The Amazing Race

Photo: CBS


I'm sure most reading this are aware that we have two known poker players participating on CBS' The Amazing Race this season in the form of Maria Ho and Tiffany Michelle. I don't call them poker professionals because that is not a word I throw around lightly, unlike most people in poker -- especially those who want people to think they are better than they really are.

That's not to say that either of these girls is not a poker "pro". The only ancedotal evidence I have to go on is the WSOP. Maria and Tiffany are most famous for being the last women standing in the Main Event of the World Series of Poker in 2007 and 2008, respectively. Maria finished 33rd and Tiffany was 17th. I don't believe this fact has been discussed during the CBS telecasts, but perhaps explaining it to viewers at home would be a bit too wordy for a fast-paced show.

Otherwise, I don't think either of them has much of a tournament record to speak of. When I interviewed Maria after the 2007 WSOP she talked about playing high stakes limit hold'em cash games at the Commerce with good success. When I interviewed Tiffany after last year's WSOP she spoke mostly about here past acting gigs and work with PokerNews. While I do know that her most famous acting role was as a dying teenager in the arms of Noah Wyle I don't know of her poker success outside the WSOP.

While I will grant that reality show producers can edit the film to make participants look as bad as possible, Tiffany and Maria did a good job of giving themselves a black eye early on when they told their competitors that they worked with homeless children rather than played poker for a living. The jig was up when some people recognized them at the airport and they looked really bad for that lie. However, they have settled in since then and have even made an alliance in the race with a couple of guys who waited for them to get a replacement car after Maria tried to drive over a steel barrier and busted the radiator. This followed Michelle allowing one of the guys to use her ladle during a water-finding challenge in the Dubai desert.

While Tiffany and Maria have looked better in character in recent episodes they are very fortunate to still be in the race. During the first two-hour episode they came in last during one leg of the race, but were lucky it was a non-elimination leg. This is a feature the producers have added during The Amazing Race's run that I can't stand. If they want to extend the number of episodes to air during a season they should add more teams, not let some lucky teams off the hook in such a cheesy fashion. It feels like cheating.

Maria and Tiffany caught another break two episodes ago when the team that reached the finish line first lost a passport and were eliminated when they could not find it. TiffMar was last on that leg and would have been booted from the race that time, too, if not for a second lucky break. It appears they have caught a couple of two outers.

Can that luck continue? A team of two women has never won The Amazing Race. Due to some physical challenges that pop up along the way a team of two females can find themselves at a disadvantage. There is one precedent that has previously been set in which TiffMar is following the form. A few seasons ago two hippie-type guys finished last during two non-elimination legs and went on to win the race. Just as with as poker tournament it takes a fair amount of luck to win The Amazing Race.

"When are you going to update your blog?"

That is a comment I heard frequently in July and August, less so in September and October as Amy figured I had given up blogging completely. It's weird how often after I return from Vegas I am kind of burned out on poker and let the blog marinate for months at a time (a good five solid months in 2006, in fact).

I played little poker after I returned home, but have been firing up the online games at more regular intervals in the last month or so. I have been on a tear in the month of October that I don't want to discuss too much for fear of bringing the bragging curse upon myself. Perhaps at the end of the month if I show a tidy profit will I discuss those recent adventures on the virtual felt.

It's been an exciting and trying time since the end of June. Good news first -- we found out we are having a boy! We are naming him John Harper Kampis. He will be the fourth generation John/Johnny on my side of the family, and Harper is Amy's maiden name and just so happens to work well as a boy's name. So there that is. While that is new news on Poker Nation it's old hat for us. Shows how long it's been since I posted. In fact, we are now less than two months from Amy's due date of Dec. 15. We have the nursery painted and now I need to vacuum and steam clean the floor and get the windows fixed. Then it will be time to start putting in the furniture and decorating.





They say he looks like me, but I don't know how you can tell that from the ultrasound pics.

The sad news was that my grandmother passed away. She had battled brain cancer for more than a year and complications from that finally took her from us. I was particularly close to "Nannie" because she and Papa lived just down the road from us so I saw them nearly every day growing up. Papa died from liver cancer in 1998 and my maternal grandparents each died in 1999 and 2000. So Nannie was the only grandparent I had for nine years. She was the kindest, most generous woman you could ever hope to meet. She taught two and three-year-old Sunday School classes for decades and attended the same church for about 50 years. She will be forever missed.



In the months I slacked off from posting on this blog I let the five-year anniversary of Poker Nation pass without notice. My first post on here was Oct. 4, 2004. I enjoy reflecting back on that time and how much my life has changed in the last five years. In the fall of 2004 I was filled with hubris. I was winning consistently at the poker table and about to head up to Foxwoods for the World Poker Finals. I was considering leaving my newspaper job the next summer to go off on my own poker/freelance journey, a decision I would make in a few short months after that first post. That was originally intended as a one-year break that turned into four years, four months and counting, with grad school, marriage, and an impending baby along the way. Oh what a journey it has been. I'll reflect more on that in the coming weeks (I promise!)

I still have the people of Nicaragua in my heart, but the photos were on my now dead laptop. My tech pro cousin is in the process of transferring my hard drive to my new laptop so I hope to finally put up some trip reports soon. I talk often with my fellow church members who went on the trip, and every single one can't wait to return. Despite the heat, the hard work, the longing for home it's all worth it to see what a huge difference you can make in the lives of a few people.

Trip report coming...

...but I think I will try something a little different. Since I took two major trips in the month of June and the experiences in Nicaragua and Las Vegas were such a jarring juxtoposition I think I will try a little experiment in trip reportage I'll call the Nicavegas report. Coming soon.

Let's talke Vegas meetups FINAL

I leave for Vegas in five hours and I am not sure how my internet situation is going to be in the next week so this is probably my last post on the 25th meetup. We never set any definite hours, but based on the discussion I'll throw this schedule up that I think will work for most so if you're coming to part or all of the festivities here it is:

June 25th

4 p.m. Blogger mixed games at the IP. If no one shows up this early at least I will be around playing some 1/2. Look for the dumb looking white as a sheet guy in the beige old school WSOP cap.

9 p.m. Leave IP for the Hooker Bar at the Rio for drinks and revelry.

11 p.m. Head to the Gold Coast for some late night bowling. Bring your $20s to destroy Dan "Wolfman" Michalski at bowling prop bets.

See you there!

The Mission Trip: Into a Foreign Land

I have taken my time getting to this trip report simply because it is hard to write. No words, no pictures, no first-hand account can fairly describe the magnitude of the poverty in Nicaragua or the emotional impact it had on those who took this mission trip. It was particularly tough on me because I had never undertaken such a project as many in the group had done.

Because of the late start typing up this report I may not finish it before I leave for Vegas, so I might conclude it while in Vegas or after I get back. I just hope you will read it whenever I do get it all together because I hope in some small way this might spur you to take some action to help your fellow man. I know I've been searching my brain since I got back, trying to deal with the mixed emotions I am feeling. To be honest it's been hard to get "up" for Vegas because I keep thinking about the people we met and the situations in which they live while I enjoy the cool air-condtioning of my home while drinking my morning coffee and playing Scrabble on my computer...and then I head off to Vegas. It seems overly extravagant after spending more than a week in Nicaragua.

The first day was an early one, as we met at our church, Trinity United Methodist (less than two blocks from Bryant-Denny Stadium) at 2 a.m. for the drive to Atlanta. It saved us almost $200 per ticket to fly out of Atlanta instead of Birmingham so we made the three-hour commute over the state line, beating rush hour traffic for our 8 a.m. flight.

From Atlanta we flew to Miami (first time there for me, although just being in the airport doesn't really count) where we waited more than three hours for our next flight. Our already long day was made longer when our flight to Managua was delayed for nearly two hours. Our plane to Managua was the largest in which I had ever ridden, with three seats on each side and a middle row of four seats, and it was nearly full. Having never flown in one of these, it made me think of the "movie" planes. Note how movies set on planes never take place on one of those six seats per row types.

We finally arrived in Managua late in the afternoon after a two and a half hour flight. After going through customs (much easier leaving the U.S. than it is entering it, more on that later) we met our bus driver, Juan Pablo. That's him on top of the van loading our stuff.



Our pastor, Wade, has worked with Juan Pablo since he took his first mission trip here earlier this decade. The two have worked together several times since then. Not only does Juan Pablo drive us around, but he is also active in the home construction, having been a construction worker in his younger years. He is very friendly and a true man of God. When we met him at the airport I reached down to shake his hand and he gave me a big hug. Juan Pablo's English is about on par with my Spanish, which means he won't be giving speeches anytime soon. We also met the second local member of our team, Tonia, who would be our translator on the trip.



We loaded up and headed on the two-hour drive to Leon, the cultural capital of the country, a city once considered to be the capital itself. Our final destination would be Chacraseca, one of the poorest areas of what is considered the poorest country in Central America. As we traversed the streets of Managua, we came across several kids begging. We passed out a few coins and snacks, but were told that adults often farm out kids to beg for them. There were few traffic lights, as drivers here just tend to sort out the traffic details themselves, creating some hairy situations.



We drove through the countryside, spotting several volcanoes in the distance. Most of them are dormant, but some have erupted in recent years, killing people in their wake. Most of the volcanic areas are remote and sparsely populated, however.

We arrived in Leon and dined in a local restaurant, which would be one of the last fancy meals we would eat in a while. One thing I learned was that Coca-Cola tastes the best when it's poured out of a glass bottle in a foreign land.

After our meal we headed down bumpy dirt roads to our final destination, the Casa de Paz in Chacraseca. Created by a nun in the 1980s, the Peace House serves as a boarding house for missionaries in the area doing projects. It would be our home for the next week.



That's team member Wes on the left, our translator Tonia in the middle and Wade on the right.

We got to the Peace House at about 10 p.m., after 20 hours of travel. We were all dead tired and quickly got out sleeping clothes out of our bag. The room for the men was tightly packed with bunk beds and storage containers so four of us decided to sleep outside.



It was much cooler out here on the porch, and as we prepared to bed down for our first night it began to rain. The drops hitting the tin roof made a peaceful sound that quickly put us all to sleep.

Vegas plans

It's now five days and counting until my trip to Vegas Monday afternoon and night. I always like to fly in at night if possible, when the city is lit up and at its most beautiful. It's a tough adjustment to go from the mindset I had in Nicaragua to get my poker game face on for Vegas, but I have this week to prepare. Watched some Ocean's 11 Tuesday, probably watching my old 2004 WSOP event DVD later this week.

Like many of you, I've had some problems with the recent money grab by the feds, but it looks like I'll be able to get my bankroll out and ready to play next week. I hope that this overstep by the NY DA's office will actually help our cause and make the good folks of Congress realize that peer-to-peer online poker (the new buzzword) should be legalized and regulated in the United States.

We made some tentative plans for the 25th, but I would like to nail down some definite (or at least good estimated) times for anyone else who might decide to join us. (I've also sent this as an email to the people who have expressed an interest in this.)

What time do we plan to start playing mixed games at the IP? I figure we ought to cut it off around 9 or so to move west for drinking and bowling. My thoughts are to drink at the Hooker Bar at the Rio as some in the group may have never been to the "legendary" setting, and it might be easier to pick up more for our group among those working at the WSOP. Spend some time there and then walk over to the Gold Coast for bowling. Thoughts?

I recently heard that my good friend Brian and another friend are coming out to Vegas for a couple of days, something like June 28-30. We are planning on playing some poker tournaments at Binion's on the 28th and Venetian on the 29th. If I recall correctly, this will be the first time Brian and I set foot in Binion's at the same time since our first trip to the WSOP in 2004.

By the way, people have left comments or emailed me about helping me with my link and color issue. Please send any helpful hints my way as I am HTML deficient. I have been trying to change my background color in the main heading so that it matches the color of my sidebar, but it always seems to go back to the default color when I preview the changes. What do I need to do to get the colors the same for the main and sidebar? Thanks for the help, and continue to send feedback regarding the 25th.

Back from Nicaragua

First of all, thanks to the very kind donations and well wishes from all who contributed. This trip was an amazing, amazing experience. Words and pictures truly cannot describe the conditions and my emotions and experiences in a just manner, but I will post the best trip report I can over the next several days.

I see I have missed a very interesting week in online poker, with the seizure of players' money. How sick is it to think that my own money is safer in an offshore online poker account than it is in the hands of the federal government? Oh wait, never mind...

It is unfortunate that this has occurred here at WSOP time although highly unlikely the timing is coincidental. There are an awful lot of $10,000 checks floating around in the ether, you know. I am surprised by the lack of articles I have seen in poker media on how this could affect main event turnout. It certainly affects me as I now have to scramble around to gather up the bankroll I need for my Vegas trip that begins next Monday. I hope everyone is still able to make it out to Nevada who planned to. Meetup post coming.