Poker Blog

A big, massive, GINORMOUS Congratulations and Well Done is due to our own Phil ‘flukesfla‘ Flavin, who took down the Fort Knox Sit’n'Go Jackpot for a tasty $110,000 on Saturday morning.  He won six consecutive $50 Jackpot Sit’n'Gos (click HERE for more info on these bad boys!), starting on Friday evening and finishing a few hours later but over a hundred grand richer!  Phil is a long-time PPP player from Tramore in Co. Waterford and one of the nicest guys around; he’s also already qualified for the Irish Open with us so will be in with a shot at the €100,000 package in April…go go go Phil!  He’ll be writing up a blog report of his big victory, I’ll post it up later in the week.

More news: if you are based in the Nottingham or London area (obviously in the UK, not London, Texas!) you may be interested in the live satellites we’re running over there in March.  There is a 5 package guaranteed live tournament in the Vic card room in London on March 17th (St. Patrick’s Day!) and a 7 seat guaranteed live tournament in Dusk Till Dawn in Nottingham on March 19th.  Both events are going to be fun, and some of the team from Paddy Towers will be in attendance as well

I heard a funny one the other day: my girlfriend is so fat that when she fell down the stairs last night I thought Eastenders was starting.

We’ll be getting on to Eastenders soon enough but I shall begin with a couple of poker anecdotes which I heard about this week.  Poker players love prop bets and challenges and this week I learned of two unusual ones.  The first one involves three poker playing mates - Joe Sebok, Gavin Smith, and Jeff Madsen. 

The bet is a form of “last longer” bet that poker players sometimes do in tournaments. The tournament in question is the 2010 LA Poker Classic and the losers of this bet will have to get a tattoo. It gets worse. The first person to bust out will have to get the faces of the remaining two players tattooed on his body (I don’t know exactly which body part). The second person to bust will only have to get the remaining player’s face tattooed, and of course, the one who wins the bet comes out of it unscathed.

So the three of them will each have a pretty much 66% chance that he will end up with a tattoo of at least one man’s face on his body. He could get AA cracked by KK on the very first hand of the tournament and because of that have a tattoo of two blokes’ faces on his back for life. The lucky winner won’t get a tattoo of a man on his body. (And that, as far as I can see, is the only upside, unless you are weird enough to consider “upside” to mean seeing your own face tattooed on another man’s body). 

Can you imagine in the year 2045 when Joe Sebok is sitting at the pool with a Jeff Madsen tattoo on his arm and his grandchildren ask:

“Hey Granpa Sebok, who’s that guy you got tattooed on your arm? Was he famous, did he play baseball? Was he the President or something?”

“No kids. It’s Jeff Madsen, a bloke who won some poker tournaments at the turn of the century”.

“You prick Grandad”

“Yep”

But it has potential to get worse, much worse, in fact nightmarishly worse.  Let’s say for argument’s sake that you did that bet with a young Gary Glitter, a man so hated that record shops removed his albums from stock out of disgust for him. Imagine what would happen to you if you walked into the Bricklayers Arms with a tattoo of Glitter on your neck? It might seem OK doing these things on the spur of the moment but you just never know what the future has in store when you get a geezer’s face tattooed on your body. 

I think that to spice this bet up a bit they should stipulate that the first man out should have the tattoo done on a different body part according to what hand he was beaten with. The unluckier the demise, the more prominent the body part should be. So if you got one pair beaten by two pair, no dramas there -  have it done on the sole of your foot. But if you got three of a kind beaten by a full house, well you have to have it done on your chest. And so on. 

They could also stipulate that the earlier you got knocked out in the tournament the bigger the tattoo had to be.  So if you did well, made the final table but your mate did even better, it could be the size of a stamp. But if you go out on the third level, you have to get a photograph sized tattoo done. 

This could get dangerous. Imagine you are Joe Sebok and you get a straight flush turned over by a Royal Flush on the first hand. Subsequently, many years later Jeff Madsen does an Ian Huntley, while all the time you’ve got a massive tattoo on his grinning mug on your forehead?

See the dangers…?

But that would teach him for making such a rubbish bet!  I understand that Joe Sebok wants to back out and I don’t blame him. Besides, this will affect their performances in the tournament. If I was playing against them and I had more chips than them I would stick them all in whenever I fancied. Would they be happy calling with pocket 10s preflop? Percentages would go out the window when they are facing the tattooist.

The second challenge was issued a while back but it only recently aired on ESPN. It was made by Antonio Esfandiari to Phil Hellmuth and it happened during the European WSOP after Esfandiari knocked Hellmuth out.  Hellmuth held J-8 against Esfandiari’s Q-J and he called all-in on a board of 8-10-Q-10-10. Despite having a worse hand before the flop, on the flop, on the turn and on the river, Hellmuth threw his toys out of the pram and whinged: “How the f**k do you get so lucky and hit a 10 so you can move in there?” He then bitched and moaned, in typical Hellmuth style and so Esfandiari offered to play him heads up for $100’000. Nothing new here – a lot of Hellmuth’s outbursts end with a challenge to play for money and it is at this point that he usually bottles it and pipes up. But this challenge had an interesting twist: the winner would also shoot the loser with a taser gun.

Now that would be funny to watch. I don’t know if Hellmuth accepted but I presume he did not. Maybe he should accept and use it as publicity for his book “Kill Phil”.

Anyway, on to the big news of the weekend: tonight Eastenders celebrates its 25th birthday. That’s 25 years of bleakness, misery and depression. But I am being harsh here. I cannot seriously disparage a programme which has brought us Frank Butcher, Nick Cotton and the king of the web-cam – old finger licking Dirty Den.

I confess - I have been watching Eastenders lately.  Having not watched it for years I started tuning in again for the sole reason that Phil Mitchell had lapsed back into alcoholism. Phil Mitchell, it must be said, is the greatest piss artist in the world*.  And in the spring of 2009 he provided all sorts of amusement when he fell off the wagon. Much to my chagrin, he climbed back on but it was too late by then. I had started watching again and the scriptwriters’ cunning plan to get the viewers back had worked.

* remember the cake at his son’s birthday party? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMkSskKycyA

The producers are getting quite excited about this 25 years malarkey. Recently they have even had a countdown of the top 100 “duff duff” moments (for “duff duff” read “endings” if you don’t watch Eastenders).  If you were watching Eastenders last night you will have seen an hour long special where there were two weddings -  Ricky & Bianca and Bradley & Stacey. Ah, isn’t that sweet…

Well no, actually. Eastenders is getting so far-fetched, I thought. Two gingers getting married on the same day? Come off it, what is the chances of that happening in real life? And another thing, everyone knows that gingers turn milk sour, so why would the BBC’s Health & Safety department risk two in the same area at once, let alone on screen together? That sort of irresponsibility could lead to a whole herd of cows dying. Plus it’s the other actors I feel sorry for - two gingers - the smell of piss must have been terrible - like a CS gas cannister going off in a mini. Shocking.

Just kidding.

Anyway, in tonight’s episode they will be revealing who murdered Archie Mitchell on Christmas Day. And it will be filmed live! It should be interesting. If an actor is in one scene in the Queen Vic and then has to be in the Square, he will have to leg it out there to make his scene on time.  So I will be watching keenly to see if Phil Mitchell has any beads of sweat on his forehead when he appears in scenes close together. Now I admit I have been following but I really have no idea who battered Archie to death with the bust of Queen Victoria that sits on the bar.  So many characters had a good motive that I just can’t pick the murderer. So I have a very open book on “Who Dunnit”. 

Jack Branning – 7/2
Ronnie Mitchell – 4/1
Peggy Mitchell – 4/1
Bradley Branning – 5/1
Janine Butcher – 6/1
Phil Mitchell – 10/1
Stacy Branning – 10/1
Ryan Malloy – 12/1
Ian Beale – 16/1
Sam Mitchell - 16/1
Jean Slater – 25/1
Max Branning – 50/1
Roxy Mitchell – 50/1
Billy Mitchell – 50/1
Lucas Johnson (for his hatrick) – 100/1
Pat Butcher – 100/1
Minty – 100/1
Minty’s ex-missus – 500/1
Minty’s ex-missus son (the one in the wheelchair) – 1000/1
Patrick Trueman – 1000/1
Nick Cotton -  1000/1
Dotty Cotton – 2000/1
Dot Cotton – 5000/1
Tiffany Butcher – 10000/1

I’ve got Peggy in a bit shorter than I would because I know she leaves the show for good but as I said it was Jack right from the start I will be sticking with him as my tip. 

Just as importantly though I will be watching to see which actors lose their bottle and fluff their lines, or fall over or something.  If the actors’ characters were anything to go by I would make snivelling Ian Beale my favourite to fluff his lines. But to be fair, he has been in the programme for 25 years and is probably quite good at remembering scripts. But you never know.

Better still, Robbie (Dean Gaffney) has put in cameo appearances in the last couple of episodes. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Gaffney sprinted out of the Queen Vic in a rush and smashed his handsomely chiselled face onto the kerb?

Now that would definitely be a top 100 duff-duff moment.

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Oi Terry, get back to work!

That’s what I’d be saying if I was a Chelsea fan (and let’s get it right, it would take some incredible stretch of the imagination for that to ever happen).   

John Terry was granted “compassionate leave” this week after getting the team bike up the spout and the story became public after he failed to suppress it in the courts. So tomorrow, when his team mates are playing Cardiff in the FA Cup 5th round he will be in Dubai begging forgiveness from his missus. Who said the romance of the Cup is dead?

I wish I could get compassionate leave for being a complete oaf.

“Sorry boss, I got into a bit of a punch up at the weekend and I’m in the nick. You know what I’m like when I have a drink.  Could I take the week off as compassionate leave?”

 “Ho ho, sure things Freddie, you haven’t had any compassionate leave since that hit and run accident you caused last year”.

Actually that reminds me of a true story, friend of a friend and all that. One Christmas after a heavy duty work party this drunken bloke and his equally slaughtered boss went for a spin in his boss’s new Porsche, stacking it almost immediately. His feet didn’t touch the ground. After a night in the cells he was straight in court and the judge, who didn’t take too kindly to a couple of pissed up City boys crashing their flash motor, sent him to prison for three weeks. It actually turned out OK for him though. His boss felt guilty because he had encouraged him to do the driving and he told all his colleagues that he was taking a Christmas and New Years holiday for three weeks. Which is stretching the truth to its absolute limit I suppose!

I can just imagine his return to work. Nice holiday? Yeah, magic. Got any photos? Erm..

Speaking of accidents, if ever there was an injury destined to happen to a player, it was surely Ashley Cole’s on Wednesday. His fractured ankle means England are short of a left back for the World Cup, meaning that John Terry will likely be reunited with his old team mate and formerly good friend Wayne Bridge (whose ex missus is the aforementioned bike…. well you know the story by now).

That means we can expect to see scenes like this again after England bottle it in another penalty shoot out:

Terry: ‘What a shit couple of years. Mum’s a thief. Dad’s a drug dealer. Missed the decisive penalty in a Champions League final and the tabloids are all over me for my off field behaviour’

Bridge : ‘Count yourself lucky mate…..I’ve just found out my missus has got the clap’

On the poker front I saw something this week that made me laugh:

A professional poker player and award-winning songwriter, Jason Mershon, has come up with a unique and ambitious plan to promote his new poker song called “Playin’ Poker for a Livin’.” In what is believed to be the first offering of its kind, Mershon is planning on entering the 2010 Main Event at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas this summer, and is agreeing to share 50% of any Final Table winnings with the first 15,000 people who download and purchase his song at his website: (oh there’s no link because I’ve taken it away ha ha)

“It’s just my way of saying ‘thank you’ to those fans who like my new song,” says Mershon.

And my way of “saying thank you” for your generous offer was to remove the link to your website. Muhahaha. Notice he is proposing to share “50% of any Final Table winnings”. Which means he will only have to beat around 7000 players for your 1/15000th of his 50% to materialise into hard cash. Sounds like a blinding opportunity.

I wonder what makes him think he can make the final table? Well, let’s hear what Jason has to say: “I’ve won dozens of smaller poker tournaments in California and Las Vegas, so I figure it’s time to ‘go for the gold’ at the World Series of Poker.”

Figuring that he is “going for the gold” is the clincher for me. If he figures there is gold to go for, then I am sold. I’m sold on gold. Where’s that link gone? Jason I’m going to buy your song TWICE now, I can feel the gold rush!

Remember when the lottery was still a novelty and people used to say “if I won the lottery I’d give you X%” as if that was supposed to make them your best mate? What Jason’s doing is a bit like that. Of course you were supposed to respond with the same futile pledge whenever you were the beneficiary of such a great offer. But the cynic in me says that there’s a more sinister aspect to all this. If they made this “offer” to 500 people, maybe one day one of them might win, whereupon they could gently remind them of their former “promise” (which they had essentially forced upon them). 

That might sound harsh. I mean, on the face of it, what could be possibly bad about promising to give someone some money in the 1 in 14 million chance they got lucky? It’s a pointless gesture granted, but surely there’s no way it could be construed in the wrong way? Surely no-one could give them stick for it?

I did. 

I used to quite enjoy telling people that I wouldn’t share any of my winnings with them. “I don’t play the lottery and I never will”, I’d tell them, so there would be no winnings to share and so forth.  “But you like to gamble” they would say. “Ah” I would reply “I like to bet but I won’t take bad value. There’s a big difference”. A discussion about bad value and betting would then take place. I say “discussion” but most of the time they weren’t contributing and probably not even listening because they just weren’t interested.

So I’d take to just telling them I wouldn’t share any winnings with them full stop and not bother to explain why. Sorry pal, you wouldn’t understand if I tried to explain why it’s an awful bet so we’ll just leave it at “I wouldn’t give you the skids from my pants”. Harsh? Oh sod ‘em. The type of person who says “I’d share my lottery win with you” is completely disingenuous anyway. You just know they are exactly the type of person who would claim anonymity if they did win but should you happen to scoop it they’d hanker around you forever like some godforsaken ponce.

Anyway, we all know there’s no value on the Lottery – the real value is on Amazon. Last week I ordered a load of poker books and DVDs from Amazon because I discovered you could buy stuff under the “new and used” sections for virtually nothing (I am exceptionally slow on the uptake when it comes to online shopping). I ended up buying about 10 items and with some of them the packaging cost more than the item! For example I got the film Rounders on DVD (new) for £1.88, which is Matt Damon’s finest hour for sure, barring his role in Team America http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWTzyU5MFgM

Some of the prices were just ridiculous - they had to be for me to buy this next one -  and so just for a laugh I bought a DVD called “Win at Poker with Phil Tuffnell”.  Remember Tuffer’s “Happy Days” catchphrase from the finance adverts he used to do? Isn’t it funny how you don’t see those adverts since the credit crunch? See, a recession doesn’t have to all bad news.

Anyway, I paid 57 pence for this DVD. But I can’t tell you if it was good value or not because I got so sick of the sight of Tuffers I switched it off after two minutes. The DVD starts off with Phil being a right geezer in his shades and blathering on about this and that. One of the special guests in the DVD was the “Devilfish” Dave Ulliott and Tuffers says “we’ll be speaking to Dave Elliott”.

At that point I just switched off. I figured if no-one could be bothered to correct an error as big as calling your special guest “Elliott” when his name is the incredibly rare “Ulliott” then there was no telling what sort of rubbish the rest of the DVD had in store. So I can’t confirm just yet whether the DVD is worth 57p.

Now I have to admit here, having just criticised the “Cat” for mis-pronouncing Dave Ulliott’s name I realised I didn’t know whether Ulliott was spelt with one or two “t”s. So I went and looked it up on Google and took a ganders at the Wikipedia link that came up first on the search. It’s a great read but in particular there is one classic quip from the Devilfish at the end that I had to share with you:

Ulliott took £10,000 with him on the trip, and was around even, until he entered the $500 pot limit Omaha event of the 1997 Four Queens Poker Classic. When the event reached the heads-up stage, numerous Vietnamese-American followers of Men Nguyen supported him by cheering “Go on the Master” at him. In response, Whitaker cheered Ulliott on by cheering “Go on the Devilfish.” Ulliott reduced Nguyen’s stack to one chip, and the tournament director insisted upon still taking a one-hour scheduled break, over Nguyen’s protests. Ulliott turned to Nguyen and said, “We’re taking the break, and in all fairness to you, I think you should go upstairs and think about your tactics.”

What a legend!

I’ve another strategy video to share with you - this time it is all about Understanding Position in Texas Holdem (I’m having trouble with this myself, limping UTG with muck most of the time!):

What do you think? We should have a lot more videos to share over the next few weeks, so keep visiting to check them out

The schedule for the 2010 World Series of Poker was announced in December and not long after that, the “official rules of the WSOP” were released.  I won’t go into details of the playing schedule here - I only mention it because there is a controversial rule which caught my eye. From 2010, players will be allowed to use their mobile phones to text and twitter messages while they are at the table.

Has it really come to this?

OK, so the rule states you must be out of the hand with your cards lying in the muck before you can start twittering or texting. But that’s not the point. It’s rude to sit at a table full of people texting away on your phone. It’s rude for the same reason it’s rude to do it at the dinner table, or when meeting the President of the United States or when stood in the dock at the Old Bailey while being addressed by the judge. If you absolutely have to send a message, get up, leave the table and do it. But since when did anyone absolutely ever have to “twitter”? That is why this rule is being introduced by the way – so legions of morons can share with their legions of “followers” (micro-morons) whatever inconsequential and insignificant things are happening in their lives. 

So for what it’s worth I think it is a bullshit rule. What annoys me even more is that when I read the article reporting the story it didn’t say immediately afterwards that there had been universal howls of disapproval at the proposal. Presumably twittering is so important to some people that they have actively lobbied for this rule and the journalists, many of whom use Twitter “output” in their work, no doubt think it’s great. 

So in the 2010 WSOP you could conceivably get a table where everyone is wearing hoodies, shades and headphones and twittering on their mobiles the whole time so that no-one actually addresses anyone else during play. It’s not impossible that the micro-morons they are tweeting might actually be sat at the same table as them, in which case they could tweet back and avoid the need for real life communication entirely.

Is that what the organizers want? Tables of players with their heads buried in the mobiles tweeting stuff like:

“At the WSOP baby….. still a dickhead!”.

Sorry I should use the correct terminology and say “heads buried in their cell phones”. Because this is an American rule. And they can keep it. It will be a sad day if this ever catches on here. 

There’s a good argument that mobile devices should be banned at the table because they could be used for cheating, whether the person has folded his hand or not. And even if you don’t suspect the moron to be actually cheating it’s a legitimate reason to ban it at the table and admonish him. 

Bah Humbug. Maybe I’m getting old. 

Speaking of old, I thought I’d mention Doyle Brunson. Now he really is old - 76 in fact, and rather topically he likes to use Twitter. But I couldn’t help but take issue with something he said recently. After a trip to London Doyle had this to say:

 “Got back from London and it was the same, overcast and cold. I simply can’t find food there that I would give to Casper my dog. What’s wrong.”

Well the “overcast and cold” bit I can give him but I have to take issue with his complaints about the food. There are many, many thousands of restaurants in London and they can’t all be bad. Especially if you have got a few quid, which Doyle certainly has.  I find Doyle’s complaint about food interesting because it is a complaint I heard from another American when I was last in Las Vegas. He was about 25 stone as well.

Like I say, if you’re as rich as Doyle you shouldn’t have cause to grumble about the quality of the food in the capital. There are 48 Michelin starred restaurants in London, of which 39 have one star, 7 have two stars and 2 have three stars. I thought I’d share that with you as I just looked it up. (If you are wondering, as I’m sure you all were, about there being TWO restaurants with three Michelin Stars in London, the second is Alain Ducasse at The Dorchester, Mayfair. He got his three star award a coule of weeks ago, in January 2010. Gordon Ramsey, previously the only holder of the 3 star award in London, must be gutted, the poor old “ex-pro” footballer and poppers sniffing adulterer). 

So when he asks “what’s wrong” I respectively suggest that the answer is “it’s you Doyle”.  Besides - we’ve got McDonalds here – what is he complaining about?

Talking of golden oldies, TJ Cloutier has been in the news recently and the news isn’t good for him financially. He appears to have gone broke. 

Before I mention his bad financial luck I ought to say a bit about TJ Cloutier. In his poker career and 71 years on this earth TJ Cloutier has won 6 WSOP bracelets, $9 million in tournament winnings and God knows how much in cash games. He is part of Poker’s Hall of Fame and he is widely regarded as the best player never to have won the main event at the WSOP. He came 2nd in 1985 and 2000, 5th in 1988 and 3rd in 1998.  You might think of him as the Jimmy White of poker.

Surely the 2000 event was the cruellest. In that match he was heads up with about one tenth of the chips in play against Chris “Jesus” Ferguson but fought his way to almost level. In the final hand he had AQ against Ferguson’s A9 and they got it all in preflop. Ferguson, tired of being outplayed, decided to gamble in the hope he might end it all. It was a bad call.

In fact you can watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbV7Bgy0r7A

There is so much to like about this clip, especially TJ smoking at the table and the dramatic saxophone music at 58 seconds. And doesn’t TJ look like Fabio Capello? In fact I imagine that’s exactly what Capello would look like right this minute if he didn’t dye his hair black (he must do right – he’s in his 60s?).  It’s hard to believe this piece of film is only 10 years old - it’s more like something from the 1980s or even earlier!

Incidentally TJ Cloutier is also the owner of the most mis-pronounced surname in poker. (It’s Cloo-dier and I was told that by a girl in Las Vegas who had personally asked him so I won’t be having any arguments on this).

Anyway, during January, two of TJ Cloutier’s bracelets, including his 2005 WSOP $5000 No Limit Hold em event bracelet, appeared on eBay.  After being tracked down TJ admitted they were his bracelets and that he had pawned them. It wasn’t him who put the bracelets on eBay but the pawnbroker. He was quoted as saying

‘I don’t want to talk about it…yeah it’s mine…I was short…I pawned it….

For the record, the bracelet sold for $4006, which is a pretty paltry amount given his legendary status in the game and also considering its intrinsic worth.  According to Poker News Daily’s calculations:

“With its 96 grams (3.38 ounces) of 14 carat gold (58% gold, with 24 carats being solid gold) and 0.25 carats in diamonds, the cash value of the bracelet is roughly $2,350.”

TJ wouldn’t have got anything like $4006 from the pawnbroker though. However, there was a happy ending. The bracelet was sold to an online poker room (who clearly did it for their own publicity and so whose name I won’t mention) and they returned it to its rightful owner. I would laugh my head off were TJ to pawn it again. Or stick it on eBay and go play craps with the proceeds.

Ah, I shouldn’t laugh, but the last thing I’m going to do is say what everyone else is saying like “it’s sad for him” and “isn’t it terrible how he could lose all that money” and generally tut-tutting about how he has lost all his cash. Cloutier doesn’t want your pity.

So he lost a load of cash playing craps. So what? He will never want for being staked in a poker tournament and he will always be in the Hall of Fame. I bet he enjoyed himself spending his $9 million and he’s had a great life so far. What’s to feel sorry for?

On the theme of people falling on hard times I see that Gary Coleman, the dwarf actor from Diff’rent Strokes, has had a bad time of lately as well. Apparently he was taken into custody relating to an outstanding warrant for a “domestic incident”.  And it must be said he looked a right state in his mug shot.

From his glory days being signed by Kevin Keegan :

Keegan persuaded him to join Newcastle with this car in lieu of a signing on fee

to this mugshot in a Utah police station:

like Paul Gascoigne, life after Newcastle was never quite as good for Gary Coleman

Just a quick observation here, and I’m not mocking his height I hope you understand, but don’t mug shots usually have lines along the wall that act as height indicators? You know, like 5’-8’’, 5’-10’’, and 6’-0’’ marked against the wall in horizointal lines? Perhaps that is the 4’-2’’ line and the camera is too close up?

The article which reported this story charted Gary Coleman’s fall from grace:

“he received a suspended sentence for assault in 1998 after he punched a female fan during a heated row over an autograph. The woman, Tracy Fields, mocked Coleman’s lacklustre career as an adult actor. He said that he thought Fields was going to hit him, so he punched her”.

Well that defence worked for Steven Gerard and I jolly well hope his lawyer reminded the police that it should also apply to black midget out-of-work actors. But you have to ask yourself “Why didn’t she just hit him back - he’s only 4 foot 8?”

The article continued:

“Despite finding work with various bit parts and cameo roles, Coleman filed for bankruptcy in 1999, attributing his financial woes to mismanagement of his trust fund. Just last month, he auctioned off an autographed pair of his trousers on eBay for £248,000 to help pay medical bills.”

When I read that I was struggling to understand why Gary Coleman looks so pissed off. Compared to TJ Cloutier he’s had a right result. $4006 for a Hall of Famers WSOP bracelet or £248,000 for a midget’s second hand pair of jeans ?  If I were him I’d be spending a bit less time beating up women and spending a bit more time searching my wardrobe for a few more pairs of 18 inch waist jeans to stick on eBay. And then telling everyone about it on Twitter

Want to learn a little something about that infamous poker move called the Continuation Bet (or C-Bet as all the cool kids are calling it)?

Well, we’ve got just what you’re looking for!  Check out the latest video in our Youtube channel:

What do you think - helpful or not?  We’ll be adding more and more videos to the channel and to our Poker School page over the next few months!

I had a stroke of good fortune a couple of weeks ago when I was given a free £25 bet by Ladbrokes. The Australian Open was about to start and my friend suggested that Justin Henin was a good bet at 5-1. So on went my fee £25 and hey presto - Henin has waltzed to the final and is now even money. The amusing thing is that the friend who suggested the bet also happens to work for Ladbrokes. So cheers Ladbrokes! This must be like how a British bank must feel after being given loads of taxpayers’ money and then have the Bank of England buy its bonds for much more than they are really worth. Except they received 2 billion times more. And they didn’t say thanks.

Still the bet hasn’t won yet so I shouldn’t be giving it the big one because you know what happens when you do that! I think I’ll have a covering bet on Serena just to cover my “stake”. I wouldn’t want to “lose” on this one after my own personal “bailout” would I? That would make me a sort of punting equivalent of the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Anyway, having had this interest in the tennis it means I have watched a lot of the coverage on Eurosport and let me tell you it can be tiresome. There is one commentator in particular who I won’t name (because I’m only 80% certain it is the person I think it is) but all he can seem to say is “wow”. I’ll give you some examples.  Long rally ending in brilliant winner - “wow” Player scampers back to retrieve lob and hit winner. “Wow!” Player hits back handed cross court winner on the run – “WOW!” You get the picture. If he has been saying a lot of “wows” and something truly phenomenal happens he deals with the situation by pausing for a second and then unleashing a louder “WOOWW!” The other day I counted 4 “wows” in 15 minutes and this gets rather irksome as you can imagine. This bloke is in his mid forties and seemingly hasn’t learned any new words in the last 40 of those years. Maybe he is trying to sound “cool”? Sounds more like a moron if you ask me (which none of you did to be fair).
 
But even Mr Wow was trumped by the tournament’s official ginger haired on-court interviewer on Monday. Having just switched on after Murray’s 3-0 win over the giant American John Isner I was subjected to a horrifically cringe worthy interview which was so awful it was almost funny. So I couldn’t let it pass without comment.

At the end of the match this bloke came onto the court to interview Murray. I didn’t recognise him but he had floppy ginger hair and was really full of himself - quite the celebrity in his own mind. So I felt like I should know who he was. He proceeded to give the worst sporting interview I’ve ever heard. If you had asked Garth Crooks to go out there with the instructions to “stare at Murray as intensely as you have ever stared at anyone in your life and try to be the most serious you have ever been”, he couldn’t have done a worse job. Bear in mind the following exchange took part in front of 15,000 people courtside. His opening gambit was:

“Now Andy I know you do meticulous research on your opponents before every match so I know you’ll have done the same on me. What’s your opinion of me?”

Hang on a minute pal, you’re just the interviewer, he’s the famous one. And I for one don’t even know what your name is! Murray didn’t have an answer to this and I can’t say I blame him. It was a good job he was in such a good mood though. He had played brilliantly - “10 out of 10” according to the studio and he had won 3-0. Just as well because I would have loved to have seen floppy ginger ask him that question after losing the final. 

Then he said : “go on tell us something personal about yourself”

This was met with a perplexed look, a sort of nervous laugh, and a long silent pause as Murray thought of a possible way to dignify that with a response. Finally and quite humourously he said “see I can’t think of anything, I really am boring” so ginger nut offered some help

“tell us the last film you saw” (as if that was “personal” information).

Still Murray couldn’t think of an answer. Well this was getting really awkward now. Floppy hair suggested “Avatar” to help him. “No” Murray answered but then finally came up with “Bruno”. And that was basically it - interview over!

He released the poor Murray from the “interview” and as Murray was walking to the exit he said :

“Hey, you’re lucky I didn’t ask you about your sex life”

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WHAT? WHO IS THIS FLUFFY IDIOT? I asked myself. “Go on Murray, grab his Mike and shove it up his backside”. 

I made it my business never to find out the identity of this preposterous man but speaking to a mate the other day while we were watching the tennis he revealed all when our hero strutted on court after another match. Clearly my mate held similar views because he said.

“Since when does Jim Courier think he is a celebrity/comedian/personality”?

So now I know. I can’t say my life has improved for knowing this information though.

Anyway, I seem to have run into quite a lengthy side track there so let us return to matters of poker and our old friend Anurag Dikshit made the news this week because he has finally ended his connection with Party Poker by selling off his remaining stake in the company. Anurag Dikshit wrote the software for the poker site and is one of the founding members of Party Poker. He once held 27% of the shares in the company and Party Poker was worth $6 billion at one point, making him a billionaire until the USA passed the 2006 Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act. This sneakily passed piece of naff legislation knocked 75% off the Party share price overnight.

Regular readers will know that I am sympathetic to the plight of this chap after he got roughed up by the US Department of Justice. He agreed to pay a $300m fine for breaching the 1961 Wire Act (basically for allowing US citizens to play poker). Many say he should have fought this nonsense charge but when you’re mega rich, want the easy life and have aggressive American lawyers threatening you with God knows what then I can’t say I really blame him. 

Anyway, while the selling of his stake is not that newsworthy of itself there may be a clue from this act to what might be happening with a wider issue – the legality of US online poker. Listen to this quote from the source where I read this story:

“The 38.8 million shares of Party Gaming stock held by Dikshit amount to £114 million and helped to drive the price of Party Gaming PLC up during trading on Tuesday and Wednesday. Opening at 277.10p at the start of trading Wednesday, Party Gaming PLC trended up 14.2p over the course of the day, finishing at 292p.”

This comment implied that the share price rose as a result of Dikshit selling his huge stake. What this article glaringly failed to mention was that such a rise after a huge sell off contradicts all economic theory and is virtually unprecedented. When you sell over 10% of the entire share capital of a company, then as a rule, that share price does not rise. If you are ever rich enough to try it, by all means have a go and try to sell 10% of any listed company’s stock over 2 days and report to me what happens: I promise you that the price will plummet and you will lose a fortune. 

Someone once likened the process of a broker selling off a large stock position as akin to the British prisoners who dug the tunnel in the film “The Great Escape”. They would take small pocketfuls of earth out to the yard and release it through holes in their pockets onto the yard bit by bit, rather than dumping big clumps of earth that the guards might see. In the same way, a broker would sell little bits at a time for if anyone in the market notices it becomes obvious who you are, what you are doing and everyone will offer you peanuts for your stake. 

But Party Poker’s share price did not plummet.  It went up and this rather begs the question “why”?

The reason that the share price has gone up is because Dikshit washing his hands of the company is seen as a move away from their “tainted past” (not that he’d done anything wrong) and will position Party for a  return to the US market if the law should change. With Dikshit still to be officially sentenced in 2010 this would have not been as viable. But will the law change? Nothing official has happened on the UIGEA debate since 3 December 2009 so should we be optimistic that the dreaded UIGEA will be repealed and online poker will become legal in the USA?

Well this share price rise is a clear sign that the market seems to think so. The news that Dikshit has severed links has clearly sparked a buying frenzy because people believe Party will be back in business in the USA. And let’s face it, people who vote with their wallets usually know more than Joe Soap. 

So this share sale marks the final insult for Mr Dikshit.  Shafted by the sneaky UIGEA, 75% wiped off his company’s value overnight, his fortune slashed to a fraction, bullied by the US legal system into handing over $300million and threatened with unspeakable things, he is compelled to cut his ties with the biggest project of his life.  And the news of him doing so forces up the share price, gains he ain’t ever gonna see because he no longer holds the shares! I honestly hope he sold them to a friend and that he still retains the beneficial ownership.

And in theory he might still go to jail for two years when he has his sentencing on 16 December 2010 (although in practice he will have agreed that he wont go to prison as part of the deal and the DoJ will have insisted he doesn’t reveal this so they can still appear to be acting tough)

Maybe we shouldn’t feel too sorry for Mr Dikshit. There are probably a million people who could have written that software and he got 27% of the company for his troubles. If I had been the founder of the company, then trust me, no computer programmer would have wound up with 27%.

Well the jolly old Iraq “inquiry” rumbles on and Tony Blair is giving evidence as I finish this piece. So I shall spend the next hour or so watching him for tells which I will try to profit from at the poker table. Seriously, that’s all the “inquiry” will be any use for.

You can’t even call it an “inquiry” truthfully. The other week when Alastair Campbell said “I stand by every word in that dossier” no-one enquired “HOW”? When he said that “Britons can be proud of what we have achieved in Iraq” none of the 5 chinless wonders on the panel enquired “WHY” let alone shout him down with howls of derision. If they can’t make those basic “enquiries” when prompted so easily, you can’t really call the whole charade an “inquiry” can you?

So I suggest if you watch it yourself that you play a little drinking game with the following rules. Every time Blair says “I believed I was doing the right thing” drink two fingers worth, likewise drink 2 fingers worth if he says “we make moral decisions, not just legal ones” (or any variation thereof). 

If he says “God told me to do it”, say “WOW”, get up the off licence, buy a can of special brew and down it in one.

Are you aware of our Royal Cash Races yet?  We’re running this cash race for the entire month of February, broken down into four weekly counting periods with more than $2,500 to be handed out during each.

The king of the heap each week will snag $500 - not enough to buy a crown but enough to set up up like Prince Charles Prince William for a few days of living the high life

We’re also running the Double Up Sparking STT promotion for the entire month of February.  This is an iPoker-wide promotion with $250,000 (yep, a quarter of a million buckerinos!) in cash and prizes up for grabs, solely for Double Up STT players.

Players get points for each Double Up they play, with more points going to the winner than the loser (makes sense I think).  This promo also starts from February 1st.

I’m also working on an MTT promo for the middle part of the month…stay tuned for more details!

Originally published in WPT magazine:

I have touched on this topic in some previous articles and it is certainly important enough to warrant further inspection so for this article I am going to talk about continuation betting and pot control in PLO – these are not mutually exclusive topics in the realm of PLO – in fact they are highly interdependent.

I mentioned previously in the context of continuation betting that whatever you do, make sure you do it smartly. As a player, and particularly if you are one who errs on the side of aggression, you need to trade off the propensity to continuation bet with the requirement to control the size of the pot.

You also need to measure your continuation betting frequency – if you continuation bet too much you are leaving yourself open to being exploited by good thinking players and it will end up costing you dearly. If you don’t continuation bet enough then you are leaving value behind you on the table. You need to strive for the happy place that lies in between.

As a starting point you should arrive at your decision to continuation bet based on key factors, primarily the strength of your hand on the flop, the opportunity your hand presents for improvement and your relative position to your opponents in the hand with you.

Let us first consider the impact of the strength of your hand and particularly how you react to one of the likely subsequent plays by your opponent – a check raise or raise. For this I consider that there are 3 categories of hands.

A.    Strong hand, proceed with confidence and comfort – these are your top set, top 2 pair and flush draw, wrap and flush draw type hands. You are confident that you can put the rest of your stack into the middle with decent equity against your opponents range. In normal playing circumstances the decision to continuation bet is a simple one as you are generally willing your opponent to make a mistake and commit himself to the pot.

B.    Weak Hand – you have missed the flop completely. Having raised it up in position with a hand like 8877ds the flop has come down an annoying AJ10r, when checked to you the only opportunity you have to win the pot is to bet and represent the broadway cards. Irrespective of your opponents next action you generally have a very easy time of it.

He folds and you win the pot, he raises and you have an easy fold, he calls and you need a further read before you can fire the second barrel although it generally isn’t a fantastic idea.

C.    Mediocre Hand – semi decent holding with some strength but little nut potential. This is a small wrap on a flushing board or one pair, a gutshot and a couple of back door flush draws. The common theme here is that you begin to hate life when you bet and get raised as you generally have to ditch your hand and get angry with yourself for denying yourself the opportunity to take a free card.

Continuation betting too frequently with this type of holding will prove to be a major leak in your game and you should tread very carefully as not only will you destroy potential value by failing to see later streets which will lead to profit but you will also be leaking valuable portions of your stack in situations where you continuation bet and are forced to fold to the subsequent raise from your opponent.

Forgoing a potential future revenue stream and lending yourself to an immediate negative revenue stream magnifies your mistake greatly – for this reason the requirement to concentrate on your continuation betting decisions and to ultimately make smart ones is of significant importance.

Whilst the above is a fundamentally strong starting point upon which to base your decisions I have warned in the past against playing poker like matching symbols – with that in mind you also need to consider your opponent and his tendencies.

Is he weak tight and does he fold to continuation bets a lot? Is he a passive fool that check calls to infinity with silly draws and weak made hands? Does he check raise with frequency and what type of hands does he do this with? Is he a tricky player? Is he more aware of your play than you realize? Will he just call your continuation bet with top set in the hope of picking up further value from you on later streets? All of these are important things to consider, understand and add to your artillery.

I don’t mean to scare people into not continuation betting enough; rather I am hoping that people will consider their decision to continuation bet a little more carefully. After all it is one of the best tools to use and it assists in putting pressure on your opponents and makes them ditch certain hands out of position that they could continue with in position and indeed against certain weaker opponents we sometimes get them to fold hands in position that they probably shouldn’t.

As we can see the decision of whether or not to continuation bet lends itself to pot control. I’m tempted to chuck in some cheesy cliché about them being similar to a horse and carriage or a hand and glove but in the interest of preserving this column from such atrocities I would ask you to just accept that they are highly interdependent.

The importance of pot control increases significantly depending on your relative position. When you are in position you can play inflated pots more comfortably with marginal holdings – as we have demonstrated before you are the one applying pressure and making life difficult for your opponent.

The corollary holds that when you are out of position the importance of trying to control the size of the pot increases. Strong hands can be played quite easily from any position but when holding a marginal hand life starts getting tough.

In an earlier article I demonstrated at length the problems with continuation betting AhJhJd7s out of position on a Qc9c6d board against a tricky opponent and it would be a worthwhile exercise for you to revisit that article yet again as it takes a comprehensive look at situations like this.

Top Tips for Continuation Betting

1.    Do it smartly – pay particular attention to how you play post flop with the mediocre holdings as you may be destroying value.
2.    Get the balance right – make sure that your continuation bet frequency isn’t too high but also be sure that you are utilizing this strong weapon enough.
3.    Respect position – don’t go bloating those pots out of position when you are holding marginal hands.