Queen Rylee's 1st Photo Shoot

Priceless.......


Courtesy of: http://studionphotography.com/

1-0, September 13th is that much closer.

So I attended the home opener on Saturday for the Buckeyes against my alum (Youngstown State). Greg and Lori came down Friday night with their two kids which led to a full house for the weekend. Greg and I got up around 7a.m. Saturday morning and I had a few other friends coming down from Youngstown to meet up with us at my house and we all followed each other down to the tailgate for the game. The traffic was not at all bad and we got there and were all setup cooking and drinking by 9 a.m. The entire process seemed to go way to good. Anyhow one of my good friends (Fornia) is always well prepared for a good time. He brought everything. Brats, dogs, grill, beer, liquor, table, chairs, I mean EVERYTHING. He is that guy you want there if you are looking for a good time. He does it up the right way every single time. Anyhow there was a total of 6 of us who enjoyed our selves at the tailgate before the game. (Myself, Fornia, Mcnally, Topper, Mike and his wife Leslie-god bless her for dealing with our guy shit)

We made our way to the game and Greg and I decided to upgrade our tickets with a scalper. We paid an extra 40 bucks each, but it was well worth it. Our upgrade put us in the lower deck, 8 rows up on around the 10-15 yardline. The atmosphere in the stadium is one of the best in the nation. If you are a football fan and you don't get the chills when you get in there, than well, you are not a football fan. The crowd was hype as usual and the Bucks somewhat blew out the Guins 43-0.

The game was pretty much one sided and we got our first taste of the freshman phenom Terrel Pryor (Sp). He looks so good in the #2 jersey that he coulda played bad and still looked good. I think he looks and plays like a fresh Vince Young. It's almost scarey to imagine the big plays that he will be making in the future for the Buckeyes. All in all it was 1 of 2 tune up games for the Bucks before that MONSTEROUS game on September 13th. I'll leave you with a couple poor photos I took with my phone.

Rylee - Poker

So we are one week deep with Rylee's life as I am writing this. Everything has been going great. She has about 1-2 hours of rage and crying spurts per day, which seems fine with me. She is worth every minute of our time regardless of how much she cries. Aunt Cara came to Columbus for the day on Tuesday and hung out with Rylee. Rylee loves her Aunt obviously. They bonded during a few feeding sessions and chillin with my sister is always a good time. This morning Rylee had her first photo shoot. Natalie, a friend from Youngstown who resides in Cincinnatti now, came to our house and took like 200 photos of Rylee. Natalie has her own professional photography business and she did a great job with Rylee. We can't wait to see some of the photos. Everything went great and I just wanted to say thank Natalie for everything.

As far as the pokah, I been playing a much lighter volume of tournaments. Usually I been starting around 7-8pm and playing around 4-6 tournaments a night. I been strictly playing on the laptop for the convenience purposes with Rylee, so my usual schedule is obviously reduced dramatically. I'm totally ok with that.

Pocketfives just releases the article and interview with yours truely about the victory in the Sunday Million. I did the interview last week over the phone while I was at the hospital with Leandra and Rylee. The interview went very well and resulted in a good article.....here is the link - http://www.pocketfives.com/online-poker-scene/dan-b-o-k-e-bokesch-wins-sunday-million-3186954 I also broke into the "world" rankings of online tournament players that pocketfives lists. I'm currently ranked 82nd in the world and 4th in the state of Ohio. It's always a nice accomplishment to be ranked, but I wouldn't think too much into it. I mean the rankings have a very unique structure of combining different data to come up with the top players. The system is unique, but not as subjective as they used to be. That ends up leaving out many many great players who just don't put in as much time in tournaments or only concentrate on cash games.

In closing I will leave everyone with a few more pics of Rylee. As you can see Rylee is all ready dabbling in the poker world. Hopefully the poker world won't get too upset with 2 of us playing one account :)

Home Sweet Home

So after a long 3.5 days, we finally got to bring Rylee home. I have absolutely nothing bad to say about our stay at the hospital. Every nurse was so helpful and kind that it made the stay very enjoyable for the 3 of us. Last night we had 2 of our closest friends (Mark and Ashlea) from here in Columbus come visit us for about 4 hours. Mark and I went and picked up some Italian food and the 4 of us ate like pigs and enjoyed Rylee's company to the fullest. We also watched Mr. Phelps win another gold medal in dramatic fashion. That guy has to be part tuna imo. The last night in the Hospital went very fast and was also a lot of fun. Thank you Mark and Ashlea for your company, we enjoyed it.
Here are some more pictures of Rylee during her first day at the home.

Quick Recap of the Sunday Million Victory

I just finished watching the replay of the FT on Pokerstars of the Sunday Million. All in all I think I played it pretty standard really with the exception of a few key hands down the stretch. It was a unique win because at the same time that we were down to 27ish in the Stars million, I was also down to the final 32 in the FTOPS (Full Tilt Online Poker Series) $500 buyin Heads up tournament. Normally there is no problem multitabling 2 tournaments at a time, but a HU tournament requires much more attention than a normal full ring or 6 handed tournament. So basically I don't even remember many hands in the Stars Mill from 27 players down to about 12 players because I was so focused on the HU tournament. I finished 11th in the HU tournament for 10k which had a very unfortunate ending to it, being that my opponent made a flush on the river. He played the hand so poorly it makes me sick. That river costed me at the very minimum 9k dollars. Oh well. Back to the highlites of the Stars Mill Victory. When the tournament got down to 10 players (5 handed at 2 tables trying to get to the final table), I had a chip stack of about 6 million. For everyone that is unclear on poker strategy, when we got to 10 players the big stacks or even the advanced players will begin raising a vast majority of hands knowing that there is so much scared money that is just trying to be famous and make the FT. With that said, I had a guy at my table who was sticking with that strategy and he raised almost every hand. Playing 5 handed I pickup k5 soooted in the sb, with the crazy aggro raiser on the button where he made his standard preflop raise. This seemed to be the perfect resteal spot for me and my k5 with only one player to act behind me and whats the chances that one person has a monster. Anyhow I reshove my stack into the middle, and don't you know the BB calls off his chips immediately after I shoved. Obviously the intial crazy, aggro, bubble destroyer folds and my k5 is up against kk. LOOOL. Obviously I lose that hand along with 5.1million of my 6 million chips and a guy at the other table happens to bust so I take my miniscal 815k to the FT where Im beyond short stacked with 2.5-3 bets left. At this point Im pretty sure that Im that guy who is gonna finish 9th in the stars million for 11k hahahaha. 11k may seem like a good amount of money and it is, but not after that debacle. Anyhow, the 3rd hand into the FT I pick up qq and call off the rest of my chips to a raiser who covered my stack with his opening bet. A 3rd guy joins in the hand and to my surprise the queens hold up and suddenly I have somewhat of a chance sitting on 3million chips. I was still pretty short after the triple up, but definitely much more of a swinging chance. Soon after a few steals and chipping up enough to breathe, I had a few crucial hands that held that made me a contender. You can watch the FT replay on pokerstars. It runs pretty much nonstop till Sunday and shows everyones hole cards at the Final Table. One last funny piece from the tournament. We were down to 6 people, I have like 20 mill in chips and pickup a3. I wanted to open the pot with a bet of 1.4 million, and accidentally added one too many zero's and I look up to see a bet of 14 million! My heart sank as I watched each of the 5 other players muck their hands. Wow that coulda definitely ruined me in so many ways. If someone shoves I have to call off my last 6 million with fucking a3!!!! Too funny, when you run good, you run good I geuss. Well Im off to make a few calls outside my room at the hospital.
Laterz*, (Randers)

Boke

Rylee's Arrival! ----7lbs 11 ounces, 19 inches---

What a beautiful experience this was. Wow! Anyhow, we got to the hospital around 11 a.m. Met with Amy (our RN) and started to answer about 70000 questions to get prepared with the schedule C section at 1 p.m. The entire process lasted about 2.5 hours, which in my mind seemed like 45 minutes (in Leandra's mind prolly about 4 weeks). Skipping a few minor details they took Leandra back around 12:45 to give her the epideral (spelling?) and came and got me around 12:55. I entered the surgery room all decked out in scrubs, hair cover hat thingy, and mask. There was Leandra laying on the table looking totally miserable and out of it with a drape that was hanging about neck high so she could not see a thing. Obviously she got numbed from feet to breasts for the C section. There was a seat next to Leandra's head for me to sit on, but F' that I wanted to watch everything I could, so I stood the entire time looking over the drape and holding Leandra's hand. A total of 7 doctors/nurses were in the room at the time. 2 on each side of Leandra at the surgery table, the anesthtetic guy (Thom, he was the coolest), and 2 more doing random jobs around the room. So as soon as I got there they began the cut and started the surgery. Let me tell you it was amazing. Nothing that I had ever expected and not to be cliche', but damn it was "Surrrrrreal". I geuss I always imagined them being much more gentle during surgery and never realized that "being gentle" just isn't an option during surgery. I also never anticipated seeing tissue on the inside of Leandra's body while she was totally coherent. Pretty weird, and I definitely understand why the Doctor asked me several times if I could stomach watching the entire surgery. She said many husbands choose to stay on the blind side of the curtain. I figured it like this, yeah its pretty crazy and kinda disturbing to watch them literally cut her wide open, but this is why Doctors go to school for 10 years. They are professionals so why wouldn't I trust them in what they do. I was told our Doctor was the best in the business, so I had no worries at all. All in all it took about 10-15 minutes from incision to the time they pulled out Rylee ass first. Once Rylee was out I stayed by her side for the next 10-15 minutes while they patched up and stapled Leandra's mid section back up (CrAzY). After a few tests and procedures I went with the nurse and Rylee to the nursery where they did more tests and also bathed her. As they continued to do more assessment on Rylee, I left and went back to make sure everything was cool with Leandra. After cleaning Leandra up they moved us to our recovery room where we will be staying for the next 3 days :( Hospitals suck balls IMHMFO). Anyhow it is about 9:18 pm, they just took Rylee to the nursery for the night so we can both catch up on some zzzzzz's. After tonight, I will not have her stay at the nursery anymore. It just doesn't sit well with Rylee not chillin with us. Sorry if this post isn't "English Class Presentable", I am pretty damn tired and have like 1830813 thoughts going through my head. All good thoughts of course, its been a pretty damn/Sweeeeet week in my life. Good Night for now. Here are some pics of the Princess along with the King and Queen.

Recap Link of Stars Million at Pokernews

http://www.pokernews.com/news/2008/08/online-poker-weekend-ziggy47-wins-sunday-million.htm

How About Them Suicide Sundays

I just won the weekly Pokerstars million. Im speechless at the moment and will probably write more on this at a later date. Over 8000 people entered in this $215 buyin tournament. Yours truely ended up on top. So friggin amazing. My little girl gets here in 2 days, wow what timing. Check out this cool ass email:



Hello ziggy47,
Congratulations on your finish in tournament #99180385!
You agreed to a deal at the final table to adjust the payouts as follows:
Official New
Player Payout Payout
========= ======== ======
ziggy47 #1 $199475.92 $182438.77
puntnko #2 $134246.80 $151283.95
When the tournament ended, you were automatically credited with
the official 1st place payout of $199475.92.
The difference between this amount and the amount to which you agreed
in the deal is $17037.15, and this amount has been debited from your account.
You will find this transaction in the cashier history at this time.
Good luck in your next event, and thank you for your participation.
Best Regards,
PokerStars Support Team



Shipp me 183k!!!

Mccain and Technolgogy....Duhhh

I just find it humorous that John Mccain is running for President yet has no idea on how to use the internet. He has admitted himself that he is "illiterate" when it comes to computers and goes to his wife for help. Here is a piece of an article from huffingtonpost.com.

With his Democratic rival Barack Obama making headlines with his tour of the Middle East and Europe, the McCain campaign felt that they needed to "come up with something equally bold for John to do," according to one advisor.
McCain aides said that the senator's journey to the Internet will span five days and will take him to such far-flung sites as Amazon.com, eBay and Facebook.
With a press retinue watching, Sen. McCain logged onto the Internet at 9:00 AM Sunday, paying his first-ever visit ever to Mapquest.com.
"I can't get this [expletive] thing to work," Sen. McCain said as he struggled with his computer's mouse, causing his wife Cindy to prompt him to add that he was "just kidding."
Having pronounced his visit to Mapquest a success, Sen. McCain continued his tour by visiting Weather.com and Yahoo! Answers, where he inquired as to the difference between Sunnis and Shiites.
Sen. McCain said that he had embarked on his visit to the Internet to allay any fears that he is too out-of-touch to be president, adding that he plans to take additional steps to demonstrate that he is comfortable with today's technology: "In the days and weeks ahead, you will be seeing me rock out with my new Walkman."

I geuss I just don't understand how one can run for President, yet have no knowledge on what goes on in the majority of American households (it is said that 73% of Americans use the internet). One of our country's problems is that our law system is so outdated with technology/internet and electing a guy like this only makes the problem worse. I think to be elected leader of the free world, such qualifications of acknowledging the presence of the internet is a must. Just my opinion of course.

Stan Gable anyone?

So Leandra and I make our monthly visit to Cosco to pickup our normal 4 cases of water, 1 case of gatorade,1 large package of tp, and a few other odds and ends. Within 5 minutes of being there we both notice an older gentlemen that looked verrrrry familiar. So familiar that I actually thought I knew the guy on a personal level maybe from the local gym, dog park, or somewhere. I tell Leandra this and she laughs and says, "You know who that is?", I say, "No, but damn does he look familiar." Leandra goes on to tell me that she thinks he is from Happy Days or some other late 80's-90's sitcom. So we continue to shop and watch everyone look in his direction with puzzled faces on who this guy is. I mean we are in Cosco in Columbus, Ohio. Far far from Hollywood or any other location where a "star" might be doing some daily shopping. The last thing you want to do is go up to the guy and ask him, "hey who the hell are you?".

Later that night we are both in bed frustrated that we can not remember what show he was on. We both agreed that we could picture him with a sweater tied around his neck walking into a front door of a sitcom. Hours later I finally figured it out. TED MCGINLEY! He was Jefferson D'arcy from Married with Children. The neighbors husband. More importantly, STAN GABLE the cocky quarterback jock from "Revenge of the Nerds". How funny is that.

B-R-E-T-T BRETT BRETT BRETT

So my friends totally blew my phone up with text messages the day after Favre got traded to the Jets. Lets get something straight real quick. I root for the Jets, but by no means am I a die hard fan. There is a big difference. A die hard fan has trouble sleeping the night of a grueling loss, a standard fan loses no sleep. I lose no sleep when the Jets lose (unless maybe against the Patriots, but that stems more from Boston fans in general). I do however lose much sleep when Buckeye football, Buckeye basketball, or Yankee baseball lose heartbreaking games.

I am very excited for the upcoming season for the Jets. They made some great offseason moves to start winning games now as opposed to the future which is very exciting. They should definitely compete this year in their conference and hopefully take down the patriots at least one of the two times they meet. I don't necessarily believe that they will be Super Bowl contenders or even be a playoff caliber team, but like I said, I definitely think they will compete. My predictions for their season stand at 9-7, possibly 10-6. With the Patriots and the scrappy Buffalo Bills, I look to see the Jets land in 2nd or possibly 3rd in the division with a playoff spot being up in the air. At the very least I get to be excited for Jets football opening up in Miami week 1.

Suicide Sunday

Every Sunday morning poker players awake with a big smile on their face thinking that by the end of the day they will be one step closer to being retired. Unfortunately, (unless your dipthrong) 98% of the time Sundays end in frustration, disappointment, and suicidal thoughts :) . I'm gonna post every tournament I play on Sunday along with the results on where I finished. I'm hoping this may influence me to play my best the entire day and put up some sick results. Stay tuned.

***No I'm not actually suicidal, relax***

Ok I was gonna make this more detailed, however it was a very ugly day. I'm currently playing my last tournament of the night and so far its been awful. Here are some quick numbers.

0-8 in cashes, net: -2133.

Like I said, I have one tournament still goin with the buyin being $215. Im basically freerolling that tournament because I knocked out a Full Tilt pro which earned me the buyin back. Knocking out an FTP Pro is no special accomplishment, half of their signed pro's are absolutely terrible. I never even heard of the "Pro" that I knocked out.

I usually play much much more than this on Sundays, but I got a bit tilted in the middle of the day and decided that it would be -ev for me to keep playing throughout the night. If something good comes out of this last tournament, I will be sure to post about it later.

Try not to catch the Monday blues tomorrow :(

Its been a while

Just like Brett Favre in football, I'm coming out of retirement from my blog. It has been so long since I last blogged (over a year) that I had to refresh myself with the site and update a few things. I spent a few hours tonight making minor changes to the appearance of the blog and adding a little flavor to the title heading and the bottom of the page.

I figured now is a great time to come out of retirement since I have a lot going on in my life right now. As most know, my wife and I are expecting a baby girl in exactly 11 days. The baby is breech and therefore we have a scheduled "c" section on the 13th. Let me tell you, Leandra has been much like a "well oiled machine" during her pregnancy. She has worked full time during the entire pregnancy and working up until August 6th, which is also our anniversary (Don't forget yours is on the 7th Phil). Im definitely proud of her for being so strong for the past 36 weeks and not getting overly hormonal. She has done a great job and I love her for it.

It took us a long time to finally find that exact name for her, but we finally agreed that we both liked the name Rylee. So thats the winner! The entire name picking process is pretty funny and enjoyable. It's crazy the people or even pets who you think of when going threw the never ending list of names.

Anyways I am very excited for the upcoming weeks and the new baby and hopefully I will stay true to this blog for a while. I have a lot to say since it's been over a year since I wrote. Plan on reading a lot about Rylee, poker, and random thoughts in the upcoming months.

One last thing...." election time is coming. Who you gonna vote for? If I was President, Id be elected on Friday, assassinated on Saturday, buried on Sunday, and go back to work on Monday." ----Wyclef Jean---- "If I was President"





Vote anyone but Mccain IMO.



Obama or Mr. Paul FTW