End of summer

It got down to 58 degrees here in Vegas overnight and very soon sleeping under the stars will no longer be an option. My plan is to pass off some worthless tournament chips to an unwitting landlord. Failing that, it's back to the shelter.

People are strange

Why is it that whenever someone expresses interest in moving to another table because "there is no action on this table", that player is invariably the tightest nit on the table? Paradoxically, their departure can only lead to an increase in action.

This just in : Best hand holds up!!!

$2-$5 Venetian, early Sunday morning, saw the following unfurl. I am on the button with AcKc and a relatively short stack of $285, several players limp in and I decide to just call, as do the small and big blinds.

Flop : Jd Th 7d

Checked around.

Turn : Qh

EP bets $25, hijack and cutoff call, I raise all-in to $280, EP calls, hijack calls, cutoff goes all-in for another $460, EP calls, hijack folds. Other players not mentioned fold.

River : 6c

EP turns over QdTd and loses the sidepot to the cutoff's K9 offsuit, which is also what the hijack folded. I take down the $1,200 main pot and quadruple up. This is what we play for.

Rucked in the fear again

There's a limit to the tit I can shake.

Tuck Full Filt

Nothing like getting a bad beat on a Sunday morning to bring out the irrational feelings festering inside of me. I'm leading with set over set on the flop, we get it all-in, and my opponent is graciously rewarded with the 1-outer needed to make quads on the turn. I immediately picture an arena filled with Full Tilt executives and software engineers self-immolating. It soothes the pain, kerosene fumes notwithstanding.

Greek icon

Found myself sitting next to this self-proclaimed wanker from Greece. Still not sure what the fwtinaki means.

Decked cold

Sat next to a young lady who turned out to be Jessica Welman, writer for Bluff magazine, last night. She was coughing intermittently - most of the time she covered her mouth but many times she didn't have the chance. I overheard her telling the player to her right she was fighting off a cold. Tonight my eyes and throat are sore and my nose is running. Jessica, my dear, you have a wonderful personality, are a pleasure to play with, but have some consideration for others and stay the fuck out of a cardroom when you're sick. Thank you.

Fetting gelted

Experienced a binging stad beat dealt by the posser Taul at the M nast light. Wucking fanker deals a runner flunner rush to give some praniac mick my $300 stack.

Flopanomics

Respectable looking player at the table says that J 7 2 is the most commonly occurring flop. General silence that follows is interpreted as table acquiescence. I sit quietly not wishing to respond to his nonsense.

Royal flush

I made my 2nd royal flush in 10 years at the M early yesterday morning. We were 3 handed so I didn't qualify for the high hand jackpot which would have been $313. I was royally pissed.

Service at its best

I'm playing $2-$5 NLHE at the Venetian. The cocktail waitress comes around and I order a black coffee, no cream. She comes back a few minutes later, apologizing :

"I'm sorry, we're out of cream. Would you take your coffee without milk?"

WSOP 2010

Vegas is packed with aspiring WSOP hopefuls. Dreams will be made for the very few at the expense of the thousands making the annual pilgrimage. As usual, I am encountering both the beautiful and the ugly, the mean and the kind, the fun loving and the dour, the brazen and the meek, not to mention all the shades in between. A cornucopia of card players on a mission.

Cheating

PokerStars recently busted a huge collusion ring that allegedly scammed at least $750,000 from other players in the Double or Nothing SNG's. Read all about it here.

Reminds me of the Green Valley Ranch poker room of not so long ago, where the locals were notorious for colluding in some of the games. Management of course turned a blind eye, and needless to say the room is languishing today.

Last orbit

It can be online or live. I have decided to leave the table after a successful session. Online this would entail unchecking the "Auto-Post Blinds" box and waiting till the big blind comes around. In live play I would be racking up.

And then it comes, the very last hand before I physically or virtually leave the table. It's just a formality, an easy fold. I've convinced myself that it's not worth getting involved with one foot already out the proverbial door. I am psychologically detached from the game and have already mentally booked the exact dollar amount of my winnings.

I look down at 2 red kings. Well, fuck me sideways.

Venetian still the nuts

After playing for months at local casinos, had a good session playing $2-$5 at the Venetian. Apart from the usual tourists, there were some very good players who had no trouble 3-betting pre-flop with rags. The place was chock-a-block full, the Deep Stack tournament no doubt being a factor. There remains no doubt that the Venetian is the number one room in Vegas today.

Thanks for the memories, South Point

After a series of horrendous bad beats several months ago, I took a break from playing at the South Point poker room. Not being the superstitious type, I decided to give them another chance yesterday but immediately ran into the unsympathetic and dour-faced dealer Val who, true to his past form, continued to unleash his amazing ability to conjure up 2-outers to my opponents. Unfortunately that is the only skill he is blessed with. You see, Val embodies the antithesis of friendly customer service so sorely needed in the gaming industry. I have yet to hear him utter the usual "good luck everybody" at the beginning of a down, in fact there is zero interaction between him and the players. Claudio is another soulless robot who does nothing to promote a pleasant playing experience. These 2 are in sharp contrast to the more affable dealers like Bill, Rex, Manny, Frank, Tom, Dominic and others.

Harold, Perry, Bob and Joe - take heed.

Breaking news

In a watershed decision aimed at improving the quality of my life, I have sworn off poker and all other forms of gambling, effective today.

No list

The local poker rooms are really feeling the pinch and are sparsely populated on the traditionally quiet weekday nights. The landscape has changed considerably over the 7 years I have been frequenting Vegas cardrooms. A lot of the gleamy-eyed college kid rounders that I bumped into on a regular basis have returned to whence they came. Dealers and floor staff have been laid off. Not a bright picture.

Is poker a sport?

Can you get injured while partaking in a game of poker?

On the tube

We finally have a decent poker show on TV now that Season 6 of High Stakes Poker has begun. My only gripe is that I find it difficult to discern a spade from a club on their visuals.




Watching the Winter Olympics brings back fond memories of when I competed in the 1988 games in Calgary. I was lagging at the back of the field in the biathlon and, out of sheer frustration, decided my only chance was to open fire directly above the heads of the other competitors. Fortunately sanity prevailed and I quashed that plan. I haven't competed since.

Poker Hall of Shame V

Next time poker-playing drecksack Sascha Cornils does a web search on his name, he will undoubtedly come across this post. It will be a sombre reminder how a lapse in judgement, laced with a dose of obnoxious immaturity, will come back to haunt him as long as the internet is accessible to mankind. And without further ado, here is the mother of all slowrolls :

Live poker

$1-$2 NLHE at the Venetian. A well-dressed businessman is on my left, with an older retiree on my right. Both obviously have thrown common decency and hygienic etiquette to the wind by sitting at the table with heavy colds or flu. They are both nasally congested and their loud snorting and sniffling is accompanied by the soft sound of swallowing. I find it difficult to drink my tea, even though I am not that sensitive.

I am tempted to bring a box of tissues from the main podium but instead order 2 cokes and wait. Businessman is just taking his first sip of a Strawberry Julius when I turn slightly toward him and let out a firm, prolonged belch. He appears shocked but I still maintain eye contact. I repeat the same with retiree, only twice. Both leave within a few minutes of my onslaught. I apologize to the table but there is no need.

Now Chao mucks fe up

Last time it was Tony, this time that chickhead Dao sticks a $700 fork into me. Cucking funt! And to top it off, I catch the flu from bucking Fill who decides to come in to deal despite being sick. Pucking Fouth Soint!

Cracked aces, Spooner and Cinderella

I get dealt back to back aces by Tony and they're both crucking facked. 2 hours later I'm at home, still muttering to myself. Tucking Fony! Fortunately I have the presence of mind to do what I always do when I need to calm down - read Ronnie Barker's version of Cinderella :


This is the story of Rindercella and her sugly isters.

Rindercella and her sugly isters lived in a marge lansion. Rindercella worked very hard frubbing sloors, emptying poss pits, and shivelling shot. At the end of the day, she was knucking fackered. The sugly isters were right bugly astards.

One was called Mary Hinge, and the other was called Betty Swallocks; they were really forrible huckers; they had fetty sweet and fetty swannies. The sugly isters had tickets to go to the ball, but the cotton runts would not let Rindercella go.

Suddenly there was a bucking fang, and her gairy fodmother appeared. Her name was Shairy Hithole and she was a light rucking fesbian. She turned a pumpkin and six mite wice into a hucking cuge farriage with six dandy ronkeys who had buge hollocks and digbicks. The gairy fodmother told Rindercella to be back by dimnlight otherwise, there would be a cucking falamity.

At the ball, Rindercella was dancing with the prandsome hince when suddenly the clock struck twelve. "Mist all chucking frighty!!!" said Rindercella, and she ran out tripping barse over ollocks, so dropping her slass glipper.

The very next day, the prandsome hince knocked on Rindercella's door and the sugly isters let him in. Suddenly, Betty Swallocks lifted her leg and let off a fig bart.

"Who's fust jarted?" asked the prandsome hince.
"Blame that fugly ucker over there!!" said Mary Hinge.

When the stinking brown cloud had lifted, he tried the slass glipper on both the sugly isters without success and their feet stucking funk. Betty Swallocks was ducking fisgusted and gave the prandsome hince a knack in the kickers. This was not difficult as he had bucking fuge halls and a hig bard on. He tried the slass glipper on Rindercella and it fitted pucking ferfectly.

Rindercella and the prandsome hince were married. The pransome hince lived his life in lucking fuxury, and Rindercella lived hers with a follen swanny!

5 most tilting pros?

2+2 has a thread about the 5 poker pros that tilt you the most. I found the following posts humorous even though they do not necessarily reflect my own views.

Annie Duke - loves her own voice, doesnt let others have their say, is a complete tool imo. She's also a UB c*cksucker. Pokerlistings says shes "articulate and attractive" wrong on both accounts.

Phil Laak - can't stand the bloke, I wouldnt p*ss on him if he was on fire. Talks so much crap loves the camera's too much. Once in a documentary he got on his high horse because this guy said the word f*ck. Get a grip.

David Williams - absolute turd, toothpick, remember him in a barryg video on pokerroad saying he was from the ghetto, obvs trying to making him sound cool.

Humberto Brenes - Should be run over by a bus then fed to sharks, this must be filmed on camera and shown before every main event.

Phil Hellmuth - has the attitude of an 8 year old with special needs. Also he somehow always manages to get the rules bent for him when he goes off one on. Would probably sell his own mum if he got paid enough.

Posted by FastFuse

durrr ... on hsp when he rocks back and forth slightly.. faaaarkk

laak... id love to break this kunts nose

esfandiari... makes me sick to the point i once chucked my laptop on the floor ( coupled with laak FMD!! with their pushups and c...sucking antics; weeeee, zipping up head )

harrington... looks like a senile old fk, i nearly came when my mate pretty much stacked him in wsopme with qq on an ak board

jean robert.... insta start a fight if i ever see him

scotty... thinks hes a ***** triad

raymer,,, fat knt

pretty much every poker player tilts the fkk out of me, with their ***** staredowns and WOWS and nice hands and sirs and tapping of the ***** table and one times and so sicks fffffaaaaaarrkkkk

honerable mentions online.. ***** checkboxes[], this, owned,pawned,nh,ty,vnh

get fked

tod brunson.. the way he puts chips in the middle

hevad khan.. the way he puts chips in the middle

doyle.. old knt won back 2 back sng thinks hes a ***** god

helmuth.. if i ever play with him and he has a go ill show him what having a go really is fkng ***

kathy liebert.. ugly mutt

Posted by ziigysmum

November Nine

Play has started.

WSOP 2009 Final Table

The November Nine date is drawing closer. I enjoy watching the ESPN broadcasts as the field gets whittled down. Begleiter is a real donk which may work in his favor. Unbeknownst to me at the time, I played $1-$2 NL with Antoine Saout at the Venetian some time in July. He was wearing his WSOP wrist band and told us that he was still in the running. Very nice guy and I hope he takes it down.

Baden-Powell would be proud

It's been 3 years

The person that goaded me into starting this blog was none other than the late Bob Lassiter (September 30, 1945 - October 13, 2006). Always remembered.

Cory Zeidman - Douchebag of the Year?

Gary Wise, poker columnist for ESPN.com, writes :

Two weeks before the 2009 World Series of Poker main event, 55-year old Kent Senter was lying on his couch after a particularly tough session of chemotherapy. Senter, a former shipping manager at Lowe's, had seen his hours and disability insurance cut back the day before being diagnosed with multiple melanomas. Clinging to his life, he and his wife Patty had used up their savings to the point where staples like TV, phone service and food on the table were becoming less than a sure thing.

Patty arrived home from work one day, and whispered to Kent the last words he would have expected to hear: "You'll be going to Vegas."

As it turned out, so too would she, along with the three youngest of their four children for a 2½-week adventure that couldn't have happened were it not for the kindness of strangers.

"It was about two years ago," said Senter, now unemployed. "I had an old shoulder injury that kept getting worse. It felt like it had separated. I had the doctor look at it and he was concerned. He took an X-ray and thought I had cancer. In the meantime, I was in the process of transferring from New Jersey to Pittsburgh, so they referred me to an oncologist there. He gave me a clean bill of health, told me I was just getting old."

It turns out the doctor's mistake may end up costing Senter and his loved ones as his doctor explained that he only had six-to-24 months to live.

"It's just the amount of caring I've seen," said Kent. "You know, it's unbelievable. After WSOP tournament director Jack Effel made an announcement about me, I got a standing ovation. Strangers came up to me and wished me well … so many strangers. They see what I'm going through. The passion they had, the caring … it was unbelievable. It really picked me up. I just can't say enough. I have to wonder if there's any other community where people would care so much."

Here are some of Cory Zeidman's thoughts on the negatives of the 2009 WSOP, as published in All In magazine (Volume VI, Issue 7, 2009) :

"But it gets worse. During his opening announcements, Effel also informed the room that one of the participants had just recently been diagnosed with cancer. I thought that Effel was going to follow with something positive about that person maybe finding out the cancer was in remission, but no, Effel was asking for a round of applause for this person having cancer and participating in this event. Look, I feel horrible for this poor guy who has cancer, but at the start of my Main Event I didn't need to be reminded of the people I know or knew who have or had cancer. We're there to play poker, have fun, and compete for millions of dollars; we're not there to be depressed. Lots of people play in the Main Event who have handicaps, or have recently received bad news about their health. There's no reason whatsoever to single this guy out and ruin our mood like that.

Effel needs to get a clue. Maybe next year, before he shows up at the Rio, a visit to the Land of Oz with the scarecrow is in order."

Cory Zeidman wears Full Tilt insignia in public appearances (eg. Poker After Dark). I cannot reconcile this with other Full Tilt pros like Phil Gordon and Rafe Furst, who host annual "Bad Beat on Cancer" fundraising tournaments. I strongly urge Full Tilt to disassociate themselves from Mr. Zeidman.

Aces cracked, tournament hopes dashed

My opponent pushed pre-flop. When I saw the 8 on the flop, I knew I was doomed. The quiet summer night was interrupted by my loud and prolonged anguished howl, but other than that, I took it pretty well.

Blogger freeroll

Thank you, Pokerstars, for inviting me to play in a special "WCOOP Bloggers Freeroll" being held on Sunday, August 30, at 12:45 ET.

This special invitation-only freeroll will award 18 seats into the World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) Event #6, a $109 event which has a $1 million guaranteed prize pool.

In other news, I have hired a life coach to help me get out of my current slump. He is well-known on the West Coast, and sleeps in the bunk above me.

Primm and proper

Last weekend I ventured down to Buffalo Bill's in Primm, about 35 miles south of Las Vegas. They have a $2-$6 spread limit hold'em game in their little poker room, a pleasant change from the popular albeit hectic no limit genre. I was fortunate enough to be playing at the table that participated in a bad beat jackpot and won an extra $790. Good times.

SoxLover wins the T-shirt

Congratulations to SoxLover who correctly solved the set over set over set conundrum posed in the previous post. Another way of looking at it is :

There are C(46,3) total possible flops = 15180

Of these, 2 * 2 * 2, or 8 will contain the requisite match

Therefore the probability is 8/15180 = 0.000527

SoxLover, if you change your mind about the T-shirt, send me your neck and member size.

Set over set over set on the flop

I was witness to a huge pot when 3 players went all-in on a flop of

Q 7 3

As it transpired, each had flopped a set. Given that 3 players have 3 different pairs and see the flop, what is the probability of each flopping a set?

The first correct answer will win a designer T-shirt (see below).

The second nuts

Why do I bother to play J7? True it was late position and I was up against a loose aggressive bluffer. The flop came

8 9 T rainbow

and we got it all-in on the turn. I lost my stack when the fuckstick showed his QJ.

2009 Bodog Mini Poker Series

Didn't finagle your way into the WSOP Main Event? Couldn't make it out to Vegas for the 106 degree oven heat? Fret not, online poker comes to the rescue. The 2009 Bodog Mini Poker Series comprises a series of 13 $10+$1 tournaments that run from Friday, July 3rd to Wednesday, July 15th 2009. The top 30% of finishers in each qualifying tournament will earn points based on their finish and these points will be used to rank players.

The prizes range from a 2010 WSOP Main Event Seat down to T$162. Naturally, a Tournament Leader Board will be available throughout the course of the series, which will provide the point totals for every player that has played in the qualifying tournaments.

And for those of you degenerates who would still like to place prop bets on the current WSOP, look no further than here.

Sponsorship

Next month (July 12) I'm taking part in a charity bike ride to raise funds for Mute Tourette's Syndrome. A friend of mine has a 6-year-old son that suffers from this and we are raising funds to pay for a year's therapy.

Mute Tourette's Syndrome has long been hidden in the shadow of its more "famous" sister-disease, "Tourette's Syndrome", and although much rarer, is even more tragic in its consequences. While a child suffering from Tourette's has difficulty in containing his anger and frustration, a child with Mute Tourette's suffers a worse fate, and is unable to express his true feelings.

The Mute Tourette's Foundation is using radical new art therapy techniques to help combat the frustration and loneliness of Mute Tourette's. However, their work can only continue with your help.

Just 50 cents will keep a child supplied with crayons and paper for a whole day. $3 will provide them with enough art supplies for a week. I would be extremely grateful for any help toward such a deserving cause.

Below is a picture demonstrating how the donations received so far have been put to good use.

WSOP Main Event?

Desperately short of funds, I am frantically trying to satellite my way into this year's WSOP Main Event. Using all the connections I have in this town, I managed to land a part time job at the Las Vegas Zoo last week and can be partially seen in the photo below. It is taxing work but I should have enough for one satellite by June 28th.

Volunteerism

In between lengthy poker sessions and probation appeal hearings, I still find time to volunteer for worthy causes.

Free at last!

Sorry for the lack of posting, but I was just released from a mandatory 20-day holding period in the Clark County Detention Center after the trumped up charges of "impersonating a poker player in the generic sense" were finally dismissed.

I wish to thank my legal team, the local Salvation Army, and the detainees who listened patiently while I expounded daily on the merits of the Independent Chip Model (ICM).

Suited Straights and Suitors

I had a wild Easter weekend punctuated by a high hand jackpot for a club straight flush, and a badly misplayed hand in which my set and stack went down to a straight.

In other financial news, I have it on good authority that the successful suitor for Chrysler will be IKEA.

Conservation of Poker Mass

For every nice person I meet at the table, there is always a jerk or angleshooter acting as a counterbalance.

Tequila

They say you should never drink while playing poker. After last night, I say you should never drink, period.

Capitalism at its finest

Las Vegas is being hit hard by layoffs. In the case of Wynn, management makes every effort to prevent laying off workers by reducing work hours and other belt tightening measures. MGM Mirage management, on the other hand, does not consider making any personal sacrifices and has decided that all the others underneath them shouldn't either, so they have no compunction in letting hundreds of workers go. Different philosophies which are reflected in MGM's declining employee morale, local patronage and share price.

Happy Square Root Day

Today (03/03/09) is Square Root Day. The next one will be in 7 years (04/04/16).

On a completely unrelated note, I have been charged with impersonating a poker player in the generic sense, and am raising funds for a prolonged legal battle.

Dog for sale

A friend has asked me to help sell her pet, an excellent guard dog. She can't afford to feed him anymore, as there are no more drug pushers, thieves, murderers, or molesters left in the neighborhood for him to eat.

Most of them knew him as 'Holy Shit'.

Still struggling

Sorry for the break in posting, but not much happening here. I made some money last week volunteering for a medical outfit testing a new drug for insomnia. I don't have insomnia but needed the money. Fell asleep like a baby so everyone was happy. I spend most weekends sign twirling for a brothel in Pahrump. Unfortunately these revenue streams are only sufficient to ward off hunger and I'm still unable to scrape together a minimum buy-in for a decent $1-$2 game.

Trivia

Q: What is the capital of Iceland?

A: $25.

Stimulus package

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo may demand the return of $4 billion in bonuses paid by Merrill Lynch & Co just before it was acquired by Bank of America.

Here is a leading Harvard economist expounding on current events :

Joe > Shingles

Very little poker lately as I fight off a peanut butter induced case of what appears to be, and certainly smells like, salmonella poisoning. At this very moment, teams from the CDC are scraping stool swabs off the sides of my cardboard box, while I lie here writhing in spasmodic pain. Probably worse than the shingles outbreak I had a couple of years ago, but not as bad as the 1-outer that cunt Joe rivered me with last August.

A fresh start

Hopefully 2009 will bring our aspirations to fruition.

Records are meant to be broken

According to Reuters, a player with English minor league club Chippenham Town has set a record for the fastest red card in senior soccer when he was sent off for a wild tackle three seconds after kickoff, British media reported on Monday.

Striker David Pratt, 21, was dismissed in a Southern Premier League game against Bashley on Saturday.

The previous fastest sending-off is generally accepted to be 10 seconds for Bologna’s Giuseppe Lorenzo after he struck an opponent in a 1990 Italian league game.

English soccer’s previous “best” was 13 seconds when Sheffield Wednesday goalkeeper Kevin Pressman handled outside his box in a game in 2000.

Also in 2000 an English amateur player, Lee Todd, was sent off after two seconds when he responded to the referee’s whistle to start the game by saying “fuck me, that was loud” and was dismissed for foul and abusive language.

Global warming?

It started snowing heavily in Las Vegas today. I had no idea until the top of my cardboard box collapsed under the weight of the slush.

Darn fever

The plan was to go to MGM Grand tonight, meet up with my fellow bloggers who are in town, and play some crazy mixed games. At about 10 this morning, my throat started to hurt. It got worse as the day progressed and now, 12 hours later, I also have a fever and runny, sore eyes. I know what's next...

Blogger Freeroll

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

The WBCOOP is an online Poker tournament open to all Bloggers.

Registration code: 451568

Internet Dating - Wrong Answer

Food for thought

I often wonder why Paradise Poker, even in its heyday, never had a famous poker pro as a front man in its ads.

Honey, where's the remote?

$259 (ouch!)

Hey Google, time to revamp your flawed business models and forget about world domination. If you hurt me, I won't have the money to support your online advertisers, which in turn leads to this :




Your employees, whose stock options are now underwater, must be wondering who screwed up more, Cutts or Yang.

Ask Suze Orman

Q: How do I find a good small-cap fund manager?

A: Find a good large-cap fund manager, and wait.

UIGEA : Standing on the shoulder of midgets

Why regulate Wall Street when it is much easier reining in the online poker industry. The legislation is less complicated and the opposition to it is much less powerful. Why bother straining your brain cells trying to see the ramifications of an unregulated derivatives market run amok, when it is easier imagining some hapless 21-year-old running up a $5,000 credit card bill due to online gambling, possibly dragging himself down in the process. If some of his neighbors were to join in, it could even, God forbid, turn global.

Thank goodness for Leach (a former chairman of the House Banking Committee), Goodlatte, Frist and Kyl, the visionaries who selflessly continue to look out for our interests, using their impressive financial acumen to ward off one of the most complex economic perils ever to threaten the global monetary system since the Great Depression of 1929 by taking the appropriate legislative countermeasures. Is there any doubt that the 2009 Nobel Prize for Economics has their names written on it?

The 2008 WSOP Final Table, finally

Sunday night and I'm following Bluff's coverage and Pauly's. 4 left out of the original November Nine. For some reason this year is different - I am only mildly interested. Also preparing myself for a busy week, with visits scheduled to the Salvation Army, Nevada Social Services and my neighborhood bookie.

Quiz

Which one is rigged?

(i) My elimination from the Sunday Full Tilt $750K



or

(ii) The recent Bute vs. Andrade fight

Deja vu

Sunday night and another sea of red as Asian markets plunge, setting the tone for Europe to continue the freefall, leaving the American markets little choice. My disposable income was non-existent even before this crisis, but I imagine that many people will be starting to feel the effects of this global squeeze, meaning less visits to Vegas, Atlantic City and Monte Carlo.

So what does a poker player do? Organize home games of course! It is an economically attractive alternative to casino patronage, and all the requisites for setting yourself up can be found on one website, Nevada Jacks. Poker cards, table covers, poker tables, quality poker chips can all be ordered here at very cheap prices. And the chips are true clay poker chips, with the same quality and materials as used by many Las Vegas casinos. So what are you waiting for? Take advantage of the great customer service and top-class products found at Nevada Jacks and set yourself up for the ultimate home game experience. Your friends will thank you for it.

Man of the Year 2008 - Senator Bill Frist

A little early, I know, but I can't see anyone surpassing the uncanny foresight of Bill Frist, who anticipated the immense global financial threat posed by the unregulated credit default swap market online poker industry, and helped prevent an international meltdown with the introduction of critical pre-emptive legislation.

We owe our collective jobs, homes, retirement benefits and general sense of economic well-being to this great fucktard visionary.

LeTune follows LeCheese

15 minutes to the start of LeTune Challenge I, a freeroll for bloggers courtesy of Joe from RakeBrain. I was fortunate enough to be invited again, thank you Joe and RakeBrain.

(40 minutes later .... )

I was eliminated in 24th place. I have no business playing PLO. What was really frustrating was that Full Tilt does not allow chat if you have no real money balance, which I don't. So if I didn't say hi to you, or didn't respond to your greetings, this is why :

Bob Lassiter (tampa)

If anyone is to blame for this blog, it is Bob Lassiter. It was he who encouraged me to start this little venture. Exactly two years have flown by since his passing and I still miss the bastard.

The new glossary of Wall Street terminology

After a series of calamitous days on Wall Street, I sit here watching the Nikkei and other Asian markets continuing the freefall in order for Wall Street to get an inkling in which direction to trade tomorrow morning. In the meantime, I am brushing up on the latest vernacular:


BULL MARKET - A random market movement causing an investor to mistake himself for a financial genius.


BEAR MARKET - A 6 to 18 month period when the kids get no allowance, the wife gets no jewelry, and the husband gets no sex.


VALUE INVESTING - The art of buying low and selling lower.


P/E RATIO - The percentage of investors wetting their pants as the market keeps crashing.


BROKER - What my broker has made me.


STANDARD & POOR - Your life in a nutshell.


STOCK ANALYST - Idiot who just downgraded your stock.


STOCK SPLIT - When your ex-wife and her lawyer split your assets equally between themselves.


FINANCIAL PLANNER - A guy whose phone has been disconnected.


MARKET CORRECTION - The day after you buy stocks.


CASH FLOW - The movement your money makes as it disappears down the toilet.


YAHOO - What you yell after selling it to some poor sucker for $240 per share.


WINDOWS - What you jump out of when you're the sucker who bought Yahoo @$240 per share.


INSTITUTIONAL INVESTOR - Past year investor who's now locked up in a nuthouse.


PROFIT - An archaic word no longer in use.

The blame game

In written testimony to a congressional panel submitted today, a former chief executive of AIG blamed its woes on shorts. Yeah, like it's the dealer's fault that I got rivered. That dick Fuld from Lehman also appeared arrogant and unrepentant at yesterday's hearing.

These guys should be taken 30,000 feet up in a plane, and then offered the choice between their golden parachute and a real one.

"Poker Fiction"

Poker Grump, a Las Vegas-based prolific and high-quality blogger, has been obsessively picking apart erroneous ESPN "Poker Fact" segments. So it was somewhat surprising that we were not privy to one of his posts after yesterday's "Poker Fact" declaring that "72 offsuit was the worst starting hand in hold'em".

Absent any other assumptions (and there weren't any), 32 offsuit is the worst hand. I'm thinking hot and cold Sklansky-Chubukov, and not a limit hold'em simulation with betting on all streets.

Google tumbling

Google slashed my page ranking to 0 this weekend. This is the greedy and monopolistic behavior that has typified Google's urge to dominate the market by all means possible. What they fail to realize is that the markets are intertwined and that if you screw the little guy, you inevitably end up screwing yourself as well. Unfortunately, proof of this came no sooner than today when the stock market further slashed Google (and the rest of the intertwined, overvalued crap) to under $400. With the economy shrinking, does this overpriced has-been think that their brutally enforced ad revenues will keep on increasing? Or that people will buy their shitty phones?

I have reached 0, but they still have a ways to come down. Just a few weeks ago, I recommended selling GOOG at $500. If you happen to own this overinflated stock in your retirement fund, I suggest you offload now while you can still get $400 and buy back again under $300. And then hope that they learn from their mistakes.

If they could take it back

Hopefully the financial turmoil will have disappeared from the headlines by November 9, when the November Nine are scheduled to play out the Final Table of the 2008 World Series of Poker. In retrospect, picking a date 5 days after a presidential election was a gamble. Throw in the possibility of future financial and political upheaval, and you have a recipe for potentially very low ratings for ESPN.

Mission aborted

Yesterday I turned up at the airport only to find that there were no tickets for our party of 12. Apparently the secretary of the Las Vegas chapter of Gamblers Without Borders, who had been assigned the task of arranging travel and accommodation, decided instead he would risk our $30,000 in online heads-up play against durrrr. The gamble didn't pay off, but kudos to him for trying.

Volunteerism

I will be flying to Africa tomorrow for 2 weeks as head of a Gamblers Without Borders mission. We will be based primarily in northern Uganda and southern Sudan, where we will be giving free courses in Texas Hold'em, Razz and money management.

Sunday nights on Wall Street

Regulators spent the weekend at the headquarters of the New York Federal Reserve in downtown Manhattan, huddled together with the top echelons of the banking and financial community, frantically trying to come up with solutions to the Lehman, Merrill, AIG, WAMU, .... messes.

I spent the weekend huddled together with some gamblers and drifters. Apart from the 3,000 miles that separated us, I felt we had a lot in common.

Moving in

Moved into my new quarters yesterday, just below the I15 overpass near Decatur. I am told there is a great WiFi spot 50 feet from here. But first things first - I'm more concerned with tonight's dinner at the moment. And why I stubbornly continue to play above my limits.

Moving on

The shelter officially closes tomorrow. I have several living options available, including Howard Lederer's backyard toolshed. The current evacuation of New Orleans as Gustav approaches helps me keep things in perspective.

Michael Phelps - The Beginning

Out of action

Even before Las Vegas poker rooms were going through the typical August doldrums, I was given the green light to multitable $2-$5 NLHE at a major Strip casino. On Wednesday night, while brooding over a bad beat I had taken on Table 7 and my poorly executed $100 bluff called by a jack-high on Table 12, I inadvertently bumped into a cocktail waitress while rushing to Table 15 to post a straddle, causing me to fall into the path of a motorized wheelchair. I escaped with a fractured distal tibia (lower leg) and will be in plaster for 6 weeks.

Abandoned pets

With the increase in foreclosures, people are abandoning their pets as well as their homes. There is absolutely no excuse for this type of behavior and to those guilty of leaving their animals behind, may this be just the beginning of your economic hardships which hopefully will continue on so that you get to see your children go to bed hungry every night.

Tao of Poker

I would be remiss if I didn't throw in a reminder about tomorrow's birthday bash, courtesy of Dr. Pauly and in celebration of his blog's 5th anniversary.

Unfortunately I have no funds online at the moment, but would very much like to play. If someone could transfer me the $5.50, I would be appreciative. Repayment options range from immediate cash if you're in Vegas, to immediate PayPal, to Full Tilt transfer on the 15th, to food stamps.

Please leave a comment or email me (shluha at hotmail dot com).

Bellagio recaps

The change reported in the previous post was short-lived and, as of today, Bellagio's $2-$5 and $5-$10 games have reverted to $500 and $1,500 caps (originally $500 and $1,000).

Bellagio's NL games now uncapped

Effective from 11am today, Bellagio's $2-$5 and $5-$10 NLHE games have no maximum buy-in. Till now they were capped at $500 and $1,000 respectively. The timing of the move is interesting as it coincides with one of the quietest periods of the year. Only time will tell what effect this will have on the ichthyological ecology, but I predict changes in both feeding and migratory patterns.

Stuck

It is an indisputable fact that short playing sessions are generally preferable to longer ones. I have accepted this and found it has paid dividends. Yet once in a while, I find myself inexplicably stuck to a chair because I'm stuck. The frequency of this has decreased over time, but when it does occur it is usually a painful experience.

ESPN WSOP coverage begins

ESPN weekly coverage of the 2008 WSOP events begins tonight, culminating in the live broadcast of the final table of the Main Event on November 9th. Airing tonight is the $10,000 Pot Limit Hold'em event, in which the still braceletless Andy Bloch managed yet another second place finish after holding a commanding chip lead with only 4 players remaining. Karma's a bitch.

Effective advertising

When driving from Melbourne to Sydney on the Hume Highway, as I have done on a couple of occasions in the past, one will pass through the New South Wales country town of Yass.

The Bespoke Search Engine

Yahoo.com has always been my home page, yet when I wanted to do a search, I would navigate to Google. That is till now. Following Google's imposition of harsh and selfish monopolistic advertising guidelines on poker and other sites, and the subsequent doctored alteration in their search results, I have broken a long and instinctive search engine habit and now use Yahoo. I believe that Google's bespoke searching is not returning an optimal result and I have a distinct chance of missing out on something that could be valuable, unless I want to keep paging till Results 151-160. I am therefore better off with Yahoo or MSN.

For an update on the recent developments, read Bill Rini and Nat Arem's posts.

When this episode flared up in October 2007, with Google slashing the page rank of renowned blogger John Chow, GOOG was trading at over $700. Tonight in after hours trading, GOOG is at $492 after disappointing 2nd quarter 2008 earnings. Google, clearly the answer lies elsewhere - please come to your senses.

Venetian Slot Tourney

I was invited to a slot tourney at the Venetian, together with a comped suite for 3 nights. When your current digs are a homeless shelter in foreclosure, this is like winning the Powerball. The walk from St. Luke's shelter to the Strip should take about 25 minutes but there was an Excessive Heat Warning issued on Sunday, so it came as no surprise that I barely staggered into the Palazzo completely dehydrated, and before passing out I managed to run into, knock down and break their mini-David figurine situated 5 feet inside the fountain pool in the marbled lobby entrance, and reputedly valued at $2,500,000.

After filling in a few insurance forms and mumbling my apologies in broken Italian, I was carried to my suite in the adjoining Venetian on a stretcher. I would have preferred the gondola. Still, with the slot tourney scheduled to open in 12 hours time, I was thankful that my right index finger was uninjured.

The next day who should I run into but Grubby, who was also playing in the tourney. Luckily he was seated next to me, enabling him to apply an ice compress to my forehead with his right hand while hitting the slot button with his left. After the last session, we took a stroll to the Mirage where I partook in some $1-$2 NLHE, while he opted for the $70 SNG.

Sitting in the 6 seat at my table was 95-year-old Jack Ury, the oldest player in the 2008 WSOP Main Event. He proudly told us that he was still in after Day One. I had occasion to play one hand with him when his flopped baby flush took down my TPTK for a $50 pot. After I tabled my hand, it took him about 10 seconds to turn over his cards. This, however, was attributable to gerontological rather than slowrolling factors. God bless him.


Grubby took down the SNG and I lost $133. After an enjoyable afternoon, we headed back to the Venetian and parted ways. I didn't place in the tourney but at least Grubby won $100 free slot play.

Tonight I read that Jack Ury was eliminated (Day 2B). "I can't walk, can't see, can't hear, but I can still play poker!" said Ury to PokerNews reporter TassieDevil. "I'll be back again next year...if I'm still alive!"

Sweet dreams are made of this

Commiserations to the bloggers who didn't make it past Day One. And to those that did (Iggy, Loretta8 and any others that I don't know of), please continue to rip through the field.

Maybe next year

Negotiations for the sponsorship of my $10,000 2008 WSOP Main Event entry fee broke down at 3:30am this morning. I am bitterly disappointed considering how close we were to an actual agreement.
I prefer not to get into specifics, but the main stumbling block was my insistence that my kidney was not to be removed before November were I to make the final table.

You call, it's all over ... the front page of Yahoo!, baby

Scotty Nguyen's bracelet in the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. event makes the front page of Yahoo!

PEACE and good trading, Commisso

It was with great excitement that I followed Shamus's coverage of the epic 6-hour heads-up battle in the WSOP $5,000 NLHE Six-Handed event last night, which lead to the ultimate victory of Joe Commisso.

I "met" Joe many years ago on EliteTrader, an online trading community. He was young and bright back then and it appears nothing has changed.

Congratulations, Joe, on the bracelet and the accompanying $911,855!

Poker Hall of Shame IV

There's always a few rotten apples to spoil a good lineup, and apparently the MGM Grand is no exception. Yesterday, harper983 posted the following on 2+2 :

Playing 1/2 cash game at the MGM. Three players are involved in a pot with about $100 in it, and on the river the board reads 8A8x9 rainbow. UTG checks, mid pos. checks, and the button checks and turns over the 8d and puts it on top of his other card and says "I got the 8". Dealer looks down and repeats what he says, mid pos. mucks, and UTG flips over A9. Dealer grabs buttons cards, buries them in the muck, and pushes pot to UTG. Button tries to stop her, but isn't quick enough. Dealer calls the floor, tells them what happened, that she saw his 8 and others at the table confirm, and they rule that he has to flip over both cards and he's hands dead. UTG rakes the pot and tips dealer $15. Button gets pissed and cashes out.

Just wondering what others would do in this situation as the dealer, floor, and UTG.

BTW UTG is a dealer there and I saw him dealing the next day.

The general consensus seems to be that the dealer should have given the button a chance to show both cards by saying something like "I can't turn over your hand." Unfortunately the whole incident reeks of collusion and flies in the face of the maxim that justice must be seen to be done.

And a big kudos to the UTG douchebag dealer, a great ambassador for the interpretation of the spirit of poker rules in general, and playing at the MGM in particular.

WSOP Main Event

Desperately short of funds, my significant other has decided to sell 50% of herself in the upcoming WSOP Main Event. She can be found nightly at the Rio hooker bar and is very approachable.

Please stop calling!

By all rights, I should have a quiet Father's Day as I have no children. Yet with alarming regularity, this peaceful Sunday is always shattered by phone calls from all over the world.

It started at 6:35am with a "Hyvää Isänpäivää" (Happy Father's Day) from a young Finn claiming to be my long lost 15-year-old son. "Äitisi nai poroja" (your mother fucks reindeers) I mumbled and went back to sleep. At 7:23am I heard some Dutch kid yelling "Vrolijke vaderdag" and promptly dispatched him with a "Je moeder is een hoer" (your mother is a hooker).

This continued all morning with greetings in Thai (สุขสันต์วันพ่อ), Persian (روز پدر مبارک ), Turkish (Babalar günün kutlu olsun), Hungarian (Boldog apák napját), French (Bonne fête Papa) and many others. As is my custom, I "thanked" them all in their respective languages.

What are they trying to tell me? That their whorish mothers lied to me years ago when they promised they were practicing birth control? That I happenstanced upon the 1 packet of condoms that didn't fall within the 99.9999% quality control specifications? That I was the victim of a swallow and switch? I'm not buying any of it.

Nothing new under the sun

We have been blessed with multiple controversies currently raging in the blogger universe. This is not surprising and when they die down and are forgotten, they will be replaced by new ones as sure as your flopped set will be pipped on the river by a backdoor flush.

2008 WSOP - II

"Maybe you too can find a single player to babysit the entire event and report their every move." - AlCantHang

With this in mind, I decided that I would cover the journey of my good Australian friend, Bruce Kelly, in his attempt at taking down the coveted 2008 WSOP Main Event bracelet.

Bruce is about 10 years my junior, the bastard son of an alcoholic sheep farmer and an out-of-work actress. He, like myself, is currently unemployed and shares my passion for poker, though he does rent an apartment of his own. The bugger has a real temper and my sole concern is chaperoning him through the entire tournament and preventing one of his classic blowups. And by blowup, I don't mean à la Hellmuth or Matusow. No, a Bruce Kelly blowup is something that the Rio Convention Center has never been privy to. And that's the way I'd like to keep it.

Last year, Bruce had occasion to communicate via telephone with VicRoads, the government body responsible for licensing and registration of motor vehicles. Unfortunately for all concerned, the call was recorded (warning - offensive language) :




So here we are, 6 days into the Main Event, with 643 players left. We are nearing the bubble and the tables are playing hand for hand. Bruce, sitting on a healthy 2.5 million chip stack, looks down at his cards. I have a mounted telescope set up in the back row of the spectators' gallery and can see by the throbbing carotid artery in his neck that he's picked up a big hand. I also have a dismantled elephant gun, together with tranquilizer darts, within reach.

Bruce, who is UTG, raises to 100,000. Everyone folds to the button, Allen Cunningham, who makes it 400,000. The small blind folds, but the big blind, Jamie Gold, pushes all-in. Jamie has Bruce covered. With everyone's attention diverted to the all-in, I slowly start assembling the elephant gun.

Bruce calls without hesitation and Cunningham folds his jacks. Jamie Gold sheepishly turns over pocket tens and Bruce gleefully tables 2 red aces. The rush of the media to the table gives me enough time to finish assembling the rifle. Better safe than sorry.

The flop comes

T 7 2 rainbow

Gold leaps triumphantly into the air. I load the dart, cock the rifle and locate Bruce's still throbbing carotid artery in the crosshairs of my sight.

The turn is a harmless 8.

I decide that waiting for a 2 outer on the river may be too risky as Bruce would probably be completely out of control, making an accurate shot almost impossible.

As Bruce slumps forward flat on his face, the river card, the black ace of spades, hits the green felt. I rush toward the table, fumbling for the bottle of concentrated Epsom salts in my shoulder bag.

2008 WSOP - I

You fine folks at Full Tilt, sitting in your comfy chairs somewhere in Louth, don't seriously expect me to grovel to your demands to "showcase my ability to provide journalistic coverage for the biggest poker event in the world".

Read this blog and you will readily find glowing examples of Pulitzer quality poker coverage. Ask around, make some phone calls. Everyone will corroborate my natural aptitude for covering major events like the WSOP - with a twist of course.

The best WSOP coverage

For those of you fortunate enough not to be physically present at the 2008 WSOP, read all about it here :

Pokernews.com

Tao of Poker

LasVegasVegas