Tao of Poker

Hump Day Pimp Day: I Am the Walrus

"Hdouble kept trying to convince me to play 20/40, saying how good the game was. I was playing scared and didn't want to risk anything that high, particularly after being down $3500 already." - Grubby

Good god, Grubby! Talk about swings. This post from Grubby made me laugh..

Buy the Poker Geek's T-shirt. Help out a starving artist with a hilarious shirt. I appreciate the minimalist quality of his artwork. If I help him sell 100, I get one free. Please buy one and support your local Geek.

Speaking of buying cool stuff, head over to the WPBT Store and buy something cool for yourself or your kids. Proceeds go to Maudie's retirement fund which she'll most likely use to help bankroll her daily trips to local card rooms. By the way, excellent news about your call back. Break a leg.

Seriously, I'm often inspired at the level of creative talents that some of my fellow bloggers have. You guys kick ass. Even G-Rob has skills. I dug his report on poker staring everyone's favorite metalhead Bad Blood.

Congrats again to Russell Fox for winning his seat on Sunday. If you don't know, he wrote a book on NL called: Mastering No-Limit Hold'em. Ironically, his publisher sent me a free copy so I can review it on my poker blog. It came in the mail this weekend, but I didn't bother to open it up until after the WPBT WSoP Satellite! I thought the package was a copy of Gigli that I bought for $2 off of eBay. Gigli goes to the first person KO'd of the Aladdin tourney. Anyway, check out Russell's book.

After several weeks (and months) of courting me, I finally gave in and decided to pimp Noble Poker. I'll give them props, they kissed my ass for weeks, even when I blew them off at first. Let that be a lesson to you out there looking for favors from me. Anyway, Noble Poker has a pretty cool 100% deposit bonus for first time players. They also announced a reload bonus for existing members. Here are the details:

Noble Poker is now offering its loyal players an unprecedented 60% Reload Bonus up to a maximum of $200 when they make additional deposits at the site.

Players who made their first deposit before March 1, 2005, or who have fully received their 100% Matching First Deposit Bonus, will be able to earn the Reload Bonus on all accumulated deposits made on or after May 1, 2005.

The 60% Reload Bonus up to $200 will be awarded to players on an incremental basis as they earn Crowns - Noble Poker's unique Player Points - in ring game action. Many of Noble Poker's players are already familiar with the Crown system and with the subsequent daily bonuses they received in previous promotions.

Players will keep on playing at Noble Poker, and Noble Poker will keep on giving them bonuses up to a maximum Reload Bonus of $200. Exact terms and conditions of this amazing offer are posted on the Noble Poker website.

Depositing players also qualify for Noble Poker's exciting weekly $1,000 Depositors Freeroll.

I know that Suckout hosts weekly Omaha tournament and that the Poker Prof is looking to set up a freeroll in the future. The guys over at Noble Poker want to host a special freeroll for my readers at the end of May. Stay tuned for more details. In the meantime, check out their site.

Radio Free Pauly

I taped my interview with Sean on Friday night, instead of Saturday for the Lord Admiral Card Club Radio Show and Podcast. If you don't know it's the best podcast dedicated to poker in the universe and it's making me a huge cult figure in Canada. Sean and Brent are working hard every week to get this done (fo free) so stop by and show your support.

You can download the MP3 of this week's show... Episode 24: Here.
You can download last week's show... Episode 23: Here.
You can read the show's notes: Here.

My segment starts at the 30:00 mark of the show and it lasts about 13-14 minutes. We talked about last week's blogger tournament and my prep for Vegas. Oh, I threw out a random Degrassi Junior High reference. Check it out! Sean was happy that I brought some original material to this episode. This week's show as always, features an interview with the Poker Prof who talks about the brand new Wynn casino.

If you want to catch up and listen to previous episodes, please visit their archives over at Brainscat. Thanks again to Sean for having me on.

Party Freeroll Pauly

Do you think I should start playing some freerolls on Party Poker? I've been getting a lot of double bonus points for my $3/6 sessions in the mornings. What have I done with some of my points? I got me a hip Party Poker polo shirt that I never wear. I should get rid some of these points now. Once I get to Vegas there's no incentive for me to play online and I might lose some points due to account inactivity. So, I'm going to play one or two of those 2000 player freerolls every week until I leave for Vegas.... most likely the 1,000 point ones. I know BG aka the Bobby Flay of poker bloggers made the final table in one and Joanne has grinded her way into the money in another.

I have not played tournaments on Party Poker in a very long time. I used to play one MTT a day... sometimes two a day. Man, a year ago Derek and I used to play in a Party Poker MTT every Saturday morning. Sometimes random bloggers would play too. Aside from these recent blogger events, I only play NL MTTs on Empire Poker and on Full Tilt. The fields are smaller than Party Poker and there's a nice overlay on some of the Empire tourneys. In case you wondered, I have not played any WSoP satellites since I'm working the event. I suspect that I saved myself at least $1,000 that I would have pissed away in random satellites.

Last night I sweated Joanne who entered a 2000 person NL MTT with a $40k prize pool. She grinded her way into the money and had a shot at the final table. With 7 tables remaining and a little above the average stack, I thought she was going to go all the way. An impressive run for sure. Congrats on making the money and taking 27th place out of 2000!!

Phishy Flashbacks

If you don't know, I've been working on a Phish blog for a while now. Yes it's my 2367th blog if you are counting. At first Coventry was a place where I posted my friends stories, personal dramas, and pictures about the insanity of the last shows ever with Phish in Vermont. Yeah, we all walked to the last shows and had to deal with some thing awful... rain, mud, and both.

Sometime last year, I decided to post Phishy related news whenever something came up. Eventually it evolved into a blog with the basic theme is all things Phish. I changed the named to Coventry: A Phish Blog and now t's the #1 search item in Google for phish blog. Pretty cool, eh? Maybe some of that traffic will spill over here. We've been getting alot of hits ever since Trey went back on tour. I've been posting Trey setlists along with random Zooma tour info. I also added a new Widespread Panic reviews. Since I'm going to see Trey this weekend and two shows next weekend, I'll have a chance to add some reviews and pictures.

Anyway in the future, I will devote that blog space to concert reviews, music news, and all things Phish. At some point, I'll write up random tales that I experienced while on tour with Phish. I hope to post some Japan stories too and maybe even get a guest post from Senor! It's a group blog and my friend Molly posted something recently. Take a peek.

The _____ of Poker Bloggers

Did I happen to mention that BG is the Bobby Flay of Poker Bloggers? I love that term. I know he clenches his fist and curses my name every time I write it. BG is the Bobby Flay of Poker Bloggers. Heh. It's all because he started calling me America's Favorite Amateur Pharmacist. Great. Now, I have every poker-blog reading pill-popping junkie from Kansas City to Hoboken emailing me asking to hook them up with various narcotics.

I get asked "Who is the 'who' in the blogging community?" Here you go with some quick answers. (Editor's Note: My apologies if I did not mention you... nothing personal. It's just late and I can't go through my entire blogroll!)

Bobby Bracelet is the Johnny Knoxville of poker bloggers.
Chirs Halverson is the Jerry Lundegaard of poker bloggers.
Poker Geek is the Kevin Smith of poker bloggers.
Maudie is the Meryl Streep of poker bloggers.
Grubby is the David Mamet of poker bloggers.
Buffalo66 is the Scott Norwood of poker bloggers.
Ugarte is the Shecky Green of poker bloggers.
Bill Rini is the Jacques Cousteau of poker bloggers.
Joanne is the Anais Nin of poker bloggers.
The Fat Guy is the Waylon Jennings of poker bloggers.
Felicia is the Lance Armstrong of poker bloggers and Glenn is the Chad Lowe of poker bloggers.

Derek hates the fact that he once uttered that he was the Don Swayze of poker bloggers. Would he rather be the Ozzie Canseco of poker bloggers or the Jim Belushi of poker bloggers?

Speaking of Ozzie... well, er Ozzy.... Al Cant Hang is the Ozzy Osbourne of poker bloggers, which makes EvaCanHang the Sharon Osbourne of poker blogger wives.

I also thought of HDouble as the A. Alvarez of poker bloggers. HDouble once dubbed me as the Hunter S. Thompson of poker bloggers, which is a sincere compliment. However, I always consider myself the Jerry Garcia of poker bloggers.

So I guess that makes Otis the Bob Dylan of poker bloggers and Iggy, of course, is the John Lennon of poker bloggers. So who the fuck is Ringo? All I know is... I am the Walrus.

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