Hey Everyone,

My name is Bo Fric. I know none of you have ever heard of me, and you are probably wondering what the hell my blog is doing up on PokerRoad alongside the likes of Doyle Brunson and Daniel Negreanu!? If I were you, I’d be asking the same thing.

Truth is I’m just like most of you: I’m an average guy in every way who just loves poker. The only difference is that I’ve stumbled into an adventure that has brought me all the way to the web pages of PokerRoad.com.

I’m on here to represent the millions of grass-roots players around the world who have dreamed poker dreams, and who may have never had the chance to do the things that I’m about to do.

I’ve mortgaged my house, my car, and everything I have in the world in order to head to Vegas this summer and pursue my Poker Bucket List. We will be filming a documentary about the journey, and I hope that I will meet many of you along the way.

The idea for the project was born Feb 23, 2009 with the following blog. I hope you enjoy it and that you follow our journey through are forthcoming blogs and tweets. Also, please be sure to become members on or website at www.pokerbucketlist.com. Membership is free and all members will be entered into a draw for a trip for two to Las Vegas. Here is the introduction to our story:

Feb 23, 2009

The Poker Bucket List

Last night was another sleepless night of wondering just exactly what the hell I am going to do as I leave professional poker behind and go back to the real world. I am at a crossroads in my life, leaving the road of chasing the boyish dream of becoming a famous poker champion behind to pursue the ever more important task of raising my two-and-a-half year old son Jordan, and ensuring that his future gives him all the chances to succeed that I have been afforded in my own life.

Poker has been my all-consuming passion for the last three years and my profession for the last two. I have known for some time now that my poker career had run its course and that I was never meant to become the next Negreanu, Ivey or Durr. I have had my small successes and my many defeats, and reflecting back now I have had so many great experiences and met so many great people in poker.

That said, there are a many things that I set out to do in poker that I have never been able to achieve.

Last night, while watching reruns of High Stakes Poker, I began to muse about some of the experiences in poker I would have liked to have recognized: people I would have liked to have met, places I would like to have seen.

As I mused I realized that so much of my poker fantasy, and the dreams of so many small time pros and amateur players like myself across the world, often have little to do with poker itself, and more to do with the poker lifestyle and the myriad of personalities that color the poker landscape.

I started jotting down some of these potential experiences, as well as the names of many of the personalities I would have liked to meet. As these dreams made their way to paper, I realized that beyond winning the WSOP main event, and making a million dollars, many of these dreams are actually quite tangible. I remembered the Jack Nicholson movie The Bucket List I had seen not too long ago, and realized the similarities. And with that an idea was born: My Poker Bucket List.

Here it is in its original form (I expect it will morph until the beginning of the series):

  • Take Doyle Brunson out for dinner
  • Shoot craps with Phil Ivey
  • Play Golden Tee, Wii, and Pool with Daniel Negreanu
  • Win a hand in Bobby’s Room
  • Have lunch with the Canadian heroes: Daniel, Brad, Gavin and Nenad and FBT
  • Train MMA with Team Cardrunners and a UFC star
  • Play a $10,000 hand of blackjack
  • Have a drinking contest with Gavin Smith
  • Go club hopping with Antonio Esfandiari and Phil Laak
  • Play the main event
  • Go to a gentlemen’s club with Layne Flack
  • Drive cart for Patrick Antonius or David Benyamine in high stakes golf match
  • Learn to pick up Asian women from Barry Greenstein
  • Play a game of pickup basketball with Nenad, Grinder, Huck, J.C. and others
  • Go suit shopping with Sammy Farha
  • Get business advice from Eli Elezra and Howard Lederer
  • Drink coronas with Scotty Nguyen
  • Play Mike Matusow in a match play golf game
  • Sweat $5,000 sportsbet with Erick Lindgren
  • Spend an afternoon at the spa with Tom “Durrr” Dwan
  • Play Chinese Poker with Poker Road crew Ali, Gavin, Joe, and Huff.
  • Appear on Poker Road Radio
  • ATV with the Poker Road Crew
  • Cash in a WSOP event
  • Ride in a Bugatti with Guy Laliberte
  • Play Video Poker with Archie Karas
  • Take a helicopter ride with Chris Moneymaker
  • Go stockcar racing with Gus Hansen
  • Take a balloon ride with Sam Grizzle
  • Get Joel some female help
  • Play Rock Band with Evelyn Ng
  • Play blackjack with Andy Bloch
  • Practice Yoga with Allen Cunningham
  • Go out for an evening of swing dancing with Chris Ferguson
  • Practice Buddhism with Andy Black
  • Visit Fremont St. with Gabe Kaplan
  • Meet the guy who got breast implants for a prop bet
  • Get marriage advice from Norman Chad
  • Have a smoke break with Eugene Todd
  • Get publishing advice from Dan Harrington
  • Host the world’s largest poker pro paintball game

Now let’s make it perfectly clear I have no plans of dieing any time soon (knock on wood) so this is not a bucket list in the same sense as in the movie, but this is the end of my journey as a professional poker player and I have a great deal of unfinished business I want to attend to before I move on.

My new dream is to complete this list of unfinished business during the 2009 World Series of Poker, and to write a book and film a documentary about it.

There are three little problems:

1. I don’t know any of these people on a personal level and really don’t know how to begin.

2. I currently have a slight negative balance in my bank account, $30,000 in credit card debt, and less than $3,000 liquid cash.

3. I don’t know the first damn thing about writing a book or filming a documentary.

But what’s life without a little adversity anyway?

And so I begin my poker odyssey. This journey is for all of us who have thrown our hat into the ring to chase the poker dream. I am hoping for help from all of the poker community, and hope too that you will join me on this adventure as I try to fulfill My Poker Bucket List and celebrate all that we love about this great game called poker and everything that goes along with it.

Here is to dreams, doing everything we can to achieve them, and never taking no for an answer.

See you in Vegas this June.

We have made a ton of progress since writing this initial blog. What was only a dream two months ago is coming closer and closer to reality. Our website www.pokerbucketlist.com has grown in rapidly in terms of both traffic and membership.

Support for the project has been outstanding from the beginning, and the pros and sponsors that we have talked too have been extremely enthusiastic.

That said, there is a ton of stuff we have left to do in the coming weeks before heading to Vegas, and we need your help. Specifically we need you to:

  1. Become Members on our Website: We need each of you to check out our website at www.pokerbucketlist.com., and please BE SURE TO BECOME MEMBERS. Membership is free and all members will be entered into a draw for a trip for two to Las Vegas.
  2. Join Our Facebook Group: Join our Facebook group under the name The Poker Bucket List url: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=153562445064&ref=ts. Also feel free to add me as a friend (Bo Fric).
  3. Follow Us on Twitter: You can find us there again under The Poker Bucket List.
    Help Us Spread the Word: We need your help spreading the word to the entire poker community. Please refer your friends and family, post about our project on the forums, and talk about our project at the tables. We need as many members on our site as possible.

Thanks for all the support.