It’s Been a While

It’s been well over two months since my last post. The reason? Well, I’ve just been flat out lazy with the upkeep of the blog. I won’t make up any excuses or stories, it just hasn’t crossed my mind as a priority right now. Just recently I was playing a little bit of online poker when a random player at my table asked “Don, you there?” Normally I don’t respond to chat while playing online, especially while there’s eight tables taking up my screens, but this inquiry seemed legit. I responded and he mentioned that he used to read my blog and asked if I still keep it up. I told him I’ve been lazy and busy and we chatted it up for a little while. He seemed like a normal human being and it sparked some interest in me to start keeping the blog again.

I know what you’re thinking if you’re reading this — “Yeah right!” I’m not going to make any promises or even have any expectations, but we’ll just play it by ear and see how it goes.

So, what have I been doing lately? Playing a lot of online poker that’s what. I’ve been doing a lot of grinding on Stars, trying to grind out 20,000 hands of short-handed limit hold’em. I was about 8,000 hands in with a horrible in rate and I just kept losing. I worked hard to read as much as I could online, watch some training videos and post on forums. I thought I was fixing leaks, but I still kept losing. I began playing my sessions and then posting any spots I felt were troublesome to me on the 2p2 forums. I soon found out how much of assholes those guys can be over there.

After reviewing my session, I’d post five hands that I felt were spots I really didn’t know what to do and had a lot of questions about. After the second day of doing so, I was being reprimanded for spamming the forum with too many posts. Many people were saying I should read other hands and respond to those. First off, I did that. Second off, I could give two shits about other people’s hands. I wanted to fix my own game and improve my own leaks. The best way I felt that I’d improve was by getting feedback on the hands I played and having the questions I had answered. That soon discouraged me from the practice and I gradually moved away from even going to the forums. Don’t get me wrong, I still read them and often, but it’s just annoying that everyone over there seems to know it all. It’s too bad I don’t see all of these guys at the final table of the World Series of Poker each year. That’s my rant and it is what it is.

Being so discouraged with running bad, losing and the entire learning process, I opted to switch back to no-limit hold’em. Since the change, I’ve been doing all right. It’s just such a bland game to me and robotic. I want to constantly be thinking and having to adjust, it keeps me involved. I’m sure that’ll pass with time though, I’m probably just in a rut.

I just realized how depressing this post sounds. Trust me, life is great over here. I just got back from Barcelona, Spain where I was working with PokerNews covering EPT Barcelona. Carter “bdybldngpkr” Phillips took down the Main Event for a sick score and he played extremely well during the entire event. He also chopped up one of the side events with a friend of mine Jason Mercier. Not a bad week for him.

Outside of working to cover the event, I had an absolute blast over there. The city was gorgeous, the women were gorgeous and the weather was gorgeous. I’m a little upset to be back in the States and in New England where it’s been chilly, but how can I complain? I just spent 10 days in Barcelona! I did have a little trouble adjusting to a more normal sleep schedule once I returned, but I think I have it back on track now.

As of right now, I don’t know my next gig or where I’ll be off to. I’m thinking I’ll travel down to Atlantic City and use up some of my comp’d hotel rooms while getting some live grinding in. There’s a big tournament series going down at The Borgata, which should spice up the cash games. I’ll catch you guys next time, hopefully sooner than later!

Winning One For M.J.

Some people just can’t seem to keep their ignorant opinions to themselves at the poker table.  Two nights ago, I made my way over to South Point with Eric and Mickey to meet up with Rich and play some cards.  We promptly hopped on the list for $1-2 NL.  I jumped in the $2-4 limit game to kill some time and saw one hand before a new table of $1-2 NL was opened with all of our names being called.  This is where one of the best ten minutes of my poker life occurred.

After the dealer was down exchanging everyone’s cash for checks, and before the first hand was dealt, Rich mentioned that he had heard on the radio that the day before Michael Jackson passed he did a run through of his upcoming concert in preparation.  The run through turned out so well, that it was planned on being released as a DVD due to the sad happenings the following day.  I thought that was pretty cool, along with most of the table.  Not too mention, I’m a big fan of M.J. and his music.  Of course, not everyone shared the same feelings.

The tall, rugged, older gentleman in seat four promptly chimed in, “I’m glad that mother fucker’s dead.  Damn fucking child molester, he’s better off dead!”  His tone was so maliciously hateful, acidic, and malevolent that the entire table was at a loss for words.  No one chimed in with a response as Rich and I glared at each other with our jaws wide open. The dealer seemed a little brought back by the comment and couldn’t seem to give the man a warning about his foul language because she looked so much in shock.  At any rate, after a brief hesitation, she dealt out the hand.  Cue the greatest beat I’ve ever put on someone.

I had the button in the eight seat and everyone folded to the kind gentleman in seat four who had such nice words about M.J.  He reached into his stack of $200 and grabbed enough chips to raise the action to $12.  When action folded over to me on the button, I looked down to see a nice 54o.  Not only was I a little upset about the disrespect for M.J., but the hand has some sentimental meaning to me.  One of my best friends’ younger brother died in a car crash a few years back.  He was also a friend of mine and somewhat of a little brother to all of us in the older crew.  He wore number 45 on his hockey jersey and since then, if you have any combination of a 45o or 45s, you’re more than likely going to play it.  His older brother and my best friend, Mike, just got married this past week and we danced our faces off all night whenever a Michael Jackson song blasted through the speakers.  In my head all I was thinking was, “I’m going to crack this guy hard for M.J. and Nerm (my friend’s brother’s nickname).”  I then tossed in the call and everyone else folded.

The flop came down 7c-6c-2h and the guy bet out $25.  I called so fast that I accidentally tossed out $30 in chips instead of the correct amount.  I really didn’t care how much the bet was, I was calling.  I will add that the man had a nice trucker-style hat on which had hunting camouflage plastered on the front and a bright Confederate flag.

He stared me down as the dealer dealt the 4d on the turn and then quickly reached into his stack again and began counting out chips past the bet line for a wager.  I almost mirrored his betting motion to match his stacks.  The total bet turned out to be $50.  Rich and I caught eyes right here and Rich just seemed to know what was coming as he gave a little smirk.

The river was the 4h, tripping up my fours even though I missed the straight draw.  The man stacked his smaller stack on top of the larger one and slid it out.  ”I call.” instantly rolled off my tongue.  As soon as I said call, the man flipped up Js-Jc for an overpair.  I tabled my 54o and the dealer mucked his hand, but not before the man tried to claim he had the best of it.  I pushed my hand a little further towards to middle of the table to show him I held trip fours.  Disgusted by my holding, all he was left doing was shaking his head while staring me down some more.  He then rebought for $300.  Rich was dying with laughter, but doing his best to cover it up.  Mickey and Eric had smiles on as well.

After he received his new checks a minute later, the man looked at me and said, “What’d you think, I honestly didn’t have anything?”

“I’m a fan of Michael Jackson, that one was for him.” I responded.

I honestly don’t know how Rich was able to keep in the laughter he clearly wanted to emit as his face turned bright red.  The dealer was smirking as well as everyone else at the table.

“I didn’t say I didn’t like his music, but he was still a damn child molester.” chimed in the guy after he mucked his next hand.  I didn’t respond this time as I was watching Mickey cover his laughter up with his hooded sweatshirt.  A few hands later, things got even better.

I was under the gun and peeked down at two black aces.  Now, I rarely ever open limp with aces, but this just seemed too perfect.  I limped and a player two seats behind me limped as well.  The great wonder that was seat four reached for chips and grabbed three red ones.  Just as he slid the $15 in for a raise, I almost jumped out of my chair with excitement.  No really, I sprung up laughing.  Out of all people to limp-reraise, it was going to be this guy.

Action folded back over to me and with my towers of red checks stacked about 30-35 high, slid one passed the white like for a reraise.  The other limper folded, which prompted the man to immediately grabbed his stacks Phil Hellmuth style to move all in.  In a similar fashion to before, the words “I call.” vaulted from my lips.

I the man immediately tabled two kings.  I never like to show my hand in a live cash game unless I have to, so I kept my aces hidden.  It’s not to slowroll, but rather that if I happen to lose the hand, I’ll simply muck and not give anyone the luxury of seeing my cards to determine how I may play a specific hand.  I did chime in with “I have that beat.”

The board ran out Q-6-3-7-J and I flipped over my aces to win the hand.  Within 10 minutes, I was granted two full buy-ins from the M.J. hater and man, it felt good.  It didn’t take long for the guy to jerk up from his chair and storm out of the room.  Rich was roaring with amusement and once he exited, the young, lone woman at the table summed up what I believe everyone was thinking in just a few words, “What an asshole.”

The PokerNews Crew on the Felt and Some Chinese Poker

One of yesterday’s events at the WSOP included a $2,500 buy-in Razz event.  Some of my fellow employees Mickey, Dave (F-Train), and Marc, along with with my boss Garry, all entered.  Tim and I dabbled in a last-longer bet where we each chose one of the four.  Mat and I did the same as well.  I had Mickey in both, but in reality I didn’t care if I won or not.  I was really just pulling for any of these four (preferably all of them) to go deep and make a nice splash.  Earlier in the Series, another coworker, Anthony, went deep in one of the NLHE donkaments.  He earned himself $5,028 for his finish, but it turned out he was actually freerolling in the event.

Anthony Yeh

Towards the end of the first day of his event, Anthony busted a player who then offered to buy 10% of him for $1,400.  Anthony accepted the offer, pocketing the $1,400.  What’s even better is that Anthony was ale to satellite himself into the event, so he actually made money on the $1,400 the guy gave him.  That, plus the money he earned for his finish, netted him a nice payday.  Of course, it was the glory he was looking for, but it was still a solid showing.

Anthony played another $1,500 crankament a week or so later and bombed out in the 100-200 level after building his stack to about 34,000 chips.  Another deep run would have to wait for later.

Back to the Razz event, F-Train was the first eliminated from the tournament.  He just couldn’t get anything going all day and seemed both upset and bothered by the fact that his good hands always bricked out or that people always caught better.  Sometimes those are the break and that’s tournament poker.  Unlucky mate.

Marc Hodge

Marc and Garry were the next ones to go.  I didn’t hear much of Marc, except that he held a lot of bad starting hands and also bricked out a bunch of times.  Garry on the other hand began the day with the worst table draw of everyone.  He was sandwiched between Chad Brown on his left and Justin “BoostedJ” Smith on his right.  I consider Smith one of the best all-around players in the game today, but wouldn’t exactly say Brown is a slouch either.  Through talking with Garry, I learned that Brown actually knows a lot more than I figured he’d know in Razz and it impressed me.  The guy does have a ton of experience playing tournaments as well, which will help him out.

Garry was actually the chip leader at one point of the tournament, I believe level three.  He amassed a nice stack going into dinner break, but coming out wasn’t as pleasant.  He began bricking out in key pots and running horrible when it came to making hands and having them hold up.  It’s unfortunate that he couldn’t make it to day two with a solid stack.  Instead, he saw it all disappear before the night’s end.

Mickey Doft

Mickey on the other hand grinded away.  He was eventually moved to a table that included Daniel Negreanu and Thomas Bihl towards the end of the night.  Mickey was able to hold his own though and make it through to the second day.  He began day two seated with John Juanda and Mike Sexton.  He also had less than ten big bets in his stack, but he’d be fine if some things worked out for him early.

The hours went by and I was busy working with another event in a different room.  A few hours after I last saw him, Mickey and I locked eyes only for him to slice his hand across his throat to symbol “I’m out.”  He mentioned that he just couldn’t get much going, but did his best.  Mickey is a solid player and regularly plays a lot of the mixed games online.  This is one reason why I picked him in the last-longer bet.  Not to mention, he’s been running extremely well as of late and figured to me to be the best shot.  I hope someone from PokerNews breaks the streak and nails something huge at the WSOP sooner than later.

After we returned home late last night, it was on for some Chinese poker.  Eric, Anthony, Mat, Tim, and myself all engaged in a nice, friendly game for $1 a point.  Of course, there were some bonuses thrown into play.  Some of which allotted us up to $4 from each player on a hand.  I ran pretty well, hit two scoop bonuses, and went on my way to winning for the night.  One of the big hands was when I landed myself three flushes; One in the front, one in the middle, and one in the back.  This allowed me to scoop from everyone.  Eric was especially upset because he had a straight flush in the back and was eagerly awaiting the showdown so he could collect his bonus.  Sorry, I scoop, move on.

We played until about five or six in the morning before I went off to bed.  I needed to try and get at least six hours of sleep before working the next day because I’ve been sick.  Nevertheless, Chinese poker action is off and running, let’s get it on.

Just Another Day Off in Vegas

Finally, a day off in Vegas.  I only worked six days in a row, but when you’re working in the Rio covering the World Series of Poker, you tend to lose all track of time.  It honestly felt as if I had been working nonstop for six days straight.  The work isn’t the cause to this, it’s the fact that I’m cooped up in the same rooms in the Rio for anywhere from 8-14 hours a day seeing the same poker tables, the same staff members, the same walls, and the same poker players.  I love my job, but it does cause you to lose track of the outside world.

On the day off, Tim and I both slept in and then made our way down the strip to jump in the Harrah’s nightly deep stack.  Rich joined us as well and we all swapped a nice 10% of one another.  Tim and I had a last longer bet as well.  The bet was for a 5% share in the next cash game or tournament of the other player.  I played well and made what I felt to be all the correct moves.  I outlasted both Rich and Tim, but failed to cash as I finished a few spots out of the money.  When we reached the final two tables, I felt my chances to win were huge and I was really getting excited to take this down.  But luck wouldn’t been in the cards for me and I finished sooner than later.

Tim and Rich were playing a $4-8 H.O.R.S.E. game at one of the adjacent tables.  I took some time to wind down, grabbed a sandwich down the hall, and then returned to jump in on the game with them.  I ran terrible, well, others players ran really well.  People really just have no concept of mixed-game play which makes things so juicy.  Needless to say, I lost in the game, but I did have one hell of a time playing “Lodden Thinks” and watching Rich get absolutely slaughtered in props.

During Lodden Thinks, Rich’s German friend, and midget, Todo, was the one coming up with the answers to the questions Tim proposed.  Some of his answers were ridiculous and cost Rich a lot of money.  We were playing $10 a point and I was up eight points on him by the end of the night.  That wasn’t the worst of it though for Rich.

He was playing a nice prop game with Todo.  Rich had red cards and Todo had black ones.  Each card was worth $5.  You took the total red and black cards from the board if it was a community card game or a combination of each other’s up cards in a stud variant.  Each player also had a bonus card.  Rich’s was a king and Todo’s a deuce.  These bonus cards were worth $20 a piece.

I can’t tell you how many times a black deuce appeared on the felt to dent Rich’s pocket by $25.  It was amazing to see how bad he lost.  At first, he was down $135.  He then ran well for a nice period of time to get his deficit to only $25, but then went on a crazy run all the way back down $175.  After that, Rich decided that he would try and get it back down to owing only $100.  He got down to $110, but decided still to try and make it an even $100.  From there, things just blew up in his face.  He ran it all the way to $365, clearly Todo was running like a god.  Rich did manage to make it back to $300 even and called the game off.

I ended up going bust in the H.O.R.S.E. game, but the hit didn’t hurt nearly as much thanks for Richie Rich losing eight points to me on Lodden Thinks.  To highlight some of the questions and crazy answers the “thinker” gave, see below.

What percentage of people in the world have blue eyes? (48%)

How many poker tables are located in the state of Nevada? (9,580)

How long has it been since Scotty Nguyen’s last haircut? (198 days)

How many people have attended a Rolling Stones concert? (10.5 million)

We got up from the poker table at about 6:15 am.  Because our new German friend Todo was running so damn well in both prop bets and on the table itself, we decided to let him roll for us at craps in the pit.  So there we headed.

After one guy rolled for what seemed like ages, Todo finally picked up the dice.  On his first roll, instead of setting the point, Todo rolled a seven, landing everyone a nice payday.  Rich was loving it and called him the new messiah.  Todo then set the point at 10 and then on his first roll after, nailed it.  Things seemed like they were going to be miraculous, but then Todo crapped out.  From there, it was all downhill.  Rich went broke and even cost Jon Kalmar about $700 when he rolled about the worst roll ever.  He kicked off his roll with aces, followed it up by setting the point, and then crapping out on the first roll… sweet.  If he don’t know Kalmar, he final tabled the 2007 WSOP Main Event.

Just as we were going to bounce and head home, Tim took some crazy advice from Rich to lay his $14 of profit on “box cars”, or double sixes.  It’s a longshot that pays 30:1.  He went with it, not rerally knowing what he was doing.  The dice were slid to the next in line and rolled… BAM!  Rich took off running like a deer hearing a gunshot.  Tim looked up and said, “What happened!?!?  What did I win!?!?” while Rich was yelling and running up and down the row.  He came back and let Tim know he just won $400 on that roll.  Tim was pumped!  He couldn’t believe it.  The dealer counted out the chips in some nice stacks of $25 green chips and passed them over.  Of course, he would be buying breakfast now.

It’s Gutshot Maniac Time!

 

Aight people, here’s the deal.  I’ve had numerous blogs throughout the years and all have just seemed to fall by the wayside after a period of time.  The reason is partly due to me being too lazy with the blog to keep up with it over time.  Another part is that I tend to bite off more than I can chew at times.  My mind draws up these elaborate portraits of ideas and I dive right in, never knowing when something is enough and how much I can hold on my plate at once.  But then again, I’ve also been having way too much fun in my life that I’d rather be able to say I was being a “lazy” blogger when I am really just exercising my right to L-I-V-E.

Whatever the case may be, I’ve been ever so fortunate to work in and around the poker community dating back to April of 2008.  Working as a tournament reporter mostly, I’ve had the great pleasure of seeing much more of the world than most people my age have and experiencing things I once only heard and read about through secondary sources.  That said, I hope to be able to bring you all my poker adventures from wherever I go.

Traveling and experiencing new things, along with poker, are my first loves.  I have been able to combine work and love as one in the same and never could have been happier with how things have turned out for me thus far.  As a journalist/tournament reporter, I hope you find my experiences as interesting to read as they truly are to experience.

Welcome to the life of a Gutshot Maniac!