Poker From The Rail
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Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
Your Full Tilt blogging/audio/video team is now on the ground in Las Vegas and we’re ready to bring you the sights and sounds of the 2010 World Series of Poker. Things will really start moving along here shortly but the pre-series planning took a short break on Wednesday afternoon for some fun with the players and selected guests. Somehow I found myself with an invitation to the Doyle Brunson Beer Pong Invitational at Hogs and Heifers in classic downtown Las Vegas. It’s quickly becoming a tradition to loosen things up before everyone gets down to the serious business of picking up bracelets.
I enlisted professional grinder Matt “All In At 420″ Stout as my partner feeling his skills would help balance the fact that I’m an over 40 year old mess who hasn’t thrown a ping pong ball into a plastic cup in over a decade. He didn’t disappoint. I was the first player to arrive at Hogs and Heifers as I wanted to get a feel for the place and get in a little “pre-gaming”. Before long the place was packed with all levels of players from the new young guns (Shaun Deeb, MandyB, LuckyChewy, etc) and legends of the game (Doyle Brunson, Erick Lindren, Eli Elezra, etc). How I ended up in this company will be questioned for ages.
Stout and I drew last year’s runner up Hoyt Corkins who was teamed up with Steve “gboro780″ Gross and it was a battle. We found ourselves down quickly 6-1 and drawing thin to one last shot. Stout kept us alive, kicking off a furious comeback. We pulled even and were heads up for several rounds of shots but were sunk by Corkins in the end. It was a tough match but we took it like professionals and made our way to the bar to consul ourselves.
The rest of the day was spent munching on BBQ then catching up with old friends and making new ones. There were many great conversations and some interesting activities as the sun went down and BAC levels went up. The crowd continued to grow as the tournament made it’s way to the final tables with a championship match between the Amanda “MandyB” Baker/Shawn Green and the Tony “Bond18″ Dunst/Leo Murphy team. It was a heated battle but the former Poker From the Rail blogger “Bond18″ taking down the title. This was his second trophy of the night after he also picked up the “Best Trash Talker” award.
The place emptied of the various members of the pokerati contingent but I stuck around. Hogs and Heifers quickly became my favorite Vegas watering hole in just one day. I spent some quality time with the owner Michelle Dell as well as other members of the staff. It was nice to find a place in this big city which felt like my home drinking establishment.
But this brings to a close the laid back fun times of the summer as the players and media now turn their attention to the business of playing the world’s biggest poker series. I have seen the inside of the new Pavilion Room set up and it is more massive than you can imagine. The satellite areas were full of players trying to win their way into the $50,000 Player’s Championship Event #2. The Doyle Brunson Beer Pong Invitational was a complete blast but now things get serious.
We will all be back on Friday to bring you all the action.
You can find a few pictures after the jump as well as a video from PokerNews and Wicked Chops/Raw Vegas covering the tournament:
Tags: 2010 World Series of Poker, AlCantHang, Battle of the Blogger Tournaments, Doyle Brunson, WSOP
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
Mike Matusow signing copies of Check Raising The Devil outside the Amazon Room
It’s Ladies day here at the 2009 World Series of Poker as the $1,000 Ladies Only event kicks off at noon. There will be some top pros scattered throughout the Amazon Room including actress Jennifer Tilly who’s picture is plastered all over the Rio advertising this event. We’ll be on the look out for some idiot men who will no doubt try to play the event in disguise.
The big event today, no offense to the ladies, is the $10,000 Limit Omaha/8 Championship which will bring a different kind of exclusive group of players. It takes a special kind of person to master LO8 and these players will be trying to collect some hardware. Mike Matusow took yesterday off from playing just to make sure he was ready to hit this event with everything in his arsenal. If he’s got everything dialed in he has to be one of the favorites in the field to take it down.
We will have two more bracelets won at some point in the day. The $2,500 No Limit Hold’em and $2,500 Limit Hold’em both finished up before hitting their final table but will play down to a winner today. Phil Ivey is still in the NLHE field but severly shortstacked when he walks in the door. I suspect we’ll see an early push from the legend looking for his second bracelet of the year.
On a personal note, I’ll be trying to win my way into the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event today when we throw down in the Battle of the Blogger Tournament of Champions at 20:00ET (17:00 Amazon Room time). I’ll be going up some of your favorite bloggers and some of the best players in the group. My odds are very long and chances slim but I’ll be doing my damnedest to take a day off and play the big game.
Chip counts for the restarts after the jump:
Tags: 2009 World Series of Poker, AlCantHang, Battle of the Blogger Tournaments, Bloggers on the Rail, Mike Matusow, WSOP
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
Month two in the Battle of the Blogger Tournaments 4 is in the books and things have become interesting. 38 tournaments have been played and we picked up our first players to double up in wins. Blogger heffmike was the first player to notch his second win in the challenge, effectively shrinking the field in the Tournament of Champions. Frequent Poker From the Rail guest poster TuscaloosaJohn grabbed his second win in the Blogger Big Game and bringing his BBT4 money count up to near $1,800.
Just one more month remains before we award two Main Event seats in the 2009 World Series of Poker and two WSOP preliminary seats. In addition to his Blogger Big Game win, TuscaloosaJohn also locked up Player of the Month honors and grabbed himself a Bracelet Race package.
The biggest surprise has to be the chip spewing donkey who won the last tournament of the month. That would be your humble author. I have no idea how I managed to take down The Mookie on Wednesday other than pure lemur luck. I am one of the lucky few to get a seat in the ToC. Joining this big group of players is also blogger legend DrPauly who booked his ToC appearance with a win in the Mookie the week before. Old school bloggers are throwing down the gauntlet.
After the jump you can find some other highlights as well as the complete list of players qualified for the challenge-ending tournament.
Tags: AlCantHang, Battle of the Blogger Tournaments, BBT4, Bloggers on the Rail
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
You’ve had a tough week at the office, the kids are driving you nuts, or maybe none of that is true. You can use any excuse available to justify a little personal time hitting the tables at Full Tilt. There are plenty of chances to hit up the big games online this weekend or you can hit up the small ball games while railing your favorite pros.
Full Tilt Poker started a new promotion which is running at the moment. Take 2 is running now through April 10th where you have a chance to earn double points as well as cash bonuses. All for playing multiples cash game tables which you are probably doing already. Click on the link above to get the full details.
There are big guarantee tournaments running all weekend long starting this evening as well as some special blogger games. Some of the tournaments highlighted after the jump.
Tags: AlCantHang, Battle of the Blogger Tournaments, Big Money Sunday, Bloggers on the Rail, durrrr Challenge, Friday Night Fights, Full Tilt Poker Academy, Julius_Goat
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
Last night concluded the first month in the Battle of the Blogger Tournaments 4 series. We’ve gone through 20 tournaments with over $20,000 in prize money. More importantly we’ve awarded our first $2k Bracelet Package to blogger 1Queens Up1. He played in 17 of the 20 events and took over the top of the leaderboard with only 1 tournament left and without winning one. Of the 17 tournaments he made 8 final tables and cashed for nearly $800. He also let the field in number of times in the points and in the money. Now he has an additional $2k WSoP package in his roll.
Rounding out the top 5 for the month were heffmike (1 win, 4 final tables), 125Will (1 win, 5 final tables), Bone_Daddy84 (1 win, 3 final tables) and Shabazz Jenkins (1 win, 4 final tables). Rake Feeder and heffmike lead the money field with over $1,500 and $1,000 earned respectively.
You can track the series-long tournaments board here. After the jump you can find the list of players who have qualified for the Tournament of Champions plus the other special events which are happening this weekend.
Tags: AlCantHang, Battle of the Blogger Tournaments, BBT4, Bloggers on the Rail, WSOP
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
It’s been an interesting week in my world. I somehow managed to pick the locks that were holding me captive in the FTP dungeon and I’ve escaped. In truth, I’m in the middle of a long road trip down the east coast of the US and internet access has been sketchy at best.
It was a bad time to fall off the grid as we kicked off the 4th Battle of the Blogger Tournaments Challenge, an opportunity to get into the World Series of Poker on the cheap and play some fun tournaments.
We started the challenge off with two tournaments on Sunday spanning the width of buyins. The first event was the $5.50 Brit Blogger Game which starts at a perfect time for our players in Europe and a chance for the US players to bail on their familial duties to sling the chips. The other events was the Blogger Big Game for $69+6 and one of the biggest blogger hosted prizepools (largest recorded was last year when 105 players created a prizepool over $7,000).
More details after the jump.
Tags: AlCantHang, Battle of the Blogger Tournaments, BBT4, Bloggers on the Rail
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
One of the best parts of being a blogger who plays and writes about poker (rarely successful on either account) is hitting some of the private blogger hosted tournaments. Just about any day of the week you can find one of these games going in any kind of format.
Full Tilt has been supporting different “challenges” the last few years and is coming through again with a monster set of prizes over the next three months.
Between March 1st and May 31st, we will be holding the fourth Battle of the Blogger Tournament challenge where anyone can win their way into the World Series of Poker. We’re giving away 2 WSoP Main Event packages and 5 WSoP Prelim packages as well as money to the overall leaderboard.
All you need to do is enter the tournaments and win your way into the Tournament of Champions to be held at the beginning of June. The two Main Event seats and two of the Prelim packages will be awarded to the top 4 finishers in the TOC. The other 3 Prelim packages will be awarded to the Players of the Month for March, April and May.
It’s a fun way to spend some time playing with a chance at the big time when it’s all done. This is open to bloggers and readers, anyone with an account and willingness to donk it up.
You can go to the Battle of the Blogger Tournaments page for more details and there will be a link to the leaderboard.
You can get the full schedule of tournaments after the jump.
Tags: AlCantHang, Battle of the Blogger Tournaments, BBT4, Bloggers on the Rail
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