We Got a Winner!

I decided to start playing again on Paradise, going for the WPT shooting stars seat. Played the $100 last night and bombed out. But tonight I played the $25 rebuy and took it down... so now I'm bound to San Jose in March to try and take home the $1m prize at Bay 101. Awesome feeling.

Scott Fischman is going to be one of the stars in that tourney. Maybe I'll take him out and win the $5k bounty.


Thanks Tappy!

Happy Birthday...

to me! Turned 24 today. I think it's going to be a good year. :)

Young Guns

Congratulations to my good friend Scott Fischman! He just took down the WPT Young Guns tournament for a $25k seat against some pretty heavy competition. David Williams. Thunder Keller. Joe Cassidy. These guys aren't slouches. But come on... nobody can beat the empty seat. Scott's got tons of game and is cool as hell. Shoot him a congrats at scottfischman@iaiwear.com.

Florida Recap

Got back from Ft. Lauderdale yesteday early morning. It was a great trip. The people I went down to see were unanimously wonderful. Got to see what a guy named Ron and his partner Steve were cooking up with their project, WPTBootCamp.com. Decent chance I might end up doing some workshops for them.

As for the other group, they were wonderful as well. We were talking about a tv-related idea that they have. They're pretty closed lipped about it, so I can't give out too many details. But I'm definitely interested. All three business partners are married with kids, which is something Gianna definitely liked. We got a chance to throw some chips around, playing home-games like criss-cross and omaha/8 with a kicker... each game was a declare game which I'm not that used to. It reminded me of a few important things about playing poker.

Jeff, the main guy, is a boisterous ex-New Yorker with tons of energy and enthusiasm. He was pretty much the only poker player among them. Gary, the second guy, is about the nicest fellow I've ever met. And Phil was my favorite... everywhere I saw him, he was walking around with this positive air about him, like he just found twenty bucks in the parking lot. All three of them seemed super-friendly and very happy. But not the greatest card players.

What it reminded me of was that if you can get to the motivation behind why someone is playing, it can help you in your game. These guys were playing for fun and for networking... they weren't trying to make a living at it. If someone were to see Gary stay in a O8 pot with his two-card draw to a 45 low, it might be easy to look down on the play. But then you just have to remember... the guy's in it to buid relationships, and nobody likes a rock.

I also got a chance to check out the Indian casino close by... I think it was the Mikasukee casino. Something like that. We went into the cardroom and it was packed... but you couldn't play any higher than $2-$2 limit. Crazy. I guess they had tournaments, though, so it's not that big of a deal.

Anyway, I'll probably be going back down to Florida a few more times and I'll let you know how it goes.

Ft. Lauderdale Bound

Gianna and I are flying out to Ft. Lauderdale tomorrow to do a little business. First there's a guy who has a television idea he wants to talk about. Second is another guy who is starting a poker boot camp and needs instructors. Could be a good gig, either one. Going to be nice to get out of this Fresno fog...

Been looking around online for new places to play. Also watched Lederer's Secrets of No Limit Holdem. Was pretty much the exact same video (ame footage and everything) as the Tells video. I'm not sure why someone would buy the $30 copy of Secrets when they could buy the Tells video for $10, which has the same footage. I'm not going to review it because it's pretty much the same thing.

Pokerstars Sucks

A few years ago I was standing outside a bar called The Fieldhouse in downtown Columbia, MO. It was a favorite for college freshman with fake ids. There was this girl outside of the bar trying to pass off a fake, but the bouncer wasn't having it. She started crying and pleading with him... and I just remember her sniveling "Pleeeeeeeeeeeease let me in. I'll give you money!"

Now I know how that girl felt. A lot of you know that my account at Pokerstars was closed early this year. They claimed it was because of some things I said in chat about RakeFree, but I figured it was more likely due to them just not liking me. I've seen a lot of people say some pretty bad things on chat, and they just get their chat taken away for a few months... not banned from the site.

Anyway, I sent them the following request to reactivate my account recently, and this is what they said. Looks like their decision WAS personal after all. Sucks to be me.

If you feel like shooting Pokerstars an email letting them know how you feel about their decision, you can contact Dan Goldman at dan@pokerstars.com, Rich Korbin at rich@pokerstars.com, or Lee Jones at pokermanager@pokerstars.com.

Time to start a Heman-Pokerstars-Haters club. And those guys are NOT invited.


===========

Hi Russ -
We have given serious consideration to your request, and I am sorry,
but we
will not reopen your account. We didn't make that decision lightly,
and it
involved all the senior managers at the site. But we just aren't
comfortable with your behavior in the poker community and so the ban
must
stand.

Regards,
Lee Jones

PokerStars Poker Room Manager


----- Original Message -----
From: havoj@yahoo.com
Sent: 2004/12/07 11:34:01To: dgoldman@pokerstars.com
To: pokermanager@pokerstars.com
Subject: Reactivating my account

>Gentlemen,
>
>It's been close to a year since you banned me from
>your site. I'd like you to consider allowing me to
>once again play on the site.
>
>I feel like I can help you guys out and make it
>worthwhile for you to once again allow me to play.
>For one, I'd be playing quite a bit and putting in a
>lot of fees. Second, I'm starting to develop
>poker-related informational websites and making some
>extra money with advertising revenue... I'd be
>interested in setting up an affiliate account and
>sending some of my traffic over to you guys. I'd also
>want to setup a little holdem league and have some
>weekly private tournaments.
>
>I still strongly believe that Pokerstars is the best
>site out there, and would really like a chance to win
>my seats into the WPT and WSOP, as well as compete on
>the TLB. I feel like any damage that was done by
>mentioning my RakeFree project in chat can more than
>be made up by the players I can send to you.
>
>Please consider re-activating my account. Poker is
>getting too big and it doesn't make sense to not do
>something together.
>
>Dutch Boyd

Howard Lederer "Tells" All

So I promised a review of this DVD, and here it is.

First off, when you look at the product description for this DVD on Howard's site, you can see that it's intended as a basic overview for people who have not purchased his other DVDs. So let's take it for what it is... a basic-level DVD.

Howard is wearing a blue checkered shirt through the presentation. It doesn't seem like he spent too much time rehearsing... in fact, I'm not even sure that the DVD was scripted, because it looks like he's thinking about how to explain certain concepts through the program. He looks down at the table a lot when he's going through a hand, and he says the occasional "umm". The lighting isn't that great. The sound is kind of cheesy. But let's get to the point... we're not watching the DVD because we think Howard is pretty to look at, or because we want to hear some quality sound effects. The simple fact is that this man is one of the brilliant poker players of our day, and surely has tons to offer.

The first part of the DVD starts off pretty strong. He goes over a few tells, including the "fast call" and the "staredown". He has a few people (I'm assuming actors?) playing out the hands and demonstrating certain tells. He goes over about eight or so tells (about 15 minutes) before moving on.

The next section is how to play. Goes over what the button is, what the blinds are, etc. etc. Boring stuff. It started off so strong with the tells and I was hoping that it would keep going strong, but this was definitely a setback. The "how to play" section lasts about ten minutes. He has nine of the actors sitting around kind of laughing goofy from time to time. Favorite quote : "Holdem is a game of match-ups... you'll see what I mean later."

Next is playing pre-flop. He has a little strategy chart that he included in the DVD which basically re-iterates the kind of stuff that you see in Sklansky's book. What to open with, what to call with... raise with pocket KKs, fold KJo because it's not on the list. He goes on for about 15 minutes talking about how AQ is going to dominate Q8. He brings out an odds chart (which WASN'T included in my DVD) which shows how much of a dog you are if you have 2 outs, 4 outs, 9 outs, etc. Again, this all lasts about fifteen minutes. Favorite quote : "I couldn't give you all the odds down to the exact percentage... it's not important." Amen to that.

After pre-flop comes play on the flop. He says, "In Holdem, if you have the second best hand that is nearly as good as your opponent's hand, then you are in big trouble." I think it was in this section that he talked about the importance of having live outs. He used an example of a flop TT7 where you have 89. Often times your opponent is going to have a hand like JT, where you'll only have 4 outs instead of 8 for the straight. Ok.

Next is the turn. He talks about bluffing when a scare card comes. Uses an example of a flop Th7c3h with a turn 6h. In the example, the first player bets on the flop with KTo, then checks the turn. The second player has called the flop with KQ of diamonds (not sure why), then bets when the 6 of hearts comes. Decent example. The whole point being you try to get in your opponents head, figuring out what hands he could put you on, and playing accordingly. If you call his bet on the flop, he can easily put you on a flush draw, straight draw, even a set... scare cards are the shit in NL Holdem. Ok. So then he talks about how important it is to make your opponents pay for their drawing hands, and how the right amount to make them pay is usually a pot-size bet. Ok. Got it.

Finally, the river. This is the only part of the DVD since the beginning when he goes over tells that I thought was worthwhile. Here he talks a little bit about why betting on the river is different than betting on any other street, and why you should usually just check your mediocre hands rather than bet them, thereby inducing bluffs from hands that would fold if you bet. It's a pretty important concept (maybe one of the most important concepts) and he very briefly touches on it... but he does address it.

So what are my final thoughts on this DVD? Well, for under $10, you can't really go wrong. It has enough quality stuff in the first fifteen minutes and the last five minutes to make it worth the pick-up. But it doesn't really begin to "tell all". I was really hoping that this DVD would be the one that delves deep into the crevices that other teachers can't or won't go into. Instead, it's just another beginner DVD with a few nuggets thrown in to appease the people who already know how to play.

So a little disappointed in this one. I picked up his Secrets of NL Holdem, and I'll review that one soon. Hopefully, he won't spend half the DVD going over the rules and basic pre-flop strategy. But for nine bucks? Come on... it's worth it.

When I was preparing for my review of this title, I went to Howard's website and learned a lot more about poker from reading his articles on the site then from this DVD. It's actually a pretty impressive site.

Final Score : 4/10


Buy Now for only $9.99

The Road Trip is Over

So after a quick stop in Las Vegas, I'm now back in Fresno. Feels good to be off the road and back home. No more sleeping in the passenger seat, no more straining the eyes to stay awake. No more missing Gianna or my warm bed or my Tivo.

A few cool things happened. First, back in Missouri, my mother sent me off with a tape of every single WSOP from ESPN this year. She got them all and put them in a great big box. So now I can clear my Tivo. Second, during our stop in Las Vegas, Bobby and I stopped at the Palms to play a little. I got into a 2-5 NL game and took it down for about $300. Doesn't sound like that much, but it helps... I'm working on a pretty thin bankroll these days. While I was sitting down at the Palms, the floorman came over and handed out a few copies of Lederer's new DVD called "Howard Lederer 'Tells' All". I didn't snag a copy, but the guy I was sitting next to, an old-school dealer turned player named Ross the Boss, gave me his copy. Thanks Ross.

I'm going to check it out later today and I'll give you all my impression of it. But first I have a few housekeeping things to do at the office... like install a virus scan program. My computer is pretty sluggish, I'm thinking something has to be wrong with it. Everytime I tell it to do something, it thinks about it for about fifteen seconds... blah.

Nothing else really to say. Congrats and condolences go out to Scott, who got pretty far in the Party tournament last Saturday and Josh (aka Sdouble) who took down 13th in the $215 yesterday on Stars. So close, yet so far away... I feel your pain guys.

If there is one thing I've learned about tournaments, it's this... you can't win them until you get it headsup. So if you ever find yourself chip leader in the $10k main event at the WSOP and there are 18 players left, slow down... focus on getting to the final table first. Then focus on getting headsup. Then take it down.

Peace.

The Five Worst Bad Beats of All Time

I've played a lot of poker... I've seen my fair share of four-outters, two-outters, one-outters... runner-runner straight draws, runner-runner quads. And I've definitely heard more than my fair share of bad beats. I don't usually tell bad beat stories anymore, but there are some that are unusual enough that I feel like they deserve telling. So over the next week or so I'm going to count off the top five bad beats that I've ever had, seen, or heard about. You've been warned.

Bad Beat #5

This was my first real bad beat. I was 18 years old, had just graduated from school, and was working at Macy's selling men's basics. I had it in my head that I wanted to play poker for a living, and so I started playing regularly at a little club called The Wagon Wheel. That was a great little club... it had two tables and you'd play the same dozen or so guys every single day.

So one day I'm trying to build my meager bankroll up at the 3-6 game. I've got a total of about $500 to my name, so I sit down right next to the dealer and buy-in for a rack. A few rounds go by and then something awesome happens... I'm dealt 67s in the BB. It's raised by an early position player preflop, but it's a loose Cali game and everyone calls. So I see the flop. Flop comes : 3 4 5. Rainbow.

SNAP! I just hit the nuts. I check to the preflop better, who bets like I expect... everyone calls. I pop it, he reraises, everyone calls, I cap it. Turn comes : Q.

I bet out, he raises, one guy calls and the rest of the players give up. I reraise, he caps. The poor guy in the middle just shakes his head and calls. We're going wild and it's getting out of hand. There's a huge mountain of chips in the middle now... probably pushing $200.

The river comes... it's a king. I double-check to make sure there isn't a flush possible. I bet and the guy who was jamming it with me just calls. The other guy shakes his head and folds. I'm staring at what is going to pump my roll up by about 40%.

"Straight!" I say as I flip over my card.

That's right... card. I look around in a panic and see the corner of my other card just barely touching the muck that the dealer had put between us. Somehow in all the betting, I had thrown in the chip that was protecting my cards. The dealer was used to putting his muck pile right between him and the 1 seat where I was playing... and he had somehow scooted that little 6 right into the muck pile.

I grabbed the card and turned it over... everyone looks at the dealer, who is getting red and has this nervous smile on. One of the players murmers, "dead hand... it's a dead hand!"

Realization sinks in to the pre-flop aggressor, who starts laughing a little bit. "FLOOR!" I yell out. The guy starts laughing even harder now, and a couple of the other players start laughing as well. Even the dealer starts laughing a bit. I'm the only one who's not laughing.

The floorman came over and declared what everyone already knew. It was a dead hand. I wouldn't be getting any chips and my bankroll would be taking a little blow. I got up in a daze and stumbled out of the cardroom, sick to my stomach.

I vowed that day that I would never tip another dealer again... a vow that lasted just shy of 24 hours, when I finally came back to the Wagon Wheel and they had their other dealer, a gorgeous redhead that everyone called "Princess", dealing our regular morning 3-6 game. She had this huge chest that would always seem to catch crumbs when she was eating, and she'd consistently come in to deal the game with dried cereal stuck to her blouse.

I learned a lot playing at the Wagon Wheel... for one thing, I always used to feel sorry for losing players at the table. Like the guy who won that monster pot... he was always coming in, losing his ass, then leaving. Seeing all those players laugh at me, though, changed something. A few months later, I'd see my first crying man at the table... and I didn't feel the least bit bad.

Above all, though, the most important thing I learned from the Wagon Wheel?

ALWAYS PROTECT YOUR CARDS!

This Ain't No Crazy Pineapple!

So here's a pretty funny story Rob told me when we were talking about bad beats.

"Yeah, so get this bro... I'm sitting at the 2-5 NL at the Borgata the other week. The dealer whips out all the cards. I'm first to act under the gun, and I look down and see.. ace... ace... king."

Classic.

Five Dollar Challenge

So I went out for dinner with my brother Rob (aka TC_Clueless) and we came up with a not-to-original idea. We're going to have a race. Starting Jan 1, we're going to start with five bucks and see who can turn it into $10k first. The race ends when either (1) one of us goes broke, (2) one of us hits $10k, or (3) the WSOP main event starts. In case of 3, whoever has the most from the initial $5 wins the race.


I figure the easiest way to report on the race is going to be for both of us to keep a blog going just for the five dollar challenge.

Now we just have to come up with something interesting to wager. I want his iPod and his cool gray hoodie.

Follow the Queen and Lamebrain Pete

A guy IMed me today and asked what my favorite poker games were. He said he was getting tired of Holdem at his weekly home game. So here are my two favorite crazy poker games. Beware, though... they are hustler games.

Follow the Queen

Plays like Seven Card Stud with a slight wildcard variant.

Start the game with 2 to 8 players.
Each player puts in an ante and is dealt two cards down and one card face up.
The first betting round follows, with the low hand bringing it in.
Fourth street, another card is dealt face up to each player.
Betting round, high hand is first to act.
Fifth card dealt face up.
Betting round.
Sixth card dealt face up.
Betting round.
Seventh card dealt face down.
Final betting round.
Showdown.

The variation that makes this card different than your old trusty seven stud is that anytime a queen is dealt, the next card dealt faceup will be wild. So if a player is dealt a queen, and the player to his left is dealt a 4 of diamonds, all fours are going to be wild. If another queen is dealt face up, then the fours are no longer wild and the next card dealt face up is wild. In the event that the last card dealt face up is a queen (or if a queen doesn't come out before seventh street) then no cards will be wild.

Here's the thing to note about this game... it provides the dealer with a distinct advantage. The reason is simple enough, and can be demonstrated best by examining the situation where there are only two players. Since the card FOLLOWING a queen up is wild, the dealer has four chances to catch a wild card, while the other player only has three. The dealer advantage isn't as great if there are a lot of players out there, since with three players you have two who get four shots at the wild card and only one with the one shot disadvantage. Basically the player to the left of the dealer has a disadvantage... and anytime that player folds, the disadvantage is transferred to the next player to his left.

Lamebrain Pete

This is played somewhat like Texas Holdem on steroids (or more accurately a related game called Cincinatti).

Start the game with 2-9 players.
Each player is dealt five holecards.
Betting round.
The first of five community cards is dealt.
Betting round.
Second community card dealt.
Betting round.
Third dealt.
Betting round.
Fourth dealt.
Betting round.
Fifth dealt.
Betting round.
Showdown.

So at the end, each player has five cards in their hand that they can combine with the five community cards to make the best hand possible. Now here's the crazy kicker. The lowest community card is wild. So if the lowest card on the board is the 4 of hearts, all fours will be wild. So the cool thing about this game is that you never know what's going to be wild at the end unless a deuces peels off.

The reason this is such a hustler game is simple. Anytime you add holecards or wildcards, it changes the strength of hands. In Texas Holdem, a full house is HUGE. But in Lamebrain Pete, anything less than four of a kind is complete trash. Players will have four kings and think that it's a huge hand. Bad judgment buddy. The other great thing about this game is that the wild card has the potential to change on every street. So players will chase hoping that the wild card will change to something favorable. And players will almost ALWAYS see the flop. Another big mistake.

It won't take long to realize that royal flushes are pretty common in this game. And five of a kinds are pretty common too. As with any wildcard game, remember that five of a kind beats a royal flush... pretty nice to know, because you'll definitely be in situations where an opponent makes his royal flush and figures it's the absolute best hand you can have... arguments are soon to follow when you turn over five jacks and start to drag the pot.

Hope the descriptions of those two games are easy enough to follow. If you have any questions, just post them.

A Few Thoughts

Here's a few things to keep in mind when you play these crazy home games. First off, players are going to be completely clueless as to the relative strength of their hand. As far as I know, there isn't a book about how to play crazy wild games. There should be, because I bet more people play Follow the Queen than Razz. The only way you'll be able to see how additional cards and wildcards effect hand strengths is through experience. Second, don't be a nit. Even though it's pretty stupid to play a hand like AK987 rainbow in lamebrain pete, you should still call and see that first card just to get people playing loose. The most common mistake novice poker players make is calling too much, and you don't want to turn loose players into tight players. You also don't want anybody to feel like you are taking advantage of them. Home games need to be fun for everybody or else they will dry up.

Pokerspot

Pokerspot. God I hate that word. I used to love it. I used to think it was the most clever word ever. Pokerspot dot com. It was clever because it rhymed.

For those of you that don't know (all four of you), Pokerspot might have been my ticket to that cushy eight figure a year job that everybody dreams about. Instead, it ended up ruining me financially and really screwing up my reputation in the poker world (to get the whole story, check out an interview I gave at the RakeFree FAQ page).

So for the last two days I've been in a really raunchy mood. Some asshole decided to post a little comment on my blog calling me a piece of shit and saying I ripped a whole bunch of people off. I deleted the comment and changed it so that now only registered users of Blogger can post comments. What a great example of how one bad apple can... blah...

After I deleted the comment, this guy emails me and tells me what a piece of shit I am for deleting it. I emailed him back and told him that if he was a user of Pokerspot to let me know and I'd try and get him paid back pretty quick. Instead, he just went to RGP to post some more shit about me... leading me to think that he was not in anyway harmed by Pokerspot. Most of the people who talk shit weren't. They're just eating up gossip about players in the spotlight and gladly passing it on because it makes them somehow feel active and informed (and btw, this isn't directed to actual uesrs of the site who lost money, as they have every right to talk as bad about me as they want).

The whole episode has put me in a bad mood for the last day and a half. And without cigs to help ease the pain, it's pretty rough.

So let's lay out a few facts :

(1) I didn't steal any money. When Pokerspot went down, it crippled me financially and I had to pawn off a whole bunch of shit just to get a bankroll so I could grind at the 1-2 tables online and try and jump back on my feet somehow. I deeply regret the day I ever thought up Pokerspot. It cost me two years of my life, tons of money, and a lot of headache.

(2) Even though I'm in no way legally obligated to, I have paid out close to $10k out of my own pocket over the last two years trying to get old Pokerspot players paid back. Maybe that doesn't seem like a lot, but considering what I've actually gotten to keep over the last couple years, it's a lot to me.

(3) If you weren't affected by Pokerspot, and you continue to dog on me, going out of your way to make things difficult, then shame on you. You are probably some attention-starved losing poker player who doesn't have enough to do with your time except to try and ruin my rep. You have to be pretty miserable with your own circumstances. Get a life... a girlfriend or a dog or something to cheer you up. I'm really worried about you guys.

(4) If you did lose money to Pokerspot, shoot me an email with your username and how much you'd accept to lose any of your hard feelings. I'll check it against my own records. I pledge to do what I can to pay you back.

Sorry fact of Pokerspot is that it will never die. Even once I figure out a way to get everybody paid back, there'll still be assholes on RGP or the other forums calling me a piece of shit. A lot of people out there are hungry for negativity.


So want to help me out? Here are a few ways to do it.

(1) Click on one of the Pokerspot links and click through to some of the sponsors on the parked page.

(2) Post something positive the next time you're lurking on Rec.Gambling.Poker. Hell, why not go there now and start a post saying something like "I hear a lot of shit about Dutch Boyd... and for the record, I like him. Who here has he actually ripped off and for how much?" I'd actually be pretty interested in seeing who responds... I'd put them at the top of the list of people getting paid back. Most of the posters on there were never playing on the site.

(3) Most important, don't judge me as a poker player OR a person for poor business decisions made before I was even old enough to play in a cardroom.

Now let's get back to playing some poker.

Atlantic City to Columbia

Bobby and I started driving to our hometown of Columbia, MO on our way to Fresno late Saturday and got here last night. It was supposed to be a pretty quick drive... we'd start out early Saturday afternoon, stop by at one of our friends named Ivan, and continue on making it to Columbia by noon on Sunday. Didn't happen.

Instead, Bobby slept until about 5:00 pm. He must have been up playing poker all night. I got to his Super 8 room at about 1:00 and dicked around for about an hour... then figured he wasn't getting up for awhile and made my way over to the Atlantic City boardwalk.


Walked around for a bit, then stopped into Ripley's Believe It or Not. That's a pretty cool place. Plenty of shrunken heads, pictures of giants, a great big bridge made out of toothpicks, two-headed calfs, etc. At the end, there was a big screen tv with their television show and there was a little segment about freestyle walking. Pretty cool stuff. Check out their website to see some videos. They also have some pretty good flash games.


So after the museum and a pizza, I went back to the Super 8. Bobby was finally up and getting packed to go. We didn't get on the road until about 9:30. About 11:00 I fell asleep, and Rob was like "Dude... this little trip is crazy. We started in New Jersey, then hit Pennsylvania, then Maryland and Deleware, then Pennsylvania again, and in about an hour we're going to be back in New Jersey." That's when I took over the drive.

The Borgata

So had a pretty cool day yesterday. First I got up at about 5:30 in the morning to get ready to meet the Stage 3 and Talkshow TV crew. They introduced me to the host of the little segment we taped about poker, a guy named Garreth. THen they had two guys they picked up from some agency named Kalanji and Jordan... these were the two guys who were going to be learning a little bit about poker from me.

So we drive out to the Borgata... the casino is a pretty crazy diamond in the middle of slummy AC. Met the head of the PR department and she took us down to the cardroom where they had a little table setup and this dealer named Anna who I guess they were trying to promote a bit since she was on the cover of their calender. It's amazing what makeup, lighting and photoshop can do to a person.

We spent a few hours going over the game with J and K and Garreth. The camera guy kept calling Garreth Gabe, which was kind of weird since he was supposed to be the host. I talked to all three of them after the show and found out I might be selling myself a little short. They each picked up $500 for coming out... but I guess I got the free ticket to AC and a cool room at the Borgata. Plus I ordered a little movie and ordered some room service... so it probably comes out even. And maybe I'll get a little thank you gift from the good people at Stage 3 and Talkshow TV.

Coolest part of shooting the whole thing was that I got to meet one of the guys behind CDNow named Andy... we swapped some war stories about the whole dot-com thing, talked about relationships with his partner John (who used to be a big college football player set to get drafted in the fourth round until he blew his knee... during his senior year... during the bowl game. Talk about a bad beat).

After the shoot was over, I signed up for a little tournament at the Borgata... $100 buyin, $100 rebuys, $100 addon. There were about 104 entrants and I skipped the rebuys and just went for the addon. Ended up coming in 7th place for a cool grand. Yo... a grand don't come for free.

Finally hooked up with Bobby... we're driving back out to Fresno and stopping in Columbia for a couple days. Looking forward to spending some cool times with my brother on the road and back in Fresno. He had me laughing all night. Good times. I miss Gianna, though.

Interviews and Tshirts

An interview I gave went up the other day on Poker Lizard. On the lizard site, they have a link to a t-shirt company called Slowplaying.com. I went to the site and the first thing I see is a t-shirt that says "I Hate the Crew". Blah. Haters.

What kills me about their site, though, is that they have an endorsement at the top of the page by the executive producer of the Celebrity Poker Showdown, who's talking about how their t-shirts are all he ever wears. Then when you scroll down the page you see this t-shirt that says "The Celebrity Poker Showdown Sucks". Crazy.

I'd still probably sell their t-shirts on Poker Marketplace. Business is business. And if they sent me one of those crew-hater t-shirts, I'd probably even wear it. Irony is stylish. Now to get ready for AC.

Peace.

Atlantic City: The Happiest Place on Earth

I'm flying out to beautiful AC tonight to do a TV shoot tomorrow at the Borgata. Not quite sure exactly how it's going to go. It's for a new show called Talkshow TV on Comcast. I'm not sure what station that is... anyway, the plan is to teach some people how to play poker and then set them loose at the tables at the Borgata.

The cool thing is that I was going to try to get out to AC anyway today because I wanted to drive back to Fresno with my little brother Bobby. So a few days ago, when the producers caled and said they'd pay for the flight and a hotel room, how could I refuse? I love it when things line up like that. Not sure how long I'll be in AC. Probably just a day or two. Depends a lot on my brother, since he's got the car.

I went to a wedding last night with Gianna... her cousin Vince got married to his girlfriend Jessica. Here's something interesting I heard on CNN Headline News today. In 2003, 33% of men between the ages of 30 and 34 have never been married... comparied to 9% in 1970. Craziness. Seem like marriage is getting less popular. If I ever get married, I don't really want a wedding... I want to just go to the courthouse and do it on the front steps.

My good friend and fellow crewmate Scotty made a final table yesterday at the Bellagio... the game is 7 stud. He'll be playing the final table at 3pm, so if you're in Vegas go root for him. And if you aren't in Vegas and want to help, I guess you should pray that his hands hold up.

Good luck Scott!

Find Your Poker Face

I've done a lot of work on poker tells. I've read the one book out there dedicated to tells, written several original articles at PokerTells.com and every time I play a tournament I look for new ones. One tell that I've been pretty interested in lately is blink frequency. You notice sometimes people seem to blink a lot, and then other times their eyes are just glazed. Still trying to figure out what it means, but it seems that blink frequency is one of those things that people can't really help... kind of like the vein sticking out or breathing patterns.

Anyway, enough with finding poker tells. What I want to talk about right now is hiding your poker tells. I think the best way to do this is to (1) be aware of the common poker tells that people are looking for and (2) establish a pattern for your play.

The first task can be accomplished by reading what is out there. Take a look at the PokerTells.com website as a good place to start. The second task can be accomplished by working a concrete pattern into your game. By a pattern I mean standardizing everything... from how many seconds you look at your holecards to what you do right after a flop. You need to make sure that everything stays the same whether you have a strong hand or a loser.

Here are some things that I try to do :

- I try to never look at my holecards until it is my turn to act.
- When it's my turn to act, I look down at my holecards for a three count... counting silently in my head one... two... three... then put a chip over them if I'm going to play or much them if I'm not.
- If I'm going to play, I pull out some chips the same way each time... and release them the same way into the pot.
- I try and make sure that I'm paying attention to the same players and the same things regardless of what I hold.
- When it's time for the flop, look at the opponents... when you finally look at the flop, just glance at it, then look at the opponents again.
- Concentrate on relaxing... relax your face muscles and your hands.
- Try and take the same amount of time to act whether you have a strong hand or a mediocre hand. It's best to come up with a count for each stage of the action. A three count for your pre-flop decision and post-flop decision, maybe a 5 count for your turn decision...

The point of all this is that any variance in your style can give away the strength of your hand. Try and make sure every hand you play will look the same.