Golf with Poker Ho and PH

Posted: May 21, 2008 06:13 PM

UB auction item: "Golf with Poker Ho and PH"

UB.com has a new auction site where you can use your site points to bid on auction items. My first round with this was weird. Up for auction was a "Private lesson with Phil Hellmuth" in Palo Alto, including $1,000 for spending money, hotel, and airfare. The smart young man that bought it paid $70 for it-he spent the equivalent in points of $70 in cash. That means that he pocketed $930 in cash, flew to sunny Palo Alto, and received private lessons from me! I had suggested minimum bids, but they couldn't do that and keep it an auction.

Round two was a 100% different than round one. In round two, "Senor Jota" (UB site name) bid an equivalent of $12,500 worth of points to play golf at "Pasa Tiempo" an Alistair McKenzie designed golf course in Santa Cruz, California that is the best golf course in Nor Cal-other than "Pebble Beach" and "Cypress Point" (both of which are top five on every list). Jota brought "Madh00se" and the gambling began when we agreed to a scramble match for $800 a hole. Ho and I would give the young guns (they are both below the age of 25) 3 half shots on the first 6 holes. This was a big spot because they claimed that their handicaps were 35 (Mah00se) and 25. They promptly won the first five holes, and they were one under to our 5 over! Which team was spotting which? We won the sixth hole, and the spot went all the way to us receiving a half shot on one of the next six holes. When the smoke cleared I was proud of the fact that I had made at least two long putts, both of them one handed. Also, I stepped up on number 15-a par three--and hit it to 8 feet when Ho was out of play. On 18-another par three-for all of the money, Ho hit it out of play again, and I hit my shot of the day when I hit it to 9 feet from 160 yards with a seven iron.

We headed into the clubhouse, where we began playing high stakes Euchre. I hadn't played for many years, but I felt at ease paying Euchre. After a few quick beers, I called my limo back in Palo Alto to come and get us. I was planning on leaving at 5:00 pm, but I was having so much fun hanging out with, and gambling with Jota and Madh00se. These two young guns are great guys and a ton of fun to hang out with! At 6:40 pm the course looked empty, and we decided to play 9 more holes, but for a lot more money! High stakes drunk golf! I was hitting my drives a lot better now that I had 3 big beers in me. Afterwards we headed to an Italian restaurant in the limo where we played high stakes Euchre until they kicked us out of there at midnight (they were closing). I remember one game where we played for $300 a point, and $500 a game per man, and they skunked us to win $7,000 apiece! Then we skunked them the very next game, although it came down to the very last trick! I had a great time, and I even beat Ho out of $3,900 in the limo on the way back to Palo Alto! I don't expect every golf outing to be like this one, but what a great time!

Wednesday - Friday

I was in studio for seven hours a day recording two new "White belt to black belt" poker courses for Iamplify.com. One course I finished is on how to play Omaha 8/b. The other course is on no limit Hold'em, and the black belt adds up to "How to win a World Series of Poker" tournament! I'm proud of this course, and I'm proud of my course that is up at Iamplify.com right on limit Hold'em-the one up there now is four and a half hours long. I was absolutely exhausted afterwards, and my voice was in pain. FYI - the beer cans are out right now, although some may not hit stores until June 1, and this is what they look like.