Sleep With the Fishes, Dine on the Whales

Player poker sometimes can feel a little empty and shallow. Even more so when grinding non stop online for a couple of days in row with little sleep. Online poker is fun and all but we do need to get outside and see the sun, workout and try not to dream in poker. It's weird how the mind works sometimes. When I was in high school and discovered Tetris and played the heck out of my friend's gameboy I'd close my eyes and see the images rotating down like rain. When I'd be really tired somehow my thoughts would turn into four box shapes and my brain would only process in Tetris. Online poker can have the same subconcious mindset, where you close your eyes to go to sleep and you are visualizing uncompleted flushes. Something that is really odd is when I'm really tired and this is hard to explain without sounded like a drug addict (and I don't do drugs) but my mind will visualize speech in the form of cards. Yeah, my wife will speak to me and each new subject or noun ...

Okay... didn't wrap this up, so let's fast forward the No Limit Texas Hold'em poker action to the final table and some heads up play. As the dust settled my chip stack and Keenan the kid from New York were the last two still alive. Keenan had established himself as a solid poker player with a good head on his shoulders and an eye for the game. Perhaps he was a little too much of an online player because he had some tells that were pretty straight forward. For example, many players even those trying to maintain a poker face do that little opposite expression we all did as kids playing poker for the first time and Keenan was no different. This is slightly different than the micro-expression, which is when a player can't help but hide his delight or displeasure with his hole cards for a micro-second a tool authorities utilize to determine if a person is lying or not because even the best liars can't help themselves from leaking out a tiny moment of genuine reaction b...

Myself, Gene D, and our partner publisher John Price is Right are getting together our 2 nd issue of the Gulf Coast Magazine. As always, and by always, I mean like we did in our first issue, we will profile local live and online poker players. We pay particular attention to those Gulf Coasters who have done well in our local poker tournaments at the Beau, Harrahs , the IP , Coushatta and other rooms and haunts. Obviously, we profile successful poker players no matter the game be it No Limit Texas Hold 'Em players, Omaha pros, Stud experts, and mixed game specialists. With one exception, we hate Razz, so if you are a Razz player you can forget about getting into our magazine. Just kidding... we don't hate Razz just people that play Razz. Joking, of course. But if you are Razz player--where do you play? More seriously, if you know a player we should be paying attention to let's us know and we'll get them up on the Who's Who section of our website and consi...

To continue with the Dead Money Poker tournament. I had just failed impressively trying to check raise in maybe not the best situation. The irony is I made trips on the river and would have scooped. My misguided thoughts led me to the conclusion where I actually thought that action, check raising a raise and a call might make my play look even stronger… however, what I had forgotten was the other hand I had just raised preflop . Yes, the squeeze play is never a bad idea but perhaps I wasn ’t as cognizant as I should have been at what the others had been observed. Poker is all about readjusting to the image on display. That is a vital part of poker strategy . Your opponents don’t see your cards so all they can go by is what they see. And, my check raise which might normally look uber powerful here could have been judged another reckless bullying attempt, so arguably it was done in a bad place. The hand that I had just raised played out quite interesting. Under the gun led out, then I g...

So as I eyeballed the poker table anew I got an interesting text from Reid G who opted out of playing. Glad he was thinking of me and wishing me good karma. The text said simply “Check raise it always works.” And that is true in No Limit tournament poker. I decided I would do just that. To make it even funnier I would do so blind. Har-har. What a funny schmuck I was. Who cares that Keenan, David and I had put a sidebet on the event and there was over a G on the line for the regular bet. The sidebet was to determine who would be crowned Dead Money poker Champion. That’s my kind of last longer bet. Course deciding to recklessly check raise maybe not the best decision as I had carefully built my stack. I was in the blind so I thought I could set it up right. On this particular hand Keenan, who has a bit of that New York hipster, I play online poker on a Mac vibe, had opened, as he had done a lot of pots from position. I knew he liked to c-bet so this time might be perfect to...

Last post, I was recounting the Texas Hold’Em Dead Money Final table. A no limit deep stack affair with 8 good to very good poker players. Wish it had been only half that many good players. We lost two of our players from out of town and one of the Rob, was real nice about dealing the poker game. I was already mindful of two players. Keenan from New York has a lot of online poker tournament experience. He played like an avid reader of two plus two mixing in aggression with c-bets. I could tell he sits down to play online poker tournaments often. He played position well and had that sense of where he was only logging a lot of hands in online poker tournaments can give you. I watched him carefully as I sensed he would spew tells and to a degree he didn't despite the fact he almost exclusively will play online tournament poker. Then halfway through I picked up something on him. I was really wary of Dave Andersen as I have yet to beat him in any satellite or tournament, Last ...

Every year the Dead Money gang gets together across the country with 10 or so of their friends. They play a single table Texas Hold'em No Limit Poker Satellite and ship their winner to New Orleans. There the winners play each other and the winner of that wins a 10k seat to the World Series of Poker Main Event. Except for last year, where the winner won a seat to the 5k Harrahs main event. Congrats Dave Andersen. This year we looked to get back to the 10 or so winners necessary for the big prize in Vegas. Problem was many table captains couldn't get me winners and few guys dropped out. Suddenly, as the weekend approached we had three winners, myself, David Andersen again (looking to defend his title one of only two winners to get back to the final table), and Keenan from NYC. Keenan had already booked his flight, so though we considered a delay, it wasn't really that reasonable a consideration with non-refundable tickets. Plus, we had two players from Nantucket who ...

Headed over the Beau for a quick training session with the gentleman I'm coaching. Have to give him credit he's been killing it lately. He's had several cashes at the Beau and has been steamrolling poker rooms and poker cash games. He's a savvy player who plays against type and really been honed in on making a final table and taking down a tournament. I'm confident with as many near misses, bad beats, and coolers he's taken with a big stack that a tremendous result will be coming any day now. I hope he wins a satellite seat to the main event as that would be a great place to really leave an impact. He went deep in a mega and had registered for a nightly Texas No Limit Hold'em poker tournament by the time I got there. I decided to play the $200 buy-in and had a roller coaster night. I had an upper limit of 12k (4k starting stack) and kept fluctuating between the two. In one particular hand a guy who had a few adult beverages was on the button. A loose erra...

So where were we? I was playing an Omaha poker tournament and large multi-table Hold'Em tournament. The Hold'Em tournament was a grind until I got hot. Then Omaha tournament (Hi-Lo) was anything but a grind as the action was fierce and I was snatching pots left and right. Then as it is supposed to do the No Limit Hold 'em tournament changed. I collided with a big stack and my stack was healthier for it. That double up was nice. Suddenly I was the big fish in a shrinking pond. The weird thing is around that time I was started to flag. It was getting later and later. Originally, I thought if it go too late I was willing to just blind out squeak into the money and go to bed, but now with this chip stack, I had second thoughts had to revise the poker strategy . No longer was I going to saunter off to slumber, despite the micro buy-in there was a pretty nice first prize. Hell, it was a couple of buy-ins to the Beau Rivage Southern Poker Championship events. The second and third ...

Last night I signed up for a No Limit Texas Hold'em Multi-Table Tournament. The buy-in as per usual was small, borderline micro, and I also played some freerolls during the duration of the game. Yes, I didn't think it was a good idea to mix games i.e. practice playing Omaha at the same time as playing Texas Hold'em but now I'm not as convinced. What I used to think would make me a little confused jumping back and forth between games actually seemed to keep me focused. Oddly. Granted it was mostly two or three tables of sit 'n gos but as I went deep in the big multi-table tournament I also was going deep in the Omaha freeroll. With just the two varieties on the monitor at the same time I flipped back and forth and readily adjusted. The Omaha was hi-lo so it was a little more difficult than just adapting to four hole cards vs. two. I found myself playing surprisingly well in Omaha. I imagine if an experienced player was over my shoulder he'd be telling me how wel...

Watch this video: http://www.cardplayer.com/cptv/channels/13-other-poker-videos/poker-videos/3964-2010-pokerstars-caribbean-adventure-negreanu-calls-floor Little bit of the debate over his actions here: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29/news-views-gossip/dn-shoots-angle-pca-679710/ Daniel's thoughts followed by my thoughts: He doesn't see me re-raise and flips his hand face up. I see the Ace of diamonds as clear as day, and the other card looked to be a two across spade, meaning it was the 4s or the 5s. Now he wants to raise me 15,000 more and I say," Why are you raising me! I saw your hand, lol." I wasn't exactly sure what his second card was , but I obviously assumed if he was raising me it couldn't be the 4s and had to be the 5s or the 10s. The two guys on my left saw his hand much more clearly and knew exactly what he had. What I find a little... um... sketchy for lack of a better word... is implying he saw both cards but he only saw one (and a half--I...

You want to feel insignificant and, oddly, at the same time significant? Talk on your cell-phone much? You might not get Alzheimers.... Said the same thing about smoking at one time. Was it because all the smokers died before getting it, and all the teens talk on cell phones and all the older folks have difficulty finding the buttons and hearing the phones. Actually no. Read here for more: http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/healthday/634709.html George Costanza went deep at the World Series of Poker main event. Well, the actor that plays George Cosatanza, Jason Alexander did. Jason Alexander played himself playing George Costanza on this years Curb Your Enthusiasm and the character of Jason Alexander as played by Jason Alexander is slightly less likable than George and maybe just as manical and evil. Remember the Seinfled episode where George tested the mechanic on candy bars (they went to the car dealer)? Well, you can take that quiz right chere: http://mentalflos...

I'm trying to get amped up for all the poker on the Gulf Coast in the next couple of weeks. The IP is running poker tournaments concurrently to the Beau Rivage. Is this good poker strategy ? At first glance this may seem like they are splitting up a rather small pool of poker players and we'll have to see if that is the case. I hope not. I hope it means they are expected a huge turnout and I have to say I think with the timing of the Beau Rivage event being a little bit after the PCA they may just get that. A lot of the poker pros will be heading back to the mainland with a layover in Miami which is just a hop away to Biloxi. Ignoring the trouble of connecting flights and looking at it just from a geographical perspective this might mean the biggest turnout on the coast in some time--and hoping that's the way it's looked at by the returning poker players. Course, those are mostly deep pocketed online and live pros that MAY be coming. The IP's event will draw ...