Recently I met with the new management at UB and I openly wondered why they have not just thrown the cheater under the bus. After all it makes sense that they stand to benefit greatly from doing so.
That of course has not been the desired result at this point. What I think is becoming clear is that there is indeed “new management” at UB and they are trying to put the pieces of this puzzle back together.
Whether it is too late or not is for the customers to decide.
In the next few days I am going to try to sit down and think about some goals I want to accomplish, some short-term, some long-term. After reading my old blogs on blogspot.com I have realized that I used to be really focused and committed to making lots of money and having pride in my play. However, when I play just to be playing.. I tend to struggle. I have been doing really well playing live poker again in Louisville like always, but just not taking online seriously enough for some reason. I think my last 4 sessions in Louisville were 11,000..3,500…7,000…and 1,300. I have probably made about 3,000 online TOTAL during that time which is absolutely ridiculous. Especially since at one point i was up about 30k last week. I did run really really bad but it still didn’t have to be that bad. I really need to work on my attitude sometimes when playing online… i just expect to lose every big pot I play. Poker is hard enough, you don’t need to worry about all of those other little things or it makes it almost impossible to win.
The point of this whole thing is to remember to take pride in what I am doing. To remember that I want to be known as a great player and that day in and day out I need to PROVE I am a great player. And as of right now I am not. Because it takes alot more than just playing correctly to be a great player.
Tomorrow is the start of the WSOP-Circuit Event in Louisville so I will be spending alot of time down there the next two weeks. I will probably play a few tourneys and hopefully we will get to play PLO everyday and if not then at least 30/60 stud.
Good Luck,
Matt Humphrey
Humphreyin@hotmail.com
With the recent $85 BILLION (with a B folks!) dollar tax bailout of insurance giant AIG, one has to wonder why the citizens of the US are being forced to bankroll a degenerate poker player like their CEO. If you are wondering where the parallel is consider this: Some of the bets they were making on the sub-prime lending market were 20-1 long shot odds. No different than chasing that long shot draw when the other player is pushing you all, it is a reckless call to make.
When you are playing with backers money (investors) it is that much more sickening to watch. I mean if you back your pal in a poker tournament for $500.00 you at least know he is playing a poker tournament. But you would at least expect to him to not donk off the cash like it is a free roll or play money.
That is almost exactly why these morons at AIG did. Against the advice of auditors and even Federal Regulators, who were warning them against this sort of long shot bet, they did it anyway.
And they took one hell of a bad bet doing it. I am not one for Government poking around in peoples business but this may be one case where a little more Government oversight may have helped prevent the meltdown of a mega-company like AIG.
Amazing details of the event.
Blair is very likely the best poker writer I have ever read. Yet another great story from Blair.
Variance is a fickle mistress but as Dave Woods finds out you have to take the rough with the smooth - even if that does involve doing the washing-up.
They say you’ve got to be careful what you wish for and now I know why. A few months back I embarked on a big campaign to get my partner into poker. It seemed like an obvious move at the time. I spend lots of time playing poker, even more time watching big tournaments that I’d like to be playing in and a bit of time writing about it. The rest of my life seems to be split between working (on a poker mag) and sleeping. The plan was to ingratiate her into my world so she’d never complain about not spending any time with her. That was the plan.
Fast forward to today and she’s got the bug like almost everyone else who starts playing. The trouble is she’s started winning more than me. We recently got back off a holiday to the Maldives and - with the travel chipset that goes everywhere with me - we started a huge week-long heads-up marathon. We weren’t playing for money, the stakes were far higher - dinner in the evening, the night’s cocktails and stuff like that, with the overall winner getting the star prize: no household chores for a month. I raced into a 6-0 lead and got a bit cocky, and she went on a stupid run and won the next seven straight, something which might have caused an argument had I not been completely blissed out and playing while enjoying an ice cold beer overlooking the Indian Ocean.
So now I’ve got slightly less time to play poker, and she’s been unleashed onto the tournament scene. Almost every night in the past week she’s been cashing for fairly substantial sums, and one night she won two MTTs she was playing simultaneously. This weekend I planned to get my own back by playing Betfair’s $50k Guaranteed but I found out she’d already qualified via a satellite, which meant Sunday evening I was exiled in my bedroom writing this blog.
Before that though, and by way of consolation, I decided to play a $15 Turbo. I’m not normally a fan of turbos but I only had two hours to kill and Liverpool Vs Chelsea was on TV so it seemed perfect. What it turned out to be was a perfect example of variance.
Twice I managed to get my money in when I was seriously behind. Once with A-Q against A-K (I spiked a Queen on the turn), and once with A-J against J-J (again the turn was very kind to me). Before the second half of the footy had started I was a massive chip leader, and I don’t think I’d got my cards in ahead once. The best thing about it was that because it was a turbo no-one had time to type abusive things into the chatbox.
Then I played a few hands that held up and with about 15 people left from a starting field of 91 I had almost double the chips of my nearest opponents. Then it all started unraveling. Raising in the small blind (after everyone else had folded) with K-10, I got a call from the big blind (who happened to be in second place). The flop came K-10-6 and after I bet out, the BB decided to move all-in and I called. He showed Ac-Ks and I was thinking about the huge stack of chips I was about to be sitting on when an Ace dropped on the river (the fact it was the Ace of spades to complete his runner-runner nut flush didn’t help my mood). Then, fairly short-stacked on the final table, I made a move on the button with 4-4 to get a seriously dodgy call from someone with J-4 who went on to hit not one but two Jacks. And that was me done. I cashed, but I should have won it. Or so I thought at the time. After a few minutes to calm down I realized that, by rights, I should have been knocked out way before I’d suffered any bad beats. And I wouldn’t have had any cause to complain.
And that’s poker. I’m as bad at losing as the next man (as long as the next man is also short-tempered and short of memory), but the fact that all of these hands came in the same game proved a point - I’m not unlucky, or particularly lucky. Over time I get the same hands as everyone else, I get outdrawn as much as anyone else, and enjoy my fair share of suck-outs. You win some and you lose some - it just never feels that way at the time. And now? Well, it’s 7.10pm, my partner’s on the laptop in the lounge and sitting in 11th in the 50k. If she final tables I’ll be woken up at about 12.10am and made to listen to every hand and chip swing that she suffers in the next few hours. And that’s a real bad beat, although I can’t complain because it’s all of my own doing.
Hevad Khan is now famous for his crazy antics at the 2007 WSOP. He picked up almost a million and a deal with Pokerstars in Vegas this summer. Before all that though he played as many as 40 tables at the same time, which allowed him to see all types of situations. He is no doubt a great player, and his online experience is a huge reason why.
Bluffing is an essential part of poker playing and it is a recognised fact that a poker strategy without bluffing is doomed to failure.
However, although it is important to get the feel for any tournament or any table you are playing on and to assess the merits of other players, there are certain situations when it may not be a good time to attempt to bluff your way to victory.
Caught in the bluff
Having just been caught with your ‘pants down’ when failing with a bluff, then it is thought to be wise to sit tight for a while and avoid trying the same move again straight away. Although it can be tempting to try and regain some power, it may pay to play tight for a while and attempt to fool your opponents into forgetting about your mistake.
Blind man’s bluff
It is difficult to bluff from either of the blind positions unless of course everyone else has folded! As people know you have a vested interest in the hand it could be unwise to bluster your way through especially if someone in an early position has called or there he has been a raise.
Call my bluff
It is much more likely to be called by an inexperienced or novice player than someone who knows plenty about the game. The rookie poker player is more likely to want to see what you have got and will pay to find out. As in all bluffing strategies it is better to try and gauge the type of opponents you are playing in the early stages.
Bluffin’ loads of them
The more bodies at the table, the harder it is to bluff - simply because there is more of a statistical chance somebody will have a good hand. Bluffing becomes much more important in the later stages of a game with less people and bigger blinds and antes.
Curiously enough
It is dangerous to attempt a bluff if an ace comes down in the flop. More than likely someone will still be in with an ace – a card that is rarely folded pre-flop. It could be a similar case with a King or Queen especially if players have been allowed to limp in.
After losing a big hand
Having lost an important hand (even through no fault of your own), try to resist the temptation to win it all back the next time the cards are dealt by bluffing. Other players will be aware of somebody ‘on tilt’ and are more likely to call your plays.
The art of bluffing is an essential part of any serious players game and unfortunately the only way to develop the skill is by trial and error – the above is simply a beginner’s guide. Used correctly, however, it is a most potent weapon.
This Antigua thing has been brewing for some time and a lot of people thought it was a long shot. I am skeptical mostly because what they are really trying to get legal is sports betting. But at least we have an iron in the fire.
Shawn is facing deportation after getting into a lot of trouble in 1995. He has been a successful business owner and poker player for years, but now has the fight of his life on his hands. It is odd that this is coming 12 years after his conviction.
For Pete’s sake, someone get these women a Stars account already….
NBC invited Adrian Lamo to attempt a breach into their internal systems. Well it took all of 5 minutes before he was checking out personal memo’s and advertising rates. I wonder how long it would take him to hack into PokerStars and FullTilt’s servers?
Online phenom Annette Obrestad wins the WSOP Europe Main event for over 2 million dollars. In earlier articles I said she is the next big thing but I never believed it would be this fast and prestigious. Congratulations to one of the nicest people in poker, very well deserved.
I think 3 straight days is an amazing feat if it doesn’t cost you your life. If you can’t break away for a nap or a bight to eat you have issues. I wonder if he was in a competition for the TLB on Pokerstars?
