JohnBlowers's blog

I'm pleased to announce I will be contributing a few articles to Poker Pro magazine starting with the edition that hits newsstands next week. Poker Pro is one of the leading international poker magazines and I'm writing a column under the working title "Adventures of a Poker Dad".

The first couple of articles chronicle my adventures in LA while filming Best Damn Poker Show with Fox Sports. I'm also working on an article exploring the impact of the Internet Gaming law that just had it's two year anniversary, the state of advergaming in the poker community and the new strains of poker working their way into the poker venues including a game with no river and another played with a sort-of pinochle deck. The former has been debuting at Treasure Island and will start appearing at an online site later this year.

I'm excited about this new opportunity to connect with more folks who understand and love the game of poker.

Keep in touch,

John

Yep, you read that right. Life on Tilt and I will be on season two of Best Damn Poker Show, which airs on the Fox Sports Network. I was in LA last month filming the episodes.

For the uninitiated, Best Damn Poker Show is part poker show and part reality show. 24 emerging poker pros are selected from among thousands of folks who audition. Poker pros Annie Duke and Phil Hellmuth choose teams from the contestants to battle each other for bragging rights. Players are eliminated based on Annie and Phil's evaluation of their play during brief elimination matches.

The show first airs Monday, October 27. I can't reveal how it turns out, but I will advise you to tune in early if you'd like to see me and the book!

Note - since writing this, one of the hosts of the show has been cast on Celebrity Apprentice and the air dates of Best Damn Poker Show have been pushed to January to coincide with that program.

Okay, I'm going to try to purge my guilt of not adding to the blog by adding a few entries today.

I just returned from visiting the team at Poker Creations in Boston. They run an online site called National League of Poker, or NLOP for short. Beginning October 27, they will be running Life on Tilt tournaments nightly at 7 PM ET for six weeks. The tournament winners get an autographed copy of my book plus points to freeroll into real money tournaments. During the tournament, the skin of the site will change and feature quotes from my book as well as a trailer for the upcoming movie project.

Be sure to check out nlop.com and play...it's free and they have a bunch of other great cash and merchandise giveaways. Plus you can play against their spokesman, poker ambassador Mike Sexton.

Take time to Tilt,

John

The 2008 World Series of Poker Main Event is in full swing and Life on Tilt was there. With nearly 6,800 entry fees of $10,000, this year's world championship is the 2nd largest prize pool in history!

I was able to be out in Las Vegas for the first few days of the championship and just posted many photos from the trip (under "Downloads"..."Life on Tilt at the 2008 World Series of Poker"). You'll see many former poker world champs with yours truly. Click on the Details tab to see the captions.

Highlights from the trip include meeting many players who are characters in Tilt and having them read and react to their sections (thankfully in a positive way!), meeting Doyle Brunson - a true living legend and meeting many fans of Tilt. It was also interesting to meet the Vice President of the Phillipines and present him with a complimentary copy of Life on Tilt to commemorate his visit to sin city.

Team Tilt -

Only a few days until the official release date. It's sort of like Christmas in May...well, except I'm not getting any presents and there won't be a candlelight vigil at my church.

Be that as it may, Kenna is flying in tonight and we have a pretty busy week of pre-release activities culminating Thursday night with the official launch event at the Marriott in Albany, NY. We're expecting a good-sized crowd and plenty of media.

Don't forget - Thursday is "Buy Life on Tilt" Day. I'm counting on you! I'll send a reminder Wednesday with the links.

In the mean time, check out the new posting in the download area (Tilt on Poker Road)...the book is being featured on pokerroad.com in pictures and audio.

Tilt fever...catch it!

John

I'm thrilled to release the video/book trailer for Life on Tilt today. I'd like to thank Steve for turning me on to this idea (yes, Steve, I received my supply of books and one has your name on it!).

Also, thanks to Jonathan for getting my vision on this and doing a fantastic job pulling the pieces together for me. It really captures a lot of the emotion and imagery from the book.

I hope you enjoy the video and feel free to share the clip broadly.

Next week I will share an excerpt from the audio book and hope to be able to share a sample from the song written for Tilt.

Thanks for being a part of this. Keep in touch.

John

Hi there -

Several of you have asked if there will be an audio version of the book. I'm pleased to tell you there will be and we are fairly far along in the process.

I just completed work in the studio on the initial recording and mixing sessions. Thanks to Josh for surviving nearly 1,200 takes! The numerous characters with a myriad of accents was particularlly challenging. I have a newfound appreciation for Hank Azaria, who does so many voices for the Simpsons. Switching between voices and keeping the dialog fluid is not as easy as it may seem.

I'm excited about combining the audio book with the country music song written for Tilt. Kenna sent me an early version of the song a few days ago and it fits the book beautifully. The finished product should be available on iTunes, Rhapsody, Yahoo! Music and other digital distribution outlets by June 15. The complete set will run approximately 8 hours and I'm told will take under 20 minutes to download.

Hi there - Welcome to Life on Tilt: the web site. I hadn't really thought about having a web site when I was writing the book...not even as the publishing arrangements took shape. However, in this day and age, it just seems like this is more a necessity than a nice to have. I hope you enjoy some of the features we've managed to include in time for "go live". There are daily poker quotes, daily poker tips, upcoming events/appearances, ways to interact with myself and other members of Team Tilt and so much more! (that's what folks say when they really mean there's not that much more) In the coming weeks, I'll be adding the book trailer, excerpts from the audio book, a song that's been written for the book and other info. Drop me a line in the "contact us" area to let me know what you think. May the flop be with you, John