Lorin and Travis blog gets tons of comments, primarily abusive as both players are professional shot stack grinder’s and this seem to engender a level of vitriol that is normally only reserved for child abusers and Ashley Cole. A cursory flick through the comments section and you will see what I mean.

Now I’ve heard all the arguments about short stacker’s (SS) killing the games etc, which if they where all playing solid SS strategy, which when employed perfectly is pretty much un-exploitable then yes they probable would be harming the games, but lets be honest in the main SS are like all other poker players, a mixed bunch at best.

There are the tough SS like Lorin and Travis but there quite easy to spot and it’s just the age old issue of game selection, if I find myself at a table with one or two good SS, then I just pick the fuck up, same as I would facing a couple of good full stackers.

So where does the anger come from? I really don’t know to be honest. I know what I find it annoying, and that’s Rakeback sites that have been training and employing farms of short stackers in Eastern Europe. But that’s not a personal dislike, its just an abuse of poker I resent and I’m quite happy that I-Poker at least are making moves to make this unprofitable with changes in the distribution of rake to players and how they pay skins.

I could never hate someone just because the way they play a game, it all seems very odd to me, maybe though I might feel differently if I was playing 10 tables for 8 hours day.

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I picked a table where an opponent was already seated, I selected this particular table because although he was only half stacked, my opponent was sitting with an odd amount €49.70 or so. I like to look for these guy’s because it’s often there full roll and there on mega tilt trying to get back losses after a bad run at the micro’s.

After a half a dozen hands or so my opponent moves about 10 euro’s up on me and its playing like almost any other game. Then a hand comes up that requires me to check/call to the river on a scary board with my top pair no kicker being not much more than a bluff catcher, my opponent has a missed draw and we find ourselves level.

I mentioned this hand because it seemed to be the catalyst for some very strange poker, I raise the next pot, my opponent folds, my opponent then fold there small blind. And this continues to be the pattern for the next 20 or 30 hands as my opponent blinds down to €20, A little strange but nothing a really, really shitty run of cards wouldn’t explain.

Once my opponent dipped below €20 they started to auto rebuy to the minimum buy-in of €20 but they continued to fold to every raise, one change is that they are now limping the occasional small blind and then folding to my flop bets. They re-bought exactly 10 times and then continued to play in this extremely passive manner until they reached €6 where they opened €3 with K10 and called my shove with 99 and I won the flip. I typed in GG, no response but they wouldn’t leave the seat, I asked them to reload or move on, no response, I called them a world class fish, no response.

As mentioned I have a feeling this was a malfunctioning bot with my check call with top pair acting triggering some kind of glitch, but maybe I only think this because I haven’t played a weak passive like this in a long, long time. Maybe I really did manage to find the last player in online poker who hasn’t developed an aggressive stance. Either way I’ll be watching for there name online and jumping on a table with them every opportunity I get!

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This reminds me when I first started playing poker and people would just throw numbers at me, “your 8.5-1 to flop a set” or “you shouldn’t call there with the flush draw because you’re a 34% underdog against any set” etc etc. That was all along time ago and during my early day’s playing poker I learned most of the key numbers by heart, just recently though I realised I didn’t have a clue anymore.

I couldn’t be arse to relearn them all and the truth is after a while you really shouldn’t need to know the chance of making your hand to three decimal places anyway. I think the set making stat is interesting, we know it’s about 8.5 to one but should be fold if we are only getting 7-1?

This would have to be very player dependant decision; personally I can’t see how it can be incorrect to call when getting less than 8.5-1 if you know your opponent is an absolute calling station. Surely as our opponent’s ability goes down our implied odd’s go up and there can’t be many players at the lower stakes that can fold top pair type hands against what is after all the silent assassin of poker, the set.

Instead of relearning all the key numbers periodically, you just need to know if your getting value because at the end of the day if you really want to play the game bad enough you can manipulate most hand’s so your always getting the right price to call with any draw!

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I have been concentrating on two relatively new formats that are solely available online, the ‘Super Turbo Head-Up’ and the ‘Double Up’ sit and go formats. The truth is that poker rooms have spread both of these formats for two very specific, yet totally different reasons.

Super Turbo’s are there for the gamblers pure and simple, the only reason it’s possible to make a profit playing them at all is the quality of the players these games attract is lower than normal and more importantly most poker players are very poor at  playing with small effective stacks in heads-up situations.

The Double up games have been invented to keep players in action longer thus raking more for the online rooms, there actually very good for solid players with experience of satellite bubbles and are a good way to build a bank roll, they are primarily profitable because there is almost always a couple of nutters playing for the win.

And as much as playing high volumes of these game formats can be good for the hourly return, they are actually very simple forms of poker and will not stretch a good player very much. You will primarily be learning how to better exploit players who don’t understand how to play the format and will do much less for your all round poker playing ability than playing the same volume at a 1Cent/2Cent cash table. 

To avoid your game becoming staid yet still exploiting these profitable formats I would recommend;

Playing quality opponents will allow creative thinking and gives you that extra edge over your regular opponents over time, so maybe try joining a site like Black Belt Poker who hold regular low buy-ins against quality opposition.

Although volume is essential for exploring the sheer number of hands and situations that can develop and is also important for your hourly or monthly income from poker, be aware that certain formats have deeper levels than others.

Find the right balance for you when your multi tabling and make sure you challenge yourself occasionally to avoid becoming too robotic in your play.

Dedicate time a significant part of your poker playing time into studying your own and your opponent’s game, this is just as important as putting in the hands.

Thanks to all the guy’s at Black Belt Poker that shared there thoughts on this interesting topic and for Nik Persuads original article here, that inspired the debate.

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Soon the internet was awash with poorly conceived and badly managed poker room’s and each had there very own platform built with varying degrees of competence. Unfortunately some quickly learnt the hard lesson that the surfaces of the internet’s super highways were not exactly paved with gold and they soon fell by the wayside. But still others grew and grew and as nature intended the strong preyed upon the weak and grew stronger still.

As technology advanced and start up costs spiralled ever upwards the concept of the white labelled poker room or ‘skin’ as they became known, was born. This of course dramatically reduced the overheads of launching a new online card room and on paper at least would allow the two parties to benefit from each other strengths, i.e. allow the poker network to concentrate on building a robust and slick infrastructure and the online room to focus on recruiting new players and offering a 1st rate customer service.

And for a while all seemed happy in the rose garden of shared poker infrastructure, and why wouldn’t it? After all white labelling is a model successfully used in many other industries, well actually here in lies the problem, poker isn’t like any other industry.

With numerous poker rooms of vastly different size and scale existing under the same roof, sharing the same player base soon many, many problems became apparent. The behemoth rooms on the network where spending vast sum’s of money to attract new players to the network which of course was good for everyone, but it soon became apparent it was actually much better for some than others.

Marketing people love graphs, they fucking love them, and one day a probably pony tailed ponce from one of the giant rooms that existed on the network was staring at a pie chart with lots of lovely colours when something occurred to him, there numbers where shit.

You see this pie chart was an extrapolation of the amount of money spent to recruit each depositing customer cross referenced with the amount each new depositing customer would be raking, and boy there was a lot of red ink on this chart.

So they had figured it out, they where spending $20 dollars per newly depositing customer recruited and on average these players where depositing on average $200 but they where only getting paid $15 in rake! A net loss of $5 per new customer recruited.

Initially of course they thought the other large rooms on the network must be doing something much better than them, but after some low key discussions it became clear the main opposition where seeing the same trend within there own numbers.

After some investigation it became obvious that the players they where recruiting just weren’t good enough and that the smaller skins on the network had done an outstanding job of recruiting all the best players by offering vastly superior under the counter rack back deals and in some cases training there players to be better. The small rooms had another advantage, most of there customer came through mail shot’s and direct contact so they could spend bugger all on advertising aimed at recruiting new players and instead concentrate all there efforts on bringing in high raking players.

So the big guys cried foul to the overlords of the shared poker network, who immediately banned rake back deals and tried to even the playing field by introducing fines to the smaller rooms for withdrawals from the network and not bringing in new depositors which the poorly disguised intention of driving them out of business.

And eventually all was good in the rose garden of shared poker infrastructure as the site was now divided up amongst the large networks all of an equal size with similar business models, and everybody won, apart from the little skins of course and their customers who got fucked out of money.

THE END.

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Just been on the receiving end of a tirade, one day PokerStars will offer the opportunity to play music across the tables, when they do I’m recording and uploading this.

So long and thanks for all the chips,
So sad you paid off my flopped trips,
Please don’t cry your Donkey tears.

You may not share our intellect,
Which might explain the disrespect,
To all the players that surround you,
So long, So long, and thanks, for all the chips.

You act like your worlds been destroyed,
Theres no point getting all annoyed,
Next time maybe you can find a fold, but I doubt it.

Despite those abusive chat box words,
We thought your tilting although absurd,
Quite amusing, apart for the sexist abusing,
So long, So long, So long, So long, So long,
(high voice) So long, So long, So long, So long, So long, So long,
So long, So long, and thanks, for all the chips.

(Choir) So long and thanks for all the chips,
(Choir) So sad that it should come to this,
(Choir) Please don’t cry your Donkey tears, oh dear.

(Choir) Despite those abusive chat box words,
(Choir) We thought your tilting quite amusing,
(Choir) Apart for the racist and sexist abusing,
So long, So long, So long, So long, So long,
(high voice) So long, So long, So long, So long, So long,
So long, So long and thanks, for all the chips.

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It was so arbitrary, it didn’t matter if they had a decision to actually make or whether this was the first delay they had caused he was just so impatient, this coupled with the fact he called everything down to the river regardless of the board or his holding “just in case they where bluffing” made watching him play extremely painful.

So recently I was disappointed to find myself bashing the Z key frantically in much the same manner, I was playing Omaha cash games across fours tables I had to continually wait for half the table to act on all four!

The increasing number of player’s multi-tabling has seen a major slow down of online games and there are a number of players who clearly aren’t very good at it., Jesus if Islidur1 can multi-table highstakes games against Antonius, Durrrr and Ivey with no discernible delays then this .25/.50 should be able to manage it!

The long term affects of a continual slow down of the games might be extremely negative and online poker might become a much less attractive proposition to the causal gambler looking for a quick fix.

Another bug bear is PokerStars and there never closing bloody tournaments till the first break. Half the time you sit down and think I’ll play a quick tournie with only 100 or so registered and you find with the extended registration that after the first break there’s more than double the number you started with still in the game!

The feeling something weird had just happened to me just wouldn’t go away but after running through the key hands in my mind over and over I felt that each flop, turn, river in isolation had pretty much played themselves. Flopped straight and flush draw losing to a bigger flush, bottom two against top two, flopped set losing to riverd straight you know the sort of things that happen when someone is totally holding over you. But still the thought that I was missing something just wouldn’t leave me, maybe I needed to take a look at a more complete picture.

There is an inherent problem with the human mind that it tends to concentrate on highlights, we focus on the big dramatic pots and forget about the seventeen little pots that made the monster pot happen. So I decided to review each and every hand in the order they had been played, and as I worked by way through by poker tracker database I started to realise what I had done wrong, which was pretty much everything.

One thing that should have been apparent to me early was that my opponent had scant regard for position; in fact he called almost every single positional raise I made. Yet at no point did I think about changing my strategy and tightening up my raising range, I continued to raise 80% of my buttons thus effectively turning the game into a showdown match against an opponent who couldn’t miss.

I have often wondered if it’s possible to play position so aggressively that you effectively negate any positional advantage you where trying to exploit, and now I know it is and it only cost me six buy-ins to find out, bargain! Upon full review it was clear that I was playing so overly aggressive I had become an implied odd’s multiplier and with deep stacks and an opponent who was two and three barrelling at everything my opponent was correct to call with everything and just let me build huge pots every time they hit.

So upon full review it was obvious I had run into a lot of cooler situations but the way I was playing gave me absolutely no chance of getting away from them. What seemed like fishy play from my opponent wasn’t, and where I had failed and committed the cardinal sin of heads-up poker my opponent had succeeded magnificently, in that he had made the correct adjustment to maximise his return, and boy he got a return I made sure of that!

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Having reached my goal of running my initial $50 deposit to just over $1,500 in double quick time, about six weeks all told and then taking a break last week I was really looking forward to playing some quality Heads-up poker at the $50+ levels, slow structure games. After all the HUP super turbo strategy I had been employing is effective but simple and extremely repetitive and I was concerned my poker instincts might have become a bit dulled.

Sorry to digress but if your interested in trying this king of spin-up it for yourself here the formula, start at the $2 games with whatever you can afford, move up stakes every time you have 35 buy-ins at the next level and drop down every time your bankroll dips below 30 buy-ins. I found that the simplest strategy was the most effective, so I was limping with any marginal holdings and playing as many flops as the bad players would allow me too, hopefully I would flop big and they would make a mistake. If no opportunities arose or my opponent turned out to be decent I would just sit tight for the small amount of time it would take to get to the push and fold stages of 7BB effective stacks then start pushing any Q and calling with any K, it really was this straight forward.

The real trick though is in the volume, I can comfortably four or five table super turbos because as I say the strategy I employed was so simple, these super fast games attract the steamers and the gamblers so when you add an element of high volume you can really iron out variance the variance and this leads to a profitable recipe. If you decide to try it yourself good luck and let me know how you get on.

Anyway having been concentrating on this rather simple yet manic format when I returned to my staple games I found my ranges sort of all over the place. All of a sudden I was limping buttons with crap against good opponents; this might be ok against weak players but death against stronger opponents. My three and four betting range was all to cock too as I was somewhat stuck in the mode that any king high was good! It’s so easy to fall into strange and bad habits, its good to have the number to fall back so dug out an old 2+2 post that was generally agreed as a solid HUP play.

Betting Patterns of a Good HUP Player

1. Percentage of raises on the button, 70%+
2. Percentage of calls from the button raise, 20-30%
3. Percentage to 3-Bet the button, 5% -15%
4. Percentage to 4-Bet from the Button, 2%

Of course everything is relative and adapting is a key facet of all winning HUP players, but if you’re not too far from these stats then you’re not going to be doing that much wrong.

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The two player’s different attitudes towards game selection are an interesting contrast and remind me of one of my all time favourite poker quote’s, shortly after Eric Drache won the WSOP 7-Card Stud World Championship someone remarked that they where not aware that the perennially broke Drache was that good a player, to which an unknown source responded, ‘He’s the sixth best Stud player in the world; unfortunately he sits down with the other five every single night”

I like the fact that game selection is of no interest to Schwartz at all, it shows he wants to be the best in the world and doesn’t much care who he takes on, I’d imagine that’s how Phil Ivey and Patrik Antonius became so fearless and I don’t think you can reach there level of greatness without this attitude.

But I also admire Feldman’s diligence in finding good spots and maximising his returns, this is the mark of a good solid pro and as Gore Vidal once said “It’s not enough to succeed. Others must fail” and if you can find people who are good at failing in the game of poker then more power to your elbow I say!

I’ve done a bit of bumhunting myself over the years with mixed results, I’ve found that just because a guy has lost tens of thousand of dollar’s playing at a the levels above your normal game it doesn’t mean your going to be a favourite against them.

For example, Guy Laliberte has probable lost more money playing online than anyone, still I’m quite sure he would eat most mid to low stakes players alive, Guy’s a smart man and I’m sure he would have learned plenty from all those hours at the table playing the very best in the world. So don’t read too much into Sharkscope graphs!

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So employing the skills of a professional coach or training site has been on my mind for some time now, but to be honest I don’t really want to fork out the money because I’m just not convinced it will be worth it for a player at my stakes. It feels counter intuitive to be worrying about the size of my bankroll on one hand and then spending a significant chunk of it on coaching on the other hand.

I fell like I should be able build up a bankroll to a comfortable level and if I can’t do this then I’m probably not quite ready to utilise professional coaching to its full potential. As natural as it feel’s to have more experience and be playing higher before seeking professional help I have this niggling feeling that this approach might be totally wrong.

I had been playing Golf (badly) for many years before I finally decided to enlist the help of the professional of my local course. After many lessons I finally started to make significant improvements and my coach semi jokingly told me the first ten lessons had been primarily spent unlearning all the bad habits I’d taught myself!

I have suggested to Black Belt Poker that as part of the player rewards they add HUSNG training to the shop. I spend quite a bit of time watching the high stakes HUP games and two of the trainers of HUSNG are PokerStars players Croixdawg and PrimordialAA who are big winners with impeccable credentials making HUSNG pretty much the only choice for an ambitious heads up player.

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Extremely popular within the online poker community because of the large number of fatties who are drawn to the game, most players have come to expect some level or cake back from there online poker room of choice. In fact most sites now cater for players of all levels with monthly rewards for low volume players beginning with modest baked items such as the muffin or cup cake.

The rewards on offer continue to progress on a gradient curve to the top earners who are rewarded handsomely for there custom, In fact the record for a monthly Cakeback return belongs to online legend Jimmy ‘Gobbo boy’ Fricke who in September of this year was rewarded with twenty seven, six tiered wedding cakes, which he consumed on a rainy Wednesday afternoon whilst watching ‘Titanic’ in his underpants.

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The Full Tilt sponsored show has some of the best deep stacked cash game players in the world, Phil Ivey, Patrik Antonius, David Benyamine and Tom Dwan. The rest of the table is made up of good tournament players completely out of there depth with stacks this deep against players of this calibre.

Phil Hellmuth to be fair would probable do well in most standard cash games but he looks frankly ridiculous in this company and his joined by a Chris Ferguson who might as well have been playing with his cards turned face up, Ivey stacked him for $250,000 when he swapped a small mistake of calling pre-flop $25,000 with a small pair for Fergusons huge mistake putting an additional $225,000 in the middle just with one pair (albeit aces!).

It really is a lesson of knowing your limit’s and has been food for thought and might even prevent me from jumping head first into a $5-$10 NLHE game online the next time I’m on full blown monkey tilt as frankly don’t want to look as silly as Hellmuth, ever.

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You can’t avoid any of these, they are a fact of ‘poker life’ and if you want a life in poker you will need to come to terms with the fact that poker can be a very unfair game. Certain personality types really struggle with the unilateral unfairness of poker, and I definitely have one of them. I can’t stop myself from titling, I’ve tried I really have, I’ve read many books on psychology, poker based or otherwise, I’ve tried aroma therapy, yoga, calming music and other hokey crap and nothing seems to help, some day’s I just can’t keep a fucking lid on things.

Understanding the fundamental mathematical concepts of poker should help, but it doesn’t. I know that getting the money in as a 3-1 favourite means I’m actually running hot when I win the whole pot as I’m getting more then the .75 of the pot that the maths dictate I’m entitled to collect. Still knowing all this doesn’t seem to help me, maybe nothing ever will, maybe my personality isn’t well suited to the game, it pretty clear that I take it all way too personally!

What I have learned to do though is put a cap on my loses and walk way until I’m ready to begin the bankroll rebuilding job that will be required after a monkey tilt session. I can’t stop myself getting knocked down and I can’t stop myself titling either but I can control the damage that’s done and I have learned to make sure that I have the resources to get back up again when the red mist has passed. As Mike McDermott said in Rounder’s, “Never forget the cardinal rule, always leave yourself outs” or maybe you prefer the advice of the mighty Chumbawamba “I get knocked down, But I get up again, You’re never gonna keep me down”.

Then on day two and three Alex began to acclimatise to the new conditions and things started to change for Cal, really change, and not in a good way but in a disastrous ‘can’t make a right call to save his life’ type way. All the doubt and uncertainty caused by the initial games with POTSHIPPER came flooding back, he was being valued to death and every time the boot was on the over foot his opponent was slipping the noose.

The game was slipping away from Cal, as they finished for the evening on day five he found himself down to just 3 million on one table and 2 million on the other, huge deficits to overcome. He slunk back to his bachelor pad to regroup as the whole poker world wrote him off, even 2+2 where Cal was regarded as a living God the vast majority where convinced that Alex was to be crowned the king of poker sometime the next day.

As Cal mournfully prepared for bed there was a knock at the door, he looked through the hi-tech camera and saw the unmistakable image of the 6 foot 8 inch Howard Lindeman standing at his door. “Howard?” Cal said with a perplexed expression etched across his face as he swung open the door, “Cal, my boy, aren’t you going to invite me in then?” said Howard motioning to be allowed to cross the threshold of Cal’s apartment, “Sure, please do” said a still confused Cal.

“Can I get you a drink” asked Cal as the moved into the living room, “Sure a diet coke would be great” said Howard, as Cal was scuttling off towards the kitchen Howard shouted after him, “Can I borrow you’re computer for a minute?” and didn’t wait for a reply as he jumped on and started accessing various websites.

When Cal returned with Howard’s coke he looked over to see Howard casually sat at the personal computer Cal get permanently running and ready for action. Cal could see that the familiar FlushedOut poker client was open and running, but even from some distance he could tell something wasn’t quite right, he couldn’t put his finger on exactly what was wrong until he was much closer to the screen and then the penny dropped, he could see the other players hole cards. “What the fuck are you doing?” said Cal angrily as Howard turned and faced him, “Well I’d have thought that was rather obvious Cal, wouldn’t you?” Cal didn’t know what else to do so just continued to point at the screen angrily whilst he desperately searched for the right words.

“You fucking cheat, you absolute fucking bastard cheat, ” where the words Cal eventually deemed the most appropriate, Howard could tell that it was going to take a while before he could have a proper conversation, after a further few minutes of confused obscenities Cal began to calm down. “What are you doing Howard, this could end online poker for ever if this sort of thing got out” said Cal, Howard raised his palms upwards in a placatory manner and started to talk, “I needed to do it Cal” he said, “You needed it done as well, poker needed me to do it too” he continued, Cal just looked confused, “Do what?” he eventually mustered “Scam the players? How the fuck is that good for the game?” Cal asked pointedly.

Howard knew this was going to be the most difficult part of the plan, he had stripped the boy of all his confidence and now he had to rebuild him, he trusted enough though in his well honed ability to read people that he ad been correct in assessing Cal as the player he had been looking for, he knew it sounded twee but this boy was ‘Special’. “I never used it to cheat on anyone, I gave it to Alex, Potshipper or whatever you want to call him”, Cal sprang to his feet, “You fucker! You arranged for him to cheat me, you let him take it all from me; he left me with virtually nothing, why? What the fuck did I ever do to you? Well other than run a bluff or two on some shitty TV show? Why?”

Cal was almost incandescent with rage and Howard knew this was going to be a hard sell, “Jesus Cal, every super hero needs a nemesis, who did you have? Who would play you these days? A few slightly loopy billionaires, that’s all, no other player would come anywhere near you, everybody thought you where invincible, you needed an arch rival, so I created one for you” Howard stood back and waited for the inevitable explosion, “You fucking cheated me, you and that arsehole, and now your trying to tell me its for my own good, you’ve got a fucking nerve, I’m going to tell the fucking whole world what you did and make sure it ruins you and your bullshit site”

Howard had expected this reaction, in fact he had been counting on it, “No you’re not Cal” he enthused, “Because your going to take this information and you’re going to use it, your going to sit back down at the biggest table in poker history with the eyes of the world upon you and you’re going to come back from an enormous deficit, you’re going to achieve the impossible and surmount the insurmountable, this will transcend poker and immortalise you, you are about to become a legend”

Cal looked confused, “How?” he asked pointedly, “Have you paid off Alex? Is that it? You think you build a legend by cheating some more? You are fucking mental, and corrupt to the core!” Cal raged, Howard tried to cam him down, “Cal, Alex isn’t going to lay down for anybody, this is the biggest game in the world and he thinks he can’t be beaten, how ever his playing the greatest poker payer who ever lived, you” Cal looked unconvinced, “Howard how the fuck am I going to overturn a huge chip deficit against a guy who knows everything about my game through watching me play for weeks on end” he said now more crestfallen than angry as the conversation reminded him of his almost hopeless position in the biggest game in history, Howard looked at him incredulously, “Jesus Cal, you’re the best poker player in the world, A fucking DAPT”.

The pair continued arguing into the small hours, Howard wasn’t trying to justify his actions because, well how could he? Instead he chose to stick plainly to the facts, that is by whatever means Cal now had a chance to write his name not just into poker history but modern history, Cal eventually moved his train of thought from plans for recrimination and justice to finding some way back to stage the greatest come back in poker history.

Cal made some decisions overnight, as the smallest stack of the two the chip stack configuration was his prerogative, he decided to amalgamate his whole stack on one table, this was a gamble but he reasoned it was more likely he could stage one 10-1 comeback rather than two. Cal felt sure Alex would also move his stack to maintain his huge chip advantage rather than allow the playing field to be evened on. So at 3pm Cal sat with 5 million at the opposite end of the table to a man with 59 million who also just happened to know every single move he had in his book, Cal thought to himself that it was almost definitely time to start writing a new book.

The chips stacks fluctuated inconsequentially during the early skirmishes, Cal was clearly finding it a struggle though to turn the tide and this was beginning to reflect in his mood and his demeanour at the table as he struggled for confidence. Just when he was feeling at his most despondent, Cal looked down and saw two beautiful black aces staring back at him. Cal decided to flat call from the small blind and Alex made his standard opening raise, Cal had to think this through, What would his standard plays be in this situation? he might overbet, make it look like he was trying to end the hand now or alternatively on occasion he would make a teasing bet to entice his opponent into the hand. Cal was sure that Alex would be able to read either of these plays as strong, so he had to think, What had he never ever done in any of the dozens and dozens of times he had played aces against Alex online, and then it hit him Cal would never ever have just pushed his whole stack in his opponents face, Cal thought this would be a terrible waste of value, so that’s exactly what he did, read that you fucker he thought to himself as he angrily he shoved his chips over the line and into the pot, he noted to himself that this felt really bloody good.

Alex almost insta-called the shove he was so sure it was bullshit, but he just managed to restrain himself, he had to be sure of this decision he didn’t want to double up Cal easily, Alex started to re-examine the hand, he must be weak and looking to gamble it up he thought to himself, his definitely not super strong he’d never waste a real hand like this would he, they had planned thousand od hands togther and he had never played his big hands like this, yeah Cal must be desperate and looking for a spot to gamble his way back into the match, Alex was now sure, this was his shot AK looked likely to be good here thought Alex, “I call” he said and instantly regretted it when Cal flipped over the aces, with little fanfare a harmless board was dealt out and Cal doubled through.

Alex wasn’t too deeply troubled by the early double up of his opponent, in fact it gave him great heart to see Cal making such a bad play, he incorrectly surmised that Cal’s confidence must be really shot if his started playing aces like that! “Too scared to play a flop with me hey Cal?” he sarcastically chirped, “Yep, how the mighty have fallen” came Cal’s sardonic reply.

Cal obviously had a problem, if he changed his game too much it would alert Alex to a fundamental shift in his strategy, but on the other hand if he continued to play the same he would get run over. No, Cal thought, what was required in this situation was a very slight alteration in stratagem, a slightly bigger bet here and maybe slightly less there, this would cause a slow and gradual change in the direction of the match. Cal recognised that he needed to slowly massage the chips from his opponents grasp instead of trying to force them out in a few dramatic hands.

And Cal was proven right, the shift in momentum was imperceptible at first, Cal won an extra bet here and saved one there, but slowly and emphatically those watching closely enough could see the direction of the match changing and Cal’s stack grew and grew and after six hours further play Alex looked over at his opponent and his once mighty chip lead was reduced to nothing or almost nothing, with so many chips on the table it was hard to tell but the stacks where as close to equal as really mattered. Alex just couldn’t understand why the game seemed to be slipping away from him, his opponent really did seem to be getting hit in the face with the deck, surely that could be the only possible explanation, couldn’t it?

Just when he needed time to regroup and take a break Alex looked down too find the bogey hand JJ, he inwardly sighed and made his standard open and wasn’t in the least bit surprised when his opponent called. Alex was happy to see a jack in the window but not so much when it was followed by three cards of the same suit, fucking nothings ever easy in this game is it, I’ve flopped top set but I still have to worry about the bastard flush he thought to himself as three spades stared back at him from the centre of the table.

Future Alex would remember looking back at the events of the next few minutes as if they had been recorded on fast forward, a bet followed by a raise, then a giant shove and the noise of chips clicking against each other as two giant piles of them found there way into the middle of the table, the ohh’s and arr’s as an expectant audience stretched to see what was happening and then gasp and shrieks and cheers as cards are turned on there backs, top set for Alex versus Cal’s flopped nut flush, the immovable object had met the irresistible force and there was nothing else that could happen other than get the chips in the middle.

At times like this, when everything’s in the middle and you need to hit something every poker player will tell you that you either feel it or you don’t, and Alex wasn’t feeling it at all. Which made it all the more shocking when the board paired on the river to give him a winning full house, the crowd erupted and surged forward it was utter bedlam, eventually the tournament director fought his way to the table and after some time he managed to make the all important count, after some minutes he was able to conclude that Alex had done it, he had Cal covered by the slimmest of margins.

The first person Alex sought out in the throng was Howard Lindeman, Howard had paid Alex a visit in the early hours of the morning and had convinced him that he was special and this was his destiny. Howard had explained the reason he and sent him the modified poker client was because poker needed a superstar and this was to be him, Alex ‘Potshipper’ Smythe. Howard had put him here in the spotlight and had made him the world champion

Cal was shell shocked, his dream crushed by the cruellest of rivers he thought it was impossible to feel any worse but then Lindeman was handed the microphone, “Well I’d like to thank both players for playing the game in such a great spirit, you’ve made the world of poker very proud and as the CEO of FlushedOut.Com I’d like to thank you both for the integrity and honesty you bring to the online poker world ” Howard allowed time for the crowd to show there appreciation to the two participants and for the applause to die down, “at time like this” he continued “it’s the truly special that make the final stretch for victory, and with out a fear of contradiction I think its safe to say that Alex ‘Potshipper’ Smythe is a very special poker talent” at this point the crowd erupted and Cal could barely contain his fury as the cheating bastard was crowned the champion of the world by a two faced manipulative cheating scumbag, Alex knew what had happened, Howard Lindeman had his feet firmly entrenched in both camps, this was one coin flip that Lindeman was going to ensure he was on the winning side of no matter which way the coin eventually decided to fall.

Just as Cal was contemplating blowing the lid of the whole affair he was approached from behind and somebody whispered in his hear in a very cultured English accent, “We need to talk Cal, I can help you make this right”, Cal swung round and stood face to face with Conrad Dumfrey, head of the world second largest poker room PokerCosmos.Com

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Cal on the other hand was sat playing low stakes cash games on a competitors site under an assumed identity, his confidence which he assumed was at rock bottom found a previously unbeknownst level to slip to when the former high stakes legend reloaded for the tenth time today at the .05/.10 cent table he had been playing, Jesus, he thought to himself, I’m just clueless.

Although the two players where currently inhabiting vastly different ends of the online poker spectrum, they both received a knock on the door at the exact same moment, and just as Howard Lindeman had planned they both found a courier waiting on there doorstep with a gold envelope addressed to them,

Dear Cal,

We at FlushedOut.Com are so very grateful to have you’re continued patronage and wish to show our gratitude for your custom in a fitting manner. In light of the current interest the high stakes games have generated and as a way of saying thank you to our high stakes community we are planning to run a money added tournament.

Sixteen invitations have been sent to the best cash game players in the world, they have been invited to register for a special 2 million dollar buy in event. These sixteen players will be randomly drawn and will sit down at a cash table with 2 million dollars of there own money in front of them. A second table will then be opened and full tilt will deposit 2 million dollar onto the table for both players, yes that’s correct we are adding 32 million dollars to the prize pool!

Each player will play until they have the full 8 million on the table and then they will be randomly drawn against another successful opponent, when all but two players have been eliminated we will reconvene in Las Vegas for a live televised heads-up winner takes all 64 million dollar showdown, I ask you, are you the 64 million dollar man?

Yours in Friendship
Howard J. Lindeman

Alex smiled, he knew he was destined to win $64,000,000 and become the new world champion. On the other side of the world Cal frantically checked his FlushedOut.Com and was not sure to be happy or worried when he discovered there was barely enough left to cover the buy-in, could he really say no to this kind of value? The poker player in him reminded him this was his emergency rebuild money, the gambler in him screamed at the added 32 million dollars and the chance to be crowned world champion, who do you think won?

In the end not one of the players invited to join the tournament refused the invitation, the 32 million added to the prize pool just proved far too juicy a bone for the high stakes gambling fraternity. One week later Cal ‘Dummmm’ Mikkelsen faced off against Danny ‘Cocksmoker’ Hoàng in the first round of the worlds biggest ever poker tournament, Cal had his entire bankroll on the table and hundreds of thousand of railbirds watching, so no pressure there then.

Danny Hoàng was a fearless and successful poker player, he played almost exclusively live tournaments and cash games and he had originated from Vietnam. Danny had picked up the unfortunate ‘Cocksmoker’ nickname due to his tendency to thank vanquished foes for giving him his chips or as he so colourfully put it ‘Smoking his cock’ in his heavy Vietnamese twang.

This had recently brought him some particularly bad publicity when during a televised tournament he was broadcast saying “Man aces no good brother, I have the flush, you smoke my cock real good brother, real good, thank you brother”, it transpired that the player in question had been bought into the tournament following a charity drive by the ‘Make a dream come true foundation’ and was a war veteran who was suffering from terminal cancer, America was not happy with Danny Hoàng.

Three weeks previously Cal would have considered a first round match-up with the ‘Cocksmoker’, a renowned loser in the online game, a veritable walk into the quarter finals, but just now with is confidence at an all time low he was struggling. When the match started he quickly found himself down a ½ million on each of the table, things where looking bleak. But then a miracle happened, Cal got dealt pocket kings, he three bet Danny and the flop came king high, all the money went in and Danny’s aces where cracked as the turn and river blanked.

Danny now made the mistake of splitting his remaining chips across both tables, this gave Cal a chip advantage in both games and with the pressure now off, Cal really started to find his rhythm, and Danny ‘Cocksmoker’ Hoàng soon learned that Cal ‘Dummmm’ Mikkelsen on his game and in the groove, with chips at his disposal was an almost unstoppable force of nature.

Across the globe Alex ‘POTSHIPPER’ Smythe was having problems of his own; he was finding it very hard making the game against Johnny ‘The Gent’ Mattheson look like a genuine struggle. Jesus this guy was a big, passive, dinosaur, Still Alex had to swallow his pride and pay him off a couple of times so as not too give the game up, it almost caused Alex physical pain to gift chips to a guy playing his big hands so transparently. Alex found it hard to not believe this guy was in the poker hall of fame and he smiled when he considered that with the 64 million he was about to win he could open a ‘Hall of retards’ right next door to the hall of fame and then have this guy as the inaugural inductee.

The poker world was transfixed for the following weeks as the games raged across the internet, traffic on FlushedOut.Com tripled and the latest fluctuations in the matches where now even being reported in the general media, poker truly was going mainstream. The latest happening became almost impossible to avoid and write ups where included in the morning papers and even reports on the early evening news bulletins began to spring up.

The supposedly random draw kept the two players everyone wanted to see face off apart and Alex and Cal weaved an inexplicable path towards both each other and eventually the dream final table. When the semi finals finally concluded the final heads-up battle was scheduled for December the 3rd and would take place in a specially constructed TV studio at the Bellagio, the home of live high stakes poker.

Alex flew out a week early to acclimatise and immediately found himself in a the eye of the storm, the media spotlight had been no where near as bright in the UK where poker was much more of a minority preoccupation, here in Vegas though he was revered as a superstar and although he had presumed this was something he had wanted, when it came too him he wasn’t so sure, he hadn’t realised how debilitating it could be and was suffering from the lack of privacy and freedom of movement this kind of celebrity engendered.

Even Cal who was used to this sort of treatment was still a little taken back by the size of the media maelstrom that had been whipped up by the sheer size of the stackes. This was way beyond the normal centralised poker media attention, this was more widespread, more ragged more bizarre and altogether less controlled, this was a proper full on media tornado.

Eventually though Lindeman and his team completed the final arrangements and everything was set, not being online multi-tabling would be impossible but they had set up two replica tables and would swap from table to table every two hours. Two dealers were to be used with a deck always ready to go, this was as close to the speed of online poker as possible and the non-stop action ensure the media rights where snapped up quickly and had been sold for a rather large and as yet unspecified sum, Lindeman though ensured that everyone knew that new records had been set and every where you looked around the studio the FlushedOut.Com logo has been strategically positioned.

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Suddenly Lindeman’s look of total contentment disappears as the screens he is watching start to stall and lag, he mutters aloud “I’ll have to call those idiots in Tech, see what they can do” inwardly though he knows there won’t be anything they can do without upgrading the hardware, after all there where thousands upon thousands of poker fans across the globe soaking up the crazy action that had now been raging across the site almost nonstop for the past nine days.

He thought to himself that the next time he was planning an evil, secret scheme designed to take over the poker world he should get his technical architects involved, it occurred to him though that once informed of his diabolical plan and their part had been played out he would probably have to kill said technicians, and that would be a real nuisance as good technical people where so hard to bloody find down here in Costa Rica!

In his palatial penthouse flat located in the apartment block commonly referred to as ‘Balla Towers’ largely due to the vast number of poker players who have set up home in the palatial block to primarily take advantage of its proximity to the Vegas Strip, Cal “Dummmm” Mikkelsen squirmed in his seat again as yet another monster pot was being electronically dragged by his latest nemesis, the eponymously titled ‘POTSHIPPER’.

Cal was beginning to worry, really worry, downswings and losing runs are nothing new to him but this, well it felt different, this felt terminal, the damage was now over nine million dollars and climbing steadily and he was fast approaching the point he would have to quit the high stakes games he had dominated for so long and start rebuilding. “MUTHFUCKA” he shouted to himself and then jumped to his feet and started pacing around his living room as yet another monster pot made its electronic journey to his opponents stack.

Cal just couldn’t shake the feeling that this was more than a down swing, this battle with POTSHIPPER has been going on for nine day’s and nights now and at times he felt like he was up against a standard strong high stakes player, just like so many he had destroyed before. But at other times, well it was like he was playing a super man, a soul reader, he said aloud, “Your losing it Cal, get a grip, you’ll start wearing tin foil hats and be joining the scientologists before too long”.

Cal tried hard to block out this disturbing train of thought but try as he might his own subconscious was conspiring against him, It wasn’t so much that there had been many suspicious calls or particularly strange plays, in fact it was just the opposite, it just seemed that every time Cal had a very strong hand and POTSHIPPER had an even stronger hand his opponent had without fail made the very maximum, and when roles where reversed it was exactly the opposite, he still got paid on his big hands but it just seemed to be the very minimum, every single time, without fail.

Maybe he’d put a call into the sites CEO and majority share holder, Howard, Cal knew he was lucky enough that as a sponsored pro he had the kind of access others only dreamed of, he was also sure that if there was anything suspicious about the games, Howard Lindeman a man of infinite resource would be sure to find it, and anyway at the very least it would put his mind at ease so he could concentrate on winning back some of his money from this arsehole.

Across the other side of the world Alex ‘POTSHIPPER’ Smythe closed down the special poker client that he had received two weeks previous and which was largely responsible for the current super high stakes carnage on FlushedOut.Com, which until last week had been the worlds second largest poker site but was now number one and by some considerable margin too.

Alex knew exactly why he had been selected by Lindeman for this particular ‘project’; he had exactly the right profile to pull something like this off. Only two weeks previously he had been grinding away at the high stakes taking the occasional shots at the nose bleed limits frequented by the online super stars. As confident as Alex was in his own abilities he still had to admit that on each of his little trips to the deepest end of the poker shark pool he had felt somewhat out of depth.

In fact Alex was starting to doubt his ability to crack the very highest levels of the game when out of the blue he received a phone call from Howard Lindeman who Alex presumed he must have made quite an impression upon when they had played together during one of Alex’s rare foreign poker trips to play in the FlushedOut.Com sponsored, South African Super Millions tournament.

Alex wasn’t aware but Lindeman had known plenty about Alex long before there one and only meeting, in truth Lindeman being drawn in the seat to Alex’s left had not been a coincidence at all. In fact Lindeman knew all the high stakes poker players on his site and had been on the look out for a player with the right profile for some time now, he needed someone on the verge of moving into the nose bleed stakes games with exceptionally good statistics in the area of extracting value, this he knew would make a sudden burst of success at the very highest stakes believable.

Lindeman was a man of powerful intellect, a graduate of America’s finest technical university and fiercely driven he had established himself as a hugely successful entrepreneur by the time he was in his late thirties. But even Lindeman with all his mental agility had trouble disguising the huge number of questions he needed answering to have a chance of correctly gauging the young man to his rights level of ambition and more importantly the direction of his moral compass, after a long day at the tables though he had the information he needed, the boy was hungry for success, very hungry.

A few months later with the help of FlushedOut.Com’s operations manager who just happened to also be one of Lindeman’s oldest and most trusted friends and a very expensive and very corrupt contract programmer, a unique version of the sites poker client was developed that enabled the user to see both sets of hole cards, after testing this was sent to Alex from Lindeman’s FlushedOut.Com email address with a note that simply said, ‘Where in this together, be smart – Your friend, Howard J. Lindeman’. The follow up phone call was just to make sure the client was working, nothing else was to be discussed, ever.

As he logged off for the night Alex realised just how drained he was, playing a believable game of poker when you can see both sets of hole cards was thoroughly exhausting, just keeping the appearance of being on the level whilst having all available information and the ability to play perfect poker was very draining, mind you the millions of dollars pouring into his online account more than made up for a day or two of mental exhaustion!

Howard Lindeman was sat in his companies Monday morning review, present as always are all of the companies senior managers and they are busy reviewing the weekends figures and issues, Howard fought hard to prevent his obvious boredom showing and was only faintly amused at the spectacle of each head of department trying there very best to take credit for the huge upswing in the positive figures experienced since the POTSHIPPER games had started in such earnest.

Lucy Montage stood up and started to present her departments strategy for managing the current upswing in the company’s fortunes, Lucy was possibly the most successful marketing manager Lindeman had ever employed but he hated her with a passion. Lucy seemed to think everything and everyone was beneath her, Lindeman was aware she envied and loathed him in equal measure, and although her thoroughly polished veneer did its best to hide it she was deferring to him through gritted teeth and would stab in him the back as soon as the right opportunity presented itself.

“Howard” Lucy screeched at the top of her voice, which was a long way up, “I beseech you to grasp this opportunity that has presented itself” she continued, “Around the world people are calling these poker matches the true world championships of poker”, Howard couldn’t help but notice that Lucy seemed to physically spit the word ‘poker’ out, it was as if she was trying to get this filthy adjective as far from her mouth as quickly as possible, Howard thought it must be hard for someone who hated poker to the extent Lucy clearly did to spend long days working for the worlds largest poker room, this thought made him smile for probably the first time today.

Lucy continued for some time to come, she was presenting a grandiose plan to hold a new world championship of poker, online to start and live to finish with of course FlushedOut.Com being the venue. Through out his star marketing managers presentation, Howard let her take the plaudits for this masterful idea, although of course this was all part of his grand plan he wanted it to appear as if she was a firmly the helm, on occasion though he did have to push the project in certain directions and pull it in others, but overall the team had no doubt whose plan it was, Lucy’s, all the better thought Howard, he wanted his finger prints as far from the gun as possible.

Eventually Howard extracted himself from the meeting and was happy to leave the minutiae of the plan to his hoard of minions. He reached his desk just in time to pick up a call on his special private line reserved for high rollers and business partners. It was the online superstar himself Cal ‘Dummmm’ Mikkelsen, “Cal my boy, how are you doing” Howard said trying hard to maintain the paternal tone he always took with his stable of young superstar players. Cal briskly outlined his concerns and Howard worked hard to allay his fears, he didn’t feel the slightest compunction about lying to his young ward, after all the little bastard had made a fool out of him several times on national TV, and bluffing was certainly a big part of both players game.

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Well it’s been a pretty good response so far, this month will see an orange belt only free roll awarding two places at a special Black Belt Poker boot camp, each place is valued at approximately £600 and with only 20 or 30 Orange belts currently eligible this offers tremendous value.

Add this with the eligibility to play in the weekly white and yellow belt free rolls that pay $150 a week and you have quite a lot of value for all the lower belt levels which adds up to some genuine value for the lower stakes players. This week has also seen the opening of the Black Belt Poker store; so far the store only offers the typical poker room merchandise, hats and caps. But soon the site will introduce the facility to buy tournament tokens to online satellite events.

I personally believe this is a very interesting development and could be an answer to a lot of players dilemmas when it comes attempting to satellite into larger events. A lot of players don’t want to sap there bankroll in this way as it can quickly become quite costly, but so many of us also crave a shot at bigger comps.

Now Black Belt Poker have there unique system of transferring earned belt point into spending points at the end of the money which can now be used to buy the satellite tokens will mean a lot of players will be able to use these point to but satellite tokens for a shot at bigger buy-in events, this could be the answer to a lot of low stakes players dilemma.

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A.) I very much enjoy online poker
B.) Online poker is the spawn of the devil and all online card rooms are frequented by retarded Muppets who exist solely to torment me with ridiculous suck outs.

The truth is though I’m very much an answer ‘A’ guy for the most part; I find that I don’t  reallyenjoy live poker much anymore, unless of course it’s playing with friends for fun stakes. The main reason live poker as lost much of its appeal is mainly due to the fact that in later life I have found that my desire to share an often cramp table with nine strangers to play a game, which in all fairness attracts more than its share of what I usually refer to as, c*nts just doesn’t have the appeal it once did.

More to the point though I just love the speed of online poker and coupled with the ability to multi table this gives me some real variety when I play. I’ve actually been experimenting for some time now with different game combinations and this keeps my online poker experience fresh. I’m in no way a multi tabling genius like Elky or Mineri and sixteen tabling would probable make my head

explode, but I can manage a few tables with out too much trouble.  This means I can try lost of different game combinations, I can play up to about six NLHE MTT’s or S+G’s at a time without too many problems, this is a chicken and rice kind of deal, a little on the bland side but overall quite enjoyable. If in the mood for lots of actions I will continually load up two separate turbo heads-up games alongside a slow paced double up game, I tend to ignore the double up game until I’m near the money which is boring but correct strategy and this is nicely balanced out by the turbo HUP games which tend to be all action fun. This combination works well together and puts me in mind of a good hot chilli served on a baked potato, the meaty and spicy chilli working well with the sensible and starchy potato.

I’ve given up trying to multi more than two H.O.R.S.E or eight game mix tables at a time. I find the games change too quickly and I often found myself raising RAZZ hands in Stud and vice a versa. This all puts me in mind of a Seafood Jambalaya I had in Vegas one year (honestly what kind of idiot orders seafood in the desert!) where all the constituent part where fine on there own but putting them together just made for a confusing and unpleasant mess.

Good luck finding your perfect poker meal, I just hope it doesn’t end up looking and tasting like something served at a Harvester!

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1) Progression in poker is non-linear

2) Look at the big picture

In short when it comes to poker you won’t move in a straight line and statistically you’re just going to have some bad days. The reason I admit to this dear reader is because failing to grasp these concepts is holding me back and I can’t move forward until I learn that you just cannot iron out the downswings, they are a fundamental part of the game of poker and that my view of my progression in poker is focused on way too small an aspect. 

The mistake I and a lot of poker players have is that we waste a great deal of time  on judging ourselves without anywhere near the correct amount of information. Imagine being whisked up and plonked down at a random location in the world and having to judge exactly where you are by looking down at the patch of ground at your feet. Sure there might be clues and I’m sure you could rule out some obvious locations, no snow then its probable fair to discount Antarctica but you just couldn’t do it could you (Unless of course you just happened to be plonked down on top of one of those you are here maps), but if you where in a hot air balloon gently rising you would slowly get more and more information until you would have an almost complete picture.

So how do we get a truer picture in poker of our true ability? It can only be achieved by the small matter of time and volume. Look at this graph at the bottom of this article, this account LIVB112 belongs to Olivier Busquet who is one of the most successful HUP players in the world. Two things worth noting, firstly look how long it took him to start making significant profit, 10,000 games on a flat line learning the heads-up sit and go strategy before his graph sky rockets for the next 10,000 games.

Secondly look the peaks and troughs, they look like little blips because of the view we have after 20,000 hand but at anyone time they must have looked like huge swings. So the next time I’m on a down swing I’m going to take a step back and imagine its just a small trough on an enormous and generally upward incline. I’m going to learn to take a step back, as after all you really can iron the Alps, but it’s just take a very long time and lot of patience, or a really fucking big iron. 

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PKR.COM

I’ve always viewed PKR as a bit frivolous and more of a diversion from serious online poker than a place to play and make money. PKR feels to me like the combination of the worse elements of both live and online poker, the pace of the live game minus the interaction and thus the solitude of the online game with none of the pace usually experienced. Also when playing on PKR one of the key elements of online poker is lost, the ability to multi table and thus make ourselves more money.

Having said all this, I have a guilty secret that I’ve always tried to keep from fellow online poker players; I actually really enjoy playing on PKR. I honestly do, I know I shouldn’t and it doesn’t feel like real online poker to me but actually more like playing a computer game but still, its great fun. 

The thing is though, why is this site so full of knobs? Its annoying me because it’s beginning to ruin my guilty little 3D pleasure, I mean every time you get caught bluffing some arse hole has to say thank you, every time they suck out on you they laugh there avatars arse off at you, You have to ask the question, why is classless behaviour so prevalent on this site?

Personally I believe the answer’s quite straight forward, ‘it’s just so easy and the PKR players often don’t know any better’. It’s easy to say thank you with the intention of annoying an opponent because there’s a button that does just that for you, you don’t even have to type in TY. It’s easy to give an opponent a rub down or call them a chicken because there’s a button that does that for you as well, and if it wasn’t alright to do so then why would the site give players such easy way of niggling opponents? Just one click of the mouse is all it takes?

This standard of behaviour may or may not cross over from PKR in to the live game (where standards of behaviour can be pretty shoddy anyway) because the ever present threat of a thick ear might give some players brought up on PKR pause for thought or failing that a much needed attitude readjustment after they have received a slap from an irate opponent.

Its too easy to blame PKR for all this and I think its worth remembering that its the individuals responsibility to act like a decent human being, and just because the site gives you the ability to act like an arse, doesn’t mean you have to take it.

Sorry about another rant, I know I’m in danger of turning into the angriest man in poker

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I really hate the personal ones with a pictures of your family or a little red dragon for Welsh players or green leprechaun for Irish players, presumably they make a Burberry coloured, diamond white drinking, chav version for English players? The ones I hate most of all though are the little commemorative card guards given to you to mark playing in a tournaments, now if you keep them locked up at home as reminders of poker trips that’s all very well, but to take them to every 10 pound re-buy at the local Grosvenor or home games with friends is just pitiful.

We all know using a commemorative card guard is just a pitiful excuse to show to the people around you, “look at me, I’m better than this, I’ve played REAL tournaments”, it’s just pathetic. So if your one of these players who just has to show off his played bigger games than the £10 bingo at your local casino just look around you, you’re surrounded by other poker player do you really think none of us has played a bigger comp than the local piddling affairs? Of course we have, we just don’t feel the need to play Billy big bollox when we are hitting up our local crap-shoot you plum.

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Now this is probable my age coming through here but the thought of visiting a place of interest or city that I have never been too before and then spending the whole time playing poker just does not appeal anymore. I guess it might be easier if I was playing for millions because then of course if you win you can spend the money on really seeing the world but when you playing for lesser sums it becomes a bit harder to justify the time.

Maybe I just don’t love poker enough these days to spend huge amounts of my precious and increasingly rare leisure time sat with people I don’t know and probably won’t like flipping for stacks. Or possibly the knowledge that as a middle aged man its likely I might never get another opportunity to see the wonders of the place I’m visiting which in turn makes it much harder to waste the opportunity currently afforded.

Whatever the reason there where hundreds of people who didn’t mind at all wasting an opportunity to see the wonders of the west of Ireland! Most of them were quite young or locals which is understandable, after all it’s a lot easier in your youth when you have time on your side and you positively know you will have another chance to visit the place again.

Matt Lambourne in his blog here discussed the other side of the coin, where he makes the case that you might also be affected by the desire to stay in the competition to the detriment of making moves that you believe are correct.

I can see how both would conflicts of interest might prove to be issues to different types of people. My advice would be that the next time you enter a satellite to the PCA or WSOP think to yourself, “What do I want a poker trip or a holiday?” because as a combination they really don’t work very well at all and if all you want is a trip away it might be easier to play a standard tournament and use the money for a dream trip away.

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Anyway I digress, although it was low stakes I was still playing fundamentally correct poker, because I can’t help myself. Playing Razz my opponent brings in with a 7 so I raise with a 2 and get three bet, I’ve got J, 9 in the hole but of course I’m playing his hand not mine.

He bricks on fourth and I catch good and my opponent check calls a bet, he again bricks but decides to check raise me when I catch 10 and he catches a J! I can tell you now that if you ever get check raised by what looks like a worse draw in Razz then your opponent is royally fucked, I’d lay money that my opponent is double paired and desperately trying to get me too fold and this is the sign of an uber fish as well I can read a fucking board can’t I!

Anyway I re-raised and then value bet the river with a 10 low, queue a quite amazing tirade from my opponent, “how can you call a re-raise with J-9 and value bet a 10 you mother****” and so on! I was quite surprised because frankly it was all so standard.

This continued for the remainder of the match, I’d do something standard like calling one bet in limit hold’em with suited connectors and check raising made low with high draw combos on O8 and when I hit my opponent would just explode with vitriolic abuse.

I could never reply back because as any of you who know me can attest I instruct all the sites I play at to suspend my chat when I first sign up, because it’s only a matter of time before they will have to remove it anyway so I might as well save them the time! Anyway stacking a guy four times in one round of 7 game and having him call you a fish is quite entertaining.

It occurred to me though that the reason this guy was so abusive was because he was way out of his depth and just didn’t know the games to any kind of standard, he was playing clearly on level one which is understanding the actual rules but not a clue how the games are actually played.

I’m definitely going to try some more serious 7-game stuff because most of the high stakes players on Full Tilt seem to have switched to 7-game and this is attracting the fish and the fanboys, so hopefully I can catch a few more of these angry young fish!

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1. 5 Card Stud Guide
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3. Open Limping

You have to look back to the 1970’s and the emergence of a young Stu Ungar to find another player who has come even close to achieving the same seismic impact upon the game of poker that Luke “_FULL-FRONTAL_” Schwognz has achieved upon his emergence as a true great of the game, for almost a whole month.

UKPOKERINFO have been fortunate enough to be granted an interview with the great man and couldn’t say no to an opportunity to get inside the mind of _FULL-FRONTAL_ over a coke and an egg sandwich!

UKPOKERINFO: So Luke wh…

FULL-FRONTAL: _FULL-FRONTAL_ pooolease beyartch, never, ever, ever call me Luke, unless you want me to bring the pain broseph, and when you call be _FULL-FRONTAL_ don’t forget to pronounce the underscores, or I’ll cut you, capiche?

UKPOKERINFO: Ermmm, sure whatever you want, _FULL-FRONTAL_.. Erm what’s it like being the most feared player in the game and a true legend of poker… for the last month or so?

_FULL-FRONTAL_: Man all these old dudes just keep dissing me and are like “You ain’t no legend of the game until you played for seventy years boy”, well fuck them, init, I’m the best there’s ever been, I’ve proved it for the whole of the last month, init.

UKPOKERINFO: Is this what the altercation at the EPO between you and Doyle Brunson was about?

_FULL-FRONTAL_: No that old fool just be tripping because I drove his spaz cart to the One-Stop down the road and loaded it up with diamond white and Pringles, well I’m not paying those fucking DTD prices, init.

UKPOKERINFO: Doyle’s not the only high profile player you’ve upset recently, wasn’t there another incident involving Daniel Negreanu at the same event?

_FULL-FRONTAL_: Yeah! That guy’s such a fag, he criticised the way I played a hand against him, so I like, put him over my knee and spanked his arse like a bongo.

UKPOKERINFO: Really, how did he react to that?

_FULL-FRONTAL_: He seemed to like it; in the end I think was more upset than him as I could feel his baby chubby rubbing against my leg, just disgusting init?

UKPOKERINFO: Errm, moving on.. You’ve been dominating online poker of late, is there anyone you fear?

_FULL-FRONTAL_: No there all pussies and I’m the king of poker, my game is so deep no-one can touch it, I’ve been crushing for nearly a month now so I’ve proved it. Dwan, the Dang’s, Ivey there all scared of me.

UKPOKERINFO: It’s funny though whenever you sit down there is instantly a waiting list of sixty plus players, it’s almost as if a number of high stakes online players just think you’re a great big fish whose been running hotter than the sun and there all just waiting in line for a chance to break you?

FULL-FRONTAL: No, that’s not it at all… they all want to play me because I’m the best and they all want to prove themselves against the best, that’s what it is init.

UKPOKERINFO: OK, Sure.. Whatever you say, where do you think you will be in say, 18 months time?

_FULL-FRONTAL_: Well I would think within the next month or so Full Tilt will beg me to stop breaking there high stakes regs and join there team and then they might finally give me my chat back, fucking admintards.

UKPOKERINFO: So why did they take away your chat?

_FULL-FRONTAL_: Well I was playing the biggest spaz-tard of them all, Durrrr and I sucked out on him because he played the hand so poorly, then he started having a go, so I had a go back, yet Full Tilt took my chat away and did nothing to him!

UKPOKERINFO: That doesn’t sound fair, what did you say to Durrrr?

_FULL-FRONTAL_: All I said was that I hoped his mother and father and all his family died in a grease fire, then on the day of their funeral he found out he had cancer and his balls dropped off, and then the day after that happened his gay lover left him cos he had no balls, and the day after that he was arrested for being a donkey rapping shit eater and by the time he was finally released from prison the inmates of B-wing had left him with an arsehole like a clowns pocket and so none of the gays he hangs around with would want to touch him with a barge pole, so he then killed himself because he couldn’t get any cock, init. 

UKPOKERINFO: Ohhh… and what did Durrrr say to trigger this?

_FULL-FRONTAL_: Nice hand.

UKPOKERINFO: Just nice hand? That’s all he said?

_FULL-FRONTAL_: Yeah, but you see, he didn’t actually mean nice hand.

UKPOKERINFO: Ohh.. I get it.

_FULL-FRONTAL_: That’s the way it is when you’re from the streets like I am, I be handling my bizznesssss.

UKPOKERINFO:Do you think being from the streets might hold you back in the business of poker?

_FULL-FRONTAL_: No not really, my daddy.. erm old man was a business man, you know on the streets man…

UKPOKERINFO: What streets?

_FULL-FRONTAL_: Fulham and Knightsbridge mostly, his a merchant bankerrrrrm drug dealer, word. Init.

UKPOKERINFO: Well Luke go….

At this point _FULL-FRONTAL_ punched our reporter in the face and then stole his egg sandwich before running from the casino shouting “I’ll cut you, if you touch me!” whilst waving a plastic spork at anyone who came within a ten foot radius.

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Presumably most of the BBP customer base also understands the concept of rake back or loyalty bonuses if you prefer. So we BBP customers know the market and we know what we can get in terms of network rake back. This means that we can work out with a fair degree of accuracy how much rake back we are effectively going to be surrendering to be part of the BBP community depending on our current belt level and then decide if this represents value for money to us as customers.

My own situation means that money is always a little tight and I always try to build a roll up from nothing, kind of a personal principle really to not use real world money to play poker with. So I understand and accept its going to take a while to progress through the levels, also being a family man means time for poker can be limited, still I’m a semi-serious player and think that 20 hours a week can be achievable which is what I used to build the below graduation chart.

With these considerations I’m probable going to be spending a fair bit of time at the orange belt level as I build up a roll to move on. To earn orange belt and then maintain it month on month this is going to cost me effectively $31.25 in surrendered rake back. What do I get as an orange belt that a yellow belt doesn’t? Seems to be a free roll to a boot camp? Is that value for money?

Then once I have finally increased my roll I will move to Purple belt which will cost me $250 in surrendered rake back to earn and $125 a month to maintain. What do I get for this? I get to email a hand to a pro? Does this represent value for money also?

From reading the BBP sites posts about the progression levels its seem you need to reach green belt level which would cost $500 a month to earn and $250 a month to maintain before you gain access to advanced strategy content and video training.

Why so high? BBP are supposedly trying to support and improve player’s ability so they can move through the levels and earn them more rake, so why do you have to be playing the $100/$200 sit and go’s from a 4K roll before you can get your hands on any decent training materials?

The rake on low stakes poker can be interesting as it can be disproportionate to the size of the players actual bankroll. A good example of this is a full tilt account my wife had, the bankroll generally stayed between $100-$200 dollars and her game of choice was low stakes stud hi-lo and Omaha 8 or better primarily in the sit and go format.

With a 27% rake back deal on the site she usually received a monthly payment of about $20 a month was the usual payment, this meant she was raking in the region of $100 dollars a month on an account that never totalled more than $200. Also she would have gone broke within about a year without these payments but carried on playing the account for four or five years and the payments over this years where probable triple the account ever held! Also she could have used her FTP’s to buy training from card Runners!

Does any of this represent value for money? I’d have to say presently that what BBP are offering their player base in general and specifically the lower stakes players does not come even close to value. I could open an account with Deuces cracked or Card runners and get better training and support for the same cost as maintaining an orange belt which currently gets pretty much sod all and then when you finally progress to the purple belt level the contribution to return ratio is even worse.

Still though I’m going to stick with BBP and hope they take my message on board (which I’m going to post a link to this on the BBP site) my model shows that with support blue and green belt is achievable so BBP can offer a structure that we can all use to reach our maximum potential.

But I do think its clear BBP need to support the lower stakes players better and offer them improved value for money that they currently are or the loss of rake back and lack of value for money will see there lower stakes players disappear or head off to many of the sites offering rake back deals. 

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UKPI: First up Rage, can you tell us your real name and background please?

THE RAGE: My name is Mark Brassington. I live in Stoke. I work in the IT sector as a service engineer. When not working or playing poker I like to do a bit of bird watching, gardening and other stuff that old codgers tend to do. I’m 51, by the way.

UKPI: My lawns shit; can you help me with it?

THE RAGE: No, sod off and do it yourself.

UKPI: Fair enough, so what are the regular games you play?

THE RAGE: At the moment I play almost exclusively No Limit Hold’em. As anyone who’s played dealers choice against me will testify, I’m pretty clueless at the other games. I do intend to try and learn Omaha but, I just haven’t had the time to get around to it yet. Maybe one day.

UKPI: So what do you look for in a game?

THE RAGE: If I play any game, I like to do so knowing that I’m in with a realistic chance of winning. As I’m trying to learn the secrets of Hold’em, I believe that I’ve only just started to scratch the surface really, so, at the moment I’m concentrating all my efforts in trying to improve my Hold’em knowledge and ability.

UKPI: What tools are you using to improve your game?

THE RAGE: I read quite a lot of poker books. I know a lot of top players say forget the books but, I just like reading them, whether it does any good is another matter but each to their own. I also look on the forums a lot and occasionally ask for advice. It amazes me just how much quality info there is floating around out there, much of it from players who’ve been there and done it in the poker world.

I really need to start taking a few more notes about players and hand situations, I like to ask my opponents about hands that I’m not sure about. For instance, a couple of weeks ago, I’m in a hand in a freeze-out at The Circus casino in Stoke. I’m very short stacked and I have 77 on the Big Blind. Dave Lines pushes all-in on the button.,I’m not too worried about Dave as I believe he will probably make this move with any two cards. Angela Herrington, on the Small Blind thinks for a while before finally making the call. Despite my meagre stack, I fold my pocket sevens. Dave turns over Q6 and Angela shows AJ. Dave rivers a 6 to take the pot as it happened, my 77 would have won the hand .

Mike Pog on my left felt that it was an instant call and Dave thought it was a decent fold as I was likely to be up against four over-cards or worse. I came back from the dead zone to eventually finish fourth in a crap-shoot on the FT.

The point about that little ramble was that I like to try and take something positive from every game that I play and try to think through some of the key hands to try and work out I could have played them better.

UKPI: Do you play much online?

THE RAGE: I don’t play that much online. Just GUKPT sats, Killarney sats. That sort of thing. Multi-table Sit and goes whenever I’m in the mood. I’d like to try a few tournaments, but I don’t seem to have the patience for them yet.

UKPI: Make sure you read the Kev B article on Sats? Very illuminating. What stakes do you play online?

THE RAGE: I only play small stakes online. Usually something like $6.5 multi table sit and goes. I play a bit of heads up, again, for very small stakes. I would like to move up the levels, particularly with heads up.

UKPI: Heads Up a very aggressive game, do you think this suits your style?

THE RAGE: Being honest, I would have to say probably not. As I’m sure most will agree, aggression is a key weapon in poker. I’ll be the first to admit that, at times I have been, and still am, far too passive. I’m working on my game and hopefully by trying to improve my HU game it will increase the aggression factor in my overall game as well as improving my chances when it gets to the short handed stages where the big prizes are won and lost.

Maybe you could give me a HU game or two Kev and I’ll e-mail the HH to you for analyse? Just a thought.

UKPI: Maybe, I’d be happy to sweat you, that might be useful I did a lot for Squirmy and think I helped his HUP game a lot, it’s not all about the aggression there’s a bit of finesse required as well.  If you could win entry to any tournament outside of the main event, what would it be?

THE RAGE: If I could win entry to one tournament I would say, the GUKPT Champions final. It might not seem very ambitious but it would do for me. It would be nice to do a ‘Carlos’ and get myself on Channel 4 TV. LOL.

UKPI: What’s your favourite personal moment in poker?

THE RAGE: I don’t have a favourite personal moment that stands out in my mind. Hitting the final table of any comp always gives me a buzz, and, obviously winning a tournament is even better. If I was pushed, I would have to say coming second in the recent Air Ambulance UKPI charity tournament. I played my short stack well on the final table, with a lot of luck along the way, eventually managing to play a decent heads up game against a very strong opponent (Lewis Morton).

UKPI: You get the opportunity to play HUP against;
Anyone in the world of poker?
Anyone from the forum?
Anyone?

THE RAGE: I think it would be a pleasure to play against any of the forum members as there all so knowledgeable about the game, maybe we could have a HUP side event at the next forum game?

I would really enjoy playing against the people who have previously beaten me HU. The first player that I ever played live HU was Northampton Ben. It was at the Stoke G. He was far more experienced than me and trapped me very easily with 2 pair.
Craig Bickerton is another player who’s beaten me HU. That occasion was in the biggest tournament that I’ve ever played in, a £100 freeze-out, again, at the Stoke G. Craig is one of the strongest tournament players in Stoke. Again, my lack of HU experience showed and Craig defeated me quite easily.

Lewis Morton is one of the most promising young players in the Stoke area. He always seems to knock me out whenever I run into him. I played a decent HU game against him in the recent Air Ambulance UKPI charity comp, but, ultimately, it wasn’t good enough. I wouldn’t mind another crack at him.

In the wider poker world I would like to try my luck against-Paul Jackson, Gus Hansen, Dave Ulliot, Ian Frazer, Daniel Negreanu

UKPI: That’s a good idea about a HUP side event, mind you I will own everyone’s soul as I’m so damned good at HUP and so modest too! What’s you’re poker dream?

THE  RAGE: My poker dream is just to play in a big live poker tournament, such as a GUKPT, and hold my own against some of the top players. I don’t really have any big poker ambitions. Winning money isn’t that important to me.

UKPI: Why do you play then?

THE RAGE: I play because I like the mental challenge of trying to come up with the right answers and make the right decisions while sitting around the poker table.
I also think that it’s a bloody good night out at a relatively inexpensive price. You also get to meet some very nice people

UKPI: Whose the best player you ever player against?

THE RAGE: Paul Jackson. A world class poker player and a very nice bloke too!

UKPI: I don’t know about world class, my misses owned him at AKMK! Which opponents do you respect or fear?

THE RAGE: I respect all of my opponents, even the ones who are totally clueless. To me if you have paid the ten, twenty, or whatever, for a small stakes comp then you are free to do what you want with your cards and chips as long as you don’t behave like an arsehole. It’s only when people have foul manners and bad etiquette that I lose all of my respect for them.

On the world scale I would have to say that I only fear Russell Bansen. That man plays poker on a totally different level to us mere mortals. Whenever I have a tough decision to make I think, what would Russ do here?

Locally, playing for small stakes I don’t really fear anyone. However when someone like Shag sits down at my table I know I’m in for a tough time. There are such a huge number of Stoke and UKPI players that are extremely capable tournament players that I think that it would be unfair to single out individuals. Suffice to say, that, when the next forum get together takes place it will be a tough call to name who gets to pick up the winners trophy and who collects the LOL Donkaments trophy.

THE RAGE: I get to share ideas with and meet up with some very nice, friendly people. Apart from the many Stoke based players that I’ve met via the forum, there have also been people such as yourself (KNSTV) Mr Macacan and family, Squirmy, Dik9, Billyboy, Val from L.I.P and many, many more.

I don’t make friends very easily, mainly because of my shyness, but, I hope to one day get to know you all a lot better!
And us you, Thanks for taking the time Mark, much appreciated. Any forum members who are interested in being interviewed please contact me on the forum.

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The structure is a bit silly, starting at 25-25 with 15K stacks and an hour clock, I should have stayed in the bar for the first four hours. Especially as I manage to donk them all off, first losing half my stack when calling a raise with 7-4 of hearts and flopping the nuts on a 5-6-3 rainbow board, check raise the flop, pot an ace on the turn and check call a board pairing five, to be shown A-5.

Then I call a raise with 8-9 clubs because it looked such a scared raise, 500 when the table standard had been 250 or 300. The flop comes JcJh3c, I flat call a pot sized bet and my opponent looks like someone just shot his dog. I’m planning to put him all in on the turn no matter what comes but im quite happy to see a 10 as it might give me more outs if my opponent can call. He bets about 1500 and I move all in, he dwells for ages then calls, with pocket tens!

I’m drawing dead but surprisingly not unhappy with my play, I think he only has two outs to win the pot and even then tried to talk himself out of it! We head into town looking for some live music and more Guinness and we find it! I bump into Kev B the next day and he tells me how he ground away till 2:30 am then ran his top pair into a set when he was behind average and committed, as the Irish would say ‘Bit of an ole cooler’.

J and I spend the day visiting parts of the Killarney national park, we check out the lake and Torc waterfalls and walk up some ridiculous bloody mountain trail (see pics below) and its really beautiful and isolated. Return to the hotel and join Kev and Jools, who have been great company as usual in a drinking session that see’s us on it till 3am! Then fly home, with bloody Ryan Air and have to pay a quid for a pee as I just couldn’t hold it! 
View from the top of a bloody great mountain I walked up

View of Lough Leane

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Flying with Ryanair is never going to be a pleasurable experience, they even seem to now insist all of there female flight attendants must look like they have escaped from the set of prisoner cell block H and charging people to use the toilet is a pretty mean trick if you ask me. Even worse though is painting the inside of the plain bright yellow, now that’s just too much, it was a bit like flying too Ireland inside a high visibility jacket, not a pleasant experience at all.

Upon arrival at Shannon our attempts to pick up our hire car from the company are blocked by a sizeable Welsh man arguing vehemently with a pretty young woman behind the Avis desk who appears to be disintegrating into laughter every three seconds and not taking his bluster with the malicious intent he wished to purvey. He eventually storms out of the terminal buidling for a smoke and then 10 minutes later returns and is hanging around as we complete the formalities.

 I’m just waiting for the question that I know has been coming sonce he spotted the UKPOKERINFO logo on my shirt, “You heading for Killarney for the poker are you boys?” J who is one of my oldest friends and for this journey is to be my is my travelling companion instantly answers “Yes, you going to the poker as well then?” I roll my eyes at J’s naivety as the trap swings shut, “Well yes if you kind fellas can give me a lift I will be!”

So we have to put up with two and half hours of this Welsh windbag as we scuttle across the country, he keeps dropping names of famous poker players and I can’t help thinking what a waste of time this is, J knows nothing about poker so he does’nt even know the names being dropped all over the back seat, I know all the names but I just don’t fucking care. Eventually though after a few circuits of Killarney courtesy of a sat nav that just can’t handle the towns new one way system we arrive at the hotel at about a quarter to one in the morning.

We quickly check in and drop our bags in our room, now the package states four night accommodation at €120 a night, and although the rooms not the worse I’ve stayed in its not worth this price. We head off to the lively looking bar at the front of the property but as we walk through the ballroom bar I spot a familiar face, Kev B staring back at me and although his deep in conversation with Lucy Rokach he also spots me. The lovely Jools quickly joins us, a round of Guinness’s are purchased and the five of us settle in to talk shit about poker till the wee hours.

Waking up the next morning I open the curtains and catch my first glimpse of the stunning views that were kept a secret by our late night arrival, this picture was taken from our room.

After breakfast in the hotel we head of to register as the INEC centre which is actually part of the hotel which is very convenient having a bed so nearby when playing these long multi day tournaments*. Formalities executed we headed off into town with three hours to kill before cards are due in the air for the main event and after a quick look around we stumble into a bar to prepare to play poker for life changing money in the only way that makes any sense, drinking four pints of Guinness!

That stuff tastes gooodddd… Part 2 to follow

* If you don’t donk out in the first few hours of course!

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As a poker journalist you get used to meeting the stars of the game, sometimes you find yourself disappointed with the person behind the hype and some times not, it’s just something you become accustomed too. So this complacency when in the presence of the great and the good of the game might explain my genuine surprise at the discovery I had nervous butterflies whilst I was waiting to be introduced to Russ at his UK base, a luxurious suite at the Lambeth Travel Lodge.

Eventually I’m ushered in to the lounge by one of Russ’s army of pretty young personal assistants and finally get to meet the great man. I find Russ relaxing upon an ornate chaise lounge dressed in a cherry red, silk kimono whilst eating a toffee apple. Nervously I begin;

UKPI: Russ, thank you so very much for taking the time to meet with us today, I know you’re a busy man.

RUSS: That’s fine; I like to make time for the little people, show’s the sponsors I’m still connected to the grass roots, although of course I’m now much better than all of you.

UKPI: How are you finding England?

RUSS: England’s shit, well the whole of the UK is really, but I love being here and thank all the people who have made me feel so welcome, I do feel though that my presence and also the likes of Phil and Doyle’s kind of upgrades the UK to being almost an acceptable place to be, our very presence is like a gift to the people of your country.

UKPI: Well on behalf of all the people of the UK, I thank you. So how did you get on at the EPO last week?

RUSS: I refused to play it, I’m a God fearing man and I shan’t ever be visiting anywhere named Dusk Till Dawn, Good Christians where killed by vampires in that place and I think it’s a sacrilege they use the name.

UKPI: Ummm, wasn’t that just a film?

RUSS: Well yeah, they made it into a film later, but it happened in real life, you really should have prepared better for this interview, you need to know the facts.

UKPI: Yeah, ummm, sorry, so what did you do instead? Did you play any poker?

RUSS: No, I took some time out and visited the sites of London.

UKPI: Good Idea, what did you see?

RUSS: I went to visit Buckingham palace, what a shit hole, no pool, no tennis courts, no games room! Call that a palace! You fucking Brits kill me and the London eye, what the fuck! Man it’s a just a big wheel!

UKPI: Did you visit the west end to see a show?

RUSS: Yeah I did, I wanted to see something typically British so was recommend a show called ‘The Bill – The Musical’ by Daniel Negreanu who had seen it the night before and loved it, and well Danny’s a big fan of musical theatre, all though he strenuously denies it! Danny made a great choice, it was very entertaining, have you seen it?

UKPI: Ummm, not yet

RUSS: Oh you just have too, its about a British female cop called June Ackland and her struggle to be accepted by the male dominated Sun Hill PD, Ackland was played by Kathleen Turner and Michal Crawford played the villain of the piece, a corrupt chauvinist cop named Reg Hollis, he was excellent, a real baddie.

UKPI: Sounds great, tell us about your WSOPE you seemed to accumulate chips from the start, how did it go?

RUSS: Oh yeah, people have read the book and obviously assumed I would be playing only premium hands, pocket twos or better you know. So I loosened right up.

UKPI: You seemed to be heading for the final table with a big stack and then the wheels came off; can you tell us about your exit, I understand there was some controversy?

RUSS: Yes, I got a terrible ruling from the TD and then just went on tilt.

UKPI: So what happened?

RUSS: Well Vicky Coren had just been moved to my table, well she’s a women so I’m gonna raise her blind every time. So I raised from under the gun and she called, flop came seven high and we both check, the turn brings an ace, she bets and I re-raise, she then starts talking and asks if I would be prepared to show her one of my cards, I say yeah if she show’s me one of her boobs, she looks shocked but then starts to giggle, I flash her the 3 of diamonds, she moves all in and I fold. I ask to see her tittie but she refuses, I summon the TD and then Jack Eifel but they both rule in her favour. Disgraceful decisions and as I said from then on I was just on total tilt.

UKPI: So what happened next?

RUSS: Well I was in the big blind with 100K behind at 1/2K so I was desperately short. Under the gun raised, got called by plus one and plus two, a guy in mid position min re-raised and the cut-off shoved his 130K stack and the button called and then so does the small blind, and fuck my luck! I only wake up in the big blind with ace ten suited, how can I pass here!

UKPI: Wow, just wow.

RUSS: Yeah and wouldn’t you know it one of them had aces!

UKPI: What are the odds!

RUSS: Exactly! I am sorry though for shouting at the little girl who knocked me out, I didn’t mean to make her cry.

UKPI: I thought it was Dario Mineri the male Italian pro that knocked you out?

RUSS: That little chick with the scarf was actually a boy! I patted his bottom on the way out!

UKPI: I have to ask the big question that everyone in poker is waiting eagerly for the answer too, are there any more books on the way?

RUSS: Well, I don’t want to give away too much but yes I can confirm there will be a new book published soon.

UKPI: Fantastic news, can you tell me the subject.

RUSS: No you’ll just have to wait, but I will serialise on UKPOKERINFO first as I like all you guy’s.

UKPI: Thank you Russ for your time, it’s been a real honour.

RUSS: Yes, I’m sure it has.

I can tell you after meeting the man I was not disappointed, there’s a real weight of intellect behind the public persona and his a real gent to boot who looks cool in a Kimono.

Related posts:

1. It’s Nothing Personal
2. Showdown hopefully explained