I am near Syracuse, NY for the weekend. I am posting this with the new wordpress app for iPhone.

Nice to get some rest. I have been playing a lot of NL recently with wildly different results. I started off on UB with the idea that a lot of the good players are gone, which for the most part is true. The one thing about being super aggro at lower limits is that people call you very light. I have lost some pots being too aggressive hoping people were on draws that were not. I ran about $700 into about 10k in 3 days and then hit a dead spot. That is when I moved to Cake to give that a run. Currently I am on an uptick there but I have not been playing there long. My experience on Cake is that people call you real light. If they call the flop they are likely in for the river but when you hit your hand you can stack them. My game is mostly geared to stacking people because they think I am bluffing all the time. This strategy works better below 5-10 but there is a fair amount of fish at those limits too at both sites.

I did have a weird experience the other night when I went out to dinner. Having dinner next to me was a mother and son. As it turns out he plays online poker for a living. I almost did not believe him when he said it, I thought my wife was playing a joke on me. So we had some interesting conversation. Always nice to have another poker friend in the Twin Cities.

I know, I know… its been waayyyyy too long since I have blogged but to be honest, I haven’t had much to say.

I just started playing again earlier this week and feel so much better about my vacation away from poker. I think 3 weeks is the longest I have went without poker since I first started playing. I still don’t feel like traveling to play much unless its just for the day. Beau Rivage is having a tourney at the end of this month and I must be crazy to not go.. the action there will be really great and it was my favorite city to visit so far. The food is amazing and the people will tell you stories forever about the history of Biloxi. They would be mad if I didn’t mention that they “were the ones who got the storm, new orleans just got the flood”. I can’t tell you how many times I heard that while I was down there and they all have their won reasons why they got 0 help and New Orleans got all of it. Well actually most of them share the same opinions on it but I’m not going to say what they are on here.

As for this week of poker, it has gone really great. Low stress and good money. I put 2k on 3 different sites and have done good on all of them. I think I am up 14k on Cakepoker this week, 4k on UltimateBet and 2k on Fulltilt. For the first time in my life I haven’t had the desire to play in the really big games and just concentrate on making good money every week in the middle stakes. I probably wont have any 50k weeks for a while but I also wont have anymore -100k months…. at least I hope not. I am really enjoying the balance I have found in life recently and even though it takes a little big more discipline, I can still be just as lazy

I hope everyone is doing well and congratulations to my brother Adam who just got married and my brother Jason who recently had the first Humphrey girl in 3 generations “Lily”.

Good Luck,

Matt Humphrey

humphreyin@hotmail.com

If you still aren’t getting rakeback email me and I can help you out.

I just spent the last few hours doing what I think a lot of casual gamblers do, though I sometimes am not so casual.  Between about 4 sites I played between 10-20 and 50-100.  I won every place I played.  I was running fairly decent.  Funny side affect of the WSOP is that you come home ready to crush souls because you are so pissed that you once again did not achieve your dream (though I am not really sure that winning the WSOP is my dream but that is another story). 

Instead of playing against another human beings intelligence I figured I was up about 3k so I played a little BlackJack.  I was down about 1k at one point and then got even and left.

That right there folks is how a lot of people gamble, their decisions are not based on that many factors other than where they have the most fun.  At no point playing BlackJack did I feel like I was getting a fair shake (even when I was even).  People gamble to escape their reality and provide a little excitement on an otherwise uneventful night.  If I had lost at either really nothing would be different, because the amount of money I would have lost would not have changed my life.

For the vast majority of poker players (and dare I say online BlackJack players) that is the case.

As many people know there is a scandal involving UltimateBet and cheating on their site.  Most of the scandal predates the current management and as a consultant for UB at the time I decided to contribute some thoughts.  And then wow! So let me start from the beginning and maybe that will help.  At no point in this discussion will I ever condone cheating or cheaters.  As far as I am concerned I really hope they catch whoever it is behind all of this.  I have told this story many times in this blog and elsewhere but just for ease I will retell it.

In the 2nd year of the WSOP I played in the Aruba event after winning 3 aruba seats.  I played poker locally for many years but this was the first time I had ever had some success in tournaments.  This started my online bankroll and I met many of the people I still call friends today.  That next year would see me winning I believe it was 10 Aruba seats, I am not sure the number really matters at this point.  Once you had one the rest were given to you in cash so that was 90k.  I was also a bit ahead of the curve of the cash games but I was certainly no super baller, at that time I played a lot of 15-30 limit (6 tables and such) on Party and had some really good runs.  In the 2004 WSOP I went fairly deep (about 150 or so), when I busted out I was invited to a party where I met Annie Duke.  Let me back up a bit.  After Aruba I was doing well online, enough to see that something very promising could happen for me in poker.  It was also clear that the business side of things would need some people to help manage things.  As such I pitched a system to PokerStars first (on the Poker Stars cruise), Full tilt second (in Reno of that year) and ultimately to Annie Duke at this party.  Annie was very intrigued about my ideas on how to treat the best customers the best and many of my ideas regarding tournament structures and how the games might be a bit better.  It was also obvious that UB would have an overlay in their Aruba tournament that year and so I proposed that I would take a number of seats in exchange for my ideas and because I was playing most of the WPT and WSOP at this time I would become an affiliate of UB, essentially investing all of the proceeds from the seats I would sell to well known players into promotions for this program.  The idea was a monster hit, this was the early days of rakeback when no one really even knew what it would be called.  I certainly did not invent rakeback but I was on the ground floor on what would be a trend of good value to poker players for the future.

From the time I met Annie to approximately May of the following year it was a series of disasters.  The big games on UB were filling up and that was a direct result of a lot of my hard work with my affiliate stuff.  Politically though within UB there were a ton of issues that were unrelated to my success, also players did not just want to play UB they wanted to play other sites and wanted to know if I could get them similar deals at those places.  When it came time for UB and I to come to another agreement their was not an overlay in the upcoming tournament and I think secretly people did not see a point in paying me as both a consultant and an affiliate any longer.  At this point I hardly knew anyone at all other than Annie Duke, I only met Russ Hamilton once in Los Angeles.  So for about 9 months to a year I helped out with the tournament schedule and some general promotion ideas.  Meanwhile I knew virtually no one and I certainly had no inside access to anything really.  I did not need any of that, my players were generating a significant portion of the rake for UB and already that was providing me with a decent income.  Adding additional rooms would only help that, they were not crazy that I would not be exclusive to them anymore but without paying me as a consultant I was essentially a free agent.

One thing that has come up is “did Beanie have success at other sites”, the two other sites I have had success at are Party Poker and Bodog, with Bodog being by far the bigger of the two.  I also won my 2004 WSOP seat on PokerStars.  UB and Bodog were my main sites, Bodog for limit poker and UB for tournaments.

Another thing that people are misunderstanding is when I said that I send multiple transactions a day to people I do not even know.  Which of course is a reference to rakeback and the fact that most of these customers are not people that I have met.  So I hope that helps on that particular part.  I do in fact trade with a lot of players online but likely not much more than any other high stakes player.  I think for the average guy my transactions would be wild but to a rakeback affiliate or another high stakes player it would be very normal.

Over the course of the next 3-4 years I got to know Russ Hamilton, not so much regarding UB but more poker deals in general.  You have to remember that I had little access at this point, I was just a guy from Minnesota.  Russ has become a good friend within poker, we have really never had any significant business dealings, I sort of use him as a mentor within the poker business.  When I quit consulting with UB that virtually ended my relationship with Annie Duke and we have hardly spoken since then. 

Over time UB went from my biggest program to 4th or 5th which was just based on customer demand.  I now maintain a relationship with the new management but I have very little access.  This was brought up because I mentioned that I visited Costa Rica to see UB in May.  So did about 20 other affiliates including Nat Arem.  I am not trying to throw Nat Arem under the bus because in my eyes Nat is an online poker superhero for what he did with the AP scandal.  I just point it out in an effort to say that I was not on some covert mission or part of some monster cover up because I understand that for most people this whole world of online poker is a bit foreign.

Also I quit posting in the thread on 2+2 because there really is no benefit for me (and also people in the thread asked me to stop, so I did).  I will post a link to the thread at the bottom. 

Some other tidbits:

I know nothing of the account -Fred- and have no idea who the owner is, at the WSOP I met Fred David but I never recieved a transfer from that account, my understanding is the same as Freddy Deeb’s that it is just a management account.  I have no information on that account at all or Fred David’s role at UB at the time, or if he even had one.  Whether that is all just big a coincidence or not is not something I have information on but I will be happy to share whatever comes to light.

dont-trust-paul-nobles.com was a site put up by someone that I had a business dispute over.  It was covered a bit on p5’s and within days of that site being put up the matter was resolved and the site got taken down.  It is sort of a long uninteresting story, I am pretty sure the guy that put up the site regrets dealing in that manor as he has become very successful in other endeavors.  I was supposed to get that URL and a few others as part of the agreement we settled on but I have been lazy about transfering them over.

In closing I will still follow the thread on 2+2 and try to address people’s concerns and if anything comes to light maybe I will pass it on to Nat or post it here.  There is really no equity for me in coming to the defense of anyone, even people who have treated me well because people want answers and I can not give them.  I had very little access back then and even less now.  For me to be viewed in any way shape or form as condoning cheating or trying to divert people’s attention from the scandal was never my intent, so to any extent that happened I would like to sincerely apologize.  Here is the link to the thread on 2+2.

I will first tell you what I do not believe, I do not believe in a guy sitting on top of the clouds judging people and throwing lightning.  Similarly, I do not believe in a little red guy in the middle of the earth that will be the consequence for a bad life.  But I certainly am open to the idea of something bigger than myself and yesterday would be a big example of the possible existence of a force like that.  In case you have not followed I have 58k in chips and lost a big pot towards the end of the day that would have had me well over 100k.  So I was feeling a bit sorry for myself.

So as I got on the plane to go back home (I play again on Tuesday) I was a little surprised to see a young man already on the plane.  I introduced myself and he did as well.  It was still a bit strange to have such a young kid in first class so I probed a little bit.  It turns out he was going to camp in Minnesota and this was his first time ever on a plane.  He is 14 and his sister was already at the camp.  The camp is Camp Heartland it is a camp for kids that are HIV positive or have AIDS.  Wow, I mean like wow.  The way he told me about the camp was in a way that he likely has done often telling people just to see their reaction so he can know whether or not to broom them from his life quickly.  Sure put my whole WSOP misadventure in perspective.  Certainly either disease is not the death sentence it used to be but as we talked I found out that both he and his sister take incredible amounts of medication.  I also found out that he is a running back on his middle school team and wants to become an electrician.  Just like any other kid he has dreams and hopes.  I could not contain my emotions for most of the plane flight but I tried to not let him notice but at one point I had to put on my sunglasses.  All I could think about the whole time was how grateful I should be for my families health and also mine.

I sometimes wonder if my life is just more eventful than other peoples lives.  This stuff happens to me all the time, every time I question the presence of God something like this happens and makes me think twice. 

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.

Today I will be live blogging the $1500 tournament at the WSOP on twitter at www.twitter.com/beaniepoker.  I have 46,500, average is about 35k.

So first let me say that I was the guy that knocked out the bubble guy with 6c7c.  He had about 20k and I had about 40k.  He raised 5k into the BB that was openly saying that was openly saying he would fold with Aces.  Figuring that he heard that and needed to chip up I put him on a steal and hit a straight on him.  Do not ever believe the updates, they either write what they are told or reconstruct the action but common sense would tell you that I did not call with 6c7c, which is how pokernews wrote it up. 

OK, so to the Layne Flack part.  I was at the Bellagio and was cashing some chips when I see a friend (Greg Pierson) in the high limit section.  After I get my money from the cage I tell my dad "let me just stop by and say hi for a sec".  Greg is having a few drinks with Layne Flack and both seem to be having quite a good time, it looked like Layne was playing 100-200 Limit Holdem and Greg was just sweating him.  As I was leaving I acknowledge Layne by giving him a little head nod like "hey, how is it going".  Layne looks me dead in the eye and says "fuck you", I smile at him and just walk away.  I hear Greg say, do you even know who he is and Layne goes "yeah I know who the fuck he is", kind of loud like.  My dad is dumbfounded and says, "man that unabomber guy is a real dick".  I then explain to him that he is thinking of Phil Laak, and then also have to explain who Layne Flack is.

Socially I have had a few interactions with Layne, nothing that super stands out, so here is what I have nailed it down to:

[ ] Laynes mom bought a Royal Blue Peanut from me when it was 6k and now it is 2k.
[ ] After Layne won Aruba he played a lot of 25-50 on UB.  I was playing a lot at that time and did quite well.  My buddy list consisted of three people that I would always play, Layne was one of three.
[ ] Once in chat, he was sober at the time, he got upset at me about something silly and I told him he has lost his sense of humor now that he is no longer drinking.
[x] Layne was 8 o’clock drunk.

It did not really bother me but it has been a while since someone has said "fuck you" to me so it was a bit shocking.  Equally as shocking was it happening in front of my dad.

Well after a few interesting instant messages I figured out that the good majority of people did not know it was a joke.  “The Strip Club” is a restaurant in East Saint Paul, as in “New York strip club”.  There really is no nudity involved but if you live in the twin cities it is a great spot (though a bit loud).

Vicki and I went to R.E.M. last night.  I think all of these bands need to learn a bit more about their audiences.  Everyone there was over 30 and likely has kids.  So when R.E.M. strolls on stage at 9:45, well, that is not going to work.  We left at about 10:45 when it looked like they were going to be going for a while longer.  We still had not heard many songs we knew.  Which does sort of suck.  It was still fun and we enjoyed it.  I watched a documentary with Michael Stipe in it a while back and that was the big reason we got the tickets.  He just seemed a bit different than I would have imagined.

One of the jokes that came up between my wife and I was the concept of someone “Putting on a good show”.  Cirque Du Soliel is a good show.  These guys are singing, while their energy is great and the atmosphere is phenomenal with that much energy in a room, can we just retire “they put on a good show”? Or at least can we compare it to Cirque Du Soliel, that should be the bar for a show.

I have been playing a bit more poker getting ready for the WSOP.  I am doing well.  I am also using the Beta version of the hand history software I have been talking about for 2 years.  We are still working out a few kinds but having it usable is literally like the fulfillment of a dream.  There is no question that this software will be a welcome addition in the poker world.