Ryan Schmelzer

Well, I am officially done with my junior year in college. I am excited and scared about only having one more year left. I am not a big fan of school, but not knowing what my life will be like in a year is a little terrifying.

With exams recently, I haven't had much time to get any poker in. It's been bad as of late when I can find the time to play. It seems like I have been suffering a lot of variance most of this school year. I went on a huge heater last summer; I hope I can do that again this year.

It looks the the tournament back home is having a hard time getting people to play. I wouldn't be surprised if they cancel it. None the less, I am sure there will be some cash games this summer. Hopefully I can rake in some dough from those.

I have relieved I like playing live a lot more than online. I just have a feel in a live game that I believe gives me an edge.

The good news is that the people the run tourneys in the Green Bay area have started one in my hometown. Even better news is everyone that plays there except my friends are absolutely terrible. Now for the bad news, I have bubbled both times I have played in it.

They have a point system and I’m doing OK in that since I’ve been deep both times. If I do well enough in the points I get an entry into a tournament for some free trips like money to buy in to a WSOP event. However, this weekend is probably going to be my last week playing in it before that time, so I need to win. The winners each week are invited to the special tourney also. We’ll see how it goes; after bubbling twice I feel kind of sick about it.

The nice thing is I’ve easily made those buy-ins back online in the last few days. I discovered heads-up cash games and it has been ultra juicy for me. One session I was down over two buy-ins and managed to come back and be a small winner. It has been a little crazy at times. In that particular game my opponent was holding over me for the first 80 or so hands and it was just sick. I knew I was the better player though so I stuck in and grinded my way back. The really strange thing is that everyone comes in firing at me, but after 80 hands they are playing really passive. Maybe I just make them change their style.

I hope all of you running bad can find your niche to help get you off the slide. GL everyone.

As you might already know, Phil Ivey won this year’s WPT L.A. Poker Classic Main Event. I also might have known that he set the record for most WPT final tables with that win with eight. Did you know that he did so in eight cashes? That’s right, he has final tabled every WPT he has cashed in.

This is absolutely a remarkable feat. It took him eight times to finally pull it out, but this might show that when Ivey is determined, he gets the job done. Yes, he has blown some early and mid-tournament leads. Did he want to win those tournaments as bad as he did the LAPC. I wouldn’t doubt it. But the first place prize, while still lucrative for him, he could make in a good week in the cash games he plays in. Hell, he could make that much money in a good 24-hour session probably. Because of this, it has to be hard for him to be 100% focused during the entire tournament. But, when he hits that money, he is in for the long hall and nothing will get in his way.

Another amazing accomplishment was done by one Chris “Jesus” Ferguson. The NBC National Heads-up Championship is an event the most of the pros love. Despite people complaining about the fast structure to it, the winner is always given a lot of credit. He finished second in the tournaments inaugural year to Phil Hellmuth. The next year, he finished runner-up for again; this time to Ted Forrest. This was the fourth year of the event and once again made it to the best of three format finals. He lost the first match to Andy Bloch. It looked like he might finish second for the third time in four years. He managed to fight back and win the next two matches and the event, however.

No matter how much luck it takes to win the event with its less than perfect blinds, his dominance of that event shows that he has a ton of skill heads-up. A little luck doesn’t hurt either. When he won the 2000 WSOP Main Event, he got all-in for all the marbles with A-9 against T.J. Cloutier’s A-Q. A river 9 gave Ferguson the championship. Don’t get me wrong, I think Chris is very good and has proven it with this tournament. Don’t let my luck tangent lead you to think otherwise.

I will almost guarantee that Ivey will win another WPT before he is down. Considering the fact that he said in an interview lately that he will always play poker, that probably isn’t a brave prediction considering this man’s skills. I’m sure you will also see Ferguson do well in the heads-up. Keep your eyes on these two.

Before I get into my thoughts, let me just say that if you have nothing to do tonight and are a true poker fan check out the live updates of the LAPC tonight. None other than Phil Ivey is in first place. Phil Hellmuth is in third and Nam Le has some work to do in sixth. This could and should be an amazing final table.

Poker has been going better lately. I’ve been slowly building my roll back up, but it’s still not where it was when things were going well for me in summer. I would love to find more time to play but I have been pretty busy this semester. I think it’s helping me actually as I am only playing when I truly want to play. But, this is the reason I am going crazy.

I have tons of small assignments to do this semester and I’ll be amazed if I don’t blank on one of them. I haven’t had this problem yet, but I’ll have a deer in the headlights look on my face if it does happen.

I want to be done with college more than ever right now. Since my first very first semester of college, I haven’t been a fan of it. Classes have always seemed dumb for me. A lot of the stuff I learn in my journalism classes, I could easily learn form editors telling me what they like and don’t like about articles I write for them. It frustrates me a little. The good thing is that I only have 2 ½ semesters to go and my next two will consist of mostly journalism classes.

Hopefully things calm down and I can handle my workload and work in just a little more poker. I’m sure some of you read that and think I have it easy and wish you only had it as easy as me. It’s not as much that I can’t do it as I just don’t want to do it. If I had a decent job offer right now I would take it in a heartbeat and say goodbye to college. This of course won’t happen though.

Well, I think that is enough ranting for today. Try to stay sane, everyone.

With the recent Roger Clemens’ hearings I have realized that it is always best to admit your wrongdoing and move on. I’m basically saying I don’t believe him at all and I don’t think I have any reason to. But this theory is shown in poker.

Look at Justin “Zeejustin” Bonomo. He was a kid that was busted for multi-accounting and was originally frowned on. He apologized and admitted he was wrong and it appears he stopped doing it. Now he has been accepted into the poker community and considered as one of the best young players by many.

Now look at newly 18-year-old Josh “JJProdigy” Fields. He was busted several times for the same offense. He really showed no remorse for what he was doing till recently. He released an apology shortly before the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure on a forum. He was just turning 18 before the event and planed on playing in it. Some felt this was his attempt to clear himself before the event. Shaun Deeb, mostly known for his online play, wrote to PokerStars requesting that they wouldn’t allow Fields in their live event.

PokerStars took Deeb’s advice. They decided that since they have banned him from their site because of his cheating in the past, the ban would carry over to their live events.

Now, the right thing to do is obviously don’t cheat. However, where there is money, there will be cheating. If you are one of these thieves that will do whatever you can just for the almighty dollar and get caught, just admit you did something wrong and STOP doing it. Better yet, STOP doing it right now BEFORE you get caught. People will praise you for it.

Poker has been pretty gross for me in the last… two or three months. I haven’t been playing poorly I don’t think as much as it has just been cold decks and bad beats. Last week one of my friends was watching me play in a six-handed sit-n-go and was laughing at how many times my hands were holding up. And by that I don’t mean AQ vs. K9 preflop; I mean AK vs. A9 and a 9 falling right on the flop. Yeah, it’s been nothing short of gross. So, I’ve had to drop down a little after moving up in summer when my hands were holding up. Hopefully my variance ends pretty soon.

Earlier this week I was unlucky enough to actually get sick after stating two sng’s as once (I normally play two at the same time to keep me busy). Well, shortly after starting I started getting effects from what I would later discover being food poisoning. I think I still played OK, but I could’ve focused better without the effects for sure. I ended up busting out without cashing in both.

Right now I am nearly done with the second week of my interim class. For those of you that are curious to what that is, it’s a class I have Monday-Friday for three hours over the course of three weeks. This class hasn’t been real bad at all other than the fact that it starts at 8:30 and my college sleeping schedule doesn’t fit in with getting up that early.

I was surprised to hear that Shannon Shorr headed back to school this semester. If you don’t know who that is, he dominated the Bellagio Cup two years ago and finished somewhere in the top 5 that year in the Card Player Player of the Year I believe. I’m not sure of his reason for going back to school after being out for a few years. I have to support his decision, though. If I took a break from school, I’d either never be able to get back into the groove or I would actually come back form the time off with the mentality of studying more and work harder. I wish Mr. Shorr the best of luck hitting the books again.

This might sound dumb to some of you, but I just achieved one of my proudest accomplishments. I am a big fan of 6 max nl hold’em sit-n-goes and have been pretty successful at them. When I play them, I normally play two at once just to keep me busy. Well, tonight right as I started my first one, my head just about smoked the top of my desk. Every drop of energy was suddenly sucked out of my body. Despite this, I kept tradition in signing up for a second one, which was probably a really foolish move.

Nothing big ever happened to me in either of them. No big hands and whenever I got a good starting hand I got zero action. Regardless, I found myself in the final three of both as the low-stack. I basically just hung around even on both and got to heads up as a decent underdog on both. I consider just getting to heads-up in my current fatigued state amazing. With the dead cards I was getting I easily could’ve pushed and either doubled up or lose and go rest.

The first heads-up battle I entered I believe I started with a whole 800 chips, which means my opponent had 8,200. I clawed my way to even only to fall back down to maybe 1,800 chips. This process then repeated once. I broke to even one more time and got my opponent to double me up when I had him crushed. A min raise to move him/her all-in on the next hand and I achieved a hard fought victory with my tank nearly on empty.

At this point I got heads-up on my second table after the other two kept gambling with each other while I was low. I chipped-up slightly and picked up a couple ladies and made a standard raise. My eyes widened when I saw that I was re-raised all-in. I insta-called and was up against A3 off for the chance to take roughly a 2:1 chip lead. An ugly ace came on the flop and I was done.

Despite the second place, I was still proud that I was able to sit back patiently and battle it out despite the sudden and drastic fatigue I encountered. Now, if you fine people don’t mind, I am going to go relax.

Well, after my exams last week, I started to play some poker again. We’ll keep it short about that. Basically it has been the biggest cold decks ever for me lately and it has been hurting. I am still up overall though, so I guess I can’t complain all that much.
While sitting in class today, I got the sudden urge to write an article on why I love poker. I have don’t some blogs and things I love about the game and such, but for some reason I got the urge today to pile it all together into an article. If I actually keep that ambition, look out for it eventually if Mr. Wise enjoys it if I write. The biggest if in that sentence is probably me keeping the ambition to write it, sadly.
A piece of great news, my dad got his recent MRI result back this week and everything is looking really good. Everything has shrunk and my dad told me that the doctor seemed pretty excited. Thanks to everyone that has kept him and my family in your thoughts and prayers. It is greatly appreciated.
I have been slacking for a while now at keeping up with this site. I think I am going to try to commit myself to make more time for writing here. This is a place where I can voice my opinion and what is on my mind, and I have not been taking advantage of that lately. Hopefully you will be seeing me at a more frequent rate!

Since school has started I have been a ghost on this site and basically everything involving poker. It has been a sad last few weeks.

I am living in a house for the first time and I am loving it. The only bad thing is that it is easier to watch TV and play video games with the guys than to crack open the books. This has caused me to become backed up with my reading. I have never really been ahead in my reading in my first two years, so this isn’t a real big concern as long as I get on pace. However, the faster I get caught up, the faster I can allow myself to play more poker and do more work for this site.

The other problem is that I am working for the school newspaper this semester. This gives me two deadlines a week and normally at least one home game that I have to go to as I am covering men’s soccer right now. The writing doesn’t take much time for me, but going to games and having to sit around to get interviews does.

I would love to be sitting here writing my opinion on the new WSOP episodes and other poker shows, but I haven’t even been watching them. I will do my best to get caught up quickly and start punching the keys for one Wise Hand Poker. We can talk then.

I moved-in to my house at school on Sunday. The place was a complete mess; it took at least an hour just to get the stuff that was left in my room out and vacuumed. We then plug in our Internet box and it didn’t work. We finally got it back today, sorta.

I nearly die when I am without the Internet for more than 24 hours. I haven’t been able to play any Internet poker, work for this here site and had to go to computer labs just to get info for my classes. I had to go the Union just to use the wireless to send in my article for the school newspaper. I have to cover men’s soccer games and women basketball this semester. It isn’t the best sports, but it is far from the worst, for me anyway.

I’ve been busy and probably will be for a little while longer. We still aren’t completely settled into our house, yet. I’m going to get back to the housework. If you have free time, you should tune into Gary’s show tonight. I am sure Mr. Wise will not let you down.