I Don't Wanna Stop

Random poker observations and thoughts and ideas:

Poker After Dark -- Finally new episodes. The table this week is pretty cool -- G. Hansen, D. Benyanine, P. Antonius, D. Negreanu, M. Traniello, B. Booth.

Booth is blowing up before our very eyes. He gains at least 10 pounds every time he appears on TV. The black shirts only hide so much.

I am coming to the realization that Benyamine may have more game than anyone we have seen in a long time. But he could blow up, too, even more.

All the players are betrothed to Full Tilt. Me too. I saw it coming. Maybe it was all the TV ads.

Speaking of Full Tilt, I have decided to stick to the lower level games in my tired, end-of-the-day poker zombie state. $1/2NL is my foundation. I've cleared about $1500 in the last two weeks. Its hard to lose in this game with patience and TAG play.

Speaking of TAG play, I am firmly of the belief that solid TAG play is the antidote to LAG and HAG play that is prevalent on-line. No one notices if you play TAG on-line. They notice in live play. The LAGs and HAGs still call my raises on-line when I raise UTG after folding 28 hands straight. Might as well play the nuts and rake the profits.

Speaking of raking profits, I am back to the Running Back Plan. I leave the table when I make a 2% bankroll profit, and then open another table with the max buy-in. For those of you that know what the hell the Running Back Plan actually means, congratulations. I 'took a shot' at higher on-line levels a about a month ago. One bad beat and on bad play = bad results for the on-line bankroll. The Running Back Plan is slow, but it rules.

I am curious who actually reads this blog. I have no links from anywhere, as far as I know, except a few links on my ever-decreasing Chiptalk posts.

The Tao of Poker is my lifeline to the WSOP. I read Pokernews and Cardplayer, and all the WSOP tournament results are a blur. There are too many events to even follow. The volume of tournaments dilutes the significance of each event. Joe Koozeface won the 2110-field $2000 NLHE event. Waahoo.

I continue to be disappointed that I do not have more time to give myself a chance at winning some major money at poker. I know that I am smarter than the majority of poker players, a boldly arrogant statement. But good poker players are supposed to be arrogant, right? I have worked on my live reads and concentration as much as possible. I continue to feel that I could make tons of money in poker, if only I had the time and energy to devote.

When a player folds and says "Good bluff!" they always have a medium strength hand that probably should have called and are absolutely dying to see what their opponent actually had. I know, cause I've said it.

Play on.

Vegas again, Baby!!

In two weeks and two days, I will be in Vegas, Baby! I am staying at the Venetian. The tentative schedule:

Thursday, Noon -- Venetian $300+ Deepstack tournament.

If I crap out of that early, Bellagio $1000+ tournament at 8pm.

Friday, Noon -- Venetian Deepstack tournament, unless I qualify for the final table of the Venetian tournament from Thursday, which would start at 4pm. OR, I might hit the WSOP on this day. I would try to sat into the NLHE tournament, or I might actually try the 7-stud HL tournament. I like this game, and have performed well when I have played this game. My only issue is whether I could see all the cards, with my bad eyes.

If I crap out of these options, the Bellagio $1000+ tournament at 8pm on Friday is always an option, or possibly the Rio cash games.

In between tournaments, as much NL cash games as I can possibly play, since the NL games during the WSOP are fantastically donkarific.

My long term goal is to build up a substantial bankroll to hit the WSOP Main Event in 2009 with enough to also play the bigger cash games. I am aggressive, but also a realist. I've decided that I need to keep hitting the smaller tournaments and cash games when they are juicy, which means WSOP time.


Also, I think that I am the only poker blogger that does not have a single link from anyone else's blog. I'm kinda proud of that.

A poker ninja blogger.

Gut Push

I watched a good part of the Cubs game on Saturday with my 4-year old son. Watching baseball is rare these days, due to soccer, basketball, T-ball, softball, general playtime outside and lots of other weekend activities. I'm a lifelong Cubs fan, and my son announced that he likes all the teams that I like. Cool. We also built a dragster with K'Nex during the game.

We watched the Pinella tirade at 3rd base, when he got booted. My son thought that these antics were very odd, but entertaining. "Daddy, why is he kicking his own hat?"

Today, they announced that Pinella was suspended indefinitely. Commentators and Pinella himself said that there was no contact with the ump. But there was -- I'll bet it will come out that the "contact" was Pinella's giant gut pushing against the ump!!