Poker Chip's Poker Blog

Poker Tournamet Tips

2008-10-07T07:02:00.000-07:00

Poker Tournament Tips

Televised poker is based mainly around poker tournaments. All the famous players got that way by playing on the World Poker Tour or in the World Series of Poker. Naturally, many players getting started in poker today want to startwith poker tournaments. If you are ready to foray
into tournament poker, here’s what you need to know.

Patience in Tournament Poker

You can’t win the tournament in the first round, but you sure can lose it there. Many players starting out panic and feel they need to amass chips as quickly as possible.

The reality is even if you double up in the first round the number of chips you will gain will only be worth a few rounds of blinds in the eighth or ninth round. On the other hand, if you lose all your chips in the first round, you're done.

Take your time in the first few rounds and don’t commit too many chipswithout a very big hand. Use those rounds to feel out your opponents for use in later rounds when the blinds are big and the pots really worth winning.

Strategies in Tournament Poker

There are two basic approaches to tournament poker. There is a hyper aggressive chip grabbing style, willing to risk a lot of chips early in order to gain a lot. There is also the survive and thrive strategy which advocates a steady rise in chip count without taking too many risks until necessary.

Both have their merits and there are different ways to achieve these goals. Just because you are hyper aggressive doesn’t mean you have to call every all-in bet and even if you are trying to survive you shouldn’t be folding aces pre-flop.

Winning in Tournament Poker

While cash game players can expect the majority of their sessions to be winners, even good tournament players can go several tournaments without a cash.

Remember that because the payout odds are bigger, it’s okay to wait longer for a win. As long
as you make sure you have the bankroll for an extended tournament run and you have the skills, you should be fine.

Fantasy Sports Live Daily Contests

2007-06-27T04:49:00.000-07:00

Okay, this isn't poker related, except that I found a link to this site on another poker blog and the blogger was calling this "the new poker". The site is called Fantasy Sports Live, and it's basically a place where people who don't have a full season worth of time to play fantasy baseball can play for just a day in a variety of contests. This site is very cool. Basically these fantasy sports contests are like sit-and-go poker tournaments. Even the buy-in prices are similar.

So far I've placed in 2 of 3 contests, and I'm down $2, but since I got $30 as a signup bonus, I'm still up $28 total. If you're someone who likes sports and being in action, then this is something worth checking out.

Use bonus code "COWBOYS" to get free money ($30!) in your account.

Another cool thing about their site - they take PayPal!

Poker Strategy Thoughts and More Random Stuff

2007-06-24T09:11:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted in a bit, and this post doesn't contain much but some random poker dribblings frmo my feeble mind. I've got a couple of new poker strategy articles available at my new website here:

Enjoy.

Eye on Gambling also published some interesting stuff about Bill Chen being accused of collusion at the WSOP. I think it's nonsensical. Deals like this happen all the time at lots of poker tournaments, and the officials said it was fine. EOG tries to get extra press by being the National Enquirer of the gambling business, which is probably okay if you're into that sort of thing. I'm not, so I'll mention the article here, but I'm not linking to it.

I played in the Full Tilt Poker Fifty Fifty tournament last night. I placed 850th, and I went out with AQ preflop. Got all in against JJ and didn't improve. Probably not the best way to play AQ that early in the tournament, but what the hell. I thought everyone else would fold. (One of the other players had AQ too.)

Shirley Rosario's poker journal made me laugh the other day too, where she said that Steve Badger's "patience for poker and poker players is very thin. He can usually only handle one event before he is ready to go back home."

You would almost think Steve's a bit curmudgeonly.

Poker News is the place to get real time updates from the WSOP, by the way. Check it out.

A Good No Limit Holdem Session Today

2007-06-06T10:32:00.000-07:00

Played for 50 minutes, 2 tables, at Full Tilt Poker at the $0.10/$0.25 no limit holdem tables, six person max. Won $43.45. Definitely running hot lately. Got some great cards dealt to me too.

Learning to Play Pot Limit Omaha/8 - My Win Rate

2007-06-05T21:04:00.000-07:00

I've been learning to play pot limit Omaha/8 over at Full Tilt Poker, and I like the game very much. I spent 2 hours tonight on the six person tables playing $0.10/$0.25 pot limit, and I won a total of $59.15, so my hourly win rate for the evening is approximately $29.60. (And yeah, I know that 2 hours doesn't mean a thing, and that I need a LOT more hours to draw any conclusions about my play.)

But...these do seem to be the kinds of results I'm seeing pretty consistently. Lots of players sitting down short stacked. In fact, I don't think I can recall seeing more than 1 player tonight with a bigger stack than $10. I've been buying in for the full $25. My guess is that at this level these guys are still trying to learn how to play, and so they're not risking much of their bankroll.

I told Steve Badger I was learning to play Omaha/8 tonight, and he seemed amused. (I think he's more amused that I'm wasting my time on that than on building my new poker website than anything else.) Anyway, believe it or not, that was one of the first times I've ever actually discussed poker with Steve; we almost always talk webmastering and SEO when we speak.

Mondays at the Hoy and Omaha 8

2007-06-04T21:33:00.000-07:00

Iggy invited me to play in the "Mondays at the Hoy" tonight at Full Tilt Poker. It's a $24 + $2 tonight. I placed 16th out of 45 or so, but I don't feel bad, cuz it was a blogger tournament, and those guys know how to play poker better than I do. (For some reason I still don't think of myself as a real poker blogger, even though I've had this blog up for a few years now.)

I've been learning how to play Omaha/8 lately, and I'm really enjoying that, mostly because I'm winning. In fact, I didn't do any work on my new poker site today because I've been so busy actually playing some poker. When I haven't been playing poker, I've been reading Steve Badger's site about Omaha strategy.

I've got a copy of Super/System 2 here, and I've heard that Bobby Baldwin's section about how to play Omaha/8 is pretty good, so I'm going to dig into that a little bit before I go to sleep tonight. I ordered 2 books about Omaha/8 over at Amazon today too. They should be here tomorrow. (The books are Winning Omaha/8 Poker and High-Low-Split Poker, Seven-Card Stud and Omaha Eight-or-better for Advanced Players. That latter book might not be a good one for me, since I'm not what I'd consider an "advanced player", but I'm looking forward to reading it anyway.

The Omaha/8 games are super soft at Full Tilt Poker, IMO, at least at the levels I'm playing. I'm mostly at the no limit and pot limit tables with the lower buy-in's, but I'm way profitable so far.

I Suck At Poker

2007-04-29T12:26:00.000-07:00

I haven't been able to place in a sit-and-go for over a week now.

I suck at poker.

Tony G Busting Ralph Perry - Intercontinental Poker Championship

2007-01-28T08:45:00.000-08:00

This was one of the most amazing displays of trash talk I've ever seen at a poker table. It was kinda like an automobile accident; I just couldn't look away. No way do I have the kind of trash talking skills that Tony G. demonstrates here.

Low Limit Holdem Rules

2006-11-29T08:18:00.000-08:00

I've been playing in the low limit holdem games at my online poker room of choice lately, and when I say low limit, I'm talking about $1/$2 limit Texas holdem. The games rule! I won $40 in about 40 minutes last night, playing 2 tables and reading articles on other websites while playing. The players online at this level will call you all the way down to the river on any kind of hopeless draw, and so far top pair or overpair has won almost every showdown except for one last night, where the villain hit his flush draw on the river.

Anyway, I'm playing the lower games for a couple of reasons. One is that I'm just not a good enough player to play much higher limits than this. The other is that my bankroll is short now, because I cashed almost all of my poker bankroll out after they passed UIGEA.

Lots of poker busts going on in Dallas lately too. You can read about that over at Pokerati. While you're at it, go check out Iggy's NEW poker blog too. (Even though I don't think he's written much about the Dallas poker busts.) I don't even play at the underground rooms here in Dallas any more. Oklahoma is just too close, and the cops won't mess with me there.

Blackjack Websites

2006-05-13T16:14:00.000-07:00

Here are some blackjack websites that I can recommend. I'm a big blackjack lover, in fact, I started playing blackjack before I took up poker. I definitely would consider myself a poker player first and a blackjack player second now, but the soft spot for the game of 21 is still there.

Blackjack Info by Ken Smith is the coolest blackjack site on the web, and it includes a basic strategy generator where you can input the casino conditions and the site will spit out a customized basic strategy chart that's perfect for your situation. He also operates a cool forum about blackjack tournaments.

This is a cool new site about blackjack strategy which shows a lot of promise. The young man who's working on this site is really putting a lot of effort into it, and I'm expecting big things, even though the site isn't finished yet.

I've got a site I helped work on with some cool blackjack articles too. Like the blackjack strategy article I mentioned above, it's not quite finished yet either.

Blackjack Palace is a pretty complete blackjack portal too, with information about the history of the game and how to play, along with some recommended online blackjack casinos.

Blackjack Professor has some recommendations for online black jack casinos too. Be sure to check him out also.

Casino Gambling Websites

2006-05-13T15:59:00.000-07:00

This blog is mostly about poker, but a lot of poker players are into casino gambling too and love casino games. So I've got some recommended sites here related to online casino games and online gambling for your surfing pleasure:

My favorite site for casino game strategies is this one, because it's so well-designed and easy to navigate. This is the best site I've found for learning how to play online slots and online blackjack. Worth checking out, for sure.

If you're interested in online casino gambling games, then Casino Geek is a site not to be missed. Not only is the site full of cool information about where to play, but it also includes information about how to play and how to best take advantage of the casino bonuses and comps that are available on the internet.

If you're interested in hunting casino bonuses and taking advantage of casino comps, a great guide to online casinos and free casino bonuses can help get you started. Generous Casinos is one of the oldest and most well-respected bonus guides online, and for good reason. The author is reliable, the site is user-friendly, and the information presented is useful.

This online gambling guide includes a detailed description of Golden Palace and also recommends some other online casinos at which to play. The site also features strategy for different casino games and rules for some casino poker games.

Probably the best designed and easiest to look at site, as far as gambling guides go, is Choice Gambling, which is also full of solid information that any online gambler is going to find interesting. Whether you want to find an online casino, a sportsbook, a poker room, or a bingo hall, Choice Gambling has got the information you're going to want to review before making a decision about where to play.

This is another great guide to online casino poker, as well as other casino games and issues. OnlineCasinoReviewer includes reviews of online casinos and a forum where players can compare their experiences at some of the different casinos. The site also features recommendations related to Las Vegas casinos and a section for aspiring gambling webmasters.

If you're looking for a really straightforward way to pick out your next casino at which to play, then be sure to visit Online Casinos Ranked. It's a simple site, consisting of a list of casinos ranked and rated by a team of professionals who know all about what to watch for when choosing an online casino.

Casino Gypsy is also a neat online casino guide, with an especially good list of casino bonuses you can take advantage of. They also feature casino game tips for every casino game imaginable, from slots to blackjack.

These gambling forums are pretty cool too, especially the section with the casino recommendations. Definitely a good site to check out.

And if you like roulette, then this site will give you the lowdown about how and where to play roulette online.

Slots Websites

2006-05-13T15:48:00.000-07:00

Here are my recommendations for some cool websites about slots and slot machines:

Slots Hero Online - One of the biggest and riches sources of information about slot machines I've ever seen.

SlotTips.com is one of my favorites for slots and online slot games. Not only is the site beautifully designed and easy to read, but it's loaded with cool information about where to play slots online.

One of the oldest and most reputable guides to online slots is Slots Mania. You won't find much of anything about traditional brick and mortar casinos on this site, because the information is exclusively related to online slots and online slot machines, but man, is it comprehensive. It doesn't matter what kind of online slot game you're looking for, you'll be able to find it faster at Slots Mania than on any other slots website.

Slots Palace is another cool guide to online slots and online casinos.

Slots Patrol consists exclusively of recommendations for places to play online slots. Like Slots Mania, you won't find anything here about playing slot machines in a normal casino, but there's plenty of good stuff about online casinos here.

This website about slot machines is a little more diverse - there is plenty of information here about online casinos and online slot machines, but there are also articles about playing slots in Vegas, slot machine cheats, and news from the world of slot machines. It's a cool site with a lot of high quality content.

Slots Queen is another online slot machine guide, with details on where to find 3 reel slots, 5 reel slots, bonus slots, and more. Very cool, and very well designed.

Slots Jam is another cool slot machine website that focuses mostly on the online slot machine aspect of the subject. Worth checking out.

Video Poker Websites

2006-05-13T15:36:00.000-07:00

I've got too many recommended sites in my sidebar, so I'm going to move some of the into some posts on the blog and then just link to those posts. That should make the sidebar a little more user-friendly, and it will be easier for folks to find what they're looking for in the recommendations too. This is the first in that series of categorized recommendations, the video poker sites:

Video Poker Player is the first recommended video poker site on the list. The site has full details about the game of video poker, including a short history of the game. That information is followed by instructions how to play and an analysis of some of the different online video poker games available, like Microgaming, Realtime Gaming, and Playtech.

Video Poker St is another site similar to the first, full of information about online video poker and online casinos, especially. The site is well-designed and it's easy to find the information you're looking for there.

You can also learn how to play video poker at Video Poker School. Great info about where to play online, how to take advantage of online casino comps, and a video poker tutorial are included.

Video Poker Treasure focuses almost exclusively on recommending good online casinos at which to play video poker. The casinos recommended there are all solid, reputable places to play.

Finally, if you're looking for information about video poker strategy and video poker games, you might really enjoy this new site, Video Poker 365. Lots of unique and high quality video poker content available there, including an interview with Jeff Lotspiech, who launched one of the first video poker websites on the internet a few years ago.

Video Poker 247 is another cool site about video poker that's refreshingly light on the flashing casino ads and has lots of basic information about how to play.

How to Beat the 6 Max Texas Holdem Tables

2006-05-11T17:02:00.000-07:00

I found a really cool site today, with a cool narrow focus: how to beat 6 max Texas Holdem games. The site starts off with some pretty basic information, like poker rules and poker odds, but then gets into specific strategies for play at all stages of the game, preflop, on the flop, on the river, on the turn, etc. They also offer a ton of recommended reading links in each section, which is extremely user-friendly and helpful. Very cool poker site, and it's also not loaded up with a ton of affiliate advertising links either. Strong on information, low on advertising; that's a winning combination in my book.

I Placed 114th in an Online Poker Tournament

2006-03-14T11:14:00.000-08:00

I played in an online poker tournament last night with over 1060 players and placed 114th. I felt pretty good about that. I've actually played in this particular Monday night tournament quite a few times and never made it into the money before, so I was particularly excited about last night's showing.

The hand I went out with was QQ. I re-raised all-in against a loose aggressive player from late position, and he called me with KK. If I had it to do over again, I'd probably play it more or less the same way, to tell the truth. He'd given me every reason to think he was misrepresenting his hand, since he'd raised preflop about twice out of every 10 hands he'd been dealt for the previous 30 or 40 hands or so.

Finally a showing in an online poker tournament where I can feel really good about how I did. I don't feel like I made any mistakes at all in last night's tournament, although I think I MIGHT have played a little too tight.

8 Reasons I Want to go to Camp Hellmuth

2006-01-11T18:54:00.000-08:00

I've been over at the Camp Hellmuth website, and I'm reading more and more about the upcoming poker fantasy camp, so I thought that today, for my Phil Hellmuth post, I'd post a list of reasons I want to go to camp with Phil.

1- Phil Hellmuth- I was reading some reviews and news articles about last year's Camp Hellmuth, and someone called Phil the "Tony Robbins" of poker. I enjoyed the hell out of the last Tony Robbins seminar I went to. That, and I really like Phil Hellmuth.

2- Tournaments - The event includes several actual live poker tournaments, including a tournament where you can win your way into the World Poker Tour event in Aruba.

3- The Ultimate Bet Heads Up Challenge - Phil Hellmuth and Thomas "Thunder" Keller will play a heads up poker match from different rooms at Ultimate Bet, and explain why they're doing what they're doing as they play to the audience. Very cool.

4- TJ Cloutier - He'll be giving a talk about tournament poker and how to get to the final table. A gentleman I'd love to meet, and I'd enjoy getting some direct poker advice from him.

5- Antonio Esfandiari - "The Magician" will be talking about how to become a more aggressive player. Some of my buddies think I should probably avoid this seminar because I'm already too aggressive.

6- Joe Navarro - He's from the FBI, and he's giving a talk about body language and tells. According to the official site, Phil Hellmuth was taking notes during his talk last year. Reading tells is one of my weakest skills, although I've improved since I started paying attention to it.

7- Banquets and Cocktail Parties - They're having banquest and cocktail parties along with the seminar events, so you actually get to network with Phil Hellmuth and other poker players.

8- Cyndy Violette - She's a cute one. Really cute.

I probably won't make it this year, but you never know. There's still time to change my mind.

2 Poker Hands

2006-01-11T18:40:00.000-08:00

I'm going to tell a story about 2 poker hands I played tonight. One made me very happy. One broke my heart. Both were pocket kings.

I was playing in a Pacific Poker freeroll that was being sponsored by my favorite poker strategy forum. I was playing very patiently and waiting for cards.

I get pocket kings. A raise from one person, a re-raise from another. I go all-in. One person calls me with KQ, and the other person folds, and I double up.

The VERY NEXT HAND I get dealt pocket kings again. A bet in front of me, followed by a raise. I go all-in. This time the guy next to me has pocket aces, and hits an ace on the flop knocking me out of the tournament.

Not really a bad beat story. Just a story about 2 poker hands, one of which made me very happy, and the 2nd of which broke my heart.

2 Cool New Gambling Poker Blogs

2006-01-11T07:59:00.000-08:00

I got a really nice comment yesterday from Freddy Vegas, who said some nice things about my blogging. This thrilled me more than you might think, since I've never considered myself to be the greatest poker blogger in the world. (Except in my most secret of dreams, where I am surrounded by fabulous buxom women who all want to be my lovers because of my outstanding poker blogging skills.)

Anyway, ran over to his profile to check it out, and he's got a couple of cool new blogs going on. Worth checking out:

Las Vegas & Other North American Points
The Poker Professors (This one is apparently a team blog, co-written with "jungle jim".)

Anyway, good luck to both Freddy Vegas and "jungle jim" with their blogs. (Maybe I should add those to my article about 558 cool poker nicknames?)

3 Recent Phil Hellmuth News Articles

2006-01-10T07:46:00.000-08:00

As part of my ongoing Phil Hellmuth features, I'm posting links to 3 recent news articles about Phil Hellmuth:

1- MSNBC - Phil Hellmuth has Become a Hot Commodity - All about how busy Phil Hellmuth Jr. has been since he won the National Heads-Up Poker Championship. Looks like, among other things, the Poker Brat might be promoting his own clothing line at Wal-mart. THAT's success, ladies and gentlemen.

2- Luxist - Camp Hellmuth - Luxist is all about the luxury lifestyle, and I guess there's some overlap with Cardsquad when it comes to Hellmuth's poker camp. All about how you can spend $1999 and spend a few days with the greatest no limit holdem player of all-time.

3- LA Weekly - All In With the Bad Boy of Poker - I might have posted a link to this one already, but I'm posting another one because it's such a damn fine article.

Also, not really an article about Phil Hellmuth Jr., but a personal note: I received my copy of Kill Phil the new poker tournament strategy book that elaborates on David Sklansky's all-in or fold tournament strategy chapter in Tournament Poker for Advanced Players. The book indicates that it's about how to beat any of the various "Phil's" in poker today, but naturally, Phil Hellmuth is the only "Phil" to get his photo on the cover of the book.

2 Coolest Online Poker Tournaments

2006-01-10T06:37:00.000-08:00

People love to play in online poker tournaments. And since people can play from the comfort of their own home, some of the online tourneys are getting more participants on a weekly basis than some of the big televised events like the World Poker Tour and the World Series of Poker. What follows are my picks from the 2 coolest online poker tournaments:

1- The World Championship of Online Poker - This is the biggest multi-tournament event being held online, and it's a Pokerstars event. There have been 4 World Championships of Online Poker, beginning in 2002 and the most recent one having been in 2005.

In 2004, Pokerstars had 15 events with over $12 million in prize money. This makes it the biggest poker event online, and one of the 3rd biggest poker events anywhere.

2- The Sunday Night $215 Buy-in No Limit Holdem Tournament at Pokerstars - This is the largest weekly poker event on the planet, which has over 3500 entries each week, and over $700,000 in weekly prizes.

5 Poker Mistakes

2006-01-10T05:58:00.000-08:00

I don't remember which book it's in, but I'm pretty sure it was a David Sklansky book, where the observation is made that there are only a handful of mistakes you can make playing poker. I can't find the article, but I can figure out what the mistakes are. The first thing to do in terms of figuring out what the mistakes are is to list all the possible actions you can take in a poker game:

1- You can check.
2- You can bet.
3- You can fold.
4- You can raise.

Those are really the only actions you can take in poker, so these are the only mistakes you can make:

1- Checking when you should be betting.
2- Betting when you should be checking.
3- Folding when you should be betting.
4- Folding when you should be raising.
5- Raising when you should be folding.

I think you can come up with other mistakes combining the above 4 possible actions, but not all of them apply, IMO, but the above 5 are the ones that apply. Thinking about the possible mistakes you can make playing poker makes the game seem a little simpler, to me.

4 Easy Ways to Increase Your Poker Win Rate

2006-01-09T21:29:00.000-08:00

People want to improve their poker play. But really, there are a pretty limited number of things that you can actually DO to increase your win rate. I've listed 4 easy ways to increase your poker win rate here:

1- Track your results. If you're an online player and you're not using Poker Tracker, then you're losing (wasting) money. If you're not keeping records, you're just not serious about improving your win rate, because you don't even know what your win rate is.

In management they say that you can't manage what you don't measure. So it would be appropriate to start measuring your results.

2- Play poker. One of the surest ways to improve your game is to practice. This seems like it would go without saying, but it needs to be said, because there are plenty of studious players who spend more time reading and talking about playing poker than they actually spend playing.

3- Read about playing poker. If you're reading books, blogs, websites, magazines, and message boards about playing poker, then you're encountering new ideas. If you think about those ideas, and compare them with your experiences while you're playing, then you'll improve your game and your win rate. Reading isn't enough though; you still have to do the critical thinking part and get in your hours at the table.

4- Write and think about playing poker. Iggy pointed out to me once that the most important think about writing about poker was that it forced you to THINK about poker. If you're not thinking critically about the game and how you play, then you're not improving, you're just playing automatically, on auto-pilot.

Writing about something is one of the best things you can do to force yourself to think about it. So comment on poker blogs, blog, and participate on message boards.

558 Ideas for Cool Poker Nicknames

2006-01-09T21:05:00.000-08:00

Do you want to be a cool poker player? Then you need a cool poker nickname. I've made a list of 558 cool poker names for your review here, and I hope you'll find this helpful in your quest to become an awe-inspiring and semi-famous poker player.

Poker Nicknames Starting With Adjectives

Here's a great formula for your new nickname: adjective + your first name.

Here's a list of 8 adjectives that might work for you:

1- Big
2- Fat
3- Little
4- Skinny
5- Slim
6- Mighty
7- Slick
8- Sleepy

Feel free to use an adjective not on this list if you like, but here are some examples using the above adjectives plus some common names:

1- "Big Jake"
2- "Fat Mike"
3- "Little John"
4- "Skinny Chris"
5- "Slim Dan"
6- "Mighty Mo"
7- "Slick Willie"
8- "Sleepy Ben"

Names of States as Nicknames

Okay, here are 50 more ideas. Every state name plus your first name. Some states are already taken, but not all of them, and sometimes if you have a different first name than the person who already uses that state as part of his moniker you can still get away with it.

Examples:

1- "Texas Dolly"
2- "Florida Phil"
3- "Nevada Nick"
4- "Alabama Al"
5- "Oklahoma Bob"
6- "Minnesota Mike"

You get the idea here.

City Names + Your Name

As if 58 ideas for poker nicknames weren't enough, here are about 500 more. Take the name of a city and add your first name. That's it. Nothing could be easier. (500 assumes that there are about 10 names of cities per state.)

AND you can find a list of major city names in the USA here. You don't have to live there to use a city name as part of your nickname.

Here are some examples:

1- "Amarillo Slim"
2- "Minnesota Jim Meehan"
3- "Miami John"
4- "Tucson Tommy"
5- "Bakersfield Bill"
6- "New Orleans Mike"

Other Ideas for Poker Names

Don't feel limited to the 558 ideas I've presented you with. You can come up with cool nouns to add in between your first and last name too, like Antonio "The Magician" Esfandiari, or Men "The Master" Nguyen.

Another thing you can do is just wait til someone gives you a nickname. I used to play with a guy everyone called Lobster. No one was ever able to tell me why. I also played with a chiropractor named Dr. Tilt, but we all knew why he was nicknamed that.

9 Players at My Dream Final WSOP Table

2006-01-09T17:51:00.000-08:00

These are the people I would like to see at the final table of the World Series of Poker championship event in 2006:

1- ME!

2- Iggy

3- "Minneapolis" Jim Meehan

4- Steve Badger (of Play Winning Poker)

5- Phil Hellmuth (of course)

6- Wes Young - I love playing with Wes because he's such a great audience. He laughs at me constantly, in fact.

7- Gabe Kaplan

8- David Sklansky ( I swear I could be the one to put him on tilt. The first and only one. If I couldn't do it, I bet Badger or Meehan could.)

9- Either William Shatner, Chuck Norris, or David Hasselhoff. Those guys are just plain cool.

10- Jennifer Tilly or Jennifer Leigh or Shirley Rosario (from Poker Babes)

Would make for great television.

Hey, come on. I can dream, can't I? I just can't count.

7 Ways to Confuse and Tilt Online Poker Players

2006-01-09T12:35:00.000-08:00

One quick way to gain a subtle advantage at an online poker table is to distract and tilt the other players at the table. You can do this without being a jerk and berating other players too. In fact, some of them will think it's funny, and will enjoy playing with you.

But most importantly, if they're paying attention to your table talk, they're not paying enough attention to their game, and they lose EV while you gain it. (Even if they know what you're doing, they'll still be thinking about you and what you're doing instead of their cards and your cards.)

1- Sit down at a ring game with WAY more chips than anyone else at the table. I mean lots of chips, too, like at least 10 times what the biggest stack at the table has. Then raise every single hand you get both preflop and post-flop for the first five or ten hands you play. After that you can tighten up and play well and get action from everyone at the table.

2- Bluff like a madman and show your cards, especially if you've got really crappy cards like 27 offsuit and everyone folds.

3- Type into the chatbox that you just watched the movie Rounders and every episode of the World Poker Tour Season 2 and you're ready to take on all comers with your "tight but aggressive playing style".

4- Every time you win a hand or someone else folds to a bet you make, type, "That's right. Fear me." into the chat box. This works especially well if you refer to yourself in the 3rd person, as if you were a super villain.

5- Tell other players at the table, "Be careful. I'm sooted." Be sure to spell it "sooted".

6- Rant on and on about how great a player Phil Hellmuth is in the chat box. Express amazement and disbelief at anyone who disagrees with you.

7- Find another player at the table who's mad at you, or who seems to dislike you. Then start saying things to him like, "I like you, insert-player-name-here. Can I add you to my buddy list?" and "Will you be my friend?" and "PLEASE be my friend?"

This works especially well with players who have typed "FU" into the chatbox after you nailed them with a bad beat.

5 Facts You Didn't Know About Phil Hellmuth

2006-01-09T12:05:00.000-08:00

1- If Phil Hellmuth were a captain on Star Trek, he'd be Captain Kirk, the biggest, baddest starship captain of them all. He'd be kicking Klingons' asses, raising hell, and getting it on with fine alien babes.

2- Phil Hellmuth can and has counted to infinity. More than once, in fact.

3- Phil Hellmuth has 12 sons named "The Sons of Hellmuth". (This is a pretty well-kept secret that is being revealed here for probably the first time.)

Together, they will each have 12 sons, who will begin the "12 Tribes of Hellmuth" which are often spoken of in the prophecy. (The prophecy about the greatest poker player who ever lived and who spawned descendants who took over the entire poker world.)

4- If Phil Hellmuth were on The A-Team, he'd be a combination of BA Baraccus and Hannibal. BA because he's BAD, and Hannibal because he's smart. (Come to think of it, he'd also be Faceman, because he's handsome too.)

5- Phil Hellmuth can run a mile in under 3 minutes, but when you're as good a poker player as Phil Hellmuth, you don't have to "run" anywhere. You can drive a fancy car, or have someone else drive you.

Bonus Fact # 6 - If Phil Hellmuth were a woman, he'd be a Slayer, like Buffy, only badder. He would probably be the reason for the extinction of all the vampires in the world by the end of the first season.

Cards Running Hot for Me Lately

2005-12-31T13:55:00.000-08:00

The cards have been running hot for me lately over at Party Poker. Night before last I bought into a $30 + $3 multi table tourney with over 750 players and made it to 7th place, winning $690. Then last night I played 3 $30 + $3 SnG's and took 1st place in every single one of them. My bankroll was short before this run of good luck, but now it's over $1000.

What a great way to end the year.

Women in Poker 2005

2005-12-31T13:41:00.000-08:00

Be sure to check out this post over at http://www.lasvegasvegas.com/:

Women in Poker 2005

He includes photos of some of the following women in poker:

Jennifer Tilly
Cyndy Violette
Cecilia Mortensen
Evelyn Ng
Jennifer Harman
Clonie Gowen
Annie Duke
Karina Jett
JJ Liu
Isabelle Mercier
Kathy Liebert
Iiz Liu
Kristy Gazes
Ruth Graham
Carmel Petresca
Courtney Friel
Tamao Sato

These are some great photos of some beautiful and talented poker women. You deserve to go take a look. Also, speaking of women in poker, two of my favorites, who weren't included in the list above because their photos weren't in the feature article I'm pointing to, are Shirley Rosario and Jennicide. Both of their sites are worth checking out, but especially Shirley's, since it's so packed with content and photos.

Phil Hellmuth - Greatest Poker Tournament Player of All Time

2005-12-31T13:18:00.000-08:00

GoBeRude has a neat post from last June explaining why Phil Hellmuth is the greatest poker tournament player of all time.

Here's a quick list of the 9 WSOP bracelets Phil Hellmuth has won:

2003, Limit Holdem, 1st place
2001 No Limit Holdem, Championship Event, 5th place
2001 No Limit Holdem, 1st place
1997 Pot Limit Holdem, 1st place
1993 No Limit Holdem, ($3000 event), 1st place
1993 No Limit Holdem, ($1500 event), 1st place
1993 Limit Holdem, 1st place
1992 Limit Holdem, 1st place
1989 No Limit Holdem, Championship Event, 1st place

The interesting thing about that list to me is the number of 1st place finishes in 1993. While I was graduating from college, Phil Hellmuth was winning THREE WSOP bracelets.

Minneapolis Jim Meehan at Wicked Chops Poker

2005-12-29T15:24:00.000-08:00

This post made me laugh, so I'm posting a link to it here in spite of it being "yesterday's news". Minneapolis Jim Meehan, by the way, is my pick for big poker star of 2006. I think it's going to be Jim's year.

Minneapolis Jim and 5000 Stoned Idiots

Definitely read that post though - you'll thank me for it. Laughed out loud.

poker

Phil Hellmuth - Statistics, Data, and Info

2005-12-29T06:06:00.000-08:00

Phil Hellmuth's's nickname: The Poker Brat

Date of Birth: July 16, 1964

Birthplace: Madison, WI

Lives: Palo Alto, CA

Marital Status: Married, with 2 Children

WSOP Bracelets: 9

First WSOP Championship: 1989, when he was just 24 years old.

Other Tournament Wins: Season 3 Champion of Late Night Poker and 2005 Inaugural Heads-up Championship Winner

Johnny Chan Versus Phil Hellmuth

2005-12-29T05:58:00.000-08:00

I was paging through some copies of my old All In magazines, and I came across a little tidbit on the bottom of one of the pages where Johnny Chan was pretty critical of Phil Hellmuth and his demeanor at the poker table. They also presented a response from Phil Hellmuth, which I thought was a gentlemanly and well thought out reply. I'm going to reprint some of the more interesting snippets of what they each said here.

Johnny Chan: Phil Hellmuth is a good poker player, but when he loses, he cries like a little baby. He should learn how to take it like a man. He's not a man yet, but hopefully he'll grow up.

Phil Hellmuth: I'm disappointed that Johnny Chan doesn't see that I am a man, and that I have a passion for the game that sometimes makes me look bad...But my plan is to shut up and become the best poker player of all-time.

I had a "friend" once who told me that I didn't have any balls. My wife suggested that I send him a photo of them in the mail, which would have been a funny response, I think. For some reason, Hellmuth's exchange with Chan made me think of that little episode from my own life.

Phil Hellmuth and the English Psychic

2005-12-27T06:54:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time there was a little boy named Phil Hellmuth. He was about 17 years old, and he was the oldest of 5 kids. Phil was socially inept, had acne, and didn't have many friends.

One day Phil Hellmuth's mom brought home an English psychic named Rose Gladden. (Phil's mom and Rose had become friends at a conference about seeing auras or something like that.) Phil and his brothers and sisters pestered poor Rose Gladden to read their palms until she finally relented.

Rose Gladden turned blue when she read Phil's palm, and she told him, "One day you're going to be very famous. Or infamous!"

She read the other kids' palms too, but didn't mention fame to anyone but Phil.

And of course, Phil Hellmuth grew up to become one of the greatest poker players of all time.

I read the above story (in a quite different form) in an interview with Phil Hellmuth from the December issue of Bluff magazine. I thought that one tale alone was enough for a standalone post in my series of Phil Hellmuth posts. Good stuff.

Is David Sklansky a Psychopath?

2005-12-22T18:06:00.000-08:00

Of course I don't really think that David Sklansky is a psychopath, but I read an article recently called Is Warren Buffett a Psychopath?, and it was interesting to me how many of the points they made about Buffett's investing style also applied to poker, especially the type of excellent, emotionless, mathematicaly-precise poker that David Sklansky is well known for.

The entire thesis of the Buffett article I'm referring to above is that the people who often make the best investing decisions are what are referred to as "functional psychopaths". A functional psychopath's inability to feel the normal emotions that other investors might react to enable him to make more rational decisions about selling or buying.

My contention is that this is also true of playing poker. The game is about making correct decisions, and really there are a tremendous number of situations, but there are a limited number of decisions you can make:

Check
Bet
Raise
Fold

If you make the wrong decisions, you lose EV (expected value), and if you make the right decisions, you gain EV. Many (most?) poker players make decisions based on their emotions rather than on what would give them the mathematical advantage. Some of the emotions that might cause a poker player to make an incorrect decision might include:

Fear
Anger
Curiosity
Boredom
Overconfidence

The study that talked about functional psychopaths as investors used a classic gambling situation that's been talked about endlessly in articles about how odds and probability work. The experiment had test subjects who were given $20 each. They were invited to bet $1 on a coin toss where they would win $2.50 if they won, and lose $1 if they lost. (Clearly a positive EV situation, and very much so.)

The rational decision would be to take the bet every single time, since it's a mathematically clear thing to do. But in the test, only 58% of the subjects took the bet. (I hope they all play poker, by the way, and I'm sure Sklansky does too.)

Furthermore, they conducted the same test with some brain damaged subjects who had difficulty feeling certain emotions. In the 2nd test, 84% of the subjects took the bet.

Anyway, I think it's an interesting parallel. Rational investing in the stock market involves determining a business's true worth and the likelihood that it will continue to generate profits over the long term. Then if you buy the business below the actual worth of the stock, then you're relatively guaranteed a profit. This approach made Buffett one of th 2 richest men in the world, and he's maintained a 25% return in the market over the last 38 years.

But people in the stock market buy and sell all the time based on emotions, not rational decision making. This creates opportunities for those who aren't fearful, and it creates losses for those who are fearful.

Poker's the same way. If you make rational, mathematically correct decisions over and over again, in the long run, you'll see a profit. ESPECIALLY if and when you start playing with emotional players who make decisions based on their emotions.

David Sklansky, from what I've read, NEVER makes poker decisions based on his emotions. That and my bankroll are two reasons I wouldn't play with him. (That and he might be mad at me for even questioning whether or not he's a functional psychopath. But even if he were mad at me, he'd probably just ignore me and give me dirty look. He never tilts.)

My Most Wondrous Creation

2005-12-22T11:45:00.000-08:00

Saw this posted on a poker forum.

Watching Phil Hellmuth play poker is like looking into the face of God himself, and having God look smilingly back at you, and hearing him say, "YOU...are my most wondrous creation."

LOVE it!

Bad Beat Stories - $1

2005-12-22T11:37:00.000-08:00

I got this bad beat stories idea from a buddy of mine who runs a poker strategy forum:

A guy sits at a lemonade stand with a sign on it and a jar in front of him. Similar to Lucy in the Peanuts cartoons. The sign says, "Bad beat stories, $1".

A poker player walks up to him, puts a dollar in the jar, and starts telling a long boring bad beat story.

When he finishes, "Bad Beat Guy" says to him, "Man! That's a BAAAAAAAD beat! Bummer!"

The poker player then says, "Then this other time..."

At which point, "Bad Beat Guy" interrupts him and says, "Hold on. That will be another dollar please."

Phil Hellmuth Article - LA Weekly

2005-12-22T03:10:00.000-08:00

I wasn't kidding when I said I was going to post about Phil Hellmuth every day. I really am. I might even make multiple posts about Phil Hellmuth.

Today's Phil Hellmuth post is going to link to an article about Phil Hellmuth in LA Weekly.

It was a great article, and I'll summarize 9 things I learned about Phil Hellmuth from this article:

1- Phil Hellmuth is 6' 6" tall. Now, I'm I'm 6'3" myself, and I probably figured Hellmuth for a tall guy, but it sounds like he's just going to tower over me if and when I ever get to meet him.

2- One of Phil's nicknames is "The Madison Kid".

3- Phil Hellmuth was the youngest ever winner of the World Series of Poker in 1989 at age 24. He has 9 World Series of Poker bracelets, and there are only 2 people in the world ahead of him with 10 bracelets.

4- John Bonetti was quoted as saying, "Phil wants to win that 10th bracelet so bad because if he puts them all together they might fit around his swollen head."

5- Phil Hellmuth has an ownership stake in Cardplayer magazine. (I knew he wrote for them; I didn't know that he was a part-owner.)

6- Mike Sexton used to think Phil Hellmuth was the best no limit player in the world, but that he's so focused on the business side of things that his game is slipping.

7- According to "the Bad Boy of Poker", Phil's been married for 16 years and has never cheated on his wife.

8- One of the participants at Hellmuth's Fantasy Poker Camp called him the Tony Robbins of poker. Since Tony Robbins is abnormally tall and successful too, this is possibly pretty accurate.

9- Hellmuth's decision to drop out of college and become a professional poker player created a huge rift between him and his father, who is an intellectual and was at that time an associate dean at the university. His father first watched his son play when he won the WSOP, and when Hellmuth won, he immediately asked, "Where's my dad?"

Phil had promised to buy his dad a brand new car if he won the WSOP, and he did. His dad is still driving the car.

That's it for the Phil Hellmuth love today. I'm going to post about something else shortly.

Phil Hellmuth - A New Feature Here

2005-12-21T11:57:00.000-08:00

Phil Hellmuth rules.

There. I said it. And I'm not ashamed of it. I'm a huge fan of Phil Hellmuth. I even like his book, Play Poker Like the Pro's.

(Whether it's because I'm just being a contrarian or not I'll leave for you to decide.)

(My comment about liking his poker book will earn me the derision of 100's of better poker players and bloggers all over the internet in almost no time, I'm sure.)

So here's a conversation I had today on Instant Messenger regarding Phil Hellmuth:

Me: I think I'm going to start including a daily post about Phil Hellmuth at my blog. Like every single day, for 2 or 3 months.

Friend: Why don't you pick someone most people like, instead of someone most people loathe?

Me: If I post about someone everyone likes, it won't get any attention.

Time passes.

Me: Did you know they're going to make a movie about Phil Hellmuth?

Friend: no.

Me: Yep. A dream come true for me. A Phil Hellmuth biopic. Starring Hayden Christensen.

Time passes. My friend changes the subject. I start to think about all the different cool posts a blogger could make about Phil Hellmuth and then press "Publish".

Comment Spam, Poker, and Save My Finger

2005-12-21T04:11:00.000-08:00

So it's early morning and I just spent an hour deleting spam comments from my blog here. I take a kind of perverted pleasure in this, like I'm popping zits or something. Iggy laughed about that when I sent him that on instant messenger, so it must be worth posting here. (BTW, Iggy's blog is about poker, and it's funny, smart, and cool, everything this lameass poker blog I write has never been.) To quote one of the spam comments on my blog, I give Iggy's poker blog "an A+ with a Gold Star!"

F*ck comment spam, by the way.

I have Sirius satellite radio now, but I haven't noticed a poker station yet. They should have one, I think, and I'm predicting they will have one within 12 months unless the "poker boom" crashes. And I say that not because I've read somewhere that this is going to happen, but just because I really am predicting that this will happen.

My wife and I were talking about things that suck up time yesterday. We were at the video game store and some Mom with a 16 year old son was talking about how he spent all his time playing World of Warcraft or something like that, and how he was learning to drive but never wanted to practice, but he was still a straight A student, so she couldn't complain. I played City of Heroes for a few weeks, and it was a great game, but it sucked up so much time that I stopped playing poker, both live and online.

And if I'm going to spend time doing something thats going to take me away from working on websites and earning my family a living, it needs to be something useful, like playing poker online, or watching movies like the recent remake of Yours, Mine and Our with Rene Russo and Dennis Quaid. (The original starred Lucille Ball and Henry Fonda; I looked it up.)

Before I forget, I think Save My Finger is damn funny, and it's probably illustrative of something too, although God only knows what. Someday I'm going to come up with a viral marketing idea that won't cost me a lot of money and implement it, but I don't know when. So far all my viral marketing ideas would cost me more money than they would make.

Here's a list of books I bought myself for Christmas yesterday too:

The Real Warren Buffett
How to do Everything
The Search by John Battelle
American Casino Guide 2006
The Ultimate Casino Guide (This last book was really cool, because the glossary is full of casino games I've never heard of before, and it lists casinos all over the world, not just in America.)

I spent an hour or two browsing through the "reference" section of the bookstore yesterday in amazement at all the things you can buy books about. I've decided that I love books of lists and almanacs and obscure guides to odd facts and other BS like that. Maybe someday I'll be able to put all of that to use.

"Black Thursday" in New York

2005-11-12T14:19:00.000-08:00

Apparently there were two raids on some large poker clubs in New York last week. Phil Hellmuth pointed out that the reason there are so many people playing in illegal cardrooms in New York is because they want to play poker, and there are no legal places to play.

The authorities say that their main concern isn't that people are playing poker, but that criminals are profiting from their play in these underground cardrooms.

Seems like a simple enough solution. Legalize it and regulate it.

Worked with Prohibition.

Starting Hand Selection in Heads Up Poker Games

2005-11-12T14:14:00.000-08:00

I play an aggressive poker game. Too aggressive apparently.

I've been playing these heads-up poker tourneys over at Pokerstars a lot lately, and I just kept getting killed there. (I was losing about 60% of the time, which surprised me, since I normally do pretty well at SnG's. I place ITM around 50% or so of the time.)

Then a buddy of mine and I were chatting about it the other night, and he told me that I was probably playing them too aggressively, and too loosely.

So I tightened up my approach a LOT, and suddenly I'm winning about 65% of the time. And when I say tightened up my approach, I mean I started limiting my starting hand selection to good quality starting hands.

Wizard of Odds has a great chart showing how often particular starting hands will win when playing heads up. Worth checking out.

Pokershare.com Announces They're Shutting Down

2005-11-10T14:16:00.000-08:00

No surprises here.

Looks like they're just folding up their tables and calling it a day. Too bad. It was a neat concept for a poker room, and I never even got to play there.

Card Odds, Pot Odds, & the 3 Billionth Hand on Party Poker

2005-11-10T14:02:00.000-08:00

Most people have already seen this, but I thought it was funny enough to post a link to here. Apparently 4 of the 6 players at the table where the 3 billionth hand was dealt at Party Poker folded before the flop. Obviously none of them understand the concept of pot odds. (The winner of the hand was getting $50,000, which would make calling almost any raise at the table a good bet.)

Party Poker's 3 Billionth Hand

Paul Phillips Says Good-bye to the Two Plus Two Forums

2005-11-09T20:18:00.000-08:00

Paul Phillips once said that if the folks at the Two plus Two forum ever deleted one of his posts he'd leave for good, and it looks as if he's not only willing to go through with that, he's announced that he's leaving Two plus Two on his blog.

Having been a moderator on some forums, I understand that a moderator's job is tough, but I've also spent a lot of time lurking at Two plus Two. And I lurk because I'm afraid to post. Someone over at Paul's blog mentioned that every time someone new makes a post at 2+2 that the inevitable response is that "this questions has been asked millions of times before, why don't you use the search function, and I make $200,000 a year playing poker".

I tend to agree that this is the prevailing attitude there. While I've found an incredible amount of useful information at Two plus Two over the last couple of years of poker playing, I've also found the atmosphere there to be less than welcoming. It seems to me like there's no reason you can't be smart and helpful at the same time.

When I read the post that got deleted at Two plus Two over at Paul's blog, it surprised me that it had been deleted. I've seen far worse there on more than one occasion.

Heads Up Poker at Pokerstars.com

2005-11-09T14:07:00.000-08:00

I've been playing almost exclusively the heads up sit-and-go's over at Pokerstars.com lately. The $5.25 buy-in is the level at which I've been playing, and yesterday I played 20 of these. I lost 12 and won 8. I haven't calculated with the vig included how many of these I have to win on a regular basis before it becomes positive EV, but I'm reasonably sure that it's more than 50%, and so far I'm running at about 40%. So I've got a long ways to go.

But as the other poker pundits point out on a regular basis, the long run is a lot longer than you think. So there's plenty of time.

Why did I start playing all the heads-up sit and go's? I got interested in that Michael Craig book, The Professor, The Banker, and the Suicide King which is an abolutely fantastic read. If I didn't have a respiratory infection, I'd probably be finished with it already.

New Poker Forum Worth Supporting

2005-10-28T20:54:00.000-07:00

I've been spending some time at a new poker forum lately, and I highly recommend it. The posters there are friendly and reasonably funny, and it seems like many of them play in some of the same league games at their local bar. I've been lucky enough to play in a few of the weekly poker games on Wednesday nights with those guys too, and it's been a lot of fun. Last week I won about $300 in 2 hours at the $50 buy-in no limit game that the forum sponsored.

I understand too that there is a freeroll coming up soon too. I don't remember which poker room it's scheduled at, but like I say, go check out the new forum and try to post something smart and/or funny there. I'm always excited to see a high quality new community getting off the ground.

Chris Fergusons $1 Parlayed Into $20,000

2005-10-28T20:43:00.000-07:00

Iggy posted a great little story the other day about someone putting a dollar into Chris Ferguson's account at an online poker room, which he then parlayed into $20,000 or $25,000. According to one version of the story, Ferguson lost the dollar then got another dollar for his account. And there's also some debate over who actually gave him the dollar. I think it's possible that the whole story is apocryphal, but if it's true, what a wonderful article he'll make out of it.

That kind of thing would certainly encourage a lot of people to play at Full Tilt Poker. (I mention Full Tilt because Chris Ferguson is part of that whole Team Full Tilt thing they've got going on over there.) One of the things I learned recently when reading that awful ebook from The Rich Jerk was that people buy hope. Any chance of feeling like they can get something for nothing, or that they can make a lot of money with no real effort, and they're going to go for it.

What people will fail to realize (inevitably) as they scamper like so many lemmings to make minimal deposits at online poker rooms is that winning that kind of money takes skill, effort, and years of hard work to get to the point where you can pull something like that off. Even then you're going to need plenty of good luck to succeed with that kind of endeavor.

Don't get me wrong; I encourage everyone to play online poker (as long as it's legal for them to do so in their jurisdiction). I love it, and I think it's well worthwhile. But as any online pro poker player will tell you, it's not a quick buck or a something for nothing deal. It requires work, study, and preparation. None of which I have in abundance, but I'm smart enough to understand my own limitations too.

Carpe Diem

2005-09-14T19:01:00.000-07:00

I promised Iggy I would post about this.

I was playing at the $3/$6 holdem tables at the Stardust in Vegas this last weekend. I was there for the Casino Affiliate Convention. And at one point, I looked at my hole cards, and I said, "Carpe diem". Then I raised.

The dealer shoots me a dirty look and says, "English only at the table, sir!"

So sheepishly, I apologize to everyone at the table, and explain, "I'm sorry everyone. 'Carpe diem' is Latin for 'seize the day.'"

At which point the dealer shoots me an even dirtier look and says, "I KNOW what it means sir, but you could be signaling someone in code."

As if I couldn't possibly signal someone by saying, "Seize the day".

An acquaintance of mine who's a pro player told me that he would have told the dealer to go f- himself, and then he'd have called security and asked them to throw the dealer out of the cardroom. Of course, since I'm not a pro player, I don't think I could have pulled that move off, even if I'd wanted to.

Because I'm a gentle soul by nature anyway.

John Vorhaus and Game Theory

2005-07-27T19:30:00.000-07:00

I'd read about game theory in a couple of Sklansky books, but I didn't really understand it until I read the section in John Vorhaus Killer Texas Holdem Workbook that explained it in terms I could understand. Vorhaus suggests that you imagine a game where you're playing poker one card per hand in a deck with only 2 cards, the ace and the 2. Then suppose you're playing with an opponent who raises only when he has an ace and folds when he has a 2. Consistently.

Doesn't take long for you to know when to hold em and know when to fold em here does it? By the same token, if you take a player who raises every hand he has, regardless of whether he has the ace or the 2, you also know exactly what action to take in order to compensate for his play.

But if he does something to randomize how often he raises with a 2...well, that's game theory in action. It makes him unpredictable to his opponents. And unless they can figure out the proper calling frequency, they'll lose money against him by making mistakes based on being unable to read him.

At a full ring game, you can play automatically and predictably and do allright. You might even be able to make a profit. But at a short handed table where there's a rake, and where the blind comes around more often than once every 5 hands, you need to be able to make yourself more profitably by using game theory to your advantage.

Thanks for explaining this to me, Mr. Vorhaus.

World Championship of Online Poker at Pokerstars

2005-07-26T19:55:00.000-07:00

I won a qualifier to the World Championship of Online Poker at Pokerstars. Chatted with Iggy about it a little bit tonight, and he said that the event I was playing in was particularly brutal, the pot limit short table event. But I played a lot of pot limit here in Dallas when my favorite club in Richardson was still open, so I'm fairly comfortable with my skill level. I think I can probably even place in the money, but you never know.

My wife's not really thrilled about it though, because the tournament is on my daughters' birthday. (I have twins.) Last year I was in the hospital for my birthday. Turns out I have panic attacks, and since I'm overweight, whenever there's a hint of chest pain, they want me in the emergency room.

The weather here in Texas is hot and humid, but I'm staying inside under the fan and air conditioner, and I'm playing a little bit of poker. Been working on some of my other websites for a bit, which is why I haven't done much blogging here. Going to try to make up for it some this week.

New Casino Games Guide

2005-07-26T19:34:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine has recently launched a rather ambitious project at http://www.best-online-casino-guide.net/. Mongoose, the site author, has decided to launch one last gambling site, and put all of his writing about casino games and casino game strategies in one place. There's not a ton of information there yet, but there will be eventually, and if I know Mongoose, and I do know Mongoose, the information presented there about how to play casinos games is going to be topnotch and well worth reading. I've bookmarked this page, and I recommend that you do the same, because this is, IMO, THE gambling site to watch over the next year.

WSOP Updates - 2005 No Limit Holdem Status

2005-07-14T12:19:00.000-07:00

I've done a lousy job of providing WSOP updates, but I never claimed to be officially covering the World Series of Poker anyway. I just post about it when I feel interested in posting about it, actually, and today I thought I'd try to put something up on the old poker blog that has more to do with poker and less to do with sex. Anyway, I'm getting my updates from Cardplayer anyway, which has got video updates and everything.

Looks like the main event is now down to the final 27 players. That's big money sitting there now, folks. Amazingly, from what I understand, Greg Raymer is doing very well again this year. I think that's terrific. I've always gotten the impression that Greg "Fossilman" Raymer is a cool guy, an ordinary guy, the kinda guy I could have a beer with. The only thing that would be more exciting for me from the perspective of seeing Raymer win the big one again this year would be seeing Gabe Kaplan come out and win it.

I'm a big fan of Gabe Kaplan. The guy's awesome. Funny and smart. A hero to me when I was a young man.

I'm rambling a bit today. I'm in a rambling mood though. Was reading a bunch of cool stuff about Andy Kaufman last night on the internet. There was an interesting guy. Definitely do a Google search for Andy Kaufman sometime and enjoy away. One urban legend I thought was funny was that Jim Carrey was theorized to actually be Kaufman under an asssumed identity.

Followup to Poker Hotties and Poker Babes Post - Nude Searches

2005-07-14T12:12:00.000-07:00

Fascinating. I got picked up for an "Annie Duke nude" search a couple of days ago in a search engine. Does this mean I'll get traffic for people searching for Cyndy Violette nude pictures soon too? BTW, from what I can tell from this blog post, there are no nude pictures of Cyndy Violette on the internet--she was in Playboy, but she was in there fully clothed. According to that article, Jill Ann Spaulding is the only poker female who posed nude. (I'm assuming that they're not including Shana Hiatt as a poker female because she's more well-known as a spokesemodel than a player.)

Someone out there started a nude-poker dot blogspot.com address at some point in the past, but there's nothing at all there. I guess they were trying to pick up traffic for phrases like "Evelyn Ng naked" or "Clonie Gowen nude".

Here's my advice to folks searching for poker player nude pictures. Decide what you want to do. If you want to look at naked women, then maybe you oughta hit some adult sites, and then go play poker afterward. Or maybe you're more interested in playing some poker. If so, be sure to sign up with my bonus code at Party Poker. (CHIPSBLOG, or one of the other bonus codes in the sidebar here.)

Playing Flush Draws in No Limit Holdem

2005-07-14T11:56:00.000-07:00

First of all, I'm no expert. So I probably play hands wrong all the time, and this was probably another time, but I'm going to talk about it here anyway. I was playing no limit holdem at Full Tilt Poker today. I'm in a $20 pot with a guy, and on the flop, he gets a pair of 10's with a King kicker. (He's holding K10. Flop is 10 -8 -5.) The 8 and the 5 are both spades, and I have the A3 of spades in my hand. So he bets $20 to me on the flop, and I go all-in for $160.

I generally play my flush draws very aggressively when I'm playing no limit holdem. That's just me though. I guess I figure that I've got a 1 in 3 chance of hitting my flush, but my chances of him folding are extremely good with a big bet like that, so if it's not a positive expectation bet, it's probably pretty close. Maybe I'm wrong--I haven't done the math on it. There are a lot of factors. I'll say this though--if I've got top pair, and a king kicker, and someone goes all-in on me, I'm folding. Heck--you might have an A10 or even 1010, for 3 of a kind.

So this guy gets mad at me because I make my flush on the river. Calls me a "f-ing idiot". Here's what I don't understand--if it's such a dumb play, why is he mad? I mean, don't you WANT your opponents making bad moves? Even if they accidentally suck out and win? I mean hell, if you really think that's such an awful play, why wouldn't you say "nh" and then immediately rebuy, and add me to your buddy list along with a big note saying "FISH"?

I'm not so interested in whether or not I played the hand correctly. I was just farting around more than anything today. But I AM fascinated by people who lose to what they consider a bad beat, but then refuse to play with you anymore. I think what's really going on in this situation is the guy was playing way above his bankroll, and he COULDN'T afford the swings that go along with playing no limit holdem.

Pink Panty Poker - Victoria's Secret - PinkPantyPoker.com

2005-07-12T18:13:00.000-07:00

I haven't actually played Pink Panty Poker yet, since I don't actually have any pink panties to wear to such a game, but I agree with all the pundits who are talking about what a brilliant advertising strategy this is for Victoria's Secret. For those of you who haven't heard about it yet, there's a new strip poker game at PinkPantyPoker.com. It's a viral marketing campaign from Victoria's secret, and according to the folks who planned the campaign, people want to watch strangers playing poker.

Now if they recuit Mimi Rogers to play some Pink Panty Poker, they'll not be able to tear me away from the site.

Poker Babes - Hotties Playing Poker

2005-07-12T08:34:00.000-07:00

I guess poker has become a real sport now that there is so much interest in babes who play poker. I keep seeing more and more websites with sections devoted to poker hotties, or good looking women who play poker. I'm not exactly sure what the attraction is to good looking women at a poker table, but I'm sure it's something akin to the attraction toward women in other costumes like cheerleader outfits or maid's costumes. Or maybe it has something to do with dominance and control.

At any rate, I have a list of women who I think of as "poker babes". These are the best looking women I know of in the poker world, and I'm a fan of lists, so here's my list:

Jennifer Tilly
Shirley Rosario
Clonie Gowen
Jennifer "Jennicide" Leigh
Shannon Elizabeth
Evelyn Ng

This is, without a doubt, a very incomplete list. And the one name I left off the list is my absolute favorite of all, the incomparable Mimi Rogers. Why Tom Cruise left her for all these skinny young women I'll never understand, because Mimi Rogers is nothing short of breathtaking. I didn't even realize she was a poker babe until last week.

Annie Duke didn't make my list, but I know at least one other poker blogger who's received traffic for the phrase "Annie Duke nude", so apparently someone out there thinks she's a babe.

The Difference Between 560th Place and 561st Place

2005-07-11T09:19:00.000-07:00

The difference is $12,5000.

There's something profound and meaningful in that statement, so think about it. It's almost a World Series of Poker zen koan, in fact.

Doyle Brunson to buy World Poker Tour?

2005-07-08T13:47:00.000-07:00

Saw an article on Reuters today that Doyle Brunson has bid $700 million to buy World Poker Tour (WPTE). This is just a few days after WPT launched their own online gaming site. The $700 million bid was a premium of 100% on the company's share price at the time, and the rumors of the bid have driven the stock price up considerably. According to the CFO at World Poker Tour, it was an unsolicited offer, and they're looking at it just like any other offer.

More power to Doyle Brunson! To be 71 years old and still interested in buying whole companies...why that's on a par with Warren Buffett.

What I Learned from Iggy Today

2005-07-07T21:57:00.000-07:00

I was fortunate enough to get to know fellow blogger Iggy from Party Poker blogs today. What a terrific guy; if you've read his blog, you have a pretty good idea of what this guy is like for real. Which I suppose is one of the goals of blogging. Anyway, the "blogfather" had a lot to teach me today. Here are some nuggets, and they're paraphrased, but generally only slightly:

Talk about how you suck as a poker player. Talk about the mistakes you make in your blog. People love to read that stuff. It's okay to talk about what mistakes you make and why you keep making them.
Poker blogging helps you think critically about your poker game, because you have to think critically in order to write about it.
NEVER, EVER, ever slow-play aces before the flop, even if you're first to act at a loose aggressive table and you're almost sure someone is going to raise you before the flop.

Thanks for the coaching and the nuggets of wisdom today, Blogfather. You are definitely THE man in my book.

Activision Poker Game for World Series of Poker

2005-07-07T14:31:00.000-07:00

I guess it's not enough that you can play poker online at reputable card sites. Now there are video game versions of poker where you can play "simulated poker" with "simulated poker players" on your X-box or your Sony Playstation 2 or you Nintendo Gamecube or whatever your console of choice is. I saw that Activision is releasing a World Series of Poker game and the sneak preview is available in Vegas right now. Now let me make sure I understand this: I'm going to Vegas now, when the WSOP is in full swing, and I'm going to watch a video game that I can play poker on, and one on which I can't even play for real money? As one of my former bosses used to tell me, "Not gonna happen."

Reading further into the article, I'm learning that I'll actually get to play with the likenesses of some poker celebrities. Wow. I'm not sure if anyone else has ever played a licensed video game that sucked (Try any movie-related game on the X-box if you haven't, with the exception of the wonderful Star Wars Lego game.), but it's a standard rule that any licensed game for the console video game world will not only suck, but it will suck in a big way. Bad. Awful. Terrible. Some of the worst games ever.

On the other hand, might be fun.

Some WSOP Information for the 36th Annual WSOP

2005-07-06T06:01:00.000-07:00

Here's a list of some more or less but not really random WSOP information:

Players from over 45 different countries are playing in this year's WSOP event.
The main event is the $10,000 buy-in NL Holdem tournament, but the WSOP actually consists of a total of 45 different tournaments.
The space for the WSOP takes up over 60,000 square feet and over 200 poker tables.
The WSOP this year is being held at the Rio Suites in Las Vegas. The event got so big that the former venue for it could no longer accommodate all the players.l
The total prize pool is over $10 million this year, which is twice the size of last year's prize pool.
Johnny Chan and Doyle Brunson both won their 10th WSOP bracelets this year, making them the two biggest WSOP winners in the history of poker.
Jennifer Tilly won the Ladies Event this year. She's been tied romantically with Phil "the Unabomber" Laak.
Celebrities including Matt Damon, Edward Norton, Gabe Kaplan, and James Wood are all playing in the main event this year.

Just some fun, at a glance stuff about the WSOP that I thought folks might enjoy.

Golfer Rocco Mediate Tries Poker

2005-07-06T05:57:00.000-07:00

Golfer Rocco Mediate is playing in the main event of the WSOP next week. Mediate's a five time winner on the PGA Tour. Pokerstars.com is sponsoring Rocco Mediate and paying his $10,000 entry fee. Apparently he plays online quite a bit, and he's not bad, but I've never met a poker player who knew that he sucked, so who knows? Interestingly enough, there are probably quite a few poker players who would lose a good bit of money to him if they played golf for money.

I seem to remember somewhere that Stu Ungar used to lose a lot of money betting on golf games, but don't quote me on that one.

Andy Nguyen - WSOP Winner, Employee Event

2005-07-05T10:06:00.000-07:00

Out of curiosity, I did some searching for info on Andy Nguyen, who won the casino employee WSOP event this year. It's not a name that rang a bell, although that doesn't necessarily mean he isn't famous. It could just mean that this is another area where I'm clueless about things.

Andy Nguyen was born in Vietnam in 1962, and he's lived in the USA for the last 20 years. He's a poker dealer at Binion's Horseshoe in Downtown Las Vegas, where he's worked since 2001. He's been playing poker seriously for about 5 years now.

You can see a great photo of Andy Nguyen here. Sharla's posted a picture of Andy Nguyen here too.

WSOP Winners so far for 2005

2005-07-04T23:04:00.000-07:00

I'm a big fan of lists. My wife says I'm a compulsive list-maker, and it drives her nuts. Anyway, I thought it would be cool to make a list of all the WSOP Winners so far in 2005, just in case anyone was interested.

$500 Casino Employee No Limit Holdem - Andy Nguyen - $83,390
$1500 No Limit Holdem - Allen Cunningham - $725,405
$1500 Pot Limit Holdem - Thom Werthmann - $369,535
$1500 Limit Holdem - Eric Froehlich - $361,910
$1500 Omaha/8 - Patrick Poels - $270,100
$2500 No Limit Short-Handed - Isaac Galazan - $315,125
$1000 No Limit Holdem - Maciek "Michael" Gracz - $594,460
$1500 Seven Card Stud - Cliff Josephy - $192,100
$2000 No Limit Holdem - Erik Seidel - $611,795
$2000 Limit Holdem - Reza Payvar - $303,610
$2000 Pot Limit Holdem - Edward Moncada - $298,070
$2000 Pot Limit Omaha - Joshua Arieh - $381,600
$5000 No Limit Holdem - T. J. Cloutier - $657,100
$1000 Seven Card Stud High Low - Steve Hohn - $156,985
$1500 Limit Holdem Shootout - Mark Seif - $181,330
$1500 No Limit Holdem Shootout - Anthony Reategul - $269,100
$2500 Limit Holdem - Quinn Do - $265,975
$2000 Seven Card Stud High-Low - Denis Ethier - $160,685
$1500 Pot Limit Omaha - Barry Greenstein - $128,505
$5000 Pot Limit Texas Holdem - Brian Wilson - $370,685
$2500 Omaha High-Low - Todd Brunson - $255,945
$1500 No Limit Holdem - Mark Seif - $611,145
$5000 Seven Card Stud - Jan Sorensen - $293,275
$2500 No Limit Holdem - Farzad Bonyadi - $594,960
$2500 Pot Limit Holdem - Johnny Chan - $303,025
$1000 Ladies No Limit Holdem - Jennifer Tilly - $158,625
$5000 Pot Limit Omaha - Phil Ivey - $635,803
$5000 Limit Holdem - Dan Schmiech - $404,585 (I'm going to break with the convention from the rest of the list to point out that Gabe Kaplan won 2nd place in this one. I love Gabe Kaplan.)
$2000 No Limit Holdem - Lawrence Gosney - $483,195
$1500 Seven Card Razz - O'Neill Longson - $125,690
$5000 No Limit Holdem Short-Handed - Doyle Brunson - $367,800
$5000 Omaha High-Low - David Chiu - $347,410
$3000 No Limit Holdem - Andre Boyer - $682,810
$1000 No Limit Holdem Seniors - Paul Mckinney - $202,725

That's it so far. One thing I've noticed looking through these results and making this list is that I don't know most of the poker players on it. Maybe I'll do some research on some of them and post what I find out about them here in this blog.

Shannon Sharpe Training with Mark Seif for WSOP

2005-07-04T22:58:00.000-07:00

Shannon Sharpe is well-known to me as a promoter of Myoplex for Bill Phillips, back when Phillips was still running Muscle Media magazine. I'm not much of a football fan, so I didn't really know anything about Shannon Sharpe the football player, other than he was promoting for EAS. But now I read that he's going to be playing in the World Series of Poker, and that Mark Seif is going to be training him for it. It's amazing to me how much publicity and how many ideas for publicity are being generated in this new poker industry these days.

Absolute Poker is the poker room online that's bringing this celebrity to the poker table in Vegas this year, and more power to 'em. They're a great poker room, and if booking Shannon Sharpe to play in the WSOP for them is going to make stuff happen for them, then I'm all for it.

Sklanskyanity? - A New Religion for Poker Players

2005-07-03T22:45:00.000-07:00

I have a relative who explained to my son not long ago that no one plays poker but sluts and stupid people. We all think she was drunk when she said it, or at the very least hungover. I'm not 100% sure that there's a big solid connection with the topic of this post, but I suspect that she hasn't heard anything about Sklanskyanity.

David Sklansky is a different breed of cat, and I think anyone who's read any of his books or paid any attention to his posts over at Two plus Two knows that. But recently I've been hearing a little bit about Sklanskyanity, a new religion he's been talking about over there, and I'm intrigured. In Sklansky's Poker, Gaming and Life, he talks about how if you want to know what life is going to be like 200 years from now, just imagine what it was like 200 years ago. You weren't alive then either. I always got the impression from this comment that he didn't believe in an afterlife, and that he possibly was an atheist besides.

But maybe like a lot of people who start getting older, he's beginning to have different ideas about God and an afterlife. I think Sklansky's thought processes are interesting, and I love reading his books. So if you're interested in some of his ideas on this whole religion thing, here is a link to the philosophy section of Two plus Two.

Go over there and do some reading and come back and let me know whether or not you think that these guys are a weird bunch. But probably weird in a good way. I tend to agree with most of what David Sklansky writes, frankly.

Robert Guinther in Killeen Texas

2005-07-03T22:21:00.000-07:00

Read an article about how Robert Guinther mistakenly won a seat in the WSOP. Interesting stuff--basically he bought into what he thought was a $10 SnG, but it turned out it was actually a WSOP qualifier. He lives in Killeen, Texas, which is where I used to work when I worked at Olan Mills (it was one of my stores, I was an area manager.)

Anyway, it's funny how these things work out sometimes. I won a freeroll into a Super Weeknight at Party Poker about a year ago, and accidentally won it, then wound up hitting 5th place in the actual tournament. Won $6k and paid off my pickup truck. Lost the rest of the prize money trying to duplicate the event.

Anyway, Mr. Guinther has my congratulations, and nothing would please me more to see him win the main event there at the WSOP next week. Well, except for seeing my friend Susan Austin win. She's the bomb. LOL

Mike Caro's Roulette System

2005-07-03T21:39:00.000-07:00

Stumbled across Mike Caro's roulette system today, and it sure did make me laugh. Just to summarize the system briefly:

Never bet red or black.
Don't ever bet on 0 or 00.
Don't bet any odd red numbers.
Don't bet any even black numbers.

The article continues in this vein, and clearly explains why this system eliminates the house advantage. If you figure out why this system works at bringing the house edge down to "0", you get a gold star.

Women and Poker - Gender Issues in the Game of Poker

2005-07-03T21:27:00.000-07:00

I sometimes play poker with a buddy of mine named Dan. He goes by a female handle at Party Poker, and I won't blow his cover by posting his handle here, but it's something similar to hotsinglemom. He does this to give himself a particular table image based on people thinking that he's a woman. What I'm curious about is whether or not people actually play differently against a woman just because she's a woman.

I know I play differently against women, but I'm a big dork and I act differently around women in all situation, not just playing poker. But I get the feeling that a lot of men think that women can't play poker well, or that they're easily pushed around, or they're just not as smart as men. And while it's true that no woman has ever won the main event at the World Series of Poker, this doesn't prove a thing about a woman's innate ability to play poker. The fact is that there just aren't as many women playing poker. (Although there certainly seem to be a lot of them out there now.)

Last time I played in a live poker game with a woman, she tore my nut flush all to hell with her full house. No fun that, I'll tell you. And while I'm sure I'd enjoy meeting Clonie Gowen, Annie Duke, Shirley Rosario, and/or Jennifer Tilly, I'm not sure I'd want to sit down at a very high stakes game with them. I'm pretty sure any one of them would clean me out.

Poker is Now More Popular than Paris Hilton

2005-06-29T12:03:00.000-07:00

It's official. Poker is now more popular than Pam Anderson, Paris Hilton, and Britney Spears.

I read somewhere that you can tell a poker player because when he has a wet dream it's about four aces instead of about Pam Anderson, Paris Hilton, and Britney Spears. Maybe I'm paraphrasing a bit.

Makes me wonder though. Looking over the Lycos Top 50, I see "poker", which is presumably searched for largely by males, since most poker tables I play at are predominantly full of men. And I would guess that men are the ones doing the searches for the hotties like Paris Hilton. Dragonball is #5, and I doubt a lot of women are searching for that term.

#6 is "diets". So maybe there are some women searching on Lycos after all.

Jennifer Tilly - 2005 WSOP Ladies Bracelet Winner

2005-06-29T09:50:00.000-07:00

The lovely and talented Jennifer Tilly is the winner of the 2005 WSOP ladies no limit holdem event, which makes this her first WSOP bracelet. Tilly is well-known among most guys I know for starring in the erotic thriller Bound, which features some dazzling nudity and lesbian sex scenes between her and another actress (whose name I can't currently recall.) Jennifer Tilly also received an Oscar nomination for her role in the Woody Allen movie Bullets Over Broadway, which is highly recommended, although for almost completely different reasons than Bound.

I read on a message board the other day that Jennifer Tilly was talking about how her boyfriend "Phil" would wake up screaming about poker when she was used to her boyfriends waking up and screaming out the names of other women. The person who made the post was worried that Phil Hellmuth was the Phil she'd referred to, but several others pointed out that she's actually dating Phil "The Unabomber" Laak. Good for Laak.

I was reading that there are several celebrities playing in the main event of the WSOP this year, including Matt Damon, Ed Norton, Ben Affleck, James Woods, Gabe Kaplan, and Shannon Elizabeth (!) Not sure if Jennifer Tilly is playing in the main event this year or not, but if she is, I wish her luck.

Recommended reading: Ladies No Limit - Jennifer Tilly, by Shirley Rosario. I LOVE the photo of Jennifer Tilly in her "I don't like you" t-shirt.

Pokerstars SnG's Project

2005-06-29T09:42:00.000-07:00

So far I've played in 6 SnG's at Poker stars, and I've placed in the money in 4 of them, and finished 4th in the other two. Overall I'm pleased with my play in these tourneys. In the 4 that I won, I hit 2nd or 3rd place. My Pokerstars bankroll is now up to $208, so I still need $192 before I move up to the $20 level. My AOL connection has been sucking lately, so I keep losing my connection to the Pokerstars.com site, which is really getting on my nerves, and I'm sure it's getting on the nerves of all the other players too.

At one time I'd progressed all the way to the $30 + $3's at Party Poker, but I got cocky, loosened up, and pissed it all away. Lesson learned. My friend Mongoose and I are possibly going to play in the main even of the WSOP next year, so I need to figure out how to get $10k together between now and then. I won't make that playing in the $10 + $1 SnG's though, not unless I play around the clock.

Although...

Now that I think about it. My hourly wage two-tabling at these SnG's right now is about $14/hour. If you assume that I can continue at that hourly rate, it will take 714 hours to win $10,000. Which means that if I play for 2 hours a day, every day, I will have made $10,000 in just a year. Which would pay for my seat into the WSOP! And if I move up limits, that could happen even faster.

Johnny Chan - 10th WSOP Bracelet

2005-06-28T09:55:00.000-07:00

Johnny Chan became the first, and so far the only, poker player to have won 10 WSOP bracelets on Sunday. Doyle Brunson and Phil Hellmuth both have 9 WSOP bracelets, so Johnny Chan is now ahead of both of them. Chan won the $2500 Pot Limit Event, and his last hand was against Phil Laak, who had KJ. Chan's pocket queens held up, and he won the event. Congratulations to Mr. Chan.

I read somewhere that before the big poker craze really got started that most people only knew Johnny Chan because of his appearance in the movie Rounders. I think that might possibly be true, but I also think that the movie Rounders is one of the reasons for the current poker craze. It certainly added to it.

The Stop and Go Move in Multi Table Tourneys

2005-06-27T10:58:00.000-07:00

This is an interesting move that I read about on a forum today, and I wasn't aware of it before now. I think, if the opportunity presents itself, that I might be able to use it in my next multi-table tournament. (And after my frustrating showing at Party Friday night, I'm looking for advice.)

Here's how the stop and go move works. You get a low pocket pair in the big blind. The blinds are big, and you're a little bit short-stacked, maybe 6 or 7 BB's left. An aggressive player opens up preflop with a raise of twice the BB. Some people would go all-in here. This gives your opponent good pot odds, and he'll likely call your all-in.

So the suggested move is to call this bet, then move all-in on the flop no matter what it is. Other pairs are liable to fold here, especially if they're smaller pairs, and your flop has a face card or two. According to the forum post I read about it, this move belongs to Greg Raymer from the 2+2 forums.

Also, you can read the original post here.

Seven Stages of Ace King Suited

2005-06-27T10:43:00.000-07:00

Another one that I'm assuming is public domain. Again, contact me if there is a problem.

Psychologists often refer to the 7 stages of grief that accompany any significant loss in an individual's life. We certainly think AK qualifies, and know the stages all too well:

1) Denial: "There's no way I could've missed the flop. They were suited. I can call here, I probably still have the best hand. Shoot, I should raise to narrow the field"

2) Anger: "I raised preflop. The board is 239. What the fuck are they calling on? Oh, now they're re-raising me? Well, we'll fucking see about that. Fine, your 23o hit? Congrat-u-fucking-lations. Cap!"

3) Guilt: "Man, I missed the turn and they're still betting into me. I am such a terrible player. I should really let go of this hand. Let go if it, dumbass. Let go. See, this is why you never make money at poker because you can't lay a hand down you stupid fuck JUST FOLD."

4) Depression: "Call"

5) Forgiveness: "It's ok, you have to look that guy up every once in a while with A high. He might've been on AQ or AJ, and you would've had the best hand then. It's good for your table image anyhow. People won't mess with you now.

6) Acceptance: "Ok, next time I'll just limp and see a flop."

7) Recovery: "Hey, AKs, alright - RAISE!"

Top 5 Ways to Impress People With Poker Chat

2005-06-27T10:39:00.000-07:00

I saw this on a forum and thought it was hysterical. I'm assuming that it's public domain; if it's not, and someone wants credit or needs me to take it down, then just post a comment here to that effect and I will.

Now you know how to impress players in live play. But people can't see your sunglasses and hat when you play online, so what can you do? one word: chat!

1) Type in all capitals. This conveys an unmistakable air of authority.

2) Take any opportunity you can get to show off your knowledge of poker. Remember, knowledge is power, and you want to appear powerful.

3) Speed is more important than accuracy. Type as fast as you can and don't worry about stupid shit like spelling or grammar.

4) Everyone is impressed by profanity, but most sites have installed measures to block profanity in chat. You can doubly impress fellow players with clever workarounds like inserting spaces, underscores and non-english profanity.

5) ASCII art is the coolest thing EVER, especially when in the form of genitalia.

Pokerstars WSOP Millionaire Quest 2005 - Pokerstars.com

2005-06-23T14:10:00.000-07:00

Pokerstars is giving away $1 million in free WSOP prize packages this year. Chris Moneymaker got his start with Pokerstars in 2003, and Greg Raymer came from there in 2004, so apparently Pokerstars.com wants to make it 3 years in a row for the World Series of Poker. It's definitely not too late to get in on the action, although the main event at the WSOP is coming up fast and furious.

The prize package that Pokerstars is giving away includes the $10,000 WSOP entry fee, $1000 in cash, and 9 nights free in a hotel. The 9 nights free in the hotel is contingent upon wearing the Pokerstars branded logowear. If they want to pay me to wear their logo, I don't have a problem with it honestly. To win, you can play cash satellites as cheap as $2 to enter, or you can play in the free tournaments by using Frequent Player Points.

Pokerstars is awarding 100 of these packages this year. They're an official World Poker Tour member and a sponsor of the European poker tour too. If you want to sign up for Pokerstars.com and take a shot at the World Series of Poker, then please use my signup link:

Pokerstars.com WSOP Qualifiers Here!

The Online Series of Poker

2005-06-23T13:36:00.000-07:00

I've been seeing some buzz about the Online Series of Poker, which is being sponsored by Citadel Commerce. It's a series of online tournaments which eventually culminate in a $100,000 freeroll at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City. The buy-ins for the tournaments online are either $100 or $250 depending on whether or not you play on Saturday or Sunday, and there's a leader board and forum on the Online Series of Poker site.

The winner of the event in Atlantic City will receive $30,000, and even tenth place is worth $5000. The trip to Atlantic City is all expenses paid based on winning one of the qualifying tournaments. The first qualifier has already been held at Party Poker, and the winners were "ACETT" and "AllDayTJ". Congratulations to both winners of the Online Series of Poker qualifier at Party Poker.

The following qualifiers are still coming up:

Ultimate Bet on Saturday June 25 and on Sunday June 26
Poker Room on Saturday July 16 and on Sunday July 18
Absolute Poker on Saturday August 6 and on Sunday August 7
Golden Palace Poker on Saturday August 27 and on Sunday August 28

The Online Series of Poker will be held on Saturday October 8 at the Trump Taj Mahal. Winning one of the qualifiers also qualifies you for the all expense paid trip to Atlantic City, so this could be a very profitable venture if you do well.

They're also sponsoring a leader board, where the leaders receive cash prizes in addition to the prize money from the main event at the Trump Taj Mahal. You can win from $500 to $3000 for being on the leaderboard for this event.

Anyway, looks like a cool opportunity, so I thought I'd help spread the word about it. If you decide to play at a new poker room for one of the qualifiers, please be sure to use one of my links to sign up for it.

Texas Holdem on the Casino Princesa in Miami

2005-06-23T10:40:00.000-07:00

I played $5/$10 Texas holdem on the Casino Princesa in Miami last week. I was in Miami for the Casino Affiliate Programs spring break event, and the casino cruise was one of the events. I've never been that far out on the ocean before. In fact, the furthest out I've even been on the ocean was in San Francisco when I took the tour around Alcatraz. But that's another post, and probably for another blog.

The blinds were $2/$5, and the table was very loose. I don't remember a single hand in 4 hours not going to a showdown. I did not play well. I made the mistake of playing looser than usual simply because everyone else was playing loose too. Bad mistake, and it cost me $200 of my $500 buy-in, and would have cost me more if I hadn't flopped a boat toward the end of the evening. (I also played badly because the beer and the rocking of the boat gave me a wicked buzz.)

But it was a good time, and I recommend the Casino Princesa to anyone wanting to go out on a casino cruise. The food was pretty good, the dealers were all very nice, and the casino was hopping. The Texas holdem table was pretty full almost the entire night, although I don't know if that's the usual situation or just because there were a lot of casino affiliates onboard and they tend to like playing poker, if you know what I mean.

Also, here's some info on the Casino Princesa:

245 total slot machines
1 3 card poker table
10,000 square feet
32 different table games

The above information comes from the Casino City profile of the Princesa.

Nanolimit vs Microlimit Poker Online

2005-06-15T18:36:00.000-07:00

The distinction between nanolimit and microlimit poker was one that I'd never made before today. I've been cruising through the beginners' forum over at Two Plus Two (mostly because my game has sucked so bad lately), and I found a post about building a bankroll if you're new to online poker and don't have much money. If I recall correctly, he started with a bankroll of only $50. I'm a big fan of making distinctions, because I feel like with more distinctions at my disposal, the better off I am.

Here's the distinction between nanolimits and microlimits in online poker. Nanolimit poker is poker played at such low limits that there is no rake. Microlimit poker is poker played at very low stakes, but the stakes are high enough that there is a rake. Nanolimit poker would include $0.01/$0.02 tables, $0.02/$0.04 tables, and $0.05/$0.10 tables. Microlimits generally start at the $0.25/$0.50 games. The gap between the top of the nanolimit games and the bottom of the microlimits is proportionally the largest gap between levels.

The recommended bankroll for these games is 200BB at the nanolimit level, because the games are very soft and there's no rake, so you shouldn't see particularly large downswings. A lot of people recommend a bigger bankroll for a higher limit game, like 300BB, but the author of the post at Two plus Two suggested that it's okay to take a shot at a higher level game with 150BB if you're willing to move down if you have some bad luck. (BB stands for "big bets", by the way.) The author also recommends playing at Pokerstars if you're on a nanolimit budget. ($50 up to about $200--if you have $200, then you're in a different class.)

Once you're up to $200, you're supposed to take advantage of a good bonus offer. The author suggests a 50% deposit option, but I would say that someplace like Full Tilt Poker or Noble Poker might be a good place to consider because they now offer 100% deposit bonuses. At this point the author also recommends investing in Poker Tracker software and the book Small Stakes Holdem. (Both of which are good investments at any level, in my opinion.)

The post goes on some more, but I don't want to steal his thunder. Just wanted to post some of my observations and insights from this post. I don't currently use Poker Tracker, and I need to start, and I need to re-read Small Stakes Holdem again, because it's fantastic, and the last time I read it my play improved enormously.

One more thing: those guys over at Two plus Two sure are smart.

Pokerstars "Jennicide" Jennifer Leigh Launches Website

2005-06-14T13:08:00.000-07:00

I came across this while surfing Yahoo today: Jennicide.com

I'd written a post about what a phenomenon Ms. Leigh has been in the world of online poker, with her 100's of rabid online poker fans, so it's exciting to me to see that she's launched her own site. I hope she'll update it often and be very successful.

Folding Hands in Poker & Last Night's Tournament

2005-06-14T07:02:00.000-07:00

I played a multi-table tournament at Full Tilt Poker last night. ($20 buy-in). Finally managed to place in the money at one of these damn tournaments. I think I might have figured out what I'm doing wrong, with a little help from Larry Phillips's book, Zen and the Art of Poker. In the first chapter of that book, he explains that poker is, in a sense, a game of inaction, and the hands you fold are often as important or more important than the hands you play.

So I've tried to keep folding hands, and folding more hands. I've been folding before the flop, and I've been folding hands after the flop. I think I've gotten to a point where I could fold fifty hands in a row preflop, then fold fifty more hands after that if the cards weren't good enough to play. That kind of patience and detachment are what Larry preaches over and over again in both of his books, Zen and the Art of Poker and The Tao of Poker.

Calmness.

Patience.

Stillness.

These are the three main themes in Larry Phillips's book, and I should probably print them out on a poster and hang them over my computer.

Placed 4th in a Private Freeroll Last Night

2005-06-13T13:15:00.000-07:00

Some folks know that I'm involved in a site regarding poker affiliate programs, and last night the members of the message board there participated in a freeroll at Paradise Poker. It was my first time to play at Paradise Poker, and I must say that I enjoyed the software. The special effects on the cards when you win with a really good hand are pretty neat, and they have a good selection of games there.

I also won a bounty by knocking out a player, and I placed 4th out of 44 there. It was one of those beautiful tournaments when all the cards fall your way, at least for a while. I hit evey draw I drew to for a long time, and my chip stack got so large that I was able to play really aggressively for quite a while. It was interesting to me too that there are so many freeroll whores out there just begging for a password so they can play in a freeroll with a $40 prize for first place.

I'll be in Miami for the Casino Affiliate Programs spring break this weekend, so after Wednesday or so, I probably won't be posting very much. With any luck there will be some holdem games going on out there though.

And my losing streak at Full Tilt Poker seems to almost over. I think I finally figured out that I needed to fold bad starting hands, and I needed to start paying attention to my position. Big leak there.

Differences Between Limit and No Limit Holdem

2005-06-12T06:50:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I've been playing limit holdem at Full Tilt Poker now for quite a while, and I think I'm starting to get a grip on the differences between limit and no limit, or at least how to play profitably in limit versus no limit. I think it's pretty common for no limit players to have a hard time gearing down for limit holdem. I know that I've had a tough time playing in low stakes limit games because I try to buy pots all the time just like I would in no limit, but I always get called down because I can't make a big enough bet to run anyone off.

So I've been losing big time over at Full Tilt Poker at the limit tables, my comments regarding the poor play there notwithstanding. I'm one of the poor players. One thing I noticed is that I'm probably playing way too many hands preflop, so I've got to plug that leak. Another problem I have is that I'm not paying enough attention to my game while I'm playing. I'm spending too much time looking at other websites and checking my email while I play.

Party Riches is holding a freeroll for members only tonight. I'll be playing in that event, and we'll see how I do. I have to download Paradise Poker, which is a poker site I haven't tried yet, but that's a good thing, because I need to review that site for my online poker rooms review site anyway.

Poker - Keeping Records, Tracking My Play

2005-06-10T08:41:00.000-07:00

So I've decided that I'm going to start tracking my play, officially, here in my blog, something I haven't really done before. John Vorhaus always says that the difference between a serious player and one who's not serious is that the serious player keeps records. But I'm going to only keep records at Full Tilt Poker. I deposited $400 there, and I'm only going to play one game there from now on--limit holdem. I'm going to figure out what my hourly wage is if it kills me.

I think it's been said that your hourly wage should be between 1 and 2 big bets per hour at that level. We'll see where I'm at after about 100 hours of play.

I deposited $400 today.

Courtney Friel - Photos and Pics

2005-06-06T19:36:00.000-07:00

Courtney Friel is the new spokesmodel for the World Poker Tour, and she is indeed lovely. (Even my wife said so.) She's certainly a worthy woman to step into Shana Hiatt's shoes, although no one is more smitten with Ms. Hiatt than I.

Courtney Friel lives in Los Angeles,and has worked for America's Most Wanted, E! News Live, and the Oxygen Channel. She's also been on Nickelodeon, Channel One News and the movie preview show in Loews Theaters all across the country.

You can find phots and pics of Courtney Friel on the following sites:

Lovely Black and White Photos on Courtney's Homepage
Steve Badger had great photos of Shana Hiatt up on his site, and he's continuing that tradition with his photos of Courtney Friel.
WPT Host Courtney Friel at Las Vegas and Poker Blog
Finally, some fantastic pics of Courtney at Daily Celeb.

Party Poker Super Monday NL Holdem $150 + $12

2005-06-06T19:29:00.000-07:00

Inspired by Susan's success, I decided to play tonight in the Super Monday No Limit game at Party Poker. I placed 372 out of 793 participants. The first table I played at was EXTREMELY tight, and I picked up quite a few blinds and fairly quickly brought my 1000 stack up to about 1400. Then I got moved to another table, where the players were quite a bit tougher.

This was the table where I busted out. I had AK offsuit and a short stacked guy bet 100 when the blinds were 25/50. I raised him to 300 which was close to half his stack, and he went all in. At that point I decided to call. He had 10's. Flopped a 10 and a K, and he doubled up, leaving me with 962 chips. (Pretty short-stacked at this point.)

So I'm in late position on a hand, one guy upfront calls the $100 blind and everyone else folds to me. I go all in, and the big and small blind fold, but the $100 caller, who has a big stack, calls my all-in. Of course, I have A3 and he has AK, so he has a big advantage, and wins all my chips. Boom boom boom, and the Super Monday NL Holdem Tournament at Party Poker is all over for me.

It's clear to me after tonight's tournament that I still have some serious improvement needed in my game. I tend to pay attention to other things when I should be paying attention to the poker game. (Reading websites during the hands I don't play, and chatting with buddies.) That's probably my biggest leak right now: automatic play and not paying attention to what's going on. That kind of play can win consistently at the $10 + $1 SnG's, and even at the $20 + $2 SnG's, but it's not the level of play that I aspire to.

Who Said I Was Dead Money?

2005-06-06T10:45:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine, Susan T. Austin, was having trouble with her holdem game a few months ago, and I spent a little time with her on the phone, gave her some tips. played with her online a couple of times, and gave her some more tips. Since then she's won a qualifier to the World Series of Poker main event, and she decided to go play in one of the preliminary events a couple of days ago. With her permission, I'm posting the text of her email to me here. (The title of this post was also the title of her email.)

i flew to vegas over the weekend to play in the World Series of Poker $1500 buy-in no-limit tournament.

a girlfriend wanted to play in a few of the satellite tournaments to try and win a seat in the main event, and i said, why not?

figured it would be great practice for the main event in july.

and was it ever....

i think i saw every major name poker at this tournament.

phil ivey
phil helmuth
scott fischman
howard lederer
chris ferguson
brunson's son was there, but didn't see doyle
annie duke (i outlasted her)

i could go on and on....

here's a quick update of how the event went....

there were 2305 players.

we played 11 handed on the tables and only had 1500 in chips to start. (v. 10,000 for the main event)

i played the most intense poker of my life and finished 131 out of the field.
every time i went all-in i was literally shaking all over. even when i knew in my bones i had the best hand...i couldn't help it. it was nerve wracking.

i ended up grinding it out at the end and ended up in the money! (they paid the top 200 spots)

i was paid $2865 (which i think boiled down to minimum wage. or at least it felt like it)actually i was over the moon finishing in the money. (i can now officially say i played in a tournament with phil ivey and beat him. lol)

you can see my name on the results page at card player:
http://www.cardplayer.com/poker-tournaments/event.php?id=2322&screen=result

the event itself is grueling.
played till 2 oclock in the morning....

i ended up getting knocked out with pocket 10's against some jerk who called me with K7 off suit. he had no business calling me, cept he had chips to lose.

he of course caught a K on the flop and my tournament was over.

i learned loads re: strategy for the main event.

i know a lot of folks say they never got good cards...but i really had the most amazing dry spell of cards.

played for 13 hours and never once saw pocket aces or queens. only got AK twice and KK twice, JJ once and the 10's i went out on.

it was really strange how few good starting cards i got.

which in a way helped me, as i never went all in and lost with my pocket queens as i saw a bunch of people bust out on.

i ended up moving tables 8 times in the 13 hours, which i found extremely rustrating.
as soon as i would start to get to know a table, etc. it was moving time again.

my friend played for 12 hours and never changed tables once.
(i think that's why i never got the great cards, as soon as i started warming up on a table it was time to move again)

i know the main event with 6600 folks is different than 2300, but i'm encouraged nevertheless.
s

As much as I would love to take a little bit of credit for Susan's success, she did all the hard work herself. I'm looking forward to seeing her at the final table of the main event in July.

Getting It Back

2005-06-06T08:37:00.000-07:00

Okay, I've been doing a lot better since I've been playing regularly again. It's amazing how NOT playing destroys my game, but actually playing poker improves my game. What's that old saying. "Practice makes perfect?"

Thank goodness I've needed to write all those poker review for my new website. It could have been months before I started playing regularly again. I feel like I'm on the verge of being really good.

On a side note, I recently updated my directory of poker forums & blogs with some new forums. Check it out if you're interested and/or have time.

Poker Bankroll Update - A Sad, but True Story

2005-06-02T18:28:00.000-07:00

I haven't been playing well at all lately, and I'm not 100% sure why. I'm probably trying to do too many other things while I play. Here are my latest bankrolls online:

Party Poker $0
Ultimate Bet $0
Poker Stars $4.20
Interpoker $352.96 (I made a $150 deposit there, got a $90 bonus, and won the rest.)
Absolute Poker $254.32
Full Tilt Poker $68.85
Noble Poker $173.95

Total Online Poker Bankroll $854.28

I have significant bonuses waiting for me at both Noble Poker and at Full Tilt Poker, so my playing priority for the next few days has got to be to clear the bonuses at those two rooms.

I'm also going to set myself a goal of building my poker bankroll up to $1700 by 6/30/2005.

I need to play at a couple of online poker rooms I haven't played at yet so that I can write reviews of them too. Poker Room is one of them, and I want to find another Prima Poker to play at too. (I've played at a couple of them, but I'm not sure which one I want to play at next.) Paradise Poker is the other one I need to review.

Watching Phil Hellmuth with My Dad

2005-05-23T00:29:00.000-07:00

My dad spent the weekend with us, and when we got back from the new Star Wars movie, my dad and I watched the heads-up championship with Phill Hellmuth and Chris Ferguson on NBC today. Funny stuff. I don't know if my dad fully understands holdem or not, but he certainly got into the spirit of things. And I'm a bit of a contrarian because I enjoy Phill Hellmuth's antics, even though I know a lot of people in the poker community can't stand that sort of thing.

Phil was playing heads up against Chris "Jesus" Ferguson during the portion of the show that my dad and I watched. There was some commentary from Howard Lederer too, mostly clips of him talking about how he wished that Phil wouldn't act so immature when he suffers a bad beat. I thought it was funny when Phil fell to the ground in surprise when Chris got his 9 on the river.

I think Phil Hellmuth understands that there's a certain amount of showmanship that needs to be involved in poker to keep it interesting as a spectator sport. To me he's kind of like the Happy Gilmour of poker.

A Player I Coached

2005-05-19T08:58:00.000-07:00

A player I coached is going to the World Series of Poker. She won her first holdem tournament a couple of nights ago, and first place won a seat in the WSOP. I'm pretty excited for her, and I'm proud too. I'm not by any means an advanced player, but I've gotten to where I know my way around a hand or two, and she was a beginner a couple of months ago. So I offered to spend a little time with her on the phone, give her a couple of tips, and play with her online a little bit and provide some commentary.

I'm not claiming credit for her win. I'm just excited to have been a small part of her success. I hope she makes it to the final table and wins a fortune. I'm hoping to do a full interview with her soon, and get some ideas from her about what she's learned, and what distinctions she's made that have made her a good poker player. When I do finish that interview, I'll post it here.

I have not won my seat in the World Series of Poker yet however. And I'm not even sure that I'm going to make another attempt. I get frustrated in multitable tournaments when I get to a certain point and lose with nothing to show for it. Being a moderately winning player, I know I could have generated an hourly wage at a ring game. But I don't have the time or the focus needed to work on a poker career right now. I'm a webmaster, and I'm trying to put a lot more effort into generating traffic and interest in my websites right now.

I'm thinking, in fact, that I should cash out some of the funds I have in some of the online poker rooms in order to build up my cash reserves. I might go do that very soon in fact.

How to Tell if an Online Poker Room or Casino is a Spammer

2005-05-13T20:17:00.000-07:00

Here's an easy way to tell if an online poker room or online casino is a spammer: when you sign up for a new account with a poker room or a casino, use a unique email address for that purpose. You'll have a separate email address for each poker room and each casino this way, and if you receive anything from anyone besides that group, you'll know they've sold your email address to someone. (Which, by the way, is a very bad thing and shouldn't be done.)

My suggestion is that if a poker room or a casino gets caught spamming or selling your email address to spammers, you should stop doing business with them, and you should let other people know. You might not have a strong opinion on spam or on selling player information, but if you do, then now you have a solution.

In terms of creating a unique email address for each new account, keep it simple. Use your normal email handle and attach the name of the poker room to it, or add a 3 digit code after that too. Thanks to Michael Shackelford for the inspiration for this article; he caught a casino selling his email address using this technique. (Scroll down the page to the part about Giant Vegas.)

Differences Between the Party Poker $50 and $30 SnG

2005-05-09T20:12:00.000-07:00

I've done a little looking on the internet about this, and I've found one article about the difference between $50 buy-in SnG's on Party Poker and $30 buy-in SnG's. One major difference that is immediately apparent: the $50 buy-in game starts you off with 1000 chips instead of only 800. The other difference that is apparent, but not immediately: the players at the $50 tables are generally pretty good. They play tighter and trickier than the players at the $30 level.

Which level is more profitable? A lot of that probably has to do with how good you are. I do well at the $30 level but I suck at the $50 level. I lose money and lose it fast at the $50 buy in tables. At the $30 tables I can out-play almost anyone at Party Poker who's playing at that level. And the $10 and $20 tables? Forget about it; they're a cinch.

Losing Streaks Suck

2005-05-07T22:33:00.000-07:00

Played in two SnG's tonight, one at Party Poker for $30 + $3 and one at Full Tilt for $20+$2. Placed 6th place in both. Damn it.

I also realized tonight that I have over 4000 frequent player points at Party. I can get quite a few ballcaps for that. I might even get one for my dad.

What else? I watched the new Stu Ungar movie on dvd a few days ago. I thought it was a very good movie indeed, although the framing device didn't make any sense to me at all. I think it would have been a much better and more watch-able movie had they left the frame story in the motel room out of it.

No more poker for me tonight. Going to go to bed in a few minutes and get some sleep.

Multi Table Tourneys at Full Tilt Poker Tonight

2005-05-06T20:50:00.000-07:00

So I played in two multi table tourneys at Full Tilt Poker Tonight. The first one was a $100 + $9 buy-in, and had about 80 participants. I played at the same table as Andy Bloch, who was a real gentleman, and who chatted happily with the other players at the table. My chip count and his were much the same for most of the tournament. At least for most of the tournament that I was in; I busted out fairly early unfortunately. I think placed 60-something. My main problem was that I didn't play a tight enough game. I fell in love with my pocket kings that I had before the flop, even after the ace hit on the river.

The 2nd tourney was a $20 buy-in, and had quite a few more players. Almost 200 in fact. I fared a little better in this one, placing 39th, but I lost this one for the same reason--I overplayed my hand. AJ preflop, hit a single J on the flop, and went all in against someone who bet into me and had me outstacked. Of course, she had a pair of kings. I had outs, but it was still a bad move on my part.

Both tournaments reminded me of a couple of things. The first is that if I don't play regularly, I lose focus and discipline, especially if I'm tired. The second is that multi-table tournaments can be a real let-down if you don't place in the money, because you can invest two or three hours and have nothing to show for it other than a poker blog post at the end of it.

I am really enjoying Full Tilt Poker though. It's quickly becoming one of my favorite cardrooms online. Their play-through requirements are a brilliant marketing strategy too, because I play there almost exclusively in an effort to work off the massive amount of bonus money I have that's waiting to be released. And I do fairly well at the lower-limit no limit games there too, and I love the software.

Sorry I haven't written much lately. Haven't been sleeping well, and haven't been thinking about poker so much lately.

Shana Hiatt Leaving Party Poker & WPT?

2005-05-01T07:56:00.000-07:00

I heard a rumor that Shana Hiatt is leaving the WPT and Party Poker to move on to new television endeavors. Sad news for the poker world. I'm a huge fan of Shana Hiatt, and I have been since the Girls of the Hawaiian Tropic issue of Playboy that she was featured in. (Yes, I really do remember it--ah, college life! My first subscription to Playboy, and my first exposure to so many wonderful things in life.)

Here are some links to some good Shana Hiatt pages on the internet:

Shana Hiatt Fan Site - This is probably the most complete source of information on Shana Hiatt that I've seen on the internet, and the photo gallery is fantastic.

Shana Hiatt on AskMen.com - I've been a big fan of AskMen for a long time, and the feature on Shana Hiatt certainly lives up to the high levels of journalistic integrity that they've always aspired to and achieved.

Shana Hiatt in FHM - I can't remember the last time I went to a live cardroom and didn't see a copy of this issue of FHM. Shana is particularly stunning in this issue.

Shana Hiatt - Women We Love - Esquire - There's only one picture on this page, but it's a great one.

Shana Hiatt in Cardplayer Magazine

Shana Hiatt in the Open Directory - A couple of the links in the Open Directory's page about Shana Hiatt are listed here too, but it's always interesting to see what's listed in the directory for any particular topic.

Here's some more tidbits about Shana: She's 30 years old, and she's from the east coast. She's been quoted as saying she likes real men, not men who spend more time looking in the mirror than she does and spend a lot of time shaving their body.

Finally, there was some speculation last month at the Two plus Two forums that Shana Hiatt might be pregnant. (I don't think this one's true, but I always get a giggle out of those wacky Two plus Two posters and their unnatural levels of testosterone.)

A Short Winning Streak & Bankroll Update

2005-04-22T03:52:00.000-07:00

I took 1st place in a $20 SnG at Party night before last, and I took 1st place in a $30 SnG at Party last night. Total Winnings of $250 in two nights. I love it when the cards fall my way.

Party Poker bankroll is now $662.25. I'm feeling pretty good about that amount. I guess I'm becoming a winning player.

Haven't really played much of anywhere else lately. Done a little bit of play at Noble Poker and at Full Tilt Poker, but nothing interesting going on at either of those. Just slogging away at it, trying to get enough raked hands in to clear my bonus.

Cheapo Vegas - Site of the Day

2005-04-09T06:33:00.000-07:00

Today's site of the day is sortuva poker site, but not really, but since it's Vegas-themed, there is a little bit of a connection. Cheapo Vegas is an irreverent travel guide to Las Vegas with all-original and entertaining content. I highly recommend planning your travel using the Cheapo Vegas site--they're good guys running the site, and they deserve your support.

Most destination guide sites are devoid of any meaningful original content, and merely republish data that's available everywhere else, but Cheapo Vegas offers all kinds of completely original and sometimes off the wall information and opinions related to travel in Vegas. Definitely check it out.

Also, today only, you get two sites of the day, because I also want to mention The Big Empire Guide to Vegas on 25 cents a day, which is owned and operated by the same folks. It's an even more irreverent guide to Las Vegas.