Any thoughts on the $50K HORSE event? That was a pretty sick final table.

A horse is a horse, of course of course, but not when he’s Scotty Nguyen. I agree that was a pretty sick final table, but with that many high-level pros in the field, how could it not be? Being the “home team” guy that I am, I was a little disappointed that Erick Lindgren or Huck Seed couldn’t seal the deal and bring home poker’s most prestigious title, but it was a fine showing by our guys nonetheless. Plus, it looks like EDog will be taking home the Player of the Year award, so he’s got that going for him.

I do appreciate what Scotty brings to the table though. How can you not love an Asian dude with a Jeri-curled mullet who constantly swigs from his beer can and shouts catch phrases like “that’s poker baby!”? In fact, if you don’t like Scotty Nguyen, then you have no soul. Pardon me; I think it’s about time to get my Jeri curl on…

If you were lucky enough to win a WSOP bracelet, do you think that you’d ever actually wear it?

No, next question.

Actually, let me get this out of the way as well. I’m making a fairly iron-clad prediction here: I will never ever, never never never win a WSOP bracelet. Just not happening. Things more likely to happen before I win a bracelet: peace in the Middle East, the mighty Memphis Grizzlies winning an NBA title, Earth being destroyed by a comet, and Angelina Jolie and Madonna getting into a cat fight over a starving African child. Actually, that last one might’ve happened already, I’m not too sure. At any rate, the point is that I can’t even win a $5 donkament online, so how the hell am I ever going to win a WSOP bracelet?

Now, if by some strange fluke (like the rest of the tournament field simultaneously dying) I do win a bracelet, I almost certainly would never wear it. I’m just not a bling kind of guy – my natural inclination is to wear things that make me inconspicuous, not make me stand out in a crowd. So, if you’re a baller and want to rock some nice jewellery, go on with your bad self. Me, I’m more likely to pawn my bracelet so I’m able to buy-in to my next donkament.

You guys have the inside hook up, any good gossip from the WSOP this year?

Yeah, we’ve got the inside hook up alright. We’re like McNulty on The Wire, except we’re not drunk Irish men and we don’t know anything at all. Actually, on second thought, maybe we’re exactly like McNulty. Hey man, at least we’re not like Cheese.

As for the inside scoop, there really isn’t one. Maybe it’s because we’re really not in the loop, or maybe it’s because there’s just nothing too exciting in terms of gossip going on this year. Yes, Phil Ivey has all sorts of prop bets floating around out there, but I really don’t know the full details on all of that since I’ve yet to infiltrate Ivey’s inner circle. Other than that, it’s been a rather mellow year as far as I know. Where’s Brandi Hawbaker when you need her? What? She’s dead? When the hell did that happen? That’s kind of depressing.

On a lighter note, it’s two for one day down at the IHOP – time to go get my pancake on. Until next week…

If you think D-Ben had an easy time of it at the final table (he is an Omaha Hi/Lo specialist), check out the line-up he had to face:

• Tony Ma
• Jason Gray
• Ram Vaswani
• Toto Leonidas
• David Chiu
• Mike Matusow
• Greg Jamison
• Eugene Katchalov

While there are some folks there who you probably don’t recognize, consider this – Vaswani, Leonidas, Chiu and Matusow own a combined nine WSOP bracelets. That’s as many as our entire team of 1,000+ pros has won so far this year. So, Benyamine now has a WSOP bracelet, nearly $1 million in tournament winnings over the past three weeks, and Erica Schoenberg. Damn, I hate him – and not just because he’s French.

We’re not nearly as anal about keeping stats as our friends who follow baseball, but then again, we’re not nearly as geeky as they are either. Still, the FTP pros have put up some impressive numbers so far this year:

• 9 bracelets
• 41 final table appearances
• Nearly $9.5 million in combined prize money

Benyamine is leading the FTP pack with the most prize money won (still nearly $1 million) and the most final table appearances (3). Following close behind are Team Full Tilter’s Andy Bloch, Chris Ferguson, Erick Lindgren, and Mike Matusow who have each reached two final tables so far this year. Also doubling up on final table appearances are David Singer and David Chiu. Hell… forget 2008 being the Year of the Pro… it’s the Year of the Pro Named David.

Yes, it’s true… we do have a few pros who aren’t named David. In fact, our most recent non-David addition is Robert Williamson III, a long-time friend of Full Tilt Poker who finally took the plunge and started playing as a red pro last week.

A WSOP bracelet winner and yet another Omaha specialist, Robert is one of the coolest cats in the game and always good for fun stories around the table. And hell, you’ve just gotta love a guy who drinks beer with hot sauce in it, don’t ya?

Phil Ivey may be best known for ruthlessly taking his opponent’s money at the poker tables (and on the golf course… and in huge prop bets), but now the Phenom is giving something back.

You can help support Phil’s Budding Ivey Foundation to provide educational opportunities to at-risk children by – you guessed it – playing poker. Phil is holding a charity tournament at the Golden Nugget on July 1^st where a $1,000 donation and $500 “re-donations” throughout the first hour give you a chance to take down a first-place prize worth at least $10K and help some needy kids.

Today I’ll be throwing out some quotes that match up with each of the 14 members of Team Full Tilt. If time allows, I’ll keep digging deeper into our everlasting well of pros in future weeks. But for right now just sit back, relax and enjoy the show.

This first one goes out to Howard Lederer, courtesy of Homer and Lisa:

Homer: Are you saying you're never going to eat any animal again? What about bacon?
Lisa: No.
Homer: Ham?
Lisa: No.
Homer: Pork chops?
Lisa: Dad, those all come from the same animal.
Homer: Heh heh heh. Ooh, yeah, right, Lisa. A wonderful, magical animal.

For those of you who don’t know, Howard is a vegetarian. That’s right, a poker player who makes a living by feeding on fishes does not dig on swine, bovine, any form of bird or anything that swims in the ocean blue. But that doesn’t mean he won’t, as proven by his famous prop bet with David Grey where David bet Howard $10K that he wouldn’t eat a hamburger. Having morals is nice, but having $10K in your pocket is even better. Howard chowed down the burger without a moment’s hesitation − proving once and for all that the saying “you are what you eat” is nothing but a bunch of baloney.

Our next quote goes out to Phil Ivey, courtesy of Mr. Excellent himself, C. Montgomery Burns:

Mr. Burns: What good is money if it can't inspire terror in your fellow man?

Now, we all now that Phil Ivey is rich. Filthy, stinking rich (which, of course, is the best kind of rich). When he’s not playing (and winning) the world’s biggest poker tournaments or sitting down for some $500/$1,000 PLO action on Full Tilt Poker, he’s sure to be found at the nearest casino plopping down a cool million to play craps or making an insane prop bet with one of his equally rich friends. Or maybe he’s just sweating the NBA finals hoping that the Lakers can somehow get out of the 3-1 hole that they’re in so he doesn’t lose the reported $2 million bet he has riding on the Lake Show to win it all. The point is that Ivey certainly has enough money to inspire fear and terror in his fellow players. But, what’s more important is that Ivey has an utter lack of regard for his money that very few people can match. That not only makes him feared, it makes him the most dangerous man in the game today.

Here’s a quote for Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, courtesy of Homer:

Homer: I've always wondered if there was a god. And now I know there is − and it's me.

Any man who dares take on the name of our lord and savior is surely not a man to be trifled with. Chris made a graceful transition from computer nerd to badass, trench coat wearing, Stetson studded cowboy with the nickname of a man who died for our sins. Believe you me, this is easier said than done. But as Ferguson’s track record in poker has shown, he is surely more than a mere mortal when it comes time to hit the felt. I bow to you and your eternal greatness Chris Ferguson, please forgive me for all of my sins against nature, humanity, and my ill-fated attempt to block out the sun (or was that from an episode of some TV show that I can’t remember at the moment? Oh well).

This next one goes out to John Juanda, courtesy of Ralph Wiggum:

Ralph: Me fail English? That's unpossible.

This all-time classic Simpsons quote goes to one of our more linguistically challenged pros. I’m trying to tread carefully here, as to not offend any non-native speakers of our beautifully demented language. But let’s be honest – Juanda’s not about to be confused with Barack Obama any time soon. His loquacious elegance leaves just a little bit to be desired. Of course, none of this is really JJ’s fault – he can’t help the fact that he’s got that thick Eastern European accent.

Homer: Son, when a woman says nothing's wrong, it means everything's wrong. When a woman says everything's wrong, it means everything's wrong. And when a woman says that something isn't funny, you'd better not laugh your ass off!

I always love when Homer gives Bart advice about women. In fact, everything that I know about women I learned from Homer Simpson. Maybe that’s why I don’t have a girlfriend, but that’s a story for another post. At any rate, this is the first of the quotes that I had to stretch to make it fit. Jen has always struck me as one of the more practical and sane women inhabiting this crazy world of poker. Maybe it’s because she’s been around for so long that nothing really gets to her, maybe she’s just immune to the plethora of shenanigans that constantly surround her, or maybe she’s just a really down to earth kind of gal. Whatever it is, I always got the feeling that you could break wind in front of her without it being a big deal. And that’s pretty much the number one characteristic I look for in a woman (other than breasts that are large enough to double as pillows, but that goes without saying).

Our next quote goes out to Phil Gordon, also courtesy of Homer:

Homer: I've learned that life is one crushing defeat after another until you just wish Flanders was dead.

This quote goes out to a man so desperate to win that first WSOP bracelet that it’s painful to watch every time he gets close and can’t seal the deal. Phil takes a lot of crap on the internet boards, but he’s really a good guy who deserves that gold bracelet as much as anyone else. I have faith in you Phil; someday the crushing defeats will stop and the proverbial 800-pound gorilla that is Ned Flanders will be off your back.

This next quote is for Erick Lindgren, courtesy of Chief Wiggum:

Chief Wiggum: How do you like that, it's also illegal to put squirrels down your pants for the purpose of gambling. 

Does anyone else think that if you approached Lindgren with this prop bet that he might just be crazy enough to take it? I might actually be more willing to let a squirrel run around in my boxers than shoot four rounds of golf (all under 100) in one day under the scorching Vegas sun. I’m not saying that I want to pull a Richard Gere or anything, but given those two choices, I’m gonna go with the squirrel nine times out of 10. I also suck at golf and can’t drive the ball past the Ladies’ tee on most occasions, but that’s a story for another post.

This one’s for Erik Seidel, courtesy of the man who dreams of a land of chocolate at all times:

Homer: I'm a Spalding Gray in a Rick Dees world.

Seidel always seems like he’s a bit out of place in the poker world. Maybe it’s because he’s more a member of the old school and just doesn’t jive with all these young punks, but it just seems like he should be trading stocks or something. All of which means absolutely nothing; Seidel is still one of the best tourney players on the circuit today and he’s been on a hell of a heater this year – he’s won a WPT title, placed second in the Aussie Millions, and final tabled an event at the WSOP. And the year’s not even half way over yet! He might be a stranger in a strange land, but Erik has never lost his sense of direction.

Homer: Lisa, if the Bible has taught us nothing else, and it hasn't, it's that girls should stick to girls’ sports, such as hot oil wrestling and foxy boxing and such and such.

Poor Clonie. What does a girl have to do to get some respect out there? Yes, we know that poker is a man’s world, but that certainly doesn’t mean there’s no room for former beauty queens, does it? Just like Phil Gordon, Clonie is another player who takes an inordinate amount of crap on the boards (2+2, why must you be so mean?). Some of it’s well deserved, most of it is just plain mean and spiteful. At any rate, I don’t think we’ll be seeing Clonie turn her attention to foxy boxing anytime soon, so all you haters out there need to chill out.

This next quote goes out to Andy Bloch, courtesy of fan favorite Professor Frink:

Professor Frink: Oh Dear, I've been RE-DORKULATED!

Has there ever been a cooler “dork” than Andy Bloch. This man has almost single-handedly convinced me to start learning the maths in an effort to improve my game. Of course, that will never happen due to my stifling fear of numbers, but a man can dream, can’t he? Dork on Andy, dork on…

And now for perhaps our best quote of the day, this one goes out to Mikey Matusow courtesy of Homer:

Homer: I want to set the record straight: I thought the cop was a prostitute.

Can anyone else picture this scenario somehow coming to fruition after Mikey’s recent bracelet victory at the WSOP in the Kansas City lowball event. I don’t want to go into any details about this potential scenario because it will most likely cause me to get into trouble (and I’m already on thin ice), but use your imagination people. After all, this is a man who willingly went on a date with Kathy Griffin (shudder). Enough said.

This next one goes out to the Wilt Chamberlain of poker, Gus Hansen, also courtesy of Homer (side note: Homer has an overwhelming number of the best quotes, it’s just not fair to the rest of the characters):

Homer: Son, a woman is like a beer. They smell good, they look good, you’d step over your own mother just to get one! But you can’t stop at one. You wanna drink another woman!

Gus is definitely a man with the reputation of someone who needs to “drink” as many women as he possibly can. Some guys are just insatiable like that. I’m happy if I happen to get one “drink” a year, but once again, that’s a story for another post. Hansen is simply a machine, he just can’t (and won’t) be stopped. Fellas, if you see Gussy walking down the street, make sure to hold on extra tight to your gals. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Our next quote is for Clever Piggy, AKA Allen Cunningham, courtesy of Krusty the Clown:

Krusty: Thirty-five years in show business and already nobody remembers me. Just like what's his name, and who’s-its, and you know, that guy, who always wore a shirt.

This quote is probably qualifies as the biggest stretch of the day, but please let me make my case before you jump to any conclusions and start labeling me as a failure. I’ve chosen this quote for Clever Piggy over several other better (and perhaps more apt) quotes because even after tearing through the poker world for the past few years, Allen still doesn’t get the credit or recognition that he deserves. Cunningham is right there on the same level as the Iveys, Fergusons and Hansens of the world. It’s not fair that he’s still known as you know, that guy, who always has that weird woman with him.

Our final quote of the day goes out to our newest member of Team Full Tilt, Patrik Antonius, courtesy of Rainier Wolfecastle:

Rainier: My new movie is me standing in front of a brick wall for 90 minutes. It cost 80 million dollars to make.
Jay Sherman: How do you sleep at night?
Rainier: On top of a pile of money, with many beautiful women.

OK, so this quote has relatively little to do with Antonius. But he’s gotta be feeling pretty on top of the world these days. He just signed a mega-deal with Full Tilt Poker, made a final table at the WSOP, and, oh yeah, he’s Patrik Fracken’ Antonius. I know many guys who would give their left nut to be in that guy’s shoes right now, me being one of them. I mean, this guy is so deep in the gene pool that there’s nothing left for the rest of us. All I can say in his defense is that at least he’s married and isn’t running around like Gussy “drinking” all the good stuff and leaving us mere mortals with nothing but Natty Ice. Not there’s anything wrong with a good Natty Ice every once in a while, but I don’t know a guy out there who doesn’t like to sample a nice Heineken or Sam Adams (then again, some guys strictly adhere to an all Fat Tire diet).

That’s all for this week, folks. It’s Friday and I feel the need for a nice “drink” coming on right about now. I’ll try to have part two of this post ready sometime in the next week or two, so keep an eye out for it if this is your kind of bag (and I know it is). Until then, I’ll leave you with one last quote. This one goes out to me, courtesy of Comic Book Guy:

Comic Book Guy: Oh, loneliness and cheeseburgers are a dangerous mix.

Maybe a little from column A, maybe a little from column B. That’s the best part about Ivey being Ivey – his utter disregard (and disrespect, possibly) of money. I like to imagine that Phil is so rich that he uses his money for more mundane everyday occurrences than anything else. Spill some milk on the kitchen counter? Ivey whips out a pack of hundred dollar bills and wipes it up. Out of Post-It notes? Phil Ivey to the rescue. No TP? Well, let’s not go there…

The point is that Ivey obviously has enough money to play in all these WSOP events with his only goal being to win a bracelet, not earn more cash. That’s why he can stroll into one of the rebuy events with about 100 “just in case” rebuys waiting in his back pocket or on a chip-filled tray. You absolutely have to be both rich and crazy to do that sort of thing. I’d love to get to the point someday where money just has no meaning to me. Maybe then I’ll start wiping my ass with hundred dollar bills …

What’s the deal with the WPT? Are they done, or just dying a slow death? 

I don’t think that they’re done or dying a slow death, but poker on TV just ain’t what it used to be. I’m not saying that the product is bad (hell, it’s probably better produced than it’s ever been), but the market just isn’t the same. The poker boom has come and gone, and now we’re left with a veritable wasteland of has-been poker TV shows. The market has been super saturated, which means that at this point only the best of the best will survive.

All of which should be seen as good news for the WPT. Yes, their TV contract with GSN has expired and will not be renewed. But they’re still one of the best and most well known poker shows on the market. Somebody will want that name brand recognition on their station, be it SpikeTV or one of those other “especially for men” channels. The show must go on, and I’m certain that the WPT will be back for a seventh season.

Been playing in any of the MSOP events? Those things are the biggest donk-fests that I’ve ever seen.

Like many of the other low-stakes ballers out there on Full Tilt Poker, I’ve been doing my best to donk it up in as many MSOP events as I can. I tend to agree that these have been some of the most donk-tastic poker playing experiences I’ve ever been a part of. It seems that most of the time any Ace is good enough to push with, any King is good enough to call with, and any suited connector or small pocket pair should be played as if they’re Pocket Rockets. In one event I held A-Q and pushed all-in after an Ace came on the flop. I was called by two players, one holding A-6 and one holding A-3. The turn brought a 3 and the river was a 6. But hey, that’s poker baby!

I am happy to report that I finally cashed and very nearly made a final table in Event #17, a $15 + $1.50 NLHE triple shootout. After taking down my first table by waiting while one guy went on a heater and eliminated most of the competition until I utterly destroyed him heads up, I made it all the way to heads-up play again at the second table. And as much as my first heads-up match was a complete beat down, my second heads-up match could be aptly described as a lesson in how not to play heads up. I was weak, I was scared, I got my ass handed to me by a guy who probably has most of his experience in play money SNGs. It was embarrassing and demeaning beyond my worst nightmares. Now my confidence is completely shot and I’m playing poker like a deer caught in headlights. But the donk-fest must go on, and I shall keep playing these MSOP events until I either make a final table or die trying. Until next week…

64 players, a $25K buy-in, a prize pool of $1.6 million, and $560K for winning the whole damn thing – these are the big numbers from this weekend’s $25K Heads-Up World Championship. Oh yeah, the one number I forgot to put here was 22 – as in 22 Full Tilt Pros who played in the event. To say the best and brightest of poker’s elite showed up for this one is an understatement. There’s no telling how big this thing could get if we do it again next year, but for right now this has to stand as one of the biggest and most prestigious poker events ever held online.

Play got underway just after 3PM Eastern time on Saturday with everyone claiming their seat on time – everyone, that is, except for David Oppenheim. We’re not sure where Oppie was exactly, but thankfully his opponent was The Grinder (better known as poker pro Michael Mizrachi, brother of Full Tilt pro Robert Mizrachi), who was kind enough to steal David’s blinds as slowly as possible until he showed up. And show up he did, coming back from a 2-1 chip deficit to take the match from The Grinder’s grasp.

With so many big names in the field, there were bound to be a few big time first round match-ups. The best of the best included Taylor Caby taking down Nick Schulman, whitelime besting Phil Ivey, the guru 11 teaching a life lesson to Erik Seidel, Brandon Adams eliminating tourney host Chris Ferguson, Max Pescatori smoking Huck Seed, and pr1nnyraid laying a quick beat down on Gus Hansen, who was the second player to be eliminated. For those of you counting at home, that’s $25K Gussy just dropped on about five minutes of play. Oh well, it’s still cheaper than Eliot Spitzer’s hooker…

Round of 32 (The Settling In For A Long Night Round)

12 Full Tilt pros made it to the second round of play, but not all 12 would advance. Great match-ups included: Caby v. whitelime (whitelime ftw), Nordberg v. the guru 11 (Nordberg ftw), Finddagrind (otherwise known as some guy named Patrik Antonius) v. Eli Elezra in the high-stakes players rubber match (Antonius ftw), Andy Bloch v. Durrr (Bloch ftw), Adams v. David Singer (Singer ftw), Pescatori v. Brian Hastings (Hastings ftw), and Howard Lederer v. Boosted J (Howard ftw).

Any player who won their match in the Sweet 16 would be guaranteed to make the money and take home at least $96K for their efforts, so this promised to be the longest and most painstaking round of them all. Five FTP pros remained in the hunt for the top prize, but with the field thinning and the stakes increasing, that would be no easy task. All of the match-ups in this round were big-time affairs, but the featured tables had to be: whitelime v. Nordberg (whitelime ftw), ActionJeff v. Bloch (Bloch ftw), and a showdown of former FTOPS champions as DaEvils took on mishchiefofmagic (with mischief taking down the match). Oh yeah, and then there was the Hastings v. Lederer showdown, with the young gun taking down the old pro and making the money.

Another worthy match of note in this round was David Singer taking on buck99. In fact, this match could be seen as the turning point of the whole tourney. As Singer and buck99 battled back and forth and the blinds got bigger and bigger, buck99 tried to strike a deal with Singer to ensure they both would make some money no matter who made it to the next round. No dice. Singer’s response was a simple “I like to gamble.” Might’ve been a good move for Singer, as we’ll see how things turned out for him later on down the line.

Eight players, four matches, an additional $72K in cold hard cash for the winner of each match – oh yeah, the shit was getting real now. Each winner would advance to the final four, which was to take place the next day, so this was the cut-off in terms of putting your money where your mouth is. whitelime took out Ansky451 in a battle of high-stakes online studs. Singer sent mastrblastr to the rail with a bang. Hastings ensured that there were no more tricks up mischiefofmagic’s sleeve. And, in the feature match of this round, Andy Bloch and Patrik Antonius battled it out for the final spot in the Final Four. It was a classic back and forth heads-up battle, with Bloch eventually pulling out the victory over Finland’s pride and joy.

whitelime versus Bloch. Singer versus Hastings. Two young Internet pros versus two grizzled live poker veterans. But who would prevail? The tournament was paused after the Elite Eight, allowing all four finalists a good night’s sleep before they took to the felt to compete for the $560K first-place prize. The action resumed just after 4PM Eastern time and got off to a rather slow start as the players took their time feeling their opponents out. But before you could sneeze (well, hopefully it doesn’t take you an hour to sneeze, but you get what I’m saying), whitelime had Bloch on the ropes and Singer had Hastings gasping for air. At one point, I looked away from my screen for a split second and, when I looked back it, was all over and the final was set. I didn’t catch how Bloch was taken out, but Hastings had a heartbreaking hand as he got all-in with pocket 9s versus the pocket 5s of Singer. Alas, Singer hit his 5 on the flop, and that was all she wrote. 

And just like that, 64 players had been whittled down to the final two. It wasn’t an epic match-up by any stretch of the imagination, but we still had a great fight on our hands as high-stakes online grinder whitelime took on Full Tilt Poker pro David Singer. Second place paid $320K, while first place was a whopping $560K prize. As the cards got in the air, Singer immediately jumped out to a lead that he was determined not to give up. After all, the biggest advantage in heads-up play is being able to cover your opponent when he goes all-in.

Singer, slow and methodical all through the tournament, kept putting whitelime to the test by pushing all-in several times after whitelime had three-bet pre-flop. Grinding whitelime down one hand at a time, Singer finally had his opponent on the ropes with about a 4-1 chip advantage. After being pushed around for much of the match, whitelime decided to fight back and shoved all-in against Singer holding just 10-3 off-suit. Unfortunately, Singer held pocket 8s at that moment and made the easy call. There was no help for Whitelime on the board, and, just like that, David Singer had been crowned the $25K Heads-Up World Champion. Congrats to David on a great run. I have enough trouble winning just one heads-up match, never mind six in a row against the best players in the world.

Overall, I have to say that this tournament was a complete success (and no, I’m not getting paid to say that). Now let’s see if we can push this thing to the max and get 128 players (and twice the prize pool!) for the next time around. Until then, there’s always another FTOPS to look forward to in August…

Honestly, I don’t know why this event isn’t doing more to spark my inner fan-boy tendencies – except for the fact that I’ve never really been that much of a fan boy to start with. Sure, I’ve gotten to meet some very cool people through this gig that I would never have come across in a million years otherwise, and I admire and respect the hell out of a lot of them. But do I live and die by the last big pot they took down online or their most recent cash in some big MTT? Not hardly.

The fact is, I’ve never really been the guy to go sweat someone at the table just because they’re a red pro or a name player. I’ll sweat someone if they’re a friend or if I have some sort of investment (monetary or otherwise) in the outcome, but otherwise, I’m happy enough to check in once in awhile for a quick status update and let them get on with their game while I do something more productive – like drink.

With all that said and my inner ambivalence bared to the world like the hole cards on the WPT (wow, I have to admit, that was stretching for a metaphor), there are some good reasons to follow the action this weekend. Firstly – this is a DAMNED BIG EVENT. A $25K buy-in is real money. It’s a car or twice the Captain’s annual salary. I mean, small African villages could live off that much money for at least three years.

Secondly, there is a shitload of talent in this field – and that’s not counting the 23 red pros like Ferguson, Ivey, Hansen and Lederer. I’m talking about big online pros like durrrr, OMGClayAiken, FakeSky and some donkey named FinddaGrind. All of these guys can play the game and, at these stakes, that means their cards really don’t matter that much. This is as close to hand-to-hand combat as poker gets: up close, personal, and not for the faint of heart. If you want to watch the best of the best play the game the way most of us aspire to, then this is must-see poker.

But, personally, I’d still rather be at the bottom of a bottle…

What does an average day at work consist of for you?

On a normal poker tournament day if the tournament starts at noon, I generally wake up half an hour after the tournament has started. Then I just relax and get to the tournament about one hour into the start of the event. I don’t like to wait around because I get bored, so I prefer to miss the first part of the tournament. It also keeps me a little fresher at the end of the day.

When I’m not playing tournaments it really goes by whatever I feel like doing - I don’t have any particular schedule or anything. I don’t have an alarm clock so I just wake up whenever, sometimes I play tennis with friends, rarely I play golf, and then just pretty much find a good restaurant and hang around. But I play poker almost all the time, if I’m not playing a tournament then I’m usually playing on Full Tilt Poker. So I end up playing probably 320 days out of 365 because I love it.

A lot of people talk about the poker lifestyle – what does that mean to you?

I mean it’s strange, it’s really like a sport because you have to travel the world - which is great - but it’s also challenging continually going to places. A poker player loses most of the time, especially in tournaments so you have to get in the plane back and think about what happened and improve for next time. It’s good though - you don’t have to hurry because your career lasts many more years than a regular athlete. At the same time, we don’t know if we’re going to win, so we have to perform consistently.

Do you ever still play poker just for fun?

It’s still fun for me to play poker, but I always play to make money. Because it’s my job, it’s not something that I’ll do not to win. To play for fun I prefer to do other things.

What other poker professionals do you admire or respect?

It’s very difficult because there are so many. It depends on the game you pick, because then there are certain ones you respect more than others. One of the great things with Team Full Tilt is that it’s full of champions. For example, Chris Ferguson, who recently won the NBC Heads Up, Phil Ivey who just won the LA Poker Classic, Howard Lederer who won the $100K buy-in tournament in Australia - there’s just too many!

One last question – what’s something about you that people wouldn’t know?

Things happen at a very rapid pace as a result of technology. This is true with life in general, and in poker. Exposure and experience can be gained very quickly more so now than ever. As a result, it’s easy to lose perspective – lose touch with what’s important. Arguably, anytime something happens very quickly, there’s danger of something being lost even though some things can be gained.

Especially with the rise of the Internet, there’s so much out there that people don’t feel the need to discriminate between what matters and what doesn’t. With this, there are a lot of people that are missing out on the details or finer points in life. They become focused on one thing – not necessarily just poker – and then miss out on everything else going on around them. They develop tunnel vision and miss out on other things that are equally valuable.

Of course there are some people who are able to be balanced and integrated, and still totally focused on one particular thing. But for most people - the majority - and I count myself among those, we need a range of activities or at least a range of ways of doing things to remain reasonably sane. In any case, as an individual, you’ve got to step back and figure this out.

One problem is trying to work out what’s missing in life – and in poker as well – is the fact that it’s not there to begin with. It’s a real paradox trying to work this out. But when something is missing, it creates a couple of problems. With so much choice, it becomes overwhelming – there is so much input that it becomes very difficult to stay focused on what is there, let alone what’s missing.

The thing to do is to work out what you need to make yourself sound – whole and sane – and to move forward. I attempt to apply this to poker – and I do say attempt. With poker, the biggest obstacle to overcome in this context is losing your “beginner’s mind” after you’ve been playing for awhile.

Think about when you started playing how incredibly exciting it was: you had these cards, these chips, these other people at the table – and you wanted to get their chips. Think about how amazing it was when you were making these decisions for the first time: if I bet this or if I check here… Again, it’s all incredibly exciting. This is why most of us continue playing cards – it’s a riveting experience.

But after time goes by, you tend to forget that. And if you get unlucky, it’s very difficult to look at it and realize that maybe you didn’t do anything wrong. Instead, you end up adjusting your game and becoming less imaginative/less creative. It’s like getting beat holding a pair of Kings - that’s happened to me. Five major tournaments in a row, I got done with Kings. It’s easy to lose perspective when these things happen and not look at what you need to do to get on with it.

The elephant graveyard for poker players is to forget to look for the things that are missing. And you don’t notice them because they’re missing: maybe your not being aggressive enough, maybe your not being conservative enough – whatever it is; we could give the whole list of all things poker. But it’s so difficult to figure this out. As a result, you find yourself miserable and just grinding it out tournament after tournament. And you don’t realize that something is missing.

What’s even more dangerous, you might be unfortunate enough to win something playing badly, and then you are really screwed. Because then, you actually end up making the same mistakes for the rest of your life – and this does happen – just because that’s what “won that tournament” that one time.

No matter what, you’ve always got to maintain perspective. The thing that you have to do – and this is half of the battle – is admit to what’s going on: that something’s missing. For most people, in a sense, it can be the whole battle. You really have to admit to yourself that you need to make changes in how you play. And you have to admit that very deeply and realize that you’ll continually need to make changes. For me, the longer I play the more shifts I realize I need to make. I have to stop and look at it in terms of “I’m doing this well, but I could easily do it better. How do I make this happen?” You’ve got to be brutally honest with this without beating yourself up over everything. Once you’ve done that, the next question is: “What do I do next?”

There’s a great Buddhist story which I think applies to this – in Buddhism, it’s about getting out of the suffering in this world and on the path to enlightenment. But the story is this: you find yourself in a battle and somebody fires an arrow, and the arrow hits you in the eye. What do you want to do? What’s the thing to do now?

Most people start to ask “Why did someone fire the arrow? Where did it come from?”

This is absolutely wrong. The very first thing you’ve got to do is get the bloody arrow out. In a sense, bad beat stories are the same: “what the…why did…how did it happen?” That’s what a bad-beat story is. You need to get past that immediately and get the “arrow” out of your eye. And there are loads of people going around with “arrows in their eyes” – I’m doing this all of the time, and I don’t even know that it’s there.

You need to stop, figure out where you’re at and be honest with yourself. Admit that you need to adjust something, and start applying the necessary antidotes. This is where it all has to come from: realizing where you’re at. Otherwise you’ll end up all messed up in one way or another.

This is not a perfect process - for most people it’s quite clumsy. There are exceptions, like Phil Ivey or Patrick Antonius, who seem like they were designed to play poker – they never lose focus. Maybe they’ve even been playing poker for thousands of past lives. But, I’m not like that and you just don’t meet many people that are.

For the rest of us, we need to continually evaluate what needs to be done. When our actions are not in accordance with how things are, we suffer. Taking care of these things is a lifetime’s work and it’s very personal. From a Buddhist perspective, if there are 10 billion people on the planet, there are 10 billion routes to enlightenment. By that, if there are 10 million poker players out there, there are 10 million ways to become a great poker player.

And it’s easy to get lost if you limit the scope of your efforts to improve or remedy the problem. Limiting possible courses of action is a mistake. Figure out where you’re at/what’s wrong, look at what you need to do, and fill in what’s missing. Step back and look at how you do in a game or, even more so, how you run over a period of time. This will pretty much tell you where you’re at in the big picture.

Actually doing this can be extremely difficult, but it’s great as well. In the end, just try to keep an honest picture of things, continue to make the necessary adjustments, and don’t be too hard on yourself.

545 players started the event, and 421 of them will return for the start of Day 2 today. Four Full Tilt Poker pros are currently camped near the top of the leaderboard, with Kenny Tran and Robert Mizrachi holding down third and fourth places, and Jordan Morgan and David Benyamine sitting in sixth and seventh.

Team Full Tilter Erik Seidel, who is currently leading the Player of the Year points race, will start the day in 85^th position while Phil Ivey is lurking in 107^th spot. Ivey needs to finish this event in fourth place or better to claim the Player of the Year title. Two other notable Team Full Tilter’s in today’s field are Howard “the Professor” Lederer and Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, who are each playing in their first WPT event since 2006.

Chris, Howard, Phil Gordon, Andy Bloch and Annie Duke have all boycotted WPT events since filing suit against the tour over issues related to the player release form used by the WPT. Tour officials announced a settlement of the lawsuit Saturday and Chris and Howard immediately celebrated by buying their way into the Bellagio event.

There are few things likely to grab a railbird’s attention than someone sitting with a seven-figure bankroll at an online table. Especially when that player is a red pro playing $1K/$2K Limit Hold ‘em.

So, it’s no surprise that Markus Golser was the fan favorite last week when he re-bought into a match with Hoss_TBF for a cool $1 million. Golser’s massive re-buy followed what many of us would likely classify as a horrendous run, dropping 10 consecutive $20K buy-ins to Hoff. That’s $200K, in case you lost count.

Did the big stack pay off for the Austrian pro? Not so much – he still ended the session down more than $200,000, but if nothing else, he gave the rail something to chatter about for awhile.

Sometimes you get dogged by the competition and other times, you get to do the dogging. But as long as you’re playing poker for a good cause, Jen Harman doesn’t care.

Last weekend, 274 of Jen’s friends turned out at the Venetian to play poker and support her second-annual Nevada SPCA Fundraiser. Players like Howard Lederer, Phil Ivey and Gavin Smith all turned out to support Jen’s pet project and raise money for the state’s no-kill shelters. If that wasn’t enough, Jen helped raise additional funds for her furry friends by holding a charity auction where players and fans could bid on tons of cool poker and sports memorabilia, including one lucky man who bought Doyle Brunson’s trademark Stetson right off Texas Dolly’s head.

You will be surprised at how poorly many people play in the main event. An average player probably has an edge, and you should try to exploit it. You can do this by playing small pots and avoiding coin flips. It is truly bizarre just how many people are willing to race for all of their chips on the first day of the main event. With two hour levels, you should let your ability to outplay your opponents after the flop dictate the action.

As time goes on and the blinds get higher, sooner or later you are going to have to gamble—even if you’re playing as good as Phil Ivey. That’s why you can’t forget about #2:

There does come a time in every tournament when you have to be willing to put in all your chips with J-J, knowing that your opponent will probably call you with A-K. If you plan on winning the main event, then you better plan on winning your coin flips. I recommend watching reruns of the 2006 main event to practice for this stage. And don’t forget that it’s always much more dramatic to hit the card you need on the river. If you’ve got A-K against Q-Q, why would you want to hit an A on the flop? It’s terribly anti-climatic.

Running good doesn’t just mean winning coin flips. It’s also important that when you pick up a big pair, make sure your opponent does too. For example, don’t waste pocket aces against someone with fours. You should really wait for aces until your opponent has kings. That way you can get all-in before the flop and either double up or bust them. 

Another part of running good is mastering the suck-out. There are many types of suck-outs, but I prefer to save them up for when it really counts. If you move all-in on a flush draw, make sure it’s going to hit before you do it. That way you can show no fear, even if you’re called by a set or two pair. 

Last year, I made the mistake of using up all my suckouts before heads-up play started at the Irish Open, while my opponent held onto his “get out of jail free” card for when it counted. When he moved in on me with pocket twos, I knew my threes were good but I forgot to keep my streak of running good alive in this hand and he spiked a deuce. Most importantly, you should do your best to save the one-outer for late stage play—when the pots are really, really big. 

To sum up: pick up the right cards at the right time and you will the main event. Also, if you are going to experience a bad beat, make sure it’s one you put on someone else. 

3. Look as good as Roland de Wolfe

I understand that this one might be tough for some of you. Actually, it’s going to be tough for all of you. But, truthfully, what good is winning the main event if you don’t look good while you are doing it? 

Some people resort to gimmicky clothing like superhero costumes, lots of jewelry, or even bathrobes. Anyone can look silly, but it takes a sharp eye to dress properly. It doesn’t take a lot of clothes to look good, just the right ones. Two nice collared shirts—think floral prints—and one lucky t-shirt should be all you’ll ever need. Throw in some comfy jeans and white leather shoes and you are well on your way to winning the main event.