Very Simple: Buy Book, Win More Money

A few months ago I was sitting in my computer room playing poker and I got an email from Doubleas asking if I would help him with some art for his book.

He explained the concept to me, and I had just gotten a fancy new flatbed scanner and I was dying to try it out, so I jumped on the idea. I scanned in some stuff, played with it in Photoshop and sent him my results. He liked them and had some ideas for changes, mostly just size and orientation. He gave me the basic dimensions he wanted to fill, and I thought "that sounds like the size of a page in a book."

I had no idea I was working on the cover. I'm very flattered that he asked me to contribute anything to such a meaningful endeavor. But the cover? I'm speechless.

If you've read Doubleas' blog at all, you know he knows his shit. His posts on pressure points were instant classics. I apply concepts I learned from Doubleas EVERY SINGLE TIME I PLAY no-limit. WITHOUT EXCEPTION.

It is virtually guaranteed that if you read this book, it will improve your no-limit holdem game.

Begin Countdown...

Inspiration

I think this is how I started blogging (over two years ago!) and so often this is why I post in my blog. I read other blogs and discover something that inspires me to write. Sometimes it is directly in response to something I've read, but more often it sends me off on a completely different tangent.

I read in Felicia's post today about how all poker players are socially awkward, and I'm certainly no exception.

Yet somehow I've managed to generate a large stable of friends in the poker community. How did this happen?

A lot of the credit goes to Veneno, my own personal chat pimp. I had chatted on AOL chat a few times with Felicia, and had even met a few folks live and in person. But I didn't get to meet and befriend most bloggers until I got on the Yahoo girly chat thing.

When I first signed on to Yahoo Instant Messenger I dinged Maudie on AOL IM and she gave me a few names of folks on YIM. One of them was Veneno. She immediately took me under her wing, inviting me to group chats, testing my voice capabilities and introuducing me to all the other chattin' fools.

Once she even dragged me kicking and screaming into a chat with the The Blogfather himself. He and I proceeded to have a heated debate on subjects ranging from religion to addiction.
From there I got invited to the annual birthday bash with such blogger luminaries as Daddy, Pauly and the aformentioned Maudie and Boy Genius.

I'm not so much excited to meet new people in Vegas as I am excited about getting to see my friends. I feel like I know most of them already through chat, and it will be great to have a few (too many) drinks and just hang out. Plus I will get to meet the person who made it all happen, Veneno herself.

Thanks YoYo. I owe you big time.

slb159 banner

Poker Comic #81

Poker Comic brought to you by Free Poker Money at PokerSourceOnline.com!. Free Money at Titan Poker! Free Money at Party Poker! No Deposit Required! No Credit Card Required! (New Players Only) Click Here for more info!

Click HERE to view the Comics Archive

Hooray for Me

Go Be Rude, this bitter little corner of the internet, turns two years old today. It's amazing how this blog has changed in the last year. At some point it went from being a place for me to bitch about poker to being a place for me to bitch about poker bloggers. With Ads! Woohoo!

Anyway, I'd like to personally thank each and every person that takes the time to check out this blog from time to time. I really cannot believe the traffic statistics when I see them. I remember when I got mentioned by The Blogfather and I got almost a hundred hits and I thought "this is the most traffic my blog will ever see."

Now it has taken on a life of it's own. The poker comic is a big hit, you should see the email from the times I have been late with it. You should just see my email in general. The vast majority is from people who like my blog, but some of the haters are relentless.

Hopefully with a lot of work and determination, I can make this the number one non-porn site on the internet! (One trillionth overall.) On the other hand, fuck that. I think I'll just start putting up porn instead.

Here's another good blog

I don't know if you all are reading Bloody P, but it's another really good blog.

It's like the start of the Christmas Season

It feels like the beginning of a holiday. I know it's just the Casino Employees tourney today, but it's the official start of The 2006 World Series of Poker.

Man, I can't freaking wait to get to Vegas.

For jjok

His blog is cool, so I thought I'd do a banner. Some people link to blogs they like. I do this instead. Click on the banner to check out his site.



jjok, email me if you want the full size version.

Here's one for new blogger JL514, if he's interested. The proportions came out wrong, but he might like it anyway.

Very unhappy with WPEX

I am very unhappy with World Poker Exchange. I have heard about problems with their software and I have had intermittent connection issues with them, but nothing major. I figured if I was disconnected during an important hand in a ring game, the disconnect protection would save me. I figured wrong.

I was playing a $50NL table when I stacked two players two hands in a row after they min raised. The beauty of calling the min-raise is that the morons who make this brillian maneuver always seem to be absolutely SUPER GLUED to their hands. If you make the cheap call and make even a halfway decent hand, you can usually stack them.

This was even more glorious because it was two hands IN A ROW. The morons could see how stupid min raising was when I called the first one with 63 offsuit and stacked player number one with a boat on the turn. This didn't stop player two from min raising and busting when I made a boat on the turn from the small blind with A5s.

A few hands later I called a min raise with 45off. The flop came K55 and if the raiser had anything but KK, I was gold. He min bet the flop which I called, and he bet $3 on the turn. I raised him $19, leaving him with about $2.

Then I disconnected. No big deal, right? Disconnect protect would come into effect, the hand would play out and I'd get my money. I get reconnected and the money is gone. I request a hand history, and it shows me folding the hand.

What?!? What the fuck is disconnect protection for if not this specific situation?

I connected to their live support and they gave me an email address to send a complaint to. But I know the best they will do is refund my part of the hand. This is unsatisfactory to me. Unless my opponent had KK or the river was a K, which is impossible to say, I should have won a $43 pot.

The problems at WPEX are just too much. The rake rebate is great, but the software is barely adequate, and the connection issues just make playing there impossible.

Update: They credited my account with my portion of the pot and told me that I shouldn't count on disconnect protect working. I told them if disconnect protect had worked I'd have won twice that much, and that if they can't get their shit software to work as advertised, I can't see myself playing there any more. Cash withdrawn, site uninstalled.

Mookie Mania!

That's DAMN funny!

Last night I played the Mookie Tournament that he hosts every Wednesday night at PokerStars, and for the third week in a row I finished in the money. Two weeks ago it paid out to five people and I finished fifth. Last week it paid out to nine and I finished ninth. Last night it paid out to nine again, and I managed to crack the bubble -1 position to finish sixth.

But overall, the Mookie is all about having fun. Much hammer droppage, much hoying with creative variations on the hoy. The reverse hoy, the 69 hoy, the double reverse hoy. There are extra points for creativity.

A "hoy" (named after it's inventor, Hoyazo) is when a player goes all-in except for one (this is where the variations come in) chip in their stack. I think the original intention of the "hoy" is to avoid the annoying restriction at PokerStars where a player can't chat once they are all-in. If you go all-in except for one chip, you effectively do the same thing, but you can still taunt your opponent into calling or, more often, hopefully folding. But an unintended (this is debatable) side effect is that it tends to put players on tilt.

The Mookie (formerly called the big "O" tournament) started out as a sort of online home game for a few Austin Texas friends, but the bloggers kind of adopted it and participation has ballooned to a high of 57 last night. This is pretty outstanding considering that the most recent WPBT event only drew 32 people.

If you want to play an incredibly fun $11 poker tournament with some hilarious folks, give the Mookie a try next Wednesday night.

Poker Comic #80

Poker Comic brought to you by Free Poker Money at PokerSourceOnline.com!. Free Money at Titan Poker! Free Money at Party Poker! No Deposit Required! No Credit Card Required! (New Players Only) Click Here for more info!

Click HERE to view the Comics Archive

Even better

And thanks to all the Hammer Karma, I got aces two hands in a row, and they held up both times!

DQB!!

Best part? It was the fourth consecutive hand the seven seat was all-in pre-flop.

Excellent Full Tilt Poker Promotion

If you don't have an account at Full Tilt Poker yet, now is a great time to sign up.

Poker Source Online has upgraded their promotion amount from 6000 PSO points to 9000 PSO points, increasing the promotion value by 50%.

When I did my Full Tilt Promotion from Poker Source Online I finished the promotion in 90 minutes, and I didn't even play very high. I played $100NL with two tables at one time. Very easily done, and the points were in my account the next day. One of my referrals actually called me up after he was done because he thought it was too easy and that he was doing something wrong. Nope, it really is that easy.

At the new upgraded rate, that's like getting paid $1 per hour to play poker. Now you can take the 9000 PSO points and get a $90 Absolute Poker gift certificate. Word is that you can cash that out without even playing it, so you are basically getting $90 in cash.


And I can top that. The PokerRoom.com promotion has been upgraded to a $150 Amazon.com gift card. Just for doing one promotion, you will get a $150 Gift Certificate. That is the biggest promotional prize I have ever seen just for joining a poker site.

And PokerRoom.com is a pretty nice site. The software is slick and there is a browser version you can play on a Mac. It seems to me like all the Mac users make the games very soft, because I always did well there, and I really like their tournaments. Especially the cannonballs.

You still get the deposit bonuses directly from the sites for both of these promotions, although most people find the clearance rate, especially at Full Tilt Poker, very painfully slow. But you clear the PSO bonus and the site bonus concurrently, and it's still better than playing for nothing extra!

Brooootal

A big tournament always ends with a brutal bad beat story, doesn't it?

With about 1300 people gone, I get JJ with two limpers in front. I have them both covered, but not by much. There's enough in the pot that I'd be happy taking it down now. I push. Both call(!), but I'm happy when I see they share an ace, and both have smaller kickers than my Jacks, one with a ten, the other with a nine.

"Just have to avoid two aces," I think to myself.

Flop comes 456 of hearts. I check the hands and neither has the ace of hearts, and one of my Jacks is a heart.

"Any heart and I win!" I think to myself excitedly. "And one of the aces left is a heart, so they are down to one out!"

The turn is the Ace of Spades.

"Shit! At least I still have a heart draw."

The six of clubs on the river left me with 250 chips with the 200 chip blind headed my way.

I fuckin' hate one outers.

Congrats to StudioGlyphic who came in the top 10 and won a $1500 WSOP entry!

I was right!

Dr. Pauly!


Now blogging
from the the Bonnaroo
Music Festival

My Spidey Sense is Tingling...

My Spidey Sense is telling me that Pauly is nearby.

The Bonnaroo Music Festival is going on right now (not-so affectionately called "Bongaroo" by the local rednecks) and Pauly mentioned something to me about coming to Tennessee this weekend and it can't be a coincedence.

So far every news station in Nashville has been covering the event, but the only aspect of the event they are focused on isn't the artists in town (Radiohead, Beck, Cypress Hill [whom I met in Vegas once at a craps table - I went completely insane in my membrane], Sonic Youth, Ben Folds, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Elvis Costello, Rusted Root, Blues Traveler, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, or even Bonnie Raitt) it's the "Dirty Hippies are Coming to Town" story.

Anyway, I have absolutely nothing going on Saturday, and if Pauly isn't going to be knee deep in mud for the whole day, he should CALL ME so I can buy him a drink. Many drinks, even.

How to go to Vegas for FREE

When I started travelling at the end of February, my secondary goal was to earn enough airline miles/hotel points/rental car credits for a free trip to Vegas. I have a friend that lives there who I can stay with, so the room is taken care of. All I need is a flight and a rental car.

I have accumulated about 20,000 airline miles, and enough hotel points to buy the rest of the way up to the 25,000 miles required for a free flight. I have enough free rental car credits for eight days.

So I'm set, right? Oh no...it ain't that easy.

My original plans were to fly to Vegas on Sunday July 2 and return July 9. That way I would only have to use four days of vacation because the 4th is a Holiday, and I'm there for the blogger event on the 8th. That plan went out the window when my travelling companion had to work the first three days of that week. So we changed our plans to Thursday, returning the following Thursday. I talked to my friend who lives in Vegas and he says those days are fine.

I figured those days were good because Thursdays are usually light days for the Airlines and I would be able to get my free flights those days. Incorrect! The only thing close is Tuesday (the 4th!) through Wednesday the 12th. Otherwise I'd need another 20,000 frequent flier miles, which is impossible. (1000 miles cost $27.50 or 6,000 hotel points) A possible alternative is to just buy a flight through a different airline for around $400 (but it's a direct flight. The free one is through Dallas.)

With the new schedule, I'd be on the hook for an extra rental car day that I don't have credits for, but $30 for a rental car sounds a lot better than $400, plus I get an extra day in vegas.

So I think that's the plan. Nine days in Las Vegas for $40 (airline charges $10 for a frequent flyer ticket) is pretty reasonable. That's $4.45 per day.

I'm still there for the blogger event on the 8th, but I will be playing in the $2500 WSOP event on the 7th. It's a two day event, so I sincerely hope to miss the blogger event on Saturday because I am at the final table of the WSOP event. Not that I don't love you all. I really really do. But I'll stab every one of you in the spleen for a bracelet. I'm just sayin'.

Now it may appear kind of strange to be worrying about a $400 plane ticket and dropping $2500 on a poker tournament. Welcome to the convoluted mind of a poker player.

Okie - Fricking - Vegas (Saturday)

Last Place was where I finished in the Okie Vegas Tournament, so I'm not even going to talk about that. If you want details, check out TripJax, GaryC, Maudie and SteelerJosh.

I will blog about something much more significant. The fricking FOOD! It was unbelievable.

It started with Barbeque provided by Maudie. I thought the brisket was sliced a little thick, until I tasted it and it basically melted in my mouth. From there we had a couple of beers and played a cash game until the rest of the other tournament players arrived.

When it got close to tournament time, the spread was presented, and I seriously considered skipping the cards and just pulling a chair up to the buffet. First there were these little pinwheel sandwiches filled with cream cheese goodness. Totally irresistable. After that came the sausage balls. Deviled eggs. Smoked sausages. Queso dip. Chex Mix. Relish tray (mmmm...pickled Okra). More Barbeque. Cole Slaw. Potato Salad. Baked Beans. It never ended. It was basically an entire table covered with my guilty pleasures.

I even predicted my result in the tournament when I said "I'm going to bust out as fast as I can just so I can come back in here to eat."

Thanks for everything Gary. You are a fantastic host, although I think your wife deserves most of the credit for the food. Thanks for the Phil Gordon book, it kept me entertained on the plane trip back here.

It was great meeting you TripJax, you strike me as the kind of guy that knows how to have fun at a poker table, or anywhere else.

Sorry about your flight troubles Josh but it was good seeing you at the airport on Monday at 5:30am. At least I wasn't the only Okie Vegas member who was miserable that morning. Good luck with your move, I know what you're going through. It feels like the Michigan bullet I dodged hit you instead.

Great to see you again Maudie. We seem to have a monthly travelling home game. And it continues next month in Vegas!

Poker Comic #79

Poker Comic brought to you by Free Poker Money at PokerSourceOnline.com!. Free $100 at Party Poker(New Players Only)! Already played at Party? Free $50 at Titan Poker! No Deposit Required! No Credit Card Required! Play with real money for FREE!Click Here for more info!

Click HERE to view the Comics Archive

Okie - Fricking - Vegas

My flight was delayed from Dallas to Oklahoma City Friday night (new reason this time; they had a plane and a crew, but the plane cleaners were late, we obviously need a spic and span plane for a 31 minute flight) so I didn't get to the NewCastle Gaming Center until after 11pm. By that time TripJax, GaryC, Maudie and SteelerJosh had already been playing for seven hours and were all playing at the same limit table.

I attempted to tilt the table immediately by straddling the first time I was UTG. Trip raised and the rest of the bloggers and random donkeys folded. I looked at my 92o and said "I have to call, it's only one more small bet." The flop came QJT to make me open ended. I checked and Trip bet. "I have to call, it's only one more small bet." The turn was an 8, and I knew I had sucked out. I checked, he bet, I raised. He sighed and called that and my river (brick) bet, showing his set of queens.

Unfortunately bloggers don't tilt as easily as normal players, and the only hand I remember playing against TripJax all night after that was when he caught a runner-runner flush (the odds were there, as they always were in this loosy-goosey limit donkfest) to beat my set of tens.

We played with the "I call any unimproved ace until the river" donkeys until every single one of them busted. Seriously, when the table broke at 2am, bloggers had all the chips in front of them, and every other player at the table was down to the felt.

I picked up a map to Gary's house and found poor Mrs. Bogey half awake in front of a slot machine and dragged her home for the night.

To be continued...

99 Thumbnails

When you pick an Icon in FlickR it shows you thumbnails of your last 99 pictures you've uploaded. It looked pretty cool when it came up so I did a screen cap. Yes the poker comics are boring but they contribute to the overall pattern. Anyway, here's 99 Thumnails from GoBeRude: (Click to go to FlickR to see all my pics.)



I'm really excited about meeting new bloggers tonight at NewCastle Gaming Center in Oklahoma! My flight leaves at 5:30pm central time and lands at 9:30pm after a layover in Dallas.

I can barely wait!

Time to Come Clean

I owe Biggestron an apology. I accused him of something sinister that he obviously did not do. I do not think he intentionally tried to change the way people played in the WPBT events he created.

Moreover, I accused him of messing with the WPBT in general. I saw the WPBT as something that some good people created so that bloggers who have a common interest in poker could get together to have fun, play some poker and talk some trash. Then I saw Byron take that idea, assume control of it and make changes to that idea.

What I neglected to realize was that my title was right, the WPBT is in fact NOT Schrodinger's Cat, but not in the way I intended. I meant that the WPBT is actually alive, it's actually something that exists that people care about. But I was wrong, the WPBT actually does not exist and never did. Nobody has any right to it, nobody can say the WPBT is this, or the WPBT should be that.

I mistakenly thought that the WPBT was something that people cared about, and that it carried a spirit of camaraderie and fun that was important. I thought that anyone that took control of it and tried to change it should be seriously questioned as to their intentions. I was completely wrong.

Nobody can stop you if you want to create a series of events and call it the WPBT. It doesn't matter what is involved and who is invited, it can still be the WPBT. If you want to create a WPBT event that only A-listers are invited to, go ahead. If you want to come out with WPBT shotglasses, you are perfectly welcome. (Actually, that's not a bad idea. Kind of appropriate.)

My mistake was in thinking that the WPBT was something special. Something that attracted the attention of the poker blogging community and made them think "Oh! Bloggers will be there and it will be a lot of fun." But it's not. It's really just a collection of four consecutive letters that anyone can use to promote themselves or their poker events.

I honestly thought it was something more than that. My mistake. I apologize.

Poker Comic #78

Poker Comic brought to you by Free Poker Money at PokerSourceOnline.com!. Free Money at Titan Poker! Free Money at Party Poker! No Deposit Required! No Credit Card Required! (New Players Only) Click Here for more info!

Click HERE to view the Comics Archive

You see the weirdest shit driving in the midwest...

Starting to get excited...

I'm starting to get excited about Okie-Vegas.

It started with the comment by TripJax in the last post. It suddenly dawned on me that I was going to get to meet some more bloggers. I love meeting bloggers, probably because it usually eventually leads to tossing around a few chips in a drunken stupor.

It will be great to see Maudie and Gary again too. Even though I have met them already, it's always a good time. Always.

Unfortunately I am a couple of states away from Oak City right now, so I will not be there until Friday night. My plane lands at 9:30pm and Mrs. Bogey has graciously agreed to go straight from the Airport when she picks me up to the Newcastle Gaming Center. Hopefully I can get there by 10:30 or 11, and there will still be some bloggers there who are sober enough to say hello. Just kidding! I know Maudie will still be there. You can't get her away from those juicy tables with a crowbar.

The Saturday game is a little more up in the air. I am getting right back on a plane after the weekend, and Mrs Bogey might actaually want do something on a Saturday besides going to some stranger's house and watch me play poker. (Gary's no stranger to me, but he is to her.) I'm hoping she meets some nice people Friday night and wants to go. But I might have to beg off if I get the feeling that she'd rather do something else. I have been gone for three straight weeks, and I will be heading back Monday for three more in a row straight. And after that I am off to the real Las Vegas, which she is generously allowing me to go alone again this year.

So basically Saturday and Sunday are the last days she will see me for a couple of months....I don't think you'd call her greedy if she didn't want me spenging that whole weekend at a poker table.

Four hours and fourteen minutes later...

Got knocked out in third when I pushed with AK and the big stack called with A6.

I literally saw only three flops in the first hour and a half. Fortunately on one of them I quadrupled up.

And I thought blogs were gay...

Myspace is the gayest thing I have ever seen.

I thought Myspace was just a thing for pre-teen girls to post about the latest trendy whatevers that I know nothing about. Then I saw the first item in everyone's profile is "sexual orientation."

Nice. I think I understand all the news stories a few weeks ago that basically said "Are your kids using Myspace to find fuck buddies?" The "news" has a wonderful way of striking fear and paranoia in the hearts of parents more than any other group, doesn't it?

But overall, it's still incredibly gay. All the pages on there have this queer music player thing, and I may just be incredibly out of touch, but every page I've been to has the same Industrial/Dance/Rave song playing. Not that all those songs sound the same to me. Nooooo. But that also makes it take forever for the pages to load, along with the thousands of pictures on every page, uploaded by internet retards who think it's fine to have a 2gig picture as their background.

If you're over 15, get the fuck off of Myspace and get a real blog. And if you're 40 years old wearing hip-hop clothes making a surfer sign with your hands in a desperate attempt to look younger and get laid over the internet, your picture is in the dictionary under the listing for "pathetic."

Not appropriate joke for Poker Comic, but I still wanted to tell it: "Did you know there was a website you can go to that tells you the names of all the sexual predators in your area?? It's called Myspace.com"