Poker Homey Needs Glasses (at least that)

Lately, I have noticed that spades and clubs look alot alike. Hearts and diamonds, no problem. But a quick glance at the board just won’t cut it when the cards have black splotches on them anymore (that’s what spades and clubs are now, splotches). I need glasses.

Or maybe it’s more than that, because my latest misstep really can’t be blamed on poor vision. Saturday evening I played in one of the Full Tilt Poker freeroll WSOP qualifying tourneys. With 1800 players, I was in 9th place late in the tourney (less than 175 players remaining). All I had to do was make the top 36 to make it to the next qualifier.

Between hands I looked up exactly when that next qualifying tourney was, and I was disappointed to find out that I would be on the road driving back from business in New Orleans when that tourney was scheduled the next weekend. Darn! At that point, I didn’t give up, but I have to say I wasn’t too concerned anymore about making the cutoff (top 36), so I shifted gears and decided to accumulate chips.

In front of me, another player with a big stack (bigger than mine) who had been raising all in way too often with Ace-x raised all in again, so my pocket fives looked good, and I call. I was right, she had Ace 9 offsuit. My fives stayed good until she hit her ace on the river, and I am out after besting about 1790 other players for a few hours. I would not have made that move with pocket fives at this point in the tourney if I wanted to maintain my good chance of making top 36 and advancing. But, I can’t play the next tourney anyway, right?

Well, not exactly. The problem is that I had misread the schedule for the next qualifier, and I wasn’t going to be traveling when it was scheduled after all. In fact, I was going to be parked in a New Orleans hotel room that particular evening, with all the time in the world available to me to play in the next level qualifier tourney, with a chance at $12,000 WSOP package, for FREE.

So, if that goof wasn’t due to poor vision, to what can I attribute it? What am I st..st..st..stupid or something? Glasses don’t fix that, do they?

Billionaire Andy Beal, Meet Badass Phil Ivey

Andy Beal, the Dallas, TX billionaire banker, has been playing heads-up against the “Corporation” (Brunson, Brunson, Harman, Forrest, et al) in Vegas off and on for quite some time now, and Beal has gotten the best of the pros at times. In fact, at one point recently the Corporations’ $10 million buy-in was pretty well soaked up by Beal. Then along came Phil Ivey with a fresh off the shelf can of whupass to open up on Mr. Beal. Can you say $16 million. That is apparently how much Ivey took off Beal before the last match was all wrapped up. Ivey won back the $10 million previously lost by The Corporation and another $6 million for good measure. Word is that Beal had been extended an invitation to the NBC televised National Heads Up Poker Championship prior to the big loss, and Beal wasn’t up to any more poker after getting spanked by Ivey, so he passed on the invite.

Jennifer Tilly – First Things First

Jennifer Tilly has got her act together folks. When faced with a dilemna, this woman makes the right choice. “Let’s see, I can either go to the Oscars in L.A. or play in 2nd Annual National Heads Up Poker Championship in Vegas, hmmmm….Who’s Oscar? I’m playing poker!”

Too bad she busted out (sorry about the pun) in the first round matches, but you know what, as winner of the 2005 WSOP Ladies Poker Event, she beat about 600 other ladies and proved something else. Besides having her priorities right, she’s a fantastic poker player. She ain’t ugly either.

Another Cheater Bites the Dust – ZeeJustin Busted

The hits just keep on rolling…First there was JJProdigy, and now it’s ZeeJustin (Justin Bonomo). By the way, Justin’s blog is linked right here on our page, and we are going to leave his link active. As of this posting, Justin’s blog has no statement regarding the closure of his account(s) by Party Poker (and Poker Stars as well), and the confiscation of over $100,000 of “his” (translate: “our”) stolen money. In the meantime, you can read his rant at Pocketfives.com.