High Stakes Poker Second Episode

The second episode came out yesterday on torrent.

High Stakes Poker

High Stakes Poker Torrent.

"The star players participating in HIGH STAKES POKER have millions at stake ready to win or lose everything... sometimes on a single hand.

Featuring a $100.000 minimum Buy-In with millions of the players own money at stake, GSN delivers the first ever true 'Cash Game' on TV. Legends sush as Doyle Brunson and Johnny Chan are joined by rising Pro stars, 'Cash Game' specialists and successful buisnessmen like LA Lakers owner, Dr. Jerry Buss. HIGH STAKES POKER gives a first-ever look into the biggest private No-limit Hold'em 'Cash Games' going.

Aside from the tables, HIGH STAKES POKER will also profile players behind the scenes. Take a closer look at Doyle Brunson's grueling schedule, follow the LA Lakers owner, turned guest speaker for a lecture event, plus many more glimpses into the privare side of the 'Player elite'."

Some are sitting with $100,000 and others as much as $1,000,000 but although it isn't announced it looks like they are using a $100,000 cap like they do in the big game.

Onwards and Upwards!

Ozzy87 emailed me the following:-

"a friend of mine pointed out your blog entry "unethical behavior" to me and I couldnt help but notice how misleading your blog entry is, the actual conversation went down like this:

me: "oops"
tillerman: "why oops"
me: "you're the tightest player in the world and the one time you make a play you get stacked"
tillerman: "says the guy with AA"
me: "it wasnt me playing the hand"
tillerman: "i thought i was talking to captzeebo"
tillerman: "get some class m8"
me: "i didnt mean to offend, sry gl"

I did not mean to insult you in anyway and I am sorry if I did. I never go out of my way to make anyone feel bad about something.

take care and gl"

I tried to reconstruct the conversation entirely from memory, and I don't think what I said was misleading however his does look more accurate. I remember the oops etc. Anyway, the point is you don't say stuff like that without knowing it might piss off people, or make someone more angry at losing etc etc.

However, I fully accept his apology and put it in the past as I heard from a few people already he is a nice guy in real life and as Shaniac says he was probably just trying to make a wisecrack. Just bad timing as far as I'm concerned =)

Unethical Behavior

I woke up this morning and decided to play straight away over at UltimateBet. I decided to sit down at the two 25/50 NL tables that were going which were also both full at the time. So I'm playing away and the games start to break up which they usually do at this time and I'm left heads up vs captZEEbo and I decide that I fancy playing some heads up so I keep on going as does he. He is a good player but I just felt like doing some heads up for a few hours, I know him mostly from Pokerstars.

Anyway, we are playing away and I am not doing so good, down about 4k to him already and I pick up JT and go ahead and raise on the button. captZEEbo goes ahead and reraises. I call the reraise and the flop is something like 774. He bets out a full pot sized bet. I reraise big with my hand and he pushes me all in, leaving me with a clear call even though he probably has a big pair. Anyway, the turn and river come giving me no help and he wins the 10k+ pot with AA.

I reload and we continue playing but after a hand or so I notice in chat the following text along the lines of "Wow, how does it feel to lose there, you are the tightest player in the world and you lost the very first time you make a move at 25/50". So I'm like, hmmm thats a bit mean of CaptZEEbo to try and insult me and make me feel more bad after losing a big pot. However, I guess I can accept it since we are both playing and as far as I'm concerned, this behavior although not ideal is acceptable between two players. So I reply with something along the lines of, "it wasn't me that had AA" and get on with the next hand. A reply quickly came back saying, "it wasn't me who had AA". So I quickly re-read chat and I see it was Ozzy87(Bigslick789) who was needling me, who is actually sitting out and OBSERVING the game.

I just couldn't believe this and I got pretty pissed off at him, but just said something like "get some class m8". This is the guy who got 6th recently at the Pokerstars Atlantis tournament, 18 years old I believe. I've played with him for ages on Pokerstars where at full ring my style is indeed pretty tight/solid. I don't play anything like that shorthanded or heads up however. Anyway, thats not the point, his insult/behavior was totally unacceptable in my eyes and I felt the need to point it out to him publically. I even congratulated him on coming 6th when I saw him at the same Pokerstars table a week ago.

Anyway, I lost about a further 7-8k pretty quickly giving capt a 19k to 5k lead. I am not of course blaming Ozzy for that as I don't tilt easily but nevertheless he wasn't to know that was he? Anyway, I thought it was all really lame from a now pretty well known Internet player especially when I have been nothing but respectful to him. He did try and apologize straight after I said get some class but the damage was already done in my eyes.

He quickly left after this and I continued to play capt for a further 2 hours in which time I got back what I had lost and finished with 29k at the table. It was a very loose and agressive battle with the lead changing hands several times until I finally got the momentum on my side and luckily finished ahead.

6 Card Omaha

Not played that much online this month, only about 30 hours. Compare this to the guys at Pokerstars who already have Supernova? Totally insane, I only have 4000VPP there to give me a Goldstar membership, Platinumstar needs 10000VPP and Supernova needs 100,000VPP. Couldn't believe it when Elky managed to get Supernova after only 2 weeks. I know it mostly came from Sit and goes which give more FPP out but still. That takes dedication baby =) Congrats Elky on being first to Supernova. I am trying to get there by the end of year =) I don't always play Stars though so I have an excuse :)

I played some live again at the Cincinatti Club in Glasgow, this time I went early on a Sunday afternoon when I knew a game was definitely happening at the cash table. It was a £500 buy in game but most people eventually had £1000+ in front of them. I was down £2000 pretty early with one definite bad play and a couple of questionable plays. That is going to happen in 4 card Omaha and 6 card Omaha whilst I try and get up to scratch. There are a couple of very good players in this game, one being very well known in the UK - Dave Colclough.

One really interesting/exciting hand happened in 6 card Omaha (exactly like 4 card Omaha except you start with 6 cards). I had just rebought for £1000 when I picked up TTQJ96. A very decent starting hand with multiple wrap possibilities on the right flop.

Two players limped from early position (it was 7 handed at this time I believe), Dave Colclough limped from the cut off and Tony another good player raised (an habitual raiser but very good). I called as did everyone else, it is hard to find a hand in six card omaha you should be laying down pre flop after limping in with so it is most certainly a very action intensive game. After everyone called, the pot was £175.

The flop came T93. A dream flop for my hand.

I bet out a full pot sized bet of £175, the player to my left folded, the next called as did Dave, as did Tony. 4 way action! Crazy action going on here. I was praying for a blank on the turn.

The turn came the sweet 2. Giving us a flop of T932.

Good enough, definitely no complaints about that turn card. I had no flushdraw unfortunately but at least I could bet all in for a full pot sized bet knowing I have to be a firm favorite of not less than 35% on the turn. There must be a couple of wraps out there and a lower set. I bet out £790 on the turn which set me all in. The player on my left had roughly the same left and called, Dave had us all covered and also called. Tony had roughly the same as me and called all in also. Damn.... nice crazy £4000 pot going on here.

The river came the K giving me the nut straight on the river. However, I knew in my heart that this was almost certainly going to be a 3 or even 4 way split and said so out loud as I turned my cards over. And indeed it was a 3 way split between Dave, Tony and myself. The other chap had the bottom set and the nut diamond draw on the turn so lost out on the end unfortunately.

Dave had the best wrap consisting of at least JQK8xx but I don't remember precisely his other cards. Tony had an inferior wrap plus a non nut diamond draw on the turn as well as A5 which gave him three fours on the river which he could have scooped with. As far as everyone was concerned the hand kind of played itself on all streets apart from the bottom set hand which could of been passed on the flop I think. It was an exciting hand and pretty fun to compare the hands and see who all had what on the river. I may have remembered some of the hand details very slightly wrongly but it is very close to what went down. It was a fun day and I'll definitely head on back over another time. Check out the club if you are ever in Glasgow, it is a nice set-up and everyone is friendly.

I also played some 50/100NL at UB today but got into a couple of unlucky situations which screwed me over. I played for a further 4 hours at the 25/50NL tables and won about $20,000 back so a decent recovery but still down for the day.

My good friend NTT was watching an old WPT episode (WPT Special : Poker by the Book), where they had a bunch of authors playing each other like Mike Caro, Sklansky etc..

This is a quote from the show by Mike Sexton, if you don't find this hilarious then there is something wrong with you :)

"I went to Mike Caro's seminar... I had already been a professional player for SEVEN OR EIGHT years... and Caro asked - "what is the object of poker?" and then he explained "THE OBJECT OF POKER IS TO MAKE CORRECT DECISIONS" and a LIGHT WENT OFF IN MY HEAD. I THOUGHT THIS WAS BRILLIANT"

Hahahahahahah..............hahahahaha........hahah......hah....ha........

Pokerstars Carribean Adventure

Good coverage of this tournament at N 82 50 24's Poker Blog.

Lots of photos of players I've played with many times at Pokerstars like Twin Caracas, Thorladen, Bigslick789, Neverwin, JohnnyBax, Bushman, Mockturtle, Stevesbets, JERRRY, MrSmokey1, Michael1123, ZeeJustin, asdf2000, Strassa, TheTakeover, Hold_emNL, I_Knockout_U etc etc.

Most of them have been eliminated but I believe Bigslick789 is still big stacked with about 50 players left. They all seem to be hanging out playing online with their laptops in the hotel lobby =). Think I'd prefer to play live or do some other shit. Do enough of that already, LOL.

Good luck to everyone from Pokerstars!

You can get official coverage of the tournament at the Pokerstars Blog.

Live Poker

I plan on doing some more live poker this year than I did last. No idea when or where yet as far as tournaments go except that I will definitely go to the World Series of Poker unless something unforseen occurs.

There is a local club here in Glasgow I only heard about recently which is run by Dave Colclough(Last years European player of the year I believe). It is called the Cincinatti Club and is located in Glasgow about five minutes away from me. I went with my buddy on Tuesday and entered a very small regular nightly tournament, the buy in is only £20 with 1 rebuy and addon but it was pretty fun. I had heard there was a decent sized Omaha game going but it wasn't running when I arrived and had split up by the time the tournament had finished. I got to the final table and my friend got 3rd.

I got pretty sick the day after this tournament, some tummy bug. I had recovered again by Thursday so popped in again to see if the Omaha game was running. I think it is a £500 buy in game which probably means people are sitting with £1000-£2000 or more. I went with £2000 to play in it but again when I arrived it wasn't running so I played in the tournament again. The Omaha game started up when I was an hour into the tournament so I thought I could play after I finished.

When I got down to the final table of the tournament (I got 4th), there was some shouting from the Omaha game, an argument over a hand I believe. A couple of the players left and the game broke up straight after so again I never got the chance to play. Sounds like it may be more hassle than its worth but I'd like to get some more experience playing live.

I'll probably head back in towards the end of next week. There is a £100 rebuy with a £10,000 guaranteed prizepool a week today so I'll probably head along to that and try and get into the bigger cash games that are hopefully going on after the tournament has finished.

WSOP 2005 Tournament of Champions

About time this showed up, Phil Hellmuth and Mike Matusow at the same final table? Possibly poker viewing gold? I'm sure it is entertaining anyway!

Tournament of Champions

I am downloading now. Thanks to the guy who posted it in my comments.