It's not over for Intertops yet...

Well, since I had $11.75 that I won in the freeroll in my Intertops Account after I removed every cent I had in there during the tourney, and the minimum withdrawl amount is $50, I figured I would blow the $11.75 at a tourney. $10+1 seemed to work out nearly perfectly. But I caught some great cards and even got a monster suck out to win the tourney.

I had a huge chip lead and KK. It was Pot Limit, and the player in front of me raised the max (T600). I raised him to T1800, putting him all in. When he beat me into the pot, I knew he held the rockets. It wouldn't hurt me that bad, in fact I would still hold the chip lead, so there was no question it was the right play. A King on the flop made me the overwhelming chip leader, holding T6000 with four players left.

The final hand I raised the max with 68o, and got called. The flop was 678 rainbow. I figured my two pair was good. The small stack either thought his J4o was good or it was pointless to continue, because he raised all in before I could put him in. The 8 on the river was totally unnecessary, but it was nice to win with a boat.

So now I have $50.75 in my empty account at a place I never said I would play again. What do I do now?

As far as my new home, Absolute Poker is looking good. I have a tenative offer for a free $25 account there, and they have a pretty good rake rebate program at Poker-strategy.org. I attempted to sign up at Royal Vegas last night so I could enroll in a PokerSourceOnline.com Frequent Flopper Promotion, but my email wouldn't cooperate so it was impossible.

Instead I played in another freeroll at Intertops. I didn't get cut off on this one, but that's probably because I never gave it the chance. I held JJ and the flop was TT8. All unders, I figured I'd take it all the way. Guy that plays every hand calls twice and then goes to the max with me with his TT. Second time he had quads in the tournament, and we had only played 47 hands at that point. I was glad to be out, limit tourneys take too damn long at Intertops, especially with all the pauses and delays, and idiots playing as slow as they can so they can sneak into 30th place and get $1.88 in prize money. How can a guy have quads twice in 47 hands, get callers all the way to the river and still be below the tournament average? What a crappy player.

This blog may be premature

I may have jumped the gun on this blog. Last night I was in the $1500 added freeroll tourney and there were repeated delays. The tourney would just pause for no reason. This happened 4 or 5 times.

Then suddenly I was locked out of my table. This has happened to me 3 times before. The game goes on, but I am not allowed back into the table. The software somehow thinks I am still there, but I'm not. The only way to get back in is to get a new IP. So I have to reboot my cable modem and my router, hope it gets a new IP and then try to reconnect. I lost hundreds in blinds while all this is occurring, including time to send a NASTY email to intertopspoker.com.

This one was the last straw. After last Saturday's debacle when they cancelled the tournament due to technical problems and didn't pay the prize money to anybody, in spite of their own posted policy, I was upset. After this lockout, AGAIN, I was done. I withdrew all my money and told them I was never playing another game at their HORRIBLY run site again. And I mean HORRIBLY run. When you cannot connect to the table it puts up a message that says call this 888 number. That number is disconnected. How cheesy is that? I've complained about the number and they don't even have the brains to remove it. The "live floorperson" feature has never worked. All you can do is email, and get a response within 24 hours.

I got back into the tourney, and even managed to finish in the money. I am by no means a great player, but when I can keep myself under control I generally give myself a chance to not only finish in the money, but to place very highly. But the software glitches at intertopspoker make it nearly impossible for me to be successful. I play very few hands, and if I miss just a couple of hands I would have played, that might be the difference between 20th place and 1st. Sunday's tournament is the only one I can think of in recent memory where it went smoothly with no technical problems. And I won that one. But all the frustration of delays and lockouts really hurts my game.

So I am without a home. Intertops Poker, and Party Poker by proxy, have shot their wad. They were given second and third and FOURTH chances, but that is over. I will play the money I won in this tournament until it is gone, and they will never see another deposit from me.

Finally, a poker blog from me...

Everyone else is doing it, and since I just won my first NLHE MTT I figured it was time for me to join the masses...and create my own poker blog.

There are some good ones out there, and since I can't play at work I spend some time most days reading poker blogs. Some decent writing, and even better poker.

I play poker mostly at Intertopspoker.com, which is a shell for Party Poker. The infamous fish factory. You think you can beat chasers? Try beating nine of them at once. Good luck.

I have also played at Poker Stars, Paradise Poker, Aztec Riches and Party Poker itself.

The last two are due to a promotion from PokerSourceOnline.com. I picked up some cash and some free poker chipsets. I kept one of the chipsets for myself, and gave one to a friend as a gift. They are very nice 300 chip sets with 11.5g clay chips and a nice aluminum case. Not bad for playing poker, which I would have done anyway. I highly reccomend PSO, and it wouldn't hurt my feelings if you put in DuggleBogey as a referral if you try them out. Their promotions are first rate, for many poker sites and even an online casino now.

I also play poker live at Ameristar Casino in Kansas City. I used to live in Kansas City, but moved to Oklahoma City permanently last August. I try to get back to KC once every couple of months to visit friends and play live poker. I really enjoyed the Tuesday night poker tourney they had there. It was the first tournament poker I ever played. I was BAD then. Really bad. Dead Money and a half.

I play with a few friends online, KingLucky from KC at Party Poker, and rz6629 from Oklahoma on Party as well. They are good players, and getting better every day. Rz keeps talking about quitting from the frustration, but then he wins $500 in one weekend and changes his mind. He's a very competitive guy, and bad beats knock him around pretty badly.

I really enjoy online poker. It's a totally different animal than live poker, especially for me because I play pot-limit or no-limit online, and limit poker live. $3/$6 limit with a kill is the only table I've ever played. Their tourney is limit too, although I think it goes no limit at the final table. I never made it so I'm not sure. KingLucky has though, in his first attempt.

Rz and I organize a home tourney about once a month here in Oklahoma. I've never won the main event, just the side games. Everyone says I'm a favorite at every tourney, but I never win it. I don't remember ever going in with a worse hand, except once when I went against Rz with 22 against AA. I don't really play my game against friends and coworkers. I think a lot of them would be mad at me if I really played my best against me, and it's not worth it for a lousy $20 buy in home game. Rz pulls out all the stops. He's too competitive not to.

One reason I like online poker vs. casinos is something I never see anyone mention. No tipping. I hate tipping in Casinos. I don't want to go into a whole "Mr. Pink" rant here, but I hate tipping in general, but mostly in Casinos. I don't mind tipping if I win, but with poker I don't know if I've won until the round is over, and they expect tips every hand you win.

I recall a hand where everyone folded to me and I won the lousy small blind ($1), gave that to the dealer and had to pay $6 because the kill was on. I know a tip wasn't in order for the $1 win, but I got a laugh from the whole table when I did it.

Tourneys are better because you are using tourney chips, so no tipping, but the winners always pay tokes at the end. Casinos make so much damn money, why can't they just pay the dealers enough to make tipping unnecessary? If I opened a casino, I'd have a no tipping policy. I bet that would bring in the riff-raff.

If they legalize poker in Oklahoma, I'm opening a poker room, no question. No tipping allowed. Tourneys every day, even a HORSE tourney once in a while. I'll put Bingo out of business, I swear.

If you are wondering why my blog is called GoBeRude, there's a good reason. Everyone says it is the perfect nickname for me, because I am quick with the insult jab. For example, at a home tourney my boss' boss won a pot off me and made some kind of remark about how good a player he was. I responded with "Hey Chuck, make sure you tell us the score of the game a lot when you are watching it while we are all still playing." To which Rz looked at a coworker of mine and said "Go Be Rude strikes again."