Big Time

Posted by icemonkey9 on Apr 20, 2010 in wpt | 1 comment

I'm not getting a big head, it's just that I heard that song at Bellagio and it's stuck in my head like songs will do.  It's not totally inappropriate, I have to admit working the floor at the WPT $25k Championship for Poker News Daily is a big step up from working the LAPC for Gaming Illustrated!

Yesterday I filmed a quick Daily Deal and then worked the floor to get as many interviews as we could.  I think we got in six which is a number higher than my goal (five) for the day.  The people I got to interview include some guy named Tom "durrrr" Dwan, Eric Seidel, David "Devilfish" Ulliott and a couple of guys you may not know (for now).  One of those guys is named LeRon Washington who won a ClubWPT freeroll to enter into the WPT Celebrity Invitational, which he won and included a ticket to this event.  So in essence he went from playing on a freeroll site to playing in the biggest WPT tournament of the season.  It also helped that he was a real nice guy to boot, so I imagine once his tournament win aires there'll be big interest in this interview where they may not be much right now.

It's funny though when some people see me and my assistant and we come over politely to ask for an interview they literally turn around and walk the other way.  Okay, well, that happened with one pro - Jennifer Harmon - but we got the message and kind of snickered at that.  Other pros have been super cool.  Andy Bloch was very accommodating and is every bit the nice guy he appears to be on TV.   We would have had an interview with Daniel Negreanu outside at the Bellagio, but before he taped a quick promo for someone else the water show kicked in with the "Steak - It's Whats for Dinner" theme song which just blew any chance we had with him ... and of course he busted during the next level of play and took off.

At the end of the day we were rather pooped but it was great to be there even though this isn't a "big" event in the sense of a field or even a media following it seems.  Less than 200 players entered which isn't too surprising given the huge buy-in, but it's 33% less than last year.  I think if there's one thing that the WPT needs to do is partner with real money poker sites (Hello new owner PartyPoker!) and get people interested in being on TV and part of these mega-tournaments through small buy-in satellites.

So being at Day 2 was a success in terms of learning what works and what doesn't work on the floor as well as the right way to shoot a video and how to work in such terrible lighting conditions.  I am headed back there today all day to get as much stock footage an interviews as possible and I'll probably just be back for an hour the remaining days leading up to the final table for quick recap clips.  I'll be at the Final Table on Saturday for coverage which should be fun, usually the WPT does an amazing job putting together Final Tables.

Until then, you know where to check me out, so I'll see you there.

Zen In

Posted by icemonkey9 on Feb 14, 2009 in poker, wpt, writing, zen | 2 comments

Reading a now revived blog from ChuckTs has me focusing more on my Zen like mental state when playing poker. ChuckTs (an awesome guy and player) posted a great checklist for Warming Up and Warming Down which I blatantly stole and copied into a word file and keep on my desktop. I thought the next time I played a session, I'd use it and see if I like it.

I have to say the difference in my mental state from the last time I played to this time is a dramatic turn around. I had time to let the steam cool off, as well as do breathing exercises and write down goals for the session. The goals I set for myself were:

• Only play 6 tables of 100nl Full Ring, not 9. Just get back into the swing and give your brain time to ease back into playing.

• Play tight in EP, and look for good steal situations in the CO and BTN.
• Look for good 3betting opportunities in late position.
• Take your time making solid reads at the turn and river.
• Play 45-55 minutes once 6 tables are up and active.
• Stay positive and level headed.
• Stay focused and only have tables open on the computer.

I really liked being able to set goals like this for each session and it's a habit I'm going to invest time and money (via paper notepads!). The results were good, the first session I took what I thought was a bad cooler, but turns out I just made a marginal river call and lost. I stayed calm, focused on breathing and staying positive and playing one hand at a time. Fortunately that paid off, and I focused on playing well and not slow playing anything and got paid off for a couple of great hands and ended the first session up 1.5 buyins.

The second session went pretty well in my opinion in terms of my gameplay and mental state. I pretty much went card dead for 40 minutes and ended up -$15 but what helped is that I hadn't looked at my results at all until after the session was over, so I really don't know how that might have fluctuated. Anyways I wrapped up the night happy about my game.

In other news regarding March ...

In March PokerStars is changing their VIP program and attaining PlatinumStar will only be 7,500 VPPs, which makes it very attainable for me (playing approximately 23,000 hands in a month) so I am definitely going to go for it. Once that happens I'll probably just save up for the 50k FPP bonus instead of the 25k, because this one is worth $650 and by the time I clear my recent deposit bonus I'll be closer to 50k than 25k (specifically once I hit Platinum and that bonus becomes available to me).

Writing News ...

I got word that I'll be part of the team for a new website called www.DurrrrChallenge.com, which will follow the hotly contested challenge that Tom Dwan put out and was taken by Ivey and Antonious. It looks like my part in the site will be breaking down hands and getting some analysis from some top internet heads up specialists. Should be fun.

And finally ...

I am headed to Commerce next Friday to interview a few poker pros, and plan to really just interview anyone I can get my hands on. The video interviews will appear on Gaming Illustrated, and other interviews will show up around the internet on the various sites I write for. There's also a media tournament I get to play in, so winning that would be AWESOME because it would get me a seat at the WPT Celebrity Invitational.