FULL TILT POKER BLOG

Posted by jgreenspan | Filed under Uncategorized

The early stages of these opening days are pretty uneventful, especially for the pros. There are so many players who are willing to commit far too much money on second-tier hands that most of the better players are choosing their spots carefully.

After witnessing some of the play yesterday Phil Gordon commented, “I’m not playing a hand until the antes kick in.”

In one corner of the room, Chris Ferguson, at Table 88, watched as two of his tablemates engaged in a bizarre confrontation. An early position player open-raised and was called by the big blind. On a 9-high flop, the big blind check-raised and was called. There was a check-raise on the turn, and then no bets went in on the river, as the players showed their hands down. What did they hold?

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Read more | Comments (0) | July 29th, 2006 Play Online Poker at Full Tilt Poker

Posted by jgreenspan | Filed under Uncategorized

I played for a while last night in a cash game, and two seats to my left was a man in his early thirties who wore a muscle shirt and an OSU baseball cap. While we played he talked about an early WSOP event, where he was seated at the same table as Gavin Smith.

He recounted some of the hands that Smith had won. Smith raised up front with some garbage hand – 8-6 was the culprit, I think – and ended up winning a huge pot with trips.

I noted that playing with Smith looks like an unholy nightmare.

The man shot back, “I don’t care who you are, you can’t be raising out of position with that crap.”

I didn’t want to lecture this guy, but a response came immediately to my mind. It went something like this:

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Read more | Comments (0) | July 29th, 2006 Play Online Poker at Full Tilt Poker

Posted by pgordon | Filed under Uncategorized

I came down to the poker room today even though I don’t start till tomorrow. I wanted to get a look at how people were playing. I saw a hand that was just amazing.

On the fourth hand of the tournament, an early position player raised to 500 (10x the big blind) and he was called by the button and the small blind.

The flop came Q-2-3, with two heart. The big blind bet 1,500, the preflop raiser made it 4,000 and the button moved in. They showed 2-2, A-Q and 4h-5h. Completely sick. On the fourth hand of the Main Event of the World Series of Poker, one guy tripled up, and two people were eliminated.

Sick.

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Read more | Comments (0) | July 28th, 2006 Play Online Poker at Full Tilt Poker

Posted by jgreenspan | Filed under Uncategorized

This afternoon, Full Tilt had a party for their 400-plus online qualifiers. It was a chance for these online players to mingle and chat with the pros. Rafe Furst, a recent bracelet winner chatted with a number of people, Erik Seidel signed autographs, and Chris Furgeson answered questions and posed for photographs.

What’s amazing is that most of the people here talk of qualifying for trivial sums of money — $6, $52, $0. With a combination of skill and luck, they made it through the qualifying tournaments and now, with almost nothing invested, they’ll have a chance at $20 Million (the $10 Million first prize, plus the $10 Million bonus for qualifying through Full Tilt).

Who are these players? They represent a wide variety of age groups and geographic regions. But looking around the room, one can’t help but be struck by the predominance of youth. To my 38-year-old eyes, they look like a bunch of kids.

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Read more | Comments (0) | July 28th, 2006 Play Online Poker at Full Tilt Poker

Posted by Andy | Filed under Uncategorized

My table’s shaping up pretty well. There are a couple of people that are in every pot, and a few others that are tight. I managed to add 5,000 in chips to my stack, which is nice. I picked up most of those chips in hand where I flopped top pair with A-J and a guy tried to bluff me off the hand on the flop and turn. If he bet on the river, I don’t think I could have called, because it seemed any draw got there. But he checked and I was able to showdown the winner.

Seeing play like that, I feel I can forgo looser calls against the tight players and wait for opportunities to play against the players who are going to bluff off a lot of chips.

Back to the table.

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Read more | Comments (0) | July 28th, 2006 Play Online Poker at Full Tilt Poker

Posted by jgreenspan | Filed under Uncategorized

It was just announced that the first prize will be “well over $10 Million.” The dreams of fame and riches are clearly alive and well. But as I walk the floor of the Rio in these early levels, one thing is abundantly clear: a vast number of the hopefuls are woefully unprepared.

Many of the people who won their way in online are, I think, accustomed to playing in tournaments where there’s never a whole lot of post-flop play. In the Main Event, the stacks start pretty deep – 10,000, with blinds of 25 and 50 – so there’s plenty of room to maneuver after the flop. When stacks are deep, certain hands lose a lot of value. Ask any pro, and you’ll hear of a great reluctance to commit a lot of chips early on with something like top-pair top kicker or even an overpair. Yet in the first half hour of play, I saw a number of people go broke with these types of hands when it should have been very clear that a single pair could not take the pot. (Note: on a board of 9h Th-Jc-7h-5c, a pair of Aces is not a very good hand.)

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Read more | Comments (0) | July 28th, 2006 Play Online Poker at Full Tilt Poker

Posted by clonie | Filed under Uncategorized

I’m playing today, in the first of the opening heats. I’m excited and feel that I’m playing at the top of my game.

It’s an overwhelming event – I just heard that there may be 10,000 players in total. But I can’t worry about that. All I can do is take it one table at a time, 10 players at a time. You really can’t worry about what’s happening at the other tables and who has the chip lead. You need to focus on the players around you.

I think we’re starting playing 11-handed, so I’ll need to play pretty tight. With 11-handed tables, there’s probably going to be a big hand out there, so you need to be pretty tight, especially in early position.

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Read more | Comments (0) | July 28th, 2006 Play Online Poker at Full Tilt Poker

Posted by jgreenspan | Filed under Uncategorized

The Main Event of the WSOP will start later today, and soon after that the tournament directors will announce a record number of entrants and a prize pool that is surreally large. This is an annual rite now; for three years running we’ve shaken our heads in wonder at the breathtaking scale this event has achieved.

For me, though, it’s not the size of the tournament that makes this event so special and unique. I’m not even that impressed by the other aspects of the event that people cite when they say it’s extraordinary. Sure, it’s great that a home-game novice can compete head-to-head with a world-class pro. And it’s wonderful that in two weeks the world will have a couple of new celebrities and a few very wealthy men and women.

But what I really love about the Main Event – and what separates it from all other poker tournaments or contests of any sort – is that anyone who has any relation with the game will have participated in this event’s formation. Even if you’re not playing in the Main Event, there is no doubt that some money you once held is in the prize pool.

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Read more | Comments (0) | July 28th, 2006 Play Online Poker at Full Tilt Poker

Posted by jgreenspan | Filed under Uncategorized

The story at the WSOP right now is the frenzy that’s descended upon the place. There are masses of people here. Hundreds of hopefuls enter the super satellites that start several times a day. With everyone in town, this is the time when the companies who are capitalizing on the poker boom can reach out to their consumers. In many cases, they’re doing it very well.

Last night was the Full Tilt party at Pure, the nightclub in Caesar’s Palace. There was plenty of top-shelf booze (Tanqueary for me, please!) and a bevy of B-list celebrities. Jose Canseco and Shannon Elizabeth were there, looking huge and beautiful, respectively. One of the cast members from Mad TV was there, falling over drunk.

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Read more | Comments (0) | July 27th, 2006 Play Online Poker at Full Tilt Poker

Posted by Howard | Filed under Uncategorized

In the couple of events I played in, I finally felt like I was starting to concentrate. I’ve been very busy with Full Tilt, and for much of the time during the early events, I had a hard time fully focusing on the game. And, of course, if you’rethinking about other things, it’s going to be very hard to gather all the information that’s available to you.

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