Friday, September 30, 2005


Posted by Dr Fro 11:59 AM
Forbes' list of the richest 400 Americans is out. I find quite interesting how many in the top 15 on the list are college dropouts (or people who didn't even attempt college):

#1 Bill Gates, Harvard dropout
#3 Paul Allen WSU dropout
#5 Michael Dell, UT dropout (Memorial High school graduate)
#6 Lawrence Ellison , Illinois dropout
#7-10, the Waltons. Two of which do not have any education credentials
#12 Barbara Cox Anthony, high school grad
#12 Anne Cox Chambers, high school grad
#15 Kirk Kerkorian (the Venentian and the Sands), high school grad

Only two have Ivy League MBAs.

I should have dropped out.


(0) comments

Thursday, September 29, 2005


Posted by Junelli 2:45 PM
It's a small world.




(2) comments

Posted by Johnnymac 9:42 AM
From the mailbag. Wow. I didn't realize it was this bad last weekend.




+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++



-----Original Message-----
From: Greene, John M.
Sent: Thursday, September 29, 2005 9:41 AM
To: itaintgambling




-----Original Message-----
From: Harlow, James C.
Sent: Thursday, September 29, 2005 9:35 AM
To: Lomax, John P.; Greene, John M.; Harper, Allan; Powers, Tim P.
Subject: FW: Houston Storm Damage


Looks like Shell Deer Park.

James


-----Original Message-----
From: kaz
Sent: Thursday, September 29, 2005 9:03 AM
To: Arias; Batson; Beasley; Blake; Mike Branch; Burgard; Carl; Chino;
Chrystal; Coleman; Dennis; Ellaine; Emilio; Eric; Ginzel; Harlow, James
C.; Hernan; Ingram; Kramer; Lorraine; Manning; Maria; Billy Mercier; Mo;
Mommy; Neil O'Kane; Marriner Personal; Terry Pinney; Sandra Pollard;
Randy; Ric; Scott/Joy; Stacey; Stringer; Torrey; Mike Trepanitis; Hal
Tryon; M V V; Rafael Vides; Vincenzo; Greg Wallace; Winkler; Sandy Work;
Philips Work
Subject: Houston Storm Damage



Check out this picture of hurricane damage to a Shell Oil refinery in the Houston area.





(0) comments

Posted by Johnnymac 9:31 AM



(1) comments

Posted by Johnnymac 8:34 AM


Just be warned that the picture is a lot better than the article, which is about three paragraphs too long:
Wil Wheaton Wins World Series Of Strip Poker


(0) comments

Wednesday, September 28, 2005


Posted by Dr Fro 11:18 PM
Detox at the flop house no booze allowed
Remember the good old days with the rockabilly crowd
Memphis is where he's from
He lives in the street but he's no bum
A rockabilly star from the days of old
He used to have teeth all filled with gold
A platinum voice but only gold records
On the bass was boots on the drums was checkers
Luis Vuitton with the Gucci guitar

Tonight was a very strange night.

ARH and I went to Jackie's to play NL HE. They have changed the $1-$2 game to be "1-2-5" which means 1-2 blinds but a minimum bring in of 5. So, it still costs 3 to see an orbit, but it costs 5 to see a flop. The effect is that it plays much more straightforward because the BB and SB aren't shoe-ins (sp?) on every hand.

On the fifth hand of the night (app 6:30pm), I get ATs. The flop is ok, but the guy who bets it is known to bet anything. I call and the turn gives me a draw to the royal flush. I call his bet and hit the royal on the river. He bets 20 on the river, I make it 60, he calls, I prove to the table that I am the greatest player in the entire world (ok, that was overstating it...I just show that I hit a very nice river). So, I made a royal - playing both hole cards. My name goes on the board for high hand. Of course, I can't lose the high hand, but I could still split it if somebody makes another royal by 10:30pm. Otherwise, I pull in about $100ish. The only thing that disqualifies me is if I am not actually there when the clock strikes 10:30.

I actually pondered a few scenarios in my head of what could possibly pull me away from the table before 10:30. I had trouble thinking of a scenario.

It's now (oh wait, JJF has trouble with the simple literary device of using the present tense while describing past events - maybe I should type slower...) about 8:30pm and my phone rang. It is my sister-in-law, which is odd. Sisters-in-law don't usually call unless there is a good reason. I am staring at $500 in chips (on a $200 buy-in), a table full of fools and a sure thing on collecting $100ish on the high hand jackpot when she says, "ADT called. Your fire alarm went off." Jane is in North Carolina, so I immediately darted and went home, leaving $500 in chips and the sure-thing jackpot behind.

I had to fight through a lot of traffic because lightning had knocked out a bunch of lights. The knocked out lights led to wrecks, which led to more traffic. There were trees split in half on three different spots on NW Hwy and firetrucks everywhere. The whole time I am facing the direction of my house and the lightning rods keep firing down right about where my house is (was?)

I get home and, well, I got home. It was there. There were a lot of weird things like motion lights that were stuck on and some (but not all) clocks blinking. It appeared as if lightning struck nearby and messed up some stuff (and set off the heat sensor, triggering the ADT call), but the house was most definitely not burned down.

Whew.

Now that I knew that most largest treasures were intact, I quickly raced back to Jackie's to reclaim my other treasures. Nobody there busted my balls about leaving and I was still fully qualified to win my prize. It was 9:30 and ARH and I played for 1 more hour. We actually tangled up in a hand where he doubled up through me. I also struggled in a few spots with other people, but I walked out of there with my high hand jackpot (ended up being $124), a profit on the game, and....and...AND...a Jackie's T-shirt that they give to all royal flush all-Americans like yours truly. Now I have 2 cardroom T-shirts: One from Jackie's and one from the Friendship Social Club. The latter I got with a King-high straight flush in a $3-$6 limit game. The former I got on a night when I thought I had lost everything I owned except that shirt and a few hundred bucks.

I could have ended tonight homeless, but I ended it Johnny Royale.


(0) comments

Posted by Johnnymac 10:28 PM


Backe Boy wasn't in particularly good form tonight, but the 'Stros won again. The magic number is now 2.


(1) comments

Posted by Junelli 3:30 PM
Last night was the nutz.

I won $1,075 playing $5-$5 NL at Northside. It took almost 5 hours of hunkering down and riding out the storm of cold cards. Then the sun rose again, the cards started coming, and I started scooping pots.


(1) comments

Posted by Dr Fro 8:01 AM
From the mailbag:

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

To: AH, Dr Fro
From: CCM
Date: 09/28/2005 12:45 AM
Subject: Poker


For some reason I was thinking about the best poker quotes I've heard in the past month (there haven't been too many of them).....

"I had the WSP Omaha session taped, but I didn't watch it because I didn't think we were playing that tonight."

My second favorite (I may not have this exactly right, but I have the jist of it).....

"I put you on the pair of kings (better than my pair of 4s), but since I had one of your Kings, I figured I had a better chance at getting the set than you"...... so I called your heads up all-in bet!!!!!!!!!!! "

I'm sure I've NEVER said anything like that!

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I was there for that second one. It was in 7-stud and he had a pair of 4's on fifth street and called an all-in pot-sized bet.



(1) comments

Tuesday, September 27, 2005


Posted by Junelli 4:59 PM
An interesting post entitled, "Why Online Poker Isn't Rigged"


(2) comments

Posted by Junelli 4:35 PM
The Origin of "The Nuts"
by Marc Weinberg

For a change of pace (instead of me whining about a bad beat or gloating over an improbable victory), I dedicate this column to a little poker etymology, namely discussing the origin of an interesting poker term, "the nuts". You hear it all the time playing poker, but where does "the nuts" derive from, and how did it come to mean the absolute best hand in a poker game?

When you hold the nuts in poker you have an unbeatable hand. If a hold'em board shows Ad-Td-Jc-2c-3s and you hold the Qs-Kh then you my friend have the stone cold mortal nuts. This cool poker term dates way back to the Wild West where cowboys would gather round a table, preferably in a saloon but alternatively around a campfire, and play cards. Back then poker players would not always bet with cash or chips. It was a more rustic time, and men would often bet their horse and wagon on a poker hand. Legend has it that when a cowboy bet his wagon he would unscrew the nuts from his wagon wheels and place them in the pot.

The reason behind this gesture was that in the event that he lost the pot he could not leap up, hop into his wagon and ride away with his wager. The fact that he was willing to put those nuts in the pot as surety for the strength of his hand resonated through the prairie, and came to be synonymous with the best hand. A cowboy would only bet "the nuts" when he was convinced that his hand was the best out there.

Everyone knows that Wild Bill was gunned down while holding Aces and Eights, and that we now call it the dead man's hand. But who at your table knows the true origin of the nuts, other than you of course, pardner.


(2) comments

Posted by Junelli 2:01 PM
I've discovered how TxDOT can eliminate the traffic next time: Just install one of these bad boys in everyone's home:





(0) comments

Monday, September 26, 2005


Posted by Johnnymac 11:53 AM
I just wrote a huge opus on how "price gouging" is a dumb thing to be worried about and about how the traffic jams from last week could have been avoided if people had been forced to pay $6 or $7 per gallon for gasoline. But that post somehow got lost in the ether of internet security here at work. Oops.

Anyway, Mrs Johnnymac and I saw a lot of moving vans and trailers and single-occupant vehicles on the road last week during our evacuation, and I think a lot of that came from families driving more than one car or trying to take too much stuff with them as they evacuated. I don't feel like rewriting all of my arguments all over again, so just read this column and try and make the connection that more demand for space on the highway is directly analogous to a hotel with a limited supply of rooms. If the price for driving had been higher, there would have been more space on the highways per person (and not necessarily per car) and thus the traffic jams would not have been as bad.

The concept of Supply and Demand is not immoral, the politicians just want us to think so.

Similarly, what if the price of 'D' size batteries had been twice or even three times as much as normal. Would the stores have sold out so quickly? A pair of batteries typically lasts 15-20 hours of continuous use, so assuming 'normal' sleeping patterns and flashlight usage, an eight pack of batteries might last two weeks. Only in extreme cases would electric power be out more than two weeks after a hurricane and even then that would only be in isolated places - so is there any other reason people would be hoarding flashlight batteries except that the price was just too low to begin with? If you want to discuss "fairness", is it fair that some people have more than they need and some people go without? That's the whole point of supply and demand - prices aren't set solely by the retailer, despite what many idiots in this country want you to believe; prices are also set by consumers and thus with more people than normal demanding batteries, the price should have been higher than normal, too! Why is this so hard to understand for some people?

And don't even get me started on the people who bought enough bottled water last week to fill a swimming pool!

Now back to your regular poker blog.


(5) comments

Posted by Johnnymac 9:40 AM
Well, we're back home in Houston and the worst damage at La Casa Johnnymac was a whole lot of branches and leaves in the yard. It looks like the most work we're going to have to do will be moving furniture back and pulling everything out of the garage that got crammed in there when we evacuated on Thursday. I guess I will take that relative to inventorying things for an insurance adjuster and rummaging around in piles of rubble trying to find my college diploma. Things could have been a lot worse.

The trip home yesterday wasn't bad at all. Originally, Mrs Johnnymac and I were planning on leaving Austin at first light this morning, but yesterday around 2:00 the traffic reports looked OK and a phone call to our neighbors revealed that we had power at the house so we decided to go ahead and get home. There was no traffic at all and what took 10 hours on Thursday took 3.5 hours yesterday. I tried to avoid I-10 and 290, so after La Grange we hit the back roads into Bellville and Katy and took Clay Road into town and on to our house. No problem at all. I am glad we skipped Columbus, because apparently it was one of the few backups that existed yesterday. We hit a little bit of traffic in Bellville yesterday, but nothing like the mess that was there Thursday and we probably would not have even noticed it had it been any other Sunday.

And because I don't have much to do at work this morning, I made a map of our route this weekend:



So we're back home.


(0) comments

Saturday, September 24, 2005


Posted by Johnnymac 12:49 PM
Well, it looks like Houston survived mostly intact, but despite our urge to hurry home, I think Mrs Johnnymac and I are going to stay here in Austin until at least tomorrow night, if not Monday morning because my brother's house is comfortable and air conditioned and at least in Austin there is plenty of gasoline. The freeways here heading east are packed - 183, 290, 71, all of them. We'll probably come back the way we came - via 969 to Bastrop and then cutting through on 2104 and 153 past La Grange. But that won't be for quite a while.


(0) comments

Thursday, September 22, 2005


Posted by Johnnymac 9:25 PM
We made it to Austin and are now safe and sound at my brother's house. We left at 10:30am and arrived at 8:30pm. Our route was a bit circuitous and we might have made it sooner had we not started from Sugar Land.

Here's the story: The people on Channel 2 this morning said that 59 South was running smoothly because it was not an "official" evacuation route so we thought we would try it. Bad idea - we were flying 70+ mph in between the Loop and the Beltway but then we got to the Beltway and hit the backup hard. Oops. So we exited and took Bissonnet west to Grand Parkway and then north through Cinco Ranch and Katy via Mason Road over the fabulous new I-10 parking lot and northwest into Waller County. Luckily I had this book and had ridden my bicycle in the area and we were able to take a lot of the back roads with hardly any problem all the way to Bellville. In fact, we probably averaged 55+ mph between Katy and Bellville.

Unfortunately, I didn't realize from the map in my book that three major highways intersect at the same single lane courthouse square in Bellville and we ended up sitting in Bellville for two hours as we crawled about 3 miles through the bottleneck.

But that was it - after Bellville we took 159 west and managed 50+ mph all the way to LaGrange and then Bastrop (via the MS150 backroute) and on into Austin. In Austin we hit 290 and ran into evacuation traffic again, except that what had taken us 10 hours took some of those people 14 or more.

Anyway, we're here. I have no idea for how long or when we can go back, but at least we're not sitting at home waiting for the windows to blow out.


(2) comments

Posted by Johnnymac 2:27 AM
OK, we're chickening out and heading to Austin to stay with my brother and his pregnant wife. Y'all take care.


(2) comments

Wednesday, September 21, 2005


Posted by Johnnymac 12:50 PM


As you can tell from the picture, a hurricane is coming. Mrs Johnnymac and I are going to ride it out, we're thinking. We're going to cram both cars and all of our patio furniture into the garage on Friday afternoon and get ready for a wild ride.

When Allison hit in 2001, we ended up playing poker during the flood. I wasn't married then, I didn't even know Rachel then and I still lived with Canonico, and Fro, Andy, and my brother all got stranded in Bellaire that night. We played poker all night and by 4am when everyone else went to bed Fro and I got out a bottle Jack and sat on the front porch and admired the new lake that had formed in Canonico's front yard. It was amazing.

This time, Mrs Johnnymac and I have thought about driving to West Texas or Oklahoma, but what happens when it's over? How quickly can you get back to protect your property? Maybe we'll play poker, maybe we'll read by candlelight, maybe we'll play with the kitties, maybe we'll just huddle together and look out the window.

Man, this is crazy. Crazy even here at work - this company works in a real-time environment, people in other parts of Texas (and Pennsylvania and California) still need electricity and so there are essential people moving to the bunker and making preparations. It's quite impressive.

What else to say... I was planning on grouting the new tile floor in the bathroom this afternoon and installing the cabinets tonight and I think I am still going to do that. Why? Because all of the cabinets and the countertop are in the front room of the house next to the biggest window, which just happens to face south. Uh-oh. I guess maybe we'll try and avoid damaging those guys (or at least have them installed briefly before they get destroyed in the bathroom instead!)

I am planning on blogging all weekend until I am forced to stop. We'll see.


(0) comments

Tuesday, September 20, 2005


Posted by Johnnymac 6:54 AM
UPDATE 3 to my post below: They didn't keep it up.


(0) comments

Friday, September 16, 2005


Posted by Johnnymac 11:15 PM


How about that?

UPDATE: The link is fixed now.

UPDATE 2: The Astros swept the Brewers this weekend. Let's hope it holds up.


(0) comments

Posted by Dr Fro 12:53 PM
Did I mention that I saw Thad at the game?

I wish I could say that I was surprised, but I bumped into him in Lincoln 3 years ago and he had the same thing going on. In fact, it is evidently an undefeated outfit (Lubbock, Lincoln, Columbus and a couple other places).


(3) comments

Posted by Dr Fro 3:26 AM
My link below (2 posts down) to my UT-OSU summary on Hornfans now works (I can't figure out why it keeps going wrong, but it does work).

Columbus was great. There were several things that struck me in addition to what I wrote on Hornfans, the first being the sheer size of it all. Hardly anybody we play is ever bigger than us. I didn’t say “better”, I said “bigger” (I know Texans have trouble understanding the difference.) No matter who we play, we are bigger. We have more fans that watch us at home, more TV ratings, a bigger endowment, a bigger national following, more victories, more championships, etc. There are <>never, but hardly ever. As a result, just about everybody we play looks at the UT game as their biggest game of the year. On the flip side, just about nobody we play excites us that way; that is, they don’t excite us on the basis of being a bigger program than we are.

Notable exceptions in our past 150 games are Nebraska (5 times), Notre Dame in 95 and 96, Michigan in the Rose Bowl and Ohio State.

OU can talk quite proudly about beating us the past 5 years, but I am not talking about recent on-the-field success. I am talking about the sheer hugeness of the program; I am talking about the very characteristic about UT that makes OU (and A&M, and Arkansas and Tech…) want to beat us so darn bad in the first place.

Well, I bring this up because Ohio State is only the 3rd time in my life (the other two being in Lincoln and in South Bend) where I definitely felt like Gomer Pyle saying “gawwwwly” in the face of the opponent’s program. Ohio State sells out 105,000 seats every game. I don’t know how many we could sell out if we expanded, but I think it would be a stretch to say that we would sell out 105,000 every game. But not only is their stadium 25% bigger than ours, the demand of those would-be ticket buyers left out of the stadium are even higher. Based on my friend’s parents and my perusing Ebay, Ohio State tickets on the black market consistently get about $100-per, even for crap games. You are an idiot if you pay $100 to see UT beat Baylor. Market value is below face for those games.

I am rambling here, but I think that somewhere in it all, the point is made that I have a healthy respect for OSU for the very characteristics for which our fellow (non-UT) Texans hate us. They are one big, big, big-time program. Bigger than Texas. (is that considered blasphemy??)

Some reasons are obvious, the first one being recent on-the-field success. It should be pointed out that they are the only big time Div I-A school in Ohio and one of only 3 (I think) Div I-A schools in Ohio - they kinda have a corner on the market for college football in the state. Contrast that with UT who shares the somewhat big-time status with at least one other school in state and has 10 total Div I-A schools (UT, A&M, Tech, BU, North Texas, UTEP, UH, Rice, TCU and SMU). Did I miss one? So if you live in Ohio and you want to support college football, you root for Ohio State (unless you have good reason to root for Miami or Cincinnati). In Texas, it tends to work out that unless you actually have a tie to UT or A&M, you root against both of them. And since we don’t root for each other, then it is true that nobody roots for UT (or A&M) except people with some sort of tie.

Proof of what I am saying was the fact that I talked to a total of 14 OSU fans during the game. Not a one went to OSU. Contrast that with a UT game, where I think it would be impossible to randomly pick 14 guys in orange and have all of them be yahoos that just happen to root for us because they got transferred to Austin and they like football.

Now layer in one other fact: Ohio is the most densely populated state in the union (check me on this, I say this based on hearsay, but it seems feasible). All the millions of people in Cleveland, Cincinnati, Toledo, Columbus, Dayton, etc, can make a daytrip to Ohio Stadium and be back for dinner. In Texas, where Dallas and Houston take up a huge amount of seats at DKR-TMS, people are driving 3 hours to get there.

Anyway, there are reasons why they are the big time program they are, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that they are. And I find it a unique feeling to experience something bigger than DKR-TMS on Saturday.

As I fill up another glass of scotch, I should probably warn you that not everything I am typing will probably make sense to me in the morning…

Sloopy most definitely let go. Sloopy let go.
OSU needs to increase their budget…$500 doesn’t get you what it used to.
V stands for victory.
We kicked them in the poisonous nuts.
Then we kicked some Buck.
Yet one pun still remains…

I had an epiphany after the game. I told Jane that I was really upset with VY’s ugly interceptions. But then I made a little poker analogy. The poker equivalent of a TD is a won pot and the poker equivalent of an INT is a lost pot. In football, we seem to expect our QBs to throw TDs yet never have an INT. In poker, you could guarantee no lost pots by never playing a hand. If you waited until you flopped the nuts in the big blind, well, you wouldn’t ever lose (or throw that metaphorical INT), but you wouldn’t score many TDs either. Your QB efficiency rating would suck ass.

So, when V racked up 270 yards and scored the game winning TD, it all made sense to me. The INTs are just the ugly side of the exact same strategy/approach that puts TD passes in the hands of Limas Sweed. (And how Sweed it was when he did).

So his passing efficiency is 11th in the nation, which is good. This includes the effects of INTs, so you cant say “yeah, but he throws INTs” (which is what I would have said before my epiphany). But passing efficiency does not include rushing TDs, which are obviously a very important (the most important?) part of his arsenal. That would be like judging Anna Kournikova on popularity based on tennis and completely ignoring her other talents.

Anyway, I think that people could look at my poker game and point to individual pots and say “dude, he needs to slow down. Moving in so many chips so fast was an obvious recipe for disaster,” but to truly judge, they would need to net the losses on failed moves against the sum of the many small gains. And I think that the result would prove the strategy to be profitable. I would not get a poker efficiency rating of 11th in the nation, but I would win more than I lose.

So in poker I have learned to accept losses as long as I can say that the decisions involved were part of a larger portfolio of decisions that collectively are winning decisions. I can now view VY in the same light.

Speaking of which, I definitely lost tonight. I lost a ton in the 2-5NL game. I got kicked in the nuts, so to speak. I lost most everything on three hands, TT, QQ, and AK, and in all cases I made big raises pre-flop, hit my hand on the flop and made an obscene bet. In all 3 cases, I ran into bizarre hands that called a $20+ pre-flop bet, including losing to 33, 34, and 57. I can’t cry about the losses, I was ahead when I bet. My poker efficiency rating will come back up. For now, I have 3 INT’s and (anybody? Anybody? Bueller? What else do I have?? Anyone???)

A: "and that stupid look on my face."


(2) comments

Thursday, September 15, 2005


Posted by Junelli 3:18 PM
I had a situation come up on Tuesday that really annoyed me, and I wanted to see if you agree with me. It deals with cashing out and buying back in for less.

As I mentioned in my comments on Friou's post below, I had a hand come up where I flopped bottom two pair against a guy who flopped top two pair. What I didn't mention was that 3 players were all-in on that hand, and the pot was approx $750.

The punk who won the $750 just sat back and folded every hand for the next 10 minutes, and then got up and cashed out. I know it's completely within his rights to stop playing, but I noticed it and it annoyed me since he was leaving with a bunch of my money as well as taking off the table a pretty sizable percentage of the total chips in play. I really dislike hit-and-run players.

He cashed out but never left. He sat around talking to his friends, hanging out in the smoke room, and watching the game. At first I thought he was waiting for one of his friends to finish playing. Nope. He was waiting to buy back in for only $200.

40 minutes after he had cashed out, he sat back down (at the same table) and bought in for $200. Of course, I immediately spoke up and reminded him and the dealer that he had to buy-in for the entire $750 he took off the table. The dealer told him that he had to wait an hour before he could come back in for less. I've never heard of this 1 hour rule (except in a casino), and am pretty sure he just made it up. Of course, I've never seen a guy pull such a pathetic move.

Anyway, Loser stands back up and waits 20 more minutes before he comes back in for $200.

It really pissed me off. However, when I mentioned it to Keith he told me that I should just be glad he's back in for $200 and that it's better than him going home with all his money. Another point is that he is much less of a threat with $200 than he would've been with $750.

I don't know. What do you think?


(5) comments

Wednesday, September 14, 2005


Posted by Dr Fro 7:13 PM
I am back. Columbus was great and I have already written about it on Hornfans, so you can read my impressions there. The Astros stank it up, but I got to the Zebra in plenty of time to play about 5 hours of poker.

The Zebra is the classiest place I have ever played poker. I really liked it. The players are very much like those at my Dallas room. Only in Dallas it is 90% Koreans and in Houston it is 90% Vietnamese. Both places are full of action junkies with apparent disposable income. The players are equally horrible in at both.

I didn't really get many great hands and I certainly had my fair share of bad beats. However, my $500 buy in turned into $534 by night's end. It was that easy. With some good hands, I could have done quite well. Among the many errors in the play was the lack of continuation betting on every street. Player A raises preflop and bets the flop and turn, with his opponent calling him down. The flop brings no scare card, but Player A mysteriously stops betting. Now the opponent makes a huge move at the pot and A folds. I was "Opponent" not "A" often last night.

Riva is clearly the hottest girl I have ever seen in a poker room (Jane doesn't play or else Riva would get second place). She seems to defy gravity and has a propensity to smuggle raisins.

It was good to see everyone, including Glaze Dog, Javier, Patrick, etc.


(2) comments

Tuesday, September 13, 2005


Posted by Junelli 2:30 PM
On Friday I heard about a really drunk guy that came into the Zebra for the first time last week, and immediately annointed himself a poker nickname.

He called himself Chuckie "The Seat," because he claims he could win in any seat.

Chuckie "The Seat" was busted out very quickly.

Great name though.


(0) comments

Monday, September 12, 2005


Posted by Junelli 11:05 AM
Friday I got a hall pass. Dabney is training with Houston Fit for a half-marathon in January. Her group meets at 6:15am on Saturday mornings from now until the race. That means Friday night is poker night. As some of you may know, I am not currently training with Houston Fit. [insert fat joke here].

All day I had planned on playing $2-$5 PL at the Zebra. The game is great but sometimes it doesn't start until 8 or 8:30pm. I wanted to start earlier so I headed up to Northside at about 5pm to sit at the $6-$6 NL game.

Northside's $6-$6 game is very good. They play on Wed, Fri and Sunday and start at 2pm. By 6pm Friday they had 2 full tables going. Most players buy-in for $500, but several players sit down with $1,000. The action is very fast, and it almost always costs $25-$50 to see a flop. Nearly all of the players are average to above-average skill, and it's a tough game to beat. However, if you catch a rush and hit some hands, you can easily book a $1,000 win. That cuts both ways though.

Friday night I was never really up, and couldn't make any big hands. I won plenty of small pots (<$50), but never got involved in many big hands. However, seeing flops and missing hands gets expensive and I found myself stuck about $450 after 4 hours.

I wanted to go to the Zebra, and probably should've cashed out. However, I reloaded one more time and waited to hit a big hand, get unstuck, and then cash out. That strategy rarely works.

I got all my money in when I flopped trip sixes from the BB. The button reluctantly called me, but won the pot when he outkicked me.

It was 11:30pm, and I had lost $700 at Northside. Time to try my luck at the Zebra.

The Zebra had a full $2-$5 PL game and I was #3 on the list. Everyone playing had a lot of chips, and it looked like I could be waiting awhile. Meanwhile the other table had a seat open at a $1-$2 PL Omaha Hi/Lo game.

I'm not an Omaha player and have only played it live about 5 times. I've played it some on the Internet, but really don't feel like I have a good grasp of the game. The Zebra's Hi/Lo game is huge, and the pots are enormous. I've seen players win and lose over $5,000 in one session. I've always avoided that game like the plague.

However, I was bored with waiting for the PL table, and feeling a little frisky. I sat down into the Hi/Lo game with $400 and actually expected to lose it within about 30 minutes.

I got all my money in on the very first hand. Thank goodness I had the nut low so I was still alive. Cody and Terry were sitting beside me teaching me how to play. About 45 minutes later I got all my money in with a draw to the nut flush and the second nut low. I hit the hi and won a little bit.

After 2.5 hours the game broke and I had won $150. Not a lot of money but a profit nonetheless. I really enjoyed Hi/Lo, and it's much more exciting than Hold 'Em. You have to think much more, and I can easily understand it when they say that luck plays much less a role in Omaha, and that a good player will beat a bad player much more often in Omaha than in Hold Em.

One other aspect of the game I noticed is the aspect of "gambling." Omaha players are much more willing to make/call big bets on draws and without made hands. In my opinion, playing Omaha definitely affects your Hold Em game (for better or worse). I moved over to the $2-$5 PL game, and immediately ran over it. I was throwing money around like I was still playing Omaha. Within 15 minutes, I had the whole table concerned about whether or not I was in a hand.

At 5am the game nearly broke and I decided to play 3 handed with Riva (hottest female poker player around), and Mark (dealer). Although we were still playing $2-$5, we were straddling to $10 on every hand, and it was always $50 to see a flop.

I feel pretty good about my short-handed play, but I have a tendency to play too loose. On several occassions I've given back a night's profit in the last 30 minutes of short-handed play. However, sometimes I can increase my winnings by repeatedly breaking someone.

I (and Mark) did that Saturday to Riva. She kept reloading, and we kept hammering her. On one hand I had AA and made it $50 to go preflop. Both players called, and the flop was Q78 with two clubs. Riva led out for $225, and I put her all-in. She had a gutshot with a club draw. She kept goading me to cut her a deal because of all her outs. She talked to me like I didn't know what I was doing, and kept telling me all the cards she could hit to win. It kind of pissed me off that she was talking down to me like a newbie, so I told the dealer to run it. Two blanks came off and I won a very big pot. She was pissed that I didn't cut her a deal. I might've done it if she hadn't rode me so much about it.

Anyway, we finally quit at 8:15am and I cashed out with $1,250. It was a very good comeback, and got me out of the red from the Northside game.


(10) comments

Sunday, September 11, 2005


Posted by Johnnymac 5:30 PM
Update from Vegas -

The 1-2 NL game at MGM has killed this trip for me. In about 10 total hours of play this weekend, I've lost $700, with $500 going on just three hands: KK, AA, and KK, getting cracked by AK, 33, and Q3, respectively. All three times it was the other guy who came over the top of my big bet to put me all-in and all three times I was ahead when we turned over our cards. I know it's "just poker" but my confidence is shot and I'm not heading back to that game again for this trip. I can take the occasional bad beat and any one of these alone isn't that bad, but three big hands like this grouped so close together with no big wins interspersed just sucks.

What's really bothering me is that this is one of the best games I have seen in a very long time - this game is chock full of tough guys and drunks ramming and jamming with shit like KJ and J9 and A-anything and I can't seem to get any piece of it. For example, the final piece of the troika happened late this morning after I came back from breakfast (which itself was a break from the AA getting cracked 5 minutes after I sat down).

My final nemesis was a very drunk black guy in a white velour track suit with a handtowel over his shoulder and munching on a pastrami sandwich at the table. He was on tilt and just pouring money into the game - from what I understand, he cashed out last night for about $3000 and came right back early this morning and started giving it back - people at the table were taking turns taking his chips in whole-stack increments. Hell, in one orbit of the table he re-bought 4 times and 3 of those times he was all in for his full $200 preflop. I was praying for a playable hand while this was going on and was psyched to finally see that KK peaking back at me from the BB. I reraised to isolate him, he called and the flop was QJ6 rainbow. I led out for $100, he said, "I'll put you all in big boy," and I called and he turned over Q3. Queen-fucking-three. SWEET.

But, as Bill Simmons says, "If I have to tell you what the next card was, you've never been to Vegas."

Dammit.

That particular hand was simply the last and most excruciating kick in the nuts; the other two were pretty bad themselves. I know that the right thing to do is just sit there and keep working, but I'm playing scared now, so I just got up and came back down to the Bally's sports book to watch football for the rest of the afternoon. If I play poker again tonight it will be the $2-4 limit game at Flamingo just because that's about all I can stomach right now. Geez.

That's all for now.


(2) comments

Posted by Johnnymac 7:47 AM
Update from Vegas -

The MGM poker room is nice and swank - I love the stone racetracks on the table

Wynn looks like Bellagio part 2 (I am not as impressed as a lot of people seem to be)

I went 5-2 on my college football bets yesterday yet still ended up down because my biggest bet was on what I thought was the best number on the board: Iowa (-9)

I learned my lesson from taking the Aggies and the 28 points against OU in 2003 (77-0 game). Yesterday, I gave 34.5 and 21.5 points with Wisconsin and Virginia Tech, respectively, and won each one handily - they both shutout their opponents by almost double the point spread! College football is about the only sport where is often makes sense to go ahead and give a big spread.

I also am down a bit from the 1-2 NL game at MGM, but I suspect my luck will turn later today and I'll get that back - the game is just too good

And Texas is undefeated at night against non-conference opponents in the Horseshoe in Columbus


(0) comments

Posted by Junelli 12:48 AM
Sound the Horns Baby!!




(0) comments

Friday, September 09, 2005


Posted by Junelli 1:41 PM
Beal's Story: The Professor, Banker, & Suicide King
By Gene Bromberg

A look at Michael Craig's rendering of the tale of the poker games between the Corporation and Andy Beal, billionaire and big-game hunter.

The Professor, The Banker, and the Suicide King: Inside The Richest Poker Game Of All Time by Michael Craig. Warner Books, June 2005.
During the first season of the World Poker Tour attentive viewers might have noticed hints that suggested tournament poker wasn't the only form of the game that had made a quantum leap forward. John Hennigan, in the very first WPT broadcast, was quoted in a graphic as saying, "Well, tomorrow's another day" after he reportedly lost $1 million in a poker game. Later in the year another graphic showed that Jennifer Harman had won a $2 million pot at the Bellagio -- the biggest single pot in poker history. And at the WPT Championship we learned that Ted Forrest had won AND lost over $1 million in a session of poker.

These were staggering sums, even compared to the $2.5 million paid out to Chris Moneymaker for winning the 2003 World Series of Poker. Moneymaker had to survive four days and 838 opponents to earn his fortune; Harman won hers in a single pot. The quick factoids broadcast on the WPT hardly answered the obvious question: Who are these people playing for such stratospheric stakes, and what sort of "game" involves risking millions of dollars on the turn of a card?

The answers to those questions can be found in The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King, by Michael Craig. The book is about the richest poker game of all time, but it's not just the incredible sums involved that make this one of the most compelling books ever written about poker. Craig's book examines the lives and motivations of the best high-stakes poker players in the world, and how a unique individual craving a unique poker experience spurred these poker titans to join forces.

The individual in question is Andy Beal, a publicity-shy billionaire who made his money in banking and real estate. Beal first visited the Bellagio poker room in February 2001, when he was in town on business and had some time on his hands. He played some mid-limit Texas Holdem poker, then moved up to a $400/$800 table, where one of his opponents was Todd Brunson, the son of Doyle Brunson and a top money player himself. Beal and Brunson eventually played heads-up, and that’s when Beal revealed himself as more than just a “live one” with extra-deep pockets.

“I want to play higher,” Andy told Todd.

“Okay,” Todd said, “I’ll play you higher.”

“No, not this time. I’d like to come back and play a lot higher, like $10,000-$20,000.”

Those were even bigger stakes than the top pros played at the Bellagio’s Table One, where the best cash players in the world sat down every night to win and lose fortunes. Beal sat down with Doyle Brunson, Chip Reese, John Hennigan, Jennifer Harman, Chau Giang, and Todd Brunson -- and won $100,000. But playing a full ring game didn’t excite Beal the way playing a single opponent did, and when he returned a month later Beal announced he only wanted to play heads-up, for the biggest stakes in history. With every top player anxious to sit down with Beal there was only one way to give the billionaire the game he wanted while cutting all the pros in on the action. Doyle Brunson arranged for all the top players to take a piece of each other’s action and play Beal one at a time. This pooled their bankrolls, eliminated any competition for Beal’s attention, and gave a wealthy amateur the gamble he was looking for.

The rest of the book is about the huge heads-up matches Beal played on-and-off over three years against the best limit Texas Holdem players in the world, the stakes escalating as the game went on, and how the inevitable swings affected both the billionaire and the “Corporation” facing him. When Beal decided he wanted to devise a way to beat the best poker players in the world, he didn’t sit down with a bunch of poker books and study up. After all, the players he faced had written those books. Beal had made his fortune investing in properties and portfolios others thought unprofitable, and this ability to trust his judgment even if it flew in the face of convention gave him the confidence take on the best poker players in the world at their own game. I won’t spoil the fun by revealing the devices (both conceptual and mechanical) Beal came up with to combat the pros’ superior skill and experience, but let it suffice to say Beal filled his poker arsenal with some unusual weapons.

In a game that lasted three years, individual hands are of little consequence, and to his enormous credit Craig does not fill the pages with hand histories and bad beat stories. Instead Craig does some serious reporting and shows us what the lives of big cash-game players (including Harman, Forrest, Barry Greenstein, and Howard Lederer, the “Professor” from the title) are like, and what happens when these gamblers play for stakes even THEY find scary. It is remarkable to read about these players battling Beal with millions on the line … at the same time they were playing events in the 2004 World Series of Poker. Tournaments brought these players fame, money and much-coveted bracelets, but the REAL action happened away from the cameras, as they risked their bankrolls and reputations against a solitary determined opponent.

Whether Beal will again test himself against the best players in the world is up in the air. After some uncomplimentary (and inaccurate) articles about the big game, Beal challenged Doyle Brunson in a letter published in Card Player Magazine to a match in Dallas. Brunson replied in a letter of his own that they would be interested in playing again, but not under the conditions Beal set out. Since then the two sides have gone back and forth over locations, stakes, and player rosters, so it's far from certain that the game (an $80 million freeze-out) will ever come to pass. If it does, poker fans can hope that Michael Craig is there again to report on the richest game in history.


(0) comments

Thursday, September 08, 2005


Posted by Dr Fro 4:25 PM


I apologize for so few posts. Due to going to Singapore then going to see UT kick the crap out of ULaLa, I haven't had time for poker (or blogging). This week I have been so singularly focused on the Ohio State game, I can't concentrate on poker or blogging or work. Jane and I head out tomorrow afternoon and will be watching the game from section 27C, near the goaline. I think we will see VY cross that goaline many times on Saturday. I hope so. I get back from Columbus in time to go see the Astros beat the Marlins who trail us by 1 game. It should be a successful string of days for me and I hope that success continues through the poker game I will sit in late Tuesday night. We'll see.

Hook em,

Fro




(0) comments

Posted by Johnnymac 12:59 PM
I have lately become addicted to microlimit pot-limit Omaha Hi/Lo on Pokerstars. The hand below just happened. The pre-flop implied odds are typically huge in this particular game and I try to limp with just about any reasonable hand. This isn't really a good strategy in a limit game or any big-bet game with any preflop raising but it has been especially profitable for me in this little game because 2 cents (you read that right) before the flop can often be turned into $3 or $4 or even more by the river. In the particular hand below I flopped the straight flush then backed into the nut low hand but with the expectation of being quartered (a lot of raising at the end in this game typically signifies a bunch of inexperienced Omaha players not respecting the power of the quartered pot, usually). Much to my surprise I scooped the whole damn thing.

Note that I probably wouldn't have even called a full bet with the trash in my hand but the small blind made it cheap to see the flop (I almost always complete my small blind in this game for this reason) and hope for A3 or -ahem- a straight flush draw. Any other flop other than the one I got and I would have folded like a newspaper.

Once I hit the flop I had to hit the breaks and hope someone else would catch up. That's another element of this game - someone is almost always willing to bet your hand for you. I was scared that no one was going to bet and that I would win nothing for my beautiful flop - but I got lucky with the running Aces and by the time it was over all of my chips were in the middle. Whoo-hoo!

********************************
PokerStars Game #2527568117: Omaha Hi/Lo Pot Limit ($0.01/$0.02) - 2005/09/08 - 13:34:58 (ET)
Table 'Brangane' Seat #5 is the button
Seat 1: pinkzero ($3.23 in chips)
Seat 3: royalhands ($1.88 in chips)
Seat 4: craego ($5.22 in chips)
Seat 5: The3rdMan ($1.94 in chips)
Seat 6: johnnymac96 ($1.88 in chips)
Seat 7: colywog ($5.66 in chips)
Seat 8: Becoming,Pt2 ($3.91 in chips)
Seat 9: Club8E ($1.14 in chips)
johnnymac96: posts small blind $0.01
colywog: posts big blind $0.02
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to johnnymac96 [2c 7h 5h 4s]
Becoming,Pt2: calls $0.02
Club8E: calls $0.02
pinkzero: calls $0.02
royalhands: folds
craego: calls $0.02
The3rdMan: calls $0.02
johnnymac96: calls $0.01
colywog: checks
*** FLOP *** [6h 3h 4h] (My first response was, " hey I made a crappy flush!"... it took me about 10 seconds before I added "oh shit!")
johnnymac96: checks
colywog: checks
Becoming,Pt2: checks
Club8E: checks
pinkzero: checks
craego: checks
The3rdMan: checks
*** TURN *** [6h 3h 4h] [Ah]
johnnymac96: checks
colywog: checks
Becoming,Pt2: checks
Club8E: checks
pinkzero: checks
craego: checks
The3rdMan: checks
*** RIVER *** [6h 3h 4h Ah] [Ad]
johnnymac96: bets $0.14 (and hope at one person calls and I win 10 cents at least)
colywog: folds
Becoming,Pt2: folds
Club8E: raises $0.14 to $0.28 HEY NOW!
pinkzero: raises $0.14 to $0.42 WOO WOO!
craego: folds
The3rdMan: folds
johnnymac96: raises $1.26 to $1.68 (of course)
Club8E: calls $0.84 and is all-in
pinkzero: raises $1.53 to $3.21 and is all-in (obviously)
johnnymac96: calls $0.18 and is all-in (obviously)
*** SHOW DOWN ***
pinkzero: shows [Ac 3s 7s 6d] (HI: a full house, Aces full of Sixes; LO: 7,6,4,3,A)
johnnymac96: shows [2c 7h 5h 4s] (HI: a straight flush, Three to Seven; LO: 5,4,3,2,A) (The two sweetest words in Omaha, "Nut Nut")
johnnymac96 collected $0.72 from side pot
johnnymac96 collected $0.71 from side pot
Club8E: mucks hand
johnnymac96 collected $1.68 from main pot
johnnymac96 collected $1.67 from main pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $4.98 Main pot $3.35. Side pot $1.43. | Rake $0.20
Board [6h 3h 4h Ah Ad]
Seat 1: pinkzero showed [Ac 3s 7s 6d] and lost with HI: a full house, Aces full of Sixes; LO: 7,6,4,3,A
Seat 3: royalhands folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 4: craego folded on the River
Seat 5: The3rdMan (button) folded on the River
Seat 6: johnnymac96 (small blind) showed [2c 7h 5h 4s] and won ($4.78) with HI: a straight flush, Three to Seven; LO: 5,4,3,2,A (BWA-HAHAHAHA)
Seat 7: colywog (big blind) folded on the River
Seat 8: Becoming,Pt2 folded on the River
Seat 9: Club8E mucked [6c Qs As Qh]


(4) comments

Tuesday, September 06, 2005


Posted by Johnnymac 11:13 PM
Mrs Johnnymac and I just got back to Houston this evening from San Francisco. We spent some time there and in Wine Country this weekend celebrating our first wedding anniversary. It was awesome. The weather was beautiful the entire weekend - sunny skies and temperatures in the 70's - and the hills and blue skies and scenery were just great. Friday night we did a twilight tour of the Robert Mondavi 'To Kalon' winery and vineyard, Saturday we went canoeing on the Russian River, Sunday we traveled up and down the valley going to all of the wineries and sampling the wares, and then we spent Sunday night and yesterday back in San Francisco before coming home.

Yesterday, we took a cable car from just outside our hotel in Union Square to the top of Lombard Street and then walked down to Fisherman's Wharf for a snack and some coffee, and after that we hiked all the way along the bay and waterfront to the Golden Gate Bridge. We walked out on the bridge and then caught a bus back to the subway and back to the hotel. The ocean air was wonderful and we both got sunburns. What a great trip. I married a wonderful and beautiful woman a year ago and we had a wonderful and beautiful time celebrating it all over again this weekend.

I have to give my wife credit, too, I bought the plane tickets and the hotel rooms and she took charge of the itinerary and she did a great job.

Anyway, back to H-town now. Mrs Johnnymac goes back to work tomorrow, but I am off all week to take care of some stuff around the house (the bathroom still looms large) before catching a plane Friday morning to Vegas with Canonico and some other guys to celebrate Jordan's impending nuptials. We'll spend some time by the pool on Friday and then spend the rest of the weekend watching (and betting on) football and playing poker before heading back Monday morning (I have learned that skipping the last night's hotel room before the first flight out is my preferred way of doing Vegas). The highlight of the weekend will obviously be the Horns vs Ohio St game on Saturday night.

But I am not sure where to spend our time this weekend. The last time we went to Vegas for a football weekend we did our football betting and and poker-playing at the Mirage on Saturday and Bellagio on Sunday, mainly because that was really all there was except for downtown and the south-strip-Manadaly area, and as near as I could tell, a lot has changed since I was last out there in June of last year as well. From what I understand, now MGM and Bally's both have poker rooms and I know that they both have decent sports books. Maybe even Aladdin does too? (I'm looking for some small-stakes No Limit or maybe even 6-12, 8-16, or even 10-20 Limit if the games are good) So the point is if anyone has any suggestions, leaving them in the comments below would be much appreciated. As far as the Longhorns, two years ago we went to the ESPN Zone at NYNY and watched UT roll over Oklahome State and that was great - I suspect we'll try and go back, so long as there are no rabidly cursing little girls cheering for Wazoo against USC this time.


(4) comments

Posted by Junelli 10:19 AM
From the mailbag

To: Junell
From: McAndrew

=============================

"The poker gods giveth, and the poker gods taketh"
Those bastards tooketh first.

I drove back into austin from the UT game (covered and with a $25 lightning bet, so net take of 675) with high spirits. there was no game at the zebra, and I didn't want to drive to northside at 1 a.m. So I went and played the Montrose game. I only bought in for $300 (average stack in the $1-2 PL game). First hand is 10-7o, so I raise. Just want to see how the table is playing. Flop comes A-10-7 (2 diamonds). So I bet the pot and everyone runs off.

Second hand, wired Kings. I raise the max against (15 I think) and some guy gets a little cranky, accusing me of wanting to run over the game (after two hands?). So he fires off a raise to $30. I make it $100 with a smile. He calls. flop comes Q-8-2 rainbow. He bets right into me for $100. I raise all-in and he calls with A-Qs. My kings hold up and I'm feeling great. I've doubled up to about $730 or so. that would be the last hand I'd win that night...

I didn't see but about four more flops for the evening. Here are two of them: get AQd on the button. UTG raises to 15 pre-flop and gets quite a few callers - I simply call (even if i raise - it wouldn't have mattered). Flop comes Q-J-rag - rainbow. UTG bets 25, gets 2 callers and I raise the pot - about 200 bucks. UTG goes all in, and the other folks fold. I sit and think about it for a second, and for some reason the bet seemed odd. I don't know if it was his demeanor, or the look on his face, but I called. He did not want me to call. He turns over AKs. I ask him if wants to cut a deal prior to the turn. He says no. I'm thinking at this point, as soon as the turn comes and he wants to cut a deal, I'm going to tell him to go fuck himself. Turn comes a 10 - giving him a straight and me no outs. "Fuck me... No, Fuck you!!!!" [NOTE: the thing that pissed me off the most is that this guy hits this pot, goes into lockdown, folds 3 rounds, and leaves - I swear I will get my money back one day]

That pot was about 750 bucks - cutting off one of my legs. I'm pretty steamed, so I get up for a break. Come back and sit down and immediately get wired Kings again. someone thankfully (maybe?) had the straddle on, so I make it 25 to go in early position. I get 3 callers before big blind makes it 100. I only have 250 left in front of me, so I am hoping to scare him off. I go all in, every one folds, big blind calls and shows me AA. I am sick. As you might guess, flop comes all rags with no flush, so I am dead.

From the outhouse to the penthouse in a matter of about 30 minutes.

"Movin' on up"

Since I had nothing else to do on Sunday night, I went back to the same game - which was $2-5 PL this time. I wait about 30 minutes for a seat - two guys get busted out on one hand and the other players want to play musical chairs, so I get stuck in the 10 seat. This suits me fine, because I normally play here.

Wouldn't you know it, second hand comes KK for me. I raise to 20, get 3 callers, and flop comes 3-K-5 (2 diamonds). I bet the pot and the one seat raises me all in. I call, thinking he's on a flush draw, but the poor bastard only has 3-5s. No outs for him. So I double up my $350 buy-in right there. Nice.

The rest of the night is a blur, as I have never experienced a rush like this in my life. flopped a couple of sets, turned some boats, got dealt every single pocket pair except for 3s (10s 3 times and twice in a row!).

I made a few bad plays at the end of the night (probably cost me about 400), but walked out with $1,150 (net +850) - not too bad for a comeback.


(0) comments

Thursday, September 01, 2005


Posted by Junelli 4:15 PM
Last night I hit my second Royal Flush in a live game. And in both instances I got paid off.

The game was $6-$6 NL at Northside. This was my first time to play in this new game, and the stakes were extremely high. Although the minimum buy-in was $200, everyone bought in for at least $500 (over and over). There was approx $6,000 on the table. It was almost always $30-$50 to see a flop.

I bought in for $1,000, and after 3 hours was sitting about even. On the button I'm dealt KcQc. I make it $50 to go before the flop and get 3 callers (the pot is $212 before the flop). The flop is Ac Jc 9s. I now have the nut straight draw, the nut flush draw, and the royal straight flush draw.

The first player checks and the second player (short-stack) moves all-in for $195. I smooth call and the other two players fold. The pot is $602.

We turn our cards up, and he has As8h (just top pair and no draws). We count the outs: I have 24 (twelve outs twice: 9 clubs and 3 tens), and am a coin flip to win the hand. The house offers him insurance at even money (we could chop the pot right there). However, if he peels off the turn card (and I miss), my outs drop down to 12, and I would only have a 4:1 chance of winning. This would enable him to lock up more money from the pot.

He tells the dealer to peel off the turn card.

BAM!!! Ten of clubs! Royal Flush!

I decide not to insure my hand before the river card.


(1) comments
Google

Random thoughts from a lawyer, an accountant, a commodities trader, an ex-Marine and a WSOP Main Event money finisher that don't know as much as they wish they did...

--------------------

--------------------

Home Page

Email

Johnnymac-at-itaintgambling.com

What's this all about? Poker. Why we like poker. What we have to say about poker. How we play poker.

Why isn't it gambling?

ARCHIVE:

current
09/01/2003 - 10/01/2003
10/01/2003 - 11/01/2003
11/01/2003 - 12/01/2003
12/01/2003 - 01/01/2004
01/01/2004 - 02/01/2004
02/01/2004 - 03/01/2004
03/01/2004 - 04/01/2004
04/01/2004 - 05/01/2004
05/01/2004 - 06/01/2004
06/01/2004 - 07/01/2004
07/01/2004 - 08/01/2004
08/01/2004 - 09/01/2004
09/01/2004 - 10/01/2004
10/01/2004 - 11/01/2004
11/01/2004 - 12/01/2004
12/01/2004 - 01/01/2005
01/01/2005 - 02/01/2005
02/01/2005 - 03/01/2005
03/01/2005 - 04/01/2005
04/01/2005 - 05/01/2005
05/01/2005 - 06/01/2005
06/01/2005 - 07/01/2005
07/01/2005 - 08/01/2005
08/01/2005 - 09/01/2005
09/01/2005 - 10/01/2005
10/01/2005 - 11/01/2005
11/01/2005 - 12/01/2005
12/01/2005 - 01/01/2006
01/01/2006 - 02/01/2006
02/01/2006 - 03/01/2006
03/01/2006 - 04/01/2006
04/01/2006 - 05/01/2006
05/01/2006 - 06/01/2006
06/01/2006 - 07/01/2006
07/01/2006 - 08/01/2006
08/01/2006 - 09/01/2006
09/01/2006 - 10/01/2006
10/01/2006 - 11/01/2006
11/01/2006 - 12/01/2006
12/01/2006 - 01/01/2007
01/01/2007 - 02/01/2007
02/01/2007 - 03/01/2007
03/01/2007 - 04/01/2007
04/01/2007 - 05/01/2007
05/01/2007 - 06/01/2007
06/01/2007 - 07/01/2007
07/01/2007 - 08/01/2007
08/01/2007 - 09/01/2007
09/01/2007 - 10/01/2007
10/01/2007 - 11/01/2007
11/01/2007 - 12/01/2007
12/01/2007 - 01/01/2008
01/01/2008 - 02/01/2008
02/01/2008 - 03/01/2008
03/01/2008 - 04/01/2008
04/01/2008 - 05/01/2008
05/01/2008 - 06/01/2008
06/01/2008 - 07/01/2008
07/01/2008 - 08/01/2008
08/01/2008 - 09/01/2008
09/01/2008 - 10/01/2008
10/01/2008 - 11/01/2008
11/01/2008 - 12/01/2008
12/01/2008 - 01/01/2009
01/01/2009 - 02/01/2009
02/01/2009 - 03/01/2009
03/01/2009 - 04/01/2009

The Doctor is IN

Dr Fro
aka "slow roller"

Which one is the fish?

Junell
aka "Sunday Stroller"

You go now!

Johnny Mac
aka "Chop Suey"

You got to know when to hold em;  Know when to Mo' em ...

Morris
aka "Mo roller"

Old School

Padilla
"Baby's Daddy"


free hit counter

QUICKGIFTS

Beautiful handmade receiving blankets. Get yours today in flannel or seersucker.

Get Flash


I play poker at Poker.com