Podcast, 4/6/11: My Set-Up

Over the years, I’ve been accused of having a supercomputer or some sort of proprietary software. By far, one of the questions I get asked the most is, “What specifically is your set-up?” In this week’s podcast, I pull back the veils and tell you exactly how I’ve got things rigged.

More importantly, I tell you about the biggest change I’ve made with respect to technology this year and how it’s really helped me.

First, a couple housekeeping notes:

*Many of you have asked when the pod will be up on iTunes. We are very close, but want to work a few bugs out before we launch. Until then, if you’d like to have an MP3 version of this pod emailed to you, just drop us a note at info@imagine-books.net.

*The pod refers to a big announcement coming today. That’ll actually happen Thursday.

*You’ll find an outline for the podcast and a new blog below.

Enough talk. Here's the podcast.

Our structure for the podcast is as follows:

1.Weighing Sunday tourneys vs. cash games exclusively.
2. Why Tom Dwan is dipping, and why he doesn’t care.
3.What the Zygna offensive tells me about the next 12 months.
4. My personal experience with Luke “Full Flush” Schwartz. My opinion of him? It rhymes with “A Complete Rick.”
5. My Hardware/Software setup, and the single biggest technological change I’ve made this year.
6. How to prepare when going from online to live.
7. My Masters sleeper pick.

***

Here is the new blog:

I had another rough Sunday in the Poker Stars tournaments. Not to sound like a broken record, but man does it amaze me how many of those things you can play and not have anything good happen! I guess I just thought after 5 months of playing Sundays that I would at least final table something that is important. I am going to re think playing these things as was my plan for the year. I hate to give up on something, but at the same time, I don’t want to waste a year’s worth of Sundays playing 12 hour tournament days just to lose money. I guess what I will probably end up doing is sticking it out through the SCOOP and the WSOP this summer, and then make a decision. Maybe I am just meant to be a cash game player forever. It’s certainly starting to look that way.

The last 2 days I spent hanging with my wife and daughter. I took my daughter on a little date which we have begun doing recently as she has gotten a little older. We usually go to the zoo or the museum and have a great time. She is a lot of fun to be around because she has a great personality and we are starting to be able to communicate much better. We taught her baby sign language so she can sign a lot of words that she isn’t able to say yet. This makes her happier and us happier because now she can tell us what she wants.

Lennon recently learned what “relax” and “cuddling” means. Before I go in to play poker, she liked to watch Elmo on TV with me. So I put it on for her and she sits straight up and is bouncing up and down because she is so excited that Elmo is on. I then tell her that she should “relax” and then she sort of plops back on the pillow from which point I tell her “Do you want to cuddle” and she usually flashes a big smile and lays in my nook. It’s a pretty cool thing for sure and a great way to start my day. I joke that it is often a pretty odd existence to go from cuddling with my daughter watching Elmo to check raising someone in a high stakes poker game a few hours later, but hey, that’s our life I guess.

I will have to say I am thoroughly sick of Portland, Oregon right now. I just want summer to get here or I just want to get out of here. The weather has been absolutely awful. Other than when I travel, I swear the sun hasn’t come out (unless it is accompanied by 36 degree weather) in 6 months. Living here in Portland hasn’t bothered me too much over the past 5 years I have been here, but it is starting to take it’s toll on me lately. You can only look outside and see clouds and rain for so long before you start to go nuts. So I sure hope the summer comes soon and we don’t have one of those delayed summers that starts in mid July like we did last year. That seems to be a trend in Oregon lately where the summer keeps rolling in later and later every year. At some point if it gets too short I am going to bail on this place. I need some more sunshine!!