Tao of Poker |
|
 Contact Who am I? FAQs Published Articles Follow Me:  
  Quick Links: Tao of Pauly Quality Posts Tao of Pokerati Podcasts   Download PokerStars for LAPT Costa Rica Satellites Archives2003Aug - Sep - Oct Nov - Dec 2004 Jan - Feb - Mar - Apr May - Jun - Jul - Aug Sep - Oct - Nov - Dec 2005 Jan - Feb - Mar - Apr May - Jun - Jul - Aug Sep - Oct - Nov - Dec 2006 Jan - Feb - Mar - Apr May - Jun - Jul - Aug Sep - Oct - Nov - Dec 2007 Jan - Feb - Mar - Apr May - Jun - Jul - Aug Sep - Oct - Nov - Dec 2008 Jan - Feb - Mar - Apr May - Jun - Jul - Aug Sep - Oct - Nov - Dec 2009 Jan - Feb - Mar - Apr May - Jun - Jul - Aug Sep - Oct - Nov Front page Where I Write:Poker Player NewspaperCoventry Music Blog Borgata Poker Blog PokerStars Blog LasVegasVegas Ongame Zone Tao of Pauly Poker News Fox Sports Truckin' Bluff  My Other SitesTao of Poker PhotosPauly's Flickr Photos Pauly's Videos Paintings Tao of Bacon Where I Play: Download PokerStars  Download Full Tilt  Bonus Code: Pauly Friends of Tao:      Play Poker Online at Full Tilt Poker Learn, Chat, and Play with the Pros at the fastest growing Online Poker Room.  Download PokerStars por LAPT satellites  Download PokerStars Quality PostsGrublog Classic PrepHaleywood Homegame Reflecting on a Bad Streak Sad Amy Sink or Swim Watching Pauly WSoP Shootout TroubleHand 1: KJo Rules to Live By $5 & Tony Randall TroubleHand 2: AQo Junkie 11 Questions Borgata Bloggers Mentor Material The Brawl Blogging Tips February Doldrums The Day Before Vegas Poker & Masturbation Empiricism, Kierkegaard, & Catholic HS Girls Tao of Risk Poker Nicknames Origins Circles & Poker Bloggers in Wonderland Turn This Mother Out Gilligan's Island and Poker Market Corrections Bukowski & Poker Strippers & Blow April Sojourn WPT Championship Glass Eye Bruce Lee Part I Through the Looking Glass Wall St. Game Tao of Keno Born to Gamble Part I Born to Gamble Part II Born to Gamble Part III Born to Gamble Part IV Born to Gamble Part V Born to Gamble Part VI First Day at the WSOP Exile on Main St. Seven Deadly Sins Cacophony of Bad Beats St. Grubby's Day Balance Dysthymia Birth of Cool Labyrinth of Avarice No Exit Lost Paradise Ghost of Stuey Ungar Leap of Faith Butterfly Dreams Identity Afternoon Shift Eat a Peach Cheaters, Thieves, & Angle Shooters The Procedure After Midnight Pusherman Art & Masturbation Las Vegas Hookers Light Breaks Bosnian Snipers & Dog Tranquilizers Apotheosis of 10-8 Suited Weird Fishes Circus Comes to Town Road of Excess Leads to the Palace of Wisdom Archie Karas Comeback Never Trust a Junkie Save Eskimo Procedure Part II The Kitten Fields The Wretched Squall of Hellmuth and Matusow Battle for Tiffany Michelle's Breasts London Leftovers Live Politics Is Rigged Maelstrom @ Hooker Bar Land of Indulgence Nuptials, Meth & Hookers Chasing the Dragon  Poker BlogsTao of PokerLas Vegas & Poker Blog Poker in the Weeds Guinness & Poker UFC News Up for Poker PokerStars Blog The Cards Speak Poker Grub Table Tango Chris Halverson Riding the F Train The Rooster Boy Genius Mr. Decker Mean Gene The Fat Guy Al Can't Hang Royal Poker Pokerati Poker Perspectives Bad Blood Poker Poker Prof Pot Committed Absinthe's Troubles Wicked Chops Snail Trax - RIP Poker Geek - EV Drizztdj Spaceman U Wanna Bet? Bill's Blog Pokeramarama Double As Bobby Bracelet SirFwalgman Shirley's Poker Babes Suck Out Human Head Rep Ipsa Poker Feeding the Addiction Beer City Poker Gracie Hella Hold'em Obituarium Donkey Puncher Easy Cure Jaxia Miss T74 Chilly Columbo fhwrdh Geek and Proud Two Hole Cards Slayre Go Be Rude Not A Poker Blog Whiskeytown Poker Stage Life, Universe, & Poker Life's a Grind Commish's Desk Poker on Film Seattle John Poker Bully Mortal One Poker Words Bazkar's Voyage Fish and Chips Poker Div Jarooty Surly Poker Gnome Big Pirate Betting for Value Dragonstic's Poker Trip Jax Golf & Poker HighPlains Drifter Mr. Subliminal Hunts Vegas Poker High on Poker Mr. Reed Spidurman Big Slick Nuts Hagbard Nevada Poker Dealer Bad Beat BBQ The Wayward Hatch Obie's VIP Fish Soup Mike's Poker Blog Ros on a Rush Kid Dynamite Poker and Misc Dr. Chako Donkey Hunter Predator 314 Biggestron Ms. All In I Had Outs Garthmeister Steeler Josh Chipper's World Weak Player GCox Poquer Red Poker Cheapskate Rachel's All In Radio Vegas Bloody P Kaellin Poker Enthusiast Little Acorn Poker Mookie99 Poker Jones Slime Face Poker Cash Poker Funds Kattitude I Am Hoff Poker Wolf Amy Calistri Sin City Carmen Miami Don Mattazuma Looking in Your Garbage Russ Fox Jules' Poker Rant Zeem Jr. Hoyazo Haley's Poker Blaug Poker Poison Adam Labare Shaniac Peter Birks Iron Girl Fuel55 Poker Cats You Tube Poker Matt Q's 60% Poker Mondogarage Sitting the Apple Bat Faces Jay Greenspan Poker Shrink Nat Arem Hugo Martin Poker Verdict Need An Ace Snoopy Suffolk Punch Poker Tart Bigger Deal Benjo Michelle Lewis Hard-Boiled Poker What Are the Odds Anguila (Eel) Schaubs Wired Pairs Matt on Poker O-Poker PokerBlog.com Medusa's Castle J Goat Buddy Dank Bayne ResdentEvil RecessRampage Poker Grump o-hole-ne BWOP Online Rounder Bam Bam Riggs Astin Kaja Tassie Devil The Vegas Year Katkin NYC Rounders 
PurgatoryFelicia LeeGlenn Openers Poker Champ Iakaris Poker Princess Rants of a Young Mind Cheap Thrills JMC Automatic TP's Tidbits Pathetic Poker skitch-o-rama Poker Sponge Performity Poker & Liquor Sparky 66o Frankl BJ Nemeth Luvin Poker Non-Poker BlogsTao of PaulyTruckin' Wil Wheaton Aaron Gleeman Ugarte & Rick's Cafe Cuban Links Rapid Eye Reality Tony Pierce Studio Glyphic Helixx Large Regular Jeff Pulver Lou Man Group Moist Happenings Fanvu Instant Tragedy DealBreaker Wall Street Fighter  Poker StuffPokeratiAntes Up Poker News Poker Road Poker Network Never Win Poker Poker Babes Lord Admiral Card Club 2+2 Steve Badger Hand Analyzer Professional Poker OnlinePoker.com Card Runners ProsAnskyBoDog Ari Lou Krieger Full Contact Poker Andy Bloch Izmet Fekali Lion Tales Abdul Jabib Max Pescatori Bradon Schaefer Mike Matusow Rizen Nordberg Chris "Triple Draw" Fargis Liz Lieu Shirley Rosario Shaniac Adam Junglen Jonny Vincent Jethro Horowitz Tournament Coverage2005 WSOP2006 WPT Championsip 2006 WSOP 2007 WSOP 2007 WPT Championship 2008 WSOP NYC Home GamesNYC RecapsTrip ReportsClick Here for Trip ReportsCoach's CornerNice Guys Finish LastSNGs Lessons Learned The 6.5 Hour Grind Final Table PokerStars Final Table 4.9.05 More Friends:    Download Full Tilt  Download PokerStars  
![[Powered by Blogger]](http://buttons.blogger.com/bloggerbutton1.gif){kind=small}
Las Vegas - It's LasVegasVegas.com a collection of blogs about the city of sin including shows and poker. Poker Forum - It's NWP for poker rumors, gossip and news. American Idol Blog - Don't miss Change100's recaps on American Idol. 
 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. |
Download PokerStars for PCA & EPT Prague Satellites Tuesday, May 31, 2005
The Day Before, More Vegas Tips, and Moose Cup 2005 On Monday I played Joanne heads up on Poker Stars for the North American Moose Cup. The final score: Pauly 3, Canada 1. She posted about the bad beat that I put on her in game 1. She slowplayed AA on me for her victory in game 3. For now, the Moose Cup is mine. Derek and I leave for Vegas tomorrow. I'm ready. Later today I'm gonna get a new cell phone and tonight I'll pack. I have one more article to write before I hit the road. And once, I'm off... I'll be in "Vegas mode." I do not want to disappoint anyone who is meeting me for the first time, but I want to warn you that I am not as wild and crazy as every thinks I am. For the record, I will not be showing up in Vegas with two nymphomaniac teenage gymnasts (from a Eastern European county that no longer exists), along with an eight-ball of Colombian Snow Flake and a brick of Moroccan hash the size of Herve Villechaize. Believe me, if I had access to those kind of drugs and were able to woo nimble nymphets like that, the last thing I'd be doing would be hanging out in Vegas with a bunch of degenerates gamblers. OK, I got a positive response from my Tips on Surviving Las Vegas. I'd like to add a few more to the existing list:  11. Food is fuel... If you have the opportunity to eat, do it because you never know when you might never have another chance to get some grub. Last December, I never saw Iggy eat one bite during our last trip. He was on the ciggies and Guinness gambler's diet.12. Wear comfortable shoes... As a native New Yorker, I walk everywhere and I'm used to trudging along for five or six miles in a day. If you are a lazy fuck who's a slave to their vehicle, then start walking a mile or two everyday to get yor legs in shape. The entrance from the Rio to the actual place where the WSoP is being held is a hike. Plus if you want to walk the Strip, everything appears much closer in the desert. 13. Bring a watch... There are exactly six clocks in the entire city of Las Vegas and you won't see any of them in an actual casino. 14. Keep your gambling bankroll separate from your other cash. 15. $50 bills are bad luck... Don't feel weird about asking to change in your $50 bills. That is one superstition I've been following every since Grubby clued me in. 16. Avoid the slots... Grubby will try to turn you over to the dark side of gambling and get you to hit the slots with him at 3am. Resist the temptation! 17. Don't tell people at your table that you have a poker blog... Please for the love of God, do not tell anyone you're in town for a poker bloggers convention. Keep that shit on the down low. You're in Vegas. It's a surreal place. Make shit up. Pretend you're a fish. I lie to dealers, strippers, cab drivers, and my tablemates all the time when I'm in Vegas. During my last three trips, I've told random strangers that I was a marine biologist, an aquarium salesman, a trumpet player in a Latin jazz band, a radiologist, and my favorite... that I've just got out of prison. The ladies seem to like that one. Bottom line is this: if you can't successfully lie to the people at your table and if you are unable to convince them that you are in fact an astronaut, then you shouldn't be playing poker in Las Vegas. Go home and fire up Poker Stars instead. During this trip I intend on telling folks that I'm either a mountain climber (please don't laugh when I start talking about Mount Everest to anyone at my table) and I'm thinking about being the malcontent heir to the "Spork" fortune. A spork is not a fork, but not quite a spoon. One of my fraternity brothers in college used that line to try to pick up girls in bars. He even convinced a few that he had a spork shaped swimming pool. And if I happen to stumble into a strip bar, my cover story will be that I'm the tour manager for a metal band called The Al Cant Hang Experience. Anyway those are my latest additions to my Vegas tips. Here are Pauly's Original Top 10 Tips on Surviving Vegas:By the way, if we casted Poker Bloggers in Vegas: The Movie, who would play you? For me it's either Benicio del Toro or John Cusak. If I had to cast for BG, I'd pick Philip Seymour Hoffman. I know he's going to be wicked pissed about that. But I think Philip Seymour Hoffman is the best actor of our generation. I'd snag Owen Wilson to play Otis and William H. Macy to be Chris Halverson. Rob Lowe would be the perfect G Rob and how could you not cast Vin Diesel to play Bad Blood? If Felicia gets her life story made, Hillary Swank should get to play her. If Tara Reid could pull off an Canadian accent, she could be just right as Joanne. Rounding out the rest of the freaks would be Ted Nugent as Al Cant Hang and The Poker Geek will be played by Wil Wheaton in a cameo. Without a doubt, Chris Rock was born to be Grubby. For the role of a lifetime, Iggy will be played by... Bea Arthur. | Permalink | Monday, May 30, 2005
Radio Free Pauly I taped my interview with Sean on Saturday aternoon during the Yankees-Red Sox game for the Lord Admiral Card Club Radio Show and Podcast. If you don't know by now, it's the best podcast dedicated to poker in the universe. It seems like overnight I've become a huge cult figure in Canada. Don Cherry. Brett "The Hitman" Hart. And now... Dr. Pauly.Sean and Brent are working hard every week to get their podcast done (fo free) so stop by and show your support. You can download the MP3 of this week's show... Episode 28: Here. You can download last week's show... Episode 27: Here. Gracie taped a station ID bit which features a snippet of Phish! It starts at the 9:15 mark. My segment starts at the 17:00 mark of the show and it lasts about 12 minutes. We talked about my prep for Vegas in addition to the recent news about NYC card rooms getting raided. Check it out! If you want to catch up and listen to previous episodes, please visit their archives over at Brainscat. Stop by their site and download the extra nuggets. Thanks again to Sean and Stacks for having me on. Moving on, I've been listening to a few music related podcasts the last two weeks. Here are two that I highly recommend. 1. Closet Deadhead... It's run by an old school head, Sam, and he has well over 25 podcasts archived with various goodies involving the Grateful Dead.Some good stuff on there. I like to listen to podcats while I'm playing on Party Poker. | Permalink | Sunday, May 29, 2005
Lazy Sunday Thoughts I saw this gem in the NY Times this morning called Card Stud written by Pat Jordan. It's about Daniel Negreanu. Here's a bit: Negreanu says that most great players are geniuses, then lists the kinds of genius they must have: 1) a thorough knowledge of poker; 2) a mathematical understanding of the probabilities of a card being dealt, given the cards visible; 3) a psychological understanding of an opponent; 4) an understanding of an opponent's betting patterns -- that is, how he bets with the nuts and how he bets when bluffing; and 5) the ability to read ''tells,'' or a player's physical reactions to the cards he is dealt. Negreanu is a master at reading tells, although he claims it is an overrated gift, since only mediocre players have obvious tells.I got spanked at the tables last night. The bleeding was profuse on both Full Tilt and Party Poker. I lost a huge pot in a $5/$10 game on Party Poker. Gutshot. Brutal. I took 76th in a 200+ MTT on Full Tilt. I had my Hiltons cracked by 88. This morning on Party Poker I encountered a super fish. He saw every flop, and often called 2 or 3 raises preflop. He also saw his hand all the way to the river. Inside an half hour, he was up 30 BB. In that same span, I was down about 15BB. I lost an ugly hand to him. He had 92o and I missed my flush with ATs. With four overcards on the board he called all the way to the river. He rivered bottom pair and beat my ace high. At that point, I got my shit together. Against a guy like that at a limit table, you must have the best hand at showdown. I adjusted my play. Instead of playing looser and seeing more flops, I tightened up. I found KQs in LP and raised. The super fish, sitting to my left, was the only called. I flopped a flush draw and hit it on the turn. If he had any suited ace, I was done. On the river he raised me and I just called. He had 84o. That's when I made a mental note. He had been a calling station the entire time. The only other times I saw him raise was when he had nothing. That's my random online poker tip of the day: Pay attention to betting patterns. That little bit of information came in handy later on. With AJo I raised and of course, he called I put him on ten high, at best. I flopped top two pair and I felt I had a huge lead on him. On the river, he raised me and that when I knew he had nothing. He only raised when he had nadda. I reraised and he played back at me to cap it. I pumped my fists in the air when the pot was pushed to me. He walked into my big hand. Sure my actions are straight out of the "How to play against people who see every flop" text book. But since I had been running bad all weekend, I was impressed with my patience and discipline to sit and wait for a good hand before I attacked. I also gave myself a pat on the back for being able to recognize betting patterns... something I know I would not have picked up had I been reading poker blogs or playing multi-tables. I ended up for the session and walked away after I properly tagged that fish. | Permalink | Saturday, May 28, 2005
NYC Poker Rooms Busted, Coach Wins, and Truckin' First of all, congrats to Coach who made the money this morning in a MTT on Poker Stars. He finished in 27th place out of 540 and even dropped the Hammer along the way! Both Al Cant Hang and myself were on the rail when it happened. He flopped trips. He's the man. Good job, Coach. If you are from NYC or read F Train's blog regularly then you know that the two biggest card rooms in New York were raided on Thursday night. It's big news and even made the NY Times. Thanks to F Train who tipped me off yesterday. Here are the related news articles. Cops flush poker clubs (NY Daily News)And make sure you read F Train's latest post entitled Legality of Poker in New York. If you are going to play in any of the clubs this wekeend, my suggestion is stay away for a week or so and let all the heat die down. In the meantime, head over to one of the many online card rooms, which are NYPD hassle free. For now, that is. Hit up Poker Stars and try to in a seat in the WSoP. Theya re also offering up a rare reload bonus. Party Poker is always full of fish too. You can't go wrong on either site. I'm digging the late night tables on Full Tilt. And even Noble Poker is running WSoP satellites. Truckin' - May 2005, Vol. 4, Issue 5 I just published the latest edition of my literary blogzine. Check out Truckin'. It features some of my favorite poker bloggers. I wrote two stories. 1. Hill Jack by Tenzin McGruppHave a good holiday. See you at the tables. | Permalink | Friday, May 27, 2005
Funday Friday  Here is proof that gambling is in my blood. My grandmother won a $10K jackpot yesterday playing the $1 slots at Mohegan Sun Casino in Connecticut. She went with my Mom and did they ask me to tag along? Fuck no. I wonder how much money Grandma dropped on the slots over the last few years? I also wonder how much of a cut Grandma is going to give me to blow at the blogger craps tables?One week from today I'm going to be on the rail at the Rio cheering on my fellow bloggers awaiting for them to drop the Hammer at the WSoP. Wait a second, I'll have my press pass by then, so I can technically wander around the tables. Holy Apeshit, Batman! A railbird no longer am I. I realized I was a real writer the other day when the Poker Prof called me and said that he was holding in his hand, my very own World Poker Tour press badge. I'm going to be showing that fucker off to everyone I meet with the same giddyness that you feel for the first time when you got your driver's license. On Wednesday night, I played a rare blogger table on Party Poker. I sat down with Sean at a $3/6 table and within minutes we had a few players and railbirds. Geek and Proud and Joanne both joined the mix. As soon as I left Rod took my place. I've taken a few dips into the $5/$10 shark infested waters on Party Poker. Nothing exciting to report. I think I'm about even in about 120 hands this week. I also played a couple of turbo SNGs on Poker Stars. I had my Hiltons cracked by J3o to bubble out in one. Talk about a kick in the junk. I just finished 76th place playing in a $1500 WSoP Satellite on Full Tilt. My AQ didn't hold up against pocket sixes. Oh well. Aside from the blogger satellites, that is the only WSoP related satellite I played in all year. I figured I give one a shot. It was totally spur of the moment too. I was having a rough night at the tables. This past week, I've been working off my reload bonus on Full Tilt. Those short-handed $3/$6 tables are an action junkie's wetdream. During the WSoP satelite I listened to a kick ass podcast from Nugs.net featuring The Grateful Dead, Phish, Umphrey's McGee, and My Morning Jacket. I highly recommend it. Here's a sample of an IM Chat I had with Al Cant Hang during the tourney:
This weekend will mark some of the last bits of online play for me until I get back from Las Vegas in early August. On Tuesday, I'm gonna withdraw the majority of my online bankroll (I'll leave a few hundred on Party Poker) and add it to my cash roll for Vegas. During my two months in Sin City, my goal is to play $6/$12 at the Mirage at least once a week and play in that soft NL game at Excalibur once a week as well. Since it's a three day weekend, I'll leave you with a walk down memory lane. Take a peek at my 10 part series of the December bloggers gathering at some point during this weekend. Chapter 1: Day 1, Part I... The Real ReportMan, so much happened during those few days. Epic adventures. I forgot about some of the hijinks while I revisited all those warm fuzzy memories reading all the trip reports again, which is some of my best trip report writing. Here are two random stats from the December blogger get together... I did not puke once and I did not attend one strip club. Days until Las Vegas: 5 Current temp. in Las Vegas: 101 Bottles of SoCo consumed by AlCantHang since 6pm EST: 3.5 Times I mentioned "Donkey Fucker" since May 10: 26 | Permalink | Thursday, May 26, 2005
99 Things About Pauly Would you like to know 99 random facts about your favorite poker blogger? It's a must read for anyone who's going to Vegas and has not met me yet. You have to head over to my main blog to read.... 99 Things About Pauly. | Permalink | Wednesday, May 25, 2005
Pauly Poker Freeroll at Noble Poker We have a winner fo the Pauly Poker freeroll on Noble Poker. Pii took first place out of 153. Geat job. Well, it was my third big game of poker in four nights. I had two good bye games here in the big city followed by the Noble freeroll. Thanks to everyone who signed up at the last minute and pimped this event on all of your blogs. We had 153 players show up for a shot at $a 50 first place prize. Free money. Even Grubby crawled out from his favorite row of slot machines to play with some of your favorite bloggers. Thanks to the guys over at Noble Poker who hooked all this up. The Players - My Table:9:07pm EST... Quad's AA lost to Hustler's 66 when he river'd a set. 9:09pm EST... With AQ I doubled up against AJ. 9:13pm EST... In late position, I put out a huge overbet with the Hilton Sisters. Willythe Wise called with A6 and out flopped me. I lost more than half my stack. 9:18pm EST... Iggy nearly tripled up when his AA held up agaisnt KK and QQ. 9:21pm EST... Rod goes out in true fashion with the Hilton Sisters. 9:27pm EST... With a short stack, I pushed all in on the button with AJ. Chomsky called with AK and I was out in 119th place. Damn. I was supposed to make the final table in my own freeroll!! 9:53pm EST... MtDewVirus' QQ was beaten by KQ. 9:58pm EST... Derek was crippled when his AA lost to the Hammer. 9:59pm EST... Next hand Derek found AA again. With a small stack he doubled up. 10:26pm EST... Daddy said one of the funniest things I ever read in the chat: "One time I got jerked off on a Greyhoud bus by a nun when I was asleep." 10:37pm EST... Poker Nerd's JJ lost to KQ. 10:43pm EST... AlCantHang's Big Slick ran into AA and he was knocked out. 10:46pm EST... Landow's pocket Tens lost to AQs and was also KOd. 10:48pm EST... Jordan's KK won a big pot from Daddy's Q6o. He flopped top pair and mentioned that "Q6 ain't what she used to," as the chips were pushed to Jordan. 10:50pm EST... Iggy had been on a nice run until his AK lost to Graham's TT. 11:00pm EST... Joanne and the Hilton Sister's took down the Poker Prof's A3s. Prior to that hand, the Poker Prof was one of the top chipleaders. 11:08pm EST... Shortstacked, Joanne went out like a true warrior, with the Hammer! 11:11pm EST... Jordan's 44 won a coinflip with Poker Prof's QJs and he knocked out Prof in 11th.  Final Table - Click to Enlarge 11:19pm EST... The Final Table assembled with Jedi Pii in the chip lead and the Blogfather making yet another final table. Good thing Slayre cleared up his password problem in time to play. Jordan represented the NYC crew making his first final table in a blogger event. Daddy, the infamous Donkey Fucker, was looking to crush the final table. The Final Table:11:35pm EST... Iggy was out in 7th. Jedi built up a monster stack and Daddy was in the middle fo the pack. 11:49pm EST... Jordan hung on with a shortstack and went out in 4th place. Pi was the leader, with Daddy in second and Read Chomsky in third place. 11:53pm EST... I thought Daddy was going to come from behind to win. He took third place, which paid $30. He joked around that he can play an SNG along with getting a super-sized extra value meal at McDs. 11:56pm EST... Pii won it all with AQ. Congrats on winning the first ever Pauly Poker freerol! Thanks again to everyone who played and took time out of their busy schedule to partake in all the fun. Thanks again to everyone who pimped the freeroll on your blogs. See everyone in Vegas. If I forgot to link you up, please let me know where I fucked up!  | Permalink | Tuesday, May 24, 2005
Blue Parrot Send Off: Call Me Nurse Pauly "Marijuana gives you ESP." - Coach  I must add the disclaimer that Coach does not in any way condone the use of marijuana in any non-legal and non-medicinal forms. He was simply stating the obvious about midway through last night's game. However, the Tao of Poker is an "herb friendly" blog if you haven't noticed.Anyway, back to the game. Ferrari was kind enough to throw a game together at the last minute in honor of me departure for Las Vegas. A late night at the office and a 10pm conference call did not deter him from hosting another game at the Blue Parrot. Derek made his first cash game appearance at the Blue Parrot. Both he and Toby played in the Blue Parrot Invitational, also known as the first ever NYC Poker Bloggers tourney a few months ago, but they never sat in an actual cash game. Coach and F Train were there. We also had some familiar faces like Julie and Marie, who brought a couple of bottles of my favorite beer... Red Stripe. Hooray beer, mon! I didn't take too many notes. I just drank a lot and shot the shit with everyone. Most of the pictures were taken by F Train using my camera! The Players:8:14pm EST... The bleeding of my stack began early during an orbit of Omaha hi/lo. Derek won the button and called Omaha. Marie went on a quick rush and built up a massive stack after she scooped two big pots from me and a couple of more during the orbit.  8:43pm EST... Ferrari called a round of $2/$4 Razz. Only F Train and Derek seemed thrilled. Razz and Pauly do not mix. I forgot to wear my cup and the bricks hit me in the junk hard and fast.8:48pm EST... F Train won the biggest Razz pot in the history of the Blue Parrot. $80. Damn. I was glad I folded there. 9:18pm EST... Toby's Hilton Sisters crack F Train's Hammer. 9:19pm EST... Julie's Hammer lost to Marie's 44. As the pot got pushed to Marie, Julie uttered, "That's the only time I ever played the Hammer!" 9:20pm EST... The hand of the night. Ferrari dealt as Derek came back from the bathroom. I asked him how many times did he ever come back to the table and find pocket aces? I got pocket kings once at the Excalibur. Anyway, I was in early position and found The Hammer. I thought that was odd. Three Hammers in a row... with F Train and Julie playing them in consecutive hands. I bring it in for a raise. Toby folded and Derek shouted, "Reraise." Ferrari re-raised Derek. Marie called and Coach capped the betting! I was in trouble. I put Derek and Coach on high pairs. F Train folded and I foolishly called a capped pot preflop with the Hammer. $60 in the pot preflop. The flop: 2c-7c-7s. That's when I sensed something fishy was up. I bet, Derek raised. Coach re-raised and I think capped it. The turn: Ac. Ferrari joked that he had a flush and I checked to make sure that there wasn't a straight flush possibility. I told everyone at the table that I had the Hammer. I even showed F Train and Toby who were out of the hands. Coach finally bailed out of the hand and Derek and Ferrari stayed in to the river. When the 5c spiked, I knew Ferrari had 3c4c. At show down, Derek had AA and Ferrari 3c4c. At that point he fessed up that he set up a cold deck. I knew right after the flop. No way could I hit a flop like that in real life. On Party, most likely, but never in real life. 9:38pm EST... Coach called Seven-card Push. Derek won a big pot. 10:03pm EST... I was down 12. I made back some money playing hold'em. Joanne called for a Dial-a-Shot. She was playing int he 30k MTT on Party Poker and was the chipleader at the first break. We popped outside for a smoke break while Ferrari took his conference call. Derek was the new chipleader after Marie left early.  10:53pm EST... -39 after a round of Omaha. At that point Julie started calling me "Nurse Pauly."10:59PM EST... -59 after more Omaha. The bleeding continued. 11:21pm EST... F Train's QQ ut flops Julie's Big Slick. The flop: KQ8. Ouch. 11:30pm EST... Live poker is rigged. Check out this flop (see pic on the left). AAA. Wow. Tom had AT too and went all the way to the river with Julie who thought he was bluffing. Derek folded 77 on the flop too. 11:35pm EST... Coach called $2 ante Anaconda. I was down $65 at that point. 12:14am EST... On the last hand of the night, F Train took all of Julie's remaining stack in Anaconda. Derek had the low locked up and F Train had T-T-T-9 showing. Julie had A-Q-Q-Q showing. Who had quads? Did they both? The way F Train was betting, I was positive he had it. He flipped over a ten on fifth street as Julie showed her ace. Lucky for F Train that the Blue Parrot does not require a piss test before you cash out. The Final Tally:Thanks again to Ferrari for hosting one last game before I took off to Vegas. It was a fun night and I'm glad everyone could make it on such short notice. See everyone when I get back! | Permalink | Monday, May 23, 2005
TowneHouse Bon Voyage Saturday  Toni hosted a Saturday afternoon BBQ followed by a tournament and cash games. She dubbed it "Pauly's Bon Voyage Bash." Damn, talk about one cool lady! Toni knows how to throw a good party. Have lots of great food, good music, interesting people, and include a $50 freezeout at some point during the twelve hour blow out. Yeah, I wandered out of the TowneHouse close to 5am after arriving 12+ hours earlier.Although Toni's midtown apartment lies in the shadows of the Chrysler Building, she manages to have a large terrace (sadly, it's bigger than my old studio) and that's the perfect place to enjoy an almost-Summer afternoon party. The BBQ started out as a mini-NYC bloggers convention. I met Joaquin and Jordan from High on Poker, both for the first time. F Train and Mas stopped by and played in the tournament. Derek and Ugarte showed up later for one of the many cash games going on all night. Toni had a few friends, TowneHouse regulars, and co-workers over so it was a good mix. Poker was the center of the events during the afternoon, evening, and early morning hours. The highlight of the party was seeing everyone at the TowneHouse for the last time before I head off to Vegas, in less than nine freakin' days. The other highlight was chopping first place with F Train in the tournament after playing a back and forth heads up match, which last over a half hour. To hell with Jesus and Phil, NBC should have been taping F Train and me battling wits at the TowneHouse! We we're much funnier and no fuckin' commercials. Toni had some great food in addition to the usual BBQ fare. You'll see some of the pictures sprinkled throughout this post. The deserts were amazing, including the cookies and brownies. Kathy made chocolate covered strawberries which kept me sane all night long.  Toni also ordered a crock of chili! Impressive. I'm a big chili guy. I swear that Joaquin ate at least four bowls. And it goes without saying that in a room full of lawyers, the alcohol was flowing pretty heavily. I'm pretty sure everyone was hammered at one point or another. I know I was steadily fucked up since the moment I walked in the door until the moment I left.We played a two table tournament. $50 buy in. Top 4 places paid ($300, $150, $100, $50) and everyone started with T1000 in various colored chips including lavender and pink. If you don't know about the TowneHouse, Toni uses pink chips at her games. First three levels are twenty minutes long then the next few are 15 minutes until Level 8, when they drop to seven minutes. I have a very good history at the TowneHouse and cashed in the majority of the tournaments I've played in, despite a handful of bubble finishes. I chalk up my success to good luck. There are some good players there. Joaquin opted to sit out of the tourney and wait for players to get knocked out to start a cash game outside on the terrace. Tournament Players - My Table:If you don't know, Jordan is a relatively new poker blogger and it's the first time we've met. He works in the building next door where I used to work in down on Wall Street. He's been pretty good at blogging frequently, which is a tip I suggest to every new blogger out there. He's stuck with it and I hope he keeps on blogging on a steady basis. I've played with everyone else at my table before, so I was familiar with all of their playing styles. Luckily, I skipped early action with Mas and F Train who were at the main table with Cliff, Toni, Damon, and Dan. And yes, I was the only non-lawyer at the table. Insert your own lawyer joke here _____. 5:37pm EST... Fireworks went off early as Cliff and F Train moved all in on the flop. With A-10, Cliff flopped top pair with a rainbow board and a ten high with two rags. F Train called Cliff with pocket Hellmuths. Yeah, F Train's KK held up and he doubled up on the first hand. Wow, it's just like Party Poker! Cliff would have been one of the last players I picked to get knocked out on the first hand, so it was a surprise to see him out before he had a chance to make a dent in his drink.  5:50pm EST... It looked like Jordan was the early chipleader at my table. Although I found both AA and KK, I was unable to capitalize and got no action. Andy was the short stack and moved all in with 77. I quickly called with JJ. I flopped a set and sent him out in 11th place.5:56pm EST... Damon had a shortstack and found AA. F Train had the big stack at his table and called with A-x suited. He hit his flush and Damon was out in 10th place, earlier than we both expected. F Train continued to amass a monster stack. 6:11pm EST... We consolidated to one "final table" and all the bloggers were still left. F Train had the big lead and Jordan was far behind in second place. 6:15pm EST... Mas was knocked out by F Train's Hilton Sisters. 6:17pm EST... In an unorthodox move, I limped UTG with AQo. There were four callers and I continued to passive play my hand on the flop. I checked to Jordan who bet out. I reluctantly folded, but since I completely missed the flop it was my only option. 6:22pm EST... My pocket Jacks held up again as Ken noted that I had been getting a lot of high pocket pairs. I had about T1600 and was in fourth place. 6:23pm EST... Toni's KJ knocked out Steve-O's and his shortstack in 8th place. He mumbled "I need a notebook. Two people at the final table have notebooks. That's why I got knocked out." He was referring to both F Train's notetaking (on the pad Joel gave him) and mine. 6:57pm EST... Kathy slowly built up her stack, as she always does. I found AK and raised. Jordan called with T9s. He caught some of the flop which I missed completely again. I almost pushed, but glad I didn't double up Jordan. 6:59pm EST... Dan was knocked out in 7th place by Jordan. 7:01pm EST... F Train continued his run and knocked out Toni in 6th place. By that point, Derek called and he was knocked out of a Full Tilt WSoP Freeroll. He took 101st out of 1500+. He told me he was en route to the TowneHouse. 7:10pm EST... Ken doubled up against F Train in one of the few hands F Train lost all night. 7:16pm EST... F Train's AJ knocked out Jordan on the bubble in fifth place. When Jordan flipped over 56o he said, "I have you dominated!" That drew a few laughs from the table and the railbirds. His hand didn't improve and F Train continued his chip lead. I was second, Kathy third and Ken in fourth in chips. We all made the money. 7:20pm EST... F Train tried to steal on the button and I re-raised with KJs in the little blind. He folded and I found myself with T6100 after going on a mini-rush where I picked up a lot of blinds with timely preflop raises. 7:22pm EST... Kathy and I were in a race. She pushed preflop with KQ and I had JJ again. I flopped a set and hit a fullboat by the turn.JJ held up for a third time, which might be a record for me. I always get killed by pocket jacks. Kathy took fourth place.  7:24pm EST... Ken's A5 was knocked out by F Train's J5 when F Train paired his jack on the flop. Ken was out in third place and we were heads up! F Train had almost a 3 to 1 chip lead on me (see pic to the right) and I offered him a chop. He laughed in my face. I did a little trash talking and told him, "OK dude, I gave you a chance, now I'll have to take all your chips."7:36pm EST... With AQs I won a big pot and ended up coming from behind to even the chip distribution. You can say that the momentum had swung my way. I felt like the Yankess in the late summer of 1978 when they chased down the Red Sox's 14 game lead to force a one game playoff. 7:40pm EST... We pretty much stay out of each other's way for the next few hands. I got shitty cards and I assumed F Train was getting nothing as well. 7:47pm EST... With a slight chiplead I made the first mistake since we started playing heads up. I tried to steal with 46s. F Train re-raised me as he moved all in. I put him on a re-steal and figured that at worst I was a slight underdog. With a lot of my chips already in the pot, I decided to call because Gus Hansen would have called. F Train showed 88. Ouch. Unlike Gus Hansen, I didn't kick my opponent in the junk with a runner-runner straight. That mistake crippled me and I had a little more than T1200 left in chips. 7:50pm EST... With T1800 when I pushed all in blind. I flipped over T3o. F Train looked solid with K4s. I flopped a ten and my hand held up. I doubled up as F Train shrugged his shoulders. Still alive with the blinds 400/800 and the levels shortened to seven minutes. 7:58pm EST... After about a half hour of heads up play, I came from behind twice against F Train to even the chip count. I think he had about T6400 and I had T5600 when he offered a chop. The blinds were 500/1000 and it seemed logical that we chop first and second place ($450 total) since it would almost be a crap shoot with the accelerated blind structure. It was a nice heads up match and F Train is a formidable opponent. I walked away with $225 or a $175 profit. The Money Winners:Toni and the rest of the gang wanted to start a second tourney right away. I passed. I wanted to take a break, get some chili, have a beer, and wait for Derek and Ugarte to arrive for the second cash game. While the second tournament reached the last few players, the bloggers who were KO'd were down with starting a cash game once Derek and Ugarte were settled in. Jordan ended up bubbling out again! Cash Game 1 - The Players:I wish I could say more about the first cash game other than that I lost $85! My Hiltons were cracked and that cost me a few bucks. As always, I'm a bleeder in Omaha hi/lo and I was giving away my chips. I was about halfway between Tara Reid drunk and Courtney Love shitfaced at that point and at a table of six, I declared that TPTK is an awesome hand in Omaha. That's why I pissed away most of tournament winnings, with delusional notions such as my Omaha debacle. Otis called me sometime around 8:27pm EST for a Dial-a-Shot. I think he said he was in a bar in Boston. Or maybe I'm making that up. The last few times I've spoken to Otis, I've been obliterated, including in Vegas. When I was in Kentucky with Daddy a two weekends ago investigating the case of the Drunken Donkey Fuckers, we almost called Otis. I waited until Iggy's home game to give him a shout out at a more suitable hour. Anyway, thanks for the call, dude. At that point, I was too sloshed to be using electronic equipment and hid my cell phone and camera. I really didn't care how much I lost and from my lack of notetaking, I'm sure that I was completely in the moment and enjoying playing cards with everyone, especially Mas, who I never get to see anymore now that he's a married man! Congrats again, Mas. And I never see Ugarte anymore either. He's becoming this bigshot comedian and only hangs out with people who sip Pinot, use air quotes, and toss around hipster buzzwords like Mocha Latte and WiFi as if they were the names of their firstborn children. Mas and Ugarte left the game up a few bucks. Cash Game 2 - The Players:It was just after Midnight when I sat down for a second cash game. It was dealer's choice and I bought in for $90, the remaining winnings for the tournament. We played a lot of $3/6 rounds of Hold'em and Omaha 8. Kathy called Follow the Queen and Toni called 3-5-7. I bled in Omaha and won some of my money back playing Hold'em. Again, I didn't take too many notes because I was having too good of a time, which flew by.  1:04am EST... Steve-O cracked my Hiltons with K7s. Ouch.2:15am EST... Derek hits a straight flush to beat Andy's four aces in a game of Follow the Queen. 3:21am EST... During Seven-card Stud (hi only), Derek called me all the way down to the river with an ace. I had two pair and I guess he thought I was bluffing. 4:41am EST... Derek limped in with AA and they got cracked by Toni. She had 47s and flopped an open ended straight flush draw. She had so many outs that Derek was almost an underdog there. She caught a straight to crack his pocket aces. We ended the game just before 5am. I ended up down $64 for the second cash game and walked away up $26 overall I think. Ah, I dropped about $150 in the two cash games after the tournament. As least I was freerolling in the cash games. Well, it was a perfect sendoff from Toni and her friends at the TowneHouse. Seriously, the chili rocked and Kathy's chocolate strawberries were awesome. We hung out for over twelve hours and drank and played poker the entire time. I got to meet a few people and two bloggers that I read (Joaquin and Jordan) but never met. Glad I got to do that before I headed off to Vegas. That was Derek's first time at the TowneHouse and I know he had a good time playing with everyone as well. Shit, and I got to play heads up with F Train for over a half hour. I think that would have been more entertaining than some of the average coverage of the NBC Heads Up Championship. F Train acted like a real professional when I bad beated him and didn't fall out of his chair like Hellmuth did in his childish display of theatrics. Man, I should have had our heads up battle videotaped and uploaded it for everyone to see. Next time, I promise. The only sour point was when Toni's upstairs neighbor complained at 11:06pm on a Saturday night saying that there was too much noise. I had been there on a random Thursday at 3am and we've been much louder. I dunno what was up that clown's ass, but it was comical to see a bunch of drunkards try to hush each other everytime the conversation got pretty loud. Anyway, it was cool that Toni hosted a Bon Voyage Party. It feels good that people from back home will be checking in to see what I'm writing. Yeah I'm already looking forward to returning to the TowneHouse at the end of the summer to play with Toni and her friends again. Thanks again, Toni. | Permalink | Sunday, May 22, 2005
Pic of the Day: Hellmuth's Hiltons  I just watched Hellmuth take down Jesus to win the Heads Up Championship on NBC. | Permalink | Friday, May 20, 2005
Top 10 Tips on Surviving Las Vegas Well we're close. I'm 12 days away from my arrival in Las Vegas. This entry is devoted to bloggers who will be heading to Vegas, especially for you Vegas virgins. So let's get to it. Pauly's Top 10 Tips on Surviving Vegas:And now I'll go into specific details. Feel free to print this up and hand out copies to your entourage. 1. Cut back on sleep immediately. As of right now, cut back on your sleep by 30 minutes every other night. Inside of two weeks, you'll be down to about 3.5 hours of sleep per night. The average Las Vegas visitor gets around 3 hours of sleep and the average poker blogger gets substantially a lot less. Cutting back on sleep is an easy way to get adjusted to sleep deprivation by following my simple routine. Seriously, if you are used to getting 8 or more hours per night, you're in trouble, I'd cut back 30 minutes everyday between now and Vegas.  2. Sip, don't chug.Pace yourself with your alcohol consumption. Al Cant Hang is a machine. His blood type is 180 Proof. He's not human. I suspect he's really an alien. There are also a few bloggers who are veteran alcoholics. Don't succumb to the frission of being in a room with all your favorite bloggers and foolishly attempt to keep up. If you do, you'll end up clutching the porcelain God at 4am wondering why the hell that cab driver punched you out after you yaked up your dinner and a half a bottle of Southern Comfort in his back seat. Surviving the Sherwood Forest bar at 9am on the morning of the blogger tournament was a moment I'll never forget. It's a badge of courage like a soldier who managed to get through D-Day without a scratch. I'm glad that we made it through an entire weekend of partying in Vegas last December without anyone getting their stomachs pumped at the hospital or landing themselves in the drunk tank at the Clark County jail. Let's keep it that way. Slow and steady wins the race. 3. Water is your friend. Las Vegas is in the middle of the fuckin' desert. Drink water. Lots of it. I used to try to drink one glass of water per alcoholic beverage consumed. In Vegas I do my best to double that amount. Sure, I'm pissing every eight minutes, but you're head will thank you the next day when you're experiencing a hangover-free morning. I think one of my biggest expenses in Vegas is my water tab, well that and trips to strip clubs with Grubby. 4. Bring a cell phone charger. Don't forget one. Since you will be staying up from anywhere from 20-36 hours straight, you might want to make sure your cell is charged before you begin your gambling session. With bloggers in town, having a phone will be necessary to arrange meetings or if you need someone to post bail money. Besides, you should throw your loved ones at home a bone every 12 hours and send them a drunken text message or get someone on the horn for a Dial-a-Shot. When you are sleeping, charge up your phone during the few hours that you're crashed out. 5. Take pictures. Come on, I know you geeky bloggers can't wait to spice up your Vegas trip reports with pictures. I encourage it, especially if you have never been to Vegas before. Don't be afraid to go camera happy and take more pictures than a menagerie of Osaka businessmen. Bring a camera, even if it's one of those disposable ones for $7. You have to leave Vegas with at least one good story and at least one good picture. 6. Ask before you post pictures on the internet. If you are a person who thinks they look awful in photos or is just camera shy or they want to keep their identity a secret, then by all means please tell everyone now. Conversely, if you are going to post pictures of bloggers, make sure you get their consent. I know this shouldn't be a problem for me. My ugly mug is all over the internet. I'm encouraging my fellow bloggers to snap more photos of me so I have a better sample to pick from. For fuck's sake, I'm going to puke up cat testicles if I have to see the same fuckin' photo of me and Max Pescatori from Sam's Town. Max is a cool guy, but I'm positive when I die, some two bit rag is going to run that stock footage of me at the first WPBT gathering. I mean how many times did I see that variations of that photo on twenty different blogs? And no, I will not be wearing that pestiferous shirt in Vegas. 7. Speak your mind and stay in the moment. I never got to really hang out with Bill Rini last time. That was one of my regrets... not making enough time for everyone. I simply assumed that I'll have time later in the trip to shoot the shit and play cards with Bill. That never happened. Don't make that crucial mistake. If you have the chance to talk to someone, take advantage of that opportunity. If you see Iggy at the pisser, seize the moment to talk shop with him. You never know what might happen during your time in Vegas. With such a big group, you won't have time for "quality one-on-one time" so whenever you cross paths with a fellow blogger, whether it's Otis sitting by himself at the Pai Gow table at 4am or running into Bad Blood at the Bellagio at 2am... stop by and shoot the shit. You won't regret it. And don't feel shy or intimidated about saying what you want to me or anybody else. Our time is limited, so speak up! If you want to ask me questions, feel free. If you want blogging advice, just ask. If you want to buy me a drink, let's do it. If you want to go to strip clubs, then hold on a second and let me call Grubby. 8. Table image is a factor in real life. A lot of us play the majority of our poker online. Some of you haven't played extensively in casinos, so here's my quick tip... image is important. How do you want to be portrayed? Like a dipshit tourist from Hootersville, Kentucky who's playing poker for the first time? Or a punk-ass kid with wraparound sunglasses at a low limit table who watches too much WPT? Or do you want to blend in and become a blur to your table mates? I usually cut my vocabulary in half and talk about topics like Celebrity Poker Showdown. I make sure I drink heavily in front of them, refer to women as "broads" and play one really awful hand in the first orbit that I showdown to the river. Too bad that I'm just being myself. 9. Don't be Gigli. Wow, Bill Rini got two shout outs in this post. Hey Bill! If you don't know Bill was the first blogger knocked out in December's tournament. He was awarded the infamous Gigli DVD for coming in last place. I bought a new copy of Gigli (how sad is it when the postage costs more than the actual DVD?) which I will be giving to the first blogger out of the Aladdin tournament. Will it be you? And rest assured I will torment you for the rest of the year with chants of "Gigli! Gigli!" in your chatbox every time you play on Party Poker. 10. Never underestimate the importance of a $20 tip. Do you wanna get shit done in Vegas? Tip the hell out of every person you see. I'm from New York City and we tip everyone. In a town like Vegas, most of the people working in the service industry are not paid extravagantly. They rely on tips to supplement their wages. You would be surprised how much attention you can get with a simple $20 tip. Heck that's like one big bet for some of you. Example #1: I call this move The Grubbette. When you check into a hotel and they ask for your credit card, carefully place a folded up $20 bill underneath your card. As the front desk person is picking up the cash and card, quickly ask them if they can bump you up to a better room. It never fails. But then again, Grubbette is a lot cuter than me! Example #2: Last time I was in Vegas, when I called around to find a reservation for dinner on Easter Sunday, I found out that every place was booked. Grubby, Senor and I made plans to meet Flip Chip and Poker Prof at Ceaser's Palace. I decided to pop into Palm to see if they had any open tables. The hostess checked her reservations book and said she didn't have any open spots for us. When I spotted two open tables, I slipped her $20 and said "Did anyone every tell ya that you have beautiful eyes? By the way, can you check again? That's Dr. Pauly, for a party of five." We were seated within five minutes. There is only one instance where I will tell you to save your tips... and that's in a strip club. Never, under any circumstances give a stripper a tip. If I find out you did, I will smack you personally. ***** ***** Ok that's it for now. Those were my half-baked ideas on how to survive Las Vegas. If you can remember half of these, then you should make it home in one piece. Have a great weekend. 12 days and counting.... | Permalink | Thursday, May 19, 2005
Reader Mail: Camp, Books, Donkey Fuckers, Time, and Elisha Cuthbert It's been a long time since I opened up my mail bag and shared some gems that I discovered in the last few weeks. Thanks for everyone for taking the time out to email me. I get a huge volume of email and do my best to read everything that comes my way. When I go out of town for a few days, my inbox clogs up and it takes me a week just to catch up. I seriously need an intern. I'm going to post an ad on Craiglist in the fall. And now let's start off with one of my favorite readers... Timmy. Dear Dr. Pauly, Hey Timmy, What's up homey slice? Let's get to the point. You are a mere pawn in your parents game of real world chess. Your dad is reliving old sports glory days through you. Tell him to fuck off and take up golf or something. The sooner you stand up to your old man, the faster you'll be able to live a childhood unfettered from PFDS... Parental Failed Dreams Syndrome. Reason with your old man too. Tell him you want to chase the muff around all summer and try to get Little Timmy some action that doesn't involve your mom's hand cream and an episode if What I Like About You. Thanks for reading. Crush the games this summer, Pauly *****
Yo Stacks, How about that, eh? I'm still hoping you can get Canadian Celebrity Poker off the ground. I'm sure if Elisha doesn't know how to play poker, we can teach her. I never saw that show she used to be on in Canada... Popular Mechanics. Was it good? Who knows, maybe she'll want to be a celebrity guest on a future podcast of Lord Admiral Radio? By the way, if you have the chance, please put a good word in for me if you happen to cross paths with Caitlin from Degrassi Jr. High. Thanks for reading, Pauly ***** Dear Dr. Pauly, Hey Jacob, Man I love to read. I devoured some Marshall McLuhan recently. Go read Wil's book Just a Geek  . If you like poker literature, check out The Biggest Game in Town written by A. Alvarez. That guy can write circles around me. Daddy loaned me Money Ball by Michael Lewis. That's pretty good stuff there if you like baseball and especially if you are a stat geek.Thanks for reading, Pauly ***** Hey Doc, Hey Josh, First of all, thanks for noticing. Not to beat a dead donkey to death, but in order to be a pain in the ass to anyone posting feeds of my blog on their sites for their own profit, I decided to use the term "donkey fucker" in every single blog entry from here on out. It will be tough, but for fuck's sake, I'm going to do it. Hey, my sensitive readers are lucky. I haven't dropped any C-bombs yet or posted pictures of frat boys from Akron fucking goats. Stay tuned. Thanks for reading and not getting upset that I hit on your sister, Pauly ***** Pauly, Pauly, Pauly-- Well Hey Chad, Sorry it took so long to answer your question. Let's start off with the simple fact that I am an insomniac. One early morning a couple of years ago when I used to work on Wall Street, I complained about my inability to sleep to the cleaning lady of all people. In her thick Guyanese accent she told me that God blessed me with the ability to function on four hours of sleep. "It's a blessing, son," she kept insisting. I finally accepted insomnia as a part of who I am. Yes, I sleep at least 3 hours less than the majority of Americans and even 4 hours less than some of you. That all adds up to almost an extra day a week that I have to do stuff. That's why I read and write so much more than the average blogger and that allows squeeze in so much other crap. Over a full year I have an extra 50 days all because I don't sleep well. Also, I try to curb my TV watching. Sure I'll watch sports but I try to avoid TV as much as possible. It's a huge distraction. TV is a blackhole for time. Throw your TV out the window and cut down on your internet time, both are contributing factors towards the dumbification of America. Time management is essential. One of my managers on Wall Street used to scream at the top of his lungs, no less than four times a day, "Gentlemen, you're burning day light. Get to work!" I feel like that a lot. I hate to waste my time. It's the only thing I truly own. Writing and playing poker are two extremely selfish activities. I am able to get away with doing both because I'm not married and I don't have kids. I don't want to spark a debate on whether or not married life can create stability in the life of an artist or whether it's a hindrance towards reaching one's creative peak. However, my close friends who are married with kids tell me every day about how fortunate I am to still be single. The people in your life have to be cool. Derek knows I'm a little weird when it comes to writing and has been very generous with giving me my space. Fortunately for me, despite all the jokes I make about her, the woman who I last dated was highly independent (being an elevator button heiress certainly helped) and she didn't suck up all my emotional energy. I cherish the freedom to create, freedom to travel on a whim, and having unstructured chunks of time where I can lock myself in a room for a couple of weeks straight and crank out a novel. She allowed me to do that and never complained. Hope that helps. Sleep less, stay single, and put a higher value on your time. See you in Vegas, Pauly ***** That's it for now. See ya soon. | Permalink | Wednesday, May 18, 2005
Hump Day Pimp Day: Hammers, Spoons, Books, Blog Tips, Freerolls, and Radio Free Pauly One of my readers, Merc, recently won an SNG with the Hammer! Take a peek here. Good work, Merc. Thanks for reading. Attention bloggers heading to Vegas. Joaquin does not have a romm yet. He is looking to share a hotel room while he's in Las Vegas with someone. If anyone is looking for a roommate to split the cost, please contact him. Oh, and stop by his blog and read his awesome posts about poker and Bobby Fischer. Al Cant Hang is throwing a booze-induced-rager after the blogger tourney in Vegas. Check here for more details aout the after-party. The after-after party will be held back in our suite at Midnight if anyone is still up at that point. Here is an interesting article written by Michael Cohen about the legality of internet gambling. HDouble at the Movies is back! These are some of my favorite posts in bloggerdom. The flick this time is The Matrix. As the Dude would say, "There's like... no spoon, man." My respect for Felicia grows more and more each day that I get to know her. She was giving me shit last week because I went the PC route and refused to rate her hotness on a scale from 1 to 10. I think we were in a group chat and someone asked about BG's hot cousin and I said she was a 8. Felicia tried to get me back yesterday by sending me a picture. I didn't puke instead as I quickly told her, I gained more respect for her. Now she's thinking about another way to get me back! Felicia rules. Stop by her blog(s) and wish her luck. She's got surgery on Thursday. I watched Mas advance in a Step 4 WSoP event last night on Party Poker. He came from behind and almost won if he didn't get rivered. I saw him take down a huge pot with 27s! He's the man. I played a little $3/6 on Party Poker yesterday morning with Heather. Inside of a half hour she was dealt pocket aces... three fuckin' times. Go read Iggy's friend Mr. Fabuluous' recap of his home game last weekend. Great times. I recently was sent a copy of Russell Fox's book Mastering No Limit Hold'em  . His publisher asked me to write a review for my blog. I'm too tired and lazy to write a lengthy review. If I have some time next week, I'll do it. But here's the skinny. Buy Russell's book now and add it to your library. It gets my stamp of approval.Say hello to the Lucky 13. Here are the last 13 blogs I added to my blogroll: Easy Cure, Jaxia, Fred Bals, Performity, Drowned at the River, Miss T74, Poker Blog Group, (B)log of Poker, Thirstan, Hagbard, Wicked Chops, Poker Junkie, and Mr. Horseshoe. Blogging Tips Are you looking on tips to improve your blog? My internet crush posted a hilarious entry called How to have a shitty blog. Some of her tips are pricless. Here's a bit: 2. make it obvious that you are ripping off other bloggers and that you are trying to always one-up them with your witty banter and personal stories that nobody cares about and you wonder why it's not working for you, this is because you exclude writing from an objective vantage point... oh and ps you're fucking boring.Raymi rocks. She tops my next "Top 5 List." Top 5 Canadian Chicks I'd Like to Drink Moosehead With....Joanne is batting second and Caitlin is hitting clean up. There's something very sexy with how Canadian girls say the word, "about." Here's a nice segue. Speaking of Canadians... Radio Free Pauly I taped my interview with Sean on last Saturday morning for the Lord Admiral Card Club Radio Show and Podcast. If you don't know it's the best podcast dedicated to poker in the universe and it's making me a huge cult figure in Canada. Sean and Brent are working hard every week to get this done (fo free) so stop by and show your support.You can download the MP3 of this week's show... Episode 26: Here. You can download last week's show... Episode 25: Here. You can read the show's notes: Here. My segment starts at the 28:00 mark of the show and it lasts about 8.5 minutes. We talked about my prep for Vegas. Check it out! This week's show as always, features an interview with the Poker Prof. Stop by their site and down load extra nuggets. If you want to catch up and listen to previous episodes, please visit their archives over at Brainscat. Thanks again to Sean and Stacks for having me on. Noble Freeroll  Lastly, the good folks over at Noble Poker are throwing me a free roll. It's part of the series of Las Vegas Bon Voyage games and tournaments I'll be playing in over the next week.Anyway, I know that everyone has had a few gripes about the software. Put it all aside for a few hours next Tuesday. They are giving away free money. Plus, I'll throw in a special bounty if you knock me out. You can find the tournament under the Scheduled Tournament tab. This is open for all of my fellow bloggers, friends, and readers. Shoot me an e-mail and I'll send you the password. When: Tuesday, May 24th at 9pm ESTThis freeroll is not a cheap way for me to pick up Noble affiliates. Everyone I am friends with already has a Noble account after they signed up for Poker Prof's freeroll or the third WPBT WSoP Satellite. I'm friends with some of the guys over at Noble and they are cool enough to send me off to Vegas with a private tourney for me and my readers. This might be one of the last chances that I'll be playing online before I leave for Vegas. Once I'm there, I'll be too busy with work to troll around online. Besides, why play online when I can hop in a taxi and play at the Mirage? I hope you can make it over to Noble next Tuesday. That's it for now. I'll be back with an installment of Reader Mail tomorrow. | Permalink | Tuesday, May 17, 2005
Three State Bender Part III: Iggy's Home Game "Possession of anything new or expensive only reflected a person's lack of theology and geometry; it could even cast doubts upon one's soul." - Ignatius J. Reilly8 May 2005 Covington, Kentucky We were back at the Behle Street Cafe in Covington, Kentucky just across the river from Cincinnati. Dirt McGirt tried to explain to the waiter that he wanted a beer in an OJ glass to chase on the side with his Bloody Mary.  "That's how they do it in Colorado.""For fuck's sake, we're in Kentucky," I muttered as I ordered a beer. Only a few hours earlier I found myself in a vicious game of Cornhole with money and blogger pride on the line. The rest of the late night events were fuzzy. I recalled that Weir measured a lot of things with his tape measure and that I took a piss in some alley in downtown Cincinnati, but that was it. Mother's Day Sunday and the cafe was buzzing with mimosa drinking mom's. I called my mother early and like a good gambler, I gave my Mom cash for mother's day out of my bankroll before I left. Daddy and I decided to go with the Mother's Day brunch special buffet. The offered up shrimp and garlic mashed potatoes and crepes among other great and tasty things. I grabbed a fist full of bacon, french toast, fresh berries, scalloped potatoes, and avoided the shrimp. I'm an incorrigible gambler but the notion of eating shrimp in Kentucky after two days of binge drinking is a serious wager on your health. I punked out and went for the fruit cup. Iggy and Huggy Bear rented a suite at the nearby Raddison and hosted their bi-monthly home game there. The hotel is a unique circular building and is easily recognizable from downtown Covington and from the highway. They have a revolving restaurant on the top floor also filled with mimosa drinking moms. Just one floor below the good people at the Raddison rented out one of their finest suites to a group of degenerate gamblers, known drug fiends, and unsavory alcoholic thugs. Man, I was pumped to meet some of Iggy's best friends because I knew I'd fit right in. The Players:  On the rail we had UWannaBet. He was swamped with obligations especially on Mother's Day. He didn't sit in the game, but stopped by for a few beers and a few laughs. It's always cool to meet fellow bloggers who you've played online with. On Saturday mornings, UWannaBet and I sometimes killed the $25 NL tables on Party Poker. Fun times. He also participated in several of my Pauly's Pub fantasy sports pools. Good guy. Next time I'm in town, he better play with us!The night was special because not only was it Iggy's birthday, but it also marked the five year anniversary of Iggy's home game. I felt fortunate to be a part of the rare occasion. I really wanted this write up to be one of the best I've ever written. I realize that is impossible because I took very few notes and that I could never recapture the fun no matter how many times I tried to write it. I was on vacation and vowed to live in the moment as much as possible. As it got later, I got drunker and took less and less notes. We played no limit $100 max buyin with 25c/50c blinds. I bought in for $60 as did mostly everyone, except Iggy who bought in for $100. That's always an awful sight at the table, finding Iggy with more chips than you before you even sit down. Here's what I was able to recapture from the few scribblings in my pad. 3:03pm EST... Dirt McGirt and Iggy were heads up. The flop: 9h-6d-4h. At some point Iggy goaded Dirt McGirt into check raising him when another 6 fell on the turn. The 5h fell on the river and Dirt was all in. Iggy flipped over pocket sixes for quads. Dirt McGirt lost his buy in and grabbed another cold one before he hit the road.  4:20pm EST... Daddy had pocket kings and was involved in the biggest pot of the game up until that point against Old Man River. Daddy got all quiet and began to perspire when he pushed all in and made Old Man River think for a few minutes about calling. He was losing his sight and the Sheriff had to call out the cards so he knew what he had. Old Man River eventually folded and Daddy let out a big sigh and said, "I'm sweating like a fat kid in a poker game."5:12pm ST... I built up an early chip lead (see picture above!) and doubled my buy in. I hit a straight with 34o in the big blind and took down a big pot against Old Man River. TDubb and Mr. Fabulous did dial-a-shot with Al Cant Hang. 6:31pm EST... Huggy Bear was involved in one the oddest hands of the night. He's a tight player. With KK, Huggy raised preflop and got a few callers. The flop: A-Q-J. He bet, Old man River called, and GMoney reraised. Huggy Bear turned to me and said, "I need some professional advice." I peeked at his hole cards and responded, "You've been playing with GMoney for five years. You've known him a lot longer than that." Huggy Bear let out a deep sigh and threw his pocket kings into the muck. Old Man River had been playing loose from the second he sat down and quickly called. The turn: A. Old Man River check-called then folded on the river when another ace fell. I put George on A-something. I expected him to show quads. Instead he flipped over pocket jacks. Huggy's kings would have been good! 7:04pm EST... After losing his buy-in and taking a short break, Jeff from Rants of a Young Mind rejoined the game and dropped the Hammer. I'm glad he decided to stick around.  7:32pm EST... At some point I had Maudie, Otis, and Derek on the phone doing various dial-a-shots with Iggy. Man, it felt cool to have other bloggers call me because I was so shitfaced that I lost track of the outside world as well as cyberland. When you unplug yourself from technology for a few days and step back from the world of blogging and being an internet celebrity, you quickly lose yourself in the real world instead of plodding along the virtual entity known as the blogosphere.8:16pm EST... We ordered a shitload of pizzas for dinner and somehow the conversation got turned to the local strip clubs. I was warned that the strip clubs were stocked with plenty of chunky dancers with C-section scars and flat tires. Daddy suggested we go to one and try to get her to come back to the room for a private show. "Dude, we'll pay them off in bacon." 9:14pm EST... Probably this was the hand of the night. Mr. Fabulous was short stacked and moved all-in on the flop of A-K-Q and two suited cards. GMoney flopped a Broadway straight with JTo and raised all in. Old Man River called with 82s. GMoney's straight held up and Mr. Fabulous was knocked out. 9:40pm EST... Daddy dropped the hammer. At the same exact time, a donkey in Hill Jack county was touched in an inappropriate manner. 11:32pm EST... Old Man River got the best of all of us over the course of the night. He saw almost every flop and called every raise with junk hands. Daddy raised preflop with JJ. The Sheriff, Old Man River, and Huggy Bear all called. The flop: 9-9-3. Daddy bet the pot. Only Old Man River called and Huggy and Sheriff dropped out. The turn: 5. Daddy bet the pot again and Old Man River called. The river was a king and Daddy bet about 50% of the pot with JJ. Old Man River called. He showed K5s. Daddy was crushed by the river and lost is buy in. The game ended shortly after that.  The big winner was Old Man River. I think I did second best with a $60 win. The game was super fun and we played for almost nine hours. Wow. It had been a long time since I sat at a poker table like that and all notion of time evaporated. Time rushed by as we were enjoying ourselves.Besides poker, we drank a lot of alcohol and got pretty wasted. Over the course of the game, I got to chat with everyone. I spent some quality time with Mr. Fabulous and GMoney on Saturday. Seriously, Iggy's crew is made of some amazing people. I was lucky to get to meet them and catch a small glimpse of Iggy's social group. Because I sat in between Jeff and Huggy Bear, I chatted with them the most. In the end, I say that you can tell a lot about a man by his friends. Iggy's crew is top notch and I truly felt special to be a part of an amazing weekend. The Iggy Home Game seemed to be just one of the many highlights for me as a poker blogger. I read all about it before. I'm sure some of you feel the same way about my Blue Parrot write ups... that you have to check that out sometime. That's exactly how I felt about both Daddy's Hill Jack game and Iggy's infamous home game. The crowd thinned out and one of Iggy's good friends stopped by while TDubb hung around and we partied some more. Joe suggested we get some coneys, which are mini-hot dogs filled with chili and cheese. How could I pass up on eating a local delicacy? Joanne called for a dail-a-shot late night. Daddy passed out around 1am. Iggy and I spent the next four plus hours drinking and talking. We both knew that we'd have very little time for one-on-one conversations when we got to Vegas. There's going to be a massive rush of bloggers wanting to talk and be around Iggy. That's why our late night chat was special. Quality conversations. I think it's funny that whenever Iggy and I talk, he takes notes. Seriously. In Vegas on the Sunday after the blogger tournament, we all met up at Mandalay Bay's sports book to gamble on NFL games. We all got trashed and in a drunken stupor, Iggy and I spoke about some half-baked ideas we both had. On the back of a sports betting sheet, Iggy scribbled down some thoughts. He says he still has that piece of paper!  Anyway, during out late night talk in the suite he took more notes as I sipped Miller High Life. Daddy likes to call them "Hi Dogs." I wish I can say that we spoke about three or four specific things, but we didn't. We were all over the map. Iggy is an interesting dude and we had a lot to discuss including the future of our blogs. Did we reach the apex? Or is this just the foot of the mountain? Time will tell.Just as the first break of daylight began creeping over the Kentucky Hills, I finished up my last beer of the three day bender. It was time for sleep. Iggy let us crash there in the suite, which was cool. How many times can you just pass out a few steps away from the poker table? A few hours later, we woke up and headed to Waffle House downstairs. There are several things I miss about living in the South. Waffle House is one of them. I almost came in my pants when our cute waitress asked me if I wanted "sweat tea." Hell yes. I wanted to get in her pants too. Her name was Tabby and she looked like Julia Stiles. She told us that her old man was a preacher. In my 32 years on Earth I realized that preacher's daughters fell into one of two categories... angels or demons. I hoped she was the rebellious type and wouldn't mind being picked up by a degenerate gambler from NYC on assignment in Middle America trying to break open the case of Donkey Fuckers. She cracked a few bad jokes of her own and gave Iggy a ton of shit for not finishing his breakfast. Daddy on the other hand went to town at Waffle House. He ordered double hash browns. I went with the bacon and cheese patty melt. That's the perfect hangover food. Before I said my good-byes to Iggy, I picked up two cartons of cigarettes. One was for Derek and the other for my lovey assistant, Jessica. Cigarettes are over $8 a pack in the big city. In Kentucky they are $20 a carton. My money goes a long way when I travel to middle America and the South. I told Iggy I'd see him in Vegas. Daddy and I got back into his pimp mobile, the one I puked in a few days before. We were ready to leave Kentucky and Ohio and head back to Indiana. My three day bender was over. Thanks to both Daddy and Iggy (and my friend Lori) for their hospitality. And special thanks goes out to their friends who all welcomed me like I was one of them. Despite all the red neck references, donkey fucker jokes, inbred Kentucky comments, and me railing on people because they have six teeth... I really had an awesome experience. The poker was kick ass. The Trey concert was amazing. The drinking was epic. Some of the best trips you'll take in your life are unexpected. This was one of them. Editors Note: Mr. Fabulous posted his version of the home game. Take a peek here. | Permalink | Monday, May 16, 2005
WPBT WSoP Satellite #4: Joe Speaks "Fuck Me" - Joe Speaker three minutes after he won  It's been a weird week since I got back from my three day bender in the Midwest. I put all the tales of donkey fuckers on hold and paused writing the report of Iggy's home game to play in the fourth and last satellite for the $1500 WSoP event on Poker Stars.I am happy to say that we added Joe Speaker to the list of folks that we're sending to the big show. He'll be joining Wes, Russell, and Bobby Bracelet in Las Vegas in a couple of weeks. Good job guys. I'll be on the rail that day at the Rio. Make us proud. Thanks to Iggy for setting these up and giving bloggers and readers with a limited bankroll a shot at winning a buy in to an actual WSoP event. Man, I'm getting so pumped up for Vegas now just thinking about all this. Thanks to everyone who particpated in all the events on both Poker Stars and Noble Poker. Some of you donated to the cause and I hope your money goes a long way.  This write up is dedicated to Drizz because he went to bed early before the tournament ended. And since Heather mentioned that she enjoyed the "time stamp" format of the write ups... we're going back to that way. We had 66 players forking up $33 to see who would go to the Rio. I happened to be seated at the TV table. We had a ton of rail birds. The Players:9:00pm EST... Sean from Anisotropy dropped the Hammer on the first hand. 9:11pm EST... Derek went heads up with CJ. Derek had 88 and CJ showed 99. Derek caught a 8 on the turn to cripple CJ who would be out a few hands later. 9:14pm EST... Derek doubled up with 55 when he caught his set on the turn after he was outflopped by AQ. He moved into the chiplead. 9:27pm EST... In the BB, I cold call a raise from UTG with AQs. I miss the flop and check-fold to a bet from litfpitr. He showed the Hammer! 9:38pm EST... I folded pretty much every hand. I wanted to see more flops but I didn't get any marginal hands to limp in with or call a moderate raise with. 787 Style raised on the button with AA. I pushed with TT. He quickly called and hoped I didn't suck out on him like I did a few tournaments before when my 27o cracked his AA (and Charlie's KK on the same hand). I was out in 58th place. Awful. 9:47pm EST... April slowly built up a stack at her table before she lost a big pot to 88 with AKs. 9:56pm EST... Derek found the Hiltons and went heads up with Royal's AK. The flop: Q-3-6. The turn: A. The river... another ace. It gave Royal trips but Derek filled in his full boat. Derek added to his chiplead after he knocked out Royal. 10:00pm EST... Derek was in second place at the first break with Lisalisa in the chip lead. 10:10pm EST... Trip Jax had been playing solid poker the last few tournaments. He lost a big pot to Al Cant Hang and his stack was crippled. He then went on a tear: AQs beat KK and ATs beat A9s. 10:13pm EST... Derek's TT cracked Austin Drunks' AQ. Derek moved into the chiplead. 10:18pm EST... Al Cant Hang dropped the Hammer at the same time HDouble was knocked out at a different table. Coincidence? 10:24pm EST... Derek's KK holds up against Minus 790's AQ. Derek had a nice stack and won several big hands with pocket pairs vs. AK and AQ. 10:28pm EST... Trip Jax tripled up with pocket jacks. Say that three times fast. 10:31pm EST... Derek found KK again. Guess what? They held up against April98's AK. 10:36pm EST... Trip Jax ended his comeback when his Hiltons lost to AK. He was river'd. 10:39pm EST... The Jacques Costeau of poker blogger, Bill Rini, pushed all in with a short stack and KQ. It was a three way pot that ended up being bad news for Maudie. She thought her AA would be good and confidently pushed all in. She lost to 99 who had her stack covered. Bdidde hit a set and won the side pot. Bill tripled up when he caught a straight on the river. Maudie was knocked out in a daze. AA cracked! 10:42pm EST... Derek's Hiltons held up against litfpitr's 77. Derek had well over 13k in chips. The Poker Prof won a big hand and moved into second place with over 10k kin chips. 10:51pm EST... Derek lost his first pot of the night. He flopped a set with 99. With 9-7-6 on the board, Bdidde had an open ended straight draw with his 88 and pushed all in. Derek called and was river'd when a ten He doubled up Bdidde and still held the chiplead with over 10k. 10:54pm EST... Joanne doubled up against the Poker Prof when her AA beat his ATs. 10:55pm EST... The final two tables were set by the second break. Gaamblor had the chip lead and Derek was in second place. 11:12pm EST... Derek's AK lost to TXchach's 44. That was one coinflip he couldn't win. The loss crippled him and he moved into next to last place. 11:19pm EST... Derek's QQ doubled up against GMoney's TT. He was still alive. 11:20pm EST... Joe Speaker's QQ lost to Biddie's A8. 11:22pm EST... Russell's TT lost to KQ and he was knocked out. 11:25pm EST... Derek was shortstacked and moved all in with A9s. He ran into AK and JJ. He finished in 10th place and missed the final table by one seat in yet another blogger event. The Final Table:11:28pm EST... On_thg doubled up wit JJ. And Spaceman is the first to fall right afterwards in 9th place. 11:29pm EST... GMoney and is TT knocked out One_outer in 8th place. 11:30pm EST... Joe Speaker won a big hand against gaamblor. AJ vs KJ. 11:42pm EST... The Poker Prof was knocked out in 7th place when his Q7 fell to Hydroponic's QT. 11:48pm EST... GMoney was knocked in 6th and Bdidde in 5th. 11:54pm EST... Joe Speaker won a 60k pot and took the chip lead when his AT beat out gaamblor's JTs. Gaamblor was crippled at that point and never recovered.. 11:59pm EST... Hydroponic pushed preflop with AK and gaamblor called with JTs. His Big Slick held up and gaamblor was out in 4th. Joe Speaker had almost a 2 to 1 chip lead over Hydroponic's second place. Midnight EST... Joe's A3 held up against On_thg's K9. On_thg had another impressive showing on the WPBT and almost won his second event this season. He took third place. 12:04pm EST... After a few hands of folding to raises preflop, Joe Speaker won the first big pot of head sup play. He raised Hydro on the flop of Kh-Q-h-6s. Hydro thought about it for a while and folded. Joe showed AJo and added 23k to his already big stack. 12:06pm EST or 9:06pm PCT... Joe Speaker made blogger history when his 74s beat out 92o. He pushed on the flop with a flush draw and won the tournament when he spiked his flush on the turn. He's the second LA area blogger to win a satellite to the WSoP.  Congrats to Hydroponic for a solid second place finish. Super congrats to Joe for an impressive win. Thanks to everyone who played. Thanks to Iggy for organizing and hosting another fun event. See everyone in Vegas. The write up of Iggy's home game will be posted on Tuesday. Stay tuned. I apologize in advance if there are any wrong or omitted hyperlinks, mispellings, and grammatical errors in the write up. It's 3:40am and I'm exhausted after working on the write up for over three hours. I'll fix up all the problems when I get up. | Permalink | Sunday, May 15, 2005
Reminder: WPBT WSoP Satellite #4 Just a reminder that there's a WPBT WSoP Satellite running tonight on Poker Stars at 9pm EST. We need players!! So go sign up today. Derek is a little slow. 4.5 months slow. He just posted day 4 and 5 of his December Las Vegas trip reports! Better late than never, eh? Some good memories. Take a peek. Here's a bit: Shortly after I spun the wheel, the Brawl occurred. Grubby and Paul were sitting at tables right next to each other. I was by the front of the poker room next to the rail. It was crazy. I heard some noise coming from Paul's table. I looked back and saw some guys fighting and rolling around on a poker table. I jumped up to see if it was Paul or Grubby. It was two retards and our heros were safe. Security showed up pretty fast. Some married guy was pissed off at some guy for talking shit to his wife. I overheard the husband lying to security. He said the redneck grabbed his wife and he had to defend her honor. What a retard!! Didn't he realize that the cameras would show that his wife wasn't grabbed. Plus, the dealer and witnesses had a different story. Wow, I still can't believe the fight happened at Paul's table while he was in the hand with the redneck who got beat up. Paul had the nuts too!! lol. What a wild day!!Ah, yes. The brawl! That was the apex of the last blogger get together. I wish I had the videotape of that! Hey, congrats to Helix for winning the Boathouse tourney. $1,000? First round of drinks in Vegas are on you, buddy! Congrats to Landow for making the final table. I posted Trey Anastasio Band setlists from his NYC shows on my main blog. I wrote a review of Friday's kick ass show and last night's show. Good stuff there. I wish I could get a gig writing about music. That would be cool. See everyone tonight. I haven't made the money in a blogger event in over a year (that's longer than a lot of you have been blogging). I came close in December, but bubbled out in Vegas at Sam's Town. Maybe that will change tonight? | Permalink | Friday, May 13, 2005
WPBT WSoP Satellite #4: Poker Stars = Last Chance Iggy announced a fourth and final tournament scheduled for this Sunday for a WPBT WSoP Satellite for the $1500 NL event, which will take place on June 3rd at the Rio in Las Vegas. Here's your fourth shot at getting in a lot cheaper. This is open to readers and bloggers. What: No Limit Satellite for the $1500 WSoP EventParticipants will be awarded points towards the WPBT Leaderboard. As you know this will be held the day before the WPBT event at the Aladdin. If you do not on planning on going to Vegas, then please out of respect, do not play in the satellite. We have three qualifiers already... Bob, Russell, and Wes. Who is going to be next? Oh, and I will be running a Hilton Sisters Challenge for this event!! Best of luck. Sign up ASAP! | Permalink | Three State Bender Part II: Reds, Derby, Trey, and Cornhole Yellow matter custard, dripping from a dead dog's eye.Daddy woke me up at the crack of the dawn. I was glad I didn't puke in his guest bedroom. My stomach lost a twelve round fight the night before and my head pounded with an acute pain, like I got sat on by Rosie O'Donnell for three straight hours. Hungover in Indiana. It hasn't been the first time and I know it won't be the last. We had a big day planned: Reds game with Iggy, the Kentucky Derby, and a Trey Anastasio Band concert. We met up with his old man, Major Trax, at 7am to pick up the tickets since we were taking separate cars. We arranged a rendezvous point at the Embassy Suites in Covington, Kentucky, right across the river from Cincinnati. Daddy selected a scenic route for us so I can see a part of the beautiful rolling hills on Southern Indiana. We yapped about a jillion things. Our conversation wavered back and forth between baseball, Red State politics, and of course... donkey fucking. In Red States, it's not uncommon to see a plethora of churches populating rural back roads. I lost count of how many I saw within the first hour. The one distinguishing feature was the Welcome Sign on the front lawn of every church. Those signs were strategically placed close to the road so drivers could get a glimpse of that particular church's propaganda. Some signs quoted scripture. Some gave the specific times of church service or bible study. And others would have snazzy catch phrases meant to have you think about God on your way to where ever you are going. We saw one sign in particular that had us cracking up for the rest of the drive. It was so powerful that we talked about it the entire weekend. "Celebrate here with your mother." Obviously, it was the day before Mother's Day and the local minister wanted to get the word out that you should bring your Mom to church before you celebrate Mother's Day. Daddy and I, however, had a much different vision of that slogan. "Fuck man, I'm gonna get shirts printed up. 'Celebrate HERE with your mother.'" "With an arrow pointing down to your crotch?" I added. "Yeah. And jock straps and G-strings too." It would be a best seller. It seems like every Tom, Brad, and Danny in the blogging community are pitching their t-shirts on their sites. Me? I'm going to get in on the ground floor with Daddy and sell "Celebrate HERE with your mother" t-shirts on my blogs.  We also came up with a great idea to sell religious quotes for $6 per month. What do you get for $6? Well, fuck, you get a quote a day, sourced from the bible, and it's emailed to you. It's perfect for Church signs, self-affirmations, and something to stash away and break out when a devil worshiper crosses your path. Jebus freaks like to spend money on Jebus related items. All we'd have to do is flip through the damn Bible once a day and rattle off a quote and let the big bucks roll in. To hell with being a Poker Stars affiliate. There's a shitload of money to be made in selling daily scripture quotes online. Jebus has left the building.We reached the hotel and met up with some of Daddy's old man's work friends who were heading to the game with us. They were all having a good time drinking and it wasn't even noon yet. We moved the party downstairs to the Behle Street Cafe, an outdoor eatery. Our group sat down at the bar. We were fixin' to get shitty before the game. The best way to shake off a hangover is to start drinking. They had a special on buckets of beer and we sat out in the sun and waited for Iggy to calls us. He and GMoney were scheduled to meet us at the game. Last time I saw Iggy, we were both drunk as skunks in Vegas. Across the street the Northern Kentucky Convention Center hosted a National Square Dance Gathering. Over 1,200 square dancing fanatics from all over the South gathered. Some of the them were eating lunch at the Behle Street Cafe. They were all in the 60s and wore those freaky square dancing costumes. I hoped they were just costumes and not everyone wore those kind of outfits all the time. There were quite a number of them mingling around in front of the convention center and waiting to be seated at the Cafe. If I was on any serious drugs, I might have freaked out seeing a gaggle of blue hairs dressed like it was 1958. I was in the South again, I had to remind myself. I erased the slightly disturbing images out of my head and focused on the beer in front of me. I was told from a lot of locals (Iggy specifically) that folks park on the Kentucky side and walk over the bridge to Cincinnati to go to the Reds games. That bridge appeared in the movie Rain Main. If you've seen the movie, you know the scene I'm talking about. As we walked over, Major Trax offered up a random nugget that the bridge was designed by the same guy who did the Brooklyn Bridge. We also chatted briefly about his love for the Yankees. He's been a Yanks fan since 1960. Mickey Fuckin' Mantle. Imagine the Mickster on the Creame and the Clear? He'd be crushing 70 home runs a year... easily. It's really simple to see where Daddy gets his sense of humor and passion for sports, especially baseball. A chat with his old man is priceless. He knows his baseball history and it's always a pleasure to meet an authentic baseball purist. Iggy has a good friend who works for the Reds. We already had tickets but Iggy scored 4 along the third base side. I told Iggy to find me in my seats with the Indiana crew then I would go over and watch the game with him for a little bit.  We finally met up and I was introduced to GMoney. He's been a fan of my blogs for over a year and a half. And he wasn't the only one. Iggy turned on my main blog and my musical road trips write ups to all of his friends. Man, that blew me away! Some of Iggy's friends have the same taste in music that I do. GMoney is a Deadhead and musician (a little older than me) and we had plenty to chat about. We've also been at a lot of the same Phish shows too. And the best part... he was going to the Trey Anastasio later that night in Cincinnati.I was in Iggy's hometown and I couldn't have been happier checking out a brand new (well two years old) baseball stadium. Last May, I met AlCantHang for the first time and took in my first Phillies game at their new ballpark. That's when I met Mrs. Hang and the immortal Big Mike for the first time. I told Mean Gene that I'm going to check out a Pirates game with him next! Anyway, I liked the new stadium although Daddy was busting on the concession area. He said he reminded him of a mall. It did. The field looked old school, but yeah, the fan area gave off a mall-like vibe. At least you could walk around without being crushed, like at Yankee Stadium where the corridors are tiny. I drank a few beers and we finally sat down in Iggy's seats. Within minutes of sitting down, Iggy nudged me and told me to look up at the Jumbotron. I was shocked that I was able to get my camera out in time. I was blown away by that. I looked at Iggy and I just nodded. He nodded back. We both knew how fucking awesome that was. Even the Reds were psyched that I stopped by. They were on a horrible losing streak and snapped it for me. There was a Dodgers fan with a dyed blue beard who walked up and down our aisle busting on the Reds. He screamed, "One and Nine! One and Nine!" Which I think was their home record? Everyone booed him and tossed peanuts in his direction. Iggy is not a fan of having his picture taken. I'm risking our friendship here by attempting to post the only picture of Iggy on the internet. So here it is. I took a picture of Iggy dancing around at the Reds game. The Reds finally won a game and Iggy went home after we agreed to meet up the next day for his homegame. I made plans to see GMoney and Rick aka Mr. Fabulous at the concert a few hours later. In the meantime, Daddy and I walked back over the bridge into Kentucky. I wanted to watch the Kentucky Derby especially because I had money on it. I called Boy Genius the day before when I was in Indiana playing poker with the Hill Jack boys. I told him to put $10 to show on Sun King. I knew George Steinbrenner's horse, Bellamy Road, was not going to win. Favorites never win. Not too many experts picked Sun King. I liked that. At 15-1 I liked his chances. But what the fuck do I know about horse racing anyway? Boy Genius is the so-called expert. Alas, he's been too busy counting up all the ketchup packets in his fridge to provide top-notch horse-racing coverage.  I was pumped that I'd be in Kentucky watching the Kentucky Derby. I wasn't at Churchill Downs, but it was close enough. I've attended one Derby during my late teens many moons ago when I lived in Atlanta and roadtripped to Kentucky with a few fraternity brothers. I experienced the Derby from the infield of Churchill Downs. Talk about a redneck convention. Everyone was shirtless, sloppy drunk, and peeing everywhere. And that was just the chicks.Anyway, flash forward to 2005. I'm sitting back at the bar at Behle Street Cafe with Daddy and Bobby, who is one of Major Trax's best friends. Their idea of a fun time is to drink two cases of beer and play 36 holes of golf. Good dudes. Bobby had hundreds of wild stories to tell and kept us entertained as we waited for the race to go off. And the race? What a let down. Sun King didn't even finish in the top 10 and Giacamo, a friggin' 55-1 shot took it all. My friend Lori lives in Covington. She's attending law school there and is one of my Tao of Pauly groupies. Yeah, she's an old school Paulyhead and I met her at a Phish show last year in Deer Creek. She contributes to my Phish blog from time to time. We also hung out at the last Phish shows in Vermont at the end of last summer. None of her friends had tickets so I told her to tag along and pre-party with Daddy and I. Coincidentally, she used to work at the place we were drinking at so she knew where it was. We wandered into the hotel for the tail end of happy hour. Embassy Suites gives their patrons a free drinks from 5:30 to 7:30. We joined Major Trax and Bobby. They were getting plastered and telling jokes. At one point Major Trax turned to Daddy and said, "What's yer nickname again? Snailshit?" I lost it and cracked up. Snailtrax. Snailshit. Same thing, eh? It's better than Donkey Fucker. Trey Anastasio Band Concert Review We grabbed a taxi to take us to the show and we got grumpy cabbie who wouldn't let us smoke in his cab. He dropped us right in front of the Taft Theatre where hundreds of neo-hippies milled around. Some were looking to score a ticket or drugs or both. We were waiting for some of Daddy's crew to appear. If you don't know, Trey Anastasio was the lead guitar player for Phish. They broke up last summer and he threw together a new band to support his solo act. I've only been in Cincinnati once before. I spent two days there in December 1999 when Phish played two shows during their winter tour. I was considered a tour rat back then when I actually had long hair (and a pony tail). I saw a shitload of shows in 1999 with Angela, the girl I was dating. I traveled all over the country that year with a 20 year-old spit-fire of a gal from central Texas. She was as cute as Natalie Portman and could drink like a fish. I'm also 100% positive she doesn't read my poker blog. Moving on, those concerts rocked in 1999 and they even played my favorite song Slave to the Traffic Light during one of those shows. It goes without saying that I was shitfaced the entire time I spent in Cincinnati in 1999. Some things never change. I met two of Daddy's buddies, Dirt McGirt and Weir outside. They know to party and have seen a bunch of Phish and Widespread Panic shows with Daddy. Lori had a floor seat and I had upper balcony so we separated when we went inside. I found GMoney and Mr. Fabulous upstairs. Daddy hit the bar and we missed the opening band. We found our seats and GMoney and Mr. Fabulous decided to sit near us instead. Good choice. We partied the entire show. They caught Widespread Panic at the Taft Theatre a few weeks before. It's a small venue no more than 3,000 seats. We were close to the back row and could almost touch the ceiling, but despite that we could see the stage with no problems. Set I: Dark And Down, Cincinnati, Dig A Pony, Oz Is Ever Floating, It's Ice, Burlap Sack and Pumps, What's Done> Bar 17, Will It Go Round In Circles I downloaded Trey's show from a week earlier. I wanted to hear what his new band sounded like. Only one of the keyboard players, Ray, played in his previous band which featured a kick ass horn section. He rearranged all of his songs with the new band. I had been seeing Phish for well over 15 years so I was used to hearing the tightness of four guys who had been playing together for almost two decades. Trey had only a few months to play with these guys so I knew there would be lots of inconsistencies. I didn't have high expectations and was happy to be having an amazing weekend.  The pace didn't pick up until they broke out Cincinnati. Trey wrote in after there was a fire in his hotel a few years ago, when Phish played Cincy in 2003. My buddy Zobo happened to be staying at the same hotel as Phish and woke up at 5am to find out his hotel was in flames! Luckily no one was hurt but that event inspired Trey to write a kick ass tune.The next two songs were average. Dig a Pony is a Beatles song and I noticed that Trey has been on a Beatles kick. Oz is Ever Floating is a song he first played with his other side band Oysterhead (which featrured Les Claypool and Stewart Copeland from the Police). The crowd went a little crazy when the band busted out their first "Phish cover" of the night with It's Ice. This version was much faster and Daddy kept commenting how much he loved the drummer Skeeto Valdez. I must say that Skeeto has a ton of energy and he was the only other band member I wacthed as the night wore on. By It's Ice they got the sound cleared up a little better. I was still having trouble hearing the bass player. Daddy smiled when he said, "You know Trey always wants to be heard." So true. Burlap Sack and Pumps was a little funky and Daddy had been singing the lyrics all afternoon. The next two tunes were slow and killed the first set for me. I took a piss and chatted with GMoney for a bit. Daddy wondered what the over-under for flunking out would be if we went to college together. He picked 3 semesters. Wow. Possibly. I'm still shocked that I graduated (on time and in four years) from one of the best universities in the South, even after I skipped classes for weeks at a time to follow the Grateful Dead. The band finally got their shit together with Circles. Too bad it took 45 minutes before Trey and his boys finally played to their ability. They smoked the shit out of it and Trey looked like he was having the most fun of the night, jumping and hoping around. During setbreak I found Lori and she gave me a pen. I forgot to bring paper and something to write notes with. Drunk Pauly. Oh well. At the break I was disappointed with the show so far. They had a few highlights but I expected them to rage in Cincy! I accepted the fact that Trey is playing music that he wants to play and I respect him enough as a musician that I'll listen to what he throws at me. I only hoped that the second set would have less lulls. Set II: Night Speaks To A Woman, The Way I Feel, Cayman Review, Push On Til the Day, 18 Steps, First Tube > In The Light I can't say anything about the second set other than... it kicked my ass. I dug all of the songs he played. I lwas fond of how he rearranged Push on Til the Day. First Tube, originally a Trey band tune later on perfected by Phish, was total sickness. Lori especially wanted to hear that. Trey jumped up and down and I could feel the floor of the balcony bounce with everyone dancing. Trey closed the set with a Led Zeppelin cover, In the Light, which GMoney really wanted to see. It was a sizzling version and much better than the one I downloaded. They are getting tighter as the tour progresses. I thought Trey tried his best to do both a Jimmy Page and Robert Plant homage in the same instance during In the Light. Freaky song and they rocked it out. It was definitely the highlight of the show. Encore: Waste, Love That Breaks All Lines, Back On The Train, I Am The Walrus My biggest critique about Phish was that they never knew how to end a concert. The usually played the last song I'd want to hear. More often than not it was a slow ballad like Friday, Waste, or Velvet Sea. Sure enough Trey came out by himself and began a Phish song called Waste. At first I was irked, but Daddy mentioned that Trey with an acoustic guitar can't be all that bad. He was right. I let my bias go and listened to the crowd sing along. Now I don't hate the song. I dig it. I never liked it as a single song encore. The lyrics to Waste kick my ass everytime I hear it. Don't want to be an actor pretending on the stageHe played two more acoustic songs including another Phish song, Back on the Train. Just when I thought that was it, his band appeared back on stage. A rare four song encore. Very cool. I guess Trey knew he punked out with a shitty first set and wanted to make it up with a crushing second set and encore. I turned to GMoney and told him, "I am the Walrus." Sure enough, they broke out into another Beatles cover. I am the eggman. As we made our way outside after the show ended, Daddy sang I am the Walrus for everyone around us. We met up with Lori outside. She was super happy. She was in the sixth row and could see Trey jumping up and down during First Tube. We also met up with the Indiana boys... Schroeder, Weir, and Dirt McGirt... as they stumbled out of the theatre. Weir had me cracking up. He had a tape measure attached to the side of his pants. He would measure random things. That's what you do when your shitfaced. Lori was a good sport especially when he stood close to her and then shot out his tape measure towards her face. He stopped to see how far it was. "Three and a half feet away from being a cocksucker." We all errupted in laughter as he let the tape measure go and it recoiled back with a sharp snapping sound. I still laughed hard when I typed that line. It was past Midnight and Lori had to meet up with her friends over the river in Kentucky at a German beer house near the Levee. Daddy rounded up his boys and we headed back into Kentucky. Daddy, Lori, and I grabbed the first cab. The Indiana boys took the second. They didn't know where they were going and Weir told the cabbie, "Follow that car!" Which is something he always wanted to say. Cornhole Lori took us to Hofbrau House near the Levee. That place is not for amatuers they serve dunkels of beer. Dunkels are huge mugs of beer the size of people's heads that Germans drink like it's water. Lori introduced me to her friends (one of which Daddy thought was "hotter than Georgia asphalt"). Daddy handed me a dunkel of dark beer. Time to go to work. I wondered how much beer was actually in the glass. Weir walked over and busted out his measuring tape. Six inches in height. Four inches of beer. 6x4. Yikes. That's a lot of beer. I was having trouble holding the dunkel with one hand. I had to use two. I decided to drink fast. But man, a dunkel is like a size of a pitcher of beer. I haven't chugged pitchers in over a decade. I did what I could and sipped fast. I'm sure it was the mushrooms but I felt I would take huge swigs only to find out I barely made a dent. Daddy's boys disappeared to an adjacent section. That's where folks were playing Cornhole. Lori was trashing it the entire time. It's been sweeping the Cincinnati area the last few years. Daddy had never played it and I was skeptical. Where I'm from, the term cornhole means... anal rape. It's not a fun term. Anything involving insane amounts of liquor, residents of Kentucky, and the word "cornhole" was enough to make me want to run away. Yeah, I'm sorry to disappoint some of you sexual perverts. Although Corn Hole comes from red neck roots, it has nothing to do with sex. Or donkey fucking. You basically try to toss a small bean bag filled with corn into a ramp with a hole in it. Simple, eh? Cornhole a derivative of horseshoes. But you have to be drunk to play. I don't think sober people can fully comprehend the retardness of why people would waste their time tossing small bags filled with corn into holes... and keep score while doing it. Here's the deal you can play teams. Two on two. And you take turns tossing four beans bags alternating between you and your opponent. I had Dirt McGirt on my team. Daddy had Weir. I got lucky since Dirt McGirt is the two time Indiana State Champ. He's the Roy Hobbs of Cornhole. But shit, anything banal becomes instantly exciting if you place a small wager on it. Ah, some actual gambling content in this post. Daddy and I were betting $1 per round. In between slurping our dunkels, we'd place side bets. I was out of my element and Daddy played minor league baseball. I was the definite under dog being a city boy playing a red neck sport. Yeah, I played Cornhole with Daddy and Lori watched. She basically stood in the corner and mocked us. Daddy and the boys ordered another round of dunkel when it hit last call. At one point, we were double fisting dunkels and Daddy was making pirate sounds effects, "Arrrghhh!" I had one of those existentialist moments that crop up from time to time: What the fuck was I doing at a German beer house in Kentucky at 2am playing cornhole with a bunch of rednecks? Almost 48 hours into my trip, I never quite never figured out the logistics of donkey fucking, but I stumbled upon something possibly bigger... cornhole. I could see hipsters eating this game up in NYC and embracing the red neck culture. I could make a million dollars off a bunch of been bags an a ramp or too. Outside of the Cincinnati area, no one had ever heard of cornhole. Like I said, the only cornhole tournaments being held in New York City are at Riker's Island. Where the biggest baddest motherfuckers in the joint welcome newbies to prison with their own version of cornhole. ...to be continued Oh by the way, Three State Bender Part III: The Iggy Homegame will be posted on Monday. Check back then. | Permalink | Thursday, May 12, 2005
WPBT WSoP Satellite #3: Noble Bloggers "We're all one bad beat away from being a rail bird." - Tao of Pauly Quote me on that gem. I don't want some donkey fucker from North Dakota ripping that off.I thought about spouting out a detailed write up about our latest adventure on Noble Poker, but then I said fuck it. Do you really care if G Rob dropped the Hammer on me at 9:26pm EST? Or that I dropped the Jack Hammer at 9:41pm EST? Or that at the end of the first break I found myself seated at the same table as my brother for a third straight tournament, with 57 players left he sat in last place? Or that I went on a mini rush and my chips jumped from T1200 to T2700 after I won four straight pots? Sure that's kinda interesting. But hey, let's get to the sad bad beat tale? Maybe it will get me a sympathy lay somewhere down the road. Nothing gets chicks hotter than bad beat stories. I got knocked out by SoxLover. He's a friend of F Train from law school. I dunno what's worse... being a lawyer or being a Red Sox fan? I had the Hiltons tag-teaming me and those damn wenches screwed me over. For fuck's sake, losing to pocket Jacks when you have an over pair is embarrassing! Pocket Jacks have lost more big pots than any hand in the history of poker. It's a kick in the junk when you lose to Jacks, especially when you think you're sitting pretty with the Hilton Sisters then WHAM! Kicked in the junk. Your chips are abruptly shipped across the table as your avatar is sucked out into no man's land... the virtual loser's lounge... where you get to whine to your fellow bloggers who have already busted out, and got a refill, and blogged about their bad beat. Of course you are banished to the cyber rail, eagerly waiting for your chance to say something funny so your fellow bloggers don't think you're a total brain dead freak that has no other interests other than playing on Party Poker for 25 hours a day and reading poker blogs. Like I said in my opening quote, one bad beat ruins your entire tournament. Fuck man. Hiltons losing to Jacks. Oh well, shrug it off and move on. At least I didn't get knocked out with AK again. OK, I know you could care less about who fucked who over in what position and how many outs so and so had and blah blah blah. Sometimes blogging all these flops makes my head hurt. Ever get that feeling? Maybe I'll skip the hand by hand stuff and just give you the line ups because that's everyone's favorite part of the write ups. So here we go. My Starting Table:I like pictures. Don't we all? I'll let the screen captures tell the rest of the story because it's 2am and I'm lazy. You can click the pics to enlarge. I will say that Otis made another final table (I was happy that he got to play in this event!) and that Spaceman and Bad Blood also played great poker. The final four agreed to chop second place's prize money and give away only one seat. The The Fat Guy almost made it to the big show. On his birthday he nearly pulled it off. So close, TFG!! Wes came from behind to win it, so hat's off to you. Congrats to everyone who played and participated the last few weeks. Special thanks to Iggy for setting it up.  I Wonder if the Fat Guy had the Hammer?  Then there were two...  River'd!  Congrats Wes!  Third time's a charm right? 83 bloggers and readers forked up $33. They were all gambling on a win, a big score, the shot of a life time... the chance to be flinging chips along with the pros. Not against the fish on Party Poker, but against certified, rip your throat out, take all your chips and dignity Las Vegas sharks. Those dudes and dudettes devour hundreds of eager amateurs from Hootersville, Iowa every year who think they can hold their mud against those pros you see on the TV. You're the best one in your home game but to them you are the fish. You might be an internet celebrity, but the pros mock you and call you "dead money" behind your backs. They salivate like Pavlov's frothing dog when you show up at the table with that fresh tourist glow and flash them that what-the-fuck-am-I-doing-here glance. Sure try to hide it behind shades and a baseball cap. It's futile. They can sniff out your soul faster than Keith Richards can rip a gager of Peruvian snowflake during set break at Altamont Speedway back in 1969. You are the longest shot on the board and yet, you still sit down to play. Why? Because in poker anything can happen. Bob. Russell. Wes. Stop by their blogs and wish them luck. They're all going to Vegas with our money and will try to show them how we play poker and how fuck around and we'll drop the Hammer with reckless abandon at any moment. Attack, gentlemen. Don't be a bunch of pussies either and fold your way out in 374th place. Don't back down against the sharks. The worst thing a bully wants is to have someone push back. Kick the big dogs in the junk and don't stop until they fall out of their chairs and you snag all their chips and they walk back to their exspensive cars withering in groin-numbing pain. Take your time, but be decisive. Once you allow fear to enter your mind, you're fucked. Eliminate fear and you can fall into the zone, the groove that all players want to fall into at some point, when you're making perfect laydowns and bold calls and every card falls into place and you're winning every coinflip and building up a chip stack bigger than Dirk Diggler's crank. Make us proud guys. Show the poker world that on June 3rd, you can ride the wave of luck, skill, and courage all the way to first place. When you slide your first World Series of Poker bracelet around your wrist, don't forget about how you got there. And I'll end this pep talk with a movie quote from Karate Kid to appease Bob's twisted sense of humor... "Strike first. Strike hard. No mercy." | Permalink | Wednesday, May 11, 2005
Poker Prof's Noble Free Roll Quick Note: the WPBT WSoP Satellite #3 is being hosted tonight by Iggy on Noble Poker at 9pm EST. Hurry up and sign up right now! Oh and happy birthday, Fat Guy!! Poker Prof and the Lasvegasvegas.com Freeroll The Poker Prof held his very first free roll on Noble Poker last night. If you don't know, The Poker Prof and Flip Chip from Lasvegasvegas.com are reaching their first anniversary of spectacular blogging. In a very short time, they have jumped to the top of the heap regarding all things poker in Las Vegas. Pictures, tournament reports, insider info are just some of the many kick ass things you will find on their site. Yeah, that also makes them a target of piracy which happens when you are one of the best at what you do. I am so frigign' lucky that the Poker Prof asked me to join his team at Lasvegasvegas.com to cover the World Series of Poker. When he announced his free roll with Noble, I jumped at the chance to play. With $200 in prize money up for grabs, 193 players entered. The top 15 were paid with $50 going to the winner.  I only recognized StB and Buffalo66 at my table. Heck, I barely recognized anyone who was playing. Where the hell did these people come from? The rest were readers and vultures waiting to score some free money. Joanne, Iggy, and Bad Blood were seated at the same table. In these big events, I find a table with the most bloggers that I know and sweat them. Noble only allows 3 tables up at one time so I had me, those guys, and Derek's table up. 9:05pm EST... My 99 held up and I began stopping at random tables wishing my friends good luck. 9:09pm EST... I raised a huge amount preflop with KK in the Godzilla of overbets. One guy called with JJ and he doubled me up. I had over T3200 in chips and moved into the Top 10. I love getting chips early. 9:10pm EST... With 10h-9h, I flopped an open ended straight flush draw. I went to the river in a three way pot and missed all my draws along the way. 9:13pm EST... I made another huge overbet preflop with AKs. The little blind had the only other bigger stack than me and he called with 10-9o. The guy was an uber-fish. I was first to act and was positive that he did not have a pocket pair, so I moved all in on the flop and the lucky fooker outflopped me. I was knocked out in 168th place! Unreal. I could have check-folded since I missed my flop, but that guy was playing J3s and crap like that. Oh well that's what happens in free rolls... the fish flock. 9:27pm EST... AlCantHang dropped the Hammer! Iggy had doubled up and was looking good. 9:28pm EST... AlCantHang won a pot with the Hilton Sisters. 9:37pm EST... Derek made a mistake with the buttons and he called a huge all-in bet by accident. He had 10-3o and we know how well Derek's been playing. He would never push with that. Again, he wasn't too familiar with the software and fucked up. Hopefully he'll fare much better tonight. 10:00pm EST... AlCantHang won a big pot with the Hilton Sisters. At the first break, Maudie was in 3rd place. 10:12pm EST... AlCantHang and the Poker Prof sat at the same table. Talk about the ying and the yang. The last two times the Poker Prof had an excessive amount to drink was with me in Vegas and AlCantHang in LA. We're a bad influence! 10:28pm EST... The Poker Prof moved all in with 77. Unfortunately he ran into QQ and was knocked out. 10:40pm EST... Bad Blood was the serious short stack. He flexed his muscles and went on a mini run. He moved all-in two times in a row spurred on by a gaggle of railbirds. He tripled up one time and doubled up the other. Mala sangre en fuego! 10:46pm EST... Big Slick Nuts went on a streak of luck himself. With 88 he beat out AK after he caught a runner-runner straight and doubled up. I think he ate two bowls of Lucky Charms for breakfast. 10:48pm EST... Maudie was knocked out in 21st place. There was one nimrod named Jas123 who had been harassing Maudie and other players all night. When I witnessed his antics I felt compelled to step in. After I kindly asked him to refrain from his attacks on the players, he even asked "Who the hell are you?" I responded, "They guy who is going to stomp on you for harassing my friends." Don't fuck with my friends. If I do, I'll ship you off to Hill Jack country and let some of Daddy's Greene County boys reenact scenes from Deliverance with you. And yeah, you're going to be playing the role of the pig. "Squeal like a pig!" 10:49pm EST... We reached the final two tables. Only Bad Blood, Trip Jax, Big Slick Nuts, and CKPony were left among the bloggers. 10:53pm EST... I began calling Big Sick Nuts a new name... Big Luck Nuts after he sucked out another player! His AT went up against AJ and won when he river'd the ten. 11:02pm EST... Bad Blood was finally knocked out in 17th place. 11:10pm EST... By the third break, Big Luck Nuts had the chiplead. 11:27pm EST... We made the final table with three bloggers left. Big Luck Nuts was the chipleader. 11:29pm EST... In one of the biggest hands of the free roll, three players moved all in preflop. Big Luck Nuts had AK. AFoil had AQ and CKPony was the short stack with JT. AFoil sucked out a straight and won the main pot. Big Luck Nuts won the side pot. 11:32pm EST... CKPony was knocked out by a set. He took 10th place. 11:37pm EST... TripJax lost a big pot when his 99 lost to AK. 11:40pm EST... BigLuckNuts won with AA and knocked out JTW. 11:41pm EST... With a short stack, TripJax moved all in with QJ. He flopped a pair and caught trips on the river and tripled up. 11:43pm EST... BigLuckNuts ran into some bad luck when his 55 lost a coinflip to Sedeucer's AQ. 11:45pm EST... TripJax moved all in with the Hilton Sisters and lost to AJ when an ace fell on the turn. Ouch! He played great once again. On the next hand Big Luck Nuts beat out Cardozer and we reached the final three players. BigLuck Nuts had a small chiplead. 11:51pm EST... Seduecer moved into the chip lead. He knocked out JimineeJilagers in 3rd place. 11:53pm EST... Heads up! Big "Luck" Slick Nuts was the last remaining blogger and the few who stuck around gave him all the best vibes we could. He was outchipped almost 2 to 1. He won a few pots to get close. His AK beat out QJ and I thought he was going to pull it out. 11:54pm EST... The lucky streak ended. Big Slick Nuts hit part of a flop with 56o. Seduecer also hit a flop with 86o. The both pushed with the board reading: A-8-5. Running sevens fell and that didn't improve Big Slick Nuts' hand. He took second and won $40. An impressive run for sure. Good job. Congrats to Seduecer for winning first place and $50. Good job for sure. Don't forget to sign up tonight for the WPBT WSoP Satellite #3 tonight at 9pm EST! ***** ***** Finally, I will settle all this high school bickering about switching from Poker Stars to Noble Poker with this simple statement: Otis can now play with us. Last night Derek pointed out that since Otis is an employee of Poker Stars, he has been unable to play on that site with us. Playing with Otis is priceless. The move was necessary to accommodate Otis' situation. That's what friends do. If you are new to the scene, Otis is the man and it really sucked that he had to sit on the sidelines for the last two. The way I see it, having Otis in the mix is worth a billion times more than any paltry affiliate revenues that I, Iggy, or Prof will generate. Oh by the way for the record, I am not a "blogger affiliate" with Noble Poker. I do have a business relationship with them and the specifics are none of your damn business. That ends that debate. If you are a random blogger who is getting zero sign ups and is steaming, what can I say other than that if you were a better poker player, you would not need to rely on affiliate sign ups for revenue. Suckout had a great post on how much of a pain in the ass affiliates can be. Here's a bit: You can't simply say "Hey, you suck. I checked out the affiliate program details and you're getting like $100/signup for every player you refer to IBlowGoats Poker. You're getting rich because like fifty or sixty people are going to sign up through your links and you just want the money and don't care about any of us or if the site is a good one or anything like that. Waah."I wonder if I'm BigShot McGee? Hehehehe. Great post, Suckout. Any proceeds that I generate this month from my affiliate links on other sites (Party Poker, Poker Stars, Full Tilt) will be going to cover the cost of my bar tabs in Vegas. I don't expect to get a lot, so this week all my $3/$6 winnings will go towards the bar fun as well. And I'm a generous drunk which means I'll be paying for a lot of your fun in Vegas. I am also looking to fund my next trip to Indiana to further investigate the donkey fucker phenomenon. OK, moving on, my cock is this big... | Permalink | Tuesday, May 10, 2005
Three State Bender Part I: Donkey Fuckers and Hill Jack Boys "I think it is important that everyone know the proper way to fuck a donkey. There are several approaches, but none more efficient than this one. I prefer to call this the "Backdoor Cut" approach, but it is also known in parts of Appalachia as "Slapjacking," "Mule Greasing," and "The Old Rough n' Tumble."" - DaddySomewhere, Indiana 6 May 2005 An iota of doubt flickered in my mind as I stepped off Northworst Airlines flight #169. Daddy from Snailtrax called me at 5am. He started his tri-state bender off a day earlier than me after he raged at a Karl Denson show in Bloomington and slid way past Shittysville during the course of the evening. He left a bizarre and rambling message that woke me up but I was too sleepy to pick up the phone. "Fuck dude, this is fucking hilarious... (incoherent)... Doc, this is Daddy, man, call me when you are ready to get on the plane.... (incoherent).... I went to Karl Denson and ended up at some house party. I don't know, fuck, where my fuckin' car is parked.... (incoherent)... Call me so you can wake me up...(incoherent)... or otherwise I'm gonna to just gonna fuckin' rush into some houses and wake some motherfuckers up. Aw shit."  Aw shit is right. Five minutes before I boarded my plane I called and left a wake up message. I called two more times before take off... each time getting his voicemail. I did what I could. It was out of my hands.The flight to Indy was nothing out of the ordinary. I re-read Wil Wheaton's entire book (minus the Q&As) on my flight. (Editor's Note: It was weird that Wil happened to stop by last night and leave a comment because I began my trip reading his book and one of the first people to welcome me back... was Wil. Thanks Bub!) I quickly made my way through Indianapolis airport. It might have been the quickest navigation I ever experienced at major city airport. It took six minutes for me to deplane, piss, check my messages and make my way outside. Six minutes. I called Daddy expecting that he'd be laying face down in a drunk tank and would not be taking my call. I was surprised when he picked up. "Dude are you in Indy? Fuck," he said. As I rode the escalator down towards the baggage claim area, he miraculously appeared at the bottom pointing at me. He made it on less than two hours of sleep. "Welcome to Indiana, Doc. By the end of the night you'll get piss drunk, get in a fight, and fuck a fat chick in order to fully absorb the Southern Indiana Hill Jack experience."  We were ready to get crazy. I was on a mission, well several missions. The first mission: Not to touch a computer keyboard for at least 80 hours. No email. No blogging. No Party Poker. Nothing. My second mission was to have fun, live in the moment, and see a kick ass concert. My third and most important mission... was a secret.Daddy agreed to show me around parts of southern Indiana that I never would have set foot in I had not met him. I slowly slipped into vacation mode as we drove along the back roads. When arrived at his house, Daddy quickly showed me his dog, his banjo, and a framed picture of Hunter S. Thompson from a town hall meeting in Colorado. Mrs. Trax was at work and we would have to postpone our initial meeting a few more hours. Daddy lives right next to a golf course, along the fifteenth hole. We decided to hit the links for a round, which would be my first round of the year. He busted out a pair of old clubs for me and we were ready for a little fun in the sun. Daddy grabbed two six packs of Miller Lite from the clubhouse and we drove up to the first hole. No driving range for us. The driving range is for pussies. Maybe I should have hit at least one ball. My first shot looked ugly after I topped it and my Titleist spurted only a few yards in front of us. The cold beer helped my golf game. It made me forget about the last shot and focus on the next one. We chatted about all things like baseball trivia, Round Room, the weight of a whale vagina, and the last blogger trip in Vegas. The first nine holes were relaxing. Every now and then Daddy would remind me about the upcoming poker tournament, "6pm Freezeout."  It seemed that Daddy knew everyone on the golf course. Even his old man, Major Trax, was on the course. It was an honor to meet a true Indiana sports legend and the father of one of the sickest demented motherfuckers I know.The back nine went quick and I only had a hot dog to eat all afternoon. I shot much better and stuck to my 3-iron off the tees. My putting was horrible and my short game (40-90 yards out) is still my only strength. I used to play a lot of golf during college when I lived in Atlanta. Since then, it's been hard to find time to play. Daddy is a pretty good golfer. He's a big guy and ripped a 300 yard drive on one of the par fives. Impressive indeed. After the round, we headed back to the house and I met Mrs. Trax. Like I suspected, she was a hip, hip lady. In our brief encounter our conversation jumped back and forth between Cincinnati race riots and Angela's infatuation with Jordan Catalono on the short-lived, yet critically acclaimed drama My So Called Life. Before I left for the poker tournament, the lovely Mrs. Trax gave me a warning, half in jest and half serious, "Be careful of those Greene County boys." We headed over to Greene County where Daddy's buddy the Weasel lived. That's were the game was being held... in the heart of Hill Jack country. If you are not familiar with the term "Hill Jack," well it's the equivalent to "Hillbillies." We stopped by the house of one Daddy's other friends to see if he was playing cards too. Unfortunately, he blew us off to watch movies with his girlfriend and her daughters.  We walked over to Aggies, one of Daddy's favorite local watering holes, and entered through the alley way in the back door. You gotta love a bar with a back door. We ordered a few drinks and Daddy introduced me to this weird fellow named Werner. He's a German guy with very few teeth. He was known as the best house painter in the area. He never spills a single drop of paint. Unfortunately, old man Werner blows all his painting money on beer and gets shitfaced. I met a few other people at the bar, all nice folks. Everyone I met in Indiana said the same thing, "Why the hell did you come here from New York City?"I told them about the third leg to my secret mission. I was on special assignment by the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Station or C-Boot as I shall refer to it from here on out). "You see folks, I'm here in Southern Indiana to investigate the subtle art of Donkey Fucking. The people of Canada are intrigued by the Donkey Fucker phenomenon and sent me to find out as much as I can about how some of you whackos participate in the fastest growing hobby in rural America. If you guys have any information, I'd love to buy you a drink and have you tell me everything you know about donkey fucking." I handed out my business cards. No one offered up any information. Their silence led me to believe that they were covering up. I was on to something. But what? Could I crack the case of the donkey fuckers for C-Boot? We had an hour before the scheduled 6pm Freezeout. I drank Amber Bock and mingled with the rest of the Happy Hour crew. In the back of the bar we started a quick $10 NL SNG with seven players. There were no blinds, just antes, which increased every time someone was knocked out. Top two places paid. Aggies Bar SNG:On the first hand, three people pushed all in on the flop: A-9-8. Wow. The hands.... 99 vs. 88 vs. A6s. Two people, including Werner, were knocked out. The table was down to five. I made it all the way to the final three. That's when I found The Hammer! I raised on the button and the blinds called. The 8-9-10 rainbow flop gave me an OESD. One guy checked another bet half the pot and I moved all in. One guy called with two pair and I didn't catch any of my outs. The Hammer failed in Hill Jack Country. Hill Jack 1, Hammer 0. We left Aggies and headed over to Weasel's for the 6pm Freezeout. The Players - Freezeout #1:Bubba was the only guy from the bar who played with us. $25 buy in. $1000 in chips. 20 minute levels. Welcome to the Hill Jack game. By then, I had been drinking steadily for six hours and smoking pot with rednecks the rest of the time. We ordered a pizza and it felt good to get some local cuisine in me. The Weasel was a nice host for a squirrelly looking guy. He played a weird combination of music during the game... some country, some gansta rap, and lots of John Cougar Mellencamp.  I folded a lot of hands. Bubba was piss drunk. Daddy told me it gets ugly when he's "on the tequila." He could not figure out chip denominations. I wanted to take some pictures, but I feared for my safety. Hill Jack boys have no problem having their photos taken, but I knew if I busted out my snazzy digital camera, I'd be a mark. Not too many tourists frequent Hill Jack country and I stuck out like suit at a biker rally. I did my best to try to get some more inside information on donkey fucking. Again, the silence scared me. I was seriously on the verge of cracking the story wide open. I figured I might get one of the players to divulge more information as the night evolved.I was knocked out by TC when I reraised him all in with AKs. His TT held up and I took fourth. By then a few random folks had stopped by. Weasel's house was where a lot of folks did "pre-partying" before they hit the local bars or drove to Bloomington for a night out. Again, I made the rounds and pumped everyone for donkey fucking information. Nothing. I ate more pizza and did a shot of Maker's Mark with C.J.. Yeah, I drank whiskey with the Hill Jack boys and they embraced me like one of their own, aside from the fact that they withheld juicy nuggets of information on donkey fucking. I went back to the table. Bubba took over the chip lead and was even more hammered. He still could not figure out the chip denominations, "How much fer the red ones again?" seemed to be his catch phrase. I ended up posting his blinds and throwing out bets for him. He could barely keep his eyes open. Yes, Bubba took all our money in the first freezeout. The Players - Freeze Out #2:  Weasel left and we shook hands. He said, "I'm gonna go out and find me a piece of ass.""Donkey ass?" I wondered. The second freezeout was smaller. TC was the oldest guy there. He also knew how to play. He lived all over America and dealt poker for a few years at riverboat casinos. He knew his music and told me stories about living in New York City in 1964. He's done some living and was the only one I was worried about. Daddy was tired, a little drunk, and still hungover from his bender the previous night. He was on vapors and I could sense his exhaustion. I limped in with KQ UTG. Daddy raised me and I called. The flop: K-x-x. I checked and he checked. The turn was a blank. I checked and he bet the pot. I moved all in and he called with 99. He never saw that coming. I won the coinflip (pair vs. two overcards) and knocked out Daddy. That's when I felt "the pukes" coming on. You know that feeling when the stomach juices and acids start shooting up and flaring around in your insides. I knew I was going to throw up. I just wanted to wait until I played my button! I mucked and bolted for the bathroom. I puked four times. The second and third hurls were impressive. I could see bits of pepperoni floating around in the toilet. I flushed a few times and gargled some mouthwash before I wiped the sweat off my face. That shot of whiskey did me in. Makers Mark and marijuana were never a good combination for me. I lumbered back to the table. I felt a lot better and sipped my Miller High Life. We were on the bubble and my plan was to play hyper-aggressive. TC knocked out Matty. I was heads up with TC and had a small chip lead. On the second hand we ended up pushing all in preflop. I had 89o on the button and he held Big Slick. I outflopped him and issued my first really bad beat on the night. I won first place and broke even for the night. Daddy looked super tired and we headed back. We had to get up at 6am the next day to drive to Cincinnati so he needed some rest.  I looked up at the stars on the way back and I felt a second round of the pukes coming on. I knew that we were close to home and I planned on throwing up in he bushes near the golf course. As soon as Daddy turned down his street, he slowed down a bit. I wanted him to drive faster. He was telling me a story and I couldn't tell you what he was saying because I desperately tried to talk myself out of puking. I did my best.As soon as Daddy pulled up to his driveway, I pushed his door open and puked. Some of it caught the car door. He quickly ran inside and grabbed me a towel and some water. I sipped a bit and in a half ass attempt tried to wash off the chunks of pepperoni on his car door. My only thought was that Mrs. Trax was seeing me at my worst moment and she wouldn't let Daddy head out to Cincy the next day. Lucky for me, she was inside watching TV and missed my puke-a-thon. I apologized to Daddy and he shrugged it off. "Dr. Pauly christened my sled!" he enthusiastically screamed. My curiosity with the donkey fucking culture got me in trouble. I broke even for the night playing cards, but I lost my mud and blew chunks twice trying to keep up with the Hill Jack boys. The scoreboard told the tale. Hill Jack 2, Pauly 0. To be continued... | Permalink | Monday, May 09, 2005
Safe at Home  Thanks Iggy! Click to enlarge.  Some quick highlights:1. I played poker in Indiana against a guy with 6 teeth. 2. I puked in between hands then came back to the table to win a tournament. 3. I watched the Kentucky Derby... in Kentucky. 4. I played "Cornhole" with Daddy and Lori watched. 5. I hit on a Waffle House waitress named Tabby, who looked just like Julia Stiles. 6. I played 18 holes of golf and made a serious dent into a case of beer with Daddy. Yes, the nasty rumors are true. I puked twice on Friday and once in Daddy's car. And in case you were wondering... the above picture is real and was not run through photoshop. Iggy is the fuckin' man! Despite the fact Iggy is "an alcoholic cut and paster and Noble Poker whore," I'm super lucky that I get to consider him a friend. Iggy hooked us up with sweet seats to the Reds game and if that wasn't cool enough, we were mentioned on the Jumbotron. He also rented us a suite at a hotel in Kentucky where he hosted his home game and I got to meet some of Iggy's crew (TDub, Huggie Bear, Mr. Fabulous and GMoney). Style. Class. Debauchery. I also met two bloggers for the first time... UWannaBet and Rants of a Young Mind. Good people. Great times. Oh and the Trey Anastasio Band kicked ass. After the amazing concert on Saturday, my friend Lori invited us to hit up a German bar over the river in Kentucky. We got uber-smashed and were one of the last groups of people to leave. Thanks again to Daddy and Iggy for showing me a kick ass time in the Midwest. You can tell a lot about a man by the company he keeps and the quality of his friends. After hanging out with both guys for a few days and interacting with their close peers, without a doubt I can testify that Daddy and Iggy are some of best people I've encountered. By the way, what the fuck happened in poker bloggerdom since I left? There's so much going on regarding my friends... petty drama, content stealing bullshit, and junk numbing tension. Shit, you go on a three day bender in the Midwest and the whole damn community nearly falls apart. I shall address all of these new boils on my ass in a future post. Until then, I need to call my attorney, grab a shower, take a nap, and find six hours to write. Several posts pending... stay tuned. | Permalink | Friday, May 06, 2005
Pauly World Tour Hits the Midwest  Yes, the rumors are true. I'm taking the next few days off from blogging. I'm loading up the tour bus and hitting the road. Hide your daughters and lock up your stash, I might be coming to your hometown! Dr. Pauly World Tour Confirmed DatesTickets go onsale now. Get me while I'm hot. Even Amy Calistri thinks I'm cool. She called me "the John Irving of poker bloggers." Man, that's quite a compliment. Thanks for the shout out, Amy. And thanks to Gracie for mentioning my name in the same breath as Tony Pierce! I'm busting out of New York Fuckin' City and I'm going to raise some hell in the heartland of Indiana. At some point on this trip, I'm gonna get uber-wasted and play cards with a bunch of your favorite bloggers, not to mention partake in a fun-packed double-header of events on Saturday including my first visit to the Reds' new ballpark in the afternoon followed up by a kick ass Trey Anastasio Band show on Saturday night. In case you were wondering... I love a good graph. The traffic on the Tao of Poker (see above graph) has more than tripled since last June. Those two dips each represent a different hiatus. Hiatus #1: I toured with Phish for a few weeks on their final tour and was way out of the loop in a groovy kinda way and Hiatus # 2: I stopped blogging in November to write a novel. My hits tailed off both times and picked back up in December. Yes, this past April was a record month for all of my sites. I'm elated, disturbed, and aroused to think about the traffic that will swarm this way after the World Series of Poker. Wow. I was going to use this time to write my April Poker Review and shit out a post on my overall poker progress. But I'm not. Does anyone really care how much I win or lose on Party Poker? Maybe we'll talk about my stock market losses? Don't you think that my lamentations and grovelings about the variance of the stock market would be slightly more entertaining and exciting than reading about me bitch about losing another monster pot to an inbred nimrod from Humpyoursister, Mississippi who caught a two outer on the river to bad beat me? Back to my April Poker Review, I mentioned to Iggy that I had been postponing it for a few days. He quickly said, "Ah, blow it off!" He's right. I need a break from writing, man. I don't want to burn out before I get to Vegas. I wrote 16 articles in the last 5 weeks along several short stories and a letter to Penthouse Forum. I crave time in the real world away from the computer on the weirdness of being "that poker blogger." With that said, I'm on hiatus for a few days. Go read my archives, my main blog, or blogzine. Heck, go read Al Cant Hang's Key West trip reports! I'm leaving for the airport in a few moments. Daddy is picking me up in Indiana a few hours from now. Later tonight I'm going to meet me some actual and authentic donkey fookers. This weekend is packed with excitement. I hope to meet up with Rants of a Young Mind and possibly UWannaBet. Of course, I shall pay homage to the Blogfather in his hometown and meet his good buddy GMoney. Trip reports, hijinks, and mug shots to follow. I am the eggman. See you next week. Editor's Note: You can read all about my last trip to Indiana here. That epic adventure spawned a Truckin' short story called Sundrenched. | Permalink | Thursday, May 05, 2005
Popping the Fox Sports Cherry Who's Next? Sorting out the WSOP favorites is written by me and appeared on Fox Sports. Here's a bit: Who do you think is going to be the 2005 World Series of Poker Champion... a big time name like Daniel Negreanu or an unknown like 2003 champion Chris Moneymaker was when he took the crown?This article was originally published as an editorial at Poker Player Newspaper. Thanks to everyone for your support. Special thanks to the Prof for the hook up. Over the next few months, I expect my WSoP coverage to be picked up by Fox Sports. Stay tuned. | Permalink | Next WPBT Event at Noble Poker! Iggy just announced the next leg of the WBPT which will be held on Noble Poker. It's the third satellite for the WSoP $1500 Event at the Rio in June. If you do not intend on going to Vegas if you win... then please do not sign up. This is a WPBT sanctioned event and it is open for readers and bloggers. Points will be awarded towards the leader board. Yes, readers can play in this event. Participants are eligible points towards the WPBT Leaderboard. As you know the $1500 WSoP event will be held the day before the WPBT event at the Aladdin. We have two qualifiers already... Bobby Bracelet and Russell. Who is going to be next? And yes, I will be running a Hilton Sisters Challenge for this event. Best of luck. Poker Prof's Noble Freeroll Also, the Poker Prof is hosting a $200 freeroll on Noble Poker next Tuesday, May 10th at 9pm EST. It's free to enter. Stop by his blog for more details. I will be hosting a freeroll on Noble Poker at the end of the month. Stay tuned! | Permalink | Wednesday, May 04, 2005
Hump Day Pimp Day: I Am the Walrus "Hdouble kept trying to convince me to play 20/40, saying how good the game was. I was playing scared and didn't want to risk anything that high, particularly after being down $3500 already." - GrubbyGood god, Grubby! Talk about swings. This post from Grubby made me laugh..  Buy the Poker Geek's T-shirt. Help out a starving artist with a hilarious shirt. I appreciate the minimalist quality of his artwork. If I help him sell 100, I get one free. Please buy one and support your local Geek.Speaking of buying cool stuff, head over to the WPBT Store and buy something cool for yourself or your kids. Proceeds go to Maudie's retirement fund which she'll most likely use to help bankroll her daily trips to local card rooms. By the way, excellent news about your call back. Break a leg. Seriously, I'm often inspired at the level of creative talents that some of my fellow bloggers have. You guys kick ass. Even G-Rob has skills. I dug his report on poker staring everyone's favorite metalhead Bad Blood. Congrats again to Russell Fox for winning his seat on Sunday. If you don't know, he wrote a book on NL called: Mastering No-Limit Hold'em. Ironically, his publisher sent me a free copy so I can review it on my poker blog. It came in the mail this weekend, but I didn't bother to open it up until after the WPBT WSoP Satellite! I thought the package was a copy of Gigli that I bought for $2 off of eBay. Gigli goes to the first person KO'd of the Aladdin tourney. Anyway, check out Russell's book. After several weeks (and months) of courting me, I finally gave in and decided to pimp Noble Poker. I'll give them props, they kissed my ass for weeks, even when I blew them off at first. Let that be a lesson to you out there looking for favors from me. Anyway, Noble Poker has a pretty cool 100% deposit bonus for first time players. They also announced a reload bonus for existing members. Here are the details: I know that Suckout hosts weekly Omaha tournament and that the Poker Prof is looking to set up a freeroll in the future. The guys over at Noble Poker want to host a special freeroll for my readers at the end of May. Stay tuned for more details. In the meantime, check out their site. Radio Free Pauly I taped my interview with Sean on Friday night, instead of Saturday for the Lord Admiral Card Club Radio Show and Podcast. If you don't know it's the best podcast dedicated to poker in the universe and it's making me a huge cult figure in Canada. Sean and Brent are working hard every week to get this done (fo free) so stop by and show your support.You can download the MP3 of this week's show... Episode 24: Here. You can download last week's show... Episode 23: Here. You can read the show's notes: Here. My segment starts at the 30:00 mark of the show and it lasts about 13-14 minutes. We talked about last week's blogger tournament and my prep for Vegas. Oh, I threw out a random Degrassi Junior High reference. Check it out! Sean was happy that I brought some original material to this episode. This week's show as always, features an interview with the Poker Prof who talks about the brand new Wynn casino. If you want to catch up and listen to previous episodes, please visit their archives over at Brainscat. Thanks again to Sean for having me on. Party Freeroll Pauly  Do you think I should start playing some freerolls on Party Poker? I've been getting a lot of double bonus points for my $3/6 sessions in the mornings. What have I done with some of my points? I got me a hip Party Poker polo shirt that I never wear. I should get rid some of these points now. Once I get to Vegas there's no incentive for me to play online and I might lose some points due to account inactivity. So, I'm going to play one or two of those 2000 player freerolls every week until I leave for Vegas.... most likely the 1,000 point ones. I know BG aka the Bobby Flay of poker bloggers made the final table in one and Joanne has grinded her way into the money in another.I have not played tournaments on Party Poker in a very long time. I used to play one MTT a day... sometimes two a day. Man, a year ago Derek and I used to play in a Party Poker MTT every Saturday morning. Sometimes random bloggers would play too. Aside from these recent blogger events, I only play NL MTTs on Empire Poker and on Full Tilt. The fields are smaller than Party Poker and there's a nice overlay on some of the Empire tourneys. In case you wondered, I have not played any WSoP satellites since I'm working the event. I suspect that I saved myself at least $1,000 that I would have pissed away in random satellites. Last night I sweated Joanne who entered a 2000 person NL MTT with a $40k prize pool. She grinded her way into the money and had a shot at the final table. With 7 tables remaining and a little above the average stack, I thought she was going to go all the way. An impressive run for sure. Congrats on making the money and taking 27th place out of 2000!! Phishy Flashbacks  If you don't know, I've been working on a Phish blog for a while now. Yes it's my 2367th blog if you are counting. At first Coventry was a place where I posted my friends stories, personal dramas, and pictures about the insanity of the last shows ever with Phish in Vermont. Yeah, we all walked to the last shows and had to deal with some thing awful... rain, mud, and both.Sometime last year, I decided to post Phishy related news whenever something came up. Eventually it evolved into a blog with the basic theme is all things Phish. I changed the named to Coventry: A Phish Blog and now t's the #1 search item in Google for phish blog. Pretty cool, eh? Maybe some of that traffic will spill over here. We've been getting alot of hits ever since Trey went back on tour. I've been posting Trey setlists along with random Zooma tour info. I also added a new Widespread Panic reviews. Since I'm going to see Trey this weekend and two shows next weekend, I'll have a chance to add some reviews and pictures. Anyway in the future, I will devote that blog space to concert reviews, music news, and all things Phish. At some point, I'll write up random tales that I experienced while on tour with Phish. I hope to post some Japan stories too and maybe even get a guest post from Senor! It's a group blog and my friend Molly posted something recently. Take a peek. The _____ of Poker Bloggers Did I happen to mention that BG is the Bobby Flay of Poker Bloggers? I love that term. I know he clenches his fist and curses my name every time I write it. BG is the Bobby Flay of Poker Bloggers. Heh. It's all because he started calling me America's Favorite Amateur Pharmacist. Great. Now, I have every poker-blog reading pill-popping junkie from Kansas City to Hoboken emailing me asking to hook them up with various narcotics. I get asked "Who is the 'who' in the blogging community?" Here you go with some quick answers. (Editor's Note: My apologies if I did not mention you... nothing personal. It's just late and I can't go through my entire blogroll!) Bobby Bracelet is the Johnny Knoxville of poker bloggers. Chirs Halverson is the Jerry Lundegaard of poker bloggers. Poker Geek is the Kevin Smith of poker bloggers. Maudie is the Meryl Streep of poker bloggers. Grubby is the David Mamet of poker bloggers. Buffalo66 is the Scott Norwood of poker bloggers. Ugarte is the Shecky Green of poker bloggers. Bill Rini is the Jacques Cousteau of poker bloggers. Joanne is the Anais Nin of poker bloggers. The Fat Guy is the Waylon Jennings of poker bloggers. Felicia is the Lance Armstrong of poker bloggers and Glenn is the Chad Lowe of poker bloggers. Derek hates the fact that he once uttered that he was the Don Swayze of poker bloggers. Would he rather be the Ozzie Canseco of poker bloggers or the Jim Belushi of poker bloggers? Speaking of Ozzie... well, er Ozzy.... Al Cant Hang is the Ozzy Osbourne of poker bloggers, which makes EvaCanHang the Sharon Osbourne of poker blogger wives. I also thought of HDouble as the A. Alvarez of poker bloggers. HDouble once dubbed me as the Hunter S. Thompson of poker bloggers, which is a sincere compliment. However, I always consider myself the Jerry Garcia of poker bloggers. So I guess that makes Otis the Bob Dylan of poker bloggers and Iggy, of course, is the John Lennon of poker bloggers. So who the fuck is Ringo? All I know is... I am the Walrus. ***** ***** Last 5 Pics I Posted to My Flog: | Permalink | Tuesday, May 03, 2005
Existentialist Conversations with Strippers, Part III "I would believe only in a god who could dance." - NietzscheDisclaimer: There is not one bad beat story appearing within the next 1300 words. We wandered past the credulous tourists and devoted gamblers onto the casino floor. I was staying in Vegas for another day but Senor had to get back to Rhode Island for work. Grubby agreed to drive Senor to the airport and we had about fifteen minutes to kill. Senor wanted to play Pai Gow Poker at some point during his trip. We never had the chance with all the time we spent at the Mandalay Bay's sports book gambling on college basketball, or playing regular poker, and hanging out at strip clubs. We wasted a few minutes after we got slightly lost and stopped to ogle at all the hot college girls on spring break. We resumed our quest for a Pai Gow table and finally found one. The only problem... it was a $50 minimum table... when we were looking for a $5 or $10 table. Caesar's did not spread any low limit Pai Gow. There were six tables and half of them were empty. We walked over to one table where a pit boss was talking to the dealer. Grubby asked the suit if he could drop the minimum bet to $25 since we wanted to teach Senor how to play. We told him we were going to leave in five minutes to take him to the airport. The pit boss agreed. Our dealer was Lee, a middle aged Korean woman, and she quickly explained the rules to Senor. We bought in for $100 each and got four green chips. I won the first few hands and pushed the rest. Senor won $75 in three hands and walked away after he tipped Lee $10. He won enough money for dinner and was satisfied with his first Pai Gow experience. Grubby and I played for a few more hands. I went up $100 then decided to walk away. Grubby was a winner too. On our way to the cashier's window Senor mentioned, "You won yourself enough money to cover dinner and a few lap dances." Grubby drove Senor to the airport quickly. We encountered traffic trying to get out of the labyrinth called Caesar's parking garage. Grubby avoided the crowded Las Vegas Blvd. and drove down side streets en route to McCarran Airport. Grubby was officially a local and had been living in Vegas for three months. It felt cool to have a different perspective of a city that was so heavily populated with dipshit tourists and people working in the service industry. After we said good-bye to Senor, Grubby sped off in our quest to do a little strip club hopping. We had already hit up Sin a few days prior, which I loved -- especially Jessina. Grubby suggested a handful of places. He and his sister, Grubette, had had a crazy night at Club Paradise a few nights earlier and he wanted to try a different place. We headed downtown and decided to check out Olympic Gardens. As we drove up to the club, a Las Vegas Metro squad car sat out front with it's doors wide open. An animated guy spoke very loudly to the two cops as they stood with their arms crossed. "That doesn't look promising," I said. We parked and walked inside. Grubby pointed out that the doors were wide open and how that was also another bad sign. We took a peek inside and it was empty. We didn't even bother sitting down and walked right out. I could only imagine what might have gone down twenty minutes before we showed up. maybe we missed a good fight? Or an extremely drunk and frisky customer getting rowdy with the dancers? We found our way to Treasures and the parking lot looked empty. That's when I remembered that it was Easter Sunday night. "It's not like strippers are religious or anything," Grubby explained on the walk to the entrance of the lavish strip club. We paid the cover charge and made our way inside. It reminded me of a cross between an art museum and Anne Rice's house in a weird fusion of Goth meets Italian Renaissance. A stage with funky lights and a stripper pole sat up front with winding stairs leading up to a balcony which wrapped around the room. If you removed all the smaller tables and booths along the walls, the strip club could have been a great venue for live music. We found a table and a few minutes passed before a waitress came over. I did not spot any available strippers. In the booth across from us, a bald accountant from Ohio happily sat with two strippers. They were laughing and sipping cocktails and the black girl erotically rubbed his chest and while the blonde girl applied more lipstick as we watched and a small wave of envy flashed over us. "This is just like a regular bar. I'm being ignored," Grubby said in a dejected tone. "Easter Sunday," I reassured him that it wasn't us, just the fact that strippers were more religious than we anticipated. Our waitress eventually arrived with our over-priced beers and I scanned the room for available strippers. One danced on the stage as bad Eastern European techno music blasted over the sound system in the near-empty room. A few dancers were scattered around and busy entertaining other guests. At Sin it seemed that strippers constantly walked around and offered their services for a dance. At Treasures, the most action we got was watching the bald Ohio guy get double teamed by the Silicone Twins. That's when Julie stumbled over. Extremely wasted women are a turn off... unless they are completely passed out (Sorry, bad frat boy joke). She was so ripped to the tits drunk that she didn't even bother using her stripper name and blurted out her real name. Julie then sprawled out on my lap and slurred, "Spank me!" I obliged and she screamed again motioning towards Grubby, "Spank me!" He spanked her and I followed up with another "whack." I wondered if I could add that to my resume? Special Skills: Knowledge of Java. I also speak three languages fluently, can make a bong out of any household item, and spank strippers.How could I not get hired with those mad skills? Julie asked us if we wanted a dance. Grubby gave her a quick thumbs down and I reluctantly agreed. She sat up and waited until the next song. She slumped over me and I could smell the liquor on her breath. That's when I uttered, "You know, Nietzsche died of syphilis." That comment went right over her head. Out of the hundreds of strippers working that night, I was matched up with the Tara Reid of strippers. The new song began and she took off her top and began her tipsy lap dance. A couple of times she lost her balance and slipped off my lap. I caught her each time and was worried that if I dropped her, one of the bouncers would rush over and kick me in the junk. It was a horrible experience and I pissed away $20 on half-assed grope from a soused stripper. Normally, a half-naked woman grinding away to Rick James' "Give It To Me Baby" is a lot of fun. Unfortunately, I wasn't aroused by Drunk Julie and couldn't wait for our moment to end. Our four minutes together was like ordering a bowl of soup and having it served cold with a dozen cockroaches floating around in there and glazed with both a urine and semen sample. As we walked out of the strip club, past the bouncers, I shrugged my shoulders and looked up into the desert sky. I smiled because I found myself on the bitter end of karmic payback for attending a strip club on Easter Sunday. ... to be continued Feel free to read Part I and Part II. | Permalink | Monday, May 02, 2005
WPBT WSoP Satellite #2 "When you feel in your gut what you are and then dynamically pursue it - don't back down and don't give up - then you're going to mystify a lot of folks." - Bob Dylan Another lazy spring Sunday night. Another chance to send a fellow blogger to Las Vegas via Poker Stars, along with last week's winner Bobby Bracelet. I can't take credit for that nickname. Derek coined it in his blog this past week. He should get all the credit. It's a fitting nickname. So who was going to go to the big dance this week? I liked my chances. I hadn't made the final table of a MTT in a long time. Everytime I sign up for a tournament, I always say the same thing, "I'm gonna win this fucker." That's my attitude. I expect to win every time I sit down to play poker. Well, with the exception of Razz and at blogger tables on Party Poker. Regardless, I was ready.63 bloggers signed up for the $30 buy in WPBT event on Poker Stars. That's the cool site that employs Otis and the kick ass site that paid me a lot of cash for sending them players last month. Here comes the plug... If you don't have a Poker Stars account, you are making a mistake. Sign up today. They are sending hundreds of online players like yourself to the World Series of Poker. Shit, we send two bloggers the last two Sundays to the $1,500 event and that's where we play most of the WPBT events. OK, my daily whoring is over. Let's get to the write up. The Players:7:01pm EST... 63 players. 1 seat. $390 to second place. I was pumped and happy not to be at the same table as my brother. 7:15pm EST... I had TT and QQ early on. I pushed UTG with QQ and no one dared to call. By the end of the level I was 50th out of 63rd with T1280. I saw a lot of flops and played loose, not Gus Hansen crazy loose, but let's just say I told Sklansky's Gap Concept to "Fuck off!" I needed to build up chips quickly in the first two levels if I was going to win. 7:16pm EST... In the battle of the blinds, Drizz's 53o was KO'd in 62nd place by Max's 75o when he had the bitch end to a straight. 7:18pm EST... I flopped a straight with QJ and I foolishly attempted to slow play. I thought he made a flush and that's why I folded on the river. I actually let Joe Speaker catch a full house with running cards. Poorly played on all streets by me. 7:22pm EST... Donkey Puncher was KO'd in 59th place when his TT lost to the Hilton Sisters. 7:25pm EST... Derek doubled up on his table with KK. He had almost T3k in chips and was in 3rd place. I stole a few pots and built my stack up to over T1600 and moved up to 43 out of 52. 7:26pm EST... EvaCanHang stopped by to sweat my table. I joked that I was lucky to have a hot blonde on the rail cheering for me... well, two in total if Joanne was still lurking. She was. 7:34pm EST... Richmond Rounder joined the table as news made it's way that Maudie, HDouble, and Boy Genius were all eliminated within moments of each other. Conspiracy? I think the Illuminati and the new Pope are to blame. 7:41pm EST... I pick up consecutive pots with KJo and AJo. No action for my 88 or TT. I moved up to 25th out of 48. 7:42pm EST... Bill Rini arrived at my table as I caught the tail end of the Poker Nerd getting busted out in 46th place. 7:44pm EST... Derek and Bobby Bracelet went heads up. Bob had the Hiltons. Derek flopped a set with his pocket aces. Derek doubled up and was the chipleader. 7:49pm EST... Derek knocked out Bobby Bracelet after he put a wicked bad beat on Sean. Wow, talk about a suckout! Sean flopped a set with 22. And Derek caught running cards for a straight. Derek knocked out Sean a few hands later. 7:50pm EST... Gracie's JJ knocked out Richmond Rounder's KT. He finished in 39th. Then I heard Bad Blood was knocked out to which Lil Blood said, "Daddy how come they're not clapping for you?" 7:53pm EST... This is where I got so lucky and kicked Lefty in the junk. He raised my blind. I had 55 and pushed thinking he was on a steal. He had TT. I've hit two outers before. No problem. The flop was no help until the turn churned out my miracle 5! Fuck yeah, I hit my set and it was a bounty from the poker gods. At least I didn't river Lefty. He's a good egg. I felt bad afterwards especially since I busted his balls the entire time calling him CJ2. With an unexpected wave of positive fortune on my side, and karmic payback circling overhead like a starving vulture, I doubled up with T2200 and shamefully jumped into 17th place. 7:54pm EST... Bill Rini's AJ ran into Lifes a Grind's AQ and lost. Bill, the Jacques Cousteau of poker bloggers, was knocked out in 36th place. 7:58pm EST... Mr. Decker bounced out in 33rd place as Bugsy99 made his way to my table. 8:00pm EST... At the break Derek hovered in second place and I barely kept my head above water... 21st out of 31. 8:07pm EST... Britney Spears knocked out Curious George. Yeah, Gracie, George and her JJ ran into Life's a Grind, Brtiney, and AA. She was bounced in a palindromic 31st place compared to her 13th place finish last week. (I think I just made that word up.) 8:09pm EST... Iggy was knocked out when his A3 lost to VARoadster's KQ. Oh the hilarity. 8:10pm EST... I found AK, the first hand in a while, and raised moderately preflop. No callers. Everyone at my table respected my raises and that's too bad. I got zero action on all my good hands. I was 17th out of 28. 8:13pm EST... Derek knocked out Phil the Diceman, last week's runner up, the sole representative of England, and one of the few bloggers to participate from Europe. 8:17pm EST... F Train dropped the Hammer and a butterfly flapped it's wings in Burkina Faso. 8:21pm EST... Table Change. I was moved to Derek's table which sucked which included Max, On_thg, Joe Speaker, Johnny Klampis, Chris "66" Halverson, Easy Cure, and F Train. Three New Yorkers and a Metrosexual. That sounded like the beginning to a bad Jay Leno monologue. 8:25pm EST... With KK on the button I tried to get action by moving all in. A small raise might have persuaded the blinds to fold, but I wanted them to think I was trying for a steal. F Train called with QTs something he probably would have pushed with anyway. Being the short stack, he was going to call no matter what I bet. He flopped trips and caught a full house. No fun. I had no time to bitch and moan after the bad beat vulture swooped down and took a nasty bite of my flesh. 8:26pm EST... QJs at the cutoff. I pushed with T975. Max in the LB called. I ran into AA. Whatyoutalkinabout, Willis? I was out in 23rd 8:35pm EST... April98 knocked out Bugsy99 when her KJ outflopped his Hilton Sisters. 8:37pm EST... Derek moved to the Poker Prof's table. With 18 player remaining, we were down to the final two tables. 8:40pm EST... Poker Prof was the short stack and had no fear. He pushed frequently preflop looking for challengers. No one wanted to mess with him as he picked up blinds and moved away from being the short stack. 8:41pm EST... Texas 1, Minnesota 0. Chris Halverson's Q9s suited couldn't catch a flush against the Fat Guy's JJ. Halverson bounced out in 18th place. 8:42pm EST... Derek moved all into a pot with K-6-2 on the flop and two diamonds. He raised Joe Speaker, who thought about the call for a few moments before he folded. Derek won he pot and found himself in second place. 8:44pm EST... The Poker Prof was tag teamed by the Hilton Sisters when he caught a set and doubled up against Seville. 8:45pm EST... In one of the biggest pots of the tournament.... three players moved all in preflop. Seville was the short stack with AQo. Lit had 99 and Joe Speaker showed AKs. Three hearts hit the board and Joe "flopped the nut flush." Seville was out in 16th place and Joe had over 11k in chips. 8:46pm EST... On_thg's 66 knocked out Life's a Grind ATs. He took 15h place in another impressive showing. 8:48pm EST... Derek knocked out Litfpitr in 14th place. Derek's stack peaked at 10k and he looked good in 3rd place. 8:49pm EST... On_thg sent Easy Cure home in 13th place when his Hiltons held up. 8:53pm EST... "Poker Prof on a roll" I wrote in my notes. He picked up plenty of small pots. He was catching great hands or making well timed steals... either way, he played aggressive poker and scratched his way from last place to 6th place in chips. 8:55pm EST... Joe Speaker dropped the Hammer. I almost peed in my pants. 8:56pm EST... Derek picked up a big pot and was 3rd with 10k in chips. 9:04pm EST... Wisconsin 1, Texas 0. StB's Big Slick knocked out The Fat Guy's A9o. See you in Vegas, TFG! 9:12pm EST... At the break, On_thg was in first place and Derek slipped to 5th with 11 players remaining. VA Roadster finished in 11th place. 9:15pm EST... Joe Speaker experienced an awful run. With 88 he ran into MAx's KK and was crippled. He doubled up with K5 against April's JJ then ran into her AA. He was out in 10th place and made another amazing run, missing the final table by one spot. The Final Table:9:19pm EST... The finally table started with Derek 4th in chips. April was the short stack and Big Pirate held the chip lead. 9:24pm EST... April doubled up with A7s against Slim's KQ. He almost knocked her out on the very next hand. 9:26pm EST... April's A7 couldn't beat Slim's AJ.She was out in 9th place. 9:28pm EST... StB's 99 won a coin flip against Max's AQ. Derek went from 4th to the short stack when he ran into a frigid streak of colds.  9:33pm EST... In the Bad Beat of the Tournament Moment brought to you by Pokerstars, the best online poker site around... StB moved all in preflop with AA. Big Pirate called with a big stack and 65s. He flopped a pair and hit trips on the turn. He knocked out StB in 8th place as a small tear was shed in Milwaukee.9:34pm EST... Derek moved all in with AJ and was bad beated by Slim's A7. Derek finished in 7th place and continued his run of impressive performances on the WPBT. 9:36pm EST... Big Pirate continued to issue bad beats to the final table players. His next victim was the Poker Prof. The Prof's 99 looked like a great hand against Big Pirate's 88 with the flop: A-T-7. In true Riverstars fashion... Big Pirate hit running cards for a straight. I thought the Prof won with a set when a 9 spiked on the river. I was in shock when the pot got pushed to Big Pirate. He river'd the Prof as the Karma Police took notice. 9:37pm EST... ABVidale doubled up against Big Pirate when his AQ held up against a dominated KQ. Big Pirate still held the chip lead with 32k. ABVidale was second with 23k. 9:41pm EST... Big Pirate knocked out Max in 5th. 9:44pm EST... Big Pirate's 99 ran into Slim's AA. Slim took the chip lead with 36k. 9:50pm EST... The players agree to chop the prize money ($130 each) for second place and the winner gets the WSoP seat. Slim was the chipleader, On_thg second, ABVidale third, and Big Pirate slipped to fourth. 9:56pm EST... Both On_thg and Big Pirate moved all in preflop with AK and they chopped the pot. 9:58pm EST... ABVidale and K6 took the chip lead when he beat Big Pirate's K5. 9:59pm EST... Slim moved all in with the Hammer against Big Pirate's K8. On the turn Slim hit a lucky 2 and Big Pirate never recovered after that. ABVidale was the chip leader with 60k. Degenerate Gambler has a nifty screen shot of the Hammer. Thanks, dude! 10:02pm EST... Big Pirate was knocked out in 4th place when his 95o ran into Slim's 99. 10:15pm EST... By the third break, the chips moved around the table and ABVidale still held the lead with 64k. Slim was second with 25k and On_thg hung on with 5k. 10:19pm EST... ABVidale 10-6o outflopped On_thg's Q8s and he took 3rd place. We reached heads up play. ABVidale had about a 3 to 1 lead over Slim. 10:21pm EST... It was a quick battle. Slim pushed with K3 and ABVidale called with 89o. The flop: A-J-4. Another J fell on the turn and the 8 on the river gave all the remaining chips to ABVidale. He won the pot and the $1500 WSoP seat at the Rio. Congrats to "Russell" and everyone at the final table. I'm especially proud of Derek's efforts.  Thanks again to Iggy and Otis at Poker Stars for their work with the event. Congrats again to ABVidale and Bobby Bracelet. Make us proud guys. Can't wait to meet everyone in Vegas. I'm tired and I have other stuff to write. See you at the tables. And Iggy, I'll see you in six days. | Permalink | Sunday, May 01, 2005
WPBT WSoP Satellite Tonight! Just a reminder that there's a WPBT WSoP Satellite tonight on Poker Stars at 7pm EST. We currently do not have enough signups to send another person to the $1500 event in Vegas. Please sign up ASAP. I will be running a Hilton Sister contest tonight. Crack AA with QQ and you get your choice of a Mix CD, or a Phish tie-dyed shirt, or getting kicked in the junk by Bob! | Permalink |
Home Aug 03 - Sept 03 - Oct 03 - Nov 03 - Dec 03 Jan 04 - Feb 04 - Mar 04 - Apr 04 - May 04 - June 04 - July 04 - Aug 04 - Sept 04 - Oct 04 - Nov 04 - Dec 04 Jan 05 - Feb 05 - Mar 05 - Apr 05 - May 05 - June 05 - July 05 - Aug 05 - Sept 05 - Oct 05 - Nov 05 - Dec 05 Jan 06 - Feb 06 - Mar 06 - Apr 06 - May 06 - June 06 - July 06 - Aug 06 - Sept 06 - Oct 06 - Nov 06 - Dec 06 Jan 07 - Feb 07 - Mar 07 - Apr 07 - May 07 - June 07 - July 07 - Aug 07 - Sept 07 - Oct 07 - Nov 07 - Dec 07 Jan 08 - Feb 08 - Mar 08 - Apr 08 - May 08 - June 08 - July 08 - Aug 08 - Sept 08 - Oct 08 - Nov 08 - Dec 08 Jan 09 - Feb 09 - Mar 09 - Apr 09 - May 09 - June 09 - July 09 - Aug 09 - Sept 09 - Oct 09 - Nov 09 
 
Download PokerStars Disclaimer: The Tao of Poker is for entertainment purposes only. Nothing written here should be taken seriously. Ads are limited to jurisdictions where online poker is legal and are void where prohibited by law. © 2003-2009 by Tao of Poker Blog |
. She even wore a cool pink shirt sporting the logo of her book, which I forgot to photograph. I wanted to see her reaction when I said, "Will you let me take a picture of your chest?"
