Good Lord another heart breaker. I decided to play a Sunday Millions Double Shootout Satellite. My first table was just four players. Only thirty-seven entered the tournament so the numbers were very good considering they were giving away two seats. Anyhow, I proceeded to be patient and before I knew it I had won my table.
Shortly thereafter I waited for two players to bust out from the Final Table and then doubled up with my AKos. A few hands later another was gone and we were already down to six players. I played a pretty solid game at the final table. I hit sets when I needed to and pretty much just coasted in. We were three handed when I picked up K9os in the small blind. It folded around to me and I decided to push and put the small stack, $1200 in chips, to the test. I figured at worst I was a 3-2 dog so no big deal. Well, he turned up AJos instead and I got no help on the turn or river. Now I am down to $1700 and I pick up JJ. The blinds are now $150 / $75 so I push my chips in the middle only to run into Aces!
Unreal!
I was stunned. Just sitting there one seat away from the Sunday Millions and then having to bow out just short. Very frustrating. On the other hand, if I look at this rationally, I gotta be doing something right to keep getting this far. The cards have to fall my way just on the math alone. So it will be good times when it does I suppose.
Hello again everyone. I hope you all are doing well at the tables and avoiding the dreaded bad beats. Lately, I have been playing absolutely out of my mind. I have cashed in six out of eight tournaments I have played this week going deep in three of them and getting bad beat out of every one. If I were not me I am not sure I would believe it.
lol
I really have been close to winning a very nice chunk of change twice in twenty dollar tournaments no less! I had to take solice in the fact that I had the best hand after the flop both times. No tears here and it just proves that I am playing as well I believed I was. So, as we all do after a beat, I marched my ass straight to the next tournament to play my way into contention again. My eyes stay on the prize
High Stakes Poker has been renewed by GSN for a fifth season. Thank God this is all over with. Gabe Kaplan and A.J. Benza will continue hosting HSP as usual. Earlier in the year GSN had expressed an interest in catering to a “younger” demographic. Apparently someone forgot to tell them that poker is one of the most popular activities amongst the younger demographic.
Vanessa Rousso AKA “LadyMaverick” is one of the top female poker players in the game. This twenty-five year old Duke University and University of Miami graduate has a lot more going for her than just her looks. Vanessa can flat out play poker!
This naitive Floridian graduated valedictorian of her high school class and finished college at the tender age of nineteen. While pursuing her undergraduate studies at Duke she discovered a game theory class and began applying those mathmatical theories to poker. Since then Vanessa has gone on to earn her Law Degree and has taken the professional poker tour by storm.
She first popped on the scenen in 2006 when she madae the final table in the World Poker Tour Ladies Night Out tournament. Vanessa then went on to take seventh place at the Bellagio Five Star World Poker Classic which was good for $263k in that same year.
Now, armed with a bankroll, Vanessa continued her run by cashing in no less than five events at the 2006 World Series of Poker. She then went on to take down the Borgata on the Professional Poker Tour for another $285k.
in 2007 Vanessa made the Final Table in the PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker and took down another $700k+ adding to her steadily growing bankroll. Vanessa is still learning the game but she is off to a tremendous start and is a formidable tournament poker player among the ladies and men at the table. Vanessa is also engaged to fellow professional poker player Chad Brown.
I have continued to play well. I have been really close to having a monster stack for the final table twice. On both hands I missed big flush draws after making the money. That has always kinda been my unwritten philosophy.
“First, make the money and then win the tournament.”
So far that kind of thinking has served me well. I could care less about just cashing. If you are going to win one of these big tournaments you have got to gamble late in the tournament to get some big chips. That is the one major adjustment I have made since tweaking my game a few months ago. Both times this weekend that I did make the final table I finished fourth instead of seventh or ninth. Still not first but definitly a better finish. That was because of one reason. I took a little more gamble late in the tournament and picked up some much needed chips. I went into both final tables with over 40k which is about where you want to be if not more.
Otherwise, I got bad beat out of almost all of the other tournaments except one where I made a really poor decision after the turn. I expect big things and they are manifesting themselves as we speak. I am making my own luck.
Here are six of the most common poker mistakes I see poker players make in poker tournaments.
1. Playing too many hands
2. Over playing Ace King
3. Not folding [K][K] to an all-in re-raise early in the tournament
4. Chasing flush and straight draws with bad odds.
5. Taking a coin flip with a flush draw for your entire stack before the first break.
6. Min raising and then having no idea where they are at after the flop facing a big bet.
Each of these are mistakes that I believe inexperienced players make. Generally speaking in regular poker tournaments with no re-buys good players will not play draws for their entire stack. It just doesn’t make good sense when you can out play most of your opponents. Even for a player that cannot out play his opponents it still makes sense to be patient and wait for a hand to get involved if your not sure of yourself. So many times I see players getting involved in pots without having any idea of how to exit the hand if necessary. These are the kind of players that are easy pickings with just a little bit of patience.
Once you have picked up a hand you can easily trap in this hyper-aggressive era of online poker.
The first time you sign up for your PokerStars account, you will be given the option to select an image to be displayed to other players at the poker table.
1. Click Select Image.
2. Find a suitable picture from a directory on your hard drive.
3. Click on that file, and press Open.
4. Please wait while the selected image is loaded into memory locally to display.
5. Now you need to drag the selection box over the area of the image you wish to display. The smaller window at right shows you what image will appear at the table.
6. Once you are satisfied with the image in the smaller window, press OK.
7. Continue with the rest of your registration. Once your image has been screened for suitability, it will show up along with your User ID (nickname) at the tables. If you are unsatisfied with the image you selected during registration and wish to change it (or if you did not select an image during registration), you can do so by clicking Select/Change Image from the Account menu. Select Change Image, and follow the steps outlined above. Click Save when you are finished.
NOTE: You may also create your own Photoshop or Illustrator images to use as well. Just create them with the image sized to 100 x 100 and save them as .JPEG or .GIF files.
So how much is professional poker player Phil Ivey worth? Some say a couple million. Others say a couple of hundred million and then there are those that say, “I have no idea but I bet it’s a lot!” To a certain degree just about each of those answers is somewhat true. Phil Ivey has never been one to be overly flamboyant. Contrary to popular belief Phil is indeed quite an ordinary guy with extraordinary abilities at the poker tables. Today, at thirty-two years old Phil is a far cry away from the middle class upbringing he had in New Jersey and playing poker under the moniker of “Jerome.”
Here are a few things we can consider when it comes to Phil Ivey’s net worth.
First, he was going to buy-in to a $10 Million dollar Sit n Go that would award $60 Million dollars to the winner. So, it would be safe to surmise that Ivey has a bankroll of at the very least $30 Million dollars. Otherwise, I would find it very hard to believe he would put half of his bankroll on the line even for a $60 Million dollar first prize. The tournament never did take place but it raised some eye browse when Ivey forked over that kind of dough to enter. Not many professional poker players have that kind of disposable cash. I would suggest that only Johnny Chan, Phil Hellmuth, Howard Lederer, and Doyle Brunson would be among the few that could afford to come out of their pockets without adverse affects on their bankroll or lifestyle.
Second, Phil Ivey happens to own a chunk of Full Tilt Poker. Not a bad investment at all. Ivey, along with several other poker pros, bought into Full Tilt when it was in it’s infancy and quickly built the brand from out of nowhere to one of the most recognizable poker web sites on the Internet today. They did it using some of the most successful professional poker players in the world along with innovative marketing and poker software. As far as I know Ivey owns about 5% of Full Tilt which has an estimated value of around $40 - $50 Million dollars.
Third, just what kind of bankroll does Phil Ivey have? My guess is that Phil would have a bankroll of around $20 - $30 Million dollars. Why would I guess that? Well, let’s consider that Ivey once forgot he had $800,000 sitting in the cage at the Commerce. Also, let us not forget that Ivey routinely plays and BEATS the Big Game at the Bellagio. This is a game that is played with blinds of $8000 / $4000 and the pots can get as large as $500,000 although I believe they cap it at $300k. Either way you would need a bankroll of at least $3 Million dollars or more to play comfortably in this kind of game.
Lastly, we have not taken into account any potential investments that he may have. Stocks, Bonds, CD’s Real-Estate, Businesses and the like are all potential sources of income outside of poker. Believe me, Phil Ivey could make a whole lot more money in endorsements than any other poker player alive if he chose to do so. I would even venture to say that Ivey could be one of the first mainstream poker players to have commercials on even when there is no poker being played. He has that kind of star power.
I suppose we will never know exactly what Phil Ivey’s true net worth is but I can assure you of this - he isn’t doing too bad for himself.
It’s official! Poker is now a mainstream sport. Yes, only five years after Chris Moneymaker took down the 2003 World Series of Poker for a cool $3 Million dollars America’s fascination with poker has yet to subside. Despite the UIGEA there are thousands of players that play poker online and live and do quite well at it.
Sure, I had my doubts in the beginning after watching an episode or two fo the World Poker Tour but poker continues to gain momentum even in a bad economy. The poker rooms in Las Vegas are still brimming with players and even local poker rooms are still being built around the country in casinos that never had them.
I suppose the game remains popular in part due to the personalities at the tables. Guys like Phil Hellmuth, Scotty Nguyen, and Mike Matuswo come to mind when I think about good poker TV. Also, the fact that the audience can play along by seeing the hole cards adds an entirely new dimension to watching an event on TV.
I also love the diversity of the game. There are great players from each ethnic group from African - American to Asian to Latino and Indian. Poker truly is a universal game of people from all backgrounds. The women are also making headway with Annie Duke winning the Tournament of Champions for a $1 Million dollar score a few years ago. There are great female players like Kathy Liebert, Jennifer Harmon, and Vannessa Rousso.
So pull up a chair and grab some chips. Poker isn’t going anywhere any time soon!
Hope everyone is doing well. I am running particularly good sans a few really bad beats right before the big money. Good Lord that stings when you get down to the Final Table and lose a huge pot on a beat. All that hard work down the drain. Sure, I made a few hundred but it could have been a few thousand. How frustrating is that?
LOL
I suppose we all go through it but it’s just bitter sweet when you make a Final Table and don’t win the damn thing. That’s why we play the game. We play it to win!
Anyhow, I am about to logon and play a little on PokerStars. Wish me luck!
