Garry Gates

Garry Gates is no longer a contributing writer/blogger for WiseHandPoker.com.

He is currently writing for PokerNews.com.

We left Garry Gates' bio page on our website as a courtesy for the work he has done while writing for WiseHandPoker.com,

Wise Hand Poker Staff

Now that the WSOP has come and gone until next summer, I'm feeling a void that can only be filled by getting back to work, so here I am - expect to see a lot of me in the weeks to come.

Though I was fortunate enough to be able to play in my first ever WSOP event this summer (Event #3, $1,500 NL Hold'em), I left my month and a half long stint at the Rio feeling very unsatisfied. I wasn't necessarily disappointed with the way I played in that tournament specifically, or in any of the many satellites I played (and lost), but moreso with my inability to safely and efficiently manage a bankroll. I walked into the Amazon Room on June 1st with confidence and lofty expectations and left 47 short days later feeling like there should've been more... of what, I'm not entirely sure...just more.

While my life as a poker player failed to make any significant gains this summer, my life as a writer took many leaps and bounds during the short time I spent working as a blogger for PokerNews.com. I worked quite closely with some of the industry's top minds, as we battled through gruelling 8-14 hour work days with little or no time off, in a collective effort to bring unprecedented live coverage of poker's crown jewel into homes around the globe. For veteran tournament reporters like Pauly McGuire, Amy Calistri and B.J. Nemeth, who have covered the event for years, the WSOP is just another stop on the tournament trail (albeit the most stressful and demanding one). For a guy like me, however, covering my first event of this magnitude, the grind that was the 2007 World Series of Poker was one big learning experience, and holy shit did I learn a lot.

In the weeks to come, I hope to give you an inside look at what it was like to be a permanent railbird armed with "gold" media credentials (the best a man can get), following the action from start to finish on poker's grandest stage.

Stay tuned...

Well here we are on July 9th, with just a little more than a week left in the 2007 WSOP, and I've finally managed to find the time (and motivation) to get a blog post in. For those of you who are unaware, I've been working as a blogger for PokerNews.com at the WSOP (under the screen name 'gsqwared'), therefore I've tried my best to avoid spending any of my free time blogging for fun, so as not to get sick of blogs, bloggers and blogging altogether.

I'm one of the night crew guys on the team, and most of the time I don't get out of the Amazon Room until after 4:00 a.m. or later. My days have gone as follows: Go to work at 5:00 (sometimes earlier, sometimes later, depending on the schedule of events for that particular day), work until the sun comes up, drive home, sleep until two or three, eat lunch, catch up on the day's events and start the whole thing over again. It has been a real grind, but I wouldn't do it if I didn't love every minute of it.

John Caldwell and the rest of the crew behind the PokerNews machine have put together a fantastic team of bloggers and tournament reporters, and it's been a lot of fun getting to know and work with everyone. Of course there's always room for improvement in the growing field of tournament reporting, but overall we feel like we've produced a solid product. If you haven't already, stop by and check out our daily coverage at www.pokernews.com - we'll be working our tails off until the very last pot is pushed.

As for what's next, I really don't know to be honest with you. I would say that I'd expect things to return to normal once the Series is over, but I think I've forgotten what "normal" is. That said, I'm optimistic that my experiences this summer will turn into something bigger and better, as I've been fortunate enough to have met some great people in the business, while simultaneously adding a pretty solid bullet to my resume. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

In any case, with one "Day 1" left to go, this year's Main Event is shaping up to be one to remember. The atmosphere in the Amazon Room has a much more serious feel to it than in year's past. The costumes, masks and semi-circus style acts of recent Day 1's have been kept to a minimum; there's one bracelet left to win before it's all said and done, and each one of the players who ponied up the $10,000 entry fee to play in the event has their sights set on it. With three of the four Day 1's already behind us, and already 4,575 entries thus far, the 2007 Main Event is (temporarily) the 3rd largest poker tournament in history. All eyes will be on the size of tomorrow's field, when we'll know just how big this thing is going to get, and how much the grand champion will receive.

I've got tomorrow off (we're celebrating my girlfriend's birthday a day early), but I'll be back on the saddle Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. PDT. Don't forget to visit www.pokernews.com for the most frequent live updates of the Main Event you're going to find anywhere on the net, on the road to crowning the 2007 World Champion of Poker.

That's all I can muster for the time being - have to wake up in just a few hours for a birthday breakfast at the Wynn buffet with the Ms.

Until next time, good night and good luck!

It's not too late to register for the 1st Wise Hand Poker Weekly tournament, to be held this Saturday (tomorrow!). Here are the details:

Location: PokerStars
Tournament ID Number: 49730384
Tournament Name: WiseHandPoker Weekly
Password: 'wisehandpoker'
Buy-in: $10+1
Structure: No-Limit Hold'em
Date: Saturday, May 12th
Time: 8:30 p.m., EST (5:30 p.m., PST)

The player who knocks out WHP's own Gary Wise will receive a small cash bounty, so bring your A game.

Hope to see you there!

GG

If you haven't already done so, it's not too late to sign up for our first WiseHandPoker Weekly tournament. Here are the details!

Location: Poker Stars

Tournament ID Number: 49730384
Tournament Name: WiseHandPoker Weekly
Password: 'wisehandpoker'
Buy-in: $10+1
Structure: No-Limit Hold'em
Date: Saturday, May 12th
Time: 8:30 p.m., EST (5:30 p.m., PST)

If you need help funding your PokerStars account, contact me at garry_m_gates@yahoo.com and we'll work something out.

Hope to see you there!

GG

I'm really not sure how you can top a Cinco de Mayo weekend featuring the Kentucky Derby and De La Hoya/Mayweather, especially when you live in Las Vegas. The festivities had so much potential and yet I'm left feeling like Teddy KGB - "so unsatisfied." I didn't bet on either of the events - instead, I won a satellite into FTP's $40k guarantee tournament and made it to the final two tables. Playing from my roommate's laptop, I was 14 donks away from parlaying $26 into a nice little $10,600 payday. Sitting on an above average chip stack, within a span of 10 hands I was dealt aces twice and queens once... all three hands were pushed all in preflop and all three hands lost like everyone who paid money to see the new poker movie "Lucky You." (More on that in a minute.) My first pair of aces lost to pocket 3's... The second to pocket queens... and my queens were slaughtered by the AQ of spades. If I win any one of those hands I've got a great chance at first place prize money... forget about it. 15th place paid $300, so it wasn't all for nothing... but again, I felt so unsatisfied. The "fight of the century" didn't do much to lift my spirits either. It seems like every Mayweather fight I watch is a repeat of the previous one; lot of cocky gestures, flashy smiles and trash talking with very little excitement. No one wants to see a 12 round sparring match. If boxing ever wants to resurrect itself, they're going to have to bring back the heavyweights.

That said, on to "Lucky You," perhaps one of the worst movies in the history of movies. At first I decided I wouldn't write about this movie... it already robbed me for $9.50, the price of a Friday night showtime... I wasn't going to let it rob me of anymore of my time. But then I read WHP's Jennifer Newell's post, which asked others to comment on the movie and realized I had the opportunity to save our readers some money if I could stop them from seeing this film. I'm certainly going to try. If you haven't seen the movie yet and plan to, stop reading now, because the following will spoil it for you. Actually, nevermind. Nothing I tell you will spoil the movie more than it spoils itself, so please continue.

Sure, the recreated poker rooms looked pretty authentic and the Vegas scenery was a legitimate attempt at giving the storyline some credibility, but after that the movie starts at the bottom of the hill and snowballs downward. Maybe I had unrealistic expectations for this movie as both a poker player and poker fan, but even if I did a few simple changes would've made a huge difference. For starters, the $16 minimum raises dramatically thrown into the pot by Eric Bana's character and his opponent at the Bellagio literally made me laugh out loud in the theater. That was OK though, since there were only seven total people in the room, including my girlfriend and I. Every time a player made a bet in the movie (with the exception of John Hennigan and Jennifer Harman, who handled their chips like real players), they dramatically threw them into the pot, as if they were schewing a pet off of a forbidden couch. You'd figure with all of the professional players that made cameos in the movie, one of them would've told the actors to lay off the drama with their bets.

As far as the love story goes, there was none. I've never seen Drew Barrymore so pathetic in a role. The pair were more like distant cousins awkwardly discovering feelings for each other than anything else. Her singing was dreadful and every dress she wore had a hideous pattern on it, ranging from polka dots to chrysanthemums.

Two scenes in the movie were particularly bothersome to me. The first featured Bana playing heads-up for a seat in the WSOP. He held a pair of 10's and his opponent, 8's. Bana called the other guy's all in bet before the flop and won the hand. As he was walking away from the table, his clever opponent noticed that the dealer had only burned two cards and the tournament director ruled that the river card was to be the turn card and we would have a new river. Hmmm.... I wonder what card is going to roll off the deck. Bana would eventually end up at the same table as this opponent at the WSOP and knock him out, calling with just a pair of 5's with a 6 kicker and all kinds of overcards on the board. Lovely.

Finally, the last climactic hand of the tournament drove me absolutely nuts. Throughout the movie, Bana and his father shared a tense relationship. His father whooped up on him in every form of cards, cleaning him out twice and even taking his WSOP entry fee. They both reach the final table and end up going three handed with the movie's rendition of an internet superstar, an actor who was better suited playing a role as Doofy the Dufus, who couldn't tell his ass from a hole in the ground. Bana has pocket aces and hasn't shown his cards to the holecam throughout the tournament - a move that would never be allowed in the new age of big buy-in, televised poker. His dad, of course, has pocket kings and moves all in on the river. Bana calls with his aces and when his dad turns over kings, he utters "your kings are good," and proceeds to muck his hand, finishing in third place. I realize that he's trying to rekindle a relationship with his father after years of tension, but come on... Who in their right mind is going to throw away the winning hand to a guy who's spent his life making you feel inferior, taking thousands of dollars from you in the process. That scene was as unrealistic as it gets. To top it all off, his dad didn't even win the tournament after scoring a huge free pot. What a joke...

Please, I beg of you... DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY ON THIS MOVIE. You'll be glad you didn't.

On a much brighter note, the stage is now set for the first ever Wise Hand Poker Weekly Tournament, to be held at Poker Stars.

Here are the details:

Tournament ID Number: 49730384
Tournament Name: WiseHandPoker Weekly
Password: 'wisehandpoker'
Buy-in: $10+1
Structure: No-Limit Hold'em
Date: Saturday, May 12th
Time: 8:30 p.m., EST (5:30 p.m., PST)

I'll post a reminder blog daily, until the tournament on Saturday. See you there!

That's all I got for now.

See you on the felt!

GG

I had just gotten off the phone with Gary when the third hand of a $22+1 turbo heads-up match was being dealt between myself and an online player named "lot-o-balls" on FullTilt. We started with 1500 chips each, and I had Mr. Balls covered by 40 chips. I was dealt a pair of red kings and made it 180 to go. Mr. Balls, living up to his name, decided to kick it to 600, and I reraised to put him all in. He called rather quickly and showed an offsuit A K, making me about a 70% preflop favorite to win the hand and the tournament. So much for odds... The A 10 10 flop all but crushed my hopes of a quick W, and with no help on the turn or river, I was left with a measly 40 in chips.

Many players are content with throwing in the towel at this point, as the chances of coming back from a deficit this big are slim to none. Knowing I'd be all in on the next hand, and probably the next two or three after that if I survived, I called off the 10 chips I had left after the big blind hit me for 30, and moved my mouse pointer to the red X in the upper right corner of the window, fully prepared to accept defeat. My opponent showed J 8 offsuit and was dominated by my Q 8 of hearts; a bittersweet moment I thought to myself. My hand held up and I was now sitting on 80 large.

A 3 offsuit was my next all in hand, which held up over Mr. Balls' K 2 suited and increased my stack to 160. Hmmm... Maybe? Nah... he's got 2840 to my 160, and the blinds just went up. I was dealt an ugly 2 4 offsuit in the small blind and rather than try to get lucky, I decided to fold. Down to 140 now. The Q 9 of diamonds I am dealt on the next hand looks much more inviting, so again I shove in the rest of my meager "stack" and cross my fingers. This time my opponent has A K offsuit, but a beautiful Q of hearts on the flop takes me off the respirator. With 280 chips, I wouldn't exactly call myself a favorite to win... but I hadn't given up, and the cards were falling my way. After a few more folds and a pair of double ups, I found myself with just under 1000 chips when disaster struck...

I had been playing on my girlfriend's computer (her monitor is huge), and it's usually reliable. The blinds had just jumped to 50 and 100, and suddenly I couldn't move my mouse. Not a single program was responding... My revival efforts consisted of franticly punching Ctrl+Alt+Delete on my keyboard while yelling "Come on, you effer!!!" No luck. I decided to abandon ship and try to log in on my own computer, which was already turned on and only a few feet away from the frozen one.

I have a zillion icons on my desktop, and struggled to find the blue and red FullTilt logo amidst the mess. Forget that... Start, Programs, FullTiltPoker. Sweet... I might only miss one or two hands! Wait... what the hell? A new software update? Jesus... When was the last time I logged onto FullTilt using my own computer? Now I'm impatiently tapping my foot on the ground waiting for the damn thing to finish up, certain that I've lost at least 250 chips by now...

When I finally get the program up and running, I'm happy to see that I still have 750 chips, and was facing a raise from my opponent, who I assume was trying to steal my blinds while I was away... Not so fast, pal. I moved all in with the K Q of clubs and Mr. Balls called with 7 6 offsuit. Two pair on the flop for me!! Guess what... we're even now. With my newfound momentum, I took down the next two pots before the flop and now had a 400 chip lead over my opponent.

On the next and final hand of the tournament, I was dealt A K offsuit and raised three times the 100 blind. Mr. Balls re-popped it to 700, leaving himself with just 600... I, of course, moved all in and lot-o-balls suddenly became lost-my-balls. He used his entire time bank before deciding to call. His attempt at taking me off my hand failed miserably, and he reluctantly called off the rest of his stack with the 8 5 of spades. The flop came A x x, with two spades, for dramatic effect, but a 3rd spade never showed up and I had successfully come back from 40 chips to win the tournament.

Mike Ditka once said "you are never a loser until you quit trying." Take Mike's advice in poker and in life...never quit.

(I apologize for the sorry ending... I'm late for my own home game!)

Last week I had the priviledge of showing my younger brother Zack around Las Vegas for the first time. In fact, it was a week of many firsts for him... First plane ride, first time traveling any further west from Pennsylvania than Ohio, first time seeing mountains, first time playing single deck blackjack, and first time being in a place where you can legally walk down the sidewalk with an open bottle of beer in your hand. Needless to say, we had a good time!

But now that he's gone and now that I'm almost over the cold I picked up from one of my students on Friday (rat bast***), I'm dedicating a majority of my time between now and June 2nd to pumping out as much as I can for Wise Hand Poker while getting ready for my first ever World Series of Poker event. Some of my best friends from back home have already booked their plane tickets - it's going to be one hell of a week.

In other news, a few weeks ago I met Dr. Alan Schoonmaker, author of The Psychology of Poker and regular columnist for Card Player Magazine. He sat to my left, playing in the infamous $50 buy-in no-limit hold'em cash game at the Luxor. After a bit of small talk, he invited me to his weekly poker discussion group on Monday nights. Next week will be my first meeting with his group and I will certainly report on any useful information I draw from the session.

Until then, it's back to work for me. If you're using Internet Explorer to view this page, do me one quick favor. At the top of your browser, you should see the word "Favorites." Go ahead and click on that. Did a little drop down menu appear underneath it? Great. Now click "Add to Favorites," and a little box should pop up. Simply click "OK" or press the "Enter" key on your keyboard, and you're all set to visit us again soon.

GG

"If the power to do hard work is not a skill, it's the best possible substitute for it."
- James A. Garfield

Approximately six months ago, my roommate Brian and I sat down to write a list of rules for the home game we were planning to start at our house. In the process, we came up with the idea to afford one lucky player the opportunity to play in a major poker tournament, representing the members of our home game. In order to decide on our representative, we came up with a point system that correlated with our weekly tournament. A 1st place finish is worth 10 points, 2nd = 8, 3rd = 6, 4th = 4 and 5th = 2. Players also earn a point simply by showing up to the game and paying the $5 add on that goes directly into what we call the "challenge pool." Once the pool reaches $2,000, the player with the most points wins $500 cash and the right to represent all players who have earned points in a $1,500 buy-in tournament. In the event that the representative finishes in the money, the amount of points you have acquired over the course of the competition determines your percentage of the rep's winnings.

Fast forward to last Wednesday. With a 1st place finish in our weekly tournament, I am pleased to report that I will be representing the members of my home game at Event #3 at this year's World Series of Poker! The event is a $1,500 buy-in no-limit hold'em tournament, to be held on June 2, 2007.

It has been a long-standing goal of mine to play in my first World Series of Poker event and I am grateful to have the opportunity that lies ahead. To this point, the biggest buy-in I've ever played for was $1,030 in a series of heads-up matches against Chris Moneymaker on PokerStars, back during my Internet heyday. Shamefully, I admit that he won 3 out of 5.

To everyone who plays in our home game - I hope to see you all there on June 2nd! Moreover, I hope to win us some moolah! This might sound corny, but thanks to all of you for making this possible - it really is a dream come true for me.

Want to play in an online poker tournament with WHP authors and forum members?

Please refer to the WHP forum under "Home Games," or click the link below for details:

http://www.wisehandpoker.com/forum/showthread.php?t=58

Hope to see you there!