Friday, January 30, 2009

Who Knew?

I've documented that my blog has been hugely popular in obscure places before but I am also HUGE on 'Unknown Continents' and in 'Unknown Countries'! Could I be popular on the island where 'Lost' is filmed???? Maybe a parallel dimension of sorts?!



Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Fiddlesticks

Watch the hilarious Tuff_Fish video and you'll understand the post title...
I miss Party Pokers cash games....but when I need a laugh I look to Tuff_Fish...LOL



Then this one just makes me piss myself....



Edit :

Forgot about this....I played the first one and it was insane...I think there was over 4000 rebuys or something. I probably won't be playing this one due to the fact I can't stay up until 4:00AM so enjoy.......

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

4 years?

Holy Crap....I've been posting for 4 years....crazy....that is all......

Edit :

I should have added this before the end the holidays and the end of the year but this is hilarious...

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Poker – how and when to bluff

Bluffing is one of the hardest but most important and fundamental aspects of poker. If you don’t ever bluff in poker then there is no way you will be a successful poker player,you can learn much about this in a poker school. Having said this, it’s also important to remember that bluffing requires you to have sense, timing and guts otherwise you won’t pull the bluff off. When you are caught bluffing, it can be frightening or embarrassing, but when you get away with it, it can be exciting and rewarding. When you play in a poker tournament or for fun with the same group of people regularly, you may start to spot patterns in their behaviour when they are bluffing or have a good hand. This behaviour is called a ‘tell'. A ‘tell’ is when you do something without even realising that you are doing it, and it gives away to the people you are playing against what your hand is. Some one may always go very quiet when they have a strong hand, or talk a lot when they are bluffing.They might always jiggle one leg or poke their tongue out slightly when they are bluffing, and in this way you can learn a lot about their strategy and how they play.When you
play poker online, tells become much less of an issue as you are not face to face with your opponents, so you can’t use this method to gauge their actions.At the same time of course, they can’t use it to gauge yours either, so the score is evened. How and when should you bluff? – This is a good question, and the only real answer to it is that you should only bluff when you feel that the other players will fold. After all the idea if you bluff at the times when most people will bluff you are less likely to gain from it than you will if you bluff at other times instead. For example, most people will bluff when there is a big pot to be won. While bluffing in these situations might sometimes be the appropriate thing to do, they are usually not. Bluffing is a deception; you are trying to look like you have something when you don’t. So try bluffing on a smaller pot for example and you may find yourself coming out on top. Having said all this, if you constantly bluff under the same circumstances then you will find yourself in the situation where people will start to learn your pattern, so it’s important to not be too regular in how and when you bluff. Maybe think about bluffing in situations where other players wouldn’t think of doing so, bluff from an early position, don’t take extra cards, or bluff when you have drawn 3 cards and not when you’ve drawn 1. It’s in these unusual situations that people will think there’s no possible way you could be bluffing and may fold giving you the win.

Friday, January 09, 2009

Uncle Leo

My Uncle passed away yesterday......he lived down the street from my grandfather and I basically grew up going from house to house in Lawrence, MA. All my older relatives are starting to pass away and we are starting and growing our families now. The only unfortunate thing was that he had to see two of his daughters pass away before him. One had passed away from cancer and one from debilitating M.S. I'm sure that nobody wants to see any of their children die before them (that is my greatest fear) and he had to suffer the loss of two.

I knew it was going to be soon. He had a form of cancer and bad blood clots in his leg. I was not aware that it was as bad as it was until basically a couple of months ago. He was the De facto patriarch of the family after Grandfather passed away in '98. I didn't visit him in the bad state he was in for the last few months...I called my cousin (his youngest son who is my age) and apologized but he actually set me at ease "Don't beat yourself up about that...he didn't want a big deal about it anyway"...he put me at ease with that and I just sort of started to cry....of course after I choked up and told him I would see them this weekend and hung up the phone. This guy was an awesome uncle....he taught me to fish, camp, water ski, cross country ski and winter camping......and enjoy the outdoors for all its worth. I want to remember him as the bourbon sipping uncle that tied fishing flies to relax. I remember him with his magnifying glasses tying flies for what seemed hours upon hours at his cabin in the woods. He used to take my cousin and I camping with the Boy Scouts for weekends during the summer. In the White Mountains of New Hampshire. That is where I learned to fly fish for trout and then fry them up in Bacon grease left over from the morning breakfast. Let me tell you....there is nothing better than fresh trout fried in bacon grease....with the mountain air.....no less than 10 fish would suffice. My uncle was a big Lithuanian guy....and his son soon became another big Lithuanian guy. He was a straight talking no bullshit guy that loved nothing more than to go fishing and camping. He took his son and I night fishing in his boat on that lake on the N.H.-Maine border quite often and I never realized how important that was to my growing up. We caught pickerel, perch, and small mouth bass...some where almost trophy sized. I never knew what Lithuanian was until I learned by looking on a map when I was young. I have a real mix of nationalities in family history....I noticed this tiny country that used to be part of the U.S.S.R. back then...wacky.
I never knew anybody could derive pleasure from tying fishing flies for endless hours....it seemed so boring. During the days at the camp we would go fishing and water skiing off the back of his motor boat. I even learned to drop one ski and continue on one for the rest of the summer. Every night he go to his rocking chair while we played card games at the kitchen table in the cabin....he would get his bourbon and get his fly tying kit out. He had thousands of them...all different colors and he practiced constantly. Out of that love of a boring hobby came a lifetime of fun. He bought books on it and studied about the intricacies of threading the perfect fishing fly....
I never really thought about how similar it was to spending countless hours in front of a game (that's what Poker is....just a game) trying to fish for a prize....all while spending countless hours studying and practicing techniques and strategies. My uncle was a great part of my growing into the man I am today....and for that I thank him forever. Thank you Uncle Leo....R.I.P.

Wednesday, January 07, 2009

2009 Goals

I didn't really set any Poker Goals in 2008 (Due to R.E. woes and additions to family and moving etc...etc.)
.......but accomplished more than I thought I would by far.

1. First MTT win (900 entry on Stars for 2,250.00)
2. First online 1,000.00 plus prize
3. Multiple 1,000.00 plus cashes in MTT's and Made a decent amount of final tables in MTT's overall
4. First ever 2,000.00 plus prize
5. First legitimate Bloggament win (during B.B.T. for 550.00 plus)
6. Get into B.B.T. T.O.C. and made a decent profit in the B.B.T.
7. Cashed in a Sunday Major (Bodog's 100K is still a Sunday major in my book....made it 13th place)
8. Made some cash from advertising on blog and use it for Poker bankroll
9. Met some more bloggers in person and actually played poker against/with in a live setting
10. Made a sizable profit on poker and poker related stuff for the year
11. Paid some sizable bills with Poker profits....

OK...so Poker Goals for 2009.....

Everything I did in 2008 plus :

1. Make final table in Bodog 100K
2. Cash in the PokerStars Sunday majors especially the PokerStars Million
3. Cash in the WCOOP
4. Enter a MTT at the World Poker Finals, The World Poker Classic (both at Foxwoods) and or the W.S.O.P (This is the most unrealistic of poker goals for a father of two toddlers and bills up the wazoo)
5. Cash in an FTOPS tourney (I still cannot do anything on FTP except win a bloggament but hey....this is a goal list right?)
6. Win a 1,000 plus entry MTT on PokerStars or FTP
leading to this....a 5K plus cash!
7. Make BBT TOC again...and nice profit overall again
8. Make Bodonkey TOC
9. Reverse my STT tilt on PokerStars and FTP leading to more deep final table cashes in MTT's and better overall final table play (top 3)
10. Pay more and larger bills with Poker profits (basically poker has become a part time job in a way...much more enjoyable than a job)
11. Do not let Poker interfere with any family time (This one is hard but I am by nature a night-owl type so I have been able to do this in 2008 and will continue in 2009 unless the U.I.E.G.I.A.UGLYF'NL. prevents me)
12. Play some live cash games at Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun (see #4)
12a. Win a Charity Poker tournament (this was done in the past but when I went back to one a couple of years ago I saw the worst poker ever...and the people who played the worst still won. Anyway there are still some good card rooms that are popular in N.H. and they are starting to get a little bit better....they also have W.S.O.P satellites etc.)
12b. Continue to change my play and adapt like I decided to do in 2008 (obviously this involves implementing concepts from reading and studying books, strategy, training videos, and hand histories)
12c. Have a good outlook....remain positive....no matter what the situation is....it does make a difference

I'm off to a good start with two final tables in 2009 on Bodog and Stars (along with a satellite win into the Sunday Mil this coming Sunday)....and the 15$ Turbo STT's on Bodog....donklicious!

So good luck at the tables and I hope everybody makes their poker goals this year...and maybe...just maybe.....one of us can final table a massive online or live final table!!!!!!!!

Monday, January 05, 2009

Good Sunday on Stars

Bing :

PokerStars Tournament #129737080, No Limit Hold'em
Buy-In: $25.00/$2.50
2007 players
Total Prize Pool: $50175.00
Tournament started 2009/01/04 20:00:00 ET

Dear DoubleDave,

You finished the tournament in 59th place.
A $80.29 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

You earned 140.11 tournament leader points in this tournament.

Bang :

PokerStars Tournament #131673728, No Limit Hold'em
Super Satellite
Buy-In: $10.70/$1.00
72 players
Total Prize Pool: $770.40
Target Tournament #131669903 Buy-In: $215.00
3 tickets to the target tournament

Tournament started 2009/01/04 16:50:00 ET

Dear DoubleDave,

You finished the tournament in 1st place.
You qualified to play in Tournament #131669903 and are automatically registered for it.
See Tournament #131669903 Lobby for further details.

If you choose to unregister from this tournament your account will be credited
with $215.00 Tournament dollars. Tournament dollars can be used to buy into
any tournament.

Boom :

PokerStars Tournament #129737024, No Limit Hold'em
Buy-In: $10.00/$1.00
972 players
Total Prize Pool: $22720.00
Tournament started 2009/01/04 19:15:00 ET

Dear DoubleDave,

You finished the tournament in 6th place.
A $965.61 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

You earned 255.92 tournament leader points in this tournament.

So fuggin' close.....



Quite a good Sunday for me....while most of you were practicing bad bankroll management Ala this......I was avoiding my inevitable FTP bankroll burning by avoiding it completely...and you know what? I'll probably avoid it completely until the BBT4 rears its beautifully ugly head. Last year I missed the first month because of real estate recovery......but not this year! Props to whoever made that banner by the way....I saw 'The Dark Knight' this past weekend and it was everything I hoped for. This part of the movie was classic...thereby making a classic banner. Looks like the work of Mookie. Sorry about not pimping this Goat...but things got hectic here during the holidays....you know how it is with 5 kids or whatever you're up to now. So anyway among other Bankroll destroying tourneys....I've been playing at Bodog a lot. Even more now that the Bodonkey is over. I made a run at the 100K again yesterday to no avail. Lets just say that I was about to triple up with about 340 people left until an ace on the river dashed all hopes of going deep two weeks in a row. I guess I'll have to enter into some of those satellites and build up some tourney bankroll bucks that are so sought after on Bodog. Again...I'm not in any hurry about going back to Fukk Tilt Puker. I must include the following banner brought to us by AlCanthang and the wonderful people at FTP..........BEHOLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Just in case this doesn't get big head excited...........let the following get the little head excited! (this picture does so many things for me)



One more thing on a serious note....

I was getting caught up on other peoples holiday scores and whatever and saw this happen to someone in the blogosphere......not something you want to hear about but something that we should all know about....and we can all do something about if possible......

VinNay :

Calling out the Bloggers

I know I owe a winter gathering trip report, but something more important has come up.

A friend of mine, Jeff, has had an unfortunate Christmas. His home was destroyed by a fire on Christmas morning and declared a total loss. Fortunately, he was not home at the time and no one was hurt, but he did lose his cat Maurice, along with all of his possessions. The fire was started in his tenants apartment, and quickly spread throughout the house. To make matters worse, he was just laid off from his long time manufacturing job.

Jeff is a home game poker player, and reader of many of your blogs. He is a RPG'er, and beer drinker. He is a hard-working fucker who has battled dyslexia his whole life. He's a toker, and he only has one ball. He's a flyers fan (I guess I can forgive him for that). He's one of the most generous people I know. And he needs some help.

We have set up a site to help raise some money for him to help get him back on his feet. If you can give that would be great, but please do me a favor and link up the site for me.

http://helpjeffout.blogspot.com

I'll owe you one. I'll pimp your affiliate codes, I'll pimp your blogs, I'll buy you drinks at the Bash or next gathering, whatever you want, just ask.

We are also going to be having some benefits at local Buffalo establishments over the next few weeks (details forthcoming on donation site). We will be raffling some good shit away, there will be open bars, live music and other fun. If your so inclined, come on up or down to Buffalo, you can crash at my place and we can hit the poker room at Seneca Niagara.