Yeah, I know, long time between posts. This was not my plan, but after the last one, I got sick, resisted going to the hospital for a while (always listen to your wife, or my wife, or something), went, stayed two weeks with pneumonia, was released but too weak to do anything, and am now finally mostly recovered.

I have not played a hand of poker since the last post, and missed the last five weeks of the WSOP, and the Bellagio tournament as well. Not that I play tournaments, I don’t, but the cash games were very pleasant for the first few weeks, and I had high hopes for the rest.

Next public appearance (meaning appearing in public) will be BARGE, where I will defend my championship in the Tournament of Champions format tournament (yes, I know that contradicts the last paragraph, but I do play BARGE tournaments - too much fun not to). I usually play up to eight events, but this year I am signed up for two: THE TOC and of course the NLHE big event. It is too late to sign up, so I will not put in my annual pitch for how great BARGE is.

I also missed a column during that time, so there will be a Card Player without my column in it. I know you all look for me first :), so I’m sorry in advance for the disappointment.

Speaking of Card Player, congratulations to Jeff Shulman for making the “November 9.” Last year I had no rooting interest in the outcome, and this year I do. I prefer it this way.

I have done three radio interviews lately. Two of them, for Rounders Radio, have already aired, but are in the archives at roundersradio.com. One show was Lou Krieger’s Keep Flopping Aces, and the other was for Mr. X5000 on The Daily Grind.

The third has not yet aired. It will be on houseofcardsradio.com Monday June 22. The interviewer, Ashley Adams, asked very interesting questions about professional poker. Please take the time to listen.

I had hoped to do the final table of the $10K Limit Hold’em Championship for ESPN360, airing live on June 17. Instead, they got Daniel Negraneau. I expect I will be doing the ESPN360 webcast on June 26, which will be the final table of the $2,500 Mixed Hold’em event. This is the first time the WSOP has alternated rounds of limit and no limit hold’em, and the contrasts should be interesting.

At the recent Women in Poker Hall of Fame Induction ceremony, Jan Fisher was inducted, with Cyndy Violette and June Field. The ceremony,emceed by Mike Sexton, was excellent. Jan is a deserving member of the this Hall, now in its second year.

In conjunction with this was yet another charity tournament, this time for pokergives.com, which this year will provide funding for Special Olympics, Paralyzed Veterans, and the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund. I made the final table for tiny cash, but enjoyed the event.

My apologies for the time between posts here. My site was hacked and I was unable to update for several weeks. I was was too stupid to realize what I should do about it. I finally worked out to tell my web hosts, the great folks at Zelfanet. They got it fixed quickly, so we can communicate again.

Let’s see. The oldest news is that played in the Andre Agassi Charity event at the Red Rock resort and casino. He was not there as far as I could see, not, even more disappointing, was Steffi. I went pretty far, but not at the final table.

I had serious problems with this event, as, because of the number of entrants, they decided to play it in two shifts. So we started at 11 AM, and just before 1 PM they announced that this was the last hand until the next shift played and we were to come back at 5 PM.I did not like this, as I have limited stamina, and entered expecting to play until it was finished. I had 4 hours to kill, and finally figured out to go to the lovely spa and get a massage.

The two starts was worse for those players who showed up expecting to see the poker celebrities that were advertised. Since half of them had a 2 PM start time, the early players did not get to see them, and the late players did not get to meet the ones who started early and busted out.

Yes, I understand it was a good cause, but they need to work out a better structure in the future.