Jennifer Matiran

“This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine, let it shine, let it shine...”
 

Read this issue to get the poker news of exactly 25 years ago. Read great columns with superb strategies, or just to take a trip down memory lane. It's a truly exciting issue! The biggest names in poker discuss ways to make your game even better, including: Mike Caro's bi-weekly tell, David Sklansky, Stu Jacobs, Bobby Baldwin, A Man Called Doc, Tex Sheahan, Rex Jones, M. Wiesenberg, and Doyle Brunson. Go to www.pokerplayernewspaper.com to read this issue in its entirety.

I quickly walked across the freezing linoleum to the scale. Only then did my feet not feel the cold floor. Instead, I focused on how disgusted I would be when I stepped on the scale and saw what a fatso I'd become. I saw all the red flags, all year but ignored them. I felt my clothes tighten, and how my t-shirt had now become a belly shirt because of my new pot belly.

It's hard these days for me to write about poker strategies. Compared to the state of our great nation and our fellow citizen's hardships I felt compelled to write something less trivial.

Los Angeles, California-California County Coroners remove one of six bodies found at a home in a gated community at Porter Ranch in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles on Monday, Oct. 6, 2008. An unemployed accounting industry worker who was despondent over financial problems shot and killed his wife, three children, and mother-in-law, and then himself in an upscale home in a gated community.

Always attracted to mythical beasts and legendary poker players, our Jennifer Matiran reached out to Hawaiian Gardens casino host Phi Nguyen to arrange for her to interview top-notch poker pro David "the Dragon" Pham.

Jennifer Matiran: David why do they call you "the Dragon?" Is it because you were born in the year of the dragon?

I was up about three hundred dollars in a $1-$2 no-limit game and decided to play K-9 of hearts. The flop was Qh-Th-2h. I flopped a king high flush and thought, "This should be easy money."

A guy bets twenty-five bucks, everyone folded, and I called. I thought, "I'll call him the entire way and then raise all-in at the end." The turn brought another ten and the river was a four.

My opponent bet and I went all-in, just like I planned. He called, just like I planned too. He showed a set of tens and I confidently turned over my K-9 of hearts ... which turned out to be a K-9 of diamonds.

I once read that "It is the sign of a noble heart to be well-endowed with patience." Patience is the sign of a great poker player as well. You will never see a strong player become desperate. Desperation is the enemy of patience. It's the worst emotion on and off the poker table.

Sometimes we just gotta take a step back and let our minds rest-rest from everyone and everything so that the focuses of our spirit and minds sharpen, so that we do not fall. So that we do not lose, take a break from it all. Take a break from cards. "Know when to hold them and know when to fold them." Also, know when to play and when not to.

Chopra said "life is a cycle of rest and activity."

It's the same with the game. In my opinion, without one there cannot be the other. Take a break!

This is the third and final installment of Jennifer Matiran's interview with Annie Duke.

During their initial conversation, Annie said, "I know players that have more talent in their pinky than I do in my whole body and they're broke."

"What do you mean?"

Jennifer asked. "They have leaks," said Annie.

"Leaks, what are leaks?" Jennifer asked curiously. "Leaks are when someone wins at the poker table and then proceeds to bet what they won on something else, and they end up losing everything they won in the first place."

Our fearless reporter, Jennifer Matiran, caught up with Annie Duke a while back and the result is this multi-part interview. Part 1 ran last issue, and we'll wrap things up next time. But for now, here's a chance to hear Annie Duke expound on teenage poker phenomenon Annette Obrestad and a plethora of other subject too.

JENNIFER: What do you think of Annette Obrestad, who just won the WSOP Europe Tournament?