Party Poker Blog

Russ Gorgeiv & Party Poker Blogs

"Your first duty is to the Game; then come Mother, God, and Country."
Motto at the National Press Club, Washington D.C.

Tons of poker links below, so please humor the next paragraph.

Sign up on Party Poker with bonus code IGGY.

Or if you are playing on Party already, but haven't signed up for Empire Poker, the exact same site as Party Poker, just packaged in soothing blue tones, (endorsed by Chris Halverson), you owe it to yourself to take advantage not only of the deposit bonuses, but the SECOND identity. If you track regular players or fishies, you are truly missing out on an opportunity to play under a new name.

Empire Bonus Code: IGGY1

My humble apologies for the shilling but I've received some new traffic and wanted to let people know they could play on Empire for Party Poker. Hell, I didn't know this back in the day. Plus I've posted some good stuff the last two weeks - so I'm rewarding myself with a shill paragraph. :)

New readers should dig through the archives. Poker blogging has been an interesting experience, to say the least. I've found more new poker blogs below - let's hope even more join the fray.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: it's not how you win at poker, it's how you lose.

As Steve Badger says:

The problem is: you just can't will yourself to win -- be it a tournament, a single day's play, or even an individual hand. And then, unfortunately for some, not winning is something many players simply can't handle. And being able to not win well is a fundamental, key ingredient of being a winning player.

There is a new poker blogger out there who realized he was steaming and found the intestinal fortitude to walk away for a few days. Kudos to him for knowing he needed a break. Denial or allowing yourself to play in that 'threshold of misery' as Mike Caro calls it, is a very expensive leak, usually fatal to your bankroll.

I think a particular strength of mine has been my persistence in using losing as opportunities for learning. I rarely have many epiphanies while the deck is hitting me in the face but I am very diligent about analyzing my play while losing.

Whenever I get hit with bad runs or a big session loss, I typically blame my poor play first. This is my natural tendency after indoctrinating myself in Sklansky and the ilk - they ingrained in me the knowledge that a good player can suffer large losses - in fact, they are unavoidable. How you handle them is the key.

Geez, RGP is still a cesspool with little value, but I did see a question posed about a very successful and profitiable ring game player who refuses to play tournaments. Steve Badger chimes in again with the reply:

> I won't specify who it is, but I'd like to know the logic behind not
> playing tournaments. Is it an EV argument?

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Some skillful ring game players suck at tournaments. Some skillful
tournament players suck at ring games. Some great free throw shooters suck from the three point line. Some great sprinters suck at marathons.

Also, it's a matter of taste. Some people like to quit whenever they want.
Others live to exploit the moments when the weaker players hit "the wall"
towards the end of tournaments.
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A quick appeal to readers: per the poker blogger SNG, the FatGuy:
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If, by chance, you run across or are aware of any Linux software out there that we can use, I'll be happy to install it for our World Series of Bloggy Poker Goodness. We could even use PayPal as the bank.
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I'm at a loss for what to do. I'm sure one of the smaller sites would oblige us but not everyone will want to put their money in those. Arrrg.

Alrighty then. Massive poker linkage time:

Izmet rules.

The PokerGrub has posted Part 1 of his Vegas Trip report. Always entertaining reading.

Here's a new poker blog, 665 Livejournal Ave, with a pleasantly long Las Vegas trip report as his last entry.

For any of you college students out there, I saw this link in Felicia's blog and although I'm not quite sure what the hell they are doing, thought it worthwhile to post.
College Poker Championship

Brian's poker journal is a new poker blog from a Vegas local. As I always say, Vegas is a great place to visit, you just don't want to live there.

Another brand-new poker blog, Poker Code, is off and running. Let's hope he keeps it up.

Don't forget to bookmark the Royal Poker Blog. I enjoyed a fascinating discussion with Royal on the subject of 'Why Play Poker?' What makes it so compelling - is it just about the money - is there ever an end-game? How about goals?

Veteran blogger Cards Speak has a nice recap & explanation of Morton's Theorem. If you aren't up to speed on this concept, go read his post now.

Chris Halverson's interesting post about Izmet and application of ramming and jamming in the low-limit games. So far, it's +EV for Chris.

Up for Poker has posted his New Years Poker Resolutions.

Stick and Move finally made a brief poker post. I like the idea of doing a Mark Gastineau sack dance around your computer when you scoop a big pot.

And let me leave the best for last. Digging through some of my old bookmarks again and found these gems. Excellent writing and insight into a player taking a shot at the big game.

Patri plays in a huge poker game at the 2000 World Series of Poker.
Wow, There's A Lot Of Money On This Table!
(or How Seven Hours Can Cost $12000 in Blinds)

Also, Patri's first World Series of Poker.

Whew, that's a buttload of links. Enjoy. I may have to start another damn poker blog so I can actually WRITE about poker again.

Speaking of which, did anyone else notice that Party Poker hit 26,000 players last evening? I wonder how much of a spike we'll see after the NBC World Poker Tour broadcast on SuperBowl Sunday? Thank you Poker Gods!

Whoops, turns out this is the truth:
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PartyPoker.com broke records again on New Years Night.

PartyPoker.com exceeded 27,000 in total players logged in, had over 7,600
real money live game players and over 9,600 real money tournament players.
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Why on earth would you play anywhere else?

I'm gearing up for my shot at the $200 +$15 NL tourney this weekend. Wish me well.

Link of the Day:
My favorite Iraqi blogger. Anyone who likes to drink cold beer and play Counter-Strike is OK in my book.
Healing Iraq Blog
The eve of the New Year for me has always been the gloomiest and most depressing time of the year. While the rest of the world celebrates till the early morning I would be sitting over drinks with friends while wearily staring at each other, cursing our lost youth, and wondering what the future will bring us. At some of these occasions we don't even notice the clock striking twelve, sometimes we just blurt out a half-hearted hurray, greet each other and sit back drinking ourselves to oblivion.