FULL TILT POKER BLOG

Posted by Editor | Filed under Me in live tourneys, Me in online tourneys

On Tuesday, February 2, I celebrated my third anniversary of producing the Full Tilt Poker Blog by Michael Craig. If you look back in the archive, you will see the very first post, “The Playboy of Full Tilt,” dated February 2, 2007. I had no idea I would have the blog this long, write this much, or do this much. It has been a wonderful and often startling experience. But the foundation for all that appeared in my very first post.

I began my first post by comparing my connection with full Tilt to Hugh Hefner’s with PLAYBOY in the Fifties in that my real life mirrored how the product was marketed to its audience. “Learn, chat, and play with the pros? That’s me, me, and me.” It was true when I started the blog and it has been integral to its success over the last three years.

Having just finished a retrospective of 2009 last month, I’m not really in the mood to read through nearly a thousand old posts to give all the specific examples. (Neither, probably, are you.) Reference to just a few posts should make it clear how learning, chatting, and playing with the pros has enriched this blog – not to mention my life – over the last three years.

LEARN

Throughout my time on the blog, I have increasingly been discussing poker strategy. Although I have been a winning player in both live and online tournaments during that period, that doesn’t make me an expert. What makes me an expert (or at least why I feel confident that I have something to add to the discussion) is HOW I became a winning player. I spent a lot of time absorbing lessons from the best players in the world and applying those lessons in thousands of hours of live and online tournament play.

Look, for example, at the series I wrote just last month on Tournament Preservation Strategy. It’s not even a concept that has a standard title and, of my five posts, the only information I provided that appeared any place else was a usually-overlooked few pages from an old David Sklansky book. Everything else came from my personal and professional relationships with players the caliber of Mike Matusow, Phil Hellmuth, and Chris Ferguson. Even my analysis of Final Table strategies executed by Jeff Shulman and Phil Ivey developed from private conversations I was privileged to have with world-class pros Mike Matusow and Howard Lederer, who were sitting just a few feet from the action and talking during breaks with Jeff and Phil.

CHAT

Because I have played at least a dozen events in each of the World Series I’ve covered for Full Tilt, I’ve been able to play with a lot of great players and share that experience. Mostly, it’s about table chat, the sort of thing you really don’t get from watching a TV final table and can be reported only by someone sitting there. For example, during the 2008 Series, I wrote about my experience in the mixed Eight-or-Better. I played at four different table and had interesting experiences at each:  running roughshod over a table of inexperienced players, table chat with Howard Lederer, an argument with a combative pro, a mumblefest with Men the Master, and finally being stuck at a table with a bunch of rules-conscience old-timers who needed to call the floorman on every hand. (In fact, on the hand on which I busted, they were still debating some arcane point with the floor ten minutes later, so I just walked away from the table. For all I know, they’re still there fighting about the order in which players are supposed to reveal their hands when there are multiple side pots.) There was also, in that Series, my verbal battle of wits with Devilfish.

PLAY

A lot of what goes on in poker tournaments is about finding something to do when nothing’s going on. That’s why I have always found the idle chatter at the poker table interesting. But when something big happens, I like that I am present to report it, not just as an observer but as a participant in what has the potential, with every shuffle of the deck, to become a compelling drama.

Could there be a better example than last year’s Razz event? I played for the first time with Archie Karas, watched helplessly with horror and then relief  as John Cernuto lost consciousness and fell to the floor one table away just as I was raking in a big pot, and finished runner-up to Jeffery Lasandro’s history-making third bracelet.

Of course, the blog has been a lot more than “learn, chat, and play with the pros.” But in my heart, my power comes from the fact I’m one of you guys, just trying to live the dream.

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2 Responses to “#960 – My Third Anniversary – A Fast Look Back”

1. Del Says:
   February 7th, 2010 at 10:43 pm

   Nice work Michael and congratulations you have one of the most interesting blog reads for poker on the net. Keep up the good work

2. Glyn Says:
   February 12th, 2010 at 7:48 pm

   Great blog Michael, only just found this. Keep up the good work! Off to read the rest of your posts. Seen your instruction video on Fulltilt about Turbo tournaments. I thank you for opening up my hand ranges, which has helped me win more in the turbo SNG’s.

   All the best

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