Wise Hand Poker

What is Superstition:

To believe in spite of evidence or without evidence. To account for one mystery by another. To believe that the world is governed by chance or caprice. To disregard the true relation between cause and effect. To put thought, intention and design back of nature. To believe that mind created and controls matter. To believe in force apart from substance, or in substance apart from force.

To believe in miracles, spells and charms, in dreams and prophecies.

I know Baseball players have a superstition, never stepping on the white chalk line; Sports figures pointing to the sky after a home run or touchdown as if anyone really believes God had something to do with it. How about the number 13.

Some superstitions may be just for fun while others may affect you deeply enough to affect your choices in life. None of them are based in fact, but many have roots deep in tradition and history.

Why do Poker Players have those little trinkets at the table with them, Texas Dolly has "Casper" and has willed it to Howard Lederer. Others have Rocks or coins and even pictures of their children and grandchildren with them.

The first player who comes to mind having his kids picture at the table and kissing it when he had to make a tough decision, was Bernard Lee. Recently though Jerry Yang had his kids picture take him to the final table of last years WSOP Main Event and with help of some other powers, he eventually won .

I know some Poker Player's wear the same hat or shirt and even the same shoes if they have done well in a tournament or won a tournament with that certain garment on.

I have to admit, I have been looking for the perfect good luck charm since I began playing Poker two years ago. Several have come close and when I have won an event or done well I have used that same item again believing it was my lucky charm. It has turned out not to be and so the search goes on. However recently I believe I found it.

The wisdom came from one of my five year old twin girls, Jasmine. I was driving her to school with her sister Jennifer and she looked at me and said, "Daddy, we are so lucky everyday to wake up and have fun". WOW…I said to myself, where did this come from. I told her, "yes we are" and Jasmine went on to say, "Are there Twin Towers in California" Then it hit me, they learned about the Twin Towers in class last week and last night I had a conversation with a friend on the phone about a person I arrested and took to the County Jail here in LA, it is called the "Twin Towers". The things our children pick up.

My good luck charm is the four beautiful girls the good lord and my wife have given me.
I do not need a certain card protector or the perfect hat or putting two cushions on my chair during a tournament. I have the two sets of twins who give me a hug and kiss before I leave to play Poker and that my friends, is all I need!

What are your superstitions? It would be interesting to all if you post them here in the comment section.

Good Luck as we say, break a leg.....have Fun....more superstitions?

Take care...Be Safe............

WELL.........I entered the $225.00 NL Deep Stack Event at the Bicycle Casino last night and it was the smallest field of this tournament.

Three Hundred hopefuls registered and with starting chips of 7,000 we were off and running at 7:00pm sharp. I could tell you the first level I was on fire and built my stack up to 16,000 with some tough play and they were all small pots.

I then lost 6500 chips with a set of fours on the flop, when I was chased to the river by a spade flush draw.

Then right before the first break I was in the big blind with J-9 and the blinds were at 200. Five players called the 200 and we saw a flop of J-7-9 rainbow. I bet 1000 and was called by one.The turn was another 9 and I bet out 3500 leaving me only 2000 chips and a Queen hit the river and my opponent went all in...

I thought for a minute and thought he might have AQ or maybe 2 pair,QJ..I put my last 2000 in and he showed QQ for a bigger full house!!

I go play a cash game for a bit and build my stack from 100.00 to 225.00 and this guy to my left always raised his Blinds. Two times I called him and both times I hit middle pair but ended up folding when he made a large continuation bet.

I look down at Qh-Js and he raise again with 25.00 in the pot to $50.00 it folds to me and I smelled a rat and called him. The flop was As-10s-Kh SWEET a flopped straight... With 130.00 in there I went all in for 165.00 and he insta called me with 7-5 of spades....raised to to 50 bucks with 7-5 of

SPADES

This people is what you call a SIGN and its bigger than a full moon in my face telling me ...STOP...

So I am...Going to take a rather long break from poker for awhile and work some days off and start getting ready for the holidays. I will post a blog every so often with out any Poker content and wisehand is changing the site around very soon. There are going to be some very cool things here, so keep checking back.

I want to congratulate Mike Alzona, AKA: "Mr Flush", he won last nights event after hitting a 9 on the river when his 99 was losing then flopping a spade flush with 98 when his opponent hit a set of deuces on the flop and went all in. This gave Mike at the time over 350,000 chips. He sent me a message this morning and the final 9 players made a deal as it was close to 7:00am..and Mike had over 950,000 chips and a 2-1 to one margin over the closest player.

First place was $21,500.00, Just to let you know Mike is the gentleman who beat me at Commerce with the Q8 of diamonds when I had KK and he made a move and flopped a flush ,hence the new nickname.."Mr. Flush"

Also congrats to his lovely wife who took 13th in the event when her AQ lost to KJ..Congratulations again guys!!!!

This weekend went by fairly quick as it was a busy weekend at work. The Bicycle Casino had its "Big Poker Oktober" series start and the events have had enormous turnouts.

Monday was the $120.00 NL Holdem event and it did not start until 7:00pm. I was off at 3:00 pm but after doing some paper work and going downtown to pick up my Fallen Heroes hats I ordered it was 5:45pm so I decided to go to the Bike and play.

I was a little tired, after all I was up at 3:15am but I am off on Tuesday so I would be able to sleep in before taking the girls to school if it became a late night for me.

This event is a Deepstack and you start with 7,000 in chips and for $5.00 more you can get an extra 1,000. The blinds started at 25-50 and they had 30 minute levels. The structure was semi turbo as they took a few levels out so the blinds increased pretty quick after level 4.

I was up and down all night, I lost a big pot when I flopped a set of eights and was chased down by this older gentleman with pocket tens. He had the ten of clubs as the board made 4 clubs on the river. I lost about 6,000 to him of my 12,000 I had accumulated. I never had over 14,000 in chips all night and hung around the 8-9 thousand chip count for 5 hours.

At almost midnight I only had 6200 chips and the blinds had just gone up to 600-1200 with a 200 ante. I was card dead and there were still about 110 of the original 433 players left.

I had 33 in the cutoff and there was a raise to 3600 and another gentleman who had pushed all in 4 times in this round went all in again for about 14,000. I figured since 33 was the best hand I had seen in an hour and being so short stacked, I decided to push the last of my chips in and the original raiser called the all ins and turned over KK.

The first guy to go all in showed A9 and after asking the dealer to PLEASE flop a 3 for me...he did...flop,,,,10-3-2 rainbow...My friend Jon Yuson was at the table and I looked at him and shook my head. The turn was another 2 giving me a full house and the possibility at having over 20,000 in chips and an outside chance of finally getting over the hump and being able to play poker. BUT.......the river was a K giving the original raiser a bigger full house and sending me home scratching my head again.

I finally had some luck strike me, but it was very short lived and thats Poker!!!

Today is the $225.00 NL event and I am going to try and play it. This will be the only event I play until later next week, because as I said before, no more Poker on days I work.

I was going to play very aggressive to try and accumulate a stack early, but the flops kept whiffing for me and I had to slow down a bit as I did not want to become to short stacked early.

I just could not find a spot early with big pots. I won a few small ones with KK and QQ two times, but I just do not get those hands when there are huge pots. I did have J-10 clubs one hand when the flop was 8-K-A and two other players put in 2,000 chips each. The pot was about 9,000 and the turn was a four. First player bet another 2,000 and was called making the pot 13,000. I had 5500 left at this point and I folded. The river was a Queen and my stomach turned.....Both players ended up all in on the river and it was A8 for one and 88 for the other..If I would of chased, I would have had over 30,000 chips at this early point in the tournament. My gut was telling me to call, But I new it was stupid and I still had 20 times the big blind left at that point.

How many times have you laid down the winning hands in a tournament. I had 2-4 spades one hand and the flop was A-3-5 . I had 76 one hand out of position and there was a big raise and I could not call it with three others in the pot. The flop was 777..I know it happens to all of us, we play the way we are supposed to and muck the crummy cards only for them to hit. When we play the cards we are supposed to unfortunately we get beat more often than not..Love this game though and will continue to play ........Take Care...Be Safe...

I have not been playing live for almost two weeks now. I cashed out my money on Pokerstars and left $93.00 out of the 2 grand I won. First check was 1300.00 from a bank in Chicago and the second check 600.00 was from San Francisco. Both came pretty fast and both cleared with no problems.

There is this one site that tracks your play and I am not talking about Sharkscope. It shows my stats having like a 94.11% and I have a 1296.00 profit overall on Poker stars over the past 2 years, thanks to my recent cashes.

I was looking at some of the top players and it tells you how much you have won and approximate profit. Several players have enormous amounts of wins with only little profit left. One player has won over 4 million...thats right 4 million on line but his profit is only 186,000.00.....

I was ranked like 5,269 out of 25,000 players for the month of September, but since i have cashed out, my hands have gotten beat after beat and I have put all the money I left at the site back in plus another 100.00.

The calls you get on line are unreal. There are ranks on PokerStars and they have these little stars under their avatars. I have seen this more often lately and these players have tremendous luck and once they get a few chips it becomes an all in fest in the 20.00 to 30.00 sng's I play.

It takes the fun out of Poker, but I am at home with my girls and only play one or two games periodically.

I will probably play Tuesday at the Bike in their NL Deepstack "Big Poker October" series. The buy in is 225.00 and The Bike has had some very large fields since last Thursdays start.

I thought playing on line lately was going to be a positive experience. I was always so skeptical because of the way I lost on line. But when you see so many more hands in an hour then you do live, one is bound to see some sick beats.

I thought it might be helping my game, but it is not. It has begun to take away my confidence and is making me gunshy and feeling defeated, which is not good for a Poker player,amateur or not.

I am going to lay off the online for awhile. I almost was going to delete PS from my computer but I maintained my composure and just logged off.

I have these card protector coins for sale at fallenheroesla.org Check out the site as it is now up and almost at 100%. The coins are the logo on the front page and they are very popular. We also have hats and shirts which are not yet posted to look at, but will be very shortly. You can e-mail us if you like. The coins are $10.00 each..

Have a great week and Take Care and Be Safe....