Stunningly, being able to pay the rent from poker hasn’t always been that reassuring. For one, I’m not exactly a grinder. Playing 25 hours in a week is tons for me, and my girlfriend loves to make sure my hours are limited during peak times (read: weekends). Also, while I think my skills are fine, I’ve had epic downturns and run really bad and tilted like a mofo before. My bankroll isn’t huge to begin with, and when you get it in your head to take a shot at 5-10 NLHE when you normally play .5-1 or 1-2, you’re not leaving a very nice variance cushion. A small run of bad luck can send you scrambling back down to the micro-micro-stakes. Finally, I worry that with family, friends and even enemies losing their jobs, the recreational gambler may just pack up and save money for other things, like, y’know, food.

All this is simply a prelude to my session on Stars this afternoon (a distracted, slightly losing affair) where I noticed that one hundred-and-ninety-seven thousand people and change had fired up PokerStars on a Wednesday afternoon for some action. ALmost 200K on a Wednesday afternoon. Wow. Those aren’t poker pros. Those aren’t grinders (well, obviously some of them are). The poker economy is alive and well!

So I guess concerns about the poker economy are premature. I guess the European poker community is around and online at 3 pm EST. I suppose people will always gamble, even when they’re hurting for money; probably ESPECIALLY when they’re hurting for money. And, of course, on the weekend we can always count on drunk people. Ahhh, beer! Helping the poker economy since cards were invented.

Last night I had built my chip stack up to 4,000 from the starting stack of 1,500. During the third hand of the third level (no more re-buys) I found myself with pocket kings in the big blind. It folded through to C.F, who was third to act and raised the pot to 220 (blinds were at 30/60). C.F. typically limps with weak hands and raises with strong ones, so I put him on AK, AQ, JJ, QQ, AA. The dealer called and I called making the pot three-handed.

The flop was a beautiful 9, J, K. C.F. bet 1,000 into the pot. The pot only had 690 in it to begin with. I certainly didn’t put him on 10, Q, as it’s not a hand he would raise pre-flop with (especially in third position). The dealer folded and I thought a minute before announcing a raise. Before I said how much I wanted to raise, C.F.said he was all-in (we had similar sized stacks). I was confident I had the nuts and assumed he had a worse set, AK, or AA. I called and he turned over his aces. The turn was a 3 and the river was an ace, giving C.F. a higher set.

Of course, I can’t fault C.F. for pushing with his aces. His all-in wasn’t even a min-raise had I opted to min-raise, which I wouldn’t have. Had I raised to 2,500, his all in would only be a few hundred more. Where I am going with this is to the question of whether this tactic is something I should be pursuing. When you lose, it’s expensive, and when you win, you only manage to get just ahead of your loses from previous weeks.

Thoughts?

One of the most interesting and watercooler-chat-worthy aspects of this year’s H.O.R.S.E. event was Scotty Ngyun’s drunkenness. Ngyun has always been known to sport a beer bottle or two, though this year he took things way further than the television poker audience is used to, as he berratted the other players at the table. Check it out:

Sure, Ngyun went on to win the event, but he came off looking like more of an asshole than the winner of the one of the world’s toughest poker tournaments. After catching it on TV, Ngyun posted a letter of apology at the Cardplayer forums (which you can read after the jump).

Now here’s the thing. Nobody other than poker fans are going to read this, so the the people he was looking to apologize to, the ones who may shy away from poker now, still know he’s an asshole. Secondly, he probably didn’t write it. Have you ever heard Scotty speak? The occurrence of the word “I” in that letter is all that’s needed to prove it was penned by a personal assistant/publicist.

However, the real reason I want to complain here is that nobody should care. He didn’t drink and drive. He didn’t rape anyone or get in a fight. He got drunk and acted like an asshole. Of course he shouldn’t have done that, but how often have your friends written letters to the letter the day after getting wasted and said, “Hey man, I’m really sorry I came into your house, crushed a bag of nacho chips, dropped them on the floor and walked all over them.” You tell your friend you’re sorry, you didn’t offend the neighbors. Not only that, but poker is a game where (a) people stake their own money to enter. Very few sports require that. (b) It’s a mental game and getting under the skin of other players is not only encouraged, but proven to be effective. If the venue is serving booze, then being a drunk buffoon should be just fine.

I would like to apologize to all my fans for the disappointment I have caused in the H.O.R.S.E. Event. For that I would like to express my sincerest apology.

I would like to ask for understanding of what really took place. Keep in mind this was a five day event, with an almost fourteen hour final table that was reduced to two hours of air time including all the commercial breaks. With that being said, as you can imagine, more took place than what made the final cut for t.v. Last year’s Main Event I made the mistake of letting someone get under my skin, of which overtook my mental focus of the game, and cost me my tournament along with a lot of disappointment amongst my fans and peers. Since that time, it has haunted me and even now with the mistake that I made. As a professional, you always critique yourself to make yourself better, and in doing so you have to focus on the mistakes you make, in order to improve. This year, I needed redemption of my own 2007 Main Event demons to prove to myself that no one would get to me again.

This tournament was too important for me, the trophy, the fifth bracelet, and history, my head was zoned in for this event, and for that time, I forgot the fans were watching me. I said things I shouldn’t have said that have disappointed you, and I apologize for my actions. All my life, there have been many many tournaments, I put all the fans first, tried to play bad hands and win to give more excitement, and I would blow my tournament, however I have never regretted it, because without all you fans there would never be a Scotty Nguyen, and I appreciate all of you every which way. This tournament I played the players game. They wanted to play a drinking game, and they couldn’t win, they say they can’t even beat a drunk, how can you beat a drunk if I’m not drunk. They can’t beat me in a drinking game, now they play the talking game to try to get under my skin like in 2007, and I gave it right back to them and got underneath their skin, and they couldn’t win. When it came down to playing a poker game, the best will win. Because they can’t beat me in a drinking game, a talking game and then we played poker, of which they can’t beat me, and I am the one who brought the trophy home. This event I had my mind set, I wouldn’t let anything interfere between me and the bracelet and the Chip Reese trophy, and I proved that to the whole world. I can beat them at any game they want to play. And all I have to say, I hope all you fans understand what I’m trying to say. And watch the tape again. I was not the one to start anything, not even drinking or talking, they wanted to start it with me, and they got beat by me fair and square on all levels they wanted to play. All I would ever be sorry, is how the fans feel about me, I would never be sorry to beat those players. If they can’t accept defeat, then stay home, crawl under their loved ones arms, don’t bad mouth because you got beat by the best poker player. Another thing, I always bring joy and excitement to the poker game every time I’m on tv, and all of you know, when Scotty Nguyen is on tv, your eyes are glued on the screen. Why? Because I make it fun so you guys don’t switch the channel. All these years that is all you’ve seen of me, and that is the real me. That proves to you, how great and nice I am, I am the real deal. One cannot be on tv all these years with the same persona if it wasn’t the real deal. Even during this final table, I still took time for all the fans with a smile on my face. You have not even heard of one fan who was there that came up to me and could say that I was rude to them or out of line with them in any way. This was an issue at the table, and one I didn’t take out on the fans even during that time. This was business. How many players do you know that would do that to the fans except one, the Prince of Poker, Scotty Nguyen and once again I apologize to all of you. No excuses for my behavior in that $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. final table. And I have explained to you why and how that happened. Bottom line, I only ask for you to please understand and remember that I, Scotty Nguyen, the Prince of Poker is still a human being, just like all of you. I too have good times, bad times, sad times and angry times, just like everyone else in this world, and I hope you can understand that. I do promise to all the fans that no matter what, from now, I would never disappoint you again any which way. I forgot about the fans, and only focused on me. I am sorry.

Thank you,

Scotty Nguyen

Well, after 15 weeks of playing at $1-2, I’ve had only one losing session. By anybody’s standards that is running incredibly well, and while I give a big hat tip to Lady Fortune, I know I’ve played well throughout that time. However, one of the problems I’ve been having lately is that the game has been running extremely shorthanded for the last month. Whereas we used to play with 8 players and a waiting list was common for the game, 5 people is now the norm and when one player busts, which ordinarily happens after a few hours, we are left to play 4-handed, which I don’t mind, but I find is less people than I would prefer. The problem, I’m sure, is that a few players have taken bad beatings in the past few months. In part, they have run badly (while I have run well), but also, they are generally the poorer players at the table and easily identified as the fish.

Once these players stopped coming, the mid-range players, who were once mildly profitable, primarily from the fish, realized that they had, by process of elimination, become the easier marks and consequently, they too stopped coming regularly. I’m not sure what the appropriate play is for this situation, how do you keep players in the game? With very, very rare exceptions, I am not going to ever walk away from a very profitable situation. Leaving my seat early in the night, for example. And besides, I’d probably lose my invitation to play in the game if I left after winning a good chunk of change. Suggestions welcome.

This past Monday, the game was 5-handed and I turned out to be the fish, early on, re-buying and adding on some cash a few times in the first hour-and-a-half. I was in for $400, and left with a stack of close to $140, while everybody else had me easily covered. The problem was, I couldn’t pick up a hand to play with. With the majority of the hands raised to 4-5x the blinds, I couldn’t justify calling $8 with J5s, or 46os, my stack wasn’t big enough to give me the implied odds I would need to call. Patience, even in a short-handed game can be a virtue. Rather than try to bully my way though to a few pots, which I knew would be re-buffed by one of the players, who hated to be pushed around, I waited patiently and picked up AQs on the button. When the pot was raised by the trickiest, but loosest player at the table, I simply called, not wanting to give away the strength of my hand. I knew my main source of value would be getting Franklin to commit the majority of his chips post-flop, if he thought I was weak. Franklin hangs his hat n being able to push around players he perceives as being weak, or not pants-around-their-ankles in love with their hands. 

The flop came AJ4, rainbow. Franklin bet out with only slight hesitation and I insta-called, which he usually perceived as being weak. Well, the turn was the Q of diamonds, and Franklin wasted no time in betting $40, enough to bring me close to commitment. The pot now had $110 in it, after I had called. The river came an offsuit 9 and I was delighted to see Franklin push his remaining chips in. Even more delighted when he turned up A10, looking like he had the best hand. With that double up, I was able to open my starting range a great deal more, and despite having few quality starting hands, and hitting even fewer flops, I worked my way back up to $480, for an $80 profit, despite getting tricky with Aces and donking off $90. 

I know nobody likes a bad beat story, but I also know everybody likes to hear about the donkey who flat calls a raise with AA and thereby gives the small blind the “odds” to call with 84os and hit two pair. The best thing I can say for myself is that I lost about as little as I could, check-calling both the turn and the river after getting my flop re-raise called.

Another week with little profit means that my search for a day job starts early!

- Brendan

FTOPS are on over at Full Tilt. They seem to have the event every month or so (or four times a year), but it continues to draw huge fields.

The Two + Two “News, Views and Gossip” thread can often be rich in the laugh department. Over the last few weeks a thread called “If they never played poker” developed. It got a little long, but one user was kind/kee enough to put together a montage of some of the most hilarious contributions.

Click below the jump to check it out.

Starting off a four-handed game is different, I think than having a larger game trail off into four-handed play. For one, when the number of people at the table suddenly drops off, there is often an adjustment period as people start to open their starting hand requirements. There was no such problem for us, as all four of us were itching to double up and gamble while the stack sizes were still small (our game has a maximum buy-in of 50 big blinds before 11 pm, to manufacture a high-variance, gamble-heavy bet-fest). I managed to quickly double up when I flopped a pair of kings and turned two pair to outdraw Bill’s (relatively) slowly played AK. 

Petey was on a roll for most of the first two hours, hitting flush draw after flush draw, and getting PAID. He is inherently about as passive as it gets, to the point that if he is betting at you, you know that you are facing one of two hands, a nut NUT hand, or a flush draw that he wants to see cheaply. Unfortunately, as those are the only to hands he’ll bet, you are guessing as to whether he flopped top set or a flush draw, and he’s willing to go to town with either. I doubled him up early on when I flopped an overpair with 10 10, on a 2 spade board. Petey was short stacked and we got it in on the flop, with his draw hitting on the river. That shows how limited the play is with essentially tournament sized stacks, push and fold, push and fold, push and fold for at least two hours, until the stacks get a few hundred blinds deep. In this way, my Monday game goes from being the most fun game I play (when it’s deep deep deep) to one of the most frustrating, annoying shove fests, almost like a rebuy tournament at stakes you can’t afford! Or at least, stakes I can’t afford. 

I ran well and paired that with playing well and ran my stack of 50 big blinds up to 400 big blinds with only one really fortunate hand along the way. We were still four handed and I was on the button. With Johnny limping in I raised the pot to $12 ($1-2 blinds) with A6 of diamonds. Much to my dismay, both Petey in the small blind and Johnny decided to have a little looksy at the flop. The flop seemed to be pretty decent for me, with a very harmless looking 5-8-10 with 2 diamonds. Petey checked, which was a very good sign, but Johnny bet out $22 and I paused to think about what I would do. Chances are, I thought that Petey would fold if I raised, being out of position against a raise and a re-raise and Johnny was likely trying to either take the pot down right away or figure out where his mid-sized pair stood. Wanting to isolate Johnny, and in keeping with my pre-flop show of strength, I raised to $52, trying to show Johnny that I wasn’t opposed to him calling. What I didn’t count on was Petey over calling! That old bastard was a tricky badger – I doubted he was slowplaying a set, but I wondered if he might not have a lower diamond draw. If that was the case, I would be gold if a diamond hit. Johnny also decided to come along and the situation started to look grim, as the King of clubs fell on the turn.

This was starting to become terrible, and I thought I needed to bet if it got checked to me to chase off low pairs calling along trying to catch me with AK and my pants down. I have to admit, I AM pretty notorious for overplaying AK post-flop. Both Petey and Johnny checked to me and I popped $70 into the pot with little hesitation. Petey called just as fast and Johnny started laughing and shaking his head. “Ah well, you fuckers” he said and pushed out all his low denomination chips to make the call. WTF!!? I was now looking at a $400 pot with no pair and a draw that might not even be good if the board paired. Luckily for me, the river brought a beautiful, beeeee-ooooootiful diamond and thankfully, avoided pairing the board. Petey checked again, very quickly. Johnny checked as well as Mark, the only guy not in the pot started cackling, “someone just got hammm-mmmered, hammered, by that river, ah-hahaha!”. I thought about it and thinking that the two terrible bluffs I had recently been caught on would finally pay off, made what I thought looked to be an overly large bet for someone with the nuts, $150. Petey had nothing resembling a flush as he folded with a head shake and a glare at me that peeled my skin. Johnny, on the other hand, started agonizing, before finally turning over 10-3 of clubs. 10-3!?!? He had hit top pair on the flop, turned a club draw and rivered 2 pair. Johnny had also been the lucky recipient of a good portion of my stack, having caught me bluffing in terrible situations. Unfortunately for me, his spidey sense seemed to still be working and he smelled my hand out, folding with only minor regrets. A note to Johnny: fuck you Johnny! Call off my bluffs and then refuse to pay off a hand that I overbet all the way until I luck into the nuts? Fuck you!

The night degenerated into a giant game of chicken, with numerous min-raises on every street as we all tried to bully each other off bottom pair, with minimal success. I won a $100 pot with A high, by calling bets on the turn and river, thinking Johnny was betting on the come, and sure enough, I was right. I also tried to “value bet” 4th pair on a 2-5-Q-6-9 rainbow board, to the tune of $40 in a $80 pot and was called by Mark’s K-6. That bastard had hit 3rd pair on the turn after calling with air on the flop – what a dick! The moral of the story? We get what we deserve.

- Brendan

The first bit of hilarity I want to share didn’t come from the poker tables at all, though it did happen in a casino, so I’m going to stretch the website’s theme a little and run with this one.

A few weeks ago a Fresno man was playing blackjack in the city’s local casino. I guess he must have gone busto because before long he was reaching into his pocket and pulling out a bag of weed, which he tried to bet. Perhaps realizing that an ounce was over the table limit, he then took the bag back and broke some of the bud off before placing the remainder back on the table. Of course, this happened to be against the casino’s policy and the man was promptly arrested. It doesn’t stop there, though, as our good buddy proceeds to tell the police that it’s okay because he’s a card-carrying member of the Cannabis Club (of course, he didn’t have his card on him).

Don’t take my word for it, though. Catch the hilarity in action right here:

The 2008 World Series of Poker Europe schedule has been announced. The four-event series will include NLHE, H.O.R.S.E. and PLO events before kicking into their Main Event. The series starts on September 19 and will conclude on September 27. Click Raise wants to alert our would-be sponsors that we haven’t been receiving emails of offers, so please call us. Must be the spam software.

From that point on, until 2 minutes to midnight I ran anywhere from good to hot. At midnight I went from hot to steaming. Completing the small blind with 10 7, which had been a lucky hand that night, the flop came a delightful J89, with 2 clubs. Knowing that there would be a bet followed by a number of calls I decided to check to one of the aggressive players seated directly to my left, Franklin a wealthy developer. Franklin stayed true to his nature and bet $10 into a pot of $12. Petey, a retired dentist who I think finds it offensive and rude to bet, actually raised to $33, leaving himself $150 behind. This was remarkable. I was pretty sure he had a set, or perhaps the same hand as me. The table folded back to me and I decided that the pot was substantial and any significant bet would get Petey committed. I also had Franklin covered, but wasn’t too concerned with him. The table was fairly taken aback by my over push as I had the table covered and it was more than a few large stacks of chips I was moving into the middle. Massive overbet notwithstanding, Franklin pursed his lips, turned his head form side to side and shrugged before saying “alright, I call”. Petey’s cards had already hit the muck so I suppose my read had been a bit off or he was making a big laydown. I proudly turned over my straight and Franklin tabled the KQ of clubs, for a flush draw. I had a sick feeling as a non club hit the turn. Petey, who was dealing, was executing the most aggravating, frustrating dealing style in poker, the patented “burn one, then look at the next one for a minute before laying it on the table”. As I tried to get a read off Petey, to see if I could detect what the river was, I saw him snort as he looked at the card and my heart soared – clearly NOT the action card everyone was looking for! Unfortunately, my read on Petey had been wrong both times. He had not held a set and the river WAS a club and I WAS the loser of what was easily the biggest pot of the night. I had thought I ad the table well covered, but I realized that Franklin actually had 2 large stacks of the black $10 chips sitting there. My heart continued to sink as I counted off $450 and slid it across the felt to Franklin. All of a sudden the room felt really warm. 

Tilt hit me hard after that and I watched Franklin get insanely loose. His standard play from that point on was a blind raise to $19, daring everybody else to play the pot blind with him. At one point three people had been goaded into playing a huge pot blind until the turn, when a third heart hit the board. At this point, Jimmy looked at his cards and made a pot sized bet, virtually giggling while doing so. Franklin, still blind in the hand, thought carefully before calling, still resisting looking at his cards. The river fell a blank and Franklin checked it over to Jimmy, who thought carefully before putting out what looked to be a half-pot bet. Franklin grimaced before saying “you’re forcing me to look at my cards now”. After carefully pinching his cards, Franklin looked thoughtfully at the pot, which had become substantial, and then took out a stack of black chips from the back of his stack and casually raised Jimmy another $150. Jimmy looked incredulously at the raise and started to immediately, albeit resignedly, reach for more chips. “I can’t believe you’ve got me on this one”, he muttered, sliding his chips into the middle. And sure enough, Franklin had Jimmy’s Queen high flush beaten with a King high flush, the “nuts”, as it was.

I couldn’t stop myself from engaging in the madness, trying to recoup my losses. With Franklin trying to play every hand blind after coming in for a raise the standard play became a limp with a strong hand followed by a reraise after Franklin’s inevitable raise. I still managed to donk off another $300, with 88, on a 775 board, simply because I managed to convince myself that nobody could have a 7. Forget all that nonsense I typed about the blind raises and general disregard for the value of money. I managed to get my entire stack involved in a pot where I had a grand total of 2 outs after all the money went in! 

Tilt works in funny ways. I didn’t give a thought to quitting the session, though I know I wished that I had called it an early night when I had had a nice stack. I managed to borrow another $400, al of which was sorely needed. Afterwards, I had to ask myself if I had spun a bit too far out of control, borrowing money to stay in a crazy game where I thought I was still profitable or if I had indeed made the right decision because I had clawed my way back and ended up for the night ($90 large!). Its a question that I think can only be answered by the person on tilt, though everyone I was losing money to probably thought that I was an easy mark. 

Its difficult to set limits for yourself while still being able to trying to balance the ability to play in a game you consider soft. 

- Brendan

Why anyone would continue to put their money into a company that has admitted to stealing from its customers is beyond me. Both companies were extremely hesitant to come forth with the details concerning the scams, and it was only after players themselves investigated that they admitted to cheating.

It only makes sense that they merge, right?

“Miami, FL (PRWeb) July 24, 2008 – Today, the management of both Absolute Poker and UltimateBet announced the upcoming launch of CEREUS: a NEW POKER PLATFORM that will integrate the customers and features from both poker rooms, instantly making CEREUS the third largest online poker network.

CEREUS is the result of more than 12 months innovation and development. Absolute Poker and UltimateBet will retain their unique assets yet share more players, more action, more tournaments, incredible new features and massive promotions.

Paul Leggett, Chief Operations Officer of both Absolute Poker and UltimateBet, said:

“I am so excited to announce the launch of our new poker network CEREUS. This is a huge landmark for our company and online poker. I’m confident that Absolute Poker and UltimateBet customers will be thrilled by the new platform and we look forward to welcoming many new players from around the world.

“CEREUS not only delivers the best online poker experience; it enables our company to improve our operations and deliver significantly better value and service to our customers.

“Our company’s goal is to provide poker players with the ultimate online experience. The launch of CEREUS is a major step for us in achieving our goal and we look forward to making many more exciting announcements very soon.””

While we don’t get ESPN in Canada, and TSN only picks up coverage much later on, try heading over to thepokerbay.org where you can download episodes a day after they’ve been aired (along with nearly every other poker show).