Sleep With the Fishes, Dine on the Whales

The November Nine, a great (okay, make that "a pretty good") idea that never lived up to expectations has been killed.  Put out of its misery for a lack of interest. Everybody, it seems sighs and says that's just poker's plight these days.  A fad, that's come, gone, and now is back to being a niche game.  Black Friday! Poker scandals!  Blah, blah, blah! Oversaturation!  I disagree. The truth is the November Nine died, not because of any of those things, but because we let it wither on the vine.  And by "we" I mean us poker players who entrusted the WSOP and its broadcasting partners to do what was best for our game and our signature event.  Sadly, as usual, when it comes to poker, we put our faith in the wrong people. In a better world with ESPN as a broadcasting partner, the following would have happened with a November Nine. In the summer nine diverse players, hopefully including a talkative villain/hero (depending on your perspective), a coup...

After a decent night's rest, yesterday morning I sought out a Starbucks and like most things on the strip, just because you can see it doesn't mean it's close by.  Add in 108 degree heat and a quick walk devolves into something else.  Everybody talks about dry heat, but 100+ degrees is 100+ degrees.  When you are on foot it's so hot part of you hopes the asphalt doesn't melt and slowly absorb you.  It's always a guantlet just going a city block trying to stave off the ever present horde of flier hander-outers.  If you walk outside every half block you'll feel the cold tractor beam pull of streetside casinos as their wide open doors offer promise of a much cooler place. Those smart casinos blast their AC on to the strip.  No amount of neon can compare to the efficacy of drawing in customers as a well positioned air flow.  I almost wonder if the casinos hire the guys on the strip with the handouts to chase the tourists inside too.  Maybe the s...

Yesterday, I flew from New Orleans to LA to Las Vegas.  Going to LAX of course I was star sighting.  Sure enough I saw Thor's brother, who my wife tells me is engaged to Myley Cyrus walking around with one of those beanie type hats.  I identified him as d-bag first and then I saw it was a word class d-bag.  Thought that was it for star gazing but then I got on my plane and was walking back to economy class when this petite, rather pretty lady starting walking against traffic toward me and first class.  Huge sunglasses and a hand covering her face a little bit.  Hello Paula Abdul.  I stop at the open seat to let her in, even as others struggled past her.  She didn't say thank you.   Maybe she was worried I'd recognize her voice (she's right that verbal honey would instantly take me back to her immortal duet with Skat Kat ). Then I'd be able to see through her watermelon sized specs and identify her as Paula Abdul...  Or mayb...

Bits and Bites: *Did another blog recently.... http://www.pokerblog.com/blog/the-avengers-pokers-mightiest-players.html What poker players do you think match up best with the movie Avengers? I feel like I should have included Loki in that list after the fact...  Course I had Hellmuth as Iron Man though he might work as Loki especially with his verbose speeches and villain persona.  Or, for those with a rich knowledge of poker history or have merely read the book:  The Professor, The Banker, and the Suicide King, perhaps Andy Beal. He's the man that singlehandedly tried to take down a cabal of poker's elite.  Ivey, Brunson, Harman, etc.  That group would make a pretty good Avengers circa 2000.  Any other suggestions? *Played in the Mega That Wasn't... With the promise of a Main Event seat, and a chance to go to Vegas to have that guaranteed for my package buyers I went to Harrahs on Sunday to basically play a two table tourn...

Did it seemed like I just upped and disappeared?  Well, I did.  At a very late moment we made a family decision to go to Disney World.  Found a cheap trip through the mouse and instead of waiting a year or two for another time, made the most of the last week of my wife's maternity leave.  Sorry, I left this blog dangling in the wind (so too GCP) but despite my intentions to update things during my two year old's naps I discovered two year olds don't take naps at Disney World. But I'm back...  Surprised by the number of hits I've gotten in my absence so I must reward those of you who have been checking in. Anyway, with my memory a little less clear let's get back to the 1k.  They move to a table with Chris Tyrba , (who's on fire this year), bracelet winner Captain Tom Franklin and on my left maybe the best women's player ever, bracelet winner  Kathy Liebert .  I love her outspokenness on twitter and I respect her chip on the shoulder ...

Okay... It's coming I promise.  Blogtacular posts await.  Just have to play catch up on all the family time I missed.  So, we'll get started a little bit today and come back to wrap it up in a post or two later. Let's get the niceties out of the way, I have a very special wife who thought I was just going to Biloxi for a night or two last week only for me to return late Monday night.  My heavier pockets eased all the stress of the trip and for the first time she got to enjoy sweating me on the Internet in a poker tournament but I still need to fill up on some quality time with my two young uns.  Leaving her with a newborn and son who's in and out of his terrible twos is quite a bit different than life was a couple of years ago when I'd take off for a tournament with no worries.  Big thanks to my in-laws for helping out. Yes...  I had a hell of a run at the IP which I need to encapsulate.  I hate posting after wins because it feels self-indulg...

--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...

Okay, my last post kind of just listed some of what ails the November Nine without really offering some improvements. I guess I could have also mentioned the World Series invested about 21 million, that the winners would receive for the No limit Texas Hold'em tournament, that was sitting around for 3 and half months with Goldman Sachs. That's supposedly the best of the best when it comes to investing and they made a whopping $459. Yes, in three and a half months 21 million returned $459. I'm not joking. For the year, that rate is 0.008%. I've heard of safe but that's ridiculous. Granted people may be quick to say at least they didn't lose money so I'll say it for you... at least they didn't lose money... BUT wait they did. Had they put it almost any other safe investment they would have earned more, hell if they used it to online poker tournaments they would have made a ton more. So the winner, Duhamel pocketed an extra $170 bucks or something, Racener...

Yes, I know the World Series of Poker Main Event is perfect, the November Nine has been a dream, and there is no need for improvement. Or not. Television ratings were down for the second year running. In fact, they were barely bigger than they were three years ago before they moved to the November Nine format. Also the odds on favorite Johnathan Duhamel won but he wasn't the guy the suits wanted to win. The first year of the November Nine ratings took off and a lot of excitement was drummed up and the final table had the feel of an event. It looked like poker was going to carve a little spot into the crowded sports (okay sports/entertainment) television market place. Watching live poker is a bit like watching a pack of caterpillars change into a butterfly. It’s pretty much only interesting when the players have to expose the cards. That would be the moment, a cocoon opens up and out crawls the butterfly. Okay, I should have just said like watching grass grow or paint dry. Sorry. ...

So, I have a ton of live Texas Hold'em poker poker to discuss. Ran through a mega to win 2k in tournament chips at the IP. That was fun. Finished about 15 or so from the money in a $350 tournament ring tournament and that wasn't so fun considering I played for 11 or so hours for nothing. Had some mistakes and some postive things to move on with, and a couple of hands I will discuss. Also congrats to Monkey for his success in hold'em and omaha at the IP. I keep telling myself I am going to use my Omaha poker online experience to good use but never do. Before I get into the poker, somehow I've also been busy having a pointless debate that I wanted to share with the world. I'm sure I'll turn off a lot of you with my "anti-american" opinion. This is from a baseball debate me and a friend have been having on facebook. He's probably more right than I am, as my dislike for the sport colors my opinion too much, although I could argue it's pro...

There are ten candidates this year, almost all of them are wothy and almost all of them will eventually get in. They include World Series of P0ker Texas Hold'em poker Main Event Champions, poker authors, poker contributors, and poker greats. They are Phil Ivey, Daniel Negreanu, Jennifer Harman, Erik Seidel, Chris Ferguson, Barry Greenstein, Tom McEvoy, Dan Harrington, Linda Johnson, and Scotty Nguyen. Anybody who ever wanted to learn poker could model themselves after any of these players and have a long and successful careeer. Conceivably you could make a case that only Linda Johnson, Jennifer Harman (sorry ladies), and Tom McEvoy don't deserve to make it. Real quickly, I'll give my thoughts though they are much better expressed on this blog . Let's elminate Linda Johnson from the won't deserve to make it one day. Fan ignorance of her is not enough to keep her out. Linda Johnson, which most people who don't bother to do a Wikipedia look up or google sea...