UB Pays up! NYC drinking, Obama wins, and I lose again online at UB…

OK, NBC will not let me reveal how I did in any PAD ("Poker after Dark") cash games. I will say that I shot four weeks of PAD shows (two PAD's) and overall, I won money. On Thursday night, after playing in a PAD cash game all day long, I stayed up all night losing $60,000 to Eli Elezra at Chinese poker. Then I hopped on a flight to NYC, where I hung out with my sister at the Soho grand bar (she was dressed as a punk rocker). I went to support a charity event for Annie Duke. We did our event on Saturday at 4:30 pm, and it was fun to meet LPGA pro Natalie Gulbis (she was beautiful and really a nice girl), Dennis Rodman, Ivanka Trump, and Bernard Hopkins at the event. Then Saturday night I went to the "40 40 Club" to watch Texas - Texas Tech, and what a game! We partied in Jay Z's "Champions" booth, drinking Dom P Rose, and watching the game on one channel and ESPN on the other. "Hollywood Dave" joined us with a friend, and five of us headed off to "STK" Steak house for a late 10:45 pm dinner. I like the vibe there. You listen to a DJ while you eat a pretty good steak. Then we went downstairs to the club called "10 June," where we grabbed a VIP booth, partied, and danced the night away. Mark, an owner of the "STK" and "10 June" hosted us from midnight and after. I danced with a few models (my wife lets me dance with 'em!), and met "Cedric the Entertainer" and Anthony Andersen from "Law and Order." On Sunday I woke up with a hangover, the first I've had in a year or two. I also woke up and tweaked my back pretty badly (when I reached down to grab something on the floor), and that hasn't happened more than once in the last 12 years. I almost cancelled my flight, but I decided to get home first, and then rest. I made it without too much trouble, but I've been protecting my back all week long, and it is finally feeling better now. On Tuesday my wife, my sons, and I watched a very historic election unfold on CNN. I did vote in this election, and it was the first time since 1982. I will not say who I voted for, but the rest of my family was excited to see Obama win.

Tonight, Thursday night, I lost $10,000 playing the $50-$100 blind game at UB. Ouch! One hand I raised with K-10, the flop came down K-10-8, and then my opponent moved all in for $3,000 or so with his A-A. The turn card was an ace…Later, I called a raise with K-K, someone else reraised, and two of us called (actually I was all in for about $1,800 pre-flop). The board came down 9-8-8-3-A, and my opponent showed me 8-8 (quads). What can I do? I put my money in as a huge favorite twice, but alas. I did play my last hand badly, as it turns out, when I moved all in for my last $2,000 with A-10 high after a flop of 3-6-9. I felt like my opponent would bet any flop with anything like he was doing for an hour, but this time he had Q-Q. I like the way I played, but $10,000 a day is my new budget at UB.

I am happy that UltimateBet.com finally paid out many millions of dollars--to the players that were affected--after their long, intense, and complicated investigation. It is nice to finally have the air cleared, although "60 Minutes" is rumored to have a show about the UB scandal that will come out this weekend. UB will still get some big time bad press for awhile. Still, UB now has a strong new CEO named Paul Leggett, and he is the very person that headed up the investigation and then followed through with the reparations. Paul also cleaned up the site, and brought in a new team to run things. The site is in great hands with Paul!! Hopefully UB will join forces with AbsolutePoker.com soon under one platform-called "Cereus"--and together they will become the world's third or fourth largest Internet poker site.