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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Saturday, May 9, 2009 - Phil Hellmuth
As we get ready for the WSOP 2009 I can’t help but think back to 2002. I knew the ramifications of what I was saying. I knew that the American public would perceive my statement as “sour grapes.” Oh well, I said it anyway. I just didn’t think that it would come to this!
While I was helping Gabe Kaplan with the ESPN Commentary during the last day of the World Series of Poker (WSOP) in 2002, I put my foot in my mouth, way in my mouth. Robert Varkonyi had just lost $400,000 of his last $640,000 with 9-9 vs. Julian Gardeners A-A (all-in before the flop) on the first hand. So I just opened my mouth and blurted it out.
It seemed pretty safe to say, especially at that exact time, and, I wasn’t very impressed with Robert’s play anyway, so I said it, “If Robert Varkonyi wins the WSOP, I’ll shave my head.” Sensing some possible added drama, the executive producer said, “Repeat what you just said.” I still felt like backing off, but I thought, “What are the chances that this comment makes the final ESPN cut to make me look bad anyway? I mean, Robert has to win first place from $240,000 in chips.” So I repeated the statement for the ESPN Commentary.
Now the players were told what I said, and I looked at Robert right then, and he seemed to bristle a bit. I thought, “Oh no, I may have lit a fire under him!” I don’t know if that was the case or not, but I do know that Robert began to play better then anyone else in the field from that moment forward. He did manage to hold off an ace or a king when John Shipley moved all-in with A-K versus Robert’s J-J, and he pretty much dominated the final table play after that. He was only all-in one other time when he put in one million dollars before the flop with J-J vs. John Shipley’s A-J. After that pot, Robert steadily increased his chip lead until he had a stranglehold on the rest of the players.
With four players left, and the blinds at $15,000-$30,000, Robert opened for $100,000 with Q-10 (the same hand that he busted me out with versus my Ah-Kh in a memorable [for me!] pot two days earlier). When Scott Grey moved all-in for $250,000 more with A-9, Robert called saying, “This is Phil’s favorite hand (a reference to the beat he put on me), so I call.” I don’t like his call here at all. But with a flop of Q-Q-8, Q-10 really was my favorite hand! The turn card brought a 9 and the river brought an A, both of which hit Scott’s A-9, but it wasn’t enough to beat three queens.
Now they were down to three players. The first hand after a fifteen-minute TV timeout was spectacular. Julian Gardener opened the pot for $100,000 on the button. Ralph Perry raised, and made it $300,000 to go from the small blind. Then Robert moved all-in (four million dollars!) from the big blind. Julian flashed his hand to me when he folded it and he had 10-10. Ralph decided to call with his J-J, and Robert had A-A in the big blind! This was one of the most exciting (and cold blooded) hands in WSOP history. In two hands, Robert had eliminated two players and now he faced Julian–with 5 million in chips to Julian’s 1.3 million in chips.
After only 10 more minutes, the blinds were up to $20,000-$40,000 when the following hand came up. Robert made it only $80,000 to go on the button with Q-10 (that hand again!), and Julian called in the big blind with Jc-8c, and the flop came down 4c-4d-Qc. Now Julian checked, and Robert bet out a relatively small $50,000. Julian decided to move all-in for $900,000 total (an $850,000 raise), and Robert announced, “I call.”
Now the hands were flipped face up, and the fourth card was a 10. With two million dollars in the pot, tournament director Matt Savage (who did a great job throughout the whole WSOP) announced, “Julian needs a club or a 9.” Not exactly Matt, what about the one card, that actually was a club, but still didn’t win the pot for Julian? How about the 10c on the river for Robert to immortalize Q-10 with a full house (tens full of queens) which beat Julian’s jack high flush with a final board of 4c-4d-Qc-10s-10c. What a great last card–both players make a big hand! Right after they turned the 10c on the river, the crowd started chanting, “Shave Phil’s head – shave Phil’s head…”
Of course, Becky Behnan made sure that someone had some barbers equipment on hand, and, I am a man of my word. I would have loved to avoid the head shave, but I certainly deserved what I had coming, and I knew it! First Robert, followed by Becky Behnan, Andy Glazer, the Devilfish, and others, took turns shaving my head in front of a room full of spectators, press and cameras. Although the “side show” spectacle of having my head shaved by Robert (who was very gracious and tried to let me out of a shaved head) in front of over 1000 people, was, apparently, very entertaining for those watching, it was Robert’s day.
Robert played magnificent poker while he dominated the final table at the World Championships of poker. Congratulations to Robert Varkonyi, the 2002 World Champion of poker.
Tags: Devilfish, espn, gabe kaplan, Robert Varkonyi, WSOP
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Sunday, March 15, 2009 - Roothlus
…needless to say I survived it. I don’t think I’ve had a full weekend of drinking in a long long time. I’m even talking about Sunday night as well. When was the last time you went drinking on a freakin’ Sunday night? I’m usually too bummed out after losing a bunch of money to do anything on Sunday. But not this Sunday. I had time to lose $3k in all the tourneys and then go out.
The weekend started on Friday when my friend Katie and her friend Brooke came into town from L.A. The night started a bit late when we went to Caesars to sweat Chris Ferguson in the NBC Heads Up. He lost to Gabe Kaplan unfortunately but whatevs. I think he’s had a fairly good run the past few years hehe. After he busted we went to Treasure Island for some sushi at this place called Social House. It says it stays open 4PM-LATE but at 11:15PM it was closed. Really??? That’s not late. Maybe somewhere in Idaho, but definitely not in Vegas. So after a little bit of coaxing we were able to get a table…for eleven. Jeff Madsen, Brandon Cantu, and co. came along as well. This was a totally different crew from the online whiz kids I normally hang around and it was a good change of pace. Social House was pretty good and it was very enjoyable but nothing I would rave about. They did have some great sake, raspberry-infused sake. Mmmmm, so good. But more importantly how good is the word infused. I just want whatever is infused. I think the quote at the dinner table was “I love the word infused. It just sounds cool. I swear if they infused tomatoes, I’d want it!” After bunch of sake, sushi, and chats we decided to CCR(credit card roulette) for the bill of $1600 where I fortunately didn’t win and we were out. Phew.
Once we vamoosed from Social House Katie, Brooke, Joe Sebok who showed up at the end of the meal, and I decided to go to Forty-Deuce, a burlesque club at Mandalay Bay. It’s a great place to go if you really don’t want to go to a standard bar or club on a Friday night in Vegas. We spent about an hour there, did a bunch of shots, took a bunch of pictures, did a lot of dancing and then we realized it was somehow 3AM already. We decided it was it was time to go home…and keep drinking. I mean, we had to show Brooke a good time. It was only her 2nd time in Vegas. What a n0ob. I’m not sure what propelled it, but we somehow found ourselves sitting on a futon playing Truth or Dare. Yes, Truth or freakin’ Dare. Four twenty-somethings sitting on a couch playing T or D. Reeeeal mature. Somehow no one did a dare and all we did was four truths and then we all passed out. So basically we played it exactly how we used to play it back in the day where no one ever really got a dare to work.
Saturday was more of the same. We woke up at 12PM, early for me, went for some good hangover food at an omelet place called Egg And I. Nothing off the charts ridiculous but good nonetheless. Does anyone else notice that I just love talking about food? Las Vegas has so many different places to eat and a lot of them are open late as well which I absolutely adore. Anyways, we went shopping. I somehow got convinced to buy 3 pairs of dress shoes when all I wanted was one pair. I always get carried away when I go shopping. After that we went to Naked Fish for dinner which is my favorite sushi place to eat at in Las Vegas. Nobu is obviously super sick but I don’t really classify Nobu as a sushi place. The girls had to experience a good sushi restaurant especially when they think LA has the best sushi. Puhleaseee. I brought Justin “Zeejustin” Bonomo with us to the sushi restaurant and he is a super sicko orderer. When we got there I picked out 2 sushi rolls I wanted and he ordered the rest. I was in a good mood and picked up the tab.
After that we went home to get changed for the night and picked up JC Alvarado a.k.a. the Mexican Superstar and Steve O’Dwyer a.k.a. Mr. TimCaum. And no I have no idea why he calls himself TimCaum when he is clearly a Steve. We all met up with Amak, TheChronic420, and a bunch of online guys at the club X S at the new Encore casino attached to the Wynn. You know a club is cool when it’s only two letters. I might add the club has a similar layout to X S’s sister club over at the Wynn, Tryst . There were small subtle differences that made me enjoy X S much more but this blog’s already getting rather long. We don’t need to go off on ANOTHER tangent. The energy in the air was great. Everyone we were with were all low maintenance and down to just have fun. We got 6 bottles for our table full of like 12 people and I even tried to get the waitress to make us a shot I created called the Slutty Wizard. It’s got Blue Curacao, Malibu Rum, and Bacardi 151 in it and when you can, you should light it on fire. I’ve had it made for me twice successfully but am yet to have it after it was lit on fire. Oh, and the way I like to describe the taste is, for a shot with 151 in it, it tastes pretty good. So they didn’t have Blue Curacao or 151 so I had to create a new shot on the spot called the Green Goblin which is Midori, Malibu, and regular Bacardi Rum. It actually ended up being pretty damn good and it’s always cool to take a shot you created yourself hah. The night ended at 4am when Katie, JC, Brooke, and I all decided to take a cab to Café Bellagio. They have the best Banana’s Fosters waffle. It’s sooooo good and especially great drunken food. If you like Banana’s Fosters it is a must to try. I guess this turned more into a food blog this time. Like I said, Las Vegas is the best for food.
I think I’m going to cut the blog now and post again next week. This is getting pretty long and to be honest, Sunday was the craziest most random night of them all and I would much rather dedicate most of my next blog to that night. Also, maybe I’ll have something to say after I win the Bay 101. Yea, sure, why not. I’m calling my shot. Peace for now.
–Adam “Roothlus” Levy
Tags: Brandon Cantu, Chris Ferguson, Forty-Deuce, gabe kaplan, Jeff Madsen, Joe Sebok, nbc heads-up, Social House, Treasure Island
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Sunday, March 1, 2009 - Gene Bromberg
Not so long ago you couldn’t turn on the TV without quickly coming across a poker show. Some of these were good (the World Poker Tour, ESPN’s World Series coverage), some were bad (Poker Royale: Battle of the Sexes, which is to my mind the Worst Show in the History of Mankind). The thing is just about EVERYONE had a poker show. I think at one point even the Food Network had a poker pilot in production.
And then, almost as quickly, poker seemed to vanish from the tube. The market was probably oversaturated for a time and the game’s popularity leveled after years of explosive growth. But new shows continued to debut–The Best Damn Poker Show, of course, and the canonical High Stakes Poker–and if you do some channel surfing tonight you might think we’ve flashed back to the halcyon days of 2004.
That’s because there’s a metric ton of pokery goodness on TV tonight, including two big debuts–Annie Duke begins weeks of ruthless boardroom battling on NBC’s Celebrity Apprentice, and High Stakes Poker makes it’s long-awaited return for it’s fifth season. ESPN is showing the final table of the World Series of Poker-Europe, and both GSN and FSN will be showing World Poker Tour events. If you’re confused about which shows will be airing when (and where), here are the listings, with the new episodes bolded:
6 pm
ESPN2 – WSOP Europe
GSN – High Stakes Poker
7 pm
ESPN2 – WSOP Europe
GSN – High Stakes Poker
8 pm
ESPN2 – WSOP Europe
GSN – High Stakes Poker
9pm
NBC – Celebrity Apprentice
ESPN2 – WSOP Europe
GSN – High Stakes Poker
10 pm
NBC – Celebrity Apprentice
ESPN2 – WSOP Europe
GSN – World Poker Tour
11 pm
ESPN2 – WSOP Europe
GSN – World Poker Tour
FSN – World Poker Tour
12 midnight
GSN – High Stakes Poker
1 am
GSN – World Poker Tour
2 am
GSN – World Poker Tour
I’m almost giddy with excitement as High Stakes Poker is one of my favorite shows of all time, one that saw Gabe Kaplan retake his rightful place in American pop culture. I’m not much of a fanboy, I don’t get all giggly around the high and mighty, but in 2007 my buddy Craig was covering the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. event and Kaplan was trying (and failing) to get a cocktail server’s attention. Craig asked Kaplan what he wanted and headed out of the Amazon Room to secure the desired bottle of Gatorade. Gabe tried to give Craig a tip but as a working journalist he declined. After he told the story I breathlessly asked “Did you grab the bottle when he finished??? Did you get it autographed??”
“You’re pathetic,” Craig said, disgusted.
And perhaps Craig is right. Perhaps. But I for one will not feel pathetic as I pop the corn and snuggle into my comfyiest chair to indulge in a night of non-stop poker programming.
Tags: annie duke celebrity apprentice, annie duke on the apprentice, Celebrity Apprentice, gabe kaplan, high stakes poker, poker royale worst show in history, the apprentice, World Poker Tour, world series of poker europe, world series of poker europe final table, WPT
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