I'm pretty excited as I'll be going to Indianapolis here in a few hours to have lunch with Peter King.

For those who aren't sports fans, Peter King is arguably the most-read NFL writer in the country. He publishes a weekly piece at Sports Illustrated titled "Monday Morning Quarterback" and is guest-anchor on NBC's Football Night in America.

The Super Bowl is in Indi this week and it'll be quite fun to see everything going on. It's rarely up North this time of year, but thanks to Peyton (how ironic), Indianapolis is playing host this year.

More later.

Over the years, I've played a good volume of live hands, and have witnessed some ridiculously horrible rulings and errors by dealers and staff.

The inattentive dealer who forgets to announce straddles or push action is annoying, but pale in comparison to the couple of stories below:

Hand 1 - This hand was played out at a PLO game. The dealer had already struggled to adjust to dealing four hole cards per player and continued to be a bit careless with everything. On this particular hand, the board read something like K72 with a flush draw. The players got it all in for about a 300bb pot and both players tabled their hands. Player 1 had KKxx for top set while Player 2 had AJ72 with the nut-flush draw. The dealer peels off a turn Qo and a river 10o and mucks both hands and ships the pot to the top set, completely overlooking the backdoor straight that player 2 just made.

Unfortunately, since both hands hit the muck, they couldn't retrieve the hands. It took about eons of arguing and protesting (from others at the table) that Player 2 had rightfully won. Of course, it didn't help that player 1 refused to acknowledge seeing the AJ from the villain. Eventually the floor awarded the pot to the rightful winner, but it stopped our game for nearly 25 minutes.

Hand 2 - This hand was played at a NLHE MTT. Player 1, who is fairly short, raises and gets a few callers. Player 2 decides to 3bet and it puts a third player in the tank. I should note that players 2 and 3 are deep. After a while, he calls and action goes back to Player 1 who shoves. Player 2 asks the dealer if he can reopen, to which the dealer says "of course" without cutting chips. Player 2 then shoves and player 3 angrily folds his Jacks face up. The dealer does a quick chip count, then realizes that the betting should not have 're-opened' to Player 2. Board runs out K J X K X. Player 2 shows AK and wins the pot. Player 3 is visibly angry, and the dealer has the nerve to chuckle about it and look at Player 3 and say "man, you'd a won a huge pot if you stayed."

Needless to say, Player 3 wasn't happy with this comment and went off on the dealer. He was subsequently PENALIZED for his behavior.

It's been fed to us constantly by our media since he got the nod as starting QB for the Denver Broncos. Tim Tebow, arguably the most polarizing athlete in my lifetime, has been playing under a magnifying glass since being drafted out of the University of Florida. When on the field, he is enthralling yet head-scratching. Football critics have spent hours trashing his mechanics and sports networks have dedicated shows to Tebow-mania.

It has been quite amazing to follow the progression of Tebow over his career. As a College Football fan, I followed him as he built a legacy in Gainesville. Love him or hate him, you had to respect him. The guy knew how to win and he lifted the spirits (and play) of those on the field around him. He's deservedly a former Heisman winner and arguably one of the greatest college football players to ever suit up.

Anyone who followed the NFL season has seen how magical a season it has been in Denver. Tebow, after being largely written-off by his own organization as a viable signal-caller, resurrected the team to a Division title and an upset over 11-point favorite Pittsburgh. The series of games leading to the Division title were arguably the most unlikely sequence of games that we'll ever witness. From Marion Barber's brainfart run out of bounds to the heroic drive down the field against the Jets, Tebow, in many ways, has defied the odds and reshaped the mold of a successful NFL QB.

Sadly, despite all his hard work and 'no-quit' attitude, the guy has plenty of haters. In this day and age where society still adores the abusive (rapper Chris Brown), the dishonest (Alex Rodriguez), the unfaithful (Tiger Woods), and the criminal (Michael Vick), people find reason to hope for bad things to happen to the guy.

Here is a guy who has earned the respect of his teammates through sheer determination and hard work. He has righted the ship of an organization that seemed destined for failure in the first month of the NFL season, despite having a GM and team owner who refused to acknowledge him as their QB. He radiated with positivity in situations where all of us would be deflated, and here he is, as one of the remaining eight with a chance at Super Bowl glory. Even off the field, the guy is just awesome:

Whether you agree or disagree with Tebow's openness regarding his religion, it's hard not to respect and admire Tim Tebow the man. His strong will and leadership are admirable qualities that are truly worth looking up to, unlike some of the other thugs and cry-babies in professional sports. He holds himself accountable for his shortfalls and failures, and is first to share the spotlight with his teammates in triumph. WTF is wrong with society now, that a genuinely good guy can't play hero?

I don't expect Tebow to make it to the Super Bowl this year, but I assure you that I will not be rooting against him this Sunday, or ever.

I recently had a pretty neat "holy fuck what a coincidence" experience so I thought I'd revisit the three craziest ones in my life:

Last week - I had just done some grocery shopping at Whole Foods and I was walking back to my place. As I walked down the sidewalk there were two girls headed the other way. Much to my surprise, the one girl was Carolyn, a girl that I had graduated college with.

Carolyn was in my 22-person college program and I hadn't seen her since graduation. I had seen, via Facebook, that she had been teaching in South Korea since graduation (2 years ago). She was just moving home from SK and was stopping by Chicago to visit friends before heading to Cincinnati. She was literally coming home from the airport and ran into me.

7 or 8 years ago - Freshman year of high school, I rode the school bus. During this time, I met a girl from my neighborhood named Jamyl. Over the course of the school year, a group of us became friendly since we spent about 20-30 minutes together each day on our way home. After all of us got our licenses, we mostly lost touch since we hung with different crowds in school.

Fast forward to (I think) my senior year. I was working at a local Chinese restaurant and Jamyl happened to stop by to get a carry-out. We hadn't talked to one another since probably the last school day of my Freshman year, but we chatted for maybe ten minutes while she waited for her food. It was pretty cool to catch up with her and hear what she was doing as she had graduated all ready.

Unfortunately, this story ends in tragedy, as Jamyl was with a friend that night. That friend was speeding in excess of 100mph and lost control of his car a few hours after I had seen her. They both lost their lives. It's pretty crazy to think that I was one of the last people to ever see her.

3 years ago - I was studying abroad in Eastern Asia and ended up running into a woman who was a regular customer from the aforementioned Chinese Restaurant. She was wearing a Dayton Dragons hat and she somehow recognized me at the Great Wall of China. Funny she recognized me, given that there were Chinese people everywhere. Our student-group had made a last-minute decision to go to a lesser populated section of the Wall and so had she.

Anyways, no real rhyme or reason for this entry, other than that I am constantly amazed at some of the ways things work out in life. I'd love to hear some of your 'small-world' stories.

Edit - I just remembered that a kid I played with at the casino yesterday (in Chicago) was at the same final table as me 2 years ago at the Venetian. Somehow he remembered me...

Rather than write a blog full of unattainable goals and New Year's resolutions, I thought I'd write a little blog about the upcoming year for CardRunners.

The unfolding in the legislation for online poker has me in a fairly optimistic mindset. I don't know how fast things will move or how expansive legislation will reach, but things are looking up and I have always been a believer that our powers-that-be would wake up soon and realize that this untapped market has enormous potential and is a no-brainer to generate some much needed revenue.

Since Black Friday, it has been interesting to see how the poker landscape has changed. From pros migrating to other countries to poker businesses closing their doors, everyone has been forced to adapt to the industry.

I just recently announced some of the new pros who are joining our team. I'm very excited to add them to our talented roster. Several of these guys are European and they'll bolster our "live content" footage - something that we've been struggling to get. The addition of Joao Barbosa (and previously Dintyo) is aimed to specifically bolster our mid-stakes 6-max NLHE Content for the new year. I'm also very excited to have CeeGee on the team as a mixed game pro. I met him last summer in Vegas and spent a good deal of time with him and ChipsAhoya. Fortunately for you guys, he's better at mixed games than he is at dice.

There is also a very exciting video series that some of our pros are about to embark on for the New Year. The series is titled "2012: The Holdem Odyssey" and is a collaborative project with Damn Ringer, MDoranD, verneer, balbomb, and Matthew Janda. The series will be the broadest and most ambitious video series I've seen produced on the internet. There will be nearly 60 parts released throughout the year covering a variety of topics ranging from: HUD setup, exploiting regs, dealing with tilt, treating poker like a job, and much much more. Each author will cover their specialties and there will be videos ranging from quickies, full-length, classroom, dual-commentary, and HH reviews. Collectively these authors have been some of the best at their stakes and I'm hoping the series provides a 'one-stop-shop' for either the beginner or the advanced player.

Anyone who hasn't taken advantage of our 50% discount should seriously consider signing up (or re-upping) their membership. Investing $180 for a full year of poker training is great value, and with the landscape shaping up like poker will be back, it is a great way to stay ahead of the curve and to tackle the games when they are back.

Anyways, thanks for reading my blog and I wish all of you the best in the new year. I'm going to try and do a better job with providing little CR-related updates in my blog (as well as on Twitter). Stay safe!

Whoa two months and I haven't written a blog. Actually, I wrote up about 85% of five entries but I just didn't like how they turned out so I never published them. A lot has happened since my previous entry so I'll just write some scatter-brained points to get caught up. I'll apologize now for the lack of flow in this blog entry:

As most of you have seen, some of us from CR launched a new project. DraftDay has been in the works for a while and I'm very excited to be a part of the project. I see some great potential in the idea and it shares a lot of similarities with online poker. The industry is kind of like how online poker was in the early 2004 days, very underdeveloped and young but with vast opportunity. Good players have a discernable edge it's super easy to deposit / withdraw money. I expect the industry to blow-up in the coming years as long as the Earth doesn't do that first in 2012.

A few weeks ago a very inspirational figure in this world died. Carl H Lindner III passed away in Cincinnati. That name may not mean much to most, but Lindner was an incredible man. He started out as a dairy farmer and eventually started several companies and became extremely wealthy (self-made billionaire) and a model philanthropist. He had ties to companies like United Dairy Farmers, Great American Insurance, The Cincinnati Reds, Great American Insurance, and several others, and he was one of the biggest donors to the University of Cincinnati. I was lucky enough to be a part of his business program and be a student on his scholarship. Despite my personal benefits of Mr. Lindner's generosity, I'm always saddened by the loss of these prominent figures. In a day and age where we hear about monsters like Jerry Sandusky, it's a shame that society loses the real winners and heroes in life.

On the topic of Sandusky, the entire story is sickening and completely upsetting. I have a lot of gripes with our justice system but the fact this monster, who preyed on kids for over a decade, is allowed to be out on bail while the investigation continues is horrifying. How is a monster like him not a suicide risk or considered harmful to society? He should be locked up for the rest of his life. He ruined countless lives and preyed on the vulnerable.

With regards to Paterno and the media circus surrounding this event, it's very sad that our media cares more about the sports-angle than the poor children whose lives have been ruined by Sandusky. It's quite disturbing that so many people are angry Paterno was removed or the ramifications this will have on PSU football (OMG they're 8-1). Paterno may have taken the necessary steps, legally, but how does someone morally accept this rapist is still on-campus and hanging around kids? Paterno should have stepped in followed-up on the case, or he should have left the organization if he disagreed with how they handled it. The fact this school explicitly promoted itself as "one of 2 D-1 institutions to have never been sanctioned" concerns me that there was a true cover-up to help the image of the program. I hope I'm wrong.

On to happier things - I played my first bit of poker last weekend. I hadn't played a hand since mid-July and decided to play a short-session at the Hammond Horseshoe. I had read some backlash by the players regarding a change in the policy of the poker room, where they aren't allowing phone aheads to reserve spots on a waiting list. This backlash was pretty evident too when I played. A few guys who I recognized as 'regs' were shitting on the policies and talking about how bad it was for the games. The thought couldn't be more backwards. It used to be that a player could show up Friday night and see 150 names ahead of him on the wait list and be turned-off by the fact they likely weren't getting a seat for several hours. With a shrunk waiting list, the casual player can now get seated in 15-20 minutes. How's that a bad thing in any way?

Ok, enough writing for now. I'll share some more later, but sooner than 9 weeks from now.

Sorry readers, I've been neglecting you!

Things have been busy and I'm taking a much needed weekend-vacation to visit some good friends down in Birmingham, AL. What's in the great state of AL that Chicago doesn't have you may ask? SEC Football! We're going to be attending the opening game for the Alabama Crimson Tide, arguably the #1 team in the nation and the team to beat. Although their game will be a blowout (they are playing Kent State), I'm looking forward to seeing how the SEC environment differs from what I grew accustomed to at a Big East School. We'll spend Saturday night sweating the two big games (UGA vs Boise and Oregon vs LSU) at a bar somewhere, and then on Sunday we are going to be doing some kayaking at a nearby river.

Next weekend I'll be flying to Pittsburgh to visit Lauren's sister and her husband. He's at school at Carnegie Mellon and we haven't had a chance to visit them. Not much to say since I don't know what there is to do in Pittsburgh other than to be annoyed by Steelers fans.

My life has pretty much revolved around work lately. I've golfed a few times and I haven't played a single hand of poker since late June. It's pretty nuts how it's all ready September. There are some exciting new things going around on the CardRunners-front that I think will be well received. I can't spoil it, just yet, but there'll be some popular videos/video-makers releasing some stuff at CR. I've also made a conscious effort to start to release video series in consecutive weeks and to shrink the timeframe in which videos are made. Feedback has been positive thus far so hopefully members like it.

One additional plus about September is that it means the NFL season is gearing up. I've all ready booked some fun bets to help my interest in the season, especially since my Bengals are as dismal as ever and my boy Carson is left in a dick-swinging contest with Mike Brown.

My favorite bet is my friend and I each picked half the NFL teams. For each team we had to go in and set a win line for their 2011 season. The other person then picks the Over/Under on the line. When all is said and done we had nearly 50 bets in-place. It makes for a fun sweat and gives you something to look-forward or cheer for in each game.

I'll end this brief blog with an obligatory Superbowl pick. I think we'll see the Falcons vs. Steelers. I think the Falcons made a huge addition in Julio Jones. He'll spread the field and take some attention off Roddy White, who put up ridiculous numbers when he was the lone threat. The Steelers kept the core of their team together, something that I think is critical to success this year given the lockout-shortened training camp. Eagles and Pats fall in the Conference Championships.

I'll try to Tweet some pictures of the ballgame and kayaking this weekend. http://twitter.com/#!/alexjhuang

When I last left my loyal readers I was preparing for the beginning of my Club Championship golf tournament at my Country Club.

I entered the tournament as the one seed and was given a little scare by my #16 seed opponent. I shot 71 against him and still managed to only win 3 & 1 in the Match Play format. I turned in 35 (-1) and would have predicted I would be up 4 or 5 given my opponent qualified with scores of 79-80. Somehow he was throwing darts and just lingering around, which is the LAST thing that you ever want to happen in match play.

Day 2 quarterfinals was a little bit of a grind too. My opponent was a very good player who has the weight of the world on his shoulders as the 'Best Player Never to have won a Club Championship." This title is reserved for the elite in the professional world and is one that no one is proud to carry. Phil Mickelson held this belt for many many years and it is now shared with Sergio Garcia and Lee Westwood. Hardly something to be proud of.

I knew this added pressure would wear away at my opponent and I managed to make virtually zero putts (aside from an Eagle on #1) and still shoot 70.

This means that one of my best friends is my next opponent. He stands between me and the finals. Quite frankly, this match is likely going to determine the champion. Evan and I are the best remaining players (by a considerable margin) and the winner of our match will have a huge edge for Sunday.

It's disappointing because Evan and I are such good friends and it would be more fun to play one another in the finals over the span of 36 holes. Nonetheless, we're both fiesty competitors and will try our hardest to kick one anothers' asses on Saturday, and then play bags by the pool afterwards over a few drinks.

Realistically, I don't expect to win. I know it's poor mental management to have a defeatist attitude but pretty much everything points in his favor. He's been playing nearly every day this week whereas I have not and will not be touching a golf club before teeing off in about 36 hours. I'm not looking for excuses, and I don't plan to use my lack of practice as a cop-out should I lose, but I'm a realist.

Either way, I'll be tweeting updates during the round, unless it's too embarrassing to post :P. Follow me on Twitter if you want to have a fun sweat Saturday morning; http://twitter.com/#!/alexjhuang

Lastly, the third episode of the CR Insider will be out on Sunday. This week, fitting with the golf-themed blog, I interview NxtWrldChamp who is a stud golfer. He started a Junior Academy and is friends with some pretty bigwigs in the pro golf. He had some good stories and I thought the interview was very entertaining and provides a new side of Nelson that most our members don't really know exist.

Please send me your feedback on the interview and also suggest me some guests. I know zachjackdad wants to get on the show and I hope to have Nikachu and a few others on in future episodes, but I always appreciate the feedback by you guys.

Thanks for reading,
AH

Things have been quite hectic with work and traveling so I thought I'd jot down what's been going on in my life for the last several weeks:

- I qualified in my Club Championship and earned the #1 seed entering the Match Play portion. 4 matches and then I'm Champion of my entire club and I get my name immortalized (sorta) on the wall at the Club. My biggest challenger is my buddy Evan who I can potentially meet in the semis, but I'm feeling pretty good about my game.

- PSA to everyone. If you haven't seen or read any of the Harry Potters, don't go see this last film. You will be lost.

- I'm trying to book a bet with Evan where if the other advances further, then the loser has to caddie for the winner in their next match. While there is no monetary stake, earning a free caddie and seeing the pain on Evan's face when he has to clean my clubs and replace my divots will be so satisfying.

- I've had a few blog topics that I thought were relevant to write about, one being my experiences on staking, and the other just a general wrap-up on the WSOP. I think I have some interesting perspectives on the staking piece since I've had quite a bit of experience on it and it seems that there are a lot of people who have gained an interest in buying-pieces and dipping their toes in the staking market.

- I haven't played much poker but I did stop for a session that was possibly the most dreadful session of my life. I managed to drop around 3 buy-ins in the span of about 80 minutes at NLHE, including a nasty hand to end the day where the pot was a little over 700 BBs and I had AK and managed to flop the nuts and get it in on turn with my opponent having a set and filling on the river.

- I'm going to my last wedding of the summer this weekend. It seems that love is in the air and everyone of my friends is getting hitched. This weekends wedding will have a certain man who I loved growing up; Hulk Hogan! I'll likely avoid asking for a question, despite being super tempted, out of respect for his sister in-law who is marrying my college buddy.

Anyways, a quick recap but I promise to write something a bit more thorough next time.

So gathering Count The Zeros footage is a real pain, especially since it seems like you can't even watch real money tables on PokerStars anymore from the US.

That said, I'm going to put my podcast-host cap back on and start to interview a few of our pros.

I need some ideas as to what types of topics you guys would like to hear and would love to collect questions from you guys as well. So I present to you a few questions:

1.) What would you like the podcast to cover?
- More laid back 'coffee shop' feel talking about stuff with our pros that is probably lesser known by the public (i.e. hobbies, fond poker stories, etc)
- More strategy-based stuff
- Go over some of the bigger stories and static of the poker industry (i.e. Black Friday, Full Tilt, WSOP) and get their insights as a professional
- Something else?

2.) If anyone has a cool suggestion for a unique name for the podcast let me know. It could incorporate my name (pronounced Hwong) or just be something clever.

The podcast may start off bi-weekly and based off demand/reviews it may fluctuate, but I really enjoyed doing the Stox Pokercasts and am excited to embark on this new adventure.

For my first episode, I'll be interviewing both the bracelet winners from the CardRunners team. Matt Matros and Eric Rodawig will be on and I plan to ask them questions revolving around their march to the final table as well as their victories.

PLEASE drop me some comments with specific questions that you would like me to present to these guys. It really will help me with the quality of the interviews if you are able to help me.