Typical ass-backwards Massachusetts

This is just more typical shit in Massachusetts....we have to deal with this reminder
from the Attorney General. It occurs to me that because Charity Poker tournaments have been so successful in the past 1.5 years that it has drawn unfair scrutiny. Charity Poker tourneys have proven in their short life-span to be a proven way to raise money and have fun at the same time. I have a friend who died of cancer and I told her parents the best way to raise a lot of money would probably be a charity tournament. They started a charity in her honor to benefit others who suffer from the cancer that caused her demise. That apparently is still not a good enough reason among others of course to have fundraisers in Massachusetts. There may be a bad apple/business that may keep more money than they are entitled to...say if they had a charity poker business for the wrong reasons but "they" should be caught and persecuted..not everybody. Isn't there more important things to worry about in Mass. then Poker Tournaments? There are thousands of illegal immigrants and undocumented child molesters and crime in general!!!! Why don't they do something about my 2,000 dollar fucking car insurance bill? I have a step-9 driving record and just because I live in Lawrence I am unfairly penalized...but nooooooooooooooooooo we have to be reminded about how charity poker tournaments are being scrutinized.

ESPN's WSOP schedule

This will make for some good TV...especially when they put the camera on Phil Hellmuth...WSOPTV schedule

Say it isn't so Jackpot Jay!!

I guess this is his results from his year long foray into Poker....JackpotJayYear

Godsmacked!!!!

This is an interesting one.....So I was playing the NL Hold'em Tourney at a castle (to raise money for the Castle foundation) in Haverhill, MA...it's rainy and ominous outside on a summer Friday night. The tourney was setup for about 100 players...prizes are buy-ins to various tourneys at Foxwoods for the World Poker Finals. I'm playing pretty tight for most of the tourney and soon the action is down to 30.....then down to 20 and I have a short-stack. Sitting at my table is none other than Sully Erna (lead singer of the band Godsmack)...he still lives in this area and he grew up in Lawrence/Haverhill, MA area....I don't really know if anybody else noticed to tell the truth..he was there with a couple of friends...they could have been in his band but I wouldn't recognize anybody else but the guitarist Tony Rombola. I figured I needed some chips so I took a chance on an all-in with 9-5d and because the table is generally tight nobody calls. Anyway he is soon all-in with an ace against some other player with a short-stack..he rivers an ace to stay alive. His stack is probably about 9,000 chips.... a couple of hands later I limp in in middle position with 9's. I know somebody is going all-in so I was planning on going all-in anyway...this would put me in good position to go to the final table with possibly 14,000 chips if I could go heads up with somebody. The top 5 places pay buy-ins to tourneys so it's time to get some chips and this was the right hand. Everybody else folds and Sully Erna goes all-in...I call with what I have left (limped in with 2,000 and called all-in with the rest of my 5,500 chips. He shows Ah-10s. Race time! the flop shows 8s-Qc-7d all different suits....so far so good....the turn is 9 and I get my set....so far so very good...The River a goddamn 6c...Sully says "hey...a 6...I got a straight!! Yeeahhhhhhhh!!!....So far...so good....so What!! I couldn't believe it...I'm thinking that the lead singer of Godsmack is the king of the suckout....anyway I was stunned and he was happy...I collected myself and shook his hand and said I was a big fan of his band Godsmack. He is a really down to earth cool dude but that was a real bad beat......I left in disgust and don't know who won...but if his luck is any indicator it was probably him.

Made another final table on UltimateBet...it seems crazy to me but most of the online poker tourney money I've won has been on UB. This tourney in particular was a 1.00 Turbo NL MTT that had at least 1,000 players if not 1,300...I finished in 5th on and took about 65.00 for my efforts... 

Cool new charity Tourney at a Castle!

I haven't been playing lately alot...well I did redeposit on Party Poker and am building the bankroll from 50.00 to 110.00 in 2 sessions of 25.00NL hold'em tables (.25-.50) blinds. Got my bonus 10.00 in 70 hands..not to hard to do. The Castle is just that...an old Castle that they are raising money for in my area. Although I will like the atmosphere I'm really playing for the big buy-ins to the Foxwoods tourneys that are the prizes.....I haven't posted in a long time because I depleted my bankroll trying to qualify for the "Big Dance" ya know...the WSOP..to no avail. Also this 'being a new father thing' is the greatest thing in the world but it is tough...my baby girl is two months old already!! Time is flying! I got to qualify for one of these big Foxwoods tourneys one of these days................

Humorous short stories..

Saw a couple of old friends this weekend and the more things change the more they stay the same (I'm still great friends with my high school buddies even though we've spread out through the state of Massachusetts) :

We've been drinking buddies for years and he(we'll call him JMan to protect the innocent) has made a couple of the funniest quotes/moments....here are a couple..

Back in high school we didn't have a place to party so we would get loaded and drive around in our cars..not good advice but we did it anyway....so we're driving and getting loaded and we're pie-eyed by now...my buddy who is driving by the way looks over at me and says "I'm so friggin' loaded I'm glad I'm not driving!"...I'm sitting in the passenger seat and I had to remind him that he in fact was driving at the time!!!

Last weekend (17 years removed from high school) we're having a few drinks at my other old high school buddies house (he basically has a sports bar or shrine to the Boston RedSox in his basement with pool table and stuff)....and we all have kids now.....so anyway I asked if he wanted a beer....I didn't know it but he was pouring himself a monster Jim Beam/with a splash o' coke drink...he looks over at me with this liver pickling concoction and says "I don't really see the point in drinking a beer anymore...ya know...does that sound bad?"....fucking hilarious. By the way his wife drove their whole family home so we have grown up a little bit.

Yet another buddy of mine from high-school calls up....he lives one town over from me....he calls and says that his wife bought him a keg-erator for father's day...I'm jealous...

Picked up a new book to add to the library...

Caro's Book of Poker Tells....of course it's a poker book!...I haven't bought any other books besides the boring PC/Computer hardware/software crap for years..

My poker library has now grown to 5 books in all...I'm definately better for them..the guy that wins in Poker and proclaims he "never read a poker book ever!" is just plain stupid. Imagine how much better he/she could be if they actually did read a book like The Theory of Poker.

Poker Tracker stats and low limit hold'em

Poker Tracker is great..but....on the Party Poker low-limit hold'em (bad beat or high hand) tables it simply doesn't help you. You can play like the elusive 'Eagle' and still lose your shirt. The only thing that will work..especially on the 'bad beat' tables is (keep in mind i'm talking 2-4 and 3-6 specifically) playing premium hands and keeping the flop/seen ratio to 20%-28% (30% is still too much...this is probably the stat that really counts via Poker Tracker). People will draw out on you no matter how much it costs them. It seems like alot of players will take their last 30.00 to these tables to get lucky. As we all know 30.00 is not enough....it should be 100.00 and no less in order to play the way you should.

This is the look on my face the day I qualify for the WSOP....I just had to post this pic because it is the funniest picture I have ever seen.....haven't been doing much lately...though I have been making one last futile attempt at going for a WSOP buy-in on PokerStars... 

Wednesday night Tourney

Aggressive betting is the only way to win these tourney's...and again when I went all-in with the 'best of it'....A-Qh I got called by the chip stack leader with A-10c...and I got beat with a flush on the river...doh! I knew he was trying to steal the blinds and overbet to scare me off but this was the perfect time to double-up my 3900 in chips through the chip leader. There was a four flush to the club when the flop was flipped so I know I was in bad shape...the turn..no club..then the 6c falls and I'm screwed. The tourney was in my old hometown and I was able to talk with some old high school friends but I feel like I got punched in the stomach after getting beat like that. It doesn't just happen on the internet...blah..blah..blah....

Tuesday night tourney at the Lowell Brewery

I played another cheap tourney at the Lowell Brewery and got knocked out somewhere at 30 or 31 again...second tourney in a row (NLHE...50.00 buy-in..plus 20.00 unlimited rebuys for first hour).....this is their (Capone's poker) schedule The unlimited rebuys makes it a pretty wild tourney but to no avail. There was a 25.00 side STT tourney that I jumped into...with 5.00 bounty for whomever you knock out. I love the Sit'N'Go Single table tourneys online and do quite well on them so I jumped in with 9 other people. There were All-ins on really bad hands that were called fast...I sat back and waited for a great hand so the other guys would knock each other out and sure enough they did...I raised on the button with K-Jh...BAM! he whacks his hand on the table and goes all-in! with authority...I guess I was supposed to fold but I figured with 7 players left I'll call his small Pocket Pair...which is exactly what he had..7's...I catch a J on the flop and all of the sudden I'm sitting pretty on the Single table. I saw one guy not raise with pocket A's and after the flop he goes all-in but is promptly called..the guy to my right has J-7 for a two paired flop...knocks out the poor dude with A's...After playing solidly and building the biggest stack on the table I knock out the 3rd guy...we were already in the money at that point. The heads up match between me and the other guy was good...it went on for about 20 minutes. I folded a couple of hands and we were showing each other the all-in hands after the other folded..pretty friendly..I finally got a pocket pair (my recently lucky 5's) and I went all-in and was promptly called with an A-K.."fuck" I thought...but they held up and I won the 100.00 first prize....thank god for the side action tables.....

The 'state' of the legality of Poker online...

This article is what is happening with online poker...I've read a few articles on online gambling and gaming and it seems that it all points to it being legal...'for now'...

Good article on the relation of Poker and Sports

This is a cool article on ESPN.com which I can relate to...Being from the Boston area and living through all the years of bitter disappointment. Long live the 2004 Boston RedSox and all of RedSox nation!

WPBT tourney on PokerStars

This is the way it turned out :

PokerStars Tournament #7888013, No Limit Hold'em
Super Satellite
Buy-In: $30.00/$3.00
68 players
Total Prize Pool: $2040.00
Target Tournament #7037642 Buy-In: $1500.00
1 tickets to the target tournament

Tournament started - 2005/05/15 - 21:00:00 (ET)
Tournament finished - 2005/05/16 - 00:06:37 (ET)
1: JoeSpeaker (Moreno Valley), (qualified for the target tournament)
2: hydroponic1 (Bossier City), $540.00
3: on_thg (Grand Haven),
4: gaamblor (Newport Beach),
5: bdidde (Mountain View),
6: 777GMoney (Cincinnati),
7: lvvpokerprof (Las Vegas),
8: One_Outer_MN (St. Paul),
9: TNSpaceman (Ashland City),
10: HermWarfare (Bronx),
11: txchach (Pflugerville),
12: dnasty13 (St. Clair Shores),
13: ABVidale (Irvine),
14: Joanne1111 (Calgary),
15: TripJax (Greensboro),
16: ej333 (Fullerton),
17: NibRock (Dearborn),
18: dannmizzou (cincinnati),
19: LisaLisa01 (Midland),
20: DoubleDave (Lawrence),
21: billrini (Huntington Beach),
22: Guinness (cincinnati),
23: Drizztdj (Maple Grove),
24: litfpitr (Chapel Hill),
25: phlyersphan (New Lenox),
26: Maudie (kebzweb.com),
27: AlCantHang (Phoenixville),
28: kritger (springfield),
29: phillsievers (Salford),
30: anisotropy (Vineland),
31: good43 (Saint Louis),
32: CrzySmrtGuy (Charlotte),
33: April98 (San Jose),
34: Jaxia (DFW),
35: 787Style (Austin),
36: Chops here (Atlanta),
37: homersolo (Portland),
38: lucas67 (Saint Petersburg),
39: jerge88 (Ames),
40: Minus790 (raleigh),
41: Trog (midland),
42: hdouble (Los Angeles),
43: mcstellar (Chicago),
44: mstephans (Austin),
45: misst74 (Kingman),
46: badblood44 (Greer),
47: YouzaViper (Linton),
48: lifesagrind (Overland Park),
49: Grasp (Midland),
50: Gapac (Atlanta),
51: Obie34 (Fredericksburg),
52: themayorpete (Burlingame),
53: SGTdanko (Elk Grove),
54: FatTabbyMama (Austin),
55: The Dream (bossier),
56: Easycure (Gig Harbor),
57: Bugsy 99 (Toronto),
58: DrPauly (New York),
59: Columbo777 (Farmington Hills),
60: skitchorama (Seattle),
61: peanut56 (Fredericksburg),
62: HeyKidsItsBG (Grand Haven),
63: mohuncher (Bristow),
64: lumberking (Poplar Bluff),
65: maigrey (Bartlett),
66: ArthurPDent (Earth),
67: slim999 (pokerpundit.blogspot),
68: Up4Poker (Lafayette),

You finished in 20th place (eliminated at hand #1706227686).

149 hands played and saw flop:
- 4 times out of 19 while in small blind (21%)
- 7 times out of 19 while in big blind (36%)
- 10 times out of 111 in other positions (9%)
- a total of 21 times out of 149 (14%)

Pots won at showdown - 2 out of 4 (50%)
Pots won without showdown - 10


This was a lot of fun...the first WPBT tourney I've participated in...I had about 2,500 in chips left and of course got caught trying to steal the blinds...One_Outer_MN raised all in when I raised and BillRini called also..needless to say I pretty much had no choice but to call all-in even though I had a 6-5 offsuit..there just wasn't much of a choice. BillRini seemed to be in the same sort of position...both of us short-stacked..I beleive One__outer caught an ace to pair up...oh well it was fun...