If you’ve watched any recent interviews, then you know what I’m talking about. Not only is Mike keeping his head and wits about him, he’s legitimately relaxed and positive. Recently, we had the chance to discuss his newly found calm and find out what it is that’s “levelled him out as a person and a poker player.” Here’s what he had to say about luck, staying calm, and the true power of positive thinking:

Do you believe that you create your own luck in poker?

It used to be that I didn’t believe that, but I do now. I know that if you believe that you’re going to be unlucky, then you’re never going to win. If you always believe that you’re going to win – even if you don’t – you’ll always bring a real positivity to the situation. That will make a big difference. So yes, I do believe that you make your own luck.

How important do you think that positive thinking is?

Speaking as someone who people probably considered the most negative person in poker two years ago, to a person who is now one of the most positive people in poker, I believe that it’s everything. I mean, I’m working out and running every day, and always thinking – telling myself – that I’m going to win, no matter how much I’m down. I no longer think that the card on the river is going to beat me; the card is inconsequential. If you don’t even think about being beat, it makes a huge difference. If that card does beat you, you just recognize it and take it as a part of the game and come back the next day with a positive attitude. That’s what I’ve learned to do over the past three months.

Along those lines, how do you handle the swings and keep them from getting to you?

Recently, I’ve read a lot and listened to tapes on the power of positive thinking, and I’ve learned how to take the negativity and turn it back into a positive. Then your frame of mind is clear and things don’t bother you. It’s taken some work, but I’m level as a person and as a poker player now. I think that’s helped me more than anything in playing at the level that I’m at now and have been throughout the series.

What kind of advice would you give to someone to make sure that they’re in the right mindset to play?

My best advice is that, first of all, you have to be on the right sleep schedule. That’s one of the reasons that I’ve taken the last three or four days off. After I won the tournament, I was up until seven in the morning with interviews and everything. This meant that I was sleeping until 9 o’clock at night, and that’s just not good. It’s taken me that long to get back on a schedule where I am waking up at 9 or so in the morning, getting ready, running for 30 minutes, and so on. I’m also trying to eat well – it’s tough to eat well during these tournaments. But at least I’m keeping up with the exercise and doing the right, positive things. That’s the most important thing: keeping perspective and a solid positive attitude.

In case you’ve fallen behind on the action, here’s a quick recap:

• All four Day 1s are now complete and the survivors have a small breather until Day 2A begins on Tuesday
• 6,844 players coughed up $10K for their seats, beating last year’s number by more than 400, and generating a prize pool worth more than $68 million
• 666 players will cash and the overall winner will take home more than $9.1 million in prize money – along with untold millions in extra sponsorship money

Think poker is dead yet? Yeah, neither do I. Speaking of the dead, however, there are plenty of big names who got run over by the thundering herd over the first few days of play. Notable names who won’t be winning this year’s Main Event include, in no particular order:

• Poker Babe Erica Schoenberg and her Frenchie fiancé, David Benyamine
• Gavin Smith
• Jason “George Costansza” Alexander
• One Angry Monkey’s perennial pick, Lee Watkinson
• Past champions Greg Raymer, Joe Hachem, and Jamie Gold
• Jesus
• Negreanu
• Larry Flynt
• Andy Bloch
• Phil Ivey

Big stacks moving on to Day 2 include David Oppenheim, Robert Mizrachi, and Brandon Adams. Last year’s big winner, Jerry Yang, is on life support, but still hanging around.

Of course, all of the action over the next week is just the Big Tease, as the good folks at the Rio will stop action once we reach a final table. Then its three months of rest, relaxation, intense poker lessons and bare-fisted negotiations before the final table is played out in November. Trust me, it won’t be pretty.

So, all of the bracelet events are over, except for the big one, and it’s time to tally up how your favorite FTP pros performed over the past six weeks. The short answer; pretty well.

Through the first 53 events, our gigantic stable of pros collected 10 bracelets and combined for more than $11.5 million in winnings. Leading the pack was, of course, Erick Lindgren who found his way to three final tables, won his first career bracelet, and banked more than $1.3 million.

Other pros who earned some serious cash included David Benyamine with more than $940K (three final tables, one bracelet), Andy Bloch and Chris Ferguson (two final table each and more than $650K in winnings – each).

Now that it’s officially too late to join the donkery of the 2008 WSOP, we have a suggestion for everyone who needs their fix of big MTT action – FTOPS IX.

If you haven’t noticed, satellites for the August edition of FTOPS are now available in the game and there’s plenty of reason to play. What’s plenty? How about $15 million guaranteed over 25 events?

Head over to the FTOPS page for all the details. Who knows, maybe you’ll win enough to play in next year’s WSOP?

Of all the skills that it takes to be a winner – which I’ve read about extensively and don’t possess – being able to deal with winning and losing huge amounts of money/chips one hand at a time over the course of a tournament (and career) is critical. It’s tempting to look at the wealth that a top professional possesses and dismiss it by saying that a $10K buy-in is nothing to them. But if you look into it a bit deeper, there’s a lot more to it than that. Take Mike Matusow for example: the guy’s accumulated over $6.5 million in carer tournament earnings, but what’s he spent to get there? What is that a return on? The point is, to get to that level, the pros have won and lost a lot of money – and dealt with it.

Clearly, having the money and being able to effectively use it are two entirely different animals. While you don’t necessarily have to have an abject disregard for money that some pros appear to exhibit, you can’t be hung up on it. I think Doyle best summed this up in Super System:

“You must have respect for your money and know its value…but if you want to be a strong No-Limit player you can’t think you’re betting a Lincoln Continental every time that you bet $10K or $15K. If you do think that way, you’ll never make it playing No-Limit.”

In a nutshell, if you’re completely freaked out about the money that’s on the line, you’re not going to be focused and your game will reflect it. While a $10K buy-in is a bit rich for my blood, I like to think that for the majority of the folks who are still playing in the Main Event are well within their personal limits and likely to be playing serious poker. Either way, following what they do on the way to the money and the final table will definitely be entertaining. 

And that’s a wrap, folks. Black takes down Morgan by a close score of 5-4. You really have to give it to those Irish guys – they drink more than us, they have really cool accents that make it so you can only understand about 25% of what they’re saying, and they can call The Mad Monk one of their own. Check back next week for more fun and games as the Full Tilt Poker Heads-Up Challenge continues. Until then…

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…

Even though it didn’t end up the way I planned, my first appearance on Poker After Dark was quite an experience. Just to set things up, it was pretty early in the second level with blinds at 150 and 300. All six players were left and Gabe Kaplan was the chip leader – I was behind him in second place.

Gabe had been raising a lot of pots and playing aggressively. I’ve played a lot with him, and I know that he plays a lot of the deck and is very capable of gambling. In this hand, he made it 800 to go – just a bit over big blinds – which was pretty standard. At that point, I looked down and saw pocket 4s. I had chips to play with and he was the chip leader, so I figured that since it was early I’d peel off 800 and see if I could spike a set. So I called and everyone else mucked.

With the blinds and 800 from each of us, there was a little over 2,000 in the pot. The flop came Qc-10c-4; I’d flopped bottom set and was heads up with Gabe. He led out with 1,600 – about ¾ of the pot. I took my time and thought about how I wanted to play it. With some big draws on the board, I decided that it wasn’t a hand that I was going to slow play. I announced a raise and an interesting thing happened: before I could say how much the raise was, Gabe just chimed in and said “Okay—how much, how much, how much?” in a really nonchalant fashion.

In hindsight, especially the more that I think back, it was a pretty good indication that he had a big hand. I really didn’t think that was the kind of thing that would come out of his mouth if he was weak because it was too relaxed and – apparently – intended to get me to put money into the pot. And that’s exactly what I ended up doing.

After he’d just bet 1,600 – that made 3,650 in the pot – I raised it 4,500 more. This was well over the size of the pot and I figured it was enough to push him off of a naked club draw and gave him less than 2:1 to call. After I made the raise, the pot was almost 10K, and I had about 15K or 16K in front of me. Really calmly, he asked me if I had a Queen. Again, in hindsight, that was another indicator that his hand was pretty strong. After asking that, he took a few minutes and asked me how much I had in front of me – and moved all-in.

I was really shocked to see this, especially this early in the tournament. Of course there were a handful of hands I started to think about him having – Ac-Kc, Ac-Jc, Q-10, Q-Q, pocket 10s, etc. The more I started thinking back about how he’d played in the past, the more I thought that this wasn’t the type of play that he’d make at this juncture. At the same time, Poker After Dark is unique in that it’s a winner-take-all format and you’ve got to take chances.

So I was sitting there staring at a set of 4s for at least four or five minutes (even though they edited it to look like only a minute or so), for what seemed like a lifetime, thinking to myself “I am so beat here.” I can’t explain specifically why it was that I decided that my pocket 4s were no good. I knew that set over set was unlikely and I also knew that if I laid down a set here that it was going to be a question of “what am I going to wait for to get my money in?”

I also thought that in a winner-take-all format, this was a way to double up through the chip leader, send him into sixth place, and put pressure on the blinds for the next four or five rounds. In the end I didn’t love it, but I called. He rolled over 10s and I showed my under-set.

Every player at the table was shocked. They all know me as an announcer and they didn’t think that I was capable of not snap-calling with a set. Of course the only reason that I didn’t was because I started thinking that my set was no good. At the same time, I was compelled to call in that spot. Even though I was sick to my stomach about it, I knew that in that format I couldn’t wait on a hand much better than that. In any case, that sent me to the rail in a most humbling fashion and ended my first Poker After Dark appearance.

Yeah, I’m approaching the $50K HORSE event from the wrong end, but as long as I don’t step in a big pile, who really cares?

Hold on – scratch that – what I meant to say is that this is the tourney that all the big names pros really want to win. Sure, the Main Event provides the big-ass payday that everybody wants, but the HORSE event is the bidness. 148 pros ponied up $50K each for a shot at what has become the game’s most prestigious title and, in the end, some really big names played their way to the Sweet 16, including Brunson, Bloch (15^th place), Negreanu, and Ivey (12^th place).

The final table was even more impressive, boasting names like Greenstein, Seed (7^th place), Lindgren (3^rd place) and Scotty “It’s All Over Baby” Nguyen. Lindgren, who started the final table with the chip lead, busted third and added more than $781K to his roll. Nice money to be sure. Oh, if you’re curious, second place pays more than $1.2 million while the winner grabs almost $2M.

Wow, what a shitty headline. I should apologize for that. Really, I should, but nah….

For those of you who don’t know to whom I’m referring, please meet Martin “I really need a nickname” Kläser, winner of WSOP Event 43. Why is Martin worth your time and effort? Simple – he’s a 21-year old kid with game.

Martin became a pro last October after winning our Million Euro Challenge Freeroll tournament and then beating both Chris Ferguson and Gus Hansen heads up to collect €350K. Not a bad way to start a career, if I do say so myself. Then, he followed that up by heading to Vegas last week, buying into his first ever WSOP event, and winning the whole damn thing. That’s more than another $200K in the coffers and one of those shiny bracelet things for his wrist.

!@#$% 21-year old ^%#$!# whipper-snapper punk kids. Uh, I mean, well done Martin, well done.

Now, if you’d all excuse me, I’m off to check my bankroll and cry in my beer.

But wait, before I rant too hard or too long on this subject, let’s take a look at what the show is really about. According the official press release, All In is a “fast paced, witty, very sexy, and fun show about the final nine players at the World Series of Poker who are real people from all walks of life.” Sounds thrilling so far, doesn’t it?

The release goes on to state that the show’s “clearly identifiable characters sing songs that are chock full of double entendres, poker analogies, quotes, lingo, and suggestive situations.” Oooh… reserve my seats now. Front row center, please, because I want to be as close to the rail as possible.

So, without any idea of what the actual script or on-stage production may look like, here’s a little of what I’m expecting:

• The “easily identifiable characters” will be ankle deep caricatures of some of the game’s most colorful players like “The Poker Punk” (Hellmuth), “Pammie Knight” (Duke), “Jehovah” (Ferguson), and more
• A pivotal, dramatic moment will occur when the Poker Punk crashes his motorcycle after staging a self-promotional exhibition that features him jumping over Humberto “The Chark” Brenes
• Musical highlights will include Knight’s big solo, “I’m Holding (Your) Nuts” and the closing number, “It’s All Over, Baby” featuring the Scotty Nguyen dancers

Honestly though, if there’s one thing the poker world doesn’t need right now, it’s a musical. I mean really, does anyone think that this is going to convince anyone to take poker players more seriously? Is this really the image the game wants to be sending when there’s still political fighting over the UIGEA going on in Washington and 60 Minutes cameras are filming at the Rio? Personally, I don’t think so.

As far as I can tell, this is nothing more than another ploy for Caesars, Hellmuth and everyone else involved to try and cash in on the four-month final table delay they’ve instituted for this year’s Main Event Final table. Come on, can’t you see the marketing now?

Why wait for November to see how the final table plays out? Visit the Rio Hotel in Vegas this fall to experience all of the highs, lows, and drama of the final table while enjoying a nice 32oz Porterhouse from our exclusive Poker Kitchen. Experience it all for just $59.95.

Look, I’m all for improving poker’s image and expanding the game’s base to as many potential players as possible, but I just don’t think a poker musical is gonna do the job. Who aside from the most dedicated poker-tards would even be interested in such a thing? What makes the producers think that anyone who isn’t already remotely interested in the game is going to understand the quotes and lingo they so proudly tout as an integral part of the show?

Maybe I’m wrong, but my guess is that the millions of dollars that have been sunk into this (Hellmuth wouldn’t be involved in a “cheap” production) could be better spent on something worthwhile like supporting the PPA or attracting a better class of working girl to the Rio for the Main Event. You know… something real poker players would appreciate.