Twelve years ago, through a mutual friend, I met the talented actor Mickey Rourke.  His life story should be made into a film because nobody has ever had more ups and downs than Mickey over the past 20 years.

Mickey was one of the hot new movie stars after his hit 9 1/2 weeks with Kim Basinger.  Then, because of some personal problems, he walked away from acting to pursue a boxing career.

He boxed from 1991-1995, proving he was indeed a rebel who marched to the beat of his own drummer.  Mickey then returned to his first love, acting, and with the completion of his new 2008 film, The Wrestler, he got rave reviews and won every award except the Academy Award.  Mickey, who is genuinely a nice guy, decided to try poker.  He remembered me, gave me a call and agreed to be one of the bounties in DoylesRoom's weekly bounty tournament.  So come play with Mickey this Thursday at 9:30 eastern in Doyle's Bounty tournament.

The NCAA basketball tournament is underway, down to the sweet 16.  My personal pick to win the championship is Pittsburgh and I've bet the family farm on them.  I really need to beat out North Carolina and that is going to be tough.  The Big East has 5 teams in the last 16 so it looks like they have the toughest conference; I think I've got a good shot with Pitt.

It's hard to believe that only a year ago, 8,000 people were moving into Las Vegas each month.  We were the fastest growing city in America. This recession has hit us harder than any other city and business places are closing all over town.  Even some of the big casinos are overleveraged and are talking bankruptcy.  Surely we will recover and make our nation prosperous again.

I almost forgot, Nicky Hilton and Sopranos star Jamie-Lynn Sigler are also going to be bounties this week at DoylesRoom along with actress and Grammy winner Eve.  Eve has sold over 7 million records, had her own reality TV show, and acted in movies. All the DoylesRoom players talk about how nice the gals are when they play.  They are also darn good poker players that have gone deep in our tournament before. It should be fun.

-DB