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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....

The early levels

I got good cards. I was aggressive. I stole blinds from time to time. I folded my tens when Joe Speaker raised to 3xBB and F Train reraised to 8xBB (with the hammer and pocket jacks, respectively). I limp-reraised Joe Speaker from UTG with pocket Kings. I stole the Poker Prof's big blind with the Jackhammer, but no one cheered. Grubby got moved to our table and got knocked out when his Jacks lost to cowboys. The Prof eventually busted and fhwrdh took his place. I slowly built up a stack and by the third break I found I was at or near the chip lead with T$31.5k. fhwrdh had T$29k. At this point, it occurred to me that I had a good chance to finish well, and more than that, two of the LA scene had a shot at the top.

Moving up

Level 10 started with T$1000/2000 blinds. At some point, I more than doubled up someone whom I believe was Otis' brother when I called his short-stacked all-in raise with a dominated ATo. On at least one other occasion against another player, he managed to have the goods even while raising short-stacked. I stayed out of his way with some of my weaker holdings. But it was around this time that I really understood what Doyle said about building up a stack; he was going to need those chips for when he went into a hand as a big dog. Surviving that kind of confrontation relies not only on your actions at that moment, but your actions up to it. Of course, it could also get you busted early.

I also stayed away from fhwrdh, concentrating mostly on pressuring the short-stacks, particularly when we were getting closer to the money. I had a decent stack, but I knew I was racing the blinds more than anything else and couldn't afford to sit pretty. My stack dwindled a bit, and then I got really lucky twice. I was holding eights when there was an early position raise to 3xBB. I spent some time thinking it over, put him on a big ace, then pushed. It was folded around to the raiser, who spent just as much time thinking it over, then decided to call. Great call. My eights were dead to his tens until an eight appeared on the turn, saving me from being crippled and putting me back into the table chip lead.

When the blinds were T$2000/4000, I found A4s in the CO and raised fhwrdh's big blind. We both had between T$25k-30k and I thought I'd widen the gap a little. Unfortunately he woke up with kings and raised all-in. I knew he had a good hand, but I was getting 3:1 for my call, a shot at a dominating chip lead, and, er, they were sooted. An ace on the flop knocked out the 2:1 favorite, sending fhwrdh literally roaring over to the bar for booze. I think I owe Kong a drink at the next home game.

The bubble gave me an opportunity to keep building the stack, and when we made the final table, I had T$72k, or 27% of the tournament chips. Even so, I tried to downplay my expectations, telling myself I could get at least sixth place, but planning to play for first. I've played in a few tournaments where I've pissed away a large stack due to end-game or near-bubble impatience, so I didn't want to get too excited.

Final Table

When we got to the final table, I laid low for a while. There were a few short-stacks at the table, and now that we were in the money, they'd be more willing to gamble it up for a shot at advancing a couple places. Plus my at the bubble, short-handed raising hands were generally full-ring folding hands. I got lucky once more when I raised with AJo ("It's gold, I tell ya!" --Joe Speaker) and cracked -EV's kings with a flopped ace. I also made a badly-timed steal attempt at Gracie's short-stack with J8s when her queens helped her double up against me. This was followed by Gracie knocking out much of the table, with an incredible run of cards.

Gracie was pretty cool to observe. There's nothing more disarming than hearing her say to the small blind to her right, "How much do you have there? Because I'm going to put you all-in." Especially if you're the small blind and the action's on you. When it got down to 3 and she and I were close to even, Gracie kept stating that she just didn't know how to play the big stack. I chided her once when she folded her small blind to the big blind. She repeated the comment about not knowing how to play the big stack. Then, as soon as she knocked out the third place finisher with pocket rockets (again!), she looked at me and said, "You know, I may not know how to play the big stack, but I play heads-up matches almost exclusively." I need to work on my psychological banter.

Somewhere in the background, HDouble told me to remember that Q7 was the cutoff.

We had started discussing a deal when we were four-handed, but the action continued faster than we could work it out, and once the stacks became disproportionately uneven, the deal talk petered out. I brought it up again once we were heads-up, willing to go either way, but Gracie had a 5:3 advantage and said, "Those guys wouldn't let me do it," waving to the railbirds calling her name. I accepted and continued to play.

A couple hands later, I had AQ in the small blind and raised to T$40k (T$4000/8000 blinds). Gracie raised me all-in and I called. Her small/medium ace didn't hold up and I doubled up to T$200k. Gracie asked ironically, "Still want to make a deal?" I'm not sure if I answered or not, but with everything going on around me and on the table, I may have mumbled something that trailed off.

It might have been another couple hands when I got K7 in the small blind. I consciously thought, "Hey, that's better than Q7," and raised to T$40k. Gracie raised all-in another T$20k with JT. No help for Gracie and the river brought a 7 to give me a pair.

"Aren't you glad we didn't make a deal?!"

It's over

Wow. I had outlasted 106 bloggers and their friends to defend LA's title in the WPBT. Appropriately enough, first prize was $2572. Offsuit.

I was drained, in disbelief, and ecstatic.

Bloggers came up to me to congratulate me and introduce themselves. "You're Mean Gene?" "Hey, Poker Nerd! How are you? What's your real name again?!" (I never said I wasn't occasionally socially awkward). Hey, Alan! And all the while I had no time to really talk to anyone in the flurry of it all.

So once again, thanks to all the bloggers for making my first trip so memorable.

And I'm still sorry I sucked out on you. But maybe not that sorry.

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