Party Poker Blog

Phil Helmuth Poker Blogs

I'm going to play the DrudgeReport of Poker Blogs today. I've discovered some outstanding poker linkage and two top-tier poker blogs. Enjoy the fruits of my labor and please come back.

But first, I woke up this morning both alarmed and pissed, thinking I had dropped 100 big bets in 3.6 last night. Make that ALARMED. Logged into Party and realized that I had just dreamt it.

Oh the humanity. But I found it amusing that in a poker nightmare, I was only playing 3.6.

Let's start off the daily poker news and links, shall we?

I wish I was the damn poker comic.
His attitude on 'luck' is perfect. It's funny cause it's true.
Top-tier blog #1.
Poker Comic - Tales from the felt & stage
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People that believe in superstitions and say "I hope it's my lucky day" before sitting down at a table are never going to become good poker players until they release these false notions of fate. The vague state of being "lucky" can only exist on one single event at a time. Will I hit my flush draw on the river this hand? Mathematics say it will happen once every 4.5 times, but in this lone situation, it is pure chance that it will occur just this time. This is the only version of luck I believe in.
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MeneGene continues his hilarious postings.
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I'm sure some card rooms have rules against you coming to the table in a Halloween costume, but I thought of a way around that. When I finally get my seat in the World Series, I'm having my entire face Botoxed.
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He also asks a WSOP question I really want to know the answer to:
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My question is this--can you come to the table wearing, say, a welder's mask?
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I'm sure you've all been to the World Poker Tour Fan site. Thanks to Andy Bloch for sharing his experiences at the final table, but mostly for the Andy Bloch Project, a fascinating web page I had bookmarked four years ago. Go read it when you are thinking about playing in the WSOP.

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Jim Albrecht, the WSOP Tournament Director, approved my plan to sweat and record for posterity all of the hole cards and play of a "To Be Found" entrant in the 1997 WSOP $10,000 Final Event.

During the early days of the WSOP, I asked several entrants to be my "Volunteer" but was unable to find an acceptor until about 30 minutes before Day 1's play began.

I ran into my good friend and fellow rec.gambler, Andy Bloch, and we ate an early lunch together at the Buffet. Andy needed to get back to Boston to study for some exams at Harvard Law School, and he had a plane reservation for that evening. However, he was still on the fence about staying and playing the WSOP final event. He said that he would be my "Volunteer" if he decided to stay and play. He did and he was.
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Serious brain food for any of you no limit tourney players. All of these new poker fellas don't *understand* that a 1/2 hour WSOP segment on ESPN is condensing 12-14 hours of poker. As someone once said, it's like learning about a football game by only watching a brief highlight reel.

Anisotropy is a new poker blog by yet another smart mo-fo. He gets props by pimping the poker blog community. And he's right - poker is hard, even if you are a winning player.
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I just wanted to say something about the Poker blogging community-at-large, some of whom I have already linked to and who I read regularly with great pleasure. It's always great to read something about other people's take on the game and about the swings they go through. It's even better to have those same people supporting you when you are trying to do the same frustrating things they are. Smart people, smart writing and great support.
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Phil Helmuth bashing alert:

Top-tier blog #2.
Lion Tales.
Richard Brodie chronicles his World Poker Tour experiences

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Phil and I didn't play too many pots together but he went back to referring to me in the third person as he criticized the way I looked at my hole cards.
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It's a long, but great read, so allow me another excerpt for those of you that want the abridged version:

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Playing with Phil Hellmuth, Jr., had taught me a good way to get chips: wait until one of the loose-aggressive players such as Phil tried to steal my blind and then reraise him. Kathy wasn't quite as loose as Phil but she did raise more often that she was likely to get good hands so when I found myself with any decent hand I reraised her and she folded. She didn't seem too happy that I had discovered this tactic and she tried several Hellmuth-style conversational ploys in an effort, I supposed, to throw me off my game. Little did she know that I hadn't much of a game to throw off.
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Relating to my prior shill post about game selection (sign up on Party Poker with bonus code IGGY, damnit) -- here is one attitude about moving up in limits that I kinda agree with. From RGP.

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Game selection is critical at $5-$10. In general I agree with your
assessment but do not expect every table to at this level to play the same.
If you run into some players waiting to get into a Bigger Game, you will
find the same No-Foldem Holdem mentality at any level.

Remember this:
In Low Limit = Play the Cards
In Mid Limits = Play the Players.
In High Limit = Play the Money.
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Simple but true.

Hrm, I still have questions on the bonus whoring situation at Empire and Party. Anyone heard anything? How is something like this enforced? Are folks with existing accounts "grandfathered" or have all the rules changed? What about other Party skins? And so on.

I've said it before and I've said it again. Vegans are evil. The vehement ones, anyway. But still, this poker playing vegan keeps posting so . . .
Vegan Poker

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DAMN IT!
I was all happy with the new 7-11 Diet Pepsi slurpees. I have had a couple of them and they were a nice 0-cal treat. It was my impression that is was just diet pepsi, slurpee-ized. But evidently they created some odd new formula just for the slurpees that uses a new sweetener called tagatose from Spherix. Tagatose is derived from dairy products. So basically it's a big slushy cup of cow squeezin's. BAH!

I wish people would stop trying to find new ways to use animals.
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Elitist moron. Come to my home game so I can light a bacon scented candle.

This is the third time I've posted this:
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So I have a protuberant piece of paper hanging above my monitor that provides three little rules for online poker play.

1) Other players bad play will make me far more money than my fancy or brilliant plays.
2) The guy that leads with a bet on the turn after not betting out previously, has a big hand.
3) Folding costs me nothing pre-flop. If it's a close decision, I can't go far wrong by folding.
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Yet another Guinness-fueled post. Thanks if you read this far.

Link of the Day (NSFW):
NakedLoftParty
I'd rather be this guy over the PokerComic.