Royal Poker Blog

Some of you had a chance to meet my friend Joe at the 2005 WPBT Winter Classic. Recently he was given a unique opportunity to help broadcast the World Esports Games' Masters Tournament. He will be providing the English color commentary for the WarCraft 3 portion of the tournament.

Joe just arrived in Hangzhou, China and will be staying for almost a month!

I guess this was finally what he needed to start blogging. You can follow his journey over at Joe's Journal.

Have fun buddy!

Just a quick update here.

Everyone is back home from the hospital and doing well. Fortunately my mom was able to change her flight schedule. She'll be in town for over a week helping everyone get adjusted.

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Obviously there has been no real poker playing lately. A few weeks ago I cashed 4th in the Noble Poker $10,000 Freeroll. The really good money was in the top 2, but no complaints with my prize.

I also had a heart breaker in a WSOP ME tournament. One seat was guaranteed with nothing for second. I was the chip leader with 4 players left.

Counts were approximately:

30,500
18,500
17,500
13,500

Blinds were 800 /1600 with 150 antes. If you look at my M of 10 it becomes obvious that there will be some big clashes soon.

UTG (18,500) makes a minimum raise to 3200 and I push with TT. The blinds run away and after letting the clock tick all the way down UTG calls with A7o. He catches the Ace and I'm crippled and do not recover.

What a time to have someone catch their 3-outer. I'm certainly not guaranteed to win the seat, but 65% of the chips with only 3 players left is a pretty good spot to be in!

Oh well...

The “one month before baby” mentioned in the previous post was of course an estimate. With a due date of April 30^th we were aware that the new baby could arrive anytime. We were not ready for him last night.

Here’s the abbreviated time line:

7:00 PM – Mr., Mrs. and Little Royal head to the doctor to check out some abnormalities. Anyone who’s been through childbirth can tell you that abnormalities are not that abnormal.

8:00 PM – It becomes apparent that we’re having a baby, tonight. Now we need a sitter for Little Royal. We do have family flying in to help out…on April 23^rd…

A.I. cancels his plans and rushes right over to watch our daughter. Another friend swings by to help too. THANKS GUYS!

9:20 PM – We have a new son!

He’s early, about 3.5 weeks early. Technically this makes him just short of full term and not all that unusual. We know of the added risks and the relief is great when his entrance into this world is quickly followed by unhappy loud crying.

That relief quickly turns to concern as we learn he’s laboring to breath. The Oxygen content in his blood is too low forcing him to breathe twice as rapidly as normal. There are several potential causes for this and the Doctors (correctly) treat it seriously with extreme precaution.

By the time he’s 4 hours old my new son has been prodded, poked, wired and X-rayed. He’s been pumped with glucose and antibiotics. He’s been placed in an Oxygen rich chamber.

Besides the obvious medical concerns Mom is not happy emotionally since she can’t see or hold him. This wasn’t how things were supposed to go. This wasn’t how things went last time.

Through all of this I never got the feeling we were hanging on the edge. It was much more like walking along a thin path on a steep cliff. You’re okay and not worried, but if one thing changes for the worse you could immediately be facing dire circumstances.

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24 hours later he’s breathing normally without the extra Oxygen. Mom’s even had a chance to feed and hold him. There are still a few issues to deal with, but everything is much more normal now.

I’m too exhausted to sleep…hence this post.

Welcome Son