The Big iPhone 3G S Test
Okay here is the big test using wordpress on my iPhone. The goal is to post a movie from YouTube and also a still picture all from my phone.
My first test subject is my pal, Duke. He's a cute pug.
Video:
I hope that worked the copy and paste worked but I could not edit the link. Anyways here is a still picture:
Gearing Up for Las Vegas
As some of you already know I'll be in Las Vegas from July 5th through July 9th. I'm very happy with the travel arrangements and accommodations and fully plan to utilize the new bribing skills I learned at www.frontdesktip.com so I can get a complementary upgrade for my hotel room! Muahaha, I hope it works, it'd be pretty cool to pull something like that off. I'm very excited to be meeting some of my very best online poker friends including (in no particular order) BW07507, ChuckTs and Zachvac. These guys and I have been chatting since Jan of 2008 and it's the first time any of us have met any of the others in person. The best plans are no plans in Las Vegas, so we're just planning to play a crap load of poker and have a great time. There's a bunch of other great people from CardsChat.com coming, in addition to meeting up with fellow rounders Vizer02 as well as my fraternity brother Pat McVeigh who plays small stakes hold'em at various strip casinos.
In preparation for my Vegas trip I've done something (yet again for the ump-teenth time) drastic with my online career - I've gone back (roll eyes) to playing No Limit Texas Hold'em in the 9-handed full ring format. Wow! Why? Well I wanted to get practice for how the format and play will be in Vegas, in addition to how bad people play the game. Coming from a 6-handed perspective, and even some Omaha, has really given me a good perspective on aggression (thank you 6max) and hand reading (thank you Omaha). The experiment is going well so far, meaning that I am feeling comfortable with the game and am making solid reads and plays. PLEASE let that hold up for two weeks!
I am excited to report that the entire time I'll be in Vegas I'll be updating my blog, hopefully twice a day. I found a great WordPress application for the iPhone, and it supports picture embedding so there will be pics involved. I will also figure out a way to get YouTube video in the posts too, so video will be a part of things hopefully. I am totally loving the iPhone 3G S, and the video capabilities alone made it a worthwhile upgrade.
So in the meantime you'll find me writing like a madman for the almost dozen publications I do content for, in addition to grinding full ring games at PokerStars and on Absolute Poker (although it should be noted that I am not icemonkey9 on AP!).
I guess I should give the obligatory hands to show off ... here we go ... and by the way - POKER HAND REPLAYS !!! WOOT! They took my suggestion to put in VPIP/PFR/AF in the replayer! Sweeeeeet!
The Good!
Won a stack on a coin flip. Yay for me!
The Really Bad
The bad here is both my play and the result. With two overs and a flush draw I really should have jammed the flop on the raise, but I called instead. Okay fine. The flush fills, and I guess not betting that card is fine since it gives away the fact I nailed the flush. The button bets, and I should have jammed this for sure, but again I wanted to slowplay my hand. Arg. Finally on the river I do a *terrible* less-than-half-pot "value" bet and of course, the button calls ... with the Ace high flush! WTF?! I guess he doesn't like STACKS OF MONEY. Anyways good thing he called I guess. What a biff for everyone involved.
Two Uglies
What can I say ... I got him to get it in and I was ahead, he had 7 outs I think ... and hit. It happens, and fortunately he was on a shortstack.
Ugly #2:The Reason I Hate SNGs and MTTs
LOL what a rollercoaster that ride was. I thought I could have some fun at the donkey Sit and Go tournament ... wrong! First I see his AA and I was like "CRAP!" then I see the K hit the flop for the over-set!!! Then I saw runner-runner hearts for the villain's winning flush. WTF. Anyways, I am always reminded why I don't play these things as soon as I play them!
read moreTotally Random Thoughts
I haven't updated the old blog here in a while and I do apologize for that. As my freelance writing career gets more and more successful I am finding less and less time for updating blogs, reviewing video games for GamingIllustrated.com, or even just playing some poker. Obviously though, spending time at what makes me the most money-per-hour is time successfully spent. Anyways I don't have a specific topic in mind this time so I'll just post some random stuff...
New iPhone 3G S
I picked up the new iPhone 3G S last night and man this thing is slick. I used to have the original first generation iPhone so some of the 3G features are new and exciting to me. I'm not all that happy paying $30/mo just for the data plan, but I use my phone so often for work now it seems like a necessary investment. This thing is screaming fast and I can't wait to see some of the new games that come out for it, as the hardware now for the iPhone exceeds the Sony PSP. Even better is that the phone has a WordPress application so I can update the blog straight from the phone, along with embedding pictures and video I take with the phone!
Omahahaha
I want to play more ... I really do. I just don't have the time! Arg! Omaha has still been going up and down and back again all month long. The good news is that right now I'm up, just not a lot. I put in my first session at PLO50 ($0.25-$0.50 blinds) and won decently, but the thought of quick 5-buyin swings is just scary once you start playing for some decent money. I'm beginning to miss Hold'em a bit, especially after goofing around with Curtis at 25nl and just laying waste to the competition.
WSOP Main Event Qualifiers
For reasons completely unknown, I have take a few shots at some of the micro-stakes mega tournaments that offer up Main Event qualifiers for this year's World Series of Poker Main Event. So far, I've obviously not gotten the job done but I plan to try a few more ways to at least get into PokerStars's $650 qualifer, mainly through the Steps single table tournaments. Those Steps games remind me of the 210fpp tournaments I used to play so hopefully I can get on a run and get into the big qualifier where 25 seats are guaranteed, if not more. If I defy the odds and karma (good grief I run horrible in MTTs) and actually qualify for the ME, I am not sure that I'd actually play as $12,000 would go a long way these days.
Vegas!
I will be in Vegas from July 5th through the 9th and am really excited to meet up with some friends, specifically from CardsChat whom I will be meeting in person for the first time. That should be a tremendous experience, and I am really happy also about meeting some friends from other poker communities, poker industry movers and shakers (business meetings) as well as friends who live in Vegas year-round. I have decided that the best plans for Vegas are no plans for Vegas, outside of the appointments I plan to set up that are business in nature. I'll definitely be at the Rio a couple of times to check out the ME in action.
read moreI’ve Got Friends in PLO Places
I'm facing a weird dilemma with this post. For the most part I've wanted to keep my jump into Pot Limit Omaha pretty much a secret. For one thing, as someone who has been known to tilt once or twice in his life (lol) Omaha is a tilting-variance game so it doesn't seem like a good fit. Second, I've put a lot of time, effort and coaching into my NLHE game and to not use it seems like a waste. Third, when you tell people you play Omaha game they either call you a gambler or just look at you like you have the bubonic plague.
I made some good cases for Omaha in a couple of articles I wrote for pokernewsdaily.com which you can read here:
- Omaha Manager Released
- Falling in Love with Pot Limit Omaha
There's a lot of people that think that PLO is the future of internet poker with Hold'em games getting dry due to the dwindling number of fish and increase in information on how to get better (quick) at poker. It's like Sammy Farha said, if Hold'em is the Cadillac of Poker, then Omaha is the Corvette. If you know me, you know I've always driven a sports car, and I've always wanted a 'Vette! 
So to move the story along, I've been playing PLO25 during this "NLHE Break" I've been on for a week or so. I've learned some interesting things about the game, including:
- This game definitely isn't for everyone. Wild swings, big variance and more difficult "drawing" strategy is at the core to the game.
- PLO25 is a great place to start in terms of super micro stakes to just learn the fundamentals and nuances of the game. However, you can still learn "on the job" at PLO50 since the players are so bad.
- You really do need at least 50 buy-ins per level to take a shot, and probably 60 is ideal.
- Most people at the PLO25 and PLO50 tables are downright terrible at poker. This means that I've found that the opportunity for a huge winrate greatly outweighs the pitfalls of making mistakes yourself and negative results as resulted by variance (aka losing 60-40s or 75-25s).
- The videos at Stox Poker for PLO are woefully thin on content. I've been a big champion for Stox in the past, but when it comes to PLO I have not been impressed.
- It's hard to find an online community that talks about Omaha. There's a couple of decent online training sites and a couple of worthwhile books, but that's about it.
Unfortunately at my favorite online poker community, CardsChat, there is basically zero there in terms of Omaha discussion and theory. I tried starting a thread which had some interesting life behind it at first before dying in about a month's time. I don't normally speak highly of the 2p2 forums but in this case, the Omaha guys seem a cut above the rest of the site. I put out a somewhat cheeky post titled "Will You Be My Omaha Friend" where I explain that out of all the poker friends I have online, only one plays Omaha and that's just not enough to stay sane. Fortunately, I got about 7 great responses from people that were similar to me, playing PLO25 or so, trying to get the hang of it and build a big bankroll (you need 60 to 70 buyins per level at PLO) and move on in stakes. So, I've made a bunch of new friends specific to PLO which is great news.
Again, I am not totally sure how long this adventure with PLO will last. I imagine if the US Government finally legalized online poker the fish would come rushing back mainly to NLHE and I'd immediately go to where the fishy action could be found. For now though I'm enjoying poker and making money, which means my poker expectations (despite the game) are being met.
read moreA Swing is a One Way Street
The last week has been spent grinding PLO. I know. All this study and labor into 6max NLHE and here I am playing a gambler's game that's swingy as hell. Well, after tilting off four Benjamins I needed a change, and PLO has always been my "break game" and this time I am taking it seriously after finding out how much some of my friends that play microstakes are winning. Will it stick? Who knows. Am I having fun? Yes!
The game is definitely one that will induce swings in the bankroll. For example, I was winning at a 15BB/100 clip for about 3,000 hands to start things off. Needless to say I was very happy. Thoughts of moving up PLO stakes and playing this game danced in my head. Then it happened! Naturally, not only did I not win flips but the inevitable "Lost a 75/25" and "Lost a 86/24" and "Had the 2nd Nuts for a Boat to lose to River Quads" stuff happened (twice in one case). That suddenly beaming 15BB/100 has plummeted to 3BB/100. But then I figured it was just a few bad sessions and moved on ... so then yesterday I went over to my friend's Flag Day party where we watched our hometown Lakers beat the crap out of the Magic. After the game, we played a $.10-$0.25 cash game there at her house with the 7 of us. What happened is that for about 1.5 hours I raised pre-flop 3 times total (the game was going SO SLOW because of noobs ugh!) and two of those times hit TPTK, only to have my HU villain have a set. How the heck!?
So I came home, ran bad again playing PLO. Sucked! Played a $2RB into the WSOP ME ... got my pocket pair cracked by two unders. So I stopped playing, did some work and watched some poker training videos. It was time well spent and then headed to the baseball field as I am in an adult league. The previous game was the first of the season and I went 4-6 with a double, 4 runs scored and an RBI. First three at-bats of the game the ball is FLYING off of my bat ... right into the gloves of the outfielders who were playing me deep FOR NO GOOD REASON (I suck). Trying to hustle I ended up straining my quads terribly ... the pain was significant. I sat on the bench and the thought, WOW, when I run bad, it seems like it is always a one way street. I don't just run bad at one thing and then run good at another and it all evens out. It's either all good or all not good it seems!
I know a lot of people say that it's the opposite for them, that when they are running good in poker they are running bad in some real life thing. For me though, it's all one way baby!
To wrap up this post I also thought, hey I got one more at-bat how about we put a good ending on this game to give some hope for the blog! So I get up there, strained quads and all and then hit a GORGEOUS line drive base hit to center field!! WOO! At least I got a hit, and that was something to be very happy about when I got home. Something to build on. Something to say, hey, I'm turning this thing around!
Walking in brimming with confidence I am greeted by Duke (my pug) and Sampson (my cat). The cat had barfed all over the laundry room, and Duke decided it was a good time to lay a HUGE crap by the screen door and piss under the table.
FML 
About Me
My name is Sean Gibson and I am a poker journalist and part time poker player. I work full time at PokerNewsDaily.com where I host a daily news show called "The Daily Deal" and also handle the bulk of the live player interviews. In terms of poker you will find me playing $1/$3 No Limit Hold'em in Vegas or in Los Angeles (or San Diego) and online playing small stakes games.
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