Quality writing is a gift that shouldn't be taken for granted

I really appreciate bloggers, more than ever. Why? Because most of them can WRITE. Ugh.

I am currently employed as a computer progammer specializing in Factory Automation software. Slow manufacturing is my genre. But it wasn't always so.

When I was young and deluded, I wanted to be a journalist. Even before college I wanted to be in newspapers. I begged a job as a sports photographer at a local newspaper in my hometown when I was still in high school. When I went to college the first time, I learned something about how to write, and when I quit, I became a "journalist." Specifically a sports journalist. I prided myself on being able to photograph and write about a sports event.

When I got turned down for a staff position on that newspaper because of a lack of a certain piece of paper, I decided I should get my degree. My first year of classes for my communications degree told me that I would learn nothing practical from the school of communications. It was truly pointless.

So I went a different direction, towards something that was far more interesting and more challenging. I got my degree in Philosophy. Believe it or not, there's not a lot of call for Philosophers these days. The school I attended actively encouraged Philosophy students to double major in something slightly more....marketable. I noticed that a lot of logic classes could be used for math in computer science classes.

I had been interested in computer programming as a hobby, but never thought I had the patience to actually earn a degree in computer science. The obvious compromise; I got my double major in Philosopy and Management Information Science. And what did I do with these expensive skills of Philosophizing and Computerizing? I got a job working at a newspaper, of course.

Full time sportswriter, this time. I worked my way up from a small weekly to a small daily newspaper. It's a crazy world. You work basically 16-18 hour days, and get paid almost nothing. You bust your ass to fill a daily piece of fish wrap with decent content, and get to watch the ad salespeople get rich off your labor. It's not exacly hard work, because basically all you do is go around and talk to people or call them on the phone, then write something about it. But it is awfully time consuming. And awfully NOT rewarding. I don't believe I ever actually earned above minimum wage if you counted my actual hours versus what I got paid. Newspaper publishers are very creative in getting around labor laws and overtime pay. I was ALWAYS broke.

Here's an extreme example of a pretty often occuring day at my old newspaper job. I would get up at 4am on a Friday morning and develop film for the morning paper. I would select pictures based on the editors requirements print them, then go out and finish my story for the Friday afternoon edition. Deadline was 10am. Then I would make some phone calls and arrange my stringers for the Friday night football games. There were 12 games to cover, so I would go to one featured game and send 11 "stringers" out to the other games to take pictures and take notes. By 5pm I was on the road to some podunk town to try and locate the high school. Game time was 7pm, and I would take pictures and notes of the game. After assaulting the coaches post game with questions, I would rush back to the newspaper and write my game story. While that was going on my stringers would wander in around 10pm with their film and notes. I would call the coaches from those games at home and write a game story for all 11 games, based on the notes from my stringers. Then I would do the layout for the sports section after developing the film from the stringers and my own game. Eight to ten pages of photos, copy and ads. Done by a deadline of 2am.

For all this, I got paid about $60 a day. Before taxes. If that. It might have been less. Fortunately I escaped this world of low level pointlessness and servitude for the greener pastures of more pointlessness and servitude in the IT world.

Anyway, all this is to show that I used to be a writer (among many other things) for a living, and that I used to write stuff based on the notes/writings of others.

Flash to present day. PokerSourceOnline is having a contest of sorts where readers can submit articles to be published on the site. If your article gets published, you get a free 300 piece poker chip set. (If anyone reading is interested, go to PSO and submit some ideas for articles.) I volunteered to edit the articles, because of my background in writing and editing. I am sort of the unofficial staff writer for PSO. If they need something written for the website, they call me first. I have somewhat of a stake in the quality of the articles, since I have written a lot of the stuff on the site. I don't want to see a lot of CRAP published next to mine, making mine look bad.

I have gotten more than a dozen submissions so far, and most of them have been HORRIBLE. The ideas are okay, and some of them are even trying to get good ideas through, but they cannot penetrate the inability to convey a decent idea through words and phrases. They are submitted via Microsoft Word, so the spelling has been adequate, but the writing is just HORRENDOUS. Every other sentence is a cliche, every lead is buried, and the use of punctuation is ridiculous. WHEN YOU GET TO THE ELEVENTH COMMA IN A SENTENCE, IT MAY BE TIME FOR A PERIOD.

I read your blogs, and I see the ability to form cogent sentences. Thoughts are expressed and ideas are transferred. It's a beautiful thing. I think we all take for granted the amount of good writing that is out there.

Card Protectors

I decided to start collecting card protectors a while ago, and placed an order for some from places I found on the Internet. I had some money in my PayPal account from referrals at PokerSourceOnline, so I figured this was the best way to blow it on useless poker crap.



The picture is of the three most recent additions to the collection. I put a quarter on there so you could get a better idea of the size of these things.

The first one says "All-In" on the front and "Bite Me" on the back. People usually laugh when they see it, so it's worth it for a giggle. I got it from www.holdemmarkers.com for $9 plus shipping.

The middle one came from www.PokerCoin.com and says "I'm not bluffing, read em and weep" on it. The back is completely blank, which is kind of disappointing. It was $18.95. I also got a Hold Em keychain there that costs $10.95. The keychain is much cooler than the card protector, and all you would have to do is remove the chain to use it as a card protector.

The third one is the nicest one. I got it on the Poker Cruise in December for $15 from a player there who was selling them. There were all kinds of varieties, but I liked the "Bad Beat" one the best. I also got one that had "Ladies" on it for King Lucky, since his worst beats always seem to come with queens. It came in a hard plastic case but I like it better outside of the case. Anyone who wants one can find them easily on Ebay or by doing a google search.

For you online only players, Card Protectors are especially important when you play in a casino and you sit in the one or ten seat. If you don't protect your cards by putting something on them, the dealer can accidentally take them, or another player could accidentally think your cards are the muck pile and send his cards into yours. Once your cards touch other muck cards, your hand, if not protected, is dead. Even if you had AA, and even though it's not your fault.

Other than that they are just for fun, they start converstations at a poker table.

StatCounter is cool

StatCounter really is a cool tool. Whoever told me about it, thanks! I just spent the last hour or so reading my own blog because of StatCounter. They recently changed their keyword analysis to show you exactly when the searches were entered into whichever search engine, calling it "Recent Keyword Activity." I was browsing the searches that hit me, and then reading the pages that those people would get. I have pretty much forgotten everything I wrote before the beginning of the year, and some of it is really good stuff! I might hurt my arm patting myself on the back like that, but I really am impressed by some of the stuff. Things like this from a post called I'm not a very good poker player:

How do I make money even though I'm not good? Because being at a poker table is like being in a group of guys being chased by a bear. You don't have to be the fastest guy in the group, you just can't be the slowest.

If it weren't for StatCounter I never would have gone back and read through some of that stuff. Just like in poker, if you want to improve your blogging you have to analyze your history. See what you did right and do more of it, see what you did wrong and try to avoid it. It's easier to be more objective about your writing after so much time has passed.

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I missed the WPBT event last night. I planned on playing, even looked forward to it. But I had to play in a Bar Tourney instead. I know that sounds fishy, but really I had to go, for political reasons.

First, let me explain what a Bar Tourney is. It's free poker for no money. Sounds like shit, right? Yeah, pretty much.

Poker is still illegal outside of Indian Reservations in Oklahoma. So if you want to play Hold Em, all you can do is play in these "Amateur Poker Leagues." Here's the deal. A group of people, I hesitate to call it a "business" but I guess that's technically what it is, organize these free poker tournaments in bars. For the bar, it's like having a band, and they pay these people the same as what they'd pay a band.

You go to the bar and they give you 3000 chips. If you buy a meal at the restaurant, you get another 1000 chips. For every beer you buy, you get another 200 chips. If your table "tips" the organizers of the tournament the most, everyone at the table gets another 1000 chips. If you bring a guest, both you and the guest get an extra 1000 chips.

I was new, so I started with 4000 chips. The guy that brought me started with about 8600, because he brought me, another guest, bought a meal, his table tipped the highest and he bought a few beers. Nothing like starting in a hole.

Then there's the opponents. Here's a direct quote:

I've never played against people before, not even on the internet. I saw it on the TV and played some hands against my husband, so I thought I would come out and give it a try. Why not, it's free!

Ugh. In the first hand I decided I would try to convice the table I was a "crazy player" and I bluffed with ten-high. Of course I got called, which I expected. What I didn't expect was that I bluffed with the BEST HAND. Yes, I bluffed with ten-high and got called by NINE-HIGH. Oh the humanity.

The top two players get points. Those points get you into other tournaments....somewhere down the line there is a prize. A trip to Vegas or something....sorry, I really wasn't paying attention.

So now you know about Bar Tourneys (I have a hard time even calling it "poker") I'll explain why I had to go.

I recently lost by boss and my best friend in Oklahoma. The bastard moved back to Kansas City. When I lived in KC I worked with him there. He moved to OKC and offered me a job at his new place. I accepted and moved down here to work for him. Then he got another job back in KC! So HIS boss is now MY boss until they fill his position, which isn't clear if they will do that or not. His boss knows I am sorta (!) into poker, so he said I HAD to be his guest at the Bar Tourney last night. It would have been a bad career move for me to say no, so there I was swimming with the fishes for two hours on a Wednesday night.

So all this is one big excuse on why I missed the Blogger Tourney last night. I did watch Iggy's table for the last two hours though. I stayed up nearly to midnight when my alarm goes off at 4:30am...shouldn't that be worth something. Naw, probably not.

Like I told Felicia when I got there, I didn't play. I suck.

Poker Comic #15

God Bless the UAW

God Bless the UAW. They may be ruining the company and thereby ruining the country, but I damn sure enjoyed the four day weekend they just forced me to take with pay. I did nearly nothing on the weekend, I needed time to decompress from all the weekend trips and goings on around here.

I really only played poker yesterday. I think I played a lot on Thursday and maybe some more on Friday, but it's all a blur now anyway. Yesterday was a joke. I started the day with a $5+1 MTT on Absolute. I was cruising along fine until I made two bad, bad, BAD plays in a row that I know better than to make. My excuse is that I was on the phone and got distracted, but that's bullshit. I made a fish mistake, and paid for it.

Yesterday was poker on the cheap day. I figured I could play nothing but freerolls and tournaments that used player points. Huge mistake. I played in these things for hours and didn't see a scrap of poker played all day. Assholes playing any two cards and catching lightning, all the while criticizing others for being bad players. People who wouldn't know poker if it crawled up their rectum and spawned, being table coaches to even worse players.

Saturday was the Poker Forum Challenge hosted by Royal Vegas poker. There were a dozen or two of us representing PokerSourceOnline and about a dozen who spent the tournament in the PSO chat area. I swear, the chat was more fun than the tourney. Out of nearly 1400 contestants, all the PSOers in chat finished in the top 100, but none of us made the money that started at 30. If you were in the chat, thanks for making an otherwise routine tournament more fun.

Oh yeah! I remember what I did on Thursday now...I played in a WSOP qualifier where the top 9 players get a chance to win a trip to the WSOP. Not an entry, mind you, just the trip. Gotta love Absolute Poker. We won't give away "The Ultimate Prize" we'll give away something that looks sorta like it. A trip to go WATCH the WSOP. Not even the whole thing, just a few days worth. Absolute Poker is the Chinese Knock-Off of the poker world. They kinda look a little like Paradise Poker, but can't pull it off without being a total resource hog. They wanna be Pardise so bad, they can taste it.

This ridiculous joke of a tourney took six and a half hours, and that was just to get down to the final table. Since all nine got the same prize, everybody (except for one asshole, there's always one) went all in on the next hand.

Anyway, I finished in the top 9 out of 1500 players to get a shot at the trip. That tourney is Thursday. There's a blogger tournament on Wednesday (see Iggy's for details) and a $5000 freeroll sponsored by PokerSourceOnline on Friday.

Two of those tournaments are worth more than $1000 for first place, yet if I were forced to choose, I'd rather win the one on Wednesday.

Poker on TV turns a corner

I just watched the WPT event that I recorded from Wednesday night, and I have heard a lot of comments about the new graphics and the changes that the WPT made this season. I haven't seen anybody mention the most impressive change.

They don't explain the rules of hold em anymore.

That's right. They assume if you're watching, you've seen the game before and know how it works. The ESPECIALLY don't explain what hand beats what anymore. MAYBE there were people seeing that and going "WOW, a full house beats a flush?" But I doubt it.

It always bugged me. I would be watching the 18th broadcast of the WSOP and here comes the little video presentation teaching us how the betting works in Texas Hold Em. Or a WPT event with Mike Sexton calling it "The Caddilac of Poker" for the umpteenth time.

No more. When you watch a baseball game, they don't take time out in the beginning to tell you that four balls make a walk. They don't start hockey games early to explain what icing is, even though I think more people understand hold em than understand offsides in a hockey or soccer game.

The game is growing up. This is a HUGE step for the ligitimacy of televised poker.

Now back to watching college basketball. I have Louisville in my pool, so I'm looking good for at least a profit. What does that arc on the court mean again?

Yankee Fans

If you are a Yankee fan, and maybe even if you're not, you should be reading this guy:

The Pinstripe Bible

Sometimes you will read a history of World War II that argues there was a racial component to the American decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan. It was never strongly suggested, this argument goes, that the bomb should be used on Germany. This may be true, but it is equally true that the A-bomb was not ready to be dropped until after the Germans had surrendered. For Harry Truman to drop the big one on the Rhine in August of 1945, three months after V-E Day, would have been, at the very least, impolite. Bringing a closer in to protect a three-run lead in the ninth is the same thing. It’s like nuking the enemy after the war is over.

The writer is Steve Goldman, and he knows his shit about baseball, and is entertaining as hell.

Search Engine Abuse - Shanna Hiatt Nude

I'm starting to feel bad about all the search engine abuse I've been doing by posting titles like Naked Pictures of Shanna Hiatt, or Shanna Hiatt nude. Maybe even misspellings, like Shana Hyatt or something.

So, as a reward for all you perverts who found my page looking for Shanna Hiatt's naked body, here you go.

Shanna Hiatt Nude Pictures

Pics provided by Poker Source Online, remember to use referral ID "dugglebogey" when you sign up after you are.......done.

Thanks for all of your kind emails.....

Thanks for all of your kind emails.....

I had a great weekend that started on Friday night Online and continued through the weekend in Kansas City.

But first, I gotta mention stupid coozebag stripper's latest "insult disguised as a compliment." Apparently she heard about Felicia's diagnosis, but instead of just being nice decent HUMAN, she takes a shot at her. If anything like that happened to you, you'd be throwing the biggest pity party seen by mankind.

I realize that being a stripper doesn't require any advanced degrees, but LOOK DUMBASS, Felicia never referred to you as a hooker. She hasn't referred to you AT ALL lately, you self-centered moron. She was playing a tournament and making a joke about the winner getting a free hooker. NOT YOU, DIPSHIT. If someone told you she did, you're a fucking fool for believing it.

For anyone who is still reading Strippers useless site, I'll wrap up every post she has done in the last couple of months, and likely every post she will do for the rest of her pointless blogs.

"Thanks for all the nice emails"---This is where she lies and tries to convince anyone still reading her crap that someone out there still likes her, and that they aren't just your standard internet geeks who kiss her ass because she claims to be "hot."

"I made enough money to maintain the country of Bulgaria for a week."----Here's where she tries to convince readers that she's a FANTASTIC poker PROFESSIONAL, although she has never posted one IOTA of poker advice that would suggest that it's true.

"My military boyfriend is dreamy, although every other woman he has ever met is inferior to me."----the only thing I can imagine she is trying to do here is make people VOMIT. Her contribution to fighting the obesity problem, maybe?

"Here's something I saw on TV or on the Internet that made me stop and think for a second, and came to a COMPLETELY STUPID CONCLUSION."----This is actually almost entertaining, because she is so daft her conclusions are hilarious.

And that's pretty much all you are going to get from reading that site. Aren't you happy I could save you all that time?

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Anyway, Friday night was just one of those nights where you can do no wrong. I played through my bonus at Absolute Poker and doubled my buy-in. It makes a lousy $100 in bonus money look like crap when you win $500 just trying to clear it. Not that I will ever turn down free money. How do I add that $100 into Poker Tracker? I wish there was a guide or something for that program.

It was one of those nights where every pre-flop hand held up, and every beat was held to a reasonable level. I'd say the best example is when I called a pre-flop raise with 99 in position, and flopped A95. Turn was a 5 and I raised, got called by the initial pre-flop raiser. I bet the blank on the river and got check-raised by the pre-flop raiser, and JUST CALLED his wired Aces. Ordinarily that hand is a big loser for me, but I only dropped one extra bet when he raised me on the river. Second nut is usually a hand I'll push, but I smelled a rat.

So while all this bonus clearing was going on, my friend KingLucky calls me from Kansas City and tells me he is playing a tournament and he wants to go to a movie with his son and would I take it over? I said no problem since I was playing anyways. I logged on as him and he had a pretty nice stack of 11,000 or so with about 200 left of the original 450 players. I made a few plays, trying not to get fancy and got to the lead fairly quickly. The final table was achieved with ease and I pushed them all around and eventually won it. KingLucky and I split the first place prize when I got to his house Saturday for his monthly home game. After killing the home game for like the third time in a row we took our stake to the Ameristar and KingLucky taught me his super secret Video Poker Strategy.

Okay, so there's no secret, we just play that when we can't handle the card-catchers up in the poker room anymore. But he did walk me through a lot of plays that I wasn't making optimally, and I won a LOT of money I wouldn't have. If you mix that in with the comps you get at a ridiculous rate when playing 100 play, it's really a very good system.

Poker went like hell at Ameristar when this indian dude across the table caught cards on me EVERY FRICKING HAND. Well, he played every fricking hand, so whenever I was in, he was in. I held AT and the flop was T88? He held T8. I held JJ, re-raised and the flop was T22? He held K2. There he was, betting the wrong amount on every street, with his wife, dot on her forehead and everything, planted on his shoulder like a parrot. Driving me and everyone else at the table crazy, and catching cards like a motherfucker.

I left before the damage got too bad, and the Video Poker winnings made up for it and then some. I think the real house edge in 100 Play Video Poker is in the mistakes the players make. Since VP is all about playing for the big hand, and you get 100 times as many shots at the big hand, the game seems very beatable. I have limited experience, but so far so good.

After the home game that started at 6pm on Saturday, we played from 2am to about 7pm on Sunday, which was nice because of all the basketball on TV, and the comped meals at the restaurants. I didn't like seing the UAB loss to Arizona on the bottom of the screen about 10,000 times, but that's a cross I will have to bear.

Slept Sunday night and drove 5 hours back to OKC on Monday. Getting up for work at 5am after skipping a night of sleep is always difficult, but I'll probably recover by tomorrow.

Poker Comic #14

Full Tilt Poker

Iggy needs a HUMONGOUS kickback from Full Tilt Poker. Apparently nobody amongst bloggers was playing there until they all bought in for the HORSE tourney on Sunday. Now they are ALL playing there FULL TIME, and blogging about it. It seems like every blog I've read since Sunday has been about the ring games at Full Tilt, the SNGs at Full Tilt or the NL games at Full Tilt. Or a full site review of Full Tilt.

That's more press than Nixon got when he opened relations with China. All because of a $5 HORSE tourney that most people were afraid to play in the first place.

Light at the end of the tunnel

PokerSourceOnline has decided in the wake of this PokerNow disaster to alter their rules for signing up for the PartyPoker rakeback program.

You can cancel your PartyPoker account via telephone (you can even tell them you are canceling because of an affilliate program being obsoleted) and wait 72 hours, reopen via PokerSourceOnline's frequent flopper program (still 27.5%) and keep your rake rebate going.

It has been cleared with PP, and the only limitation is that you have not done another promotion from PSO through Party Poker (Skins do NOT count.) If you did a promotion from someone other than PSO, you can still do this deal. Alas, I did a different promotion at PSO for Party Poker a long time ago, so I am not eligible, but a lot of you guys might be.

I feel bad because I got so many people going on this PokerNow deal, which I thought was a good thing that would last a while. Unfortunately I guess it was too good to be true. If some of you are willing to give up your Party Poker screen names (it might be a good thing to get some of you away from your existing PokerTracker stats on a lot of computers out there) you can get back on the train.

Well Shit

PokerNow has cancelled all Rake Rebate programs from all affiliates, including PokerSourceOnline.com.

So as of yesterday, I will not get any more rake rebate for my play at PokerNow. Guess what that means? I'm not playing anymore at PokerNow. The email said something about Party not paying PokerNow something, so there is a lot of fear of PokerNow going under. I withdrew all my money, and I sure hope I get it. Apparently rumors are running rampant on 2+2.

I got a good signup bonus at PokerNow and got about a month and a half worth of rake rebate, so my total profit other than poker winnings is around $200, which isn't bad for a month and a half.

But as of right now I am not playing for any kind of bonus or comp at all, and I hate that. It feels like I am losing money when I play just for the money on the table. Talk about spoiled.

I did have a feeling that the Rake Rebate program from PokerNow via FrequentFlopper.com was too good to be true. It's unusual when the absolutely perfect situation comes along, and that's what PokerNow was for me. I guess it didn't take much stretch of imagination to realize they were going to fuck it up.

I was going to post yesterday about Rake Rebates vs. Bonus Whoring, and I still plan on doing so, espeically since I will probably end up going back to bonus whoring until I work out another rake rebate site that plays as fishy as Party Poker.

I hope PokerNow pays everyone the money they owe them, and then goes down in FLAMES. You can't fuck with people like that and get away with it. If Party is actually behind it, Fuck them too. No company is untouchable in this business. Even the big dog can be caught and eaten.

South Park Duggle

I wasn't gonna post one of these, until I saw this T-Shirt:

Poker Police

I received my Rake Rebate from PokerNow for the month. On top of all the winnings, I got an extra $44.11, which equates to about 1.7 cents per hand. There was still some bonus clearing going on, so my calcualtions are kind of guessed at. I really like the idea of getting $44 for doing something I would have done anyway, without bonus whoring. And best of all, it was at "The Aquarium" (Party Poker) so I was taking cash off all the fishies chasing their flushies the whole time. After one day when I lost $100 in about 10 minutes, I finished up for the month $337, so $44 is a significant addition to that total, BB/Hr wise.

Tomorrow I'll try to post on Rake Rebate via Freqent Flopper vs Bonus Whoring. It's an interesting subject I started with Chris Halverson in comments a couple of days ago.

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KingLucky was playing in my Intertops account in a freeroll yesterday. I know I have paid glowing praises for the often held freerolls at Intertops, but since they reduced the prize pool for the dailies to $100 paying out to 40 people, it's just not worth it. KL works from home so playing poker occupies his time while working, and the more free games the better. He calls me when I get home and tells me to take over the game because he has a bunch of conference calls coming up. He has built up a nice stack of T4400 with about 200 people left.

I still think these things are a waste of time, and there's just three live players at the table including me, the rest being no-shows. I notice the guy immediately in front of me is limping every hand. Since I am "THE POKER POLICE" I put a stop to that right away. I raise every time he limps. He usually folds, probably because King Lucky was playing TIGHTER than TIGHT, which is his usual style. Eventually he catches on to what he must think is a HUGE GEAR SHIFT and starts calling. But by that time I have a huge stack and knock him and his opponent out on lucky draws. So I find myself in second chip position in the tournament with 13,000 chips and just 30 or 40 players left to make the money, which starts at a heart stopping SIXTY FIVE CENTS.

I continue the wild play loosening up my starting hand requirements due to the shorthandedness and lack of caring. Soon enough, I am at the final table in second chip position. 10th place pays a whopping $1. I raise from UTG with AKs and flop both and A and a K. I NEVER slow play two pair, but for some dumbass reason I did and let a guy catch his flush cheap and knock me down to 2K. I'm partially thankful because this pointless freeroll exercise will be over. My big blind is 45s and I figure I have to call when the ENTIRE TABLE limped. I raise all-in and get called in every position. Magical flop of 449 and I am almost exactly where I was before I screwed up big slick the hand before. It's like a big do-over for me, and I'm not screwing up again.

An argument breaks out between the two players immediately after me. One is tired of the pansy raises coming from the other. I go on and on about how arguing over a $25 first prize is stupid and how big boys don't use that kind of language. Utilizing my position as "THE POKER POLICE" I knock them both out. I'm getting cocky now and suggest that the table knock some other folks out because I don't want to do all the work myself. Seriously tight table, stacks of 50K and 60K are folding to 1000 bets.

When we are down to three, I have 80K, most obnoxious player on earth(JON) has 150K after bad beating the guy in 4th place to knock him out, and SOONERS has 20K. JON is obnoxious because he goes to the clock on every single play. That's a minimum of 20 seconds for every call, raise or fold. Utilizing my position as "THE POKER POLICE" I announce to the table and the watchers that I am going to knock JON out second just so SOONERS gets the second place money. Three hands later I get 23o on the small blind. Flop is A59 and JON checks to me. I check and SOONERS checks. Turn is a beautiful 4. JON bets in the neighborhood of 10,000. I raise that to 20,000, SOONERS folds and JON raises me back. I get all in and JON flips his slow played A5. River 4 makes me the chip leader at 160K and JON is down to 70K.

Very next hand I get KT on the button and I raise 20K. JON re-raises from the big blind after SOONERS folds, and I go all in. JON insta-calls with AQ. I spike a 10 on the flop and JON doesn't improve. Knocked out third, just as "THE POKER POLICE" intended. SOONERS put up a good fight but couldn't climb the 230K mountain with his 20K stack.

$25 for hours of work. At least I had fun doing it. Maybe I work too hard at other tournaments? I'm probably just on a roll after my final table at the Absolute $5+1 MTT I made the night before.

Poker Comic #13

Maudie Wins!

Maudie from Poker Perspectives-Maudie's Poker Blog guessed correctly!

Maudie wins the book, authored by the 2005 Heads Up Poker Championship winner. Maudie, I can ship it to you, or I can give it to in person you at the first meeting of the SW Blogger Fest. The choice is yours!

The Chinese Thing

So far there are a lot of guesses as to what the Chinese Word is, but nobody is guessing WHY it is over there. It's kind of a trick question, because I know that having BEER over there might not need a reason for a lot of people.

Trust me, there's a very good reason I know the Chinese word for BEER and why I have it up in the corner of my blog.

I learned the word when I spent a year in Taiwan a few years ago. It's pronounced something like pee-joe with a soft "j"or actually more like pee-zhoe.

And Tom, you aren't allowed to guess.

Linkage

I think I'll take a break today and write up a little bit about all the folks you see who I've linked up on the right side, under the curious Chinese word. I've been thinking of offering a prize to the first person who can tell me what that word is, and WHY I have it posted there. I think I will make the prize a copy of Phil Hellmuth's "Play Poker Like the Pros." First correct commenter gets my used copy.

The Blogfather

Everyone knows Iggy, so there's not much to say about him. He pimped me when I was first starting, and referred to me during the whole stripper fiasco. Wanna know how to get hits for your poker blog? Get Iggy to mention you. He has been kind of lax lately, well, not counting Poker Tracker Guide but it seems like weeks since he's made an uber-post.

Poker on Film

Heafy really presents a refreshing view of poker, mostly because it's coming from Australia. He's funny and really into movies. It's great watching him make the move from a fish into a steady and solid player.

Poker Perspectives

Maudie is great and very genuine. I guess she got posted early on because she's a fellow Oklahoman. She's been kind of dejected lately, but I suspect she just misses her theater happenings and exhaustion from having done them. I expect a rebound shortly.

Double As

I listed him after knocking him out on a freak hand at the first Blogger tourney I played. The guy is an NL monster. If I could be anyone on my blog list, I'd be DA. The part of his blog I have enjoyed most are the parts about trying to separate money from chips, and how poker has changed his perspective on the worth of money. It's really fascinating stuff.

SirFWALGMan

I started reading SirF because he was incredibly prolific. He would post three or four times per day, and it was pretty entertaining stuff. He has slowed down since he busted out in DAZZLING fashion. I still read his stuff and enjoy playing with him at the Party Poker tables, because he's a great guy who loves to talk about poker. He's one of the good guys.

FeliciaLee

Felicia is the patron saint of poker bloggers. It's like she watches over us and makes sure we are all okay. Even though it's pretty evident that she's not usually okay. Felicia takes a lot of criticism for her uncompromising attitude, but people who don't realize how good that is deserve what they get when the poker world SHITS ALL OVER THEM. We love you Felicia, don't ever forget that.

Life's A Grind

I met Lifesagrind on the Poker Cruise I won from Poker Source Online. He also won his way on, and he's really a fun guy to play poker with at a live table. He lives very close to one of the home games I play at in Kansas, so I hope to be playing more with him in the future. He doesn't post a lot, but when he does it's very creative and interesting.

Anisotropy

I don't even remember where I got this link to Anisotropy, maybe the name just interested me. I think he's explained it like ten times now, and I still have no idea what it means. What it means to me is an interesting blog. I think it's just going to get better and better as he makes the transition from the IT world to High School teacher. I wouldn't miss it for the world.

Al Can't Hang

Everyone knows Al too. He's a talented writer who never fails to entertain. I'm surprised at the recent post where he admitted that he is a losing player, and he called out a lot of folks who also admitted it. I guess I just assumed that if I can win (albeit very small) at poker, everyone else was too. If Al doesn't win money playing poker, there's nobody that gets more value out of it in fun and friendship. I may be a winning player overall, but I still hope to be as succesful as Al.

Mean Gene

Gene is another one of those blogs that is more about the writing than it is about the poker. I love his reviews. He could review an episode of American Idol and I'd probably enjoy it. And that's saying a lot, because I personally believe that American Idol is PURE EVIL.

Grubby

PokerGrub = Crack Cocaine. I crave new posts from this blog. I started reading it because he posted a lot about the Washington DC area, which is where I grew up. But since he moved to Vegas I thirst for every tidbit of detail in his experience, so that I can live vicariously through him.

Helixx

Helixx I met at a blogger table and I appreciate his technology based insight into the poker world. His recent trip to vegas was enthralling, but he's been taking some time off since then. I assume he's decompressing and will come back soon with more interesting stuff.

Pauly

Pauly falls into the category of great writer too, but there is no lack in the Poker area either. Actually Pauly is a FANTASTIC writer, and I feel like I am STEALING when I get to read his stuff for free. Someday he will get all his stuff published in book form, and I will be able to say (along with the other THRONGS of readers he has) that I read all that stuff as it happened.

Chris Halverson

Halverson knows how to spin a tale too, and his poker content also never fails to please. I took a shot at him in comments recently and he handled himself very well.

BadBlood

It's great reading about Badblood and all the little bloods. It's more of a family guy perspective of the poker world, with interesting poker content.

Drop The Hammer!

I just started reading the hammer, and it's pretty fun irreverent stuff. I aspire to be as cynical as hammer.

StudioGlyphic

I met Studio at the blogger table, and waited WAY TOO LONG before adding him to my links. When he used my referral ID at PokerSourceOnline.com, I woke up and realized it wasn't there. The live game stuff from California is great, but it makes me very jealous.

Shelly

Last and certainly not least is Shelly, who only got added a few days ago. She's incredibly genuine, which is something I admire a lot. You really get a sense of her from her writing, and that's a lot bigger deal than people generally think. Maybe blogging about how you really FEEL is more acceptable when it comes from a female blogger, but I think it is very difficult to pull off. Shelly does a great job.

And those are my links. I put them there so I can click them easily and read them every day. Except for Felicia's link, which reminds me to click on her LiveJournal link. Don't forget to make your guess at the Chinese Word. You might win the greatest poker book ever written in the opinion of the author.

100xBB Buy-in

I don't like the smaller blinds for the $25 in PL. Well, that's not exactly true.

I do like them for Pot Limit Omaha Hi/Lo. I'm almost ashamed to post this, because it's such a bad play, but all my good plays went into the shitter.

***** Hand History for Game 1679834572 *****
$25 PL Omaha Hi/Lo - Thursday, March 03, 18:50:56 EDT 2005
Table Table 37027 (Real Money)
Seat 6 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 1: chillieu ( $45.99 )
Seat 3: Touchas ( $20.66 )
Seat 5: JUKINGJONNY ( $157.23 )
Seat 10: GoBeRude ( $21.65 )
Seat 2: Adamatic22 ( $46.99 )
Seat 6: Dephnot ( $22.37 )
Seat 7: avogadno ( $29.9 )
Seat 4: rshjr1963 ( $24.75 )
Seat 9: AGC91 ( $24.75 )
Seat 8: paw333 ( $25 )
avogadno posts small blind [$0.1].
paw333 posts big blind [$0.25].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to GoBeRude [ 2c 3s Qc 6c ]
AGC91 folds.
GoBeRude calls [$0.25].
chillieu folds.
Adamatic22 raises [$1.1].
Touchas calls [$1.1].
rshjr1963 folds.
JUKINGJONNY folds.
Dephnot calls [$1.1].
avogadno folds.
paw333 folds.
GoBeRude calls [$0.85].
** Dealing Flop ** [ 9c, 2s, Jc ]
GoBeRude checks.
Adamatic22 bets [$4.55].
Touchas folds.
Dephnot calls [$4.55].
GoBeRude calls [$4.55].
** Dealing Turn ** [ Ad ]
GoBeRude checks.
Adamatic22 bets [$17.5].
Dephnot is all-In [$16.72]
GoBeRude is all-In [$16]
** Dealing River ** [ 4c ]
Adamatic22 shows [ Qh, Ks, Ts, Js ] a pair of jacks.
Dephnot shows [ 2d, Kh, 2h, Th ] three of a kind, twos.
GoBeRude shows [ 2c, 3s, Qc, 6c ] a flush, queen high.
GoBeRude shows 6,4,3,2,A for low.
Adamatic22 wins $0.78 from side pot #2 with a pair of jacks.
Dephnot wins $1.44 from side pot #1 with three of a kind, twos.
GoBeRude wins $31.7 from the main pot with a flush, queen high.
GoBeRude wins Lo ($31.7) from the main pot with 6,4,3,2,A.

This is a game of absolute psychos, where you can limp almost every hand, and count on the max bet every post-flop round. Just play all three way hands, and count your outs carefully. With so many callers, the pot odds are always there.

NL vs PL revisited

I need to clear up a misconception about my last post.

I am unhappy because they ruined the $25PL game. Chris Halverson is happy because in his opinion they improved the NL game. Chris isn't a PL player so he isn't commenting on the PL changes.

I'm really just upset about having to adjust to a change. I had a cash cow at Party Poker, and now they've killed it to make hamburger, when the milk is what was really desirable. I will whine and bitch all I want, but I will adjust.

I still insist that making the game at Party the same as everywhere else isn't a good thing, because having fewer options is never an improvement. But Party Poker is "The Aquarium" and I can understand people like Halverson who think that improving the odds at a game that has that many morons in it HAS to be good.

I have always stayed away from the $25NL game at Party because the Psycho level has always been intolerable. How many times do you have to seen someone go in for $25 to win $.75 in blinds and get called by someone with CRAP to realize that you're not playing "poker", you're playing some kind of weird bingo variation.

I even blogged a few days ago about actually going to a $25NL game because the avg pot was so high I just couldn't resist it. The combination of sociopaths at this table could keep a psychiatrists convention busy for months.

This is probably where I will take my game. I don't really cotton to the idea of buying in for $25 at the $50PL tables, because I am looking for idiots and they tend to clot up at the minimum buy-in tables. Whoever suggested that didn't understand my issues.

I didn't mean to stir up shit here. I am sad that my cash cow is now being served at McDonalds, but I don't intend to ruin anyone's day.

PokerNow Changes

Party Poker changed yesterday, and I'm not sure I like the changes.

They changed the blinds on all the NL/PL games, and added much higher buy-in games, up to $1000 buy-in. While the NL game probably isn't changed much by the blinds going DOWN in $25NL, the PL game is changed drastically. Instead of blinds being $.50/$.25, they are now $.25/$.10. The max raise pre-flop in an unraised hand in $25PL was $1.75. Enough to scare out crappy hands, but not enough to keep a decent starting hand from playing. Add a few limpers and the raise was around $3, the perfect amount. Now the max raise pre-flop in an unraised hand is $.85. Eighty-Five cents. That doesn't scare away shit. If you are in early position with a big pair, you are fucked. You can raise the lousy eighty-five cents and get 8 limpers, or you can just call and PRAY for a raiser that you can re-raise.

Or you can move up to the $50PL tables, which is what I did. What sucks about this is that the maniacs that I profit mostly on will stay at the $25 game, or switch to NL. Another thing that sucks is that while the blinds are the same as the old $25PL game, the risk is much higher. I dropped two buy-ins in about 20 minutes in that game. The day before it would have cost me $50 and I wouldn't have batted an eye. Now I am down $100 and walking away for the day.

I'm still not sure what I will do. I can either switch to $25NL and deal with the psychos, or I can keep plugging at $50PL and look harder for the idiots.

Edit: More on this.

Chris Halverson posted the following in SirFWALman's comments:

You're crazy if you don't like the new structure. It also shows that you never played at any other site as EVERY other site has 100BB buyins.

Deep stacks favor good people. It actually means you have to play and not just push. I about jumped for joy when I saw that they upped it.

My response...

Why would you "jump for joy" when they made the place just like everywhere else? Who the fuck likes the same thing everywhere? If you liked the blind structure somewhere else, GO PLAY THERE. Some of us liked having a choice.

All I know is it made the $25PL game completely pointless, and that was my favorite game there.

PL vs NL

Iggy et al have a new guide up for Poker Tracker, appropriately called Poker Tracker Guide.

I'm really happy about this. Not really because I am going to read it, because I (like many others) have spent hours and hours pouring over the data in PT and don't feel like I need a guide to tell me how to use it. I don't find PT difficult at all to use, but I can understand how it could be confusing to someone who isn't involved in statistical analysis at all.

What I am happy about is when people ask me for help with PT, and A LOT of people ask me for help with PT, I can refer them there. Everybody wins.

*******************************************************************************

I'm still getting a lot of email about the 27.5% Rake Rebate and PSOs Frequent Flopper program. If you email me I will reply eventually. I want to thank everyone that signed up at PSO and used me as a referral. I can still be reached at dugglebogey@casinomail.com, but I just opened up a gmail account at dugglebogey@gmail.com and I am considering moving everything over to that address.

*******************************************************************************

I am glad to see that SirF has finally realized that there is money to be made by specializing in NL at Party Poker. I don't think I am even a profitable player at lower limits on Party. I played limit exclusively at Pacific and Absolute at low limits and hauled in the money. But I can't seem to catch the chasers at Party Poker. I'm not sure what it is. Maybe there's just too many of them and I can't make the adjustment. Or there's a couple of sharks mixed in with the fish and I can't identify them. I've done well at higher limits, but I am not in bankroll shape to take the swings at those games right now. Withdrawing more than $2500 late last year really took away that option for me.

I make my money now at Party by finding loose idiots and taking their money. I guess they are a lot easier to find in NL and PL games. And they are easier to catch in PL than they are in NL.

The reason I play PL is because PL helps to contain the action pre-flop and the first post-flop bet. Once you have identified your loose maniac, all you have to do is lay in wait to catch him. They are easy to spot. They raise pre-flop more than half the time. They raise the max with any two suited cards. They bet the pot when they catch ANY part of the flop, or they think that nobody else will call. They tend to have huge stacks, but the money moves to and from them on every hand. You don't need a monster to catch these guys, you just need a decent hand. You can never beat them with Ace high, but top pair is usually good, two pair is the nuts.

So you only play big cards against them and hope to catch. In NL this is impossible, because you will call off your whole stack just trying to hit a flop. You need big pairs to call in NL, and they won't call you if you fold 40 straight hands and then raise your Aces. They're not THAT dumb. Well, some are, but not all of them.

In PL they can only bet the pot pre flop, which is usually less than $2 or $3 in $25PL. If you have any kind of position and you have a big pair or just big cards you can usually raise him and all the callers $12 or $13. All the limpers will fold, and you will be heads up with this moron, because he ALWAYS calls. Then all you have to do is avoid the flush that this moron was hoping for with his deuce-five of hearts. Yes he catches it, or two pair, or the miracle straight more than he should, but you are just a re-buy away from getting your money back.

No Limit Poker is all about aggression. Most of these morons think that they can out-aggression everyone in the pot. The worst part about this scheme is it works about 85% of the time. I live on the 15% side of the fence.

Yesterday I won ONE pot in 40 hands at PokerNow, and still made money. Because I folded about 30 hands, limped and folded with 5 more, folded 4 more after the flop, and won $32 on the other.

In Pot Limit you can make their over aggressiveness work against them. The worst thing about Pot Limit is when you make the nuts and nobody bets, you can only bet $3-4 on the river. But all you have to do is show a TINY bit of weakness and your maniac buddy will bet the pot, allowing you to go all-in (or nearly) over the top.

The only drawback to this technique is that everyone at the table is usually after the same maniac, and sometimes they will bust him before you've had your shot. But more often they will just be feeding him. They will call him down with very weak hands, trying to catch him bluffing. He's not really a "bluffer" per se. He will not go crazy with nothing after the flop unless you check to the river.

There's also a lot of trash talk going on at the table. So it can be entertaining at the same time. I try to keep it to a minimum by saying "Stop tapping the glass," but the idiots that keep losing big stacks to the maniac inevitably respond with "STFU. You can't tell me what to do." It's really just one sentence removed from "You're not my REAL mom."

Go on Party, find the PL tables with the HIGHEST average hands, and you will usually find one person that is driving the average so high. Then take a big chunk from his stack while building your rake rebate higher and higher. You'd be amazed how fast you accrue frequent flopper points when the pot gets raked the max nearly every hand, and all you've done is fold, fold, fold. That's a side benefit to playing PL over NL. Since the pre-flop raises are controlled, a lot more hands are called pre-flop, so there's a lot more rake rebate to be had.

I love my rake rebate, and I love my Pot Limit Hold Em games at Party Poker.

Laziness

I have been really lazy uninspired about blogging lately. Maybe "lazy" is a better word, now that I think about it. There has been plenty of poker, plenty of thinking about poker.

I played a home game tourney Friday night, bubbling out of game one and winning game two. I played not one, but three $10,000 freeroll tournaments this weekend, plus the PSO poker league.

I even read about how SirFWALGman hates Pot Limit and ran away as quickly as he possibly could when he accidentally joined a PL ring game. I play PL almost exclusively and am really interested in talking about why PL is a superior game to NL for me.

But I am simply not in the mood. Maybe if SirF posts about why he hates it so after I asked him about it in the comments I will be more inspired.

I won a total of $12 in three $10K freerolls. Blah. I also finished 51st in yet another freeroll that started paying at 50. And I did it out of spite. Saturday's freeroll exit was even better. I went out with the hammer. Booyah!

Oklahoma is OK!

Here's a little peek into what it's like living in Oklahoma. I'm driving into work today, around 6:15 AM, my normal time. Now, I'd think if you were awake at oh-six-fifteen you'd either be 1)Gainfully employed or 2) Still drunk. Maybe the radio station I was listening to in my Nissan Pathfinder was aiming at the "still drunk" crowd. I don't know what station it was, my wife usually drives it but she is taking the car I usually drive in for brake work. The display on the radio in the Pathfinder quit about a year ago. It's going on 11 years old so as long as we know how the buttons are programmed and we don't move, everything will be okay.

So the morning radio station that my wife listens to was having a little "trivia contest." The question was which President was the first to visit all 50 states while in office. You might be thinking to yourself, "tough question." Well, no because it was multiple choice. The choices? "Benjamin Franklin (!) Eli Whitney (!!) or Richard Nixon.

It took three callers.

Successful Execution

In my last post about the Ameristar Casino in Kansas City, I took a vow to never toke there again.

Mission Accomplished.

Actually, this was much easier than I had anticipated. Since I bought in for one rack and didn't win one hand the entire rack, there wasn't much cause to tip.

Karma, you say? Bullshit.

There was a TRUE scumbag at the table. He won nearly every pot. He sat down with $30-50, and after about 10 hand he left a big pile of chips at the table and carried away two racks of white to color up. When he sat back down, I asked the dealer where all his chips went. The dealer told him he could not remove money from the table. So he took the two black chips and set them on the table. Three hands later, they were gone again. Asshole.

So I am down to my last few chips, and I manage to get most of them in pre-flop, with the usual zillion callers. I flop the nut flush, and get all in. I'm in the two seat, fishy asshole is in seat seven. The river pairs the board, and dipshit says "I'm all in" and pushes all his chips into the side pot. We are playing $3/$6 LIMIT. This dumb fuck pushes his chip stacks, probably 150 chips, INTO THE POT, mixing all his chips with everyone else's.

I don't even have a clue what to do in this situation. It's impossible to tell how much was in the pot and how much was his. I wasn't incredibly concerned because it was the second pot, and I was only in the first. I called the floor anyway, hoping maybe his hand was dead. They'll declare a dead hand on me in a HEARTBEAT, so I was hoping they would do the same to him.

Floor says "show your cards." Player to my left says "I haven't called the bet yet." Floor says "Do you want to call the $6 bet?" He says "I guess not." Floor tells me to show my cards, I show my flush, Dipshit flips over Jack-Six for a full house, and I am busted.

Is there a rule about this? What should have happened? I realize the outcome was probably "fair" but should his hand been declared dead? Felicia? Anyone?

After taking a lap around the casino looking for KingLucky and to cool off, I rebuy another rack and sit back down. The guy now has about $50 in chips in front of him. Fucking asshole ratholed again! A few hands later he goes all in with his last $2. I say "Bullshit, take some of that money out of your pocket." He says "Why?" I said "These are table stakes, you can't take money off the table, and you've done it twice. It's against the rules." He says "Sorry, they didn't give me a rule book." Dealer does NOTHING of course, and the guy loses that hand and leaves.

I won two big pots, one when a player straddled to try and change his luck and it got capped at $15, and I called with my 55. Presto made a set on the turn and I dragged a $100 pot. No toke, I bet the dealer was kind of steamed. I won another nice one with 36s(!) when I turned two pair. I finally won my way back into the black, even going ahead $20 before overplaying crazy 88 and leaving the table up $8. Not the kind of victory you hope for, but after being stuck for $150 I felt like I had slayed a dragon.

We have Searches!

The top one on this list is not surprising, but one is an absolute SHOCK!

statcounter

Thanks guys, statcounter.com rules.

Still no hits for ALCANTHANG NUDE, I'm afraid, but I'm not giving up hope.

So far i am getting hits from "frequent flopper" and "flopper" searches. Looks like all my rake rebate hawking is having some effect. It SHOULD! Anyone who plays more than once a month should be getting some kind of rebate. It's like free money!

Stats

I just added logging to this here blog, so I can see where my hits come from, etc.

And just so I can get some more search engine hits, Porn, Shana Hiatt Naked and Al Can't Hang Nude.

That ought to do it.

The Moron Raise

I have been really killing the $25 PLHE game at PokerNow. I played until 5am Sunday morning just because I couldn't leave a good table. I even ventured into NLHE land when I found a table that was just too irresistable. I played for about an hour yesterday and had one of my favorite moments. I have 33 in a blind, maybe even the big blind. EP raises .50 to $1. This, as everyone knows, is my favorite raise. It is one of the dumbest moves in poker, yet you see it hundreds of times a day. I call it "The Moron Raise."

On a side note, I googled myself and I am quoted in SEVERAL blogs saying "min raises make baby jesus cry." I forget who I stole that from, probably Otis or Pauly, but THANK YOU THANK YOU. I have NEVER EVER gotten a response when I say it at a normal ring game. I can just picture the quizzical looks on their faces when they see it. "What's a min raise?" or "Wha? Baby Jesus?" Iggy does it at the blogger table SPECIFICALLY to annoy me.

Anywho...Of course a trey flops in a rainbow, J73. So I am in a WONDERFUL position. Ordinarily this would be a tough play out of position like that. But Mr. min raiser has alerted me to the fact of his hand strength, without getting anything for it, like ANYONE folding. So of course I check. Normally I am not a person to slow play such a small set, but I figure braniac will do all the dirty work for me. He bets out, and gets one caller, plus me. The deuce on the turn matches a club, but makes a straight unlikely. He bets even larger. It works on the other guy, but I'm stayin. River is an offsuit nine. So unless he raised in bad position with 8-10 or JJ, I'm looking pretty good. Nobody raises with 8-10, and .50 would be EVEN STUPIDER (if that's possible) with JJ. He goes all in, I call and take down his AJ with my set of treys.

This got me even from when I got beaten by some guy that called my AQo pre-flop max raise with 8-10 and called my all-in bluff when the flop came 855. Rebuy! I made a DUMB comment after the hand when I said "What a Joke" and some player, not the guy who called, said "He had you beat the whole way." I said "Really?" and he said "Well, since the flop." HE had limped in front of my raise, and dropped pre-flop, so I asked him if he calls pre-flop raises with 8-10, and he said "when the time is right." He wouldn't tell me what he limped with and dropped, but suspect it was BETTER than 8-10.

So I played for a while longer and was down $1.85 when I told Mrs. Bogey I was quitting in 10 minutes after I steal some blinds to get back to even. I never actually tried to steal them, but wow it's tempting when all you need is a couple of bucks to get back to even, isn't it? Instead I won a $70 pot.

I held AQh in the small blind, and someone made that fuckwit $.50 raise again. I called the $.75 and hoped I wouldn't regret the slow play. I'd have re-raised if I wasn't suited, but I didn't want to negate the possibility of a big hand. There were a lot of players, and I didn't think a pair of queens or aces with a big kicker was going to win this. The flop came a hope inspiring 8c9hJh, two hearts. I checked and it checked around. The BEAUTIFUL King of hearts came on the turn. I checked my nut hand and the big blind bet $2. I was glad to see someone building the pot. Two people called before me, and I just called. The river was a 7c. Perfect. I still have the nut. I checked, and to my horror the big blind checked. Had I missed a bet? Player three checked and I thought I was doomed. Luckily, the button bet $5. I raised that to $20, and EVERYONE called! BB had 45h, CO had KJ (there's my fuckwit,) and button had QT.

That .50 raise was perfect for me. It wasn't enough to get the BB to fold 45s, and kept QT in on the button. Had he raised more aggresively pre-flop, I would have won a lot less money. He might have even bet his pair of jacks aggresively if he were heads up against me, making it much harder for me to draw my flush.

************************************************************************************

Sunday I was looking at my monthly stats in Poker Tracker and saw that my VP$IP was around 35. That's a REALLY high number for me and NL. I was trying to figure out how I had gotten so loose when some player at the table called me a "nut hugger." I'm sure he meant it as an insult, but it made me laugh. No. 1, it came at the perfect time because I thought I was playing too loose. No. 2, it's FUNNY AS HELL. I AM a "nut hugger!" So what? That doesn't mean I can't play looser when I feel like I need to. I just DON'T when I playing at tables with guys who HATE "nut huggers!" Because they tend to be laggy, which is good for both my bankroll and my rake rebate. I can't tell you how many $200 pots I have seen at $25 PLHE tables lately. It actually THROWS OFF my poker tracker rake stats, because it takes 5% of the rake and doesn't account for the max rake of $3. But I'll take my share of the $3 rake without even contributing to the pot, thank you very much.

************************************************************************************

I ordered some card protectors from www.holdemmarkers.com and from www.pokercoin.com. They look pretty cool on their websites, and I am starting to build up a collection of card protectors. I kinda like trinkets, especially ones that have a use, no matter how obscure. I will review them when they arrive.

Chat abuse

Intertops Poker promptly responded to my complaint of chat abuse against the two members during the freeroll by saying "You can turn off chat by any player by clicking [such and such} and you can turn off railbirds by clicking [such and such.]"

I responded saying I knew Iggy, and they cut off the offending players' chat without another word.

I spotted ANT the next night in another freeroll, and wished him good luck. Funny, he didn't say "thank you" or anything. How rude.

Amazing Coincedences

The first place I ever played Online Poker was at IntertopsPoker.com. My father and I shared an online sportsbook account at Intertops.com and I used that to set up a poker account. I think I just played free games to see what the software was like. The account name I set up was DougleBogey. When I decided I wanted to play for real money I set up my own account, and picked the name DuggleBogey. I wanted the same name, but had to pick something different, so I picked something as close as I could think of.

Eventually the poker craze caught up to my father, and he logged into IntertopsPoker, and it already had my screen name in it. My father doesn't really care about nicknames and whatnot, so he just played it. He's not doing to badly for a beginner.

Fast forward to tonight. I'm in the $2005 Freeroll, and unbeknownst to me, he is also playing. He takes a bad beat when his aces are beaten by 26. When my table breaks up it puts me IN THE EMPTY SEAT HE WAS IN. There are over 1000 people in this tournament, and I filled his spot, and it FREAKED OUT the whole table. They thought it was a rebuy freeroll or something.

Pretty damn funny.

Losing gracefully

I was playing in another freeroll at Intertops today. There was a player at the final table with me named ANT10682. He was in a freeroll yesterday and finished 2nd so I had some respect for him and thought he was a pretty decent player. That's not really true because he CONTINUED to make that stupid double the blind bet and getting his big pairs drawn out on. One hand I was on the BB with QJ and he doubled me up when he had QQ and the flop had two Jacks. But he only doubled the blind, which was an easy call, and the hand played itself after that.

Anyway, this hand happened:

***** Hand History for Game 1581508616
*****NL Hold'em Trny:9499870 Level:17 Blinds (3000/6000) - Saturday, February 12, 19:22:23 EDT 2005
Table $100 Freeroll(239379) Table #1 (Real Money)
Seat 8 is the button
Total number of players : 3
Seat 2: craig1112 ( $139528 )
Seat 7: DuggleBogey ( $178182 )
Seat 8: ANT10682 ( $61290 )
Trny:9499870 Level:17Blinds (3000/6000)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to DuggleBogey [ Ts Tc ]
ANT10682 raises [12000].
craig1112 folds.
DuggleBogey raises [34000].
ANT10682 is all-In [49290]
DuggleBogey calls [21290].
** Dealing Flop ** [ 8d, Jc, 9h ]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 7c ]
** Dealing River ** [ Ac ]
DuggleBogey shows [ Ts, Tc ] a straight, seven to jack.
ANT10682 shows [ Qs, Qc ] a pair of queens.
Player ANT10682 finished in 3 place and received $10
DuggleBogey wins 125580 chips from the main pot with a straight, seven to jack.
ANT10682 has left the table.
Game #1581511385 starts.

Now that's a tough way to go out of a tourney that you have played for 4 hours or so. But he handled it very gracefully by saying:

ANT10682: fxck ur nigg er gam,e i hope u die duggle u peace of s h i t

Now I made a WHOLE FIVE DOLLARS more than he did in this tournament, which was a FREEROLL, for christ's sake. Anyone who gets that bunched up over a bad beat playing in a freeroll shouldn't be playing poker.

And if you're wondering why I only took second when I had that big of a lead, here's the reason.

***** Hand History for Game 1581565891 *****
NL Hold'em Trny:9499870
Level:17 Blinds (3000/6000) - Saturday, February 12, 19:34:05 EDT 2005
Table $100 Freeroll(239379) Table #1 (Real Money)
Seat 2 is the button
Total number of players : 2
Seat 2: craig1112 ( $183628 )
Seat 7: DuggleBogey ( $195372 )
Trny:9499870 Level:17Blinds (3000/6000)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to DuggleBogey [ 7h Js ]
craig1112 raises [9000].DuggleBogey calls [6000].
** Dealing Flop ** [ Jh, 5h, 3d ]
DuggleBogey checks.
craig1112 bets [6000].
DuggleBogey raises [12000].
craig1112 calls [6000].
** Dealing Turn ** [ 7d ]
DuggleBogey bets [12000].
craig1112 raises [45600].
DuggleBogey is all-In [159372]
craig1112 is all-In [114028]
** Dealing River ** [ As ]
craig1112 shows [ Jd, Ad ] two pairs, aces and jacks.
DuggleBogey shows [ 7h, Js ] two pairs, jacks and sevens.
DuggleBogey wins 11744 chips from side pot #1 with two pairs, jacks and sevens.
craig1112 wins 367256 chips from the main pot with two pairs, aces and jacks.

What goes around comes around I guess. He had a racist buddy there that kept saying:

Preluder3: f ur black skin

You really have to wonder about a person's mentality if they immediately go for a racist insult when they are upset. Because I'm not black, I never said I was black, and I have no idea where they got that idea. I guess when the started calling me nigger and I didn't immediatly deny it, that made it fact. I still need to send the email to intertops to get their chat turned off. I'll do that now.

Successful Evening

I played in four tournaments last night although one of them wasn't for money. In the three that were for money, I cashed in all three of them.

The first was an Intertops Freeroll, in which I finished 3rd out of 365. It took over 4 hours and overlapped with the first hour or so of the second, which was the PSO Poker League. I finished First out of 40. I was really glad to do well in it since I have had very disappointing finishes in these things since I came in second in the first one ever. While that was going on I played in another Intertops Freeroll, in which I finished 13th.

The fourth was the "championship" round of Canada vs the USA in the PSO league. I'm not sure what the prize is, but the more of your countrymen that finish higher get more points, and the eventual winner gets something, but I'm not sure what. They also get PSO points, which are as good as cash. I got 1000 PSO points for finishing first in the main tourney, plus the bulk of the prize pool, which was $80 for a $5+1 buy-in.

I was very uncomfortable playing in three tournaments at the same time, although I don't think it hurt my game much. It may have even helped, since I didn't try to make too many plays, because I wasn't trying to figure out who was trying to steal the most and bust them for it. I don't know where this inclination to be table cop comes from, it's probably a part of my personality I can't help. But when I concentrate on avoiding it or distract myself from doing it somehow, I inevitably do better in the tournaments.

Since I'm doing well in NL tourneys lately, I'm thinking about playing in the WSOP satellite tournament being held tonight. It's $110 to enter, but since there's only 40 people entered, that's a HUGE overlay of $7000. First prize is an entry in the WSOP main event and $1000 for the trip. It's open to anyone that has done a PSO promotion and will pay $110. Most of these people got in for free by completing a promotion, so the competition is INCREDIBLY weak.

They will be having one of these WSOP tourneys every month, but I'm not sure people will be allowed to buy-in again. In my opinion, it is the most likely way a good player can get into the WSOP a cheaply as possible. At least twice as likely as playing in a $1000 SNG in Vegas before the tourney, for a tenth of the cost.

If anyone reading this has done a PSO promo at any time in the past, you might still be able to get into this, although I don't want your competition if I play.

Poker Comic #13

EVERYONE MUST BE ON THIS

Everything you wanted to know about Rake Rebates and weren't afraid to ask over and over and over and over and over.

I posted this over at www.PokerSourceOnline.com to (hopefully) slow the repetetive questions about their Rake Rebate program that is going through the roof in popularity due to the 2+2 posts and word-of-mouth. If you do this, please use referral code DuggleBogey.

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So you are interested in a rake rebate. GOOD! Imagine all those suckers out there paying a rake and not getting anything back! Don't be one of them. Get involved with a Rake Rebate of some kind.

What is a rake?

Rake is how poker sites make money. When you play a game against an online opponent or several, a portion of the pot is taken away from the winner by the site that hosts the game. Usually online it is 5%, but it depends on the site and the amount in the pot. For tournaments the "rake" is added to the tournament buy-in. If you play a $30+3 tournament, The $3 from each player is the rake.

5% isn't that much, why should I care?

You'd be amazed how fast that 5% can build up. If you use poker tracker you know how many hundreds of dollars you pay in rake every month, even if you only play a few hours a week.

You're right, that's a lot of money I'm losing! What can I do about it?

Get a rake rebate! Poker rooms want to keep customers playing at their site and not leaving to play at some site that offers them a 20% bonus for buying in. So they will give you back a percentage of what you pay in rake in order to keep your business. Rake rebates started around 5%, and quickly went up to 10%. If you looked hard you might find someone who gave out 15-20%. The 27.5% offered by Poker Source Online is unparalleled.

How is the rake rebate calculated?

This is the most common question, and the most difficult to answer, because there are different poker sites that calculate in different ways. To simplify as much as possible, we will break them down into two methods (the only two that are used by offers from PSO.) One is the "Party Poker Method" and the second is the "Others method."

The "Others Method" is pretty straightforward. If you have contributed to a pot, you get your share of the rake attributed to you. "Your share" means you have to share the total amount of the rake with everyone that contributed to the pot. From "your share" you multiply by 27.5% and that's how much you get back.

For example, You are at a table with ten players, four players see the flop, including you. You have contributed to the pot so will get your share. The total rake for the hand ends up being $2.00, so your "share" of that rake is $.50. You get 27.5% of that $.50 back in your rake rebate.

The "Party Method" is the same as the "Others Method" except that you get credit for your share of the rake even if you haven't contributed to the pot. So your share is divided by the total number of people at the table who received cards. Example: You are playing at a table of 10 and fold pre-flop but 4 other people see the flop. The total rake ends up being $2 for the hand. Your share in this instance is $.20. Your share of the total rake is smaller, but should happen more often.

What about tournaments?

For sites that give rebates on tournament fees, you get 27.5% back on any fee you pay. If you buy into two $30+3 tournaments, you get 27.5% of the $6 in fees, or $1.65.

Which sites use which method?

Party Poker, PokerNow, Empire Poker, Absolute Poker, Aztec Riches and The Gaming Club Poker all use the "Party Poker Method"

Ultimate Bet uses the other method, and I'm not sure about Caribbean Sun, but I suspect they use the "Others Method."

Which one should I pick?

The "Party Poker Method" is probably the most popluar, although which is actually better depends on how you play and what game you play. It really is up to your personal preference. If you have a favorite site and there is a rebate offered there, DEFINITELY play that one. Don't switch sites just because the rake rebate is different. You'll probably regret it. Remember that rake rebate is just a bonus, the goal is still to play profitable poker. If you let rake rebate affect the way you play, it's probably not a good idea.

I'm signed up, how do I get my money?

PokerSourceOnline gives rebates in two different methods. For Absolute Poker and Caribbean Sun Poker, the cash is just put back into your account.

For all others, the sites basically forbid cash rebates, so your rebate is awarded to you in PSO points, which can be redeemed at the PSO store for merchandise or gift certificates.

How often will I get my rebate?

Rebates are awarded once a month for most sites. Others are updated twice per month.

How much rebate can I get with this?

Some people are getting THOUSANDS of dollars back every month. There is no limit to how much you get back, it all depends on how much you play.

Is it worth the hassle?

Once you have signed up, there is no hassle. You just play your normal game at your normal rate, and you get rewards every month. What could be easier than that?

Can I get a rebate at a site I already play?

Unfortunately no. Poker sites only pay affilliates to get NEW customers, not to let the poker site keep existing customers. So it is unusual for poker sites to offer rebates to existing customers. Since the best deals are always through affiliate sites, you will have to sign up at a new room to get involved in a rake rebate program. But the good news is there are many rooms on the same network that offer rebates. If you play at Aztec Riches already, you can get a rake rebate from The Gaming Club, which has the same tables. If you already play at Party Poker, you can sign up at PokerNow (look in the forum for instructions how to do this) and play the exact same tables.

Can I get a referral bonusfor my friends who sign up with FFP?

Yes you can, the referrer gets $5 or 500 PSO points for every person they recommend that accumulates a certain amount of rake.

Do I start earning FFPs right away?

If you earn a bonus for joining the room, you have to work off that bonus in rake before you can start earning rebates. In other words, NO DOUBLE DIPPING. For example: If you get $100 in bonus, you must generate $100 in rake rebate BEFORE you start earning PSO points. Bonuses are usually a better deal than rebates (unless every hand you play gets raked the full amount) you are better off with the bonus. This also applies to reload bonuses.

Recovery

Well, I recovered my $3, but just barely. It could have been better.

I bought into a PLHE $25 table at PokerNow and qickly ran that up to $65. After about a hundred hands where my best start was 99 that I had to fold to a pre-flop all-in raise, I got JJ. A player in front of me raised from $.50 to $1.50. There was a limper in front of him, so he could have raised to $2.75. This is curious, so I re-raise to $5. He re-raised to $12.75. A player after him called (!) and I called, knowing I was probably behind. Twice in the last few hands players had re-raised the max with hands like K7 and AJ, but I didn't put this player on anything that bad. He had aces or kings, at the very least. The flop was the worst possible for me. KsJc7c. The original raiser was the first to act and of course went all in for his last $15. Caught-in-the-middle guy folds I have a set of Jacks. I figure there are only three hands he could have to make that move. If he has AA or AK, I'm golden. If he has KK, I'm cooked. I figure I have a 2 out of three chance, and it's $15 to get into an $80 pot.

Well, he had the KK. What's the final rub? He won it with a King High Flush. I wonder if the middle guy had the Ace of clubs?

Jinxed

I think I jinxed myself. So much for no losing sessions in February.

Fuck. $3. How will I recover?

Pathetic

I happened across this at PokerNow tonight. So pathetic it's funny.

Riddance

I am afraid of variance. I know it has to get me sometime. I'm still working on my clearing my bonus amount at PokerNow so I can start receiving my rake rebate. All I played to clear the actual bonus was O8b, and the rake there was rarely more than $.50. So in 500 raked hands my share was probably pretty close to $25. Since I have to clear the entire $50 in rake I still had some work to do. So I have been playing $25PLHE and have not had a losing session yet in February.

You read that correctly. I have played multiple sessions every day for 6 straight days and not lost money. In fact I had a $250 weekend. I had to re-check that cashier last night to comprehend it. Especially since it was another tournament heavy weekend with PSO. They had a WSOP super-satellite on Friday and a Poker League kick-off on Saturday.

Things started very nicely on Friday afternoon as I was getting ready for the satellite. I tried to buy into a tournament at Pacific Poker, but it crashed before it even started for me. There was some overlay and some people actually played some hands and got knocked out, so I got my buy-in back doubled. Sweet for doing nothing. I brought up a $25PLHE table at PokerNow and won about $80 in an hour. I busted out of the sub-sat about halfway through the field when some dipshit (read: he eventually won a seat) crippled me. I had raised half his stack on a raggedy flop with a pair of sevens and he called cold with ace-crap and caught a bullet. I got knocked out when I caught a set of nines and lost to an open ended straight draw that hit. Back to the PLHE tables at PokerNow and I won another $35.

Saturday started poorly and I was down three buy-ins almost immediately. I consoled myself by thinking about variance and the fact that it is nearly impossible to have as many winning sessions in a row as I have had. But two huge hands in a row got me ahead by about $13. Not earth shattering, but hey, I made a big comeback.

Another fast bustout in the PSO Poker League, Canada vs USA. I went out on set over set. I had a set of threes and my opponent had nines. Back to PN and PLHE. The fishiest table I have EVER seen. One moron who claims to have won $3000 in the last three weeks playing $200 NL on Party. If he was up $3000 in that game, why was he slumming on a $25PL table? And why was he playing SO BADLY? He and another player who had over $100 called every pre-flop raise no matter what they held. They caught a few times, but I knocked the shit out of them every time I played them. Their VP$IP were 80 and 74!! I would think the table would fill with sharks just based on the average pot sizes displayed in Party's lobby, but I pretty much had these fishies to myself. I finished up around $90 after going down $50 to begin with.

My pre-super bowl game was short but sweet. I played 16 hands total and won $40. I was just catching everything. I quit when the table broke up and rather that finding another laggy game to play, I dediced to play in an Intertops Freeroll. I made the money but nothing special, busting out in 13th out of 390 when my A3 desperation all-in ran into the big stack in the big blind with A9. The tournament lasted longer than the Super Bowl, and 12 people probably went more than another hour.

I know this winning session streak can't continue like this. I pretty much have a stop loss set at three buy-ins, but I won't leave a good game just because I'm down. Maybe I'm just playing these sessions long enough that I can come back from my downswings, and I only quit when I'm ahead. One of my sessions is only 16 hands, for christ's sake.

And good riddance to the stripper. She stopped posting hand histories a long time ago because they would have exposed her as the fraud she is. She doesn't know enough about poker to know what a good play is. Read her histories early in her blog. Notice how HARD she makes it to go back and read them? Now it looks like she is done blogging. People have told her they don't want to hear about her love life, and she can't post about poker. She's not a stripper anymore and she can't bitch about the minimum wage peons she used to berate at the movie theaters she "managed." So she's left with nothing to talk about. She says she might post once a week or so. Maybe we can expect a weekly bitch about Alton Brown and the Food Network. But the "I'm not going to post much anymore" entry usually means see ya later.

The Hammer Plays

I had a great time in the Blogger tournament.

I had just finished a marathon MTT in which I finished 12th out of 880 for a 10x payoff at Pacific Poker. KingLucky was in the tournament too, and we actually played at the same table when it got down to 4 tables. I managed to outlast him when he went out with pocket sixes in 18th place. He got 10x his buy-in too. I made a really weak call with A3 vs A6 to get crippled. Crippled isn't the word, I was all in on the small blind. Still, I got out with five minutes to spare until the blogger tourney.

My first table only lasted about two hands, but it was long enough for me to lose about T400 with the hammer when someone went all in on the river, just before I did. I couldn't even complain because as soon as the hand ended I got moved. On the next table I got shafted when some moron raised my big blind pre-flop in early position with 34s and caught a straight on the river to beat my top pair. I'm just lucky there was a flush possible and it kept Volcrazy (finished 140th) from going all in. So I was down to T800 and things looked really grim.

I got moved again, and I managed to nearly double up with a big hand when I flopped broadway. Then I knocked someone out when I raised pre-flop with AK and got put all in by QQ. Flop had a K and suddenly I was leading the tournament. Amazing how fortunes change.

My big problem was that I was already exhausted from the Pacific tournament, and it was already pushing my normal bed-time. I get up at 4:30am for work, so I was looking for ways to either get a huge lead or bust. I think I found it when someone went all in for T800 in front of me and I had THE HAMMER. I called of course, and was unhappy to see my opponent held 88. This is not like Pauly who went all in and got called, I CALLED an ALL IN with THE HAMMER. Those are guts even the stripper would be proud of. My spirits got a lift when the flop had three hearts and I had the 7h. My opponent had two black eights, so I suddenly had a 35% shot. The turn gave me a gutshot straight, so I still had a chance but the river was a blank and I doubled up someone. Not a huge deal as I still had T2100.

Things went downhill quickly as I checked my big blind against just the small blind and lost T1000 when he caught something huge. Then I went out when anisotropy caught a flush on his big blind to beat my straight on the small blind. It was the tightest group of pansies that could have POSSIBLY been collected at a blogger tournament table. We even had the tournament leader at the table who was afraid to raise. Rev something or other. I have NO respect for that guy. When I was the leader I was throwing chips around like Santa Clause from a Fire Truck on a Saturday morning in December.

According to http://www.wpbtonline.com/, I finished 108th out of 151. At least I beat Lifesagrind, who NAILED 151st.

I got what I wanted. I had the lead for a while, got to make a hilarious play with the hammer, and took a few readers OUT. I got to play with DankHank, anisotropy, DonkeyPuncher, and the winner, on_thg. (Only about 10 people came in and asked who on_thg was.) What more can you ask for a measly twenty bucks?

Who am I?

With the addition of my third party skin, I had to choose a new name. I chose GoBeRude, because it is the name of my blog. So I think I will do what a lot of bloggers do and put their screen names at the various sites they play on their blog templates. Some bloggers don't do this, like Stripper, for example. She doesn't because she is afraid someone might actually see her play and see what a fraud she really is.

I have accounts at the following sites with the following names.

Party Poker: OklahomaDug
The Gaming Club: OklahomaDug
Royal Vegas: OklahomaDug
Aztec Riches: OklahomaDug
Pacific Poker: DuggleBo
Absolute Poker: DuggleBogey
Intertops Poker: DuggleBogey
PokerNow: GoBeRude

I post on both 2+2 and PSO forums as DuggleBogey

I will figure out a decent format and add that info to the sidebars.

*********************************************************************************

I was wandering through the cafeteria at work and there was a Good Morning America story on about rollover accidents in SUVs involving new drivers. The interesting part of the story I heard was this:

The part of the brain that evaluates risk isn't fully developed in people until they reach 25 years old. Until that point, teens and young adults cannot determine unreasonable risk.

Does that explain a lot of the calls you see on Party Poker or what?

*********************************************************************************

I'm looking forward to playing in the WPBT tourney tonight on Poker Stars. I haven't signed up yet, I still need to deposit money in my Stars account. Last time I played in the tournament was the last time I played at Stars, and I started an interesting trend I hope to continue tonight.

Originally I bought in for more than the tournament required. I didn't know how much the vig was and I wanted to be able to withdraw any money without having to deposit more, so I overshot the buy in by $50, in case they have a withdrawl limit. When I missed the amount I decided I would try to win the difference. I ended up winning not only the difference, but enough to buy into the tourney. Freeroll! Woohoo!

It started a trend. When I signed up for the PSO poker league at Absolute Poker, every time before the league started I would play in a $.25/$.50 NL room to kill time until the tourney started. Every week I won enough to buy my way into the league game. The entire 5 week league was a freeroll for me. Especially since I took second in one event and won around $70+ PSO prizes.

So it will be interesting to see if I can win my buyin to the WPBT tournament before it starts. Just to see if I can keep the trend going.

Development

Wow, I've really let the Poker Comic go for a long time without an update. Shame on me.

I really had fun playing a $250 Intertops Freeroll last night. I was playing Omaha at Pacific Poker when suddenly a table popped up from the Intertops software I had left running. It was a $100 No Limit Freeroll that had been going on for an hour and twenty minutes. I had $180 left and the blinds were $150. I went all in with my Q4s and lost. I have no idea why it suddenly came up.

Then I thought about it and realized I had registered for two freerolls. The second one started an hour later, so I had only lost about $100 in blinds. But it was already past 8:45pm and I get up for work at 5am. The freeroll wouldn't be done until well after Midnight. No way was I staying up to play it. But these Intertops freerolls are so easy you can just win a couple of pots and click "post-and-fold" to make it into the money.

I logged on, won 3 of the next 4 hands (limit tourney) and was up above T1500. "Not Bad," I thought. That might make the money. I played around a little longer and quit the Omaha game I was playing at Pacific.

Then this malignant little bastard joined the table when another player busted out. He raised the first hand. I had kings so I re-raised. He folded. "Odd," I though. Then he raised again. And again. And again.

"One of these," I thought to myself. "This could be fun."

And it WAS!. The most masterful performance I have ever had. I had this guy shitting his pants. I schooled this guy in unbelievable ways. If he EVER called me down I always had a monster. EVERY time he folded I showed him a bluff. Even the hammer played. He called my 7-2 all the way to the river before he folded, and I showed my 7-high. Then he raised me all the way to the river after I flopped a set of kings with no straight and no flush possible.

Unfortunately for the rest of the table, whenever they called him down he had a monster. But he could never catch on me. So he was taking their chips, and I was taking them from him.

After about 30 minutes, he was around 1000 chips, less than half what he came to the table with, and I was over T11,000.

Then I went to bed. In the morning I checked the tournament. He busted out soon after that, and didn't make the money. I finished in 21st place, clearing $1.75. I love being the Poker Police.

Poker Comic #13

Freerolling

Al had better buy a piece of himself, just in case he wins. At this rate he will get nothing if he wins.

Thirty Percent sold so far! Go Al Go!

Bubbled out of an MTT last night with 870 of my close friends when I had my all in with JJ called by 97. SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOTED! He caught a straight on the river, and I finished just out of the money. I guess I should have folded my shortstack into the money even though that would give me no chance of winning.

After that I played nothing but Omaha Hi/Lo with KingLucky at Pacific Poker. The biggest problem with Pacific is they cannot keep tables from disintegrating. If you have a couple of people sit out at one time, or two people bust out on one hand, the rest of the table starts breaking up and you suddenly find yourself paying a blind two out of every three hands. We moved from table to table trying to sustain a game. The Omaha crowd there is INCREDIBLY stupid. I saw one table had 94% rate of players seeing the flop. AT A FULL TABLE. SERIOUSLY. It's like playing scratchers for these people.

I got down early, but caught an incredible rush that included quad aces made at the river, flopped quad eights and a straight flush on the river. The SF was the best because I had a zillion draws (I know, welcome to Omaha) and got the perfect card. Well, one of two because I was open ended. I need to bet my draws better at Omaha. It was the no low makingest omaha table I ever sat at. I had A234 and A2A3 double suited (or like hands) so often, and no low would be possible EVERY TIME. I won a lot of highs, but don't recall barely ever winning a low. Incredible.

King Skillful

I didn't play any poker yesterday, but I did sweat KingLucky in a MTT at Pacific. He finished 23rd and in the money out of more than 800 people. All while playing in a stud tournament at Poker Stars.

Which was a poor performance compared to earlier in the day when he took first in a 300 player MTT. Pretty nice accomplishment, especially since he had the final table dominated and went heads up with 290,000 chips to 10,000. I'd say there was not much of a possiblity of a chop.

KL plays in a lot of MTTs and hasn't been doing very well lately, until yesterday. While I've never seen anyone as unlucky as KingLucky (ironic, isn't it?) he's a very solid player and basically has to get unlucky to get knocked out of these tourneys. He has more outdraw/bad beat stories than I have ever heard. Insane stories that always involve Queens for some reason. That's why when I was on the cruise, the souvenir I brought for him was a card protector that had two queens on it. He called me a "son of a bitch" when I gave it to him.

The Producers

Has anyone seen "The Producers?" I haven't seen the stage play with Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, but I have seen the Mel Brooks film with Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder.

If you haven't here's the plot in a nutshell. The producers of broadway plays come up with a scheme to make money. They oversell a percentage of their play. They get investors to buy more than 100% of the production. After the production costs, they get to keep the money the additional investors have contributed. It's a foolproof plan, but ONLY IF the play doesn't make money. If they actually have to PAYOUT profits, then they are screwed, because they will have to payout more than they made. So the producers come up with a surefire bomb of a play called "Springtime for Hitler." Of course it is a HUGE success as a comedy and the producers are screwed.

This is the major argument against someone selling a piece of their poker tournament on the internet. There's no real way to tell if they are selling more than 100% of themselves, thereby FORCING them to dump the tournament in order to NOT LOSE money on the deal. Along with guaranteeing them a profit. There is no way to enforce a 100% limit on what a person sells of themselves, so the only thing a person has is his personal credibility.

Enter DUTCH BOYD. His credibility is already shot. Who is buying these percentages?

All that being said, I have nothing but confidence in Al Can't Hang.

Buy a Piece of Al

I got my piece of Al's Auction

This is worth $3.30 just to leave feedback for Al Can't Hang on his eBay account.