WSOP Countdown: 7 Days away...

Check out Aussie Sarah's site (previous post) for a re-cap of her 44th place finish in the PL Event. Looks like she got lucky (again). Go luck! Go batfaces!

WSOP Countdown: 8 Days away...

While perusing all the various poker sites/blogs over the last four days, I've been quite impressed with the Hendon Mob's WSOP presentation thus far. It's amazing how much this site has to offer, particularly considering that it was essentially not much better than our little piece of nothing just a couple of years back.

You'll see that one of their feature writers is Sarah Bilney. Sarah played next to me during day 3 of the 2005 Main Event (Hey, who's that pasty, constipated guy in the white shirt??), where she went on to finish 63rd, good for $145,000, thanks in no small part to getting pocker aces and kings 46 times in two hours and getting paid off every time. It looks like she's used that finish to spingboard a poker career of some sort. (Of course, she is very nice, and she's already cashed in Event #3 this year.)

Which brings up a interesting issue: why is it that so many people who get lucky enought to make some money in the main event suddenly become poker experts? I guess you have to love this "sport," but it seems a little goofy.

WSOP Event 2

The first full field event of the WSOP kicked off yesterday with a mere 2,776 entrants in the $1500 NLHE Event. After playing down to 122 players last night, 2001 Main Event Champion, Carlos Mortenson is chip leader with the likes of Devilfish, Seidel, Raymer, the "Sheik", Harman, Gordon and Hellmuth still in the mix. Hellmuth knocked out Clonie, who barely scraped into the money in 243rd place.

WSOP Countdown: 9 Days away...

If you enjoy pokerati, then you obviously love the Tao of Poker, where in the last couple of days, Pauly (a rich man's Dan Michalski??), has been very busy getting his WSOP on. The good news appears to be Pauly isn't having any trouble snapping photos or giving tourey updates despite the posturing of the evil cardplayer.com.

WSOP Countdown: 10 Days away...

This year's Tournament of Champions opened the 2006 WSOP and went largely under the radar. (Mike Sexton took first place and $1,000,000.00 worth of the $2,000,000.00 freeroll.) This was odd to me for a couple of reasons: first, it got zero publicity in age of blog-everything (I assume because ESPN wants to keep it low-key so it can show it later this summer as fresh??); second, after the huge stink some of the players made last year when Doyle, Hellmuth and Chan were allowed to freeroll without having qualified for the freeroll, this year there were even MORE freerollers (including Sexton) AND a quarter of the field (only 27 players). Why aren't people going apeshit over this?

Here are some photos of the first day's action from the Poker Prof. (First murmur: An outdour kitchen tent?)

Clonie, Maxim, Nuf Said?

Is there any chance that Dan won't lose his mind over Clonie making the cover of Maxim?

WSOP Countdown: 11 Days away...

Okay, so the WSOP actually begins today, but we won't be out there until next Thursday, thus the official countdown number. In the meantime, take a gander at our own little batface, Scott, getting some decent pub in the Dallas Morning News. 5 handicap? I guess that seems logical.

Sang is in handcuffs and the keys are lost.

Change of Scenery?

Friends come and go. Girlfriends/gay lovers come and go. Wives, children and even family members (especially my douchebag of a father) come and go. It is a natural evolutionary cycle.

Now, Randy is pissed at Todd. Todd is pissed at me. I'm pissed at Randy. Randy is pissed at Thum. Thum is pissed at Fawcett. Fawcett is pissed at me. I'm pissed at Fawcett. Fawcett is pissed at Todd. Todd is pissed at people. People are pissed at me. Everyone is pissed at Rogers. Rogers is pissed at decorum.

Time for new horizons?

Uhhh, go DatFaces?

Very, very hard to say.

Drinks anyone?

Probably the best thing about our home game is that we're all very good friends. We've each (some more than others) had evenings when we have too much to drink and make fools of ourselves. Last night was certainly one of those nights for me. And since we're all such good friends, we give each other the benefit of the doubt when those drunken evenings occur. So when I woke up this morning, I could have called TBR and apologized for knocking his phone on the floor and riding him the entire evening about whether he'd be leaving the game early. I could have called Straight E and Sommer and apologized for throwing chips in their direction and even into their drinks. I could have called Zach, Tulsa and Tum and apologized for cussing at and verbally abusing them for most of the evening. I could have called Fawcett, the host, and apologized for generally behaving like a disruptive ass at his game. I could have called Shane and....well never mind I don't think I did anything to Shane during the 12 minutes he was there. When I got up this morning , I called Dirk and apologized to him for my behavior. Even though I've known Dirk for a couple of years, it was the first time he'd played cards with us and seen me in this state. He, like I would have guessed any one in the group, said everything was cool and no apology was needed. After talking to Dirk, I e-mailed Randy asking how much I owed him to replace his broken phone. I felt like I'd made all the peace I needed to make. Anyway, if any of the above feel like I need to apologize to them, I'm sorry I was out of control last night. I can't guarantee it won't happen again, but if it does, I hope it happens when I'm around my good friends, who know that for whatever reason I'm just blowing off a little steam. Go Batfaces!

Batface Poker Night: Tilty McTilterstein

Several years ago, Negreanu wrote a pretty insightful three-part article about the perils of boozeing with poker. Cleary, Tiny B has not read it, and judging by his play, probably hasn't read too many other poker articles or books latelty. True enough, he's still the best player in the game at throwing things, be they chips, cards, phones, tvs, etc., and there's certainly something to be said for that. But I sure would like to see him get back to where he was--a top-10 player in our weekly game. With the WSOP right around the corner, it's frankly a little sad to watch him continue to wallow in mediocrity.

Seriously, I don't think alcohol is his problem. If anything, that probably helps him loosen up a very tight game. But this article from Mike Caro could change his game--if he weren't too stubborn to read it.

As for the game itself, it was a very tense, turbulent and hostile affair, punctuated by ethical violations, tantrums and near-fisticuffs (and I'm not even talking about Tiny B anymore). Fortunately for me (and you, our three readers) Todd wasn't able to break my phone, so I give you the only picture you need to know about the actual play, my stack:


UPDATE: Upon further review, it appears that Todd did actually break my phone/pda thingie. So, if you're scoring at home, just remove the green and red stacks from the above photo for my net take on the night.

Batface Poker Night: Preview to a kill

It never ceases to amaze me that almost 6 years hence the beginning of our home game, I (we) still look forward to Thursday evenings with the glee of schoolgirls. And the gameday afternoon anticipation is almost as fun as the game itself. A few minutes ago, I sent out a (somewhat) facetious e-mail indicating I was definitely in for the game (had been so-so) and wondering if it still started at 4:30 (it starts at 7).

Within 4.6 seconds (or roughly half the time it takes Sang to respond to Lodge-related text messages), Tiny B sent a reply e-mail:

"Sommer and I are at sherlocks drinking jaeger. Come on."

What else can you say really? Go Batfaces!

Donkey Room in Trouble?

As reported over on Pokerati, last night Channel 8 ran an undercover report on poker rooms in Dallas with cameras in The Lounge and references to the Rounders Club. A Batface, who happened to be playing in the Rounders tourney at the time of the news telecast, reports that there was little concern and general laughter and amusement towards the story. The same Batface reports that 3-4 police cars were circling the location as he was leaving around 11pm (no doubt, having busted out while poorly executing some sort of ill-conceived bluff).

It seems like a matter of time before the North Dallas room that we "affectionately" call the Donkey Room has unwanted visitors.

Nice Layout, Creepy Thoughts

Our other favorite poker website has finally redesigned its web page to make it much more user friendly. My only concern is that it has posted pictures from our Batface Holiday Party last December, and now his group of derelicts, that have no life, can now fantasize about our wives and kids. Do like the random picture though except for TBR's kids. They have enough problems having him as a dad.

Now I know Gambling is ok

Interesting article by our favorite writer, The Sports Guy, about gambling. Hope you guys have a chance to visit with him during the WSOP.

Has Barry overplayed his hand?

A couple of weeks ago, Dan and I were discussing the allegedly tightened scrutiny on all media credentials for this year's WSOP (By the way, you'll note no more sweating of players by the media, a/k/a the "Shane Rule"). This blog entry on Cardplayer suggests that it will provide the "exclusive content" for results and chip counts. Huh? Isn't that like saying that ABC has the exclusive right to tell you what the final score of the Super Bowl was? Methinks First Amendment battles may be ahead. The line between Dan Michalski and Larry Flynt may have gotten even murkier...

My Awful Partner Retraction...Not

Woke up this morning feeling a little guilty for lambasting Randy. I was venting over an unlucky situation...and, Randy had actually played a decent round of golf the before which put us in 8th place of a field of over 70 teams.

However, after today's round, last night's post was justified. As I rethink Randy's round I can only recall Vic Morrow's line from The Bad News Bears wherein he offered this recap of the Bears season opener, "What I saw out there today made me sick."

It would take me 5000 words to do fair justice the abortion Randy manged today, but I will leave you with one anecdote.

Set-up: Our tournament is scored, not by how low your score is, but by how many points you receive. Birdies are worth 4 points, Pars get two points, bogeys count one point and anything above that is a zero.

The Situation: By mid-round, it is obvious Randy is worthless. Before a par three, I prodded him by saying, "On the tee-box, why don't you just whiff it four times and quit the hole." Randy giggled.

The Action: On the tee box, Randy pulls his first shot in the water. He goes to the drop area where he has a 90 yard pitch over the same water. This times, he chunks his ball and his shot goes in the drink after and unspectacular flight of, at most, 30 yards. Now laying four with no chance of making any points on the hole, Randy is resigned to spectator status.

The Recap: Randy managed a big fat zero for the hole. If he plays it the way I told him, he still scores zero points, but he still owns the two balls he dropped in the water. Ugh!

Randy, if you are reading this, I still love you. Just kidding.

Great suck out turns ugly

I just poker stoved my favorite hand I have ever been in and here it is...
TBR raised to $200 at 30/60 blinds utg and I moved all in for $490 total in the cutoff seat with ace queen of clubs and the button insta-all-ins behind me. Randy tanks and calls my all in and creates a nice side and main pot. Button had aces and Randy has 10s...button is 70%, TBR is 20% and I am 10% preflop. Flop of 2, 6, 8 all clubs gives me nut flush and I am now 96% and they are 2% each. Turn 8, river 8...nice boats guys. Shit, I mean at least let me take the side pot or something.

My Awful Partner

TBR is my partner in my club's meber-guest tournament. He is stupid, stupid, stupid-lucky at cards and he can't keep a golf ball in play.

I hate him.

Batfaces to the WSOP

Several Batfaces will be descending upon Vegas for the 2006 WSOP--initial trip scheduled for July 6-9. We are targeting the $2,500 NL Holdem Event on the 7th and $1,000 NL Holdem w/ re-buys on the 8th. Last year the $2,500 event had over 1,000 participants (check out Simon Trumper's trip report), and the $1,000 w/re-buys event had almost 1,500 re-buys.

Of course, Dantana will already be there (thanks for this photo), blogging about everything but the action.

I Will Win

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code: 1741853