Poker blogs

Drugs are bad ... mmmm k??

I'm not sure why, but poker and smoking pot seems to go hand in hand. When I first started playing APL a few years back, I almost felt left out because I didn't smoke (cigarettes) like so many seemed to. Now, reading the forums and a few poker blogs, it seems so many players smoke pot. Considering poker is a mental game that requires focus and concentration, I'm not sure if it makes sense ... but I've never touched the stuff, so what would I know?

Anyway, one of my favourite bloggers, Assassinato had an unexpected 2am wake up call on his way to Italy. As always, a very entertaining read so click on the title to hear the whole story.

Random Thoughts From A Seattle Poker Pro

A drug sniffing dog came into my room along with two guys in vests, reminding me of what FBI agents look like in movies. I was pretty sure they weren't as powerful here but I was still scared shitless waking up to that. The dog started going through our room and not finding anything.

“Do you have marijuana?!” The guy yelled at me. I said no. Then, almost on cue, the dog started scratching my backpack, and looking back at the agent. Fuck.

“If you have something you better tell me right now.” I could tell by the way he asked it he already knew the answer. It was just a matter of if I handed it to them now or if they went through everything. I got up and opened my bag and handed him a small brown bag.


After the WSOP wrapped up, it had been a very quiet time in terms of poker blogging. After a run in with the Devilfish, Tony "Bond 18" Dunst is finally back online again. Full credit to Bond for pulling the original Devilfish story and being man enough to say he made a mistake by writing the story in the first place. Now that he's in Africa being socially responsible, blog updates will likely be few and far between but thankfully he's still writing. Reading this latest blog, all I could think of was, "Hello muddah, hello faddah. Here I am at Camp Granada" which I actually heard on Qantas when I was flying back from Melbourne recently.

A Week in Africa | PokerSavvy Plus

The headmaster however, is Idi Amin Jr. During a parent-teacher assembly he announced to the crowd that 'The Americans have promised to bring us 10 computers next year!' which was something nobody promised or even mentioned in any form during conversation. Two of the teachers that Katie (the other volunteer at the school who is a nice girl from New York) and I are friendly with have told us he shorts their pay and pockets the money. He told some other volunteers that for 5,000 shillings he would organize a brand new bus and great trip to Mt. Kilimanjaro. They paid him and rocked up to find an old, piece of shit bus that broke down on the way. He attempted to convince them to keep going to the mountain in the middle of the night, as pointless as it is dangerous, knowing if he got them there they couldn't demand a refund. The volunteers refused and demanded to go back home. When they got there they naturally wanted their money back and he refused saying that it had already all been spent. One of the girls, Shrea, flipped out on him and he eventually refunded them each 4000. Already been spent indeed. Shrea has not been back to the school to volunteer since and is now working in an orphanage.

Corruption like this is everywhere, and as far as I can tell, is the largest problem a country like Kenya will have in moving forward. The stories of this kind of angle shooting are absolutely endless and while years in the poker world have made me well prepared for picking up on bullshit many of the other volunteers are not as paranoid or suspicious of people’s motivations. The corruption is on all levels of government and daily life, and while picking up a newspaper in the US normally depresses me, picking up one here makes me suicidal. Many other volunteers have questioned the volunteer company's validity itself; as they have spent weeks of time and considerable money attempting to get placement in programs only to have the people organizing them not show up or horrendous delays in communication make their efforts pointless and infuriating.

PokerStars update

With so many pro poker players in Vegas at the moment for the early events of the World Series of Poker, most of the poker blogs are relatively quiet at the moment. There is essentially a new event starting every day so that doesn't give them much time to sit in front of the laptop and update the world about what's going on.

I haven't been playing as much as usual in the last week or so. I really need to get moving with a few business things so this will be my focus over the next few weeks. Saying that tho, I played cash games at PokerStars for a few hours on Saturday and decided to play some tournaments last night. The work will have to wait until this weekend.

Last night I felt I was playing really well. I didn't play too many games, just ten and I final tabled 3 of them. It could've actually been more but there were the usual suck-outs along the way.

Kings losing to king queen suited when they chased down the flush to the river. That was bad ... and there were others, but the worst was an unraised pot where I have king five suited in the big blind. Board comes 5, 6, 5 ... lovely! Small blind checks, I check, early position bets min and both blinds call. Next card out is a queen, small blind checks, I check, early position bets min, small blind calls. I decide its time to get some more out of this pot so I raise a couple of times the min blind, nothing excessive. Early position then shoves massively all-in, small blind umms and ahhs and calls and I reshove over the top and small blind still calls. What do they have you wonder? Early position turns over queen ten off, small blind turns over ace 6 off ... I'm in shock that either of them are still in the pot but know they're both drawing very thin (queen or a six). And the river ... a six of course ...

As mentioned tho, I made three final tables finishing 3rd, 4th and a 6th. So a profitable night and good for the stats but nothing too exciting.

My real concern at the moment is my horrible performances in anything other than the $1 90 man games. Every time I play the $2 90 man non-turbo tournament or even the $2 180 man turbo, I'm doing no good at all. Compared with my success rates at the $1 game, the next level up is a real struggle right now. I don't think its any tougher, I'm just running bad. Sure, I don't play as many of those tournaments as I do the $1 games but in the last 2 weeks I have essentially not cashed ANY of them and bubbling the money twice is as good as it gets. Over the next week or two I will be playing more of these tournaments and hopefully this trend will not continue!

Anyway, bankroll is now at $363 ... yes, I'm plateauing at the moment.