Party Poker Blog

Poker Blog
Mike Caro's Law of Least Tilt: Among similarly skilled opponents, the player with the most discipline is the favorite.

The deck hit yours truly in the face from the moment I sat 2.4 tonight. Hit a straight and two sets and BAM - up a hundred in twenty minutes flat. As a grinder, I truly relish small rushes like that. It doesn't happen very often when you're only seeing 20% of the flops.

I just jumped down to 50.1 so I could bang this post out. My first hand went 8 handed to the flop. God love the 50.1 limits. Easy money for those inclined (and disciplined enough) to play tight, ala Fuzz (see prior posts).

I LOVE PARTY POKER!

Speaking of which, if anyone ever wants to sign up for Party Poker, the main vein in this historical gold rush of poker, please do so with the Bonus Code "IGGY" or click the Party Poker link on the right to download the software and/or use that code to sign up. I'm loathe to even mention this, because it's certainly NOT why I'm writing this rambling poker blog, day after day. This is just for fun, after all, and I absolutely love thinking and discussing poker strategy - this blog is only an extension of that, and I hope my four, err, five readers enjoy reading my soliloquies.

Seriously, if anyone out there is playing on *any* site but PartyPoker, you are cheating yourself out of potential money. Don't get me wrong, I have money straggling on other sites, but the majority of my play is Party. More games and the softest games, by far, of any site out there. However, if I was to recommend a "free" or play money site to practice on, it would be Poker Stars, hands down. The best software and the site actually stays up seven nights a week.

DavidRoss - Playing Online for a Living, Week 29 - is up. I'd like to drink some Canadian beer and watch over his shoulder for a few nights.

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I saved this hand because I was curious to see what he had. I raised UTG with 88. Cold called to my immediate left, and everyone else folded. Flop was Ad 7h 5h. I bet hoping to represent the A, and he called. Turn was the 7c. I bet again and he called again. Yuck. I will usually fire again on the turn because a lot of guys will call the flop bet but fold. Now I'm in a tough spot. There aren't too many hands except flush draws I can be ahead of here. River is the 4c. Usually I will check here and hope to induce a bluff from a busted draw. For some reason I decided to fire away here again, and he just called. I won when he had J5o. Wow.
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Saw an interesting thread on "poker table coaches" (pet peeve!) and also someone had the audacity to post a link to a column bashing David Sklansky literature relating to the loose, low-limit games typically going on in America today and how Sklansky is irrelevant.

I'm torn here. I'm ultimately a Sklansky disciple, but the last time I picked up AHEFAP it just wasn't applicable to the games I sit at Party. Given: he doesn't write theory/strategy to those games, but still, I've sat my share of upper limits and the play can be pretty wacky up there, too.

And just think: the World Poker Tour comes back on TV in a few months.

Oh the humanity.

So, it's been awhile since I bashed Phil Hellmuth, right?

Phil Helmuth versus Paul Phillips

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>Phil Helmuth is on the cusp of a rise as the best tourney player alive.
>His personality takes an unfair beating because most people don't
>accept that it's all "table image".

They don't "accept" that because it's not true. Phil's behavior is
not calculated in the slightest. His fans like to imagine that it's all
part of some grand ploy -- I suppose because it seems more supportable
if he's doing it to improve his results instead of because he's an
emotional cripple. But you don't have to know him for very long to be
quite sure that it's not all "table image".

>Most all Phil's contemporaries describe him as a very nice guy.

Sort of. That is almost invariably a highly qualified statement though.
They say he's a nice guy in this-or-that context, or if you ignore this,
that, and the other, or etc.

>Time to listen to what the people who know him say.
>Basing an opinion of Phil on what you've seen on TV is a mistake.

I seem to be the flag bearer here for certain aspects of the anti-phil
camp, and it's not an opinion formed from television. I believe that the
abuse phil directs toward players unknown to him is very bad for the
game, and I detest seeing people use bullying tactics to make others
feel badly. This assuages any guilt I might otherwise feel for the
criticism I send his way.

Which is not to say that this is my high-minded motive; I do it mostly
because it's fun, and secondarily because my particular sense of cosmic
justice requires me to do it.

>With everything you have going for yourself in life, you waste all this
>energy on such ugliness.

Ugliness? Is the fun factor in all this so opaque? Try to picture me
giggling and amused as I write this stuff, not screaming, fist-shaking, and
with bulging veins. You'll be approximating reality much more closely.
--

and the classic RGP retort:

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>face it Paul...your a bit of a cunt yourself....
>pragmatically speaking with deepest regards
--

His blog may suck, but Paul Phillips kicks ass.

Good God, this has been a long post. Enjoy it, because I leave town on Friday and will be on hiatus for a week.

Link of the day: Details of Michael Jackson accusations