When I began playing poker choosing a ‘primer’ -as poker strategy books are often called-was a fairly simple process, since there were typically only a handful of books on the particular topic in print! And no, I’m not 75 years-old, I began playing poker a few years before the nuclear bomb known as Chris Moneymaker ...
When it comes to generalizations in poker none rings truer than “You want to maximize your wins and minimize your losses”, but the practical application of this concept often escapes people. Whether your goal is to maximize or minimize, the methods are the same, and involve three key concepts: 1. Utilizing position 2. Pot control 3. Isolating weak ...
In Parts 1 and 2 of this series I detailed the many incidents involving Annie Duke and Daniel Negreanu over the years, and now I will throw in my 2-cents regarding the recent verbiage used by Daniel Negreanu in the pokerplayer.co.uk interview, and the way Annie Duke has spun it. Yes, Negreanu is a representative of ...
In Part 1 of this series I outlined the early run-ins between Annie Duke and Daniel Negreanu which were the genesis of their animosity toward each other. In this installment I’ll discuss the recent flare-up between the two. The “FEUD” between Annie Duke and Daniel Negreanu had been on hold for a number of years prior ...
There has been a lot of talk recently about a specific interview with Daniel Negreanu that appeared on pokerplayer.co.uk recently where he calls Annie Duke a “F***ing C***”, causing a firestorm of opinions in the poker world. Unfortunately, the interview is just the latest transgression in what has been on an ongoing feud between the ...
When it comes to generalizations in poker none rings truer than “You want to maximize your wins and minimize your losses”, but the practical application of this concept often escapes people. Whether your goal is to maximize or minimize, the methods are the same, and involve three key concepts: 1. Utilizing position 2. Pot control 3. Isolating weak ...
When it comes to generalizations in poker none ring truer than “You want to maximize your wins and minimize your losses”, but the practical application of this concept often escapes people. Whether your goal is to maximize or minimize, the methods are the same, and involve three key concepts: 1. Utilizing position 2. Pot control 3. Isolating weak ...
A while back I wrote a satirical blog entry titled Vince McMahon meet Doyle Brunson, where I detailed a plan to “script” poker: Adding some bad guys ‘Heels’ for poker fans to boo, and hero’s to prop up and cheer. Well, poker got a bit of WWE feel recently when the Daniel Negreanu vs. Annie ...
It always amazes me the lengths people will go to save money in various areas of their life, but when it comes to poker these same people leave so much money on the table, simply because of the slightest lack of effort or patience. For instance, when it comes to buying a car, or groceries, ...
10 Poker books you MUST read: Ace on the River When I began playing poker choosing a ‘primer’ –as poker strategy books are often called-was a fairly simple process, since there were typically only a handful of books on the particular topic in print! And no, I’m not 75 years-old, I began playing poker a few ...
This Sunday at 18:00 ET, just as the $750,000 Guarantee is starting, Full Tilt is holding a private tournament that I encourage you to join. A few years back, a young boy named Shaun Doss was in an automobile accident that left him paralyzed from the chest down. The tournament is called “Shaun Doss Miracle” ...
The new calmer version of Tony G is one of the most popular poker players in the world, both with fans, and with his top-level opposition. Fans love Tony G (Real name Antanus Gouga) for his comical table talk, and incessant needling of the other players -especially if Phil Hellmuth happens to be anywhere near ...
Written today, two months later - Mike Matusow approached me from Amazon Blue #295, his island in a sea of about 20 tables contesting the $10,000 Limit Hold’em Championship. Mike didn’t know I was going to be here and we had spoken just once so far during the Series and not about this tournament. Even so, ...
When it comes to misunderstood poker concepts perhaps none is more misunderstood than the rake and how it impacts a poker game. The rake is a predetermined amount of money that is taken from the pot -usually 5-10% up to maximum of $3-$4-as a house collection. In this article I’m going to look at some ...
There is an all too often occurrence at the poker tables nowadays, and it doesn’t matter whether you play online poker or partake in the game at a brick & mortar card-room; the problem I speak of is dealing with an “Expert”. We all know the “Expert”, they dissect the most innocuous hands of poker ...
During Season 6 of the PokerStars.net European Poker Tour, EPT officials announced the creation of seven poker awards that would be given out to the tour’s top performing players, including the coveted Player of the Year award. In addition to a trophy, each Season 7 award winner will receive a prize package for the first ...
In a previous entry I talked about the early stages of poker tournaments and the numerous opportunities these stages present for savvy poker players. In this installment I’m going to explain what happens when the early stages of a poker tournament ends, and the adjustments you’ll need to make in order to stay afloat. The best ...
I suppose cheating poker players out of $22 million -that’s just the total from Ultimate Bet-will keep a story going for quite some time, but the Super-User scandals that plagued first Absolute Poker and then Ultimate Bet have once again found center stage thanks to some more investigative work by the like of Haley Hintze, ...
The first few levels of a poker tournament present certain opportunities that will not be found at any other stage of a tournament: This is especially true for large buy-in, or deep-stack tournaments, where the blinds are extremely low compared to the starting chip-stack. Many poker players choose to play extremely tight during these levels -or ...
One question I get asked a lot is whether or not a person should learn a new game, or just stick to what they know. The answer has a lot to do the person and what the reason(s) is for asking the question in the first place, so hopefully I can outline the different factors ...
When I walked up the sidewalk to Mike Matusow’s front door with Ted Forrest, Pui, Karate Mike, and Shauna on July 13 , I was tracing a path that was strange to everyone else but familiar to me: broken doorbell, no response to my knocking, entry without permission, darkened house, mysterious voice answering my call. ...
The idea of working on your strengths while ignoring your weaknesses runs counter to much of what we are taught: In school if you are deficient in one subject you often put in extra-time, at the expense of subjects you are already good at: Another example is the fact that athletes are constantly spending the ...
Starting this weekend, I’ll be posting several entries that share stories of my six-year relationships with Ted Forrest and Mike Matusow. The unifying feature of this stories is how, for me, the events at the end of their historic $2 million weight-loss proposition bet, were deja vu. It was almost as if this unique and ...
One of the more recent scandals that shook the online poker world dealt with collusion, and unlike the strategic –some would say soft-collusion– that took place in the StoxTrader scandal, in this case the players’ involved shared information and weren’t looking for a small added edge; these players were actively looking to cheat other players ...
While nowhere near the level of the Super-User scandals, or some of the other cheating scandals in the history of online poker, the Nick ‘StoxTrader” Grudzien incident is perhaps one of the most shameful in online poker history, not only because the offending players was a solid winner with a huge reputation in and away ...
In Part 1 of this series I discussed the early days of multi-accounting, where poker players were exploiting loopholes that existed in the online Poker Room’s software, allowing them to create multiple accounts and enter the same tournament with these accounts. Despite poker sites closing this loophole, players are still multi-accounting to gain an edge ...
Multi-accounting is when a player opens a second -sometime 3rd, 4th, 5th and more-account on the same online poker site. Multi-accounting is one of the most widespread forms of cheating in online poker for the simple reason that it’s incredibly easy to do, and 90% of people who open multiple accounts do so for reasons ...
I am really in for it now. You know, a couple of years ago, during a six month period playing on Full Tilt, I cashed three times for over $30k each, won a seat to the Main Event, and twice won the Sunday night HORSE. I didn’t make that big a deal about it in the ...
When I play on Full Tilt, I find myself occasionally deal with (losing) players claiming the site is rigged: “I’ve lost three times today with aces.” “I saw you suck out twice in ten hands in the Ferguson last night Craig.” Etc. Etc. Etc. After spending more than three years demanding – and never receiving ...
Poker is a complex game that could have you calculating hundreds of different pieces of information every single hand. The best players are able to make these calculations -and weight them accordingly-almost on instinct, but for the rest of us it’s important to answer the following 10 questions every hand: 1. How strong is my hand? Hand ...
You would think it would be a two horse race between PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker when it comes to which online poker site has the best stable of sponsored poker players, but there is a third and fourth site that are doing a good job of staying competitive with the two online poker giants. ...
Thanks to of all people a data-mining site, PokerTableRatings.com, just before the 2010 World Series of Poker began it came to light that The Cereus Poker Network -Ultimate Bet and Absolute Poker-had insufficient encryption going from the site to the players computer. Even though the security loophole was very minor, the news sent the online ...
It’s been an interesting year for online poker in regards to cheating and scandals. On the one hand there have been a number of incidents including several incidents at major online poker rooms. First there was a large group -rumored to be several dozen players-of online poker players in China were caught colluding at PokerStars in ...
At heart I’m a theorist, I love looking at things from all angles and testing out different ideas, and in this article I’m going to outline the three principles of poker that will help bring you to the promised land; which in poker parlance means becoming a winning player. I’ve often tried to break poker ...
In this series I will take a look at the backgrounds and resumes’ of the nine poker players who managed to weave their way through, and outlast 7,310 opponents, and make it to the final table of the 2010 World Series of Poker Main Event. The final table for the 2010 WSOP will reconvene on November ...
In this series I will take a look at the backgrounds and resumes’ of the nine poker players who managed to weave their way through, and outlast 7,310 opponents, and make it to the final table of the 2010 World Series of Poker Main Event. The final table for the 2010 WSOP will reconvene on November ...
In this series I will take a look at the backgrounds and resumes’ of the nine poker players who managed to weave their way through, and outlast 7,310 opponents, and make it to the final table of the 2010 World Series of Poker Main Event. The final table for the 2010 WSOP will reconvene on November ...
In this series I will take a look at the backgrounds and resumes’ of the nine poker players who managed to weave their way through, and outlast 7,310 opponents, and make it to the final table of the 2010 World Series of Poker Main Event. The final table for the 2010 WSOP will reconvene on November ...
In this series I will take a look at the backgrounds and resumes’ of the nine poker players who managed to weave their way through, and outlast 7,310 opponents, and make it to the final table of the 2010 World Series of Poker Main Event. The final table for the 2010 WSOP will reconvene on November ...
In this series I will take a look at the backgrounds and resumes’ of the nine poker players who managed to weave their way through, and outlast 7,310 opponents, and make it to the final table of the 2010 World Series of Poker Main Event. The final table for the 2010 WSOP will reconvene on November ...
After nearly 6 hours of 10-handed play Brandon Stevens was finally eliminated, and the 2010 World Series of Poker Main Event Final Table is set. Making the final table is worth a whole lot more than the prize-money at stake, so it’s understandable why the players tightened up when the play became 10-handed; making the ...
Well it took seven days of poker for a couple of players to pull ahead of the pack at the 2010 World Series of Poker Main Event: Joseph Cheong, 24,490,000, and Cong Nguyen 23,100,000, have both shot out to sizeable leads over the remainder of the field. The next closest player is 2010 bracelet winner ...
After dinner and drinks at the Commerce in May, Ted Forrest, Mike Matusow, and Justin Smith outlined the terms of a weight-loss prop bet destined to upstage the Main Event of the 2010 World Series of Poker. The $2 million wager, which required Forrest to lose nearly 50 pounds in less than 2 ½ months, ...
At this point, I admit that I became too close to a story that was already making me feel uncomfortable. Apart from my shock at Ted Forrest’s appearance, I was now helping him hunt down Mike Matusow. On the one hand, Mike’s a friend, Ted and Mike were friends, and I’d done such errands before. ...
ENDGAME NOTES In just a couple of hours, Ted Forrest will likely put an exclamation-point ending on one of the most remarkable bets in the history of gambling. Forrest is about to weigh himself for ESPN cameras, Mike Matusow, and Justin Smith. If his weight is 139.9 or less, Matusow and Smith have to pay him ...
Day 3 – Saturday, June 19 At 2am on Saturday, Chip Jett busted me in 31st place. If I was destined not to win the event – and with zero chips left and a Stromboli winding through my large intestine, it’s safe to say I was out of the running – Chip was one of my ...
I first got the idea that Shauna should play the WSOP Media Event a few weeks ago when I received an email from Seth Palansky issuing an invitation to play on Sunday, July 11. I forwarded it to Shauna with a note suggesting that it might be fun if she played and I reported on ...
It’s a bit misleading to call today’s action Day 3 considering there have been six days of poker played at the 2010 WSOP Main Event so far, but this will be the third day of play for each of the remaining players. The field has been cut down from 7,319 entrants to 2,560, all of ...
Whatever the composition of the November 9, it won’t include me or starting-table-mate Emily Jillette. We both busted on Day 1-D, Thursday. Robin Leach, the famous tabloid journalist who operates the Vegas Deluxe web site, asked me and several others to serve as “celebrity columnists” for his blog about what’s new and hot in Las Vegas. ...
After solid turnouts on Day 1a and Day 1b, Day 1c at the 2010 World Series of Poker gave the prestigious poker tournament a solid shot at breaking 7,000 players for only the second time in history -and an outside shot at breaking the record of 8,773 players that entered the tournament in 2006. A total ...