Saturday, November 14, 2009 - Michaelbinger
Hello all,
I just got back from one of the most amazing trips of my life. My brother and I went diving with great white sharks and fishing for tuna about 200 miles off the coast of Mexico. We had to skip the WPT at Foxwoods, but wow was it worth it.
We met our fellow travelers on Wednesday morning in San Diego, boarded a bus for the port of Ensenada Mexico, and departed on a long distance fishing boat called the Searcher. There was a crew of 6 or 7 and 16 passengers. We left port around 2pm and headed out into the Pacific for our 18 hour journey to the remote Guadalupe Island. Shortly after leaving port, we were graced by dozens of dolphins and some whales.
For dinner we had an amazing gourmet meal prepared by the on-board chef Charles. Did not expect to be eating that good on a boat!
We arrive to the island the next morning and promptly get to our business. A suitable spot is found, the water is chummed, and the cages are put in the water. The cages are about 8 feet long, 4 feet wide, and 10 feet tall and hold up to 4 people at a time. The water is sufficiently cold to warrant full body wet suits; oxygen is supplied from the boat through a tube and regulator. My brother and I were part of the first group to go in… some 30 minutes or so passed before the first shark showed up… a 15 foot great white. Quite a beast! At this point you become more aware of the large open window in the cage… just about big enough for the shark to pop in and grab a little human snack. However, after a little while it becomes clear that no such thing will happen… these guys are cautious creatures… and anyways they don’t really like the taste of human flesh. They do however swim within arms reach of the cage regularly, prompted both by curiosity as well as the bait… there are large tuna carcasses attached to a rope on the surface near the cages. Watching them go for these is quite a sight.
Words don’t really do this justice… so check out the pics below and more on my facebook page, where you’ll also find some video.
Our second full day we pulled in the cages and did some fishing instead. First we were after yellowfin tuna, a staple for many sushi dishes. They were biting in a big way… I had my line out for all of 30 seconds when I hooked one. They are quite the fighters… it took 15-20 minutes or so to land him… a 50 pounder. I ended up catching another pretty quickly. Then I hooked a monster… this guy was fighting much harder than the others. I fought with him for almost 30 minutes before a great white was spotted circling the boat and I was warned that they often pick off tuna from the lines. I see the shark head down into the depths where my fish was, and next thing I know my fish goes bananas. I couldn’t see him but I felt it. Then all of a sudden the pressure on my line subsides… but I still have something on there… putting up a little bit of a fight. I reel in as quickly as I can and finally catch a glimpse of about 2/3’s of a huge tuna fish shimmering in the depths! Then wouldn’t you know it, Mr. Shark comes back and intercepts the remainder of his meal, putting the poor tuna out of his misery and giving me quite a fish story. I got sharked! The crew actually has a term for it… they call it paying your taxes! This is one tough tax man! Later on I hooked another tuna (and in the process my line snapped the line on a fish my brother had been fighting for a long time… sorry Nick!) and eventually got shark chomped again… however this time he left me the head to bring aboard. Check out the pic! After everyone had caught their fill of yellowfin tuna, we changed locations in pursuit of yellowtail snapper (Hamachi to sushi aficionados). I managed to catch one of about 15-20 pounds. By evening time we were getting hungry… and as luck would have one of the crew members is an experienced sushi chef. We had the most amazing fresh sushi ever.
It was a great day… and Nick and I took home about 60 pounds of fillets of sushi grade tuna and yellowtail which are currently vacuum sealed and in our freezer. I pan seared some last night… yum!
Day 3 we were back in the water in the cages diving with the sharks. Another amazing day, with perfect weather and 2 great whites showing up and hanging out with us most of the day. There were times when both were very close to the cage simultaneously.
Towards evening it was time to say goodbye to Guadalupe Island and start chugging on our 18 hour journey back to civilization. There were some serious swells and several on board got sick. The next morning we were entering Ensenada bay when a pod of 6-8 Orca whales (Killer whales) was spotted at the mouth of the bay. We diverted to check them out. While ooohing and aaahing we notice a huge group of dolphins… well over a hundred. They were booking it from the interior of the bay along the rocky abutment heading towards open water. The crew tells us that yes, orcas do eat dolphins, and that the orcas had essentially trapped the dolphins in the bay. The dolphins were trying to escape. At this point the orcas take off from frolicking near our boat and plot an intercept course. They split the dolphins into two groups; one heads out to sea and relative safety while the other heads back into the bay where they must bide their time. And at least one poor dolphin got picked off from the rest of the group… we watched in fascination and horror as the orcas chased it down, caught it, threw it in the air and then proceeded to eat it. A flock of seagulls descended to fight over the leftovers. The crew said they had never seen anything like that before. We were very fortunate to have witnessed such a raw and uncensored act of nature.
Really an amazing trip… made me realize why I played poker again… so that I can have the flexibility to have these experiences.
Last night I played a bit of poker online… including the VIP freeroll on UB which I hosted. I ended up winning it for $1200! Nice to run good.
Best of Luck,
Michael Binger
Tags: Foxwoods, Michel Binger, Online Poker, Poker Poker Poker, ub, VIP Freeroll, WPT
Comments (3)
Wednesday, November 11, 2009 - Bryan Devonshire
On Tuesday Oct 27th I started play for the Caesar’s Classic $5k main event. I continued to play until there were twenty left. Then I went all in on the button with A7 and 18 big blinds. I was called by Glenn Chorny who had the best hand in online poker, the king and the queen, although he only had one flush draw. The flop came Ac3c3d. Js. Th. I got paid just as much as the first person out did, but not as much as 18th place. Sigh.
Exhausted the next morning the plumbers came over to check on a leak in the kitchen. My sadistic girlfriend scheduled them for 7am. I would have been tilted if I had to play a final table a few hours later listening to them use a Sawzall on the drywall. Hell, it tilted me anyways. Turns out the upstairs drain pipe, which sends the laundry room and upstairs bathroom drainage to wherever it goes was leaking. Hooray for a little bit of my upstairs flushed poops ending up in the kitchen wall. So they cut apart the wall, pulled up carpet, pulled linoleum, and left a mess. Good news tho is that KB Homes is paying for it. Just when everything was about settled it turns out that the water heater was leaking too. That KB isn’t paying for. F it all imo. I packed the truck, packed Shelley, and we headed off to the Phish fest, at the same place Coachella is. Here’s some pics.
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v229/maverickusc/?action=view¤t=phish004500×375.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v229/maverickusc/phish004500×375.jpg
This was home for 4 nights. For the festival they allowed cars to park on the fields and then people camped out of their cars. Was awesome, way better than having to pack and park like Coachella and every other one I’ve been to.
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v229/maverickusc/?action=view¤t=phish002500×375.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v229/maverickusc/phish002500×375.jpg
These were our neighbors from Oklahoma. We made friends with them. They were making tomato, avocato, green onion, and peanut butter sandwiches on wheat using a Grateful Dead glow in the dark frisbee as a cutting board.
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v229/maverickusc/?action=view¤t=phish014500×375.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v229/maverickusc/phish014500×375.jpg http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v229/maverickusc/?action=view¤t=phish037500×375.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v229/maverickusc/phish037500×375.jpg http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v229/maverickusc/?action=view¤t=phish039500×375.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v229/maverickusc/phish039500×375.jpg
Halloween. That’s a man in a loin cloth with a man in a diaper behind him. Just after snapping this pic a woman on a horse walked by behind.
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v229/maverickusc/?action=view¤t=phish039500×375.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v229/maverickusc/phish039500×375.jpg
Sunday morning acoustic set.
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v229/maverickusc/?action=view¤t=phish052500×375.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v229/maverickusc/phish052500×375.jpg
Drove back Monday, was a great weekend. Super stoked that I got to go to this thing, I was always bummed that I never made it to one before they broke up, was an awesome experience.
This week it’s been all about grinding online. I made a deep run in the FTOPS #1, $215 6 max, taking 5th without ever really having a chance. I just mucked my way to a $37k score basically. Hooray!
Peace and good luck,
Devo
Tags: Caesars Classic, FTOPS, Online Poker, Phish Fest
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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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Thursday, September 24, 2009 - Tiffany M
What an exciting few weeks behind and ahead of me! I was thrilled to see The Amazing Race win their 7th consecutive Emmy on Sunday for Outstanding Reality Series. I am so grateful to be apart of such a wonderful TV family and quality reality show that doesn’t merely entertain but challenges people, strengthens relationships, and exposes audiences to world travel and a variety of cultures.
Speaking of The Amazing Race, the season premiere is THIS SUNDAY, 8:00-10:00 PM ET/PT on CBS. I hope you all will set your Tivos for Sunday nights and enjoy watching Maria Ho and I journey around the world.
Another thing I’m looking forward to in the next week or two is jetting off to the Caribbean for the Aruba Poker Classic. I seriously can’t hype this tournament and location enough so I’ll just ask you to picture what it’d be like playing poker in PARADISE. Last year my daily schedule looked something like this: Wake up, have breakfast on the beach, lounge by the pool and play a game of water-volleyball with my poker pals, play some poker, jet ski, sit in the sand and sip on a blended drink while watching the sunset, meet familiar faces at the hotel restaurant/bar for dinner and drinks, play a little blackjack or get a H.O.R.S.E. game going in the casino, bedtime…
and do it all again the next day. Don’t believe me? See for yourself… be there, Aruba… October 3rd!
I’ve started getting back into the poker groove. I’ve had a long sabbatical from the online poker tables but now I’m back! I came 16 people away from winning an $8500 Aruba package, ahhh poker… at least the trip was planned regardless of where I finished in that tournament. I’m back at my trusty ‘ole $1/$2 NL table as well, trying not to lose my entire bankroll a few bucks at a time. Be sure to keep your eyes pealed for some really fun promotionals and tournaments that I’ll be hosting on UB soon. I really enjoy the online UB poker community and I appreciate all of you who come play and chat with me. Hopefully I’ll see ya in Aruba and definitely at the online tables!
(With all this Aruba talk, I thought I’d share some pictures I took last
year!)
Tags: Aruba, Aruba Poker Classic, BC, CBS, Emmy, Maria Ho, Online Poker, Poker Poker Poker, The Amazing Race, Tiffany "Tiffany M" Michelle, ub
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Saturday, September 5, 2009 - Brandon Cantu
I touched on my recent online play in my previous blog. The last week, I was able to fit in some play online at UltimateBet.com. However, I spent the majority of my week by going back home and catching up with old friends. This week marks my 10 Year high school class reunion. It is also the weekend of my annual high school 3-on-3 basketball tournament. Although I do make it a point to go back home and hangout with my good friends who still live there, this week will be filled with many old friends who have moved to other states, other countries and rarely get a chance to hangout and go out with.
Monday: I headed from Las Vegas to Oregon, catching a flight and anxious to get back and see everyone. I will be staying with my good friend, Tony Eggertson throughout the week. Tony and I have been friends forever and we stay at each other’s place whenever we come in and out of town.
Tuesday: I got up decently early and went shopping most of the day, had lunch as Tony and I met up with our friend, Jake. At around 7:00 pm, we all headed out to dinner at Ruth’s Chris Steak House. After dining and chatting about who was going to be coming to town over some drinks, we headed to a local home game and played some friendly poker. 5 AM came fast, us guys headed to a breakfast spot and then headed home.
Wednesday: With the previous last night/early morning, we ended up sleeping till about 2 PM. I wanted to make sure I spent some quality time with my grandparents, so I headed over to meet with my Grandpa and met him at his local hangout, Jolly’s. My Grandfather introduced me to cards and instilled a bit of gamble in me at an early age. I have discussed this in past interviews and/or articles – Grandpa introduced poker to me and we continue to play games and gamble a little bit when we get together. At Jolly’s, I proceeded to drop about a $500.00 dollar loss in pull-tabs. I just could not hit anything. Grandpa couldn’t either. It was fun though spending time with him. After, I went back to Tony’s and played online for a while on UltimateBet.com. Later that evening, we headed over to Chevy’s for a light dinner and some margaritas. Since the guys and I had a pretty late night the previous day, we decided to get back early, stay in, hit the couch, watch Braveheart and sip on a few drinks.
Thursday: We woke up and relaxed throughout the day. We got the social bug around late afternoon and we decided we needed to head out. Tony and I met up with some friends from High School at a restaurant called Oba’s, which is one of the better restaurants in Portland. We ordered their staple entree – Prime Rib. After a solid dinner, we moved along to a bar/lounge called Departure. It was a perfect night and elected to go outside and drink, relax and tell stories about the old days. We were starting to get text messages about more and more people starting to get into town for the reunion.
Friday: One of the biggest days of the year for me and one of the best as well – the annual 3-on-3 basketball tournament. My team consisted of my friends Sean, Kevin and myself. I felt we had one of the best chances to win this tournament. 6 teams, 18 total players. Last year, and as we continue to get older and older, we had some injuries (broken arm in one instance) and I hoped our team would withstand all adversity, go without the need of a substitute or be forced to play shorthanded. Format is to play to 30 points each game with 6 total games to the finals. Due to some weather issues, we were forced to consider some potential changes but everything worked out fine. After battling through the field, my team came away with the championship and the trophy. This next year, I will be able to let everyone know who the champion is and rub it in their faces. I love this tournament! Looking back over the tournament field, it is truly amazing to see everyone who was able to make it. We had friends fly in from New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Virginia, Wyoming to name a few states as well as from as far as Columbia and Taiwan. Great group of friends, so nice to see them. That night we hit the town hard with all the boys. We made the rounds throughout the bars and ended up at one of the larger clubs. The night couldn’t be finished without crushing some Taco Bell at 4 am.
Saturday: I tried to sleep in as late as I possibly could as today is the official 10 Year High School Reunion. Before everyone met up over at Tony’s to have a drink or two and wait for our entire group, I moved in slow-motion, recovery mode. Once we had our collective group of Tony, Jake, Will, Dave and the rest, we headed over to Edgefield where our reunion was taking place at a resort (old workers camp reconstructed into a resort) – hotel, conference rooms, bars, restaurants, etc. Seeing everyone from high school is an experience, which I am sure many can relate to. It was a great time and after getting all the guys to fly in from around the world for the basketball tournament and then this, I knew the night could get out of hand. I was having an amazing week. Typical of our group of guys, we had decided to throw an after party at the resort. We rented out an entire floor with about 10 rooms, bought beer, wine, liquor, had some food brought it and partied until the early morning.
Sunday: On very little sleep, some of the guys and I met up for breakfast. It would be some time before I see a few of them again, so we chatted about the week and nights and replayed the stories and laughed and laughed. After some goodbyes, the remaining headed back over to Tony’s, where we watched some movies and just had a lazy day.
Looking back over the last week and taking in the events, I can say it was an amazing week. I am fortunate to have a great group of friends, some of which I get to see quite frequently. Others, not so much. Therefore, continuing the tradition of our 3-on-3 tournament is a great event for us. The reunion was interesting, of course, but it was essentially a continuation of the basketball tournament and the party continued to go day and night. Also, I was able to fit in a few playing sessions online on UltimateBet.com, jump into a home game for fun and try to get some work in between all the dinners, drinks and catching up with old friends. I am now back in Vegas gearing up for a few weeks on the road. I have London, Amsterdam, UltimateBet’s Aruba tournament all coming up in September and October.
Good luck to everyone who is playing on the road. I hope to see you in Aruba. Travel safe.
Brandon Cantu
Tags: Amsterdam, Aruba, las vegas, London, New York, Online Poker, Play Poker, San Francisco, Seattle, Ultimabet, Virginia, Wyoming
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Thursday, September 3, 2009 - Bryan Devonshire
So turns out Newton or Galileo or whoever way smarter than I said, “Objects at rest stay at rest, objects in motion stay in motion,” was on to something. Today is day 43 that I’ve been away from home on this Great Ride of a motorcycle trip, and for the last seventeen of them the I’ve remained in Cornelius, NC. A bit lazy I admit. But I’ve finally rustled up the motivation to get going again, I’m headed down to Myrtle Beach, SC today, then around the Florida peninsula to Key West, back along the Gulf Coast all the way to Dallas, north to Colorado, and back to Vegas.
I’ve played a lot of poker in the last couple of weeks. I was super disappointed in my result in LA, yet looking back I really don’t see anything I should have done differently. The rest of the last week has been much the same, I feel like I’m playing really well yet running quite poorly. Last night six of us shot a video for PokerVT. Daniel Negreanu, Jon Ettinger, Jon Turner, Josh Norris, and Jason Summerville and I played a 1-2 NLHE 6max game for 2 hours while all independently filming live while talking our way through the hands. I think that it’s going to end up coming out really well. I lost about $200, only playing one big pot where I got all the money in pre with AA v. Daniel’s QQ and he played the flop way better than I flopping a queen.
Also last night I was playing 10-20 Stud8 on Ultimate Bet for a while and busted this guy with a short stack. He had $38 to start the hand, we were five handed, a 6 brought it in, he was showing an ace and completed to $10, and I was next with (K2)K. Normally a very crappy situation in stud8, cause they either have split aces, three to a low, or are on a steal due to the weak board between him and the bring-in. Anyways, since he only had $38 it wasn’t much of a decision, get it in. I do, he actually has split aces, but I play fifth street good and made kings and deuces, he never improved. That launched the most amazing rant ever against me. I had no respect, ruined the game, ruined online poker, etc, because it was obvious that he had aces. He wanted me to apologize, still not sure what for, and the “sad part” was that I “STILL THINK [I] WON”. He said it like a zillion times. I actually gave him a logical response first, saying that it wasn’t much of a decision since he only had two big bets, then I somewhat sarcastically talked about my two pair beat his one pair, but much like a crazy emotional woman logic was lost this dude, so all I could do was encourage him. Tell me more? Yeah? How so? It was amazing, honestly the best berating I have ever been given. He never did reload sadly.
Because of so much poker this week I haven’t done anything too exciting. Got home on Thursday, lazy on Friday, Lake on Saturday, poker on Sunday, played a couple hours in a worse than expected home game Monday afternoon then played online Monday night, and then Tuesday I played tennis with Court, got beat twenty-four games in a row, but had fun lol. I was about as good as possible with that record, and even made it to advantage me once. Came home, played online, slept, laundry now, and ready to go. People wonder why I don’t like playing online. It sucks the life out of you that’s why. So I’m ready to get back on the road, but since it is the WCOOP coming up and I do still do this for a living I’ll probably be stopping a bit early along the way and playing donkaments.
Less poker, more life imo. I’m off to do just that.
Peace and good luck,
Devo
Tags: Daniel Negreanu, Jason Summerville, Jon Ettinger, Jon Turner, Josh Norris, Online Poker, Play Poker, Poker Poker Poker, Poker VT, Ultimate Bet, WCOOP
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Saturday, August 29, 2009 - Brandon Cantu
Prior to signing my sponsorship deal and joining an elite group of pros on Team UB, I had played some online poker. My play was quite irregular, consumed basically with Sunday tournaments and random cash games here and there. I have become known as a live player rather than an online one. However, since signing on with UltimateBet and post WSOP, I have really begun to dig into online poker and cash games much more.
At first, I was playing at my personal $5-$10 table on UB. I realized I wasn’t mentally prepared for it. I was coming off live play all summer at the WSOP. I had some less than stellar sessions, to say the least. I dug down, I refocused and began with some $2-$4 NL tables and started grinding; 5 tabling. What I found was that I was actually enjoying playing online for 10 hours a day. Not to mention, I was playing great. I was getting cards and I was winning. I moved back up to $5-$10 NL tables and still had success. This was about the time that I found some great heads up games. I have noticed since I started playing a ton on UB, heads up games have been the most profitable for me.
I have had some pretty decent online tournament results as well. In early August, I final tabled a UB $120.00 buy-in. I was just getting warmed up for the month and finished 5th for $2000. Things were progressing nicely. On August 16, I was playing the Sunday $500.00 buy-in with a $100k GTD. One particular hand in this tournament has gained notoriety within the Pocket Fives forums. This hand was actually a huge point of the tournament for me as well; a tournament that I went on to win for $36,000.00 and beat out PSMONEY heads up. The aforementioned “misclick” truly did take place and it gave me the energy I needed to close this one out. Lots of people like to say that I “run like god” and either get extremely lucky or blow up with terrible plays. For as many fortunate situations that have rolled my way, an even greater amount of detrimental rolls have come my way. Below, you will find the PocketFives discussion:
http://www.pocketfives.com/poker-forums/7/pretty-sick-misclick-on-ft-of-100k-by-brandoncantu-4586074
I’m watching the FT and this happens. They were playing each other pretty hard. I have no idea if it really was a misclick, there was a pretty good pause before the call.
Stage #1835606603 Tourney ID 4539058 Holdem Multi Normal Tournament No Limit 4,000 – 2009-08-16 21:13:14 (ET)
Table: 24 (Real Money) Seat #4 is the dealer
Seat 4 – WAMMERMOUTH (106,719 in chips)
Seat 5 – BRANDONCANTU (275,282 in chips)
Seat 6 – BLEWJOB (202,157 in chips)
Seat 7 – POCKETSET444 (104,229 in chips)
Seat 8 – PSMONEY (74,995 in chips)
Seat 9 – XWYWROTX (88,618 in chips)
WAMMERMOUTH – Ante 400
BRANDONCANTU – Ante 400
BLEWJOB – Ante 400
POCKETSET444 – Ante 400
PSMONEY – Ante 400
XWYWROTX – Ante 400
BRANDONCANTU – Posts small blind 2,000
BLEWJOB – Posts big blind 4,000
*** POCKET CARDS ***
POCKETSET444 – Folds
PSMONEY – Folds
XWYWROTX – Folds
WAMMERMOUTH – Folds
BRANDONCANTU – Raises 99,999 to 101,999
BLEWJOB – All-In(Raise) 197,757 to 201,757
BRANDONCANTU – Calls 99,758
*** FLOP *** [10d 8h 10s]
*** TURN *** [10d 8h 10s] [Ac]
*** RIVER *** [10d 8h 10s Ac] [10c]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
BRANDONCANTU – Shows [Jd 8d] (Full house, tens full of eights)
BLEWJOB – Shows [Qh Kc] (Three of a kind, tens)
BRANDONCANTU Collects 405,914 from main pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total Pot(405,914)
Board [10d 8h 10s Ac 10c]
Seat 4: WAMMERMOUTH (dealer) Folded on the POCKET CARDS
Seat 5: BRANDONCANTU (small blind) won Total (405,914) HI:(405,914) with Full house, tens full of eights [Jd 8d - B:10s,B:10d,B:10c,B:8h,P:8d]
Seat 6: BLEWJOB (big blind) HI:lost with Three of a kind, tens [Qh Kc - B:10s,B:10d,B:10c,B:Ac,P:Kc] Seat 7: POCKETSET444 Folded on the POCKET CARDS Seat 8: PSMONEY Folded on the POCKET CARDS Seat 9: XWYWROTX Folded on the POCKET CARDS
The chat:
BRANDONCANTU: misclick
BLEWJOB: fml
<< Result for Hand 1835606603 >>
XWYWROTX: lol
BRANDONCANTU wins (405,914) with (Full house, tens full of eights).
XWYWROTX: misclick ftw
Player BLEWJOB has finished the tournament in # 6 place.
PSMONEY: jesus
BRANDONCANTU: OMG
WAMMERMOUTH: wow
BRANDONCANTU: whata misclick
XWYWROTX: haha
XWYWROTX: so sick
WAMMERMOUTH: obvious misclick but damn it worked well
<< Result for Hand 1835608931 >>
Two days after the $100k GTD win, I was playing a VIP 45 Seat tournament. I had a bounty on my head and I was about to make the VIP players earn it. I got off to a slow start as I wasn’t really picking up any hands. I was also playing some other cash games at the time. I then made some plays, doubled up and was moving. I got real focused real fast. I ended up finishing 4th which netted me $400.00. The final table had some really good players. I watched the remainder of the tournament and NIGHTMAREFIS ended up outlasting DONKINITUP, who each took home $1,200.00 and $800.00 respectfully. I must say, these VIP 45 Seat tournaments are a good time.
Mentally, the last few months being a member of Team UB, has improved my game. I feel so comfortable logging into the UltimateBet client, it continues to feel like a home game for me. I am so relaxed and focused. I have easily played the best online poker of my life since joining UltimateBet. I am going to keep working on my online game to improve even more but I cannot lose focus of my live playing goals for the remainder of 2009.
Good luck everyone with all the upcoming travels and tournaments. See you on the road. Look for me playing on UltimateBet.com at both my $5-$10 NL 6-handed and $5-$10 NLHU tables.
Brandon Cantu
Tags: Brandon Cantu, cash games, Online Poker, Team UB, ub, Ultimate Bet, VIP, WSOP
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Tuesday, August 25, 2009 - Billy Kopp
As the newest Ultimate Bet team pro, I’m excited to share my first blog with all of you. For those of you who don’t know, my name is Billy Kopp and I reside in Erlanger, Kentucky. I am twenty three years old and have been playing online poker for the past five years. I got my start into poker by playing small home games with friends. While going to college at the University of Kentucky, I began to play primarily online. I had success and was able to meet other successful players online who helped me to advance my game.
This summer I made a transition into playing more live events. I had a second place finish in the 5k New Orleans WSOP Circuit event for a nice six figure score. After that I proceeded to play in several WSOP events. I was fortunate enough to get 8th in the 5k no limit event and then 11th in the 10k pot limit event. Finally, I finished in the summer out with a 12th place finish in the main event for a little under $900,000. I can proudly say that Ultimate Bet was by far the best site for me to represent. Due to the help of my agency, Suited Connections, I was able to land a long-term deal with the site. I have played on UB for years and have had success in the biggest multi table tournaments they have to offer including a win in their Sunday major. To date, I have never given substantial time to playing cash games. Now, I will be playing cash games along with multi-table tournaments on Ultimate Bet under the name “billy_kopp”.
Lots of people have been asking me what my next live event will be. I am currently in the process of moving to Las Vegas, so the next event for me will probably be the $5,000 main event in Biloxi, Mississippi at the Beau Rivage in September, followed by the Ultimate Bet Aruba Poker Classic in October. Once everything is settled in Vegas I will be playing more live events. On a side note, I want to wish my friend and fellow colleague Adam “Roothlus” Levy good luck in the Legends of Poker tournament going on at the Bicycle Casino right now. Hopefully he can bring home another win for the UB team.
I can’t wait to meet the other team pros in Aruba. I have never played in the Aruba Classic and wish everyone who plays the best of luck. For all of you reading this, I hope to get to play with all of you on the site at some point soon!
Until next time,
Billy Kopp
Tags: Adam "Roothlus" Levy, Aruba, aruba classic, Billy Kopp, las vegas, Legends of Poker, Online Poker, ub, UB Team, Ultimate Bet, WSOP
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Friday, June 19, 2009 - UB Marketing
The week so far has been a lot of planning and preparation for the WSOP main event. We’re gearing up for Phil’s big entrance to the main event, which will be nothing less than spectacular, I’ll promise you that. Just keep in mind that when the emperor enters Rome, everyone knows it and is waiting. That’s all I can really say.
On the web site and poker client, we are preparing for the June 21st 50-Package guaranteed event, which will add to the 115 players we’ve already qualified to the World Series of Poker. We actually have a player who is qualified a total of 4 times. FOUR TIMES! Leave some for the rest of us already. No really, congratulations to you.
After June 21st we’ll be switching our focus to the Aruba Poker Classic, the ultimate island poker tournament. We have already started qualifying players through STEPS but will be adding a ton of other qualifiers in the upcoming weeks. AND, we will be offering another $10M bonus to players for the continuation of the 10th Anniversary celebration. Stay tuned for details on that.
Additionally on the UB site, we have the Daily Highlights page up and running. This page is a quick snapshot of the best tournaments and promotions we have to offer that day. You can navigate up to a week in advance to schedule your busy poker schedule. This way, you don’t have to sift through the endless tourney schedule to figure out when the good events are happening.
Tags: Aruba Poker Classic, Online Poker, STEPS tournament, Ultimate Bet, world series of poker, WSOP
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Tuesday, April 14, 2009 - UB Marketing
Imagine the UB logo on the screen, as it magically moves from the online poker tables to the backside of a UFC fighter’s shorts… Picture a bone-breaking kick to the thighs as the camera zooms in to an ultimate fighter sponsored by the ultimate poker experience.
UltimateBet has entered the arena of UFC—Ultimate Fighting Championship for those afraid of acronyms—with the sponsorship of Martin Kampmann, a former Thai boxing champion who’s now known as The Hitman.
Things are only going to get crazier from here when UB ramps up its presence at the upcoming Ultimate Fighting Championship 97 event set to get underway next week in Montreal, Canada.
Oh, and in case you’re wondering, Kampmann destroyed Carlos Condit in his debut wearing the UltimateBet logo on his ass. That’s one hell of a lucky poker chip.
Tags: martin kampmann, Online Poker, the hitman, ub sponsor, UFC, ufc canada, ufc sponsor, Ultimate Bet, ultimate fighting championship
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