Shawn Rice in a Nutshell
Posted: 2007-11-26 12:26:51By: Shawn Rice
The last 6 weeks have been a little crazy since Aruba, which was by far the best time I ever had in Aruba in the 5 years I been going. When I got back I decided that having a poker room in Houston would be very time consuming and knew it would be in my best interest to focus on UB and live poker more than I have in my past.
I moved back into my house in Lubbock Texas and much happier now that I get to see my family and dogs more often, I miss my babies. One is a Labrador, Ginger, she is a ginger color and they other is a Labrador mix found in downtown Lubbock starving to death and my mother saved him and brought him to my house and we named him Stanley after one of my favorite singers.
I got to stay home all of one night before I headed to Vegas to take care of some UB related business. I was there for 4 days and stayed at the Hard Rock for my 1st time ever. I sure like their suites and they seem to have by far the friendliest room service of any hotel I ever stayed at. I then flew to Dallas to see my brother who lives there and myself and Lynn (online name SassyTexan) drove up that morning to Tulsa to see the Red Rocker, Sammy Hagar. I had bought 4 onstage tickets a few months back and seen him many times over the years and let me tell you, being onstage with 30 other "redheads" is about the most fun you can have with your clothes on. One of my good friends Kelly from Kansas made the trip and so did a my cousin Melissa from Oklahoma who also got to enjoy this onstage experience. Two other family members also drove up for the show, Margaret, my aunt, and Tammy, my cousin. They said they really loved the show and were amazed how hard he rocks at 60 years old.
Soon after I get back home I have to get up for a 7am flight to go to Madison Wisconsin home of the great P0ker H0 and some guy named Phil Hellmuth. Being as I am a night owl and had to get up at 7am, I just stayed up with no sleep and didn't get until into Madison until around 8pm with the flight delays. Jon Green picked me up and took me to Players, that's H0's bar, where there were about 30 people there that came from all over including Victor "thebeeg" Bigio, Beanie, WiscoMurry, Tara (ivegottacall), Cunningham, Debo and SuzieQue, along with her boyfriend Scout. It was really great seeing all these people together at Players as we all had our share of drinks and played a really fun partners SNG. The following day we go to a sold out Wisconsin Badgers game and watched them beat up on Michigan. We parked over 2 miles away in the cold weather so H0 could save $7. That's no joke. I would of paid $70 each for the 4 of us not to do that again. He is sooo fired. We leave the game a little early to catch a cab back and go back to players to play in one of his regular poker tourneys he has on Saturdays. With about 35 players in it and I made the final table knocking out H0's mom and getting an "IT'S ON NOW" from H0. The next morning Mr. Jon Green got us a limo van and 8 of us went to the noon Green Bay vs Minnesota Vikings game at Lambeau Field. This was a truly awesome experience as Wisconsin loves their Packers. It was filled with block after block of tailgating and the people were very friendly. Don't worry Debo I am not gonna talk about where you had to go to when you had "to go", you are safe my friend. I sat with Debo, Jon Green and our friend Timmy, It was soooo funny when Green Bay was killing Minnesota (GB won 34-0) and Debo told the 4 Viking fans in front of him that "Minnesota sure looks a whole lot better on TV". They just laughed and didn't know how to answer that compliment. After the game we went back to our limo parked next to a really fun bar and drank like goldfish as Debo went deep into some online tourney.
The following Tuesday morning H0, Debo and myself caught a flight to Costa Rica to visit the offices of UB. We have a running joke that I can't win playing Chinese Poker unless I am at 30,000 feet in the air. That's the only time I seem to win after about 30 times playing. I was losing and a little worried til we were about to land and we doubled the points and I came back to keep my 30,000 feet record intact. We got there and our luggage didn't. We filled out our forms and and we have 2 cars waiting to pick us up. While there we meet with everyone from early morning til late evening for four straight days. We are lucky to work for a place that really wants to better themselves and for the first time ever I truly believe that the higher-ups are really serious about making UB the best site possible. I could go down a list of names and to save time I will not, but THANKS for making Costa Rica such a wonderful trip and I can't wait to go back soon and help where I can be needed. Don't worry, on the way back to the good ole US I won again playing Chinese vs H0 and Debo. These guys should know better than to play me at 30,000 feet. What I would of gave that pilot to fly around an extra hour or two.
Thanksgiving has been great and was good seeing lots of family and my babies again. Looks like I will be doing lots of traveling this coming year playing more online and even more live also.
While I was in Aruba Annie Duke asked me to be her coach on The Best Damn Poker Show vs Phil Hellmuth and Mark "P0ker H0" Kroon. This will be filled with a few celebs and online UB players and will be a blast to film for Fox. So THANKS Annie for asking and I hope we beat them really bad, I would love to see Phil and H0 hugging and crying as they lose on prime time television.
I also want to give a personal THANKS for all the UB regulars as I love to see you in Aruba or places like H0's bar or other live events. You feel like family to me and that means alot to us when we see you.
Enjoy your Holidays
Shawn Rice
