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Download PokerStars for PCA & EPT Prague Satellites Thursday, March 31, 2005
Running with Game Cocks: Another WPBT Adventure With 109 players forking over $20 + 2, the latest event on Poker Stars was another wild night. I finished an unimpressive 65th while Derek made the money in another WPBT event. If you count cashing in the HORSE tourney and finishing as the highest blogger at the Blue Parrot Invitational plus his 3rd place finish in a Speed Tourney on Party Poker... then Derek is on a hot run. Congrats to Pathetic Poker who took first place and $651 in his first ever WPBT event. He kept the blogger streak alive. Good job. The Starting Players:9:05pm EST...I thought it was funny that Derek and Rod were at the same table since his sister Joanne sat at my table. 9:23pm EST...F Train and his Hilton Sisters got knocked out by Hunts Vegas Poker. Ouch. He's the first Blue Parrot regular to get bounced. 9:26pm EST... with 45o in the LB, I checked to Joanne when I flopped two pair. She won with 66 when running 8s ruined my chance at slowplaying. 9:28pm EST... Rick slowplayed his aces against Maigrey's KJ. 9:31pm EST... Glyph's A7 lost to AJ and was KO'd. They both flopped two pair. I was in 76th place out of 91. 9:34pm EST... Derek's KK holds up against Rod's Hilton Sisters. In October 2004, Rod won my Hilton Sisters Challenge when he beat out AA. Karmic payback? Joanne wrote in the chat, "Your bro just crippled my bro." Yeah that's when Derek moved into the chiplead. 9:37pm EST... I limped UTG with JJ and missed my flop when two overcards hit. 9:40pm EST... Al Cant Hang was knocked out with his QT losing to Maigrey's KTs. 9:45pm EST... I am 68th out of 86 with T1180. Derek is in the top 5. 10:00pm EST... Derek's Hilton Sisters knocks off Lumberjack's QJ when he pushed all in when a J flopped. Derek had T8000+ and back in first place. I was 59 out of 66. I made the first break but needed to double up soon. During the break I answered questions from fans and fellow bloggers and even discussed medicinal marijuana with Felicia who was on the rail all night, along with Joaquin. 10:08pm EST... Word hit the tables that I was knocked out. I moved all in UTG with a shortstack and a marginal hand ATo. I tried to steal the blinds but Royal called with JJ and I was out in 65th place. Coach and Chris Halverson were both knocked out around the same time. 10:12pm EST... No groveling from Ugarte when his Hellmuth's held up against Mrs. Blood's AQs. Ugarte doubled up against someone who is not Bad Blood's wife. We can confirm that. I dunno who he/she was. But I have a few ideas... 10:12pm EST... Rick Blaine was the next Blue Parrot regular gone. Derek was the chipleader with over 11k. 10:20pm EST... CJ was knocked out when he lost set over set (55s to 88s) to Gamecock. That's about around the time I found out that you could type: asscock into the chat and it would slip pass the censors. That hand seemed to get Gamecock going and he never looked back. 10:21pm EST... Derek's Hiltons were cracked by Sportstrader. 10:26pm EST... Iggy's lucky streak began when his K5 knocked out Rolee's A6. 10:28pm EST... Derek was moved to a new table with plenty of characters. Derek's New Table:10:34pm EST... Human Head was KO'd after hanging onto the thinest of short stacks. His stack made Kate Bosworth look like Kirstie Alley on one of her most bloated days. 10:37pm EST... With over T8000, Derek was in 3rd but loses a pot to Ugarte who doubled up. 10:41pm EST... Joanne moved all in with 99 and a short stack. John-Paul folded his 99 to Sportstrader who pushed his big stack in with AK. Joanne won the coinflip and stuck around for a while longer. 10:48pm EST... Iggy had a crazy flop with AJ. He flopped a boat against Pappag99's pocket 99s. Ironic that he went out on 99s to the Blogfather. 10:51pm EST... Gamecock went on a roll. He cracked KK with A6s. Derek was 15th in chips and Sethypooh was in first woth over 16K in chips. 10:54pm EST... TP's AK lost to Bill's KK. 10:55pm EST... The Poker Prof's KTs doubled up against Obituraium when he caught a Broadway Straight on the turn. 10:58pm EST... Derek knocked out SoxLover when his Hilton's held up against AT0. He had T9500+ and added insult to injury when he typed "Did I mention how much I hate the Red Sox?" 11:00pm EST... Gamecock doubled up with AA against Ash97's Big Slick. 11:02pm EST... The Poker Prof was out when his AK lost to AA. 11:03pm EST... JP doubled up against the chipleader Sethypooh. At the break Derek was 9th out of 14 with T7400+. 11:11pm EST... Joanne1111 was ironically KO'd at 11:11pm EST. She came in 24th. 11:16pm EST... Bob's 88 doubled up against Bill's AQs. 11:24pm EST... Bad Blood was brutally river'd by Ash when his K9s lost to Ash's 88. Bad Blood flopped top pair and Ash caught his openended straight draw on the river. 21st place for Bad Blood. 11:29pm EST... Derek's KJ lost to Gamecock's A6s. He made the money in 16th place. Good job. 11:30pm EST... Bob's KJ beat Seth's TT when a jack hit the river. Bob typed, "SUCKOUT!" into the chat. Seth lost the chiplead to Gamecock at that point. 11:35pm EST... Pumpkin1974 was the chipleader with T31k and Iggy was in second with T21k. 11:38pm EST... Bob moved into 4th place when his Big Slick held up against Seth's Mrs. Slick. 11:41pm EST... Bill doubled up with pocket aces. 11:42pm EST... LarryVQ knocked out in 10th. The final table arrived! 11: 59pm EST... Bob was out in 9th, Maigrey in 8th, and JP in 7th. I think JP got the Maple Leaf Award for the longest lasting Canadian Blogger. He wins a 12 pack of Moosehead from Daniel Negraneau. "The Moose is Loose" and so is Daniel. 12:08am EST... Bill was knocked out by Iggy's 77. He grinded out a 6th place finish. Good work. 12:20am EST... Minus790 took 4th place. In consecutive hands, Iggy lost two big pots, one to Sethypooh and the other to Gamecock. He was out in 4th. 12:21am EST... Gamecock's Q9 dominated Seth's 10-9 when they both moved all in on a flop: A-9-3. Gamecock had 129k in chips and was the huge favorite to win. Sethypooh finished in 3rd. 12:24am EST... After three minutes of heads up action, Gamecock beat out Pumpkin1974 for the victory. J9 was the winning hand... against K8 when Gamecock flopped a Jack. Good job guys. The Money Winners:That's it. Time for sleep. Check back later to read Sean's update of the WPBT Leaderboard. Thanks for playing everyone. Thanks to Iggy for setting it up. Thanks to everyone who was on the rail watching, especially Felicia. Get well soon, girl! | Permalink | Wednesday, March 30, 2005
Pieces of Pauly, Heads Up with Grubby, and More Vegas Pics So what did I eat in Las Vegas?  My "medium-well" dinner at Palm  Yummy dessert at Palm  Penne Arribgata at Ferrara's  My dessert at Ferrara's  The Poker Prof's sorbet  Lunch at Excalibur  Derek's favorite  That concludes this random photo essay of Pieces of Pauly. Heads Up with Grubby Make sure you read Grubby's latest post called: Poker with Pauly. He wrote about playing NL together during my last night in Vegas. Here's a bit: Pauly and I mostly stayed out of each other's way, but I was looking for a chance to play him again since we were heads-up at The Borgata last September.For the record, I had Mrs. Slick and I think she was suited. When you lose a $500 pot and your entire stack to Grubby in Atlantic City, you get a little gunshy even on a belly full of bottom-shelf vodka and a fuzzy head thanks to the painkillers. Nice play, dude. Can't wait for your strip club post! So, how about random Vegas pics? Vegas Photo Dump  The Bellagio's Water Show   What Grubby sees everyday...  This is the only place in Las Vegas where I am up for my career!  In the Luxor  More Luxor  The view from our room  In Cesear's Palace   I love these signs posted all over casinos... Just a quick reminder... see everyone on Poker Stars tonight at 9pm EST for the next event on the WPBT! I will be running another Hilton Sisters Challenge. Be on the look out for pocket Queens... | Permalink | March Madness: Sweet 16 and Elite 8 Updates Sorry folks for the delay in updates. I was in Vegas as many of you already know. Blogger.com was freaky all weekend long and using dial up in my hotel room was hard for me. ESPN's site was super slow to come up. Again sorry for the delays. 28 out of 41 have paid. Not too shabby, but we've haven't reached our goal. I know I'll get some more payments from some of you later. But for the rest, please make arrangements ASAP or I will send Al Cant Hang and Grubby to your house. Grubby will eat all your food and Al will drink all your liquor and sit on your couch and smoke a pack of cowboys until you fork over the cash. Transfer via PokerStars... my screen name is: DrPauly Email me for my mailing address if you want to send payments via snail mail. So, how about the tournament, huh? This is one of the most exciting I've seen in years. Of course Senor and I got our asses kicked 2 out of 3 days we bet on the games. If we didn't have money on an innocuous Raptors-Hawks NBA game... we would have been in even worse shape. 3 of the 4 games that decided the Final Four went into OT. Unreal. Illinois and Louisville came from behind late in the second half to advance. That game will be wild. I'm pulling for Louisville for obvious reasons. And maybe UNC can finally knock off Michigan State. We also have nominations for best team name. I asked a panel of non-playing folks to pick five of their favorite team names. These 7 got the most possible nominations. Please email me your vote. And no you cannot vote for yourself. The winner gets a cool prize. BEST TEAM NAME NOMINEES:OK, I'll put up a voting post on my poker blog this weekend. Results will be posted soon. So how about Matt and Austin Paulbearers? He's running away with it. If Louisville knocks off Illinois, Singer and lets do it againsoxpat look like they can take it down. The Standings:According to Matt here's the possible winners: Back of the envelope NCAA pool finishes (Likely mostly accurate, may have missed something, though):Thanks again Matt for your help in these calculations. Good job to Singer picking Lousiville to go this far. I'll be rooting for UNC baby! Check back soo for more updates. I'll figure out payment structure sometime this weekend. Thanks again. Good luck. | Permalink | Tuesday, March 29, 2005
Vegas Day 5: The Last Waltz I woke up with a faint aroma of stripper's perfume lingering on my clothes from the previous night. I chuckled when I read a text message from Briana: u should stay in vegas and marry a stripper so u can get free lap dancesI wrote for a bit, showered, watched Dawson's Creek (because I knew it bothers -EV), then grabbed a meatball sub at Quizno's before I hopped in a cab to the Aladdin. I should have walked but there was no wait at the taxi line. My driver was cool and had a withered right hand. A physical disability gets you at least an extra $2 tip from yours truly. We chatted about urban planning for most of the ride and Glyph got a random mentioning from me to a Vegas cabbie.  When I arrived at the Aladdin's poker room, I saw Edna. She remembered me from our brief meeting in December. I said hello and then signed up for the tournament. With about a 50 minute wait before the start time, I sat in the $1/2 NL game. I lost about $10 in blinds and limp bets. I did not win any pots and a few people at the table never played poker in a casino before. Straight out of a line from Iggy, one woman honestly said, "I only play on Yahoo, but I watch poker on the TV all the time." You could see the words "Fresh Fish" stamped into her forehead if you looked closely enough. Plus, You know how I feel about people who refer to television as... "the TV." Anyway, 12:53pm, I left the NL game, cashed in my chips, took a leak, then found my tourney seat.... the dreaded seat 10. The 1pm tourney at Aladdin is $60 plus an optional $40 rebuy which is good for the first hour. The levels are 20 minutes long and you get T1500 to start. The rebuy is good for T1000 more. My table only had 8 players and 74 total players signed up. Top 8 places paid and first prize would win over $1800. The last time I played in a tourney at Aladdin, Grubby made the money and won the "last longer bet" between himself, Derek, BG, Bob, and yours truly. -EV and his girlfriend also played that day back in December when I missed the final table by one seat. Well, on Monday, I placed 17th out of 74 and missed the money by 9 spots. In the first level I limped in LP with K9s.The flop: K-8-8. I called a bet from a guy who looked like he was worried about the King. I put him on a small pair. A blank fell on the turn. He bet and I moved all in. He had only a few chips left and called. I flipped over my hand and he did not turn over his cards. He couldn't beat me and mucked his cards. I should have asked to see his cards since he never turned them over. I was dying to see what he had. He mumbled under his breath, "My two pair is no good." He quickly reached into his pocket for a rebuy. I nearly doubled up and had almost T3000 in chips. Over the next three levels, I folded everything and lost about T1000 in blinds. One hand I limped in MP with AJo. I had the jack of Diamonds. The flop was all diamonds. The short stack moved all in UTG. The large stack called. If he folded, I would have called. The short stack flopped a baby flush. The big stack rivered a four flush and took down the pot with Q-10... and the 10 of diamonds. I blew a shot at T1000. By the break I had T2000 left and went ahead with the rebuy. I now had T3000 and was fifth in chips at my table. I called Jerry and gave him a quick update. In Level 4 I was moved to a different table. Right away I pushed in with AQs. I doubled up against 66 from a young British guy when I pulled out an ace out of my arse on the river. I had T7300 and looked strong. In the BB, I called a short stack who moved all in with J9s. I had KJs and lost when he river'd a flush. A few hands later, I lost another bad hand when I had a small stack dominated... QTs to T9o. He flopped trips. Ouch. I had T5500 and never recovered. By Level 7, I was chipped down. When I found AK in MP, I moved all in with T3800. The LB called with JTo and flopped trips. Yep, outflopped again. I finished 17th out of 74. I chatted with Edna for a few minutes before I left. I wandered across the street to the Mirage and decided to play $6/12.  I love the Mirage's poker room. I prefer it over the Bellagio. The last time I was there, Mel Judah sat on the table behind me playing pot limit Omaha. In the first orbit I found Big Slick suited. I flopped a flush and won a $200 pot. An hour later, after some very tight play from yours truly, I found AA UTG. I limped-raised and got two callers. I lost to JJ who caught a gutshot on the river. The next hand I found KK in the BB. This time there were four limpers and a button raise. I reraised and the betting was capped. I reraised on a ragged flop. I even check raised on the turn. And then an ace fell on the river... the one card I dreaded seeing. Of course one guy had AQ and the other two both had AT. Yeah it took the case ace to sink my ship. And yeah, I folded on the river, knowing I was beat and saved myself $48. I decided to play out the orbit then I left... down $5. I returned to the Excalibur, called Derek to tell him about my tourney results, wrote for a few minutes, then grabbed a quick bite (two Krispy Kreme donuts). Afterwards, I headed for the poker room for 4 hours of NL. Grubby joined me by 7pm and sat down just as I did my first (and only) rebuy. My AK lost to AJo. We both flopped and ace but he caught a Jack on the turn. Ouch. The next three hours I'd fight back to break even until some chick who looked like Ani DiFranco caught a runner runner straight on me and I doubled her up. I flopped top pair and had an open ended straight draw on the turn which I also caught on the river. Man, it irks me when I catch the card that gives me my draw but that same card gives my opponent a bigger hand. Grubby doubled up with aces against the Hilton Sisters. He also braved the buffet in the back of the poker room at the Excalibur. He ate both a hotdog and hamburger. He's a courageous man indeed. He had a good day at the Excalibur and almost tripled up. Oh, I saw the dealer who was at my table when the infamous brawl broke out. She gave me a nod and I winked. Grubby and I considered playing some Pai Gow Poker but decided against it. He wanted me to stay a few extra days. I would have but you know whatever money I won playing poker would be pissed away at the numerous local strip clubs. Yeah, Grubby and I hit four in three days and there were a half a dozen more on our list that we never had the chance to hit up. We'll wait for June and take Bad Blood. Grubby also told me abou the curse of the $50 bill. I never heard of that before, but supposedly it's superstitious for gamblers to carry around $50 bills in your wallet. I met up with the Poker Prof and Flip Chip. They were going to hook me up with a ride to the airport and we agreed to have a quick bite to eat before I left. We talked a little business. I'll go into more detail about the actual gist of our conversation in a few days. Suffice to say, I have a pretty cool announcement to make very soon. Stay tuned.  Closing Thoughts Someday I'm going to write a novel about Las Vegas because it's a place that inspires me to no end. It's the perfect city for an insomniac degenerate gambler. It's also been several years since Senor and I took one of our epic misadventures together. The last huge one was Japan almost five years ago. We were in Vegas together two years ago with Derek and that was tons of fun. This time we also had a kick ass time. Senor just finished his MBA and got a new job with an asset management company. This was his time to celebrate before he had to start his new job. We'll have amazing memories of those insane games from Saturday, when both games went into over time and we won big bucks using the George Costanza Method to picking our teams. The weirdest thing was my cell phone. Senor and I both have the same company, Verizon, and the clock on our cell phones would jump back and forth between local time (PCT) and MST. One minute it would be 4am then next 3am. It was always very confusing and after a while, I stopped looking at the time. Now that I know people in Vegas, it's cool to hang out with locals like Grubby, Flip Chip, and the Poker Prof. I got an email from Mr. Subliminal who lives in Vegas. I have like 4 different email accounts and only checked one until Monday. Too bad I didn't get in touch with him sooner. It would have been cool to meet a fellow blogger. Next time... in June! Final Numbers:  Anyway, I have a ton of work to do. I have a couple of freelance articles to write so I'll check y'all later. Stay tuned for my Stripper Stories and the "big announcement." I'll see everyone at the tables on Poker Stars on Wednesday for the next leg on the WPBT. Until then, thanks for reading and checking in to read about my Vegas hijinks. Man, 64 days until I arrive back in Sin City for the blogger event! | Permalink | Monday, March 28, 2005
Vegas Day 4: Easter, Pai Gow, Double OT, and Drunk Strippers The day started off like any other Las Vegas morning. I was hungover with a slight headache with the gambling angels slowly whispering my name. I couldn't sleep and headed down to the poker room around 8am to play against drunkards at the tail end of their late night session. My pocket aces held up. Senor eventually wandered downstairs. With A6o he flopped trip aces and then spiked quads on the turn. Yes, he got to "spin the wheel." The first spin... he caught a triple. Next spin... another triple. Too bad they didn't honor that second spin! Senor and I were ready to work the George Costanza Method to perfection with the last two games in the Regional Finals. We took the money line and Wisconsin +450. If anything it was a hedge bet. I picked UNC to win my pool, so if they got upset, at least I'd get something. We also took Kentucky... the line moved from -1 1/2 to +1! The game went into double OT in another wild game 3 of the four regional finals went into over time. Damn. The gambling rush was killing me. Ups and downs. Highs and lows. We went back to the poker room and I got reamed. I caught a flurry of high pocket pairs. Pocket Jacks only held up 1 out of 8 times. Hilton Sisters = No Action. Pocket 10s, 9s, 8s... nothing. Man, it was ugly. At least Senor hit quads 7s and got to spin the wheel again. Grubby stopped by and he got spanked in NL. We all met up with the Poker Prof and Flip Chip at Caesar's Palace for dinner. Luckily, we got into Palm. I had to grease the hostess a $20 to seat us... since they were "booked for Easter" and it was worth it. Great fuckin' steaks. I caught some shit for ordering a "medium-well" Filet Mingnon. Flip Chip told me a great story about Doyle Brunson giving a pizza delivery kid a $5,000 tip at Sam's Town. Senor had a Midnight flight and we drove him to the airport. We had 10 minutes to play some tables games. We found a $50 Pai Gow poker table... and persuaded the floor dude to drop it to $25. Otis would be proud... I played $25 hands of Pai Gow. We all won. I Doubled up in 15 minutes. Senor doubled up in 10 and Grubby took the most. Man... I told Grubby that he needs to stop playing slots and online BJ and stick to focusing on being a professional Pai Gow Poker player. Instead of going back to my empty hotel room and writing, Grubby persuaded me to hit up a few strip clubs. We went to three different ones. I'm going to save all the stories about out late night wacky hijinks for a later post... the infamous Strip Club post. Stay tuned. But I will tell you one bit. At Treasures, I had a stripper stop by who was so drunk she fell off my lap... not once... but twice during a lap dance. I guess it was a "slow night" in Vegas due to the fact it was Easter Sunday and plenty of the girls were getting loaded. Great. I got the drunkest stripper in Vegas working me. At least she didn't puke on me. I went back to the Excalibur and played NL. I made the worst move and doubled up. I'm short on time and will save that write up for when I get back to Vegas. For now... I have to shower and watch the tail end of Dawson's Creek before I head to the Aladdin to play in a tournament. | Permalink | Sunday, March 27, 2005
Vegas Day 3: Costanza's Betting Method Senor and I decided that we needed a new method in picking winners. I told him that I should be betting the opposite of what my gut tells me. We employed the George Costanza Method to betting on college hoops. There was one episode of Seinfeld where George decided that he was ruining his life with his decisions and decided to do the opposite of what he thought he should do. That's how he landed a girlfriend and scored a job with the NY Yankees. I liked Illinois and Louisville. According to George Costanza... I should go with the other teams. Senor and I bet on Arizona +5 and West Virginia +8 1/2. And you know... we won both bets. Amazing. Our new system worked. The West Virgina-Louisville game was a rollercoaster ride of emotions. WV blew a double digit lead late and Louisville forced OT. I dunno if anyone saw that missed dunk with 6 second left... but if that goes down... we lose. Since he (Louisville player unknown) missed the easy dunk... the lead was only 8! Man... we won by a 1/2 point. The sports book exploded in jubilation. A lot of people bet on West Virginia and that missed dunk made hundreds of people thousands of dollars. What a rush. It felt like I jumped out an airplane and opened my parachute at the last possible second. Met the Poker Prof for dinner at Ferrara's, a cool Italian place which was located at Caesar's Palace. He bought Senor and I dinner and I chose the Penne in a spicy marinara sauce. Yummy. We had a few drinks afterwards and talked shop. The lines atthe poker rooms are ridiculously long. Time for some Pai Gow poker! | Permalink | Saturday, March 26, 2005
Vegas Day 2: Cracked Hiltons, Sin & Strippers, Fatburger, and Duke Sucks On Friday I was brutalized by my inability to pick winners at the Sports Book. For my career, I am up at Mandalay Bay. So I'm kinda surprised that I actually lostFriday. Big. At some point Senor mentioned, "Today could get ugly." He was right. I went 1 and 3 again. Fugly. Which is short for Fuckin Ugly. By the way, did I mention that Duke sucks? We ate at Fatburger for dinner. That place rocks. I didn't try to pick up any 21 year olds today. Sorry guys. But I did go to a strip bar with Senor and our special guest Grubby. I am going to tease you with stories about our hijinks. You will have to wait until I get back from Vegas before I post the infamous visit toSin, one of the newest Gentleman's Club in Vegas. I hope that it will be one of my most anticipated posts to date. I will share this post-strip bar conversation snippet: Senor: So what were you and that stripper talking about for an hour?Late night, I walked back into Mandalay Bay's poker room with the faint aroma of a stripper's perfume on me, I played $4/8 with a half kill and went up $90 right away. I then proceeded to lose $150 over the next two hours on a series of bad beats. The damn Hilton Sisters were cracked by 58s. Grrrr. Grubby's Hiltons were cracked as well. I realized that the strip club was the most +EV adventure of the day. By the way, I lied to every stripper. When they asked what I did for a living, I told them I was... 1. a pediatrican (I had to live up to the Dr. Pauly reputation) 2. a guitar player in a jazz band 3. an aspiring filmaker from Hollyweird (sound familar Geek?) 4. a commodities trader on Wall Street. Check back next week for the full write up. | Permalink | Friday, March 25, 2005
Vegas Day 1: Karma Tipping On my flight to Vegas, some guy left his jacket up front and the stewardess got on the intercom and asked who the jacket belonged to. No one answered. She began the bidding at $20. One guy from the back yelled, "I call!" Another dude chimmed in, "I'm all in!" Yeah, you gotta love flights to Vegas filled with rowdy New Yorkers. The guy across from me was reading Mike Caro's book on poker tells. With Spring Break and March Madness and the poker boom... Vegas was overflowing with dead money and the jubilation spilled over onto my flight. Senor made the trip after all! Which is awesome. I was perpared to go solo, but it's always great to have a wingman. We're staying at the Excalibur and Grubby met us at Midnight at the Sherwood Forest Bar. Ah, sweet memories of that place tickled me for sure. Grubby was sipping on a Corona and playing video black jack when we found him.There were two young girls sitting next to us at the bar, each double fisting a Pina Coloda and a Cosmopolitan. Grubby thought one looked like Kate Hudson. The actual term he used was "Goldie Hawn's daughter". The other looked like a cleaner version of Lindsay Lohan minus the fake boobs and coke flakes hanging off her right nostril. It was her 21st birthday and they came to Vegas to celebrate. They asked me where they should go to party. With a belly full of Absolut Citron, I answered, "My room." We headed to the poker room after I unsuccessfully tried to get the two 21 year-old Seattle chicks to take a shower with me. Senor doubled up his buy in playing the best poker he's ever played. Grubby sat at my table and won a hand with AA. I got AA twice in 90 minutes. Both times they held up. I limped then reraised preflop. It was three way and one guy had AK. The flop: AKx. Damn. Too bad it was $2-6 spread! If it were no limit, I'd have the keys to his car by now. Anyway, after a quick hit and run session I ended up $75. Between Senor, Grubby and myself... we took a quick $300+ from the poker room. Yes, I celebrated with a Krispy Kreme donut. I went 1-3 in the Thursday hoops games. Ouch. I like Duke today. I missed the smell of pure casino oxygen. More to come... | Permalink | Wednesday, March 23, 2005
The Day Before "Beware the ides of March." - William ShakespeareI'm leaving for furbelow lights of Las Vegas tomorrow. That's when I'm going to throw myself in the middle of the March Madness insanity for a few days. The sports book at the Mandalay beckons me. I'll be one of the thousands of gamblers throwing down a good chunk of change on the Sweet 16 and Elite 8 games. For the trip, I'm expecting to...
Also on my agenda:
I am getting a vision... a hoops vision. Take Kentucky giving 4.5 to Utah and bet the farm on it! Here are the latest lines from my reliable bookie: Thursday's Games & LinesThere are two bad things about a jaunt to Vegas right now. First, I qualified in a WSOP on Full Tilt on Saturday and will not be able to play. Luckily, Derek will step in. Stop by on Saturday afternoon to root him on (he'll be playing under my screen name). He's a good pick since he's been playing well this month. Secondly, I'm in the middle of a nice winning streak. In the last two weeks, ever since I abandoned SNGs and NL ring games, I have been padding the bankroll playing $3/6. I'm back on the hit and run wagon, playing sessions for less than an hour and taking quick profits. I'm comfortable. I'm confident. And I feel good about myself despite the many mistakes I'm making, like folding my big pocket pairs, for fuck's sake! All of my previous rushes have been halted by trips. Is my thirst for travel killing my poker game? June 2004... I found a groove at the NL ring games on Party Poker and after playing online for four months, I finally got a used to internet poker. As soon as I got comfortable, I had to stop to go onto Phish tour and follow the boys from Vermont around the Northeast and Midwest for two weeks hanging out with neo-hippies who think that "selling hemp jewelry" looks groovy on a patchouli scented resume.Every time I come back from a trip, it takes me a week or so before I get my mojo back. By then, I'm in the hole and it takes me another week just to make up my losses. It seems that I'm always digging myself out of a hole. Going into March of this year, I was down in 2005 losing about 30% of my bankroll. I miraculously wiped out those loses in the last two weeks. Alas, I hit the road knowing that when I come back, that magic won't be there. I'll have to start from scratch all over again in April. Anyway, speaking of Las Vegas, it appears that everyone is jumping on The Plaza bandwagon for the June WPBT event. I told AlCantHang a few weeks ago that if we book a suite there, then the rest of the bloggers without rooms would try to stay there, especially since it's so damn inexpensive. Same thing kinda happened with The Excalibur in December. Derek and I always book the Excalibur. I was shocked when I found out that nearly everyone else booked rooms there. I'm looking forward to the same late night hijinks. This time... it'll be at The Plaza. And I cannot confirm the rumor that Iggy will be crashing in our bathtub. Book your rooms sooner than later. I know this is random, but thanks to Bob for sending me the remainder of his Full Tilt bankroll... all $8.90 of it!  Just in case I'm a little behind in updating my blog over the next few days, I encourage you to read a few short stories that I wrote for Truckin'. Most of you already read one of my favorite stories about Las Vegas called: Vegas, Two Hockey Players, and a Kansas Blonde. But don't miss these stories: Baby's Steak Knife and Winky's Salad: I consider this the short story the one that started it all. Inspired by the characters in a series of stories I wrote for Truckin', I eventually scripted an entire novel dedicated to Baby & Winky, everyone's favorite dysfunctional couple, called Sweet Nothing. Here's a bit:OK, that's it for now. Next time I update... I'll be in the middle of the desert in Las Vegas pissing away all the money I made writing freelance articles. Will I allow the stygian vibes of losers get to me and pull me down into the depths of depravity? Or will I surf the madness, and ride the wave of good fortune all the way down the Strip?There were a couple of seconds after she stabbed me and before the blood started squirting out where Baby and I calmly stared at each other. Our glances lovingly locked onto one another and we had a tranquil moment. Our symbiotic original connection only lasted for a second maybe two, but it was one of those eternal seconds that seem to last forever and you never want to end. It's those eclectic moments you come across while thinking about life's odd idiosyncrasies, while stuck in a sullen slouch at the end of a bar, drinking away the roughness of the day's grind. Or perhaps that treasured moment comes to mind while staring out the window of an airplane, your eyes bouncing back and forth between the clouds and the endless horizon and your shared memories burn a hole in your pants pocket, like a firecracker with a slow fuse that you lit years ago and simply forgot it was there until one day, POP! It goes off... MoreCrispy Lineta: This is a weird story because when I wrote it, I never imagined that two years later, I'd be playing a ton of poker, have a popular poker blog, and be actually trying to win a seat at the WSoP. It's inspired by an obscure Rounders reference and the main character is loosely based on a infamous WSoP champion. It's definitely "out there" and I recall that I had a lot of fun writing it. Here's a bit:While taking a shit, Crispy was shot four times in the head by the voluptuous strawberry blonde, Alberta Desjardins, a jealous ex-girlfriend high on Prozac, Lithium and Pabst Blue Ribbon. The six fingered, former weather girl from Sweetwater, Tennessee was the mother of his myopic twins: Acey and Deucey... More | Permalink | Tuesday, March 22, 2005
Pimp Day Tuesday First of all, I'm currently 56th on the WPBT Leaderboard. See where you stand. Thanks to Sean for doing all the hardwork! Congrats to Royal who is currently in first. Derek wrote up his Speed Tourney report where he took 3rd out of 1200+ on Saturday. Take a peek. He's turning the corner in his poker play. I couldn't be more proud. Plus, he's 23rd on the WPBT Leaderboard! Congrats to the Poker Prof on his newest adventure with Poker Player Newspaper. Cheers to Bad Blood who celebrated one year of blogging. I'm eagerly awaiting the first guest post from one of the mini-Bloods!  By the way, Toby from The Nut Heart Flush has written a poker book: The Bad Ass Girl's Guide to Poker. I suggest you buy it for your girlfriend, fiancee, wife, mother, sister, or for your cousin Julio, the blacksheep in the family who loves Queer Eye and prefers hot dogs to hamburgers. So, why haven't you bought Poker Tracker Guide yet? Shame on you. It's only $20. I read every blog yesterday that I have listed. I want three hours of my life back. Some folks are having birthdays. Others are on a break. And yeah, I added 21 news blogs to my blogroll this month. Check them out:
Pauly's Pub March Madness Pool: Round 2 Update The Sweet 16 is set. Who would have thought so many top seeds would be gone? Wake Forest lost to West Virginia in double OT in one of the best games I've seen in years. How about NC State? They are still hot. Everyone's bracket looks worse than Courtney Love after a four day bender, but there's still hope. Utah? UW-Milwaukee? Are you shitting me? At least I called Texas Tech. Be ware of Bobby Knight and the Red Raiders! If Washington knocks off a bitter Louisville... then Knight and Texas Tech have a shot of walking into the Final Four. Well T'anks For Nuthin' is sitting pretty in first place with a three way tie for second place: Austin Pallbearers, Landow, and Signor Ferrari are all within arm's reach of first place. Current Standings... Top10:This next category might be more important than the current standings. Most Possible Points is an indication of whether or not you still have a shot to win it, or at least place in the money. Girtz NYC, letsdoit againsoxpats, and The Poker Nerd are not in the top 10 right now, but they are looking strong going into the Sweet 16. Top 5 Most Possible Points Remaining:If you haven't arranged payments, please do so. Thanks again. Best of luck this upcoming weekend. I'll be in Vegas for the entire Sweet 16 games and the Elite 8 watching them at the sports book at Mandalay Bay. Let's hope that Senor can make it. Closing Thoughts Check out the front page to one of the NYC newspapers yesterday.  If you don't know by now... Party Poker has a reload bonus of 20% up to $200. If you don't have an account... what the fuck are you waiting for? Stop farting around on other sites trying to win a seat in the 2005 WSoP. There are tens of thousands of hipsters who are new to the poker scene and they have never picked up a poker book in their shallow lives, yet are swimming around Party Poker looking to get picked off. Seriously, they are giving away free money every second of everyday. Get a Party Poker account today (and use my bonus code: TAO4) before it's too late and they lose their entire online bankrolls. | Permalink | Monday, March 21, 2005
Reader Mail: Timmy's Principal Problems, Popularity, Vegas Poker Rooms, and Time Management It's that time of month again, when I dip into the mail bag and pull out some of my favorite emails from you, the reader! Dear Pauly, Dear Timmy, Kid, you're so fucked. Man, 50% of your action would cripple you!! My advice to you is try to dig up some dirt on your principal and blackmail him into giving you your 50% back in addition to 10% of his income! Trust me, adults have plenty of skeletons in their closets. A lot of guys have weird masturbation fantasies. If you can find two or three from your principal... then you're fucking golden. I suggest you grab two kids in your class that you really trust and break into his home and personal email account. Information is your friend and the more weirdness you find, the better you will be able to get what you want from your asshole principal. What kind of adult fucks with a kid's March Madness Pool? I want to kick your principal in the junk just on principle alone. Best of luck, kid and stop cold-calling raises preflop with little aces! Thanks for reading, Pauly ***** Dear Dr. Pauly, Dear Alex, Greetings to one of my many Texas fans. Thanks for reading all of my blogs. I encourage all of my Tao of Poker readers to add the Tao of Pauly to their daily diet. My goal is to try to increase the readership on my first and main blog. It has a small cult following of friends and poker bloggers. The random readers have slowly increased over the last year or so which is great. I am getting killed in the games this year. But it's still early. I never bet more than my weight in the first two rounds. Most of those bets were... "feeler bets"... try to see if mid-majors can beat the spread or if TOP 10 teams can cover. When I get to Vegas on Thursday... that's is when I'll be laying some serious action on games. In the next few days, I'll analyze my data and make better picks. I use BoDog's Sportsbook (Bodog.com) to place bets. They are pretty cool. If you use my referral code P1B5DB7 then I can get credit for turning you onto their site. Let me know if you do sign up and I'll send you something special. Thanks again for reading and possibly signing up for Bodog using my referral code: P1B5DB7. See ya, Pauly ***** Dear Dr. Pauly, Dear Doug, Thanks for using my bonus code! I'll send you a copy of my first novel: Jack Tripper Stole My Dog. If you can set aside 4 hours a day for six days a week, I think you can become a better poker player in 6 months. If this doesn't work, then let's re-evaluate your situation. Hour 1: Read poker blogs and poker booksIt's pretty simple, eh? You can fit the first hour into your work schedule. If you commute by train, you can read books there or int he morning on the shitter. You can take your lunch break to read poker blogs or kill a few minutes before dinner reading up on poker. The bottom line is this... you need to add poker reading to your daily schedule. Your brain is a mental sponge. Allow it to absorb material. If you read every poker book, then read them again. Plus you never know what pearls of wisdom you can pick up reading a random blog. Playing poker is the fun and easy part. If you are serious about improving your play, fire up Poker Tracker (and make sure you buy Poker Tracker Guide to help you out). Derek and I have been reviewing his losing hands and we identified a leak in is game. Look at his results... 10th in the WPBT HORSE tourney and 3rd in a Speed Tourney the other night. Like Iggy & HDouble mentioned in Poker Tracker Guide... reviewing your play every night is like watching game film. The more you watch, the more you will pick up on things that you missed while "in the heat of battle." Your small investment in time and money will pay off in the long run. Obviously as time goes on you can change this schedule. But for now, I recommend devoting 25% of your poker time to reviewing your game and 25% of your time educating yourself with books and blogs. I also highly recommend one day off a week. Use some of your bankroll and take the Mrs. out for a nice meal or out dancing. Women like to dance. And if she knows that you've been fleecing the fish on Party Poker to get a few extra bucks to take her out on the town... then that's a great way to justify the fact that you are a poker junkie like the rest of us. Good luck and thanks for reading, Pauly ***** Dear Pauly, Dear Andy, Vegas is tourist friendly place. At some of the lower limit tables, the dealers are extra friendly and help you out. If possible make sure you tell them that you've never played in a casino before. I always do that (to pretend im a fish!) and make sure you order a cocktail too... fits the fishy mage. Tipping the dealers $1 per pot is the standard (unless you win the blinds and don't see a flop). You'll see the locals tip a lot less. Also, $1 is good per drink from a waitress too. Chip counts will be tough for no limit or pot limit if u play those games. Unlike online there so no specific count on your chips. You have to pay attention on your own. I stack my chips in columns of 20 (if u have $1 chips each column is $20 or $5 chips will be $100) that way you can glance and see four stacks of $1 chips and know you have roughly $80 on the table. The Excalibur has spread limit games... $1-3 and $2-6. The $2-6 games are juicy. You get to spin the money wheel if you get your pocket aces cracked! The NL game there is also soft. I heard good things about the Sahara NL game from a dealer in Vegas. That's where he plays! Also, the Aladdin has plenty of fish. Check them out. If you see Edna, tell her that the poker blogger sent you! I love playing at the Mirage. That's the first place I played poker in Vegas. The $3-6 game is a nice place to start. The Bellagio is nice, but I hate having to wait 2 hours to get on a table. Best of luck with your blog (and the new baby!)... and thanks for reading, Pauly ***** Dear Dr. Pauly, Hello Annie, Wow, I'm read in Idaho. Pretty cool. The last time I was in Boise, I saw an awesome Phish concert back in 1999. To answer your question... The best thing about having a popular blog: meeting some very cool people. Let's put it this way... I've met some interesting people through my blogs. I can't talk about the weird sex stuff (although that's the shit everyone wants to hear about like one overly friendly female fan of my blog who insisted in having phone sex at three in the morning) but I've been able to meet some cool folks who share similar tastes in music (Phish and The Grateful Dead) and gambling (poker). And there are even folks who share both interests like Daddy. I'm not embarrassed to say that some of my newest friendships have been cultivated through my blogs. That's the central meeting point of common interests. Hanging out this summer at the last few Phish shows with friends (hard core music fans) who I met through my blog was an amazing experience. Of course, I can point you to the WPBT Holiday Classic in Vegas when I got to meet my favorite bloggers, some of which have become close friends with both my brother and myself. The power of blogs is an amazing thing. The worst part of having a popular blog: having to constantly worry about getting your content stolen. Writing about poker hands can be boring. I try to spice it up with new lingo once in a while. Some stuff I make up on the spot. Other things take me weeks to figure out. What makes me wanna punch holes in a wall is reading another blog and seeing one of my original expressions used. Sometimes, it's not intentional and I calm down. Other times, it is... and those are the days when I wish I didn't have a blog. Instantly, I lose respect for that blogger and stop reading him. I know that Iggy and CJ have had their entire content stolen... and that sucks. This is a promise... if you steal from my site and I find you... you better have health insurance. If you don't think twice about stealing from me... I won't think twice about kicking your ass. Get used to feeding yourself through a straw. I'm also 100% positive that I'm going to jail after I pummel your ass. That's a small price to pay for protecting my art. I'm friends with plenty of lawyers... so I know I'll have an "All-Ivy League" legal team defending my case. Shit, I write for free here. I have never asked to get paid to write on my blog aside from the random plug to use my bonus code: TAO4 on Party Poker. Aside from that, I have never asked any of my readers for one cent. Of course, I've had readers and other bloggers ask me for money... and you can add that to the list of "things that suck about having a popular poker blog." I didn't mean to bitch and moan. I am very fortuante to be read by so many people! But since you asked... I gave you an honest answer. Thanks for reading, Pauly *****  That's it for now. Have a good Monday. See you at the tables tonight. | Permalink | Sunday, March 20, 2005
Speedy Derek I just found out that Derek took 3rd out of 1250+ in a Speed MTT on Party Poker last night. Congrats! Expect a write up soon on how he turned $6 into almost $1300. He's hot. He took 10th last week in the HORSE event and had the chip lead in the Speed tounrey last night. | Permalink | March Madness Sunday Morning Mini Update I improved to 3-4 after yesterday's perfect day. I went 2 for 2 winning with both Texas Tech +7 and Kentucky -3.5. Today, I'm sticking with the boys from Vermont +8 and I'm going with the Huskies and UCONN -3.5. Derek's alma mater Bucknell took down Kansas on Friday. Wow. Upset City, baby! Too bad their win was overshadowed by Vermont's win over Syracuse. Anyone catch the Wake-West Virginia game? Best game this tourney so far... a double OT affair. Here's a funny IM excerpt from last night: Pauly: r u watchin this game?Best of luck today. March Madness updates will be posted at Pauly's Pub. I'm currently tied for first in my pool. Let's hope I can keep it up. | Permalink | Truckin' - March 2005, Vol. 4, Issue 3  It's time for another issue of my literary blogzine. Once again there are two authors making their Truckin' debut. Julia Vettraino and Sean Lovelace are new to the roster and I hope they contribute more stories in the future. BG is back with an excerpt from a manuscript he's been working on. And C. Anderson Guthrie follows up his debut last moth with a thrilling story from his trip to Ireland. It's been a while since I posted a subway story and I have something left over from my last trip to Las Vegas. Sit back, enjoy, and please spread the good word about this site. 1. Fur Coats and Cowboy Boots by Tenzin McGruppThanks for your support! | Permalink | Saturday, March 19, 2005
Maudie Rules Damn. I took 25th out of 149 in a $20 NL multi on Full Tilt. I was 4th in chips late... but I finished out of the money. The real story is Maudie, who kicked ass. Not only did she finish in the money... she made the final table... and as of this post she's the chip leader, with more chips than 2nd and 3rd place combined. I have a feeling she's gonna win this thing! | Permalink | March Madness: Round 1 Update Congrats to Homer's Hard Wood. They win the first round prize after going 27-5 in the first round. Wow. One helluva first round. How about Vermont with the big upset? Only Senor Jr. and Dr. Gonzo's Ether picked that upset. So far, the Vermont-Syracuse game has been the best one of the tournament. No one picked Bucknell to beat Kansas. Some of you already have two Sweet 16 teams eliminated.  Mopa Njila By the way, my new favorite player is Germain Mopa Njila (pronoucned Moe-pa Gee-la) from Vermont. By himself, he carried Vermont in regulation against 'Cuse. The Top 8:For complete standings, visit Pauly's Pub. | Permalink | Friday, March 18, 2005
Good Vibes, Hilton Sisters, Big Bets, and the Tara Reid Monkey Joke I've been thinking about some of my fellow bloggers recently. I've been doing my best to try to send out positive thoughts and vibes to a couple of folks who have been/are going through some tough personal problems. Felicia is having health issues. If you can, please send her your best wishes. I also have read that Sir F has been going through a lot of family drama. I feel for you, bro. Just hang in there. I've been trying to see if I can transfer my "giving bums a buck karma" to them. Best of luck. I hope things can only get better. Recently, everything I encounter in life seems so much more significant than this poker blog. That's a discussion for a future post. Let's talk about poker. I played $3/6 on Party Poker a lot this week. I haven't been at a NL table in days. According to my PT stats, my most profitable hand in 2005 (NL and limit) has been the Hilton Sisters. All hail the pink-clad heiresses everywhere! I was especially lucky when I flopped a set and ended up cracking pocket Hellmuths with the Ladies. An orbit later I scooped another pot with the Hiltons. In the back of my mind, I had already written the blog entry... "The Aroma of Fish: More Misadventures with Pauly, Nicky, and Paris." I think that the karma police can read my thoughts and they shared that privy information with the poker gods, who quickly put a call into Party Poker and requested a swift kick in my junk. The result: my QQ cracked by 46s. Ouch. At least it was a small loss. This week, I also hit a rush of hot hands. I picked up aces four times in one session and they all held up. I booked a quick win after an hour or so with some very good tunes keeping me comfortable: Solomon Burke, Galactic, Lou Reed, and Medeski, Martin & Wood. Late nights I've been playing on Full Tilt working off my bonus. I saw Glyph win a two-table SNG last night. At one point, he had more chips at the final table than the other seven players combined! I've been playing well on the $3/6 tables. After I built up my bankroll playing NL the last week or so, I decided to test out the waters on $3/6. The other night, I took down a monster pot with pocket Hellmuths after I cracked... the Hiltons! Last night, the rush on the $3/6 tables continued and I booked another winning session. I seem to feel the same way after I write a kick ass hort story, post a winning session, or get a killer blow job... there's always a smile on my face and a spring in my step.Yeah, in some sort of freak accident, my Full Tilt bankroll is now almost 6x more than my initial investment. I felt confident about my return to the $3/6 tables. However, I ran into a small slump playing Turbo SNGs on Poker Stars. I was cashing in 2 out of 3. My pathetic Party Poker SNG mojo spilled over onto the tables on Poker Stars. I made several bone head moves and was outdrawn on a few others. That's when I decided I should seriously cut back on SNGs. Why? Because SNGs are the crack cocaine of online poker. Quick changes/observations:
Limit is very relaxing for me. I do not feel compelled to "force the action" like I often do in NL after a string of crappy cards. Also, I feel that I'm paying much more attention to my table. I never mulit-table but I allow other distractions that indirectly set me on tilt. I stopped reading blogs and news blurbs because I felt my mind wandered away. I'd rather give one solid hour of intense poker than 3 hours of toggling back and forth between playing poker and reading my favorite blogs. Don't worry, I still find time to read everyone. In the last week or so, I visited everyone on my blogroll. Yesterday, I got phone calls from everyone's two favorite bloggers... Grubby and Al Cant Hang. What a treat. Al was drinking and Grubby was at the Sho-West convention. He caught a glimpse of Jessica Alba. He's one lucky dog. March Madness: Friday's Big Bets Vermont +9 over Syracuse Charlotte +3 over NC State Kansas -14 over Bucknell Yesterday: 0-2 OK, so as far as college hoops goes... I'm getting my ass kicked. I feel like Ben Stiller in Something About Mary when he caught both "the beans and the frank" in his zipper. Oh well, it's still early. In the first round, I put out a lot of feeler bets. Yesterday the two bets that I didn't make were winners and I would have been even if I didn't hold back. I haven't looked at my sheets yet. I'll wait until tomorrow morning to see where I stand in my pool. If you are in my March Madness Pool, you can visit Pauly's Pub for updates. A Picture Worth 1,000 Jokes  Tara Reid and a monkey walk into a bar. The bartender shouts out, "Where the fuck did you get that animal?" The monkey answered, "Hollywood!" On that note, I am outta here. Have a good weekend. Oh, I almost forgot... good luck Poker Geek! Make us proud. | Permalink | Thursday, March 17, 2005
Luck of McGrupp Like a good McCatholic I must pay homage to my McAlkie heritage and let everyone know that today is St. Patrick's Day. That's when all of America proudly celebrates Irish heritage, binge drinking, the color green, and getting totally plowed at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Of course that's what Irish people normally call... Thursday. Here's the best explanation of the "Luck of the Irish"... "The luck of the Irish" means good luck. People use it when a person of Irish descent inexplicably beats the odds. (Beating the odds isn't inexplicable, it just looks that way, but it surprises observers.) My guess about its origin: the idea that the Irish people have suffered so many misfortunes that it's a miracle whenever something comes out right for them, and it can only be explained by being blessed with an inherited form of good luck.Well, shit. I'm definitely heading to the tables on Party Poker and see if the Irish genes pay off for something other than a disposition for liver cancer. Luck is a very fickle subject. Much like love, luck has driven plenty of people crazy and driven others to success. On my way home the other night, there was a homeless guy walking around on the subway with just pants on at 3am. They looked like a pair of Old Navy cargo pants. He was barefoot and shirtless. He asked people for food, money, clothing, or shoes. It's still winter here in the big city and he looked like he was freezing. Snot was hanging off his nose and upper lip. He would get on his knees and beg in front of the passengers... one by one. I would have given him some cash, but all I had were big bills. I am such a pompous asshole. I couldn't break a hundred or fifty dollar bill and opted not to donate to his cause. I probably should have given him the rest of my poker bankroll. That would have improved all my karma ten fold. But I'm a greedy bastard. It's a fucked up world we live in somedays. It's good that I get those in-your-face reminders that we're all one turn of the card away from total depravity. And that deep down, I'll always be a selfish prick who only cares about himself. Did I learn anything about that encounter? After a brief wave of self-examination, I felt guilty but that quickly subsided becuase I chalked up the homeless guy's situation to luck. He didn't have any... and I had a ton. Most days, I feel that I'm the luckiest guy in the world. That's why I will be hitting the tables on Party Poker to pad the bankroll. I will also play in a WSoP satellite on Poker Stars... to ride the lucky streak that my Irish ancestry has passed along.  Of course, today is also the start of March Madness and the college basketball tournament. Thanks to everyone who joined my pool. It is going to be an exciting tournament. My favorite team is also one of the teams that Vegas likes... North Carolina. This time of year is a total rush. One week from today, I'll be in Las Vegas, surfing the wave of luck, insobriety, and utter madness while gambling on the games at the sports book in Mandalay Bay. For now, I'll have one eye on the TV and the will be watching my hole cards. Check and Raise's St. Patty's Day Promotion Jeff from Check and Raise sent me an email about the special St. Patrick's Day promo they are having today. If you get 2c-7c at any time in a ring game (any limit)... then you get $25! Just email support your hand number. I'll try to win with the Irish Hammer! March Madness Big Bets I only like two teams today and I'm betting heavily on them... Kentucky (-15.5 over Eastern Kentucky) and Alabama (-5.5 over UW-Milwaukee). I decided to stick with favorites this year and avoid picking too many upsets. I'll wait for the second round to to evaluate the remianing 32 teams and figure out who has the best chance of making it into the Sweet 16. Good luck at the tables today and tonight. May the road rise to meet you and I hope you spike your two outer on the river to scoop a monster pot! March Madness: The Teams We have 42 teams in this year's Pauly's Pub March Madness Pool with a record prize pool of $420. Top 4 places pay... Winner will get $200. 3 folks didn't do their picks. I got payment for 7 of you already. Good job, guys. If you haven't submitted your payments... do so now. Here are the teams: MyGirlFriend MadeMeDoIt (Spider) = DukeBest of luck everyone! | Permalink | Wednesday, March 16, 2005
Two Tuesday TowneHouse Tournaments Toni hosted a a couple of $40 NL Tuesday night tournaments at the TowneHouse, followed up by a late night cash game. I broke even for the session. I failed to cash in either of the two tourneys. That's never happened before. I'm used to making the money at the TowneHouse tourneys. I probably should have cashed in one but I got caught with my pants down trying to steal blinds when it got close to the bubble... both times. At least I made my buy-ins back during the late night cash game. Tourney #1At TowneHouse we play with the Toni's infamous pink chips. Cliff couldn't make the first tournament. He was stuck at the office preparing for a trial. They nicknamed him "The Hammer" because he keeps everyone in line. He's the time keeper and pretty must runs the nuts and bolts of the tourney, collects the cash, and distributes prize money. When he's absent, Andy assumes the role of The Hammer.  Toni's pink poker chips Music included John Cougar Mellancamp's greatest hits along with featured selections from random 1980s metal-hair bands. Al Cant Hang would have felt at home. Toni always has plenty of wine and I always bring a six pack of Red Stripe... the Official Beer of the Tao of Poker. I'm the only non-lawyer in the bunch but that's how it used to be when I first played at The Blue Parrot. Level 1: I won my first pot with AJ. In the big blind and heads up with Toni's little blind, I had 35o. In my mind I made a mental image of the perfect flop. Wow. I should do that more often because flopped a Wheel straight. I checked, Toni bet, and I smooth called. When a 6 fell on the turn, she made her two pair with A6. She called all my bets to the river and I won about half her stack on with the Big Blind Special. Level 2: Sung raised preflop and went heads up with Andy. The flop: 10-x-x with two clubs. Sung check-raised Andy about double the pot. He thought about if for the longest time and reluctantly called with K-10. Sung showed 99. I liked that raise there and Andy almost folded. Andy was the chipleader after that hand and I not far behind in second after I picked up a few uncontested pots. Damon won with 66 after he flopped a set. He won the pot on the flop after everyone folded. I was the dealer at the time. I rarely "rabbit hunt" and I dunno why, but I automatically burned and showed everyone the future turn card, the 6 of spades. Damon would have hit quads! Level 3: Ross doubled up Toni when she caught her flush after moving all-in on the flop. She had a little more breathing room but that made Ross the shortstack. He had to get all his chips in with AKo a few hands later. Andy and his big stack called with A8o. He caught a backdoor flush to win after Ross flopped a king. Ouch. I only thought that happened on Party Poker when I have Big Slick! Level 4: I had almost T1900 and doubled up Damon's shorstack. My AJ lost to KQ. And I was back to T1000... just where I started. With A6, Sung hit a nice flop: A-5-A. Level 5: The biggest hand of the night had to be when Damon knocked out Toni and Brian in the same hand. Brian had the best hand going in with 88. He was the shortstack and moved all in preflop. Toni felt like gambling with her short stack and called with K8s. Damon and AKo went over the top with a raise. Toni called for the rest of her chips. I forget the actually flop, but I'm sure an ace hit the board at some point. Damon won a huge pot and took over the chip lead. I was the short stack with T1100. Four players remained and only the top 2 places paid since we were 7 handed. Level 6: UTG I tried to steal the blinds with K4s. I picked the wrong time. Sung had AK and when he emphatically called, I knew I was done. Out in 4th. Andy followed out in the bubble when Sung's A7s took down his pocket 3s. Damon and Sung played heads up for two levels. I stepped outside on the patio. Is that a correct usage of "patio"? Can you have a patio on the 13th floor? Anyway, I stepped outside for a smoke break and missed the final hand. Damon had a busted royal flush draw and lost to Sung who paired the board. Damon took second and $100. Sung won bragging rights and $180. Both guys played great poker. In between games everyone gets a little more drunk. The second tournaments are a lot looser that the first one. People are joking around a little bit more and all the lawyer jargon disappears. Everyone that plays at TowneHouse works their asses off during the week. These games are a time for them to unwind, relax, and just have a little fun. Cliff and Jim arrived for the second game and we had nine players. Cliff blew off the rest of his trial prep to make the second tourney. Top 3 places paid out. $40 entry. The blinds were shortened to 10 minutes instead of 15 so we could get a cash game started at a reasonable hour. Tourney #2:In the first orbit, someone's Hilton Sisters lost to KTs. I wish I remembered what happened. My note taking at that stage was piss poor. I was tired and drunk. I really need an intern from NYU to follow me around and take solid notes for me during my live cash games. That and to fetch me cold Red Stripes, meatball heros, and drinks for the other players. So if you are an NYC college student looking for a poker internship, send me your resume and an essay entitled, "Why am I Tao of Poker intern material?" Bonus points if you include charts and schematics. I love a good pie graph. In the second level, I bluffed at a fairly large pot. Six limpers including me saw the flop. Everyone checked. The turn was another big blank. Everyone checked to me and I to bet 1.5 times the pot and won. I rarely show bluffs, but I was feeling sloppy. I flipped over my A9o. I blame it on the Red Stripe.  Cliff lost a lot of his stack to Jim when they both flopped two pair. Jim moved all-in. The board was: A-8-6. Cliff had A6 and Jim held A8. It's tough not to go broke on a board like that. Toni was the shortstack and she doubled up with The Hilton Sisters against Sung's AJs. Damon was the first one to get eliminated, followed by Sung and then Ross. I was knocked out in 6th place when I tried to steal a pot from Toni. We were heads up in the blinds again. The board A-9-10. I had J9s and moved all-in after she checked. Well, she quickly called with KTo. Ouch. Out in 6th with another aggressive move. At that point Brian was the chipleader. He won a huge pot off of Toni and doubled up. Cliff finished in 5th and Jim bubbled out. He had 99 and ran into Toni's 10-9s. She hit her flop. Andy took third place and won his entry fee back. Toni and Brian had about the same amount of chips and they chopped first and second. Late Night Cash Game12:26am EST... The late night crowd was hammered by this point. Everyone was drunk and joking around. Ross called Pineapple. I only saw one flop during the orbit. My cards sucked. 12:29am EST... With 8-8-Q-9 double-suited I flopped a set. I also hit a full boat by the river. Unfortunately, I chopped the pot with Andy. He had a flush and thought it was good. He never thought about the low and backed into half the pot because he had 6-7! 12:35am EST... +10. Toni called 3-5-7 which is a game really called "Take Pauly's Money." We played it the last time I was there. Seven card draw game. Three cards to start and 3s are wild. Best three card hand wins. Then you draw two more cards with 5s being wild. Best 5 card hand wins. Then you draw two final cards with 7s wild. As you can see, the wild cards always shift. A full house is not guaranteed to win at the end either. Cliff had five jacks at one point. 1:09am EST... I was up +40 after a won a few hands in hold'em. 1:32am EST... Cliff called Evil Homer. Stud game with the lowest spade in the hole winning half the pot. The Jack of Spades is Evil Homer. If you have that as one of you down cars, you can pick one card and strike out all four. If you had trip Kings and knew someone had trip Aces, you naturally kill all the aces. If you had the 3 of spades in the hole, you'd kill all the 2s. It's a weird game and you have to do the Evil Homer Dance before you kill any cards. It's a funnier game to play at 2am when you are shithoused. 1:51am EST... Toni drops The Hammer! 1:59am EST... +78 after winning the high in 7-27. Overall, I ended up down $5. I always have a lot of fun at The TowneHouse especially last night. The late night games are my favorite. Anway, Toni invited me to another game tonight. I'd like to go, but I declined. I have an article due that I have to finish up by Midnight. I also have to do all my picks for the NCAA March Madness pool! | Permalink | Last Chance: Pauly's Pub March Madness Pool  Cost: $10 per entryDEADLINE: By Thursday morning... March 17th. Tip off for the first game is Noon on this Thursday. So sign up today. Sign Up: If you do not have an ESPN Fantasy account, sign up for one here. If you have an account, all you have to do is log in and create a team name. Make sure you email me to get specific information on my group name and password. Payment Details: $10 is due ASAP. Not two weeks from now... today. If you don't pay by the time I get back from Vegas, you will be disqualified. You have two options... 1. Send me cash via snail mail (e-mail me for my mailing address) or 2. You can transfer $10 to my Poker Stars account. My screen name is: DrPauly. Please email me to confirm how you will be paying. Send your payments as soon as you sign up, that way you won't forget. Prizes: The overall winner will get at least 40% of the total prize pool. Last place gets made fun of on my blog and will get something from Las Vegas for your futile efforts. The Best Team name is my favorite category! A pool of non-participants will select the top 5 or 6 names and then you can vote for the best name on my websites. Winner gets something cool. Stay tuned for more info on that. If you have any question, feel free to ask. | Permalink | Tuesday, March 15, 2005
Bobby Flay, Lingering Winter Days, and My New Bookie... Jimmy Ray "Boredom is just the reverse side of fascination: both depend on being outside rather than inside a situation, and one leads to the other." - Schopenhauer12 March 2005... A cold, bitter, windy Saturday morning greeted me like a angry kangaroo before I could even stumble out of bed. It's supposed to be March and yet, it felt like January. I had one of those rollercoaster sessions on four different websites (with servers and support staff spread out over a half a dozen countries). By the time you woke up on Saturday, I was already in the hole playing $3/6 on Party Poker. I made two sketchy plays early and lost to a few clowns who got lucky. Suckouts of note: I flopped set with TT and lost to J8s and a river flush and my pocket Hellmuth were cracked by QJo. I definitely felt I was the best player at the table. Instead of walking away and cutting my losses, I held my ground. I fought my way back and finished a few bucks above even! That was a wild run and it was still not even 11am. Saturday afternoon was ugly, like boil-on-your-ass ugly. I played on Check and Raise and was outdrawn by a few lucky Canucks. Brutal was a poor description of what happened. Imagine getting kicked in the nuts six times within an hour by a fresh-out-of-rehab Courtney Love. That's what it almost felt like, except you lose all of your money too. By early evening, I had an awesome run on Full Tilt. I ended up at the same table as a guy who regularly reads my poker blog. Matt S. even participated in my football pool and took 3rd this year. He ended up taking 3rd in the WBT Horse event. It's always weird when I'm recognized for being "that poker blogger." But shit, it still feels pretty cool for sure. I doubled up my buy-in and my overall loss for the day was cut in half. Derek signed for a WSoP event on Poker Stars. The top 200 players won seats into the Qualifier. If you win the Qualifier, then you get a $10,000 seat into this year's World Series of Poker. Well, he outlasted over 1500 players in the first round and won a seat to the Qualifier. There were over 500 players in that event with almost a $50,000 prize pool! The top four places would win seats to the WSoP. Derek ended up coming in 220th place in the biggest tournament he's ever played in. He almost turned $66 into $11,000. You can read his story about his run here. When I get back from Vegas, I'm going to try a few of those. While I watched, I played and ended up down $2. Helix saw me get knocked out on the first hand of a Turbo SNG on Poker Stars. My Hilton Sisters lost to AKs. Ouch. Prior to that, my Hiltons held up 12 straight times. According to Poker Tracker... the hotel heiresses are my most profitable hand since the Super Bowl ended. I think it all has to do with the alignment of the planets. I play my pocket pairs much more aggressively and for profit when Venus is in retrograde. Four poker sites in one day. Not too shabby. Maybe I am a degenerate gambler or just a bonus whore?  Will the real BG stand up? I decided that after being routinely called "America's favorite amateur pharmacist" by BG that I needed to come up with something witty. I caught Bobby Flay and his crew on The Iron Chef and that's when it hit me harder that a Roy Jones jab... "BG is the Bobby Flay of poker bloggers." 14 March 2005... Someone sent me this video and I thought about Iggy. Last week I began my quotidian of playing $3/$6 on Party Poker in the late morning and during lunchtime. I'd take the profits and play a few SNGs. Well, my losing streak in SNGs continues but I'm posting several winning sessions playing limit again. About a year ago, I was on the $3/6 tables grinding away. That's when I made the decision to play more No Limit and work on that aspect of my game. Last summer I drastically improved my NL game. I had a nice streak at the $25 and $50 NL tables on Party Poker. But then this fall, those tables were no longer profitable. Actaully the correct term is that... I was no longer profitable. Those tables are and always will be full of fish, dead money, and virtual ATMs. Yet in some weird head-trip out of a Kafka short story, I found myself giving my money away in large chunks while losing small pieces of my soul. My incongruous play became sloppy. And my over-aggression cost me several buy-ins. The switch back to the $3/6 tables is an attempt to rebuild my bankroll that I lost playing SNGs and making retarded moves at the NL tables. I also want to prove to myself that I can consistently win at that level before I jump up to $5/10. I'm comfortable playing $5/10 at Foxwoods and $6/12 at The Mirage, but I'm not as confident playing anything above $3/6 online. Plus my bankroll could not sustain a losing streak at a higher level. I'm actually going to do the wise thing and wait until I have a healthier bankroll instead of jumping into a shoot out at the OK Corral with only six bullets. At nights, I can be found working off my bonuses playing NL on Poker Stars and Full Tilt. At this rate, I'll clear my Full Tilt bonus by Thanksgiving.... 2006. I played with Sir Waffle and Aequitas on the NL tables. I took all of Sir Waffle's stack when his Hilton Sisters ran into my Hellmuths. I raised reflop and he cold called. He checked on a ragged flop and I bet the pot. He checked again on the turn and I put him all-in. Ouch. He obviously put me on JJ or AK or possibly 2-7o. I also dropped with The Hammer twice at the table. I sweated Bad Blood and Bill at the $3/6 tables along with watching MrsCantHang and Maudie. We had Glyph, Derek, and High Plains Drifter on the rail. Recent Poker Playing Music... 1. Medeski, Martin & Wood 2. The Band 3. Solomon Burke 4. The Radiators 5. Billie Holiday | Permalink | Monday, March 14, 2005
Full Tiltdom on Full Tilt "Gambling is what made this country great, kids!" - Clark W. Griswald, Vegas VacationIt was another wild Sunday night with bloggers on Full Tilt. I expected 50 players max. for a H.O.R.S.E. tourney with plenty of hijinks. When I saw almost 90, I knew my chances were slim to none that I'd make the money. Oh well, just have fun, right? I spent some time yesterday and today showing Derek how to play Razz and starting hand requirements for Seven-card Stud. I funded his account at the last moment. His laptop was in the shop getting fixed too all week. He just got it back in time to download Full Tilt, get a quick tutorial, and play some H.O.R.S.E.. As expected, I never lasted past Level 9. I busted out on a over-aggressive move in a Seven-card Stud level. At least it was a good run and I outlasted BG, the Bobby Flay of poker bloggers, to win my entry fee back. For our weekly prop bet we threw down $5 on a "last longer" bet. I was victorious and picked up $10 today after The Pope left the hospital in good shape for guy who's been on his deathbed more than Corey Feldman's career. Two weeks ago we gambled on what day the Pope was going to die and BG picked March 10-12. I know, I know... we're batch of bad Catholics. And maybe that's why I failed to make the money in a sanctioned blogger event in like over a year! I bubbled out in Vegas at the Holiday Classic. Maybe I need to improve upon my poker karma and do some more praying to Ganesha to get my poker game and a better balance with nature. Or start praying to St. Patrick for some old fashioned Irish luck to come my way in a few days.  Ganesha By the way, if I had four arms, I'd be playing with myself all day. So, I've been playing on Full Tilt for about a week getting accustomed to all the little things about the site that make it cool, different, weird, freaky, sometimes annoying, and overall down right kick ass. I've tripled my buy-in on the passive NL tables after putting a tiny amount of money into my account. I sent Derek a few bucks and blew most of my profits on multi-table tournaments like Razz, Omaha, and NL of course. I felt confident in my abilities to play every game. My only problem would be patience. The changing format every ten minutes helped keep me in check. I focused better than any other blogger event. Perhaps it was the Grateful Dead bootleg (5.9.77 Buffalo, NY) or the fact I knew I had to concentrate on everyone's cards in Stud, Razz, and Stud 8. The Cast of Characters93 players in all for a $465 prize pool. Winner got $139. Top 16 places paid. Level 1... Hold'em: My best game by far and I lost some chips early on 88. T1365 when the level ends and I'm 68 out of 93. Level 2... Omaha Hi/Lo: I chop a pot with AcKs5c4s. Man, I love doubled suited A-K in Omaha with Wheel cards. T1470 and 49 out of 93. Level 3... Razz: Playing tournament Razz reminds me of when I used to be a freshman in high school and I forgot to do my Latin homework and there's that sick feeling in my stomach that I get just before the priest is going to call on me and expose me to the world under God's eyes that I'm a dumb ass who didn't bother to do the assigned work. Those damned Jesuits! Fear and guilt will drive you insane. Just look at Michael Jackson. Moving on... I lost some chips and was looking terrible with T725. 85th out of 93 and my back against the wall. Level 4... Stud: Going from Razz to Stud is like watching a Hee Haw episode then comparing it to a David Mamet play. I dipped to below T600 and I knew I needed to catch some high cards and try to bluff at a few pots. With K-A/K, I went heads up with Matt and completed the bet. I caught another A and bet out on fourth street. Matt folded to the best hand I had up until that point. T870 and I ended the level 83 out of 91 with BG lurking wondering when I'd bust out. Level 5... Stud Hi/Lo: Playing Stud Hi/Lo is similar to when your girlfriend gets a little drunk on the cheap jug of wine you picked up at the 7/11 and she seductively says, "Let's experiment a little bit in the bedroom tonight, Honeybear!" Sure you have a good time and never knew you were capable of doing weird, lubricious things, but at some point you lose your bankroll and your dignity when the polaroids hit the internet. Down to T700, I chopped a pot with aces up on 10-10/A. The next hand, I picked up more chips with Ad-Kx/Jd-Kd. A few hand later Iggy was shortstacked. I had As-10s/Ax and Iggy moved all in. I won with aces and tens again and knocked out Iggy. I continued my rush with two more hands with aces showing and had T1588. I was 42 out of 82. I doubled up inside of ten minutes and felt dirty the entire time doing it as we completed the first cycle of HORSE. Level 6... Hold'em: Finally! Being back to Hold'em again in a HORSE tourney is like coming home after an insane bad acid trip. You feel so warm and fuzzy inside you could explode. I lost my blinds and played KQs and missed my flop. T1273 by the break. T53 out of 71 but the real news was Derek. He was 9th overall at the break. StB from Beer City Poker joined my table. Level 7... Omaha Hi/Lo: I made a second rush during Omaha. AQ42 double suited hooked me up with a pot. Same with AK73 double suited. I won a big pot with Qd-10d-9h-8h. I had a straight and flush draw on the turn and called a big bet and hit my draw. With T2340, I moved up to 27th out of 58. Level 8... Razz: I lost a big pot to Matt S. Oh well. He was the chip leader and playing a little loose so I took a shot and it was close. Inside of one orbit I had to bring it in 5 times... with a K three times! Unreal. 44 out of 53 with T953. Level 9... Stud: I won a hand early and had T1300. Then I blew it with Qs-10s/Ks. I knew that by fifth street I'd be all in so made the decision to push it all the way. I was heads up against an ace and figured even if he had a pair, I'd catch my draw. I missed even with a Js coming my way! Out in 46th place. Missed the money. I sweated Derek and he went on a run. By the second break he was 19 out of 23. He got as high up as third in chips and looked like he'd be a lock for the final table. He had one bad suckout and ended up in 10th missing the final table by one spot. At least he made the prize money for the first time in a blogger event.  The Money Winners Congrats to Derek and Maudie for making the money. Here's what Royal had to say about Derek's run: Derek played absolutely great! He was fearlessly aggressive and while sitting to his left I only played the goods against him. I was / am very impressed.Congrats to the rest of the folks who made the money especially Royal! Good job buddy. Thanks to Iggy for setting this up. See you on Poker Stars at the end of the month for the next event. Wish I could write more, but I'm tired and after to work on something before I crash. | Permalink | Sunday, March 13, 2005
March Madness Pool and the H.O.R.S.E. Tonight at 9pm EST (or 6pm Geek and HDouble time) on Full Tilt... is the next stop on the WPBT. $5 to play H.O.R.S.E. I funded Derek's account last night (and gave him a crash course in Razz and Stud hi/lo) so he will be playing. Can't wait! By the way, Derek posted everyday for the last three days. Check it out. The Ides of March This is my favorite time of year. It's time for the 5th Annual Pauly's Pub March Madness Pool. You pick the winners in the upcoming College Basketball Tournament and you can walk away with cash and bragging rights! Just ask Joe Moore, everyone's favorite bond trader. He's been boasting about his 2004 win everyday in the past year. Cost: $10 per entryYou must email me to get the Group Name and Password. There will be a max of 50, so this is first come first served. DEADLINE: By Thursday morning... March 17th. Tip off for the first game is Noon on this Thursday. So sign up today. Sign Up: If you do not have an ESPN Fantasy account, sign up for one here. If you have an account, all you have to do is log in and create a team name. Make sure you email me to get specific information on my group name and password. Payment Details: $10 is due ASAP. Not two weeks from now... today. If you don't pay by the time I get back from Vegas, you will be disqualified. You have two options... 1. Send me cash via snail mail. (Email me for my mailing address) or 2. You can transfer $10 to my Poker Stars account. My screen name is: DrPauly. Please email me to confirm how you will be paying. Send your payments as soon as you sign up, that way you won't forget. Prizes: The overall winner will get at least 40% of the total prize pool. After I see how people enter, I can tell you the exact payout structure. If you are leading after the first round, you will win a bonus prize (non-cash but still cool). Last place gets made fun of on my blog and will get something from Las Vegas for your futile efforts. The Best Team name is my favorite category! A pool of non-participants will select the top 5 or 6 names and then you can vote for the best name on my websites. Winner gets something cool. Stay tuned for more info on that. Payouts: I will mail you cash/check within 7-10 days of the championship game. Or if you prefer, I can transfer your winnings to your Poker Stars or Party Poker account to you serious degenerate gamblers out there. That can be done within 3-5 days of the final game. Last year's winners: Previous winners:Every second counts. Every free throw is crucial. Who is going to be the Cinderella team this year? Which big time coach is going to win his first Championship? Which 18 year-old freshman will choke? Which senior will bust his ass, impress the scouts, and have his NBA stock rise? Will the hoops pundits win this pool, or will someone's secretary pick Bucknell to go all the way... and win? Stay tuned to find out. The games are on CBS starting this Thursday. The Championship Game is on Monday April 4th. Check Local listings. Best of luck. If you have any question, feel free to ask. | Permalink | Friday, March 11, 2005
Wiggle Wiggle "On the mountains of truth you can never climb in vain: either you will reach a point higher up today, or you will be training your powers so that you will be able to climb higher tomorrow." - NietzscheI have a new routine. I am no longer waking and baking and drinking in old man bars around the city before noon like a vagrant and derelict. My hoodlum days are over. I awake and write for a while. Then I attempt to make a dent in reading emails in my jammed-packed inboxes and catch up on news updates. If I have time, I'll blog something on my main blog. Late mornings is when I fire up Party Poker. I had been hanging out at the $3/6 tables recently with some success. I've been taking my daily winnings and blowing it playing SNGs around lunchtime. After pissing my money away, I either write or do research for future freelance articles. Late night (around Midnight) I come home and fire up Full Tilt to work off my bonus and play in multi table tournaments. March 9 @ 1:21am EST... Played the NL tables on Full Tilt and listened to a Bob Marley bootleg from San Francisco. I doubled up with KK against AJo. The flop: A-K-J. You see how it got ugly for the other guy. I liked his screen name... NeilDiamonds. An hour later, I doubled up with AA against JJ. Not a bad session for my first plunge onto their NL tables. The best feature for me about Full Tilt is being able to choose where on the screen my seat is. The hand histories are not bad either. Like Party Poker, they display your opponents' mucked hands on the river. March 9 @ 11:28am EST... With A5s, I flopped the Wheel and a straight flush draw from the BB playing on a $3/6 Party Poker table. No straight flush and I win my biggest pot of the session. I played fairly tight and only saw a few flops. I took down another big pot with AQs. I flopped an ace with the nut flush draw. I encourage more players to call A3o all the way down to the river when they sit at my table. March 9 @ 2:14pm EST... I came in 5th in back-to-back $20 SNGs. I decided to bump down a level after my horrendous run at the $50 and $30 SNGs. I'm sure all the juice I pissed away in SNG fees could pay Party Poker's entire outsourced support staff for a full week. I lost in typical fashion... my pocket 33s ran into AA. Sucks when you flop a set and and overpair hits their set too. I guess I'd rather lose like that then getting rivered on a two outer. Then I ran into AA with pocket Hellmuths. At least I had some soothing selections from the Allman Brothers Band epic live show... Live at the Fillmore East... to keep me sane. March 9 @ 10:58pm EST... Witnessed poker history when Doyle Brunson won over $1 million at the latest WPT event in LA. Man, it's 2005 and Doyle Brunson is still winning big poker tournaments. He's been winning in big events for over fifty years. Amazing. His win at the Legends of Poker is extraordinary. That feat is similar to if Jack Nicklaus took Tiger Woodson the back nine at Augusta and schooled him. It would be like Willie Mays outslugged Barry Bonds in a home run hitting contest. You catch my drift. I would have loved to seen Doyle's games back in 1978 when he was at the top of his game. To catch a glimpse into his world must have been what it was like to watch Joe DiMaggio during his infamous 56 game hitting streak in the summer of 1941. Or being able to sit in clubs on Swing Street in New York City in 1951 and listening to Charlie "Bird" Parker perform two sets of intense music every night.  Texas Dolly March 9 @ 11:59pm EST... Played in a $20 NL MTT on Full Tilt with Glyph. 170 players... my favorite sized field. Top 18 places paid with over $900 going to the winner. In the first Level I found KK an TT and picked up two small pots. That was it for a while. I saw flops with AQ, AK, 99... and missed everything for the next two levels. I was 80th out of 113. I ended up getting knocked out with AK. I definitely overplayed my hand and pressed when I should have simply seen a flop since I was against 88 and he raised the minimum from MP. I lost the coin flip and was booted in 87th place. Glyph held on for a little while longer and finished in the upper 70s. March 10 @ 10:14am EST... Bad beat'd in a $20 SNG on Party Poker. My KQs lost to QJo. We both flopped a Queen and after I put the big stack all-in on the turn he caught a Jack on the river. March 10 @ 11:00pm EST... Played in a $5 MTT Omaha hi/lo event with AlCantHang and Erik Seidel on Full Tilt. 78 players! At one point Seidel was seated next to Al. He was cool and answered as many questions as he could. Seidel answered questions too. I played tight and didn't get too many hands. When I was shortstacked, I pressed and saw a few more flops. I got a lot of suited paint... which I like in Omaha... but nothing hit for me. March 10 @ 11:44pm EST...I folded a huge hand that would have prevented me from getting chipped out of the tournament. AsQcJsTc. I called a raise preflop in LP. The flop: Q-9-3. There was a bet and raise in front of me. I folded. I put someone on a set or an overpair. Shot, TPTK is a crappy hand in Omaha. Of course after I fold, running aces fall on the turn and river, which would have filled me up pretty good. I was disgusted at my remaining 935 in chips. I should have seen the turn. I made it to the break 39th out of 42. I ended up in 41 out of 77. Al Cant Hang took 24th and missed the money. When I logged off, Seidel was 3rd in chips with 8 players left.  March 11 @ 1:10am EST... Played a NL ring game on Full Tilt with Glyph and worked off some more of my bonus. Got tired and logged off to read a little Dan Harrington. March 11 @ 11:03am EST... Back to the $3/6 tables on Party Poker. With John Coltrane keeping me companying, I won on a nice pot with JJ against pocket tens. Moved onto an SNG and I finally broke my losing streak. I took 3rd place and cashed in my first $20 SNG in my last 5 tries and ended an ugly streak. The slide was taking a toll on my bankroll and ego. This past week, my confidence in ring games was very high as compared to the bewildered outlook I had at the SNG tables. Man, not being able to cash consistently in SNGs on Party Poker is similar to not being able to get laid in a whorehouse. Something was off with my SNG Mojo. Let's hope I can get back to my normal winning rate on SNGs and move back up in the ranks. March 11 @ 11:56pm EST... AlCantHang confirms that he booked a suite at The Plaza in Las Vegas for our trip in June. Yes, it's true. Derek, The Hangs, and myself are sharing a two bedroom suite! Man, I can only imagaine what the hell will be going on between the hours of 2 and 6am at "The Suite." Recent Poker Playing Music... 1. Wilco 2. Solomon Burke 3. Phish 4. Paul Simon 5. Bruce Springsteen I also added a few more links to my blogroll. Take a peek. That's it for now. Have a good weekend everyone. See you at the tables on Full Tilt and Party Poker. Don't forget that Poker Stars has a rare reload bonus of 20% up to $120. Take advantage now... with a slew of WSoP satellites upcoming... time to reload! | Permalink | Thursday, March 10, 2005
Support Your Local Bloggers Watch CSI tonight at 9pm EST on CBS. Check your local listings for exact times. Tonight's episode features Wil Wheaton. Buy Poker Tracker Guide. Visit the EPT blog. Signup for the next WPBT event (3.13 @ 9pm EST) at Full Tilt. Read the February issue of Truckin' if you haven't done so already. Download Party Poker today. Don't forget that use Bonus Code: TAO4. I have kids to feed.  "But Officer, it's medicinal!" | Permalink | Wednesday, March 09, 2005
Razz with Felicia, Party Poker Bonuses, and Slappy the Wonder Chimp "Blame it on a simple twist of fate." - Bob DylanMarch 3rd @ 11:11pm EST... I found myself at a blogger table on Party Poker, working off my bonus. Helix, F Train, Daddy, Joanne, Donkey Puncher, The Poker Penguin, Rod, Drizz, Lacerated Cards, and The Poker Nerd all sat at my table during the session late night session. They saw me crack AA with Pocket Hellmuths. March 4 @ 2:03am EST... Played a $25 turbo SNG on Poker Stars. With 87s in the big blind, I flopped an open ended straight flush draw with a 6s9sQs board. Three people had moved all in on the turn when an ace hit. I shrugged my shoulders and called against QQ, 66, and AsAx. Who said online poker is rigged? I didn't get my straight flush, but I took down a monster pot with an 8 high flush. I'm lucky a fourth spade didn't spike on the turn. Man, I've never cracked aces and the Hilton Sisters in the same hand! By the way, I bubbled out in 4th when I tried to steal the blinds with JJ UTG and ran into those nasty Hiltons. March 5 @ 1:30am EST... I funded my Full Tilt account and was the first player to sign up for the WPBT H.O.R.S.E event. I played in a free roll to get a feel for the software. I picked a cool avatar and was ready to play on a new site. The first hand of the tourney went like this. UTG limped in. I raised at the cutoff with AKo. The blinds were 15/30 and I made it 125. UTG called. The Flop: A-J-2 with two spades. He checked and I bet 2x the pot. He called. A king fell on the turn. He checked and I pushed all-in. He called. The river was a J. He turned over AJo. Ouch. I've never been knocked out on the first hand of a multi before! I imagined the boys in Vegas laughing there asses off watching that hand. "Welcome to Full Tilt, Dr. Pauly. Let's start off right with a swift kick to your testicular region." March 5 @ 12:22pm EST... Back to clearing my bonus on Party Poker. Played $25 NL ring game with UWannaBet. I witnessed one of the strangest hands ever on Party Poker. UTG limped, I raised in MP with pocket 10s. The LB pushed all in. UTG called. Both guys had me covered. Shit, I had to put one of them on a higher pocket pair and folded. It was AA vs AK. The flop: 2-2-2. The turn: 8. The river: 2. Chop chop! The guy with aces was wicked pissed. Boy, I was glad I folded 10-10. In the background, listened to a cool CD that BG was kind of enough to send me Wes Montgomery with the Wynton Kelly Trio's session Smokin at the Half Note. That's some happenin shit there, man. March 5 @ 12:31pm EST... Chad and -EV joined my table. We had a rare afternoon blogger table. I had a flavorful mix of jazz (John Coltrane with Thelonious Monk) and reggae (Toots & the Maytals featuring Trey Anastasio) going all afternoon. A few hours later Archetype and Rod joined the mix. March 6 @ 10:14am EST... Drop the Hammer sat down at my NL table on Party Poker during the last few hands I played to clear my bonus. I won a big hand with ATs and cleared my bonus up a few bucks. Last month, I emptied my Empire account and only left my bonus and whatever money I won trying to clear it in my account. I blew it all and ended up with nothing. I decided to cash out my bonus right away on Party Poker and put that towards my sportsbook bankroll for March Madness. March 6 @ 11:21pm EST... $50 NL table on Party Poker with -EV, Sir Waffle and Chris Halverson. They watched me lose my entire stack. I limped in UTG with 55. The flop: 5-8-Q. I check-called the flop. When another Q hit the turn, I check-raised all-in. The guy with 88 was happy to call. Ouch. I never saw that coming. Instead of reloading quickly, I walked away. March 7 @ 11:56am EST... I added a few bucks in my Empire account so I can play multi table tournaments. I bought into a $10 + 1 NL. I cashed in 11th and missed the final table by one. I folded hand after hand for hours and picked off a few bluffs to build up a decent sized stack. I always doubled up just at the right times. I went heads up with the big stack at my table. My AK lost to KJ. His dues ex machina delivered a Jack on the river. I felt like Darth Vader at the end of Star Wars: Episode IV when he had Luke Skywalker in his sights and Han Solo came out of nowhere and sent his ass spinning off into deep space. Vader knew he had Skywalker just where he wanted him. Especially after the overconfident kid turned off his fighter's computer navigated weapons systems and trusted some hippie bullshit that he learned for the Ben Kenobi while smoking some high quality Tatooie Hashish in the bathroom of the wild Cantina, you know the place I'm talking about. That's where Greedo foolishly shot at Han Solo first and missed from point blank range. Sorry for the Star Wars tangent... that one was for The Poker Geek.  March 7 @ 11:01pm EST... Fired up Full Tilt and signed up for their $5 Razz tourney. 78 players. Felicia played too and we were seated at the same table. I won the first hand with 4-2/3-6-7. I lost a big hand with 3-5/A-8-2 to a guy with 7 high. March 7 @ 11:43pm EST... I moved to a new table with Chad sweating me while I tried to explain to him a 3 second introduction to Razz. Shortstacked, I doubled up when I moved all in with 9-A/3 trying to steal the blinds and antes. I survived to the break... 34th out of 50. Felicia had gotten knocked out just before the break. I saw her play exactly one hand at my table and she won it. March 8 @ 12:13am EST... Chad crashed and Joanne sweated me for the last bit. I won a quick hand with 4-5/A. Then I doubled up with A-2/5-10-3-8/6 against 10-7/A-2-4-9/A. Big hand. I wish I could tell you if I played that right or wrong. I just chalk it up to pure luck. Right? With over T4100 I moved up into 10th place. Top 16 paid and I was close to cashing in my first MTT on Full Tilt. March 8 @ 12:55am EST... Listened to a Widespread Panic bootleg from Boulder, Colorado while my stack dwindled after I folded hand after hand. I can't tell you how many times I got A-K/A or K-K/A or that combination. At least four times? I've never get those hands when I play Seven-card Stud! I came in 27th place and missed the money by 9 spots. Damn. That sucked. At least I have a feel for Full Tilt's multi structure and a little refresher course with Razz. I haven't played Razz in months. F Train and Coach like to call it when we play at the Blue Parrot. March 8 @ 1:31pm EST... Swimming in the lukewarm waters on Party Poker. Do you wanna know why the waters are warm on Party Poker? Because sometimes, the fish pee in the ocean too. I played in a multi... a $10 + 1 Million Dollar Qualifier. I'm back to playing at least one or two of those a week. I like my chances in MTT with 125-175 people. For some reason I play my best poker in those sized tournaments on Party Poker. With 170 entrants, I felt confident I could win one of the two seats they were giving away to the $600 + 40 tournament. March 8 @ 2:39pm EST... Joanne sweated me for most of the way. Just before my table broke up, I doubled up with AK vs A7s. At my new table, I had KK on the button and pushed all in when four people limped in front of me. One called with pocket 10s and I doubled up. I got zero action with the Hilton Sisters. I couldn't even "cop a feel." I found AA twice and no action either. With T4450 I was 10th out of 64 players by the first break and on schedule to make the final table. I decided that a monkey could play my hands. Fold. Fold. Fold. Wait for KK or AA and push. If could score one of those chimps, I'd be set for life. Perhaps I could persuade some hippie girls to break into Yerkes Primate Lab and free a few chimps... so I can teach them how to play online poker. Fuck the bots. To hell with the fish. Beware of the Party Chimps! Plus chimps are cute and cuddly. And you how how chicks like warm fuzzy things? What could be a better wing man (besides Al Cant Hang, of course) than a poker playing Chimp wearing a diaper and eloquently knocking back shots of whiskey like Tara Ried at a Sunday brunch? How could I not get laid after walking into a bar in Meat Packing District wearing my hip Party Poker golf shirt with Slappy the Wonder Chimp at my side cajoling all the ladies in the joint? March 8 @ 3:41pm EST... Back to the multi. I played flawless poker for two hours then blew it. With my stack slowly evaporating, I attempted to steal at the cut off with 33 and raised the blinds. The BB called with AJ and you know how this ends. 29th place out of 170. I felt like one of those poor slobs you hear about in a sullen country-western songs. I was super pissed at myself. The fuckin' monkey would have folded. | Permalink | Tuesday, March 08, 2005
Next Stop on the WPBT: Full Tilt Iggy organized the next WPBT online tournament. It will be held this Sunday at 9pm EST on Full Tilt. The format is a $5 H.O.R.S.E. tourney or something that I call "give your money to Felicia." The password is... thehammer. I think it's open to readers. Here are the blind structures and games with 10 minute levels: Level 1: Hold'em 30/60Check Full Tilt for more details. I do not expect to last more than Level 10 so I'm not going to worry about the blinds after then. Best of luck. I played Razz with Felicia last night. I'll write it up tomorrow. | Permalink | Monday, March 07, 2005
The February Doldrums "Ninety percent of success is showing up." - Woody AllenI intended on writing up a long, introspective entry on my February losing streak but of course, my mind wandered and I ended up with some rambling post on how I showed my Poker Tracker stats to a 96 year-old astrologer in Chinatown. She told me was that I overplaying AQo. "No shit, Mrs. Wong." So I scrapped that post and decided to re-write it. Despite a huge dent in my bankroll since last September, I was shocked to learn that I finished up for the entire fiscal year of 2004. I even turned a slight profit in January 2005. Yes, I posted consecutive winning months for the first time since the end of the summer. I ended an awful three month losing streak in December, although one of the those months I posted a $30 loss so that's like breaking even. However during my two month winning streak, I have nothing to brag about. I won a 160 person multi-table tournament. Aside from that, the highlights are few and far between.  Some days you are the Harlem Globetrotters. Some days you are the Washington Nationals. The Globetrotters toyed and fucked with the Nationals for decades and made them look like inbred retards from Twistatittie, Tennessee. I played like the Nationals for the last few weeks because everytime I sat down at the tables, I had Meadowlark Lemon and Curley Neal sitting across from me. I lost my entire January reload bonus on Empire. I got my ass kicked on Check and Raise. Although I posted a modest win on Poker Stars, the majority of the ugliness occurred on Party Poker. Thank God that February is only 28 days long. I was never more excited to see March. Should I be freaking out about a 30% loss in my bankroll? I mean Otis dropped a grand on a single hand... pocket aces the other day on the $1000 NL tables... so what's 30%? When I looked at my day to day progress over February, only one really bad day where I lost a significant amount of money stood out. I only posted a few winning days with $30 and $40 loses here and there. That all adds up. Alas, I never answered my question. Should I be freaking out about a 30% loss in my bankroll? No. Steve McQueen would never have freaked out. Then again, he never played on Party Poker at 3:30 in the morning against a bunch of gambloors from Albuquerque. Regardless, I have to suck it up and keep on moving forward. Fortunately for me, I have been a participant of two grueling occupations. I slung stocks and bonds on Wall Street and I've spent many starving nights as a writer. Both mentally prepared me for utter insanity. It has taken a few years, but I have finally seen the benefits of sticking to basic principles like "write every day," for example. I know that if I play smart poker over the next few years, the time will come when all my experiences and knowledge will gel and sitting at the poker table become as natural to me as writing feels. From my dark, dismal days on Wall Street, I was reminded of a basic fundamental question that I used to ask every potential new client, "Why do you invest?" There are two answers: long term and the quick buck. I'd them that if they wanted a quick buck... then hit the craps tables in Atlantic City or head down to the Village and chug a few cocks for $200 a pop. If they wanted a winner in the long term, then I was their guy. Of course that's what I had to say. Sorry that I went off on a tangent there. The point of the Wall Street rant was that I had to ask myself, "Why do I play poker? And furthermore, why am I investing time and money in myself?" The answers are the same: long term or the quick buck. If I was in for the quick buck, then yes, I should be freaking out about my losing streak. However, I am in for the long haul so I need to relax, be aware of what happened, and stick to the fundamentals. The writer in me knows that if I work on my craft everyday, then it will get better. The broker in me knows that the long term outlook is far more important than what the market did on a day to day basis. Like Woody Allen said, "Ninety percent of success is showing up." You cannot be afraid to lose money or play badly. You must conquer that fear and you have to go play. It's brutal torture to fire up Party Poker when you have zero confidence and are positive that every high pocket pair is going to get sucked out on. That's the conflict you find yourself embroiled in when you are posting losing session after losing session, like how the fish destroyed -EV's will to play poker for a few days. That's going to happen... to everyone. Every professional poker player knows that they are one bad hand away from humility. It's how you confront those bad streaks that makes you an excellent player. And in the greater scheme of things... it's how you handle adversity that defines your character. The players that can gather up enough courage to hit the tables in the middle of a shit storm are the one who are going to survive. Anyone can ride a winning streak. It takes balls and heart to ride out a losing one. I am not going to blow off this losing streak. And I'm not going to let it spook me either. I have to fgiure out what went wrong and plug the leaks in my game. So, besides the obvious... playing hands out of position and calling too frequently when I should be raising or folding... what else went wrong? I failed to cash in 15 out of my last 20 $30 SNGs on Party Poker. Right there, that's a good percentage of my losses. I took a $150 hit at the Blue Parrot during the NYC bloggers event, plus an unimpressive $100 loss on Check and Raise trying to clear my bonus. Sure bad beats and suck outs are going to happen. That's part of poker. That's why you have to post as many winning days as possible in order to survive those one or two brutal days when one hand can wipe out an entire week of solid play. Although I did not undertake a huge marathon like the Poker Nerd, I played a decent amount of SNGs. After a conversation with Felicia in December, I realized that I played too tentative when it got close to the bubble and that's why I had too many 4th and 5th place finishes in my SNGs. I began a wave of aggression and found myself finishing in 8th and 9th place. Should I be concerned with that? Or were those instances where I would have probably bubbled out in fifth place for playing too passive instead of trying to double up early? Aside from a few mental errors, in my defense I had some really good hands cracked. I got all my money in the pot with the best hand and several of my opponents outdrew me. Corrections? I do not have to overhaul my game, just tweak it a little. I need to make better decisions especially on the turn. Hey, one or two lay downs or calls on fourth street a month can be the difference in preventing a losing streak. I also have to be a lot more conservative with AQo, just like Mrs. Wong advised. Take a look at the picture I took last week.  Click to enlarge It was a cold, but sunny day in the city as I made my way to Briana's apartment when I came upon this pile waiting to be recycled. I noticed a mirror grouped in with the trash. I walked over, amazed at the vibrant reflection. Luckily, I had my camera with me and snapped the photo. It came out a lot better than I imagined. Anyway, after studying the photo, I came to a few conclusions. I reminded myself of that old adage that "one man's trash is another man's art." I also realized that even in our trash, there is a lot of ourselves. I'm sure there are plenty things we'd like to throw out or recycle. Sometimes we get to ditch those bad habits. But getting rid of them is not as important as understanding why those habits are harmful to you. I took a long look at myself... in that garbage pile. The philosopher in me muttered... find yourself in your mistakes. That leads me to my mission in March: 1. Identify my most common mistakes and flaws.Time to go end a losing streak. | Permalink | Friday, March 04, 2005
Reader Mail: Timmy's Book, The Preacher's Daughter, Paris Hilton, Party Poker Gear, and Mr. Kotter. Yes, it's time for another edition of Reader Mail. These are some selections from the hundred or so pieces of email I get every week from fans, stalkers, fellow bloggers, and that fuckin' asshole in Botswana that insists I help him get his $10 million inheritance out of the grasps from evil war lords. So let's begin... Dear Dr. Pauly, Dear Timmy, I encourage you to write a book. Why the fuck not? Everyone who plays poker these days has a blog. And it's inevitable that every idiot with a poker blog will think he's good enough to write a poker book. So join the club. The world needs more poker books and we can definitely use 100 more blogs before Paris Hilton's birthday. I can tell you your book will be better than Phil Hellmuth's book, so go for it! The Barnes Nobles I frequent, ok, I'm actually stalking this really cute girl who works in the children's book section... she's a slimmer version of Kate Winslet and she always smiles when I walk past her.... anyway, a year ago the Poker Book section was just one shelf. Now, two full book cases (which I am sure are taller than you) house dozens and dozens of poker books and they even have a special display in the front of the store devoted to poker books! The suits at B&N actually knocked those damn pink chick lit books out of the hotspot in the store. Who would have thunk it! Actually I am in the process of securing the filming rights to HDouble and Iggy's e-book Poker Tracker Guide: Revenge of the Fish. I'm writing the screenplay as we speak. The Poker Geek is going to direct. I'd like to get Wil Wheaton to bulk up to play the part of HDouble. Unfortunately, Patrick Swayze is asking for too much moolah to play Iggy. Oh well, that's fuckin' Hollyweird for ya. Best of luck with your book and surviving grammar school. Remember don't take shit from nobody, kid. Thanks for reading, Pauly ***** Dear Pauly, Dear Jasmine, How you doing? I caught the episode on Wednesday with Derek. Too bad Gabe Kaplan folded some decent hands a few times. But you know, in my eyes, Gabe Kaplan will always be Coach Greene, the former deli-worker who quits his job to coach a tiny college in the Southwest and he brings an eclectic bunch of NYC hoopsters with him in Fast Break (1979)... one of my favorite basketball movies (and all-time sports flicks). Who cares about Mr. Kotter and the Sweathogs? One of the greatest moment in cinema history had to be the scene where Gabe Kaplan drove his players (including NBA star and my favorite NY Knick of all time Bernard King) cross country with him. One of them was a pothead thug who had the biggest bag of marijuana I've ever seen. They all thought they were getting pulled over by a Southern cop. The quick thinking Coach Greene (Kaplan) told his players to start eating the marijuana to swallow the evidence! The cop car was actually chasing someone else, so they were stuffing their faces for no reason whatsoever. I wish I could get the screen cap of Gabe Kaplan with a fist full of schwag in his mouth. On to your second question, I dunno who is the best celebrity poker player. James Woods isn't bad from what I hear. Ben Affleck was paying big bucks to get lessons from Annie Duke and he won the Cali state champs. Tobey Maguire is pretty good. But I hear that Travis Tritt is no slouch either. Thanks for reading, Pauly ***** Hey Pauly, Dear Steve, I'm waiting for the Hawaiian Shirt to come back in stock. I can't think of a better way to piss away 3000 points than to get a crappy shirt with the Party Poker logo on it. Actually, I have like 7,000 points and I used a bunch to get a hat, a visor, and a shirt. I can't think of a better way to pick up a chick in New York City, then to wear my Party Poker shirt to a hipster bar on the Lower East Side. "Are you a poker player?" she asked over the hum of Iceland's hottest techno music that blasted throughout the lounge as she seductively began rubbing my chest, taking time to run her fingers over the Party Poker logo. "No," I whispered, "But I play one on TV." Thanks for reading, Pauly ***** Dear Pauly, Hey Peter, A good friend of mine one said, "Never trust a guy with two first names." Anyway, my advice to you is this... dump your girlfriend and move to a Blue state. The girls there are much more liberal and less God-fearing. If you are as good as you claim you are... then you should have no problem playing online in a different city and finding the right girl for you. Believe me, there are a ton of atheists and gold diggers up north and out west who are looking for sane guys with potential to make a lot of cash. Best of luck with the Preacher's daughter. Thanks for reading, Pauly ***** Pauly, April, Man, I would never want to be linked to a group of B and C-list celebrities. Ashlee Simpson? Bijoux Philips? Mark Phillipoussis? Elijah Blue (Greg Allman's kid with Cher)? Then again, if you hack my cellphone you'll find such internet celebrity names like: Boy Genius, Al Cant Hang, Iggy, Grubby, The Poker Prof, Bad Blood and Otis. Thanks for reading, Pauly  Me and the girls. That's it for now. Have a good weekend everyone. I'll be on Party Poker working off my bonus. See you at the tables. | Permalink | Thursday, March 03, 2005
A Day in the Life "So I've sworn off the 25NL blogger tables. And my bankroll has thanked me." - AlCantHang at 9:05 amFeb 28 @ 8:12pm EST... I logged onto Poker Stars to play a $25 turbo SNG and sweat Joanne in her quest to represent Canada in the World Cup. She drew a bye in the first round and won her second round heads-up match in less than ten hands! I had disconnection problems during her third round match that she lost. She's going to try again tonight. March 1 @ 10:23am EST... I took advantage of Party Poker's reload bonus and hit the tables to grind away my chance at a free $200. I noticed that Party Poker added new tables ($30/60 and $400, $600, and $1000 NL). They also changed their NL format to 100 BB buy-ins. I hit the $50 NL tables while I sweated the Poker Geek who played in a multi. My distracted mind focused on folding hand after hand while I edited a short story for the new issue of Truckin'. March 1 @ 11:17am EST... Ugly hand at the $50 NL tables. A manic from Kilarney in front of me limped in. With pocket Hellmuths, KK, I raised it up to $5 or 10x the BB. The shortstacked LB moved all in for $15. The McManic-limper pushed all-in. He had me covered. I knew I had the LB beat... but the "limp-reraise all-in" from McManic was a little scary. Alas, I was playing on Party Poker so I called. He turned over JJ. The short stack showed AK. Of course, you know what spiked on the river... a Jack. Oh well. By now, I almost expect a brutal bad beat every time I log onto Party Poker. I didn't fret. I tagged the guy, reloaded, and listened to a Grateful Dead bootleg from Boston, May 1977. March 2 @ 12:12am EST... I got home and fired up Party Poker and listened to some Thelonius Monk. I hungout on a $25 NL table with Helixx. I won a big hand with pocket jacks against 89s. Shortly after the Poker Geek joined the mix. I pinged Grubby to join our table. He was four tabling from Las Vegas! I sweated him in a multi table qualifier. He ended up taking 70+ out of 500+ and didn't win a seat in whatever he was trying to get into. The highlight was winning a small pot with quads. This is probably the hand of the night. I found pocket Hellmuth's UTG. Dealt to DrPauly [ Kc, Kh ]Damn, I never put Grubby on The Hammer! As Grubby later told me, "Never fold KK in a ring game." He's so fuckin' right. I was spooked for sure. Shades of the Borgata Massacre chilled my spine. If you don't recall, Grubby cracked my KK with JJ at a $300 NL table at the Borgata last September when he flopped a Jack and moved all in. I foolishly called and lost a $500 pot. Anyway, I should have called this time. Coulda. Shoulda. Woulda. Those are three of my favorite horses that I should have bet on. March 2 @ 10:12am EST... While I read the Wall Street Journal online, I played a few hands on Party Poker before lunch with Briana who had been sick the last few days. I made soup for her. I know, I'm a fuckin' champ. We ended up watching Ray and I fell asleep. Man, I've passed out cold during flicks before, but never fell asleep. I haven't been sleeping well since my return from Miami and I woke up after a sharp elbow to my ribs as I saw the credits rolling by. Over a decade ago, I passed out during The Rocky Horror Picture Show, but I had half bag on after splitting a handle of Jim Beam with a couple of fraternity brothers and after I smoked enough Afghani superhash that could have easily gotten the entire cast of Easy Rider stoned for a weekend. I woke up with rice in my underwear and definitely "foggy and a little groggy." Man, I miss college hijinks sometimes. Anyway, what is a Wednesday morning at the tables without a maniac who called every big pre-flop raise with junk? He limped in front of me and I found pocket 10s. I knew he was going to call no matter what I bet. I threw out $5 or 20x the BB. He called as I asked the poker gods for a ten. The flop: 3-10-3 with two diamonds. He bet $5 and I smooth called. He bet $5 more on the turn and I called praying that he'd catch his flush. A diamond fell on the river and he bet $10. I raised $10 hoping that he'd come over the top of me. I was shocked when he folded! In the chat: Maniac: nhMarch 2 @ 11:44 pm EST... Blogger tables on Party Poker with Drizz. Before long, Chad and Donkey Puncher joined the fracas. Pretty soon we had a blogger table with Sir Waffle and the Poker Geek on the rail. I played the Hammer twice in honor of Grubby. I limped once and flopped a 7. I hit my trips on the turn and won a medium sized pot. Al Cant Hang came home sloshed like Judy Garland at Happy Hour. We all goaded him into sitting down despite the fact he swore off NL blogger tables 15 hours prior. The Cast:The hand of the night was when Al raised in EP with 99. Grubby came over the top and moved all-in. He had almost twice as many chips as Al who was on his third or fourth hand. Did Grubby have The Hammer again? AlCantHang: i fooking hate youI think I goaded Al into calling with the obligatory Phil Ivey comment. Grubby had AKs and flopped an ace to win the coinflip. Al chose not to rebuy. What discipline! March 3 @ 1:23am EST... I completed my weekly mission and visited every blog on my blogroll last night! Yes, if I have you linked up, I read your blog yesterday. I even left a few comments out there. I could have played two tables to work off my bonus quicker, but I decided to devote that time to catching up on blogs. If you haven't noticed I added a few new ones to my roster. Check them out. That's it for now. Hope to see some folks online later tonight. I'm half way done clearing my Party Poker bonus. I still have a long way to go before I clear my Check and Raise bonus.  Join Party Poker today! | Permalink | Wednesday, March 02, 2005
Hank987's Foxwoods Final Table I invited Hank987 to write up his second place finish at a Foxwoods multi table tournament from last week. There are some very good players at Foxwoods, so his feat is impressive. Take it away Hank987... For those who don't know me I'm Hank987. I have played at the blogger tables on Party Poker and in a few blogger tourneys. Pauly was cool enough to meet me at Foxwoods and play some no fold 'em limit just before Christmas. Now, Pauly is nice enough to give me a little space to brag...um talk about a good placing in the $80 + 20 Foxwoods NL tourney on Feb. 24. Sadly, that was the last tourney of its kind as they are going to run smaller buy in tourneys every weekday.Thanks for sharing, Hank. Next time bring along a pen and paper to jot down notes and thoughts. Congrats again. See you at the tables, dude. | Permalink | Tuesday, March 01, 2005
Blogger News: e-Books and Tournaments First of all, congrats to HDouble and Iggy. They launched a joint venture. Take a peek at Poker Tracker Guide. The opening tagline is: Poker Tracker is THE most powerful tool for online poker players.For $20... it's a steal and HDouble and Iggy teach you how to maximize the Poker Tracker software. Buy it today. I dunno if they are giving away autographed copies. I do know that if you send Daddy $5 and a self-addressed stamped envelope... then he'll send you a photocopy of his nut sack, autographed of course.  Moving along... how about a new blogger tournament in Vegas? CJ made arrangements for the next live blogger event! What: WPBT NL tourneyThis will be limited to bloggers only. You should RSVP with CJ sooner than later to reserve your spot. Derek and I already bought plane tickets. The folks behind the scenes are looking into finding a place that will offer a group rate. Stay tuned for more details... but I cannot guarantee that will happen and we'll let you know in a few weeks whether or not to book something on your own. Most of the information will be posted over at WPBTonline. Hope to see everyone in Las Vegas. You have three months to fleece the Party fish to build those bankrolls, call in favors to get a few days off from work, and most importantly bribe your significant other into letting you go. And here are the December trip reports from the WPBT Holiday Classic:See everyone in Vegas! | Permalink |
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