SHIP IT!!

My day started with me trying to land PHISH tickets for Mansfield, Mass, now known as the Comcast Center, but I will always know it as Great Woods. Just like the Albany Times Union Center will always be the KNICK to me. I was looking to score as many tickets as I could. Had I only scored one ticket it was going to be shipped to Dr Pauly. Like Otis, I'm not a hardcore PHiSh pfan. I'm more of an old school Dead Head and Creeker (for Max Creek) and kind of got more into Dave Matthews Band then PHISH. I never saw Phish live but did see Saturday Coventry via simulcast with California Rob and Toni, his wife and baby Lauren when they came back east to visit family and friends. Originally Rob had thought about heading up to Coventry for the finale but opted not to. Rob had gone on to become a die-hard Phish fan after his move to California and the Grateful Dead scene fizzled with the death of Jerry Garcia.

After getting shut out by Ticket Bastard of all dead shows other then my mail ordered Albany tickets which were thru Grateful Dead ticket sales (the tried and true method for us hardcore dead heads). I was hopeful I would have better luck with Live Nation. Alas it was not to be, After being parked in the waiting room for three hours, I pulled up another browser only to find that Mansfield was sold-out. Yeah, the concert ticket version of being cold decked was my lot. As, I said to BFF Kim, I can see three days of great music at Mountain Jam V for the same price as paying a broker to see one Dead show at MSG, Worcester or Hartford. Plus Max Creek will be playing local in March at Revolution Hall in Troy, NY and I do love me my Creek. Come to think of it, I have a great idea for Scott if you happen to read this blog post that since one part of KBM is playing Mountain Jam V already (Oteil Burbridge of the Allman Brothers), Max Creek should also have a gig there!!!

Anyway this is a poker blog and you can read about music over on Coventry, so go check out Dr Pauly's post titled: Denied Phish Tickets.... Again (Sub Title: Live Nation Blows Camel Balls).

My first tourney of the day the 3:15 PM 10k guarantee $11 buy-in saw me going no where fast. I eventually decided to just open raise every hand with ATC just to see if i could eventually hit a flop to know avail. Prior to the second break I texted Snake who was deep in the early tourney with the same buy-in and structure that I was all in with ATC next hand as I was hungry and needed to go get dinner. True to my word, I shoved all into someone's preflop raise, with the all powerful T2c the first hand after the second break, got the call and busted out against AT.

I ran out for Chinese Food as I had decided to play the 6:15 PM $22 deep stacker and Snake5970 was deep in his tourney with a ton of chips and I wanted to watch him play. He managed a deep run finishing 43rd of 5364 in the 2 PM 30k guarantee. After the first break of my deep stack, in late position, I look down to KK in a multi way limped pot. I bumped it to $200 with blinds at 25/50 got two callers and one fold and ran into a set of threes (the original limper) who was the table chip leader. Busto

Now I wasn't the most focused player that i know I can be. And I was trying to make things happen and I was forcing things so I decided to give it one more go. Rather then play a DON I looked over the multi-table MTT listings and saw a couple of new things: an $8.80 deep stack 90 man SNG that starts with 3k chips and a $2.20 kind of deep stack 90 man SNG that starts with 2k in chips. Now since i had already blown $33 in buyins and given back a bit of my SNG grinding money I opted to drop down in buyin and play the $2.20 buy-in. And a few hours later I had taken it down. Cross another pokerstars to do for 2009 thing off my list. Win not just a SNG but a Multi-table SNG. Ive never won a 180 man, 90 man or even a 45 man on stars before. I know Ive final tabled them and cashed but I dont think I ever took one down. If I had I would have screen captured it. I actually dont play them all that much.



I guess I was inspired by cash game great and now he can claim live MTT ballah Steve "thorladen" Weinstein's Borgata Winter Poker Open win (after a few near misses of final tables at WPT events). Steve is the stepson (and I believe current or former bridge partner of). of a running friend of mine who I havent seen in a few years since he lives down in Kingston and I don't run competitively anymore. Steve if you read this say hello to Fred for me from Lori. And Congrats on your big score. From what I've read on pocket fives and other boards it was a well deserved win and couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. A few years ago Steve was one of the backers in the August TLB prop bet that involved a group of players taking on Gigabet. For an old profile of Steve click here.

DON's aka Pokerstars Double or Nothing SNG's

I'm not going to be the first person to blog about the DON's or the last.

This isn't going to be a DON strategy article. If you are interested click here for a 2+2 thread.

Yes they can be frustrating when everyone tries to wait each other out, the blinds get high and there are still 10 people left. I was at one table where no one busted and we were 50 minutes in. I think i ram jammed first out on that one.

They are a slow way to build a bankroll. If you only play DON's you will lose your feel for how a large field MTT plays and you will not get any real heads-up or shorthanded experience as you do in a standard SNG since 5 spots pay and you only have to outwit, outplay and outlast 5 other nits.

In the standard non-turbo DON NLHE $5.40 buy-in you win $10 for a net profit of $4.60. If you win one and lose one you lose money.

Here is my way of improving my profit in the DON's:

I play the $2.20 satellite to the Sunday $100k guarantee at 3:30PM Est. If i win a seat I unregister which puts T$11 into my account. I then use the T$ to buy into a $5.40 SNG. If I win that I get $10 cash in my account. In effect i have now only used $2.20 my original satellite entry fee) to win $10 for a profit of $7.80 vs the $4.60 I win if i used $5.40 of cash. Plus i still have T$5.60 left. if I win another $5.40 SNG for $10 its really all profit. So in actuality I have only used $2.20 to win $17.80 ($20 for winning two $5.40 DON's). If i buy in the normal way. I spend $10.80 (2x$5.40) and only win $20 for a net profit of $9.20. I've almost doubled my ROI on the DON's using this method.

Yes it can be a grind much like the cash games but by playing the satellite you are keeping your Mtt skills sharp and by playing the Don's you can slowly grind a bankroll without the swings of cash game play.

Adopt A Rescue Pet Charity Tourney 1/24/2009

DATE: January 24th 2009

TIME: 6:00 PM EST (18:00 hours)

WHERE: Full Tilt Poker listed under private tab

BUY-IN $5 and $5 ($5 to charity the other to the prize pool)

PASSWORD: savepets


Cyndy Violette is sponsoring the on-line tourney for a great cause, the no-kill animal shelter in Las Vegas Nevada. Here is your chance to Knock out a red pro!!

Scott Montgomery's WSOP Bust-out Hand

Snake5970 had previously mentioned this hand to me not so much because of the river beat that Montgomery took but because of Dennis Phillips action after the river card came. So last night while flipping between the Steelers/Ravens game, America's Best Dance Crew and watching former GNR drummer Steve Adler show up to Sober House higher then a kite on smack (heroin), Snake rang me up and told me to flip to ESPN as the hand was coming up again soon enough.

I can't remember seeing anyone mention this. Here is a link to Short-Stacked Shamus recap of the hand where he mentions how graceful Montgomery was on exit. His recap of the hand while watching the ESPN broadcast starts on paragraph 5.

Anyhow, Phillips had mentioned he had mucked the 6. So if you look closely after Montgomery stands up to exit the table, Phillips gets up and rifles thru the muck to pull out his cards to prove he really had mucked the 6 as if some kind of validation was needed. As I said to Snake, the lipstick cameras would have validated his action in case no one believed him. But what inquiring minds want to know is, was Phillip's talked to after doing that by the floor?. It is clearly against tournament rules to go rifling thru the muck. As Snake mentioned that would give you an advantage as to what cards players are ditching and everyone would be doing it. There is a short aerial of someone in a white shirt but no suit jacket talking to Phillips away from the table but its unclear if it was one of Phillips entourage or the floor.

I looked over the PokerNews reporting by F-Train and Change100 and saw nothing mentioned in their live blogging details. F-train usually doesn't miss a beat so I'm wondering if he, the lovely Change100, or Pauly remember if anything was said to Phillips.

For all you American Idol fans out there my Coventry, co-contributer, Change100 will be covering Season 8 of AI over on her personal blog Pot Committed. So BFF Kim, bookmark Change's site to get your AI jones fixed. Not only is Change100 a damn good tournament reporter but as a former insider in the entertainment industry she has an excellent perspective as both a fan and some one who's worked in the industry.

Snake and I were discussing that as of yet there has been no WSOP schedule announced. Last year the actual schedule of events was announced in December (the dates had been announced in October). I don't recall even seeing the date range announced. I'm taking a guess that perhaps they are pushing back the WSOP to late July/August as it was in 2006 perhaps? It's obvious that the November 9 experiment was a winner for ESPN but that there needs to be less of a break between the final table being determined and the actual play down to our winner.

I Bit the Bullet

After too many winblows issues with Outlook Express I migrated my web browser over to Firefox (which I had installed but didn't use favoring Internet Explorer) and my email client to Thunderbird. My email address remains the same. I was extremely pleased when all my emails and entire address book came over from OE.

I made a deep run in the Deepstack $11 Pokerstars tourney yesterday finishing 61st of 1238 and going out on an ugly Pokerstars beat. I 3-bet preflop with pocket JJ I was repopped and called as my opponents range was pretty wide and I figured him for good old AK. Sure enough he has AK, I flop a set but a turned Q gives him Broadway and I cant fill my boat. I worked for peanuts on that one. What sucked is I had more then double the average stack well into the money. Snake5970 checked in on my progress and typed "Geez, i know your well stacked but that is some pile of chips you have!" And a shout out to a local Pokerstars player Ripley1150 (something like that for the numbers) who told me in chat he or she reads my blog and was routing for me. Wish I had the stats of Beufford who is a Hudson Falls poker player (that's Snake and Silo's neck of the woods) who recently finished 2nd in that huge Sunday Million back in December for some sweet cheese and then followed it up with a solid showing in the Sunday warm-up about two weeks ago.

Waiting patiently to see if I will be rewarded with Dead tickets for the Times Union (formerly, the Knick and the Pepsi). The night before mail order began I couldn't sleep. I was the second one at the post office when it opened and the dude right behind me was doing the same thing for Hartford. We made sure we had our index cards, SASE's and correct mailing addresses with each other. I'm a little miffed at the prices of tickets in this economy and that may prevent me from doing more than a couple of shows.

A neighbor in the condo directly across from mine started leaving milk out for a feral cat. Cat's will drink milk but they cant live on milk alone and its a myth that they prefer milk, cat's are carnivores like us. Anyway, the cat took up residence without any shelter on her porch/deck. Her porch is covered by the upstairs condo deck. Another neighbor of mine (Bailey's kitty sitter, Joan; and I sit for her cat Blackie) constructed a cardboard box within a box shelter with some hay for it (I did the first solo box). Kitty has made it thru the bitter cold and took to shelter right away. The good news is I believe it may have been TNR'd (trapped, neutered, released) as a kitten. He/she is missing part of his left ear which usually is a signal to those who try to manage feral cats that the cat has already been captured and fixed . I figure the cat for about 9-10 months or so first noticing him late summer. The bad news is the neighbor leaving the milk out is in her eighties and has the early stages of Alzheimer's/dementia. After telling Joan it was okay for me to leave the first shelter she gave Joan the evil eye like what are you doing on my porch when Joan swapped out the newer better one (still not great but better then nothing). All she says when we tell her the cat won't leave because she feeds it and it needs shelter is "I leave it milk" because she has no short term memory and doesn't remember shit. My project when the weather improves is to move its shelter (hopefully a better one) and food source (Joan and I have been giving him real cat food) to the little wooded area behind my condo on a little hill out of harms way where he can do his thing. He doesn't run as far away from me as he used to but since hes never been socialized to humans he doesn't trust us. I've learned a bit doing some research on ferals, which is quite fascinating. But my message to pet owners who let their cats roam free. Spay and neuter your animals people. Be part of the solution to animal overpopulation and outdoor living cats (the shadow cats that you see everywhere) not a contributor to the problem. Practice TNR if you notice a cat taking up residence in your neighborhood who isnt someone's pet or a stray. There's lots to be learned from watching their behavior. Check out Alley Cat Allies for more info or Neighborhood Cats

Grateful Dead Mail Order begins tomorrow

Head to Coventry for all the info as to ticket prices etc. I've posted a link to the Grateful Dead ticket sales mail order instructions. I know its been a long time for most of us kind people and we all are a little rusty.

Anyway else totally into the new season of 24? Jack Bauer is as badass as ever. Makes up for the missing monday night football games. Im going to be torn between 24 and Heroes.

Off to get my Bauer hour jones fixed. Two hours again tonite!!!

PLO8 MTT win on pokerstars

Well I havent made my goal list but this was one of them for 2009. Win or final table a donkament on pokerstars. Goal accomplished on 01/08/09 at 3 in the morning.

Gank aka Wsop bracelet winner Brett Jungblut was on the rail of this little tourney railing some of his students (I assume they were his students). A few years back he was doing a Q&A and a forum friend of mine fielded him some questions that i asked and it helpd me tremendously with my O8 game. He got to see me take down my first semi large field MTT. I had previous omaha wins on smaller sites like Absolute, Titan and Jetset but never on pokerstars and never in a field over 100.

Now to bed i have to be up in about 4 hours.

Dead Tour -Spring 2009!!!

I put the complete tour schedule up over on Coventry. Pre-sale for mail order should begin 1/13/09 with general ticket sales later in the month.

And yes...............the boyz are coming to Albany's Time Union Center!!!