Attention Deficit Disorder Poker

Finally! Poker for those of us with ADD! Full Tilt Poker has added a new twist: enter The Matrix.

In Matrix games you play the same opponents in four sit-and-go games, ALL AT ONE TIME and you earn cash for where you place in each of the games and then also cash for where you place in The Matrix.

If that doesn't stress the senses to the breaking point, I've been playing exclusively 6-handed, turbo sit-and-go games.

Waaaaaa Hooooooo!

Here's my strategy: A-B-C poker for the most part, but also utilizing the fact that my opponents may be playing in much the same manner and slipping in a winning hand now and then by betting out when an ace hits.

Aces scare people.

My strategy seems to be working and I'm having fun., which is always goal numero uno. In the last four games I've placed second in The Matrix three times and first once by winning five games and finishing second in five games.

I'll be right back....... I think I hear a duck.......

Shuffle up and deal

How does one characterize one's self when one is one of the top poker players in a free bar game? One might compare one's self to the best ballerina in Trafalgar or the top ice salesman in Juneau...

Yes, the game is free. Yes, the players for the most part are so-so. Yes, the structure is way too fast. Five final tables in the last three months however is solid play no matter how you slice it.

Top two pay cash: $100 to the winner and $50 to second.

Characterize it however you want, but I have another Ben Franklin in my pocket.

Back On Stage

I’ve never been famous.

I guess I’m pretty well known locally and there are a lot of people that know me that I don’t know or remember. Most of the people I don’t know or don’t remember are parents of students past, present, and future. They stop me in the store or at a concert and start talking to me like we’re best buds. I smile and chat about whatever they bring up.

“Who was that?” my wife asks.

“I don’t know,” I answer.

She’s used to by now.

I rarely forget a face. Names however stay in my mind about as long as a Twinkie on my heavyweight’s lunch tray.

I remember Henry Lee Summer as a high-energy rocker. He had a few hits in the late 1980’s, including three in the top ten and the number one single, “I Wish I had A Girl” in 1988. Henry Lee toured with Stevie Ray Vaughn, Eddie Money, Chicago, and Richard Marx when things were going well.

Things stopped going well for a while. Finally, in 2006 Henry Lee was arrested after the car he was driving crashed into several other vehicles and a mobile home. He was charged with operating a vehicle while intoxicated, resisting arrest, and failing to stop after an accident.

In his defense, he said he was taking Ambien. It’s the old “I’m not stoned I’m sleepy” defense.

Webster’s New College Dictionary defines “things aren’t going well for you” as any time you crash your car into a mobile home…

Henry Lee is trying to make a come back after a crashing into mobile homes and an alleged substance abuse problem. As he took the stage last night, you could see that time has taken its toll. He has the sunken cheeks and ashen skin that are associated with age well beyond his chronological years and he has a natural stoop as if as if he’s carrying an unseen burden.

The first cords were a little rough and his voice cracked as he began to sing. You could see the members of the sparse, Thursday night crowd look at each other apprehensively. It didn’t look like the come back would happen.

You can’t go home again.

You can try though.

Henry Lee Summer can still play a guitar. As he loosened up quickly, hit his musical stride, and began to lay down some incredible riffs. He’s never had a great voice, but he did start to sound like the Henry Lee of old, playful and full of energy.

After two hours he completed the second set, obviously tired but there was a gleam in his eye as he talked about his wife, who was in the audience celebrating a birthday.

“All she wants for her birthday is a hamburger and a milk shake from Steak and Shake. That’s love ‘cause she knows I got no money. I ain’t had a hit record since electricity came in!”

I don’t know what it’s like to have so much and to lose most of it. There’s a school of thought that we make our own luck, good AND bad.

Welcome back Henry Lee. There’s a lot of us pulling for you.