Sleep With the Fishes, Dine on the Whales

That's Phil Hellmuth being lowered on a trapzee at Studio 54. Pics from Tiffany Michelle's twitpics. www.gulfcoastpoker.net

I'll post about poker later today, but this is straight soccer, so skip at your leisure... There is some confusion about the relative importance of the US making it to the Finals of soccer's second most important international tournament. Is the Confed cup , as one of my friends put it, the "Who gives a sh** cup?" No. I wish there was an easy comparison to other sports that nonsoccer fans would get but there is none. The Playoffs and Superbowl is the only competition in the NFL. Golf has four majors. Same with tennis. While you could argue Wimbledon or the Masters is slightly bigger than the others, they each count as a Grand Slam. The Olympics and the World Cup are events 1 and 2 in terms of global sports. In some places the Olympics is more important (here) but in most places THE sporting event is the World Cup. In fact, the world cup is so big, any tournament pales in comparison. So, perhaps college basketball provides a ready comparison because March Ma...

So at the beach with the in-laws, things are going swell. It's a little too hot but bearable, a nice breeze over the gulf, soft white-white sands, tropical blue oceans and everybody in great spirits. Then my Mother-in-law has a heart attack. Things are suddenly not so good. She gets airlifted to Pensacola and luckily the cardio surgeon there had a procedure scheduled and they are already ready to go. They bump that lady out and quickly get to work. Two blockages, one 100% the other 70%. A stint is inserted effectively for the 100% blockage (the 70% one will have to wait until things heal up), and she is in the Pcola hospital until today. Spent the last three days driving my wife back and forth to visit. Two hours each way every day, and an expectant mother anxious about her mother, makes for a rough week. Even tougher is the sudden surprise of it all. Lady works out with a personal trainer, eats well, and just got great numbers on her cholestral. She's in great sha...

-We are going through some laptop issues this week, so www.gulfcoastpoker.net may have some sporadic updates, which sucks as our numbers keep going up and our traffic has traditionally been deepest during the WSOP. We should get squared away in the next few days. -Just read Monkey's post and I feel for the guy. I had gotten his text early on and I was so happy that things had seemed to have turned that it was a big disappointment that it went south. Though, I had a suspicion as I didn't hear back from him. Hopefully, things will turn for him and for everybody out there in a downswing that feels more like a hole with no way out than a dip in the road. I have faith skill will win out. -Phil Ivey is a stud. If I sat down with him on a Hold 'Em table I'd be scared enough, but on any other game you gotta think he just eviscerates most of his opponents. I remember a random moment when he played at a 10k New Orleans circuit event where I stopped and watched an orbit. I ...

Feeling bullet proof, I guess from running so well in the Harrahs weekly, I squandered opportunites and pissed away chips. I made no fewer than three fairly big mistakes. Early on I caught KK and knocked out the attorney with whom I've shared the last two final tables. He had about a half stack and shoved on me hoping my reraise was a button steal. He had 9s and my KK held. That felt good. I also got the ace/queen out of the hand that would have scooped most of the pot. Cue mistake hand number 1: So I promptly, get KQ in late position. Raise. Called by BB and a limper. Flop is K high. Old man in BB leads out. Loose player who limped and called my pf raise folds. I see the rock has 2k behind. I know he has AK. I hope I'm wrong and set him in. Can't just call there, because he can shove any hand later. Might as well make him think about his tournament life. But, correct play is fold because I know I'm beat and keep an extra 2500. Especially in that tournam...

Just tidying up here, this is an old post but I'm organizing the blog a bit, or at least starting too. So I separated it from the poker portion of a previous post. Will probably create a rants category, and maybe my top posts. We'll see. ...And now for something completely different, my wife looks like she is ready to explode with our baby. I'm so tired of the same conversations that we inevitably have with every person behind a counter. It's not the obligatory niceties like "When are you due?" "Is it a boy or girl" all that I can handle. It's two aspects that are tiresome the first question is "Are you ready?" Which is totally a trap question, you say a tentaive "Yes, we hope so" as a prospective first time parent, and you've stepped into a spring loaded trap that has chunks of bear hair in it. The parents of young children will smile like Michael Jordan would if I challenged him to a game of one on one basketba...

More Ivey... www.gulfcoastpoker.net

COSTA RICA ONLINE GAMBLING FLICK TO STAR LEONARDO DiCAPRIO. The guys who wrote Rounders are turning their sights to the online... sites. Expect veiled references to the Absolute(ly Cheating You) Poker Scandal. We can see the pitch now, Blow meets Magic the Gathering meets the Firm meets Shade meets bad sequel of your choice that's not technically a sequel but we all know it is... ie Charles in Charge. Speaking of sequels why not just get Matt Damon and Ed Norton and make it an honest to goodness sequel. Here's our sequel: Worm worms his way into a online site's strip mall in Costa Rica's offices, where he coincidentally is hiding out after trying to tap into hole camara feeds. He is about to get roughed up but promises access to Mike McD. The execs are Spencer Pratt lookalike (odd flesh color beards not required) frat boys that started an internet poker site by teaming up with old hustler named Huss Ramilton played by John Goodman. They'll include a shot ...

Poker at the Bottom... Decided to make this into two posts. One was a rant, the other was about poker. So let's just get straight to the pokering... in this one. I continue to run well at the Harrahs Wednesday weekly tournament. DaRock once again dealt me great, peeling off a three outer on the river when my A9 got called by A10 and he got me out of a couple other jams. He used to cooler me, now he's just raking me pots. I made some big bluffs that weren't called for some big pots. Right before the final table I got crippled when my opponent hit her three outer to stay alive and double through me. Coming back from a break to start the FT, nine out of ten players are there and everybody agrees to chop. Nobody was more than an all in call or two from being short and the blinds were fairly big. If I were one or two of the big stacks I would have waited to crush my short stack, the girl (who sucked out on me) and one other player before I'd even discuss it. Howev...

First off thanks to monkey for the kudos in his blog and in my comments about my writing a few posts ago. That post was a long one, and I'm glad he stuck around for the payoff. I know he's being dealing with that painful Deep-itis. It's going deep in every tournament and running into K10 at every corner, or losing a race or getting card dead at the worst time. Seems like a lot of us have that. SPR at the circuit event,... Gene D... Reid... GCPers getting deep and not getting the breaks. You want to find a donkey, just wait til a critical time, and he'll reveal himself by making a bonehead play and then get lucky against one of us. I went on a streak once where I'd get my money in every time with an overpair and they'd always hit a set. Every freakin' time. Always on the bubble or in mincash territory. So frustrating, I know Monkey's pain. I'm still gunshy when I'm 4 to 1 because of that terrible summer. I still think longrun I'm o...

The Harrahs weekly or the Donkley as I'm dubbing it went pretty well despite being card dead. Finished 6th and in the money. My friend Alex T, finished 5th. He was the only guy refusing the chop. Cost me some money. Next time he better win the thing (or go out before me and definitely not one after me). They chopped as soon as he was eliminated. Funny a set of 9s was crucial for GulfCoastPoker.NET Bloggers: Gene, SPR, and me. Alex T, hit one against Gene's TPTK, SPR got all his chips into the middle with Aces, against flopped top set of 9s, and my big early pot to get me deep in the tournament was a set of 9s vs. Q9 (two pair) in a battle of the blinds. I've seen SPR just get battered with cooler situations and his premium pocket pairs in the Donkley. He lost the absolute minimum with Kings when an Ace hit the board, then got sent home when 9s caught on him and his aces. In weeks past, I've seen him get a ton of big hands and have to ditch them--correctly. I...

Jason Mercier's interview just before he won his bracelet. www.gulfcoastpoker.net

Gotta tip your hat to No Home Jerome. This was taken just before the final table he went into with a short stack. Go to SORRY, LOOKS LIKE POKER ROAD MAY HAVE PULLED IT. To enjoy this video and others go to: http://www.pokerroad.com/video/the-life-of-ivey/posts/final-table-of-the-2-7-no-limit http://www.gulfcoastpoker.net/

Watch Doyle Brunson vs Amarillo Slim Scooter Race at the 2009 WSOP on RawVegas.tv www.gulfcoastpoker.net

Let me give you the lay of the land of my last cash game session. I have a pretty young Asian girl on my right. She's borderline flirting but in a nonthreatening way it seems. She clearly sees my wedding ring and is not making an effort to hide hers. So, I don't think she's going to go too far. She's terrible at poker but keeps asking me for my opinion. Normally, the last thing I want to do is educate an opponent on poker strategy , especially one that is good for the game, but I could tell she wasn't long for it and she was genuinely nice and playing for enjoyment. I gave her a tip or two and confirmed that yes in fact she did misplay her pocket jacks, and her AK, and her straight. Yes, she should bet when she made a hand and check when she didn't unless she was bluffing. I was being polite. To her right, and the reason I chose my seat, is a guy that is nursing one of those hangovers he didn't wake up and discover it just kind of took hold after his buzz...