Entries from January, 2009
Guest Post – Julius Goat – Tournament Director
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
Our boy Julius_Goat comes back from his trip to insomnia land and waxes imaginative, what would he do if he was in charge of running Full Tilt tournaments. He has some technologically creative ideas to increase your tournament experience.
Naturally, if you take any of the following serious, I would direct you first to this link.
Full Tilt Memorandum
From: Julius_Goat
To: All Full Tilt Staff
RE: DONKEY CHOKER POKER — IMMEDIATE SOFTWARE ENHANCEMENT
Dear Team Full Tilt,
First of all, thank you for hiring me as tournament director! It was a surprising choice to be sure, but I can assure you that my total lack of qualification in no way . . .
Huh, lost my train of thought there. Anyway, it’s been a great ride so far, and I’d just like to personally apologize to Chris Ferguson about the hat thing. I really wasn’t feeling well; think I ate some bad shrimp at the buffet.
Popularity: 5% [?]
Tags: AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, Guest Posts, Julius_Goat
Big Money Sunday – January 25th
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
The big story from this week’s Big Monday Sunday comes from an event that technically isn’t part of the 3 big Full Tilt Sunday major tournaments. When the $100k Double Deuce was first created the maximum number of players allowed in the event was relatively low with a monstrous waitlist. They increased the max players to 10,000 and we’ve been creeping in that direction ever since.
Last night we hit the magical number of 10,000 players in a $20 buyin event. That’s an incredible $200,000 prizepool for a very small buyin. As I’ve mentioned earlier, the structure is incredibly deep. As the players hit the final table, the small stack was sitting with 20 big blinds.
We had two Full Tilt red letter pros make separate big money final tables. Jordan Morgan final tabled the $750k Guarantee finishing in 3rd. Christian Kruel made his mark buy cashing in 6th of the Sunday Mulligan. Mark “The Omaholic” Roland won the $2,000 H.O.S.E. tournament at the 2009 Borgata Winter Poker Open on Saturday and made the final table of The Sunday Brawl Sunday evening.
Brief overview and final table numbers after the jump.
Popularity: 4% [?]
Tags: AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail
2009 Borgata Winter Poker Open
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
On occasion I like to escape from my evil lair and actually attend a live tournament. We are a full service blog here at “Poker from the Rail”, so I’ll hop in the man truck tomorrow afternoon and travel to Atlantic City for the Borgata Winter Poker Open as they head towards their two big events. They have a big name, big money $2,000 buyin H.O.R.S.E. tournament Friday and their Main Event beginning on Sunday. The Main Event will be a $3,000 buyin deepstack NLHE tournament with a $2,000,000 guarantee.
Click for more details
Popularity: 5% [?]
Tags: AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail
Tom “durrr” Dwan puts big money on the line
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
Tom “durrr” Dwan issued a big challenge to poker players
Tom “durrr” Dwan threw down the gauntlet earlier this month via Bluff Magazine that involves big money and some of the biggest name in poker. Dwan spoke with them and issued the following challenge online:
“I’m making this heads-up challenge to the world. Anyone can accept. Four tables, minimum of $200/$400, and I’ll put up $1.5 million to their $500,000. We play 50,000 hands minimum and if they end up a dollar after rake they keep the side money or whatever. So basically, if you and I played and you won a dollar, you would get my $1.5 million and if I won a dollar I would win your $500,000.”
In followup forum posts, he clarified his intentions and has excluded his friend Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond from participating. It didn’t take long for some of the biggest names to accept the challenge, there are rumors running amok on the forums that Phil Ivey, David Benyamine and Patrik Antonius are ready to hit the tables and take him up on the offer.
Popularity: 10% [?]
Tags: AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, Gus Hansen, Phil Ivey
Guest Post – Julius Goat – The Donkey Test
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
When our blogging brother Julius_Goat gets insomnia during odd days of the week, I tend to see interesting guest posts pop up in my email inbox. This week his post popped up earlier then I expected. I assume he was feeling sympathy pains for my Eagles during their time of loss in football (not proper football, for that he’d have to be watching Chelsea).
This week’s moment of brilliance brings us the next version of the Donkey Test. Simple enough, follow the questions, answer and score yourself at the bottom.
Enjoy.
The New Donkey Test
So, I was scouring through the poker-net, and I came across a new version of that Donkey Quiz that was popular a few years back. Remember that thing? It’s a pretty good little quiz, and creates what I consider to be a fairly strong profile of your poker game. I, for example, scored in the 98th percentile for excellence the seventh time I took it.
Well, somebody has created a new one, and I have been allowed to reproduce a section of it here for your edification. Enjoy!
Popularity: 6% [?]
Tags: AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, Guest Posts, Julius_Goat
Big Money Sunday – January 18th
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
Amanda “Mandy B” Baker was the last FTP pro standing in the Million Dollar Guarantee
This weekend brought around the monthly $1 Million Guarantee tournament in place of the $750k and a prizepool over $1,100,000. In total, Big Money Sunday brought out 14,900 players and a total payday of $1,984,440. Just a few buyins short of two million dollars. I was railing several big names in the events including Amanda “Mandy B” Baker and Allen Cunningham with big runs in the Million Dollar. We had several FTOPS winners get close to the big money with Jonas “Klausen” making the Sunday Mulligan final table.
Final table summaries and numbers after the jump.
Popularity: 4% [?]
Tags: AlCantHang, Big Money Sunday, Bloggers on the Rail
Guest Post – Julius Goat – Stupid System Chaper 11
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
It’s been a few months since noted author Julius_Goat presented us with the next chapter in his award-winning book Stupid/System. This time around he takes a look at tournaments which are outside the normal average MTT you’ll see online. The other chapters are listened below.
Enjoy
Stupid/System Chaper 11: Atypical Poker Tournaments
Not all tournaments are created equal. This may come as a surprise to some of you that haven’t been playing Texas No Limit Hold Them for as long as I have (since 2005), but it is true. I mean, sure, yes, you may well be familiar with the typical, meat-and-potatoes garden-variety online poker tournament, where the leisurely fifteen-minute blinds and the 1500 starting chips allow for lots of advanced play (like the min. raise, the triple check-call, and the early position limp). It’s quite possible, I admit. Oh yes. I admit it.
But did you know that there were a whole other variety of tournaments out there for you to sink your fangs into, if you are a wolfman, or possibly Dracula? Even if you don’t have fangs, you can still easily play any number of tournaments whose differences from the norm result in novel changes to structure and optimal strategy in this game we love. [1]
What are these types? You know, I was hoping you’d ask me that. Let me go read some poker books, and then I’ll tell you.
OK, I’m back. Here is a complete listing of the atypical tournament types, along with a few notes for optimal play.
Popularity: 6% [?]
Tags: AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, Guest Posts, Julius_Goat
Big Money Sunday – January 11th
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
Big Money Sunday came and went boosting the bankroll of some players earning their first big score. The headline event, $750k Guarantee, had the top two places paid out to players in their biggest buyin tournament. We had several former FTOPS winners come close to hitting a major final table but fall short. FTP red letter pro Steve Wong came closest to a big score for the big names by finishing 14th in the $750k. The Sunday Mulligan final table featured stpauli111 who has several 5 digit scores this year, Michael “mman_status” Meredith, and kice32 who took down a $100,000 prize in FTOPS IV Event #3.
Big Money Sunday numbers after the jump.
Popularity: 4% [?]
Tags: AlCantHang, Big Money Sunday, Bloggers on the Rail
Blogger 2009 New Year’s Resolutions
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
It’s seems to be standard practice to commit yourself to resolutions with the beginning of each new year. It’s usually things which you should be doing anyway, but with the flip to a new calendar some try to make some changes. Poker players are no different and bloggers usually take it a step further. They tend to put their resolutions down in print for everyone to see and call them out if they get out of line.
My resolution is always the same, don’t be a donkey. And I never follow through as I continue to be one of the worst players in the world. This year I’m going to try something different.
From January 1, 2009 to December 31st, 2009 I am going to run the Chris Ferguson Challenge and see how much money I can pull together starting from zero. I’ll update my progress here as the year goes along and I’m calling out fellow FTP blogger Michael Craig to see if he’s willing to do the same. I’m sure we could come up with some kind of side bet to make it interesting.
This week I hit up some of my blogger friends to see what kind of New Year’s Resolutions they had lined up for this year. Check them out after the jump.
Popularity: 5% [?]
Tags: AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail
