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It went to the bankroll, of course.

Immediately after the blogger tourney, Absinthe remarked, “Well I think you can sit 5/10 any time you want now.” And that’s more or less what I’ve been doing since Vegas. While I’ve taken shots at the higher limit before, I had no idea how great the psychological difference between being well-funded and under-funded would be.

The swings can be quite dramatic. A few sessions ago I found myself going from an 18BB deficit to a 10BB profit in the span of two orbits while playing three BBJ tables (sure wish I’d been at that table that hit half a mil). Clawing your way out of a hole is tough; save a bet here, extract value there, repeat. Even after I’d made it, I felt like I was still in that hole. The other night I dropped 24BB when my big pairs got cracked, my draws never came, and my big hands never connected.

Fortunately I’ve also had some monster sessions where everything fell into place, more than balancing out the tough and the losing sessions. Tonight reaped 49BB to the good, with a big chunk of it due to a monster 4-way pot where my top pair top kicker stood up against the fish and the maniacs. The betting was capped preflop and on the flop. After that kind of action, would you recommend betting and raising TPTK for value against three loose players on the turn? How about when the board pairs up one of the flop cards on the river?

Most poker sites don’t support the Macintosh. If you use a Mac, you already know this. But Full Tilt Poker has decided to go after that market segment and give them an alternative to PokerRoom. Good for them.

Okay. Go download the new Mac client.

Put bugs in the comments of these blogs:

The Cards Speak

Chicks Dig Poker Geeks

Bill’s Blog

fhwrdh.net

They really like snarky comments about Macintosh client bugs.

Just kidding. Email macbugs@fulltiltpoker.com.

Take crazy LA poker players, inject a lot of cash and a WPT event, and you may just have the best low and middle limit cash games anywhere. The LA Poker Classic runs between January 19 and February 23 at Commerce Casino, about ten miles east of downtown LA.

For you out-of-towners, this is almost certainly a poker trip. The City of Commerce doesn’t offer very much in the way of entertainment outside of outlet shopping and the casino. The casino itself has some diluted California card games, but no craps, roulette, or slots. But it does boast the country’s largest poker room, and the tourney schedule is full of hold ‘em events, for those of you who like to play that game. I’m sure we’ll see HDouble and Joe Speaker out there. And since us LA folk have to drive home, there’s not likely to be much heavy drinking, except for Bill, who just can’t help himself. Okay, Joe Speaker, too.

Anyway, last year I made the mistake of not being there as much as humanly possible, so I’ll make more of an effort this time around. See you there.

I wasn’t kidding when I said I’d be more likely to play the tourney only because PokerStars had kicked in an extra 2 grand. I hate tourneys. I just can’t stand busting out with nothing to show for it. Plus, I figured I’d be nursing a hangover Saturday afternoon. But the injection of cash put a decent overlay on the tourney, more than making up for the juice, and I remember reading on some blog that you should always get in on a tourney with overlay, and I always do what some blogger tells me. Not to mention the fact that this was my first WPBT event, having missed the last two events due to conflicts with grad school, and really, I should just try to have fun in the main event of the weekend.

107 bloggers play for $7350

Over 100 of us paid $65 in exchange for T$2500 in chips and drew seats randomly out of a wireframe barrel. My first draw was for Table 1, Seat 11. After discovering that there was no Seat 11, I redrew for Table 5, Seat 9. I’m afraid that due to my terrible skills as a blogger, I can only point out a few of the guys who shared that table with me. Poker Prof took the 3 seat across from me and F Train took the 7 seat two to my right. I was less than thrilled to see Joe Speaker take the 5 seat. Having sweated a number of his tournaments on Stars, I knew the guy could very well leave me sitting on the rail. We’d tangled before at HDouble’s home game (a.k.a. the Infamous Home Game, Murderer’s Row, Suckout Circle) where Joe had made a couple of good stands against my aggression, first doubling through and then knocking me out. Luckily, his weren’t the blinds I’d be after.

Shuffle up and deal. Wee….
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Unfortunately I don’t have any good photos of the final table or the winning hand. If anyone out there has a few, I’d really love to get copies via email.

You were probably there, or you’ve read it on someone else’s blog, but here it is again anyway:

I won the blogger tourney.

I’m going to hold off on the full report until later, but I wanted to take the time to acknowledge some people here who made this all possible.

Bill Rini. He did a stellar job organizing the entire event, and we should all thank him for stepping up and undertaking this task. All I had to do was show up.

Bob Cohen and the Imperial Palace. They get a big hand for welcoming the WPBT with open arms and giving poker bloggers the recognition they deserve for promoting the game. Any of you who are still there, give ‘em some play.

Otis, Wil Wheaton, and the rest of the PokerStars crew. Stars kicked in another 2k into the prize pool and brought prizes and swag galore. Their continued support for players and bloggers puts them in position to knock PartyPoker off its perch as top poker site.

Hdouble. For reminding me that Q7 was the favorite. K7 seemed like it might do just as well.

All the bloggers. Friendliest bunch of random people I ever met on the Internet. Thanks for all your kind words and giving me some tough decisions to make during the game. Again, I’m sorry for sucking out on you. You rock.

See you this afternoon.

There are 75 bands in this photo. Can you find them all?

Click the image for the large version. Feel free to put your answers in the comments, but one band per comment, please!

The Free Press: Powerful Government Accountability Office report confirms key 2004 stolen election findings

GAO report:ELECTIONS - Federal Efforts to Improve Security and Reliability of Electronic Voting Systems Are Under Way, but Key Activities Need to Be Completed