Sleep With the Fishes, Dine on the Whales

Lots of things happening right now... -Soon, I'll get that Hurricane27 article update.  Spoilers:  Super nice kid.  Not a bot.  Owns your soul online.  How he found poker is an anomaly.  More to come.  Soon, I promise.  I'll find the time to write it up and do it justice. -Wouldn't it be cool to have a GCP.NET Championship?  We think so.  Hopefully, it can happen... somewhere, sometime, soon (?). -About to go Back to the Beau.  How can you not love the deeper stacks and better structures the Beau Rivage will offer when they go heads up with the WSOP Circuit event in early September.  The pros will be in town chasing points but over at the IP.  Methinks I'll be chasing all that money at the Beau.  Plus, they got Henry Garrison, Derek Dillman, and Paul Dutsch coming in to help.  Great crew there.  Think we are pretty lucky as players on the coast with the staffs at the Beau and with what's being p...

Just read through the title before I started typing and it seems like I ended it with I pee bad news.  Maybe if I had some snow, I could test that out.  Yes, I'm juvenile. WSOP Academy First things first, I'll be working the WSOP Academy at Harrahs this weekend as the local "pro."  Inexplicably, Harrahs will also be hosting a WSOP Main Event satellite (during this event) on Saturday.  Huh?  It would be one thing if they started it after the Academy, they could have brought in the out of towners that are coming to the Academy and want to test their games and some of the local players.  Doing it concurrently just makes no sense.  Besides the fact nobody knew about his until Wednesday. I would love it if Harrahs New Orleans would just give GCP a  call.  I'd be happy to help them massively improve their bottom line when it comes to poker.  So many little things they could do, cost efficient things, that could put them where they belong ...

First off, congrats to Jeremy Gaubert for his second title at the WPO.  Lots of respect for the Chemist who was overdue for another first place finish.  122k is a nice payday. Alright, what's been going on.  Went on a family vacation to Pensacola Beach.  I had every intention of playing at the Pensacola Racetrack and never made it over.  Maybe next time.  Thanks to Michael Kmetz who offered to show me around. That being said, the trip was one bad experience after every good one. For example, we had some of our best beach/pool days in years. Then at around five or so, the bad would start to happen.  On one day we watched helplessly as our three year broke our fairly new tablet after about 5 minutes of use.  Tile floors are not forgiving.  Minus a few hundred dollars there.  The next day, one bite into steak dinner (the highlight meal of the trip) the fire alarm went off and we had to descend 12 flights of steps.  With six kid...

WSOP-C, NOLA:  Want to say a big thank you to everybody that bought a piece of my package.  Sounds weird but you know what I mean.  We start off with the freeroll tomorrow and those that took big enough pieces get a piece of that. I'm excited about the Main Event and this tournament series in general.  Big thanks to my in laws for being able to watch the kids to allow me to play as much as necessary.  Oddly, I have a very good feeling about this series. Now, I'm just going to hit on some topics: KARMA - For those that think only good things happen to bad people, give it some time.  Lots of times "great" things end up being the worst thing for them.  Lottery winners are one example. JASON COLLINS - Forgotten in all this acclaim is there was a west coast baseball player in the 70s who was out.  Think he co-invented the high five.  He told anybody that would listen that he was gay.  The sportswriters just didn't ever write a word ab...

-Wow, just sifted through a deluge of Spam comments.  Thanks 'bots I'm glad to see I'm so popular with web trawlers.  If I missed any real comments in the culling of things, my apologies.  I really enjoy it when I get feedback and response.  Sometimes you just feel like you are shouting into any empty canyon, and the Spam is like the echo.  Is there anybody there.  Lol.  If you enjoy reading somebody's blog don't be afraid to send them even an empty comment or two just to let them know there are eyeballs on their writing. Speaking of comments, I also do a march madness pool.  If you are interested shoot me a comment letting me know who you, an email address for me to respond to, and I'll give you the information.  I won't click publish on any emails or pool comments unless you specify you want me too. POKER IP -Alright, let's get the poker out of the way.  Haven't blogged much at all about poker but I have been playing.   Wen...

--The Good. Sweated a lot of Gulf Coasters over ESPN2 and the internets in the main event the last couple of weeks. --The Bad. Ben Mintz, David Diaz, Claudia Crawford, Shannon Shorr, Fred Berger, TK Miles (and more), all went out before the November Nine. --The Ugly. Ryan Lenaghan and Sam Barnhart got to within a table away. Got to be heartbreaking, though six figure paydays have to ease the pain a little bit. --The Good. Min cashed and chopped the Donkley recently. --The Very Good. The chop was seven ways when we had over 90 people last saturday. --The Bad. Prior to the chop had these finishes, 16th, 13th, 11th, and 10th. Yuck. --The Ugly. One of those days compounded the loss with a bad day at the cash tables. --The Good. Harrahs is adding a Tuesday night tournament starting August 5th. --The Bad. It's a rebuy. --The Ugly. If they are doing it to increase cash games on an off night why create a format where everybody will pour their money into rebuys instead of into 1-2 or 2-5 ga...

Heard the numbers were down for the IP, so I targeted the Friday night tournament as a good one to play. It worked on a number of levels. I figured it would be one of the bigger fields, it was, but that's not saying much, and I didn't have to find a babysitter. My wife, who is pregnant again, teaches and takes classes at night. Yes, she's a hard working lady and I'm lucky to have her. Still, I'm often with my son and getting away is harder and harder. Considering the price of gasoline these days maybe I'm lucky to not be on the road as much. So, Friday night worked out kind of perfect as my wife doesn't have classes on Fridays and I was able to get away and get to the coast on time. I played the 6pm and we got I think 76 players. I would end up busting around 16 or so. They paid eight. I actually got into a spot, that I'm growing accustomed to, I looked down at a card and felt this was the hand that would send me packing. I told myself if the pot was uno...

This is afterall a poker blog. Have to have something regarding or somewhat resembling poker news every once in a while. I played Saturday at Harrahs to kill time in advance of the Final Four. Obviously, had the right team from Richmond made it to Houston I would have been there too. Unfortunately, nothing really stood out on the session. I mostly dragged pots without showdown. If it was a bigger tournament with a slower structure, I'd feel real good about this as I grew my stack fairly steadily without risking too much. Still, the Saturday Tournament has fast blinds so you really need to win a few big pots with showdowns, if you are to survive late. Normally, I'll bluff-catch and can win a lot that way. Not this week, I'd basically sense weakness and take down a pot. Lots of time I probably had the best hand but not all the time. That's encouraging for when I play the Circuit event in May. You need to steal those pots to stick around until you can win the bi...

So, it's be some time since I last posted about my play. I chopped another Harrahs tournament last week, and then went back to back in whiffs. No need to discuss the chop, but I will talk about the misses. On Wednesday I shoved from the cut-off with KJ and got looked up by the small blind who had AJ. Not sure I would have called from his spot, though if I factor in the way I came to a decision to shove, he might have thought I looked weak and was at least flipping for a third of his stack. Can't say it was a bad call, maybe it was the right call from every perspective. That kid would later get to the finally table and make some ridiculous proclamations about how much money he'd take in a ten handed chop. Even more so, the fact his minor chip lead, and his proclamation he was the best player at the table (he might have been... but there were a fair number of repeat offenders at that table), seemed to rub the entire room the wrong way, including everybody single person ...

So I played today and made the final table. I won a coin flip early, I came from behind with A6 suited and the small blind woke up to JJ (cue... Frush), and I got some big hands and big pots late. Once at the final table this hand came up. I had a pretty good feeling from conversations with most of the table we were going to chop. The chipleader was on my left and he seemed open to it 10 handed when I brought it up. I didn't say anything because there were two short stacks. One went down, then a guy blew up his stack and couldn't make the ante so likely two were going to go out soon. The other shortie was two to my left and about to hit the big and small blinds. Then this hand happened right before the break: Guy limps from third position. Extreme shortie shoves. Folded to me in the big blind. I look at 5-2 and check. Flop comes 559 two hearts. I was just thinking about eliminating the short stack and getting closer to the chop. I check almost without thinking about ...

Continued from previous posts but I have a feeling you realize that. Anyway was talking about the final table at the No limit Texas Hold'em tournament at Harrahs I call the Donkley. The chatter continued about me having to call there. I challenged the gentleman who didn’t want to chop a little bit. I regret it because I like him and he’s usually a nice easy going guy who takes his beats well and wins well too. Still, I reminded him that I didn’t have to call there because Merle had almost folded AQ earlier at the table, he had shoved UTG, and with King-Two many of the hands he shoves with from there crush that hand. Also, with the blinds what they were 4k was nothing to sniff at but I was't there to give out Texas Holdem poker tips . Next hand, it gets folded to me in the small blind. I raise Merle and he calls. I think I have 86 suited (it was some sort of one gapper). I flop open ended. Check call Merle. Turn a brick, I check call again. River is another brick an...

Continued from previous post... It’s brick city. Btw , that’s not my second Texas Holdem game terrible mistake on the evening, even though I had plenty of reason to not shove right there. The next moment of stupidity would be in the cash game. I head over to the poker room and sit down and start to try and generate something positive. The dealer co-operates. I win one of those pots without any chips in front of me before the chip-runner has come back with pocket jacks. Freeroll a cash game? Fun. Wonder how often a player has sat down and said they already gave their money to a chip-runner and tries to win their first hand. Probably, casinos are pretty on top of that scam, but you’d think with all the freshly broke degens out there somebody would be giving it shot more often. So, I win a few more pots and notice the table is basically a lot of shallow stacks and passive players, hesitant to call all in. I told myself, now is the time to shift gears and forget how I play poker tourna...

It’s brick city. Hmm. A joy in Texas Hold em poker is knowing where you are in the hand. I figure his ace to be weak, at best, and wonder if he is on a better flush draw. Not a straight out there. Maybe he has a decent K or was just floating me. A set is possible so too a weird two pair, but I feel genuine weakness. He checks and I fire out another bet. A check here from me, is reasonable, but then I’m only playing the hand one way and that’s hoping to hit a card. I rationalize a bet here would be warranted by an ace to protect against the flush so why not. I fire and he stews. Then he gets his dander up and asks to see my paltry stack size. I love this tell in poker tournaments once, you know the player it’s either 100% strength or 100% weakness. This guy it was weakness. He puts exactly half of it in. Oh. Well. I consider just shoving it in and hoping to hit. The bet size wasn’t quite giving me the odds to call, but if I hit, he had to call my shove so I decided to call. If I misse...

So far I’m O’fer Harrahs... I love to play Texas Hold'em poker and bink out of three tournaments, have some middling success in the cash games, and basically put a lot of time in for nothing. I feel like a salesman working on straight commission signing up all kinds of customers and then at the end of the month having them all back out for dubious reasons. The tournaments were a mixed bag. I blame myself for the first one. The second I got a little unlucky, and the third I was a victim of situation and a guy oblivious to it, yes fair warning a poker bad beat likely looms ahead in coming posts. If I were a woman I’d only get interest from self-destructive creeps, because in poker those are the only people that play hands with me. Let’s start from the top: the first tournament I played I made two really bad mistakes. Egregious even. One was a matter of seeing the cards. I prefer to play with my contacts in and sunglasses on. I just like to stare at people to read them and I get sel...

Ironically, as he was talking about it I was opening up my hand range and trying to hit big hands against big stacks. Yes, I was playing just the way we were condemning in our conversation. Of course, I bled off chips as people wouldn’t really protect their hands and I never hit my draws. The Texas Hold'em poker tournament that day went pretty well for me from a cards perspective though bad as a player. I found myself in a lot of odd spots which I guess is always true if you play poker tournaments often. The previous week I had stolen a lot of pots with big raises from position with middle pairs when five or six people limped and they’d all fold. I tried the same this week with nothing or little pairs (nothing) and everybody would call. One time I hit my pocket fives and boated on the River against Clint Schafer who stuck around to the end with top pair top kicker (AQ) and I doubled through him. Another time I had pocket fives against a steady regular tight player. This is the h...

Brian told me he had a number of winning Texas Holdem sessions at Harrahs but had gone into bankroll rebuilding mode and would pull up when he was far enough ahead. Then eat and come back for the minimum buy-in. Third night he did it a dealer he didn ’t even have that night told him he had to put all his chips from his first session on the table if he wanted to play. So, after dinner, Brian left a winner, again, I guess he's not just an expert in online poker strategy , he's pretty good live too, and I rejoined our old table. I then ran into Mr. Luckbox . Irony is I heard a big stack at the other side of the table lamenting about how lucky the guy was and I thought to myself, that’s poker get over it, somebody is always getting all the cards. Yeah. Then I proceded to get the dealer down from hell. Yeah. So, I sit down and take a look at Mr. Luckbox ’s chips and think I’m going to double through him and maybe follow Brian’s lead and head to the exit a solid winner. He raised ...