On Thursday, after over two months of silence, Doyle Brunson was back with another blog post: "Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker". This time the 79-year-old Texan talked about playing the $50k HORSE and the Main Event at the 2013 World Series of Poker, a dinner with an old friend, basketball, cats, and more.
On Thursday, after over two months of silence, Doyle Brunson was back with another blog post: "Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker". This time the 79-year-old Texan talked about playing the $50k HORSE and the Main Event at the 2013 World Series of Poker, a dinner with an old friend, basketball, cats, and more.
I've got to blame my failure to update my blogs regularly on twitter. Seems like I put most of my thoughts there instead of blogging about them. Anyway, a quick recap of the past few weeks is that I have played poker a lot, probably 70-80 hours a week. That's way too much for someone turning 80 years old next month, but the cash games were really good. I won enough to break about even for the WSOP time. I lost every basketball game and all of the series. Damn LeBron, he is just too good and I was against the Heat all the way. Live and learn. I also "booked" a couple of poker players I played with and they won much more than they lost, but I loved the action. After saying I wasn't going to play any tournaments, I broke over, playing the 50K Horse tournament and going out right before the money. In my opinion, that is the best tournament in the WSOP and I will probably play in it again next year. When the main event started they had a special ceremony honoring me by placing a bronze bust of me in the tournament area and offering me a free seat. So, what else could I do? I played, making it to the 4th day where I went completely card dead and finished 409th, collecting 28K. I had a good time playing but was getting a little tired towards the end. The tournaments have some long days but I understand they are necessary.
I'm now having my usual withdrawal symptoms from not playing any at all. I get so focused when I play regularly it's almost scary. I play long hours then when the lights go out at bedtime, I replay all the key hands of the day, trying to figure out how I could have made better decisions. Kudos to my family for putting up with me through those stretches. I'm preparing to leave for Montana for a few weeks where I can hopefully renew myself both physically and mentally.
I had a great dinner last night with Riley Cross, a guy I've been friends with for 78 years. We grew up in the same little town and virtually spent every day of our early lives together, through grammar school, high school and college. We have remained in touch for all these years and it pains me to see his health deteriorate. He probably thinks the same about me, but it is a great thing to have a best friend for so long. He was a great athlete and went on to teach in Abilene, Texas until his retirement. He was an All Conference football player and as we recalled the past, it seems most of the football players from college are dead, but my entire basketball squad is still alive. Amazing, because I was one of the younger players that went to the sweet 16 in the NCAA tournament.
If you remember in some of my previous blogs, I talked about the feral cats around our house. They are still there with about 6-7 in the colony that won't allow other cats to hang around. My wife and daughter have named them all and feed them twice a day. They are beautiful creatures and are so tame we can actually pet some of them. The Humane Society, who came out and trapped them and fixed them and gave them shots before returning them, told us that was almost impossible. Pam took one of them in to be checked out because he had dropped some weight and the vet told her he was the best looking feral cat he had ever seen. Actually, he was the ugliest of all our feral's. They have really helped fill the void from losing our two dogs, Casper and Cutie. Shows what a little love can do!
May the flop be with you
Doyle Brunson
source: doylebrunson.com
