Please forgive me for skipping a week. There was no time between Oroville and BARGE. I have been a busy boy.

The Oroville seminars went well. Kenna James and Lee Watkinson spoke, as did Linda Johnson, Jan Fisher, Denny Axel and me. I did not know Kenna or Lee, but both were very nice and interesting people. I spoke about limit hold’em topics on Saturday and No Limit Tournaments (Survival vs. Accumulation) on Sunday.

Although the Gold Country is typically a small stakes room, they more than sold out the $20,000 guaranteed tournament on Sunday. The pros were bounties, and I went out fairly early. Only Jan Fisher made the money (nice job, Jan), though the day before, in the $10 buy-in with rebuys event, but Kenna and Lee made the money (top five).

Many thanks to Harry Thomas, Gold Country Casino manager, for inviting me. I love to give seminars and talks to poker players.

Much to my surprise, my recent column in Card Player called “Running Scared” has generated more e-mail than any other I have written. It seems to have struck a chord with some players who are going through bad streaks. I’m very pleased to have helped them.

In other column news, Rachel Croson, who was my co-author on the “Prospect Theory” columns, has agreed to co-write another column. This one will explore why tournament players ignore pot odds early in an event to emphasize survival.

In the BARGE NLHE tournament, I got all-in with AK against two callers, one with 88 and one with JJ. I figured I needed to suck out anyway so there might as well be two of them, but now I’m not sure. I am around 45% against either hand, but 35% against both. I guess this makes sense, and I suppose a 35% chance to triple through is better than a 45% chance to double through. In any case, I didn’t and so was out quickly.

Right now I’m on vacation in Florida visiting my mother in Hallandale. Back in Vegas full time for three weeks, then to Hawaii for my 25th anniversary trip.