I often hear that winning in tournament poker requires a dose of luck, so provided you play good poker in enough tournaments, you'll make it deep and win from time to time. Like this guy.
I had more than my share of good luck on Sunday in the PokerStars 2nd Annual World Blogger Championship of Online Poker.
Lucky Break #1
I was seated at a table where 6 of the 9 players were sitting out and never showed up to play. Not only did that mean all the blinds one could steal, but also a lot of short-handed pressure play. Once I knocked out the player to my left (AQ vs AT, A high flop), it was heads-up play with a 2:1 chip advantage and a positional advantage (seat 9 vs 6).
Lucky Break #2
While heads-up with seat 6, I called a min-raise with a suited Q. The flop came K high, all in my suit. Check, check. The turn put a non-threatening card on the board. Another check from the raiser and I put out a normal sized bet. He called. The river pairs the board and seat 6 wakes up with a sizable bet. I raised a few times the size of his bet and he re-raised. I thought about it, discounted the possibility of the boat or the higher flush, and put him all in. He had a suited J for the 3rd nut flush and I was sitting on a lot of chips.
Lucky Break #3
At level 13, with blinds/antes at 1000/2000/100, I found myself getting short (m of 5.6). I steal-raised to 4xBB from the button with a suited K, but laid it down to an all-in re-steal. In desperate shape, I re-raised the short stack's all-in with a pair of sixes. Unfortunately, Columbo quickly called all-in with his pair of queens. The short stack had AK and the flop came down Ah As 2s, leaving me with 2 outs twice or running spades to win. Then the beat: a 6h on the turn. This was probably not as bad as the beat I handed out last December, but it was pretty bad. I apologized in the PokerStars chat and on IRC, but I'm not sure if anyone bought it. With that CJ-esque suckout, my stack was back in the playable range.
The Rest
Honestly I don't remember the rest too well. I do remember not wanting to win a Letterman jacket. I've got one of those. :) The iPod mini would have been nice, and I would have preferred it over the $215 seat in the Sunday Million or even the $370 seat in the WSOP Satellite. Once it got down to the 10th place bubble, I took a few opportunities to steal some blinds/antes, but probably not as many as I should have.
At the final table, I made some bold moves, knowing that 9th place would pay just as well as 2nd, and bold moves were needed to come in 1st. Unfortunately, trying to push someone off a hand by re-raising all-in in response to his re-raise of your raise doesn't always work. Especially if you have 99 and he has a pair of kings. Strangely enough, I survived that hand with a few chips, survived the next with a crazy 7 high straight, and finally went out in 6th place.
Once again, a big thank you to all the people who cheered me on and gave me encouragement. These things are always more fun with friends watching.
Get this video and more at MySpace.com
Just a few days remain until the world’s bloggers will compete in the biggest blogger freeroll on the planet. PokerStars’ World Blogger Championship of Online Poker (WBCOOP) is this Sunday at 4:00pm ET. The stakes are high. The online scribes will be competing for more than $37,000 worth of prizes, including a seat in the 2006 World Series of Poker main event.
To make the event even more interesting, PokerStars has just placed bounties on the heads of five well-known bloggers and personalities.
...
All except Wil Wheaton.
Knocking him out gets you a hat, shirt, and fleece, inscribed with the words "I knocked Wil Wheaton out of the BCOPB and all I got was this lousy t-shirt." That's right, it's not even customized for the particular article of clothing it's on.
Strange things are afoot at Stars HQ.
(AP) - DAMASCUS, Syria-Syria signed a US$127 million deal with an American oil company Monday despite U.S. sanctions on the country, the official Syrian news agency reported Tuesday.
The state-owned Syrian Oil Company signed a 25-year contract with the U.S. Marathon Oil Company Monday for oil and gas exploration in central Syria, the agency said. The agreement is renewable every 5 years.
In May 2004, U.S. President George W. Bush banned all U.S. exports to Syria except for food and medicine, in accordance with the Syria Accountability Act - a law passed a year earlier that calls for sanctions against Syria for its alleged support of terrorism. The ban does not cover oil companies, however, and there are several U.S. oil companies operating in Syria.
I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!
This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.
Registration code: 2623727
I hope I do better than last time. Hell, I hope I remember to play!
All the original NBC 4 videos:
2003-11-07: http://www.nbc4.tv/video/2620224/detail.html
2006-04-21: http://www.nbc4.tv/video/9152183/detail.html
2006-05-03: http://www.nbc4.tv/video/9155837/detail.html
2006-05-24: http://www.nbc4.tv/video/9265802/detail.html
I knew they took advantage of customers' fears and sold them services they didn't need, and I also knew they were horrible at what they did, but I didn't know they were cheating, lying, sons of bitches.
It's also been the cause of many late nights over the past few months as we worked to provide all the core functionality of MySpace on a mobile platform. Now you can read and send messages, bulletins, comments, and blogs, browse and upload pictures, and make and accept friends on your phone. Sorry, you won't be able to check out the WPBT Group on MySpace.
Helio is a brand-new mobile phone company, an MVNO joint-venture between Earthlink and SK Telecom. With all-you-can-eat data-inclusive plans, high-definition screens, and features like MySpace Mobile, they're going after the kids who want more from their mobile device than voice.
And no, I didn't shell out the $250 for the Kickflip. :)
It's been a while since that post, and I owe it to everyone to let people know how thing's are coming along. Unfortunately, things haven't really gotten better. Here's the latest news from Christine, posted to her site forum yesterday:
For more information on Christine, including the latest news and upcoming events, check out SaveChristine.com. If you are of Filipino descent and are considering a marrow donation, please go to www.marrow.com or call 1(800) MARROW2 to find the closest location to take the test and register for the national bone marrow registry. Even if you are not a match for Christine, you might be able to help someone else. There's really no commitment at any step of the process, so if at some point you change your mind and decide to withdraw, that's perfectly fine.
Thanks for reading.
And these are his videos:
I swear to Tom we didn't have anything to do with this. We're not that clever.
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