Party Poker Blog

Phil Helmuth & Chris Moneymaker Poker Blogs

"After five days in Vegas you feel like you've been here for five years."
Hunter S. Thompson

Ain't that the truth.

I'm full of poker content but I've got a tournament coming up, so I'll just bang out what I can and save the rest for tomorrow or later tonight.

I'm really enjoying my fellow poker bloggers reaping the fruits of Izmet's advice in limit play. Preflop: tight, tight, tight. Postflop: pound, pound, pound. Yes, your variance will increase, but overall, you will win more and lose less if you maintain focus and pre-flop discipline.

However, I'm no longer a grinder. I'm in full metal jacket no-limit mode.

I fired up Party Poker for a $30 no-limit multi for the first time in a loooong time. 1100 players, yikes! And best of all, I had my original poker coach, BB, making a return to the online scene and playing as well. For the record, BB is an extremely aggressive player whose best game is NL. It's very beneficial for me to discuss poker with him because he naturally plays "big" and that tends to influence my play, especially after six months of grinding at limit.

So BAM, the action is typical Party insanity. Folks moving all-in with crap, crazy bluffs, ill-advised re-raises, you name it. After almost four hours, we were down to 60 players and I was running hot with nearly 20k, the second biggest stack at my table. To be fair, I hit three sets in about 40 minutes, but still, I had been playing virtually mistake-free no limit poker. BB, on the other hand, had a smaller size stack but he had to contend with a 30k stack directly to his left. Ugh.

First prize was something like nine grand which really was what I was playing for. Why play to get "in the money" if it's only $80? Hell, that's a good night of 2.4. With my healthy stack and players continuing to drop like flies, I felt I had a legit shot if I kept my wits about me.

Other shoe drops: I get KK in early, automatically move in and the only stack at the table who could cover me, called with, you guessed it, AA.

Oh the humanity.

Truly, I was stunned but re-playing the hand, I'm not sure I made a mistake moving in. That's just poker.

Damn, so I made the money, got a nice little payday and sweated BB for the remainder of the tourney. Wouldn't you know that he played the tightest I've ever seen him play, smartly nursing a small stack and finishing way up in the money? Excellent poker and one helluva lotta fun.

Favorite trash talk snippet:

texaspete22: tiny ur ******* awful
mackdime420: HE HAD YOU BEAT
texaspete22: i had 2 pr on flop u ****

MIDSEASON TV trends: Cowpokes and Vegas envy
Seattle Post Intelligencer, WA
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Besides, we can always manage to find a few gems glinting in the blackness, even if some of them end up being cheap and gaudy upon closer examination.
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PokerSavvy rules.

Yesterday Pokersavvy launched a couple of tools that are both unique and, in some ways, quite important. You see, we've tried to answer the question that plagues every player: Just how bad was that beat?
With the Pokersavvy Bad-Beat-o-Meter, a hand gets a score that quantifies it's badness. No longer will players need to resort to generic descriptions -- "So I've got Aces on the Button" -- now they'll be able to blurt out a number.

But beyond quantifying beats, there's still the question
of what to do about a really nasty -- and costly --
suck out. Well, Pokersavvy is here to help with that, too.
We've created the Bad Beat Hotline. Just call:

1-866-SUCK-OUT (1- (866) 782-5688)

and tell your bad beat story. (And yes, this number does exist -- and yes, it's possibly the stupidest thing ever done.)

Best,
Pokersavvy Staff
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PokerSavvy rules.

I wish I had time to dig through the blogs. Great stuff out there.

More tomorrow.

Link of the Day:
When Vegeterians Attack!
The publisher of VegSource has a beef with anti-milk activist Robert Cohen. "In all earnestness, Mr. Cohen should come with a serious warning label," writes Jeff Nelson.