I was really motivated to get outside until I opened my front door and was hit by an Arctic blast.  Nooope.  Turned right around, grabbed my truck keys instead of bicycle, and drove to have lunch.  There's a contingent of Mexicans up here that make some bomb Mexican food and sell it at the Hacienda Real.  I go there often.  I started getting into "Stones Into Schools:  Promoting Peace with Books, Not Bombs, in Pakistan and Afghanistan."  It's Greg Mortensen's sequel to "Three Cups of Tea", the story of a mountain climber who got lost on his way down from a failed ascent of K2.  He was gravely ill and taken care of in a small village named Korphe.  During his recovery he was exposed to the village school, 81 kids, all boys, doing their lessons in the dirt with sticks, no teacher present.  He learned that he could erect a schoolhouse and put a teacher in it for $12k and made a promise to do so.  

Three Cups was a very moving book for me.  Greg fulfilled his promise, founded the Central Asia Institute, and has been in the business of building schools in the farthest corners of Pakistan since 1993.  He's also pushed hard for the education of girls, because, "If you educate a boy you educate an individual, educate a girl and you educate a community."  And in doing so we fight the war on terror.  

The Taliban recruits from these areas that Greg is building schools, first in Pakistan and now in Afghanistan.  For a recruit to become a jihadist, he must be convinced that murder and suicide are the will of Allah even though they're two of the greatest sins in the Koran.  Before a son embarks with the Taliban, he first must be blessed by his mother, and the likelihood of an educated mother giving such a blessing plummets statistically.

The Taliban was building schools in the region long before Greg was.  They offer a biased education to kids with no other opportunities for education and find recruits in the process.  Parents want their kids educated so they send them there.  They're way ahead of us in this game and the only way we're going to win the war on terror is by educating the women of those two countries.  

I came home, fired up the evening session, and just crushed.  Got it in good lots and didn't win as often as I should have.  I cashed in the turbo, losing KK to PeachyMer's AK deep.  I was down to 6 tables, all near the bubble.  One bad beat and busto.  Then another.  I'm 1/7 in the HORSE.  I bubble that taking 7th.  Sucked out on another.  Down to the UB $20k, 10 left, I suck out huge AJ>AQ, and eventually find myself 1/3.  Nice.  I flop two pair, Q52hh.  He checks, I bomb, he calls.  Turn a ten offsuit.  He checks, I bomb, like 45 into 60k, he calls.  River Kx, I don't love it, he checks, I bet like 40%, he shoves, I call and lose to AJo.  I get the rest in next hand and lose KQ<AA.  Busto 3rd for $3200, net profit of like $3500 on the day.  Nice to win money but I got tortured down the stretch, all of it recorded live for Poker VT.

The next day Tryder (a bartender at Jonny's) and I go skiing at Keystone.  It was a standard spring day, epic Southern California conditions.  The slush was just right and coverage was great.  Christy is a cool chick who I share many interests and similarities with, from whitewater guiding all the way down to our relationships.  She's known her boy forever and they're long distance also.  So yah that was a good time, she had to work at 3 so we called it early, just in time actually before the wind showed up.  I went home, took a bath, and got fired up to play online.  

I had one of those sessions where nothing works or holds or gets there or anything.  It didn't take long for me to unregister from the later tournies and just play cash until I went broke.  Ended up winning enough there to only book a small loss on the day.  I walked to Jonny's, had a good time for a couple of hours, walked back home, played mixed games online, won $2k.  Sweet take that losing day!

Thursday left me a bit lazy.  I wanted to take it off, but the weather outside was frightful, 50% chance of snow, rain, and/or thunderstorms for the rest of the day.  And lots of wind.  It didn't look so bad outside, but that's a pretty legit forecast of crappiness.  I played cash and sit-n-goes on UB for a couple hours, made a nickel or so, and decided I needed to get outside since it still looked fine.  It was.  I rode my bike to Wal-Mart to pick up deodorant and a toothbrush since I managed to leave all that stuff in Las Vegas.  Yes that was a week ago.  I picked up some cash from the bank for the HPT event this weekend.  Hopefully I find somebody to play 50-100 Whatever Games You Want To Play, Sir with me.  It never did end up precipitating.

At home I was going through my email in the last two weeks and found one from a PokerVT member asking me to do a review of a recent 8-game tournament that he won.  Guy's super active in the community so I accepted.  I laughed, I cried, and my head exploded.  My personal favorite was in limit hold-em, 4 handed on the final table, our hero raised with Q9o, got re-raised by the SB, and called.  Flop 9xx.  Check.  Hero checks.  WTF?  Turn a brick.  Check.  Hero checks.  !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!PBQJWEIOHRMNQP3IH09IOMNOPENBMWQOP.  River a brick.  Check.  Hero checks, beats AJ.  It was fun to do the review, I've never done one of those without the other person on the horn too.  Hopefully it comes out well and is a useful teaching tool.  

Went to Jonny's for trivia night.  Our team won last week.  This week our team Jose Monkey won the 7pm round just as I arrived, and then we took last place in the 10pm session.  One of the early questions was, "In the United States, which activity accounts for 18,000 facial injuries to kids aged 5-14 per year?"  I say it's baseball, they all say it's soccer, I make a really good argument, they go with the consensus, I offer a $20 bet on it being baseball, Ryan counters with a shot, I say I'll take Jameson.  I win.  

That was the last thing I would win that evening though.  Walked home.  Found myself in a 100-200 stud8 game.  Played two hands, A23, 5 and 234, 5, put lots of chips into both pots and didn't get any back.  Quit stuck $2k.  

And now it's Friday morning.  I'm gearing up to head over to Blackhawk for the Golden Gates Heartland Poker Tour event this weekend.  UB has signed with HPT as a title sponsor and will be launching a sweet freeroll for it this Monday, April 10th.  We're giving away a VIP package with a dozen entries to HPT events of your choice through season 8.  So sick.  I'll be playing flight 1a tonight and partying Saturday, hopefully not too late because I'll have to be playing on Sunday.  Cory's coming to town tonight too and I'm super stoked about that, we came up with a ring and I get to put it on her finger soon!

Peace and good luck,

Devo