Mar
11
by Jake
Poker affiliates rejoice! Unabomber Poker is open for business.
We're stoked to announce that the Unabomber Poker Affiliate Program is now live! You're going to make a killing being a Unabomber affiliate, so sign up now and start earning!
Mar
10
by Phil
Finished Day 1b earlier tonight. It was an amazingly interesting day of poker. I had a lot of fun. At one point I made a cool stack with my chips.
http://www.bay101live.com/
Matt Savage does a great job with the info stuff. The link will most likely be useless to any readers very shortly after the event is over.. but if you happen to be reading this
as it is happening, this is the info link for sure.
We went to "City Restaurant" here in town and I had a Mixed Seafood Salad. It was a 9 on the 10 scale. I will be eating there manana for sure.
Today I did something I don't believe I have ever done in my life before. What's that, you ask. Well you came to the right place. I will tell you.
I bought a hard boiled egg to go. I did it at 7-11. And I did it with joy. I am very keen to have that egg sometime in the future. It sure is handy to be able to curve the future
to match your anticipated future hankerings. As in, "I suspect I will have a hankering for a hard boiled egg a bit later. I think I will pick one up at 7-11."
For what its worth (fwiw) (Not to change the topic, but as an aside I must admit..... I am a bit curious as to the percent of people that might read my 'fwiws' and not know that it is an
acronym for the saying"for what it's worth".) But whatever, I diverge. What I was leading up to was this. I actually bought three packs of them (hard boiled egss, that is) (2 to a pack). So
I actually have access to 6 of them in total, which is especially nice, as I suspect the hankering will be running deep.
Anyway, hope that was not too much. Just thought I would put you in the loop.
Phil Hellmuth will be at my table manana, along with Faraz Jaka. Also BoostedJ will be there. I like playing with BoostedJ and Hellmuth. They are fun. I have never played with Faraz. Should be fun. So nothing much more going on.
Later!
556de34b-3584-4927-8d3e-257dcd57dff1|1|5.0
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Mar
9
by Chad Holloway
Congratulations to Annie Duke on her NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship win. The National Heads-Up Poker championship is essentially poker’s version of March Madness. I look forward every year to competing with other players from around the world in making predictions. CardPlayer currently offers the best Fantasy Poker competition for this tournament and this year had nearly 700 entrants (for the record, not one player pciked Annie Duke to win it). That’s not a lot, but then again the time between determining the match-ups at the draw party and the event’s start is quite short. It’d be nice if NBC held the draw party a week or so in advance. This would surely increase the number of participants from the Fantasy Poker/bracket prediction perspective. With all that said, I pretty much failed with my Fantasy Poker bracket.
Of the 32 first-round match-ups, I only got 16 correct. That doesn’t sound too bad but most of those came in two of the four brackets, so the winners advanced and just knocked each other out. Because of this, I wasn’t able to rack up too many points. It didn’t help that I chose Antonio Esfandiari to make it the to the Championship Match and he was knocked out in the first round. I did have a few good picks though. From the other side of the bracket, I picked Phil Laak to go all the way. He didn’t, but he had a decent run and made the money. I picked both Eric Bladwin and Jason Mericier to go far. Baldwin didn’t but Mercier sure did. I also did well in predicting how far Doyle Brunson and Annette Obrestad would go. Even though I didn’t win this Fantasy Poker competition, I had a great time. I can’t wait to watch it all unfold on television.
In other Fantasy Poker news, Scott Clements and Jason Mercier are having a little competition of their own. At the PCA Main Event, both players put an undisclosed amount of money on the line (rumored to be quite high) in regards to the BLUFF’s 2010 Player-of-the-Year race. Each chose ten players for their team and whatever team racked up the most points would win. Since the PCA Main Event was going on, the remaining players in the field influenced the draft. Clements won a coin flip for the first pick. Here is how their teams ended up:
Team Clements
Jeff Madsen
Eric “basebaldy” Baldwin
Nick Schulman
Jonathan Little
Nick Binger
Bertrand “Elky” Grospellier
Jason Potter
Daniel Negreanu
Joe Serock
Yevgeniy Timoshenko
Team Mercier
Praz Bansi
Amit Makhija
Christian Harder
Dan O’Brien
Faraz Jaka
Todd Terry
Mike Binger
Ben Zamani
J.C. Tran
Vivek Rajkumar
“Jason and I are both pretty competitive. It’s something that would be fun to watch throughout the year, and also [we] talk a little trash to each other,” Clements says. “Even though we have the bet, I won’t root against him. I still want him to win. He’s still a friend, even if it costs me money.” It should be interesting to see how this Fantasy Poker bet pans out.
Mar
8
by Katrina Lim
Where has the time gone? Sorry for not blogging sooner. Been jankin’ around. Got lots to report though. Starting with the LAPC, I played a $1065 buy in and it was smooth sailing until David “the Dragon” Pham decided to get lucky against me. I picked up JJ and raised 4 times the big blind because when it comes to JJ, I always get burned and I was happy to take it down preflop. However, Dragon decided to call my raise after some hesitation. And of course, villain #2 next to him wanted in too. Flop comes 2, 4, 8 rainbow and both fools check to me. I throw out a good pot-sized bet. Dragon thinks for a little bit, and shoves. Villain #2 folds and I tanked for a good 5 minutes. Something deep inside told me to throw my JJ away but a few hands before David showed a bluff. My gut was telling me fold. And of course do I listen? Of course not. I called. Dragon flips over 8, 6 off. To add insult to injury, Dragon tells me my JJ should’ve been an instacall. I laughed at him and said I was so close to folding. That pretty much left me crippled and my last hand I held AQ and was called by 77. Of course the villain flops quads. Good game.
Played a home game with the gang and won that. Good stuff. My hands are holding up at showdown and I really feel good about this year. Played the $150k G at the Bike Friday night and here I’m thinking play will stop around 12:30pm. 12 levels later I’m staring at 3am and completely drained. Happy that I was patient the whole time and picked my hands carefully. Built my meager $3k stack back up to a healthy $20k but the fatigue finally took over. I was in the small blind and folded around. Staring down at Q, 10 s and shoved expecting to steal easily. Big blind instacalls me with KJ off. That call was actually questionable to me as we both were almost even in chips and almost in the money. Questionable as in the instacall. But oh well. Good game. I didn’t need to shove there but was already sleeping between hands. Placed 70th of 500. Jank.
Big congrats to Marilou Morelli!!! Scari Mari is on a roll and placed 11th in the LAPC Main Event!!! Last woman standing. When you taking me to lunch? Day after Scari played the $5/$10 NLH cash game at Hawaiian Gardens and turned a $3500 profit. Nice work sista!
My upcoming schedule includes the other guaranteed tourneys at Bike this month and crushing the home game again. But I do have some big news…
I am back in Corporate America. I got a job offer I just couldn’t resist. I am back working with my prior boss of 7 years and best of all, my office is down the street from the house. I can eat lunch at home and no commute. I can even work at home! What a luckbox! I win! As for poker, my boss knows I love playing so much and will let me schedule work time with poker time!!! Amazing! So, I’m still looking forward to the WSOP this summer and hope to hit a few events.
I feel a full-time job will help my poker even more. I have no pressure to win anymore. Poker is a bonus. I will still be grinding on weeknights and weekends especially when the cash games are juicy. Supplemental income is the best! And I will still be playing tourneys too. It’s nice to be part of a team again, having colleagues, and most importantly, I am back with the best boss in the world!! I would work for my boss for free. Seriously. I am extremely fortunate to have this new opportunity. Thank you so much, Boss Lady! We are going to kill the quota this year!
What else is going on? Hmm, oh yeah, with all the bad press Toyota is getting, I scored such a great deal on a RAV4, that we bought 2 of em! Don’t believe the media hype. Toyota is a great brand. Sure, lately they’ve been going 0-60 even when you don’t want them too, but hey, how many millions of Toys are on the road??!! Also, we got RAVs that were made in Japan. Only Toyotas made in the USA were recalled. Perfect example of lost in transalation. Anyway, we love our Toys that we might add a 3rd RAV to the family. Yes, we are cracked. Super jank!
Back to poker, I read Justin’s first blog for Bluff magazine. Brotha, how do you do it?! $180k profit in a cash game with Matusow and a few others…popping bottles of Cristal to boot!! Nice job! When’s the housewarming? I want to school you and Anita in ping pong. Justin and Anita moved into a newer, bigger house in the Hollywood Hills so they could have a game room and buy a ping pong table. Good stuff. I love ping pong and I hope to make bets with them. Easy money. If I can find just half the poker success as Justin, I will be happy. Good enough for me.
Pearljammer and Tracey also picked a date for the wedding and I’m so excited for them!! I’m even more excited that I get to be the maid of honor. I have exactly 1 year to lose 15 pounds. Better start soon. But with all the yummy food I’m finding, OMG! It’s gonna be hard! Time to get back to the gym. Nothing else going on. Just gonna keep grinding and dining. Life is good.