Less than 24 hours till the biggest sports event of the year.
All the the top companies in the world have been working since last year to craft commercials for the most expensive time slot in the world.
Households around North America have been planning for weeks and months to have everything perfect for a whole day of the greatest sporting event on the planet.
Yes folks, I’m talking about Aces yearly poker tournament.
It starts early, too early for this press reporter’s liking, only because I’ve been on the night shift ever since I shagged my editors college room mate…
and her twin sister…
and her yoga instructor.
But I digress.
The buzz is in the air, the fans are lined up, the interviews are being done and the showgirls are well…the showgirls are AWESOME!
So I’m called in to the bosses office the other day because it’s payday and I have to pleasure her sexually for a while before I get my paycheck from the last last article I wrote on the home game.
Yes I know my boss looks just like Jennifer Aniston but I needed the money so I closed my eyes and gave her the best 2 hour orgasam of her life, picked up my check and was off to my next assignment.
Seems like the home game is starting a little late tonight so I make it over to J6’s house for an interview over dinner to get some background info on what’s happening in the EPT these days. (that’s Estonian Poker Tour for those not in the know). Well J6 was kind enough to allow us to raid his wine cellar for the dinner and interview and I have to say it was great to be able to get to see the man behind the poker face for some behind the scenes tips.
ARBF-So what is the key to your success in the home game J6?
J6-Three words my friend, tight, tight and tight.
ARBF-That’s a bit of a change from what we’ve been seeing from your play last year, is this a new strategy?
J6-Not at all. You don’t see all the times I fold Kings and Queens when I read my opponents for Aces, its not something you are going to see unless you have hole cams, but believe me, its what I do every day. Hell I fold AK all the time in tournaments, thats why I’m always at the final table my friend.
The boys have been playing still, maybe not as regular as before, but certainly a lot more regular than me.
It’s been even longer since I’ve done any writing though.
Why?
Not sure. Haven’t been inspired I guess. I’m sure not playing has a ton to do with it.
Been working a lot of nights and too many of them have been on game night, and well I’ve had to prioritize a bunch of trips instead of playing too, but I don’t regret those at all.
All that being said I’m back.
Happened to have the night off and after a 3 hour session of rolling Jiu Jitsu I was up for a fight of another kind.
Pulled up to the dock and walked the gang plank onto the Captain’s ship, was suprised to see only Woody in attendance so far with the Captain already there in the familiar seat with chips all ready to go.
In walks the Rapper, Alejandro, Ace and to everyone surprise English Bob and JT.
English Bob comes in with a keg of vodka and proceeds to pour a nice breakfast cocktail for himself and JT, the Rapper passes as he is still finishing off a monster glass of vodka and rockstar still.
The game is hectic to say the least, it starts off fairly mild mannered and tight with standard raises and re raises, a little big of chasing here and there, but it seems the game is in fact being played on a very slippery slope and that slope is lubricated by vodka.
I’d like to say that I can recall all the great hands, but I was one of the people who was on the vodka train that night and can’t seem to remember much more than the Rapper getting the best of Alejandro a few times, first with AK vs. KQ on a K high flop, next with AJ on an AJXQJ flush slop, and another time much later in the night with the Rapper on tilt after Woody hits a three outer against him on an all in hand an the Rapper cracks Alejandro’s Aces when he flops an open ended straight draw and shoves over Alejandro’s raise and manages to hit his card.
All in all a really fun night with lots of laughs and stacks and stacks of chips moving around the table. Pretty sure that Ace was the big winner for the night and English Bob left a bit lighter than he arrived.
I bet you were expecting a picture of a can of Red Bull or something.
Suck it biatches!
I have lately become a fairly big fan of this delightful beverage, mostly due to working very late into the night, pulling double shifts and having to go 10+ hours without eating anything of substance. You can only drink so much coffee and well, the taste of it kinda grows on you after a while.
It certainly doesn’t hurt that it goes well with vodka, and as the delightful young lady who was buying me beverages the other night made me aware, can even mix with Champagne.
I know, I know, mixing Champagne with Red Bull is probably a mortal sin, but it wasn’t vintage champagne, and well, she was buying them for me so it would be rude of me not to drink them.
What the hell are you talking about bro?
Nothing, other than I started the night with a couple Red Bulls and I think they are a good poker drink.
On with the show this is it!
The game is at the Captains despite the later start and earlier curfew we seem to be getting into.
The Rapper, J6, Captain, Woody, Alejando and Nice Guy Eddie get it started.
Ace is off on the European tour, Ontario is coming late and the Mouth still has problems sitting after the last couple prison rapes he has suffered at the table.
Props in play for suits.
Alejandro jams up the game early by bluffing the Captain out of a hand and showing the 72 to get things started. That pretty much put him on tilt for the rest of the night I think.
Hands and stacks go back and forth, up and down with the exception of J6 who can’t seem to ever have a hand hold up and gets sucked out on hand after hand after hand until finally he says “no mas” and hits the road.
That’s pretty much when Ontario arrives to take his place and then the game gets going.
“Props?” says the Rapper?
“Sure” replies Ontario
Ontario picks up the suit from J6 and adds Red/Black, over under paired flops and double and triple on combos.
This alone ships almost a full buyin at least back and forth between the Rapper and Ontario and gives two action junkies something to keep the game fresh.
It’s late in the game when the real prop comes in though.
The players throw on the Seven Deuce Bounty for the last half hour
Big stacks Woody and Nice Guy Eddie get into it with a big raise from Woody in position.
K74 comes the flop. Bet from Eddie and a call from Woody.
T on the turn. Nice Guy Eddie pushes all in and gets called from Woody.
Nice Guy Eddie turns over KQ for a massive lead and Woody says “you win you win I just have 72, I thought you were bluffing”
That would have been good had the 2 not hit on the river.
BOOM! HEADSHOT!
Nice Guy Eddie is felted, Woody is chipped up and everyone throws up a little in their mouth.
Hang around poker players long enough and you will hear someone say this.
The general theory with AA is that you either win a small pot with them or lose a big one and the home game was certainly not going to be one to buck that trend.
I’ll just fast forward to the exciting part of the game if you all don’t mind.
The game is set at Chateau Ontario and present are Ontario, the Mouth, Alejandro, Ace, J6, and a couple of new fish. The Captain is absent given the possible late finish of the game running past his 11:30 curfew.
The Rapper arrives late and seizes the opportunity to box in the Mouth’s car so he can’t beat and early retreat.
In walks the Rapper with a wine bottle in hand fresh from work somewhat reticent of 2005 J6 and sets himself at the table with position on Ontario and the Mouth.
Chips are flipped over to the Rapper and cash exchanged and no sooner do the cards hit the table when Ontario says “props?”
A couple hands are go round as the details get worked out with the Rapper taking clubs from the soon to be leaving Alejandro for suits, and Ontario and the Rapper playing Red/Black flops and paired boards with doubles and triples both in play. This pretty much gives action on every hand where their is a flop and Ontario starts building a pretty decent stack off the Rapper with a run on Red Flops. The Rapper takes almost all of it back on a AAA with two black Aces flop though and to make it even better calls Ace’s hand of pocket ducks to totally wow the viewing audience at home.
And then things start to get ugly.
Ace has made himself a pretty nice stack with he decides to slow play AA against J6 with AK and gets crushed on a K44K8 and ends up doubling up J6 to a chip lead he would not relinquish for the rest of the night.
New Fish (no not that Fish) gets involved when he decides to slow play AA vs the Rapper’s J9 and can’t get rid of it on a JJ8T8 board and gets felted.
A couple players call it a night but that only seems to increase the gamble with the game getting short handed and down players trying to claw their way back up to positive.
The game gets progressively looser and looser as the Mouth gets felted and goes on a bit of a mini tilt trying to win it all back since he can’t get his car out (remember the Rapper?)
The remaining players are quite content to play a straddle with the occasional double and triple straddle even hitting the table. It’s late in the wee hours when said triple straddle is made by the Rapper who gets reraised by the Mouth who gets two callers to his surprise or glee whichever way you want to look at it.
The flop comes K85 and New Fish with a beard ships his stack in the middle UTG and gets snapped called by the Mouth, the Rapper decides now might be a good time to look at his cards and see what he has and peaks down at… 55 and almost breaks his wrist getting his chips in the middle calling.
Over go the cards and the KQ from New fish is in serious trouble to the AA from the Mouth who needs help and can’t catch the two outer. The Rapper stacks two with one blow and ends the game.
Big winner was J6 with Ontario making a nice run at the end to only owe a bit of paper to the Rapper who would have been up even more if their were more than 5 black cards in the deck.
“if I could start my life all over again I would make the exact same choices that I’ve made”
WTF does the video have to do with poker dude?
Not much.
BUT it does have a pretty decent remake of the Bob Seger classic, and it has Ginger Lynn in it.
True it would have been much better 20 years ago when she was smoking hot, you kinda have to be old school to even remember her and she is certainly past her prime in this video but I think I will always have a bit of a bit of a crush on her no matter what.
What’s your point dude?
Oh yeah sorry.
The point has nothing to do with the video, or maybe it does.
Playing a lot of cash games lately I mentioned, mostly because of the Take 2 promotion on Full Tilt Poker. I would put in an hour a day or so after work while I ate my dinner and lock up some extra Full Tilt points and some bonus cash which for a low roller like myself can make the difference between building the bankroll and just staying alive.
I had pretty much stopped the cash games as I just didn’t have the juice. Poker is a game of confidence and once you take a few bad beats, catch a run of cold cards and coolers it can really seem like nothing is ever going to go right.
You start playing wrong, making bad moves and doing things out of frustration, you put bad money in after worse and just compound the problem, chasing draws that even when they seem to hit may having you drawing dead. You are as the saying goes “On Tilt”. You stop making rational decisions and you try to react instead of taking charge. Next thing you know you are felted. And again. And again. You look down at a pair of ladies and can’t fold them even though you know your opponent has Aces. You hope upon hope you are going to hit the two outer but it never happens.
What do you do now?
Well its not easy but eventually you have to push away from the table and realize there is no way you are going to come out a winner. This takes a long time for some people to realize because its a game you love to play and the other players have so many tells in their game you can’t believe you are losing to them.
But you need to push away.
Get up from the the table.
Cash out for a while.
Go sit at the bar and drown your bad luck in whiskey, beer and cigarettes.
Watch the strippers twirl around the pole in wonder that they can even stand in heels that high.
Go back and examine your game.
“Read a book you donkey!”
Review your hands, this takes some soul searching on your part, were you playing bad or was the other player?
Did you get your money in good?
Was that suck out really a suck out of did they have odds?
Did you bet enough? Too much? Too little.
Should you have slow played? Played more aggressive?
This takes some time and you have to be off Tilt before you can really do this effectively.
Most people do not want to step away from the game in order to do this but you need to do this before you go bust.
Eventually you are ready to take a seat at the table again.
How do you know?
Tough to say really, everyone is going to be different. For myself it came to me in a dream. The subconscious mind knows more that the conscious mind in my opinion. It processes a lot more information and for a poker player you can think of it as “that feeling” you had that made you call the all in bet on the river with bottom pair weak kicker. Did you see something? You can’t remember, but you certainly felt something.
I started dreaming about playing ring games again, only this time instead of always coming up second best and getting rivered I was waking up with big pairs all the time. I was getting action on all my bets and when I got it all in I was raking the chips at the end. People were pushing at me with bluffs when I flopped the nuts and I was doubling up all over the place, my pocket pairs were improving to sets and I was even playing two tables at a time here and there.
This kind of confidence builds on itself and soon you are sitting there with a smile on your face instead of looking like a player already beat. You have a big stack of chips in front of you and you start to bully the table. You raise from the button all the time, you check raise with nothing and take it down, your draws all seem to get there and you slow play hands like a Sensei, its like the other players have their cards turned over and you can see their hands and yet every time you throw your chips in the middle you are getting action.
Poker can be very hard on the soul at times, but it is a game we love to play and for some of us not matter how bad of beats we take, the game always draws us back to it.
If you keep getting it in the middle with the best hand, sooner or latter good things are going to happen, don’t be afraid to buyin if you are playing well because even if you only pick up a tell in a losing hand, that is going to payoff later in the game.
Here is Daniel Negreanu spoofing a poker blog by Patrik Antonious:
It’s so sick, like, last week I bought moisturizer to make sure my skin stays silky smooth and, like, they discontinue my brand. Now I have to fly back to Finland to see my doctor to make sure I don’t put any bad kind of cream on my face because you can’t trust, like, any brand.
I won, like, 5 million last month and broke my mouse because I was so pissed off about running so bad. It’s sick. Like, if the cards ever break even I’m going to win so much money. I could have won like $10 million, so sick, I’m just frustrated.
You just don’t understand how tough it can be to deal with. $5 million is not bad for some people, but my face cream is really expensive and I also pay my hairdresser a lo,t because I don’t trust too many people with my hair. It’s not easy to cut perfectly and I won’t go outside unless I look like perfect. So I’m basically screwed right now, a little bit depressed, but whatever, it could be worse… I guess
I’m going to go to the gym now for another 15 hour workout then eat some grilled chicken and a protein shake. I only worked out, like, 6 hours yesterday and I can already feel like I’m getting fat.
I think I am gonna do a few of these, this could be fun.
