Greetings from Toronto’s Harbourfront and welcome to my blog. Here you will be blessed with a mixture of home game poker advice, random sports observations and recaps including the “Misplay of the Week” from Canada’s infamous Harbourfront Poker Tour.

The Harbourfront Poker Tour is a home game which involves many fish and a few sharks from as far away as Tehran, Iran (Persian Giggolo) and Honululu, Hawaii (Rob “Hawaiian Hitler” Chou). If you are a regular home game player or new to no limit hold em’ you should find these recaps both familiar and amusing. If you are a pro, you may be sick after reading the Misplay of the Week.

Here’s the first installment of the Harbourfront Poker Tour’s Misplay of the Week:

Players in the Hand:

“J3″ - generally tight and aggressive like Ashley Olsen.

“Toronto Speculator” - Loose player, likes to trap.

Setting the stage: Everyone has between 900-1000 chips and the blinds are only 5/10.

Everyone folds to the Tour’s self-proclaimed alltime leading money Winner - The Toronto Speculator on the button, who raises to 40 with 8c/9h. The small blind folds and the big blind calls.

Flop: 8s 2d 3c

The big blind checks.
The Toronto Speculator fires out 60 into the 85 chip pot with top pair.
The big blind quickly calls.

Turn comes 9h giving the Toronto Speculator top two pair.

Board is now 8s 2d 3c 9h

Big blind bets 100 into the 205 chip pot.

Toronto Speculator puts opponent on QQ or KK and smooth calls, hoping to win some additional chips on the river.

River comes 6h.
Making the board 8s 2d 3c 9h 6h
Big blind bets 100.
Pot is now 505 chips.

What would you do with top two pair in this situation?

Toronto Speculator raises to 300.
Pot is now 805.

Big Blind re-raises all-in.

Toronto Speculator assumes 50% chance his opponent is on an overpair and 50% chance on a set. Given that there are re-buys, he calls.

Big Blind shows down 4h 5c for the straight. Respect.

The big blind’s bet of 100 on the turn confused the Speculator who incorrectly put him on an overpair instead of a straight draw and paid the price.

Until next time…

TAKE IT DOWN BIG MAN,

The chat’s I’ve had in the last 24 hours would make most of you sh-t your pants. A few samplings:

- I made my way into a mostly abandoned ultimatebet.com lounge, where two employees protected the ‘press and players’ area inhabited by Annie Duke and Howard Lederer. They invited me to join them, where Annie reminisced about our meeting in ‘04, I reminisced about my interview with Howard and we embarked on an hour-long conversation.

Through the duration, we were joined by Mike Matusow and Freddy Deeb, neither of who disappointed. Both were chatty, giving of their stories and as expressive as you’ve seen them be on TV.

- After excusing myself from Howard, i went over to the Full Tilt Lounge, where I managed to corrall Jesus Ferguson into a conversation during his dinner break. We started off a little stoic, but soon we were talking baout poker past, his career, the poker world and where he’d like to be when he’s done in it. I’ll write it up as a seperate blog at some point.

- I got to talk with TJ Cloutier about the old generation’s approach to the new generation game, namely angle shooting and the move from grungy to spic’n’spn clean.

Thing is, there are two kinds of media badges here: red and green. Red is the status quo, letting the wearers into certain press areas and allowing for photo access. Green means go, and the lucky few who have them get to wonder the tables, tap players on the shoulder and do pretty much whatever they please. There may be 20 green badges in the room. Maybe. Guess who has one of them:)

Gary Wise
gary@wisehandpoker.com

So, I got here at 11 PM monday night. It’s now 3:45 wednesday afternoon. In that time, I have;

- done a two-hour radio show on Bluff
- spoken with Mike Sexton, Doyle Brunson, Chris Ferguson, Phil Gordon, Phil Hellmuth, Annie Duke, Jen Harman, Gary Thompson, Nolan Dala, Mike Paulle, Greg Raymer, Chris Moneymaker, David Williams, Noah Boeken, Barry Greenstein, Joe Sebok and a host of others.

- Investigated a minor scandal involving John Bonetti and angle-shooting

- barely slept

- seen more scantily clad women than i knew existed

- wondered through the tables at the World Series

- Been assigned a sitting space in the front row of the final table pit

- Met the entire Bluff crew plus most of the guys from Pokerpages, who are all quite happy to share information in an effort to repot things more accurately on both ends.

- Poured out my beliefs about the future of the game to some of its finest minds, upon their request.

Itg doesn’t get much better than this. Oh, did I mention I’m 36 hours into a 45 day trip?

Good times

Gary Wise
gary@wisehandpoker.com

I was ‘participating’ in a discussion on Rec.Gambling.Poker. It was about big tournament players that don’t do so well in ring games. As I tried to respond in some strange and crazy hope of bringing scope to the discussion, it was crashed by two trolls. And the first poster also ended up being a troll. Thus is life in the rank and file of RGP.

But the topic of ‘Am I good enough to sit with the big professionals?’ is one that every serious player has to address at some point. So I thought I would briefly get into it right here.

Just to give you some perspective, in order to sit at a 4000 / 8000 ring game, you need in excess of 2 million dollars in your bankroll. So clearly, cash-wise, not everyone is ready.

What we’re talking about is having the whole package needed in order to sit with the pros. So do you have what it takes? Here are some quick guidelines:

* If you aren’t willing to research the game, sweat a professional’s cards, ask a lot of questions, and dedicate a huge chunk of your life to poker, the answer is ‘no’. You’re going to need to dedicate at least 50 hours a week to nothing but poker, to get in the proper mind set and receive your poker education.

* If you haven’t been building your bankroll and moving up the ladder, the answer is ‘no’. You are going to have to understand the difference between play at various levels before you participate in the game at it’s highest level.

* If you aren’t willing to be a student for a while, and learn the profiles of the players at the very exclusive high stakes games, then the answer is ‘no’. Your studies become very specialized at the ultra high stakes levels, because the number of real players (rather than the idle rich) who can afford to play at those levels dwindles. So studying the traits of specific opponents becomes not only viable, but vital.

I know these things because I’ve talked to those players who have done it before, and heard about their pitfalls. I regularly played 2/4 and 3/6 as a professional, because that money was pretty much money in my pocket with very little long term risk. When I was staked, I played at higher limits both before and after, and found comfort there eventually. It took time and study, but it was profitable for me and my backer.

But I would NEVER play 500/1000, even fully staked for 500K, without a year of preparation. I would quit my day job, research the area, start out down at 50/100 and work my way up. This has nothing to do with a lack of confidence. It’s a lack of experience. And a healthy respect for anyone who would back me at that level.

At any rate, those who underestimate the level of dedication that the high end professionals have are doomed to bust out. There’s raw skill, and then there’s experience and comfort level. Anyway, that’s all that my brain can squeeze out just now.

Hey all, just a quick one today, check this out:

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/poker/columns/story?columnist=bluff_magazine&id=2476629

My first espn-published article! I’m pretty excited about it and I’m told there’ll be more, so let the good times roll. Hope everyone’s having a good day, all the best

Gary Wise
gary@wisehandpoker.com

So, um, hi!

I’m Bill Ricardi. I’m the guy who knows people in the world of poker, but it all seems to happen almost by accident.

For example: I’ll get in on a free beta test for some guys, and it happens to be a bunch of pros launching a brand new poker site. My broker (up until very recently, I was a full time Realtor - part time as of this month) will be talking about her nephew, and it happens to be another pro. I’ll be chatting with someone I met on the rec.gambling.poker newsgroup, and I find out that it’s the secret identity of another pro.

So now you know why I’m here, and why I end up writing about poker. I was a pro for a year. Hardcore grinding, all 2/4 and 3/6 stuff, 50 hours a week or more, online and sometimes Bay 101 or Garden City. It paid the bills. These days I own a couple poker affiliate sites, I do interviews with the pros, and stuff like that. You’ll see my work shortly on Wise Hand’s new site.

Now to nip this one in the ass, let me explain what Brave Little Toaster means. There’s a show on Sci Fi called BattleStar Galactica, and it’s possibly the best show on TV right now. It’s based on the old BSG show, but much more gritty and awesome. So they call the Cylons ‘toasters’, like we call lawyers ’shysters’ (sorry Andy!).

But there’s one Cylon who works with the humans, despite them treating her like crap. She has no world of her own anymore. She’s off on her own, a Cylon without a country as it were. She’s a Brave Little Toaster.

I’ve felt that way a lot in my life. An outsider even when I’m on the inside. Powerless even when in a powerful position. So yeah.

Hey! Sci-Fi! I have an awesome idea for a commercial to hype next season, call me! Damn producers, never returning my calls.

Oh, um, yeah. Welcome to my poker Blog!

Hey all, just to let everybody know, a few things have been changing around here that need pointing out;

- Our weekly newsletter is now online, containing original content, a full listing of the week’s televised poker and even some basic tips for you fledgling players

- Our feature article section is up on the front page. It will eventually, show you more selection, but for the moment, if you’ve read the article being displayed, hit refresh and it will give you a new selection.

- Our bio section is online and furnished beautifully with Barry Greenstein’s player analysis

There’s more to come, but I’ll tell you about that stuff when it debuts. Hope everyone had agood weekend,

Gary Wise
gary@wisehandpoker.com

Yesterday I booked my flight to Vegas. if you don’t know, June 26th marks the begining of the World Series of Poker, the biggest event on the poker calendar. It may seem like a foregone conclusion that I’d be going, but nothing was 100% certain until the credit card details were given.

I’m damn excited about the trip. I won’t be doing much playing, due to my bankroll being mostly diverted to this here website and a stronger impulse to watch and learn than participate. I’m going down on the 26th, staying until August 10th, and I’m just going to talk.

I want to talk to everyone who knows something I don’t about this great game of ours; its past, its stories, its darker truths. I want to know which players were on the up and up and which have shadier reputations than we realize, and the only way to make that happen is to go to vegas, talk with those who were there and learn from their experience.

I’ll be keeping up the columns, blogging with a little more zeal than normal and doing some coverage for Bluff Magazine, which is going to keep me pretty damn busy. In between, I need to spend some time at the UNLV library, where old unaired footage is being held hostage, available to view, but not copy of keep. I’ll be seeing old friends, catching up on old times and old gossip, and once in a hwile, I may just sneak in an interview or two, or at least a decent meal with a few of the greats.

Can you tell I’m excited? You’d think that 6 weeks in the desert would give me plenty of time to do everything, but I booked yesterday and I feel like finding time to sleep’s going to be pretty tough, not that i really want to (though I may have to
). Anyways, this is the begining of the countdown. In nine days, I’ll be in Vegas. I’ll make sure you feel like a little of you is there with me.

Gary Wise
gary@wisehandpoker.com

I’ve been reading ‘The Greatest Gambling Stories Ever Told; Thirty-One Tales of Risk and Reward’ and stumled tonight into a short essay by playwright, screenwriter, director, poet, essayist and novelist David Mamet. This is an intellectual giant, so hearing his thoughts on poker was of some interest. Contained within the essay ‘Things I have learned Playing Poker on the Hill’ was a very interesting theory that borders on revelation.

When we go against the odds, Mamet suggests, we’re relying on luck to steer us through the rough waters of probability. The belief in some force doing us these favors can be directly tied to faith, and therefore, betting against those odds is a test of how favorably we stand in god’s favor.

Following me?

OK, to simplify things, god loves us each in an immeasurable way (for the doubters, let’s leave that debate for other days), with the vagueries inherent in that forcing us to accept this lack of quantitative measurement. We take gambles knowing they’d be poor investments without luck getting involved, but as god controls luck, our ability to ride its coat tails measures God’s love.

Pretty deep stuff. I don’t think Mamet was suggesting this was happening on a conscious level and I think there’s some merit to his theory. Without the belief in something more, we’d never gamble because paying $100 to win $93 doesn’t make much sense.

Next time you have the urge to play something you know is wrong, ask yourself if god realy loves you. If the answer is no, then the bet doesn’t make much sense. If the answer is yes, remind yourself God’s under no obligation to proove it. That should help you make the smart laydown.

Gary Wise
gary@wisehandpoker.com

Hey all,

Just a quick drop in today. I wanted to share with you the following article written by Radley Balko for Fox News (I know);

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,198610,00.html

Balko’s article points out that e-bay’s behaving in a hypocritical fahsion, supporting the banning of online poker in North America while making agreements with online rooms overseas. I won’t be using e-bay for some time as a result. Hope everyone’s having a good weekend,

Gary Wise
gary@wisehandpoker.com