Little did I know when I chased a pop fly in a baseball game over a half a century ago what problems it would cause me. I ran into a steel post and broke two of my front teeth. The dentistry wasn’t very good in that time, particularly in small towns.

The local dentist pulled both teeth, putting in a bridge attached to other teeth. Because of the damage done by that, I’ve had to go through a total mouth reconstruction. That is 25-30 hours in the dentist chair.

The good news is, after a few weeks of suffering, all the different procedures make your mouth and teeth as good as new. It’s extremely expensive and it looks like my land-based poker is over until the WSOP. I’m already having withdrawal pains so DoylesRoom will be seeing me online for the next 3 months.

My daughter Pam called my attention to a blog written for Cardplayer by Dusty Schmidt and the comments that were posted. The comments were insane and some of them are downright comical. The one I like best was that I cheated Andy Beal and was threatened by Andy and had to return 16 million dollars.

Do people actually hear these kind of stories or do they make them up? Did Andy say he would kill me if I didn’t give him all that money? Do you supposed he would have intimidated me more than Tony Spilotro did when he tried to get me into his cheating schemes? The next time I see Andy, we will have a good laugh about this little gem.

As far as the other negative stuff about the old time cheating, I spent two long years defending myself about that. I don’t intend to go through it again. For the record, I never had any involvement in cheating in poker from any era. This is America, believe me or not, I really don’t care any longer. It does look like there would be some evidence somewhere besides wild stories.

My thanks to Dusty for the nice things he said about me. I didn’t really know everybody thinks these young guys are so much better poker players than me. I do know I’ve survived through several generations of new superstars. Most of them are gone now. Send this new bunch down to Bobby’s Room and let’s find out if they are really so great.

There were also some positive comments and I appreciate them. Texas Road Gambler (I’m pretty sure I know who he is) really makes good points. If I ever go to court, I would like for him to be my attorney, Cardplayer doesn’t allow comments at the bottom of my blog. I wish they would, I can stand some criticism. Seems like it would be fun to read what poker players think.