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...

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...

Recently, I've watched a word "catch fire" throughout the poker world.  Withered.  Another one that  is a close second and almost as rampant is "laxxed." Got to give credit for a trend setter.  Think Blake Barousse was the first I heard use this word about a year ago.  Then I heard Ross Leitz jump on it and use it A LOT, recently everybody is saying the word.  Saw twitter this last week somebody define it for Ben Lamb and then I saw Jason Mercier use both words in reference to the Internet kids.  So Blake, good job man.  You a leader the rest of the world followers. Withered for those who don't have a dictionary means... 1.  Tired, worn out and basically dried out.  And more recently it is used as a catchall to 2.  describe live pros and grinders.  In general, they are withered humps on a casino seat.  Maybe I fall in this category.  I hope not, but I feel and look withered a lot so probably so, especially after a...

***Oops, I just did it.  I referred to myself in third person in the title.  Must be the success of the New Orleans Main Event going to my head. ***Um... what success? ***Never mind ***First, you refer to yourself in third person and now you are having a conversation with yourself.  You really are becoming a narsacist.  ***A narsacist that can't spelll? ***And what's with the asterisks?  Don't you use "" for dialogue. ***Do you use them for thought dialogue? ***Don't know. ***Well shut up. ***Can you ***shut up*** if you are engaging in ***thought dialogue***  seems impossible. Okay, excuse the skitzo opening.  Sometimes after an ofer the brain gets a little rattled, maybe.  ***Maybe? Maybe... he'll go away if we just ignore him.  Bad luck found me in the main event in the NOLA circuit.  I started off card dead.  Then, I started playing hands I maybe shouldn't but I wasn't going to blind off or not take c...

Lots of people, surprisingly and flatteringly, have asked when i was going to wrap up the IP series... I haven't even gotten to the Main Event.  I'm going to do so today.  One quick sidenote, that I  meant to include before, when I was at the table with Captain Tom and Kathy Liebert, shortly after I called her down with Queen high, and then she got bad beated (I believe) she remarked to him, "Remember when we used to be good at poker." Nice little self-deprecation there (once upon a time I'd confuse the words self-deprecation with self-defecation which is an entirely different sentiment but anyway...).  Obviously, she was joking and I'm confident she knows she still has "it" but Captain Tom wasn't on the same wavelength, he informed her he was still pretty good and started rattling off some scores in the past year.  Okay, after an aborted nap I went to down to see Gene play.  Somehow the donk chipped away at him and then prevailed.  I felt ...

Ben Franklin didn't just fly kites to get shocked by lightning as way to get high, crack the liberty bell to upset Paul Revere, and become the ambassador to France because of a love of pastries, he was actually a pretty smart guy.  Actually, Gentleman Ben might not have done any of those things or had those reasons for doing it, but invariably somebody out there believes that he did and guess what if you try to explain why he's wrong, particularily on the internet, he'll only believe in his side all the more. Been enjoying a pyschology site that suggest that we are wired pretty strangely.  One thing I picked up was that when people believe in something stongly, sometimes evidence to the contrary only makes them believe all the more.  They'll doubt the source, doubt the data, and write off the critic rather then ammend their way of thinking.  As news sources have gotten narrower in their viewpoints it's become harder for a liberal to accept anything Fox says as...

milk man Lots of things happening at once in my life: The biggest and most important is the birth of my second child.  Awesome.  I have a daughter now and she's a late night partier.  Yes, up all night, sleeps all day which hopefully won't be repeated in her college years.  My wife, who has become a vending machine, somehow seems to do 100 things in a day and not get any sleep.  She's up substantially more than me because, well, because my nipples don't work the same way hers do.  Interesting fact though, some men have been known to develop milk when the mother of a newborn is out of the picture.  Which answers the question from Meet the Parents "I have nipples too, Greg, can you milk me?"  Well, yes. Fortunately, my wife isn't out of the picture so I'm not becoming some sort of mutant man and lactating.  However, I do advise for future fathers to not mention being tired or wanting a nap if your wife is nursing away all ni...

Computers talking to each other.  Fun, stimulating conversation there.  The beginning of the end? Here's some links that interest me: Minority Report is here.  Predictive software on supercomputers are capable enough to predict riots, revolutions and civil upheavel.  How long til people have to spam the internet to run interference on the next spot of revolt? That's Levitation Holmes .  From the folks that brought you invisibility cloaks now comes flying carpets.  There is something called Casimir force and the science behind it is quite interesting if you like quantum physics and metamaterials that theorhetically could make levitation happen at a reasonable expense of energy. David Einhorn gives up the Mets .  You remember the poker playing donating to charity main event winnings hedge fund manager who was going to save the Mets, seems he's given up that pursuit.  Also, seems like the gild is off the lily in his day job too. This on...

Haven't played any poker since I last blogged which was what two days ago? I had the mouse over my favorite online poker site at about midnight last night and decided I was too tired to log on and crush people, soul read, and write random non-sequiter in chat. I get punch drunk when I'm tired and I'm not above just rambling aimlessly until I get a response. Recently my favorite introduction to inanity is the following: "That was a bad beat, but I'll tell you about a bad beat, a bad beat called my life" "Anybody want to hear?" "I'll take that silence as enthusiastic confirmation..." Then I'll just go on in mind-numbing fashion like... "It all started a long time ago when I was born with an extra toe..." "NH. You are probably wondering why not just lop it off? It's just an extra toe?" "Well, my dad was shoe maker and he took it as challenge, so rather than let the oral surgeon that delivered me trim th...

This latest scandal on UB could just be a computer glitch. It could be a freak occurrence that just happened to happen when the face of their company was playing limit poker. Allegedly he's been on a tear... playing limit poker. Allegedly not only isn't he a good limit poker player he's been a bit of a fish of that game. And he's been on a bit of a tear. Last go around everything smelled real funny, real funny and finally people were able to show it was. This go round, this would be brutal for poker. If Hellmuth goes down we all suffer greatly. I don't think it lights a fire under the collective asses in Congress to regulate it I think it puts a fork in a "rogue" industry. Of late I've been pimping bWin poker ( https://poker.bwin.com/poker.aspx ) for many reasons. Anybody that follows international sports will know they advertise on AC Milan's jerseys. You might see David Beckham wearing one in the next couple of weeks. What's significan...

On the front page of www.gulfcoastpoker.net under the poker news section Daniel Negreanu's linked poker blog kind of answers my own question that I posed a few posts ago. I play small ball, know where I am in the hand and then watch my opponent catch on the river. Usually it works out that the river card also improves my hand but makes his. You can tell by my tongue in cheek cyncism on the front page about getting rivered that I'm tired of this happeneing. It happens in online poker and in live poker. In one texas hold 'em tournament I called a guy until the river with second pair--tens. The flop was king high but he was last to act and I felt like was betting some sort of draw. On the turn, he looked like he wasn't improving and threw out another just go away bet when I'd check to him out of position. I call. His river bet didn't bring a flush or a straight card but was a Queen. This time he bet with some confidence and I felt I was beat. Yet, it was...