After the WCOOP, I took a few weeks off poker and drove through the gates of the Midwest in St. Louis, Missouri to play in the 2010 North America Bocce Championships. The event took place at the Italia-America Bocce Club in a wonderful part of the city called "The Hill". It is a very cozy part of St. Louis that has held on to its Italian heritage and old-world charm; every corner of The Hill abounds in Italian restaurants and cafes, pizza parlors, bakeries, delicatessens and specialty stores. Even the fire hydrants painted in the traditional Italian colours of red, white and green hold a quaint allure.

As the defending Champions representing Ontario, Canada, my team and I finished a disappointing 3rd place, with the Championship going to the state of Michigan. Many of the young bocce-players had been following the weekly ESPN coverage of the Main Event and were asking for my predictions on who would take home the nearly $9 million grand prize.

The suspense came to a culmination this week as the "November Nine" (two of whom were fellow Canadians) finished playing for the pursuit of every poker player's greatest dream. Arguably, this year was the most talented Main Event final table ever. Of course, there have been some stacked pre-Moneymaker great final tables, but I think most of those finalists would tell you, that they would give up anything if they only knew then, what they know now about the game. The game has evolved so much in the past few years that the knowledge and skill of the players and the level of play in this post- Moneymaker era, far exceeds that of the majority of players in eras bygone.

Watching the final table on ESPN this week, I was impressed by the level of play, particularly, though not exclusively by fellow Canadian Johathan Duhamel, who became the first Canadian World Series of Poker Champion in history.

As much as I was rooting for my friend "Grinder" to pull-off the greatest single season WSOP ever, it was awesome to watch Jonathan's determined route to victory. I had met Jonathan at a PokerStars dinner back in August in Toronto, and was very impressed by the young 23-year-old chip leader. He seemed very confident with the task ahead and spoke with such assurance and maturity that I just felt he would make the best of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

I am confident he will be a great ambassador for the game, especially in Canada, as he is a well-spoken, down-to-earth individual, who is bilingual in Canada's both official languages. Hopefully his triumph will result in bringing an NAPT stop to a Canadian city in the near future.

Watching Jonathan take it down filled my heart with Canadian pride - but more importantly fuelled my desire to take one down. Watch-out LA, us Canadian boys may just be a force to be reckoned with!

I will be posting updates from the NAPT LA on both my Facebook Fan Page and on Twitter.

See you at the tables!

Since joining PokerStars as a Team PokerStars Pro in the spring, both the SCOOP and the WSOP proved to be successful with a combined 13 cashes including three final tables. I have received a lot more media exposure and recognition than I had received over the first 14 years of my poker career. I really felt like I had a whole team of supporters behind me and I was proud to wear the red ace of spades on my chest and Canadian flag on my sleeve.

I am looking forward to adding to my successes this ("my rookie") year as a Team Pro, particularly at the PCA in The Bahamas and, just around the corner, the 2010 World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP)!

PokerStars is home to the largest online poker tournaments and host to the WCOOP - the richest online poker tournament series in history. The 2010 WCOOP is three weeks of a full-packed schedule of 60 tournaments starting on September 5th and ending on September 26th. The $5,200 NL Hold'em Main Event will probably see more than one player win over 1 million dollars from the comfort of their own home.

I personally love the WCOOP line-up, as no fewer than 13 different disciplines of poker are offered, plus many different formats of the same game are scheduled (eg: No-Limit Hold'em will have full ring, 6 max, heads up, big ante, turbos, rebuys and shootouts). No matter what your speciality or where your interests lie, you can probably find it on the 2010 WCOOP line-up.

Being a mixed game player, I am looking forward to playing in all the different disciplines and could easily see myself playing in no less than 55 WCOOP events. I have highlighted a few events that I really look forward to and feel give me the best Expected Value (EV) to earn some cash and hopefully a WCOOP title! In particular, the $320 Mixed Hold'em on the 14th, the $530 FL Omaha Hi/Lo on the 17th, the $1,050 Fixed Limit Hold'em on the 24th, the $2,100 HORSE on the 25th and the $10,300 8-Game on the 26th.

Throughout my career I have had success at all these disciplines but most recently have had the most success at Mixed Hold'em games. I have been saying for quite some time that I feel this tournament offers the best EV for me. I have cashed in two WSOP Mixed Hold'em events in the three that I have played with one final table, finished 2nd in the $2,100 SCOOP Mixed Hold'em for $66,000 last April and most recently won the Weekly $215 Mixed Hold'em event this past Sunday. I feel my success in the Mixed Hold'em events is directly related to having a deep understanding of and experience in playing both Limit and No-Limit Hold'em games for many years. Both games may seem very similar but require a completely different mindset of starting hand requirements and post flop play.

The Mixed Hold'em events traditionally have attracted both Limit specialists and No-Limit specialists. It doesn't take long to find out which form of Hold'em is a player's weakness and which players have an understanding of the nuances of playing both disciplines. Once I have determined this, it's time to exploit the players' weaknesses, which is a whole blog in itself and I will save that topic for after I win the WCOOP bracelet for the Mixed Hold'em Event :-)

I will be posting WCOOP updates on both my Facebook fan page and on Twitter.

See you at the tables!