Just call him 81

Last month, Kobe Bryant had a game where he out-scored the Dallas Mavericks 62-61 through 3 quarters. Because the Lakers had a substantial lead, he and Coach Phil Jackson decided that he would not re-enter the game in the 4th quarter. After the game, there was a mixed reaction because there were many people who thought Kobe should have stayed in and scored as many points as possible because it would probably be a long time when he would have an opportunity to be in that same situation.

He had wait a little more than month to have a second chance. Last night, Kobe found the Lakers down by 18 points in the 3rd quarter and it seemed that they heading for another loss. He proceeded to lead the Lakers on a 38-14 run, he scored 23 of his 27 3rd quarter points during that run.

When the dust settled and the he went out with 4 seconds left in the game, he had scored another 28 points for a total of 55 for the second half (the Raptors only scored 41, so he outscored another team for a substantial period of time) and an eye popping 81 points for the game. The Lakers won the game 122-104 and Kobe secured his place in history becoming only the second player to score more than 80 points in a game.

This game will probably do nothing for the Kobe debate, it will intensify the Kobe lovers and haters to their postions. For those of us who want to watch a player at the top of his game and his desire to be the best player he can be, we can only stand on the sidelines and watch with awe.

A new treat in my recipe box

Sometimes, you never know if something you have made is good or not. A lot depends on someone's tastes or familiarity with a certain type of food. However, from the first time I made these Pecan-Pie Bars I knew I had a hit. The recipe is from Epicurious.com and I have no real adjustments to it but you do not need a food processor to make these wonderful treats, just use a pastry cutter and knife and you can be done in less than hour.

The only time I had made anything like these was during a catering phase in my life when I worked for a local caterer. One of their specialities was that they did their own baking. And since I joined them during the holiday season, I was in charge of the baking. So I made all kinds of cookies and bars including a nut bar.

But since that time, I had not done anything with nuts. Generally, I find it is safer, especially when preparing food for other people, to not put nuts anything like cookies or cakes. The thing that struck me about these pecan-pie bars was that they were very similar to an old See's Candies nuts and chews confection.

So the first thing I do is to cut the butter into small pieces and then blend in all the ingredients for the shortbread crust. The recipe calls for a food processor here but just a minute or two with a pastry cutter will make this mixture into nice small lumps. I used cold butter which helps keep the dough crumbly and dry. Since the crust has a lot of butter already in it, I use a non-stick pan but do not grease it in anyway. I bake it for approximately 20 minutes at that magical baking temperature of 350 degrees. I then get ready to prepare the filling.
While the shortbread crust is baking away, time to start chopping pecans. I don't chop them to bits, just a nice bite size morsals but recognizable to the eye. My biggest concern is dropping the cutting board or having flying pecan pieces going all over. While I am chopping the pecans, I have started my caramel mixture on the stove, by melting the butter, brown sugar, honey and cream.
After the nuts are all chopped, I add them to the caramel on the stove and just lightly mix in. You are now down to one easy step of pouring the mixture onto to the hot crust and waiting another 20 minutes for your pecan pie bars. I let them cool for about an hour or so and then cut into bars, you could make them small, like pieces of candy because they are so sweet and chewy. They store really well and they will be a hit wherever and whenever you make them.

A detour on the drive back to LA

After a short night's sleep, I knew I had to make the drive to back to LA sometime that day but I also wanted to try out my new poker skills one more time. So headed to downtown Vegas, home of Binion's Horseshoe, the home of the World Series of Poker. I drove to Golden Nugget, where they have a daily morning tournament. I played in that tournament back in August and had finished 3rd. I wanted to see what would happen if applied my camp knowledge to my play.

It was busy that morning and there were 65 players, about 50% more than usual for a Monday morning. As I sat down, I tried to gauge my competition. Immediately I looked for people who were playing with any type of plan or used poker terminology. But mostly what I saw was a lot of callers and very loose play. For the first 2 hours, I probably played 3-4 hands total. As the blinds kept going up, I was trying to find times to possibly "steal" blinds but those times were few.

As reached the final two tables, I knew my time was coming to make a play. The first or second hand after the break, I went all-in with Ad5d and was called by 2 other short stacked players. We all turned over the cards and I saw a pair of nines and a pair of kings. The flop came K93 with two diamonds. So I had a nut flush draw while the nines were down to one out. A blank came on the turn and a diamond came on the river giving me the flush and the pot and new life in the tournament.

A few hands later, I had a situation that I thinked the camp prepared me for. We were down to 14 players, so everyone knew that the final table was a few players away. Players that were short stacked were very cautious and I knew a big raise in front of them would probably produce a fold. So, a player that I had played with the entire tournament, after much thought, went all in. Everyone folded to me, so I looked down and I saw A10 offsuit. I knew I probably had 2 over cards because I put him on a small pair. I knew if I called, the blinds would fold and it would be a race.

However, if I fold, I was stil in pretty good shape to make the final table and would have enough chips at this table to still play any hand. So after considering all the possibilities, I folded. The blinds folded so I did not see his hand at that time. He later told me he had a small pair. We ultimately both made the final table and while we busted out first and second, we did collect some money. I kept thinking about this hand but one poker writer emailed to me that he thought it was the right play because I did not have a strong enough hand to call a raise.

With another positive experience to fall back on, I drove off, leaving Vegas in my rearview mirror. I stopped off in Primm to have dinner with my grandmother, aunt and mom and also to take a quick nap before making the drive back.

So there went my poker weekend, I met some nice people, made some friends, and played and talked a lot of poker. While not the Sistine Chapel or snorkeling off Maui, it was very nice vacation.

Can you play poker for 24 hours?

So Sunday finally arrived and the camp was coming to a close, but first there would be some questions and answers and then a few more sit and go tournaments with the pros before we would all head our separate ways.

I played with a sit and go with Clonie Gowen, who is another pro who participated all weekend in the camp and was very cordial and gave good solid poker advice. I had a couple of powerhouse hands early but busted out early in the sit and go, which allowed me to sign up for one the last tourneys and our pro at the table was Howard Lederer.

While waiting for that game to start, I was able to get a few more pictures of the professionals there, including Kristy Gazes, who I did not get the chance to play a sit and go with but from what I overheard from her tables, was also quite instructive and nice.

Annie Duke was runnig off to check out from the hotel but I was able to tell her how much fun and instructive the experience was and to grab a quick picture with her.

Never got the chance to play poker with Annie, but from what I saw, she is very passionate about playing good poker and very approachable, as were all of the pros who were there.

Even Robert Williamson who was there briefly on Thursday night was someone who took a few minutes to go over Omaha strategy and the first thing he said to me was Hi I'm Robert, what's your name. I always think that is cool when anyone does that but more so when it is someone who is surrounded by about 200 plus people who know who he is and has watched him of TV, still is can make an effort to make you feel at ease.

As far as the last game with Howard Lederer, he did not criticize anything I did but I went out before the money. After that I said my goodbyes to some of the camp participants I had met as well as the pros and the people at the Palms who ran the event from their end.

After heading up the room for a quick break, I proceeded back to the Palms poker room where I proceeded to play Poker for the next 12 or so hours. While not as sucessful as the previous night, it was interesting to watch those players from the camp play in these games. However, since it was limit hold-em, the game was much different. And you have to be patient for a good hand and opportunities. One thing I did win was during the time I was there, the Palms had a promotion that anytime you hit a diamond flush, win or lose, you would get an entry into a drawing the next morning. They would draw ten names of players who hit a flush and award them $100.00. The last thing I did at the Palms on Monday morning was pick up my $100.00. A nice way to end my stay.

Tomorrow is back home to LA.

The big game and no, I'm talking about football - Poker Camp, Day 3

While all this poker business was happening, there was an event happening back in Los Angeles that had captured the sporting world's attention. USC was trying to win its 100th or so straight game and get their ticket to the National championship game at the Rose Bowl. The only thing in their way was their annual cross-town rival opponent, UCLA. This game had been talked about for weeks as both teams had time off to prepare for the game and with UCLA having a better record than expected and having played well the year before, there were high hopes in Westwood that UCLA could even pull off an upset if they played a perfect game.

When I first looked to going to the poker camp, I saw that it fell on the weekend of the game and I even looked the schedule to see if there would be time off in the afternoon to watch the game. In fact, the second tournament was scheduled to begin just at kickoff so I knew I would miss the game.

Anyways, I woke up and had an omelet in the coffee shop, then headed back to the theaters for our second set of seminars. This time our hosts for the camp, Annie Duke and Howard Lederer were giving the talks. Due to a coin flip or in our case, alphabetical order, Annie gave her talk on post-flop play to my group first. She discussed betting strategies based on your hand, the texture of the flop and your position. She covered a lot of different scenarios, unfortunately, her preventing presentation was misplaced so she did not have any graphics, we did eventually get her written outline.

The final seminar for the camp was pre-flop strategy by Howard Lederer. He went over the three most common problems by players in their pre-flop game, playing too many hands, ignoring your and your opponent's position and limping in. Howard went through a guide that came with his DVDs (All campers received 3 DVDs from Howard Lederer). The guide went through the different hands you need to enter the game.

He went through several concepts including the gap concept, big blind play and stack control. Another highlight in the camp for me was that Howard and Annie's father (They are brother and sister) was at the camp and was a shameless plugger (rightfully so) for his children's products, I ordered my copy of Annie's DVD from him and he promised that it would be signed. (He did have the signed DVD Fed Exed to me a few days after I got back from camp.) So periodically during Howard and Annie's presentations, he would speak up and tell us how good this or that was but it was very sincere and more than one camper told him how nice Howard and Annie were to them during the weekend.

We ran a little behind and as I made my way to lunch, I noted that it was nearly 1:00 p.m. I started to get my lunch (Mexican/Southwestern) when I saw a lady that I knew was playing in the finals of Friday's tournament. I did not know her but I thought I had read the day before that the final table would start at 1:00 even though the rest of us would not start until 1:30. I flagged her down and told her this, she had thought she had until 1:30 but ran out and checked. She came back and told me I was right and she was able to eat something fast and make her start time. I think she finished in the top 5, so she was happy that I told her.

1:30 comes along and I gather with the rest of the tournament participants to start the second no-limit tournament of the camp. I was actually glad that we were in a separate area where I did not expect to be bothered by the USC v. UCLA game. To my chagrin, they were able to broadcast the game on a couple of overhead televisions So, while trying to concentrate on playing good poker, I could not help but look up and see what was happening back in L.A.

Unfortunately for UCLA but fortunate for me, the game got out of hand early, and it was easy to ignore what would be a 66-19 USC blowout. Unlike the first tournament, I was doing better, I won a couple of early hands and then was able to steal some blinds. We started off with around 180 players and as the afternoon went on, I was surviving. When we got down to around 40, everyone started looking at the bubble, where they would start the payoffs, which was at 28.

As the cut got to around 36 or so, I was under the gun with A3, so I went all in, the player immediatedly to my left, called, everyone folded, he turned over 9d8d and the flop came down with 2 diamonds on the board, a 3 on the turn and then another diamond on the river for his flush. So I went out a few spots away from the money. After yesterday's performance, to almost get in the money was a nice comeback.

That night, the camp held a dinner at the Rio for the participants and afterwards, I played my first non-camp poker, a $2-$4 game at the Palms. I played really tight but due to a jackpot I won with quad 7s, I came out rather well and most of all, for the first time, played with a plan. Perhaps, I may have learned something after all.

A visit with Dr. Phil - Poker Camp, Day 2

After a bowl of oatmeal in the coffee shop, I went down to the movie theaters where they were having the morning seminars. This morning we would be entertained and educated by two recognizable faces in the poker world. The first poker pro who spoke to my group was "The Flying Dutchman, " Marcel Luske. Marcel was seen a lot during ESPN's coverage of the 2004 WSOP Main Event, he finished 10th, one spot out of the final table. That morning, as on TV, he wore his coat and tie and spoke about how to approach a tournament by examining different phases of the tournament and your table position.

He was tired from a cross-country flight but maintained his charm and wit during his presentation. He spoke about changing gears as the tournament went on and when you are playing at the final table, you have decide are you going for the tournament win or just trying to move up the standings. That can affect how you play certain hands.

The second speaker that morning was Phil Gordon. Phil Gordon is most well known as the co-host of Celebrity Poker on Bravo but he has also written books, including one that I have, Phil Gordon's Little Green Book, which Phil was kind to sign for me after his talk. He also has an entertaining DVD, Final Table Poker, which I also own. When he is not doing those things, he still plays both live and on-line poker.

Phil took on the character of "Dr. Phil" and went through his list of common poker "diseases." The first disease is called "prefloptellitis." This happens when a player looks down at the cards immediately after they are dealt. In doing that, the player may give a tell by indicating more or less interest in the hand. And, more importantly, by looking at their cards, the player would not be concentrating on what the other players are doing. Phil explained that there is no reason to look at their hand until it is their turn to act. You should also try and take the same amount time when you are deciding to bet, call or raise.

He went through several of these "diseases," many of us admitted to doing at one or another and he promised that as he walked around later that day and evening, he would be handing out "prescriptions," if he saw any players who exhibited the problems he just went through.

After Phil finished, we rushed out to have lunch, (a nice buffet they had in a ballroom) before our first tournament that would start early Friday afternoon. At lunch, I caught up with some of the "campers" and we were all trying to comprehend all of the information that had been given to us that morning. I then took a quick little stroll, grabbed some water and headed for the tournament.

I sat down at the table and immediately on the second hand, I saw a player raise the $25 blind to $200, then a player raised to $400, the next player called and the initial better raised to $1000. The raiser went all in, the other player folded and the first player called. The first player turned over pocket aces while the second player had pocket kings, when ace flipped over on the flop, it was over. I did not have such a dramatic ending, I did last for an hour or so and then as I was being blinded off, I went all in with a pair of nines and was beaten by a set of sevens.


I then played a sit and go tournament with Freddie Deeb. He was explaining how he played as we were dealing out a hand, the blinds was $25-$25, so I entered on the button Qh10h with 3 other callers. The flop came Q, 10, 6 rainbow. Freddie entered for $100 and I raised to $200 with my two pair. Freddie began to explain on why he would never do what he was about to do in a normal situation as he went all in, I immediately called, he turned over AQ and my two pair held up. I eventually went out but did have one pro notched on my gun belt.

The tournament continued until they had their final table and we broke for a dinner break. I grabbed some grilled salmon in the Mexican restaurant and changed for the evening sit and go tournaments.

I played a couple of more, again playing with Amir Vahedi. I finished third and afterwards got a shot of confidence as he told me that I was improving from the day beforre and that if I could have more confidence in my playing ability, I should become a good cash game player and start doing better in tournament play.

With another early start, I headed up to the room, between the seminars and the tournaments, I had about 10-11 hours of poker so I could use some rest. Until tomorrow...

So what did you do at camp?

This will be part of a commentary of my trip last December to that sin city, Las Vegas, Nevada and my participation in the Annie Duke/Howard Lederer poker camp.

The morning drive from LA was uneventful and aside from two quick stops, I got to the Palms and had time to walk around and see the wonderful holiday decorations. Okay, there were no campfires and no one went hiking outside of cruising the Vegas strip and despite a full schedule, there was time for fun and also a lot of poker. To be specific no-limit hold'em.

After getting settled in my room, the camp was having a welcoming reception and then we would play some sit and go tournaments (single table). After some very uninspired appetizers, Howard and Annie greeted us and introduced the other professionals who would be with us during the weekend.

Finally, we played some poker. One of the highlights of this event is that the professional players sit down at these sit and go tournaments and not only play but take time to explain their actions and critique your play. My first game was with Huck Seed, 1996 WSOP Main Event champion. He sat on my immediate left. He immediately recognized a tell of mine and corrected it on the spot.

But it was my next game with Amir Vahedi, who some may recognize from his appearance on the 2003 World Series of Poker telecasts on ESPN, in which I began to really grasp what they were trying to instruct us and also what is behind those sunglasses and large chip stacks you see on TV. Always present with his unlit cigar, Amir could not have been nicer and more willing to talk poker with us. He often would take several minutes after each hand to explain his play or to examine ours. Ultimately, without having any idea of what I was doing, I ended up going heads-up with him as one of the final two at the table. He won, but it was great to get some confidence as we headed into the first full day of poker. More later....