Funny YouTube Video

Posted by icemonkey9 on Jan 31, 2008 in General | 0 comments

I was doing some experimenting with some equipment at work, so I decided to undertake a goofy project. I recorded a .01 - .02 cent NLHE session. Actually I just wanted to film myself play a few hands, and I ended up making it quite entertaining with a hilarious "low budget" intro and doing a pretty darn good impersonation of Mike Sexton and Vince Van Patton (or as a friend told me, a dead-on impersonation of both Jim Ross of the WWE and Jack Nicholson).

Enjoy, straight from YouTube:

PokerTracker

Posted by icemonkey9 on Jan 28, 2008 in General | 0 comments

So I've been looking for an alternative to my handy spreadsheet that calculates what I need calculated. The bare essentials are breakouts between cash, SNG, and tournament play, and how much I have won/lost at each, and other things like ROI.

I found the program that a lot of people use, called PokerTracker. The new version is coming out in a month or two for a $10 upgrade if you already purchase the v2 edition, which I downloaded the free trial of to check out. The program is pretty amazing in terms of breaking down your play per position, hand, and situation - in addition to perhaps it's single biggest asset, breaking down and keeping a database of all of your opponents! What really makes this handy is that the PokerAce HUD add-on actually gives you these statistics on playing tendencies live as you play and updates on the fly.

So looking at all this, I've had some conversations with my friend Mike about our pipe dream poker database website. The "legalese" of the sites say that displaying public information about other players is illegal, and I think that is fine. But you are able to display YOUR info and playing information for people to comment on, which is where I think we were headed, in addition to a whole social aspect. It's a pipe dream, but the site could be an online version of PokerTracker, but with social features, minus the database of other players made public.

Anyways, I am thinking that PokerTracker is still a wise investment if you play poker more than 8 hours a week online. You really get to see holes in your game if you take the time to look at the data, and if you are a regular and see some of the same people often, getting a leg up on their tendencies can be huge at a table.

HPC / Online Results

Posted by icemonkey9 on Jan 27, 2008 in General | 0 comments

So this week I didn't play that much, work and life will do that to you and that's probably a good thing. After taking a beating at the cash games on FullTilt, I have rallied back with 7 straight winning sessions, including a 2 hour lovefest at the Hollywood Park casino. I jumped into the $40 NLHE table with a friend of mine, and ended up leaving after two hours with a cool $3 profit. Am I okay with that? Sure. The players were wild, there were many times I had AK suited and only limped in, because no matter what you would raise people would be in the pot with garbage. So I just sat back, waited for monsters, and won. If I had planned to stay at the table another hour I would have used the rock image to my advantage, but knowing I was leaving soon kept the game plan the same.

I'll post my end of month results on Feb 1 for people to see. Right now I've managed to get myself back into the black. Maybe by the end of the month I can show a decent profit!

Cash Game Secret? MTT!

Posted by icemonkey9 on Jan 22, 2008 in General | 0 comments

So I was reading through some blogs posted on CardsChat.com, which is a GREAT site for forum poker talk. It seems some play SnGs a lot, and some specialize in ring games. But those that play ring games never stick to just one table, they buy in lower than usual but play multiple tables (more than 2). For example , on one guy's blog he mentioned that he would log in and play his "usual 16 tables"! I couldn't believe that - 16 tables simultaneously. Crazy man.

So given my lack of cash game success, I thought to give this method a try, and played the $10NL game at FullTilt on 3 tables. The games were going as usual, then I hit KK on one table and was primed to make some money. I raised standard, got 1 caller, and of course the A flops. I bet it, he calls. I bet the turn, he calls. Crap I'm beat right? Right, I check the river, he value bets and I'm DYING to call, and I do, and he shows A4 off. UGH.

So about 20 minutes roll by, and I hit AA and actually got it to pay off, taking a pot for about $3. Nice right? Yeah, I know, HUGE stakes. The very next hand I got JJ, limped, and hit a beautiful flop of 10 7 2 rainbow, of course someone was playing Q10 and I killed em for another $3 pot. So after I end my 35 minute experiment, I find myself up $4.50 - awesome times.

Awesome New Gear

Posted by icemonkey9 on Jan 17, 2008 in General | 1 comment

Four years ago I bought a poker chipset from eBay for about $75. The chips were above and beyond anything anyone had at the time, but if you imagine your average chipset they sell at Costco or Walmart (11.5g) then you know what I am talking about. Nothing special, very average, the same chipset you see n 90% of American homes today. I got the set right before poker EXPLODED, so the nicer sets were in the range of $400 - $500 at the time, which was (and is still) above my bankroll.

Well, I have a client that has a few poker players, and I've been promising a poker night with them for a while - but I realized that unless I go first class with the poker table and chips it'll come off as a cheesy home game. So on Monday I finally did what I originally wanted to do 4 years ago and get a great new chipset and an amazing poker table (or in this case, table-top).

I shopped around the internet and found a great store called the Discount Poker Shop (http://www.discountpokershop.com) I highly suggest you visit their site, they shipped everything out the same day and it got here (So Cal to So Cal) in 1 day (FedEx Home). Looking at the pictures, you'll see the "High Roller" chipset (Laser Engraved with denominations of 1, 5, 25, 50, 100, 500, and 1000) along with the padded felt table-top with cup holders!!! I also ordered a 50 piece sets of 5,000 and 10,000 denominated chips for bigger home games. All the stuff is top quality and prompted my wife to challenge me to a few heads up matches last night.

I also added some new COPAG jumbo print decks of cards. I have plenty of decks, but only my Modianos are as nice as these, and the jumbo size prevents people from having to stand up to see what flopped. All of this - the new chipset (13.5g, laser engraved, 500 chips), the new table, and the new cards, were all around a total of $250 which includes shipping and taxes. I think it's a heck of a deal!

So - with this new gear I never have to:

• Tell people what the chips are worth. It's on the chip now!!!
• Tell people what flopped - the jumbo sized cards can be read by all.
• Worry about people spilling their drinks all over my poker felt/table and cards/chips

Hooray!