Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - Matt Graham
So I have never met or played with Clonie Gowen through my years of playing poker. I had my first chance at the Gulf Coast Poker Championships last week. I have obviously heard the horror stories about her through gossip so when saw that I was at her table I figured it would be interesting. It was… For the first few hours nothing negative happended at all. Clonie even helped me get the channel changed in the poker room. I had tried to ask the floor person, but was blown off. Clonie saw this and used her “fame” to get the channel changed. I was starting to wonder why people love to gossip about her so much. She seemed nice enough.
Finally to the incident. So I am in the cutoff and raise to 600 at 100-200 with 78d. Action folded to Clonie in the BB and she called. The flop comes out 7AK with one diamond. We both check the flop. The turn is a 3d giving me a flush draw. Clonie leads into the pot for 1000, I call. The river is a 7. Jackpot!!! Clonie bets 1500 which was a relatively small bet. I had hoped she would bet more but what can ya do? I knew any raise from me would look super strong, but at the same time I had been the most active player at the table by far so I figured there is a good chance that she would hero call me, thinking I was bluffing. I throw out 6500. The dealer pulled in the 1500 from each of us, leaving my single blue 5K chip as the raise. Clonie thinks for awhile and finally flips her wrist to throw in what one would assume was a call.
But no, she had actually thrown two blue chips into the pot meaning she raised me an additional 5K. I quickly call and flip my hand and Clonie looks disgusted. She said she meant to just call. I figured that was the case, but hey its not my fault she threw in the wrong amount. For a moment it appeared she was ready to move on and that she had made a mistake, but this was not going to be the case. She looks a bit confused trying to make her case for the bet being a call, but was getting nowhere so she decides to call the floor. The floor person walks over and asked what happened. I attempted to tell him, but since Clonie was the person who called him he wanted to hear her version first. To my shock she tells him exactly what happened accurately! The floor says that if she did not say “call” that the chips have to stay in the pot. Clonie then starts to claim she said call… The whole table is now looking around at each other since none of us heard it and it was clearly a lie. She starts yelling at me that I knew what she meant to do. I told her that I knew she wasnt shooting an angle and meant to call, but there was nothing I could do about it. I cannot give someone a break on something like that, especially in a tournament.
So I obviously tell all of my buddies during break about what happened. We all laugh a little and talk about other interesting hands, when she comes up behind me and starts calling me a liar and that if I am going to tell the story I should tell the truth. I blow her off at this point since her tilt is not worth my time. I simply told her she was lying and that its not my fault she can’t throw in the proper bets. Anyways I hear from a few people that she was walking around telling people that I shot an angle on her. God knows what story she told but, I just hope this story gets around a little bit. I have never shot an angle in my life and I didnt in this case. If you read this Clonie, maybe you should take responsibility for your mistake and stop looking for someone else to blame.
Tags: poker cahmpionships, Poker Poker Poker
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Sunday, September 20, 2009 - Annie Duke
I am so excited for this weekend. I do about 7 or so WSOP Academies per year (some with UB’s own P0ker H0, Shawn Rice and Matt Graham and even Mr. Hellmuth will sometimes make an appearance). But whenever I can do one in my hometown it is pretty special. Special mainly because it means I don’t have to fly to Vegas and stay in a hotel and be away from my house. When you travel as much as I do believe me that is a special treat. Any extra time I get to sleep in my own bed is pretty special to me.
This weekend I will be at The Bicycle Club teaching my first ever cash game academy. The WSOP Academy has done a few cash game academies but never one where I am the instructor so I am really excited to branch out from the normal tournament play instruction I do. Joining me at this camp will be Ali Nejad and Shawn Rice so it should be really fun since both of those guys are really great. I spent this afternoon watching video clips from High Stakes Poker to analyze during the academy. Those are a really great learning tool since showing concepts in action is about the best way to really reinforce points.
It is also really valuable to show students that the top pros sometimes screw up :) I know I screw up all the time and I think players often make too many decisions based on fear of making a mistake. That kind of decision making process always leads to more mistakes rather than fewer since your decisions are driven by fear of screwing up rather than finding the actually correct line of play in a hand. Fear of failure rarely creates good decisions or successful outcomes so seeing that even the top players in the world make mistakes I think is a really good lesson to learn. I think it frees people up to realize that screwing up is okay as long as you see the screw up as an opportunity to learn. I know when I screw up I use it as a way to improve my game and I rarely get upset about it. This kind of attitude where you see opportunity in your mistakes also really helps stop tilt.
The video analysis is a new piece of the camp for me and I am really looking forward to analyzing the hands for the students. I am also going to be doing a full on pot odds section which I will no doubt really enjoy since unlocking the magic of math is always fun for me. Considering the tweet I got the other day, others may not feel the same though:
DivePoker@RealAnnieDuke looking forward to the impossible math this weekend…apparently the WSOP accademy is 100x harder when you’re around lol!
I, of course, consider that tweet a compliment 
Tags: high stakes poker, Matt Graham, P0ker H0, Phil Hellmuth, Poker Poker Poker, ShawnRice, ub, Vegas, WSOP Academy
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Friday, September 18, 2009 - Billy Kopp
Since my last blog, I have been playing more cash games and less multi table tournaments on Ultimate Bet. I really want to play cash games more often, especially live when I get to Vegas. The intense volume I am able to put in online is great practice and I am still turning a nice profit. The rest of the time that I haven’t been playing or blogging, I have been spending playing golf.
I’m trying to get back into the game of golf after not playing for about three years. I played golf in high school at a very small private school and was fairly decent. I remember buying my first set of irons for about $250. I wasn’t completely satisfied with them but they were new and what I could afford at the time. Throughout the four years I played in high school I felt that I was an inferior player partially because of the equipment I was using. The whole set of clubs that I bought in 2000 were still in my garage at the beginning of this year. Deciding to get back into the game, I told myself that I needed new equipment because mine was outdated and hindering my performance on the course. Clearly the reason why I was subpar in high school was because I had mediocre clubs and the small mark in my driver was definitely affecting how straight my drives were and was causing me to hit it in the rough more often (or so I thought).
One of my high school golf teammates now owns golf shop. I contacted him and got fitted for my new equipment that was going to make me a scratch golfer for sure. I got a whole new setup: custom bag, irons, woods, wedges, tees, balls, shoes, gloves, you name it. Man I looked good on the course the first day I got back out. I laced up my comfortable Adidas shoes, and strapped on my new leather glove. I’m on the first tee with my ProV1 golf ball (the best ball on the tour so they say, also to note the most expensive) teed up on a high 4 inch tee about to be sent a million miles down the fairway from the strike of this amazing new Taylor Made R9 driver that had just come out at the time. I address the ball and line up my shot. I take a proud swing and looked for the ball that should be straight down the middle of the fairway; however it is nowhere near there. I see the ball bouncing about 45 yards to left. Apparently I got too excited and pulled my head up and topped the ball. No problem, I haven’t played in three years I’ll just take a mulligan. I re-tee another one and address the ball. I crushed it! I crushed it 260yards to the left AGAIN but ending up in the rough an entire hole over. I continued to play and hacked up the course pretty badly. How could this be?? I have the best/ most expensive equipment and I played worse than when I was in high school with mediocre equipment.
All jokes aside, the equipment I now have is amazing and of better quality than the equipment of my past. It has already helped me in small ways the little that I have played. The main point is that regardless of how great or how poor your equipment is, the over bearing factor is more importantly the person or the user. Looking back, I loved golf but I didn’t really put in the time and effort to become a great golfer. I recall skipping the chipping and putting practices to rush to the driving range to crush drives. I didn’t practice correctly to improve myself throughout the years, but I was satisfied with being a “decent” player. I started back into the game recently with the wrong approach once again but didn’t realize it until now. I expected to go out and be just as decent or better than I was 6-10 years ago and then improve very quickly. Equipment aside, I am not in as good of shape and I also hit my clubs different distances now. I had not gone to the range multiple times before I got back on the course to get distances down on the clubs or to practice putting and chipping. Coming into the game blind after three years of no practice or coaching and expecting to do well was highly unrealistic.
In high school I played better than I do now due to some coaching and the help of my peers. I also put in more time walking on the course and reading greens in practice rounds than now and I was only merely decent then. Although I ride in a cart now because I’m too lazy to walk the course, I’m still capable of studying the course, greens, etc. and need to, to become remotely decent at the game of golf. I played years and years of online poker tournaments to put in intense volume to gain experience. I met other successful players (peers) to talk to about hands and gain advice and more experience. I sacrificed sleep, school, outings with friends, joining a fraternity, and even my health at times to get to where I am today but it has paid off!
I put 100% of my competitive spirit into poker and made it a large part of my life. To become the golfer I want to be, I would have to put in the same hours and practice and make the same sacrifices as I did for poker to be classified as a professional in another field by my peers. Realistically, I can’t devote that amount of time to golf as I have and do to poker to become great at golf at this time in my life. I am satisfied being am amateur golfer but no longer just a decent golfer. I want to be a good golfer and I am going to need to spend lots more time preparing myself to play on the course. Currently I am only finding time to get in a quick 9 or 18 holes and it has been a major waste of time. The relaxation part of golf has become stressful and counterproductive due to playing poorly. I am going to the range tomorrow to start the process of preparing myself to become a good golfer. I need to get a few golf lessons in, so let me know if someone out there reading this wants to trade a few golf secrets for a few poker secrets!
Until next time, hit ‘em straight and hope to see you joining me in the cash games on UB.
Billy Kopp
Tags: Adidas, Billy Kopp, Golf, Poker Poker Poker, ub, Ultimate Bet, Vegas
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Friday, September 18, 2009 - Michaelbinger
It has been a busy week since I last wrote! I’ve embarked on a 5 week multi-purpose/multi-destination trip. First stop was a 4 day vacation in the Hamptons. It was nice and relaxing… had massages, hung by the pool, some online poker. From there I spent a few days in NYC hanging out with friends. Good times. I went sailing for the first time last Thursday… out in Long Island Sound. A friend that I met in Guyana on the volunteer mission I did with Victor Ramdin this summer… Craig, a doctor from NY… has a 37 foot sailboat. It was very windy and wavy, which makes for exciting sailing! Seemed like most of the time the boat was at a 45 degree angle. It’s tough to steer the boat in a straight line in those conditions…
From there I went to Philly for the wedding of my good friend/agent/manager Eric Brewstein and Michelle. I was a groomsman so had to show up a day early for the rehearsal. The wedding day itself was spectacular… there were two weddings: First a Catholic ceremony appropriate to the brides family. After that a Jewish ceremony for Eric’s family. The party afterwards was amazing. I tore up the dance floor all night, which is scary because I usually never dance! But the band, the atmosphere , and the company was that good.
Anyway, this Sunday I played some online tournies and cash games, including the $530 buy-in on Ultimate Bet, which I final tabled and took 7th place.
I am going to film a poker show called Inside Deal for ESPN this week and then off to Raleigh to see my Mom and family. It will be great to see everyone as I haven’t been home since Christmas.
From there to the Borgata for the WPT event, then London for the WSOP Europe, and finally Aruba before getting home in October.
For now I’m off to bed…
Michael Binger
Tags: Aruba, espn, Inside Deal, Poker Poker Poker, ultimatebet, WPT, WSOPE
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Thursday, September 17, 2009 - Liv Boeree
This week’s been one of my hardest ever in poker. As you can probably tell from the title of this blog, I experienced the agony of the bubble. Now obviously this is something none of us who have ever played more than a few tournaments have not experienced, but my encounters with it over the past few days have been none other than exemplary. It all started on Sunday, where you UB regulars may have been aware of, or indeed playing in, the 50 seat Aruba guarantee. This was UB’s $500 buy in massive giveaway of fifty $8,500 golden tickets to their annual Aruba Classic tourney (and if you don’t know what that is I dunno what planet you’ve been living on). Now I’m already going to Aruba either way, but I won a step into this 50 seat mega to try and win another seat which baEnsically equals a bucketload of cash. Anyway, I played pretty near perfect all tournament until we got to just 70 players, and then combination of factors allowed me to get short but then I did the inexcusable thing of miss a couple of vital blind stealing opportunities to get myself back to healthy. Next thing I knew there were just 55 left and I was looking like it’d all be ok with me sat in 48th. However lady luck seemed to favour a number of these shorterstacks and before I knew what was happening there were 51 left, and only 1 person shorter than me and he was at my table. By this stage neither of us had any fold equity whatsoever so I tried to play the waiting game. He decided to play it even more and left himself with basically two hands left (the antes were huge) knowing the blinds were about to go up and eat my stack completely. And they did. And I finished stone cold bubble for 51st out of nearly 800 for 50 seats after sitting up til 5am UK time and ready to throw myself out a window.
However, Monday morning made me suck it all up as I had to head up to Nottingham to play the first ever English Poker Open, a $5k buy in tourney featuring pros such as Phil Hellmuth and Doyle Brunson so I was pretty excited to be playing it. Things started slowly for me but then I got moved to the feature table with James Akenhead and Devilfish. Devilfish pretty promptly doubled me up in a really interesting hand that I’ll write about next week, and then I cruised from there til the end of day 1 with about 60 of the 213 entries remaining.
Day 2 started a bit rocky with me getting short at one point but then getting it up to about 50k average with around 35 left and rapidly approaching the bubble. I then proceeded to run big hand into bigger hand in quick succession leaving me with a short shovable stack and doing the shovey thing at what seemed like an appropriate moment to get called off by yet another monster busting me again close to the money. Anyway, starting just as I busted was a super deep structure $750 event so I jumped straight back into the saddle to play that. This one went really well and before I knew it I’d played 10 hours and we were seven from the money and I had a healthy stack and picked up those darling little weapons (the AA) and got it all in versus the big stack with 44s. Can you guess happened? Where’s the rope…
Tags: Aruba, aruba classic, Devilfish, doyle brunson, English Poker Open, James Akenhead, Phil Hellmuth, Poker Poker Poker, ub
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Wednesday, September 16, 2009 - Roothlus
So this past weekend was awesome. So many great things happened and as a whole September is an unreal month. I’d say it ranks up there with the likes of December and June with July an honorable mention. There is so much going on this month: college football, pro football, real football (soccer hehe), new shows on television, the U.S. Open, the VMAs and the weather is still in top form. Oh and Labor Day weekend is definitely one of the best weekends of the year. I mean, the list just goes on and on. There will be no poker in this blog just me discussing the merits football and soccer, my newfound admiration for tennis, but most importantly, Kanye West. I mean, what’s a blog without Kanye freakin’ West!?
I’m really happy to see the NFL back. During the summer months there is this void in any true sports fan’s heart. There needs to be multiple sports going on at once. And for a two month span it’s only baseball. Come on. Baseball?? What a snoozefest. I used to like baseball a long time ago probably before I was enlightened by the internet and my attention span was a bit longer. It’s just so boring pitch to pitch. Yes, there are brief moments of excitement but they are few and far between. As well, it’s the middle of the season and it’s hard to stay interested in something not ending for 100 games. NFL is similar to that but it’s still faster paced and there is excitement on nearly every play not just a couple here and there. While I’m no Nostradamus, I do think Green Bay, Dallas, and the Giants looked excellent in the first week. I thought Minnesota could be great but Favre is a huge asterisk. The ending to the Bengals-Broncos game was incredible and such an unlikely turn of events to end the game. It’s things like these fluke occurrences that make football an incredible sport.
Soccer helps fill that void midway through the summer. While I have said football is a phenomenal sport, soccer is my favorite. The structure of a soccer game is great compared to all the other sports. It’s two 45 minute halves with no commercials with a twenty minute break in between. And these 45 minute halves run straight through. There’s no stop when the ball goes out of bounds or commercial breaks, just injury time, which is a couple of minutes at the end for fouls and other stoppages during the half. Commercial time outs are definitely one of the worst attributes of American sports. Soccer hasn’t succumbed to it yet, even Major League Soccer thankfully. Also, while yes scoring in soccer is few and far between, the buildup to each and every goal is exciting and tense. Because there is less scoring there is also a massive importance on each goal so mistakes can prove to be deadly. On top of all this, the idea of being able to hit a ball with your head is just cool. I love that there are a lot of different leagues going on in a typical soccer season as well. There are each country’s respective leagues and then there’s the Champion’s League, a league for the champions of the individual leagues. There are some other smaller leagues going on as well but thrown in the mix are World Cup qualifiers as if everything else wasn’t enough to keep things interesting. Okay, that’s enough on soccer for now.
I became a new fan of tennis this past week with the U.S. Open. I watched an epic match between two unknowns that ended up being the longest match in U.S. Open history. After that, watching Federer’s unbelievable shot between the legs on Sunday and Del Potro’s unfathomable victory against Federer in the finals Monday was enough to have me hooked. Federer had a SIX YEAR winning streak at the U.S Open spanning forty matches. That’s just unheard of for any sport and to watch the match where someone coming out of nowhere to take the title and break the streak was truly gripping.
Lastly, the best part of the weekend was Kanye West acting like a total goon. I don’t need to go into it because quite frankly, if you haven’t heard what he did this weekend then you must live in a box. I have no idea what could compel him to interrupt Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech which had to be one of her most special moments in her young life. Kanye must think he’s untouchable but if he keeps these antics up he’ll find himself out of the limelight fairly quick. The best part about what he did are these photoshops popping up all over the place having him interrupting different icons and saying another person was better. It’s been dubbed Kanye Gate and quite frankly, it’s hilarious.
Well, I hope you enjoyed this blog and this action-packed weekend as much as I did. Until my next blog, talk to you soon.
–Adam “Roothlus” Levy
Tags: Baseball, Champions League, Football, Kanye West, NFL, Poker Poker Poker, Taylor Swift, Tennis, US Open, VMA's
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Saturday, September 12, 2009 - Tiffany M
The last you heard from me it was to announce that I’d be missing the WSOP Main Event… which was almost three months ago. Most of you have heard buzz through internet chatter but CBS just officially announced that Maria Ho and I will be on the next season of The Amazing Race. The cat is out of the bag! When asked to be on the six-time Emmy Award winning show, it wasn’t too hard of a decision to skip the WSOP Main Event, contrary to other ridiculous rumors explaining my mysterious absence. Be sure to check out The Amazing Race at www.cbs.com for more info, photos, bios and videos galore!
As you can imagine, it’s been an insane few months but I am back, in more ways then one. After an amazing and life changing experience, I’m slowly getting back into the groove of things and the rhythm of American life as well as getting back into the poker swing. I’ve re-signed on to stay with UltimateBet as one of their Star Players so you’ll be seeing me back at the online tables and in ARUBA!
Speaking of Aruba, for any of you who enjoy poker AND paradise, I highly recommend coming to Aruba. I’ve traveled all over the world playing poker and it’s been my favorite destination. They have the whitest beaches that I’ve ever seen, the bluest water, tons of ocean activities and 24/7 Pina Coladas and pool time… or you’ll have to try out the CHERRY Colada which Layne Flack introduced me to last year. The vibe there is so chill and will put you in the best mood… even if you donk out of a poker tournament!
Well I have a busy few months coming up and I’ll keep you posted on all of it. Be sure to set your Tivos to CBS this fall, The Amazing Race airs on Sunday nights at 8pm ET and PT, with the two hour premiere on Sunday, September 27th. I can promise that the action Maria and I provide will be MUCH more exciting than anything you’ll see at the poker tables.
Much Love!
Tags: Aruba, CBS, Emmy Award, Maria Ho, Poker Poker Poker, The Amazing Race, ultimatebet, WSOP
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Thursday, September 10, 2009 - Liv Boeree
Now I’m back in London I’m having kind of a crappy week dealing with the mundane and the not so mundane, including some rather large life changes such as house moves and figuring out where I want to live for the foreseeable future. I am finding myself increasingly drawn to the “Land of the free” as you people call it, and could well be heading out west yonder (back to the country speak too). I’m not sure when, or even to which city (most like LA or Vegas) but I reckon by the end of the year for sure, so it’s exciting times!
The next thing I’m really excited about is the English Poker Open that I’m playing in next week – Phil Hellmuth and Doyle Brunson are also coming over to play the event, which is a $5k buy in with $1m guarantee, and it’ll be by far the biggest tourney I’ve ever played on my home turf so it seems only right that I should win it, don’t you think? Til then I’m gonna be playing online on UB – I’ve rediscovered my love for cash again over the past few weeks, having not played much at all for nearly a year. It’s too easy to get swept up in the glory and gratification that tourneys dangle infront of your face each time you enter one and had forgotten the joys of good, deep-stack grindery. Even just playing a few hours a week has helped re-vamp my game immensely over the past month and has truly blown away the cobwebs of stuck-in-a-rut post-WSOP poker blues!
Tags: doyle brunson, English Poker Open, London, Phil Hellmuth, Play online, Poker Poker Poker, ub, Vegas, WSOP
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Wednesday, September 9, 2009 - HollywoodDave
OK, first off — someone please remind me that I’m not allowed to use an exclamation point in the title of at least my next 2 blog entries in a row! Cuz as i look back over the last 3 or 4, i see nothing but overly emphasized title phrases & that just will not stand.
But seriously — I have been a tournament playin fool the past few weeks, gearing up for Aruuuuuuuuba baby. The good thing about spending so much time in Vegas this year (I still have my place in LA but have been kickin it here with my girl most of the time) is the access to tons of live tournaments. Not all of them have the biggest prizepools, but after spending so much time playing online at Ultimatebet, its really good to be able to switch things up and go live once in awhile too.
Just the other day I took 2nd in a 54-person daily tourney at Caesars for like 7 hundy… not much $$$ but a good for keeping the live tourney muscle working. Funny thing is, I lost to a guy who looked just like our very own Scott Ian! Plus it was extra cool to have my girl final table as well, going out in 4th. Party time, baby!
Also, I got a chance to play a 100k blackjack tourney at the Golden Nugget last week as well — man, its been awhile since I’ve done that! Even though I didn’t make the money, it was great to be able to access all the old BJ knowledge databanks again & I was happy to see its just like riding a bike — you never forget.
People often ask me for advice on bj tourneys & I usually tell them its not really about playing your hands — its all about the correlation in the bets. Which was perfectly illustrated in a key hand that allowed me to advance to one of the middle rounds of the tourney:
It was the final hand, and 2 of the 3 of us remaining would advance to the next round. Maximum bet allowed was 2000, and I was first to act with 4350 in chips. 2nd to act had 6250, and last to act sat on 6000 chips. The 2k max bet allowed me the chance to just barely catch both players, as long as I won my hand while at least one of them pushed/lost. Not a very good shot, but it was there nonetheless.
I bet 2000 and 2nd to act bet 500, a pretty suboptimal bet. He needs to bet at least $150, in order to cover my win, but also wants to bet less than $250 so he can beat a push or loss by the 3rd to act guy in the hand. So his $500 bet accomplishes the same thing as the better $200 on the high side, but also opens up the possibility of a swing if he loses while the other guy pushes. In blackjack its all about making perfect bets — which can (and often does) make all the difference in the world when deciding who moves on and who cries in their drink.
So the 3rd to act guy (with the 6000 chips) jumps outta the tree and bets a full 2000, another bad bet. Think about it: even if the guy who bet 500 manages to double down and win 1000 chips (on top of the 250 he’s already ahead), this guy only needs to bet 1300 to accomplish the same thing on the hi side as the 2000 bet. But what he gives up is so much more valuable to me: If he loses 2000, he drops to 4000 chips. Which means that now instead of having to outright WIN my hand, I can actually push it while he loses too. And if I somehow DO manage to double my full 2000 bet, HIS 2000 bet won’t cover the high side. So him betting 2000 instead of 1300 gains him absolutely nothing, but opens up another path for him to lose while I win. The best bets lock out as many possibilities for your opponents to advance, but mine here had just opened up some much-needed possibilities!
The the cards came: I had a hard 12, 2nd to act (with the 500 bet) got a hard 13, and 3rd to act (with 2000 bet) received a blackjack!! To make things more impossible, dealer had a Ten up, but thankfully checked and found no blackjack underneath. So quickly things changed: much like someone who makes a terrible call with A6 in poker, only to flop 66 — the 2000 bet was rewarded with a monster blackjack, instantly locking up one of the 2 available advancement spots. So the remaining spot was between me and the hard 13 with the 500 bet. And I had to act on my hand first. Fuck my life.
Well, I couldn’t just wave off on my hand, cuz that would guarentee a loss if the 13 waved off behind me (we both end up with the same result by default — both win or both lose, depending on what the dealer did). Nope, in order to advance here I would HAVE to win my hand WHILE my opponent lost. No other result would do. So it was just a question of whether to hit or double.
I debated for awhile the merits of both. Unfortunately, doubling in this tournament would result in a face UP double down card (as opposed to face DOWN), so I wouldn’t be able to hide my result from the other player. So — if I busted — he would immediately know it and not be put to a tough decision at all. On the other hand, since his 500 bet was enough to cover the high side of the hand (meaning, if I won my hand, all he had to do was win HIS hand and he’d still be good to advance), I thought I may need to get more money out, so that if I won a bigger bet (like doubling for another 1000), he wouldn’t be able to beat the high side even if HE doubled too.
Only problem was, if i doubled and caught an Ace, 2, 3, 4 (or maybe 5), i’d really want to hit again and wouldn’t be able to. And if i doubled and caught any ten, I’d bust and it wouldn’t matter anyway. Ultimately I needed to give myself the best chance of outright winning the hand first and foremost, and hitting the hand out gave me the best chance of doing that. Plus, there was always the chance that this guy would misplay his hand, as evidenced already by his bad bet (and several questionable plays during the earlier hands in the match). Against another pro player, I’d probably lean towards doubling to lock up the high side, but against this obv tourney novice I opted to hit it out to give myself the best chance of winning the hand alone.
Well, I hit and caught a 6 for hard 18, and now I had a whole new problem. Great — not only was I still an underdog to win the hand (19 v dealer T is a favorite, but not 18), but if I waved off and my opponent was smart enough to see it, he’d realize that he had a virtual lock by waving off on his 13. Check it: if he waves off, the ONLY way he doesn’t advance is if the dealer turns his Ten into a hard 17 EXACTLY. Because a dealer 19, 20 and 21 means we both lose, and dude advances. A dealer bust means we both win, and dude advances. And a dealer 18 means I push while dude loses, but he still has more chips than me and advances. So again — against another pro player, I have to hit here, but against Novice McGee — I wave off and pray he does something stupid.
And I wasn’t disappointed! Despite standing being the overwhelming best play for him, he opts to take another card. But not just another card — he actually DOUBLES his hand!! So even though he ALREADY has me covered on the high side (if we both win our single bets, he still wins), rather than hitting (and giving himself the chance to re-hit if he catches too low a card), he opts to force himself into receiving ONE more card only! Sweet — I’m picking up scraps of hope with every passing second. I can only pray he busts! Because even though he doesn’t realize it, doubling and catching a small card (or, actually, ANY non-busting card) still gives him the auto-win unless the dealer makes the perfect 17.
But rather than being rewarded for his terrible play, he catches the 9 and busts!!! So here I am, sitting on a hard 18 v a dealer 10, and now actually have a chance to win this thing!! Please please please…. don’t let me duck dodge and weave my way thru this whole hand only to have it not matter in the end — at least give me a sweat, dealer!!!
Dealer flips a 4 in the hole — come on, baby, bust it!!!! — and then a beautiful fucking ten for the bust and the win, baybeeee! What a rush…. and this is why I love blackjack tournaments. Cuz when you know the numbers and see the betting correlations laid out before you — and realize that hardly anyone else sees this stuff — what a sick edge to have in a game. So sweet.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t ultimately to be for me and I feel just shy of the quarterfinal round. But how awesome that I could go home, log onto UB, and play blackjack sngs and tourneys right there on my computer! One of my priorities going forward is to try and see what I can do to bring some more excitement and action back to the blackjack tournament and sng side of things at UB, now that we have Cereus up and running so smoothly and have the UB Mac client pumped out as well, both really awesome components of the total UB experience. Things keep getting bigger and better around here every day & I can’t wait to see what comes next!
rock on, bitches –
-hd.
Tags: Aruba, Play online, Poker Poker Poker, Scott Ian, ultimatebet, Vegas
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Monday, September 7, 2009 - Matt Graham
So I finally get to blog from the comfort of my home! After a month or two of relentless traveling It is so nice just to chill around the house, play with my dogs, and just lead a nice a simple day to day life. I have been playing a lot of poker this week , but with very little success. I have been playing the cash games and cannot find a winning session to save my life. Coolers all go the other way, beats have been hitting on me, and I am just not in a good mindset about it so I probably am not playing my best. I wish that was the worst news for my bankroll though… My stable of horses have been getting brutalized even worse than myself. I have 11 players that I currently stake and the are down about 150K in the past 2 weeks. Every deep run in a tournament just seems to end badly for them. I am quite sure at this point that I have cursed staking money 
Hopefully things will turn around in the coming weeks because the stress of watching my players struggle like this is really getting to me.
Outside of poker things are going great. I went out to Lake Mead for labor day yesterday and had a blast. We had a group of about 20 people and rented 3 boats. The weather was outstanding and the company was great. Obviously I am a moron though and I lost a pair of expensive sunglasses and also jumped into the lake with my Iphone in my pocket. You would think I would learn my lesson after going through about 8 phones from jumping in water, but you would be wrong. My girlfriend told me I am very smart in some ways , but can often be a complete “scatterbrain” as she put it. Im afraid I cannot argue her point
I am off to biloxi for the gulf coast poker championship on friday. I am really excited for the trip since I know a lot of people down there and also think it is going to be a great shot at winning a tournament. The borgata is runing a big tournament at the same time so I think the east coast grinders will just go to that. That leaves myself, my roommate, a few good southern grinders and a bunch of southern gamblers. I like my chances
Tags: Matt Graham, Poker Poker Poker
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