Dec
15
15
#932 – Tournament Preservation Strategy, Part I – The Invisible Giant
All tournament situations are not created equal. For example, you raise with As-Js and an opponent moves all-in. Do you call?
Dec
14
14
#931 – Taking a Break
This is really unusual, but I’m taking a week off from playing poker online. The only time I’ve done that all year has been when I was at the World Series of Poker, so it was hardly “a break.” I’ll be doing work on the Blog during that time, but I’m getting away from playing for a little while.
Dec
10
10
#930 – Jeffrey Pollack: The World Series of Poker Will Miss Him – More Than We Realize
It’s been nearly a month since Jeffrey Pollack resigned as the Commissioner of the World Series of Poker and I’m just now getting around to writing about it. Partly, this has been because of the rush of other assignments: finishing up my Final Table work (which still isn’t done) and my trip to LA. But mostly, it has taken me this long to accept it: Jeffrey Pollack is really gone from the World Series of Poker. It may take a long time before we realize how much we’ve lost.
Dec
9
9
#929 – The Suicide King Gets the Last Laugh
Undoubtedly, Joe Cada is having a nice holiday season; he’s probably the happiest guy in the entire state of Michigan. (Geez, who would even be Number Two?) Another fellow who should be very pleased with how the Final Table turned out is Steve Soffa.
Dec
6
6
#928 – Friends in High Places, Part 4 – Charity Tournament Train Wreck
Annie Duke’s charity tournament started at 8pm and the schedule called for a presentation at 11pm, so the tournament structure was, to put it gently, ACCELERATED. The buy-in was $330 with $100 re-buys during the first hour. We ended up raising more than $70,000 for DEF. And nobody can say I didn’t do my part.
Dec
3
3
#927 – Friends in High Places, Part 3 – Enter the Teacher
Howard Lederer punctuated his speech at the DEF seminar by telling a Phil Ivey story. A few years back, Phil won a big tournament at Turning Stone. Howard was part of the broadcast team and it was a unique, live broadcast from the final table. Consequently, Ivey and the broadcast team both had plenty of reasons to celebrate that evening.
Dec
1
1
#926 – Binion’s is only “Mostly Dead”
Stories circulating on the internet and word-of-mouth (or, more accurately, word-of-Tweet) say that Binion’s is closing. I don’t know if you consider this good news or bad news but that’s not entirely true. The hotel is closing. The coffee shop is closing. The keno parlor is closing. But the casino will remain open . . . at least for now.
Dec
1
1
#925 – Friends in High Places, Part 2 – Poker Players as Students
Annie Duke’s tournament at the Commerce Casino was for the benefit of the Decision Education Foundation (DEF). It never ceases to impress me how much time poker players devote to good causes. As far as I can tell, Annie and Howard Lederer and Andy Bloch spend a lot of their time – sometimes, whole weeks or even longer – traveling the world to participate in charity events. For all the time I devote to steal things from professional poker players – playing advice, juicy stories for the blog, occasional mementos – I’ll try, at least a little, to mimic this aspect of their lives.
Nov
30
30
#924 – Friends in High Places, Part 1 – Blight in Blythe
[The week before Thanksgiving, I went to Los Angeles to play in Annie Duke's Celebrity Poker Night, to benefit the Decision Education Foundation. It was an eventful trip and an interesting tournament, so I have written an account of the experience, which will appear in this Blog, in somewhere between five and eight installments, depending on how I write the concluding material and cut/divide the stories. It comes with some great photos, though, for reasons that should become apparent, I didn't get any pictures for Part I.]
1 AM – Outside in the Cold, Blythe, California. What could I have been thinking? I am supposed to play in a charity poker tournament with Annie Duke tomorrow night in Los Angeles. I was going to make the drive on Thursday, the day of the event, but got happy feet at about 9 PM. Annie’s tournament doesn’t start until about 8 PM tomorrow, which would give me plenty of time to make the 400-mile drive. But then I made the mistake I often make in these situations.
Nov
25
25
#923 – CardRunners.com Announces a Piece of Taylor
Card Runnerís announces a Piece of Taylor
Cardrunners.com, that great poker education site, has announced a new promotion that will give you a chance to own a piece of Taylor ìGreen Plasticî Caby. Taylor, one of the founders and instructors at Cardrunners, recently final tabled The Full Tilt Poker Million. On December 4, he will fight it out for the $500,000 first prize with James Akenhead, Luke ìFullFlushî Schwartz, Dag Mikkelsen, Juha Helppi, Peter Vasilliou, and an online qualifier.
Cardrunners is offering 1% of Taylorís payout. One lucky winner will be chosen at random from everyone who is registered for Truly Free Poker Training by December 3rd. Registration is free, open to non-members, and takes approximately two minutes. Once you register for Truly Free Poker Training, you are automatically eligible.
CardRunners.com – which along with The Full Tilt Poker Academy, is trying its hardest to encourage all those who play on Full Tilt (and other sites) to be smart poker players – has announced a cool new promotion. Based loosely on Full Tilt’s “Piece of Ivey” promotion, CardRunners is offering you a piece of its co-founder and instructor Taylor “Green Plastic” Caby.
