Wolfman, Shutter Island, and Alice in Wonderland.

by Phil

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The last three days I saw each of these three movies.  Here is what I thought.

Wolfman.  78.  The transformations were cool, but the final wolfman faces were sort of lame.  Also, I didn't like the continuity errors in the fight scene at the end.  On the plus side, Hopkins was great, and it was fun to see Mr Smith from the Matrix appear as the detective guy.

Shutter Island.  77.  It was cool enough.  Though the ending needed a bit of tidying up for me to give it a higher grade.  It was decently eerie where it was supposed to be.

Alice in Wonderland.  76.  How could they not stay true to the original story?  Did the screen writers even bother to read the original?  And where was the daring stuff.  Seemed all too easy to digest.  Come on man!  This is Tim Burton, I want more... The guy is a genius after all... I just expected more.  Ho hum.

Sleep Roll

by Phil

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Forgot to mention this.  But during the LAPC I was in a game I just could not quit.  During this 60 hour session there were moments where I began to dooze off.

Anyway, one hand came up where I fell asleep for part of it and also for the showdown part.  This was my first ever sleep roll.  I was so out of it that I almost forgot to turn over the winning hand!  Someone commented that I had accidently slow rolled the guy, but I hadn't.  It was merely a sleep roll.  My first ever. Somehow I found my way out of that haze to have a moment of clarity.  I corrected him with the newly coined term and then promptly went back to my sleep deprived self.  Everyone had a good laugh. 

And so a new term was forged that day.  However, it is a term that most likely will never go mainstream as one of the players has to be asleep for part of the hand to qualify.  But thought I would mention it for what its worth.

Phil

25k Venetian... LAPC... Flood stuff... NBC heads up stuff

by Phil

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25k Venetian... I was the first one out on my table.  A very fast downtick.  My last hand was Kc 10c vs 5c 6c on a 2c 3c 4s board.  I bricked out and Super Josiah Cassidy not only won the hand, but won the heat.  The fellow who won both heats and therefore the whole event... Ashton Griffon.  I would later meet him at the LAPC and liked him out of the gate.  He is a smart guy, in his own world, and had a funny hat.  What's not to like?  (As a random aside I did some radio thing last week where I was told we would be the guests.  We were, but instead of being on at the same time, we were spaced one after another.)     : (            BTW, if you want to kill and hour of your life here is a link to that interview...   http://pokercast.twoplustwo.com/listen_and_browse.php

LAPC...  The LAPC was intricately woven into my flood fiasco... (The running tab on the damage from that is so nasty gross I nearly don't feel like putting it to print.  Whatever.... Ok, so I mega spaced donked and have now loast countless hours dealing with insurance people that are trying to underpay and contractors trying to get overpaid.  It is the biggest blunder I have managed in ... well....  maybe ever... not sure.)  The LAPC was woven into the flood mishap as I have not had such a demon desire to crush games in a long time.  The way I saw it was that I needed lots of money to soften the pain from the flood damage.  At times I refused to sleep.  There was one game that I was determined to never quit.  I gave up after 60 hrs as I had a flight, and missing it would have been bad.  It was a 100 100 plo / 100 200 nlh game that eventually morphed into a 100 100 plo game with loads of straddles and restraddles, super mega deep stacks and lots of testosterone.  I smashhed it.  It felt good.  (The 10k event became a tiny speck of a memory compared to all the sloshing about I did in the cash games.)  I can only thank the poker gods for those games.

Flood Stuff....  I don't want to get into it.  It is the only thing that has tilted me in years.  When I move back into the apt and the last bill is paid I will give you an overview of the whole thing from a hindsight perspective... This hopefully wont be as tilting as me trying to talk about it during the pain.

NBC heads up stuff.... First round pick.  John Juanda.  Won it.  Played good 'cept for one donk play... (Calling with A2 os where I should have folded... but other than that... liked how I played it.)   Second round was Phil Gordon.  That one went my way as well.  The really sick thing was how it all ended.  With a chip lead I made a speculative call to his all in with Qs9s.  He had K5os and by the turn I was down to needing a 10 or he was doubling up.  I binked it.  No problem.  10 ball.  10 of clubs to be exact.  Wow.  It fell on to the table like it was meant to be.  It was a huge card as now I was in the money.  But his reaction to it was super visceral.  It had been a while since I have seen a player have a mega twitch cringe reaction to a bad card.  But now I can say I saw it close up and very recent.  It is a massive favorite to make the cut as his whole body recoiled in pain.  Sorry Phil.  I can be decently sypathetic/empathetic on those moments... and for sure I could feel his pain.

In my third heat I was grinding Jason Mercier down for a bit, and it was looking rosy... but then, as it sometimes happens in poker...  things slipped away.  I had a few mega crowbar hands and failed to get max value as I played them (I think) too fast.  Also I am not a big fan of a big (preflop) call I made towards the end with only King high, but in hindsight I see that I was influenced by his multiple previous all in moves.  None the less, I think more caution was called for.  All in all I showed a profit (Entry 20k, won 25k, net win = 5k) and had some fun, though it would have been nice to penetrate deeper where the phat money was.  Ho hum.

I have been in a poker blur... which is nice... I like poker blurs.  This current blur is going to wind down with the BAY 101 10k event that starts in 3 days.  After that event I will be in chill mode from March 15th to about April 7th.  Not much poker (I predict) for those 3 weeks.  One thing for sure is that I will be finally racking out the surf board - stoked! 

I can be in mega poker mode for weeks on end (and have been) so it will be nice to get this 3 week break.  I love taking breaks as I always return hungry and sharp.  The music is sometimes in the space between the notes.  April holds great promise for turning into a poker blur as the Bellagio will be hosting the 25k event that month.  

More later....

Phil 

2010 NBC Heads-up Poker Championship

by Chad Holloway

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The NBC National Heads-up Championship line-up was recently released.  I always get excited for this tournament.  Not only does it attract some of the best in the business, but it provides a great Fantasy Poker opportunity.  Like March Madness, this tournament format allows Fantasy Poker players to fill out a bracket and compete against other players.  It is fun and easy to do and seems to give me a rooting interest in the outcome.  The official match-ups aren’t revealed until the day before at the official draw party, so you won’t be able to fill out the brackets until then.  If you’re looking for a printable, blank bracket, I recommend doing a quick internet search.

So what do I think of this year’s line-up?  Well of course there are the usual suspects, those who qualify for the tournament each and every year.  These include the past winners (Ted Forrest, Phil Hellmuth, Paul Wasicka, Chris Ferguson and Huck Seed), the past two year’s runner-ups (Vanessa Rousso and Andy Bloch), the recent WSOP Main Event winners (Greg Raymer, Joseph Hachem, Jamie Gold, Jerry Yang, Peter Eastgate, and Joe Cada), and the last WSOP Main Event runner-up (Darvin Moon).  It should be fun to see how Cada and Moon fair after their epic WSOP heads-up battle.

I am pretty excited about some of the other players who managed to qualify based on their performances at the WSOP and other tournaments around the world. These include Phil Ivey, Sam Farha, Brock Parker, Greg Mueller, Leo Wolpert, Peiter de Korver, Eric Baldwin, and Jason Mercier.  Both Baldwin and Mercier are coming off stellar years and I have a feeling that at least one of these two will go deep in the event.

I was shocked that a couple invitees have declined to participate including the reigning WSOP Player of the Year, Jeffrey Lisandro, and WSOP-Europe winner, Barry Shulman.  Both would have needed to fork over the $20,000 buy-in (all players do except the internet qualifiers), but it’s still hard to imagine that they’d pass on such a great opportunity.  The selection committee did a good job on extending invites to both Annette Obrestad, the 2007 WSOP-Europe champion and recent 21 year-old, and Kara Scott, the new High Stakes Poker host.  Likewise, both Jesper Hougaard and John Paul Kelly, both winners of a WSOP and a WSOPE bracelet in a single calendar year (2008 and 2009), are competing and should give the European fans someone to root for.  Speaking of which, I’ve been waiting for years to see Dave “Devilfish” Ulliott and Tony G compete in the tournament (selection committee get on that).

The celebrities are great but not too exciting since they’ve all been there before (Don Cheadle, Orel Hershiser, and Gabe Kaplan); however, it should be exciting to see Jennifer Tilly back in the poker saddle.  I’m also not sure about having seven internet qualifiers.  Sure, it’s nice to give them a chance, but it’d be kind of boring if two unknowns make it to the final round.

The following players competed in 2009 but weren’t invited back for 2010: Layne Flack, Chad Brown, Scott Fischman, Ivan Demidov, David Pham, John Phan, Kenny Tran, Jonathan Little, Glen Chorny, Brad Garrett, Gavin Griffin, Vanessa Selbst, David Benyamine, Clonie Gowen, J.C. Tran, and Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies.  I don’t see any names on here that are particularily surprising.  I could see both Sahamies and Benyamine getting spots, but I guess they’ll have to wait until next year.

So who are my picks?  Its hard to say since the brackets haven’t been announced yet, but I think that Baldwin and Mercier are safe bets.  I’m also thinking Gus Hansen will find success this year; however, I think the man to take it down will be none other than the Unabomber himself, Phil Laak.  Sure, I might be biased since I write for his blog, but aside from that I think his recent result speak for themselves.  He kicked ass in the Premier League heats and the World Open V.  I have a feeling he is going to carry that momentum into this event.

The NBC Heads-up Championship takes place March 4-7 at Caesars Palace.  The tournament itself will air on NBC in the spring.  I’ll be sure to blog about the tournament’s happenings, so check back here for updates.  The complete list of participants, in alphabetical order, is found below:

Patrik Antonius, Eric Baldwin, Andy Bloch, Doyle Brunson, Joe Cada, Johnny Chan, Don Cheadle, Allen Cunningham, Pieter de Korver, Annie Duke, Tom Dwan, Peter Eastgate, Eli Elezra, Antonio Esfandiari, Sam Farha, Chris Ferguson, Ted Forrest, Jamie Gold, Phil Gordon, Barry Greenstein, Bertrand Grospellier, Joe Hachem, Gus Hansen, Jennifer Harman, Phil Hellmuth, Orel Hershiser, Jesper Hougaard, Phil Ivey, John Juanda, Gabe Kaplan, John Paul Kelly, Phil Laak, Howard Lederer, Erick Lindgren, Mike Matusow, Jason Mercier, Dario Minieri, Chris Moneymaker, Darvin Moon, Greg Mueller, Daniel Negreanu, Scotty Nguyen, Annette Obrestad, Brock Parker, Dennis Phillips, Greg Raymer, Vanessa Rousso, Kara Scott, Huck Seed, Erik Seidel, Mike Sexton, Gavin Smith, Jennifer Tilly, Paul Wasicka, David Williams, Leo Wolpert, and Jerry Yang.