Garry Gates

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