Guest Blog

By: Roy "The Oracle" Winston

I again got side tracked just as I was heading for Vegas. Some family and friends convinced me to spend the weekend playing the Borgata Summer Poker Open Championship Event, which is a $2,200 event and should attract well over it’s $500,000 guarantee.

I would have liked to play Saturday's 8 game mix at the WSOP, but I couldn’t pass up this opportunity. I will be back in Vegas next week by whatever means necessary.

We had a great day Friday playing cash games at the Borgata, followed by the spa and then dinner at the steak house. Saturday’s event has a great structure with 30k in starting chips, a slow structure with one hour levels.

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I was out with a group of friends and they asked if I heard about the story by that gossip monger Perez Hilton about Shannon Elizabeth’s home game. I think it’s pathetic how low life pond scum Perez Hilton, who took Paris Hilton’s last name because he was so enamored with her, and don’t even get me started on what I think of her, goes off on what one reader sent him as a story about Shannon.

Now I have no idea what is or isn’t true about the whole thing, but what I do know is there are lots of “Hollywood” home games with enormous rakes, being hosted by A-D list stars. I guess as long as players are willing to play in them and pay the monster rakes, they will continue to run. I believe some players don’t even pay attention to the rakes. I know of one game in NY City and one in LA where they have to be raking 25-40 thousand per evening.

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I suppose I have to mention the firing of General McChrystal over the Rolling Stone article where he supposedly made some off the record comments about President Obama that were put on the record and resulted in him being fired as the commander in Afghanistan.

I do not know where the truth lies here, but I believe this is one of many huge mistakes Obama has made since taking office. I supported him hoping he would bring about positive change after eight years of “W.” Well I guess that was too much to hope for.

Instead of shrugging off the issue and letting an extremely qualified General with a great history continue to do a tough job, he lets Rolling Stone magazine have way too much influence on our foreign and military policy. And while I’m on the subject, Obama took no action when his National Security Advisor, James Jones, tells a clearly anti-Semitic joke at a public event, here is the link.

I guess Obama is nothing more than just another politician. As such, he serves the political machine and not the people. I am not sure what we the people can do about this going forward. We get to vote and have choices, but how do we get better choices? Perhaps the system and the amount at stake creates the problem. I guess I expected too much, my bad.

Roy Winston finished 16th in 2007 Card Player, Player of the Year race. He won the WPT Borgata Poker Open and finished the year with well over $2 million in tournament poker winnings. Roy writes one of the most read blogs which appears on many sites including cardplayer.com and plays online exclusively at Full Tilt. For more information on Roy Winston, you can visit his website: www.oraclepoker.com or send an email to: winstonpoker@yahoo.com with your questions or comments. The contents presented herein on this blog are purely the opinions of Roy Winston, and are not intended to reflect or promote the opinions of any other person, group, or entity. If you like what I write than thanks for reading, and if not well, thanks anyway.