Monday, November 2, 2009 - Joe Sebok
What’s up UB?! Hope that all are doing well and life is nothing but good out there. I have tried to play more and more on the site recently, had a couple of winning small sessions playing the $1-$2 game, and then got my ass kicked pretty good one day as well. I just like sitting around with ya’ll and chatting it up as well, so that has been more my focus with playing on the site so far. Seems I haven’t had enough time to really get serious with the cash game playing much, which explains the small stakes. I’ve played the Sunday $200k as well a few times, but haven’t managed to get anything going there at all. I’ll have to check with Cantu about how he does it. That fool seems to win a UB tournament every other week. Wtf? How is he pulling this off? Big wowzers…
I’m writing from Miami airport, on yet another business trip out of the country. I swear, you would think I was more important with all of these trips I am taking all the time. Haha. One this is sickly for sure: I am racking up mad frequent flyer miles. 
Just flew here from Vegas this morning, where I had just finished up taping my very first episode of “Poker After Dark”…but hopefully not my last. I always think I talk so much more than other poker players that they will want my ass on those shows. We’ll see if this inaugural Seebs episode sparks them to bring me back. I can always hope. My lineup featured Howard Lederer, Ali Nejad, Gabe Kaplan, Mark Gregorich, and Kara Scott and the theme was media-based. Was a total blast. You’ll have to wait for it to air to see who won though.
It’s unbelievable that the WSOP final table is just around the corner, and by corner I mean next weekend. I am sickly excited and am obviously pulling for Phil to work some magic and somehow take down that title. It’s hard for me to see anyone disputing that he is the best that has ever played if he can win that bracelet. I think he will have moved solidly past Chip and Doyle for all around dominance with a win there, and that’s to say nothing of his online game, where he crushes too. The dude is a total machine.
Speaking of the final table, be looking for me to do some commentating on the Bluff show that UB is sponsoring. Should be a blast and I’m excited about it. We’ll also be recording some “PokerRoad Radio” episodes as well, so be looking for those. Basically, it’s going to be a seriously busy weekend in Las Vegas coming up. I’ll also have a pretty big announcement that we are going to be letting out of the bag during next weekend as well, so be paying attention for that.
All of you be good, and I’ll holler at you soon!
peace,
J
Tags: Ali Nejad, bluff, Brandon Cantu, gabe kaplan, Howard Lederer, Kara Scott, Mark Gregorich, Online Poker, Phil Hellmuth, Poker After Dark, Poker Poker Poker, Poker Road Radio, tournaments, ub, Vegas, WSOP
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Monday, October 19, 2009 - Joe Sebok
Man, how time does fly. Seems like just yesterday I was in LA and then today I’m in…well, LA. That’s after hitting New York City, London, and Aruba, of course. Love my job! I’m a lucky dude, for sure. I was a little bummed about the Aruba trip though…
I managed to last almost to the first break, so that’s something I suppose. Haha. I picked up KK after a Layne Flack under-the-gun raise, and an Eric ‘basebaldy’ Baldwin reraise. Now, I know Eric’s got a hand in the first level there, but y’know, I’ve got two Kings! I four-bet it and Layne decides to get out of the way at that point. Eric flat-calls and I really didn’t like it at all. To make matters worse the flop comes down, Q108(two clubs), which basically means I am in serious trouble against every single hand he would have called with except two Jacks. Ugh, no good. I actually caught a break here though as he decided to bet out, thus allowing me to keep the pot small by not raising. I just called and we saw a turn of the 4 of clubs, which I thoughts was a great card as I had the King of clubs in my hand. Eric checked over and I didn’t see much point in betting here. If he had me beat, let’s keep it small. If I’ve got him, I’m not giving too many outs by checking, so I did so. Then a great thing happened, or so I thought, the 9 of clubs hit the river, giving me the second nuts. That’s the funny thing about the second nuts though, someone can have the actual NUTS! Aya…
Eric bet out and I made a crying call. “Aces with Ace of clubs?”, I asked him. He nodded and showed them to me. Ouch. In actuality though I was pretty lucky that I only lost about half of my stack on this hand. Sadly for me though, I managed to pick up two Kings again (!) about 15 hands later. I ended up losing the rest of my stack on that hand when my opponent made quads on me. Bingo bango bongo. Out.
I was pretty bummed for a little while. First big UB event after joining the team and I managed the make the least amount of noise possible, which sucks. The truth is though that busting in Aruba just isn’t as bad as busting anywhere else. There’s way too much to do to stay down for long, and that was the case as I hit the beach pretty quickly.
The rest of the week was a blast, as it always is in Aruba. Beach, cocktails, sun, partying, and some poker made the week excellent. Life ain’t too bad…it really ain’t. One night we actually engaged in the old standby from my radio show days: cocktails and $1-$2 no limit. This game is always unbelievably sick and always brings a ridiculous cast of characters. In this game we had myself, Joe Stapleton, Amanda Leatherman, Gavin Smith, Shawn Rice, Alex Schoenberg, and a few other assorted characters. We all have a penchant for just shoving it in the middle during those games, and this one was no exception. I was the lucky one that night though, as my hands were continually better (which was strange) and they always held up (which was even stranger), so I made out of the night with…wait for it… a $4,000 win (!!!). That’s just an absurd win at that level of stakes, so I was pretty stoked. Sorry, big Gavin! He shipped quite a bit over to me throughout the night.
Lots of work to do now that I’m back home in LA, but no rest for the wicked as we head to Vegas for the Bellagio WPT event next week. Send me some positive vibeage and let’s make something good happen, ya’ll…talk soon!
peace,
J
Tags: Alex Schoenberg, Amanda Leatherman, Aruba, Bellagio, Gavin Smith, Joe Stapleton, London, New York, Poker Poker Poker, ShawnRice, ub, Veghas, WPT
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