Headed to St Louis with Dennis Phillips

I have not been keeping up for the past week or so, in my defense I've been busy and a little short on time. The Borgata didn't go as I had hoped. I lasted to almost the end of day one, but never could get any traction. I knew it was a bad omen when in the last hand before the dinner break one of the more active players at the table raised in early position and it was folded around to me in the big blind. I looked down at two beautiful black aces. I made a small re-raise and he thought for about ten seconds and said "I should put you all in, I know I'm ahead but I am late for dinner and have to go to the bathroom." He then folds pocket queens face up. So that about sums up my day.

Let's get to some of the good stuff. I am writing this on a plane on my way from Buffalo to St. Louis. I spent the weekend with Dennis Phillips at Falls View in Niagara Falls. We played some cash games for the weekend; he played in the $5,200 on Stars and me in the 1 million on Full Tilt, and basically eat, slept and drank poker for the past few days. I spent this weekend working with Dennis, trying to get a feel for how I could best help with his preparation for November 9^th. I have had something of an epiphany. This partnership that we have formed with the intended goal of helping Dennis has already begun to help me in ways I would never have dreamed of. I realized it would provide me with PR and the opportunity to advance some of my endeavors along the way, but I didn't recognize how much I would learn as a result of this. Coaching or teaching, just as it did in my previous life, forces you to prepare and learn more yourself.

Dennis Phillips is really a very interesting guy and although I am just beginning to get to know him, I would like to share some of my observations to this point. First of all, he is the real deal when it comes to poker. People for some reason love to denigrate winners of events, especially the last several WSOP main event winners. People love to say how; oh he was just a donkey that got lucky, or the deck ran them over or some other such nonsense. You have to keep in mind that yes indeed some of the hands they show on TV may look like a never ending luck fest, but only a small percentage of the hands played are shown, and they are heavily edited which can make the good look bad and the bad look just plain ugly. So after what seems like a string of 12-16 hour days, someone's play is boiled down to 5 or 10 hands that have been picked for TV appeal and sometimes edited to where you lose the flow of the hand, someone who is without a doubt bitter about having his pocket aces cracked on day one of the main event after slow playing in a multi-way pot having moved all in on a board of 7 8 9 10 Q, berates the winners play. Now I am not saying that some or all of the final nine haven't gotten lucky, maybe even super lucky in spots along the way, but they had to of played great the majority of the time.

One of the things I like about Dennis is he has included a group of his close friends on this journey he is on to help him. He has continued working at Broadway Trucking on a daily basis, is heavily involved in charities, and is an all around good guy. I have played at tables with him a lot over the past couple of weeks, as well as spent hours discussing various aspects of poker and his game. His play is really solid and he is constantly trying to improve. As with most things in life, if you are not trying to improve, you are probably falling behind.

We have a bit of a hectic schedule over the next 48 days (but who's counting) and I will share some of the road to the final table with you on the way. This is a unique situation in poker where there is such a long time gap before the final table is played. I am still not sure whether I love it or hate it, but I'm just happy to be here and involved along the way.

For more information on Roy Winston, you can visit his website: www.oraclepoker.net or send him an email. The contents presented herein on this blog are purely the opinions of Roy Winston, and are not intended to reflect or promote the opinions of any other person, group, or entity. If you like what I write than thanks for reading, and if not well, thanks anyway.