It’s like getting on a Ferris Wheel at the circus, once you start, you can’t stop. Six months ago, I thought I would be through before now but when you go into sinus lifts, extractions, bone grafts, healing caps, etc. It seems you never get through. It will be October before it’s over.

It is absolutely amazing how different people interpret things. In my last blog I said I get along with Phil Ivey if we don’t have to use the same bathroom. Surely the entire world would know that was a joke. I remember seeing the movie Brian’s Song where a teammate of Gayle Sayers said that and I thought it was very funny. But no, I’ve been accused of racism, being a redneck and a hillbilly. One article said I wanted separate bathrooms because of the difference of our penis size and I would be embarrassed. It’s comical but also a little bit aggravating.

Daniel Negreanu is pretty talkative about our TOC bets (which I still like). It’s too bad I didn’t get to the Rio instead of the dentist. Dan said he would take Bill Reynolds, Will Nelson and Tom Manchese against Chan, Greenstein and Hellmuth. Wow, would he have got that on! Is that offer good for the main event? Or any other tournament you can find?

I’ve got an interesting bet for Daniel. I’ll take 10 DoylesRoom pros against any 10 Poker Stars pros in the main event. 4 bets, who goes farther, who cashes, who makes final table and who wins. That will be fun and maybe Dan can finally pick himself.

I see where Ivey and Juanda have motor homes in the parking lot at the Rio. That’s a great idea and I have a motor home in Montana that I’m going to bring to the 2011 WSOP. That would be a neat spot to take the long breaks in. Also, you could sleep there if you had an early start the next day.

-DB