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
Comments (1)
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
Comments (0)
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
Comments (0)
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
Comments (0)
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
Comments (0)
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
Comments (3)
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
Comments (0)
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
Comments (3)
Sunday, April 12, 2009 - Debo34
Not much to report on the debo34 poker front. I’ve been hanging a lot at home and playing a ton of online poker on UltimateBet. I haven’t been playing many multi table tournaments, instead more cash games and sit n go’s. I have also been playing a local cash game at least 2 nights a week which is more than normal for me.
I have been really into the NCAA basketball tournament as well. Something about tournament time every year that peaks my interest. It really doesn’t matter how many regular season games I watch, or how closely I followed it during the regular season. Once the tournament starts I can sit and watch any and every game. When I was in Reno last month I took the bad end of a bet just because I was sick of hearing how good the Big East was and how they were going to have 3 of the final 4 teams. I made the same bet against 3 of my good friends. I gave them all of the Big East teams plus Duke. I was allowed only to take 3 teams of my choice, and whoever had the last team standing won the bet. Now I realize how bad of a bet this was for me. Since the Big East had 5 top 15 teams, all with a legitimate chance to win it all, and I was taking three, I was getting the bad end here. The 3 teams I chose were Memphis, Oklahoma, and North Carolina. So when the final 4 started, I had North Carolina vs. Villanova and Connecticut. When the 2 games ended the bet was over. Both big east teams lost and North Carolina sealed the bet for me. Now I don’t like to rub it in, but since I really don’t like the Big East, I had to give them the needle a little bit. I sent out a text message to all 3 at the same time. All it said was… “ GG Big East “. That was worth more than the money I won on the bet.
So next week I’m off to the Bellagio to play a couple $2500 satellites for the 25k WPT championship. This will be the 3rd year that I have attempted to get into the 25k. I have never played this event so I really want to give it a good run. This event is obviously huge, and loaded with the best players in the world, and I would love to give it a run.
After Bellagio, it’s back home for a month, then back to Vegas for the better part of 7 weeks for the WSOP. I will be renting a house with 6 or 7 other players/friends. It’s pretty much a repeat of last year, except this year I will always have my new video camera handy and can give weekly footage of some of the antics that go on in the house. It can get pretty entertaining around there.
Good Luck
Debo
Tags: NCAA, Online Poker, Vegas, WSOP
Comments (0)
Monday, March 30, 2009 - John Greene
The first time you’re at the final table for any tournament is an experience that can only be described as “nerve-wracking.” I remember a player I know telling me that getting into the final table of a WPT event was worse than the jitters he’d experienced before getting married – he didn’t have the chance to walk away with $250k when he exchanged rings and I’ve felt that nausea that’s a mix of elation and terror myself a few times. There’s a few things you can do to help mitigate this fear, though.
Play The Cards You Are Given
Throughout the majority of the tournament, a good player can do well using his cards and the basic mathematics of poker. In fact, you may well have an advantage over your opponents when you play the game and not the people: bluffing and flashy play tends to come from a certain type of player – the kind you never see at the final table. It’s tight, smart tournament players that get to the end and it’s where the true spirit of the game can come out.
At The Final Table, Play The Players
Math means less when you reach the final table of a poker tournament and the human factor kicks in. It’s obvious that everyone who reaches this point knows the game knows the risks and knows what cards you’re likely (and not) to be holding. Tight players can be knocked out by early bluffing and it might be possible to take big chunks of their bankroll before they even know what’s happening.
In The End, It Might As Well Be Called Luck
If you’re at the final table, you know what starting hands to play and you know when the odds say you should punch out. The problem is that every other player knows this and has gotten to their position by playing smart poker. You’ll have to take some real risks and be willing to be gutshot if you’re aiming at the big slice of the pie, and the sooner you become used to the idea, the sooner you’ll be able to go for it without vomiting.
(Yeah, that happened to me once. I don’t want to talk about it.)
If you’ve reached the final table of a tournament, it’s guaranteed that your entry fee has been taken care of and you’ll be walking away with a healthy profit. It’s maximizing that profit that you’ll have to focus on if you want to play like the pros.
Tags: final poker table, Online Poker, Poker Poker Poker, Poker Strategy, poker tournament, WPT
Comments (0)
