Eight Hours Later...

Saturday I took part in the Tennessee Poker Tour March Madness Top Players Tournament. Out of several hundred players that attempted to qualify over 3 months I was one of the 43 who did so. The day was a day of patience tested and finally at the end it came down to 1 hand. I pushed all in heads up with pocket 5's and Gabe called me quickly with pocket Kings. When all was said and done I walked away with a little coin in my pocket and a 2nd place trophy. It was a great day and I enjoyed every minute of it. I witnessed some great poker throughout the day.

Small Stakes Poker: The Virtual Freeroll

After an astoundingly hideous session of poker last night at a local bar, a different one than normally mentioned, I thought I would talk about the "virtual" freeroll. The "virtual" comes from the fact that you can see this type of behavior in any game, regardless of stakes. Want me to prove my point? Look at the World Series of Poker main event. The last 5 winners have been amateurs. 1 of which is a pretty good player, another a decent enough player who talks about the WSOP Boot Camp too much in his Bluff articles (Raymer) and 3 rank amateurs who shouldn't have been at the final table in the first place.

The WSOP has turned into amateur night at the Apollo. The idea that "anyone" can win has even had me dreaming from time to time about a multi-million dollar payout. The problem with this thought is that you have to get past 8000 other dreamers and some pros. The pros seem to despise the Main Event now. What you see are several thousand players who have read "Kill Phil" and have applied that basic "all-in" theory to their game. A pro NEVER wants to get all of their money in the pot. If all their money is in, they can lose ALL THEIR MONEY. Its a standard pro belief that you rarely want to use "all-in" unless the situation specifically calls for it.

Last night, I found myself using it a few times. We went to a local game we had never visited before. The dealer was very cordial and was actually a Sullivan North guy that Rich knew. The problem? He talked all the time. AND he played. AND he played horribly. I am hoping his terrible play was a ploy to dump chips to players as the game went along, however, when you are dumping to 1 or 2 people, it makes the game uneven. That aside, the dealer was very nice and made us very welcome. The game was the standard Tri-Cities rate of $6. I paid, sat down and got ready to play.

The first thing I always notice is quality of cards, chips and table. The table seemed homemade, but was good quality. I actually considered building one now that I have seen it can be done pretty easily. The chips were the same 7 gram set I have at home. They are pretty standard chips and while you don't get the "clink clink" when shuffling, I like them. I am biased. The cards were a marked set from a casino. You can get them for a quarter a deck online. He had one deck total with him, so few a hands in when I noticed the 8 of diamonds had a corner cut off, I pointed it out and went to my car to get a deck I had stashed away. (I forgot them, but no big loss.)

The new cards made no difference. I was getting cold decked by my own cards. The only valid hand I had in the first game was A-K off. I limp, I bet the flop (which I missed but would have rivered) and Rich comes over the top. I bail immediately and he shows me a flopped straight. Fine. No big. I end up going out something like 5th. Because of a short table (7 players) and the rebuys available because its normally a 10 person deal, I am not sure exactly when I went out. I stood up and made a phone call. Rich busted out soon after and we discussed. We agreed this was some of the loosest play we had ever seen. Any face card will do, regardless of kicker. At this point, I adjusted my strategy. This was a virtual freeroll. Regardless of buy-in, the naivity of the players, or ignorance if you prefer a harsher term, was shown in their play. They were simple people who just wanted to blow $25 and play poker to get that "tv table" feeling.

The problem here is that you can get absolutely angry with these people. They are "donkeys". They are "losers" who wouldn't make a dime in Vegas. They are idiots. Fine...all that may be true. But they also just wanna have fun, so I adjusted my game and got rid of the negative feelings towards the players. The next game started and I made a strategic mistake. I pushed chips in with the best hand against a freeroller. With A-Q suited, I push in enough to put someone all in. My thought was to just grab the blinds, play small pot poker and move on. He pushes his chips in with 7-8 suited. We had the same suit, so I hoped for a flush. No go. He rivers the straight and I am at half stack.

I played extremely tight. I tripled up with A-9 against 4 others with an all in. I had some chips, so I started winning some smaller pots. I was pushing all in with any good hand. It worked for a while, but then the guy to my left (my new freeroll nemesis) starts chatting and calling me with anything. I lose a couple smaller pots and am about to the starting stack size against 2 big stacks. I am sure my nemesis doesn't like me because he was there to have fun and gamble (? - gamble at free poker?) and I was just staying quiet. The talky dealer kept saying "He's like Maverick...he played with you for an hour and has you figured out now boys". I wasn't Maverick, but he was dead on about my reads. Finally, before the blinds increased yet again and half my stack was commited with a big blind hand, I decided to push with J-8 of clubs. My nemesis calls me with Q-4 off and the rest is history. He rivers a straight with the J that pairs me and I drive home.

The "virtual" freeroll doesn't depend on stakes at the table. You can play a free game on Poker Stars or you can go to the Main Even and buy in for $10k...sometimes the players are the same ones and they play what they like to play no matter what. You cannot change the way others play no matter how loud you yell, scream or laugh. The best thing to do is accept it and use it to better your game. I did last night and improved at least 2 spots on a table I didn't particularly care for. Will I go back? Probably. Its very close to my house and I can either go donk around or use their donkitude (new word) to improve my play against lose, aggresive, ignorant players. It could be the thing that helps me win the Main Event.

;)

American Idol: Week 6

This week was a step better than Beatles week number 2. What we learned over the last couple of weeks is that the Beatles are completely and totally out of the reach of an amateur performer for the most part. The songs do not translate to the shortened version of the songs that the AI performers must do. This week, however, gave us all kinds of 80's rock, a couple soul/r&b songs and America's cheasiest song EVER.

I am going to go ahead and call it out. Rich and I had this discussion. The only reason you pull out the Greenwood card and sing "Proud To Be An American" is to get the patriotic vote. Call me a nazi, but I despise the song. Absolutely despise. There is not even a patriotic bone in my body that goes "huh?" when it starts. Perhaps if Lee Greenwood didn't forget the lyrics to our ACTUAL national anthem when he performed it, it might not bother me. I would rather hear Ray Stevens personally. It wreaks of crappy country false patriotism and all Kristy Lee Cook did was get her to another week where the songs would be out of her talent, vocal and performance range. She did it cheap and I have no respect for that. Enough of that...

Performance of the night goes to David Cook. The Chris Cornell version of "Billie Jean" was amazing.

Here is the spreadsheet. I graded a little more rigidly this week. I missed it last week and gave you who SHOULD have gone home, but seeing as how Amanda wouldn't have made it past this week or next, its fine she is gone. I am tired of the 60 year old smoker's voice personally. Who ever said Janis Joplin was a good singer?!?!?! Great performer, yes. One of the voices of a generation? Yes. Great singer? What the heck are you talking about? The only comparible voice in modern time is Melissa Etheridge, who is a great song writer and possibly the female Springsteen in my generation, but not exactly a "wow" vocalist. Amanda was overrated and probably shouldn't have been in the top 24.

Jason is getting locked into these guitar ballads. His performance last week was hideous, but I took it as a joke. This week he did a Sting song and the performance was forgettable. Michael Johns tried the "cram a song too long for this spot" and it worked, however for me, his performance was more reminiscent of Paul Rodgers singing with Queen than Freddie Mercury. That doesn't work for me, so his QOP suffered. I also lessened the fan favorite points to 2 people. It now is the "I did a bad song but they will vote for me anyway" point. I am not sure anyone besides David A and Brooke could get away with it at this point without losing some votes. David did one of my favorite songs from the 80's, so while his choice of song was great, the performace was okay. After Rameal's job doing Heart tonight, I am officially adding Ann Wilson to the list of people you just don't try to sing on AI unless you have the pipes to do it. Here is that list:

1. Celine Dion

2. Mariah Carey

3. Whitney Houston

4. Freddie Mercury

5. Ann Wilson

This week its a toss up and I think it could be Rameal or Chikizie. Neither have a chance at winning and its about time to start shuffling the weakest links off the stage.

I Could Never Dream of Saying It Any Better...

Happy Easter my friends, family and even those whom I don't know that run across me. I give you the words of one of my favorite all time writers:

My Trust in My Lord

May God bless your life...no matter your belief.

American Idol - Week 5

The top 11 are tasked with more Beatles song. I believe there are some calculated risks in the song themes for AI and then I believe there are blatant mistakes. The first Beatles week was good enough and had some highlights in there. However, week 2 of the Beatles "fiasco", as I am now calling it, showed that some of these youngsters have no idea who the Beatles actually were. If I have to sit through one more country sounding Beatles rendition, I may snap and beat the hell out of Travis Tritt. No offense to Travis, he was just the first one that came to mind. So for the sake of my sanity and Travis Tritt's well being, let's hope this is the end of the Lennon/McCartney catalog fiasco.

I finally got on paper...er...in Excel a formula I have been working on in my head for a while. I am hoping it actually works out as I try to use it for the next 2-3 weeks to test it. I use 5 factors to judge who will be the next voted off. Here is what it looks like this week:

By the scoring, you can tell that Kristy Lee Cook will be voted off tonight. Lets look at the factors I have listed:

The Paula Factor(PF): This is a -1 or a 0. If Paula has nothing good to say about the performance and instead compliments how the contestant looks, it's a -1. If Paula is happy with the performance, it is a 0.

What Simon Says(WSS): I am a proponent that what Simon says usually has some sway on the voters. If Simon is overly negative, it's a -1. Normal Simon negativity is a 0. Praise from Simon gets a 1.

Song Choice(SC): Proof for this rule lies in Constantine getting voted off because of singing Nickelback. Song choice is huge. -1 = horrible. 0 = okay. 1 = great match.

Quality of Performance(QOP): This is completely opinion based by myself. You may disagree with this one, but its subjective. -1 = horrible. 0 = okay. 1 = great performance.

Fan Favorite(FF): Being a fan favorite can get you a long way. This will include the losers who vote for the worst person...Since its hard to say someone is hated by the public, this is a 0 for apathy and a 1 for likey. For example, VotefortheWorst.com is urging people to vote for Amanda this week. While I agree she is one of the worst, she gets a "1" because she will get votes.

Hopefully this all makes sense. After 3 seasons, I think I have a formula that will kinda give us an idea. I know its not an exact science, but some weeks it is. Last week I had the bottom two right in my consideration. While I thought Kristy Lee would get the boot, it made sense that America was tired of hearing about David's past...just as I was. Let's try this out and see what happens.

Goodbye Kristy Lee!

Whats the Dealio....

The last week or so has been a blur in many ways. I spent the weekend in Asheville, NC working with The Erich Allen Group at the homeshow at the Asheville Civic Coliseum. I have also had 2 head colds with sinus infections in about two and a half weeks. Not being able to breath and then the cough and croup that has followed has caused me to not feel very well at all for the last 2 weeks. I still have the cough, but its starting to loosen and should be better soon. I am against going to any doctor at this point.

The good news is, I am without the cyst on my head now. It was removed and after a few days has healed quite well. As well, my 2nd sleep study yeilded the need for a C Pap machine. Now that I have that, I sleep quite well. I still wake up occasionally while I am getting use to sleeping with it, however, my sleep is so much better now. The other good news is that the obstructive sleep apnea I have can be cured by losing weight. So now I need to shed some of my horrible eating habits, get off my a$$ and exercise to drop some weight.

I will be back soon with some more normal updates and will hopefully forecase the next AI contestant to be kicked off the show.

Small Stakes Poker: The Style of Play

This topic has probably been covered somewhat by looking at the types of players we see at the tables, but I feel that it is worth looking at seperately. The thing about BFP is that no matter what style you see used, the person will openly admit they were right and rarely say they made a mistake. Why would they do that? Well because they won, right? There are a few styles at the table that I find interesting and some that just bug me, but I always try to remember that this is BFP and when all is said and done, I am only out $6. If I don't win, it is because I didn't play well against whatever style player I was put against in the pots I lost. Therein lies the challenge. I have a theory that the styles of play are universal with subtle adjustments made at higher levels when money is involved. I don't think they change that much and I will try to give a real world example that you might see on TV for these types. What we must remember here is that just because I assign a style to a pro, that pro may not always be like that, however the BFP player almost ALWAYS is that style. The worst thing that happens to new poker players is ESPN syndrome. That is when a particular player, who is a professional, employs a certain type of play on TV, it is captured in the 10 hands you see on ESPN and that is how the newbie plays based on that assumption. What they rarely realize is that Gus Hansen folds 5000 hands a day. When he plays 7-4 suited, raises with it, gets pot committed and then sucks out, that is the exception and not the rule. That brings me to the first style:

ESPN Style

There is no limit to the players that fall into this category. There is no certain color, age or type of individual that doesn't fall into this. They have usually been playing about 3-6 months at home or online. They come out to play at the local bar because they want to show their wares on the live stage. Unfortunately, this stage is not as big as they think they are. They will play your highlight hands and always stand up for the "all in moments". Its like watching a recording of highlights where the player has seen Gus Hansen play a certain hand a certain way, out of context, and apply it as a rule. I attribute this style to Phil Laak and Gus Hansen. They are wild at the tables and always come out firing chips into the pot. They play way too many pots and often will get caught by a player with a more mature and responsible approach to their game.

Turtle Style

This style is built around the principle of tight play to the X degree. They see the looser players and decide to take the exact polar opposite approach. They wait and wait and wait. They compain about not getting good cards. They are always mad that the flop never hits them. This style is annoying to me for a couple reasons. There is no reason to be so tight you take yourself out of the game. As well, if this style is accompanied by surliness, then they ruin the mood of that end of the table. If its my end, I would rather go to sleep than continue playing next to Slowly McSurlipants. Its hard to attribute this style to too many pros, but Phil Hellmuth is one who plays his "Top 10" hands and only branches out when he feels the spirit moving him. This type of player, if they are getting cards will win most pots and be just fine. If they aren't, they beat themselves and you don't have to do a thing.

Hamster Style

This is small pot poker. Its great if you are in a huge tournament to use this style in the early stages, but you cannot build your entire game around these hamsterific traits. Hamster style is best identified when a player is constantly raising unraised pots just to pick up the blinds. As well, they will bet a checked pot every time on the river to pick up the small pot. They throw an overbet out to take home a little food. They store the chips up and continue the pattern. This is typical of a person who read Kill Phil and takes it to heart. The All In is a big move as well as the overbet (8-12 times the big blind in an unraised pot). This is also here because of the movie Orgazmo.

Marginal Style

This is usually a person who has been playing BFP for a while. They have seen alot and they "know what they are doing". They know they are good, so they feel they can play cards stronger than they are. For example, raising 6 times the big with K-Q. Now this type of situation happens when the marginal player puts too much value into a hand or feel they can win with any two cards. BFP is not the place to do this. The marginal player will either accumulate chips because they are hitting flops OR they will be one of the first 3 out. The latter is the more often occurance from what I have witnessed. The problem here is that the player is getting into large pots with marginal starting hands. They love any 2 face cards together...not realizing that right off the bat their Q-J is possibly dominated by at least 15 hands in that situation. I don't think there is a pro that does this. They are pros for a reason.

Rambo Style

Rambo style is sort of like ESPN style, except the player doesn't even qualify it to that level. The great thing about Rambo players is that they blow up at some point. They either run the table over, or blow up big....the latter happens more times than not. Mike Matusow is notorious for his blow ups. The Rambo player will raise with any two cards and will drive the betting no matter what cards are on the board. They are "playing the player", which is impossible at BFP. This style may win money in Vegas for short stretches...maybe even longer stretches if they are really good at reading people. This steamroller approach is so bothersome to me. Even with Aces, you have to question where you are in a hand. The best method against Rambo, is to make sure your chips are all in the middle pre-flop with a great (not good, not marginal) hand. Make them decide if their hand is good enough to go against your Aces.

The Best Style

In my opinion, the best style to play has elements of most of the others. Sometimes you have to steamroll and play big stack poker. Sometimes you have to tighten up and just let things happen around you until you get a quality hand. Other times you need to raise a pot with a bad hand and show that you are willing to bluff...or that you are willing to just get lucky from time to time. The only play that I don't like to use is the marginal style. Big pots with marginal hands rarely turn up good, but there is something to be learned from the style. Sometimes you HAVE to play big pot poker with those hands depending on your read. The best style is the kind that doesn't win because you dragged the pot...the best style is when you play good poker always. Good poker isn't accumlating money, chips or tournament wins. Good poker is playing each hand in such a way that you SHOULD win. You won't always win. Poker is a game with random occurances, so you cannot win every time. Good poker is controlling the random elements by being in control of yourself, your cards and your situation. Good poker is laying down top pair when your read says you are beat. Good poker is using "Hit it or quit it" on the flop and ignoring the elf in your head that screams "CHASE IT!!!!". Play your cards, read your opponent and manage your chip stack and you will be a good player.

American Idol: Week 3

Week 2 Recap:
Well...I was a week early on my call of Yeager going home. He was cheesy and not that good. He left me wondering how he even made it onto the show. Robbie Carico. I think that's all I really have to say. The boy-bander turned rocker was sent packing because he wasn't authentic. I didn't have that big of a problem with him. I think he went too over the top to prove he was a rocker, though. It seems the labels we stick on ourselves and force on others just don't fit sometimes. Thats why you should never give yourself a nickname...noone will care. That ended up being Robbie's problem. Noone cared if he was a rocker, a cheerleader or the 32nd member of Menudo. Alexandrea Lushington and Alaina Whitaker were not surprises. They weren't really expected either. The problem with the girls is that there are a couple stand outs and then the rest. Any of the rest could go at any time.

Week 3 Predictions:

The Boys
The guys did a good job this week for the most part. I thought Michael Johns was on, but David Cook and Dreadlock Boy were the highlights of the night. I am liking Archuleta. He is just uber-talented. The other 4 were just so-so or horrible. Finally this week, I think we lose Luke (the most important part about singing acapela is hitting all the notes perfectly, but I can't hit any notes perfectly on this damn show) Menard. His rendition of Killer Queen last week was horrible and he did himself no favors this week either. For my other choice to go home, I won't go with who I HOPE will leave. We all know that Danny is Sanjaya Pt 2 (The Gay Strikes Back), but I think the idiot voters who vote for the worst to keep them around will keep him on the show for a while. I gotta say that Chikezie E will be gone. I can hope that our little gay friend Danny falls by the wayside, but I don't even think his overly feminine behavior and horrible song choices will get him removed.

The Girls
I honestly and truly believe that Amanda saved herself with song choice last night. If she had tried to do a song where someone actually hits more than 3-4 notes and moves up even half an octave, she would be on the chopping block, however, she made a great choice and should move through. Brooke White is in a class by herself. The only problem is that she is starting to come off a bit folky. That could hurt her because hippies don't watch the show and vote. The Irish Lass Carlie was good last night as well. Even though she chose the wrong arrangement and got the comparison to Celine Dion, she still did a good job with the song. That is one of my favorite 80's songs as well, so I may be biased. As for the cast offs tonight...I think that Asia'h Epperson will go. Her throaty renditions of songs is getting a bit tiring to listen to and she doesn't seem to be able to push the notes on the songs she chooses. I also believe Kady Malloy is gone. She was 1 person away last week and I think the viewing public listens to Simon when they just aren't sure. I am positive we just aren't sure with Kady and Simon will sway the vote. Like I said earlier, it could be anyone from the girls besides Brooke and it wouldn't be surprising.

Random Thought:

Looking at the pics for Garrett Haley and Colton Berry...I believe they are the same person with a wig. I could be wrong.

Getting Ready For New TV

I was elated when the writer's strike ended. Not because the writers got what they way (while that is a good thing and all), but more because it meant that we would get new TV on the air before Fall. The tireless string of new reality TV shows hopefully will slow at some point and scripted TV will once again fill my home with love and the smell of fresh baked bread. Well, maybe not bread, but in the least I will have some new shows to watch.

The shows I am most looking forward to are (in no particular order) How I Met Your Mother, Two and a Half Men, Scrubs and Battlestar Galactica. I have been rewatching old episodes of some of these shows to prime myself and refresh my memory. That may be the biggest issue that returning shows have is that there has been a gap and the general viewing public is pretty A.D.D. when it comes to entertainment.

BG, of course, took more than a year to prepare itself for the final season of its sci-fi goodness. This was how the writers of the show planned it. The writer's strike, I believe, had very little to do with the show not coming back in over a year. It may have pushed it off a couple months. I have spent the last couple weeks rewatching the entire series. It started out furiously in season 1 and was one of my top 3 favorite shows for a while. Season 2 was a mixed bag. They spent much of the season building characters and the payoffs were few and far between much of the time. However, looking at the series in retrospect, I am thankful they took the time to do some of the things they did. Season 3 was such a great season of TV. I watched the final 2 episodes last night and I can honestly say that I believe episodes 19 and 20 of Battlestar Galactica season 3 are 2 of the best episodes ever on TV. The revelation of 4 of the final 5 cylon models along with the trial of Baltar really built those episodes to an amazing climax. It truly is a shame that they waited over 12 months to show us the real payoff for that build up.

The other 3 I mentioned are comedies. I love my comedies. I have seen the entire How I Met Your Mother series at least 3 times through. Twice for Two and a Half Men. At least 5 times for Scrubs. When you find something that has a wit about it on TV, you find yourself watching it as often as possible and praying that the network doesn't cancel its run. That has been the case for Scrubs the last couple of years. With my heart settled that this is the last season and that it will actually be completed, I was surprised to see that ABC may take the show for an 8th season next year. Now this has NBC renewing interest...so perhaps its not the end. CBS renewed Two and a Half Men, but I have not seen where HIMYM has been renewed as of yet. That bugs me. Such a great show and it cannot get the immediate renewal it deserves. Yet, Dancing with the Stars keeps plugging away.

I won't go into an obtuse rant about how I think the network executives are ruining television by unceasingly putting reality TV on the screen. Don't get me wrong, I like my fair share of reality TV...A little American Idol, a dash of Flavor of Love and a couple other shows that are just brain gas (credit: Greg Bunch) for the most part. I want real TV back though and am looking forward to some of my favorite shows returning. The Fall is looking good too with the return of Heroes.

The writer's strike may have been a good thing. Hopefully America missed their shows enough to hold out hope. Perhaps this hope will bloom into higher ratings and better TV for all. The writers had quite a few things right when they laid down their pens, but this could be the most right thing about it.