Saturday, October 17, 2009 - Liv Boeree
Well where can I start? I’m sat in Amsterdam airport after a somewhat hellish, screaming child filled ten hour flight back from a certain beautiful little island. The past ten days has been my personal heaven – the Ultimatebet Aruba Classic. After a riotous few days in Amsterdam with various UB pros we arrived in the balmy tropics and got straight to the most important part – locating the rest of the team and hitting the bar.
The first full day was spent on the beach and warming up my tubing skills for the inevitable bouts of last longer bets that were to bound to occur throughout the week. A number of us (including team members Matt Graham, Roothlus, Tiffany and Billy) rented a boat and we went for a very beery cruise involving diving competitions and trying to swim back to the boat against a very strong ocean current.
That night was the opening party including all the free booze and food UB could throw at the guests, and which inevitably ended up in everyone getting thrown in the pool. Lacey Jones and I had a chicken fight aboard Matt Vengrin and Matt Graham (we won, of course), and Phil managed to get through about $10,000 getting ladies to jump in the pool naked.
Lacey and I also got $1000 for one lucky guy who was the first one to jump in naked also… gotta keep the balance between the sexes!
Monday was relatively quiet as it was day 1A, and half of the pros, myself included, had been scheduled for a new UB photoshoot which I can’t wait to see the results of. Tuesday was day 1B, which was my first day of play. I had the Great Poker Ho on my table, who was lauding it up the way only Ho can, rallying the table and generally creating mayhem with some huge pots. Sadly things didn’t go Ho’s way once Robbie Cunningham came to the table and started crushing it utterly. I swear to God he had Jacks or better every other hand for two hours, and played them tricky enough too, knocking Ho out in the process. An interesting (and kinda costly hand) for me was when I had around starting stack and the blinds were 100 200. Robbie makes it 525 in the hijack, I have queens and make it 1600 in the cutoff. However, the supertight girl to my left who hadn’t played many hands at all goes to call his initial raise before I even get chance to act. When I say wait a minute, and do my threebet she instacalls behind anyway. The SB, who has been pretty LAG and was “internetting it up” as they like to say now does a really weird min raise making it 2700. Robbie now says “what the hell do I do?” and flats. I now ask the same question, and chose to call behind too (in hindsight should’ve jammed here, I mean, Laggy guy could have anything, Robbie or the girl, if they have me beat here are reraising) and the girl flats. The board comes A j 10 and Robbie bets out 2/3, I muck, the girl mucks and the SB stuffs it in with… A-10. What does the Cunningham have? Jacks of course.
My day went pretty much downhill from there and I got short after whiffing AK three times, and then found 10s vs QQs which sent me packing to the beach for more fun and frolics that I’ll document next week… tough life!
Tags: Adam "Roothlus" Levy, Amsterdam, Aruba, aruba classic, Billy Koop, Lacey Jones, Matt Graham, matt vengrin, P0ker H0, Phil Hellmuth, Poker Poker Poker, Robbie Cunningham, Tiffany "Tiffany M" Michelle, ub, Ultimate Bet
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Tuesday, October 6, 2009 - Fabio
Right now here in Costa Rica it’s raining a lot and it looks like it will never stop, meanwhile, sunny and beautiful Aruba is heating up the tables and the best live Poker it’s going on. Why am I comparing both places? Not sure… Costa Rica is the one I can refer to and actually, I just wanted you to picture the great time many poker players are enjoying over there.
Just a couple of days ago, my coworkers: Andrea, Mia and David were working around the clock to prepare everything for you and today it is a REALITY. I bet they are having a great time with you guys learning about your poker strategy and of course cheering you up while the game is on.
But, do you know what the most important thing is for them?
Well, that they are finally meeting face to face all those players that not only contact the VIP Department from time to time, but that have become important assets for our operation and of course our lives.
Certainly we do get to know you guys over the phone or chat, but you might agree with me, there is nothing like the “live” contact. Actually this is the main purpose of taking part of the VIP team over there. We want you to stop by and say hi!
As you know, the poker business and important events like the Aruba Poker Classic Tournament are built based on what you guys like and need and what a better way of keep building this empire than hearing what do you have to say. Oh yeah, you can talk about any other thing, too.
Many of you might have already met these guys and if you haven’t make sure to put it on your “Things I must do in Aruba” list. They are just great and have prepared many things for you.
Does the RAI$E Booth or the awesome ICON lounge tells you something? Yeah, I know you are enjoying all these perks and just FYI; you will be able to find the VIP ambassadors over there, too.
Its Wednesday, it’s the 3rd day of playing. The Welcome Party was a blast and many but many things are coming. I just wish you the best of luck and the best time.
Here in rainy but still beautiful Costa Rica, we will be anxiously waiting for great news, pictures and EPIC stories. I bet Andrea, Mia and David will have some… 
Tags: Aruba, Aruba Poker Classic, Costa Rica, Icon, Poker Poker Poker, raise, VIP
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Monday, October 5, 2009 - Annie Duke
A couple of weekends ago I taught a cash game WSOP Academy at the Bicycle Club in LA. During the academies, students get a combination of seminars and hand labs. The seminars are lectures that include some video hand examples. The hand labs give the students a chance to actually play poker in front of the instructors so that the hands they play can get deconstructed. At the end of each hand, the students turn their cards over and the instructors then talk about the good things they did and the mistakes they made. During one of the hand labs at the Bike, I got to experience one of those wonderful moments as a teacher when a student has that Aha! moment.
I was explaining a mistake a student had made. The person in cutoff had raised to 150 (blinds were 25/50). The player in the small blind had then made it 600 and the player in the big blind then made it 1275. The cut off then folded. The small blind now went into the tank for quite a while. While she was in the tank, I was thinking, “I really hope she doesn’t fold since the player in the big blind only min-raised.” At which point, she folded. The small blind now showed AJ and the big blind showed AK. Good fold right? Nope!
Obviously, I first explained what was wrong with the AK only making it 1275. The problem is that really any two cards that reraised in the first place should be calling that bet because of pricing issues so the raise doesn’t really accomplish much. It doesn’t serve to further define the hand of the original raiser and shouldn’t trigger a fold. Now, of course, in this case it did trigger a fold and that was bizarre which is what the discussion was about. I explained that the player holding AJ had to call 675 to win 2025 giving her 3 to 1. And that is why the fold was so bad.
At 3 to 1, if the player in the big blind had turned KK face up, the call would still be mathematically correct since AJ is better than 3 to 1 against KK. Against a hand like TT, the fold is a complete disaster because AJ is even money against that hand getting 3 to 1 from the pot. Even against AK, AJ is about a 3 to 1 dog so the call would be break even against that hand. The problem is that against the kinds of hands that the big blind could be playing, it is true that AJ rates to be the worst hand but it is also true that it doesn’t matter because there was enough money in the pot for the amount of the call to make it mathematically worthwhile to put the 675 in the pot.
I could see that the table was having a lot of trouble with the concept. I was having difficulty getting them to understand that it is okay to call even when you are 100% sure you have the worst hand if there is enough money in the pot to justify it. If you are going to win a hand 1 out of every three times but the pot is paying you as if you will only win 1 out of 4 times then you will make money on the call. Simple as that. But the students definitely were not getting it.
Then I had a thought. I realized I could show them that they all call on a regular basis when they know they don’t have the best hand. I pulled out the QJh and said, “What if that were your hand?” Then I pulled a board of Ah8h2s. I asked them how many of them would call a bet in this spot. They all said they would. Then I asked how many of them thought they had the best hand right now. Then the light bulbs started going on. They started getting it. Obviously, no one thought they had the best hand with the QJh on that board but they all would call because they figure they would make a flush enough of the time to make the call profitable. Their opponent could show them AK there and they would still all call. Somehow the flush draw makes it an obvious call even though you definitely don’t have the best hand right then.
But flush draws aren’t the only drawing hands. In fact, all hands are drawing at something. In the case of AJ vs AK, you are drawing at a J (or KQT). AJ vs KK is drawing for an A. Now if you are drawing for a flush there are more cards in the deck that help but it is no different in the sense that either way you are drawing. It is just about how many cards you are drawing for. The more cards you are drawing for, the more liberally you can call. The fewer cards you are drawing for the better your pot odds need to be.
Seeing the students’ faces light up as they got it was really cool. In fact, it is why I teach.
Tags: Bicycle Club, Poker Poker Poker, WSOP Academy
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Sunday, October 4, 2009 - Liv Boeree
The past week has been mostly spent in and around Leicester square for the WSOPE, which despite the fact that I didn’t get to play the main event, I still found reasons to go down there. Probably the biggest of these was the players lounge opening which contained a certain little game that is very close to my heart – table football. I probably shouldn’t mention this as I’m gonna kill all my future action, but blimey do I love hustling in that game. Noone ever suspects a thing when you start playing for small stakes (10 – 20 pounds per game), lose a few to them and then suggest double or quits, and with most poker players loving a bit of gambling action they jump at the chance. Next thing I know, we’re playing for a hundred a game, multiple times. I even got two players to play me two on one, and give ME odds! By the end of the night I’d made close to a 1000 pounds!!
Aside from this degeneracy, the other fun thing this week was a trip down to my parents’ house with a bunch of my poker playing friends including team UB pro Michael Binger. Everyone had seemed desperate to get out of the city and see some of the real England so I made sure they got the full experience including a bit of horse riding, a bit of some half rugby/half american football weird game we made up and then some prop betting on who could hold the electric fence the longest. Michael won that one rather convincingly! The day ended with a proper English dinner at the local country pub – would could be better?
Tags: Amsterdam, Michael Binger, Poker Poker Poker, ub, WSOPE
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Thursday, October 1, 2009 - Liv Boeree
Well this week hasn’t been remarkably different from the last one except for instead of bubbling, I bombed out of the one tourney I played nice and early. This was event 1 of the WSOPE, the £1k buyin that got you all of 3000 chips and left you basically one hand to play with, which in my instance was Aces vs someone’s 10s which spiked a ten leaving me making friends with the bartender and seeing how many peanuts I can throw into a bowl while waiting for my friends to also bust the event.
So since then I’ve been doing what any self-respecting Londoner poker player would do when the WSOPE circus gets into town and that’s party party party (something I do even better than bubbling). Lots of the UB crew are in town including Brandon Cantu, Michael Binger and Phil Hellmuth, and we’ve been pretty busy showing London just how it’s done. We’ve partaken in an orgy of prop-betting and drunken cash games at the Barracuda (my head still hurts from that one) and even hired out the private booth at the USA Sports Bar (because you Americans can’t bear to take on our proper sports). At this bar Phil filmed a rather entertaining video which I will promote by saying that someone gets topless… for those of you who can’t resist the promise of nudity here it is: http://www.twitvid.com/122FD
FD Who said poker isn’t glamorous?
Tags: Brandon Cantu, London, Michael Binger, Phil Hellmuth, Poker Poker Poker, ub, WSOPE
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Wednesday, September 30, 2009 - Vincent
Like Ultimate Bet, Poker here in Costa Rica is HOT and all of us (the VIP Hosts) are attending to some poker tourneys at some parties and on several Casinos from around here; however, it is a shame we do not have such extraordinary tourneys over here than the ones offered at the UB Website. My favorite one is the Mercedes Giveaway!
Why? Right now I am getting my driver’s license and playing some poker games in order to save as much money as possible to buy a Mercedes. Of course it would have been a lot easier if the poker games from around here would’ve offer a hot, beautiful and gorgeous Mercedes ML-350 like the one that it is currently offered at our website.
Can you imagine yourself seating on that soft, comfortable and perfectly designed leather driver’s seat? OH MY GOD! And then calling your buddies or arriving at any place on such a majestic piece of art which is this breath-taking beautiful car. And then hear your buddies say to you:
“Hey man.. How come you were able to afford such cool car?”
And then you respond to that all cocky:
“The magic of POKER!!!” Hehe
I can imagine myself going to the beach with the music really loud, driving to the horizon, drinking a refreshing piña colada (without alcohol.. remember that I am driving.. lol) and talking non-sense with my buddies in order to shorten the travel time and be able to arrive to the hotel and go to the beach in time to get the coolest waves in Guanacaste. That would be totally awesome and you guys as Ultimate Bet’s players have the chance of taking home this extraordinary car. How fortunate each one of you are, I would definitely love being able to take part of this giveaway if I were you.
http://www.ultimatebet.com/poker-promotion/mercedes-giveaway
I wondering right now who is going to become the owner and take home this beautiful Mercedes by winning this exclusive Giveaway!
I wish you the best of luck for you all!
Tags: Hot, luck, majestic, Mercedes Giveaway, Party, Poker Poker Poker, VIP, wheels
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Sunday, September 27, 2009 - Billy Kopp
Well, the golf has been put on hold a few times due to some rainy days here in the bluegrass state. However, there are a lot of other things going on right now. It was a crazy and exciting weekend as it will be my last here in Kentucky for some time. First I would like to mention my good friend and fellow poker player Doug who was not able to take part in the festivities due to having heart surgery sometime this week. It’s never the same when one of the biggest partiers I know is stuck in a hospital, and we all have to worry about his health. We got word Friday night that things are looking up and can’t wait until he can get back on his feet.
This weekend was a big one in Lexington due to the football game. Kentucky played Louisville which is only about 80 miles from here. This is always a huge and exciting game because many of us at Kentucky have friends from high school who went or go to Louisville. Everyone we know from there came up for the game and was a blast. My friend James from Boston even came down to get a glimpse of what it’s all about here. This is always a huge rivalry in football and basketball. Kentucky was the favorite by almost 14 points and barely sneaked out a victory. We had way too many turnovers but somehow managed to win. This is crucial because the apartment that I rented before I decided to move is on the biggest party street near campus. It’s so wild that I usually watch the game on TV and party with lots of people around here. That may also be due to the fact that in the SEC you can’t purchase alcohol at collegiate sporting events, but that’s debatable! Also, the partying and bar scene is never the same after a loss, so I was glad we managed to get a win my last weekend here.
I am officially leaving on Thursday to live with my friend in Las Vegas until I close on my house there. I have been rushing to get lots of things finished up here in Kentucky before the big move. I’m actually going to the post office right now. I realized that I have lost my passport, great timing About 12 days from now I will be in glorious Aruba taking part in the best poker tournament of the year. I’m going to cut this a big short so I can get some other errands finished as well. I hope all of you are running satellites or steps so that you can win a seat to the Aruba Classic. I would love to meet all of you out there in October. Best of luck!
Billy Kopp
Tags: Aruba, aruba classic, basketball, Football, Golf, Kentucky, las vegas, Poker Poker Poker, poker tournaments, Satellites, STEPS
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Saturday, September 26, 2009 - Brandon Cantu
Finally, my favorite time of the year has arrived. This particular time of year in the poker world is filled with travel, layovers in airports, international tournaments, and lots of hotel rooms. Of course to me traveling is one of my favorite things in life, if not the single most important one. However, this time of year also brings about my other passion in life. Perhaps, this passion could almost be referred to as my true life calling – Fantasy Football. At last, football season has finally started again.
First off, I should mention that I had a decent week playing online. I was getting a ton of emails, texts, and twitter messages after I was running bad one day. I even threatened via twitter to quit playing poker forever is this playing kept up. Despite what everyone says, that I run “like god,” I still have terrible weeks. Regardless, a couple days later I ended up winning the Ultimatebet.com $30 NLH w/ re-buys and the Stars $50 NLH w/ re-buys on the same day. That made up for the previous days and brought even more tweets and texts that I am indeed one of the luckiest player on the planet. Hopefully, I will be able to find some time to play online over the next few weeks. I do leave this coming Wednesday for London and running around Europe a bit and then Aruba for the UB Classic, so we will see if I can get some online time in.
Despite how much I love to travel, this is one of the only times you will hear me say that I do not want to leave home. Last night was the start of the NFL football season and the start of my second job, a Fantasy Football General Manager. I live and breathe for Fantasy Football. The last few years I had made some pretty good money playing. This year, I tried to find as many leagues as possible and I have to say, it was a pretty dry year for finding leagues to get in for whatever reason. I was only able to get in four leagues – a $5k, $2k, $200.00 and $200.00. The $5k is league filled with mostly online players, such as the likes of: MrSmokey, “yellowsub”, Big Joe, Christian Harder, Mike “inissint” Glasser, to name a few. The $2k league has a very similar lineup of players. One of the $200.00 leagues is with Matt Brady, Dave Fox and others. The last $200.00 league is with my friends from high school.
I believe that I find my biggest edge in Fantasy Football – even over my Hearts game. I study and review NFL teams, roster moves, upcoming scouting of opponents, the whole gamut. My teams this year are very strong. I am expecting big things this season. I hope that I can remain focused through mid-October with the travel. But, I am ready to go. Bring all these online players on in Fantasy; they don’t know what they are in for.
As I finish writing this, I am getting more and more upset that I am leaving for Europe now. Not only must I continue on my path of becoming the best Fantasy Football GM in history, but I am going to miss Sundays at my house, which are usually filled with online poker, friends, catered food, drinks, pool/hot tub and 4 big screen TVs on the wall for all our viewing pleasure. Oh well, I am going to leave and play hard for UltimateBet.com.
Tags: Aruba, Football, London, Poker Poker Poker, UB Classic
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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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Wednesday, September 23, 2009 - HollywoodDave
OK so not to go all New Age-y on you guys, but lately I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the power of positive thinking. Not in “The Secret”-kinda way, in which we specifically manifest certain outcomes based on fervent visualization, but rather more of an all-purpose stress reliever. To be honest, I’ve noticed as I’ve grown the past couple years that my thought patterns have become increasingly negative and as an adult, its my responsibility not to be held hostage any thoughts or behaviors that hold me back from being the best person I can be.
By negative I don’t mean fixating on doom-and-gloom scenarios for my future as much as just catching myself in the moment expecting the worst despite the odds being just as much in my favor as against. Somewhere along the way, the glass became half-empty rather than half-full. I didn’t notice it for the longest time because at any given moment if I were to think about my hopes, dreams and aspirations for the future, of course I knew I would continue to strive each and every day towards success in my goals not only as a professional gambler, but as an actor, artist, writer, and producer as well. Poker and blackjack to me has always just been a glorified survival job (albeit one with incredible perks!), but at the end of the day I’ve never stopped my pursuit of success in the arts.
Thing is, despite having such a clear picture of the not-so-distant future, along the way the present stopped looking so perfect. For awhile it was easy to blame it on random negative circumstances around me, like running bad in poker or a death in the family. But recently I’ve been coming to terms with the fact that my default, present-moment position is one of skepticism and doubt — rather than the positive view I have for my future. And i’m starting to realize that in order for the future positivity to come about, the present must match it with equal intensity.
In poker this manifests as assuming we will win the big one “one day,” but whenever we are in a coinflip for our stack in the present moment, thinking we will obv be on the wrong side. Or that our all ins with flush or straight draws will inevitably miss. And so this elusive perfect future, which is challenging enough to achieve, suddenly has the additional roadblocks of our present moment negative thought processes as well. Those overcards or flush draws are going to happen or not, on their own merits — so why complicate the situation with unnecessary burdens along the way?
Positive thinking is really about positively increasing one’s daily quality of life. The future will take care of itself (and hopefully one has the biggest and boldest of dreams to strive toward), so changing our present-moment thoughts to more positive ones at the very least makes us happier & certainly couldn’t hurt our chances of achieving our dreams one bit! And given the choice to live each moment to its fullest and brightest or not, i choose the positive approach. Or at least I’m consciously trying to, anyway…. our pattern of thoughts doesn’t change overnight. It took years to develop these mental crutches and I’m hoping with a little effort it won’t take nearly as long to rebound.
So that’s been my week, folks. Deep thoughts & a strong desire to change for the better. Amazing what a couple days in LA will do for ya!
rock on –
-hd.
Tags: Hollywood Dave, New Age, Poker Poker Poker, positivity, The Secret
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