Now I totally get it that Paul Pierce owns the world at the moment and has every right to gloat.  And also there are so many celebrity types at the Bellagio and around Vegas that this would warrant no consideration.  Except that when you are walking with no shirt on early in the morning it has a "look at me" factor.  Now I am sure Paul is still celebrating and he will get a pass from me but for a lot of people that is exactly the type of stuff that makes them think that athletes do not deserve the adulation they deserve.  I do not think I have ever seen anyone walking with no shirt on in a casino before, so when it is someone that is well known it certainly stands out.

There is an air of pithiness around the WSOP that really takes away from the fun you are supposed to be having.  I suppose you can argue that poker has always been like that and you see a few old timers that are grumpy and mumbling to themselves and wonder if that is what a lot of poker players are going to end up like in the future.  By its nature poker, and especially tournament poker, can be a bit negative whether it is taking a bad beat or just running card dead for a while it wears on you.  I doubt that I have the need and want to be exceptional at poker mostly because of the fact that I would have to operate around so much negativity.  I am speaking mainly of live poker.  With online poker I just close chat.  I ran across a couple of young guys that seem excited to be here I just wonder how long that lasts with a collective toll of bad beats, bad beat stories and the ups and downs that wear on you.

It sucks getting close to a final table and whiffing.  I came in 49th in the $1500 NL, I was going to play the $1500 today but I do not feel up to it, so I am likely going to just relax by the pool side, meet up with friends and have an overall chill day.  It is tough playing live poker only once or twice a year, while the skills are there, I am sure I missed a few spots and I know I was awkward with the chips occasionally.  At one point I made a minimum raise because I did not adjust to the blind levels, when someone went all in for 96k I folded my 88 but the result might have been different if I had made a standard raise.  Overall though I think I have a lot of good elements to do well in tournaments and I am fairly confident going into the main event.  I play on the 3rd.

John “the Razor” Phan got his first taste of what a WSOP bracelet winner feels like in last week’s $3,000 No Limit Hold’em event and he could not wait to feel that way once again. John Phan won his second WSOP bracelet yesterday in the $2,500 Deuce-to-Seven Triple Draw Low Ball (Event #40).

John Bon Phan is no stranger to poker success, having 92 total cashes, 15 1st place finishes, and almost $4 Million in lifetime earnings as a professional poker player. In the 2-7 Triple Draw event, Phan overcame a large chip deficit and a verbal fight involving Gioi Luong.

Fairly entertaining video of an internet baller.

Experience is a great teacher, but it is not the only one. Most good poker players did not get that way simply by playing. Reading strategy books and articles, discussing play with others (preferably good players), and carefully analyzing hands you’ve played, are just a few of the ways to improve your poker game.

Analyzing Poker Hands

Analyzing a poker hand is not necessarily a simple task, but like everything else, it becomes easier with a little experience. On the basic level, if you have Ah Kh on a board of QdQcJdJs10d, you could say wow, a straight, and go crazy, but the simple truth is that on that board, a flush, a full house, quads, and even a royal flush are easy to make, and you are probably behind here.

Many poker blogs and poker sites are going around touting this as the year of the pro at the WSOP as if they are suprised. Come on…

Poker Road is doing a great job following Phil Ivey around at the WSOP. The High Stakes Dice episode is probably the best.

Most of them are good though, Phil is like a baller magnet. He sits down and four ballers just magically show up. If you have nothing to do for the next two hours trust me, this is how you should fill it.

I definitely need to work on my blogroll because this is a blogger I read often and it is normally some of the better stuff on the internet. His twitter posts are some of the funniest I receive from anyone. You might have to cut and paste his address, if you use twitter following Grundy will brighten your day. http://twitter.com/Grundy

Analysis of Pot Limit Omaha Outs

With four hole cards in every hand, making the equivalent of six Hold’em starting hands, the hand values in Pot Limit Omaha tend to run big. Most hands are won with straights or better, so a thorough study of the straight draws is important in mastering Omaha. Given the large pots created by the pot-limit betting format, nailing down the straight draws is crucial.

Whenever the board does not contain a pair or three cards to a flush, the best possible hand is almost always a straight. In fact, only a non-paired, non-flushed board like AK982 or AJ964 does not lend itself to a straight being the nuts. In those relatively rare cases, top set is the nuts, which shows the value in playing high pairs (which can also make top full house).

I have been playing poker for almost 20 years. 15 of those years I have played it as a fairly passionate hobby and in the last 5 years poker has provided me a very good income. In the 15 years I have played seriously (meaning had some idea of pot odds and such) the game has changed quite a bit. For instance, it might surprise a lot of people that No Limit was not the most popular game even say 7 years ago. Limit Holdem was and 7 stud was not far behind. Tournament poker almost did not exist. The games I played in ebbed and flowed but right before the recent poker boom the games were relatively tough. Lot’s of guys that had some idea, played premium hands and played those aggressively. The sophistication back then was not as high as it is now but it existed.

6 player tables did not exist. One of the first things I had to learn as an online player was to play short handed. It did not take me very long but those lessons certainly came with a price. The only thing was if I did not learn how to play short handed I had no future in poker.

So that is why I suggested recently when I was asked what can be done to get back some of the action that has been lost since the UIEGA bill was signed that cardrooms experiment with the blind structure. Personally I like the idea of antes more than anything. For instance $5-$10 with a $2 ante at a six handed table puts $27 in the pot preflop for players to fight over. As most people know if you do not have antes or blinds there is no point in playing anything less than AA or KK, so it is the antes and blinds that causes the action. Therefore, if you want to increase the action change the blind structure. Frankly I have no idea why this does not already exist somewhere, it only seems logical at this point that there should be a card room looking for something to differentiate themselves. This is as good as any.

The other option is forced straddle games, or three blind games. As a for instance $5-$10 would now become $2.50-$5-$10. Now I am not suggesting that they do this for all of the tables, I am only suggesting that they do it for some. When it was played in the past No Limit Hold em was often played with 3 blinds. There is also a variant called the Mississippi Straddle (which is most often used playing PLO) where the button is the straddle, in that instance $5-$10 becomes $5-$10 and then $20 on the button. I am not sure of the logic of giving the button even more power and I think over time these games would tend to get a little nitty but if the players would play them I do not see why they should not be offered.

Interesting slant on the cheating scandal with some excellent well-thought out comments after the article making it a good read.

Two of the biggest online poker players have signed over their souls to the devil this week. Both Eric “Rizen” Lynch and Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy have inked deals with the site most hated by the poker community right now: Ultimate Bet….

Interesting tale about Tom ‘durr’ Dwan playing Omaha at the WSOP.

Playing The Blinds In No Limit Cash Games

Playing the small and big blinds in no limit cash games can be a very difficult aspect of the game. Even the strongest no limit players expect to play their blinds at a negative expectation money over the long run, but winning players know how to limit their loss and take advantage of winning opportunities as they present themselves…

Finding a Good Cash Game Table

One of the most popular questions we get on the Forum is How to find a good cash game table. Of course there is never a one size fits all answer to this questions, but I’m going to give you a few simple guidelines you can follow. Depending on the type of game you are comfortable playing; you may want to make a few adjustments to these tips…..

For a guy like Erick I have to imagine he is breathing a huge sigh of relief. Being one of the elite poker players and not having a WSOP bracelet, is just one of the tags you would rather not be labeled with. Erick got his at a star studded final table of No Limit Holdem/Limit Holdem mix. Other notables included Justin Bonomo (2nd), Andrew Robl (3rd, Good2cU online), Howard Lederer, David Williams and Isaax Haxton. The fact that the final table was stacked likely will make his win in retrospect a bit more gratifying.

When this World Series of Poker started pros thought the new levels would make a big difference and you would see a lot more pros at final tables. The reasoning was that the structures were just going to be better. Which is partly true. The other part of the equation is that there are just less people playing the events and online sites have not made giant pushes like they have in the past for smaller events. ESPN puts such a huge emphasis on the final table of the Main Event that it does not make fiscal sense to do so. The legal environment in the United States also is a contributing factor. Most of all though is a high level of apathy from casual fans that saw Chris Moneymaker and thought “I could do what that dude did”, over the course of a few years of big buy in tournaments that fire is out for a lot of people.

This years winners have mostly been well known pros that follow the circuit. Here are three winners of the first four events Nenad Medic, David Singer and Erick Lindgren, all of which are very well known poker pros.