Real Poker Training

Y'all know that I signed up with Real Poker Training right around the end of last year. I then had a phenomenal January where I won the $5 triple shootout on Stars and had a few other final tables. I haven't played much since then but I have been following the new videos on RPT.

Two new exciting things have happened recently at RPT. BodogAri is back! And they signed up David Williams to do videos.

Here are a couple of free training videos for everyone to enjoy. They will start running as soon as they load so press the pause button if you don't want them to overlap.

I know RPT is not CR of PXF, but there's a lot of material to go through at a slightly better price. You can do a site transfer or pay with PayPal. It's worth checking out.

Fun Quiz (with answers)

These are not trick questions. They are straight questions with straight answers. I will put up the answers in a few days.

1. Name the one sport in which neither the spectators nor the participants know the score or the leader until the contest ends.

Answer: Boxing

2. What famous North American landmark is constantly moving backward?

Answer: Niagara Falls (The rim is worn down about two and a half feet each year because of the millions of gallons of water that rush over it every minute.)

3. Of all vegetables, only two can live to produce on their own for several growing seasons. All other vegetables must be replanted every year. What are the only two perennial vegetables?

Answer: Asparagus and Rhubarb

4. What fruit has its seeds on the outside?

Answer: Strawberry

5. In many liquor stores, you can buy pear brandy, with a real pear inside the bottle. The pear is whole and ripe, and the bottle is genuine; it hasn't been cut in any way. How did the pear get inside the bottle?

Answer: It grew inside the bottle (The bottles are placed over pear buds when they are small, and are wired in place on the tree. The bottle is left in place for the entire growing season. When the pears are ripe, they are snipped off at the stems.)

6. Only three words in standard English begin with the letters 'dw' and they are all common words. Name two of them.

Answer: Dwarf, dwell and dwindle

7. There are 14 punctuation marks in English grammar. Can you name at least half of them?

Answer: Period, comma, colon, semicolon, dash, hyphen, apostrophe, question mark, exclamation point, quotation marks, brackets, parenthesis, braces, and ellipses

8. Name the only vegetable or fruit that is never sold frozen, canned, processed, cooked, or in any other form except fresh.

Answer: Lettuce

9. Name 6 or more things that you can wear on your feet beginning with the letter 'S.'

Answer: Shoes, socks, sandals, sneakers, slippers, skis, skates, snowshoes, stockings, stilts

Juice

Best time of the year, isn't it folks? You know. Tax time. That lovely time of year when Uncle Sam tries to squeeze every last red cent out of our pockets. Yeah, baby!

But why did I title this post juice? And why am I talking taxes on a poker blog? Well it's because I've been reading other posts about the subject. And it got me thinking. And that gets me in trouble most of the times. But I came to some amazing conclusions, that have probably been thought of many times before and written about way more eloquently than I am about to attempt.

The Incredible Retard Syndrome takes a lot of juice. To the tune of around 25%. But they could take much much more. Let me break it down:

1) They tax your poker winnings at around 25%. That's lovely.
2) They tax the casinos who take juice from you up-front.
3) They tax the dealers for their toke.
4) When you forget to report, they nail you with penalties and interest.

Imagine if they could tax the online world. Wow! Just wow!

Here's a fun example:
You play a $1000+100 casino tournament with 100 runners:
1) They tax the casino on the $100x100 rake they just collected. Nice!
2) There is $100,000 in the pool and they will tax all the winners around 25%. That's probably more than 2nd place money or $25,000. Seriously? They didn't have to see a single flop! Outrageous!
3) When you take your pre-tax winnings and tip your honest dealers who are obvioulsy going to report that tip on their income statement next April, they take some from them.
4) Now since you never actually win the damn thing because some drunk donkey sucked out on you at the final table, you only get back around $4,000 and forget to get a W-2G form from the casino. You go about your merry way and then next year you get a little letter asking for some moola. The nerve!

I could go on and on, but you get it. Now if they would stop making it hard for people to deposit and withdraw online funds, if they go ahead and regulate online poker, if they get a clue - they will take in even more juice. But like I said, the Incredible Retard Syndrome is we-todd-did and don't have a clue. For now.

If anyone is interested in a great way to get away from all these tax shenanigans go read The Fair Tax Book: Saying Goodbye to the Income Tax and the IRS. It's all about taxing consumption instead of income. It makes mucho sense.

Hope you get your refund in time!

SearchMe

I signed up for a beta test of a new search engine called SearchMe, It's a very cool visual search engine. Here's an introduction to it:



Here's a more detailed demo:

Another Day - Another (two) sponsors

Wow-wow-wii-waa!

I got two more Text Link Ads sponsors in the last 24 hours, but only one of them is showing up already. This one is an Italian gambling site. Quite the international flavor I got going on over here. If you click on the link on the right that says "tornei poker online" you will get an Italiano page which is a guide to poker.

Thank you sponsors!

Look at that - another sponsor!

Pretty awesome I'd say. I signed up with Text Link Ads to see if anyone would think this space was worth advertising on and I already picked up my second sponsor. This one, on the right over there, is for Everest poker (remember them?). The funny part is that it's for the Polish Everest site. Whaaaaaaaa?????

I guess this interest blogging thing has just been busted wide open as they have obviously been able to research my ancestry and find my Warsaw lineage. Dziynkuja!

Congrats!!!

Bloggers have been rocking it out this weekend! All over the place. So congrats to all scores big and small.

$mokkee - Biggest online score ever!
LJ - Biggest online score ever!
TBA - 2nd place in rebuy.
Bayne - 3rd place PLO.
lucko - Won a seat to today's 1K (hot streak continues).
Jamyhawk - 2nd place micro-stakes magician!

I'm sure there's more out there.

So while I haven't really been playing lately, I am psyched to see other people crushing it!

BBT3? Chop-suey?

Wow, I am so disappointed. You know what I mean. That last BBT3 game on Thursday. I didn't even play or anything. Just watched from the rail. We've talked about this before. The chops. But this one takes the cake.

When I first read that Swimmom95 not only gave up her 2:1 lead for half the money, but then also gave away the TOC seat to ScottMc, I was sure she was his backer. I mean, what other reason would she have for doing that? But then I read that Scott had a different backer, so that theory is out the window. And I have nothing against either of these players. But this was beyond silly.

I have always been a little suspicious of the blogger games as I am of online poker in general. Now before you all get your panties in a bunch, I am not making any accusations or pointing fingers at anyone. But this last example just makes me go hmmmm.... I read Scott's blog where he gave a detailed history of his poker playing and why he has decided to hang up his chips. Since I knew I was probably not going to be able to play much in the BBT3, even I felt like backing him. But I don't have the roll for it and figured there will be plenty of people who would jump at the opportunity before me. People who met him and prayed for his parlays on bended knee.

But what happens if backer and backed player end up playing each other? Do they soft play? Do they chop? Do we even know, since most backing deals are hush hush?

Remember that big blogger cash game where Waffles got a buy-in from someone at the same table? How does that play out? I think I know that in that case the gloves were off, but who knows what other deals are done on girlie chat, behind the scenes? With random online players it's hard to tell, but with a group of people who play together 4 times a week? Who the hell knows?

Speaking of girlie chat, since a lot of people know each other personally at this point, what sort of information makes its way from IM to IM? During hands? I know we all want to think that we hold ourselves to a higher standard and blah blah blah, but outside of the fine ATL bloggers I have met and had over to my house on several occasions, how do I know who to trust? Because I know them from their blogs? We all remember how Joey The Chips swindled slb159, right? I almost fell into that trap myself. Was this a single incident?

We sort of know what the cliques are. We kind of know who the buddies are. Which players get invited by someone else. Do we know more? I'd like to think we do, but in reality we have no clue.

Will lucko go for a third TOC seat if he's heads up with LJ? Or will he give it away? I'd like to think he makes her win it and doesn't soft play at all.

Does Pauly sit out and give the seat to change100 since he's probably going to have to cover the event himself? Does change do the same for Pauly?

Do the Riverchasers hold hands at the virtual tables? Does lucko's gang of aggro monkeys fight it out to the death?

Do the husband/wife teams sitting in the same house have an advantage? How are they even able to log on from the same IP with two clients?

Once again, I'm barely even participating in the BBT3 and I want to say that I am naive and trusting and hope that we are all honest about this. I am not pointing fingers or naming names or calling anyone out.

But can anyone be totally sure? Completely?

Backers, Girlie Chat, Cliques, Buddies. Is this some minor (or major) form of collusion? Stop and ponder this dilemma for a second and tell me what you think in the comments.

Natalie Raps

I don't watch SNL anymore because, well, it really sucks. But since TripJax made me go to HULU.com I found some hilarious stuff I have never seen before. So for all of you out there who think Natalie Portman is a nice Jewish Harvard girl, think again:

Poker Tables

I wanted to take this opportunity to thank one of my new site sponsors:
DiscountPokerShop.com

You can see a text link ad for Poker Tables on the right hand side which you can click and head over to their massive online poker shop. They're running a March promo that will give you an additional 5% discount on their already low prices.

And speaking of poker tables, I just got my speed felt a few days ago and had Eric come over with his air compressor and staple gun. We did both tables in absolutely no time and they are freakin' awesome! Eric will probably host the next hood game as it is probably his last before moving up north, but I am going to be gunning for the one after. The Copags just glide effortlessly on this new felt. I can't wait!

Beat The Fish

In the past I reviewed a few sites that were not open to the US Americans (damn, I can't not even type that with a straight face). But along comes a site that not only links and reviews to USA Online Poker rooms, but also let's you know which site will take good 'ole Visa and MasterCard. Yep, you read that right. You can use still use Visa for Online Poker. Something has gone horribly wrong with enforcing the UIGEA draconian regulations because a standard card will still work. Most of these sites are of the sports book variety, but they all have poker rooms and that's what we're all about right? Or do you like your March Madness betting too, hmmm?

Another thing I like is that they have a page that shows you a comparison of all the Poker Minimum Deposit which makes life easy when you need to figure out how much to put away where. And of course there is an easy to understand guide to site bonuses and promotions. There is an extensive list of site reviews if you want to get in depth information about the different sites too.

Beat The Fish has been around for a long time and is dedicated to online poker with a lot of original content. You can get the latest information about poker on TV, poker strategy, poker players and the WSOP. Speaking of WSOP, they have a bunch of private freerolls on Full Tilt that award Main Event seats. I kid you not, go check it out.

There's a forum you can join for free, updated poker news and an interactive tournament finder that includes freerolls on lots of sites.

Anyway head over to Beat The Fish and find out how to, ummm, beat the fish. That line just wrote itself, I swear.

Word Verification

This has to be the best yet.



If you have better ones leave a comment.

KGB, like never before.

I don't even know what to say anymore:

Best MATH recap....... EVER!

VinNay is awesome. Check it out:


VinNay's MATH recap

Poker: So Easy

My neighbor Chris came over with his son yesterday afternoon and while the kids were tearing up the playroom (think huge ball of multi-colored playdough), Chris was lamenting his bad poker luck. Beat after beat after beat. I told him it's all his fault because he doesn't know how to play. I even offered to show him how it's done.

So we fired up a turbo 9-player SNG on Stars and I commenced to crush the table and take the thing down. Since we had kids in the background I decided to play loose and wild and then capitalize on my image to obliterate the competition in 88 hands. Here are some fun hands:

Hand 2: 10/20 - 44 - I am LP and it limps about 4 ways to me, so I pop it to 140 and still get two callers. Flop Q86 rainbow, checked to me I bet 220 and get one fold and one call. Turn 6, checked to me again, I bet 266 and get called again. Chris asks why 266 and I answer that there are two sixes on the board so I bet two six six. Makes sense. River is a 3 and checked to me so I jam and finally get the guy to fold.



Hand 5: 10/20 - 99 - UTG I raise to 60 and get two callers. Flop is 386 so I check and get a bet of 80 and a call. I decide to check-raise them both to 360, but instead of folds I get one jam and one fold. I go ahead and call and he has JJ and I lose. I tell Chris you always have to "beware the over pair".



Hand 6: 15/30 - 99 - I am in the BB and get two limpers and the SB to complete before I jam the rest of my stack in for a total of 846. UTG calls AJo, I flop a 9 and river an unnecessary boat. I type in "so sad" and berate him for being a JackAce.



Hand 24: 50/100 - AKs - I have been very active up until this hand, raising a lot and just being a maniac. So when UTG+1 jams I jam behind to isolate and he flips over AQo. He then goes on to flop two pair (because that's just how good I run) but then I go runner runner for the nut flush (because that's just how good I run). Chris and I go from big boos to big high fives.



Hand 38: 100/200 - JJ - I am still very active and we are now down to 5 players. The button raises to 600 and I jam my whole stack in there for about 2000. Folds back to the button and while he's using up his time bank I tell Chris that he's thinking about calling with 88 and my early aggression is about to pay off. Sho' 'nuff he calls and flips over... 88. I am the king of online reads - wOOt! I turn a set and he rivers a lower set. Big double up. High fives all around again.



Hand 54: 100/200 - KQo - Bubble burst quickly and I keep messing with the BB by raising from the button. He keeps jamming so this time I decided to call. He has A9o and I turn a straight. This was my only suckout of the whole tourney. I tell the poor guy that I was a head the whole time so he can't complain.



Hand 88: 300/600 - AQo - I play heads-up very timid just waiting to trap. I eventually get my opponent to jam on my umpteenth limp on the button and when I call he shows Q6s and loses.



Poker: So easy.

You've got to be kidding!!!

This is truly some unbelievable stuff:


http://view.break.com/373312 - Watch more free videos

Hammer Time

Thomas Fuller has a funny TJ playing The Hammer story on his blog from the Bay101:

"T.J. may no longer be in his main sequence, but he can still play the game. There was a classic moment today where T.J. raised before the flop and got called by the small blind. The flop came ace high with the five and four of clubs. The small blind checked and called T.J.'s continuation bet. On the turn, the six of clubs, the small blind bet out 4,000 and T.J. quickly raised to 12,000. The small blind folded quickly and T.J. showed "the hammer", the worst starting hand in hold-em, seven-deuce offsuit (with no club). It was a great moment. He was proud to be playing poker."

If you don't read Thomas' blog, you should. He has some weird lists he puts up but the hand histories are pretty good. Check it out.

World Poker Crown

How many of you readers are not US based? Well then this is for you fine folks. Here's a chance to play free poker and win a seat into a $3M guaranteed tournament in beautiful Barcelona. The World Poker Crown is a tournament that starts off online and ends up at the Perlada Castle in Barcelona, Spain between May 6th to May 10^th and will be broadcast live on television.

They even came up with a nice little poker face video:



So what do you have to do?

1. Click the link to go to the WPC site.
2. Download Pacific Poker from the provided link.
3. Register as a money player before March 13th.
4. Play and win a 30 seat freeroll.

The winner of the freeroll gets a $1000 entry into the WPC which will be played online until the time it reaches the final stages. All remaining players will then be flown to Barcelona for the grand finale.

You may recall that I used to play at Pacific Poker and even had a good scores there. I can't wait for this UIGEA crap to go away so we are free to play wherever we want. Damn political nits.

Anyway, back to the WPC. I really urge you to try it out. Hey it's free, right?

WWYD? (Aces UTG)

Played this hand recently and wanted to see what you guys would do differently. To set the stage, middle of a $10K guarantee with about 450 runners and we are down to about about 150 with only 45 paying. I have been very quiet at the table and the only time I tried to raise I got 3-bet big and had to fold:

FullTiltPoker Game #5578357939: $10,000 Guarantee (41727363), Table 37 - 150/300 Ante 25 - No Limit Hold'em
Seat 1: WILKMAN86 (4,835)
Seat 2: alow4194 (27,889)
Seat 3: tneka (3,875)
Seat 4: fjert1 (16,375)
Seat 5: bryn2 (3,690)
Seat 6: arsenalfca (9,336)
Seat 7: GDSC (3,295)
Seat 8: Kajagugu (13,520) - I am in fairly decent shape having busted a couple of shorties in the previous orbit.
Seat 9: igorek555 (18,030)
WILKMAN86 antes 25
alow4194 antes 25
tneka antes 25
fjert1 antes 25
bryn2 antes 25
arsenalfca antes 25
GDSC antes 25
Kajagugu antes 25
igorek555 antes 25
arsenalfca posts the small blind of 150
GDSC posts the big blind of 300
The button is in seat #5
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Kajagugu [Ad Ah] - UTG with Aces, always a dilemma.
Kajagugu calls 300 - I decided to limp and see if someone takes the bait. I think this makes it look like I am afraid to raise and get 3-bet again. In any case, this has been a very active table and people will raise with air, so I want that to happen.
igorek555 folds
WILKMAN86 folds
alow4194 folds
tneka folds
fjert1 raises to 1,575 - This guy has been relatively tight so I put him on a big pocket pair or AK/AQ.
bryn2 folds
arsenalfca folds
GDSC has 15 seconds left to act
GDSC raises to 3,270, and is all in - This guy is a complete maniac and has been all over the place. I love his shove.
Kajagugu calls 2,970 - This is WWYD#1. Do you flat call like me, or do you raise to isolate? How much do you raise?
fjert1 calls 1,695 - So LP player decides to just call as well. I was sort of hoping for a shove, but this will work as well.
*** FLOP *** [3d 4c 5h] - Low rainbow flop. My first thought are, there is no way this hit anyone (maybe the BB but that doesn't matter at this point).
Kajagugu bets 5,185 - This is my WWYD#2. I decided to bet 1/2 the pot. If he has a big pocket pair, he isn't laying it down. Should I check and let him take the lead?
fjert1 raises to 10,370 - Good? Bad? - I can't put him on anything that hit here, I mean he's not Fuel55 right?
Kajagugu calls 5,040, and is all in - I go with my read and call.

Scroll down to see the rest of the hand

















fjert1 shows [Tc Td] - Much softer than I thought.
GDSC shows [Qc Qd] - Much better than I thought.
Kajagugu shows [Ad Ah] - I am obviously doomed.
Uncalled bet of 145 returned to fjert1
*** TURN *** [3d 4c 5h] [7h]
*** RIVER *** [3d 4c 5h 7h] [Ts] - I run so bad....
fjert1 shows three of a kind, Tens
Kajagugu shows a pair of Aces
fjert1 wins the side pot (20,450) with three of a kind, Tens
GDSC shows a pair of Queens
fjert1 wins the main pot (10,185) with three of a kind, Tens
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 30,635 Main pot 10,185. Side pot 20,450. | Rake 0
Board: [3d 4c 5h 7h Ts]




I win that one and I am going dee-hee-hee-heep. But it was not to be, because I am the luckiest player alive.

I don't see anything I could have done differently here. I doubt that an UTG raise was getting TT to fold. Maybe instead of calling the pre-flop BB jam I could have re-raised to isolate, but I don't care about the small stack, I want the big one. Do I go for a check raise on the flop? I doubt the result would have been different.

I could have made smaller bets and kept the pot small and folded on the river. But that is way too weak and if I play like that I'd rather not play at all.

So what would you do?

Really Big Home Game

Two words about my game: Teh Suck!

I played 3 hands total and was out in 24/25 players in the second level (50/100) within half an hour after starting with a 10K starting stack.

Hand 1: After folding for almost the entire first level (25/50), I raise 3xBB UTG with AJo. Brandon (who came with Surflexus) shoved for 3x more (he was short after overplaying two pair against Broadway). Folded to me and I made the easy call, saw him flip over QJo and turn a Queen. Yes, 3-outers in live poker happen too for me. Right there, I just knew this was going to be a short night.

Hand 2: Almost at the end of the second level (50/100) and I finally see a playable hand. UTG I raise 3xBB with QQ and get two callers before the button makes it 1000. I look at his stack and try to calculate how much he has left. I see two green ships and two blue, so I figure he has 3K behind. I put him on AK and decided I will try to race this out. I move all-in and the two caller fold. Button, calls and shows Aces. Then he counts out his chips and turns out one of the chips I thought was blue was actually black and instead of 3K he has 8K. I lose and am now crippled. What an awful awful mistake that was. Pure dumb. I was even going to ask him how much he had left after his raise, but figured I could count it out myself. Bad move. Had I known he had that many chips left I would have made the flap call and folded on the Ace High flop. I should have probably made that call anyway.

Hand 3: Next hand I get 10s in the SB and when it limps in EP and completed from the SB I shove for a total of 3xBB, get called twice and lose to K6o while almost making a royal flush.

Man, I felt on fire after that. And not in a good way. That fucking sucked!

So, like I said, we got 25 runners last night. The structure was nice and slow. Maybe too slow. We had a nice round prizepool of $1000, paying out top 5. But when we got down to the final 6 Kurokitty asked for a save for 6th by taking $20 from both first and second. Everyone agreed and we immediately lost the 6th player. 5th left quickly after and we battled for a while longer until 4th fell.

Three bloggers were left stadning: Kuro, Surf and Weak. In fine blogger fashion they went for the chop. I keed. I keed. We had been playing for 6 hours (not including breaks, etc.) so everyone was tired and it was past 3am by then. Kuro came up with the idea of paying 3rd place money to everyone and then based on stacks rounding to the closest $20. We ended up rounding to the closest $10 and the end results were as follows:

1. Kurokitty - $160+$170=$330
2. Surflexus - $160+$120=$280
3. Weak_Player - $160+$70=$230
4. Eric (non-blogger) - $80
5. Bobby (non-blogger) - $40
6. Chris (non-blogger) - $40

Originally the payouts were: $460, $260, $160, $80, $40.

This doesn't take into account all the $10 bounties that were flying across the tables all night long. Weak managed two double eliminations. Once, when his Queens held up against AK and a lower pocket pair, all-in three ways pre-flop. And once when his AJ made a boat against QT and K8 (six live cards, who can do the math in their head on that one?) also all-in pre-flop (they were all short).

Another fantastic hand was Eric's Aces (which he got several times last night). The first time he limped into a 4 way pot just to see a big raise, followed by two calls. He went ahead and shoved and got called twice for full stacks. One had AQs (very uncharacteristic of Heather to play for her stack this early), the second had KK and the third, who folded after thinking about it for a while claimed he had JJ. Somehow the Aces held up and Eric tripled his stack very early. When I saw him again later he managed to spew that early chip lead only to start rebuilding with some incredibly lucky hands. He got his Aces vs Kings to hold up a second time. Then he busted Kings with A9 by flopping a 99A boat. That was the second time A9 beat Kings that I saw.

Live poker: So rigged :-)

I think my little blog has been outed to my neighborhood players by KajaWife. Which I guess is just fine by me. Everybody knows..... Everybody knows.... That's how the story goes....

So that's it. I was kind of disappointed in the way I played. I planned the damn thing for a few weeks, bugged people about showing up, got a reallu big game going and then played three hands. But I think most of the people had a good time and enjoyed the chaznge of pace. Weak said it was good to start training for late night sessions fleecing the fish at the WSOP. Surf said it was great practice for his upcoming Biloxi trip. And BrainMc said that this was his biggest live tournament / biggest prizepool / biggest buy-in to date, outside of the WPBT he played last summer. So there.

Thanks to the ATL-BPT crew for coming out and playing: Surflexus, BrainMc, Kurokitty, iam23Skidoo (or is he?) and Weak (last time I'm linking to your dead blog suckah!).

$T is Fun

I am loving the $T concept at FTP. It was long overdue and it makes it fun to play satellites. Here are some recent results:

1) The 8.80/15 turbo sats to the 50/50 - if you don't play those you are missing out. Even if I play all three and cash in one I am ahead. I think I have cashed at least once every time I play them. Easy money.

2) 26 to the Sunday Brawl. This one is a little harder because you need to beat 10-to-1 odds. Still very doable. If I can do it anyone can:



Top 2 of 22 runners. $256 payout for a $26 investment. Lovely.

It was a very tough match though. The whole session started something awful with these fine beats in a couple of other games:




Presto is Fuel's gold. I get this TPTK donkey all-in and he goes runner runner Aces to make a bigger boat. How special.



Not two minutes later another retard thinks his bottom pair is gold and goes runner runner Aces to make a boat too. Feels like a shipyard up in here. Fawk! (This was actually a hand where I raised an EP limper in position with KQs. I will need to follow up on Hoy's great series about KQs and how to play it soon.) So this donkey called my raise and then when I led out on the flop he jammed with bottom pair. Genius move there bud.

Anyway, the Brawl sat was going along pretty well. I think I doubled up on the first hand when I limped A8s and along with 3 other players and hit an 878 flop. We somehow got it all-in with the other 8 and there I was with a double stack. I actually started playing very loose and wild. Especially after the double up. To the point where i was getting no respect. The final table was quick to follow and eventually I made it to the final three. Two seats awarded. It was a grueling 3-handed battle. A lot of stealing, raising, re-raising, bluffing, you name it. Then we got a crucial hand:



Then I managed to double the shortie when he was uber-dominated:



And then we had some presto redemption to bust the guy in third:



He shoved and I just called hoping the other player will join me and try to tag team but ended up having to do all the work myself.

On to the Brawl Tourney to unregister and now my $T account is nice and healthy. Nice.

My Big Home Game looks like it is filling up nicely. We are at 24 players and counting. Gonna be a fun game tonight.

Cello head banging

Another blast from the past. This is the best version I have ever heard or seen, preformed by the Latvian Symphony Orchestra and some rad cellists:

Running Man

I used to love Utah Saints back in the day. I just came across a remake they did to their own "Something Good". It's awesome:



Extra points for anyone who knows where the original sample is from.

Excited and Home Game WWYD

My Big Home Game is filling up nicely. We are at 18 confirmed and probably 3 more lazy butts who will be here fo' sho' but have not responded yet. If we end up with 21 I will have a dilemma. What would you do?

21 players:

A) 3 tables with 7 players each?
B) 2 tables with 10/11 players each?

If you chose A:

A1) Merge to 2 tables with 10 players each after first bustout?
A2) Merge to 2 tables with 9 players each after three bustouts?

To remind you, we will play a long tournament (4-5 hours) with 10K starting chips and very slow blinds. Playing 7-6 handed in the early stages will create a lot more action.

Quite the dillema, huh?

As for the BRB, it's still in effect. BrainMc, don't worry. I didn't have a poker epiphany. But I am still going to annihilate everyone tomorrow night. I just need to figure out some life priorities and make some positive changes. Like I said, it's all good. One thing you will probably notice is my absence from the online tables. I already told you BBT3 is not going to work out for moi.

Anyway, answer my questions damnit!

UPDATE:
Just noticed this is my Devil post!

BRB

Changes need to be made. Focus will be renewed. Priorities will be adjusted.

All good things.

Unbelievable

I just read this on the PokerStars Blog:

PokerStars Sunday Hundred Grand Results

1. Annette_15 (Norway) $20,000.00

She went through a field of 20,000 to win this $10 tourney. That is just plain crazy. Nuts:



UPDATE: Oh guess what? It was in a pure PokerStars suckout-resuckout tradition. Final hand:

Seat 3: joeshambles (21846980 in chips)
Seat 4: Annette_15 (38153020 in chips)
joeshambles: posts the ante 40000
Annette_15: posts the ante 40000
Annette_15: posts small blind 200000
joeshambles: posts big blind 400000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Annette_15: raises 599999 to 999999
joeshambles: raises 2200001 to 3200000
Annette_15: raises 34913020 to 38113020 and is all-in
joeshambles: calls 18606980 and is all-in
*** FLOP *** [Th 9d Qh]
*** TURN *** [Th 9d Qh] [Ad]
*** RIVER *** [Th 9d Qh Ad] [6d]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
joeshambles: shows [As Ts] (two pair, Aces and Tens)
Annette_15: shows [6c 6h] (three of a kind, Sixes)
Annette_15 collected 43693960 from pot

There goes the neighborhood and some results (20/579)

So BBT3 kicked off last night with 105 players showing up at the Big Game. I guess you can say the word is out. At this rate we'll have 400 players for the Mookie. Or perhaps the entire 30,000 members of the Riverchasers Poker Tour. Speaking of RPT, Riggs decided that it wasn't tough enough to win a TOC seat, so he decided to invite an FTP pro who apparently can't lose a hand no matter what two cards he plays. Congratulations.

I've already stated that it would be hard for me to play in many of these events. But the way things started last is already pretty discouraging. I was getting nothing playable for a long time. When I did try to open a pot I usually got repopped big and had to let it go. I swear I played about 5 hands total. In one pot I raised 3xBB and got 3 callers including bot blinds. Flop was T55 and BoneDaddy flopped top boat. My overpair was useless, especially when another 5 showed up on the turn. At least I was smart enough to fold to his river shove. Then cmitch decided to call my 3XBB from the SB with Kc9c. So he obviously flops two pair to my TPTK. I think I lost the least possible there by playing cautious. So much for Hoy's theories of 3xBB raises not giving the right odds. I forgot that any two clubs on FTP have implied odds of infinity+1. Or any other two cards of the same suit for that matter.

So I was getting short quickly and pretty annoyed at this and other weekend play that was going in other windows. I had a guy at one of my tables who would raise with any two (92o, J3o, etc.) and then proceed to either flop or turn the nuts. It was extremely annoying. Anyway, I decided to do or die with AQs and obviously ran into AKs to get knocked out in 95th place in the Big Game. Not a good way to start the series.

This BBT is going to be brutal. The funny thing is that you can get a Main Event seat for $11. All you have to do is wade through a mine field to win the Mookie and then take second in the TOC. It's really that simple.

On the bright side, I have been able to satellite into the 50/50 a few times over the past few days and cash out my T$. I also won a $26 frenzy. I am loving both of these new features - $T and satellites ending when everyone is in the money. Now if FTP could just work on getting the sound to stop disappearing, Last Hand to stop freezing and the entire application not crashing, we might actually have a workable client.

I also played a $10 KO with 579 players. People playing these are absolutely retarded. You see them talking about how many scalps they got. I know the $2 bounties are what it's all about, right? Obviously the $1K+ first prize means nothing. I saw people make the worst plays and get rewarded. I played so tight and barely moved any chips around. I eventually succumbed to the idiocy and shoved 6s into KJ to finish in 20th place. It paid almost nothing. But still a deep run. Meh.

I doubt I will play the MATH tonight. I am just not feeling it. It's a general meh feeling going on for me right now. I need something to shake it off with. Maybe the Big Home Game I have planned for this weekend will do the trick. We'll see.

Sorry for no links, but it's just part of being meh today.

March Truckin' Pimpage

Truckin' - March 2008, Vol. 7, Issue 3

Welcome back to the third annual L.A. issue featuring some of your favorite writers sharing stories about Los Angeles.

1. Next to Mama Cass by Paul McGuire
Dulce was an attractive peppy girl from San Diego. She diligently saved up for grad school and her first job funded her future. Her second job funded her addiction to weed, whiskey, and cocaine. She loved all three when her shift ended at midnight... More

2. The Drug Store by Change100
I walked down a cement pathway into the shade of unkempt trees and saw a cloudy glass door that led into a deserted elevator lobby. It was open. Someone was here. The lobby walls were covered in cheap faux-oak paneling and the floors in decades-old linoleum. Next to the elevator doors hung a building directory. And there it was. Dr. Jerry Greenblatt, M.D. Fourth floor. I gingerly stepped into the sketchiest elevator in Los Angeles and prayed it wouldn't drop me to the basement... More

3. Today's Special By Joe Speaker
Brad's last night on Planet Los Angeles started at El Caballo, clutching his beer like a dog eared paperback. Starched white shirt glowing red in the bloody lights of the place, same color as the naugahyde booths behind him jammed against the textured and cracked yellow walls... More

4. Smoking Is Cool by Dan Keston
As a man, I truly believe that if you feel comfortable walking down the street with a Coors Light in your hand then you probably feel comfortable wearing your fraternity letters well past your 35th birthday. I also believe, contrarily, that walking down the street with a cigarette in your hand makes you look suave, debonair, independent and just aloof enough to be mysterious... More

5. California: The Garden of Eden by Johnny Hughes
It seemed Los Angeles was in this artificial super-Technicolor, compared to West Texas. The first thing I saw was a grade school class with black, white, and Asian children. I had never seen that, since our schools were segregated... More

6. My LA by Betty Underground
Accidents happening all around you on the freeway. The world's biggest spectator sport! Traffic is not because of the carnage in the road, it is from the rubberneckers trying to catch a glimpse of the blood and guts, only to be disappointed when it was a minor fender bender... More