Party Poker Blog

PartyPoker.net Poker Blog

"Why Ike, whatever do you mean? Maybe poker's just not your game. I know! Let's have a spelling contest!"
Doc Holliday

Is the poker blogger tourney a reality? Stay tuned.

This poker blog thing is catching on. Hell, poker fever is getting out of control. I simply jumped on here to bang out a few poker thoughts, yet now I'm seeing a few new blogs and plenty of poker news coverage. Egads!

So anyway, a huge thanks to PokerSavvy for allowing me to write about our humble poker blogspace. I really wanted to whine about how difficult it is to post good content, night after night, or to rip on 2+2, but Jay wouldn't let me. :)

I played nearly two hours worth of 3.6 last evening and only won $40. Suffered one bad beat that cost me most of my profit. I think my opponent was playing with a pattern mapper.

I'm trying to be extremely cognizant of my starting hands since I shifted from NL back to grinding. And the lowered implied odds playing limit, post-flop. Hand values shift quite a bit, so I'm sticking to uber-tight pre-flop and letting the flop define my hand. Standard grinding mentality and it works.

Grinding rules.

I'd love to pontificate about grinding but my linkage is calling. Plenty of it, poker is STILL hot.

So let's start off with the latest poker news, shall we?

Woohoo, a Phil Helmuth interview! The author also slags American players. Must read. I'm not going to ruin the fun by quoting Phil, you go check it out and tell me your favorite line.
Laying his cards on the table
Self confessed 'Poker Brat' Phil Helmuth tells Stuart Foster how to Play Poker like the Pros
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And with poker (as opposed to blackjack or roulette), there is genuine scope to make positive profits in the long run - if you're smart. Thus poker has become a game played a lot by UK students who, with a little more care on a low-limit table, can make a lot of beer money off wealthier, more stupid Americans.
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Play Poker like the Pros = Worst Poker Book Ever. Poor Phil Helmuth. Hey Gene, where's my damn post about Phil you keep promising?

Chicago Tribune (subscription)
America's love of poker a winning hand for TV
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"In every aspect of life, business or home, poker plays a big part," Cycalona "Clonie" Gowen said. "You need to be disciplined. You need to be very disciplined. You have to have an extreme intuition about people." The game is a psychological exercise, she said — figuring who's bluffing, who's not. "What is going through the players' minds? It's complicated. It's a learning process."
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From Washington State we have this commentary:
Betting on poker
The Columbian
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Teeny said, "There isn't a card room in the country that hasn't had some kind of increase in their play (because of televised poker). It's been a huge, huge boost all of the way around. ... Right now, though, you have Fox and ESPN and the Travel Channel.
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Interesting take on a video poker player shifting to real hold em:
You, too, can fight poker-style depression
Biloxi Sun Herald
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"Linda, you're one of the most disciplined video poker players I've seen, but the discipline you have for video poker isn't half what you're gonna' need for poker."
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Disciplined video poker player? Oh the humanity.

When will poker jump the shark? I keep finding these "poker is a cultural juggernaut" columns, night after night. Columnists always explaining to readers the how's and why's of poker's surging popularity, always with the Moneymaker reference. As someone who has documented this insanity for many months now, I'm not jaded, but continually stunned by poker's foray into the mainstream. I should tithe Chris Moneymaker 5% of my yearly poker income.

San Fran's Mercury News: Arts & Entertainment section, front page:
TV Draws An Ace
PROFESSIONAL, CELEBRITY CARD SHARKS ARE RIDING CREST OF AIRWAVES, BOOSTING RENEWED INTEREST IN POKER
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Last year, card clubs and casinos across the country saw a 20 to 25 percent jump in play. Two years ago, Los Angeles' Bicycle Casino nearly folded its hold 'em tournament because just 35 people bought in at $5,000 for a seat. This year, more than 300 put down their money. Traffic on Internet poker sites more than tripled between late spring and the end of last year, according to PokerPulse.com, which tracks action on the top 15 sites.
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Cable channels raise poker stakes
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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"It's a great game, and it's a very social game," Steve Lipscomb said. "Poker is to cards and games what jazz is to music. It's this great American thing, born and bred here. We dig it because everybody can play."

Except, like jazz, poker needs some finesse, a hook.
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World Poker Tour Events Continue Dramatic Growth
367 Players Contend for $3,455,075 Million in the High Stakes WPT Tournament
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The increase in players catapults the total prize money to $3,455,075 million, including the $25,000 WPT contributed to the prize pool. With such an enormous and record-setting prize pool for the tournament, players down to 27th place will go home with a nice payday, and the winner will capture a top prize of $1,278,370. Last year's champion David "Devilfish" Ulliott from England walked away with $589,990 when the prize pool totaled $1,600,000.
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G, here is why Becky sucks:

Horseshoe Woes Continue: Sources: Medical bills unpaid
Former workers paid for insurance, but health care not covered
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Some former non union employees, which could number up to 1,000 over the past two years, have been forced to file for bankruptcy protection, have had their credit ratings wrecked and have had to cover their health-care costs themselves despite paying for insurance coverage.
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She pocketed insurance deductions from employees for the last two years, leaving them without coverage. I had this happen to me, in my second job out of college. What a miserable, despicable excuse for a human being.

Good God, I'm too drunk tired to post anymore. I really just want to play some damn poker, rather than writing about it. I hope you all appreciate the time spent on this craziness.

Allow me to quickly blast my way through a couple blog posts:

Edward won $750 in the Empire tourney!

I've been meaning to link Stick and Move since he's been posting nearly every day. Good stuff. Plus he had this great quote, showing how mainstream poker is:
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Bill Bennet was on Hannity and Colmes tonight talking about the N.H. primary. He said, and I paraphrase, "Well guys, if you follow the Wold Poker Tour, they'd say Kerry is a 90 percent favorite."
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I have several new poker blogs to pimp, but I'm gonna save them for tomorrow.

Two looks to the future, per poker blogs: I'll be setting up an email address for a weekly "Ask Iggy" Question and Answer. Anything you wanna ask; feel free, suggest a post, flame about my hatred of vegans, just fire away and I'll try to address it.

Secondly, and more importantly, there is serious progress being made on the poker blogger tournament. I have found a reputable site who is interested in allowing us a private tournament.

Should we play two tables? I really have no clue how many bloggers wanna play anymore. It seems like forever since I initially brought the idea up.

My next idea? A new poker newsgroup. Pauly gave me the idea with his photoblog of poker bloggers.

Except this one will be called:
alt.binaries.erotica. pictures.pokerplayers

Again, thanks for reading. I wish I could have listed every single poker blog out there in the PokerSavvy article, but space constraints didn't allow it. My humble apologies to those I didn't have room for. Some of these new blogs are fast becoming favorites.

I encouraged a friend to sign up on Empire. He did, with the moniker THEFATGIRL. You Party players should do the same.

Party Poker & Empire Poker Deposit Bonus available with Bonus Code IGGY at Party, and IGGY1 for Empire! Please consider supporting this humble blog.

Link of the Day:
Who Wants to Be a Psychic Millionaire?
The James Randi Education Foundation has offered $1 million to any person who can show evidence of paranormal, supernatural, or occult powers. "Please be advised that several claimants have suffered great personal embarrassment after failing these tests," says Randi.