Poker From The Rail
a Poker Blog brought to you by Full Tilt Poker
Posted by Dave McCarthy | Filed under Bloggers Corner
In General Poker News:
Phil Ivey and Howard Lederer each donated $30k to attend a fundraiser with President Barack Obama Thursday night at the home of Palms owner George Maloof. No word on whether the two Full Tilt pros were able to convince the President to accept the Irish Poker Open’s invitation to play in their April event.
Tags: Chris Ferguson, durrrr, durrrr Challenge, Full Tilt Poker Academy, Gus Hansen, Howard Lederer, Isildur1, Phil Ivey, Tom Dwan
Posted by Dave McCarthy | Filed under Bloggers Corner
It’s been a busy year so far. Here’s a quick review of the top stories of the year (through the first six weeks of it).
If you think a story is missing, please email me at DaveFromTheRail@gmail.com to voice your concern. I’d be happy to run a “Corrections/Retractions” feature to highlight my mistakes.
#5: A Texas pawn shop sold the 2005 WSOP $5,000 no-limit holdem championship bracelet, formerly belonging to TJ Cloutier, on eBay for just over $4,000. Cloutier admitted to pawning it when short on cash. Cake Poker bought the bracelet and said: “We can’t, in good conscience, keep it from the man who rightfully won it; which is why we’ve decided to return it to TJ Cloutier… just as soon as we’re done having some fun with it.”
The top 4 stories can be found after the jump…
Tags: durrrr Challenge, Full Tilt Poker Academy, Isildur1, Phil Gordon, Phil Ivey, Rush Poker, Tom Dwan
Posted by Dave McCarthy | Filed under Bloggers Corner, The Week at FTP
In case you’re unfamiliar with Tom “durrrr” Dwan, the youngest member of Team Full Tilt started with a $50 bankroll in 2004 and is now considered one of the best high stakes players in the world. He recently issued the “durrrr Challenge.” Durrrr and an opponent (the first is Patrik Antonius) play four tables of heads up NLHE or PLO until they’ve reached 50,000 hands. At that point, if the opponent is up by as little as a dollar, Durrrr will give him $1.5 million. If Durrrr is ahead, the opponent gives him $500,000. The winner keeps the money won during the challenge, too.
The most recent session of The Challenge, which ended early Tuesday morning, saw Durrrr extend his lead over Antonius to $1.4 million after 32,795 hands.
The Full Tilt Poker Academy just released part 1 of Phil Gordon’s interview with Durrrr in which the latter discusses:
- What possessed him to offer 3-1 odds against, well, the world
- If his lead in The Challenge will affect his strategy
- Learning poker and improving his game
Part 2 will feature a look at some of the big hands from the durrrr Challenege.
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Also, sources at the home office tell me that over 10,000 people have already read Durrrr’s latest blog post, “A Year in Recap and Isildur Part 1.” Durrrr, incidentally, was an English major at Boston University before pursuing poker full time.
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Lastly, Full Tilt has created a website where you can check the status of The Challenge, watch replays of the biggest hands, and more.
Tags: durrrr Challenge, Full Tilt Poker Academy, Phil Gordon, Tom Dwan
Posted by Dave McCarthy | Filed under Bloggers Corner
Hello Railers,
This is my first post, and I’m honored to be joining AlCantHang as a blogger here at Poker from the Rail.
I plan to post regularly about general poker news, as well as happenings within the Full Tilt community. The rest – news commentary, poker humor, strategy essays – I’d like to leave to all you readers. I’ve created an email address, DaveFromTheRail@gmail.com, for you to submit anything you would like to see up here. Ideally, this blog will contain a great deal of reader generated content.
If you have any comments, criticisms, or just need to get a bad beat story off your chest, please feel free to email me.
Here’s a quick roundup of general and Full Tilt news, which should serve as an example of the kinds of posts I’ll be producing:
General Poker News:
On Monday, a New Jersey State Senate committee, citing potential revenue gains, approved a bill to amend the state constitution to allow sports betting in Atlantic City casinos and New Jersey racetracks. The measure would pave the way for possible legalization of intrastate online gambling. The point is moot, however, unless the federal government eliminates its ban on sports betting. (Federal law bans sports betting in all but Nevada, Delaware, Montana, and Oregon; only limited parlay wagering is allowed in the last three. Barney Frank (D-MA) is leading the charge in Washington to legalize and regulate online gambling.)
If the bill is approved by the state legislature, it would be sent via referendum to the people of New Jersey.
The Pros This Week:
Tom “durrrr” Dwan published his first blog post of 2010 at durrrr.com. The post is titled “a long year in recap, and isildur part 1″ and in it the Full Tilt Red Pro discusses swings, Isildur1, and some of the impetus behind his offering the fan favorite durrrr Challenge. Dwan also promises to post more often this year, announcing that he will donate $10,000 to charity any month he doesn’t write at least three posts.
February 8 must have been a busy day for Dwan. After blogging, he played 883 hands with Patrik Antonius and extended his lead in the Challenge by $314,828 to just under $1.4 million. You can watch the biggest hands replayed and check official Challenge stats at FullTiltPoker.com/durrrr-vs-antonius.
New At the Academy:
The Full Tilt Poker Academy, which offers teaching videos, interactive lessons, and more, recently added some new content, including an interview of Tom Dwan by Phil Gordon. In a smart and candid discussion, the Dean of the Poker Academy asks the young star about the durrrr Challenge, improving one’s game, and what it takes to be a world class player.
Full Tilt News:
The Full Tilt Online Poker Series (FTOPS) XV kicks off Wednesday at 9pm ET with a $200 NLHE tournament hosted by Erik Seidel. Check FullTiltPoker.com for the full schedule of events, list of challenges, and all other things FTOPS.
Tags: Barney Frank, durrrr Challenge, Erik Seidel, FTOPS, Full Tilt Poker Academy, Phil Gordon
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail, Full Tilt Poker Academy
With the World Series of Poker just a few days away, this might be my last push at running a Full Tilt Poker Academy challenge 5 Common Hold’em Leaks. This went also went quickly right on the tail of doing the Pre-Flop Play Challenge which shared many similarities to this one. Hand selections before the flop, action after the flop, and overall profitability while dodging situations for big down swings.
The challenge was completed over a weekend of multi-tabling the microlimit NLHE games again with the same results. I’m also using the lessons learned through the Bankroll Management challenge to grind my bankroll properly without ever risking the entire thing with one swing of variance.
Listed below are the tasks for the challenge as well as some of my notes.
Tags: AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, Full Tilt Poker Academy, Phil Gordon
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail, Full Tilt Poker Academy
My trek through the world of the Full Tilt Poker Academy continued when I chose Chris Ferguson’s Pre-Flop Play Challenge. Meant to enforce proper pre-flop discipline, the challenge has tasks based on your position and hole cards. The different strategies are discussed in the session video and a good place for you to start.
When I first looked at the challenge, I didn’t see much that would be too taxing since most of the principles are already firmly entrenched in my head. Bet sizing and pre-flop hand selection were some of the tasks as well as the Pro Play was could be summed up nicely as NO LIMPING. The longest part of the challenge was finding the action folded to my position when playing micro-stakes.
I fired through the challenge pretty quickly and my experiences are after the jump.
Tags: AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, Full Tilt Poker Academy
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail, Full Tilt Poker Academy
It took me awhile to get back in the swing of things but I’ve finally completed my second challenge on the Full Tilt Poker Academy. My first was the Sit N’ Go By the Numbers Challenge which went rather quickly thanks to a sick run of cards. This time around I went with the Chris Ferguson Bank Management Challenge. Ferguson is famous for his prop bet where he ran his bankroll from $0 to $10,000 with solid bankroll management. After watching his instruction video, I accepted the challenge and began the grind.
The goals and tasks of the challenge are designed to build proper habits with your bankroll as you work to build it through responsible play in cash games, SNGs and large field tournaments. Games that you should be able to beat with your skill set without risking your entire roll on a bad run at the tables. These bad runs will happen, it’s a matter of when not if. Sitting down to cash games with no more than 5% of your roll or an even smaller percentage in tournaments. As you bankroll goes up, you gain valuable experience and prepare you for the move up in levels.
It’s a proven method to improve your game and a worthy Academy Challenge. Details and my experiences after the jump.
Tags: AlCantHang, Bankroll Managment, Bloggers on the Rail, Chris Ferguson, Full Tilt Poker Academy
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, Full Tilt Poker Academy
Over the last week I’ve spent quite some time poking around the new Full Tilt Poker Academy checking out the offering, lessons and challenges. I’m impressed with the amount of educational material they’ve loaded into the site with promises of more and more. After going through some of the lessons I decided one evening to fire up my first challenge.
I settled on the Aaron Bartley Sit & Go By the Numbers challenge. SnGs fit into my current schedule and I challenged myself to see how many tournaments it would take me to get through. The challenge lays out 5 tasks to successfully pass. These tasks highlight and force you to practice the ideas which were outlined in his Sit & Go By the Number video.
The 5 tasks for this challenge were:
Tags: Aaron Bartley, AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, Full Tilt Poker Academy
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail, Full Tilt Poker Academy
I heard awhile ago that we were about to see the launch of the Full Tilt Poker Academy and I was pretty excited. I know the principle people involved in the project, leaving little doubt that the new site would be impressive and educational. The roster of players involved alone guarantees an increase in poker understanding in just a few sessions.
At first glance you can find four short lessons that will kick start your game:
Chris Ferguson – Bankroll Managment
Andy Bloch – Math Made Easy
Howard Lederer – Betting Basics
Phil Gordon – 5 Common Hold’em Leaks
There are other lessons, sessions with the pros where they walk you through their actions in specific hands, podcasts with various players, and different challenges to test your new skills on the Full Tilt Poker tables.
I’ve only spent a few hours digging deep into the Academy to get my initial response. I will spend the next few days really getting into the material and bring you my thoughts in my next post. I am also looking for other players/bloggers interested in sharing their thoughts. If you would like to contribute, you can leave a comment on the blog or send an email to battleofthebloggers@fulltiltpoker.com.
Other posts about the Full Tilt Poker Academy and challenges:
Full Tilt Poker Academy – First Challenge
Full Tilt Poker Academy – Bankroll Management Challenge
Full Tilt Poker Academy – Pre-flop Play Challenge
Tags: AlCantHang, Andy Bloch, Bloggers on the Rail, Chris Ferguson, Full Tilt Poker Academy, Howard Lederer, Phil Gordon
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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.
