Bloggers Tournament
Monday, November 16, 2009 - smokin_aces
This months freeroll promo has an ABSOLUTELY great twist. Any guesses?
Many of you have been following the UB Blog since the beginning and our monthly freeroll promos now attract thousands of participants. This time, we’re showing some brotherly love to our sister site on the Cereus network. For those that don’t know, the Cereus network is made up of UltimateBet and Absolute Poker. So this month, please follow me over to the Absolute Poker blog at http://blog.absolutepoker.com and follow @_absolutepoker on Twitter.
Your boy smokin_aces is hosting the freeroll event you’ve come to love, but this time in an all new location.
There is one other interesting enhancement to this months freeroll as well, and you’re gonna want to listen up because it involves MONEY FOR NOTHING AND BIG POTS FOR FREE!
So follow me to the Absolute Poker blog to get all the details on this SICK PRIZEPOOL!
GL
Aces
Tags: blog freeroll, blog tournament, twitter freeroll
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Thursday, October 29, 2009 - Gene Bromberg
I must confess that I don’t watch much reality TV. See, I live in reality and I get quite enough of it, thank you very much. Then again reality TV bears little resemblance to the reality that you and I enjoy on a day-to-day basis. There’s no jackass in a black T-shirt telling us our heartfelt performance stinks (unless you work at some Trendy Company From Hell), we aren’t whisked off to some tropical hellhole to scrabble in the dirt as we devise devious schemes to betray our friends (though that’s a bit like how Wall Street works).
My friend Ted is a huge fan of The Amazing Race, which he considers by far the best reality show around. And the folks who award the Emmy’s seem to have the same opinion, as that show has won the Emmy for best reality show all seven years it’s been around. As you probably know this season UltimateBet’s Tiffany Michelle is teamed up with her fellow poker player and friend Maria Ho on the show and they’ve been racing across southeast Asia and Dubai the last few weeks. She and Maria are still in the running, but don’t ask me (or her) if they go on to win the thing. I’m pretty sure revealing the winner of a reality show ahead of time is an automatic death-penalty offense. Heck, Death Penalty!! might end up being the next big reality show, especially if Jay Leno’s new primetime show continues to tank.
Tiffany actually missed the Main Event to participate in The Amazing Race but she didn’t miss last night’s UltimateBet Amazing Race freeroll. A grand total of 1,949 racers solved the series of clues that took them all over the World-Wide-Web and led them to the freeroll’s password. There was a cool $1,000 prizepool, with the final pair left standing at the end winning seats in our $200,000 Sunday Guaranteed Tournament.
Alas, though Tiffany is still going strong on The Amazing Race she did not reach the final finish line in this freeroll held in her honor. With her stack short she moved in for her last 1,500 or so when, holding K-Q, she turned a Queen. Unfortunately that not-so-lucky-lady on fourth street gave LONELYLONER (jeez that name depresses me) a straight and sent Tiffany out in 333rd place. On the show Tiffany and Maria spent some time in Vietnam and when I was in Vietnam a year or so ago one of the popular beers there is called “333″. OK, calling that a coincidence is a stretch but sue me, I’m thirsty.
Tiffany didn’t make the money, nor did LONELYLONER (and that makes me even sadder). Neither did 8LUFFMEOKI, who went out in 48th place to become our unfortunate Bubble Person. Normally players fall quickly after we make the money then things tighten before we reach the final table, and that’s what happened last night. In fact some of the players seemed to be stalling as we got down to the nitty-gritty, which was a bit silly as we were playing hand-for-hand and the other table was just sitting there waiting for play to wrap on the other table so they could start the next hand. I was sitting there too, watching it all, screaming “YOU KNOW YOU’RE GONNA FOLD!! SO FOLD!!!” as the clock struck 1AM on the East Coast. In the end it was the desperate SUNNYSTORM who got his money in holding the mighty 2-6, though he’d improved to a pair and a gutshot by the time the money went in on the turn. But ALEX_D22 had flopped a ten holding K-10 and wasn’t going anywhere, and when the river brought a blank SUNNYSTORM was going to the rail and ALEX_D22 was going to the final table, along with these eight players:
I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again–when you make the final table of a tournament, and you’re short-stacked, and you decide to shove UTG with a hand like Kd-Jd. DO NOT do so when a player in the small blind is holding pocket Aces. Which is the exact unlucky scenario that sent TARGETSD out in 9th at the hands of MONEYNIKEME. Not that pocket Aces are infallible–no doubt ELNACHO was feeling good when he moved in with the bullets and was called by JED2006 holding Kh-10h. The flop brought no danger…well, there was a heart on the flop but how threatening is one lousy heart, really? Then came another heart on the turn…and another on the river, and that runner-runner flush sent ELNACHO and his Aces to the rail in 8th place, with $26.22 to comfort him.
It’s one thing to crack Aces with K-10 suited–can you WIN with Aces against K-10 suited? That exactly what JED2006 did a few hands later, picking up pocket Aces and using them to send APA_ATSAA and his Ks-10s out in 7th (good for $32.21). We actually had a decisive hand that didn’t include Aces, as QUINTDRIP’s pocket Queens held up against SWEETENXV’s pocket Tens. SWEET managed to double up like three times but when you start with just 357 chips that isn’t enough, and he soon succombed to finish sixth and pocket $39.62.
Then comes one of those hands that sticks with you for a long time, like when you walk in on your grandmother disposing of a corpse. QUINTDRIP was dealt pocket Kings, ALEX_D22 pocket Queens, and the two cagey players held off getting the money in until after the flop. Which came 3c…Kh…Qs. I’m sure ALEX felt quite confident putting in the last of his chips with middle set, only to see that QUINT turn over his cowboys. “Unreal” ALEX_D22 said as the turn and river failed to bring the case Queen and from a safe distance MONEYNIKEME said “OMG”. ALEX_D22, who had been near the top of the leaderboard for several hours, collected $51.30 for finishing 5th.
A more routine hand spelled the end of THE RAW ONE, as his pocket fours failed to win a not-so-Amazing Race with JED2006’s K-8. The money went in before the flop, which brought a King, and that spelled the end of THE RAW ONE and the increase of his bankroll by $68.69.
We were down to three-handed, with the player finishing third pocketing a hefty $119.42 and the two two getting tickets to the $200K Sunday Tournament. JED2006 open shoved and MONEYNIKEME called from the big blind with Ac-6c. JED2006 turned over a mighty 8s-3s. That hand proved mighty enough as an eight hit on the flop and MONEYNIKEME ended in third place and with a tidy boost to the bankroll.
One that JED2006 had been eyeing. “i wanted third dammit” JED2006 posted in chat, not necessarily an illogical wish. Finish third and your balance definitely goes up, finish first or second and you now have to navigate yet another huge field to get your hands on the cash. JED2006 and QUINTDRIP played a few desultory hands (there was really no difference between finishing first or second) before they got the money in preflop and JED2006 won the final race of the day:
However, I’d like to remind JED2006 of a little story. When Chris Moneymaker won his seat into the 2003 Main Event he played a satellite that paid out Main Event seats for the top few finishers and cash to the rest. In his autobiography Moneymaker said he wanted the cash–he had some credit cards he wanted to pay off and the money would’ve helped. He was going to just tank it and lock up the money when a friend called and offered to give Chris the money in exchange for a piece of what Moneymaker might win if he played and cashed in the Main Event. The rest, as they say, is History. So who knows–maybe JED2006 is our player of destiny, maybe he’s going to WIN the Sunday Guaranteed Tournament, maybe this Amazing Race Freeroll will the jumping-off point to a truly amazing ride to ultimate poker superstardom. Maybe two years from now JED2006 will be sitting down with a poker journalist (someone far more famous and respected than me) and saying, “Yes, it all started with a freeroll and,” here he’ll pause for a self-depreciating chuckle, “I wanted third, dammit”. Time, it will tell.
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Tuesday, October 27, 2009 - smokin_aces
So far almost 1400 of you have solved the puzzle to get the password. Do you think we can hit 2000 players in tomorrow night’s Amazing Race Freeroll? I think it will be close.
All you have to do to enter is follow the clues listed here in the original post. Some people found it easy, some found it too hard. It depends on what type of thinker you are and not necessarily what level of poker knowledge you have. Of course, I can almost guarantee you’ll learn something along the way.
So, to get your shot at $1000 in cash and tournament buy-ins, try to solve the puzzle to get the password.
Let me know how you make out!
GL
Aces
Tags: Bloggers Tournament, Smokin Aces
Comments (3)
Thursday, October 15, 2009 - smokin_aces
Can you solve an online scavenger hunt to get into an exclusive freeroll?
That’s all you have to do to get your shot at $1000 in cash and prizes with ZERO buy-in. Some of you have asked why we’re making it a little bit tricky to get entrance to this freeroll. It’s very simple. This ensures the field will be relatively modest compared to the SICK prizes available. For example, normally to get into the Sunday 200K GTD you need to pony up $200+$25. That’s already a SMOKIN deal. In the UltimateBet’s Amazing Race freeroll, 1st AND 2nd place finishers will BOTH get 200K GTD buy-ins, with hundreds more in cash spread from 3rd to 47th.
Check out the rest of the payout structure in the UltimateBet game client.
If you think you can hack it, try to solve the scavenger hunt and get into the UltimateBet Amazing Race freeroll!
It goes down right here on Wednesday Oct 28 at 9 pm ET.
Follow this link to get all the details on UltimateBet’s Amazing Race Freeroll!
GL and happy hunting!
Aces
Tags: amazing race, Bloggers Tournament, freeroll, twitter tournament
Comments (5)
Friday, October 9, 2009 - smokin_aces
At UltimateBet, we enjoy producing Freeroll events that become more than just a really fun free poker tournament. For those of you that have been following the UB Blog or @ultimate_bet on Twitter, you’ve probably taken part in one of our fun events. We’ve recently had:
The Pocket Card Challenge
Twitter Is Our Middle Name
The Delicious Freeroll
The Golden Tweet
Twitter Up For Africa
…to name just a few.
The next phase is the evolution of our recent events. Normally each month we run a Twitter event and a Blog event separately. This time, we’re combining the two events into one, which means TWICE THE PRIZE POOL. It also means twice the fun, twice the memories and twice the poker action. 1st and 2nd place will receive a seat at the 200K GTD and cash prizes will be spread from 3rd place to 45th place.
So, you’re probably wondering what this one is made of. Do you like riddles?……puzzles?……scavenger hunts?…….what about UltimateBet’s Amazing Race? (for those that don’t know, our very own Tiffany Michelle is currently competing on the CBS show The Amazing Race alongside her pal Maria Ho.)
UltimateBet’s Amazing Race requires more than just a password or a Golden Tweet. You’ll need to traverse the web in search of clues that get you closer to solving the Ultimate question. UltimateBet’s Amazing Race happens right here on Wednesday October 28 at 9pm ET. HOW DO I GET MY CHANCE TO PLAY IN ULTIMATEBET’S AMAZING RACE?
Step 1
Click this link and go to UltimateBet’s Youtube channel at www.youtube.com/ultimatebetvideo. Rate 3 video’s on the UltimateBet youtube channel, then try to solve the first clue.
Clue number 1 – 0:30 / 6:58 – How many legs are at Caesar’s table?
Step 2
Go to UltimateBet’s Twitter page at www.twitter.com/ultimate_bet and Follow @ultimate_bet.
You are looking for a specific @ultimate_bet Tweet from a specific day in the recent past. Take the answer to clue number 1 and subtract 3. Now divide this by 3. The answer is the month of the Tweet you need to find. The answer to clue number one is the day. The year is 2009. Some of the posts on this date have links to UB Blog posts.
Clue number 2 – What did UltimateBet discontinue the use of?
Step 3
One of our UltimateBet pros finished 17th in the WSOP Main Event in 2008.
Clue number 3 – What is the “answer to clue number 2″ of this UltimateBet pro?
Step 4
If you were to ask a waiter at a restaurant in London, England for ‘the answer to clue number 3′, what would you receive?
Clue number 4 – The answer to this question is the password to the UltimateBet’s Amazing Race freeroll. With no spaces the answer is 11 characters long.
SPECIAL NOTE: Do not try over and over to enter passwords that you ‘think’ might be right. The game client will lock you out of the tournament if you try too many times with the wrong password. If this happens to you, email support@ultimatebet.com.
GL!
Aces
Tags: blog freeroll, Bloggers Tournament, freeroll, Tiffany "Tiffany M" Michelle, twitter freeroll, ultimatebet's amazing race
Comments (78)
Thursday, October 1, 2009 - smokin_aces
The pocket cards of the winner during the final hand were Js9h
We had over 350 guesses but unfortunately no one guessed Js9h. You can see the original post containing all the guess here.
Congrats go out to SLICKWILLY14 for taking down this tourney and earning a seat at the 200K GTD worth over $200!
SLICKWILLY14 if you’re reading this, be sure to let us know how you made out!
Cheers
Aces
Tags: Bloggers Tournament, pocket card challenge, slickwilly14
Comments (1)
Thursday, October 1, 2009 - Gene Bromberg
I’m not breaking news when I say that to win a poker tournament, especially one with more than a thousand players, you have to run good. You have to run really good. You have to avoid the obvious coolers (my Kings, your Aces) as well as the trappy hands that would lure even Stu Ungar to his demise. Situations like set under set, flopped straight to top pair/nut flush draw, etc. Of course one of the ways truly skilled players avoid these nightmare scenarios is by never getting involved in them in the first place. If you’re holding Ace-Queen and an Ace flops and you get your 300BB stack in the middle and find you’re dominated by Ace-King, maybe that’s a bit of bad luck but possibly it’s more bad play.
In a freeroll tournament (like, say, our Pocket Card Challenge Freeroll last night) folks are bound to play a bit more loosey-goosey. Especially early on players are more likely to gamble it up, try to accumulate a big stack early on or just be done with it. Kinda like Phil Ivey in a $10,000 event. And at my starting table last night there was a player named HANKSKY who was doing just that–gambling it up. He was raising just about every pot, not letting the limpers and callers see a cheap flop, and splashing chips all over the place. What he didn’t know was that there was a new sheriff in town–me. Because I too was willing to mix it up, put my chips in the middle, come home with my shield or borne upon it. HANKSKY was sitting to my right and when he made his usual raise I re-popped it with A-Q. The flop came Q-6-4 and fast as you could mouse-click our chips were in the middle. My top-top had his mighty deuce-four in big trouble and for once the better hand held.
My stack took a hit a few hands later when I flopped top two pair holding Ace-Queen. That’s good. What’s not good, what’s bad even, is that UNIQUELADY flopped Broadway holding K-10. All the chips went in and when I didn’t boat up my mighty stack was dented. “Nice flop,” I seethed, and she said “Yup,” in agreement. But not long after that t I doubled again, this time against JHUB420 when I held Big Slick and flopped a pair to his open-ended straight draw. The draw whiffed and suddenly I had one of the top 20 stacks in the tournament. And I may have cracked the Top Ten when I took most of JHUB420’s remaining chips when I was dealt pocket Aces. “I’m going to win this (deleted) tournament,” I told myself as the first break arrived. “I’m GOING TO WIN!”
I was eliminated three minutes after we returned to play. I three-bet VEGASRIVER8 while holding Big Slick again and when he shoved I came along. He had Jacks, we raced, and I lost. Lost about 85% of my stack, too. I open-shoved with Q-J the next hand and was called down by a medium Ace. Which held. And I was out, in 235th place. Which, obviously, is a long way from first.
“Oh well,” I sighed.
“Lost a race,” I sighed.
“Sigh,” I sighed.
I’d run exceedingly good in the tournament, holding Aces, Ace-King twice, Ace-Queen twice (and hitting the flop with each of those hands). I also flopped a set and got paid off. All that, and I was out 235th. If I’d won that race with Ace-King…who knows? I might’ve finished…112th or something. “Crap,” I sighed.
So it isn’t enough to run good–you gotta play good as well. And as I watched the tournament play down to the final table (my nemesis VEGASRIVER8 finished 30th, nine off the money) it looked like the extremely short-stacked 44NIGHTMOVES would be the final-table-bubbler, as he had about a blind plus an ante left before him. But after pushing his handful of chips forward and telling the table “gl guys gg” he managed a desperation triple-up to reconnect his life-support machine. But for just a few hands, as his pocket nines were beaten by another player’s Jack-Nine when the paint card spiked on the turn. Still, he almost made the final table, because as I was watching that hand play out CUZZ59 was being bounced on the other table. But stack sizes come into play when eliminations are ranked and so CUZZ59 gets to put the Pocket Card Challenge Freeroll final table on his resume, while 44NIGHTMOVES was left to lament that blasted Jack. At any rate, here’s what last night’s final table looked like as battle was joined:
CMILLET81 had the big chip lead and he made it a lot bigger as the also-rans fell by the wayside. TOD38 was first to go, out in 8th, followed shortly thereafter by the cooly-nicknamed TANGENTMEMORY. It looked like THEMECH222 would be next to go, as he was down to just 22,000 and all-in with 2-4 against ANDYZHU888’s Ace-Queen. But where HANKSKY wasn’t able to turn the tables on me when we held those hands, THEMECH222 turned a four and doubled up. He then went on a tear, boosting his stack all the way up to 200,000 after he knocked out the aforementioned ANDYZHU888 with a straight. INDY29 was next to go when he woke up with Ace-Queen and moved his short-stack to the middle. Alas, he was dominated by LBKJOS’s Ace-King, and that was that. And then THEMECH222’s run abruptly came to an end when he bluffed with Ad-8c after a 5h-7h-4d flop and LBKJOS made a hero call holding 5s-2h. That gutsy play sent THEMECH222 to the rail in fourth place and boosted LBKJOS’s stack up over 400K.
With six players left CMILLET81 had held more than 50% of the chips in play, but LBKJOS’s reign of terror brought their stacks almost equal. SLICKWILLY14 trailed them both with around 150,000 and chose to sit back and let these two titans battle it out. And after LBKJOS took over the chip lead he and CMILLET81 played a huge hand where LBKJOS got a wee bit lucky. Well, he got a whole lotta lucky–after a 5s-10h-5d flop CMILLET81, holding Ks-10d, led out for 54,000 and LBKJOS check-raised to 124,800. CMILLET81 called and the nine of clubs on the turn probably seemed a totally innocuous card. It was not, because LBKJOS was holding 9c-10c and the turn was one of three cards that would give him the pot. LBKJOS shoved, CMILLET81 called, and when no King nor five came on the turn CMILLET81 was cruelly ejected and LBKJOS was the big chip leader going into heads-up play.
With about a 3-1 chip lead LBKJOS looked to be in good shape to take it down, and a few hands later his victory looked a lock as his Qh-Jc outflopped SLICKWILLY14’s Ad-9d. The money went in and LBKJOS needed to fade a nine or an Ace to win. I’ll let the picture tell the story:
But LBJKOS was undaunted, he pulled out his cudgel and bashed his way once more to a 3-1 lead. Once again all the money went in, this time with LBKJOS holding 7-2 (the HAMMER!) and a flopped pair of sevens to SLICKWILLY14’s Kc-Jc, which gave him two overcards and a gutshot. Those particular outs proved important as an eight on the river gave SLICKWILLY14 his straight and another lease on life. “Again on the river,” LBKJOS groused, understandably so.
The grousing no doubt increased in volume when the two again got the money in the middle after a 7s-Jh-3d flop, with LBKJOS holding 3c-6s to SLICKWILLY14’s Ac-5d. But here’s the thing about WILLY–he’s SLICK. He turned an Ace, rivered a five, and once again came from behind to frustrate LBKJOS.
Even after all this, all this, LBKJOS clawed and scratched his way back to a small chip lead. But the two played a massive pot where, with the board reading 3c-10c-10h-6c-Qh, LBKJOS bet 126,000 and SLICKWILLY14 shoved. LBKJOS made the call for almost all of his chips and saw SLICKWILLY14 turn over 4c-8c for the baby flush, one LBKJOS couldn’t beat. We never got to see LBKJOS’s cards, I can only think he had a ten, or maybe an smaller flush (tho there weren’t that many small clubs left).
But it must’ve been a bitter pill to swallow, and on the next hand swallow it LBKJOS did. His last few chips went in with him holding 5d-8c to SLICKWILLY14’s Js-9h, (and sorry to spoil the suspense, but those are the pocket cards of the final winning hand). You’d think that maybe LBKJOS might catch a break and turn the tables just this once–you must not play much poker. No, on this day the table was tilted in one direction, as both players flopped a pair but WILLY’s Jack was better than LBKJOS’s five, and when the board bricked out it was LBKJOS’s collecting $49.23 for finishing as our runner-up and SLICKWILLY14 securing a seat in our $200,000 Sunday Guaranteed Tournament. If he can keep that run good thing going…look out.
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Tuesday, September 29, 2009 - smokin_aces
We now have over 1000 registered players for tomorrow’s Pocket Card Challenge!
The original post can be found here.
As well, over 200 of you have joined the Pocket Card Challenge by taking a guess at the final hand pocket cards of this tournament’s winner. If you plan on taking a guess before the tournament, BE SURE TO USE THE CORRECT FORMAT. You must make your guess in the comments section of the first Pocket Card Challenge blog post which can be found by following this link.
Include your UB username in the comment and make your pocket card guess in this format.
AcKd
NO SPACES! The complete set of guidelines and rules can be found here.
If you haven’t registered yet, now is your chance to get a shot at loads of cash. As well, the first prize is a seat at the Sunday 200K GTD.
So go find the Pocket Card Challenge in the tournament lobby and use the password pocket2aces to enter!
GL
Aces
Tags: Bloggers Tournament, pocket card challenge
Comments (0)
Friday, September 18, 2009 - smokin_aces
Pocket Card Challenge – Sept 30
Let’s get ready to rumble once again. You guys seem to love these blog freerolls and it’s no wonder!
There are not many other ways you can play in an online poker tournament with NO BUY IN and win lot’s of cash and a seat at the Sunday 200K GTD. We’re still waiting for one of our Blog Freeroll Winners to cash at the 200K GTD. It could be you!
The password to the Pocket Card Challenge is pocket2aces
As usual, we’ve got a twist to this tournament.
To get your chance at $50 bucks, guess the final hand pocket cards of this tourney’s winner. Write your guess in the comments section of this blog post (only comments in this exact blog post will be counted, no exceptions). Make sure to include your UltimateBet username in the body of the comment. If you mess up your username, we will not contact you so get it right. When guessing the winner’s final hand pocket cards use no spaces, use capital letters for the Card, and small letters for the Suit.
UltimateBet username
AsKd
If you guess more than once, none of your guesses will be counted. No exceptions.
If more than one person guesses the correct final hand pocket cards of the tourney, the $50 will be divided accordingly and spread over the players with the correct guess.
NOW THE ICING ON THE CAKE. If you make a guess and then finish 1st in the Pocket Card Challenge with the final hand pocket cards that you guessed, you will get $100.
Let the guessing begin!
GL
Aces
Tags: blog freeroll, Bloggers Tournament, pocket card challenge
Comments (370)
Thursday, September 17, 2009 - Gene Bromberg
A few years ago I got together with a bunch of college buddies for an impromptu reunion/bender. We spent the days wake-surfing and jet-skiing and the nights playing poker and dramatically reducing our life expectancy through drink. After a marathon sit-n-go that ended around 5AM (I won) we all decided to sit on the dock and watch the sun come up. We set our camp chairs in a circle, put the cooler in the middle, and cracked open our thirtieth beer of the day. Once upon a time these late night (or early morning) bull sessions would center around girls, cars, girls we’d like to…date, profanity-laced comedy routines, and girls we’d…dated and wish we could date again.
But this night was a bit different. We were older now, established, living out some manner of the American Dream. We all had normal, respectable jobs (except for me, maybe). Many of us had loving spouses who cared about us so much they nagged us constantly about our drinking and refused to let us eat bacon for breakfast every morning. We all had mortgages, whose crippling terms left many of us in a financial state resembling indentured servitude. The American Dream.
The conversation ranged over topics from the sublime (Scarlett Johansson or Jessica Alba?) to the ridiculous (the vagaries of auto insurance). We talked about how much our lives had changed from the days when we did our drinking in dorm rooms. Dawn broke, the cooler emptied, and the conversation lagged as exhaustion and Yuengling took their toll. The mood turned philosophical, even a bit melancholy, and then my friend Rick said, “I guess you never know when you get there,” he said. “You never know when you’ve officially ‘made it’. When you’re officially a success.”
“There are signs, mile-markers,” I said. “The corner office. The Benz.”
“When you’re secretary has a secretary, you’ve made it,” said Matt.
“If you have staff, if you have ‘people’, then you’ve gotten somewhere,” agreed Scott. And the conversation revived as we started coming up with more and more ridiculous, petty, narcissistic ways of showing the world that you’ve clawed your way to the top of the pyramid.
“You appear on the cover of People magazine.”
“Screw People. Time magazine.”
“They’re basically the same thing. Nah, you’ve made it when you have a perfume named after you.”
“Yes. If you have your own frickin’ fragrance, then you’ve made it.”
“Even for a dude?”
“Especially for a dude.”
“No no,” I said, crushing yet another hollowed-out can, “you know you’ve made it when the house you grew up in becomes a National Landmark. Where there’s a plaque on the wall and people buy AAA maps to find out how to get there.”
“That’s not bad,” Matt said.
Yeah…not bad at all. I like the idea of some historian recreating my bedroom in precise detail, of some guy in a Smokey-the-Bear hat leading a tour and saying, “This, ladies and gentleman, this is where Gene Bromberg slept (pause for the popping of flashbulbs). Here’s the quilt his mother made for him when he was ten…and here (lifting the mattress) is where he used to hide his illicit copies of Playboy magazine…” My goodness, that’d be AWESOME.
The sun creased the horizon and the brilliant light felt like needles boring into my skull. We decided to adjourn for the night morning but before we left Matt said, “Know how you can tell when you’ve screwed up in life? I mean, REALLY screwed up??” There was a pause and then he said, “When people refer to you by your entire name, middle name included. ‘Lee Harvey Oswald’. ‘John Wilkes Booth’”.
“Mark David Chapman,” Scott said. “Yeah, when the media is reporting your entire name so they don’t get sued for libel by people with the same name, you effed up bigtime.”
“John Wayne Gacy.”
“James Earl Ray.”
“George W. Bush,” I said. Eyes rolled and I said, “Hey, you don’t think his dad was calling reporters and insisting they use the “W” to make sure people didn’t confuse the son with the father??” There was some shrugging and, with that, we all staggered to bed.
Middle names are like the middle child–often ignored. We all have enough names to keep track in our heads without adding words to the string. Middle names look nice on a wedding invitation, they add girth to a monogram, but beyond that they’re somewhat superfluous. Unless you wanted to play in last night’s Twitter freeroll here on UltimateBet. With our freerolls we’ve been trying to have a bit of fun with our followers, instead of just tweeting the password and having the Twitterhordes descend en masse we’ve tried to engage in some educational games (hopefully that isn’t an oxymoron). This time around a clue to the password was given out in advance–it was the middle name of one of our pros. That gave those with too much free time to build a dossier on the complete Team UltimateBet roster, before it was revealed that the player in question was one Phil Hellmuth Jr.
For some reason I thought I knew Phil’s middle name, I thought maybe Norman Chad had taunted Phil using his full name once on ESPN or maybe I’d written something using his complete moniker. But as the freeroll grew close and people started tweeting in desperation for the info I just couldn’t come up with it. I decided to see what Wikipedia had to say on the subject. And learned that Phil Hellmuth’s middle name is…Jerome. Huh. You could’ve given me a thousand guesses and I wouldn’t have gotten that. And here’s a bit of trivia that I at least found interesting–when Phil Ivey started out playing poker in Atlantic City he had a fake ID that gave his name as…Jerome. He was actually nicknamed “No Home Jerome”. Synchronicity at work.
Anyway, to the tables! We had an even 500 players in last night’s freeroll, with the top 21 adding a bit of money to their purse. First prize was a ticket to Sunday’s $200,000 Guaranteed tournament–still waiting for a freeroller to win that tourney so I could write up a kicking post about it. Get crackin’, folks.
There was some man-on-man action as we approached the money bubble, but it was the unfortunate BIRD_MAN13 who missed the money and the aptly-named LUCKY-MAN who squeaked into a $2.12 cash. Once the bubble burst the field quickly boiled down (though not as quickly as some of our previous freerolls) and soon we were down to ten players battling for the nine spots at our final table. It looked all but certain that ATOMICTOM would be the odd man out as he had just a few chips and some lint sitting in front of him, but he doubled up once to reconnect his life support machine and then he played a hand that I thought was a bit odd at the time. It was folded around, MIKEYYY44805 (try saying that three times fast) raised and ATOMICTOM, sitting in the big blind, went into the tank. Now, it was odd it took so long for him to call because he only had like a few hundred left–he pretty much HAD to call, with anything. Seriously, even if he’d only been dealt one card and a Saltine he’d have to call. Eventually he did and turned over…Ad-Qs. Which is a stupendous hand when you’re in the big blind and down to nothing. MIKEYYY44805 called and showed a dominated As-Js, but he flopped a gutshot draw that hit on the turn and sent ATOMICTOM to the rail.
“Aha!” I said. “Karma! Slow-rollin’ your big hand and the Poker Gods did smite you!” However, my analysis might’ve been a bit hasty. First of all, it’s possible that ATOMICTOM was just having a little connection problem and that was the reason his call was tardy. Second, after his elimination the final table popped up and…there were only eight players seated. It turns out that NICKIONE, sitting at the other table, was eliminated just seconds before ATOMICTOM and actually ended up in 10th place, missing the final table. I thought we were playing hand-for-hand but it’s possible there was an overlap and that ATOMICTOM had the clarity of thought to check out the other table, see what was going down, and pause to witness poor NICKIONE’s fate. Only after seeing that his rival had been sent to the rail did ATOMICTOM make what proved to be his final call. If that’s what went down, I simply must applaud ATOMICTOM’s cool head and icicled heart. Maybe he never took a seat at the final table, but he made it, and boosted his winnings by 40% by thinking before he acted. Well done.
For much of the tournament CHI_SOX27 was the chipleader, but he was the first at this abbreviated final table to go busto when, after seeing his stack eclipsed, he made a move with J-10 and ran into the pocket Kings of DIRTYCHECKNO. A player who never really built up a big stack was MIKEDEPIETRO, who bobbed and weaved his way deep into the tournament while engaging many of his opponents in the talking of the smack. The big stacks were liberally attacking the blinds of the shorter players and MIKE didn’t like that too much. At one point he challenged about half the table to play a heads-up match for any stakes they wanted…a brief aside here–wouldn’t a TV show called HU4ROLLZ!! be a ratings smash? Get angry people to liquidate all their assets, bring the cash to the studio and play heads-up against their mutual tormentor. It’d be awesome.
Anyway, MIKEDEPIETRO tripled up once when he flopped an Ace in a four-way pot and that was enough to ensure his survival. The banter grew a bit more good-humored as JERSEYLOVE27 and MR FRANK MO each built up massive stacks, and then JERSEYLOVE27 went on a three-hand rampage that liquidated half the table. On consecutive hands JERSEY eliminated MIKEYYY44805 when the latter’s A-4 ran into the former’s pocket Aces; eliminated MIKEDEPIETRO when JERSEY’S K-10 out-turned MIKE’s A-J; and then crusherated the very short KWARK’s J-3 with A-7 (the Ace on the flop all but sealed the deal).
We were three-handed but DIRTYCHECKNO had a microstack compared to the big boys. It looked like he might get a much-needed double-up when his A-7 had MR FRANK MO’s A-4 dominated, but the board double-paired, both Aces played, and a pot DIRTYCHECKNO desperately needed was chopped up. A few hands later he shoved with 8-10 and was called by JERSEYLOVER’s A-9, and after a no-help flop DIRTY turned an eight and again looked set to double up. But no–the river cruelly brought an Ace, the pot was shipped to JERSEY, and we were heads-up.
JERSEYLOVER27 had about a 70,000 chip lead over MR FRANK MO, so the match was still very much up for grabs. JERSEY extended that to a nearly 2-1 advantage until a hand where his pocket Jacks were outflopped by FRANK’s Qd-8d. The money went in after that Queen-high flop and the tables were turned 180 degrees in FRANK’s favor. He extended his lead until calling a preflop re-raise and then folding to a JERSEY shove on an As-Qh-4d flop that brought JERSEY back into contention. He chipped up, chipped up, finally taking a small lead that he extended when he won a big pot with a hefty raise on the river that chased FRANK. The end came on the very next hand, as the two traded raises after a 5h-7d-8c flop. FRANK flopped top pair with 8h-10s, but JERSEY hit top two holding 7s-8s and when the board blanked out the victory, and a ticket for the $200,000 Sunday Guaranteed tournament, went to JERSEYLOVE27. While MR FRANK MO saw a tidy $49.23 go into his account…huh, “MR FRANK MO”. First name, middle name, last name. I wonder terrible thing he did…
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