Sleep With the Fishes, Dine on the Whales

Here's a couple more to pick your brains. Feel free to constructively criticize. I'll try not to be thin skinned, but I'm back in Poker school. Hand 3... Actually, in reviewing it, not sure why I clipped it... Seat 1: S77R (45947 in chips) Seat 2: Boulabally (11218 in chips) Seat 3: dtimeonetime (17925 in chips) Seat 4: gengis kal (2668 in chips) Seat 5: hogwild426 (9566 in chips) Seat 6: 430MIA (3464 in chips) Seat 7: ME (4243 in chips) Seat 8: Marcio-Milet (23900 in chips) Seat 9: nwaeditor (8648 in chips) S77R: posts the ante 25 Boulabally: posts the ante 25 dtimeonetime: posts the ante 25 gengis kal: posts the ante 25 hogwild426: posts the ante 25 430MIA: posts the ante 25 ME: posts the ante 25 Marcio-Milet: posts the ante 25 nwaeditor: posts the ante 25 nwaeditor: posts small blind 150 S77R: posts big blind 300 *** HOLE CARDS *** Dealt to ME [Jd Js] Boulabally: folds dtimeonetime: folds gengis kal: folds hogwild426: calls 300 430MIA: folds ME: raises 1200 to 1500 Marc...

ME is... Me... here are three hands. I have been playing a lot online, trying to learn Omaha and improve in hold'em. Well, figure before I learn a new game and start soliciting Omaha tips I should solicit some Texas No Limit Hold 'Em tips. Here are three hold'em hands. The first had a good result but might have been garnered by making donk decisions or maybe I played it well. Thoughts appreciated to my commentary intermingled in the writeup. Seat 1: WilEKoyotee (8173 in chips) Seat 2: The_Mayor_BT (1575 in chips) is sitting out Seat 3: nolimitsfmx (10242 in chips) Seat 4: ME (10528 in chips) Seat 5: XJaguarX (1275 in chips) is sitting out Seat 6: ZERZEM (2575 in chips) Seat 7: tugapescador (3125 in chips) Seat 8: HeikePface (5505 in chips) Seat 9: fishhawk84 (3755 in chips) ME: posts small blind 75 XJaguarX: posts big blind 150 *** HOLE CARDS *** Dealt to ME [2c 2h] ZERZEM: folds XJaguarX has returned tugapescador: raises 300 to 450 HeikePface: folds fishhawk84: folds WilEK...

This will be totally random. Poker High Stakes Poker is back. Great show. I watch online. I think I've linked to a blog in the past that always has the youtubes in one place so you can watch the entire show there. I'll look for the link. Got me thinking about these online players vs. the live players. On full display was new school vs. old school. Take this hand Minieri bets with basically any two, Dwan raises with QJ and Phil Hellmuth in position (the button I think... but 20% I could be remembering wrong and he was out of position in the blinds) folds AQ. This fold seems to tilt him when he discovers he would have won a nice pot off Dwan, and he later blows up playing a starting hand he'd normally never consider that busts him. Somebody needs to take Hellmuth aside and give him a lesson on new school poker . On http://www.gulfcoastpoker.net/ we link to a Daniel Negreanu blog where he discusses new school vs. old school and rips Phil Hellmuth. Anybody else think that Negr...

So, I played the Donkley after some time away from Harrahs. I love to play online poker, and it has been going well fitting into the fatherhood lifestyle a little better but I'll never quit playing live poker. Such a fun environment to play poker. Course there is a huge difference between hand ranges in the two. When I play poker online I give my opponents too much benefit of the doubt and have to widen my calling ranges. In live poker you have to severely limit those ranges unless you get strong tells or obvious opponents. Couple of hands of note. I resolved recently to open any pot in late position if folded to me to just get some experience playing a wider range of cards post flop. I was tired that wednesday morning and when on the button with an ignominous K2 offsuit it dawned on me that action was on me and 7 folders were waiting expectantly. Well, I guess that means I'll open with a bet. I 2.5 it and the small blind folds. The big blind calls. Perhaps, to give myself an a...

You can compare it to the frustration of the Red Sox fans until their epic run a couple of years ago. Word of warning New Orleans, almost everybody not a Yankees fan rooted for the Red Sox to end their 90 year drought, but within three years the Red Sox and their fanbase already had more in common with the Yankees then anybody else. The Saints may have the rare opportunity to get dynastic, depending on the comings and goings of players, and hopefully the fans will stay humble (which is hard to do when your team is great). You get tired of anybody winning but the Saints for a night were America's team, what a great place for the bagheads to be. Now, word of warning, if the Clippers and Cubs win championships we should definitely get ready for the apocalypse (just this decade... White Sox, Phillies, Red Sox, Tampa Bay Bucs, and now the Saints). I mean besides Cardinal fans, White Sox fans, and whoever they are playing who wouldn't pull for the Cubs to win. Same with the Cli...

BTW, lots of people are slamming Peyton. You kidding me? Reggie Wayne didn't run his route correctly on one pass, and Peyton who was almost as good as Drew Brees on that day, did everything he could for the Colts. Sure Addai decided to show up but for anybody attacking Peyton he played a hell of a superbowl. Kurt Warner won a superbowl by playing awful except for one perfect pass and then lost one by playing great. Peyton will be back. And maybe I will forget about his terminator face as he strolled into the stadium, his lack of sportsmanship, and his sulking on the sidelines but maybe I won't. I wouldn't be surprised in the next two or three years if we see a rematch of this game. That would be like 3rd or 4th level poker strategy as these opponents are starting to get to know each other a little bit. Strange thing in the lead up to this it just felt like the Saints were destined to win and would not be denied. Very similar to that post Katrina game against the Falcons w...

I was going to record my inlaws reactions to the fourth quarter of the Saints game in case it came down to the wire. For my wife's sake thank goodness I did not. She hates the stress of sports and felt like she was going to throw up before the game. She's not really sure what 3rd down means or how many chances a team has to get to the yellow line but she figured out the action pretty well by just knowing when her long suffering relatives cheered she should cheer. Good thing I didn't video tape it because my wife would be a Youtube star right now. I've never seen a reaction quite like hers. The rest of the room exploded and her dance which consisted of limp-wristed stomp/run in place head shaking like she's at a church service where people talk in tongues was unbridled joy. Yes, she roots for the Saints to win, but no she can't bare to watch most of the games, this year they've mostly won, but it was brutal experiences for her to endure in the NFC championshi...

So of late I've been the guy to play a late night multi-table texas hold'em online poker tournament , play all night, and play all morning, crack the cash and then bleary eyed watched stunned as some donkey makes a play that just doesn't make sense. So, when I say that I'm that guy, I know I'm one of you, we all do this it seems. Play patient, gamble when necessary, get a mini-rush and cruise. Warning Poker Bad Beat Story paragraph ahead . Here it is: When I sat down to play online poker tournaments, I know they are coming, half the field gets it, but they still sting a bit. So I got pocket 10s, there are 13 of us, I'm one of two big stacks. First place pays over 1k. I think the buy-in was $2.20. There were over 4000 players that decided to play poker tournaments online, 4600 maybe. It was soon going to be daybreak again. My wife will not be happy, course if the bank account grows by a G, how can she be mad. I bet fairly large, guy on the button calls...

When on the online poker treadmill, seeing things when sleep deprived is one thing (see last post), but I know a lot of players that struggle with the raison d'etre of a poker player. True like any other gig you are chasing the dollar, and if you really step far enough back, your pursuit of that dollar and your winning of that dollar costs somebody else that dollar--there's really few jobs with the moral high ground as long as somebody else desires that job. In that respect poker is no different than any other job just more immediate and more direct. You could argue, in other pursuits, you win the dollar that is up for grabs where poker consists of you taking it from somebodies stack (or pocket). Even tournament poker there is an ebb and flow of cash that is more in your face than traditional jobs. So naturally. it feels good to play poker for charity especially tournament poker. There were times where I wished I knew more people that would volunteer for a charity tour...