WSOP and the Gaming Life Expo

Well, we are a day away from the final table of the 2007 World Series of Poker. It’s been a pretty exciting year. Phil Hellmuth wins his 11th bracelet and a good many poker pros took home hardware as well. Sadly, I didn’t get to play in any events this year, but there’s always next year!

I have a side bet riding on the main event this year that the winner of the main event would be an existing bracelet winner. They don’t have to be a main event winner, just any old WSOP bracelet will do. I’ve been watching closely and when they got down to the final 36 players Saturday night, I still had 5 bracelet winners in the field. Honestly, I really like my odds at that point. 5 guys who have been-there-done-that this late in a tourney… you gotta like my odds. Sadly, 4 of my guys failed to make the final table and I’m down to just 1 horse left in the race; Lee Watkinson. But, what a story this will be if he ends up winning. Not just because I stand to make $100.00, but because of what Lee stands to make.

As it turns out, Lee won his seat on FullTiltPoker.com (FTP). FTP has had a standing offer the past few years that if you won your seat to the main event on FTP and then won the main event, they would pay you an ADDITIONAL 10 million dollars. So, not only do you become the new face of poker for the next 12 months and win 8 million in prize money, but throw in an extra 10 million to keep you company. So, good luck, Lee. For your sake more than mine, I hope you take it down.

During the first couple days of the main event, there is a convention that goes on at the Rio called the Gaming Life Expo. It’s got a couple hundred dealers all trotting out their wears. Lots of freebies to be had, but nothing all THAT exciting when you get right down to it. This was the first year I went to the expo and I have to say I was rather disappointed. There was some fantastic HIGH END goodies that were way out of the “normal guy” price range, but all the t-shirt vendors looked like they would do just as well selling their goodies off of CafePress. No offense to CafePress or it’s sellers, but let’s be honest, these guys spend thousands to have a booth at this show. Bring the good stuff, why don’tcha?

Here’s a bit of a recap of some stuff I found. Some cool, some not so cool. But, you be the judge.

playpokerpro.com and playhardgaming.com - these guys offer an electronic poker table with 11 screens (one in the middle and 10 individual stations) where you can run a cash game our tournament and never once have to shuffle or deal. It’s all done automatically. But, $15,000 is a bit out of my price range. They do have a heads up version for only $5,000… :-/ - check out the demo at playhardgaming. it’s pretty sweet. The only thing I have to say is, “Get your drinks off my electronic poker table!!”

Under The Gun - This is a pretty cool “magazine”. It’s smaller than a normal magazine (about 5×7) and only has about 30 pages in it (mostly ads for online poker sites) but it comes with most of the content on a free DVD stored inside the front flap. I haven’t yet watched all the DVD content, but it’s a pretty cool idea. (sorry, no URL could be found)

casinohost.com - This is a service I’m certainly not in need of, but I like the idea. It’s a company that helps you get comped around Vegas. They have a TON of info on their site, but truthfully, I read very little of it. Like the idea, just don’t need it myself.

pokeracrossamerica.com - traveling and looking for a cash game, tournament or poker league? This site will help you find it!

lonestarpokertables.com - by far the nicest product we saw at the show. This company makes custom poker tables. The one on display at the show was called the Widowmaker. I’m sure it got it’s name from the fact that if the husband buys it, the wife is gonna kill him. $6,000 is a bit pricey for a table, but holy crap it was nice! It had a pull out drawer for all the cards and chips to be stored when not in use. Pull out drink holders so there was never any drinks sitting ON your table. Top notch all the way.

On top of all that, I got to take a photo with poker pro, Phil Laak. He was quite gracious even though he had only minutes before gotten knocked out of the main event early on day one. As well as being a poker pro, Phil also hosts a TV show called I Bet You (all available online for your enjoyment). It is one of my favorite shows and I hope they make plenty more of them. Check ‘em out on YouTube.

Here’s the shot of me and Phil.

Phil Laak & me

Hovering at 195

For the past 2 weeks my weight has been hovering right around 195. I think part of the reason is that because of my current running schedule, I’m not burning as many calories as I was when I was riding the bike every day. I think what I need to do is keep with my 20 minute runs 4 days a week, but add in a 20-40 minute bike ride in the evenings. The main problem with that lately has been an increase in the amount of projects I have been working on. They seem to be taking up a lot of my time. But, if I’m going to reach my goal, I’m going to have to make the time. No excuses. Gotta get on the bike!


My current running pace is right around 12 minute miles. I’m doing 2 minutes of running and then a 1 minute walk. Rinse, swish, repeat. The pace has been good and I’m hoping that by this time next week I will be ready to move to a 3 minute run/1 minute walk schedule. I don’t really have a goal for where I want to be by the time the race gets here in December, but I’m thinking 8-10 minute runs with a 1 minute walk would be awesome. With that I would expect to be doing about a 10.5 or 11 minute mile. But, these are all just things I have cooked up in my head since this is the first time in my life that I’ve been running. So, what the hell do I know.

Poker lately has been pretty interesting. I have always considered myself a tournament player as compared to a cash game player, but that all seems to be changing. Part of that comes from my daily conversations with my buddy Scott who is working full time in LA as a poker player. Having somebody to discuss situations with on a daily basis is so great and it’s really helping my cash game a lot. My last 2 live cash game sessions have resulted in 2 consecutive winning sessions, but more importantly, looking back on those two sessions, my confidence level at a cash game has never been higher. In both sessions I felt completely comfortable at the table and wasn’t intimidated by anybody. I felt like I knew where I was at in every pot I played and showed down the winning hand on the river far more times than showing down the loser. I large part of that comes from tightening up my cash game a lot. I realize now in the past I normally would play a loose aggressive style that was always finding ways to put me in difficult situations. By tightening up my play and folding several hands that I would normally have played in the past, I was able to walk away with a decent profit on both sessions.

The World Series of Poker is going on right now and I’m really trying to figure out a way to play in it. I’d rather not just go plunk down $1500 to play in a 3000 player event. Even if you play your best poker, with that many players, you are going to have to run really really good in order to make the money. Just playing tight will only last so long. You need to get in and mix it up. You have to accumulate a lot of chips. You need to play your best poker for 3 full days. No 30 second mind farts where you call off your entire stack with A/J after being re-raised. Yeah, I did that last year in a big tourney. I may go down to the Rio and play in one of the “second chance” events in the evening. It won’t be a bracelet event, but getting to play in the poker room with so much action going on is really amazing. There is a great amount of energy in the room and I want to go and be a part of it. Hell, it only comes around once a year.

Tomorrow morning Chris is having Lasik eye surgery. We’ve talked about doing this for years. I’m very excited for her to finally get this done. The only problem is, if you know my wife, you know how squeamish she is. She’s pretty nervous today and I’m sure that’s only going to get worse as the day rolls on. Luckily she has 2 classes to teach today so that should keep her fairly busy. Sadly, I’m not allowed to go in and watch the procedure. You know damn well I would have shot video and put it up on YouTube. If things change, you’ll be the first to know.

Monthly poker tourney - big turnout!

This weekend was the monthly home game at our place. Last month we had 15 players and I thought that was pretty good. This month was crazy, though. We had 22 players which didn’t include 3 regulars who couldn’t make it plus a couple others who I thought were going to make it. Way back when we had a tourney that had about 28 players attend. Since then, we have been lucky to break in to 2 tables… But, the past 2 months have been a welcome up-swing in the turn out. I hope it keeps up and we can fill up 3 full tables at one of these events. I’m gonna need some more chips. Yikes.

Unfortunately, I had been battling a VERY painful headache for the entire day (and the previous day) so I pretty much played like crap. My “middle of the pack” finish was to be expected, I guess. Thankfully the wife saved the day and made it in to the top 3 finishers where the final 3 decided on an even chop of the prize money. Way to go, baby!

During the pre-game game, Chris and I were heads up and she was dealing. She made a pre-flop raise and I called with 8/6 suited. The flop came out 9/9/7 rainbow. I’m pretty happy with this flop since I’ve got an open ended straight draw and there are no high cards, so if Chris has something like A/K or A/Q, I’ve got a LOT of ways to win this pot. I checked the flop and so did she. The turn was a 5. Woo Hoo! I’ve made my straight. She bets out $3. I raise to $9. She moves all-in for about $13. I’ve put too much in to fold at this point, I just have to hope my hand is good. I ask if she has 9/7 for a full house and she says “No” and turns over 9/9 for quads. Nothing like getting all your money in drawing stone-cold dead.

On a related note, my buddy Scott had called and was telling me about a poker tournament he played yesterday where he was dealing the 2nd hand of the tournament. Somebody made a raise from middle position and he called from the button with 9/9. The flop came out 9/9/x. Two people I know flopping quad nines within about 3 hours of each other… Crazyness.

I’ve had a couple people tell me they aren’t getting the emails regarding the monthly poker tourney. If you are one of them, send me an email and I’ll double-check to make sure your email address is on the list.

Royale with cheese


I’ve been playing a LOT of online poker lately. And, tonight I had some really crazy things happen. Getting knocked out of a tourney after flopping a set, that’s always fun. Q/Q losing to J/J, no sweat. But then, there was this gem… Lately, A/J has been kicking my ass. I can flop top two pair and find a way to lose with it. So, playing A/J lately has been a slippery slope. I’ve been playing it EXTRA cautious. So, here’s how this one went down. I’m in first position and have A/J of diamonds. Flop comes with 3 diamonds giving me the nuts. It’s checked to me so I go ahead and check. The turn comes and gives me the absolute mother of all hands… Sadly, it also means I make basically zero cash from the hand.

Chip extraction

I was in early position and I raised with pocket 9s. The flop came out with 2 more 9s. I thought it would look fishy if I just checked the flop. So, I figured the best way to make some money was to make a small bet on the flop. I bet about half the pot. I only got one caller. On the turn, it was a small card so I decided I’d make it look like I was betting a hand like A/K on the flop and decided to check on the turn hoping he’d either catch some sort of card on the river or at least bluff at it… The river was a Queen. He bet out, I raised, he pushed all-in, I called instantly. He hit the queen on the river just like I had hoped.

Flopping the dead nuts is fun!

Work, Poker & general catching up

Wow, December already! I know we all say it every year around this time, but where the hell does the time go? I mean seriously! I remember the first couple of days of 110 degree weather like it was a week ago.

Last week I took over a new position at work. I’ve actually changed companies, but haven’t left the building… The main company I work for has about 15 sub-companies. I moved from one sub to another. The position I took basically takes me back full circle to a position I was in about 18 months ago. I’m the technical director for a new group that is going to be handling a lot of web development for our own company(ies) and for several 3rd parties. The pace of the new position is a bit quicker than where I was 2 weeks ago, so it’s going to take some getting used to in order to get back in the swing of things. I’m very excited about the new position and I foresee a lot of good things coming out of it.

Poker has been back on an upswing for me lately. The day after Thanksgiving we played in the Sahara tourney and it was absolutely huge. I made the final table and then talked all 10 players in to chopping the pot. Normally this isn’t something I’d do, but, I had an “average” size stack (60,000 chips) and the blinds were going to be 10,000 / 20,000. So it was going to be a crap-shoot to see who won. If we gave 10% to the dealers and then chopped 10 ways, we each took home $705. The only way to make more than $705 was to finish 3rd or better.

Chris had surgery on Thursday to remove a cyst from her hand. She has the entire month of December off from work, so it made sense to schedule the surgery for this month. The surgery went well and she’s back home resting up. The company Christmas party is tomorrow night so hopefully she’ll feel well enough to hand out for a few hours. She is supposed to be sitting and keeping her hand elevated with an ice pack. That’s going to be tough to do at the party. She does have a nice big bottle of pain killers, so maybe that’ll help.

I had requested Thursday and Friday off from work and scheduled some errands for Friday back when I was still with my previous company. Then, after switching companies, there are 4000 things going on and taking two days off seems a bit crazy. Just good timing is all. I have a good team that can handle things while I’m out so I’m not too worried!

Hey, here’s an interesting one… I found out last week that a couple we know and at one time were very good friends with, got married this summer. Both Chris and I are very happy for them and wish them all the best in the world. The crazy part is, we didn’t learn about their marriage from either of them, but through a mutual acquaintance. Obviously, there is no requirement for them to invite us to the wedding or to send a wedding announcement or anything like that, but, you would think that after being close friends with somebody for a few years that you might, oh, I dunno, MENTION it. If the 40 cents for a stamp is too much, last I heard, email is free.

Well, anyway, Congratulations you two. We would have sent a gift, had we known.

The views expressed in the previous paragraph are mine and mine alone. My lovely wife didn’t seem phased when I mentioned it to her. I hope she doesn’t read my blog.

Party Poker runs scared

To absolutely nobody’s surprise, over the weekend Party Poker has stopped taking wagers from players in the US. This is the knee-jerk reaction to the new law signed late last week by our fearless leader.

For a country who’s government loves to place a tax on anything and everything even more than it loves to breath, I find it absolutely amazing that they would rather put a ban on Internet gambling, which is a blanket that shouldn’t really cover poker, a game of skill, in the first place, rather than coming up with a way to place a tax on it where they could syphon off a few hundred million dollars each and every year.

Sites like Full Tilt Poker and Poker Stars are going to reap the rewards when the multiple millions of US based online poker players look to play. These sites have already stated that they have no plans to close their doors to the US market. They have no reason to.

What absolutely slays me about this whole situation is the way this new law was brought forward. It was slid in as part of a port security bill. At the press conference, Bush makes statements like:

“We’re going to protect our ports. We’re going to defend this homeland, and we’re going to win this war on terror”

But makes no mention of the internet gaming portion of the bill. How convenient.

It will be interesting to see where this goes over the next few months. I’m sure we haven’t heard the last of this.

More Poker = Less Blogging

Well, I’ve figured it out… It had been driving me crazy. How come, all of a sudden, my blogging frequency had taken such a huge hit? Ahh yes, online poker…

Last year I went through basically the same thing. I was playing online almost every evening for hours and hours on end. Then, it got to the point where I was so fed up with it that I basically quit playing online and was only playing poker in live games or tournaments. When I look back at it I can see that when I quit playing online, the amount of blogging I was doing went way up. Here we are at the end of August and I’ve posted half a dozen times over the past two months… Gee, I wonder why that is?

I’ve been playing a LOT of poker online right now. And, the thing is, I’m totally enjoying it again. I’m sure it’s all a big cycle and I’ll end up hating it again in a couple months.. When that happens, I’ll quit again for 6 months and as long as the government doesn’t outlaw it by then, I’ll come back and get immersed once again.

Right now I’m playing pretty low limits. $0.25/$0.50 No Limit Texas Holdem on Party Poker & $11 multi-table Sit ‘n Go tourneys on Party. I usually play 2 live tables and 1 SNG at the same time. I use software called Poker Tracker to track the players at the tables (it reads all the hand histories stored on the computer and then you can set it up to rate the players based on how many hands they play, how often they raise, fold, etc…) and I’m using pokerdominator.com to keep track of all my poker sessions. Since I’ve started back up I’ve booked winning sessions 66% of the time. And, my losing sessions have been minimal so I’m actually up a couple hundred since starting back at the virtual tables.

About 6 - 8 weeks ago when I logged back in to Party Poker for the first time in a LONG time, I found $100 in my account that I had apparently forgotten about. I had a couple of really good sessions and ran my account up to around $500. I then made the mistake that so many others have made before, I moved up to bigger games too quickly. Rather than continuing to play the $11 SNG tourneys, I started playing $33, instead. While it doesn’t sound like much, you don’t need to have too long of a losing streak to bring your bankroll back down to $0. I wised up and stopped the madness before I hit bottom, thankfully. So now I’m on a mission to build my bankroll steadily rather than going for the “Big Score.” My plan is to continue to play 2 live games and 1 or 2 $11 SNGs per night. If I finish in the money in either of the SNGs, I’ll consider playing 2 more. Otherwise, I’ll stick to the 2 live tables and see where that takes me. When my online bankroll reaches $1000, I’ll move up to the next limits. I’ll then set a new target and work steadily towards it.

Gotta run, I’m all-in.

Second time is a charm?

Online Poker

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code: 7943857

I signed up for this event last year, but ended up being out of town the day the tourney happened so I fully missed it. I won’t let that happen again… If you blog and play poker, be sure and check out this event…

Jam Packed Weekend!

Wow! I can’t remember the last time I had a weekend with so many activities packed in. Here is what it looked like:

Friday after work, Chris and I went and played in a World Series of Poker Circuit event at Caeser’s Palace. The event we were to play in is a daily event held each nite at 7:00 PM. We had initially planned to play in the same event on Sunday because it was Chris’ birthday. That was to be my gift to her. But, since it didn’t start until 7:00 PM, common sense said that since we both get up early on Monday, a late tourney on Sunday may not be wise. So, we opted for Friday’s event instead. For a recap of how I did in the event, check out PokerStories.info.

Saturday we got up fairly early and Chris and I both got massages. Since Chris graduated from the massage school, her massages are free. And, when she graduated, she received a stack of gift certificates good for free massages. I use those. So, mine too was free. Sweet!

We then went out to lunch at Road Runners Saloon to celebrate Chris’ birthday with her mom, brother & sister-in-law. After a big lunch, we headed home and took a nice long nap. We got up in time to get dressed and head on over to the Silverton Casino to see Twisted Sister in concert. Paxton had discovered Twisted Sister a few months back. I’m certain it had to do with one of their songs showing up in a video game he was playing. But, he had downloaded some of their videos and we had also bought him a greatest hits CD which he liked a lot. So, when we found out they were coming to town, we surprised him with tickets for the 3 of us to go. He was stoked. The show was great. Dee and the boys sounded great. The photo above was taken during the last song of the night. To see a bunch of photos, click here. If you ever go to see a show at Silverton that is going to be at the Pavillion, be sure to wear a bathing suit. You can watch the show from in the pool that is no more than 15 feet from the front of the stage. Makes for a nice “Slosh Pit”. har har har.

The concert let out pretty early. So, after getting home and dropping off Paxton, we, of course, went out to play poker at Sahara in the 11:00 PM tourney. I ended up going out in 18th spot after making a bad play. 8 away from the money. Damn. We got home at about 3:00 AM and after a LONG day, finally got some sleep.

We got up on Sunday morning and I asked Chris if she wanted to go back to Sahara to play the 11:00 AM tourney. Reluctantly, she agreed. Man, I’m so glad she decided to go. After being short stacked for most of the way, I ended up making it to the final table. Since only 69 players started the event, they were only going to pay out 7 spots. We all agreed to chop $90 off first and second spots in order to pay spot 10, 9 & 8 $60 each. At least they would get their buy-in back. It sucks to make it to the final table and still not get any cash… I played fairly tight at the final table and watched as spots 10 through 8 got busted out. At that time, I announced to the table that I was not going to accept any deal to chop the pot. Even if that meant they all come gunning for me, I wasn’t chopping. It took a little while to do, but before too terribly long, we were down to the final 4. I had doubled up a time or two so I was sitting pretty well in chips. Player 4 got taken out and it was down to the final 3 of us. All of us were fairly evenly stacked. I was the shortest stack and this was the first time somebody had mentioned a deal. I declined the deal and we played on. I picked up pocket 5s in the Big Blind and the small blind raised me. I went ahead and moved all-in. He called and showed Q-8. He didn’t get any help and I doubled up and took a nice sized chip lead. He still had about 25K chips left. A few hands later, he moved all-in and I called with K/J. He turned over J/8 and he did not hit his 8. We were then heads up. At the time we started heads up, I had a sizeable chip lead. I had approx 200K in chips to my opponents 40K. Funny thing though. In No Limit hold ‘em, that can change in a few short hands. And it did. He battled back and I doubled him up… Then, the final hand came up. I was the Big Blind. With the blinds 5K and 10K, a lot of chips move around pretty quick. He raised to 40K and I pushed all-in with A-3. He called in an instant which scared the crap out of me. He turned over K/J. All I needed to do was NOT get unlucky here. The flop was all blanks. The turn was an Ace. He was drawing dead. When the chips were counted down, I had him covered by 4K chips. I won the tourney and it felt sooooo good! This was my first ever first place finish in a casino tourney. I’ve chopped the final 4,5 or 6 places a few times before, but this was my first actual solo first place finish. I can’t wait to do it again!

With all that, you’d think that would bring us to the end of the weekend… But you would be wrong. We took Chris out for a birthday dinner. We went to a place called The Melting Pot. It’s a fondue restaurant over on Eastern. Holy cow! That place was excellent. You start off with a cheese fondue with bread, veggies and apples for dipping. Then, a salad (they have some great salads & dressings!!). Then, they bring you out your main course. You cook your main course yourself in the center of the table. After the meal, you absolutely MUST have dessert. We had a smores fondue. Milk Chocolate, graham cracker crumbs and marshmellows heated in the pot. Then, a plate of strawberries, mashmellows, bannanas, cheese cake and brownies for dipping. We all left feeling quite full! Two quick things you will want to know before heading there for dinner… Don’t go if you are in a hurry. Dinner took a little over 2 hours. Second, the place is not cheap. They add an 18% gratuity on any party of 5 or more. And, our meal worked out to be a little more than $45 per person. I was not expecting that at all.

So there ya have it. A great weekend has come to an end. I’m going to need to go to work in the morning so I can rest up. ;)

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