My poker so far this trip has been very odd. I normally like to play mixed games such as HORSE, but my run in HORSE tourneys has been horrible. Played in five and the best I have placed is 14th. However, I have made four NL Holdem final tables out of six tournaments played. Sadly two of those final tables were for naught as they paid only three or four spots. However, the other two went a lot better.

The Tuscany casino has a nice NL event. It is $35 with rebuys. I would like the starting chips to be more, but if you play the event on the weekend, you have a good shot to do well even with only $3,000 in chips. This past weekend, I picked my spots and gathered about 12k in chips in the first hour. I was third in chips at that point and actually hovered around that point until the final table. I almost blew it when I ran queens into kings early on in the final table, but I was able to battle back to a decent stack. Ultimately, we chopped 7 ways.

My video poker on the other hand has been going fantastic. Except for the Orleans, I have finished up in every casino for video poker. And as far as the Orleans, I recently hit a decent amount on this past Sunday to cut my losses down to probably just $40 or $60. So far, I have only hit one royal flush. I have hit about 3 or 4 straight flushes and four aces twice or three times on bonus or double double.

Starting Thursday, I will be tied up quite a bit with the World Series of Poker. I will try and do some updates during that time, but I cannot guarantee anything. If you want to follow my coverage, check out pokerjunkie.com.

I played several events at PokerStar’s Spring Championship of Online Poker.  I was able to cash in the Stud 8 SCOOP event.  I know, big shock eh?  I came close in a couple of other events but towards the end I was not as focused as I could be.  The FTOPS event over on Full Tilt Poker is coming up and I will be playing several of the Mini-FTOPS events.  I feel good about the Stud 8 and HEROS events obviously.  I’ll also play a PLO Knockout event, a PLO8 event, a Razz event, the PL HA event, and the Mixed Holdem event.  Ill likely get deep in the Razz, Stud 8, HEROS, and Mixed Holdem.  I hope to do well in all obviously, but my PLO and O8 results are a mixed bad.

The biggest news regarding my job is that I picked up a new gig.  I am now writing for Pokerjunkie.com.  I provide some articles and I have a blog under my pseudonym compncards.  I’ve been there for about a month now and my “personal” blog there has been up about a week or so officially.  The big difference between this and my gig for thewsopblog.com deals with the fact that most of my articles are preselected topics that I must write on.  I am not responsible on the article topics, just on the blogs.  That is helpful, and at times a little hairy when I get article requests on things I am not real knowledgeable about, such as Vegas nightlife.  Fortunately I have some resources for those things.

The WSOP is just 3 weeks away now.  I will be attending this year, but I will not be working in any official capacity.  At least, that does not appear to be the case at present.  Instead, I will be playing in numerous events around town.  I am going to play Event #26 at the WSOP and maybe the Stimulus Event.  Yes, that means  I will play my first ever NL Event at the WSOP if I play it.  However, I will only play it if I either satellite or if half of the buy-in is put up elsewhere.

That leads me to another area I have been dabbling in lately, and that is staking.  I have been using ChipMeUp quite a bit lately.  ChipMeUP is an online staking site where you buy shares of people for poker events.  Right now I am up overall in my staking and all of my SCOOP events were 50% stakes.  I am trying to get some of my live events and my WSOP events staked as well.  I’m having some luck with the H.O.R.S.E. events, but not on the WSOP events.

I’m doing a lot better in my NL Holdem game lately.  I have been really working on my aggression in certain spots and it is beginning to pay off a bit.  The biggest difference has been in my Sit-N-Go’s on UltimateBet.  I am still trying to win my Main Event seat, and am now up to Level 5.  Yes, I know that is only half way, but I still have time.  The ultra-turbo sit-n-go’s seem to closely resemble the WSOP satellites and as well as I am doing in those lately, I feel I might have a decent shot at satelliting into some WSOP events out in Vegas.  We will see.

As far as when I am leaving, I have not made that decision as of yet.  I have a couple of things to take care of around here first.  I will likely head out around the 22nd to the 24th.  If I play the Stimulus Event, I will definitely head out then.  I will only be there until around June 22nd as I will be working 4-H Camp this year, and I will not miss that for anything.

Anyway, that’s what’s going on with me at present.  I’ll try and give some updates during my FTOPS and into the WSOP.  Check out my blog over at pokerjunkie.com and my work over at thewsopblog.com.

So we have a new President of the United State. Barack Obama won in convincing fashion over John McCain. I voted for McCain, but not without seriously considering Obama. I was leaning his way all the way to almost the end. Taxes and certain statements he made started me to lean McCain. Everyone that is buying into the “only the $250,000 and up crowd will see more taxes” need to do your research. Now, things may change and the plan may turn out better than what my research indicates. In a way I hope so. This isn’t because Obama won, but because the country typically prospers economically under a democratic president. There are certain points to Obama that I did like as well, so it wasn’t a “Obama bad, McCain good”type of vote. My research indicates that I would be potentially better off under Obama than McCain, and therefore I voted as such.

Now, with that being said, this election showed me the flaw in our current electoral system, especially for my state. In my state, the overall popular vote was significantly influenced by about 6 areas. In Missouri, the vote for the entire state was influenced primarily by Kansas City and St Louis. Due to the fact that these areas are much more heavily populated, the balance of power is shifted such to where if a candidate is a heavy winner, such as Obama was, then the state stands a chance to go to that candidate.

What should we do? I like what Nebraska and Maine do. First, they give the vote representing the two senators to the overall popular election. Then, the rest of the votes go by who won the popular vote in the particular district. For instance, look at Virginia. Lets say that a candidate wins the overall popular vote. He would get the two votes automatically. Next, the other 11 votes would be divided up according to who won the popular vote in the particular district. Lets say that the candidate won 6 of the districts. Then he would get 6 of the electoral votes and the opposing candidate would have gotten the other 5. I like this better as it prevents a few areas from swaying an entire state and actually makes the individual vote count more.

Now, I am not saying that using this system would have won McCain the election. It probably would not. It would have made it closer and a little more in line what the country actually thinks. I’m sorry folks, but from what I am seeing, the majority of the county was not overwhelmingly in favor of Obama. If you were in a big city or a highly liberal state, then yes, but in other states, such as Missouri and Virginia, the state was clearly not head over heels for Obama.

The WSOP Final table is tomorrow. I’m still of the opinion that this was a bad idea for the game. We will finally get to see tomorrow who will play heads-up and then Monday who will win. I shouldn’t say this, but I am rooting for some type of screwed up abnormality so that they won’t do this again. However, ratings are up and if ESPN decrees it’s good, it will likely be back.

Just a couple of weeks now before I head out to Vegas. I am looking forward to it. I tried playing some last night and did so-so. Of course, I was playing tired and played too distracted. Still managed a 2nd and 1st place finish out of three games played. My stud game play seems to be getting better in all realms. I hope this translates into strong H.O.R.S.E. finishes in Vegas as I am playing two H.O.R.S.E. events. I will be staying at the 4 Queens downtown. I’m also really hoping that this event draws decent. I would hate to go all that way for a bunch of tourneys that don’t draw over 50.

Enter the 2008 United States Poker Championship…..

ESPN decides not to renew their contract to broadcast the USPC.  What happens as a result?  The total number of players for the Main Event clocked in at 52, and that was after they let 2 players register late.  What a difference a year, and a lack of TV coverage makes.

This goes to show you the state of a lot of major poker championships.  If there isn’t any TV exposure involved, then the drawing power just isn’t there anymore.  Events like the World Series of Poker will still draw crowds regardless of TV coverage.  It is the World Series.  People will come.  However, what reason do they have to come for the United States Poker Championship.  The answer used to be, “To get on TV.”  Now the answer is…….you tell me.   It isn’t to win the prize money.  If that is the case Antonio Esfandiari would have hung around and played.  He showed up, but decided not to play.  I guess 200k just isn’t worth the effort.  It goes to show you that money isn’t the only driving force in poker today.

With that said, what about me?  What have I been up to?  Writing, writing, and more writing really.  I have had a couple of projects that have taken up a lot of my time.  The good news is that I have made enough money to where I am not going to be struggling to pay bills for a while.  In fact, I am seriously looking to find a tournament set I deem worthy to play.  Shakopee is out.  I looked at the schedule and it was “ok,” but the structures are horrible.  The USPC is out because I was too busy and bluntly, I have never played well overall in AC in tournaments.   Tunica is a possibility.  I am waiting for the schedule.  The Golden Nugget in Las Vegas is holding a tournament next month that is all Non-Holdem events.  The buy-ins are somewhat low and I am considering that one.  I could actually stay 7 days across the road at Binion’s and probably play the entire set for a grand total of $2,000, including airfare and plane ticket.

I think I will look around a bit more before making a final decision.  I would really like to do Tunica tho as I might could tie it into my writing better since it is a WSOP Circuit event and two of my blogs are WSOP blogs.  Of course, the AC Circuit is in December, but I will bet you that it will be all NL crapshoot.

Have you ever had one of your friends go off in such a rage of anger that you end up touched about how much they really care about you?   That happened to me this week.  I won’t go into the why my friend went off like she did, but by the time she was done I was really touched by what she said, even if she was hopping mad when she said it.

Tomorrow, I am going with my friend Erin to see Mamma Mia.  She couldn’t get together with me today because of her working.  Believe it or not, I picked this movie.  For those of you that look at me cockeyed, realize I am a person who saw Sweeney Todd at the theatre 4 times.  Besides, the only other movie I wanted to see I promised another female friend I would go see Wednesday.

Lately, I have been playing a lot of NL Single Draw 2-7 Lowball sit-n-gos on PokerStars.  With the exception of one, I have at least cashed in every one.  In these Sngs you must make it heads-up to make the money.  Today I played 3.  I won two and finished 2nd in the other one.  I have been have somewhat poor results in triple draw limit lowball.  I found out really quick in this game how wide of an array of hands you can consistently win with.  One thing that I do like to still try and stick with is to try and only do 1 card draws while we are still 4 handed or more.  Obviously that doesn’t always become the case, but I try.

My runs in Stud 8 or Better lately have been pretty bad.  Some of it is frankly bad play on my part.  I have been making a few plays and getting too fancy.  In the last day or so, I have went back to playing with a little more sense and have at least finished ahead in every session.  I think I need to go back and focus on playing some tournaments as opposed to the cash games I have been playing.  I enjoy tournaments a lot more and I seem to focus harder on them.

Speaking of which, I have tried to pick up a couple of books to work on my Stud HI tournament game a little bit.  I am a good stud player.  I know this, but my tournament results live when I have played have been outright horrible.  My feeling is my problem comes from playing a certain style that doesn’t work as well as it should in tournaments.  I’m going to take a look at a couple of books and see if I can get some inspiration.  I may just end up getting a friend of mine to sit me down and teach me some finer points like Bill Boston taught me regarding Stud 8.

I intended to go to Atlantic City sometime this coming week for the United States Poker Championships.  That’s not happening now.  I love the schedule, but I am holding onto my money and also focusing some on my writing.  My gigs have really picked up lately, especially from one dude that has me writing a lot on poker.  I talked to the guy at PokerNews about future gigs with them and it isn’t looking real promising.  I got the “we may have work” line.  I probably won’t hear from them until around WSOP time.   That’s fine too.  Actually, if things keep going the way they are with this one client writing, I may not want to take on any other gigs for a while.  That wouldn’t upset me at all.

Anywho, have a great weekend all.  Maybe Ill come back and tell you what Summer got me for my birthday.

Zelong Dong Comes Up Short

Zelong Dong limped in from early position.  Strong Wang then raised from middle position.  Woody Deck sat upright directly after the raise and then made the call.  Dong called as well.   On a flop of A-5-6, Zelong Dong checked and Strong Wang splattered some chips in the amount of 2,000.  Woody Deck made the call.  Zelong Dong called.   The turn fell the 4 of clubs and Zelong Dong checked to Strong Wang, who again bet out in the amount of 4,000.  Deck folded and Dong called.  The river fell the 2 of diamonds and Zelong Dong checked out Strong Wang for a moment before checking.  Wang bet out 12,000 and Dong decided to look him up.  Zelong Dong showed A-5 for two pair, while Wang showed A-3 for the wheel.  Strong Wang yanked in the pot.

Harrahs truly does try and accommodate all players.  We had deaf players, legally blind players, players in wheelchairs, players with no arms, and even a quadriplegic.  (With that being said, the media is TOO SENSITIVE in trying not to offend handicapped players.)

Mike Matusow is just as insane off the camera as on.  (Proven by him coming up to me and randomly ranting about his chip stack during a break.  Why did he come and rant to me personally?  I made eye contact I guess.  I don’t know.)

David Singer complains a lot….

John Phan would get a ticket in Oklahoma for playing too slow.

People take $10,000 whims….

Blogs do indeed take on people’s personalities.  (I wrote some blog entries during one event and for two days people came up and TOLD me that I wrote that.  Didn’t ask me.  They told me.  And most didn’t even know my name.)

The phrase “One time” is probably the most overused phrase in history.

Followed by “bad beat.”

Followed directly by “ship it.”

Playing connect four is so much fun, but YOU play alone, cause you’re a virgin.

People have a hard time grasping the concept as to why a decent poker player would rather do something other than play poker.  (You have no idea how many times I was asked why I didn’t play.)

Younger players need to learn more about the history of poker beyond Doyle Brunson, Stu Unger, and Johnny Chan.

Jean-Robert Bellande may appear to be a jerk but he does have an honorable side.  In the Limit Shootout, he was heads up and his opponent did not return on time from break.  He refused to take his seat and let the dealer pass the blinds around until his opponent arrived.

“If you don’t lose a hand heads up, you will eventually win a tournament.”  – Words of wisdom from Tom Schneider referring to Daniel Negranu’s bracelet win.

This past Monday, I returned from my stint at the World Series of Poker as a blogger for PokerNews.com. It was a fantastic experience, one which I hope to get the chance to do again sometime. Playing in the World Series is a lot different from reporting the World Series. I actually enjoyed the later more this time. One reason is that I didn’t have the stress associated with playing. The last two years, I was burnt out by the time the World Series was over. This year, I could have continued on past the time my contract expired. I was glad to be done though. By the time 4-H Camp time arrived, I was sort of regretting my decision. I ended up figuring out later on that was just due to my missing camp. I talked with several people about camp, and things went well. Step will be taken to where I can attend next year. There is a small hole in me that is noticeably missing due to not attending camp. At the same time, we must make sacrifices in our lives at time to make our overall life better, or at least put ourselves in said position.

One thing that is different now that I am back is that I am officially Summer’s manager. We have of course joked a little about that since the beginning of her Senior year at Longwood, but she officially asked me while I was in Vegas. As a result, I have begun to research potential comedy gigs, and might event float her name for some small local roles. I will start her off small as this dream is one that she is pursuing while trying to work full time. If she stays serious about my managing her, who knows where this will wind up, as I will try and get her started as best I can.

Anywho, back to the WSOP. I was witness to a lot of interesting final table and even some history making events. John Phan won his first bracelet on my watch, as did David Benyamine. I was able to watch final tables that included Marcel Luske, Jennifer Harman, Mike Matusow, Hoyt Corkins, and Erik Seidel. Phil Hellmuth and I had a conversation about Matusow during one event. I got to meet Lon McEachern and actually got to talk to him at length on several things, including his thoughts on Harrah’s overemphasis of the excessive celebration rule. I learned that Jean-Robert Bellande is just as he appears to be on TV. (I have a pet monkey too as a result of the event I covered him in.) An Egg McMuffin was even threatened to be thrown at me. (You need to read the PokerNews.com blog about that one.)

All in all it was a great trip. I’m glad to be back home. Of course, I got some news when I got back home that was expected but yet unexpected. I can’t go into that for a while still. It doesn’t involve me.

Oh and for those of you wondering who the hotter girl between Amanda Leatherman and Tiffany Michelle is…. you need to check out Melissa Castello. Yes Melissa, Im talking about you.

Ok folks, talk to you soon.

I covered Event #29, which was a $3,000 NL Holdem event. As most of you know, I hate NL Holdem, but I will play it and I will cover it because thats where the money is at. Tuesday night was the final table of the $3k NL event. John Phan and David Singer were two of the pro’s at the table.

David Singer is a dick. He is a complainer. He complained that the players weren’t announced. (The table was not televised and maybe 20 people were watching.) He complained about the lighting (which was a semi legit complaint). The floorstaff moved them and then they complained that they were too close to people. Then he complained that there weren’t any rails. And that was just at the final table. He had other complaints as well, including the fact his name didn’t have a little FTP logo beside it. Oh boo hoo bitch. I dislike having to root against a pro, but this time I was rooting against him. He lost. Good.

The final table went relatively quick until we got to heads up. John Phan takes entirely too much time to do anything. He takes too long at breaks, he takes too long to bet, call, raise, or whatever. About an hour or two into the match, John Phan and Johnny Neckar decided that they would talk out a deal at the table. First, this shouldn’t have happened at the table. They should have taken a few minutes away from the table, had their discussion, and came back. A few hands after making the deal, Phan decides they are going to dinner for 90 minutes. What the fuck was that?? He decides not to come back on time from dinner. Gee…big shock.

Now comes the part of history. Around midnight, after playing heads up for about 5 hours, the two decide to push all in blind. You read that right, all in blind. They would get dealt two cards face down, have the flop, turn, and river dealt, and then show one card at a time. My partner in blogging Heath was pissed, but honestly, this was the only fun part about the final table. The above picture is the scene at the end of the second hand.

The board on the second hand was J-8-Q-Q-5. Johnny Neckar had 4-2, and was playing the board. John Phan had 4-7, and the 7 played. You can see the amusement on my face regarding the hand. The third hand of the three card series was just as funny when Phan had K-6 and Neckar Q-4 and his 4 paired with the board.

Clearly they made a second deal so that they could get it over with. In the end, John Phan won the bracelet and the title. Phan and Neckar definately made history with going all in blind three times in a row. I was at the table and witnessed the last two hands. Although I don’t like NL Holdem, this is one memory I will carry with me for the rest of my life. I actually had fun watching a holdem tournament….at least for two hands anyway.

Today, I am covering the $3,000 NL event.  Some big names, but a lot of the top tier names are over in the $10,000 Limit Event.  I would much rather be there, but I guess I have to do time in the NL jail.  Actually, it’s not too bad to cover.  Its actually simple.  I think thats the point.  Its so simple a game that after a while, everything is routine.

After this event, in three days I cover the $10,000 Omaha 8 or Better World Championship.  That should be a lot of fun.  The only down side to all this is that I am beginning to miss some of my friends, which was to be expected.

Unless I make a last minute change, I probably wont play in a WSOP event this year.  I am planning on playing the Stud 8 or Better event down at Binion’s on the 24th, but right now anything else will depend on my schedule and how I feel.  I may hang around and play over at the Orleans open next month, but I haven’t decided.

Anyway, I will try and write again before the end of the 3k event, but this event isn’t all that exciting.