JFLO accompanied me up to Tulsa for my game at Oral Roberts. The game went well — the coordinator of officials was there and it was the first time that he had ever seen me officiate, so that is a good thing! Great atmosphere at Oral Roberts — they put on a heck of a show for their basketball games. Scott Sutton is the coach — son of Eddie Sutton, retired OSU head coach, who was also in attendance (I know my mother-in-law Mindy will appreciate that tidbit!)
JFLO and I hit the Pappadeaux’s lunch buffet in Bush’s Terminal E before our flight.
We went up a day early and may or may not have gone straight to the poker room at the Cherokee Casino 
The Scotty Nguyen Poker Challenge IV was going on and it was day 3 of the big $5000 buy-in tournament. They were down to the final two tables when we got there and there were several recognizable faces (if you watch poker on TV anyway). That’s Todd Brunson in the black jacket at the table there — unfortunately, he busted out before the final 9, which is all that paid in the 164 entrant tourney!
JFLO at the table sportin’ the iPod!
That’s Scotty Nguyen playing in his own tournament — nice! He busted out 4th or 5th… I took this photo from the seat where John and I were playing $1/2.
An 8-way chopped pot!!! Everyone checked the A 10 10 flop, the 6 on the turn and the 6 on the river… A $2 would have taken it down, but apparently we were all scared! Yeah — that is my 5 3 of clubs there and JFLO’s Q 5 on the right — you see the kind of crappy hands he plays!
Another photo of one of the final two tables — that is Gavin Smith in the blue baseball cap just to the right of the dealer. He does well in a LOT of tournaments and you may have seen him in KFC commercials during the WSOP broadcasts.
Was taking a photo of the table when the dealer was dealing cards to me — I thought this photo came out cool!
My chip stack midway through the night — after buying in for only $100! Woohoo!!!
This dealer looks like fellow poker degenerate (and often times, host) Jason Perkins — so we had to take a photo. The next night we showed Seth (Jason’s doppelganger) a photo of Jason, along with the rest of the table, and we were laughing about how it looked like him. A few hands later Seth said, “That dude really does look like me!” — LOL!!! And, yes, I used the word “doppelganger” at the table.
The final table — the guy in the baseball cap on the right is Ray Henson from Houston. He is not a “famous” poker player, but placed 12th in this years main event. He went on to get 2nd to TJ Cloutier in this tournament for a $120K payday. Nice!!!
TJ and Ray heads-up … with $300K on the table! Sweet!
Took this photo and emailed it to fellow poker player John as he was hamming it up at the table. He bet and it was obvious (to me) that he had a good hand. I think that he thought the other guy was going to fold, so went into this little act — it ended up working and the guy called with a worse hand. I mostly stayed away from this guy — he was a solid player that knew what was going on in the game. He built up a $100-200 stack to about $1200 over the course of the evening!
Also, note the chips in front of the guy in the blue shirt, because I had ALL of them a few hands later when he stacked off on a Q 10 9 x board to my pocket jacks, calling my all-in on the turn with a 10 7 — pair and a gutshot. Nice hand, sir!
My stack a little later in the night — with my “lucky Scotty” chips on top. That is JFLO’s pitiful stack behind the drinks.
Day two of poker… JFLO orders a brownie AND a cookie. The waitress brings over the largest brownie ever known to mankind!! I took a photo, but had to take another with a poker chip for reference so that you could see how huge this thing was!!! Yes, he ate the whole thing!
Filed under: Officiating, Personal
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