2013年12月26日星期四

Courtney Gee Back from the PokerStars Big Game!

Courtney Gee is back from playing on the PokerStars Big Game in Las Vegas where she experienced the highest stakes and the toughest competition of her life!
Courtney's not allowed to tell us the profits/losses from the session (Damn you PokerStars) but she's got plenty to say about what it's like playing for big money against the best in the world.
If you haven't yet, check out Courtney's first post that went up last week, the day before she played her Big Game session.
Also, keep an eye out for Courtney's new blog right here on PokerListings.com! She's on a poker quest to never work a 9-5 job again and she'll be keeping us in the loop the whole time.
Take it away Courtney.
I felt weird waking up today. Part of it was that I was waking up in my own bed for the first time in a few days, but the other part of it was that my life felt normal again.
In the weeks before Vegas, I would wake up in the morning filled with thoughts about what I had to do to prepare for February 20th. I would go over my schedule for the day. Usually it included hand history review, a few hours of online cash, some practice with real cards and chips, and maybe some live cash.
I also felt a little nervous every morning because it was one day closer to when I would need to leave for Vegas, and I never felt ready marked cards.
As it got closer to the big day, I quickly learned that I would never feel ready. From the end of January to mid-February I played ~60 hours of cash games total, spent countless hours talking to friends about hand histories on instant messengers, laid out my strategy for the Big Game (including bet sizing, starting hands, etc), took notes on pros from season 1 of the show, made Word files filled with new things I was learning and things I wanted to keep in mind, watched a few poker videos, and got coached by some great cash players.
While I was doing all of this, I felt like I wasn't doing enough. Now that I look back, I can say that I worked hard and probably did just fine.
I felt extremely nervous in the days before I was scheduled to fly to Vegas. I felt fine the day we got into Vegas, but on February 19th (the day before my playing day), I felt more nervous than I had ever felt in my life.
My friend and I hung out on the strip and had an amazing dinner, and I spent the entire time trying not to think about it and trying not to be nervous. Being nervous during a time like that is strange. There was nothing more I could do to prepare, and there was also nothing anyone could say to me that would ease the nervousness.
I expected to feel infrared ink nervous when I woke up the morning of the 20th, but I actually felt mostly fine. I went to breakfast and ate as much as possible, and then I went to the set. It was a flurry of activity there and I didn't have much time to think between the makeup, instructions for how to walk on the set, photos, and mic hookups.
When it was finally time to sit down and get dealt cards, the most amazing thing happened: I felt right at home. It felt like any live game I had ever played before. The chip sizes were MUCH bigger, but my practice with the denominations at home and my experience playing with tournament chips made it natural for me.
I no longer felt nervous. I was ready to play. And I proceeded to have an AMAZING time. Playing in that game was incredibly fun and an experience I'll never forget.
The next day it was all over and time to go back home. And that brings me to today, waking up in my own bed and feeling weird about life. It's all over. It's done... I went and played in a huge cash game, I played well, and now it's over.
Back when I was preparing and feeling nervous, I couldn't wait for it to be over so that I could go back to my normal routine. Now that I'm back from Vegas and it's all over, though, I'm a little sad and kind of miss it.
I expected to feel this way afterward. It's kind of like falling in love. It's so exciting because you don't know what's going to happen and you feel anxious and excited and nervous all at the same time. You can't wait to just find out what's going to happen with this new person and you can't wait to stop feeling this way, but at the same time, it's the most exciting feeling in the world.
And then, when you finally get into a steady relationship with this person and life is normal again, you're happy and relieved, but at the same time you miss the excitement. That's how I feel about love at least, haha :) And that's how I feel about being done with the Big Game.
I'm not sure when the shows are going to air, but I would guess in 3-4 months. I have a lot more to say about my experience, but I will have to hold back until the shows air. It will be interesting to see myself on TV and to relive everything all over again! But until then, it's back to the normal life for me.


How to Host the Perfect Poker Home Game: Who to Invite

How to Host the Perfect Poker Home Game is a 13-part series on how to run the superlative poker night for all your friends and coworkers.
We’ll cover everything from what game of poker is easiest to play, what hand beats what and even what drinks and food to serve. Follow this guide and people will be reserving their seat at your table weeks in advance.
For our seventh article we’re going to take a look marked cards lenses who you actually want to invite to your game and what you can expect from each demographic.
These are a few of the basic groups that you can choose, or choose not, to invite to your home game.

Best Buds

This is your bread and butter. You want to invite your closest friends because you know they are trustworthy and good people to be around.
You can call them up on short notice and fill out your game if you need.
Pros
  • It’s way better bluffing someone you’ve known for years
  • Even if they dominate you at the table you may get a free drink out of it later
  • Ability to taunt your friends for years to come
Cons
  • They’re probably going to borrow money
  • They may not leave
  • They’re pretty damn offensive
Never trust co-workers who wear sunglasses.

Co-Workers

Co-workers are a great source for fodder at the poker table because you know they make money!
Putting the word out in an office is a good way to build your game quickly.
Pros
  • You know where your opponents work so collecting is easy
  • Poker can be a bonding experience
  • You’ll all be equally tired at work the next day
Cons
  • Bluffing your superior out of a $100 pot could make things interesting the next day
  • Things get awkward when crazy Phil from accounting suggests everyone put their next paycheck on the line
  • Bill Lumbergh keeps reminding you about your TPS reports

Members of the Opposite Sex

This is a tricky one. If it’s an all-guys game it sounds great to get a couple good looking women in on the game. The thing is it can change the dynamic considerably.
Sara Underwood is always invited to our home games.
Remember you’re not going to look very attractive to a member of the opposite sex if you bluff them out of a $100 pot marked poker and dive onto the table to perform a chip backstroke.
Conversely ladies’ poker nights work very well and sometimes women feel more comfortable just playing with other females. Proceed with caution.
Pros
  • Game tends to be more civil
  • Your home game could conceivably double in size
  • The game is usually more relaxed and fun
Cons
  • Game tends to be more civil
  • Sleeping on the couch for check-raising your wife/significant other sucks
  • If you’re a guy, losing a massive pot to a girl who had “double kings” might hurt your ego
  • In the poker game of life, women are the rake
Brings his own Dom Perignon.

Professional Poker Players

Poker pros are a long shot, of course, and will arguably destroy the game for everyone else.
On the plus side you have a shot at getting your game televised!
Pros
  • Good story to tell all your friends
Cons
  • You will lose all your money
  • Several pros keep nagging you for a buffet comp
  • Phil Hellmuth keeps referring to you as an “idiot from Northern Europe”
  • They’ll convince you to “play with the pros” then simply take all the money on the table and wait for the DOJ to come for it


2013年12月25日星期三

Easy Game Episode 2: Matt “ADZ124” Marafioti

The last few months have been a controversial time for Canadian poker pro Matthew Marafioti.
From allegations of multi-accounting and playing on PokerStars from Las Vegas to the Twitter tirade following his breakup with Lauren Kling, Marafioti was already in hot water in the poker trick cards community when accusations of cheating surfaced on poker forum 2 + 2.
Marafioti maintains his innocence and has said that the chat logs posted online were doctored.
In May of 2012, before the most recent allegations came to light, PokerListings.com traveled to Marafioti’s home in Toronto to shoot the second episode in our ongoing video interview series Easy Game marked poker.
The interview doesn’t touch on the cheating allegations but rather seeks to present a picture of the person behind Matt Marafioti’s public persona.
In the following video we find out how ADZ124’s career began as a full-fledged online poker addiction and developed into a multi-million dollar enterprise that involves much support from his father Sam, who appears in the interview material.

2013年12月16日星期一

Miserable fizzle out endings to WCOOP

While I wait in the Miami International Airport to board my flight to London, I'm reflecting back on the last few days of WCOOP. I made a few deep runs that all ended in pretty much the same fashion, losing a massive pot to bust cheat poker.

Let's just start off by mentioning on the very next day after finishing 11th, 11th, and 27th in three straight 2 pm 109$ rebuys on stars, I managed to get 11th ONE MORE TIME!

On this same day, I got 3rd in a 109 cubed turbo for 10k and also made a deep run in the 215 plo8 2nd chance wcoop and the Wednesday Quarter Million, but busted in 24th and 29th place.

The following day, Thursday, I went deep in the WCOOP 530 rebuy, but lost a big flip to bust in 26th place. On Friday, I just played the two WCOOP events and was fairly deep in the 530 cubed, but came up short of the money. I decided to take off Saturday, and prepare for my big day on Sunday.

Sunday was a really long grind, starting at 1 pm with the 215 WCOOP, which by the way, Elky won! That's a whole different topic, but he has to be considered the best NLHE tournament player in the world. HAS TO BE! Mad respect!
Anyways, I played marked cards lenses all the WCOOPs and 2nd chance events and the big rebuy events and such. I really was regretting jumping in the 1k 2nd chance WCOOP event which started at 8 pm when I had busted everything else by 9:30.
I was mad that this tourney had such a slow structure and I could potentially end up playing until 5 am. That's just what I did too, I finished day 1 of this 2 day event 4th in chips with 38 people left and finally was able to go to sleep at 5:15 in the morning.
The restart of this event was at 8 pm, and I was looking forward to it. It took only 15 minutes for me to pittz away my chips playing a very very unnecessary pot, in which I was luckily in a coin flip for over 225 bbs.
I whiffed and was left with 4 bbs and was out a few hands later. It was a miserable end to what I was hoping to be a very big WCOOP for me.
No worries though, London's going to be HUGE! I'm boarding my plane now, when I land I will have 3 hours to get over to WSOPE for the 5k pound PLO event, which I FTed last year.
Yessssir! Later!

2013年12月12日星期四

Stout's Sunday Report: March 7, 2010

Poker pro Matt Stout is back with another installment of The Sunday Report. Stout will track all his results for his full online MTT Sunday schedule, complete with profits and losses.
Keep track right here on the PokerListings Blog.
Total tournaments played: 34
Total amount of buy-ins: $7,631
Total cashes: 6
- 152/2911 in the Sunday Brawl, $523.98 + $120 bounties
- 34/1,088 in the new Stars $162 six-max, $701.76
- 113/1098 in the Sunday 500, $1043.10
- 35/191 in the Stars $109 (2 rebuy, 1 add-on), $422.80
- Tied 1st/184 in $700 NAPT Mohegan Sun satellite, $7k package infrared ink
- 90/997 in late Tilt $163, $269.19
Total amount of cashes/bounties: $10,080.83
Length of session: 10:53
Net win/loss for the day: +$2,449.83
Net win/loss online on Sundays since the start of the Sunday Report (February 7, 2010): +$23,542.14

I'm pretty burnt out from 34 tournaments along with 8 blunts, and a plethora of VOLCANO and bong hits, so I'll keep this short.
This morning I decided to make an agreement with my roommates (Paul Wasicka and Jon "sketchy1" Eaton) that if any of us busted each other online, we'd receive a $100 bounty from the other roommate.
Good thing I came up with it, since Jon busted me TWICEEEEEEEEEE today! srpgjsdpgiodkfaso[fks[kldf;hkgopjnipdjgiosdfgjsdipfkhjdpfihj
Here is the funniest hands of the day, followed by a misclick gone RIGHT for once:

Full Tilt Poker Game #19061531694: $75,000 Guarantee (142145504), Table 25 - 50/100 - No Limit Hold'em - 21:29:47 ET - 2010/03/07
Seat 1: NDIrishCJ (10,372)
Seat 2: Ziplocked (8,555)
Seat 3: TheJimFish (7,155)
Seat 4: czechpro (5,150)
Seat 5: U_2Good4_Me (1,590)
Seat 6: LeterbuckChuck (6,540)
Seat 7: bigdennys (1,895)
Seat 8: All In At 420 (8,965)
Seat 9: pareshjain (4,080)
LeterbuckChuck posts the small blind of 50
bigdennys posts the big blind of 100
The button is in seat #5
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to All In At 420 [Ad Ac]
All In At 420 raises to 300
pareshjain folds
NDIrishCJ folds
Ziplocked folds
TheJimFish folds
czechpro folds
U_2Good4_Me folds
LeterbuckChuck has 15 seconds left to act
LeterbuckChuck raises to 600
bigdennys folds
All In At 420 has 15 seconds left to act
All In At 420 raises to 1,800
LeterbuckChuck calls 1,200
*** FLOP *** [6d 7d 2h]
LeterbuckChuck bets 4,740, and is all in
All In At 420 calls 4,740
LeterbuckChuck shows [6c 9s]
All In At 420 shows [Ad Ac]
*** TURN *** [6d 7d 2h] [Ah]
*** RIVER *** [6d 7d 2h Ah] [3c]
LeterbuckChuck shows a pair of Sixes
All In At 420 shows three of a kind, Aces
All In At 420 wins the pot (13,180) with three of a kind, Aces
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 13,180 | Rake 0
Board: [6d 7d 2h Ah 3c]
Seat 1: NDIrishCJ didn't bet (folded)
Seat 2: Ziplocked didn't bet (folded)
Seat 3: TheJimFish didn't bet (folded)
Seat 4: czechpro didn't bet (folded)
Seat 5: U_2Good4_Me (button) didn't bet (folded)
Seat 6: LeterbuckChuck (small blind) showed [6c 9s] and lost with a pair of Sixes
Seat 7: bigdennys (big blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 8: All In At 420 showed [Ad Ac] and won (13,180) with three of a kind, Aces
Seat 9: pareshjain didn't bet (folded)

Full Tilt Poker Game #19062902834: $125,000 Guarantee (Rebuy) (143306226), Table 22 - 500/1000 Ante 125 - No Limit Hold'em - 22:27:18 ET - 2010/03/07
Seat 1: lingling118 (5,687)
Seat 2: Mig_com (16,296)
Seat 3: da_professional (31,320)
Seat 4: getano100 (3,797)
Seat 5: All In At 420 (22,951)
Seat 6: wywrot (10,371)
Seat 7: grindtherail (5,321)
Seat 8: son34 (31,651)
Seat 9: KingDan23 (18,360)
lingling118 antes 125
Mig_com antes 125
da_professional antes 125
getano100 antes 125
All In At 420 antes 125
wywrot antes 125
grindtherail antes 125
son34 antes 125
KingDan23 antes 125
grindtherail posts the small blind of 500
son34 posts the big blind of 1,000
The button is in seat #6
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to All In At 420 [2s 4c]
KingDan23 folds
lingling118 folds
Mig_com folds
da_professional has 15 seconds left to act marked poker
da_professional raises to 2,640
getano100 folds
All In At 420 calls 2,640 (Me: GAH! %*#&!!! AND I ONLY HAVE ~20k BEHIND!!! %&*#^*%(@#(%$ FKN MISCLICKS!!!!!!!)
wywrot folds
grindtherail folds
son34 calls 1,640
*** FLOP *** [5s As Tc]
son34 checks
da_professional checks
(Me: Wow, how sick would it be to turn an offsuit three here?)
All In At 420 checks
*** TURN *** [5s As Tc] [3h] (Me: WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!)
son34 bets 2,000
da_professional calls 2,000
All In At 420 raises to 7,000
son34 folds
da_professional has 15 seconds left to act
da_professional: show me one time?
da_professional has requested TIME
da_professional folds
Uncalled bet of 5,000 returned to All In At 420
All In At 420 mucks
All In At 420 wins the pot (15,545)
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 15,545 | Rake 0
Board: [5s As Tc 3h]
Seat 1: lingling118 folded before the Flop
Seat 2: Mig_com folded before the Flop
Seat 3: da_professional folded on the Turn
Seat 4: getano100 folded before the Flop
Seat 5: All In At 420 collected (15,545), mucked
Seat 6: wywrot (button) folded before the Flop
Seat 7: grindtherail (small blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 8: son34 (big blind) folded on the Turn
Seat 9: KingDan23 folded before the Flop


Matt Stout