Monday, February 8, 2010 - Scott Ian
I hope everyone had fun yesterday, pokering, Superbowling etc etc. None of that for me. I had no internet so I couldn’t play the 200K yesterday and the apartment I am staying in has no cable TV so no game either. So what’d I do while the rest of America argued about commercials?
I watched Sons Of Anarchy on my Mac.I get obsessed with shows and SOA is my current obsession. The show was created and is written by Kurt Sutter who also wrote on another obsession show of mine, The Shield. SOA is Hamlet on motorcycles and (sorry Shakespeare) it takes the Bard’s themes and expands them into an epic so much more satisfying than the Prince Of Denmark’s trials and tribulations. Kids in school should HAVE TO watch SOA instead of reading Hamlet. Well, in my world anyway. If you hate great writing, great acting and brutal violence then don’t watch SOA.
I am sitting in the lounge of Electric Lady Studios right now. We are starting to record The Damned Things record today. It’s my side band with Joe Trohman and Andy Hurley from Fall Out Boy, Keith Buckley from Every Time I Die and Rob Caggiano from Anthrax. I am really excited about finally actually doing this. Joe and I started working on this three years ago and it feels great to have it all come to fruition. Oh and most importantly, it fucking ROCKS. Being in the studio means a lot of hurry up and wait so expect to see me at the tables all week long.
I’ve been having a blast at the low stakes heads up 500 chip SnG’s. They fill up fast and are really fun.
All right, gotta go check on things.
Talk to ya next week.
Cheers,
Scott
Tags: Anthrax, Hamlet, Poker Poker Poker, Superbowl
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Monday, February 8, 2010 - Debo34
UB came out with a great schedule of tournaments this year for UBOC 4. I decided this year I was going to jump in with both feet and play as many tournaments as I could stand for the 11 days. My tournament volume had not been very high for quite some time. I turned away from playing huge volumes and was concentrating on trying to become a better cash game player and play a large volume of sit-n-go’s as well. So coming in I was determined and focused to stay under control and not let anything get to me or my mood as the series unfolded. I didn’t have any specific goals as far as cashes or money, just rather to play my game and play well for the entire 11 days.
So now that it is over I’m looking back and am really happy with the way I played. I didn’t have a ton of cashes but I was deep in almost everything I played and gave myself opportunities to have a chance to win late.
My highlights from the past week:
In the same day I made 4 final tables. I won the $20 rebuy during the day. Then that night I was at 3 final tables at once. I ended up 2nd in the 10k $25 freeze out. I finished 7th in the mini UBOC 13, and a few minutes later finished 4th in UBOC 13.
During the last day of UBOC I saw all my money go in the middle pre flop in the 1k championship event holding QQ vs. JJ only to see a jack hit the flop. At the same time I happened to be accumulating a lot of chips in the 7.5k 1$ re buy pro bounty. Four or so hours later I had all the chips outlasting 1622 players. I was really stoked about this one in particular. It’s always great to win a tournament but to win one with that many players is pretty cool. After a week like this I’m going to catch up on some sleep and then jump back in to more tournaments. I feel like I have fixed a few leaks in my tournament game, and am playing very well right now.
Good Luck,
Debo
Tags: Play Poker, Poker Poker Poker, UBOC, ultimatebet
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Monday, February 8, 2010 - Cardroom
Here’s your weekly roundup and congratulations go out to DUHDUHDAISY, SB129397, 011POKERFACE, BETTYSD, IMPROVED, PBDRUNKS, BUSK9, THE_BUDDHA, WTFAMENTZ, SKARB, LUCKBOXAGE, YANKEE47 and BUTT_PHANTOM for taking down the big guarantees!
Tags: guarantee, roundup, tournament
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Sunday, February 7, 2010 - Gene Bromberg
Today is going to be a busy, busy day for lots of people. It’s Super Sunday, of course, and millions of Americans will be heading to Super Bowl parties to root for their favorite team (or, more likely, the team they bet on). That is, of course, those millions of people aren’t currently buried under tons of snow–the Great Blizzard of 2010 has left much of the Mid-Atlantic region paralyzed by a historic snowstorm. I spent a fun hour yesterday digging my car out of the 21 inches of snow we got here in Pittsburgh, only to see a snowplow re-bury my rear bumper as he cleared a path through the center of the parking lot. I ran out on my balcony (which only held a foot of drifting snow) and shook my fist in rage. If I owned a rifle I think you would’ve seen me on the news last night.
But instead of yet another “Crazed Sniper Holds off SWAT Team!!” story, let me instead draw your attention to an article in today’s Washington Post, titled “Internet Gambling Again in Play”. This is the latest in a series of articles that have appeared in major news outlets about how the outlook for legal and regulated online gaming is dramatically improved. H.R. 2267, the bill that Rep. Barney Frank introduced is headed to committee for “markup”, which is when the members of said committee tweak and amend the bill. How much focus Congress will place on this bill is up for debate, as the health-care bill is still kicking around and there are other major legislative wars (bank regulation reform, for example) to be fought. And since Republicans governing philosophy right now can be summed up as “No!! No!! No no no no no!!” it seems unlikely that Frank will be able to attract a broad consensus. Though he did seem slightly optimistic that there could be some grass-roots support among conservatives. “I think the Republicans are misreading the politics on this,” Frank said. “People who are not ordinarily active in politics get very active in this.” Frank talked about the support he’s gotten from otherwise-conservative poker players, and the article mentioned that Frank even did the “Shuffle Up and Deal!” during the Main Event. Which he did:
The usual gang of GOP suspects are quoted in the article rehashing the same discredited talking points. Republican Congressman Spencer Bachus trots out the predictable save-the-children card, “”Internet gambling is a threat to the youth of our country. . . . Young people are particularly at risk because if you put a computer in their bedroom or dorm room, it’s a temptation that many cannot resist.” Ignoring the fact that online gaming sites are ASKING for regulation, they’re ASKING for the U.S. government to help them keep underage people away. Chad Hills, a “gambling research analyst” for Focus on the the Family, says of internet gaming, “This would go outside the walls of a brick-and-mortar casino, outside the walls of a convenience store lottery, and into the living rooms and homes of all Americans.” So you have casinos going up all over the country, just about every state in the union sells lottery tickets at convenience stores and gas stations, and this is all FINE…but allowing people to play poker in their living rooms turns America into Gomorrah. Ignoring the fact that millions of people already play online poker and the walls haven’t come a-tumbling down.
So, as always when it comes to legislation, we’ll just have to wait and see. Of course we’ve been waiting and seeing since 2006, when the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act was passed. And don’t forget, it took Republican Sen. Jon Kyl nearly ten years to get that law on the books, a decade of waiting before he persuaded Sen. Bill Frist to game the system and attach that law onto an anti-terrorism bill. It’d be nice if our legislative process wasn’t so ghastly that it almost makes you long for a benevolent dictatorship instead of a democracy. Then again, history has shown that many benevolent dictators quickly descend from “Bread for everyone!” to “Build me a pyramid of human skulls” with unfortunate speed. Looks like we’re stuck with our good ‘ol democracy, the worst form over government except for all the others.
Tags: barney frank, barney frank gambling bill, barney frank poker, barney frank poker legislation, spencer bachus, washington post, washington post poker
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Sunday, February 7, 2010 - Roothlus
Hey buddies. I’m currently in the midst of bouncing around different cities and there’s pretty much no stop in sight. When I moved to LA in August, the plan was to stay there and seldom travel. But then, I made the mistake of getting the live poker bug again. Damn you Foxwoods final table! Mix that in with some Deepstacks.com seminars in Tampa and it becomes a lot of time away from LA.
Here’s a rundown of the past few months: It started December 9th in Vegas for Five Diamond Classic. Stayed there until the 18th, went back to LA for a few days, then flew back home to Fort Lauderdale for the holidays and a wedding. Then January 4th, Bahamas for the PCA. January 12th, back to Miami for a couple of days. Then back to LA for a week. It’s already kind of hectic. Of course, I decided to, on a whim, go to Biloxi for the WPT $10k. This past Tuesday I flew to Tampa for a Deepstacks seminar and Gasparilla, Tampa’s version of Mardi Gras. It was something to do with Jose Gaspar, a pirate, who apparently tried to invade Tampa sometime in the 1800s. Now, I’m going to Atlantic City for the Borgata $3500. After that New York for my brother’s birthday. Fly back on Super Bowl Sunday to LA for a Super Bowl party at my house, then Tampa again on the 12th for another Deepstacks seminar.
But, wait! There’s more! Fly back to LA for LAPC prelims, then the NAPT in Las Vegas at the Venetian. Then head back for the LAPC main event and topping it all off, the Bay 101 WPT in San Jose. Sorry, that’s a mouthful but right now, it’s my life. I never expected to travel this much but I’m getting used to everything. I’m starting to feel more and more like George Clooney in Up In The Air. Hopefully, my frequent flyer miles will start raking in the perks soon.
After Bay 101 I’m going to take it easy until the World Series. And by take it easy, I mean travel but travel to things that have nothing to do with poker. I plan on going to two music festivals, Coachella and Ultra. I’ve wanted to go to these festivals for years and somehow this year the scheduling actually works out for me. There are no tourneys, no seminars, no weddings, no obligations. I’m freakin’ going! It’s going to be awesome and a good break from poker. I’ll probably still go to the Mohegan Sun NAPT & EPT Monte Carlo in the month of April. But after that I’m planning on hopefully taking the entire month off. I really hope to not play a hand of poker in May so I can come back fresh for the entire WSOP. I honestly haven’t taken a break from poker in like two years so this year I’m making a point to do so. I remember in Super System 2 Doyle stressed this and he’s so right. I’ve performed way better when rested and fresh most definitely. I remember one time I came back from a week-long cruise and got 1st and 2nd in the FTP and Stars $300s on Saturday. I just think more clearly when fresh.
Well, that’s about it for this week. Enjoy the rest of your week and apparently the brightest full moon of this year was last weekend so I hope you enjoyed that as well.
Tags: Atlantic City, bahamas, Biloxi, Five-Diamond Classic, Foxwoods, George Clooney, LAPC, Live Poker, NAPT, PCA, Super Bowl, Vegas, Venetian, WPT, WSOP
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Saturday, February 6, 2010 - Billy Kopp
UBOC 4 has come to a finish but with little success here. Unfortunately due to the WPT Biloxi and travelling I had to miss several of the events. I hosted the PLO 8 event, which was fun and exciting although I busted fairly early. Congratulations to YOSSARIAN80 who took home $25,000 for the victory and also Phil Hellmuth who also made the final table. Thanks to everyone else who came to play! I have been playing a few more online tournaments as of late and won a $100 one rebuy one add-on tournament for $18,000 online the other day. It felt good to get a win during the first week that I decided to put in a bit of volume.
Last Tuesday on ABC, the 6th season of the hit TV series “Lost” aired. It was a three-hour premier and the whole first hour was a major recap of the important characters and events that occurred in the previous 5 seasons. If you haven’t seen any of the other seasons, I would still suggest watching the hour recap so you can get caught up if you want to get hooked on this season. I have to say it is the most addicting cable television series I have ever seen and is definitely something I will look forward to watching while playing on Tuesday nights.
This week has been pretty exciting so far. My buddy Val from New York came in town for some poker lessons in exchange for some pool lessons. I came through on my end of the deal and gave him a few pointers. He even came in 2nd place out of around 1600 people in a $50 freeze-out for around $10,000 in only the seventh tournament he has played while in town. Unfortunately for me the kid is horrible at pool and I’m still seeking some real lessons. At least I bought him into the tournament and get half of the profits for my time!
We were planing on going out with a bunch of friends for $1 beers and $1 bowling from midnight to 8:00 a.m. at South Point Casino. Tuesdays seem to be a great night to do this and always ends up in crazy prop bets and such. They are being kind enough to take some vacation days to go on a cross-country trip to drive my car out for me so I no longer have to hand over my life savings to Enterprise.
GO SAINTS!
-Billy Kopp
Tags: Lost, Phil Hellmuth, poker lessons, Poker Poker Poker, UBOC, WPT
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Saturday, February 6, 2010 - Bryan Devonshire
I’m pretty bummed as we head West through Edwards, CO on our way toward Las Vegas. It’s definitely time for this trip to be over, but I love Colorado so much and it makes me sad every time I leave. I mean, we just drove by a dude and his dog ice fishing on a pond between the highway and a rest area. The people here are more my kind of people, and the pace of life is the kind that makes me happiest.
I find myself rebelling a bit against the normal progression of life. I’m getting older, but I certainly don’t want too. I’ll be 29 this summer. I’ve heard that things start falling apart at 30. Many people my age are married with kids by now, and although that’s a vision of mine down the road I don’t want anything to do with it right now. I want to be able to live in Colorado if I want to, go walk the PCT for a few months if I want to, etc. Those desires don’t mesh with settling down at all and being in the middle leaves me unhappier than if I was on either side.
Anyways. This month sucked ass as far as poker goes. It started off great, my first week of the new year I won like $3k live and $2k online. I hit my “career peak” on Ultimate Bet on Jan 7th, and since then my graph looks like the dow in 2008. My general pattern of punting the big pots was either get it in good and lose or run into aces in sigh spots. My last session twice I flatted AKs on the button, twice one of the blinds squeezed big (one time at 3-6 6max it was $21, I call, bb makes it $170), twice I shove, and twice they have aces. Tourneys haven’t been any better. UBOC I played almost 20 events, cashed in two. In one I was cl at 9, in limit hold’em, busto 8th. Another small cash in the 100r, got unlucky. This Sunday I took 30 somethingth in the Warm-up, and 50th ish in the 150r, all running bad when it mattered.
Strangely though I’m pretty excited to get back and do some grinding. I’m excited to spend time in LA and work, and I do want to start getting stuff out of the garage and storage unit and have a yard sale. So we’re headed home. But I’m missing Colorado already as we cross the western slope of the Rockies, following the Eagle River, 100 miles from Utah. I’ll be back soon.
Peace and good luck,
Devo
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Friday, February 5, 2010 - Liv Boeree
Last week was the wonderful, wonderful week that is the UBOC. I’ve never been a huge online player (now by huge, I mean compared to some of the folks I know who multi 24 + tables 12 hours per day), but I’ve played a fair bit over the past few months and I’ve never gotten as many hours in as I have done over the past week! I’ve played seven or so of the events and have enjoyed every single one of them. Perhaps none so much as the $2500 six-max $1mil guarantee though… it got off to a good start but then had some SERIOUS ups and downs, and a very lucky runner-runner situation to not only keep me alive but propel me to one of the chipleaders deep into the tourney. I managed to get it in pre with AK vs 10 7s and then the BB reshoved with AA. Marvellous. The board came 10 high so I was all but closing the lid of the laptop when the board ran out Q J. I was blessed. From there on things went pretty smoothly, into the money and down to 42 left when I called a mid-position raise with 33s and the board came 5-4-3. Yay for me as all the money went in (he had me just covered) and his hand was revealed to be 99s. Not yay and laptop flung across the room time when the river came a 9. SO GROSS!!! Still, that was a $6200 cash plus Joe Sebok’s bounty of $2500 so a good day!
Then a couple of days later I was playing a number of the UBOCs, including the mini versions that they ran simultaneously. Of course I bombed out of the big main ones, but things started going rather well in the mini PLO UBOC. Now I haven’t played that much PLO before (I’ve been learning all the other games for the last couple of months but have yet to make much of a score in them), but things started to go right for me and I accumulated a very nice stack and soon we were in the money. I carried on playing in the same style, very aggressively (I don’t know much else of what to do in PLO!) and things consistently went my way and before long I was at the final table with one of the big stacks! It continued to go really smoothly and before I knew it we were three handed. Then “TMZ” (I can’t remember his full screenname but that was the start of it) knocked out the third player and we were heads up, with the stacks about 3:2 in his favour.
Sadly, it all went wrong from there. My hands dried up to the worst possible Omaha hands you could imagine – rainbow non connected pieces of crap that I could do very little with and seemed to whiff almost every flop the software threw out there. Argh! My opponent played against this perfectly and was super aggro and just pushed over me whenever he sensed weakness (which was every damn hand) and I never had anything I could justifiably shove back with. Before long I had been ground down to a pretty dismal stack, and then the blinds were up and I just had to get it in. The hand was such crap I don’t even really remember it (it had an Ace and King and tha’ts about it), and of course it missed in every way and the tourney was over. Still, I made $2k for my $20 investment and at least I finally feel like I’m getting a good handle on the game, so you’ll definitely be seeing me in more Omaha tourneys soon!
Thanks UB.com for an AWESOME series. Roll on next UBOC!
Tags: Play online, Poker Poker Poker, UB.com, UBOC
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Friday, February 5, 2010 - Brandon Cantu
Well, 2009 may have ended strong for me, but it wasn’t really one of my better years in betting sports and fantasy football.
I definitely had a rough football sports betting season. However, I think it is noteworthy to mention that I finished the year on an unbelievable two or three week hot streak. With how many weeks there are in a season that is not saying a lot, I fully understand this.
I have been betting with Rick Fuller, of YouGotABet fame, this year. We just bet the board, $500 per game on football. In college football we bet about 20 games per week and every single NFL game. With college ball having been over for a couple of weeks, we have been betting every single bowl game. Last week I had a really good week. In the NFL, I went something like 11-2-1 on the Sunday games with a split on the Monday Night Football game. I finally had a monster Sunday. It felt great to finally have a one-sided weekend, resulting in being up $7k for the week.
In fantasy football, I had my amazing string of consecutive money making years come to an end. In my $5k league, I had some serious momentum building as my team climbed from 2-7 all the way back to 7-7, pushing hard into the playoffs and looking at a chance at the $5k Fantasy Championship. Well, needless to say, the genius guys who set up the league, decided it would be good to pay only the top 2 spots, with a 3rd payment going to a wildcard spot, paying the team owner who earned the most points during the season. Has anyone ever heard of something like this? This is clearly not how this should be organized. In the NFL, just because the best team with the best stats goes 9-7 and doesn’t make the playoffs, doesn’t mean they should get something in return. Of course, it ending up screwing me and I wound up taking 3rd. I wanted the matchup to at least be dramatic. The player I was playing against, Mike “inissint” Glasser, had 5 players going for the Jaguars/Colts game. He had like 80 points on just the Thursday night game and it was over for me – he had players Reggie Wayne, Peyton Manning, Dallas Clark, Maurice Jones Drew and someone else. It was just gross. My team had no recovery chance after Mike’s team’s performance. It was terrible and I was looking forward to it all week. The winner of the game got $10,000.00 and obviously I like to keep my dominating fantasy performances going year in and year out.
In one of my other leagues, I ended up taking 3rd place for $400.00. Again, I was hoping to build upon last year’s success where I took home 2nd place finishes in 3 of 4 high priced leagues. This year I finished 3rd in two leagues, DNQ’s in the others, for only one payment. Just didn’t turn the right corners for me, but I battled hard. Next year, I am more than likely going to come back more focused and ready to dominate the fantasy football world.
Brandon Cantu
Tags: Football, NFL
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Thursday, February 4, 2010 - Joe Sebok
Sometimes I really love my life. Love it! This blog has 2 parts, so please be sure to read both!
“Sebok’s Leap of Faith”
We hatched up something pretty sick over at UB for an incredible giveaway that I have been wanting to do since I first arrived there, and they are finally giving me the opportunity to do it! Winning money at poker is great, obviously, and it’s why we play the game in addition to the thrill of winning, competition, etc., but let’s come up with something more. I always wanted to give winners in tournaments something more than cash, something that they can’t do just anywhere, and finally I can. Over at UB we are holding a freeroll tournament complete with $2000 in cash and prizes, but the first place prize is a little different this go around…
1st place in the “Sebok’s Leap of Faith” freeroll gets to fly out to Vegas, with a guest, and come skydiving with me.
Yep, that’s right. Let me tell you, you haven’t lived until you have seen the strip off in the distance rocketing up at you at 200 mph. Sick! For those of you who are a little spooked at the notion of jumping out of a perfectly good airplane though, I totally understand. If someone takes down the tournament but doesn’t wanna go skydiving, we have an equally awesome experience out in Vegas that doesn’t require you hurtling yourself towards the Earth. I’m cooking up something and I’ll let you know soon…
To follow updates, be sure to hit http://www.skydivewithsebok.com/.
Either way, we will have a blast in Vegas, get into some crazy stuff, and we can chat about anything that might be rolling around that head of yours…
Sooooo, here are the details: the freeroll (as in completely free entry) is going to be on February 17th at 9pm (est), 6pm (pst), and we will figure out when we can fly you out to Vegas after we have a winner! This is so sick, and something I have wanted to give to someone for a long time! Also, keep in mind, there just may be a few cameos from professional players who might make the jump with us. Not promising anything, but there is quite a lot of interest and I know quite a lot of pro poker players. Yesssss!
Get on this! The freeroll will require a password to enter and we’ll get all of that info out to you guys shortly, probably first released first via the UB Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/ultimate_bet) and then mine (www.twitter.com/joesebok) as well at some point…
“UB Pro Competition”
Alright, I told you guys that this blog had a second part and here it is: Not only do I get to throw this unbelievable freeroll and jump out of a plane with one of YOU, but we are also having a little competition over at UB amongst the pros. That’s right, a few of the gang will also be cooking up their own experiences and throwing their own freerolls and we’ll have our own winner for whose does the best. So, suffice it to say: WE NEED TO WIN THIS THING!
Not only for pride, but the WINNER of the UB competition gets a night out on the town in Vegas, complete with dinner, drinks, and perhaps a show or club (Do I smell another Twitter contest here??), and the LOSER has to serve as concierge for the entire night! That’s right! Sweet monkeys swinging in a tree, please help me to make sure that Annie or Phil have to wait on me! I can think of nothing sweeter than ordering either of them around as their faces turn a nice shade of crimson. “They’re putting too much lime in their vodka tonics at this bar, Annie. Can you come over and speak to them about it…in person???” Wahahahahahahahahahahahahah!
So there you have it, everyone. The complete two-part breakdown. We are going to have some serious fun so get yourself into this tournament, both to help yourself win a trip out to Vegas for some good times, but also to help me take down this competition!
Gonna be some serious fun…holler at you all soon…
peace,
J
If you don’t already have an account, you can download the UB client here. Use special promotional code: UbJoeSebok
Tags: Poker Poker Poker, professional poker player, ub, ub twitter, Vegas
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