There are some people that think mods like this are pointless.  Well, I'm not one of them.  First, the deck lets me be able to identify cards much easier, making multi-tabling easier. Second, the table mod is fully compatible with TableNinjaFT *and* it makes having a HUD on the table a lot cleaner, making playing games like Full Ring a lot easier for multitabling. Finally, it looks great and doesn't piss me off (yes, I used to work in graphic design).

Both were done by DeepFreeze and they are gorgeous.  Have a look:

Full Tilt Poker Table and Card Mod by DeepFreeze

To me that's just gorgeous.  I should have taken a screen because it also comes with special buttons that match the theme perfectly although he doesn't recommend using them if you play Rush Poker (I don't!).

The table mod is called "Full Tilt Scandic" and is fully compatible with TableNinjaFT!  It lets you pick the background (pattern or color) and there's a few table color choices as well.  I think if you compare this with the Full Tilt standard theme, it's no comparison.

The deck mod is called "---o-0-o---" and is just gorgeous. You can have black or yellow for the spades.  Looks fantastic, and again, so much better visually than what you get standard at Full Tilt Poker.

So there you go, my two cents on the issue.  Give DeepFreeze some business and tell them I sent ya.  I don't get a thing for it but I want him to know his work is appreciated!

Heath

I had developed an issue that I didn't think was a big deal and ended up getting so bad I went to Urgent Care on Friday morning.  I spent 2.5 hours there getting tested and the news sucked.  I don't want to get into it but I am fine, what I had was totally treatable, and thanks to the meds is now gone (Monday).  I found out it's both dietary and hereditary so with the proper diet and exercise I'll be just fine.  The bad news, outside of the discomfort I was in, was that I had to stay home per the doctor's orders.  What that meant was that a trip to Pala Casino and Deepstacks Live was cancelled, along with my chance to interview and hang out with Mike "The Mouth" Matusow and BoostedJ, two guys I've wanted to meet.  But, I am glad I got myself sorted out obviously, and there will be other times to meet those two down the road.

Computer Upgrade

My computer had been wigging out on me for the last two weeks include a scare last week when StarCraft 2 inexplicably crashed, my computer shut down and then would die in the middle of booting to Windows.  It took over an hour to get it working again.  I kept an eye on the system after that and this entire week it was lagging and then during poker sessions (the last straw I tell you!!) the entire computer would freeze for 60 seconds ... and I'd time out on every hand and table.  UGH.

So - I upgraded on Sunday since I was feeling so much better.  Here's what I got:

This is the Intel i7 930 Quad-Core processor that runs at 2.8GHz and can overclock itself to beyond.  It's an amazing processor!

This is the Asus P6T X58 Motherboard, which can do some overclocking but I do not plan to go down that road for a while. This thing screams as it is, but this Mobo will let me have 24GB of RAM if I wanted! Great looking board and worked right away, so kudos to ASUS for another fine product.

Here we have the Corsair Patriot 6GB DDR3 1600MHz RAM kit.  Because I installed Windows 7 64-bit edition, I have more than 3GB of maximum RAM now which is awesome since I run 23 programs at once typically and do stuff like Camtasia or gaming which can be RAM intensive.

This puppy is the 128MB Corsair Nova Solid State Hard Drive.  I got this to be my primary hard drive to put my Operating System and basic software on (meaning Adobe Suite, MS Office, and of course HEM and PostgreSQL).  This is one of the fastest SSDs on the market for read/write, which is why I went with this one which was $50 more than the Kingston version of the same size but was significantly slower.

The result was that my computer boots up in like ... oh ... 5 seconds.  No joke.  Things like FireFox or Chrome load up instantaneously once I click the button to start them.  The speed of this machine is unlike anything I have ever seen before.  I find myself one very satisfied computer user now!!!

First, I was honored that they asked me to try-out.  In a happy magical world if I got the part, it would have no interference with my duties at PND so that's a huge positive.  Plus, it actually pays and is great exposure on Fox Sports New which is awesome.  Anyways, my audition went well even though I went in blind when most of the people trying out got a printout of the script and hand before they went in. But alas, I killed it and did really well, in my humble opinion.  Will I get a call back? Who knows, but I had a lot of fun doing it.

The most shocking thing were the names of the people that showed up.  There were a good mix of people off the street and random poker players that just wanted to interact with the industry and meet some famous folks.  Fair enough.  Others were actors (aka waiters) trying to get a break that didn't know diddily about poker which Vince Van Patten told me on-camera were "clunkers" in their auditions.  But then ... well ... some people showed up that shocked me.

First was Joe Sebok.  His show on Fox Sports "Poker2Nite" just got cancelled so I guess he's going for more exposure (or to keep what he had).  He's well liked in the industry so to be honest, I figure him to be the odds-on-favorite to get it.  I'm just surprised someone of his level would want a gig like this and compete at an open audition.

The next to surprise me was Clonie Gowan.  I mean, pure shock at that name and I just said "WOW" when I saw her.  Maria Ho was there to support a few friends and since she and I are good acquaintances we commented how we were both surprised to see Clonie come out of ... well ... apparently thin air since nobody had seen her in forever.  Since she's a big name, people love her and she has this awesome MILF vibe, she has to be considered a favorite too.

Another name that showed up that was surprising was Ali Nejad.  Ali is a really funny guy and someone I think would do well in this part.  People like him but he's always been a super straight man on the mic and this would let him spread his wings and show off a great sense of humor.  Again, given how much time he gets on NBC I was surprised that he threw his name in the hat for this gig, but hey, I guess it's a way for him to branch out from what he's doing now.

Apparently there were a few other names but I missed them as they came early in the day.  The folks at the WPT are starting to be back in the radar and that's good news for them because it was radio silence for two years.  I'm not 100,000% convinced that this Raw Deal thing could work, but it could with the right person, the right takes, and the right amount of comedy.  Of course, the wrong person would just come across as a First Class A-Hole and it could get ugly quick and scrapped rather quickly. But kudos to the WPT for letting their fans interact so intimately and giving anyone with a dream a legit shot at a pretty cool opportunity.

Honestly, it was that mentality that got me a 2.8 GPA my first semester in college.  Sure, you get a passing grade and you do a hell of a lot better than most of your drunken fraternity brothers, but you know you are capable of so much more.  So how do you study better?

What I do might work for you but I know it worked for me.  In university I graduated (small brag) with a 3.75 GPA so hopefully my studying techniques can be applied over to poker.  In theory it's the same thing - you watch, you take notes, you learn.

So with any training video (for example) what I do is put it in an appropriate notebook.  Oh yeah, this means you're going to go to the local office supply store and buy:

• 100 page memo notebooks. Hopefully you can find them for a $1 each.
• A set of very nice flow-point ball-point pens.  But get the colored ones.  The pack I got was $3 and it came with 2 black, 2 blue, red and green.  Perfect!

That's it. So about $5-$10 depending on what you get but compared to the money you put on the table to play poker, it's seriously nothing.

So, we have a notebook dedicated to specific topics.  For example I have one aside for coaching sessions that I have.  I have another dedicated to all the Heads Up NLHE cash game videos I watch.  I also have one dedicated to Full Ring NLHE.  Each "entry" in the notebook states the name of the video, where it came from, the author and the publish date so that way if I need to go back and reference the video it'll be very easy.

From there I color code notes and constantly stop and play back the video for crucial concepts and specific key hands.  My color coding works:

• BLACK: General notes, general topics, general concepts
• BLUE: Specific word-for-word instructor "tips"
• RED: Hand data (your hand, villain, board, flop/turn/river with betting action)
• GREEN: Hand ranges, HUD data

The color coding of the notes makes it a LOT easier to read and frankly, less likely to ignore because it's not all one mundane color.  It has life, it has key concepts automatically highlighted for you. For me, I'm 100% more likely to re-read these notes rather than if I had just typed it out on my computer and printed them out.

Once I finish off a video, which will take about 2x the actual length of the video, I put away the notes. That's right, I do not re-read them.  I wait about a half-day or 24 hours and then re-read them, and if necessary, making more notes in the margins.  At the end, I ask myself 3 or 4 questions I might have and look to the forums or friends on AIM to get their opinions.

After that, it's time to repeat the process with the next training video.  It's not an easy way to study, but for me, it works.  I don't have great short term memory and I'm notoriously lazy in the brain. But this is a way I learn and a very interactive way for me to watch the video to make sure the concepts sink in.

So feel free to try it out and hopefully you'll start learning better.  Just don't tell the fish!

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I also nixed myself from the logo area, I think that this new one is the nuts. It's so perfect for me. There's me on the left, Good Icemonkey9, eating his banana and looking very happy. Smart, cute, good at what he does. Then on the other side is bad Icemonkey9 who looks like he got clobbered at the tables and is sad. So LOL. Perfection.

So, enjoy and if you want me to set you up with a nice looking blog let me know, my services come pretty cheap if you are lazy/ignorant when it comes to blogging.

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Poker

The good news is that I did pretty well in live poker and although I didn't play that much while in Vegas, the time was profitable and I think my new found mental state is really helping me.  I was definitely in the positive, but I really didn't keep track of how much.

Online poker ... well ... I seriously didn't play any.  (Firing up HEM now) ... wow looks like I booked a losing month but hey, just 5730 hands so I don't think that counts. Or maybe it does.  Who cares?

Looks like the most I played was 25nl at a whopping 2,245 hands and I lost $31 lol.  I think I was experimenting to see if I could go back to playing 19 tables on Stars. I think I never hit crap and ran into a few coolers but honestly, so little hands who cares.  I remember playing 100nl 6max on Cake and getting a couple of really bad beats ... oh God here I go again.  Let's just say the results were bad but I felt good about my game.  Heads-up didn't go well either but I just put in a total of 465 at 50nl HU so I don't think that counts either.

Basically - I didn't play enough poker to give myself any sort of fair evaluation of my mental state, game state or results at all. Sorry!

The good news is that I am really going to put an effort out to organize my time better and set aside time specifically for poker.  So, I am hoping August's recap will actually (finally?) have some good online poker content.

So ... what are you doing with your time?

I can comfortably say that I didn't play a lot of poker in July because of burn out.  Staying in Vegas for so long covering the WSOP definitely burned me out on the game.  When you are around the game for 14 hours in a day pretty much the last thing you want to do is fire up the tables.  The thing you do want to do is blow people up!

Weeeeeeeeee!  Been playing the hell out of StarCraft 2, and as some of you know, I am a big time gamer. I played every RTS game that's mattered over the last 15 years so for SC2 to finally come out is like a god-send. I went to the big giant Blizzard release party at Frys Electronics in Fountain Valley and was just blown away by how many people were there.  Needless to say the game has taken up a lot of time and it's been real fun playing with my friends online. TIME VAMPIRE.

Conclusions

• Had a ton of fun at the WSOP covering the Main Event and got a ton of kudos from people in the industry for my work. I'm still very thankful and humbled.
• StarCraft 2 is awesome
• More poker in August