Mike Johnson History Buff

I couldn’t help but notice that almost all of the WiseHandPoker.com authors list either Dan Harrington or Daniel Negreanu as their favorite poker pro. At first I thought that everyone just liked poker pros with some version of the name Dan. If that was the case then where is Daniel Alaei or Steve Dannenmann? The preference probably isn’t based on playing style either since the two pros have very different approaches to the game. Negreanu often will play any two cards with the thought that he will outplay his opponent after the flop. Harrington on the other hand is a more patient player who focuses much more on the math of each situation. I think the main reason Harrington and Negreanu are favorites among fans (and especially among poker authors) is because both players have done a lot of writing about poker and have been very active away from the table over the last several years. Harrington has written three terrific poker theory books (Harington on Hold’em I, II, and III) that have been praised by many as the best tournament strategy guides out there today. Negreanu is one of the most active writing poker players thanks to his popular blog and articles for CardPlayer.com. Their writings allow fans to gain a better understanding of how they as pros approach the game. This humanizes the players and makes you take a rooting interest in the outcome of their key hands you see on TV.

Hopefully I will get some time to write more about Harrington and a couple other pros during this week. Between moving, going to weddings, classes, and extra hours at work, I’ve had very little time to get any writing accomplished. Right now I’m stuck in day one of a two day Crystal Reporting Training seminar. This session is boring enough that I don’t feel bad about ignoring the trainer and posting this blog entry. That sentence might confuse some of you since most people believe that database reporting is fun and exciting. In truth it’s not at all exciting and is in no way fun, but it does make Dilbert cartoons seem funnier. Tomorrow I’ll probably become equally bored and might end up asking the guy sitting next to me if he wants to play some heads up OH8. He looks like he’s more of a Go fish type though.

One thing I am excited about is the recent expanision of WHP's blog section. I have been having a blast reading through all of the recent entrys by the new Negranu/Harrington loving authors and I can't wait to see what their columns will look like.

Best of Luck
Mike

About two weeks ago, I sent all of my poker playing friends an email saying that they should think about pulling their money out of online casinos and poker rooms since new goverment regulations might cause problems with future withdraws. I explained the basics of the legistlation and said that it might or might not affect them, but to be safe they shouldn't keep more than what they would normally bring to a table. If they bust out they can deposit more.

Today I got a call from my buddy T-Mace who is an excellent player who likes the $.50 / $1 omaha and Hold'em tables at Jetset poker. He told me that last week he tried to withdraw the $1,100.00 in his account and received a message that withdraws were not being accepted at that time. He and his brother tried emailing support but never received any replys. Today T-Mace's brother was playing a cash game on jetset when he received a popup message from jetset announcing that the site would be closing in 5 min. They also added something to the effect that they appreciated everyone's support over the past several years. 5 min later E-Mace (T-Mace's brother) was kicked off the site, with no way of getting his money back.

I tried 5 min ago to load the Jetset poker software and received a message that said the servers were down. If you go to their website www.jetsetpoker.com you will see the following text.

Dear Valued JetSetPoker Customer:

We deeply regret to convey that we shall be discontinuing service at JetSetPoker (the "Site") effective Midnight EST on Friday, October 13, 2006.

Initially, and as per our previous statement, we were cautiously optimistic in maintaining operations for our membership after the passage of the "SAFE Port Act HR 4954" on September 30, 2006 by the U.S. Senate. We nonetheless initially believed it to be practicable.

However, given the developments during the preceding week, including but not limited to, the unfavorable view of payment processors and financial institutions regarding online gambling and the extensive advice of our legal counsel, we have been instructed to cease activities and comply with this prohibitionist legislation.

We were fortunate to have a first-rate membership and it was our pleasure to provide a destination site where members were able to enjoy their favorite card games and tournaments with the surety that we were to buttress the integrity of the forum. In this inclement environment however we believe our ability to do so may become impaired nor do we anticipate this matter to improve in the near future.

We once again thank you for your patronage of JetSetPoker and deeply regret these unfortunate circumstances that have materially and adversely impacted both the Site and the industry.

Best regards,
JetSetPoker Management Team

It's possible that Jetset is working on a way of returning all of the money that was in players bankrolls at a later time. Ufortunatly, I have a hard time believing that. Still, Jetset is not the norm for pokersites and it might be refreshing to take a look at how Fulltilt is handling the changing landscape of this industry. IF you log onto their poker platform you will be greated with the following message.

Dear Tilter,

Full Tilt Poker is here to stay!
As an online poker player, you have probably heard about the new legislation passed by the U.S. Congress earlier this week that attempts to prevent you from being able to transfer money to online gaming sites.

While this new law has prompted some sites to announce plans to abandon the U.S. market in coming days, we assure you that Full Tilt Poker will continue to provide all of its players - both inside and outside of the United States - with a full complement of real money ring games and tournaments for their enjoyment.

After consultation with numerous legal experts in this field, we want to make you aware of the following:

* Legal
The new U.S. legislation does not in any way attempt to criminalize the act of you playing online poker. By playing online at Full Tilt Poker, you are not breaking any U.S. Federal laws.

* Full Access
The passage of the new Internet Gaming law will not have any impact on your day-to-day experience at Full Tilt Poker. We will provide all of our players, everywhere in the world, with full access to all of our games and tournaments.

* Easy Deposits and Withdrawals
We will continue to provide our players with all of the safe, secure and convenient methods for transferring money to and from the site. In fact, in recent discussions with our payment processors, we have been assured that this new law will have no immediate impact on their day-to-day business. And as always, any monies that you have on deposit with Full Tilt Poker remain completely safe and secure.

Furthermore, we firmly believe that online poker is not encompassed by this new legislation. In any event, we will continue to lobby for an express carve-out for online poker and for your right to play a truly American game from the privacy of your own home and computer.

We are excited about the future here at Full Tilt Poker and in the coming weeks and months, we plan to roll out many new features designed to enhance your online poker experience.

We appreciate your loyalty to our site and, in turn, want you to know that we will remain loyal to our valued players in the United States and throughout the world.

We look forward to seeing you at the table.

Sincerely,

Full Tilt Poker

How long this might last is hard to tell. If it turns out that the new legistlation has no teeth and is ultimately not applied to poker websites, then FullTilt will probably develop a strangle hold on the market by virtue of the fact that it was one of the few sites that remained open. If the Legistlation does have teeth, well then I'm sorry to say that we may not see anymore hilarious Black and White TV commercials featureing today's top poker pros.

Best of luck
Mike

When I read that the new James Bond movie "Casino Royale" would have a climatic poker scene, I have to admit that I winced. I love poker. I love to play it, I love to read about it, I love to watch it on TV, and I even love it in the movies. Well for the most part I love it in the movies and on TV.

I think that when you have poker in a movie or on TV it can't be forced. The poker action has to either support the story or it has to be the story. It has to flow. Poker in media can't look like something that was added just to draw in a certain audience and boost ratings. An episode of "The Shield" showing the strike team playing a game of poker as they joke around and remember good memories would be a good use of poker. You wouldn't see any of the cards and the main focus would be on the characters camaraderie. An episode of Fear factor where the final stunt included winning a Sit N Go Hold'em tournament would be an example where poker is forced into the story.

From what I've read about the upcoming 007 movie it sounds more like the poker action is going to flow naturally with the story line, much as it does in Rounders or the Cincinnati Kid. (I believe that lady fingers was a mechanic and was in cahoots with "The Man" and stacked the deck on that last hand.) To decide for yourself you can watch the trailer at the link below.

http://www.filmwad.com/out.phtml?u=http%3A%2F%2Fmovies.aol.com%2Fcasino-royale-james-bond%2Fexclusive-video-features

This link also has interviews with the actors and director who talk about the filming of the poker scenes. I'm also going to go out on a limb and say that the new James Bond is the most bad ass looking Bond so far. I don't know if that is a good thing or a bad thing. I'm afraid that the new guy won't pull off the debonair aspect of Bond as well as his predecessors.

Even if the movie sucks at least there's always Bond girls.

I spend a lot of time surfing the net looking for unique or odd new stories that I can write about on one of my goofball websites. During these searches I often find what could be concidered real news, and am forced to pass over it because it doesn't fit in with the theme of my website. Today I stumbled upon an article that is somewhat newsworthy, especially to those who have ties to online gambling. Granted, Online Gambling is a very general term that might or might not apply to poker depending on your point of view.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-online8sep08,1,2052648.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

Above is the link to the full article but here are a couple of exerpts that are the most noteworthy in my opinon.

"In an action that roiled the fast-growing world of online gambling, a top executive of a British Internet company was arrested on American soil late Wednesday night on charges connected with taking wagers from gamblers in the United States... It was the second arrest in two months of a foreign Internet gaming executive in the U.S."

"Although it is not illegal under U.S. law for Americans to make online bets, federal prosecutors maintain that it is illegal for online operators to solicit or accept them, even when their operations are not in the U.S... Experts in gambling law said the arrests underscored an intensified government attack on Internet gambling at a time when the customer base was expanding rapidly worldwide and the technology to mask the source and destination of wagers was improving."

"Experts — and judges — are divided on how existing laws apply to offshore websites such as those operated by BetOnSports and Sportingbet. The 1961 federal Wire Act specifically outlawed bets made using the national communications network — principally via telephone — on sporting events. Although at least one federal appeals court has ruled that the prohibition applies to Internet sports betting, some lawyers say that the law may someday be found to be inapplicable to Internet technologies that circumvent telephone networks...Many experts question whether the prohibitions extend beyond sports betting to poker and casino games. "The Department of Justice will say that all Internet gambling is illegal," said Sebastian Sinclair, president of Christiansen Capital Advisors, a gambling industry consulting firm. "Prosecutors can show that sports betting is, but for casino games and poker it's not so clear."

Here are some additional links if you are interested.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060908/bs_nm/leisure_sportingbet_dc_4
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/08/technology/08gamble.html

Someone out there must think I'm a compulsive gambler. Why else would I get about 3 or 4 magazines a month dedicated to sports gambling. These "magazines" are basically just a series of advertisments for off shore online casinos. The most recent mailing I received is called "INSIDERS betting digest". It says it is the 2006 Pro and College edition and has a USD price of $7.95. Obviously I didn't pay for this and I doubt anyone else ever has either.

The front cover featured picture of T.O (Terrel Owens) and had a headline about him finding a home in the Big D. Being a niners fan and living a couple hours away from Philly means I've had my fill of T.O over the past 7 or so years. I did see one story that I thought was interesting; "Winning your fist online no limit Texas Hold'em Poker Trounament". Granted I've won several online tournaments in the past but I thought I could still pick up some tips from this article.

Now I have no claim to being a great tournament strategy theorist, but I did have to take issue with some of the tips provided in this article.

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One of the nice things about blogging is that you don’t have to worry about the form, formality, and structure that you have to worry about when writing an article or essay. Ok, maybe some people worry about it, but I don’t. To prove this point, I’m going to just post a series of random thoughts that have poped into my head while watching or reading about poker. The first thing I want to mention is the Jamie Gold situation. I think it’s great for poker. Really great. In fact I really hope that this problem isn’t resolved amicably and here’s a list of reasons why.

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Now that I have completed the training process for my new job, I decided to take a couple days off to relax. How does a guy like me relax? By gambling of course. Since I live in central Pennsylvania my only real option is to drive 3 hours to “America’s Playground” which is more commonly known as Atlantic City or “The poor man’s Vegas”. It’s easy to make fun of AC (and most everything else in New Jersey), but I have to admit that they have really made some improvements over the past two years to not only the casinos but also to the area around the casinos.

I feel that one of the big differences between AC and Vegas is that the town of Vegas was built around the casinos so that there is a symbiotic relationship there. Atlantic City doesn’t have the same kind of relationship because the casinos were built around the town that already existed. The casinos really did suck the life out of AC and only recently has an effort been made to revitalize the rest of the city. There’s still a lot of work to be done, but I’m proud to say that I now feel comfortable walking two full blocks away from the boardwalk instead of just one block like before.

After checking into one of the sleaziest/shadiest/creepiest/ghettoest hotels in the area, my friends and I headed over to the Trump Taj Mahal. At one time The Taj Mahal was the center of the poker universe on the east coast. You probably remember the Taj as the place where Mike McDermott took on Johnny Chan in the movie Rounders. It is also home to the US Poker open that is aired on ESPN. Now there is more competition from the Indian Casinos like Foxwoods and Turning Stone as well as local competition from The Borgata and Tropicana. Even with all that competition, the Taj is still the only place where you can recreate that scene from Rounders where Mike and Worm ride down the escalator, past the almost ornate faux crystal chandelier, faked gold tiled walls, and into the poker room. Well technically only Mike goes to the poker room since Worm decides to go see a “relaxation specialists”.

Since none of us had “Certain needs” that need to be taken care of, we all headed to the poker room and registered for some hold’em games. I played 1-2 No limit while my friends played 3/6 limit. After 4 hours of play I was down $20 while my one friend was down $100 and the other was down $200. It’s hard to loose $200 and bust out playing 3/6 hold’em but that’s exactly what my friend had done. To change our luck we decided to switch from hold’em to some of the other games being dealt. I hit up some 7-Card Stud while my friends sat down at the Omaha Hi-Lo table.

I had never played Stud in a casino before so I was a little bit apprehensive about the experience. Luckily a run of good cards, good play, and friendly opponents allowed me to have fun while I made a profit of over $150 in a couple hours time. Unlike every other poker game I’ve ever played at in a casino this was the first time that I felt like a young buck at the table. I’m only 26 but most tables feature at least 3 or 4 people in their 20s. Every player at the 7 card stud table, except for me, could all tell me exactly where they were when they found out Kennedy was shot, and kept referring to online gambling as “poker on the computer”.

While I did like the people I played with I could tell that they weren’t big fans of me for a couple reasons. Before I list the reasons let me explain that just because they didn’t like me all that much, it didn’t mean they disliked me. I just got the feeling that they had some preconceptions about me based on a couple factors.

•I’m young
•I played as aggressively with draws as I did with made hands. (This was very different from the way they played draws.)
•I asked a lot of questions about how the game was played even though I was raking in the biggest pots.
•I got some good cards
•I’m one of those “All In” guys.

One of the guys at the table actually asked me “Are you one of those all in guys?” and pretended to push an invincible pile of chips into the center of the table. I knew that it wasn’t a completely innocent question and more than likely he really wanted to know “Are you one of those rash arrogant young internet players who thinks poker is all about big bluffs and trash talk like you see on TV?” Sadly I can understand why these stud players might feel this way. After all they have been playing in these card rooms for a long time and now suddenly everything has changed. The players are younger and louder, the strategy being played is different, and the most popular game is now hold’em and not stud.

After I basically busted two players and another announced that he had to work in the morning we decided to break up the table. I decided to join my friends at the Omaha Hi-Lo table for another first time experience for me. I have played a lot of Stud online but not a lot of Omaha so I wasn’t as confident in playing a live game of Omaha as I had been with Stud. Comfort soon returned to me after I watch the confused look on half the players faces when after the first hand was finished the dealer had to explain who had the lowest hand and why. Out of the 20 hands I played at Omaha every single hand looked promising to me. Even the hand of 8 K 8 8 looked good until I remembered you could only play 2 cards. I played well in the game but was never able to scoop a pot. I did leave the table with a $20 profit which helped pay for the cost of the crappy crappy crappy hotel room that I went to just in time to catch GSN’s High Stakes Poker.

I think watching Hansen and Negranue battle it out before I went to bed might have had some influence on my style of play the next morning. Usually I’m pretty tight and try to only play top 10 hands and steal only when on the button or one off. A half hour into the 11:15 am Tropicana daily NL tournament I found my self calling a raise from middle position with 10 3 off just so that I could bluff on the flop. My opponent was easy to read and my play worked. Similar plays seemed to work all morning as I built my chip stack from 5000 up to 7500 without ever getting a pocket pair or two paint cards. That all came to a crashing halt when I ran into a player who had quads. And it wasn’t just that he had quads, it was that he played them in the oddest way possible. I’m not going into all the details that surround the hand (mostly because the hand shows why I’m no Negranue or Hansen) but I will say that with 4 people left to act, I would never over bet the pot when holding quads.

To end this blog entry I’ve decided to leave you with some sage advice. Play the 13, 14, 16, 17 & 14,15, 17,18 corners at the roulette table right by the Trop poker room that is beside the big wheel thing. You might also want to toss a single chip onto 36 & 19. It worked for me.

Good Luck
Mike

A couple days ago I talked about a key hand from my last home game in which I overplayed pocket Kings and lost over 90% of my stack. That hand signaled the end of my time in the first tournament of the night. The second tournament started around 11:30 and featured all the same players and blind structure as the last one. We each started with 8000 in chips and my stack is up to 8325 after winning the first hand.

My buddy Rocco is 2nd to act and he doubles the blind. Everyone folds around to T-Mace in the small blind who calls. I'm in the big blind and it cost me 50 more to see the flop. I look at my hole cards and see 22. I call knowing that if I don't hit a set I will be able to make an easy lay down. I like playing small pocket pairs early in a tournament but only if it doesn't cost me much and only if my opponents has a decent chip stack. The flop comes down 4c 2c 10h. This is a great flop for me. There is three hundred in the pot and the small blind has checked to me. This is good flop for me for a couple reasons.

1. I caught the set
2. There is no Ace or King to scare off any pocket pairs like JJ or QQ which Rocco may have.
3. The only straight draws would come from someone holding a combination of A,3,5 or 6 (except A6). All of which are gut shot draws except the 35.

Rocco only doubled the blind which could mean one of two things for him. He has a very strong hand or a very mediocre hand. Rocco is very good a changing gears so it's hard to tell if he is playing vey tight or very loose at this point. Mace on the other hand was in the small blind and he will often play any two cards from the blinds if it doesn't cost him much. It's possible he could have something like 35 at this point. I put out a probe bet of 150 to get a feel for where the other players are at. I'm hoping for either a raise or only one caller. The last thing I want is for Rocco to call thinking his preflop hand is still good and then mace to call with a straight or flush draw since at that point it will cost him 150 to go after a pot with 600 in it. In truth I should have bet closer to 250 since that would potentially give mace worst pot odds if he is drawing to a straight or flush.

Rocco raised to 600 making it 600 to mace and an additional 450 to me. Mace folds and now I need to figure out what I'm going to do. At this point my read on Rocco makes me think that he has a high pocket pair. If he has 10 10 then I'm smoked but I'm thinking more like QQ or KK. He could have Ax for a flush or straight draw, but he usually doesn't bet into draws. He could have something like J10 or 9 10 and have hit the 10. He stays away from those hands when he is playing tight but he is capable of playing those hands when he is playing loose. The thing that is throwing me off is the doubling of the big blind preflop.

After some thought I put him on a high pocket pair like QQ, KK, AA. I decide to call thinking that if he doesn't have the flush draw and that I want to string him along and not scare him away yet. I call and the next card is the King of diamonds. I'm kind of worried about this hand, but only because I thought he might have KK preflop. Still I can't always worry about someone having the nuts against me. I want to put more money in the pot because I think I still have the best hand. I check, knowing that Rocco will bet. He bets 1200 and I think for a moment and raise it to 3000. Rocco thinks for a moment and then goes all in. At this point I'm lost. I really am not sure what he has. Some of the hands that cycle through my mind are KK, 10 10, AA, A10, AK suited clubs. Some of them fit the betting pattern but some don't.

Rocco's ability to switch gears and play different styles is what makes this hand hard to analyze. It would be a lot easier to figure out if I was playing against one of the other players who doesn't change it up all that much. I'm just about 50/50 on whether or not I should call but one thing tips me on the side of calling. When facing a player who indicates through betting that their hand is strong, Rocco at times will push with a hand that other players would only call with. Rocco also saw me over play a high pocket pair in the last tournament which may make him think that something like top pair top kicker, or two pair is good even though I'm betting like the board has hit me hard.

I call the all in which leaves me with only 350 chips if I loose. Rocco turns over K 10 of clubs giving him two pair and a flush draw. I'm in the lead but my percentages aren't as good as I like. There are 9 clubs that can win it for Rocco plus there are two kings and two 10s that would also give him the winning hand. That gives him a 29.55% chance of winning. T-Mace openly is rooting for a club, and sure enough nine of clubs comes on the river.

When I look back on the hand I can understand why Rocco played the hand the way he did. He was mixing it up and caught what at the time looked like a great flop. He then got even stronger on the turn. It looked like he had the best hand and may have had me drawing very slim. I'm happy with my call although I can't pretend that I did it with anything close to a strong read.

On a posistive side note, I won a heads up Horse tournament and a heads up 7-card stud tournament playing against some of the other early round losers that night.

Later
Mike

About two years ago, my friends and I started to gather together every Friday night for some friendly tournament poker. Over the past two years the skill and intensity featured at these games has risen dramatically even though the stakes have stayed very low. We became so obsessed with the weekly game that we built a 10 person felt table and set up a website to track the results. While we do keep track of how much everyone wins and everyone looses, the real prize is bragging rights.

Tonight we held two 7 person tournaments with a $20 buy in. Most of the players in this game play for much higher stakes online or at casinos but like I said before; we're playing for bragging rights. Each player started with 8000 chips and blinds at 25/50 and doubling every 20 min. There was one hand for me in each game that I'd like to break down for analysis.

Tournament #1 50/100 blinds, 7 players remaining. I have 8500 chips and am sixth to act. Earlier I had shown pocket Kings, pocket Aces, and J7 after taking the blinds with a 4x BB bet. My buddy "six" is under the gun and raises to 400. Everyone folds to me and I look down to see pocket Kings. I think about smooth calling but see little value in the play. I raise to 800 and Six calls. I am now ruling out QQ, AA, or KK from Six's list of possible hands. He might have AK, KQ, or any pocket pair from JJ on down to 55 or 66. That's a wide range of hands and I am leaning more toward the AK, JJ, 10 10 range since he raise from early position. His 4xBB bet vs a 2.5 or 3XBB makes me think that he doesn't want to see a flop with this hand.

The Flop brings 5 2 6 rainbow. This is a fairly good flop for me against most of the hands I put six on. If six has a high pocket pair like JJ, 1010, 99, or even 88 and 77. He might think his over pair is best. If six has AK then I'll only get more action out of him if he decides to bluff, and if he has a small pocket pair then I might be up against a set. I have two options, check or raise. If I raise then I might scare out some of the over pairs and the AK. If I raise and Six has a set then he will probably re raise me, or maybe slow play the hand. I felt the better play was to check and encourage a bet. I was hoping that my check would make six think that I had AK and missed. I check and six bets 1200.

That worked just like I wanted. Still I'm kind of worried about the six on the board. Six loves to play pocket 66 since his nickname is "Six". Still, I can't deviate from my plan just because of a silly nickname. So what is my goal now. If I had a dominate hand like a set i'd just call hoping to get more money in on 4th and 5th street, but with just a pair I decide that I want to take the pot down right now. I raise to 4200.

Six goes all in almost immediately. It costs me 2500 more to call his all in and there is 12500 in the pot. So should I call? Well what are the hands he could have that would make his move make sense? I already ruled out AA, KK, QQ based off of the pre flop play, but maybe six was trying to be cagey with one of those hands in hopes of getting me to over play a medium pocket pair. Still I rank that pretty low. What about the medium pairs like JJ, 10 10, 99? I think it's important to analyze my betting as viewed by six. Six raises I re raise. I call. I check raise him on the flop. If I'm six and I see that series why would I go all in? If I was six, I would have to put my opponent on a high pocket pair like AA, KK, or QQ. For me to push all in I need to have those hands beat. So what's left? The low pocket pairs, 88 on down. Three of those hands beat me, the 22, 55, and 66. So would he play any of those three hands the way he played this hand. Heck yeah.

Small pocket pair in early position you raise 4xBB hoping no one calls, or if someone does maybe you'll get lucky and hit a set. Someone raises (only doubles the pot) and you think they have a big hand. IF you call and hit a set you might be able to double up through that person if he can't get away from his hand. The flop brings a set with no high cards. The opponent checks and you bet to build the pot. The opponent re raises with what he feels is a strong hand. You go all in for not much more, knowing that the pot will offer great odds to your opponent.

I looked at six and said, you have to have pocket sixes, or maybe fives. The odd thing about this home games is that laying down the best hand hurts so much more than it does when playing against strangers. If I folded I'd only have 3000 or so left, plus if I lay down the best hand it would kill me. I also think, is there any shame in over playing KK or AA with a flop like that? It's amazing how much your pride can influence your decisions. I make the call and six flips up 55. The turn and river fail to bring a king and I'm down to 500 chips.

Even though I was able to build my stack up to 3000 I didn't last long once the blinds hit 400/800. Looking back on the hand I can think of a couple things I did wrong aside from making the all in call. Analyzing this hand should help me with later plays which brings me to the second hand of the second game. Well actually the second hand will come in tomorrows blog update. It's three in the morning and I'm tired from finishing a couple of prop bets.

Later
Mike

Earlier this week I received something unexpected in my mail. As usual there were the credit cards bills, advertisements for credit cards, more advertisements that looked like real credit cards, and the obligatory get out of debt newsletter. One piece of mail stood out from the rest. It was a magazine of some sort enclosed in a black bag. My first thought was "Sweet, free porn." Afterall I have been and always will be a fan of free porn. My hopes were slightly elevated when I ripped open the black bag and saw a woman smiling on the cover. My expectation level rose even higher when I saw the name of the magazine was "Party Life". Then my dreams of free smut were dashed when I noticed a pair of PartyPoker.com logos on the cover.

Evidently PartyPoker had sent me a free issue of their brand new magazine in hopes of either getting me to play more often at their site, or maybe just to tease me with the hope of free smut. Regardless of what their intentions were, I felt oblige to read through the magazine. As you might guess, PartyLife is basically a multi page advertisement for everything relating to party poker with a few interesting articles and interviews thrown in to add legitimacy.

One thing I found interesting about the magazine was it's listing of top PartyPoker.com tournament players. I'm not really sure what criteria is used to rank the players but, truthfully, I don't care. All I cared about was reading the net handels of some of these players. Some I thought were kind of interesting, and some I thought were even more interesting and deserved an almost witty comments by me.

3. SevinFigures
6. JJsGramma
9. scrubs729 (not sure if this guy is a fan of the show, but I am)
11. TheAsgard (he could be a mythology profesor at Harvard but more likely he's a big fan of the Thor comic books)
14. Burrito4Me
18. VolumeOverSkill
29. tblcaptain (I love watching players with self promoting names make donkish plays. Oh how I love sweet irony)
41. BvlyHls90210 (what a classic show)
46. DwightSchrute (Speaking of classic shows, the Office is freaking great)
49. MrChipLeeder
51. ChipVacuum9 (I honestly wonder if there are 8 other ChipVacuum(s) and if there are, they should get together for a sit n go)
74. OMGRigged
76. Wealthyfish
77. RissingShark (look at the names for 76 and 77 again and tell me there isn't something a little too perfect about those rankings)
86. daviDBlaine9 (really? there's nine people out there that like david blaine. That many?)
94. LoveMILFs (Amen brother)
99. munee4nuthun

I'm kind of interested to see if I get another issue next month. I have a feeling that future publications will only be available in card rooms kind of like how cardplayer and bluff started out. If that is the case then I will be curious to see how many people would grab a magazine in a black bag in the middle of a busy casino card room without blushing.

Later
Mike