What's the Rumpus?

Okay, this here’s the feeler. Firing something out to see if anyone is awake.

Name’s Shamus. A.k.a. "Short-Stacked Shamus." I play poker. Primarily hold ’em, some Omaha, some stud. Strictly recreational. Mostly micro, some low (hence the monicker). The occasional tourney. Won’t be quitting the day job. Basically your average jingle-brained sap. Once in awhile an idea’ll pulse through. None of that dizzy “poker-is-like-life-because” applesauce. Nothing is like life, by the way. Either it's living or it ain't. No, I aim lower. Another hence for the monicker, if you will.

From time to time I’ll post occasional proofs of consciousness. See if anybody’ll call or raise.

If it weren't for bad luck...

I'd have no luck at all... remember that line from Hee-Haw? But this time, it was *I* who was the donkey. After playing pretty decent ring game poker for an hour, I had 2 pair on a KQ2T board. A player who has not played a hand to a showdown in TWO HOURS goes all in. Only AJ beats me, but what else can you EXPECT? I HEE-HAW call and SUCKOUT when a K comes on the river. I feel dirty.

I played in the $20/180 at stars. This is my all-time favorite tournament/SnG. But this time I was out surprisingly early. I was defending a straight vs. the BB on a board of AT2TK with 3 spades. So, my QJ is a straight, but I could be against a back-doored flush or a BB special boat. When he goes all-in, I once again eat the peppered-beef and call. He had T2o for a boat. Could I READ that? Probably not. But can I justify once again eating the peppered-beef? No way. HEE-HAW.

Hump Day Friday at the WPT Championships"Asked how...

Hump Day Friday at the WPT Championships

"Asked how he became a writer: In the same way that a woman becomes a prostitute. First I did it to please myself, then I did it to please my friends, and finally I did it for money." - Ferenc Molnar

The fourth day of a seven week tournament is hump day. Some players make the money, others don't and get fucked. After four grueling days of mental torture, the last thing any player wants to do in a tournament with a $14 million prize pool, is to bubble out and go home with absolutely nothing. That demoralizing feeling fell on the faces of at least 104 players who left the Bellagio under a dark cloud of gloom after they were eliminated on Day 4 of the WPT Championships.

As the tournament gets close to the money, players start accumulating chips while building up massive stacks. When I walked into the Fontana Room the cries of "All in!" from various dealers echoed through the room as small stacks made moves to double up. Within the first hour almost 45 players were busted out and by early evening the money bubble burst with each player remaining was guaranteed at least $43K.

As the intensity of the action magnified with each bustout, the media slowly started to outnumber the number of tables remaining as the ring of reporters around the surviving players grew larger and thicker and more intimidating.

"The wall of ignorance," I muttered to Flipchip.

An army of photographers with digital cameras snapped two hundred versions of the same picture of Doyle Brunson. Heck, even I took a few. Seven to be exact and only two came out halfway decent. He's got his eyes closed in one and looks bored as shit in another. I'm amazed that a guy as old as Texas Dolly can have the patience and discipline of a Buddhist monk and still have some gamble in him and "the heart of a cliff diver" as Amarillo Slim would call it. Brunson survived another day and sits in the middle of the pack. He had to fight through hundreds of the best pros in the world along with fending off internet hotshots with bigger bankrolls than the GNP of Peru and who have played a million hands in a weekend while jacked up on Adderalls and Red Bull.

Don't forget about the international invasion of European and Asian poker players seeking the WPT Championship and the $3.7 million first place prize. Along with the Europeans came a slew of European press. There are a bunch of Scandis here doing their own thing along with a few Brits from Gutshot. During the first break I overheard Men the Master complaining about one hand. I don't speak Vietnamese, but the tonal inflections of his voice indicated that he was pretty pissed off.

I must have seen a dozen or so wedding parties slide past the tables over the last few days as they had to cross the Fontana Room to get outside to the veranda for wedding photos. Some of the brides looked amazingly beautiful. The hotter the bride meant the dorkier the groom. I was perplexed. One wedding party wore 1970s era tuxedos in a weak attempt to stand out. Sigh. Hipster weddings and high stakes tournament poker. Only at the Bellagio.

I wrote on the veranda for a while as the water show went off in the background. Lisa Wheeler sat at the table next to me. She's working for CardPlayer and told me about all the awful things people wrote about her on the internet regarding her coverage of the Andy Beal and Corporation heads-up matches at the Wynn. She joked about being called Deepthroat in reference to the manner in which someone suggested she got the details of the private game.

I've known Lisa since the 2005 WSOP. She worked for PokerWire then and told me some of the craziest stories about the poker business. Our discussions also tailed off into odd topics. When I once asked her what was the weirdest thing she ever thought about during sex was, she didn't hesitate and blurted out, "Trimming my cat's toe nails."

Flipchip navigated the room and took pictures for a while. The Poker Prof left his top secret bunker in a non-disclosed location in the Nevada Dessert (rumored to be in the Valley of Fire) and made a rare appearance to the Strip. We all had a brief meeting over coffee in the Italian pastry shop that overlooks the pool. We talked about the 2006 WSOP, mostly about how excited we were to get to cover it. That is going to be their third WSOP and my second. For a while I was dreading the 2006 World Series of Poker, however I'm in a much better headspace and now I can't wait for it to begin.

I was constantly distracted by the sensational quality of talent that soaked up the hot Nevada sun and absorbed skin cancer as they lounged around the Windex-blue Bellagio pool, which contained decadent boobage both God-made and man-made. I prefer natural breasts over fake ones, but I'll never deny the opportunity to inspect the goods myself and come to my own conclusions. I'm fortunate enough that I get to hang out and cover poker tournaments but getting to write about ogling the magnificent breasts on twenty-something year old tourists with ugly back tattoos as I eat a cinnamon scone is definitely one of the perks of getting to do what I do. I mean, are chip counts in the middle of Day 4 really that important? That's what PokerWire is for.

After my late afternoon meeting, I found myself back at the hooker bar drinking Red Stripes with the Poker Prof. By now the bartenders know what we drink. They toss Spaceman a Newcastle and get the Red Stripes ready for me. Al Ardebili walked up to the bar as we were about to pay.

"Put your money away. I'll put it on my room," the always generous Al said.

Some pros treat us media folks well. They feed us, get us drunk, and never ask for anything in return. I've met a few pros that have asked for preferential coverage and those are usually the guys who never buy you anything. Most of the pros I've encountered are totally cool and are willing to give you chip counts, make themselves available for interviews, and help you out with piecing together a hand that happened. Other pros are totally stuck up and some are always in a foul mood. Sometimes the cards are running bad and their negative energy affects how they treat the dealers, the cocktail waitresses, the other players, and the media.

Spaceman got his balls busted by David Grey today and Spaceman brushed it off. That's what professionals do. Pros have jobs to do and so do the media reps, that's why I usually have compassion for anyone who has to cover a poker tournament. It's hard work with long hours filled with gaps of sheer boredom and moments of utter confusion. But some people are just plain stupid and their unprofessionalism hurts the image of the media in general.

Some of poker media outlets hired their reporters off of Craig's List which is why most of them are dumbass morons who couldn't even write up a hand history without cutting and pasting from Poker Wire. I mean Craig's List is great if you are looking for deviant sex with strangers in the "Casual Encounters" section. If you get off on having anal sex with a Llama while a swinging couple from Tenafly, NJ watches and takes turns shitting on each other's genital areas as Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries plays in the background, then Craig's List is for you.

Man, either these media outlets are looking for reporters in the wrong areas... or they are purposelylooking for people with no experience who will work for peanuts, which is happening. In order to cut costs some of these media outlets are flooding the floor with brain dead minimum wage flunkies.

I'm lucky that I'm getting a decent rate from the various places that pay met to write. I can see how getting offered $100 a day to cover a poker tournament seems like an awesome deal... at first glance. But that enthusiasm ends quickly. I basically have to follow every move of some people who should probably be sitting at an AA or GA meeting instead of sitting at a poker table. The good tournament reporters work like dogs for six days straight without breathing a whiff of outside air. That's borderline sadism, especially if you have to sit and listen to the bad beat stories that I get stuck listening to.

Reading about bad beats on blogs is painful enough. Trying having to feign sympathy when a pro that you see on TV all the time, who makes millions of dollars a year, bitches to me about a bad beat on a hand when he was not as big as an underdog as he claimed. That's like removing my fingertips one at a time with rusty pliers. I'd rather get a vasectomy without any anesthesia, than have to hear a world class pro whine about one more bad beat. Yet, I seem to be the magnet for suckout stories. The way I see it, they are professional poker players and bad beats are part of the job; like a surgeon losing a patient on the operating table, or a lawyer losing a big case, or a dogwalker losing his dog.

Anyway, the media is resembling the paparazzi more and more everyday. I know of at least one journalist who has gone through Clonie Gowen's garbage. Every time a player goes all in, the WPT cameras swarm in and the rest of the media elbows for space trying to get a glimpse of the hand.

"Who has A-K?"

"David Williams bet what on the turn?"

"What's a dry side pot?"

Those were actual words I've heard uttered from the mouths of my fellow media reps. No wonder we get a bad rap from the players and tournament staff. Media on the whole are treated like 45 year old hookers. Some days I feel like an old French whore, just like Ferenc Molnar's epic quote. We're all scumbags in the media, right? We let all those people die in New Orleans too. We're nothing but "left-wing, communist, Jewish, homosexual pornographers." And the time will come, when someone is going to make a solid argument that the poker media is ruining the sport of poker. For now, we're vultures or as one fellow reporter succinctly put it, "We're entertainment writing hacks. We're the lowest rung on the ladder."

Writing about the WPT Championship on the Tao of Poker in the rambling style and manner that I want to cover poker has been freeing, inspiring, and invigorating. I'm finally reenergized and I'm covering the largest tournament ever in the history of the WPT much more effectively while focusing on my strengths... which is writing and telling you the story. Sure, I set the bar as far as how to successfully live-blog a tournament or any event for that matter. But with 40 people cramped into the Fontana Room trying to do the same thing, I found something that would make my coverage stand out from the rest of the pack. If you haven't noticed by now, the over-saturated live-blogging updates have been replaced with these long-winded rambling posts that appear at the end of the night. With more free time to roam around and drink and socialize, I'm getting a better vibe of what's going on.

With this fresh approach, I can paint the word picture of what it's like to be at the Bellagio from a different angle. Plus, I'm having more fun which allows the words to flow smoothly. I'm not exhausted like I have been in the past when I was handcuffed to my laptop for 16 hours straight. Giving you a chip count or a hand history that you can find on six other sites (which you are probbaly reading anyway) is utterly worthless and a waste of my time. However, trying to describe the carnival-like atmosphere to you is a lot more challenging than regurgitating facts and outdated chipcounts.

So before I go, back by popular demand...

Last 5 Pros I Took a Piss Next to at the Bellagio:
1. The Grinder
2. Dan Harrington
3. Tony Cousineau
4. Men the Master
5. James Van Alstyne

That's it for now. If you'd like read an end of the day recap of the WPT Championships from yours truly, visit Poker Player Newspaper. If you wanna see some of Flipchips's kickass photos from today's action, head over to Las Vegas and Poker Blog.

I will be live-blogging the final table on Monday night on the Tao of Poker at 5pm PCT or 8pm EST. If you are jonesin' for that type of coverage, you'll have to wait a few more days to get it.

Action for Day 5 resumes at Noon on Saturday with 71 players trying to survive one more day as they get closer to making the final table at the WPT Championships. When play stopped for the night, WPT Foxwoods Champion Victor Ramdin wrestled away the chiplead from the young Fin, Patrik Antonius. My main man Freddy Deeb ended the day with over $1 million in chips. With sharks like Doyle Brunson, Johnny Chan, Phil Hellmuth, and Men the Master still lurking, it's not going to be an easy Saturday of poker for the remaining players.

With three more strenuous days of poker still left to be played, we'll see who really wants the $3.7 million first place prize.

Card protectors

I am going to post about the value of card protectors over at Lasvegasvegas.com

Its a short, fun read. Here is an excerpt:

There is extra value in these personalized tokens that a mere chip can not duplicate. That is one of association. You are supplying other players at the table a mnemonic or memory association to aid their brain in remembering all the times you bet and made them fold. You can thus “craft an image” at the table for that player, making it easier to trap him when you have a big hand. If you always bet after the flop, “he will remember that the ‘pewter frog’ always bets after the flop”. When you know what he knows, you have an advantage you can exploit. (I leave that part up to you. Enjoy.)

Local Board Approves New Vendor Contract

Sit n Go Strategy-General Overview

Sit n goes have a great deal of strategy and planning involved. There are many factors that you can control to help increase your chances of moneying the tournament. With this knowledge in your possession you will be able to find the easiest possible sit n goes and play your best.

Buy In

The first factor to consider is what buy in sit n go you will enter. A good rule of advice is to never enter a sit n go that is more than 1/10th of your total bankroll. This means that if you want to play a $11 single table sit n go you should have a bankroll of at least $110. Sometimes you are going to find yourself getting strings of terrible beats, and when this happens you have to make sure your bankroll is large enough to sustain it.

Also, if you are playing a sit n go that has a high buy in, you may feel uncomfortable. This will cause you to be nervous and break down during key situations which will greatly decrease your chances of winning the sit n go.

Structure

The second factor you are going to need to look into is the structure of the sit n goes you are playing. Sit n goes that start you with more chips and have slowly increasing blinds are going to be more advantageous to a skilled player. Likewise, if the sit n go starts you with few chips and has fast blinds it is going to be more luck than skill. Party Poker is one of the better sites as far as their sit n go structure, as you start with 2000 chips and blinds are raised slowly. Another good choice is Noble Poker as it has a similar structure to Party.

Another thing to consider is if you want a site that has 9 player sit n goes or 10 player sit n goes. The 10 player sit n goes are more advantageous to skilled players because you are usually just adding another fish to the tournament. This increases the prize pool without really harming your chances of winning. Sites with 10 player sit n goes are Party Poker and Paradise Poker.

Observations

As the sit n go progresses you aren't likely to have any monster hands that will guarantee you a money finish. Most of the time you will reach the money by making good decisions based on observations. As you play make sure to watch the other players and take notes. If you notice one player is always betting the flop after he raises make sure you take a note. If someone is always getting pushed off hands take notice. Almost every poker site has the option of notes, so use them. These notes you take will help you as this sit n go progresses as well as help you in the future when you see these players again.

Multi Tabling

When you enter a sit n go it is almost always advantageous to you to enter at least 2. When you are playing a sit n go it can become quite boring during the early stages. This will cause you to lose focus and possibly make bad decisions. By having 2 or 3 sit n goes running at once you can keep yourself occupied while still being able to take notes on players.

Track Your Play

Of all poker players, sit n go players may be the ones who need to keep records the most. Since sit n goes of the same buy in are all very similar, by keeping records you can identify flaws in your game and improve them. An easy way to do this is to make a simple spreadsheet with a row for each sit n go you play.

Add info such as the date/time, the buy in, the results, and a reason category. The reason category can be especially useful, as you can enter if you went on tilt after a bad beat, or made a bad read, as you will forgot these things over time.

This is the 2nd article of 5 in a sit n go strategy series. To view the complete series of sit n go articles: Sit n Go Strategy

A Tax Revolt In Arizona

Same game, different animals

And the wolves turn into sheep... and all becomes as clear as an un-muddy lake...

I went down to the Greektown casino here in Detroit on Monday night. I sit down at the "beginner" table. 1-2NL 50/100 buy in and its a new table. 10 players with stacks of 100 each. no big stack. and so it begins...

And it became apparent, quite quickly I might add, that I was one of the better players at the table. And even though there were no giant hands, and I had an average run of cards (1 big pair), the chips came my way. Slowly and surely. I booked a 70% return.

Seat 1 : a ghost. It was as if he was not there. Not a factor at all.
Seat 2: me
Seat 3: A semi-solid player who could hold his own but overplayed hands, especially TP.
Seat 4: A semi-loose player who was trying to win big hands by calling raisers with any two cards hoping to hit 2pair or better. He did once, calling a raise to 15 with K8s and hitting 2 pair. Despite this OBVIOUS pattern, he got paid off. Said it was his first time in a B&M card room.
Seat 5: A complete moron. Really. I especially liked the “horny fox” baseball cap. NEVER knew where he was in a hand and re-bought twice.
Seat 6-7: the rotating seats
Seat 8: Loose to the point of stupid. He would play at pots at random, like that would fool anyone. NEVER knew if he was behind but he must have assumed he always was because his bet were intended to be pressure bets.
Seat 9: Tight weak. Weird player who looked like it was his first time in a crowded room.

and it was soooo easy to know where you were at. They reacted to everything, but never did anything that forced me to react or make a tough decision. I never even had to gamble. I even had TWO river value bets paid off. It was fun.

Value Raises:
Q2s from the BB hand. Free Flop. All check flop of QT5. Turn is a rock. River is a rock. Value bet on river. TWO callers paid off my TPLK. (top pair lousy kicker).

42o from SB, Flop is 742. He bets POT. I call. He bets same amount (note: betting the same on the turn as the flop is my weakness indicator.) I call. River is a Queen and he bets 20 into about 50. I figure I am good here and can get one last bet out of him. I raise 20 and he mucks?? $20 into $70 and he mucks? Never saw that coming. But still a nice pot.

April Sojourn One of the first paid writing gigs ...

April Sojourn

One of the first paid writing gigs came my way almost ten years ago when I lived on the fringe of society in Seattle. A ragtag music zine in Austin, Texas offered me $100 to write reviews of 5 CDs from random indie rock bands that you never heard of. That broke down to $20 per album review. The catch was that I had to buy the CDs myself so I only ended up making about $5 per review. But back then, I lived paycheck to paycheck so getting $25 for something I wrote was as epic as winning an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. I wrote because that's what I loved to do and getting paid to write about music was a bonus. I did that four or five times before the magazine folded when the owner went to jail for tax evasion. Although his last check bounced, I'm lucky that the other checks actually cleared. And if I ever run across that fucktard again, I'm gonna demand my $100 plus interest. It's never been about the money. It's all about principle.

It was almost 10pm last Thursday night as I walked past Union Square in downtown San Francisco. I spotted a Borders bookstore and went inside looking for a map. I planned on driving down Pacific Coast Highway back to Los Angeles and I wanted to verify the route. I've done it several times before, but I didn't have any atlases or maps with me this time. Plus, I like plotting out my trips on paper before I take them. As I searched each floor of the multifloor bookstore, I discovered the magazine section. I wandered by and found the poker section which was comprised of three magazines; All In, Bluff, and Poker Pro.

I grabbed Bluff. A few months ago, Amy Calistri told the editor that I'd be perfect for a specific assignment on poker blogs. I was supposed to have an article appear in the May issue but to my disappointment it had not been released yet. The editor of Bluff told me that the poker blogs article was bumped from the April issue to the May issue because Michael Craig wrote a piece about the heads-up matches between Andy Beal and the Corporation. That was added at the last minute. The editor wrote me to apologize and explain why I'd have to wait another month to see my piece. I told him that I understood completely. If I'm gonna get bumped by another writer, I was honored that it was author Michael Craig. He's a real writer, not like majority of the hacks that populate the poker publishing industry. I'm a fan of Craig's work and let's be honest, reading about Andy Beal and the Corporation is gonna sell more magazines that my piece about poker blogs. Keep your eyes out for the May issue. I mentioned a slew of poker blogs by name and I hope that the copy editor didn't cut down my piece for space.

I thumbed through the latest issue of Poker Pro magazine, the one with David Williams on the cover. Lou Krieger recommended me to the editors/owners last year. Lou's a big fan of my writing and admires my work ethic. I'm seriously thankful that I came across stand-up people like Amy and Lou in this brutal industry. He helped secure me a monthly tournament column. If you pick up a copy of any Poker Pro, you'll find some of my tournament coverage in there. The current issue has a piece on the Borgata Winter Open and features several of my photographs.

I went 1 for 2 at the Borders searching for my articles in major poker magazines. I eventually found the map of PCH that I was looking for and planned out my drive back to Hollyweird. I never went into Borders to look for any poker magazines. I was on vacation from all things poker. But when I spotted the magazine rack, I instantly recalled the Bluff article that I wrote and I wanted to see it in print. On a random sidenote, I haven't been paid for that article yet. Magazines wait until the issue hits the stands before they pay the writers so usually it's a six month gap from the day I get the assignment to the day I actually get the check.

As I walked out of Borders and back onto Powell Street, a one-legged panhandler sat in a wheelchair on the corner adjacent from Union Square. He held up a piece of paper. On one side it read, "Hi!" and on the other it said "Smile!"

Life can be a coinflip sometimes. I managed to get extremely lucky in life. One bad decision or a streak of misfortune and I could have been the homeless guy in the wheelchair. That eternal philosophical question popped up... "Why am I me instead of that guy?"

As I stood waiting for the light to change, the brisk evening San Francisco air made me shiver as a wave of humility fell over me. My life has been so hectic over the past year and a half that I've had very little time to enjoy the success I've had as a writer. In a blink, all of this can be all gone. I guess you can say that I stopped to smell the roses. Sometimes I focus too much on the past or the future that I forget to focus on the present.

I've been enjoying the "now" and been taking the last two weeks to fully soak up my accomplishments and trying to figure out the next step on my journey. One of the things I had to figure out is why am I writing and what I hope to accomplish in the future, as well as list four or five projects that I'd like to pursue. Part of my time in Hollyweird was trying to find a literary agent to help find me work and more importantly negotiate what I'm worth. For the past year I've been underpaid for everything I've written. Part of that was because I was a rookie and I didn't have a choice since I was unpublished and unknown. I also made several mistakes and got screwed over by people I thought I could trust and allowed myself and my writing to get exploited. Luckily I met people like the Poker Prof, Flipchip, and Lou. They all helped steer me in the right direction.

In my second year in his industry, I'm a little more wiser and I've taken Wil's advice and started declining work. I had over-extended myself and committed to too many things. Writing and working in the poker industry burnt me out. I tried my best to construct a lifestyle with a better balance of poker and non-poker things this year. It didn't work out and I had to step back and try again.

I've achieved several personal goals as a writer over the past few years. They were small goals like starting my own blogzine Truckin', completing a screenplay for Project Greenlight, finishing my first novel Jack Tripper Stole My Dog, completing NaNoWriMo (more than once), and getting published in a magazine. My next two goals are to sell a screenplay in Hollyweird and have one of my novels published.

Having a popular poker blog was never on my "To Do List." What's happened here has been a happy accident. Remember, I started this blog out of a mutiny from my friends who got sick of reading my poker exploits on the Tao of Pauly. To this day, I kick myself int he balls because I made a huge mistake. If I never started Tao of Poker, then my main blog would be the popular site and I'd only have to worry about keeping up one Tao a day instead of two.

But that was not the path I took. I split the Taos and the Tao of Poker has gotten me on the front page of Fox Sports and the cover story of Poker Player Newspaper. Twice. Inside of four weeks this year, I shook hands with Miss America and George Costanza from Seinfeld (played by actor Jason Alexander)... and both were in a poker room. I've also had hour long conversations with the CEO of a major casino and with the manager of one of the largest online poker rooms. Both were interested in hiring me for huge projects that would have paid me the equivalent of a NYC teacher's yearly salary for about two or three months of work. And you know what? I turned them both down.

Last month I turned down a free cruise to the Bahamas to cover a poker tournament. A few weeks ago, I almost turned down an invite to the Playboy Mansion. Wait, I did turn it down at first and changed my mind after I came to my senses.

Regardless, there's a pattern developing here. I wanted to discover the source of all this negativity that developed with me and poker. It turned into a bad marriage and didn't happen overnight. Over the past year I lost a passion for poker and that affected my writing, my blogs, my relationships, and most importantly... my bankroll. I guess I could blame poker as a whole, but that's not entirely accurate. I shoulder a large percentage of the blame if not most of it. I allowed all of this to happen and I'm glad I stopped to figure out what was going on before it got really ugly.

I love poker but it's not a "love" that lasts a 24 hour a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year kind of thing. I had to figure out what aspects of poker that I love the most and start from there.

I always had a desire to seek out a well-balanced and well-rounded life. And that's why I hit the wall with poker. My life over the past year has been consumed with poker. I can't think of a time where one thing has taken over all aspects of my life. I wrote in a post on the Tao of Pauly that poker was suffocating me as a person and as a writer. Unless I make time for other aspects of life, I'm never going to survive. I'm passionate about so many other things in life such as food, travel, women, live music, sports, and writing. I wish I had more time to experience my other passions.

I've cut back on the tournaments that I cover, skipping three WPT events; Reno, Foxwoods, and Bay 101. I've cut back several of my freelance gigs. I finally have breathing room for the first time in over a year. Yeah, too much of one thing is never good. I'm hoping that reducing the role of poker in my life by 27% (I totally made up that number) will allow me to rediscover the passion of poker, and most importantly the passion for writing again.

I've already burnt out as a tournament reporter and any of my close friends know about the "incidents" during the 2005 WSOP when I suffered a mental breakdown. On three separate instances I was ready to quit or was threatened to be fired. Working at the Rio for six straight weeks last summer really fucked me up. I guess you can say I burnt out before the main event even started.

This year, I'll be better prepared for the WSOP. I'm gonna be taking more breaks and will be resting more during the first four weeks instead of keeping up the frenetic pace that I endured last year. I had two instances were I slept less than 10 hours in a single week. Shit, I know people who sleep 10 hours a day and I got 10 hours of slumber during the entire main event last year.

Do you ever hear a song for the first time that you fall in love with right away? You buy the CD and you listen to it a million times. At some point, you stop listening to it. Heck, you might hear it out in a bar or even worse, it's been turned into elevator music or appears on a car commercial. You get to a boiling point and even say, "If I fuckin hear that song one more time I'm gonna explode!!"

That's how I felt about poker for the last couple of months. The major contributing factor is the depravity of the poker industry. That gets glossed over my the Travel Channel, ESPN, and all the poker publications. I really want to be honest about what I have seen in the poker industry. I can't and it's frustrating. It's hard to censor myself and keep quiet, yet I'm doing just that and it made me miserable. I've always been one to speak my mind, but in doing so, I would end up hurting friends, several pros, and would kill whatever writing career I have.

Gambling is a desperate act. Sure, I get off on it. We all do. But the reasons why we gamble are deeply rooted in self-esteem issues and obsessive compulsive behavior. I'm a known addict and action junkie. Poker is perfect for my degenerate personality because it has some intellectual aspects as much as "The Rush." Whose heart doesn't race when they are waiting for that river card to be dealt to seal our fate or save our ass? For some you lost in your life, the rush of poker is a real feeling. It makes you feel alive in the moment and that's why you do it.

Humans have always sought to get high in one form or another. For some people it's Christ. For others its cocaine. For anyone reading this post... it's poker.

I'm stuck $10K since Halloween and feel like a total loser. My losses spanned several months and included poker, sports betting, and the stock market. I got my ass handed to me during the March Madness tournament. I also have been taking a bath in a few stocks, in particular Brazil Telecom. I've been making plenty of poor decisions over the last few months and I think that the pressure of being in poker has affected me. I needed to step back an analyze why everything went wrong.

I didn't prep for this year's March Madness like I've done in the past watching hundreds of hours of games leading up to the tournament and crunching the numbers like defensive FG% and second-half FT%. I didn't have the time to fully analyze my stock picks and that hurt my retirement fund. I made money when I worked on Wall Street not because I could pick winners. I made money because I was a scumbag and churned your accounts.

Greg Raymer told me that "successful tournament players are able to make good decisions."

I've always reminded myself those words before I play in any poker tournament. I wish I did that before I bought that dogshit stock and made about ten or eleven horrible picks in the March Madness games.

I guess you can say that I got benched. The coach in me pulled me from the game and told me to sit down and think about my mistakes. I've spent many hours thinking and reflecting about the poor decisions and all the "inaction" that took place over the last year. Inaction is worse than a bad decision since it's not making a decision at all.

I feel a lot better knowing that I've been taking time out to reassess a lot of things in my life, especially with how poker relates to me. The "tao" represents "the way." I got lost and I'm finding my way back to the Tao.

It's hard for me to walk away from poker because I love playing it too much. Just the other night, I won a big pot playing $5/$10 on Party Poker. Nothing too special except that I had A-K and rivered two pair but the river card made a flush. I expected to lose the pot and made a crying call on the river only to see the pot shipped my way.

I had not been that excited about a hand in months and I screamed, "Thanks for calling with top pair dipshit!"

I guess it had been a while since I won something. I felt "the rush" playing poker for the first time in a very long time.

The Ranch At White Hills Has Water

Next Generation of Mobile Poker for Players

Fortuna Gaming Corp, through its subsidiary Fortuna Gaming (UK) Limited ("Fortuna") is pleased to announce the next generation of its mobile poker: "Mobile Gold." "Mobile Gold is a new 10 hand version of our Texas Hold'em product that is available to players around the globe on the new Blackberry 8700 series," says Doug Waugh, President of the Company. "We are committed to providing our shareholders and players maximum value and with the success of the Motorola Razr and we felt it was time to broaden our player base."

"Fortuna's Mobile Gold will attract a wider 'for free' player base because of its use of the BlackBerry technology in North America," says Dallas Robinson VP Marketing. "We believe, based on Mobile Gaming Now's ('MGN'), research, that this will prove to be a lucrative move for the company, and consistent with our strategic plan, will enhance the player's experience and game satisfaction wherever their location." MGN is the developer of the mobile Texas Hold'em product.

"Gold Mobile - Texas Hold'em," a 10-hand Texas Hold'em mobile game, was built specifically by MGN for the BlackBerry 8700 series mobile phone. The BlackBerry 8700c is the first handset available in Research in Motion's ('RIM') new range of Intel-based smartphones. The 8700c is available exclusively on the Cingular network in the U.S. and the 8700r is available exclusively on the Rogers network in Canada. The 8700 is a quad-band GSM/GPRS world phone which means it should work in most places on the planet. The QVGA color LCD screen is new and improved at 320x240 pixels. It's described as the fastest BlackBerry yet.

"We're very impressed with the new BlackBerry 8700 series. With its speed, new screen size and clear graphics, we felt it would be a perfect device to launch our new Gold Mobile game," said Mark Jensen, CEO of Mobile Gaming Now. "We have a 6-hand and 10-hand game that integrates simultaneously with the PC. A player at a table can't tell if someone's playing on a PC or a mobile phone. The new Gold Mobile is a 10-hand mobile game with high quality graphics. It's our top-of-the-line mobile game. Players can also use the other BlackBerry devices to play our games."

MGN launched its full compliment of gaming sites in Q1 of this year and has announced early marketing results as being favorable. The Company has registered nearly 1,000 players in the first month of operation. Jensen said the Company expects to register approximately 150,000 members its first year which includes registrations from its Licensees. The Company also announced successful results from its search engine marketing, which is expected to generate 540,000 hits in March of this year. First year projected revenues for MGN are approximately US$5.5 million. Says Jensen, "the average poker player has an approximate lifetime value of US$600."

"Very clearly, the research of MGN and our own player value and engagement information are in alignment," says Doug Waugh President, "It re-enforces our commitment and our belief in the revenue potential of the company."

trip report day 1

I am continually amazed at how much easier it is to read basic play in a casino. 1. The game slows down from online
2. Internet players bluff too much
3. It Is EASY to spot the regulars because they cant resist talking to the dealers.

I played in the Alladin $30+$30 last night. 55 players, most of whom thought they knew how to play cards. In most cases, they played level 1 poker. I was a table one, so I never moved until the final table, so I got to see some players for quite some time. On the dealers left was a guy who really looked like he understood poker, but in the end could not slow to the pace of brick and mortar and bluffed off his chips. Seat 2 was tighty mctight, who bleed to death. Seat 3 was young gun, who watched lots of poker on tv, but never knew when he was behind. Seat 4 for a girl who also knew how to play, but wanted to get her money in pre-flop. Seat 5 was crocadile dundee who would limp into every pot, chase every draw, and only fold to BIG reraises when he had zero. He would cost me half my stack at the 2/3 mark. He limps and I find KQ in the BB. I pop it and he calls. Flop is A54 and I check. He checks. Turn is a 8 and when I check he again checks. The river is a Queen and when I bet he raises. I could not put him on AQ here. Did I play it poorly? maybe, but he would have called me down and I did not intend to call any bet on the flop or the turn. seat 6 was a rotating "bust me" seat. Seat 7 started wtih a tourist, who on the second hand put a huge re-raise on my pocket TT. I let it go. He busted in the first hour. Seat 8 and 9 were internet players. Mechanically sound, but very predicatble.

I finihsed 9th our of 55 (paid 6) when my AK suckered a KQ all in and the river brings the JT9 straight.

EV -$60

Checked out the new Ceasar's card room. Nice and open, with little fanfair. Well run. Mix of tourists and regulars. Easy to spot both. The tourist would donk off their entire bankrolls like they were resigned to the fact. One guy called my pot size re-raise having only looked at one of his cards!

Another guy sat down and raise it to 5x every hand, lost $300 in 15 mintues and left like he was unlucky. Unlucky? Gez, forgedaboutit

But, despite that dead money, I lost 3/4 of my winnings in two hands I had to let go to huge re-raises. And when one guy went on tilt and unloaded his chips onto the table over 5 hands, the best I could come up with was the jack-hammer. So, I left up a paultry $10.

EV +$10
Total for the day -$50.

Ate at a hawaiian themed cheesburger place. Worst food ever. Total negative EV. And my chap stick? $3.50!

And you know what else I just noticed about vegas? They are some consumed with creating their imaginary casino worlds, that there are no US flags anywhere. Now, I have not checked out NYNY to see if they have one, but it really seems at times that Vegas does not want to be associated with the US. What's so bad about the US? Especially is your RUN A CASINO?

Well we're on the road to Vegas, we really do get around...

I am off to Vegas this week on, get this, business! That's right, as fasr fetched as it seems. So, hopefully I'll have a trip report where I managed to sneak off one night and play in a tourney. Maybe on the the Monday night tourneys at the Alladin. Who knows? Not I.

And so it begins...

Don't believe what you see on television

While watching televised poker is an excellent way to learn how to play the game, you really need to be careful about how you interpret what you're seeing.

The key point to remember is that you're watching an edited-down poker show. You're not seeing all the hands played, and that can give you a skewed version of what is really happening.

For example, you might have seen me make a bluff in a certain situation that looked foolish because my opponent called. What you might not have seen, however, is how that silly bluff paid off later in the game.

There is always more to the story than what you see on television.

ESPN's coverage is fantastic, but the product is basically a highlight reel of an all-day final table. It would be impossible to tell the whole story in the amount of airtime that they have, so you're left seeing crowd-pleasing confrontations like A-K against a pair of jacks.

You might be wondering how these players get so many great hands. Well, they don't. You're seeing the most exciting hands from a nine-hour final.

The Travel Channel's poker show, World Poker Tour, is a little closer to reality. Two hours are dedicated to each WPT broadcast, and the final table generally lasts between four to five hours. However, there are also inherent problems with learning from this show.

Although you're seeing a much higher percentage of hands, play is distorted by the fact that the blinds escalate so quickly that the element of skill is reduced. As a result, you'll see players going all-in with K-5 and other players calling with hands like K-10.

That's not real poker, and if you operate this way in a normal tournament setting, you're playing far too recklessly and aggressively.

Check out GSN
Television's best teaching tool is undoubtedly GSN's High Stakes Poker. This program brings together professionals and amateurs, including the likes of Jerry Buss and Bob Stupak, in an actual cash game setting. The blinds don't escalate and the goal isn't necessarily to get all the money.

Players compete for cash that they put up themselves. I actually plopped down a million bucks to play in this game. Sure, I was paid $1,250 per hour to be on the show, but if the cards didn't go my way, I could have lost my entire investment.

High Stakes Poker takes 24 hours of footage and breaks it down into a 13-week series. The play is very sophisticated and as close to watching high stakes live poker as you're going to get. Even with this show, I'd add the following caution at the bottom of the screen: Viewer discretion is advised. Do not try these plays at home!

Why? Again, the play is very advanced. Copying these moves and trying them on your buddies at your home game might not work so well.

Learn what you can
Having said all that, watching poker on television is still the best way to learn how to play No Limit Hold'em — short of actually sitting down at a real table. The key is to understand what you're watching and take everything with a grain of salt.

It's important to understand that players on ESPN don't get better cards than those on The Travel Channel. On top of that, television likes to show the craziest hands. Going all-in with J-6 isn't such a great idea, even if you've seen Gus Hansen try it on the World Poker Tour.

By all means, learn what you can from the professionals on television, but understand you're seeing only the tip of the proverbial poker iceberg.