Imagine sitting down at a table with Phil Ivey, and, after watching him play for a bit, and taking a few pots off of him, making fun of him to the other players at the table and joking about how having Phil there is ‘good for the game’. Sure, to some people this is a nightmare and to others its a joke, but this situation pretty much played out last night for my good friend Herbert761.

Playing Stud Hi-Lo on Stars, Herbert has proven that he is capable at every game and although a little bit reckless, as he puts his entire bankroll on the line if he feels its a good spot, he has backed up his degeneracy with solid play and great profits. As testament, having never played Stud Hi-Lo, Herbert started off at $30/60. Yeah, ok, maybe its not reckless, maybe he’s crazy, seeing as how his buy-in was almost his entire bankroll, but he capitalized on his risk, making a tidy $900. Admittedly, this is a pittance of his potential earnings playing at those levels, but lets not get too far from the point.

Playing at Herbert’s table, I was told, was a donkey who kept giving Herbie some cash, but who also rivered Herbie a few times. Remarking to his tablemates, “Cliff is good for the game” Herbie laughed to me on the phone about how well he was doing with this “sucker” at the table. Even funnier, Herbie told me, was how Cliff had typed into the chat box: “Cliff has a WSOP bracelet in seven card stud”, after losing a sizeable pot.

At this point, I said: “Do you remember Cliff’s last name?” and was told that it was indeed, Josephy, AKA “JohnnyBax”, who at one point was ranked as the best (tournament) player online, by pocketfives.com. And yes, Cliff Josephy DID win a WSOP bracelet in Stud. And yes, Herbie DID make fun of one of the best players online playing a game that the good player has won a bracelet in and the Newbie uses his whole bankroll just to play in. To say the least, Herbert and I found the entire situation pretty f’ing hilarious.

The saving grace is, I’m sure the table reacted the same way the live table would, if you inferred Phil Ivey was the easy money - “that Herbert761 sure is a funny guy!”.

- Brendan

My home game saw a nice resurgence in attendance yesterday, with a full table of 8 players and even a waiting list for a time. Even better, the three guys I didn’t recognize seemed to be a little fishy. I found out I was bang on in that assessment in the case of two of the players, one of whom was waaaaasted and literally, I mean this ACTUALLY HAPPENED, called every hand for the three hours he was at the game. It was very nice to have the $600 donation to the nightly ‘prizepool’. The other guy was a loose cannon as well, but the weirdest kind: tight tight tight, and passive to the max, and then all of a sudden, BOOM, a three barrel bluff with absolute air, in a huge pot to lose his stack. He, most unfortunately, did not rebuy. The third newbie, who I was sure was a donkey,  turned out to be anything but. He was tight, and a bit weak, but he made good reads and smart plays. He ended up taking about $450 out of the game, which just about negated the donation by LoveBeer69 (my best guess as to what he would choose as his screen name, if he were to ever sign up for an online poker site). Read the rest of this entry »

While Canadians (or anyone else outside of America) aren’t able to watch ESPN’s World Series of Poker coverage, those who live stateside or, perhaps, downloaded content from the internet, were able to catch the US sports network’s coverage of the 50K H.O.R.S.E. event on Tuesday night. Like last year, ESPN’s coverage of the prestigious event was spot on. In fact, the table was so stacked and the play was so good, that I didn’t even care about Norman Chad’s inconceivable annoying ex-wife jokes.

One of the most interesting and watercooler-chat-worthy aspects of this year’s H.O.R.S.E. event was Scotty Ngyun’s drunkenness. Ngyun has always been known to sport a beer bottle or two, though this year he took things way further than the television poker audience is used to, as he berratted the other players at the table. Check it out:

Sure, Ngyun went on to win the event, but he came off looking like more of an asshole than the winner of the one of the world’s toughest poker tournaments. After catching it on TV, Ngyun posted a letter of apology at the Cardplayer forums (which you can read after the jump).

Now here’s the thing. Nobody other than poker fans are going to read this, so the the people he was looking to apologize to, the ones who may shy away from poker now, still know he’s an asshole. Secondly, he probably didn’t write it. Have you ever heard Scotty speak? The occurrence of the word “I” in that letter is all that’s needed to prove it was penned by a personal assistant/publicist.

However, the real reason I want to complain here is that nobody should care. He didn’t drink and drive. He didn’t rape anyone or get in a fight. He got drunk and acted like an asshole. Of course he shouldn’t have done that, but how often have your friends written letters to the letter the day after getting wasted and said, “Hey man, I’m really sorry I came into your house, crushed a bag of nacho chips, dropped them on the floor and walked all over them.” You tell your friend you’re sorry, you didn’t offend the neighbors. Not only that, but poker is a game where (a) people stake their own money to enter. Very few sports require that. (b) It’s a mental game and getting under the skin of other players is not only encouraged, but proven to be effective. If the venue is serving booze, then being a drunk buffoon should be just fine.

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Having continued success at poker is very satisfying, good for the mind and good for the bankroll. This is doubly true when playing at the upper limits of what you can afford. For one, your bankroll grows really fast. When I started playing in the game I now play in, $1-2 No Limit was definitely a reach for me, in terms of what I could afford. With swings of a few buy-ins, I could take a hit of a few hundred dollars in a couple of hours. Not only was my total bankroll a mere $800, but I was (and am) unemployed, at least in the traditional sense of the word. On top of that, I wasn’t sure if I was good enough to play in a game for that much money, which is ironic, because when I watch High Stakes Poker I always think I’d be profitable in that game if I had $100K to burn. Overconfident and unsure of myself at the same time! Read the rest of this entry »

Gus Hansen has recently made up for a 2008 that saw him in the hole for over $2 million. In June alone he made $2.046 million, which now sees the Dutch player up 300K over the year. Not a lot, but considering the hole he was in, it’s a nice comeback. Me, I’m up about $6 online this month, but over $350 live. I don’t play a whole lot live, and ever session has been a winning one thus far.

FTOPS are on over at Full Tilt. They seem to have the event every month or so (or four times a year), but it continues to draw huge fields.

The Two + Two “News, Views and Gossip” thread can often be rich in the laugh department. Over the last few weeks a thread called “If they never played poker” developed. It got a little long, but one user was kind/kee enough to put together a montage of some of the most hilarious contributions.

Click below the jump to check it out.

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There have been many times when I’ve gotten to my Monday night game later than I would have liked and been forced to wait 30 minutes to 2 hours for a seat. Lately the problem has been the opposite: I’ll come early for the game and 3 of us will sit around waiting for other players to come, kicking around the idea of starting an extremely short-handed game. Last night there were four of us, Petey and I playing gin rummy until Bill got frustrated and barked at us: “Alright you two, lets have enough of the kid games and play some cards! Jesus, this is the one night of the week I look forward to, fuck! Bill hasn’t been well lately, having been through his second round of chemo, but its hard to tell talking to him, as he is as jovial and good-natured as a 24 year-old millionaire playboy. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s a  pretty slow time as far as poker news goes. With the World Series of Poker awaiting the probable disappointment that will be its final table, the World Poker Tour in between stops and most pros from my WSOP Pool waiting to replenish their bankrolls (remember how you didn’t win? Yeah, I’m talking to you Ivey), there just isn’t a whole lot going on. That said, a few things made me say “woah!” this past week.

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