And now for the BIG news - bdawg31

[Talking Poker]

First, a small confession to make: I know bdawg. He and I have been friends for years. We both started working at the same place right out of college, in fact. Oddly enough, HE is the one who came up with the name "Talking Poker" when I told him I wanted to start this site and I was trying to find a good domain name. He and I have sort of made this journey through poker together, which as a side note, I have found EXTREMELY helpful over the years. We've literally shared 1000s of Hand Histories with each other via email and always supported each other through the ups and the downs. We've pushed each other when we needed it, reassured each other when we were down, and most of all, inspired each other with our big wins. This has been a HUGE help to me, and was a big part of the reason I started this place. I wanted to create a larger community that could help acoomplish the same thing for more people.

Anyway, the day I went live with this place, I asked him to join to help me get the discussions going. Well, the forum took off right away (thanks to the Pay Per Post thing I did) and it wasn't necessary. In fact, I remember a time many months later when omahilo thought bdawg was brand new, not realizing he was one of the charter members. He made a comment to him about "sticking around" or something like that. LOL...

Well, I guess eventually bdawg got to liking this place and started contributing more. At that time, it didn't come up that we knew each other, and as time went on, I almost felt weird about it, like it was a secret for some reason. It's obviously not, but it just didn't come up until now. He has been given his prize money for everything he has won (like the HUC and one of the TPFI events) just like everyone else. Nothing shady has ever gone on or anything like that.

As it turns out, bdawg is the friend I took to Aruba with me, who had that nice 4 way chop in one of the side events. Since I didn't mention that he was the one I was taking, I felt funny saying it was him who had the nice cash, so I didn't give him proper props until now: Congrats on that sweet cash and thanks for the 10%, sucker! (We swapped 10% with each other).

Has anyone noticed that I haven't gotten to the BIG news yet? Ok, no more dancing around - here it is...

While I was gone this weekend (when all hell was apparently breaking loose around here), bdawg decided to play some poker on Saturday night. Based on the sequence of emails I came home to, I see that he was struggling a bit and getting frustrated, and that's when he decided to play in two big satellites and then call it a night. He fired up a WPT PCA Double Shootout and an Australia satellite that started around the same time.

And he won them both!!! Are you freaking kidding me????????????

Fire up Poker Stars and see for yourself. Right now, there are only TWO people qualified for the Aussie tourney, and bdawg31 is oine of them! I could not be happier for you, my friend...

So................ last night, bdawg finally decided what he's going to do about these tourneys. He's taking his wife to Australia (out of pocket - this one didn't include travel expenses), and he's taking his mom and his kids to the Bahamas (hotel is paid for, but the travel out of pocket). And he's asked me to go along with them! So I'm going. I haven't won a seat in the tourney yet, but I'm going to focus on that a bit more now and try to get myself a seat. If I don't win though, at least I have a place to stay and can play in the side events, etc, etc....

So there you go. That's the big news. It may say "The Man" under my name, but in reality, bdawg31 is THE man! Congrats again dude!

P.S. Aequitas is my brother. Just kidding.