Sound of a Suckout

Tax Free Poker at PokerStars.DK

2012-01-14T11:08:00.000-08:00

Poker players from Denmark and Greenland are now able to take part in tax free poker at PokerStars, which has been approved and licensed by the Danish Gambling Authority. Online poker has grown rapidly in recent years and is the game of choice for many players now over live games and tournaments, especially when you factor in the tax implications for residents of Denmark and other countries that have very high taxes for any winnings from live poker events.

PokerStars has cemented its position as the world's largest online poker site, dwarfing the competition and bigger than its next ten competitors combined. not only will players find the greatest selections of cash games and tournaments but PokerStars has a very transparent policy when it comes to security and the segregation of players funds, letting players rest easy that their money on deposit is always safe and secure.

Unlike some sites that only have traffic at the NLHE tables, PokerStars has action to choose from at all major poker variants, including Omaha, Stud, HORSE, Razz, and more. Tournaments also run regularly in many different formats, giving players the largest game selection possible in the online poker world, ranging from microstakes to the highest stakes played online.

PokerStars is also the sponsor of the European Poker Tour as well as numerous other live series around the world, offering players the chance to win their trip packages online for the poker trip of a lifetime. Satellites and FPP freerolls see some lucky and skilled players win a trip to tournaments around the world for an investment of just a few dollars, including tournaments such as the World Series of Poker Main Event.

PokerStars also sponsors numerous top pros including Daniel Negreanu, Joe Hachem, and Jonathan Duhamel. Serving as the online poker home for many top pros, PokerStars is your best shot at playing online with many of your poker heroes. The popular VIP rewards program also gives frequent players the chance to cash in on their play, with cash bonuses, merchandise, tournament tickets, and even trips to live events such as EPT tournaments or PCA Bahamas packages up for grabs for players that play a ton of poker and make PokerStars their online site of choice.

All Danish and Greenlandic players who convert to PokerStars.DK and verify their CPR details before the 31st of January 2012, will receive a $10 credit to their account as a thank you credit.

Ahh, Procrastination, My Good Old Friend...

2011-06-26T05:55:00.000-07:00

With just three days to go before making my now annual pilgrimage out to the WSOP, things are pretty much par for the course.

Every year I swear I'm going to wrap up assorted work and house projects and go out to Vegas with a clean slate and a spring in my step.

Except somehow or other I get entangled in massive projects, spend a ridiculous amount of money, and only get 75% done before leaving, exhausted and razzled, to go spend three weeks working insanely long days and eating bad food at the Poker Kitchen at the Rio.

Pretty much exactly on track again this year, as now I'm scrambling to get out kitchen put back together and at least somewhat functional before leaving, although it's looking like a coin flip at best for that to happen.

So what have I been doing for the last six hours, with the clock ticking? Yep, that's right, watching Season 1 of Game of Thrones in its entirety again.

I rock...

Five Years? Really?

2011-06-02T05:37:00.000-07:00

Once again I'll be making the jaunt out to the WSOP Main Event this summer, for what is somehow the 5th consecutive year. Not really sure how that happened as it seems like just a few years ago that I was going out for the first time but yeah, five years. Wow.

The last few months have been really, really busy, especially on the work front. I spent about a month and a half in Europe during March and April, which was a combination of work (trips to Vienna and Spain for bwin work) and pleasure (vacation with my wife in Ireland and Malta).

We're still on track to make the move to Malta in August, so I've also been desperately trying to get our house in presentable shape to list it for sale at the end of July when I get back home from the WSOP.

After the WSOP the next work trip is GSOP Live Manchester, then WPT Paris not long after that. I should also finally be in a spot soon to do some reporting work solely for the tptk site at some events, which I'm excited about.

I've also been finally kicking the dust off some old projects as well, so it's been a pretty busy few months of late for me, with no break in sight until we finally get settled in Malta.

Upcoming live poker events:

EMOP Bulgaria

LAPT Rosario

PPS Figueira

ANZPT Canberra

UKIPT Newcastle

IPT Campione

DeepStack Open Marrakech

UKIPT Brighton

ParadisePoker Tour Barcelona

Full Tilt, FTW!

2011-03-08T15:57:00.000-08:00

Many thanks to the kind powers that be at Full Tilt for selecting my chat cloud entry as the winner, with the result being 5,000 FTP points (that I parlayed into a $33 Mini FTOPS entry, which I immediately donked away brilliantly) as well as a $100 freeroll on Friday, to which the two folks who still read this might be interested in:

Tournament #224279571 (03.11.11 20:00 ET) - $100 prize pool
Password: boomswitch

I am actually quasi-blogging a bit more over at tptk, but have been completely hammered of late with work, and about to hop over to Europe for a month and a half to cover WPT Vienna, WPT Bratislava, GSOP Live Seville, and maybe the Irish Open. Busy times, busy times...

Fun with Full Tilt Chat Clouds

2011-02-22T14:07:00.000-08:00

FULL SIZE: Full Tilt Poker Game Chat Cloud

Or, you know, a slightly less realistic, slightly more wishful one:

Sign Me Up

2011-01-13T13:35:00.001-08:00

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker! The WBCOOP is a free online Poker tournament open to all Bloggers, so register on WBCOOP to play.

Registration code: XXXXXX 907582

Malta, FTW

2010-12-14T16:22:00.001-08:00

I've been back a few weeks now from the last poker trip, this time to Malta. At the risk of jinxing myself, I've had pretty amazing run-good the last few months on all these flights back and forth to Europe, and the Malta trip took that to the extreme.

Despite getting into Heathrow with exactly 17 minutes to get off the plane, through security, and make it to my connecting flight to Malta, I somehow made that flight, and then got off of Malta and back out of Heathrow in the nick of time at the end of the trip before winter snowstorm mayhem struck. I actually got home to Texas 12-24 hours before various friends made it from Malta to Berlin and Stockholm, with all of us leaving Malta at roughly the same time, so yeah, thumbs up to running good with flights.

Malta was pretty amazing. Well, amazing may be a strong word, but very comfortable and fun, and the first place I've run across on this recent European trips where I could really see myself living there. Which is kind of good timing, as we're seriously looking to make the move over to Europe very soon, likely next spring.

It's a mix of being practical (nearly all my work is in Europe at the moment, except for the WSOP) and just needing a change of scenery in general. Plus the fact that Sarah Palin has not, in fact, been relegated to book tour appearances in Gary, Indiana and very well might be the next President of the United States of America.

But mostly because of work, more than anything. 2011 looks even busier than 2010 as far as work for bwin and I've managed to pick up some other clients here and there, to the point where I'm once again bemoaning the lack of enough hours in the day, even after ditching the day job and the 2 hour commute and the endless hours filling out TPS reports and sitting in meetings about how it's not enough to be the BEST, but time to strive for GREAT.

Stockholm would make more sense but snowy winters and the general cost of living makes it a little meh, and Malta is surprisingly cheap as far as food, rent, etc. I can't see us living in Malta for the long haul, but it's the best jumping off point I've found so far, plus it wouldn't be a bad place to kick around for awhile as far as connections with the online gaming world as well.

It's been nice to take it a bit easy the last few weeks, as October and November were crazy work-wise. We're still trying to navigate the minefield that is Christmas as far as family expectations that we'll drop everything and travel many hours to sit around and drink too much and try not to talk about all the things that set everyone off, but there's probably a 25% chance that the wife and I may just sit home this year, which would be just fine with me.

I'll be off to the Aussie Millions for the first time in January, which I'm pretty damn excited about. But for now it's definitely nice to get in plenty of couch time on Sundays and relax a little.

Luxembourg is Nice; France, Meh

2010-11-12T17:10:00.000-08:00

All the globetrotting of late (or, you know, flying back and forth across the Atlantic) makes life a big strange. I got back from Luxembourg/France on November 7th, with a few weeks home before heading off for GSOP Live Malta on the 21st.

Luxembourg was really, really nice, enough so that the hour or so long bus ride to Amneville for the WPT event was tolerable. Amneville was a pretty bizarr-o setting for a poker tournament, but it went off well enough, except for a colossal cock-up during hand-for-hand play at the bubble.

Or, more accurately, because there was no hand-for-hand play. Not a single, solitary hand. The tournament staff were pretty laissez-fair about updating the clock to reflect players busting, and as far as anyone can tell, they had no clue as to what the real number of players left were. Just as they were starting to remember that they might need to pause things and do it hand-for-hand, boom, bubble was burst and everyone left was cheering.

It's one of those weird instances where the fact I work for bwin and mainly focus on their players actually made it more interesting, as one of our players was knocked out in either 55th or 56th (with 54 spots paying). Pretty rotten situation for him, as he was 63 or 64 years old and tried very hard to tightbox his way into a cash, as apparently he's having money troubles so even a min cash for 7,000 euros was a pretty huge deal.

He'd have been safe to fold to the money but lost AK versus AJ right before things got tense and was down to just three or four big blinds. Thinking there were 57 players left (which is what the clock showed), he shoved KQ fom mid-position and got called by K 10. 10 on the river sent him packing, but that's when it suddenly became apparent that there were actually 55 players left, not 57.

Sounds trivial but a couple of players made the money with just one or two big blinds, so he actually could very likely have folded to the money (and more importantly, claimed he would have folded his KQ and played his hand differently if he'd known the real situation).

Apparently the other guy that went out at the same time was in a similar spot, but despite various official complaints the tournament director refused to do anything to
make it right and claimed he'd run his tournament perfectly, choosing instead to quasi-blame the media as his defense for no hand-for-hand play was that they were too busy trying to clear all us unruly media out of the room first.

Which I guess is standard, all the way around, for a poker tournament in France. Viva la France.

At about the same time that was going on the news came out of one of the Partouche final table members getting disqualified for cheating with his fat "blogger" conspirator. I know, I know, it's all still allegations, but if you've seen the videos making the rounds it's like 99.9% certain shenanigans were going on, along with all the other circumstantial evidence.

I guess I'm not quite as alarmed as other folks, though, as far as repercussions for blogger types. I think in the short run there might be a little more inconvenience and scrutiny paid to those requesting media credentials, but in the end I just can't see it as being that big a game-changer.

It's not like bloggers and media in general get preferential treatment to begin with at most live poker tournament events, so I can't see access changing that much. Organizers still want coverage of their events, so I'd be pretty surprised if media are outright banned from the tournament floor. Players will be more likely to give media the stink eye when trying to do their jobs, but that's already the case 25% of the time, so nothing too new there.

There's a good argument to be made, too, that if you properly protect your cards it's a non-issue to begin with, as it's not like fat "blogger" was smuggling in an x-ray camera that could see through cards. Sure, players shouldn't have to worry about media standing behind the trying to get a peek at their cards, but again, protect your cards and even that's a non-issue.

But then again, who knows. Like any profession, it's kind of a shame to see attention really only paid to poker bloggers/media when it's negative stuff like cheating allegations (or more trivial complaints about the lack of updated chip counts for someone's uncle Mortie).

When you do your job well, it's like you're never there, as far as unobtrusively getting hand details, chip counts, and photos without interfering in play. But let one fat "blogger" allegedly cheat with a sketchy player who's already been banned from other casinos from cheating, and lo and behold, suddenly a case must be made as to why poker media is even allowed on the tournament floor.

What Day is it Again? Wednesday? Sunday? And What Month is It?

2010-10-27T08:51:00.000-07:00

Adjusting to Life After Day Job has been a little strange. I don't at all miss the commute (which sucked up about two hours each day in total driving time) but it is odd to suddenly have no set schedule. If I'd won many millions of American dollars in Powerball, that'd be one thing, but I'm still on the clock as far as all my freelancing work basically boiling down to getting paid by the hour/word/however you want to slice it.

It's not so much that it's hard for me to turn off the Xbox and get to work, but moreso the opposite, as far as shutting off the part of my brain that keeps nudging me to get this or that done. When the freelancing was all extra work on top of the day job, it was easier, as I'd bang away at it for a few hours after work, then power down the work side of my brain and play some Angry Birds, watch TV, etc. But at the moment it's surprisingly difficult to shut off that small anxious part of me that resents having to "waste" time by going grocery shopping or yard work or whatever, as at any point in time I could, in theory, be making money.

As far as more specifics of Life During Day Job, that's weird too, as I expected to triumphantly post that I'd left and spend much time reveling in how terrible the place was, how happy I was to be free of the shackles, yada yada yada. Except I don't really feel that way. If anything I almost feel somehow disappointed, as far as letting the Evil Day Job win in some fashion.

I originally started working at Hoover's Inc. in 2000, which at the time was a smallish company that had recently gone public, so they had some cash but I started at pretty much the same time as when the dot com implosion really started revving up, so I missed the truly fun times. It still was a cool place to work, with kegs of beer on Fridays, a casual work environment, and a place that actually hired real writers and editors and, you know, did things and valued the work of people who wrote stuff and tried out new things as far as content, since content was the main thing that paid the bills for the company.

Things got a little less cool when we got mercenary about being profitable, but it was still a pretty decent place to work. Plus we actually started making money around 2002-2003, so we had a pretty good thing going. And then Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) bought us.

It'd be fun to bash D&B and, sweet Jebus, there's plenty to bash, but at a certain point there's just no point in it. Imagine a company with a monopoly on a fairly profitable business niche that produces billions in revenue each and every year, and a tidy net profit in the hundreds of millions. A business that, no matter how badly it is mismanaged, will still be profitable. And one that's just discovering e-mail and the Internet and is absolutely in love with words like "leveraging" and "winning" and "platforming".

Our little company fought the good fight for awhile but eventually the Borg assimilated us, and we went from a company that rolled out new products on a weekly/monthly basis to one that it would literally take years for even the simplest of ideas to get approved and implemented. Which meant that all the smart people left to go work somewhere where things actually happened, so the workplace became quickly populated with the walking dead, who were just killing time until they got promoted or retired.

But not really a unique story, as plenty of people have been through similar situations. And in the end it was my own damn fault for doing the Zombie Shuffle for so long myself, shrugging off .5-1% raises every year and the fact that my job had devolved into data entry and mashing a few different buttons in a slightly different order each day.

I guess it's that last bit that leaves me less than thrilled about what I'd imagined in the past would be a orgy of D&B bashing. It's fun to gripe about jobs at times but not so much when millions of people are unemployed, and especially not so much when you have options to do something else, even if it's a bit risky and uncertain. I really can't blame anyone other than myself for the years of zombitude I put in there, when the writing was plainly on the wall, so it's hard to revel too much when there's more regret there than anything for all that wasted time.

Just Don't Look, Just Don't Look

2010-10-26T14:59:00.000-07:00

I suppose Drizz gets a pass, but for the rest of the world that's not been a longtime dedicated Vikings fan, I have a simple proposal: let's all agree to simply stop paying attention to Brett Favre.

My theory is that he'll simply turn to old man dust and blow away. Poof. No more penis pics. No more annual waffling on retirement. Just simply gone. Like the advertising slogan monsters on the Simpsons Halloween special. Just don't look.

Not that game announcers have anything better to be doing, but how many more stupid in-game trivia teasers are we going to be subjected to? Favre just threw for over 40 miles worth of passing yardage? Okay... And the 40 mile mark is important why? Why didn't you celebrate when he cracked the 39 mile mark? I mean, come on, 39 MILES! That's a marathon and a half!

But, seriously, the one thing that gets me more excited than a Packers-Vikings matchup at Lambeau Field is the prospect that, one day in the not too distant future, I can watch ESPN again without being reminded every 15 minutes that Brett Favre might (or might not be) possibly doing something at that point in time. I have seen a Favre-less future and, lemme tell you, it's going to be awesome...

iPod Touch, FTW

2010-10-25T13:40:00.000-07:00

The timing of the escape from the day job was both fortunate and depressing; I quit about two weeks after I'd officially worked there a decade. I'd vowed that no matter what I'd get out of there before the ten year mark, so I didn't quite make that deadline, but I did get to collect the ten year service award, which is a clear block of Lucite and $200 in gift certificates.

To give you a little taste for how the company I worked for rolled, the clear Lucite block was so that you could go on the intranet, find the page with images of various service award certificates, print the appropriate one, then cut it out and insert it in the Lucite block, and proudly display it on your desk. Seriously. I'm not making that up.

The gift certificates, though, were cool enough (if you ignored the annoying exchange rate that intentionally bends you over, as if you chose to trade them in for Amazon gift certificates the $200 in money you're awarded comes up just shy of being worth a $200 Amazon gift certificate, so it effectively was only $175 in Amazon gift certificates as you had to get one $100 gift certificate and three $25 ones), and mostly paid for a new 4th generation iPod Touch.

It's the first touch-screen new-fangled gadget I've owned, having sat out iPhone and other assorted smartphone mania. Truth be told, the main reason I bought it was to amuse myself with Angry Birds on cross-Atlantic flights, but I've found myself using it way more than I expected in general, especially for checking email and Facebook around the house.

It's also pretty crazy just how good the camera/video quality is as well, especially for something that's, you know, not primarily a camera of a video recorder. It just blows me away as far as what you can get these days to snap photos and take videos, as opposed to what you'd have gotten (much crappier) even just five years ago for 10x the amount of money.

Plus you can play Angry Birds on it. I mean, sweet Jebus...

Affiliate Fail

2010-10-24T14:08:00.000-07:00

Bill Rini has touched on this in the past, but it still amazes me that so many online gambling operators STILL have absolutely no fucking clue when it comes to efficiently managing an affiliate channel.

Case in point: yesterday I signed up for a handful of poker and casino affiliate programs, including one that manages the affiliate operations for a group of four reasonably well-known online casinos. Not a major name but also not some shady operation.

The signup process was easy enough, and they auto-approve new accounts, so as soon as you sign up you can log in and start grabbing link codes and marketing material. It was getting late so I shut things down for the evening and, the next morning, had the following email in my inbox:

"Hi, my name is Jimbob Schwartz and I'm your affiliate contact here at Midsized Affiliate Program That's Been Around for Five Years or So and Should Know Better. Please advise as to why you haven't yet added our links to your website.

Best regards,
Jimbob Schwartz"

I mean, sure, personal point of contact, quick response, yada yada yada, kudos kudos kudos, but in what strange universe is that a positive experience for a new affiliate who has been a member of your program for a grand total of 12 hours? Maybe I'm not the best example, but that's enough in and of itself to convince me to NEVER advertise your program, especially when there are literally dozens of similar casinos and programs that I can instead add a link to.

And, sadly, that's just a minor fail in the larger scheme of things, when you have major operators like bwin trying to roll out cataclysmically bad changes for affiliates that impact past players acquired under very different terms.

I get that many online sites have a love-hate relationship with affiliates (or more accurately hate-hate for most), and that's understandable, as the majority of affiliates don't necessarily "deserve" the revenue they're ultimately paid out (in the sense that they're not always doing any filtering or winnowing out of low-value referred players). But there's also an obvious reliance and need, as it'd be the easiest thing in the world for sites to wind down their affiliate programs over time if there truly was no value there.

If you're resigned to offering an affiliate program, is it really that hard to do it competently? I mean, for the majority of affiliates (who advertise a lot of programs and have a lot of experience), just get the hell out of the way. Give me a quick and dirty page with basic text links and the most popular ad formats. It shouldn't take eight clicks just to get a simple text link. Don't send me email; if I have a question or need something I'll contact you. If I need hand-holding and emails and prompts, well, odds are I'm going to be a pretty sucky affiliate for you, as it's not hard to add text links and banners (unless you make it needlessly hard, that is.)

Returning to the Old Homestead

2010-10-23T15:49:00.000-07:00

Boo!

Yes, indeed, this is an actual posts of sorts, and not just an excuse to post for a paid review or to get entered into some sort of blogger freeroll or another that I'll inevitably go down in flames after outlasting about 80% of the field.

The archived post total over there on the right tells a pretty sad little tale:

▼ 2010 (5)
► 2009 (6)
► 2008 (43)
► 2007 (102)
► 2006 (290)
► 2005 (295)
► 2004 (123)

On the bright side, I actually have some things to post about. And they're about poker! And they might just lead to more regular posting in the future!

(Yeah, we'll see about that last one.)

But as of October 1st, 2010 I actually followed through on the threat of quitting my day job, threats I'd been making for so many years that they had about as much potency as a wrinkly, withered old man penis.

It was a combination of a lot of factors but I just finally reached the point where I couldn't do it any more, common sense be damned. I'd just gotten back from Cannes from working for the bwin poker blog at the Partouche Poker Tour Final, with a pile of TPS reports awaiting me and reminders about the necessity of wearing the proper lanyard around our neck to be compliant with the employee badge policy, and, you know, snap. Just. could. not. do. it. anymore.

It also helped that I'd been offered the chance to work three more poker tournaments in the near future (GSOP Live Riga, WPT Amneville, and GSOP Live Malta), plus finally (finally!) finishing the rehab of the last house I bought during the Great House Buying Spree of Aught Nine. I've also been freelancing a good bit for Pokerlistings and a few other clients in the poker world, with all the irons in the fire basically adding up to as much as I was making at the cube farm.

The travel side of it is still cool and new, but we'll see how long that lasts, as the flights to Europe and back for shorter events are kind of a drag. But there's a lot to be said for getting paid to see places like Riga and Cannes, and bit by bit the corporate stupor is slipping away. The big unknown is if I can keep scaring up enough work to make this a viable long-term option; even if the answer is no it'll be a good break at least from the grind for awhile.

Cannes was pretty amazing, but, as the joke goes, too bad it's in France. Riga I liked more, but that's just the perverse side of me that daydreams of being some sort of shady importer of rubies and Soviet military surplus and amassing mountains of money and everyone leaving you the hell alone as long as you paid off the right people. Not exactly stoked about WPT Amneville in northern France but we'll be staying in Luxembourg, which should be fun.

Other than a brief three day stretch after the Cannes trip when I got raped at the poker tables in every way imaginable, I haven't actually played much poker at all since the 2010 WSOP. I've been tempted of late but I really want to buckle down on the work side, and I never have time on the poker trips to do much other than work and sleep.

BBT5: It Lives Again

2010-04-18T14:04:00.000-07:00

Many thanks to Al and Full Tilt for once again offering bloggers the chance to grab $50,000 in WSOP packages for the low, low price of free.

And thank Jebus for a format that doesn't handicap you if you can't play in 163 different weekly tournaments, nearly all of which start too late for most of us working stiffs. Great to see the invitational format, too, and some of the old-school names taking part in that. With a little luck, some of us schmucks in the live poker tournament reporting circles may be covering some old-school blogger names at the WSOP.

Online Casino Spotlight

2010-02-06T12:45:00.000-08:00

Online Casino Spotlight provides exactly that: a comprehensive guide to the world of online casino gambling. Casino bonus offers are featured prominently, and for good reason, as they're a great way to play all of your online casino games and earn some extra, free money while you're doing it. The site features bonus offers for a ton of casino and provides an easy, accessible list of their top ten online casinos to gamble at.

Online Casino Spotlight breaks out the various offers in numerous ways, which makes it easy to navigate to find exactly what you're looking for. Sections are devoted to popular online gambling games such as blackjack, craps, roulette, slots, video poker, and poker, with detailed information on each game provided so that players are armed with the knowledge they need to win big at the virtual tables. Each section covers common topics such as the rules of the games, terminology used, whether or not special bets or progressive jackpots are available, and other useful info.

The world of online gambling can be confusing at first glance and Online Casino Spotlight does a great job of breaking it down step by step, as far as walking you through the process of creating an account at various sites and tips on how to cash in on casino bonuses and coupons as well as strategies for particular games such as blackjack. They also provide a news section with headlines from all around the gambling world, including stores about casino news, poker players, and other cool stuff.

If you're looking for a general resource to bonus offers and other information about online gambling, give Online Casino Spotlight a whirl. It's easy to navigate and well laid-out, as far as finding the information that you're after, and it makes the entire process of getting started with online casinos very simple and straightforward for the beginning player. One of the biggest mistakes that online casino newbies make is that they sign up with the first banner ad they see, never doing the research to see if there's a casino with a better signup bonus out there, or what other offers they might qualify for. They don't always understand the rules of the games they play or realize that there are better or worse games and places to play, as far as building up player points or qualifying for reload bonuses or other special offers. Online Casino Spotlight takes all the guesswork and uncertainty out of the equation for new players, steering them in the correct direction so they get a great start to their online casino careers.

Rush Poker from Full Tilt

2010-01-19T11:51:00.000-08:00

Not so sound all bold and pronouncement-y, but anyone involved with online poker should give Full Tilt a big, wet sloppy kiss on the lips for rolling out Rush Poker. That seemingly simple little idea just extended the shelf life of online poker at least a few years despite the ever-increasing onslaught of training sites, HUDs, and software tools.

Hey, Look, It's 2010...So Where's My Damn Flying Car?

2010-01-18T05:42:00.000-08:00

I can't say I was too sad to see 2009 go, so, you know, yay for that. Not that it was necessarily a bad year (especially compared to what some people went through) but it felt like I spent the whole year rolling multiple rocks uphill, able to keep them all at around the midway point but unable to get any individual stone over the top and thus crossed off the list.

As far as 2010, well, we'll see. I'm 99% certain that I'm going to take a break from all the real estate scheming, as that just flat wore me out the last half of 2009. My patience for chasing contractors is at an all-time low, and that's all it seemed I did for much of the end of 2009. Kind of makes me sad, as I really enjoy working on houses, but it's a hard thing to do on top of a full-time job(s). The plan is to keep the three rental houses I picked up over the last few years, as they'll all cash flow pretty well (well, two do, as the third is still being renovated) for the foreseeable future, but I'm not looking to buy anything new for awhile, unless some amazing deal absolutely falls into my lap.

On the freelance side, I've got work coming out of my ears, to the point that I may have to actually hire someone just to keep up. Which is all very good, and ties into the above somewhat. While the freelance work isn't the most exciting or gratifying work in the world, it doesn't involve the outlay of many thousands of dollars or chasing around grown-ass men to try to get them to do something they said they'd do two weeks ago. I don't mind working my ass off on a regular basis; I'd just rather do it in a relatively stress-free environment that I control.

The day job has plumbed new depths of corporate hell, but with my wife out of work since last April, it's still necessary to strap on the spelunking gear. Aside from a paycheck, I'm trying to take the approach that I'm learning, on a daily basis, important lessons in how never to run a business, as well as picking up valuable tips on the absolute worst way to treat people who work for you. So there is that at least. Yes, the lemonade tastes great, thanks for asking.

As far as poker, I got sucked into yet another poker experiment at the end of the year, spending the last three months or so banging out about half a million hands of $100 NL, 16 tabling at the full ring games at FullTilt. I was contemplating giving SNE a run at PokerStars in 2010 so I wanted to see if I could handle that many tables, what sort of win rate was possible, etc.

It was definitely an interesting experiment, and reasonably profitable with rakeback thrown in, as far as making about $25/hour. My win rate from poker play itself, though, was pretty much -.25 PTBB/100 to about +.25 PTBB/100, so rakeback was pretty much the sole source of any profits. Handling the tables wasn't really that hard (especially after downloading TableNinja), so definitely doable, but it after the initial "Woo hoo, I'm getting 5,000 FTP points a day" wore off, it very much becomes trading one job for another. There's also a surprising amount of variance as well when you're playing that many hands/tables, as I had multiple -20 buy-in days, something I wouldn't have thought possible at full ring $100 NL, playing a pretty tight style. It makes sense, though, if you think of it more as 25,000 hand chunks of poker; it's just strange when that's crammed into one day.

As far as managing that grind for a whole year, meh, not so much. I'm glad I gave it a whirl and it's not a bad back-up plan if the need arises to buckle down and grind out some money in the short term, but I'd have to become a better poker player/multi-tasker to get the win rate up to really make it worthwhile.

Trying to avoid making any grand plans or goals for 2010, as I have in the past, and take things more as they come. Planning on working for bwin again at the 2010 WSOP, so there's that to look forward to, and I've been slowly getting back into the world of affiliate marketing the last month or two. These promises have been entirely untrustworthy in the past, but the plan is to be a little more active into poking my head more regularly into assorted blogs I have in the future, as I'm back to spending more time noodling with PHP instead of covered in grout or paint.

Thank You, PokerStars

2010-01-18T05:39:00.001-08:00

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker! The WBCOOP is a free online Poker tournament open to all Bloggers, so register on WBCOOP to play.

Registration code: 415587

Online Gambling Information at Online Casino Reports

2009-12-14T06:17:00.000-08:00

If you're looking to get your online sports betting fix, look no further than Online Casino Reports. The site is a online gambling guide that has a wealth of information about the best places to gamble online, including reviews of the top sportsbooks, news on breaking tournaments and promotional offerings, tips to find the best casinos and games, and a ton of other info.

Their website is very well laid out and easy to navigate, with major sections of the site featured across the navigation bar at the top of the page. Sections include a bonus hunter guide (which helps you cash in on all the great bonuses available out there), a news section dedicated to breaking news in the online gambling industry, tips and strategy guides for various games, and a guide to getting started with online gambling, as far as information about how to create an account, how to deposit and withdraw money, and other useful info. There's also a forum for site members to get together and discuss their favorite sites, swap strategies, and just kick back and chat.

The directory section of the site is where you'll find reviews for pretty much anything gambling related that you'd like to wager on, including online casinos, sportsbooks, poker rooms, bingo, backgammon, online lotteries, gin rummy, and betting exchanges. The directory also lists various mobile betting offerings, so that you can whip out your iPhone and get your bets down no matter where you are in the world or what you're doing. It's always a good idea to check out reviews of sites you're thinking about playing at, as picking a great site to play at is the first step to online gambling success.

If you're looking for great bonuses and other promotions, check out the services section of the site, as that's where they list all of the new player and reload bonuses from a huge number of online gambling sites. Bonuses covered include no deposit bonuses, new player sign up bonuses, high roller bonuses, and reload bonuses, as well as news on jackpot prizes and other promotions.

Another great feature of the site are all of the videos and other unique content, including a weekly video show that brings you the top news from the online gambling world, including poker news, casino news, and news on the best bonuses and promotions. Below is an example of the show they produce each and every week:

Quasi-legalese: The above is a paid review that this blogger received compensation for.

Exhibit A: Online Poker Can Still Be Profitable Even Amongst a Slew of Training Sites and Software Aids

2009-09-29T11:41:00.000-07:00

Scene: $50 90 man turbo KO SnG on Full Tilt.

Characters:

UTG: 110,000 chips
SB: 159,100 chips
Hero, in the BB: 900 chips

Blinds are 2K/4k

Backstory: SB and Hero tangled in the previous hand. On a J 9 4 rainbow flop, SB led out and called Hero's shove. SB held the mighty A4o for third pair and Hero held J9 for top two. An A of course binks on the turn and SB wins the hand, knocking Hero down to just 900 chips. Hero is all-in on his BB the next hand.

1st pays $1,152, 2nd pays $702, and 3rd pays $504. Each KO bounty is worth $8.

Action: UTG open shoves for 110,000. SB thinks for 0.3 seconds and calls. Hero is all-in already for his last 900 chips.

UTG tables A2o, SB shows A7o, and Hero has KQo. Q on the flop and amazingly no A on the turn or river knocks UTG out in 3rd. Hero laughs and laughs and laughs.

He's blogging! About poker!

2009-09-17T12:37:00.000-07:00

How I used to post here daily, I do not know, but one advantage of going months and months without posting is I at least have a things to say, finally, that are actually about poker.

I've been playing more the last 3-4 months than I have in years and years, with pretty solid results. Pretty much strictly MTTs and 90 man SnGs these days, usually in the $25-$100 buy-in range. Right before I went to Vegas for the WSOP I went on a pretty sick run at Cake, final-tabling the same nightly $27K rebuy tourney three nights in a row (finishing 1st, 2nd, and 5th), which brought me some bankroll breathing room for the first time since the Great Cashout when the UIGEA hit the fan.

I've even managed a few consecutive nice months at my old nemesis FT, with a couple of wins in smaller $24+$2 tourneys like the $30K guaranteed, $12.5K KO, etc., and finishing 2nd in one of the crack fiend $55 Super Turbo KOs (prevented from winning it by AA < QQ and KK < 10 8o in consecutive hands). I'm still running the opposite of good in the big Sunday tourneys, but it's nice to string together some pretty profitable months, as getting in a lot of volume has helped I think.

I've been taking poker more seriously of late as a source of income, and to some extent the improved results bear that out I think. Despite being able to take shots in the bigger guaranteed tournaments I've mainly stuck to grinding away, which I had a hard time doing when I was playing less volume. Its easy for my monkey brain to connect the dots when grinding away and making money, as far as that being a good thing to stick to, but easy to stray in the past when I'd go weeks without playing then jump into a $100 rebuy for no good reason, donk off money, get frustrated, not play for a few weeks, rinse and repeat.

The WSOP working trip this year was a good one, especially as compared to last year. No drama or distractions at all on the corporate employer side of things, and we were pretty much completely left alone to do our blogging gig. Run good was also in full effect on the poker side, as I made it to Day 2 in the Venetian Deep Stacks tourney I played in (finishing around 30th for like $950, which was pretty disappointing given the payout structure and the fact I had an average stack coming back for Day 2), finished 2nd in a Planet Hollywood tourney my wife and I entered on a whim, and had decent cash game sessions the three times I played.

The Deep Stacks tourney I played was amusing in a lot of ways, as I'm not sure I've ever been that card dead in a live tourney before, yet somehow managed to scrape my way through to day 2 without ever being dealt anything better than 10 10 the entire tournament (which I flopped quads with when I was all-in pre-flop near the bubble and up against AQo). Plus I got my first ever penalty in a live tournament, and come as close to mad monkey tilt as I ever have.

The "penalty" still chaps my ass a bit, despite the fact that I'm the first to admit that I was at fault. We were about 4 hours into play and I limped UTG with A10s and like 6 people came along, including the BB. A little bit of necessary backstory about BB is that he was one of those people that while outwardly chatty and likeable enough insta-tilts me, as he couldn't sit in his seat for more than 30 seconds at a time. He was forever jumping and walking around after folding, always scanning the room for the cocktail waitress to get another pina colada, and would jump up and disappear for fifteen minute stretches at a time, playing maybe 3 or 4 hands per orbit. Plus when he was in a hand he'd completely cover his cards with both hands, so you never knew if he had cards. (Cue ominous foreshadowing music).

So I've limped with A10 spades in a pot with a million players and the flop is rags, with two spades. I check, planning on check-raising, but it checks around. Turn is a blank that isn't a spade. I check, not really wanting to lead into the field at that point, and it checks around. River is another blank, but it's a spade, and I have the mortal nuts.

I dwell and Hollywood awhile, brow furrowed, then bet three times the pot, thinking the only way I'd get paid at that point is via the stupid overbet route. The next guy to act pauses for just a second and quickly calls, and it quickly folds around to me. I feel bad about Hollywooding in spots like that so I usually very quickly table my hand.

At which point Pina Colada Guy starts squawking and I think to myself "Fuuuuuuuck me" as he still had cards, and was, as usual, sitting with them completely underneath his hands. To be honest it was also my fault as well, as I'd just been trying my best to mentally ignore him so as not to get tilted by his behavior. It also didn't help there were a million people in the hand to begin with, either, as it was easy to think the avalanche of folds on the river was everyone.

So my hand is clearly exposed and tabled, the floor is called, and Pina Colada is given the chance to call if he wants (ha), he mucks, the other guy in the hand mucks, and I get the pot. Plus an orbit penalty for exposing my cards while there was still action.

The floor is nice enough about it at that point, and expresses sympathy for my situation but says that prematurely exposing cards has been a real problem and that regular players hate it so that's why they take a hard stance these days and dole out penalties for exposing your cards, intentionally or not. And I said that I understood that, but with some many recreational players and tourists, it seemed harsh to penalize people on their first offense, and not give them a warning first.

At which point he said that no, I'd been warned. And I really was perplexed then, because I obviously hadn't done that before or been warned. He went on to explain that everyone gets their first warning during the initial tourney announcement of the rules, etc., and that it's a blanket warning to all players. So I got my first warning then, and prematurely tabling my hand was considered my second offense.

That's when I started getting tilty. I'm like, "Okay, I get that I'm being penalized and I understand why, but your policy is clearly to hand out the penalty without a warning first. Just say that's your policy. I know it doesn't change anything but it's dishonest to claim that you're player-friendly on the issue and give a warning first". Which he wouldn't agree with, insisting they gave all players a warning first before any penalties. Obviously a lost cause to continue arguing (and especially be a smart ass about it), but I'd gone from being annoyed with myself to annoyed on general principle against blanket dumbassery like what I was being told. I asked him what if I registered late, or what if I was deaf and couldn't hear the warning; would I be penalized then the first time I accidentally tabled my hand?

And things degenerated from there and he started threatening to make me sit out two orbits so I finally gave up and just went to the video poker bar about ten feet away (the Deep Stack events were so popular the Venetian added tables on the casino floor outside the normal tournament room, and I was at one of those tables), stuck $20 in a video poker machine and got a beer. At some point I looked over my shoulder to see where the button was and the same floor guy was watching me like a hawk, and came over and told me that I couldn't be within sight of the table while I was being penalized.

I'm pretty much the nicest, quietest, non-confrontational person in the world, but that's one of the few times I've just absolutely seen red and wanted to spew obscenities into someone's face. I finally just said that I was fucking drinking a beer and fucking gambling at a fucking video poker machine in the fucking casino that employed him, and that I as going to continue to do that until I could go back and play in the fucking poker tournament I fucking paid hundreds of dollars to play in, and just turned around and ignored him until he finally walked away.

Moral of story? Don't expose cards prematurely in a Venetian tournament. You've been warned.

The other funny poker story was when I was playing $1/2 NL and saw what's pretty much the worst fold I've ever seen in my life. A mid-fiftyish guy came over with steam pouring out of his ears on a table change and slammed down some chips, pulling out cash to top up. The dealer and another player knew him and commiserated with him a bit about idiots who don't know what they're doing, so he was a regular/local of some sort.

I stacked him within abut 30 seconds of him sitting down, as it folded to me on the button with A10o, I raised to $8, SB folds, and he min-raised to $16 from the BB. I obviously have no clue what that means but yeah, I'm calling $8 more based solely on the steam coming out of his ears.

Flop is A 10 4, with two clubs. We get all the money in and he has Ac Kc but the board bricks out and more steam is coming out of his ears as he rebuys and just stares at me going on and on and on about idiots that call re-raises with hands like A 10 o, how he'd be a millionaire if he didn't have such bad luck, etc. he finally settles down and plays for an hour or so and, to be fair, isn't terrible and has a clue what he's doing.

Which makes his final hand all the stranger. I can't remember the exact details, but he's down to like $125 in his stack, and he and a solid younger guy go back and forth with three or four raise/re-raise small/re-re-raise small/re-re-re-reraise small bets on the flop, and his last raise is a weird one that just leaves him exactly $4 behind. The young guy has him covered, but he just calls the last raise, with around $250 in the pot.

The flop is K 8 4, rainbow, and the action is on the younger guy, who flips out $5. And Steamy Ears proudly instamucks JJ face up instead of calling for his last $4 into a $250 pot, and the guy next to me looks at me like "WTF?" and Steamy Ears says "Let's see your aces or kings" and his opponent pauses for a long time, almost doesn't show, then turns over pocket tens. And Steamy Ears just bolts from the table so quickly it was like he was ejected from his seat, with his four $1 chips clutched tightly in his hand.

'Cause Bullet Points are All the Rage

2009-06-10T06:31:00.000-07:00

* Still alive. Still very busy.

* I'll be heading out to Vegas again this year for the Main Event, scribbling scribblings for the 2009 WSOP blog at the bwin Poker Blog. I'm actually fairly psyched to go this year, except for the house I'm remodeling that must get done before I leave on June 30th, which is increasingly becoming doubtful.

* Still plugging away at the real estate grind. If real estate is an easy way to get rich quick, I'm apparently doing something wrong.

* Still at the day job. Sweet mother of Jebus.

* Thanks to Al for all his work with the BBT series. I played a handful of events in the latest series, which usually consisted of signing up, getting seated, and immediately thinking "It's late and I'm tired, why the hell did I sign up for this?" and finding some way to donk off my chips so I could go to bed. I did check out the ToC action, as I was playing some other tournies at the same time, and I have to say the finish was about as awesome a finish as could be hoped for. GG actyper, and try not to donk out of the Main Event as quickly as last year.

* Still play a decent amount of the online pokers, mostly at Cake. Final tabled two of their WSOP finals but no love. Did have two nice scores in their bigger Sunday tournies, and a 2nd in a rebuy tourney in the last month.

* Free investing advice o' the day: commodities, ftw!

Best Rakeback

2009-06-10T06:12:00.000-07:00

Best Rakeback is yet another player on the poker rakeback scene, offering various rakeback deals (including Absolute rakeback and Cake Poker rakeback) to many of the top online poker sites.

Rakeback deals have grown in popularity and prominence in recent years, and for good reason. Like death and taxes, rake is inevitable no matter what poker room you play at, and can add up to a very sizable amount if you're a high volume player. If you play a lot of poker, even at lower stakes you may very well be generating thousands of dollars a month in rake, money which in the past has typically all gone into the pocket of the online poker site you're playing at.

With a rakeback deal, though, a percentage of that money (usually 20-35%) comes back to you, as sites such as Best Rakeback have emerged that work out deals with the online poker sites to return a set percentage of rake back to members who are players at that site. Instead of losing all the money you play in rake, a chunk of it goes back into your bankroll, which can definitely help to pad your account balance.

Best Rakeback offers rakeback deals at most of the major sites that allow rakeback (including Full Tilt, Cake Poker, Carbon Poker, and others) and members get access to ananimated rakeback graphing system that shows them exactly how much rakeback they've earned at any given point in time. Users can cash out their rakeback direct to certain poker rooms or request payment by check, bank wire, or other payment methods. Best Rakeback also provides members with support staff and a ticketing system to ensure that any concerns or problems they have are quickly addressed.

Dude, This Place is Dusty

2009-01-30T07:06:00.000-08:00

I've obviously been a bad blogger of late, with nearly two months passing since my last post. Dang.

The waxing and waning of the desire to type into various blogging boxes has always interested me, mainly because of the waxing and waning. Some days the idea of chronicling things that are occuring in real life via pixels and keystrokes seems like the most absolute ludicrous, wasteful activity in the world; other days I miss it and am glad I've done as much of it as I have, as far as a record or journal of some sort of where my head was at during various times of my life.

Needless to say, I've been in a waning state of late, especially in regards to this poor blog in particular. A bit ironic in that I've actually been hitting the poker tables pretty hard the last few months, raping and pillaging the mid stakes ($25-$100 buy-ins) double or nothing SnGs and 6 max SnGs on Cake. It's far from exciting poker but I'm sitting at about 12% ROI over 2,000 or so SnGs, which is nothing to sneeze at, especially with rakeback and bonus cash from rake races thrown in.

Nearing the finish line with the little house I bought at the end of December and am renovating, which has gone pretty much according to plan. Already have a tenant lined up for it, so it's just a matter of getting it done, then moving on to the next project. Which is looking like it may be the house next door, as the abandoned house next to is going to auction at the county courthouse next Tuesday for failure ot pay taxes, and hopefully I'll be able to pick it up for the whopping minimum bid of $6,770.

The economy still seems to be swirling down the drain since my last post, or I suppose trickling might be a better word choice. Sluicing maybe, something between swirling and trickling. I usually am my own worst enemy when it comes to investing but I did manage a few things right during the last six months or so, catching a big piece of the swoon last fall via ETFs such as SDS and SKF, then taking biggish positions in SLW and SLV in early December, and plunked some money into GLD shortly after.

I've been tempted to take profits on the commodity-related positions as I think we're still in for one last big final plunge down to 650 or so on the S&P 500, and until the last few weeks gold and silver had been getting hit as well on big down down for equities. Lately, though, they seem to be bucking that trend, acting more like safe havens when more junk-kicking economic news takes equities to the woodshed.

Who knows, though, really. Not this dumb monkey. Part of me is very tempted to take profits and just let everything set in cash, as taking a position of any sort on either side of any trade becomes more and more like playing blackjack each and every day, with the only winner being the brokerage that keeps collecting their commission rake on each and every pot.

Still have the pleasure of going to the day job, and somehow or other we haven't announced mass layoffs, despite being a publicly-traded company in the financial services/risk management/credit risk sector.

We did have two new additions to the family since my last update. With no further ado, Socrates and Marley:

Egos, Entitlement, and Poker

2008-12-04T06:35:00.000-08:00

Playing a ton of LHE of late has been interesting on various fronts, as it's the first time I've strayed from NL in years, despite getting started back in the day at the LHE tables like so many people. I've been spending a lot of time watching CardRunner LHE videos, as there not only was a lot of rust to knock off my LHE game but I'm coming to realize that I was in general playing pretty far from optimal to begin with, as far as blind defense, undervaluing combo/backdoor draws, etc.

As mentioned yesterday, the LHE games at Cake can be surprisingly good at times, especially on weekend nights. There are some catastrophically bad players who, week after week, scrape together the money to buy into a 3/6 LHE game for $60 and proceed to call 3 bets cold with 35o, because, you know, if they get lucky they'll win a big pot, and then call any number of bets to the river on a flop of A A 3, because they caught a piece of it and someone might always be bluffing.

So it's not a struggle to find juicy tables, with a little game selection. But what I am struggling with, more than I'd have thought, is tilt control, when faced with the inevitable times in LHE when players like the above get hot and take you to the cleaners, over and over and over. That's an adjustment from NL that's a bit surprising for me, as I've gotten to the point where I'm relatively tilt-free in NL games. Yeah, the mouse may take some abuse when I finally get the resident table luckbox all-in with set over set (in a good way) and he spiked his one outer for quads on the river, but it takes a good bit to get my off my game when playing NL.

Not so much with LHE, at least at the moment, and it's dragging down my overall results. I've even found myself going off on people in chat, which I haven't done in years, and is terrible all the way around, especially when it's a live one that bleeds chips on a regular basis. I'm not sure why the lemur in the above hand catching a 2 on the turn and a 4 on the river for a straight to take down my AK is so much more galling and monkey-tilt inducing to me, but it is.

Which is all the more damaging in LHE, as it's too easy to get tilty and start donking off a big bet here, two more over there, calling down with A high hands too much against the wrong opponents, yada yada yada.

It's part of the bigger entitlement issue, too, and what you expect from the game, what your capabilities are, and how you carry yourself. I'm still toying with the idea of quitting the day job and relying on my various small streams of income to tide me over until I can build them up into larger streams of income, being able to dedicate myself to it full-time. Poker could be a key part of that if I can consistently pull out a decent chunk of money from the games, thus some of the rationale behind my putting more time in at the tables of late.

While 2008 has been solidly in the black, poker-wise, I haven't quite gotten over the hump where I feel like I'm consistently beating the game. I still have the occasional black hole downswong where I undo a week of steady, consistent work in the span of half a day of tilty play, triggered by the above. Much of it is simple monkey tilt but some of it is also petty frustration, as I've been playing this stupid damn game for a long time now, and still not where I want to be, despite a lot of time and effort and cogitation.

It's a bit of the chicken/egg conundrum, but the biggest thing I want to work on next year poker-wise is the emotional side of things, losing the pettiness and misguided sense of entitlement. One thing I've noticed on the live events I've been on with PokerRoom/bwin is that, without fail, the biggest, most consistent winners of the players on the trips are almost always the ones you'd never expect. There's actually a pretty clear relationship between the players who talk about beating the games the most (usually actually not at all, when you look at their stats) and those who never even bring up their results at all, unless you pry it out of them.

Those are the 2008 results for one of the quiet types mentioned above. Not too shabby at all, and he's got similar stats for his play on Full Tilt, as the graphic just shows Ongame results. You'd never guess it, though, if you met him, as he's as average as can be, still works part-time as he's involved in a strange niche industry and doesn't want to quit and leave his boss in a bind, as replacing him would be hard. Getting him to talk poker is easy, as far as strategy, playing hands, etc., but getting him to talk about his own success is next to impossible. He's suffered some of the worst beats I've seen in $10,000 buy-in events and was hardly fazed, only remarking that he's just grateful that poker still affords him the chance to get his money in so good against such bad players.

And on the other side of the fence we have this:

Unlike the solid, winning player above, it's almost impossible for this player to take a breath without mentioning this or that big tournament win of theirs. And they have had some big wins, as evidenced by the MTT profits. But they've bled it all back (plus some) in other formats, unable to stick to what works, playing in increasingly bigger games and increasingly losing more money. Any success they've had completely hamstrings them, as they feel entitled to more but can't back it up with results. When success doesn't come, it's always someone else's fault, a bad beat or suckout that crippled them late in a big tournament.

As much as I'd like to be the first player, I'm likely slightly more in the second player's camp, as much as it disappoints me to admit that. Well, minus the braggadocio. I need to get out of the trap on focusing only on what's taken from me at the tables instead of being grateful for all the donations, as only doom lies down that road. The only thing you should be entitled to is what you can earn from playing each and every street of each and every hand, to the best of your ability, at that moment in time. If you can outplay your opponents, you'll profit. If you can't, you won't. There's really not much more to it than that.

ZOMG Online Poker is Illegal I'm Going to Jail

2008-12-02T13:47:00.000-08:00

Indeed, I'm still alive. And it's pretty much more of the same, staying busy of late with a fair amount of poker, Fallout 3, and buying another investment property (well, not until December 22nd, when we officially close).

Here's the beaut of a 504 sq. ft. house that I'm buying, which runs you all of $8,500 in my neck of the woods:

It's actually not quite as bad as it looks, as the basic structure is in good shape and the interior has already been gutted in preparation of remodeling. With an addition on the back it'll be a decent little 2-1, about 650 sq. ft which should cashflow $250/$300 each month as a rental. One bright side of our economy swirling down the drain is that while trying to flip a house is increasingly difficult, finding potentially profitable rentals gets easier every day, especially if you're willing to tackle properties like the one above that obviously need a lot of work before they're livable. Which isn't a path to quick riches (boo), but a nice way to pick up rentals that immediately cash flow and have some equity in them, if you can pick them up cheaply enough and are smart with the renovations.

As far as poker goes, somehow or other I've found myself going full-circle and playing lots of LHE the last few weeks. 3/6 is the biggest LHE game that regularly runs on Cake with multiple tables, which is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it's just 3/6, so the upside is limited, but on the other hand it's like everyone just skips 1/2 and 2/4, so you get some crazy bad play at 3/6. Like Party Poker of ye olden times bad play, which even a lemur like myself can manage to profit from. Rakeback also piles up quickly when multi-tabling 4+ 6 max games, leading to a pretty damn juicy month in November at the tables. Traffic is also low enough at Cake that I actually won a decent sum of money in the November Cake rake race on RaketheRake, somthing impossible to do at FT or other high volume sites when competing against the insane grinders that play nine million hands a day.

Call me stupid, but I didn't think the 60 Minutes piece on UB/Absolute was all that bad, either from a reporting standpoint or as far as implications for the future of online poker. Yeah, sure, I kept yelling at the tv everytime they breezily mentioned online poker being illegal, but they got the basic facts right and could have cast things in a much more shady light than they did. At a certain point it's silly to claim that any of us involved with online poker are part of a misunderstood, socially uplifting activity. It isn't. We aren't. It's kind of shady and dodgy, as evidenced by the whole Kahnawakee regulatory situation and other similar things. It just is. That's the reality.

I also agree, of course, that it shouldn't be that way, and that a lot of the shadiness is a result of the US' ham-handed attempts to stamp out the unstampable, instead of embracing it, profiting from it, and making it legitimate. But that's just not where we are at the moment. Given where we are, lurking on the fringes, the 60 Minutes piece could have been so much worse. Because the UB/Absolute story was just about the worst thing that could have surfaced at just about the worst time, as far as online poker and legislation is involved. If this is the worst we suffer from that debacle, as far as inaccurate references to online poker being illegal and Dan Druff being kind of a dumbass when he should know better, well, I think we got off pretty light, all things considered.

Falllout 3 > Poker

2008-11-04T10:27:00.000-08:00

I bought a copy of Fallout 3 pretty much on a whim, expecting to play it a bit then see it gather dust along with Guitar Hero and GTA IV (the only games I've bought for my fairly recently purchased Xbox 360) but man, that game is the bomb. Or the shizzle. Or the bombshizzle or whatever the hell the kids say these days.

It's been awhile since I've gotten sucked into a game like that, making me harken back to the days of yore when entire days would get sucked up by various Civ incarnations or, further back, in olden, olden times, Zelda or Metroid. Fun stuff, and especially nice to relax and completely and utterly waste a weekend after being pretty busy of late with various home renovation projects.

As far as poker, still playing a goodly number of the $50 NLH double-up SnGs on Cake, as well as some cash games and Aussie Millions satellites. I'm not sure why I bother with the satellites, as I manage to run insanely bad in those, to the point of ridiculosity. The weekly $440 Aussie Millions finals at Cake are really, really soft, usually with 120 or so players and the top 3 getting trip packages, with 10,000 chip starting stacks and initial blinds of 25/50.

I've made deep runs the last two weeks, finishing 12th and 16th, and this week's one was pretty painful, as manage to run up a very nice stack until I got crippled with a BB special, sitting on K2 in the BB with 4 limpers. Flop is J 2 2, rainbow, I check, praying that I can get action from someone, when the next player insta massively overshoves and another calls. I merrily call and am up against the mighty 10c 7c (the first shover) and KJo. Turn and river are running clubs that don't pair the board, which give Mr. TenSeven a monsterpotten for the chip lead and leaves me with just 10,000 or so chips.

Build back up, double up a few times, get back to a bit over average, then lose with KK versus QQ in a hand that'd have put me in the top 5. Bust out two hands later when 10 10 can't hold versus A4o. Whee, poker.

Have to say that I'm very ready for this election to be done, one way or the other, and we can get down to the ugly business of facing up to the situation the US is currently in. The economy is still well and truly screwed, and deteriorating each month, and sooner or later we have to face up to the gluttony of the past and come to terms with what we're in for the next 24-36 months. Not that we will, regardless of who is elected, but at least we won't have the scapegoat of Bush and cronies to pin all the blame on (even if a good measure of it is justifiably pinned to his monkey lapels).

Ironically enough, I'm actually up about 30% on the year in our main IRA account, so I guess I can't bitch too much. Most of those gains came from riding the market down in various short ETFs, then catching a big chunk of the recent mini-rally, as well as moving a big chunk of long term capital into SLW and other mining stocks when they cratered in late October. I'm probably going to go short again in late November, probably loading for bear in double inverse ETFs like SCC and REW, as all signs point to an absolutely brutal winter for retailers and tech companies, with spending falling off a cliff of late.

Testing...Testing...Is This Thing On?

2008-10-28T08:18:00.000-07:00

Long time no post, indeed. I wish I had a ton of exciting news to relate but meh, not so much.

Things have been fairly busy but not extraordinarily so. Had another gig working for PokerRoom at the WPT event at Niagara Falls, tackled tons of home improvement projects (at our actual home for once), and have generally stayed busy with all the monkey work that keeps me busy.

Exciting stuff, yes?

I haven't had time or motivation to play much poker over the last few months, and what I have played has been at Cake Poker. In a dumb, superstitious monkey move, I decided to give Cake a whirl after getting absolutely brutalized at Full Tilt of late.

Indeed, I know, very silly to claim that a certain site has it in for you, but it'd reached the point where I was absolutely certain I'd be knocked out of yet another Full Tilt tournament late with AA versus 36 sooooooooooted when I'd look down to see a dreaded monster starting hand, and that's no way to be playing. Cake isn't much to look at and the interface is clunky enough to almost rival Bodog, but it's definitely got some soft games. I've mostly been playing cash games, along with some of the double or nothing SnGs they offer with the top five doubling their buy-ins. Still a small sample size but those seem especially soft, even at the $50 and $100 buy-in levels, as a good third of the table seems to have absolutely no clue as to adjusting their play to a SnG structure like that.

Still plugging away at the day job, but the ties that bind are becoming increasingly flimsy. There's a decent chance of sizable layoffs at some point if the economy stays in the toilet and our stock continues to trade at a 5 year low, and I'm perversely almost hoping to be a victim, as they tend to offer nice severance packages and getting the hell out of here is long, long overdue.

In the same perverse universe I live in, I'm thinking about giving the house flipping thing a go full-time, as I've worked out a line of credit with one of our local banks that'll finally give me enough capital to comfortably tackle another flip. Obviously the timing could be better as far as market conditions, but central Texas has managed to avoid a lot of the housing carnage, the job market is still strong here, and people still need houses to live in. I still think I could make a go of it, especially if that was my full-time job and I tackled much of the renovation work myself. It'd be much work and a far cry from Flip That House, where investors make a few phone calls and conjure up a mythical profit of $150,000, but it'd beat the hell out of endless TPS reports and performance reviews seemingly every other week.

And look! No political talk at all! Still highly interested in such things but the impending Obama landslide pretty much does all of the talking necessary.

Republican Party, FTL!

2008-09-29T11:57:00.000-07:00

Dear Republican Party,

Is there anything you can get right these days? Anything? Bueller? Anyone? Bueller?

I mean, for the love of Jebus. You at least used to get more things right than not on the economic side of things, which is why in the past I'd grudgingly considered myself more Republican than anything else. You took care of those lucky enough to be privileged, and I'm a largely greedy monkey who was lucky enough to be privileged, so, you know, you had me there.

I could almost overlook all that bad crap ya'll don't like to talk about publicly much (you know, the rampant racism, sucking the blood of the poor and middle class, and all the weird Old Testament close-mindedness about abortion and gay marriage) and call myself a Republican. Almost.

But man, you're seriously struggling at the plate these days. You've got a ninety million year old man running for President who 90% of you left for dead when the nomination process began, a VP candidate who gets easily confused when spoken to in polysyllabic words, and you're now leading the charge to protect all the ordinary Americans from the evil of corporations and big government by opposing the bailout package. When the bailout package is exactly what those ordinary Americans need most, in this utterly screwed up insolvent place we've found ourselves in.

How many speeches from Warren Buffet and other smart economic minds do you need to convince yourself that this is a necessary evil? Forty-three? Seven thousand and thirty five? Do you honestly and truly believe that Paulson, Bernanke, et al are just bluffing, and that none of this is necessary at all and all of this work itself out just fine? Really? How many enormous financial institutions have to go belly up before you decide that, umm, yeah, I guess we should try to do something about this, even if it means raising taxes?

Bailout, FTW!

2008-09-26T06:48:00.000-07:00

Again, it'd almost be funny that it's NOW that the GOP decides to dig in its heels and look after Joe and Suzy Mainstreet, fighting the bailout tooth and nail, with the icy cold water spilling over the deck already up to their necks.

Almost funny, just like Palin babbling on about Putin rearing his head while defending her "foreign policy" experience, or getting confused when Katie uses way, way too many word when asking her a pretty direct question:

But, ultimately, not funny at all. The bailout isn't about golden parachutes or Wall St. fat cats getting fatter. It's an absolutely necessary, desperate Hail Mary, close-you-eyes-in-best-Brett-Farvian-style-and-chunk-it-downfield play call. We have no choice at this stage. We may not like it, but it's got to get done.

You may have huge issues (and should have huge issues with it) but the root cause of this goes back 5 or 6 years. Railing against the effects of something you allowed to happen (and even encouraged and profited from) five or six years ago is like refusing to put your house out, when it's on fire, because you're finally sick and tired of putting out fires your darling little pyromaniac child keeps lighting (with the flame thrower you bought him last Christmas, after he got back from attending Fire Camp for the fifth straight year).

And, seriously, the house is fucking on fire right now. Full on involved conflagration. WaMu, with more than $300 billion in assets, just went belly up. Insolvent. Didn't have the bankroll to even play a $1 SnG on Full Tilt. Largest bank failure (by far) of any financial institution in the history of the United States of America. Bye bye.

But, somehow, it's exactly now that assorted congresspeople (primarily those of the GOP persuasion) decide to bow up and make a stand for Joe and Suzy. Wiretap their phones? Hell, sure, whatever. And a little waterboarding never REALLY hurt anyone but those Muslim terrorists, and screw them anyway. An escalating regressive tax structure? Oh, hells yes, sign me up, roll it out, let's make us some money.

But a bailout that would just cost taxpayers money? Oh no. Hells no. Because it's all about looking out for the people, you know. Oh no. No, no, no, no, no....

*Face palm*

GG America?

2008-09-17T06:37:00.000-07:00

Very interesting times to be living in the US, especially in regards to the US economy and financial infrastructure. The unthinkable just a few short years ago (Lehman effectively ceasing to exist, AIG teetering on the brink, et al) not only becoming thinkable but full-blown reality, with the brutal end coming in just a matter of a few short days.

And, honestly, there's really no end in sight, at least not for years, once the momentum starts to build. WaMu is very likely next, with the US government, once again, eventually being forced to step in and bail out yet another financial institution that "cannot be allowed to fail." Each bail out, though, is effectively just prolonging the larger, slow-motion failure that's coming home to roost after eight years of historic, epic failure on the part of the current administration that will likely never be eclipsed.

(Note: funny in that I saved the above as a draft about a week ago, before the $700 billion bailout news hit the wires, and that the unthinkable became even more super-duper-unthinkable).

So, umm, yeah. Wow. Not that the $700 billion bailout plan isn't eye-popping enough, but the audacity of Paulson and his buddy Ben to think they can ram this thing through with absolutely no oversight or checks and balances, just by using lots of dire, scary words like "recession", "catastrophic consequences", and "failure". And the icing on the cake of Bush standing tall and shaking his little monkey fist, threatening to veto any legislation that isn't a simple blank bailout check. Wth none of them all that concerned, really, and not giving much of a damn about appearances. as they know they'll get exactly what they want in a few days, because that's how the system works, because that's how they've made the system.

It's this sort of thing that baffles me in the context of the current election and how the mantle of "change" is alternately mocked and embraced, seemingly at random. I'm a pretty piss-poor Democrat these days, and fall on the Republican side of the fence on more than a few issues (and, honestly, I'd have probably voted for the old pre-sellout McCain over Kerry, if McCain had gotten the nomination), but how this election is anything other than an Obama landslide is beyond me. And, really, a pretty terrificly depressing thing to ponder, as it speaks more to flat-out racism and bigotry more than anything else.

I don't think Obama is a savior. Far from it. But for the love of Jebus, isn't it time to try something new? How many more signs do you need that the current status quo isn't working? Yes, indeed, it'll be more of the same with Obama, and we'll still struggle with crippling national debt, unpopular wars, and creaking, groaning infrastructure that's showing its age. We'll struggle with that for many, many years. There's no avoiding it, as too many chickens are coming home to roost, and we've largely turned into a fat, lazy nation of TV-obsessed mouth breathers with mounting personal debt and negative savings rate.

But thumping our chests and trampling on anyone in our way isn't the way forward. Cronyism isn't the way forward. More tax cuts for the wealthy isn't the way forward. More water boarding and phone taps. More governing from a personal sense of entitlement and divine guidance. We've tried all that. It ain't working, kids. It just flat out isn't working.

And I'll be the first to admit that voting for "Someone Else" (in this case Obama) isn't the best situation to find oneself in, but that's exactly the spot this country is in. While it's pretty funny to watch the wheels fall off the Palin sideshow as its exposed for exactly what it is, it's also pretty damn sad to watch our electoral process be mocked by the rest of the world for the Springer episode that it's rapidly devolving into. Funny but sad.

In the end, who knows. I hope we elect someone who manages to steer us through the current mess this country is mired in. Or at least puts us on a different path than the one we're on, one with a decent chance of navigating through the muck. If that means higher taxes, then tax the crap out of me. If that means short term pain, then bring the pain. Just stop pretending that this country is on the right path and that with faith in God and a little more trickle-down economics, we'll plow through this little rough patch just fine and be back to glory days in no time flat.

LOL Politics

2008-09-07T09:52:00.000-07:00

I had a big honking draft of a post regarding political matters, but finally had the good sense to just delete it, as pretty much any blogger posting about politics could serve as a textbook definition for anyone wondering what the phrase "monkey humping a football" means. But by all means, keep 'em coming, as the unintentional comedy is pretty priceless.

The only thing I really have to say is thank God people are at least engaged and talking about politics. I may completely disagree with Palin's stance that if a half Negro/half Islamic terrorist rapes and impregnates your daughter or wife that she should be forced to have the baby, but at least it's getting the issue out there for discussion, for debate. Just like all of those fake dinosaur fossils planted in the ground by God to test your faith, when He wasn't busy directly whispering her ear that natural gas pipelines are a necessary and crucial part of His grand plan. it's very refreshing that both parties are finally addressing the process of real change, of tackling the tough issues at the core beliefs of all the candidates, and not just trying to put out a slick, smiling package designed to appeal to (insert name of target demographic here).

As far as poker, things are actually rolling along pretty well. I'd gravitated towards playing more SnGs and MTTs over the last few months in lieu of cash games, but found myself with fairly skewed stats. I was doing well in satellites and smaller field MTTs, but donking back anything I made in those to large field, bigger buy-in MTTs.

Smarter people than myself would have seen the logical conclusion there (stop plauing large field, bigger buy-in MTTs) but I persisted for quite awhile before finally giving in to the cold, harsh truth. So for the last month or so I've been playing a ton of satellites on Saturday/Sunday, mostly to the $750K Guaranteed, and just unregistering and pocketing the T$, using those to play a bunch of $24 and $36 Turbo SnGs.

Not the most exciting poker existence to live, as there's never a potential payoff of more than $216 on the line, but it's been fairly profitable, with a ROI of 10% for the SnGs and about 40% for the assorted satellites (anything from the $3 shootouts up to the $75 ones, with various field sizes). I naturally lapse into a more screwed-down style in MTTs and rarely play aggressively (i.e. correctly) enough to build the stack I need to be a real force, but it'd make sense that I'd have more success in satellites, as far as simply needing to outlast 10% or so of the field, and nothing more.

I'll be off to Niagara Falls in just under a month for the WPT Canada event with PokerRoom, but then nothing on the schedule (for now) until next April. We've been pretty busy with work on our house, trying to get assorted stuff done by late October in time for the wife's 30th birthday party, as she's planning quite a shindig. Odds are actually improving on everything getting done, but probably still 75/25 at this point, as tackling one thing just spawns three more, etc.

I haven't quite convinced myself to leap back into the real estate investment waters but I'm pretty close, as discussions with a local bank led to them offering me a line of credit for real estate purchases/renovations that would not only make a potential project more profitable, but would ease some of the headaches caused by tapping into savings for repair costs. I can't say I'm very bullish on either the housing market or the general US economy for the next 18-24 months, but there are still people out there flipping houses and making money. If I can find a property at the right price (and with the backup plan of being able to rent it profitably), I may give it another whirl and see what happens.

Wow, baby, wow...

2008-08-20T07:05:00.000-07:00

Yikes. I'd vaguely remembered assorted coverage mentioning Scotty's drunken shenanigans in this year's $50K HORSE, but I wasn't at all expecting THAT particular streak of mean-ass, belligerent drunk that emerged (at least in the ESPN coverage).

I can't pretend to have much inside knowledge of either the situation or Scotty, so maybe that's just par for the course when he's pounding beers. Maybe DiMichele was asking for it based on douchebaggery behavior that wasn't shown on the ESPN broadcast. I dunno.

But that was pretty painful to watch. Interesting, don't get me wrong (and I'd argue that episodes like that are actually better for poker's popularity in the grand scheme of things than yet another slick, instantly-forgettable ten minutes later final table where everyone acts gentlemanly and some unknown person wins). But man, Scotty, that was a fucking poor performance, on all streets.

You know you've stepped over the line when Lindgren of all people goes from casting you occasional baffled, slightly amused looks to outright telling you to fuck off, in no uncertain terms. Very justified, no doubt, especially when Scotty was openly alluding to collusion, or lack thereof.

Equally sad (again, just based on the hands that were shown) is the fact that Scotty was playing like he was hammered, as well. I'm making no claims to be a better HORSE player than Scotty (I'd probably struggle to outplay one of his monkeys), but I have no clue what he was even doing in half the hands they showed, much less what the hell he was doing when he'd somehow river some junky two pair to scoop and then suddenly decide to check-raise.

Aside from seeing Scotty live up to his general perception as one of the better ambassadors to poker at event after event when he'd always take time to stop and talk to the adoring masses (even if it meant it took him a half hour to get the hell out of the hallway outside the Amazon room0, my one personal encounter with him at the 2007 WPT Legends event was pretty positive. I was working in the joke of a media room they'd set up in the sushi bar, huddled on a piano bench, and for no reason whatsoever he stopped to talk to me, asking me why the hell they made us work there, shot the shit for 15 minutes or so, and bought me a beer.

Just a weird, weird display. I guess the take-away is to never underestimate the power of alcohol to turn some people into raging assholes. Or, you know, something much deeper about demons that we all carry around, lurking under the surface, yada yada yada.

Those Crazy Bonus Whoring Days of Yore

2008-08-14T11:45:00.000-07:00

Back before I got sucked into Vegas and the WSOP, I got a request for a paid review here of BonusWhores.com, which despite its prony-sounding name is a great place for poker bonus info, including no deposit poker bonuses and more.

I turned down any payment for such a review, offering instead to do one on the house (sorry for the delay in getting my ass in gear and posting this), as the BW site was what got me involved in the whole world of cashing in on casino bonuses, so many moons ago, which in turn led to me making a ridiculous amount of money on the affiliate side of things when I ran out of good bonuses for myself and started singing the praises of such things to others via these pages. So I felt like I owed them, at the very least, some linkage here and there and a few positive words.

'Tis kind of crazy to think back on those days now, in all sorts of ways. I definitely miss the affiliate money and the chance to gambool it up (and do it +EV style) with sticky casino bonuses, and it was nice to generally have a decent amount of cash always sitting in Neteller, as it took some pressure off to watch the poker bankroll like a hawk as I do these days.

But, at the same time, it was definitely a bubble economy, and doomed to come to an end, UIGEA or not. That little piece of legislation definitely sped things up, but the writing was on the wall already as far as gobs of free easy money drying up.

In a bit of a holding pattern poker-wise of late, as I've been playing more MTTs and, unfortunately, realizing I'm pretty much a break-even MTT player at the moment. Had two baby cashes in FTOPS events so far but nothing major, and a lot of other satellites and smaller events (including a dumb-ass fit of stubbornness when I pissed away nearly $300 playing the cracktastic 100 chip super turbo SnGs trying to qualify for a FTOPS event I didn't even really want to play) ate most of that profit.

I should honestly just stick to grinding the smaller satellites to various events, as I've got about a 40% ROI in those, but I inevitably end up giving the profits back looking for a big score in either a FTOPS or big guarantee event.

I've been catching up on HSP of late, as for some reason I stopped watching the last few seasons, so that's been fun to get back into, especially the Jamie Gold episodes. Sweet Jebus. I can barely sit through any WPT episode these days but have been watching the new ESPN WSOP broadcasts on Tuesdays, which I've thought have been pretty good so far.

In Which He Rambles About Many, Many Things

2008-07-18T10:22:00.000-07:00

It's always very strange to get back home after a tournament reporting gig for PokerRoom, and even moreso when it's the Main Event. I'm not sure I could spend 3+ weeks anywhere and it not seem odd to leave and be back home, but the effect is even more dramatic when the backdrop is the pressure cooker of the WSOP, with the oddity that is Las Vegas always looming in the background.

Very glad to be home, indeed, but still acclimating to the notion that the daily routine is going to a day job that increasingly drives me crazy, with a mountain of half-finished home improvement projects staring me in the face, and nine million other things I need/want/feel obligated to get done. More and more the draw of Vegas for me is that it provides the perfect, anonymous excuse to focus on exactly the task at hand, whatever that may be. And that's kind of refreshing, despite how exhausting Vegas can be.

I guess it was a good trip. Plenty of long 14-16 hour work days, a good bit more bureaucratic/organizational head-butting that I expected, and many crappy Pizza Hut mini-pizzas and nachos consumed. I can't say it was more work than I expected, as I was expecting a lot, but it ended up being a narrower sort of work, as covering 70+ players didn't leave much space for color or fluff, basically just how they were doing in the Main Event. One of the nice things about the smaller trips I've worked at WPT events is getting to hang out and get to know the players, which was missing at the WSOP as everything was pretty much a mad rush to keep everything as updated as possible.

As far as the WSOP itself, things ran pretty smoothly, so a hat tip to Harrah's there. The media credential process was a complete clusterfuck but I somehow or other ended up with a press pass, despite being emailed repeatedly to be told I was denied. I just played dumb when I checked in and said I'd never heard back from them, they consulted a list and said "You're right here, you're approved". Mmkay.

The media press box in the tournament room was a nice addition (although I was camped out in the bunker media room pretty much the entire time) and the new color coding system for various areas and overflow rooms was a huge improvement over previous years. Except for one day when tournament staff seemingly lost their minds and started randomly breaking and re-breaking and re-re-breaking tables even in the same area (we had a player that moved tables 7 times in the span of two hours), they did a good job on the crazy busy days of not just finding space for all the tables but in moving people into the main Amazon room as soon as possible.

It was also very cool to watch Iggy feint and dodge his way to a nice cash, and the PokerRoom qualifiers ended up doing pretty well for themselves, with eight of them cashing. The deepest finish was something like 160th, so no huge scores but a big improvement over last year when just one player cashed, and most of the guys that cashed play fairly low stakes, so the money was a pretty big deal to them.

As far as the decision to delay the final table, I went in thinking it was a fairly dumb idea and left feeling much the same. While you can argue that Harrah's was "unlucky" that neither Tiffany Michelle, Phil Hellmuth, or Mike Matusow made it through to the final table, one (or more) of them making it to the final nine players would have definitely been bucking the recent trend. The odds were that Harrah's would end up with a pretty anonymous seven-eight players plus an Allen Cunningham or Lee Watkinson type pro. Instead they ended up with nine pretty much anonymous players, which is a slight beat but should have been largely expected.

My previous chief (and current) complaint about the change is that I never bought into the premise that there would suddenly be a frenzy of media coverage about the final nine (I'm sorry to be the grumpy old man, but "November Nine" is just about the cheesiest way possible to refer to the 2008 Main Event final table participants) that would improve ratings, draw more people to poker, yada yada yada. That premise wasn't based on much hard evidence other than Harrah's and ESPN really wanted it to be true. It also wasn't backed up by any structured publicity plan (such as requiring or buying in the finalists to play in the WSOPE or any other events between now and November) and was floated out there with lots of promise and promises but not much in the way of details or hard facts to back it up.

So now we have our final nine, and the hype machine is supposed to be gearing up, with online sites battling it out over sponsorship rights, interviews and stories of the players filling newspapers, online outlets, and television broadcasting, and the general public coming to know and root for their favorite players.

And maybe that's happening, but if so I'm missing it. I'm sure there's some behind-the-scenes stuff going on to try to lure players to sponsor assorted sites, but that's never going to be the sort of stuff that makes great press, as by its nature its typically private negotiations. From where I'm sitting, it seems like the 2008 Main Event has pretty much already been forgotten. Sure, interest will be sparked again in November when nine random dudes try to win a lot of money, but any explosion of poker interest in the general media seems to be a bit of a dud.

I don't think it's going to be a terrible disaster or a ratings killer, but it's hard for me to see Harrah's/ESPN (or poker as a whole) gaining anything from it, with the disruption in the end being a pain in the ass with little added benefit. I wouldn't be surprised at all if they revert to the old format next year, especially if they end up moving the whole she-bang to Caesar's as they keep threatening to do.

The UB/AP superuser scandal continues to baffle me in various ways, chiefly as far as why the hell people continue to play there (the games aren't THAT soft) and why apologists keep repeating, over and over, that Tokwiro (who purchased AP and UB from the original founders) is doing the best it can to clean up an ugly situation that it inherited.

They didn't "inherit" anything. They bought it. They purchased assets with one motive: to profit from the purchase. It turns out that there were hidden liabilites that they were unaware of. Those liabilities and any resulting consequences are solely Tokwiro's to bear. End of story.

To be fair, based on the info out there so far there's no way in hell they could have known about the liabilities, even if they performed the best due diligence in the world before the purchase. Which sucks mightily for Tokwiro, indeed, but it doesn't in any way affect the reasonably valid argument that the book should be thrown at UB/AP and those sites should cease to exist.

Haven't been playing a ton of poker myself, but still getting in a decent number of hands. Poker play during the Main Event was mostly a wash, as I was about +$1,500 playing 1/2 NL at Mandalay Bay but -$900 from various tournaments, and about -$300 from video poker and slots. I played in four tournaments and outlasted 80% of the field in each but couldn't get any love towards the end. The cash games treated me well and I should have just parked my ass there, as I had pretty decent tables every time I sat down.

Most of the cash game profit came from one three hour session where I sat down and immediately went on a nice rush, running my $200 buy-in into just over $1,000. I doubled up with AA vs. KK and then doubled again about ten minutes later when I cracked aces with 79s.

In other completely random news, the day job still sucks. Mightily. Seriously contemplating a pretty major upheaval on that front (new job + relocating to another entire continent) but it'd take a lot of puzzle pieces to correctly fall into place for it to be a reality.

Had another baby cash in the Sunday $750,000 Guaranteed on Full Tilt but got mega coolered at the end (AK < KJ; 1010 < 77; and KK < QQ). Some day, some way I'm actually going to go deep in one of these. The sad thing is that after playing assorted big tourneys off and on for nearly 4 years now, a trained monkey that just shoves all-in with any hand that has an A in it would likely have managed a deeper run than I have by now. I rocks at teh poker.

Exactly Two Cents on Google and Poker Blogs

2008-07-07T14:04:00.000-07:00

Pretty much completely swamped and exhausted after the grind of covering the first four days of the Main Event, but here's my very quick take on what has everyone a twitter regarding Google and poker-related sites suddenly disappearing from search results, coming from someone who has been pretty closely involved in such things for going on 8 years now.

1) Google has been penalizing sites for selling links for quite awhile now. This isn't a new development and it's likely not just the poker niche that's being targeted or affected. They basically declared war on link selling sites such as TextLinkAds months ago. Inbound links and the anchor text attached to those links is still the primary tool that Google uses to order and rank search results, and they actively try to protect that by punishing sites they can identify as link sellers, since that could potentially torpedo their entire system.

2) What is a slightly new wrinkle is that in the past Google was been zeroing out PageRank for sites that openly sell links, but hasn't been penalizing them in search results. So if you sold links on a home page that previously had a PR of 5, the PR would display as 0 after you were "penalized", but your page would still rank normally for various search terms.

Their intention was to scare off advertisers that look only at PR when buying links or ad space without actively harming the site displaying the ads in search results. That sort of worked, but advertisers got savvy and realized the ads and links they bought were still effective, even on PR 0 pages, so they just kept buying and renewing ads.

3) Now Google seems to be stepping it up a bit, and penalizing both the site itself that is selling ads by suppressing their pages in search results, but also penalizing the sites that are buying links and ads. It's the last bit that's important, as those sites would continue to buy ad space on other sites regardless of the PR if buying those ads meant they continued to rank highly for the terms they were targeting. If you render those link and ad purchases ineffective, well, that's a pretty decent way of stopping the practice of selling links and ads on sites.

4) If you're confused and think this is highly hypocritical, hurrah, you're right! Large media sites openly sell ad space each and every day (just take a gander at CNN et al and note all the ad slots available for sale), yet Google allows them to merrily go about their business.

5) As far as what you, a humble poker blogger, can or should do about this, well, the sad answer is not much. Adding no follow links is pretty much all you can do if you want to play by Google's rules, but most advertisers won't renew any ads if you do that. Each advertiser is going to have to make the decision themselves as to whether they will continue their ad campaigns or not. Some will, as not all sites have been equally affected so far. Others won't. Not a lot you can do about it other than sitting tight and seeing how it plays out.

6) There's also a chance that Google will undo what's currently affecting sites, as it's almost guaranteed to be algorithmic in nature, and not penalties doled out by hand. There have been many times when Google rolls out a change to its algorithm and has subsequently backed up and undone it, reverting to the old algorithm when the changes resulted in too much hubbub or crap search results. Its highly unlikely that poker sites were targeted specifically, so other people in other niches will also likely soon start squawking, and if enough people squawk Google has been known to take heed and react accordingly in the past.

7) RIP Waffles' "bankroll".

No Tournament Birthday Love

2008-06-30T08:21:00.000-07:00

So yesterday was my birthday. Yay, me. Creeping ever closer to 35, which is halfway to 40. Jebus. How in the world did that happen?

Playing a $1,500 NL tournament at the Rio wasn't going to work schedule-wise, so I played the $540 deep stack tournament (sorry, Roman overlords, but I refuse to refer to it as a "megastack" tournament no matter what you say) yesterday at Caesar's instead. 50 minute levels and 15,000 starting stacks made for quite a bit of play. Which was good, because I needed every single bit of it to keep my head above water as long as I did.

I was pretty surprised at the quality of play, as I expected it to be similar to the Venetian deep stacks tourneys I played back in April (which had the inevitable dead money but all in all had pretty competent players) but no, not so much. We lost three or four players in the first few hours who called off all their chips with hands like K10 on a K high flop, 88 on a Q 10 4 flop, etc.

I managed to lose a good chunk of my stack in the second level (about 8K) when I flopped top set but couldn't chase out a guy with the nut flush draw, who got there on the river. For the next 8 hours or so, I was rocking a pretty short stack, usually between 5K and 15K, and teetering on the brink the whole damn time.

For most of that time the biggest hand I had to work with was 22, but I managed to steal and re-steal enough to stay on life support. Frustrating, though, as I needed a double up (or three) to have any breathing room and just couldn't get it, or even find a decent enough hand to make a stand with facing early action, as I was more than ready to lump it in with something like 89s, J10s to try to double or end my misery.

I did have sort of a funny hand at the 200/400 level, when I was sitting on about 7,200. It folded around to me in the CO and I had 6h8h, and the blinds were super-super tight older guys. I'd been folding for about an hour myself, so it was a pretty safe assumption that the blinds would get out of the way unless they had a really strong hand.

My only worry was the button, who was the stereotypical clueless poker fanboi, who didn't shut up from the moment he sat down and told some long-winded story about Phil Laak but kept insisting his nickname was "The Jackal", talked about his high level strategy plays such as running a "stop and start", and so on. He was kinda steaming after he got caught bluffing in a hand (after he was re-raised he tanked for a long time, but kept checking his watch while he was in the tank, and finally folded then told the table that the "punishment" for re-raising him was that he'd make you wait at least 3 minutes before he acted) and had been over-shoving a good bit.

My stack was kinda awkward-sized for shoving so I opened for 1,200, ready to turbo-muck if either of the super-tight old dudes woke up as I could still limp along with 6,000 and blinds of 200/400 and raising much more than 1,200 leaves me pretty committed. Button and SB folded but BB instantly perked up and shoved, and I dwelled a bit to look appropriately pained and mucked.

Standard enough, except Fanboi starts clapping and congratulating the old guy, saying something along the lines of "Man, great read. Soul read." And kept on chattering about it for five minutes or so, until I finally couldn't help myself and asked him why he thought it was a great read on the BB's part. Looking at me like I regularly ride the short bus, he says "Because he knew you were on air." Mmmkay, fair enough. Super read, sir. You indeed have your finger on the pulse of the table.

After about 8 hours of short stack misery, I finally doubled with JJ versus AK, then got donkfish lucky right before the dinner break, in the BB with A2s and it folded to the SB, who was short-stacked and had been talking for thirty minutes about doubling or going home so as not to have to prolong the misery through the dinner break. He shoves and while I have him covered, it's only by about 10K (and blinds are 1K/2K after the break). I hate calling with A2s there as I'm very likely to be ahead of his range in that spot but only marginally ahead at best. But fuck it, I called, and he actually had AKo, so I'm looking pretty stupid until a 2 flops and holds up.

Won another big pot after the break and finally, nearly 11 hours into play, I'm close to average stack again, with about 60K and average stack of 65K, with about 80 players left and top 45 spots paying. With blinds of 1,500/3,000 I'm in the BB and look down to find KK, which is the biggest hand I've had all day. Of course it folds around to the SB and I'm mentally muttering and swearing when he instantly says "All-in".

He's got about 80K in chips and has been fairly active but not too crazy, and seems to know what he's doing. I pause for a tiny bit trying to make sense of such a ridiculous overshove giving the blinds and our stacks, but hell, I think I need to stop playing poker if I ever fold kings there.

I call and he immediately says "Oh no," which pretty much rules out aces. He instead rolls over J9o, and I immediately get that sinking feeling of dread. J on the flop, 9 on the turn pretty much confirms sinking feeling of dread, and that's all she wrote.

Not really sure what to make of the end there, as it's one of those odd cases where none of it makes sense. He wasn't an idiot or short-stacked and blinds and antes weren't big enough to make such a move very worthwhile, as his normal raise of 3-4xBB would have done the trick if I had nothing. He decides to pull that move for the first time the one time I have a huge hand, on my birthday, after patiently scratching and clawing away all day to keep myself alive and finally picking up some chips (and poised to pick up a ton more), and it proceeds to work out perfectly for him.

So, err, thanks poker gods. I guess I could have gone on a mad coke and hookers binge if I'd gone on to cash big in the tournament, so maybe you really were looking out for me.

World's Worst Angle Shooter Ever

2008-06-29T07:22:00.000-07:00

I never thought I'd say this, but American Airlines actually managed to deliver me to Las Vegas yesterday without screwing up anything terribly. One connecting flight was 45 minutes late leaving the gate but that's pretty small potatoes based on my past experiences with the beast that is AA, so a grudging tip of the hat there.

Checking in at Mandalay Bay went off without a hitch, and I'm digging it so far. Other than being in BFE compared to my usually haunts (Caesar's/Venetian), it's pretty nice, and it's a welcome change to get out of the Bellagio, as backwards as that may sound. Much more eye candy to look at (well, that's not paid for eye candy) and it's nice to be able to grab a cheeseburger and fries in the sportsbook for less than $20, or a coffee and muffin for less than $15.

I got in too late to hit any of the noon tournaments yesterday so I ended up catching up on some PokerRoom work, then played some $1/2 NL at the Mandalay Bay poker room. After about five hours of play I finished down $20 or so, so yeah, not too eventful a session personally, as I won some smallish pots here and there but never really got involved in any big pots.

When I sat down, though, there was already all kinds of shit breaking loose, and it took bout ten seconds to realize why. Two to my right was a super drunk guy drinking Heinekens that was absolutely terrible but had apparently been running over the table, catching flushes, straights, you name it. He'd show his hand every single time, win or lose, would show every time he mucked at any point (even preflop), and exposed his hand two or three times when there was still live action at the table.

So on the down side, we were getting in about 4 hands an hour due to his shenanigans, but he was sitting on about $1,500 and doing everything he could to give it back. I sat down right as he was taking another big pot off the guy to my right, who was a muscley tatted up guy from Brooklyn who was decent but thought he was much better at poker than he really was (like that description doesn't apply to approximately ten million people). Tattoo Guy was pissed about losing the hand but also pissed that another player. Young Asian Kid, also came along for most of the action, as Tattoo Guy had wanted to isolate Drunk Guy.

Tattoo Guy keeps telling Young Asian Kid (who was pretty much the only player at the table who knew what the hell he was doing) "You stay out of my way, I stay out of yours. You take your turn, I'll take mine. We're after him. You understand what I mean? Hey, buddy, you know what I mean? You hear what I'm saying?" And Young Asian Kid keeps nodding at him and trying to shut him up, as he's indeed on that trolley. But Tattoo Guy keeps persisting, as he apparently won't stop asking until he gets a clear verbal declaration as such, until the dealer inevitably steps in and says "Guys, that sounds bad. Play however you want at the table but don't talk directly about stuff like that."

Tattoo Guy doesn't like this at all, especially coming from a female dealer, and he keeps insisting that he can say whatever he wants, as he's the customer, the dealer is there to deal, etc. Dealer calls the floor, the floor warns him, and about fifteen minutes later the inevitable explosion occurs.

Drunk Guy makes his usual open raise to $15 from MP, and Tattoo Guy bumps it up to $40. The BB cold calls (just sat down at the table and hadn't done much noteworthy but he semed kind of inexperiences just from his demeanor) and Drunk Guy calls.

Flop is As 7c 8s. BB checks, Drunk Guy checks, and Tattoo Guy bets out $100. BB check-raises all-in for about $150 more and Drunk Guy gleefully starts talking, saying "Oh man, I have to. I have to. I can't fold this hand." Then he momentarily forgets where he is and has to be reminded of the action so far. He's playing with mounds of dirty stacks and he finally just shoves a huge pile of red chips into the middle after the action is explained to him.

Tattoo Guy instantly says "Call", plain as day. He's sitting right beside me and isn't a quiet dude. So the dealer starts counting out Drunk Guy's dirty stack to see if it covers Tattoo Guy (who had about $300 behind after he led out for $100 on the flop). As she's doing that, Drunk Guy proudly tables Ks 2s and declares "Flush draw" . BB looks around slightly confused, as the dealer is still counting, then tables Ad 8c for top two pair. Tattoo Guy goes real quiet and then reluctantly turns over 10s 9s.

Drunk Guy's raise covered Tattoo Guy, so the dealer finishes counting it and tells Tattoo Guy that he needs to put at least one stack of chips across the betting line to signify that he called all-in. And he pauses for a beat, and you can just see the grimy wheels turning, and then he goes mock-ballistic and bellows "WHAT ARE YOU FUCKING TALKING ABOUT I NEVER SAID I CALLED!"

At first he tries to claim that he said "He called", that he was working the action through in his head and "accidentally said it out loud". (As in "Hmm, brain, what can they have? He check-raised, he called..."). The dealer is absolutely not buying it, but he adamantly swears she's a lying bitch. The floor is called, it's all explained, and half the table is vocally backing the dealer up, saying Tattoo Guy clearly said "Call". For whatever reason, Tattoo Guy singles me out, and says that I was sitting right next to him, what did I think he said?

Sigh. I said he definitely said "Call", not "He called?" or any variation of that. And he immediately responds, "Exactly. I said 'Call', with a question mark. 'Call?' I didn't know if he raised or called. I said 'Call?'" The very best part is that every time he said "Call?", he way overemphasized the rising inflection at the end, but unintentionally did it in a Scooby-Doo voice, which was pretty damn funny to hear, especially in rapid succession.

Floor rules it a call, Drunk Guy spikes a spade to scoop another big pot, and Tattoo Guy eventually gets a forced time-out as he won't stop bitching at the dealer after the hand is over. Drunk Guy unfortunately gets cut off at the bar and immediately racks up his +$2,000 in chips (boo), and no more fireworks for the rest of the night. Well, minus Tattoo Guy coming back from his time-out to buy back in, double up, and then donk off all his chips to Young Asian Kid when Tattoo Guy called a 5 bet shove preflop with just JJ and was of course up against AA, which held up to bust Tattoo Guy.

Moral of the story? Beware the $1/2 NL games at Mandalay Bay, as there are some pretty skilled angle shooters lying in wait for you, trying to take all of your mobneys.

Sigh.

T-Minus 4 Days

2008-06-24T08:03:00.000-07:00

Sweet jebus, time is passing quickly. I keep thinking in my head that while I'm flying out to Vegas on June 28th for the gig covering the 2008 WSOP for PokerRoom, that's still like a month off, so I have plenty of time to take care of assorted stuff before jetting off. Umm, yeah, not so much. Commence the mad scrambling to get tons of stuff done as I won't be back until July 16th.

Which is a long damn time. The wife is coming out July 1st-July 6th, so that'll be nice, but I'm already dreading being away from home that long. my birthday is June 29th, so it'll kind of suck to be away all by my lonesome for that. On the work side of things, I'm pretty excited, as it's much different than last year when I set sail and had absolutely no idea what to expect, and things are a lot more structured and planned out this year, much less intimidating, and all that good stuff.

Plus I'm looking forward to actually playing some poker, and with the sale (finally) of the last flip house I did, I actually have a bankroll to work with on this trip, as opposed to the last few trips where I was playing on a pretty short roll. I've flipped-flop a bit on whether to play some of the $1,500 donkaments or whether to instead hit more of the smaller Caesar's/Venetian deep stack events. I guess I'll just see what happens once I get out there. I'm going a bit early and should have a solid 3-4 days to splash around before the work portion of the trip kicks into high gear with the Main Event.

As far as the online pokers, I think I managed to burn myself out a bit. Results are still pretty decent, but I'm falling into the same pattern as last month, with very nice results for the first 20 days or so of the month and then a crash-and-burn day torpedoing things, followed by pressing too hard to get things rolling again, yada yada yada. I've been mixing in some $1/2 tables and some 6 max tables, trying to mitigate the monotonous grind of pretty ABC $100NL full ring play, but with mixed results so far. I'll probably shut down the online play soon
for the month, and with rakeback I'm liking at about a +$2,000 month. Which is nice, indeed, but I've been playing a ton, so the hourly rate is in the neighborhood of $15/hour. Which is kind of grindy, and points to me needing to work harder on my game, as I definitely should be showing a better profit than that.

I feel a bit wheel-spinny at the moment as the online bankroll is healthier than its been in many moons, and I could comfortably sit in $2/4 games. Until I can consistently beat the crap out of .50/$1 games, though, it seems pretty foolish to play any higher, especially given my propensity for blow-up days (and the resulting fallout) that I can't seem to completely work out of my monkey system.

It's nice to grind up the bankroll a bit, don't get me wrong, but in the end it all comes down to opportunity cost, as far as whether I could be making more money doing any number of other things, or, heaven forbid, doing something fun for the sole sake of having fun. Although the recent purchase of an Xbox360 and GTA4 and Guitar Hero have definitely helped out with that last quandry.

Find the Best PokerStars Marketing Code

2008-06-22T07:53:00.000-07:00

If you're looking for the Best PokerStars Marketing Code, an obvious place to start would be www.pokermarketingcode.org. The site offers exactly what it promises, which is a PokerStars Promo Code that gives new players the following:

* $50 bonus on your first deposit (100% match up to $50)

For Spanish speakers, check out Pokerstars Codigo.
Promo codes and marketing codes can be pretty helpful to new players as they learn the ropes, as the extra bonus money can definitely keep your head above water as you work on various aspects of your poker game.

Lots and Lots of Poker

2008-06-10T06:41:00.000-07:00

Congrats to all of the BBT winners below, courtesy of Al:

TuscaloosaJohn - Player of the Month for March - $2k WSoP Package
SirFWALGMan - Player of the Month for April - $2k WSoP Package
TuscaloosaJohn - Player of the Month for May - $2k WSoP Package
OMSitsPokerFool - Tournament of Champions - Main Event Seat Package
Loretta8 - Tournament of Champions - Main Event Seat Package
katiemother - Tournament of Champions - $2k WSoP Package
oossuuu754 - Tournament of Champions - $2k WSoP Package
lightning36 - BBT Freeroll - $2k WSoP Package

And a huge thanks to Al for not only being instrumental in putting all this together but keeping it lurching along, providing updated leaderboards, and all the other crippety crap that goes into such an endeavor.

Played a ton of poker of late, with nice steady gains on the cash side of things and some near misses on the tourney side. Made the final table of the BBT Freeroll but was short-stacked and shoved with pocket fours, only to run into aces. The uglier one was the weekly freeroll on Full Tilt for their Main Event Race promotion, which pays out $10,000 packages to the top 3 finishers. You can play your way in via the prelim freerolls or if you pick up 3,000 FTP points in a week you get a ticket that lets you enter the final directly. Not terrible odds, as the finals last week got about 450 entries, so it's not a complete crapshoot as far as trying to wade your way through a freeroll with 5000+ entries.

I hung around for the first few hours then went on a pretty big heater with about 100 people left and was top ten in chips. Lost a huge pot with AA vs. AKo (K K 4 flop, and a K on the river just to rub it in) that would have given me a big chip lead, then lost another huge pot with 1010 on a 10 J 5 flop, when someone with 87o decided that was a great spot to call off all their chips.

But I managed to double up with a pretty steamy shove with 55, then chipped back up and was average stack with 17 players left, and still very much in the thick of things. Until I decided that I could shove someone off a flop of Qc 8c 8h when they led out weakly into a decent pot, coming over the top with my pocket sixes. Not goot timing at all for a move like that when someone is holding pocket queens. Not goot at all.

Pretty bad and annoying, for all the obvious reasons. Just didn't need to do that, by any stretch of the imagination, especially when sitting in decent shape with a 1 in 6 shot at a Main Event seat.

Still plugging away at the $100NL grind, which continues to be pretty profitable if not insanely exciting. I'm still struggling a bit with stacking off with overpairs (which I guess anyone at any level can likely say with 100% accuracy) but have slowly been beating the lesson into my head that at the lower levels, more often than not people are representing exactly what they have.

Yeah, sure, I can talk myself into a shove with KK on a 10s 8s 5h flop when my continuation bet is met with a pot committing re-raise from an oppponent who just smooth called pre-flop, but more often than not villain has a set. Sure, he could be on a flush draw, sure he could have jacks or queens, sure, he could be an aggro push monkey and have AK, but more often than not he's got exactly what he's representing, which is a set.

Very elementary, I know, but it's part of the larger reason why I'm still grinding away at $100NL, which is trying to be more patient at the tables. Strip away everything else and the real reason that more people aren't winning players is simply the lack of patience more than the ability to calculate implied odds or reading hands. Grinding out a ton of hands is reinforcing that, as my losing sessions are almost always when I'm my own worst enemy, losing a few buy-ins early to coolers or draws that don't get there and then pressing too hard trying to get it back, pushing thin edges (or non-existent edges) trying to get unstuck. I haven't quite yet beaten all of that out of my system, thus the continued toiling at $100NL.

Other than poker, not a whole heck of a lot going on. We closed on the last flip house I bought on May 30th, but are waiting for the state of Texas to get off its ass as far as officially wrapping it up, as they keep delaying paying the title company the relocation money owed to the buyers of the house, whose old property was seized by the state to build a toll road. Very frustrating as the state keeps promising that the money will show up tomorrow at noon, tomorrow comes, no money, they swear it'll be there the next day, no money, yada yada yada. Not really concerned about the money showing up, sometime, as it's virtually guaranteed, but the delays are pretty damn annoying as I'm so ready to be completely done with that project and get my hands back on all the money invested in it plus the extra greedy monkey profits.

You Picked the Wrong Time for That, Slick...

2008-06-05T11:55:00.000-07:00

Pauly's latest post mentioning Eskimo Clark and Terrence Chan's Event #5 tale of asshatery at the tables jogged a few of my remaining brain cells as far as stuff I meant to blog about from my last trip out to Vegas for the WPT Championships but never got around to.

Those are obviously different tales with their own lessons, but both revolve around the ability of poker to bring out the absolute worst in people. Great game, love it tons, but man, hang around a tournament room or cash game tables for a few days and it's hard to not leave a slight bit saddened at the behavior of your fellow primates at the tables, whether it be from angles shot, general douchebaggery, or the general toll the gambling jones takes on many folks.

My last foray to Vegas was no exception, but it was sort of funny for once to see people immediately get back some of the negative mojo they were shooting out into the cosmos. I always like to believe that shiity behavior comes back to perpetrators in spades, and maybe it does in the long run, but you usually don't get to witness it quite so directly.

Karma is a Bitch: Exhibit A

Deep stack tournament at the Venetian, probably 5 or 6 hours in. Two younger WPT fanboi guys got moved to my table to the 7 and 8 seats (I was right next to them in the 9 seat), and I'm 95% sure they already knew one another, or else had played at the same table for awhile as they were talking as they came over and continued to quietly talk after they sat down.

It was a little annoying as they were discussing their takes on what people were holding as the hand was live, but they were doing it pretty quietly. Sitting next to them, I could hear them, as could the 6 seat, but I doubt anyone else at the table could actually hear what they were saying. Stuff like "There's no way he's got an A, he'd have raised pre-flop", "He's full of shit," etc. Kind of out of line but they were trying to impress one another with their mad hand reading skillz more than anything else.

So that went on for maybe 15 minutes or so before an older guy at the table finally piped up and complained, something along the lines of "You guys have been talking since you sat down, cut that shit out" and a couple of people at the other end of the table voiced their agreement. And of course the two culprits fall all over themselves reassuring him that they weren't even talking about poker or hands, they were talking about the NBA playoff game, yada yada yada, bullshit bullshit bullshit.

One of the fanbois, though, obviously didn't appreciate the old dude calling him out. It didn't help that the old dude was on a monster heater and had been hitting everything and building up a huge stack. The next hand was disgruntled fanboi's big blind, and the old guy raised it up from early position for what seemed like the 2 millionth time in the last few orbits. Disgruntled fanboi mutters "Watch me run a stop and go on his fucking ass" as the old guy is putting his raise out there.

Everyone folds, disgruntled fanboi calls, and the flop comes K K 8. Disgruntled fanboi insta-shoves, overbetting the pot by about 5x. The old guy sits there for a few seconds, bemused, and finally says "You picked the wrong time for that, slick. I call" and tabled KK for quads.

Karma is a Bitch: Exhibit B

We were close to a break at a $300 tournament at Caesar's and my table had just broken. Backing up a bit, we were five or six hours into the tournament and getting reasonably close to the money bubble, which was an hour or two away. I'd had a pretty big stack the whole way but just lose to monster pots with AA versus A7s and QQ versus 1010, so I was about average stack and a little bit pissed.

An hour or so earlier there'd been a big brouhaha at the table behind us. I have no idea what really went down, but a guy made a huge scene, yelling and screaming and berating the dealer. He claimed that because the dealer screwed up a dead blind situation, he'd paid a blind twice, that it happened when he was in the bathroom but he'd counted his chips and knew exactly what he had, and that he'd wrongly paid a blind twice.

Again, I have no idea what happened as it wasn't my table, and from the way the floor and dealer were reacting, I think he was actually probably right, as they were apologetic but basically telling him it wasn't fixable at that point, as he was away from the table when it went down and too much action had occured, as it was a few hands later when he returned and freaked out. Assuming he was right, yeah, he has a legitimate beef, but he was way over the top, and was absolutely unloading on the dealer, saying she should be fired for that, she was incompetent, she didn't deserve to be allowed to breathe, etc. He also wasn't desperately short-stacked nor were the blinds that huge, so whatever happened didn't substantially alter his chances. Plus he was the one who decided to take a stroll and blind off anyway.

So he finally shut up after about 15 more minutes of grousing and everything went smoothly after that for an hour or so. My table breaks, I get my new seat card, rack up my chips, and stand up and check my cell phone. I'd swapped 25% with a friend and he'd texted me a few times to see where I was at, as he'd busted early and taken off.

I'm reading his texts and all of a sudden someone is standing next to me, way too close, and they snatch the seat card out of my hand. I look up and it's Freakout Guy, who's now yelling at the dealer to call for the floor, and that I'm intentionally stalling to try to avoid playing my big blind. Then he walks my seat card about ten feet to the new table, smacks it down at my spot, and he swaggers back to his chair.

I was honestly more perplexed than anything, as literally ten seconds had elapsed from me racking up to checking my cell phone, and a few other people at my old table still hadn't even racked up yet. The dealer is just waiting, looking at me with a weary expression on her face, and I'm like "I'm just checking my phone" and she says "I know." So I sit down, pay my blind, and everyone else is shaking their heads and chuckling.

Freakout Dude is sitting three to my left and giving me the stink eye for the next few hands. The floor announces that its the last hand before a break, and Freakout Dude is in the BB. Folds around to me and I have 88. I briefly considered just folding and taking a stroll during the break, as I was a bit below average stack now and still a bit steamy from the two big pots I'd lost plus Freakout Dude's behavior.

But folding seemed way too weak so I bumped it up 4x BB, and it folded around to Freakout Dude, and of course he insta-shoved. To be honest, his shove really was too much for me to call, as it was more than half my stack to call and I'd only been at the table for a few hands and had no real idea what his range was. If I called and lost I'd be rocking a pretty short stack. It was really close, as far as calling, but not quite there.

In the end, though, the "Screw it, I call" line of thinking won out. And I have to admit that part of me was thinking, "Come on poker karma, I can't pretend that I entirely believe in your existence but, you know, one time." So I finally called and was fairly happy to see him turn over AJs. Not so happy when a J was the door card on the flop, but it came with a 9 and a 10, so I was open-ended and hit my straight on the turn when a 7 peeled off.

Which obviously didn't please Freakout Dude much, but he surprisingly packed his stuff up and left quickly without too many words. I guess it would have been a funnier story if I'd picked up a huge hand in the big blind to bust him when he ensured that I was there for a big blind, but I'll take any sort of poker karma that I can get.

Holdem Manager 1, PokerTracker3 0

2008-06-04T08:16:00.000-07:00

It pains me to say it, but I finally had to give up on PokerTracker 3. Take what follows with a grain of salt, as many people love PT3 and have had no issues whatsoever, but I had serious problems with it from Day 1, and finally jumped ship to Holdem Manager when there seemed to be no real resolution on the horizon.

Just my two cents, but PT3 felt like it was released far too early, as the forums show many folks experiencing the same issues that I did, which were the HUD flat out not working and eating resources to the point that my entire system would essentially freeze up. You're going to have some minor bugs and tweaks with any major new release but that's a pretty fundamental issue, and it's one that impacted many people playing on a variety of systems on a variety of sites. When a beta/patch was finally released to address assorted issues, it actually created more problems for me than it solved, as the HUD was still not functioning correctly and the entire PT3 program started randomly crashing every 12-20 minutes.

I was a big fan of PT2 and loved the support and quick action on any issues that cropped up, but that definitely wasn't my experience with my PT3 issues. Two of my support tickets have been unanswered for weeks and they're still actively selling licenses for a product that is non-functional for some users. I'm completely guessing here, (and too lazy to do any investigative legwork) but it feels like someone bought the original product from the creator at some point in the recent past and is a bit over their heads in general, releasing it too early and unable to quickly address some of the major issues cropping up.

But, like I said, your mileage may very. Lots of folks are tickled with PT3 and it's working flawlessly for them. I unfortunately wasn't one of them. If you're on the fence, it might be better to wait a few months before moving over to PT3, as I imagine they'll get many of the kinks eventually worked out that some users are currently experiencing with the product as it now stands.

As far as Holdem Manager, I'm more than pleased so far. It's not as slick and finished looking as PT3 but I've had no performance issues at all, it's got tons of stats and filters, graphing functions, integrated HUD, all that good stuff. Not the prettiest or slickest software but so far it's fast and it flat out works, which is all I'm really looking for.

Downswongs, the WSOP, and Yard Sales, Oh My!

2008-06-03T11:11:00.000-07:00

The wife and I are in the thick of Operation De-Clutter and Downsize and had a big yard sale this last Saturday. Aside from raking in nearly $300 for a bunch of useless crap, there was the added fun of being reminded just how bat-shit crazy many people are. I need to find a way to invisibly view such things, hiding in some sort of camouflaged, air-conditioned duck blind, so that I get to enjoy all the crazy but never have to, you know, actually speak to anyone.

Overweight lady reeking of displeasure with the world: How much do you want for this vacuum cleaner?

Me: Three dollars.

OLRoDwtW: Does it work?

Me: I have no clue. Probably not. It hasn't been used in years. That's why it's three dollars.

OLRoDwtW: Will you take two dollars for it?

Me: Sold.

(OLRoDwtW returns 20 minutes later, full of rage, dragging the vacuum cleaner behind her like an orphan waif who had just unleashed a foul load into their Huggies.)

OLRoDwtW: This doesn't work.

Me: Huh.

OLRoDwtW: I want my two dollars back.

(Hands her two dollars)

OLRoDwtW: I can't believe you'd sell someone a vacuum cleaner that doesn't work.

Me: ...

I also particularly enjoyed the people who'd eyeball stuff on the free table, consider it from all angles, and then ask how much I wanted for it. When told it was free they'd immediately drop it as if it was literally crawling with monkey pox, jumping away and giving me the stink eye for obviously trying to shoot some angle by unloading free crap on them.

Finished the month of May with a little over $3,200 in profit + rakeback from my adventure into $100NL full ring poker. Observant readers will notice that not only is that number well shy of my goal of $5K but a good bit below where I was at last report. Yes, indeedy...

I was just about to post on how I'd managed to avoid any major downswings or monkey tilt episodes for the month, when BOOM, downswong. I managed to drop about $1,300 over two days when very, very little went right. Like most kicks to the bankroll junk, it started with a string of coolers, draws that didn't get there, and similar somewhat unavoidable things, then got pushed into Wafflesian territory when the truly riduclous started piling on.

You'd think holding As 8s on a flop of Ks 4s 10s would be a good thing, especially when the idiot monkey at your table came over the top of your standard $5 continuation bet and shoved his entire $200 stack into the middle, holding just 3d 3h (really, I swear). And it normally would be a good thing, except when the turn is the 10d and the river the 10c to give him a boat.

Or flopping a set of 10s on a 10 8 4 rainbow flop, and leading out with your monster only to have a similar monkey shove his entire stack into the middle with J2o, only to catch a 9 on the turn and a Q on the river for a straight.

Don't get me wrong, though, I played like ass at that point and brought most of the losses on myself. Suddenly unable to lay down big overpairs to squeaky tight players that obviously have a huge hand, calling off entire stacks with just naked ace flush draws, and similar feats of donkery.

Which was pretty ironic timing, as I was about to post about how playing a much higher volume of hands was helping to reduce any tilt or stupid play on my part when I was running slightly bad. If you're only playing 3,000 or 4,000 hands a month, it's very possible that you can run epicly bad and lose every time you sit down to play, junk kicked repeatedly, through no fault of your own.

When you get in 50,000 hands a month, a lot of the variance gets smoothed out, and it's much easier to stay focused and avoid dumb plays, as even when you drop 3 or 4 buy-ins to start off a session it's just a drop in the bucket and you know you can grind it back as long as you get the hands in at the tables.

Easy to say, hard to accomplish, which I found out there at the tail end of the month. Pretty disappointing, all in all, but I did get my head back on straight and June is starting out well. If you'd have told me I'd take down around $3,200 for the month when I started the experiment I'd have been very happy with that, so I can't gripe too much. Chalk it up to a lesson learned and try to avoid it next time. (And yes, I already knew the lesson; the only "new" info is that I'm still unable at times to follow my own advice as far as not chasing losses, not playing pissed off, yada yada yada.)

The early WSOP reporting has definitely got me jonesing to be about their, as it sounds like Caesar's is running a pretty tight ship this year. I'm flying out June 28th to meet up with some of the PokerRoom staff before their players descend, so I should have a few days to gamble it up before getting to the grind of covering the Main Event for the PokerRoom blog.

Getting a press pass has been an absolute nightmare this year, as the firm Caesar's hired to handle the media application/approval process seem intent on making the process as painful and difficult as possible. I've bitched about this before but the attitude of nearly all the poker-powers-that-be to the media has to be one of the sickest ironies of the sports/entertainment world, as never have I seen any organization(s) consistently make it so hard for them to be given free, valuable publicity, time and time again.

Flying back on July 16th, so I imagine I'll be more than sick of Vegas by then, but for the moment I'm really looking forward to it. I'll likely be somewhat busier this year as PokerRoom is sending a ton more players this time, but they're also sending more bloggers to spread the workload around, so hopefully it'll be a wash. One cool part about my gig with them is that I do end up hanging out with players on all the trips throughout the year, and a lot of those players have managed to qualify for the WSOP, so it'll be cool to see them again at the Main Event.

I Can Has $5K Month (With Rakeback) Playing $100NL?

2008-05-26T12:30:00.000-07:00

I'm a bit close to overdosing on teh poker after taking advantage of the long weekend to grind out a ridiculous number of hands in a mad push to get to 50K hands, so I thought I'd shut it down for a bit, as I'm just a bit over 45K hands at the moment and pretty happy with where things are at.

Here are the stats so far from my binge of playing $100NL this month, 4-6 tabling (more heavily with the 6 tabling from hands 20K-40K), which honestly are pretty surprising to me in all sorts of ways:

Total hands: 45,610
Amount won: $3,972
Rakeback: $713
PTBB/100: 4.36
$/hr.: $25.57

I've played full ring tables the whole month, with stats of 15/11/2.5 as far as VPIP/PFR/AF.

I've run slightly on the good side, but not crazily so, and PokerEV was pretty much a wash (when I was still using PT2, as I can't get it to work with PT3.)

Stepping back a bit and poking around on some random threads on 2+2, the interesting thing (to me at least) is that there's not much remarkable in the above numbers. If you're willing to park your ass in a chair and can grind out hands playing pretty straightforward ABC poker, you can make pretty decent money.

Hmm. Interesting.

Obviously this is something I knew, but I think I underestimated just how straightforward you could play at small stakes NL games and still make a decent amount of money. I definitely trend towards the nittier side, as evidenced in the above stats, and I'll sometimes put in 2,000-3,000 hands in a day and never attempt a single three barrel bluff, and can usually count the total number of two barrel bluffs without using my toes.

Despite that (or maybe because of it), it's proving fairly easy to extract a sum of money from the games that makes me pretty happy when everything is said and done. With close to zero stress, too, as the sums involved are more than manageable at the $100NL level.

Lest I sound like everything has been rosy and a steady upward graph, there were some pretty ugly chunks in that 45,000 hand sample. I had a break-even stretch of about 8K hands (down 7 buy-ins in about 2K hands to start off that stretch), and also managed to lose 5 buy-ins in 5 minutes at one point.

It's not exactly exciting poker at the $100NL level, and I can already find myself slipping into a pretty predictable default mode of play that'd get eaten alive at $400NL and upward, but money is money is money. The weird thing is that I'm still fairly jazzed about playing and grinding out hands, as I've been able to keep my head in the place where I can equate x number of hands with y profit, so it's just a matter of getting in the hands, making more correct clicks with the mouse than incorrect clicks, and letting the results follow.

So yeah, long story short, yay poker so far in this grinding out many hands experiment. Not really sure what the plan is after the 50K mark, as I'd honestly be fairly happy for now if I could churn out similar results on a regular basis at $100NL, as far as $4K-$5K months. The tentative plan is to put in another 50K or so hands and try stepping up the tables to 8-10 at a time, then bumping up to $200NL. Based on some of the 2+2 SSNL regular threads, there are more than a few people making very nice livings from just grinding 10-12 tables of $200NL, and I can think of many worse ways to make filthy lucre.

Planning on getting some more posts up shortly as far as adjustments I've made this time around and some other more nuts and bolts things.

Dirty Sanchez Tacos: More Than Just Lip Service

2008-05-25T15:37:00.000-07:00

While you're enjoying Memorial Day Eve, here's a little reminder of exactly the sorts of freedoms that are worth fighting for, such as your Jebus-given right to start your very own taco truck business:

That's 100% real, with said truck sitting in parking lot at a storage facility here in Austin where a friend snapped that pic with his cell phone. For realz.

PokerTracker 3 and Recommended NL Reading

2008-05-21T09:52:00.000-07:00

First, a request, and then my thoughts on PokerTracker 3, which I've had up and running for a few days.

(Two posts in one day! Both about poker! Brimstone falling from the sky!)

I've been way, way out of the loop as far as keeping up on poker books of late, especially the rash of books focusing on NL cash games. I know there's a bunch of them out there now and various opinions as to the relative worth. If people could chime in with their thoughts on what to buy and what to avoid, I'd greatly appreciate it.

As far as PT3, I'm kind of surprised to find myself reporting that after 4 days or so of running it, I'm a little disappointed. I've never used Hold'em Manager so I can't compare and contrast the two, but PT3 has been a bit of a letdown.

On the bright side, you get more data points to work with, including 3 betting/4 betting stats and some more very usueful statistics that you can include in your HUD. The PokerAce HUD is now built into PT3, which is definitely an improvement and removes one layer of complexity as far as getting real-time HUD data when you play.

PT3 also has some nice new bells and whistles such as the ability to graph your results, more easily track results on various sites, and (to my eyes at least) an overall look that is much cleaner, easier to use, and sophisticated looking. It looks more like a professional software application and less like a cool utilitarian tool some poker player came up with to help them make more money at the tables.

My biggest issue is that it seems to eat a ton of resources when I'm trying to play 4-6 tables with the HUD on, to the point of everything freezing and causing me to time out occasionally (usually when I try to add a fourth, fifth, or sixth table). Based on assorted topics in the support forum, this seems to be a common issue, as there are many HUD related bugs and issues still unresolved at the moment. Which would make sense, as this is the first release that tries to integrate the two into one product, but so far its been painful to the point of frustration for me, leaving me longing at times for the days of yore when each product ran smoothly enough on its own.

On a related note, I'm running into the same resource issue when I'm datamining tables and auto-importing observed hands. Since I'm not playing there are no playability issues, but datamining 16 FT tables renders my computer otherwise useless as far as the resources that are gobbled (and we're talking a dekstop that's about 1 year old and not a complete PC dinosaur), something that never happened to me with PT2, when I could datamine to my heart's content and still work normally on my desktop as far as using other various applications. Not so much with PT3, even after turning off the HUD and fiddling with assorted settings that I can find. Datamining observed hands is still possible and works fine, I just can't do anything else on my desktop while datamining.

Not huge issues, really, as far as my gripes, and hopefully something that can be cleaned up in future releases. My overall feeling of slight disappointment is also likely a bit due to the levels I'm playing, as I can definitely see how the addition of some of the stats (especially 3 and 4 bet percentages, 3 and 4 bet call percentages, etc.) could be very, very valuable, to the point that you could overlook other issues. At the stakes I'm playing the additional stats just aren't that useful or indicative of much, but for higher stakes those could be huge.

What a Long Strange Trip It's Been...

2008-05-20T07:33:00.000-07:00

It's a little bit disturbing that grinding out a ginormous number of hands at .50/1 NL has somehow gotten me excited about poker again but hey, there you go...

The human mind is an interesting thing. Especially in regards to its ability to complete all sorts of mental gymnastics and hocus pocus to convince you something is true despite all evidence to the contrary. And you believe it, because its your brain, and cause and effect get lost in a jumbled tangle until all you've got is this thing you believe is true, because you told yourself it was true enough times.

Playing poker of late definitely takes me back to the days of yore (or, you know, late 2004) when I was very much afflicted by the poker bug, wide-eyed and eager to come home after work every day and fire up a bunch of micro-limit LHE tables. Exciting, heady times, trying to build up my wee little bankroll, reading any and everything I could get my hands on, reading poker blogs and forums, you name it. Very excited about poker. Very focused. Very much enamored by the idea that I'd happened upon a readily exploitable system that could produce steady, increasing profits.

If you haven't guessed it by now, money is a good motivator for me. I could lie and say its not the chief motivator in my life, but, well, you know... The lure of money plus a competitive nature (and a genuine love of playing cards) made poker pretty much the perfect receptacle to pour all sorts of energy and thought into. I was definitely playing with an eye on net profits but much of the enjoyment came from exploiting the system, learning the steps necessary to slowly and steadily grind down the opposition and, in the long run, beat the hell out of their ass and bankroll. That's what really got me off, in the end, more than the dollar signs.

I worked my way up through the limits, played lots of poker, made money, and all was seemingly well. Eventually I was playing 15/30 and 20/40 full ring LHE on Party (insert obligatory wistful teary eye), booking fairly steady profits but not really crushing the games. I had plenty of cash floating around online due to affiliate cash I was raking in so there was really no finacial pressure on me to improve poker-wise. There also was a ton of fishy dead money up for grabs back in the day that inflated my results and others, taking players who'd probably be marginally profitable/break even these days and turning them into pretty decent winners back in the days of yore.

Long story short, I got fat and lazy, poker-wise. I started taking stupid shots, playing 50/100 and 10/20 NL, largely as a defense mechanism to the games getting tougher and to compensate for my own laziness. I started propping, playing 6 max games because that's where the cool kids were making all the money, jumping into big buy-in MTTs looking for big scores, chasing anything that seemed to offer a potential big payoff. I stopped grinding and trying to improve because, well, that's not much fun, and let my brain convince me that I didn't want to be that guy who was obsessed with poker, that I'd already put in my time and had to have the tools necessary to play profitably.

Since I wasn't enjoying the game as much, there must be a reason (and surely that reason must be un-related to me) so hey, let's find some reasons. Plenty of mouth-breathers are steadily crushing the online games for huge profits when I'm treading water, so there's got to be a reason. Being married with assorted financial obligations is what's holding me back. That's the ticket. Having a life and being a well-rounded, active primate is holding me back from obsessively trying to improve. Yup. Poker is just a hobby for me, so who cares, have fun. Exactly.

So for quite awhile (years, even), I managed to not only trick myself into not connecting the dots, but blinded myself to the dots themselves. What I really enjoyed about poker wasn't so much the desired net result (more mobneys in my bankroll) but the process itself, when you're working hard and grinding out profits. Using my smarts (limited as they may be at times) to consistently profit from the mistakes of others, over and over and over. And it's taken some serious grinding at the .50/1 tables to remind me of all that, of what I really enjoyed, as silly as that sounds.

I'm actually enjoying working my way through Cardrunners videos, to the point that I almost hesitate to play, even at .50/1, as I feel like I learn something each day/week that adds an incremental amount of +EV to my chips. I actually enjoy datamining the hell out of the tables, enjoy being able to sit down with a wealth of stats and information made possible by tricknology and my willingness/ability to incorporate it into my play. I love the fact that poker allows you to both vicariously and directly enjoy idiots acting like idiots, right in front of you, time after time after time, if you have the right tools and skills to recognize it.

I can't say stakes are unimportant, as I'm not sure I could muster the same enthusiasm at the .02/.04 tables, but I've been surprised at my patience so far. I want to get 50,000 hands in at .50/1 and see where I'm at, and I've got about 15,000 more to go. My bankroll was fairly healthy before I began this whole project, plus I had some decent scores the last week in FTOPS satellites (all of which I unregistered from and took the cash), so I could sit $2/4 if you subscribe to the old timey notion that 20 buy-ins are a sufficent roll, but for once in my poker life I'm not feeling the pressure to push the envelope.

Beating up on players at the .50/1 tables isn't exactly something to brag about, and I'm the first to admit that, so it's with more than a little hesitation that I hit the "Publish Post" button on this. The ego cringes a bit to babble endlessly about the joy of getting home and cranking up some .50/1 tables, but that's exactly where I find myself these days, for better or for worse. An odd place, granted, and a pretty strange circular journey, but not the worst place to be all things considered.

Gentlemen, We Can Rebuild Him...

2008-05-14T12:05:00.000-07:00

Who's put in about 20,000 hands over the last 2-3 weeks at the .50/$1 NL full ring tables? Why, umm, that'd be me.

It surprises me too. As far as the explanation for such insanity, well, I'm not sure there's a big honking direct one, but more an accumulation of lots of many smaller indirect ones.

I guess more than anything I just got weary of playing less-than-good poker. Lazy poker. Not bad poker necessarily but just poker in which I took no part of the process all that seriously, as far as the results, the effort I put into it, expectations, etc. Which honestly isn't a bad way to approach the game, if you're content with that, as it makes it a hell of a lot more enjoyable and less time-consuming.

But in the end I couldn't help but be a little disgusted with myself, especially given my competitive and stubborn side. Trips to cover assorted WPT tournaments also helped on the motivation side, as far as occasionally running into not-the-finest-specimens of either intelligence or general humanity who are able to consistently pull large sums of money out of the game of poker. I just felt more and more embarrassed as time went by that I'd not only stalled out poker-wise but laid down, taken a nap, stumbled back a few steps, took another nap, considered waking up, but decided to sleep some more.

So I signed up with Cardrunners a month or two ago and dusted off PokerTracker/PokerAce, and basically just tried to start fresh, seeing how many hands I can comfortably grind out, trying to unbreak myself of past bad habits, learn better new ones, all that happy fun crippety-crap.

Grinding .50/$1 was kind of hard at first as far as getting motivated about the stakes, but that's the old thinking rearing its ugly head, and if anything I should probably have stepped down another level while retooling things a bit and absorbing as much info as my tired old poker brain can handle. I've honestly been a bit surprised by the results even at .50/$1 NL, as I'm averaging $20-$25/hr (including rakeback) running 4-6 tables at a time, which isn't bad for those stakes.

No real goals in mind, as far as plans to crush X limit for Y big bets before moving up to Z limits, etc. Just trying to get back to not playing like a impatient monkey and hopefully making a little bit o' scratch at the tables. So far so good but we'll see if it takes or not.

What I Would Do If I Owned a Company Called Harrah's/Caesar's and Wanted to Make Cash Off of Poker

2008-05-12T09:17:00.000-07:00

So again, to recap my previous take(s) on Harrah's/Caesar's changes this year to the WSOP Main Event final table: boo.

With that out of the way, I definitely agree that changes were necessary, so I'm not coming from a belief that the WSOP is sacrosanct and that no sacred cows shall be touched. Last year I got the chance to kick around at five different WPT/WSOP events, from beginning to end, rubbing elbows with players, reporters, spectators, media, and tournament staff, and there were more than a few face-palm moments, where I could only shake my head at the future prospects of poker here in the US.

Tournament poker in the US is most definitely not headed in the right direction, as far as even maintaining the current level of popularity of poker, much less to spur growth to turn it into a spectator sport like NASCAR or horseracing or even, gasp, bowling. And, sadly, the problems are fundamental and running pretty deep, to the point that slapping a band-aid on it by trying to increase the hype surrounding the Main Event final table (which is all Harrah's format change is, even in a best case scenario) is pretty pointless.

The UIGEA restrictions are of course a huge handicap to poker's future (and Harrah's potential to profit from it) but that's outside Harrah's control (well, sort of, if you ignore the whole lobbying aspect), so I'm basically going to ignore that and try to focus on issues that Harrah's faces directly regarding poker that they can directly control.

Once cool thing about my gig with PokerRoom is that I get to hang out with the qualifiers they send to WPT and WSOP tournaments, as my job is more to chronicle the trip and market the experience as opposed to spending my time writing about the same hands and the same pros that other media outlets are doing. Most of the PokerRoom players are playing in their first major live event, so I get to see it through a unique lens, as well as getitng the chance to hear their thoughts on things, what their friends/family/spouses think about the whole thing, etc.

Over and over and over again (and then again, some more) I hear the same thing, which basically amounts to the following statement: "I'm amazed at how un-spectator friendly the entire tournament is." People are amazed that there's now way to see chip counts, no way to identify players and what table they're at, and no way at many tournaments for spectators to even enter the same room that the tournament is being held in. They're usually a little baffled that poker is as popular as it is in the US, as its not like any other sporting event they've ever been to, as far as how difficult it is on spectators and fans to follow the action.

To be fair, the above isn't the fault of Harrah's or the WPT. There's not a dedicated poker room existing in the world right now that can comfortably accommodate tournament fields in excess of 500 players (much less gargantuan WSOP fields), so casinos inevitably have to shoehorn big live tournaments wherever they can, whether that be in generic conference rooms/ballrooms, a mix of the Fontana Room/poker room at the Bellagio, etc. In some cases that space allows for spectators, who are able to watch tables closet to the ropes, but in other cases it doesn't, if the layout of the room prevents it.

Since the spaces used are typically generic and multi-function spaces, there's no infrastructure in place to improve the experience at all for spectators, such as monitors or display screens of any sort to show a camera feed of tables, display chip counts, etc. Likewise, these spaces don't allow for multiple camera feeds of different tables, audio feeds from the tables, or any sort of multimedia experience. They're just big empty spaces that are used for trade shows and conferences or are bars/restaurants that just moonlight as a poker tournament room.

With that in mind, are there solutions to those problems that would make live poker tournaments much more spectator friendly? Well, sure. Chip counts are easy as far as using RFID technology, and slapping up monitors is simple enough to display both chip counts and live camera feeds of multiple tables. Audio feeds are simple enough as well, as far as being able to hear table chatter. Piping all of that to a comfortable location where spectators can enjoy it is, again, pretty trivial. Think sportsbook, but just for poker, with the ability to tune into the table of your choice, kick back, relax, drink a beer, and watch the action. Allowing spectators access to every table in a physical sense is a logistical nightmare but I don't think that's what spectators are really after. Yes, it's really cool to stand a few feet behind Doyle and watch him play, live, in the flesh. But after 15 minutes of that, well, been there, done that, and I think most people would gladly trade standing there for sitting back in a comfortable chair with the ability to watch the action of any table in the tournament.

Yes, it'd just be a live feed without hole cards. Yes, that kind of sucks. But it wouldn't suck that much, and to a random person who walked into that room who'd played poker in college but had never watched a WPT/WSOP broadcast, they'd think it was pretty damn cool.

The above issues are pretty obvious ones to anyone that attends a WPT/WSOP event. Just as the root causes are, as well as the solutions. And again, to be clear, I'm really not blaming most of the casinos for the situation, as they do the best they can given the circumstances. If you host a big live tournament once or twice a year, you make do as best you can to find space for it. It doesn't make any sense for a casino like Fallsview in Niagara Falls to roll out some fancy-dancy set-up such as outlined above if they only host one WPT event a year. It'd make more sense at a place like Bellagio, given the number of tournaments they run each year, but that's a hard, hard sell, given comparatively how little money they make from poker as opposed to a bank of slot machines in the same physical space. Casinos just aren't going to sacrifice the necessary space for such an undertaking when they have more profitable ways of using that real estate.

So is my argument torpedoed then and there, as far as focusing efforts on making live tournament poker more spectator friendly, and focusing on that as far as encouraging future growth instead of random changes to the Main Event final table format? Cool idea but no practical way to implement it? I don't think so, as there's another option. While it's a pretty radical proposal, I think tournament poker would greatly benefit from getting out of the casinos altogether.

I hate to hold up the ill-fated PokerDome as an example of what I'm suggesting, but it's not far off (minus the cheesiness). I'm too lazy to do the math but the majority of big live events are held in Las Vegas, and the trend seems to be heading more and more in that direction. So you're basically talking about creating a space (whether built from the ground up or reconfiguring an existing space somewhere) that's built with poker in mind, and is capable of holding a major live poker event (up to the size of the Main Event) but still provides a comfortable experience for both spectators and players. You'd need raised arena seating where spectators can watch a live featured table, as well as a sportsbook-style lounge where feeds are available for all of the action, free WiFi for poker junkies with laptops, etc. You'd also need the physical space to accomodate a field of 2,000 players, so space for 200 tables, and cameras and mics in place to cover each and every table. You'd need restrooms, food and drink facilities, gaming licenses, and likely nine thousands other things I'm forgetting.

Tall order, indeed. But not impossibly tall, especially considering the resources a company like Harrah's possesses. As far as spectators, you're probably talking about max capacity of at most 2,000-3,000 spectators, as you're simply never going to draw a huge crowd of 50,000+ people to come watch a live poker event. That means you're not talking an impossible large/expensive arena that needs to be created for spectators, or an overall ginormous space, even when you factor in space for the tournament tables. We're used to thinking of it in terms of the cavernous Amazon room packed to the gills with a full starting day field during the Main Event, but there's no reason all the tables have to be in a single big honking room. It's an awe-inspiring sight, true, but you could easily go vertical, and have four or five floors, each with 40-50 tables. That space could be entirely behind the magic curtain and not physically accessed by spectators, with easy access for players to bathrooms and smoking lounges on each level, drink service, monitors with sports of all sorts for the degenerate action junkies, a craps table for TJ, etc.

Another plus is that with a dedicated space it'd be much easier to market poker to the random person that wanders in, ranging from the cheesy sort of thing as far as final table of wax poker legends that you can st with and have your picture taken to a poker Hall of Fame exhibit with assorted memorabilia, as well as informational stuff about satellites, about the game itself (selling the skill versus luck argument), about current legalization efforts and the true realities behind them, etc.

There's also nothing stopping you (aside from gaming regulations and licensing, which I'm glossing over and which could potentially be a roadblock) from running cash games and satellites there as well when there's no big tournament in action, or hosting the final tables of events held at casinos around town (or the US, for that matter, if this delayed Main Event final table format does fly.) Convince some of the big high stakes players to play in a regular big game. Offer space for poker boot camps, tradeshows, and what-not. The facility doesn't necessarily shut down and go dark when there's no major live tournament action going on.

An extra side benefit is that such a setup would make the poker media's job infinitely easier when covering events, which can only be good for the long-term prospects of poker. Any person who has ever covered a poker tournament as media would instantly salivate at being able to tune into a live feed of any table and to know instantly the chip counts and names of every player in the field. What's good for the spectator is good for the media, which can only be good for the game.

As far as drawbacks, well, first and foremost is that it'd be pretty damn expensive. No dodging that, so it'd take someone with deep pockets and a vested interest in poker to make it a reality. It'd also have to be a company with experience of jumping through all the regulatory hoops to make it fly, as well as experience running major live poker tournaments. Someone like, oh, I don't know, Harrah's maybe?

You can argue that basing it outside of existing casinos will make it impossible for the target audience to wander in (casual fan who played poker back in the day but has no idea of the riches that could await them now), but I'm not sure I buy that. Do people somehow wander to the Rio (which isn't exactly located in a prime Strip area) then also walk nine miles down a long hallway away from all bright lights and slot machines only to happen upon, finally, weary and near-death, at this big huge poker tournament that they didn't know about before? I just don't think so, so I think the impact is minimal as far as locating a poker facility outside of an existing casino. It'd be slightly inconvenient to players as it'd be impossible to stumble out of your room and catch an elevator down to the tournament room, but that's already the case for many players, as not all players stay at the Rio, the Bellagio, etc.

So that's my very long-winded completely unsolicited advice to Harrah's. If you want to build up the visibility and popularity of poker in the long run, invest some cash in the short run to make it slick, appealing, and spectator-friendly. Convert all those casual fans to dedicated long-term customers. Stop cramming major live poker tournaments into sterile, unfriendly environments. Do the legwork to build and grow a fanbase instead of milking the WSOP for whatever short-term bang you think you can get. Las Vegas provides you with an unending pipeline of ripe prospects for the picking, who you can easily hook on poker, all of whom go home and then continue to consume your product in televised form (cha-ching). You're currently trying to sell a half-finished product and aren't meeting with the success you'd like. Instead of slapping lipstick on it, take a step back, give it a complete makeover, then take three steps forward.

You're simply never going to see the success you'd like without improving the product and experience itself, which improves its marketability, which increases the chances that television viewership will increase, which improves the odds that more sponsors will sign on, which finally puts you on track to see the sort of revenue and profits that other sports enjoy that offer an intergrated enjoyable experience for fans and players alike. Arbitrary changes such as the new final table format may very well boost interest in the short-term, but that's doomed to fade again in a few years if you don't address some of the root issues plaguing tournament poker at the moment.

What Should Harrah's Do?

2008-05-08T07:42:00.000-07:00

It’s been interesting reading various responses out on the Internet tubes to Harrah’s/Caesar’s WSOP final table changes. I’ve already had my own babble about why I think it’s a bad idea and don’t have much to add, but I find it interesting that perhaps the best argument people can make for it is something along the lines of:

“Eh, why not try it? The more publicity and press that poker gets, the better.”

For me, that gets pretty close to the real crux of the problem, and where I think Harrah’s is truly dropping the ball. Like it or not, they’re in a pretty unique position to drive the future of poker, sitting on not only the WSOP brand but also possessors of many huge honking casinos and an established working relationship with ESPN. If your best answer to boosting poker’s popularity and increasing your long-term profits evokes a shrug of the shoulders and a “Sure, why not, give it a whirl.” from supporters, well, it’s hard for me to believe you’re on the right track.

Harrah’s seems to simply want to cash the checks (and want those checks to be as big as possible) that poker generates for them but shy away from shouldering any responsibility for the future of poker. People have pointed to improvements that Harrah’s has made to the WSOP (simplifying the registration process, improved access to food and facilities, scaling out the tournament to accommodate gargantuan fields, etc.) and granted, that’s all true; Harrah’s has kept the kept the WSOP train on the track despite enormous growth up until last year.

But those are all knee-jerk reactions, really, and not much more. See big problem, fix problem. Ignore small problems until they become big problems. If solution is worse than original problem (i.e. the poker tent), fix problem. They have made incremental progress, which should be pointed out, and each year’s WSOP has been better than the year before from an operational standpoint.

If you look at many of the problems of past years, though, (and foreshadowing problems the new final table format will inevitable cause), a reasonably disturbing trend emerges; Harrah’s couldn’t care less about the spectator or player experience. I mean, sure, they care insofar as they prefer for there to be no problems and for things to run smoothly, but their sole focus is on milking the WSOP for as much money as they can. Which is a reasonable enough focus, but one that potentially is sacrificing the long-term growth and future of poker by chasing short-term dollars.

If someone is willing to pay to sponsor a deck of cards that’s virtually unplayable, sure, sign ‘em up. Wait, what, poker players can’t play with the decks when they’re put into play during the WSOP? Really? Well, shit, okay. Players are squawking about ante chips from a cash game being the same as a big denomination chip in a HORSE tournament? What the hell are they squawking about, we’re talking about cash games and tournaments? People don’t think blinding off an absent stack if a player dies before the final table resumes is a good idea? Why not? If they’re not there, they’re not there, just blind ‘em off. And on and on and on. Pull the stack instead? What does that mean? You're talking Greek or something.

My biggest complaint about the new final table format is that it seems to me a sign of Harrah’s simply giving up and trying one last ditch effort to cash in before unloading the WSOP on someone else a few years down the line, when poker ratings continue to drop and the Main Event field continues to shrink. And who knows, maybe that would be best for poker, depending on who picked up the ball at that point, but the really frustrating thing here is that Harrah’s has the clout and resources to elevate poker into a both a lucrative spectator-friendly and TV-friendly sport, which would be a win-win for both Harrah’s and for poker players.

If you’ve gotten this far (and Jebus bless you if you have), your response to all this blathering is (and should be): “Well, der. Of course Harrah’s is being short-sighted and looking to milk it for what it’s worth. They’re Harrah’s. That’s what companies like Harrah’s do.”

And I can’t argue with that at all. But all this blathering is a bit necessary to set the stage for Part II: What Harrah’s Should Do with the WSOP But Never Will in a Million Billion Years.

Worst. Idea. Ever.

2008-05-01T08:04:00.000-07:00

Still suffering from the monkey croup I picked up in Vegas, which as hung around for nearly a week now. Boo.

On the brighter side, I did manage a decent score in the $200 Caesar's 7 PM tournament the last night I was in town, finishing 6th to claw my way back to close to even for the trip. Given that I lost two ginormous pots with AA versus A7o and QQ versus 1010 (both all-in pre-flop), not a bad result, although it was disappointing to get bounced when I did with 1st place paying close to $10K.

Apparently Harrah's is serious about this delayed-Main Event-final-table thing, which leads us to the title of this post. I get the point of the move and I've argued myself that the poker industry and poker powers-that-be need to make some serious changes as far as making tournament poker more spectator-friendly, but this attempt is just about the worst way possible of going about that.

The biggest skeleton in the closet of tournament poker (as far as its potential popularity as far as a televised sport) is the fact that final table deals and players owning stakes in other players happens all the freaking time, and will continue to happen. If the results are largely predetermined (or at least the financial outcome, which is all that matters to most players), that obviously takes a lot of drama out of the outcome, if that fact is made public.

If you can keep those facts under wraps, the potential drama remains. So far that's mostly been the case, as your average Joe watching poker on tv has no clue about final table deals and other shenanigans. But pushing out the final table of the Main Event nearly four months is almost guaranteed to result in much talk and speculation about deals being made, as that's the most obvious pitfall that should leap into anyone's head when such an idea is proposed.

With the amount of money at stake and four months to barter, haggle, and horse-trade, it's inevitable that deals are going to be struck. That's not to say that there have never been deals at a Main Event final table, as there most inevitably have been, but now it's virtually guaranteed. And that doesn't even touch on potential collusion, as four months is plenty of time for 2 or more players to come to a financial agreement and put together a fairly sophisticated, non-detectable plan that significantly increases their collective EV. Again, such a thing wasn't impossible under the old system but was very difficult, as you simply didn't have much time to come to an agreement and concoct a plan.

People have raised the issue of players getting coaching in the four month downtime, but to me that's much less of an issue. I mean, sure, a lucksack could use the four months to markedly improve their game, but you're still playing the chip stack you had entering the final table, and there's always going to be an element of randomness at any final table. A few "bad" calls where you suck out could have propelled you to a win back in your lucksack days, where when you learn a bit more you fold those hands, only to get bounced out the next hand when you make the correct play, etc. Since anyone could receive coaching if they so chose, that one seems a wash to me, as a final table simply isn't enough hands for any accumulation of skill to play a significant role.

Not that I put much stock in the history and lore and statistics of poker, but it's also going to make it hard to compare past winners to winners moving forward. Having the time off to rest, recuperate, and plot out your course of action is pretty significant. Not a huge concern, and times they are always changing, but the new format is an entirely different beast than the old one. You can claim that there will be better poker played at the final table, and true, maybe so, but there'd be better poker played throughout the tournament if every other day was a rest day, so that's a bit of a silly claim.

But I'm mainly concerned about deal-making and collusion, as far as the Worst. Idea. Ever. pronouncement. There's way too much money at stake for such questions and concerns not to arise, which is inevitably going to lead to more talk and knowledge about final table deals and players swapping percentages in general, all of which are major obstacles to the potential mass-market appeal of televised poker.

Would the Super Bowl still retain its shine if the general public knew that losing teams regularly lost on purpose because they were promised a larger percentage of the TV revenues by the NFL than they'd otherwise get so that a more "popular" team in a hot new market would be guaranteed to win? Of course not, yet roughly the same thing happens with regularity at the poker tables, each and every major event.

Sick and Broke in Las Vegas

2008-04-25T12:35:00.000-07:00

I think I was likely doomed from the get-go with my previous talk of being in Vegas on a very short roll, but lo and behold, here I sit in Las Vegas at the tail end of covering the WPT Championships for the PokerRoom blog with some sort of monkey croup virus, barely able to talk in a froggy voice, with no cash to gambool with and another day and a half before I can fly back home.

So yeah, not exactly the balla trip so far. It's actually been a great trip as far as the work side of it, as PokerRoom has gone all out to show everyone a good time, and my job is to basically tag along and document all that. So big thumbs up there, as we've gotten to hang out in a $10,000/night private suite at Red Rocks for a day, tickets to the Hopkins/Calzaghe match, Cirque and Blue Man group shows, helicopter rides at Hoover Dam, you name, we've done it.

As far as the gambooling side of it, not much positive to relate. I had a baby cash in one of the Venetian Deep Stack tournaments and in one of their noon tournaments, but that's about it, and no love at all in $1/2 and $2/5 NL cash games, or in the other half dozen or so tournaments I played in. Took some pretty tough beats in cash games but nothing that crazy, and it's more my own fault than anything as far as playing overly nitty on a short bankroll due to all my walking around money being sunk into houses at the moment. Indeed, I got my money in pretty damn good but you it's easy enough to see your 80/20s go down in flames a few times and lo and behold, you're sitting in your room, watching Die Hard for the eighth time on cable, using the Internet tubes to say "Waaah, woe is me, my aces got cracked by J9o all-in preflop for a $1,100 pot."

The monkey croup is the most annoying part, as I have no idea what that's about. I had the normal slight cough from breathing too much recirculated casino air and all the dirty monkeys at the poker tables, but this morning I woke up barely able to talk at all. I was about to have to break into desperate mime mode when trying to order a $6 coffee at a Bellagio shop this morning when the lady finally deciphered my croaking and got me a coffee. Tried to talk to my wife, who I miss very much, but we finally gave up due to my inability to speak in anything other than croak-speak.

So yeah, good trip. Other than wanting to be home, and the whole monkey croup thing, and having no money to gamble with. Other than that, Vegas rocks.

I Made This

2008-04-14T12:05:00.000-07:00

No matter how many times I swear to be prepared and not put off assorted things to the absolute last minute, here I am scrambling around like a mad man, trying to get nine million things done before flying out to Vegas tomorrow morning to cover the WPT Championships at the Bellagio for PokerRoom from April 15th- April 27th.

Not the best timing as far as trying to close on the investment property I have under contract, but such is life, and I'll likely be back home before closing anyway. Rushing around tying up the last odds and ends with that place, hauling me tools out, cleaning up, etc., and I finally managed to snap some photos yesterday, as far as what's been keeping me so dang busy for the last few months:

Before Photos

After Photos

Not quite as impressive as many of the transformations you see on assorted house flipping shows on television, but not bad, either. Have to admit that I'm pretty proud of how much of it turned out, especially since I had to buckle down and do a large amount of the work myself due to flaky contractors. I get down on myself as far as far as it taking 4+ months to get the damn thing done but then I look back and start adding up everything I tackled (painting the entire interior and exterior, ~1000 sq. ft of tile, refinishing ~800 sq. ft. of hardwood floors, tile in two bathrooms + kitcheh countertops and backsplash, etc.) and it's fairly impressive, even for a reserved, not-prone-to-self-praise monkey such as myself.

It'll likely be right back to the grind as far as more house renovation work in the near future, but it's all going to be on our own house this time around, as it's long overdue and the wife has been very, very patient of me doing all this work on other houses at the expense of working on our own home. I'm actually kind of looking forward to it, as it'll be nice to work on stuff without crushing deadlines and other less than fun aspects of the last few projects I've tackled.

Having a Life is Nice

2008-04-08T09:37:00.000-07:00

One major contributing factor to the near-death of his here blog has been the fact that since last April I've constantly had one (or two) investment properties that were in need of various state of repair, with huge ticking clocks hanging over each in the form of carrying costs, mortgage payments, checks to contractors, you name it.

I'm not completely out of the woods yet, but the second investment property is now under contract, and the renovation work is 99.9% done. If everything closes as scheduled (and it's an all-cash offer on the place, so odds are pretty good it'll close), I'll make pretty good money on the place but, more importantly, finally be able to kick back and relax, for the first time in a year, without deadlines hanging over my head.

I take a decent amount of pride in my work ethic and ability to stay busy, but this last year was a bit much, even for me. I can't say I regret it or would do things differently, as I've learned a lot and not lost my shirt buying houses in what has turned into a dismal overall market, but I'm definitely looking forward to the prospect of having an honest-to-Jebus life once again, and the ability to do absolutely nothing all weekend if I choose to do so.

So yeah. Kind of nice to have a life again. That's all. Move along. Nothing to see here.

A Solution to Chat-Asshattery

2008-04-04T15:32:00.000-07:00

If you can't help but act like an asshat, no matter what: act like an asshat, as at least other asshats will love you and embrace you for it.

If you find yourself acting like an asshat when you would otherwise act like a decent human being if playing at a live poker table: stop acting like an asshat.

If you can control whether you act like an asshat or instead act like a decent human being: act like a decent human being.

If you're a decent human being and cannot act otherwise: pat yourself on the back.

Random Odds and Ends

2008-04-01T11:35:00.000-07:00

* I've pretty much been a walking zombie of late due to all of the house renovation work, trying to get the latest project done and finished. I try to avoid our local Wal-Mart like the plague, but the only hardware store in the small town we live in is closing, so I've had to visit Wal-Mart three or four times in the last week for various stuff like caulk, screws, etc.

The first trip I'm in the checkout line, some cashier waves me over to an empty line, I walk over, put my stuff on the counter, and the cashier says "Cigarettes?"
I'm kind of baffled but assumed she saw my staring into random space waiting in line in the general vicinty of the cigarettes as interest, so I just say no and conclude my transaction.

Second trip, same damn thing, except the cashier asks "Would you like any cigarettes?" I'm too baffled to really answer, thinking: "Wow, I'm used to the upsell at the grocery store for the candy and random hair products they're trying to unload at the checkout lines, but is Wal_Mart seriously pushing the cancer sticks on people buying ordinary items (and not lighters, dip, or Nicoderm patches)?

Third and fourth trip confirmed that yes, yes they are trying to push cigarettes on each and every shopper. Still baffled by this. I'm not a militant non-smoker by any means but that just seems all kind of wrong to me for some reason.

* I've tried to play in some of the BBT3 tournaments that Al and others have busted their asses to set up for all us ungrateful slobs, but man, it's painful these days to play in a "blogger" tournament. I remember when I'd look forward to such things for days and days before they happened, instead of cringing every thirty seconds at the asshattery on display. Sorry, kids. Just calling 'em as I see 'em. But hey, as long as YOU'RE having fun, right?

* Writing the US guvmint a check at tax time is not a fun experience.

* Facing the odd prospect of being in Vegas for ten days, starting April 15th, with absolutely no spending money whatsoever, due to all the money I'm pumping into my real estate schemings. I'll be there working for PokerRoom, so it's not like a real vacation or anything, but it'll be kind of strange to be in Vegas for that long with no fun money to splash around on the normal degenerate activities.

* It's never a good sign when the president of your company sends out a funny, over-blown, completely-over-the-top April Fool's email about a huge, universally-terrible sweeping change to corporate policy and half the company mistakes it for being real, due to the fact that such things happen on a regular basis, for reals.

Sweet Blogger

2008-03-13T07:17:00.000-07:00

Oh Blogger, how I loathe thee. Yes, indeed, I can simply move over to my own domain somewhere and install WordPress in about 0.2 seconds and be much, much happier, but unfortunately we're tied together by all sorts of SEO-related bonds that I don't want to break.

So here we sit, in a loveless marriage, in which none of your promised features and enhancements work. I appreciate that you're making an effort to make things work, but in the end it just disappoints me even more. Yes, that "automatically save drafts" feature is a nice carrot to dangle, but only IF IT WORKS. I see your little automated, reassuring message that you're currently auto-saving my draft, but when I actually need that feature to rescue my last post when you screwed something up, THERE'S NO DRAFT SAVED.

You realize this is infinitely worse, yes, than the old days when you'd just crash and I'd at least have myself to partially blame for not periodically copy and pasting my post?

And don't get me started on your "Word Verification" enhancement. I swear to Jebus that I have to type it in approximately 14 times, every single post, before you'll accept it. And no, I'm not mistyping it. I'm more than capable of correctly typing in five letters. You simply refuse to accept it, ever, the first two times I type it in. That's why these days I don't even try anymore, simply typing in "DIE WHOREMONGER DIE!" in the box the first few times, as I know you'll never accept it anyway, even if I type it correctly, and only make an effort the third time, when you merrily accept my ability to type in FIVE FREAKING LETTERS and publish my post.

Except for the times when you have yet another breakdown and don't, in fact, publish my post. Nor save a draft of it, despite claiming you did exactly that 192,837 times while I was typing it.

So, you know, thanks a pantload. Yes, your ass looks fat in those jeans. Yes, I've been humpng the neighbor's wife for the last two years. We both know we'll be sitting right here tomorrow, regardless of what I say, so no more pretense, mmkay?

(If you eat this post I swear to Jebus it's over.)

The World Poker Crown

2008-03-13T06:32:00.000-07:00

Thanks to 777.com, you've got a shot at taking home the World Poker Crown in the 888WPC competition with finals held at Perlada Castle in Barcelona, Spain from May 6th to May 10th.

The 888 WPC is a $3 million guaranteed tournament that runs in two stages, with the first half held as an online poker tournament that narrows the field down to 8 players that will fly to Spain to compete at the final table.

777.com is currently offering a shot to win a free seat to the 888 WPC (which is worth over $1,000) via freerolls that they're running on their site. If you're lucky enough to win your entry and then bet, raise, and bluff your way through the online stage and qualify for the final event, you'll get to enjoy the following perks:

- A seat at the WPC offline final event
- Flights to Spain for you and a friend.
- A luxurious welcome party aboard a yacht in Peralada Harbour
- 3 nights accommodation in the beautiful 5 star Peralada Hotel
- Full hospitality at the organized events

Long story short, if you live in a country where you can legally play on 888.com, give the 888 WPC freerolls a crack at 777.com, as with a little luck you might be able to parlay that freeroll entry into not just a huge payday but a trip of a lifetime to Spain, where you'll get the VIP treatment and get to play at a televised poker final table.

pokern.com

2008-03-13T06:18:00.000-07:00

The following is a sponsored post by pokern.com:

Pokern.com asked for a review about the design and feeling I get from their site, which is a might bit tricky as it's focused on the German market, and my German language skillz are effectively none, so I'm not exactly what you might call an expert reviewer in this case. But that's never stopped me from babbling on and on in the past about all sorts of things, so why stop now?

The general design and look of the site are very clean and functional, and it has all the htings you'd expect to find in a poker resource site, including a poker news section, poker forums, a blog, site reviews, polls, odds calculators, a poker school with strategy articles and poker tips, and other poker-related videos and links. It's easy to navigate between each area of the site and all major sections are laid out in a clean, logical fashion.

Like many poker portals, pokern.com also provides exclusive freerolls for members at a variety of sites as well as various sign-up bonus codes and other offers. Pretty much all the standard fare poker fans have come to expect in a poker resource site, but with a German twist for all you chip slingers that spreken ze deutch.

So Many Blogs, So Little Time

2008-02-26T13:56:00.000-08:00

Not a lot to relate on the poker front since the last update, despite giving numerous FTOPS tournies a whirl. I had a couple of baby cashes but that was about it, going out about 20 spots from the bubble in the first LHE event and completely whiffing and donking out in the first hour of the Main Event.

I managed to spin up a FPP point SnG into an entry into the 50/50, finishing 19th for a decent cash, but I'm still coming up empty as far as a deep run or a final table of any sort in MTTs. Which is kind of frustrating, as I'd think dumb monkey luck would take over at some point, but nay, not so much.

I've managed to be good bankroll-wise, which is still hovering around $3K. I've been too busy and time-strapped of late to play much other than some LHE and SnGs, but I've stuck to manageable stakes and haven't blown up the bankroll yet getting a wild itch and sitting at 50/100, etc. Like others, the BBIII is likely to suck me in more deeply this time, as I'm still strangely entranced by the donkey lure of the WSOP. I shouldn't be (and I'll be working there during the Main Event), but I'll probably end up donking off far too many tourney buy-ins trying to satellite into various events.

Current house project is crushing me. Must. Finish. And. Stop. Writing. Huge. Checks.

I should just whip up some javascript to auto-generate these posts for me, randomnly inserting "donkey" "house" "busy" "hectic" and "poker" here and there, then I could reclaim some sort of semblence of blogging cred.

Close but no Cigar in FTOPS #1

2008-02-07T08:06:00.000-08:00

First things first, congrats to Speaker on his nice run and cash in FTOPS #1.

I managed to go out in pretty frustrating fashion, somewhere around 800 (738 spots paid), but it was one of those evenings where I was lucky to even be alive at that point, so it's hard to get too upset.

Not much excitement the first hour and I was sitting at about 3,200 after the 1st break. After the break I went on just about the worst run of cards I can remember, as far as not picking up anything remotely playable, never getting to see a cheap flop from the blinds, or, when I did have something marginally decent like KJs or KQo I was facing a big raise in front of me. I literally didn't play a single hand the entire second hour, and I don't think that's every happened before.

At least the structure was slow enough that going into a card-induced coma for a whole hour didn't hurt too much, so I was at around 2,400-2,500 going into the third hour. I finally found a few semi-playable hands and managed to keep up with the blinds, open-raising with stuff like A7o or QJs from middle position, some button steals with absolute trash, popping the SB from the BB with junk when he just completed, etc.

I was sitting at about 2,800 towards the end of the third hour when I found A10d in MP, with blinds of 150/300 (I think, or close to that) and it folded around to me. I raised it up to 1,200, folds to the BB, who puts me all-in.

When I opened for 1,200 I told myself I could still fold and get away from it if I got re-popped, but sitting there with 1,600 chips left and a pot of 4,000 or so (and average stack of a little over 9K at the time), it suddenly was a lot harder to fold, despite the fact that I knew I was behind as the BB hadn't gotten out of line at all so far and had been playing really tightly. Plus I was tired, it was late, yada yada yada, so I made the "Yeah-I-know-I'm-screwed-call-but-fuck-it-I-can-always-trot-odd-the-I-almost-had-odds-to-call-excuse-plus-it-could-be-a-coinflip" call, and he flips over AA, so, umm, yeah. Screwed.

Except two diamonds flop, and I turned the flush, to get back to decent stack territory (although still a few thousands below average). With a little breathing room I was actually able to play some cards again, picking up some small pots here and there and a decent pot when I got to see a free flop with 10 3 in the BB and the flop came Q 10 3.

Lost a chunk out of my stack with KK versus JJ, though, and I was getting a little short towards the bubble, sitting on 9,000 with blinds of 400/800 and about 800 players remaining. Folds around to MP (who had about 20,000) who opens for $1,800, and folds to me one off the button with 99.

Well, crap. I can pretty likely fold to the money but then I'd be sitting really short on something like 4,000-5,000, and the pride in simply cashing in these events has worn off. I tend to play it cautious and get to the money then open up and try to make moves, but that's a bit pointless when your stack is too short to put much pressure on anyone, yada yada yada.

The guy who'd opened was also fairly decent and hadn't gotten out of line much, and I just didn't read him for a very big hand. I thought a push could get him to fold a lot of hands he'd make that smallish raise with that I'd be racing with like AQ, AJ, A10, maybe even 1010, as he'd be calling off a third of his stack to call me. If I have to race with AK, so be it. If he's sitting on a monster, so be it.

So I shove, it folds to him, and he goes into the time bank. I just wanted the fold at that point, but he finally calls with A10o. Kind of hate that call myself, but, then again, I only made it as far as I did calling off my last chips with A10 myself (but it was sooted!) so I guess I can't throw too many stones.

The flop comes A 6 8, of course, but before I can feel too sorry for myself a 9 spikes on the turn to give me a set. I have to admit, embarassingly, that I was very happy and pumping my fist as the river "blanked" with a 7, and the fist-pumping only stopped when all the chips slid his way. Didn't even see that that the 9 also gave him the gutshot straight which the 7 filled up. At least it wasn't a live tournament, as that'd have been much more embarassing as far as pre-mature celebration goes.

So yeah, a pretty frustrating end, but I got donkfish lucky to even be in that spot, so I suppose what goes around comes around. I feel like I played pretty well to even be in the hunt, though, so not too many regrets. As far as pushing with 99 there, I'm kind of "meh" on it. If you turned his hand over face up and guaranteed that he'd call, I'd likely fold. I'd rather take shots at stealing late near the bubble or finding a bigger hand than flipping coins in that spot and tournament situation, but I think you can also make a decent argument for shoving as well (especially if you remove the certainty that he'll call).

Next up is the limit event on Friday, which should be fun. I still stand by my theory that there's even more luckboxery involved in LHE tournaments as opposed to NLH tournaments, as you've got to build up a stack early or you're usually simply doomed when blinds start hurting, so fingers crossed for some early cards in that one.

Close to Robusto > Busto

2008-02-06T08:26:00.000-08:00

Despite being a walking zombie of late (the cumulative effect of a month or two of putting in ~100 hr. work weeks between all my sundry jobs and projects), I've actually been playing a decent amount of poker, and turning in pretty positive results.

I've been playing a ton of $5/$10 and $8/$16 LHE, mostly short-handed, and have managed to grind my last $300 deposit in Full Tilt up to about $3K. Part of that is due to old-fashioned running goot, part of that is from some decent tournament scores, but a lot of it is the simple fact that I'm not a bad limit player when I sit down and focus and grind. I'll probably shift gears and do something dumb-ass such as start playing $200 SnGs but for now I'm still enjoying the return to my LHE roots, and trying to not play too far over my bankroll.

I've also qualified for 3 of the FTOPS events, including the kickoff one tonight. My total investment in getting into those was about $75, so a cash or two would be pretty nice. I also won a $26 SnG into the Sunday Mulligan last week, and was top ten in chips with about 90 left (and 65 or so paying, I think). Was obviously feeling pretty good about things, especially when I got the second biggest stack at the table all-in pre-flop with my AA versus 1010, but a 10 on the flop took a big chunk out of my stack. Chopping with AQs versus A8o a few hands later didn't help, then the same guy with the 10s bounced me a few hands after that with QJs versus QQ (although I guess I could have possibly gotten away from it on the flop of 8 9 10, as that's when all of the chips went in).

I've got a couple of more weeks before the current house renovation project is done, and then it's time for some serious decompression, as I've managed to run myself pretty ragged since last March, when I went on my house buying spree. I've been taking on more and more freelance work to fund all of that, especially with the sale of the first investment house dragging on and on and on, and the snowball keeps getting larger and larger and larger.

I just agreed to cover the WPT Championship in April and the 2008 WSOP for PokerRoom, but at this point even the hectic, crazy nature of working those events would be a relative vacation from the current state of hectic-ness, so I'm basically looking at those as vacations.

The WSOP may be problematic, though, as far as the day job goes. I had a ton of vacation time in the bank last year so I was able to just use vacation time to do the poker events, but I blew through the excess last year, so now I'm faced with basically burning it all for poker events (and risk incurring the wrath of my wife, as none would be left for personal vacations) or, you know, simply not showing up at the day job anymore. Until I sell the investment properties it's not even a possibility, so there's plenty of other moving parts, but I'm basically at the point where income from freelance work and my other Web schemery is > income from the day job. Thus the eternal debate of stability, enjoyment of life, love of extra money, yada yada yada, broken record broken record broken record.

End Times are Nigh! Brimstone Rains from the Sky! He's Posting on Consecutive Days!

2008-01-30T11:35:00.000-08:00

As ghey as it sounds, I've kind of missed blogging lately. I can't say that I ever contributed much of import to the world from these pages, but I do sort of miss the halcyon days of yore when poker and blogging were both much fresher and exciting.

I'd have had much to say in the past about the Absolute/UB debacle that has slowly been unfolding of late, how it impacted the poker world as a whole, what players should be doing, what sites should be doing, etc. These days, well, I just can't help but largely shrug.

Part of that response is related to what Ftrain discusses here, as he's pretty much directly channeling me there, right down to being a Cheaty McCheaterpants in high school card games, at first for vengeful, funny reasons but later for personal gain. Where I diverge a bit is the present day; while I agree I'd never even consider cheating in any sort of regular home game, even if I knew there was 0% of being caught, I can't say the same for happy-fun scenarios I might concoct.

Would I rig the game if Donald Trump sat down and I knew, with 100% likelihood, that I could clean him out for, oh, say $5 million large, with 0% risk whatsoever? Well, umm, of course I would. You wouldn't? Really? What if you were sitting with Osama Bin Laden instead? Tom Cruise? Michael Vick?

You likely get my drift. It's pretty easy to argue that a lot of our evolutionary success over time is due to flexible moral compasses, as it's not at all hard to adjust your viewpoint so that grabbing what's not yours isn't a stretch whatsoever, and just what any reasonable monkey in your shoes would do.

Is that babbling meant as an excuse and a free pass for the alleged shenigans at Absolute and UB? Not at all. What's apparently been going on there is pretty terrible and the last thing the online poker world needs right now. But I can't really feel shocked or outraged. I think it'd be more shocked if such a story had NEVER emerged from the world of online poker, as far as super-user accounts, visible hole cards, management cover-ups, the whole nine yards.

I think we'd all like to believe that we're slightly in love with the romantic notion of honorable gamblers, of taking part in a long tradition of behaviors, notions, and ideals, but with an edge. Sure, you're trying to take someone's last penny but within the observed boundaries and rules. You're still hustling them, but it's a legal hustle, honed by many hours of study, thought, and practice.

But really, seriously, how often is that the case? When is the game of poker really that these days, either live or online? Do you really turn off PokerTracker and any HUDs when you play online? Have you really never mined data from observed tables? Discussed a big hand in a tournament in a chat client with friends?

In the end, I just can't help but think it's all a big exercise in splitting hairs, as far as discussing what the response should be to multi-accounting, buying accounts late in tournaments, etc. If the Absolute/UB tale is true, that's some pretty bad shit, but I can't help but think that it's just part of the general climate of online poker these days. It's just impossible to ever replicate the security you have as a player when you sit in a cash game at the Bellagio (and even that isn't 100% guaranteed to be safe from collusion), and it seems somewhat inevitable that a mentality of grab-whatever-you-can-anyway-you-can will continue to be perpetuated in the online world.

If you can grab an edge, grab it. Then justify it later, if it needs justifying. If that fails, fall back on the excuse of "But it's the site's fault for allowing loopholes like that to exist in the first place."

I can't say I personally agree with the grab-it mentality, but I think it's too depply embedded in this thing we know of as poker to really root out at this point.

But then, what the hell do I know, as a semi-retired poker blogger hack and cash game donkey.

What is This Limit Poker that You Speak Of?

2008-01-29T09:42:00.000-08:00

I've been absolutely swamped the last 2-3 weeks, trying desperately to finish the current house I'm renovating, but I have managed to sneak in a bit of poker play. Amazingly enough, the numbers in my Full Tilt account are actually getting larger, instead of smaller. I mean, what the hell is going on? It must be a sign that end times are truly near.

I have to scrape together a bitof free time here and some over there as far as poker play, so I can't say that I have much of a routine these days. Cash games, satellites, SnGs, MTTs, you name it, I tend to just jump into anything I see that looks decent, when I have time to play. I doubt that such a random-ass, scattershot approach is doing me much good, but I went on a nice mini-tear this weekend, cashing in the $750K, winning two seats into FTOPS events, and going on a nice little run at the LHE tables.

The $750K was about as random as it gets, as I sat down at the computer after a long day on Sunday that started at 6 AM, saw there was 15 minutes to go until the $750K started, and entered two of those dumb-ass $26 100 chips SnGs. Bombed out on the first hand of one of them but managed to win the second for the entry into the $750K.

I chipped up decently the first hour or so, then donked off a quarter of my stack calling a pretty obvious monster on the river with just TPTK. Took a few smaller hits and found myself fairly short-stacked and a really active player to my left. Folds around to me on the button and I raise it up with AJo and Mr. Active re-pops it from the SB, but not too hugely. BB folds and I assume he's re-stealing so I shove, he insta-calls with AKs, and I'm packing up my virtual stuff when a J spikes on the river.

After that it was pretty much a blur, literally, until I went out somewhere in the low 200s for a cash of about $500. I just didn't have any noteworthy hands, only taking down the blinds when I had KK once and AA once, and basically just stole when I had to to keep my head above water. Moved a few places up the payscale when a shove with 85s got called by A9s and I flopped an 8, but other than that there's not much I regret or felt I could have done much differently. I had a decent stack when I went out shoving my JJ and ran into AA in the BB.

Managed to qualify for both FTOPS #5 and #7, both on my first shot in fairly cheap qualifiers (I think both were $26). The satellite for FTOPS #5 was kind of funny, as it only had 11 runners (whee, limit hold'em) and I think I had the chip lead from ten minutes in until the end. Just absolutely run over by the deck, pretty much the whole way through.

I thought I should likely try to knock some rust off the limit game, so I spent a decent number of hours at the $10/20 LHE tables, which was actually pretty fun. It always helps when you book profitable sessions, but I'd forgotten some of the reasons I played so damn much limit poker back in the days of yore. It's impossible to argue that NLHE isn't where it's at these days, as far as maximizing your profits, but I can't but find LHE a lot mroe relaxing, and, in many ways, more thought-provoking. At least at the lower levels I frequent, 90% of NLHE is push-pull, semi-brainless poker, without too much exercising of the noggin'. LHE, though, is a little more nuanced, and at least takes a few active neurons to play decently at.

While playing I dusted off my old PokerTracker stats from the good ol' days, which only resulted in nostalgic tears for ancient times when the Party 15/30 and 20/40 full-ring LHE tables were hopping. That even a relative donk such as my stuff could have pulled as much cash off those tables in their heydey is a testament to just how good the games once were, before NLHE and our lovely guvmint did their best to squash poor full-ring LHE.

Review of BeatTheFish.com

2008-01-07T06:20:00.000-08:00

The following is a sponsored review by BeatTheFish.com:

Beat the Fish is dedicated to exactly that: providing you with poker room reviews, poker strategy, and poker bonus codes (including PKR bonus code -- a 3d poker software provider -- and PokerStars marketing code). Unlike some fairly sparse poker sites, there's actually quite a lot of unique content on the site, including a ton of poker strategy articles that are actually useful and well thought out, and not just an afterthought to flesh out a page packed with banner ads.

The site also offers in-depth poker room reviews, poker news, a forum, a free newsletter, poker player profiles, recommended poker books, and an updated list of freerolls available on a wide range of sites.

If you're looking for a general poker site with loads of bonus codes, helpful strategy articles, poker site reviews, and much, much more, Beat The Fish definitely fits the bill and lives up to the promise in its name.

2008 and Beyond

2008-01-02T07:28:00.000-08:00

Writing a recap of 2007 in this here poker blog has proven a little difficult, as I've started and stopped this post quite a few times over the last few days. A lot of that is due to my increasingly schizo blogging nature that developed during the year, with a lot more of my time spent on my house flipping blog than here. Writing about poker also feels weird, as part of me wants to insist that I didn't even really play poker this year, despite lots of evidence to the contrary.

With so much of my time devoted to renovating houses in 2007, my own personal poker play definitely took a backseat. Throw in the tournament reporting gigs for PokerRoom and my other affiliate and freelance work, and life, and that left poker squeezed out of even the backseat, forced to hitch a trailer to the back of the rapidly accelerating vehicle zooming down the highway.

Part of me definitely does miss the heady days of yore, when I couldn't read enough about poker and rushed home to excitedly log on to play some cards after work, but much more of me is definitely happy to largely close that chapter of my life. My competitive nature gets the best of me at time, and poker is a dangerous mistress in that regard. Even when I was fully wrapped up in the world of poker I was uneasy about the amount of time it consumed on a daily basis, and all I can do is shake my head sadly when looking back from an even greater remove.

As far as results, it was a prerry schizo year. I finished in the hole about $2,500 on the year as far as online play, after bouncing around all over the place during the year, playing MTTs, SnGs, cash games, HU, you name it. Booking a loss does sting, but it is what it is. I could sugarcoat it or resort to the ever-fun tactic of misdirection and half-truths, but, really and truly, I donked it up online the whole year.

I rarely had a proper bankroll and showed absolutely no table or game selection, signing up for the Sunday Million on a whim, jumping into a Omaha tournament at the last minute for no reason whatsoever, jumping into SnGs over my roll, you name it, I did it. When I buckled down and ground out $50NL and $100 NL cash games I had lots of success, but I'd inevitably get impatient and sit in a $400 NL game, or play a bunch of big buy-in Sunday tournaments, or anything else to hamstring myself.

Much of that loss came from ad money and other "found" money, but I actually deposited about $800 of my own money (the first deposit I'd made into the poker economy in many moons) throughout the year. I've currently got $2.37 total in my online accounts after decimating my remaining bankroll while bored on vacation. Which isn't exactly, umm, robusto.

On the flip side, I showed about a $6,000 profit from live play during the year, which included playing at the Bike, Commerce, and Las Vegas. About $4,000 came from tournament winnings, with the rest from $1/2 and $2/4 NL cash games. I was actually just shy of $8K in profits before the last trip, but dumped back a chunk of those profits.

I could try to explain the gap there and vow to play more live poker in 2008, due to my mad people reading skillz and savvy tournament learnings, but that'd be a pretty dumb exercise. Reading anything at all into 10-15 tournament results and 25 hours or so of cash game play is sheer silliness, as that's too wee a sample size to conclude much of anything.

Perhaps more importantly than the bottom line dollars and cents is that for the most part, I enjoyed playing poker in 2007, with less and less compulsion to play a certain amount of hands or trying to extract a certain amount of profit from the game. I've talked in the past about attempts to return poker to "enjoyable hobby" status, and I feel like I'm nearly there.

Much of the online losses are solely due to playing over my bankroll, so I'm not quite there, as the compulsion to jump into games over my head is pretty directly linked to the "one big score" fantasy, where I like to pretend that a win in the Sunday Millions will provide me with the proper bankroll to be an online poker holla balla, yada yada yada. Donking off $2,500 in a year is kind of pricey for an "enjoyablee hobby", though, so I either need to take my online play more seriously (unlikely) or limit myself to playing lower stake tournaments and SnGs (more likely).

As far as my own play, I'm not too terribly unhappy with where I'm at poker-wise. The tournament reporting gig has definitely helped, as far as simply watching many, many hours of live tournament play at the WSOP, WPT Legends, WPT North American Poker Championship, and WPT Five Diamonds events. It's also been nice to be around poker players on those trips, as far as discussing hands, how to play certain situations, etc. I also got a lot of live play in, something I've actually done very little of in the past.

As far as poker goals for 2008, I'm hoping to be able to play 2-3 preliminary WSOP events this year, assuming I get the two investment houses I currently own sold by June. I'll likely stick some cash back into Full Tilt when their WSOP satellites start back up, as I've had pretty good success in those in the past, and it'd be nice to grab an entry or two on the cheap. But I'm pretty committed to buying into at least a couple of events, and have set aside the profits from this last year's play for that.

I'd like to get back into the habit of posting here more, but the jury is still out on that. I wish I had the energy and drive of Pauly and could post more here during poker tournament trips, but I'm usually too busy and/or exhausted to do anything more writerly than the work I'm being paid to do, so usually nothing gets posted here. I've toyed with the idea of re-entering the poker and casino affiliate world, which would probably lead to more posting here, but I'm having enough success in my other affiliate ventures to get excited about the prospect at the moment, as the uncertainty and feeling of having already been burned once is still a bit too strong.

So, in the end, who knows. I'll definitely still poke my head in here from time to time and if you see me at the online tables, rejoice, as there's likely money to be made. Hope everyone had a great 2007 and an even better 2008.

Oh Sweet Jebus He's Really Posting About Poker for Once

2007-12-22T16:33:00.000-08:00

It's true. An actual post about actual poker.

So things went downhill quickly the last part of the recent Vegas trip, as I managed to dump a couple of buy-ins at $2/5 NL and went 0-3 in the tournies I played, finishing 8th, 8th, and 9th in the Caesar's tournies, with top 6/top 7 paying. Mmm, bubblicious...

But it was fun to play live poker again, and I couldn't help but remember a certain fondness for poker in my heart, especially live tournament poker. I tend to get a bit burned out playing online tourneys, feeling like I'm on auto-pilot, but playing live adds a welcome element of thought to the proceedings.

I'm still amazed at the table coach phenomenon, and the inability of some people to simply keep their mouths shut. I mean, I get it, but it's just weird, especially when the situation directly refutes 95% of what you have to say. If you drag yourself out for a juice-riffic $90 + $30 tournament at the ungodly hour of 11 PM that won't finish up until 4 or 5 in the morning, don't even try to pretend that you're going to "play all the major WPT and WSOP tournaments next year". Espcially when you can't get away from hands like KJs facing a raise and a re-raise all-in before you act.

I did have an interesting hand or two, though, that I'm still not sure about, that Coach gave me a hard time for thirty minutes or so (and might have been right about). We were down to about 30 players, with top 6 spots paying, and UTG (directly to my right) pushed all-in for less, something like 275 chips. Blinds were 150/300, with a 25 ante.

So there's nearly 1,000 in the pot and I look down to find 10 10 in UTG+1. I've got about 4,500 chips, but blinds are set to go up to 200/400 with a 50 ante next hand. The structure in these is super fast so there's some pressure to make something happen.

I actually pondered for quite awhile, as my first impulse was simply to call, seeing as I'm in early position, UTG is all-in for less, odds of everyone checking it down who calls pre-flop is high to try to knock him out, yada yada yada.

But there's also nearly 1,000 in the pot, and that's not an insignificant amount to potentially add to my stack. With UTG about to blind out next hand, he seemed more disgusted when he threw in his chips as opposed to strong, and I was pretty sure I was ahead of him. While calling would increase the chances he'd get bounced out (as far as letting in at least the BB to take a crack at him), my own odds of winning the not-insignificant pot would drop pretty drastically.

But if I raise to try to take the pot down, what do I raise to? If I raise enough to pot-commit myself I'm very likely only getting called or re-raised by a hand that I'm way behind, which defeats the purpose of intentionally pot-committing myself.

So I ended up raising to 1,500 (and insta-folding if someone came over the top of me) and Coach immediately blew up and started lecturing me about providing him protection, that that was the stupidest raise he'd ever seen, yada yada yada. He also debated calling himself but finally folded. Everyone else folded, UTG rolled over Q9, and turned a Q to stay alive. Coach exploded when a K hit the river, as he claimed to have K10s, and wouldn't stop talking about what an idiot I was, that the gained equity from knocking out UTG was much greater that what was in the pot, etc.

I just kept my mouth shut, as arguing with an idiot is pretty idiotic, but at the time I was pretty certain he was wrong. The more I think about it, though, the more I wonder. The chance to increase my stack by nearly 20% seemed more valuable at the time than eliminating a player with 30 remaining, but that was just my gut talking, and my gut can be an idiot at times.

The funny part is exactly the same thing happened about 2 hours later, with the same exact player going all-in for less from UTG for his last 600 chips. It folded around to me in the SB (we'd been moved to a new table) and I had QQ. Blinds were something like 400/800 now, with a 100 ante, I had about 30,000 in chips, though, and there were 12 players left. Gut said that was an easy call, and I did, and the BB and I checked it down and my queens held up to knock UTG out. Coach was long busted by then, so I didn't get to show off what a quick learner I was.

The other funny hand was from Coach Junior, who was at the same starting table in that tournament. Young guy, very much a balla wanna-be, wearing a Full Tilt hat and letting everyone know about silly prop bets with his friends, such as someone paying him $10,000 if he grew out his scraggly goatee to a foot in length. He wasn't terrible but he immediately assumed the wingman role for Coach, and insisted on calling everyone's hands, showing off his mad poker skillz.

I'd donked off about half my stack early on and was down to 2,500 or so when three limpers came in before me with blinds of 150/300 and I went ahead and shoved with AKs. It folded to Coach Junior in the BB, and he went into the tank, reading my soul, and he finally called. All the limpers got out of the way and I flipped over my hand. He did a double fist pump, banged the table, and screamed "I READ YOU PERFECTLY! THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT I PUT YOU ON!"

So I'm assuming he's going to turn over a mid/big pair of some sort and that we were off to the races. That is, until he turns over 5c 7c. Mmkay. And the fact that I flopped a K and won the pot only seemed to reinforce his call, as he kept saying "THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT I PUT YOU ON!", even as the dealer pushed me the pot.

Nice read, sir, nice read...

The Bellagio is a Decent Enough Place to Stay, I Guess

2007-12-14T08:43:00.000-08:00

It always amazes me how quickly I lose track of what day it is when working these tournaments for the PokerRoom.com blog. The combo of being in a casino and working long days is pretty deadly, as far as wiping out any normal sense at all of what day it is, what time it is, etc. It's easy enough to tell when it's Friday, though, as that's when suddenly the pace is jammed, with people coming out of the woodwork, as opposed to the relative calm of the day before.

Things have gone smoothly so far and, other than missing my wife and zoo at home, it's been a great trip and a nice break from all of the never-ending house renovations and rehab work. My heater at massively -EV dumb casino games continues, as I wandered down early yesterday morning to play a little $2/5 NL at the Bellagio poker room before the tournament started, got on the waiting list, and grabbed a coffee at the nearby bar. I plunked some cash in the video poker machine, got my coffee, and realized that it was a $1 machine, which is a bit rich for my nickle and diming (well, quartering) video poker play. So I played a few hands of Double Bonus Jacks or Better, bemoaned the fact that my coffee had actually cost me $25, then hit quad 3s for a payout of about +$400. Sweet.

Added about $250 to that from playing poker for a few hours. Nothing real exciting, as I won a nice pot with AJc on a J high flop, with little blanks coming on the river and turn, and a fairly solid player calling my 2/3 pot bets all the way to the river, where I finally checked behind him fearing some monster, but he mucked what I assume was a weaker J. I also won a nice pot out of the BB with A9 on a Q 9 9 flop, that I slowplayed and got a call on the river with an overbet when another fairly solid player looked me up.

The best -EV action was at the slot bank right next to the tournament area (which is out on the main casino floor due to Fontana Room renovations). One of our players was near the rail there, so I spent many hours listening to the Monopoly Big Event bonus feature blaring on the community slots there, and finally got sucked into playing. Channeling my anti-Grubby mojo, I ended up +$350 on the day, playing off and on here and there during dead spots in the action, which isn't too bad for a silly nickle slots action.

We managed to get three of the five PokerRoom.com players through to Day 2, which ain't bad given the stength of the field. It'll be interesting to see what Phil Ivey does with his mountain of chips after Day 1, as he tends to play these things pretty fast, with little concern about busting out, so he'll likely have an uber-mountain of chips at the end of today or be donking it up in Bobby's Room.

Hoping to play a bit more poker this trip, but it's hard to squeeze time in on these working trips. Early mornings are usually the best time for me to play, but the games aren't always that juicy, unless you catch the drunks and degenerates still up from the night before. I'm here through next Wednesday, though, so hopefully I'll get in some hands at some point or another.

Commodore Casino

2007-12-11T06:45:00.000-08:00

The following is a paid review for Commodore Casino:

Commodore Casino is a newer entrant into the world of online casinos, and they offer all of the standard fare that action junkies come to expect in their online casino of choice, including casino games online such as blackjack, baccarat, video poker, and slots.

They also offer more table and lottery games, as well as their virtual horse racing game 3D Gold Cup Horse Racing, where you not only can bet on the ponies but watch the race play out in front of you in 3D. While screaming at your horse to get off its lazy ass doesn’t, in fact, seem to result in him running any faster, it at least lets you blow off a little steam.

As far as the software itself, it’s quick enough and fairly clean and intuitive, with no glaring weaknesses or jaw-dropping perks. Again, pretty standard fare as far as online casinos go and you should expect a pretty standard casino experience (minus the hot cocktail waitresses in skimpy outfits bringing you free drinks).

They don't allow US or Canadian customers to wager for real money, but do serve virtually every other country out there, and offer all the popular deposit options such as Neteller, Moneybookers, EcoCard, bank wire, and Visa and Mastercard. They claim to have support staff on hand that cover all the major languages and their main site is translated into 12 different languages, for maximum appeal to the international crowd.

Lots of Stuffs to be Thankful For

2007-11-27T13:45:00.000-08:00

Definitely enjoyed the long holiday weekend, especially since we got the first investment house I bought under contract the day before Thanksgiving. When it's all said and done (assuming that it all gets done, knock on wood) I'm not going to make much money on the deal, but it's been a pretty valuable learning experience as far as the whole real estate investing thing, and will be a pretty big relief to get one sold and pocket a bit of profits, even if it isn't a bulging, fat pocketful.

The months seem to keep ripping right along, with December looming, which means 2008 is looming, and sweet Jebus, how can it be 2008 already? I mean, it was just 3 or 4 years ago when the whole Y2K thing went down, right? We somehow skipped 3-4 years somewhere in there, and get them back, right?

Poker play is still pretty paltry of late, with most of my free time getting sucked up by the current house I'm renovating. This one has been a beast to get started, as far as sorting out building permits, contractors, sub-contractors, etc., but the last few weeks have been pretty exciting, as real progress is finally taking place. Again, the point of all this work is to make some mobneys, but I'm enjoying this one a bit more than I expected, as far as actually doing a bit more planning, new additions, and creative re-arranging that a simpler lipstick rehab of paint, carpet, fixtures, voila.

What little poker I've played has been fairly brutal, but mostly amusingly so. I've been playing some HU matches as a change of pace (and simply because I usually only have 15-20 minutes of spare time to play with of late), and I'm on an 0-5 tear that included getting it all in pre-flop two hands into one match with KK versus K9d, only to see a flop of 10d Qd Jd, for the flopped straight flush, and other similar fun stuff. Not much one can do there other than smile and fire up another one, or, you know, heed the subtle prodding from the poker gods to, umm, go do something productive with yourself.

December should be pretty dang hectic, as I'm pushing to have the house done by December 15th, and off to Vegas for another poker blog reporting gig covering the Bellagio Five Diamond Class December 11th-19th, then off to Tennessee to visit my folks from December 21st-December 26th.

We'll be staying at the Bellagio for the Five Diamond Classic, which'll be my first time to stay there, so thumbs up to that. The closing for the house that's currently under contract is scheduled for December 11th, which would be pretty sweet timing as far as allowing me to actually play some poker on the trip with little guilt, as far as having most of my discretionary cash typically used for such things tied up in houses. I'm definitely itching to play some live MTTs, so hopefully I'll be able to hit a few while out in Vegas.

And The Clock Keeps on Ticking...

2007-11-16T13:03:00.000-08:00

Part of me feels bad when the post frequency continues to dwindle here, but it's one of those things that I'm just not sure how to look at. Much like poker, which also explains the dwindling action.

Caught up in the busy hullabaloo that is my life these days, I completely missed the 3rd year anniversary of these here scribblings. Making note of that quickly leads to complete and utter bafflement, as I refuse to believe that it's been that long since I got completely eaten up by the poker bug, finally starting a gay blog of my own after discovering the wonderful world of poker blogs, and refreshing the likes of Iggy, Grubby, Al, Otis, Pauly, and others approximately 192,142 times a day, doing backflips in my cube when new posts were up.

That was three years ago? Really? Not a year or two? Three? You swear?

Should I be proud of all the babblings contained herein? I suppose I am, if for no other reason than I've stuck with it, unlike many projects that I start up, cruise along with for awhile, but ultimately abandon at some point.

I can't help but view it with some disappointment, though, as far as missed opportunities. For me, the primary point was always to play better poker, and I can't really fly the "Mission Accomplished" banner on that one. I mean, yeah, relatively speaking I'm a better player these days when I focus and don't half-ass around, but the dreams of crushing the big games are pretty much doomed to never be realized.

Life keeps getting busier and busier, and it's harder and harder for me to devote a lot of time and thought to this thing called poker. It is indeed a sexy diversion, one of the sexiest, but when you're too busy to be diverted, well, there you go.

Which may be the point, in the end, as far as both poker and neglected blogs go. Too much free time and obsessive, competitive tendencies are a great recipe for tons of blog posts and much juicy poker content, but, in the end, that's kind of a sad dish to serve.

I'm still playing a bit of poker these days, but it's mainly of the bloggerment tourney variety, and of late I've been playing excruciatingly bad. I can usually squeeze in a bit of time to play later at night, but usually end up second-guessing the decision to sign up for the tournament in the first place, and manage to donk off my stack in assorted silly and/or ugly ways.

But it's still fun, and that's pretty much the point, right?

Unlike other times, though, I'm pretty much unconflicted about all of the above. This has been pretty much the busiest, craziest year I can remember in awhile, as far as all my sundry schemings and projects and real estate investments and jobs, and I'm pretty cool with the slice of pie assigned to everything at the moment.

The reporting gigs for PokerRoom have been nice, too, as far as reminding me about the things I like about poker, and the potential there. Too much blog drama and ranting and ceaseless overcompensating can pretty easily sour one on poker in general, but it's very cool to go on these trips and spend time with people who love to play the game and have a blast doing it, regardless of whether they're a long-term "winner". 'Tis cool, too, that you can assemble a group from Jebus knows how many countries, with often not much in the way of a common language, but who ultimately get along really well based on a common liking of a silly card game.

So, umm, yeah. No real point here, no grand pronouncements. Crazy how time flies, I suppose, is the grandest. And lamest. Boo, me.

Back to Reality

2007-11-06T11:46:00.000-08:00

All in all, I really enjoyed the Niagara Falls trip. It's always hard coming back from these poker writing gig for PokerRoom, as I go from feeling a sense of accomplishment and -- for lack of a better word -- "rightness" about the work I do there (as far as putting writing talents, some Web knowledge, and a tiny bit of poker knowledge to work) to facing the reality that the day job that gainfully employs me is pretty much the polar opposite of all of that.

But yeah, been there, tilted at that windmill, yada yada yada, shutting the hell up.

This tournament was interesting in that I spent a lot more time railing the tables, due to the fact that my media application was mysteriously lost and the uber-important officials at the tournament wouldn't let me set up a laptop there in the media area. And by "railing" I mean literally that, as the only tables spectators could see were the three that were right by the roped off area.

While I guess allowing any spectators at all is something to celebrate, it still boggles my mind at just how hard some tournament organizers work to make the spectator process as unfriendly and difficult as possible. I'm not sure I've ever seen a hobby, sport, pursuit, whatever that goes as far as poker does out of its way to shoot itself in the foot, time and time again, when it comes to marketing the experience and making it spectator-friendly. Even things as simple as how you break tables, with an eye towards having as many remaining tables close to spectators (while still roping off enough space for your staff and players to be at a comfortable distance) instead of grumpily responding to an innocent question about why you're breaking tables away from spectators with a response like "You're lucky you're even in this room to watch."

I still slightly cling to the romantic notion that maybe, just maybe, the poker world will wake up and get assorted things right, but more and more I wonder if that'll ever happen. Too many people are intent on grabbing as much cash while they can, with hardly any eyes turned towards what's the best thing for five years down the road, ten years, etc.

But I digress. Watching lots of actual hands was pretty interesting, as far as how various pros attack the proposition of trying to wind their way through the mine fields and make the final table. Like any tournament, too, you have to have your share of luck. Sometimes lots of luck, like Jonathan Little, who went on to finish 2nd but within the first twenty minutes or so of the tournament start found himself all-in with 88 on a flop of J 9 8, facing one opponent with JJ and another with AA. Spike a J for quads, win tons of chips, proceed to final table, place 2nd. Pretty easy, really.

On the flip side of that coin (or maybe the same side of the coin, as that's a scary flop to lump all your chips in twenty minutes into the tournament, even with a set, with starting stacks of 20,000 and blinds of 25/50), you can't help but see some surprisingly bad play from the pros. I can definitely see the value in winning big pots early/midstage or hitting the road, but correctly reading your opponent's over-shove as JJ or QQ, thinking for two seconds and shrugging, and then calling off your stack with K8s, with nowhere near the odds to call? Ditto for more than a few similar plays with AK, when at best you're flipping coins with JJ/QQ or chopping with AK. Aggressively raising with those hands and driving the action, sure, by all means, but just calling off all your chips, when you're opponent has purposefully denied you the odds to do so, well, I dunno... But there's obviously a reason I'm a fish, writing about these tournaments, and not playing in them.

I'm not sure I'd want to go back to Niagara Falls again and again and again, but it definitely was impressive to see, and a fun trip on the cheesy tourist side of things. I don't quite get the Canadian obsession with coins and hatred of $1 bills, but other than that Canada was pretty nice.

The next working poker trip is December 12th-19th for the WPT Five Diamond Classic, then maybe a bit of a break until April. PokerRoom is sending players to the Aussie Millions, but so far I've only handled the tournament reporting for the North American gigs, and I haven't heard anything about being sent to the land down under, so I'm going to assume it's a no-go.

For any non-US players out there looking for good qualifiers for the Aussie Millions and other events, you really should hit up the PokerRoom qualifiers. Yeah, I'm biased, yada yada yada, but the $650 + $50 online finals that award the trip packages provide a lot of value for good players, as you're only jousting around with 40-50 players for the seat, and most satellite in through cheaper qualifiers and aren't the strongest players in the world. While only 1st typically wins a seat, 2nd-4th typically pays out pretty well, sometimes more than $5,000 for second, so it's not an all-or-nothing sort of deal. The fringe benefits if you win a seat are prettty nice, too, as far as the extra meals, excursions, day trips, etc., all of which is on top of your entry, air fare, hotel, and spending money.

Canada is Nice, Eh...The WPT, Eh, Not so Much

2007-10-29T05:30:00.000-07:00

I've been in Niagara Falls since last Wednesday and hey, it's pretty damn cool here. I had a day or two at the beginning to do the gawking tourist thing, walking around and taking photos of lots of falling water, but the last three days have been pretty freaking hectic as far as covering the WPT North American Poker Championship for the blog over at PokerRoom.com.

Much of the hectic has been of the pretty freaking annoying variety, as it's completely and utterly unnecessary. Working 13-14 hour days during the opening starting days is pretty much standard, but having to run across the street to our hotel and up to my room to post any updates? Not so standard. Not being able to even have a laptop within rock-throwing distance of the tournament room? Not so standard.

A lot of the hassle is due to local gaming laws, as far as requiring that media apply in advance through the WPT to get screened and officially approved in order to set up near the tournament room, but therein lies the rub, as far as the WPT's role. In this day and age of media exclusivity at poker tournaments it's far too easy for the WPT to simply lose your email address and phone number when alerting media previously registered for events as to the restrictions and regulations here, and to somehow ignore half a dozen requests to register as non-exclusive media for the tournament.

In the grand scheme of things, not a huge deal at all. Just highly annoying, as far as the WPT making everything as difficult as possible for any media outlet that isn't CardPlayer. Which is a shame, as I'm not going to pack up my bags and go home, so all you really end up doing is making my job much more difficult, for no reason or gain whatsoever. I completely understand the need to generate cash through exclusivity agreements, especially if you're a poorly managed company on the brink of financial doom, but it's kind of a sad state of things, and one in which no one wins. The WPT staves off bankruptcy for a bit longer, so I guess that's a win, but an empty media room with a couple of laptops isn't doing poker as a whole much good, especially when the CardPlayer coverage is as bad as it is.

But enough venting. It's more due to tired feet and a sore back from all the footing it back and forth, which I likely shouldn't even gripe about, as it's at least healthier than sitting on my butt all this time.

The overall turnout was a little disappointing, as they only ended up drawing 504 runners. Which is slightly above last year's figures, and there's nothing terrible about that, but organizers had been promising a blowout field of 600-700 entries, right up until Sunday morning (the last starting day), even though it was ainfully obvious at that point that they'd be lucky to hit 500.

The legal age to enter casinos here is 19, so the overall field is pretty damn young, with many of the online wunderkids who aren't yet 21 making the trip here. Cracks me up sitting on the rails watching the action and hearing assorted packs of wunderkids discussing life, their plans that night, etc. I can't even imagine being 19 again, much less 19 with a couple of hundred thousands dollars in bricks of cash in a duffelbag, trying to decide what to do that night.

Haven't played a single hand of poker so far, and I'm not sure that'll change. Other than being insanely busy with work here, the waiting list for 5/5/ NL at the casino was 5 or 6 hours deep for much of the weekend, although things cleared out once the weekend was over. I'm fairly cash-poor at the moment with all my house-buying, and playing with slightly scared money isn't too much fun. The wife arrived on Saturday so I'm probably going to use what little free time I have to go do touristy things with here, instead of the normal degenerate time killing.

Absolute Lies, Half-Truths, and Everything Else In Between

2007-10-22T07:12:00.000-07:00

The whole Absolute debacle continues to be pretty amusing, but leaves me with all sorts of mixed emotions. Pauly (as always) says it much more elegantly and comprehensively than I can, but honestly, what a fucked up world poker is these days.

As far as official statements from Absolute, here's a quick synopsis: horseshit. They're saying anything and everything they can think of to keep their operations from spinning down the drain. The reality is that it's entirely possible for crooked-ass, immoral people to be in charge of major poker sites. Not just possible, but inevitable. I mean, for the love of Jebus, you're talking about an unregulated industry that spins off millions in free cash, each and every day of the week. Because of the inability of the US government to get its shit together and tax and regulate online poker, operators have been driven even further afield, and given even more leeway for shenanigans such as this to occur.

My favorite part of the whole Absolute situation is that one of their defenses when confronted with the fact that they were being less than forthright was to put forth the following defense: "What, you really want us to be honest and to admit that our highest ranking executives are treating the site like their personal piggy bank? Don't you realize that admitting that would doom us personally and give the entire industry a huge black eye in a particularly vulnerable time? No one wins in that scenario. How could you want that?"

Which makes me giggle quite a bit, as far as falling back on the argument that we should all think about the good of poker and not condemn Absolute. Umm, okay. You've done about the absolute worst thing a site can, short of absconding with all the money players have deposited with you, yet your primary defense is to beg for leniency? Why? So you can do it again?

The interesting part will be to see if they really suffer much, traffic-wise. I have to think much of the traffic on Absolute is there for rakeback, prop deals, etc., as there's pretty much zero reason to play there, when offered alternatives such as Full Tilt, Party, and PokerStars. So they may not even get hit that hard, as far as losing traffic, and that's not even factoring in the people who simply don't care about any allegations and scandals and just want their poker fix.

Haven't seen too much upheaval in traffic numbers at pokersitescout yet, but it's still early. It's interesting to see the gains that the iPoker Network has been making, as they've passed Ongame and are closing in on Full Tilt. Never thought that would have been the case back in the days when I played on Noble Poker and it was virtually a ghost town for much of the day.

I've barely played poker of late, as all my free time is getting sucked up by the most recent house project. I played in another Aussie Millions freeroll a few weeks back, and ended up finishing 9th (top 2 got trips). I was actually 2nd or 3rd for most of the tournament, pretty much on cruise control, but then lost a big pot with KK versus AQ, got no love on three or four coin-flips versus shortish stacks, then got bounced when I got overly frisky with a flush draw.

Played the blogger freeroll at PokerStars, exiting at 200th or so. Too much donkery to overcome in this one, as I had a nice stack but ran into the perfect storm of opponents who call off all their chips with just a gutshot, who think K10o is a monster pre-flop hand, and who can't wait to get all their chips in the middle with A4 s facing a raise, a re-raise, and an all-in from the three players in front of them. Well played, sirs, well played...

Heading off to Niagara Falls on Wednesday to cover the WPT North American Poker Championship for PokerRoom. I'm definitely looking forward to this trip, as I've never been to that part of the country, it's a nice ten day break from the day job, and my wife is flying up for the last half of the trip, as our anniversary is October 30th. Hard to believe that it's somehow been three years since we got married, but there you go.

ZOMG Online Poker is Rigged and Filled with Cheaters

2007-10-16T07:08:00.000-07:00

The last week hasn't exactly been a banner one for online poker security, as the final nail in the Absolute visible whole card/superuser brouhaha, as well as PokerStars voiding TheVoid's +$1 million cash in the WCOOP Main Event for running multiple accounts. I'd link to relevant threads at 2+2 and PocketFives but they're easy enough to find, if ye be so inclined.

As far as the Absolute situation, it was pretty clear to most experienced players with half a brain that something very fishy was going on, from both the hand histories from the victory in the $1K MTT and the hand histories from cash games of the accounts in question. Various convoluted, contrived explanations were floated as far as a way to explain it all away with no cheating involved, but as is often the Occam-y case, the simplest explanation is looking like the most accurate: a superuser account that can see hole cards exists (or existed) on Absolute.

On the PokerStars side of things, it's just another case of a player running multiple accounts in the same MTT, ala ZeeJustin. Nothing very exciting or sexy here. It's happened before, it'll happen again. It's very likely happening right now. The only real roadblock to running multiple accounts is one of risk tolerance more than logistics, as there's little the sites can do to truly combat it proactively, as they're largely reduced to reactive action once it's brought to light.

Which I think is the real issue here, and not so much the fact that cheating and collusion occur at online poker sites; how should sites react to embarassing, painful security breaches. While much of the forum furor about the absolute situation seems to be focused on getting the word out about the "scandal" itself, I think that's a little misguided, and does none of us any good. You can argue that new customers should be warned away from sites where cheating and collusion might occur, but that's not exactly practical. Cheating and collusion of some sort occurs on every online poker site, each and every day, to greater and lesser extents. There are simply too many shiny carrots dangling in front of people for it not to occur, especially when the only repercussions are that your accounts are closed and money seized.

That doesn't let sites off the hook, though, just because some degree of tomfoolery is inevitable. I think PokerStars is setting a great example as to how to deal with such things, which is to publicly acknowledge a potential issue exists, investigate the issue, and take public action, based on the results of the investigation. As an online player, that's all I ask for and expect. I'd never expect PokerStars to proactively block all attempts at running multiple accounts, or somehow prevent all attempts at collusion from ever being successful. It's just not practical nor achievable. Ever. So all I ask is that they hire smart people who understand the underlying issues, can recognize the importance of available evidence, and take public action when an outcome is reached.

Contrast that with the complete clusterfuck that is the current situation at Absolute. When all the brouhaha erupted, they put out a public statement shortly thereafter saying they were aware of the issues and that they'd thoroughly investigated the situation, all was well, and that nothing wonky had gone on whatsoever, even going so far as to add that it'd be impossible for anyone to see hole cards anyway since their client doesn't even parse/record that data for all players at the table. Case closed, in Absolute's eyes, and despite many people asking for more details and information, posing more questions, it looked like the case was closed.

Until some brainiac support staff at Absolute accidentally replied to a hand history request with ALL of the hand histories from the table in question in the suspicious tournament win, with hole card data for all players (as well as IP addresses, email addresses, etc.). Which not only shot a huge gaping hole in Absolute's initial claims that they never even record such data, but pretty much sealed the case as far as hole cards being available to the suspicious account, and pretty much confirmed that a superuser account does in fact exist, as it logged onto the suspicious accounts table and observed. More poking around seems to suggest that based on the IP address of those involved with shenaigans, it may be a current/former Absolute employee behind the suspicious accounts.

Assuming all that is true (and it's still just supposition now, to be fair, but supposition with a lot of evidence behind it), what should Absolute's reaction be? So far they seem to be taking the hunker down, proclaim all is well, hope that it eventually blows over approach. Which is understandable, as it takes a pretty big leap of faith to admit that your security has been breached to the point that hole card data was visible, clinging to the notion that players won't exit en masse, even if you claim that the problem has been resolved and will never happen again.

Painful as that is, though, I think that's what Absolute has to do, if the claims are true. It's not like their RNG was cracked, and, in a backwards fashion, it's actually a less serious security breach if it's an inside job, or if the superuser account was a remnant of the days of yore when the client was being coded and someone wanted to test things out. It's not pretty to admit such stuff, but it's at least logical, as far as the basic facts, and once addressed it shouldn't (in theory) ever be an issue again in the future.

Will Absolute fess up and come clean? I dunno. Signs seem to be pointing to "no", but who knows. If PokerStars suffered exactly the same crisis, would they deal with it head-on, publicly admitting the problem, the results of their investigation, and what they're doing to fix it? Again, who knows, but I think the answer would be "yes", and I doubt they'd suffer dramatically from it on the business side of things.

Much bloviating aside, all most online players want is to know that potential issues are investigated thoroughly, by smart folks, who aren't afraid to admit publicly that something hinky went down. I don't want or need a magic security blanket from online poker sites that protects me from any and all potential wrongdoing; I just want the reassurance that issues will be dealt with when they arise.

My Jesus Will Kick Your Jesus' Ass for All Eternity

2007-10-10T06:22:00.000-07:00

Watching the ESPN coverage of the 2007 WSOP Main Event has been really interesting this year, as far as being out there covering the whole thing live in meat space, then watching the coverage months later on the talking television box.

And watching the final table was even doubly so (interesting, that is), as it was pretty impossible for us non-exclusive media types to provide much coverage from the actual tournament room/final table stage, so I watched nearly all of the final table action from the live stream provided to the media room next door. We basically saw the actual action when cards were dealt, etc., but not really anything else from the room in general, as far as the stands, table talk, etc.

So I was there, obviously knew what was going to happen, and even remembered most of the big hands, as far as who got bludgeoned by Jerry Yang, how it happened, etc. None of that was surprising or really all that interesting. What was interesting, though, was all of the hallelujahs and beseechings of the Lord to deliver a favorable turn and river card, as while I knew Yang was of a religious bent, I had no clue just to what extent it was expressed for the cameras.

Honestly, I was pretty flummoxed last night, watching that on the ESPN coverage. Especially the hand Lee Watkinson busted out on, with Yang trying to ring up God on the direct prayer line, while Watkinson's girlfriend was very loudly testifying in the stands on Lee's behalf. I mean, wow.

I can't say I'm particularly religious, but I'm also not particularly anti-religious. Aside from the whole intolerance and moral superiority bent of some religions, I'm pretty much all for people believing in what brings them peace and happiness, especially if it provides a social support system that not only brings individuals happiness but does good in the world.

But I have to say that it made me pretty damn uneasy to watch and listen to prayers at the poker table. I mean, I get the argument that Yang was praying for help from God so that he could use the prize money to do God's will and donate all sorts of money to help all sorts of people. I wholeheartedly believe that his prayers were genuine in the sense that he wasn't asking God to help him suckout so that he could have more money to spend on strippers and blow.

But still. You're playing poker. The cards have been shuffled. You're gambling. Do you really want to involve God in all that? Don't you think that God perhaps has more important issues to attend to, instead of reaching down to help you hit your straight on the river to make $8 million and change instead of $4 million and change? Really? I mean, seriously, really?

Pulling back from the religious talk, I feel pretty bad for Lee Childs' dog, as you know he got kicked more than a few times when Childs watched the coverage and saw Yang's hole cards on the two hands that Childs laid down bigger pairs. The first one wasn't so terrible, but why Childs laid down the QQ I do not know, especially if he was willing to later look Yang up with KJo. I mean, dude, good lord. And if you're going to show the first big pair you laid down, you can't then roll over with the QQ, as the only point of showing the first time is to encourage Yang or someone else to push into you with an inferior hand when you have a hand like QQ in that spot.

I was also surprised at all the talking between Childs and his dad. I mean, yeah, it wasn't really out of line, but it was pretty close to the line. It just would never enter my head, in a million years, to hop up in the middle of a hand and go talk to anyone in the stands, moaning about how I don't think I can lay it down, yada yada yada.

You can't really argue the fact that Yang had a lot of luckbox mojo going his way, as he obviously did, but I honestly didn't think his final table play was that terrible. I think he played pretty terribly from 18 players or so down to the final nine, but once Hilm gifted Yang his stack and Yang had a big chip lead at the final table, he basically just bludgeoned people into submission. Yeah, he made some pretty bad plays (calling Watkinson's push with A9o, picking some bad spots to try to bully people in general, etc.) and kept making weird overbets, but he kept the pressure on people, and did it consistently, even when things went south there for a bit and he was bleeding chips. I don't think he's a particularly good player, don't get me wrong, but he played his big stack the way you're supposed to.

It was pretty amusing, though, to see the never-ending play when it was four or five-handed condensed down to something like 6 hands, on the ESPN broadcast. I mean yeah, obviously, and I don't think they did a bad job, but I just remember sitting there for hours on end, praying for someone to just win the damn thing, and it's interesting to see that suddenly, magically shrink to about 15 minutes of television time.

And So It Goes...

2007-10-04T14:06:00.000-07:00

Haven't yet gotten into full-swing manic house rehab mode yet, but getting close. On the bright side, the recent investment property we closed on is too much for me to handle alone, so I'll be hiring out 75% of the work. On the not-bright side, that still leaves about 1200 sq. ft. of hardwood floors for me to refinish, 800 sq. ft. of tile to lay, and repainting the entire exterior/interior. Plus approximately 172,192,283 other things that will inevitably crop up.

I've mainly been doing demo work so far, which should be finished by this weekend. Kind of nice and mindless, if a bit sweaty and exhausting, as there's no AC at all in the house.

I've managed to cram in a decent amount of poker, pretty much all at the $50NL level. I'm back up a bit over $2K bankroll-wise, which is nice, but I have to admit to a bit of boredom creeping in. Playing profitable poker at the $50 NL tables is more a matter of patience than anything, as I swear you can just play straight-up ABC poker, never bluff, never gamble, and book a decent little profit. Not an exciting proposition, really, but better than poking yourself in the eye with a sharp stick. I qualified for the Aussie Millions freeroll again which is on Sunday, so I'm sure I'll have some ridonkulous bustout hand to share from that one, likely after 4-5 hours of play.

Sometimes I rail against the routine of work/sleep/work/sleep/work/work/work/sleep/work but lately it's been kind of nice. Go to work, come home, eat, do some more work, play with the critters, sleep, work. Apply, rinse, lather, repeat. Boring, again, but kind of nice. It's a bit alarming to suddenly realize its October, and that I somehow lost September, but such is life I guess.

Creasy the dwarf bunny is finally, thank Jebus, largely litter-trained, which was pretty timely as I was about to open the door and punt him outside, once and for all, after the 172nd time he insisted on peeing all over the couch or on top of freshly-laundered clothes in a clothesbasket. The dynamic rat duo of Scribbles and Rip is pretty constantly entertaining, although they're growing like little rat weeds and capable of getting into infinitely more trouble now that they're not timid little babies, staying close to us and scared of nearly everything. They're pretty funny little goobers, though, and definitely worth the trouble they cause.

Sign Me Up

2007-10-02T12:33:00.001-07:00

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code: 4289758

Poker Poker Poker (Sadly Shaking Head)

2007-09-27T13:30:00.000-07:00

Poker and I had been on pretty good terms, but last weekend was just ugly. Fairly gruesome run at the cash games, then I got bounced from the Aussie Millions freeroll on Sunday in 40th or so when AA couldn't hold up against J6h.

I think the key to poker happiness is keeping my expectations very, very low. I like to play poker. When I sit down to play and have fun, I do well. When I get emotionally invested (man, I need to win some money today) and or intellectually invested (man, look at these donkeys, I should win some money today) in the results, I tend to post some pretty piss-poor results.

Why I ignore that and put a metal trash can on my head and bang it with a spoon, shouting "Lalalalala, I can't hear you," I do not know.

One thing I continue to struggle with is picking my battles with the crazies. Especially the crazies who love to shove for a ridiculous overbet pre-flop or on the flop. I'm not recommending completely nitting up, but I'm also not sure I want to get all my chips in the middle with A10 on a flop of 8s 4s 10d, if a crazy calls a pre-flop raise and open shoves for $95 more into a $10 pot. Or if I raise it up to $4 pre-flop from UTG, everyone folds, and the resident push monkey insta-shoves from the BB for $100. In theory, sure, call all day, as I'm ahead more often than not, which means I make money over time. In practice, I'm usually not that far ahead, and often flipping coins with a crazy. Definitely see the value in pushing any edge, if there's a reasonable belief you have an edge, but the overall EV is sometimes marginal, and getting the bad end of a few of those encounters early in a session can easily lead to a downward spiral of poor play.

I'm also struggling with letting the past go, as far as targeting lucksacks that stack me early on with ridiculous hands. Yeah, there's a lot to be said for liberally involving yourself with bad players, but not so much when steam is still coming out of your ears. I donked off a buy-in or two that I should still have due to still being Tilty McTiltpants and getting entangled in hands I shouldn't, giving absolutely no credence whatsoever to the fact that even lucksacks are dealt strong hands from time to time.

But, you know, I still gots chips, and managed to stop the bleeding at around the $1,500 mark, after donking off $500 or so. I'm on pace to get in about 40,000 hands this month, which is more than I've played in many, many moons.

Poker play may be light for the foreseeable future, though, as I closed on investment property #2 last Friday, so there's lots and lots of work to be done. I'm hoping to bang this one out pretty quickly, hopefully finishing up by November 1, then that's it for the real estate wheeling and dealing until next spring.

Heading off to Niagara Falls, Canada in late October for another tournament reporting gig for PokerRoom.com, which I'm definitely looking forward to, then covering the WPT event at the Bellagio in December, which should be a nice break before braving a family Christmas in Tennessee.

May You Live in Interesting Times

2007-09-19T11:11:00.000-07:00

Part of me is tempted to say that not a lot has been going on in my corner of the world, but, on paper, that's a bald-faced lie. Highlights of the last few weeks include:

1) Seeing Bob Dylan and Wilco and assorted other cool bands at the Austin City Limits music festival.

2) Being threatened with legal action for the very first time in my life.

3) Preparing to close on another investment property tomorrow.

4) Playing many, many hands of poker.

Part of the problem is that I think of the last few weeks as being very slothful on a personal level, as for the first time since April I haven't had a house in need of repairs to work on. (Well, other than the one we live in, but that's a different sort of always ongoing never-ending sort of thing.) But I suppose I've been pretty busy, when looking at things from afar.

Poker remains, as always, a strange beast. The nice little heater I'd been disappeared, replaced with a fairly epic cooler that saw the fledgling bankroll drop all the way back down to $1,000. I would have thought it difficult to drop nearly $1,000 in the .50/$1 NL games in just a few days, but I managed to pull it off.

All the usual culprits, but the biggest was playing when I was very much distracted and not in position to play anything resembling my A game, but I insisted on cranking out tons of hands to qualify for the Aussie Millions freeroll promotion on Full Tilt. 6 max games can be pretty punishing when you get a bit spooked and run into some rough sailing, as it's easy to sit there in a semi-daze, calling far too many pre-flop raises with speculative hands, then meekly folding away buy-ins when you miss.

The frustration is also more evident when you can't, no matter what you do, get paid off on the big hands that you finally do hit. AA gets cracked by 94o, a flopped set goes down in flames to a runner runner straight, the only time the action is folded to your BB in an hour is the time when you have AA, and on and on and on. You start playing scared, dumb poker, and it all goes to hell pretty quickly.

On the bright side, I finally had the good sense to shut things down and spent the rest of the weekend watching football and drinking. Since then I've been able to repair about 2/3rds of the damage I did, getting back to around $1,700 or so.

It also drives home the old adage about playing within your bankroll, too. I've been a little too arrogant for my own good playing at the lower stakes while trying to grind out a bankroll, telling myself that $1,000 was more than adequate for me to play .50/1, I'm too hawesome to get tilty and do too much damage, yada yada yada. Not so much, though, in practice, as the only thing that saved me was that I started the whole debacle sitting at just under $2K, and managed to right the ship before doing irreperable harm. If I'd started at $1K I'd have blown through most of then donked off the last $300-$400 doing something stupid like sitting in a $2/4 game with my entire roll, getting it all in with a hand like QQ vs. AK then bitching and moaning about my terrible luck when my opponent rivered an A.

Very happy that maddening, maddening football is back. No wagering this year, other than an office pool at work, which is probably for the best given the wacky start so far to the NFL season. Week 1 looked fairly normal but Week 2, umm, not so much. Nothing much to say about my Longhorns, other than all signs are pointing to a serious beatdown when they play OU this year. If we struggle with Rice this week, well, that's pretty much the nail in the coffin, methinks, as some good Texas high school football teams could likely thump Rice.

What Do You Mean, I Made Money?

2007-09-11T06:43:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to take full advantage of my relative downtime the last few weeks, as I'm waiting to close on the next rehab property on September 21st, and have mostly caught up on all the major freelance gigs that were on my plate. That's translated into some actual lazy weekends for me, with much watching of football and playing of poker.

The last four or five days were interesting on the poker front, as I managed to cram in about 8,000 hands at the .50/1 NL tables. Which is a ton for me, and also conincided with the first run of pure, unadulterated shitty luck since I've trying to grind the bankroll back to respectability. The glass half-empty side of me was expecting it, as I hadn't yet sailed through the I-Can't-Win-a-Big-Hand-for-My-Freaking-Life-Even-When-I'm-95%-Favorite-On-the-Flop seas.

Things took a dive south last Friday and it seemed like I got my teeth kicked in on a regular basis. Dump 2-3 buy-ins losing to runner runners, grind back to even or so, dump a few more, grind back, more teeth kicking, yada yada yada. I even managed to lose with quads, for just the second time ever in my poker career. Good times.

When I finally shut things down last night, though, somehow or other the bankroll was just shy of $2,000, about +$500 from where I started on Friday. Which honestly was a bit of a shock, as I'd have guessed I was still stuck a few hundred dollars. I've been making a concentrated effort this go around to just sit down and play, usually 4-6 tables, paying no attention to whether I'm up or down, no multi-tasking, just grinding out hands.

I'm also a little surprised that .50/1 has been as profitable as it has. Too small a sample size and all that good stuff, but I'm averaging about $25/hour for all the grinding. Not going to make me a rich monkey anytime soon, but that's not bad money for playing pretty straightforward poker on auto-pilot. Tempted to jump up to $1/2 but I'm going to try to be good and wait until I have $4K before doing so.

Aside from poker, it's been nice to just hang out with the wife and animal menagarie. The rats continue to be pretty dang amusing, especially as their different personalities develop. Scribbles is very much the affectionate, curious one, always checking stuff out, very laid-back, and a fat little pig when it comes to food. Rip, not so affectionate and pretty rough and tumble when it comes to wrestling with hands and beating the crap out of his brother. But he's also very much the scaredy rat when it comes to new things, waiting for Scribbles to check it out and deem it safe before he'll venture out himself.

And the dwarf bunny Creasy, well, he's just crazy:

Grindy McGrindsalot

2007-09-06T13:02:00.000-07:00

I've actually been getting in a ton of hands of late, in a fairly silly quest to log enough FTP points on Full Tilt to qualify for their Aussie Millions freerolls. While I've been trying to stick to the Chris Ferguson bankroll challenge rules, I caved a bit and jumped to .50/1 a little prematurely, as I just couldn't grind at .25/.50 any more.

I'm currently sitting at about $1,500, which ain't bad. I've had a couple of slips here and there (including one day when I played a boatload of $33 SnGs for no good reason other than to try to rack up FTP points more quickly) and I caved and played a couple of $50+$5 satellites to the $750 guaranteed last Sunday, so the total bankroll would be slightly higher if I had better impulse control.

It's been interesting as far as sticking to basics and just playing tons of hands at the 6 max NL games. I don't feel like I'm doing anything that spectacular, other than amping up things on the aggression front and forcing myself to keep my VP$IP ~27%-30%, which mainly consists of stealing more in position with a wider range of hands. I'm sticking to just 4 tables at a time and, more often than not, just playing poker and not multi-tasking, etc.

One thing that sticks out is that aside from your typical continuation bet on the flop/turn after whiffing the flop, I'm really not bluffing that much. I will occasionally bluff, depending on the player and how active I've been, but for the most part I'm playing things fairly straightforward. If I bluff, it's usually on the flop, or leading out on the turn for a pot-sized bet, with very few big bluffs on the river.

Part of that rationale is that stacks are typically very short at the lower limit games, and people simply won't ever lay down an overpair (and very rarely will lay down top/mid pair), so there seems to be a lot less value in bluffing.

On the flip side of that coin, I constantly shake my head at the all-in bluffs on the river at these stakes, especially the massive overbet that is 90% of the time a bluff, and 10% of the time the nuts. I just don't see how that moves works enough to become as popular as it apparently is, but I guess it's more the love of shoving in on a complete bluff (and winning, every now and then) that's more appealing than the reality of how much that move costs you over time.

Still waiting to close on the next rehab house, with the first rehab I did still on the market (although it's only been listed a little over a week). I'm kind of enjoying the slight break in my myriad labors, and it's been fun to take it relatively easy, donking around at night with poker, playing with the crazy hyper baby rats, and other such stuff.

Thank Jebus that football is back, too, as the sports well had been awfully dry of late. We'll see if the Longhorns can get their acts together, otherwise TCU may hang a loss on us and it'll be a long, long season.

Sweet, Sweet Home

2007-09-03T11:01:00.000-07:00

Flew back home on Friday and was pretty dang happy to do so, although I did enjoy the trip out to LA and the WPT Legends event a good bit. I'm coming to realize that I've been blessed with a pretty great gig, covering events for PokerRoom.com, especially given the nature of the work they want me to do. Since they're looking for detailed coverage only on their qualifiers, I get to avoid a lot of the headaches that other non-exclusive media have to stomach at major events, and they actually encourage me to write in a more humorous, laid-back style.

It's looking like I'll be covering four major tournaments this year that they send qualifiers to (the WSOP, Legends, North American Poker Championship at Niagara Falls, and Bellagio Five Diamond World Poker Classic), which is pretty manageable as far as fitting into my schedule, and not an insane amount of time to be away from home. I'm not getting rich covering these but it's very nice extra money, and, as a poker player, pretty damn cool just to be at the events. So there's a lot there to be thankful for, and that sank in this last trip, especially after talking to a few of the other poker media there at a late night cash game at Commerce. It's easy to focus on the downsides, especially the 12-16 hour working days at times, but it's a pretty unique opportunity that landed in my lap, and I definitely appreciate it.

Poker-wise, it was a pretty nice trip, as I finished up about +$4,500. Most of that came from the tournament score the first day, but the cash games treated me very well the last few days. Part of it was simply running hot, but a lot of it boils down to some very bad players sitting down at the table, on a regular rotating basis. I can count on one hand the number of good players that I sat with, and still have some fingers left over.

One funny hand occured the last night, in what was a pretty friendly, talkative $2/3 NL $100 max buy-in game. Lots of showing of hands, lots of chatter, etc. One limper in front of me for $3, I limped with 67h, folded to SB who completed, and BB checked. Flop is 5s 6c 9c. Checked to me, I get a little frisky and bet $10 (willing to fold if anyone re-pops it) and only the BB calls. The BB had played very straightforward so far and made absolutely zero moves and hadn't gotten out of line at all.

Turn is 8s, putting 5s 6c 9c 8s on the board. BB checks, I bet $20, and BB pretty quickly check-raises me all-in for $200 more (I had about $300 behind at that point). I think about it for about two seconds and fold, showing the 7h. And pretty much the entire table exploded, with much shaking of heads, as if that was the absolute craziest laydown they'd ever seen, and the BB showed the 7d amidst the general uproar.

I didn't say anything other than shrugging my shoulders sheepishly, but I think that's a pretty easy laydown. Against a few of the crazy players at the table I'd insta-call there, but not against the BB. With no action pre-flop and only $33 invested in the hand and one straightforward opponent, I have to assume I'm playing for a chop, and he very well might have a freeroll for a flush as well. With no raises pre-flop, 7 10 isn't out of the question for a bigger straight, and he'd never make that move with just two pair. He'd raise with 88 or 99 pre-flop to try to think the herd, so the only hands I'm ahead of are 55 and 66.

But yeah. 95% of that line of thought went entirely over the collective heads of the table, who only saw silly me lay down a "huge" hand when someone bet big at me. And, in all honesty, it'll likely continue to fly over the collective heads, for their entire poker career.

Which brings us to the point of this (not my mad laydown skillz), and one of the things I wrestle with in my head space, especially after the last few working poker trips I've done. As much as it pains me to admit I'm, I'm a pretty good poker player. Put me in any tournament except the very biggest ones, and I've got a better than average shot at making the money. Sit me down in an average cash game and I'm better than most people at the table.

That's actually a difficult thing for me to admit. It's not modesty, but more a desire to shirk responsibility. Well, not even responsibility, but potential more than anything. I used to work very hard at poker, constantly reviewing hands, analyzing stats, reading anything I could get my hands on, etc. And it paid off, in the end. I've spent the last year or two donking around and hamstringing myself, but from a dollars and cents perspective, I'm substantially ahead, with most of that cash produced way back in the day when I was grinding it out at the 15/30 and 20/40 limit games. I've also had more than my fair share of success in live tournaments and cash games, kicking in a healthy amount to the bottom line.

Yet I still tend to embrace the self-deprecating role of the donk, reassuring anyone I meet that I'm not that good, that I have no patience these days, that I played fairly seriously at one time but not anymore, hee haw, hee haw. And I'm not sure why, other than it lets me off the hook, as far as taking my results seriously, and gives me an out, as far as continuing to ignore the things I should be working on, to play better poker.

It's very much the competitive side of me surfacing, but getting to witness the play at the WSOP and WPT Legends event does leave a burr under my saddle, even after I'm back home. As far as tournament play itself, there's not that huge a gap there. Banrkoll-wise, enormous, gaping chasm, which in and of itself presents a pretty huge gap in relative skill, as I'd currently never be table to treat the chips as chips in a major event. But I don't doubt I could hang at that level, especially if I put in the time and effort to build a bankroll to get there.

Which brings me full-circle to exactly the fly in the ointment, which is being willing to put in the time to work on my game, grinding out a bankroll again, moving up in limits, rinse, lather, repeat. And that'd be a long, long road, as while I've managed to grind my roll back up over $1,000 at Full Tilt, that's still just a wee drop in the bucket.

Regardless of grandiose dreamings, though, it does feel good to be playing "seriously" again, even if I'm still sitting at .25/.50 and .50/1 games. As far as how long I can maintain the enthusiasm before reverting into donk, recreational mode, we shall see.

Nearly at the Finish Line

2007-08-30T10:44:00.000-07:00

It's been a fun trip out here in LA for the WPT Legends, but I'm getting the itch to be back home, and nearly looked into changing my ticket to fly back home this morning. Thankfully for the poker bankroll, I didn't, which meant that I spent about six hours late last night at the silly $2/3 NL $100 max tables, cashing out nearly +$700 when it was all said and done.

I got off to a pretty dismal start, losing my first $100 buy-in in about ten minutes when AA was no good versus A7o, with all in the money going in pre-flop. I re-bought and before I could even get chips another buy-in went down the tubes, as the very next hand QQ went down in flames to JJ on a flop of 10 7 2, with a jack spiking on the river.

Two hands after that I look down to find KK, raise it up and get approximately 296 callers. I somehow managed to win that hand, though, with Q10o calling me down all the after a 10 high flop. Then I collected a nice monsterpotten with 89d, as there were tons of limps, a raise to $10, and everyone called to see a flop of Ad 10d 4d.

The pre-flop raiser fired out $75 into a ~$90 pot and it folded to me, with two people left to act behind me. Which actually is a bit of an awkward spot, as everyone still in the hand had around $200 behind, but due to the way these games play with all of the gambooler types, even if I shove for $200 or so I probably can't chase anyone out behind me, even/especially if they just have a big diamond. The flip side of that coin is people were calling all sorts of bets in spots like that with things as weak as Ax if it was "cheap" enough to call, so I finally decided to just call the $75 bet, hope at least one of the guys came along, and then shove on a non-diamond turn.

At which point the original raiser immediately declares "He flopped a baby flush, with something like 89d, but he's just worried about you", pointing to a guy yet to act. Which was half right, but still impressive.

Both guys behind me call the $75 bet and the turn is the Qc. Original raiser bet out something like $100 into a $400 pot (leaving him $50 behind), I shove for $150 more, one fold, then a call, and the original raiser disgustedly calls.

Turn is something like the 3c, putting Ad 10d 4d Qc 3c on the board. Original raiser had 10 10 and the caller after me had Ac Qd, so I actually had to dodge a lot of cards there on the river.

Not long after that I limped with 10 10 (there were already six or seven limpers in front of me, and it was pretty pointless to try to raise to knock anyone out, as people were simply calling anything). 8 players see a flop of 10s 8c 4s and I bet out fairly big when checked to me and get two callers. Turn is the case ten. Checked around. River is a heart of some sort. I bet out about one-third the pot and immediately get raised all-in. Second opponent dwells and dwells and despite all my jedi mind-tricks he finally folds. I call and table my quads and the other guy rolls over AA. Umm, well-played, sir.

I also chopped a private SnG we ran with the PokerRoom.com folks here, for $420. The guy and I who chopped were going to play the $1,000 + $70 bankroll rebuilder tournament advertised at the Bike, but when we went over there we discovered they'd cancelled last night's tournament. Not sure if that was just last's night, so we may try to give it another go tonight if the tournament is running. Part of me just wants to book a nice, profitable trip, but I'm about +$4,500 at this point for the trip, so donking a chunk of it back taking a shot at a bigger tournament still leaves me with a pretty solid showing.

Just a Fly on the Wall

2007-08-27T10:02:00.000-07:00

I always find it amusing the things you can overhear from time to time, as far as the discussions people have in perfectly public places. I just had breakfast at the Eden Lobby restaurant here at Commerce, and the only other people in the place were Barry Shulman and two young guys involved with CardPlayer.com, Eric Seidel at another table, and a third guy who was still in the WPT Legends event but also involved with a betting syndicate of some sort, based on the cell phone conversations he was having.

And me, all by my lonesome, sitting there playing my Nintendo DS.

Pretty interesting listening to Shulman and the CardPlayer.com folks discuss assorted things, including their displeasure at the WPT for even allowing other poker media outlets to be present at all. To be fair, Shulman wasn't quite as cocky and douchebaggy as the two younger guys, who were vowing to make life miserable starting today (and moving forward, not just at this tournament but the remaining WPT events) for any other media outlet that had the audacity to show up and try to cover the event, even if they play by the rules and follow the media restrictions as currently outlined.

Again, there's a good argument that if you pays the money, you gets to make the rules, but I can't help but think that you're asking for some bad karmic mojo to come your way if you sit there and openly gloat about the shuttering of PokerWire, as things tend to move in circles.

Pretty cool to listen to the betting syndicate guy, as he was basically leaving instructions with someone lower on the totem pole about what the plan for the day was, who was playing what, who to shift from this sport to that, and who hadn't been performing well and needed to be cut loose. Also interesting all the references to higher ups, including "The Man", as far as what people who'd been struggling of late needed to do to get back in the good graces of "The Man". I mean, seriously, it was pretty much exactly the cliched conversation you'd expect to hear, except I can't see any reason to think the guy was full of shit, as we're talking a detailed twenty minute conversation with a ridiculous numbers of lines, facts, plans, and figures touched on.

Coming back from the Bike last night, I overheard a youngish guy at the valet window asking about getting a cab to Commerce, so we rode back together. (After waiting for like half an hour for a cab. I mean, Jebus, are there like two cabs total in this entire huge honking city?) He'd just busted out of the WPT event, and we talked a bit, and it turns out that he'd just won the WPT Mandalay Bay event a few months ago, cashing for almost $800,000.

Donked around a little in the silly $2/3 $100 max buy-in NL game at the Bike yesterday. It was pretty much what you'd expect, but the play was actually better than I'd have guessed as far as the general skill level. I hit a couple of nice hands early and ran my $100 into about $350, but ended up giving it all back, finishing at -$50 for the day.

QQ couldn't take down 36s in a big pot, and I lost two big hands when I hit two pair on the flop with A4s and A8s (limping in both times along with approximately 172 other people) and got action from someone with just a pair of aces with AQ and AJ, and both times they hit their kicker on the river for a bigger two pair.

Also lost another pretty big pot when I limped with 35c and got frisky on a flop of 2c 4c Kd, ending up lumping in a lot of chips but missing all of my draws. Had a good time, though, and it was a pretty friendly game. There's obviously better games to play in, as a max buy-in of $100 renders a $2/3 blind structure pretty silly and not a lot more skillful than playing slots, but it's also not the most stressful of games to play if you just want to kill some time, or are technically on the clock doing the reporting thing and jumping in and out to write updates.

The Wonderful World of the WPT

2007-08-26T13:23:00.000-07:00

This is my first experience doing the poker tournament reporting thing at a WPT event, and so far it's been, umm, interesting.

It's not completely disorganized, but it's kind of an odd thing. It's hard to tell how much of the oddness is intentional, such as having the "media room" for the non-exclusive media folks located along one wall of the sushi bar/grill at the Bike, with two tiny tables available to set up laptops and other stuff. I ended up cramming myself into the corner behind the piano, with my laptop on a bar stool, which actually worked decently well.

Not much other media here at all other than Card Player, who has the exclusive rights for WPT events. The media restrictions are pretty draconian for other non-exclusive media that want to do the normal reporting thing, as far as using chip counts, hand histories, etc. If you're non-exclusive, you can walk around the tournament room, but you can't report on anything you witness directly. You can, however, report on anything a player tells you outside the room, as well as report anything that you're told during breaks. So heresay is fine, just nothing you directly observe.

Which obviously doesn't make a lot of sense. As far as the work I'm doing for PokerRoom, it really doesn't impact it at all. If anything, it makes it easier, as I'm really here to track the progress of their qualifiers, and checking in with them at the breaks every ninety minutes works fine for me. For other media outlets, though, the restrictions hamstring them to the point that many choose not to come, and the ones that did were wondering why the hell they bothered.

The mercenary, business-like part of me can subscribe to the notion that if Card Player was willing to fork over the money for exclusive rights, then they get to make the rules, no matter how sensical or non-sensical they are. That said, I think PokerNews did a good job at the WSOP of proving that you can have exclusive rights to an event and still allow other non-exclusive media to do their jobs, too. In the end it just boils down to the fact that if you hire a good team and provide great coverage, it really doesn't matter what anyone else is doing. If you're the exclusive provider but have pretty mediocre coverage and are scared of the competition, well, then I suppose it's not too surprising to see pretty restrictive rules put into place.

Today is Day 1b of the WPT Legends event, but it's going to be kind of odd, as we actually don't have any PokerRoom.com players playing today. Six of them chose yesterday as their starting day, and the one that was supposed to play today had to withdraw, flying back home to Austria after spending the last few days puking his guts out.

Three of the guys made it through to Day 2, and a couple of them have pretty healthy stacks, so hopefully at least one of them will make a serious run in this thing. It definitely makes my job much more enjoyable when we've still got players in the mix.

It's been interesting covering a non WSOP major event, as far as it being a much smaller field with many more pros and circuit regulars. I can't say the general impression is exactly a glowing endorsement of the "glamorous" world of professional tournament poker. No real cautionary tales or scenes in general, but the tournament room in general radiates a fairly palpable sense of equal parts boredom/unhappiness/resignation. It's not really depressing, but more that I get the snese most people wouldn't be there, if they had anywhere else to be that offered the same opportunity.

No time for any live poker yesterday, but I did play a SnG at one of the electronic tables with the PokerRoom.com crew. My first experience with one of the electronic tables, and I can't say I hated it. I haven't heard bloggers and other players say much positive about the electronic tables, and I can't offer any glowing praise, but I thought they worked pretty well. I wouldn't choose one over a live table, if offered the choice, but I also wouldn't wait fifteen minutes for the live table, if an electronic one was ready to go. In the end it's poker.

Rebuy!

2007-08-25T08:22:00.000-07:00

No hitches with my flight to the fair city of Los Angeles yesterday, and after a $70 cab ride from the airport, I was standing in front of the Commerce Casino, as our rooms were booked at the Crowne Plaza at the casino. Attempted to check in but was told that my room wouldn't be ready for another hour and a half.

So I wandered around the "casino" a bit. (Sorry, I don't mean to be uppity there but I think the WSOP and Las Vegas is still too fresh in my mind, when thinking of casinos and what-not.) It was just before noon and I was looking for a place to have a burger and beer on the assumption that such a place would exist in a "casino" but alas, no luck. Then I heard an announcement that the noon $120 unlimited rebuy tournament was starting in 15 minutes, and told myself "Self, you've got a wad of money in your pocket and that'd be a good way to kill some time until your room is ready."

And it was. Right up until the point where we agreed to a chip chop with 4 players left, which paid me out $3,100 for second. Plus I didn't ever rebuy or take the add-on, so I got in for the minimum investment.

It's live tournaments like these that really make me ponder how much a non-idiot, decent player could make, playing full-time. So many rebuys, and so many bad, bad plays. The total field was only something like 56 players, with top five paying, but 1st place paid out a bit over $6K, with all the rebuy madness. And granted, you have to dodge all sorts of insane calls and "fold equity" is pretty much a complete and utter non-existent term, but still.

I did get lucky to double up twice in the first half hour, with AA vs. QQ and then flopping a straight with J10s versus KK in a six or seven way pot. That took a lot of pressure off and helped me survive the fact that after the first half hour, the biggest hand I'd see the rest of the tournament was 88/AKs.

I did start to get shortish with about 15 players left, after I called a shorty's all-in from my BB with A10s, and couldn't take down his might A2o. Crazy Asian Guy doubled me up, though, when he tried to steal with 82o and I called all-in from the button with 88, and that got me through to the final table.

With blinds of $1K-$2K and antes of 300, I was UTG with AKs and a stack of $8K. I shove and the guy to me left pretty much immediately re-shoves all-in. (Meh, not exactly what I wanted to see, but I need to double somewhere, so I don't hate the call.) Crazy Asian Guy #2 - who is the run-away chip leader at this point - debates for awhile, before simply smooth-calling the second all-in. (Really not what I wanted to see.) Then the BB - second in chips - comes along for the ride, smooth-calling as well. (Fuck me.)

So four of us see a flop of something like Jc 9c 7d. I mentally start packing my bags, but CAG #2 and the BB check it. Turn is 4d. Check check. River is 3s. Check check.

I''m still expecting to see someone roll over a small/mid pair to knock me out, but the guy to my left had K10d, CAG #2 had AQo, and the BB had A10s, so somehow or other my AK takes the main pot, shooting me up from the brink of doom to 2nd/3rd in chips. Didn't do anything crazy after that point, letting the other monkeys knock each other out until we got down to fou-handed and chopped it up.

Met all of the PokerRoom.com folks yesterday and rode over to the Bike in a huge white stretch Hummer limo they'd hired for the day, as they were sightseeing around LA for most of the day. Sensing some potential clusterfuckedness today as far as the whole media coverage thing, since no one from the WPT seems to know what the hell is going on, and I've never done a tournament at the Bike before, but I'm assuming it'll get worked out one way or another.

We all had dinner at the sushi/steak bar at the Bike, and were waiting for our food when some strung out looking older black guy guy in a Tae Kwan Do shirt/uniform of some sort came over, immediately honed in on me, and started asking "You're the guy who chopped the satellite with Mickey, right?" And I told him no, no I wasn't. He asked again and I assured him that I ain't the guy (who I'm guessing owed him money).

About twenty minutes later same exact drill, as he'd managed to completely forget that he'd already asked me before. Waiting for the taxi outside, same exact drill. I actually talked to him a bit at that point, and while he didn't remember that it was the third time we'd discussed the fact that I looked like the guy that chopped the sattelite with Mickey, he said he believed me, that he was just trying to collect $1,000 owed to him for a save that was agreed on, etc. Then he lurched off again on his quixotic quest for the guy who chopped the satellite with Mickey.

Ahh, the glamorous world of professional tournament poker.

WPT Legends and RATS!

2007-08-23T10:25:00.000-07:00

Bags are packed (well, not really) to fly out to LA to cover the WPT Legends of Poker main event for PokerRoom.com. I can't say that LA is my favorite city, but I likely won't have time to get much farther than the Bike, so I don't suppose it matters greatly what city it's actually located in.

Scrambling around trying to tie up all sorts of loose ends before leaving in regards to my real estate wheeling and dealings, but I think I've got most of the bases covered. Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever NOT be busy, scrambling around, but then I remember that I most definitely bring all of this upon myself.

In other random news, we're now the proud owners of two baby rats, Scribbles and Rip. We picked them up last Sunday and getting back into the swing of the joys/headaches of having wee little inquisitive manic rodents running around the place.

Scribbles

Rip

Scribbles and Rip

They look bigger in the pictures, but they're so dang tiny, and pretty amusing, as everything is new and exciting to them. It's also been fun having two at a time, as not only do they spend a huge amount of time wrestling and knocking each other around playfully, but the instant one does anything (drinking water, eating, whatever) the other instantly MUST BE DOING THE SAME THING, no matter what it is.

Haven't had any time at all for online poker of late, but hopefully I'll get to play some live poker while out in LA. Or, you know, be busy as crap the whole time and barely have a chance to play at all. We shall see.

Must. Buy. More. Houses.

2007-08-19T07:45:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the recent spate of sponsored posts, but Daddy's gotta pay for a new house.

Falling firmly into the "What the hell am I getting myself into category?", our offer on another flip property was accepted on Friday, much to my surprise. I really didn't expect to get it, as we submitted a lowball offer and there were reportedly two other offers on the table. Surprise surprise, they didn't even counter and accepted our offer.

I'm pretty excited, despite the fact that it means a lot more manual monkey labor in my near future. It's a 3-1, 1900 sq. ft. house that basically hasn't been touched since the 60s/70s, so it's got some lovely gold shag carpeting, original bright blue tile in the bathroom, and other, umm, nice upsells. Lots of original hardwood floors (yay) that all need to be refinished (boo). It's on a huge corner lot in a nice neighborhood with a great backyard (yay), but absolutely no landscaping in front, except for 281,295 shrubs that I plan on digging up (boo).

It's also definitely going to be a bigger project that the first one, as I pretty much have to add a second larger bathroom, and the easiest way to do that looks to be to convert the existing attached one-car garage and workshop into a master suite and bathroom. That's far beyond my ability to handle myself, so I'll get to delve into the always-fun world of contractors and architects for this one.

If you're keeping track at home, you might notice that I haven't sold the first flip house I bought. Very true. So I am getting a bit ahead of myself, but hopefully not too far. The first flip property goes on the market on Monday, so I'll be able to start in on House #2 as soon as we close. I'm pretty happy with how House #1 turned out, as I came in about $2,000 under budget, and our realtor wants to list it at about $5K higher than I was hoping for, under my best case scenario. I'm not going to get rich from it, but it should produce a net profit of about $15-20K after everything is said and done, which ain't a bad hourly earn rate given the fact that I sunk about 100 hours of personal labor into it.

Despite the crazy looks I get from people when I talk about buying houses in the current uncertain times, I do have to say that I'm definitely still having fun, despite all the work of late. I just really enjoy the challenge of not only finding properties with potential, but stretching every dollar I sink into it as far as possible, whether it's doing much of the work myself, retaining as much of the original layout and hosue as possible, or getting the maximum impact out of the money I do spend when hiring out work. While the jury is definitely still out on just how profitable all this will be, I need to keep in mind that I'm having fun. Plus I'm picking up some fairly useful skills as far as being able to do basic wiring and replacing sinks, toilets, and other assorted fixtures in my sleep now.

Bet Pot, Lather, Rinse, Repeat

2007-08-14T07:42:00.000-07:00

I managed to get the Full Tilt roll just barely over the $500 mark last night, after much grinding at the .25/.50 6 max tables. Not a bad little run so far, especially in light of the fact that KK/AA have been reverse set-magnets for me of late, only holding up at about a 40% collective clip.

Once I got over the slight embarassment at playing at reduced stakes, I've actually found myself thinking about poker again, as well as looking forward to playing, which is nice. SnGs are just so mindless, at a certain point, and that's predominantly what I'd been playing for the last year or so. While the play at the .25//50 tables obviously isn't the highest caliber, it's been interesting and instructive for me to put the training wheels back on and essentially start from scratch.

I've been four tabling the 6 max tables, which is pretty much the limit of my ability to focus and concentrate on the action. A RaiNKhaN I ain't, especially when I usually have something else going on as well, as far as working on a spreadsheet or document or something or other. In the past my typical default standard opening raise for cash games was 3xBB, which involves typing/sliding. At some point of late I just started clicking the "Bet Pot" button instead, which is $1.75 at my current nosebleed stakes.

One thing I've been working on lately is loosening up what hands I'll open raise with in 6 max games, especially from the button in steal situations. Not at the any two cards stage yet as far as steals go, but I've not been shy about lumping in a pot sized raise with all the usual culprits and more marginal hands any ace, and jack/queen/king suited, any connectors/single gap conectors, etc. So I'm a lot more prone to click the "Bet Pot" button these days if it's folded around to me in late position, with a much wider range of hands.

Ditto for hands I'll re-raise with, especially if it's a standard raise in front of me. In the past I'd find myself calling raises with hands like AJs, KQs, A10s, etc. with the thinking that I can easily get away from them if they don't hit big, or easily lay them down if there's more action behind me. If I'm going to play these hands, of late I'm clicking either the "Bet Pot" button or folding.

All that clicking of the "Bet Pot" button in 6 max games leads to a lot of picking up of blinds, and a lot of heads-up play with one opponent. It also leads to a lot of checking to me. At which point my default play has been to, you guessed it, click the "Bet Pot" button, regardless of the board and whether or not I hit it.

If I get called on the flop, then I slow down and play actual poker from the turn on, as far as whether or not to fire another bullet, what size of bullet, if I can blow someone off a hand with a larger bet, if I'm completely done with the hand, etc.

The eye-opening part is just how many pots you pick up by always clicking the "Bet Pot" button, especially on the flop. Granted, we're talking .25/.50 players here, so yeah, they're going to call with hands they shouldn't and meekly fold on the flop more often than they should, so I'm not claiming to have discovered any great poker truth. If anything, I'm just reminding myself the importance of staying aggressive, especially at 6 max games. But man, all them folds add up pretty quickly, and more than compensate for when people play back at you and you lay down your hand. Plus it's hard for people to put you on hands, as you're just flinging pot-sized bets out there time after time after time.

The slightly interesting part, though, is I wonder just how terrible a strategy it would be to simply bet the pot, every single time action was on you. It's not optimal by any stretch of the imagination, but it's also puts even thinking opponents in a generally uncomfortable situation a great percentage of the time. It'd be pretty exploitable if you continued to mash the "Bet Pot" button on the turn and river, so I'm not advocating that, just relying on it pre-flop and on the flop. And yeah, the fold button doesn't get ignored either. Just the check/call button, and any bet/raise other than a pot-sized one.

I Am a Trading Genius!

2007-08-10T09:38:00.000-07:00

CRYP misses estimates for quarterly earnings by a mile? Check.

CRYP throws baby out with bathwater in a desperate attempt to show an operating profit to slop lipstick on poor quarter? Check.

CRYP sells off and is down 5% in first fifteen minutes of trading? Check.

Broader markets plunge again? Check.

CRYP somehow defies all of the above and comes roaring back, currently trading up +12% on the day (with the reversal coming so quickly that I'm currently holding well-nigh worthless puts)? Check, and mate.

Fuck a duck. At least it was only my gambling money left in my Scottrade account, and not anything in the IRA (where I can't buy options or sell anything short).

The broader markets are pretty much absolutely nutso right now, to use a technical term.

Mmm, More Houses

2007-08-09T10:40:00.000-07:00

My wee lil' Full Tilt roll eclipsed the $200 mark last night, which I'm taking an inordinate amount of pride in, as far as starting with a buck and change. I'm having a hard time sticking to Jesus' guide to bankroll management, though, as far as never buying into a cash game with more than 5% of my roll. I can see the bankroll management wisdom in it, but I'm just not quite that patient.

It's been interesting playing solely cash games again, as I'd been donking around in snGs and MTTs for quite awhile, with only a bit of cash games here and there. Definitely not as exciting as playing MTTs with big payoffs dancing before your eyes, but I'm finally remembering that umm, yeah, this cash game stuff isn't exactly rocket science, especially if you're patient and have half a poker brain.

(And yes, I know, I'm pontificating about nosebleed .25/.50 stakes games. Indeedy.)

Still running full-bore on all my other assorted pursuits. I've been pretty much on fire on the trading front, with my IRA account (the main vehicle I use for shorter term trading) up nearly 70% on the year. Hands down the biggest reason for the gains isn't any wisdom or intelligence on my part, but finally learning the lesson to respect my stops and not be stubborn, as that's what has always killed me in the past. Definitely taken more than a few lumps here and there but I've avoided any big losers, and been lucky enough to hit a couple of home runs here and there with fairly substantial positions.

Primary play at the moment is loading up on puts on my old friend Cryptologic, which reports quarterly earnings tomorrow. Their last quarterly results were pretty terrible, and they've already warned of more of the same this quarter. While they've got new licensees in the mix this time (Playboy and WPTE), their network traffic numbers have been slowly eroding, and one of their big licensees Will Hill has already released results that show struggling poker results. The company's long-term prospects are still pretty good, but I think there's a good chance that the quarterly numbers tomorrow are bad, kneecapping the stock back down to the $15-$16 area.

Just about to pull the trigger on making an offer on another investment property, as soon as a few ducks get lined up. Still kind of blows my mind how quickly I've gone from apartment dweller to wheeler and dealer of real estate, but there you go. Makes me wonder what the heck I'll be doing 5 years from now, or ten years after that.

Balls? Who Needs 'Em?

2007-08-07T06:12:00.000-07:00

Creasy the rabbit managed to get through his balls-removal ordeal with minimal, umm, ordeal. A little disconcerting, that, as he was pretty much 100% back to top manic rabbit speed just a few hours afterwards and seemingly had no recollection or recognition of anything bad going down. Which I suppose is good, all in all, but not exactly a strong argument in favor of possessing testicles.

Just about to wrap up the second flip property I've been working on, as far as getting it listed, and had a happy walkthrough with our realtor yesterday, as he wants to list it in the mid $90s, which was good news. Obviously haven't sold the place yet, but on paper things look good, as far as potential profits. We also went and scoped out other available properties and found two pretty strong candidates for the next one to buy. None of these flips are ever going to produce oh-my-God wads of cash, but they're pretty encouraging as far as my hopeful long-term goal of one day being able to swing 4-5 such deals a year, make $15,000-$20,000 per property, and stop selling my soul to the corporate overlords at some point.

I've actually been playing a bit of poker the last four or five days, which has been both funny, entertaining, and a bit eye-opening. I had exactly $1.56 in my account, and lumped it all in one a multi-table $1 SnG. (I know, I'm CRAZY!). Ended up finishing second for $13 (CHA-CHING!), and have since been playing at the .05/.10 6 max NL tables. I'm up to about $75 now, but still trying to be good and not yet jump up to nosebleed stakes.

The entertaining and eye-opening part is that I'm actually enjoying playing and not completely bored out of my gourd, despite the stakes. I'm honestly not sure why that is. I won't say that I'm trying to mimic the Jesus Ferguson challenge of running a $1 into something large, but for whatever weird reason I'm actually attached to my wee little bankroll, and not immediately taking it to the biggest table I can buy-in for the minimum at and risking it all trying to double or nothing, as I have in the past.

I've pretty much completely played like a donk for the last year and a half, as far as playing $33 Sngs on a $200 bankroll, jumping into $30 rebuy tourneys with $150 in my account, etc. And of course I eventually bleed through it until Full Tilt graciously deposits advertising monies in my account, at which point I start the process all over again. Using WafflesMath, I'm still break even (I'm not a losing player, damnit! Advertising and affiliate money isn't real money, it doesn't count! I didn't deposit it!), but there's no pleasure in playing like a donk, especially when I know better.

Snip Snip

2007-08-03T08:51:00.000-07:00

Had to take Creasy the rabbit in for his snip snip operation today, which wasn't much fun. He was chilled out and no trouble at all, but I couldn't help but feel guilty, in that "Sorry, little dude, you have no idea what bad stuff is coming down the pipes, despite it being for the best" sort of way.

Many, many good things about living in the country, and I'm very glad we moved out to the sticks, but having slightly odd pets such as rats and rabbits makes vet trips a little more stressful than they'd otherwise be. He'll be fine, and it's not brain surgery, but not exactly comforting when I'm checking him in for his operation and the receptionist immediately says "Oh wow, it's a rabbit, we almost never treat those."

Rabbit/human relations have been pretty amusing so far, as this is the first time I've ever had a rabbit as a pet. My wife is trying her damnedest to turn him into a cuddly lap bunny, which is having mixed results so far. This leads to much grabbing of him during his playtime at night, hauling him into her lap, and attempts to subdue his manic rabbit energy by petting and cuddling. Which more often than not is met with much squirming and biting and resistance. Me, I just lay on the couch and ignore him, which the last few nights results in him getting bored, jumping up on the couch with me and laying next to me so his ears can be scratched, triumphantly glaring at my wife, who naturally gets all sorts of pissed off.

Yes, that's all I've got. Rabbit talk. What fresh hell is this?

Caaaalllllliiiiiiffffoooooorrrrnnniiiiiiaaaaaaa...

2007-08-02T08:49:00.000-07:00

So it looks like my stint as poker tournament reporter will get at least one more at-bat, as I'm going to be working for PokerRoom again at the end of the month, covering the main event at the WPT Legends tournament. The timing of these gigs is working out pretty nicely, as I have a ton of vacation time at the day job that I need to burn through before the end of the year, so it's pretty much a win-win situation, with me killing all sorts of birds with one stone.

I'll definitely be more prepared this go-around, and hopefully I'll actually have time to meet up with some of you LA-area poker blogger types. I felt kind of bad at the WSOP as I barely spoke to Otis, Pauly, Spaceman, and CC. Largely due to my inherently shy nature, but the schedule was really pretty brutal, and its far to easy to fall into a zombified state of just getting your work done and trying not to bother any of the other zombies shuffling around you, also just trying to get their work done.

Definitely more than a bit of love/hate at the thought of being away from home, wife, and menagerie of animals for another week, but I do enjoy the work, and the extra money is nice, and they're giving me a fair amount of leeway and lots of encouragement as far as the form the blog is going to take, moving forward. So that's all very cool, and it's nice to be able to actually apply assorted monkey talents and knowledge of mine directly in a project I'm working on.

Hats off to Neteller for the speedy processing of assorted withdrawals. I only had a few hundred bucks stuck in my account but it's nice to get it back, and especially nice to hear that other folks with much more substantial amounts in their accounts have finally been able to get their mitts on it.

I've been too busy with house stuff the last few weeks to play much poker, and that'll probably continue to be the case for the near future. I did play a bit on DuplicatePoker.com, but man, I hesitate to even hyperlink to it, as they still have some major kinks to work out. It's an interesting enough idea but the execution is pretty lacking, and it seems almost at times the developers aren't really poker players, as some things just make no sense.

Still cranking away on the affiliate front, although the majority of what I've been working on lately is mindless, pretty spammy, and not that interesting or cool. Slowly and steadily building up the affiliate income again, but it's still pretty depressing comparing the totals from pre UIGEA and post UIGEA.

Two Posts in One Day??!! Sweet Fancy Moses!

2007-07-31T10:06:00.000-07:00

Let's talk about sports.

Please, Jebus, let it be football season again. That is all I ask.

My wife and I listen to a fairly cheesy, at times corny but also generally amusing radio show in the morning while driving to work. This morning they were discussing Barry Bonds and the pending demise of Hank Aaaron's home run record.

They were already talking about the following idea, so I'm not sure who to give credit to it for, as it could have sprouted elsewhere in the general media, but here's the gist of it: Bonds should tie the record, and on his next at bat, with the media circus in full-blown frenzy mode, simply lay down his bat and walk off. Walk out of the clubhouse, out of baseball, and let Aaron keep his share of the record. In an instant Barry would suddenly go from villain to hero, honoring Aaron at the same time that he redeems himself by finally taking responsibility for all the sterioids he pumped into himself.

It'd be a beautiful, perfect ending to this whole sordid affair. Of course, Barry being Barry, he'd never do this in a million kabillion years, so it's pretty much a moot point.

Sports writers and attorneys of the world, you're on notice. The Michael Vick dogfighting case isn't about race. Stop trying to make it be about race. If Tom Brady were instead the one on the hot seat, do you honestly think that the general public would be clamoring for due process, instead of immediately leaping to judgment and wanting his testicles wrapped in savory bacon and a pack of ravenous, hungry dogs set upon him?

Of course they wouldn't. The frenzy and bloodlust is because the charges are pretty horrific and heinous, but, more than that, are an example of a rich, stupid, arrogant athlete who believes they're above the law that all us normal peons must suffer under. That last one is where all of the bloodlust comes from. The fact that Vick is a black athlete adds fuel to the fire, but it's very much a secondary reaction, and not the catalyst.

Stop playing the race card, just because it gives the story more heft and sells more copies/garners more eyeballs. Because you're giving him extra outs when you do that, in what is otherwise looking more and more like an open and shut case, especially with co-defendents turning on Vick and spilling pretty detailed beans.

"I Have to Call"

2007-07-31T07:56:00.000-07:00

As far as my own personal poker play during the WSOP, I managed to cram in a few tournaments at Caesar's (mostly the crapshootastic 11 PM cheapo tourneys they were running during the WSOP), plus a handful of hours at the $1-$3 and $2-$5 NL tables. Basically broke even for the tourneys and ended up down a buy-in at the cash games, so it was close to a wash as far as my poker play goes.

It was interesting, though, playing live tournaments after solely playing SnGs and MTTs online for the last year or so. It's easy to get caught up in the doom and gloom surrounding the status of online poker in the US during the last nine months, but worthwhile to take a few steps back and remember that there's a whole other world out there, as far as playing live.

I tend to forget just how bad most live tournament players are and, ironically, how insanely lucky you have to be to wade through the field (especially when the structure is fast). It's ultimately encouraging, as far as poker continuing to attract large tournament fields with absolutely terrible players plunking down hundreds of dollars to enter, but you also have to temper your own expectations, as you're forced to deal with the absolute nonsensical from time to time.

Case in point. I was playing the $200 noon tournament at Caesar's, which had a much better structure than the other daily tournaments they were running. I managed to stay patient and chip up early, get a couple of timely doubles here and there, and was sitting with an above average stack with about 25 players left, with the top 15 getting paid. We were about 4-5 hours into the tourney, with a lot of the crazies already washed out.

I was sitting in the 9 seat, with about 20,000 chips, and there were a few folds in front of me. I look down to see, for the first time in what seemed like weeks, AA. Blinds are 800-1,600 (I think, in that general vicinity). I'm pondering exactly how much I want to raise, when the 1 seat, thinking I had folded, announces a raise and starts reaching for chips.

Excellent.

The dealer stops him, tells him I still haven't acted, and the guy impatiently exhales/sighs and waits. I actually pondered asking the dealer if he was commmitted to raising anything I bet after verbally declaring a raise out of turn, but didn't want to call any more attention to the strength of my hand; I was already worried that I'd chase him off by raising at all, after he tipped his hand by trying to act out of turn.

I finally raise to 5,000 and he insta-calls, and everyone else folds. I was obviously hoping that he'd come over the top with something like 1010-KK, but just as obviously like the call. He's barely got me covered, so we're both playing for all our marbles here.

Flop is 9 4 2, rainbow. I've got 15K and the pot is ~ 13K. I ponder being cute and betting 7K or 8K but that seems to scream monster pocket pair, so I just shove all-in, hoping he thinks I have AK or a smaller pair to his 1010-KK and assumes I'm trying to push him off the pot.

"Well, I have to call" he says, pretty much immediately, with a bit of resignation in his tone, and lumps in the rest of his chips.

Now, dear reader, what hand do you suppose he has? I would have wagered lots of American dollars that based on all of the above, he would roll over JJ or QQ. Maybe 1010 and maybe KK. Maybe maybe maybe AK. But I fully expected to see QQ, for all the reasons you should expect to see it.

His actual hand? J7 offsuit. J high, no straight or flush draw. Just J high. The hand that he called a decent raise with pre-flop (after he'd acted out of turned and tried to raise), and the hand that he basically called off all of his chips with on the flop, holding J high.

He nods a bit at the sight of my aces, sadly says "Yep", and then sits there silently as the dealer peels off a J on the turn, and a third J on the river. The guy next to me makes the appropriate "Jesus fucking Christ" comment as I stand up and leave, but all my opponent has to say is "That's why they call it poker" as I walk off, steam boiling out of my ears.

(And it took just about every ounce of self-reserve I had to keep walking and not stop and say "You fucking fucknut, that's not even the correct fucking phrase. It's "That's why they call it gambling" you moronic fucktard. Because that's exactly what you're apparently fucking doing, playing like that."

Except, really, he was right. He is right. That is poker, for better or for worse. Absolutely non-sensical in many cases, but also inevitable. And, as much as it pains me to say, hopeful. Once you manage to shrug off the personal pain from beats like that it's hard not to be encouraged to play more live tournaments, as the donkaments have most definitely not left the building, UIGEA be damned.