Poker From The Rail
a Poker Blog brought to you by Full Tilt Poker
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under The Pros Speak
We’re expanding things here on Poker From the Rail in 2011 to include even more guest posts from bloggers, players, and anyone with an interesting story. First up on our growing roster is Christian “charder30″ Harder, a monster in both live and online poker. His resumé includes two EPT final tables, 4th place in the 2009 WPT World Championship, and his combined career tournament earnings will reach the $4,000,000 mark this year. He’ll be here to bring you his tales from the grind and life in general. Welcome!
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by Christian “charder30″ Harder
Here’s a quick introduction: My name is Christian Harder, I go by “charder30″ online. I am 23 years old from Annapolis Maryland and I play mostly live tournaments, but also a decent amount of live cash, online tournaments, and online cash. I have had a decent amount of success in live tournaments…Here’s a look.
Over my poker career I go in spurts where I love to blog, and other times where I feel I have nothing to add so I despise it. Well, I am back in the mood. I will be writing a pretty standard poker and life blog, but hopefully it will be pretty interesting and worth reading… at least that’s one of my goals. Anyway, on to some content!
I’m pretty excited about 2011. The end of the 2010 didn’t go too well for me, but I have already had a good start to the year due to some online tournament success, cash games, and a staking score. Everyone talks about having New Years resolutions and I agree it’s a good idea to have goals, but come on it’s bogus. Still I’ll be honest, I have some goals this year. Poker is an ever changing game, if you’re not working on your game constantly, you’re falling behind (well maybe besides Phil Ivey). Both tournament poker and cash game poker have been getting harder and harder. I have been trying to stay sharp by playing more online than I did in 2010. No limit cash and tournaments online are so tough these days, it’s important to keep working. You see the big winners in every game constantly change. There is obviously a big reason for this. I am kind of ranting, but you get the idea…
Recently I have been trying to play more of the “other games.” Honestly, cash game wise I think that’s where the money is. I have played a lot of PLO and mixed games. Maybe I am a naive fish, but I think I’m picking up the games decently and I have a good idea on how to play the stud games, where as this time last year I was completely lost. I have also pretty much given up on online no limit cash and have played solely PLO…so far so good.
My bread and butter is still tournament poker. 2010 was my worst year since 07 (when I wasn’t even a full time poker player) so it was pretty frustrating. Makes me marvel about how some of the best on the circuit just constantly crush. I mean overall, it’s not like like I lost money, so I cant complain. I know the ridiculous variance in tournament poker. In 2011 I still plan to play a lot of tournaments. I will be in the Bahamas two days from now, then Biloxi, Borgata, LA, Bay 101 and then who knows? Should be a fun year. Thanks for reading.
Tags: charder30, Christian Harder, Guest Posts, The Pros Speak
Posted by The Captain | Filed under The Pros Speak
Last week we presented Part One of our interview with Full Tilt Pro Greg Mueller on what it takes to succeed at the World Series of Poker. This week we’ll continue along those lines and go even further in depth on tournament poker as a whole. Enjoy!
Speaking of learning as you play, do you think it’s important to discuss your play or specific hands after tournaments?
Well, it all depends on who you’re discussing it with and why you’re discussing it. If you’re doing this to get sympathy, to tell a bad beat story, it’s just not worth it. If you’re talking with good poker players, you can get a lot of good information and a lot of insight. I don’t discuss hands as much as I used to, but when I was getting started, I’d talk with the people that I hung out with about key hands all the time, because you can get so much information and learn from the experience. Whatever the case is, sometimes you think you know a lot and after a conversation, you wake up.
Tags: Greg Mueller, WSOP
Posted by The Captain | Filed under The Pros Speak
One aspect of the WSOP that makes it interesting is the number of “amateurs” that end up playing – and frequently going deep – in various events. This is especially true of $1.5K buy-in events, where runners frequently number in the thousands. One of the questions that this seems to beg is, “what’s it take to play in a WSOP event?” While the obvious answer is buy-in money, the proverbial chip and chair are only the beginning.
To get a professional opinion on actually making it happen, our cohort in Vegas was able to get a few minutes of Greg Mueller’s time. Here’s his take, in his own words:
Tags: Greg Mueller, WSOP
Posted by The Captain | Filed under The Pros Speak
Everyone’s got their own idea of what to look for when they want to get into a cash game. And of course, the more experience that someone has, the more information they can collect before they even sit down. With that in mind, we caught up with Brad Booth out in Vegas and asked him for his thoughts on the subject. Here’s the man himself – in his own words:
Tags: Brad Booth, Live Poker
Posted by The Captain | Filed under The Pros Speak
Team Full Tilt’s Mike Matusow is clearly one of the most outspoken personalities in poker – and one of the most talented. While his past antics have ranged from entertaining to offensive, his performance over the course of this year’s WSOP has been nothing less than top-notch in terms of behavior and performance. Over the last month, he’s earned his third career bracelet, made the final table in the $10K Omaha Hi/Lo Split event, and cashed in the $1.5K HORSE. Even more impressive, he’s been extremely mellow and focused on his game.
Tags: Mike Matusow, WSOP
Posted by The Captain | Filed under The Pros Speak
Watching the pros play in televised tournaments like Poker After Dark, everything seems to play out according to a master plan. After hours of footage have been edited and put out for mass consumption, we get a slick presentation of the best of it – which makes for some pretty entertaining poker TV.
But what’s it really like to be there, in front of the cameras, knowing that every move you make is going to be put out there for everyone else to watch? Recently, Ali Nejad was good enough to share his recollections of his first appearance as a player on Poker After Dark and what it was like for him. While he’s got years of experience giving professional commentary on the game, that experience at the table didn’t play out the way he hoped. Here’s what happened – in his own words:
Tags: Ali Nejad, Poker After Dark
Posted by The Captain | Filed under The Pros Speak
One of the most entertaining aspects of live poker is the banter at the table. Just mentioning certain players immediately elicits comments about their style and, invariably, their personality at the table. But how much of what we see accurately reflects the player in question? For that matter, how important is “table image” when you get right down to it?
Rather than trying to put a fine point on it ourselves, we recently had the chance to listen to Gavin Smith’s thoughts on the subject. While his antics might lead folks to believe that he’s a reckless madman at the table, that’s far from the case. In fact, people’s perception of him is just another edge that he’s able to capitalize on. Here’s what he had to say about image and how it fits into the picture for him:
Tags: Gavin Smith, Table Image
Posted by The Captain | Filed under The Pros Speak
Between the cameras and commentators, it’s pretty easy to keep track of everything that’s going on at any table that’s getting media coverage. Even with that, there’s still one aspect that can’t be covered until after the fact: what’s going on in someone’s head when they’re making decisions that could double them up or send them to the rail.
Recently, Paul Wasicka was good enough to let us in on what was going through his head as a particularly memorable hand played out against Gus Hansen at the 2007 Aussie Millions. Here’s what he had to tell us:
Tags: Gus Hansen, Paul Wasicka
Posted by The Captain | Filed under The Pros Speak
In all of the excitement that goes with the WSOP, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that a lot of action takes place at the side-games going on elsewhere during the Series. While the side-games don’t see the same media coverage given to the larger tournaments, it doesn’t mean that they aren’t loaded with memorable moments.
While he’s most recently made headlines for taking down the $10K Pot-Limit Hold ‘em event and earning his first bracelet, Nenad Medic’s been playing the side-games around the WSOP for several years now. Looking back, a lot of his experiences stand out, but there was one in particular that he shared with us. In his own words, here’s what Nenad had to say:
Posted by The Captain | Filed under The Pros Speak
Finding the time to do what we enjoy in life isn’t always as easy as it seems. This is especially true if you’re in a profession that requires serious dedication and practice – professional poker players are a prime example. In order to achieve success at the highest levels, the pros put in a serious amount of time to continually improve their game. In some instances, it might even appear that poker is the only thing in life and that everything else takes a backseat when it comes to time at the table.
While it might be for a few, this isn’t the case for Karina Jett. For her, being able to enjoy life as a professional poker player is a matter of balance. As a poker pro, wife of Full Tilt Poker pro Chip Jett, and a mother, happiness is a matter of keeping everything in perspective. Here’s what she had to say about priorities, poker and managing her time:
Tags: Chip Jett, Karina Jett
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The opinions expressed by this blog and those providing comments are theirs alone, and do not reflect the opinions of Full Tilt Poker. Full Tilt Poker is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information supplied by the author of this blog nor any content contained herein.
