I don’t think I’ll miss the Australia tournament again. It’s a blast. I love being around the tennis and there’s a huge amount of gambling going on.

Australia is an amazing country. I only saw Sydney and Melbourne, but I’m looking forward to checking out more. The country seems to be exceptionally well run. There’s a bit more of a community feel than in the US. While I was in Sydney, they had an amazing two-week program of events called the Sydney Festival, with every major venue including the Opera House participating. On the first night of the festival, they shut down a good portion of the city and had a huge number of free concerts taking place over ten hours across five stages.

There was a great Full Tilt party on the last night. At one point, I noticed Tony G and Niki (Kaibuxxe) abruptly leave and I knew it must be game on. Tony G has won so much lately that he’ll only play super huge and he seems to only play in good games.

So Aussie was not a great trip $-wise up to this point…. I busted from the tourney, finished marginally up in golf, down 25k in tennis prop bets (spectating) vs antonius and robert alexander and kenny, and down in the Aussie Millions TV cash game. Not sure if I wrote about the TV game in last blog but I played a bunch of crazy hands and I thought I played good to lose only 60k. AFter the game, Gus and I played HU 400-800 half plo-half NL for three or four hours and finished roughly even.

The cash game was 500-1000 plhe/plo. It was a very crazy, very very good game. Durrrr was in. And Antonius. I lost 138000. The story of the night was a monster 400,000+ pot that I lost to Niki. Niki limped. I raised with 789T, ten high dlamonds. Durrr calls. Phil Laak calls. Tony G calls. Niki reraises with weak aces. I call, Phil calls all-in with weak aces, Durrr folds, Tony G calls. Flop is 2d 5d Tc. Niki bets the pot, I raise all-in, Tony folds. It wasn’t much for Niki to call, he has aces with no draws and it holds up. Phil Laak splits the side pot.

Durrrr won big. He was supposed to go with me to Hong Kong but he missed the flight. Hong Kong is amazing. I can’t wait to go back with friends. On Wed night, I went to the Hong Kong Jockey Club races at Happey Valley b/c I heard it was a must see. It is crazy! I’ve heard the Sunday races at Sha Tin are even better. Hong Kong takes their horse racing seriously. It’s all coffee and pen and paper and race forms. I bet like $100 total but there was a huge spectator value for me.

Brandon

For a long time I didn’t quite know what I should be doing with this site.  I think the decision I have come to is that the blogs will be about our personal life and anything related to poker will hit the front page.  I think that is a good way to separate what people might be interested in reading.

The Replacement’s were a band out of Minneapolis that began getting national attention right at the time I moved to the Twin Cities to complete drug treatment.  I might get into the drug treatment thing at some future point, I have never really shied away from talking about it but it is such a small part of my life at this point it doesn’t come up much.  Except when I go to places like London where everyone is asking me why I am not hammered on free booze.  That is when things get awkward.  When people are drinking they want everyone to be drinking so often I leave parties early when it is getting apparent that the crowd is crossing the line from Tipsy to puking.  Which brings me to the book I am reading about The Replacement’s by Jim Walsh.  It is laid out as an oral history and is a little awkward to read but interesting at the same time.  I first began to listen to The Replacement’s when my roommate turned me onto “Tim”, which was there first big studio release.  I am originally from New Orleans and I was a product of the club scene since I was about 16.  My life was a bit dark at the time and my music reflected that.  The Replacement’s weren’t as superficial as the bands I had been listening to but still had an element of angst that I couldn’t shake at the time.  I find myself downloading full albums of their work occasionally (Depeche Mode and New Order as well) and it reminds me of a time living with no electricity, eating one meal a day yet yearning for what life offered me.  I was all alone in a town that I did not own a part of and I fully expected to leave at some point.  When I think of those times and the struggles it makes me smile and reminds me of my true spirit and how I am a survivor.  I am not like your typical drug addict or alcoholic, I don’t know that I would have died if I had ever used again, how I got through that particular time without using is amazing, yet really is a big part of who I am.  When I am committed to something it has my attention 100%.  Literally no one that I knew back then is still sober; some have died or will die soon.  Their lives are a wreck and I never see them and I have no desire to see them.  Others have marginalized their lives by going back to drugs and alcohol and that is the lesson I learned from that time.  While I might not be a drug addict or an alcoholic I potentially am and a .001% chance of having any part of my life taken away from me just isn’t worth it.  The Replacement’s music and this subsequent book reminded me of that time and apparently the band was facing many of the same issues I had.  Maybe that is why there music has stuck with me.

I will be writing a lot of rumor’s and stories in the next few days about the poker industry that have come out of my visit to London.  For the last two January’s online poker companies and website owners have connected for a few days just to see where things are, it is the biggest such meeting between the two factions.  Being involved in this industry as a consultant puts me in a unique position because I have done work for various cardrooms as well as website owners and obviously now my focus is on this site.  I will give some insight on my thoughts on our future in the next few days.

We’re definitely doing some gambling down here. I have to get back to normal life soon.

A fit of gambling insanity took place after the 100k Fox Sports Cash Game that took place two days ago. The Cash Game was pretty eventful for me. I lost 54,000 despite being dealt QQ, AK twice, AA twice, TT, JJ, 99 twice, AQs once. I laid down AA vs Durrrr’s set of fours to save 90k. In general I think I lost the min, though I feel like Eli Elezra might have bluff four-bet me preflop when I had queens. I felt like he was bluffing but didn’t put my remaining 85k in.

Gus and I played 400-800 heads up (half plo, half nlhe) for three hours after the cameras left and finished about even. The ring game was 600-1200 200 ante for the last three hours.

So the two days after the Cash Game I played golf with Antonius, KobyTapOut, and Robert Alexander. We played at Capitol Golf Club, the site of the Ivey matches last year. I think the club is owned by the casino, so almost no one is out there at any given time. I finished up small over the two days. It was for sure the most insane golf gambling I’ve ever seen… on the last hole of day two, KobyTapOut (Jani) lost 180k in one hole when he got a par vs Robert’s birdie. And I think he might have finished close to even on the two days. Anyway, there was just a huge amount of gambling in two days, everything from Chinese at dinner to tossing quarters to betting on the Australian (Patrik won $105,000 bettting props at tennis matches last night).

Brandon

First of all, I got some great responses from my last post. I’m still in the process of going throught the emails, but I found someone who I think is a perfect fit.

Melbourne is not nearly as cool as Sydney, but the Crown Casino is a nice place, and it’s fun to have all the poker players in one spot. A lot of tennis players are staying here. One night Federer came to sit literally five feet away from me at Nobu. I should have just introduced myself but instead I stared in awe. Yesterday I had a tennis lesson and Carlos Moya was hitting on the court next to me.

The first day here I played golf at Capital Golf Club with the Full Tilt outing. It was a great day of golf but it was extremely hot and afterwards I realized I was probably pretty close to heat exhaustion. The next day at the gym I ran into Ivey and he talked me into going out again. We never came even remotely close to agreeing on a bet. Golf betting is not something I recommend to anyone. There are two scenarios you can get yourself into: 1) You can get into a bet where you have the worst of it, or 2) You can into a fair bet or a bet where you have the best of it, but if you win you won’t be paid or you’ll be paid far down the road. It’s not too far off to say that this applies to prop bets of all kinds.

Poker has been uneventful. I’m even including yesterday’s early bustout from the tournament. It’s a hell of a tournament. The field is very weak. The cash games here are sporadically amazing. The problem is that to get them you kind of have to hang around the poker room and the poker room is not that pleasant (plus it’s a half mile from the hotel rooms).

I’m going to hang around until early Monday. Hopefully some good cash games will go. I’m playing in the 100k buyin TV cash game tomorrow.

Brandon

I haven’t known Josh for a long time but I knew about his prowess at the tables so when I started AlwaysBluff I was on a search for people who would help and he was on my Instant Message list so I hit him up.  This was before all of the recent scandals but it just seemed to me that he was going to be 18 soon and might be remorseful about what happened.  In general, at that time we didn’t talk about cheating and such much, I naively assumed that wasn’t part of his game any longer.  Within a couple of weeks all of the scandals broke out and I don’t think Josh handled it well.  Which is too bad, every conversation I had with him he seemed much more mature than many of the other people around his age.  My guess is by around 25 Josh will have been around poker for some time and will have repaired his image by that point.  People in poker are a forgiving bunch.  He seems like a really bright kid that is maybe a little too smart for his age.

Either way last night I was shopping for jeans and my wife suggested I try on some 7’s for all mankind.  For some reason, I told her “JJProdigy doesn’t believe that Sevens are very cool”, to which she replied “who the hell is JJProdigy”.  I then explained to her that it only made sense that a 17 year old would be a little more up on fashion trends than some fuddy duddy’s from Minnesota.  She disagreed pointing out that she likes my other pair of Sevens and she had the only opinion that mattered when it comes to the jeans I wear. 

The lady makes a point, I got the Sevens.

I am a bit of a political wonk so the elections have my attention.  I am a Democrat by default, I would be a Republican if it wasn’t for the Christian element.  I just don’t believe Jesus Christ should play that important of a role in US policy and I doubt that I will go to hell for saying so.  If Republicans would go back to their roots, similar to what Ron Paul is preaching I would be on board in a second.  Fiscally I am much more aligned with the Republicans.  I would love to see the Republicans pull out a truly conservative less government candidate and ironically I think they could be received well.  Though I don’t think that will happen anytime soon.

Owning a house is like asking for a monthly $2000 ass whuppin and that doesn’t even include the mortgage.  It always seems like there is something that needs to be replaced and of course you want to put the best in because half steppin where you live just doesn’t make a ton of sense.  So today I got my water heater replaced and got to spend the day with a guy that immigrated here from Holland, which surprised me a little and he admitted he gets that response a lot.  Of all the places I visit Holland is one of the most progressive and it is culturally significant and a train ride from some very interesting parts of the world.  So I asked him what attracted him to the United States and he admitted the big draw was just the expanse and the want for change.  Does he now regret his decision? Not at all.  He seemed like a great down to earth guy.  In business I deal with a lot of people with a limited work ethic, every time encounter someone that has a trade or skill I seem to always come away impressed.  He was a well traveled man and did a phenomenal job explaining to me my house’s issues and likely got a bigger commission for it.  I never find myself regretting buying from individuals I like, I immediately took his card and he will be my plumbing guy for the future.

On the flip side I had a Russell Simmon’s moment with Verizon Wireless.  As cheesy as the show is I tape Run’s House on MTV and my favorite person on the show is Russell Simmon’s.  He curses and yells but you can see why he is successful, he is just a really driven guy and most of all he doesn’t have time for incompetence.  That is what I experienced with Verizon Wireless.  I was calling to see if I could get my phone upgraded, I am about 6 months before my contract is over and I needed a world phone as I will be traveling to London, Hawaii and maybe Costa Rica soon.  I just like to be able to get emails when I am away, being disconnected is bothersome and distracting.  The long and short had the person on the phone trying to sell me a discount that was going to cost me $10 more a month, though I had to drag that out of him.  When I explained to him that was deceptive he kept reiterating that I would be saving $100 on the deal, ultimately it cost me it would cost me $240 to get that $100 though.  I guess most people don’t ask the right questions.  I then explained to him that I wanted to talk to a manager and tell them I was being deceived but he wouldn’t switch me over.  He took my name and number and supposedly the manager was going to call me within 24 hours.  That hasn’t happened.  All I can say is that if you are dealing with Verizon Wireless don’t just take the discount, they are likely just charging you more on the service. 

Long story short the minute I can get a 3G Blackberry from AT&T I will be gone.

OK, I’m going to try to fire up the blog again.

I have some problems with blogging, namely I don’t like to talk about life outside poker that much, yet most of my life is outside poker, and then when I talk poker I don’t like to talk results. The quick 07 summary is that I had huge year live and a terrible year online. The live action was a lot bigger than the online. My gambling in 07 was insane… I had daily swings in live play of a half million or close to fairly often.

Beanie and I are starting up a new site at some point in 08 called Poker and Finance. www.pokerandfinance.com. I think this site is going to be pretty amazing. We’re going to bring in some very accomplished guys to write for the site.

Though I haven’t made the crossover from poker to other stuff, to some extent I’m always trying to. This year I’m going to start trading actively at my friend Bob Bright’s firm, Bright Trading (www.stocktrading.com). I’m also working hard to finish up a co-authored book on behavioral finance.

Poker has made me fairly sick with regard to taking monster bets relative to my bankroll when I think the edge is big. In 2005, the first year I ran big in poker, I lost 230k in one day in one stock at a time when my bankroll was 520k (nov 05). This year I made a million in one day in one stock in July. That was especially insane b/c my bankroll wasn’t that big in march 07; I just ran huge subsequent to that. I followed the July score with huge losses and then huge gains.

I’ll be playing a lot of big online in 08, especially the latter half of the year. I have a sweet online setup in my new apartment, and I’m ready to put in the time again to be a top player online. My online play in 07 suffered from the usual problems of overconfidence. My game selection was terrible. Also, I now believe pretty strongly that you need a dedicated online set-up to play poker seriously.

I’m in Sydney right now. This city is unbelievable; one of the three coolest cities I’ve seen. I mean it just piles strength on strength on strength. It’s like you go to the beach and you think, omg this is beautiful, then you take a look around and and the girls are amazing, like a -2 point curve on Boston or NorCal, then you stop in for lunch and have nice people introduce themselves and buy you beer.

I think www.aussiemillions.com is going to be pretty incredible. I can tell the Aussies take their gambling seriously.

One thing I’m halfway looking for is someone to work with me on trading and other stuff (writing, pokerandfinance.com, analyzing online poker games, etc.). My ex-Harvard students are ideal but they don’t want to take the career risk associated with doing random stuff for a guy who does random stuff. Shoot me an email at badams2525@gmail.com if interested. I imagine there are some twoplustwo frequenters who’d be ideal. I could conceivably partner with someone rather than hire someone. I don’t really have time to mentor so the person I’m thinking of would have to have a very heavy background in poker, finance, and econ.

Brandon

I played the Sunday’s yesterday, it is amazing the difference between just a few years ago and now and the difference between smaller fields like UB and Bodog and the bigger fields on Poker Stars and Full Tilt Poker.  Like all tournaments getting out of the red zone is important (getting enough chips where you don’t go broke in case of a catastrophe), getting out of the red zone allows you to manage the tournament rather than rely on a minimal set of plays with just 2 options, double up or go home.  My first 2 tournaments were UB and Bodog and I didn’t get out of the red zone, in both tournaments I lost to monster hands when I had monster hands.  Usually my style is active enough where the hands that beat me tend to be more marginal.  With 5 minutes to go I was about to press unregister when my dad instant messaged me to ask if I was still in anywhere.  I told him FTP still had one and he convinced me to play.  No real stories actually, I came in around 200^th out of 4200 people, never really got lucky and got unlucky a few times.  I managed my table well and if one or 2 things had gone my way I would have been able to take over.  Those big fields are ridiculously good values, I would bet 75% of the people satellite in and they are easy to push around.

Tonight is the BCS Championship game featuring Ohio State and my favorite college team LSU.  You could make a case that neither team should be there, as it is LSU is the favorite which is not a good omen considering the last 3 favorites have lost.  Couple that with the fact that every time I watch ESPN has a non stop poll going that LSU should win overwhelmingly, nothing like a little motivation for OSU before the game.  My dad is calling my every minute rubbing it in that I am not there but I am actually happy to be home watching it in peace and quiet.

I did see Atonement with my wife the other day and I really didn’t get all the Oscar buzz, it was definitely an entertaining movie but I felt it missed.  If I were grading it I would give it a B.  I’ll probably check out a few other Oscar contending movies soon but I wouldn’t necessarily recommend Atonement. 

Well, it’s January 1^st, 2008. I think I’m going to go the whole year without partying. I did enough last night to keep me good for the entire year. It started off with a small party at my condo to bring in the New Year with some close friends and watch the fireworks from my balcony. It was maybe the best countdown I’ve ever had. There were about 20 of us and we were crammed onto my balcony and everybody was annihilated! For the last few years I’ve spent my New Years inside of nightclubs. It was so nice to spend ‘08 in a place where I saw Las Vegas shine; and shine it did. The fireworks went on for what seemed like an eternity. It was a beautiful night.

At about 12:30 the posse and I loaded up and headed over to Tao Nightclub to chill with my buddy, Jason Strauss (owner of TAO). He was very gracious in having me and my friends at his table for the evening. We rocked the house! I think it was 5 am when the lights finally came on and we got the hint. We did not want to leave. I don’t know how much tequila I drank but I must have finished an entire bottle of Patron by myself.

I figure I might as well have gone out with a bang. 2007 was a great year and why not start 2008 off properly???

You only live once ladies and gents!

Happy New Year!!!

Antonio

I spent the holiday in New Orleans and I have spent the last couple of weeks evaluating things and looking forward to the New Year. It always seems there is a lot of room for improvement but I think this year more than any fits that description. While this isn’t the order I would put them in personally I am making the adjustment for this blog.

1. Play less poker. In 2008 I will try and play poker with opponents who are less skilled than me and when I can’t I won’t play.
2. Be active. I haven’t talked about it much lately but I lost 30 pounds in 2007, unfortunately I had it to lose. I tried to exercise but I hurt my shoulder and had to go through physical therapy. I know what it takes to keep my weight in check, now I would like to just be a bit more active.
3. Acquire assets and spend less money. In 2007 I spent a ridiculous amount of money, just being aware in 2008 should help that.

I was planning on going back to New Orleans for the BCS Championship game but I have decided against that. I just do not feel up for travel at the moment and I leave for London in 2 weeks. I am enjoying spending time with my family and so some things will have to give. Geaux Tigers!!!!

I hope everyone is having a great year.

This years election will be covered by many people and have an effect on most everything. And all poker players around will be effected just as importantly by whomever is voted in to office as our President.

Just as religious and cultural views make and impact on who we vote for, the candidates stance of online poker will make an impact on who we choose to lead our country.

Because the World Poker Tour is a private company they are limited in what there offerings can be in the United States. If you are looking to increase your EV or ROI then ClubWPT will not be for you. If you are looking to lose about the smallest amount possible while having a chance to play with thousands of people and you also have the ability to compete for prizes the ClubWPT might be for you.

I know for myself ClubWPT is not a great option but my dad would love it. The cost is $19.95, I am not sure if it will be a hit or not but you have to give them credit for trying. Do you realize that there are many more free money players out there than real money players? Could be interesting.

Before the Annette_15’s and Mr. Menlo’s of the world there was a star named “Gank”. His real name is Brett Jungblut and he has been around since online poker first got it’s start. He was one of original superstars of UB, Pokerstars, Paradise, and Party Poker.

For awhile now Gank has kind of disappeared online occasionally resurfacing while he mastered his business and live poker game. Well it looks like he and the Royal Flush Club are becoming partners and his return is imminent.

It will be a breath of fresh air to see an old school player come back into the mainframe and mix it up with the superstars of today. Welcome back and continued success Brett.

First let me say that if you are not using all that is available to you in terms of player benefits you are being silly and you are giving away free money. With all the talk of �edge� and �EV�, nothing contributes to your �expected value� more than the rake you are losing in each pot.

On the banners to the right attached to almost all of the sites is a link to RakeRecovery.com. RakeRecovery.com is built on a platform of comp and rakeback (I hate that word) management that I helped design. Many people do not know this but my principal source of income is as a consultant for websites and webmasters. RakeRecovery and the parent company UltimatePals was a market solution that started 4 years ago, so yes that makes our ideas some of the first in the industry in terms of solutions for customer benefits.

Take a look and if you have any questions rakerecovery@rakerecovery.com.

Neither does CakePoker. In fact, they believe it is the key to the future success of their network and oddly enough I agree with them. Cake might be the fishiest network available at the moment; it has a good mix of good and bad players. The reason it does not have more good players is because there is no meaningful way to record your hand histories. The reason it has a lot of bad players is because the site owners have aggressively sought sports betting sites to join the network, sports bettors are notorious for being fish. So Cake Poker has decided to become the “No Nit” site and frankly I think a lot of people like that. If you want to play a mindless game of poker then Cake might not be for you. Not allowing tracking software means that the fish can hide easier but more importantly it means the nits have to think and that is something nits do not like to do.