Doyle Brunson is in sixth place in the World Series of Poker Europe Main Event with $210k in chips in attempts to win his 11th bracelet. There are still quite a few players left with 92 still in action but the money cutoff is at 36 players. Over the past few years many players have speculated the Brunson has seen better days on the tournament trail. Only time will tell if Doyle can reign in yet another bracelet across the pond. However it turns out I am happy to hear that Doyle is playing well.

I know it may sound a little cliche but poker players are much better players today than 3 years ago. The learning curve is nowhere near as high as it used to be in the time before Moneymaker hit the scene. You wouldn’t believe the number of poker players that have told me how tough the cash games have gotten. I suppose the poker boom has its pros and cons and you have to deal with it.

Yes, there is more profit to be made but it will not be as easy to make that profit because the influx of new poker players over the years has created a more educated player. That means instead of 4 or 5 mediocre players in your local casino cash game there may only be 1 or 2. Instead of feeding off the fish you win small pots against players of the same caliber as you.

That’s not what any of us had in mind but it is taking place nonetheless. However, none of us should be discouraged. There is still a profit to be made but it will be a little tougher to get at. So hang in there!

Alright folks! I honestly do not know any other way to describe how well I have been playing other than being “In the Zone!” Point blank. There is no other description for it. Things are going so well that I am scaring myself. I do realize that runs are just that – runs. Therefore they do not last forever but this one has to be one of the longest ever. My heads up play is now at 12 – 3. I didn’t even play heads-up on a regular basis until a couple of days ago. Prior to that I would play every few months and thought absolutely nothing of it win or lose.

I do realize that it remains one of the fastest and best bets to build your bankroll but I really didn’t feel it was a good fit for me. Boy was I W-R-O-N-G! Now I can’t get enough of playing heads-up and look forward to the next match or two every night. It’s easy money. By that I don’t mean to sound arrogant but I want to point out why I believe it’s easy money. The reason it’s easy money, I play $5 – $20 stakes, is because the bad players, which are in more abundance than the good ones, refuse to change gears and are very predictable in what hands they are playing. This is not the case in the higher stakes heads-up matches so don’t get it twisted.

So if you have some game and a good grasp of heads-up play you can look forward to making a nice profit. Even if I were not in the zone I still expect to win around 75% of the time. It’s that juicy!

Yes, you heard it correctly. There are several pros that are betting against an Phil Ivey victory in the Main Event. These pros include Andy Bloch, Mike Matusow, and Phil Gordon. This is one of the more interesting prop bets I have seen yet. When the field got down to 2400 players left Andy Bloch offered Phil Ivey 20 to 1 odds that he would not go on to win the 2009 WSOP Main Event. Ivey took the bet for $20000. If Ivey should win he will collect $2 million dollars.

The other side bet is a $20k bet with Dan Negreanu, Phil Gordon, Mike Matusow and Tom Dwan.

With all this side action Ivey is likely to win just as much from his prop bets as he would if he takes down the Main Event. Time will tell.

I gotta tell you that I have been watching this years WSOP broadcast and as usual it brings out the best and worst in people. Joe Hachem has been on the radar for a few years now. He is a fantastic player and has done well on the tournament circuit. His success now includes a WPT title to go along with his WSOP Main Event bracelet.

However, despite all of this success it is really hard for me to root for this guy. I don’t know if it’s just me or not but it seems like his disposition really gets nasty when he loses a pot. Sure, we all want to win every pot but I don’t see guys just lighting into their opponents every time they lose a hand. Joe seems to always have a smart remark to make when this happens. I think sometimes he expects players to lay down hands simply because he is Joe Hachem. What he doesn’t understand is those days of pros intimidating amateurs have been over for years.

There are so many talented “no name” poker players out there these days that expecting amateurs to fold based on fame or inference is just not going to happen. Maybe I have it wrong. Maybe not. I don’t necessarily believe Hachem is a bad guy but I do think he can use a little refining.

No?

I am still running good these days. I backed off for a few days to regroup after taking some bad beats. I am still patting myself on the back for that one. My first instinct was to try and play through it. That would have been the wrong move. By backing off for a while it allowed me to clear my mind and take a close look at any possible problems I may have had in my play.

Sometimes bad beats can be brought on with poor betting.

Once I was comfortable that I wasn’t doing anything too foolish I got back at it again and made 2 final tables. This game is soooooo easy.

Yeah right!

Alright I gotta admit that I had some issues. Not just issues with the November Nine and their lack of visibility but also with Harrah’s. However, after thinking my position over again for the gazillionth time I have come to the conclusion that I am not going to continue to spend the energy to be angry about this delayed final table crap anymore.  Yes! I said it right here in black and white. I am over it. Having said that I have also made up my mind to enjoy the Final Table and hope that if Jeff Shulman should win he shows a bit more grace than he did with his now infamous quote about the bracelet.

Only one more month to go. Let’s get this thing cracking already!

I am going to start off this book review of “Check Raising the Devil” (CRD) by Mike Matusow and say it was plain fantastic. To be brutally honest with you I was not a big fan of Mike Matusow a few years ago. I thought he was loud and obnoxious for the sake of being loud and obnoxious. However, long before reading his book, I did hear him mention several times about having a mental disorder and almost instantly I had compassion for him the more I learned about his condition.

CRD takes you through the life and times of one Mike Matusow. From his humble beginnings in a trailer park to his fast rise to fame and fortune playing high stakes poker and living the high life. His entire poker career happened on a complete and utter fluke. Mike details his addiction to meth and other drugs and how he attempted to medicate  his condition on his own.

Eventually Mike lands in jail and has an epiphany and begins to piece his life back together again when he is released six months later. I won’t give you all of the juicy details but I will tell you that I could not put the book down. If you are looking for great poker stories form the high stakes and poker tournaments you will find a few. However, the book is not about poker at all. This book is about life and overcoming our shortcomings to make better choices and be better human beings. In my opinion, at least so far, Mike Matusow has done that. Just as he does at the poker table Mike lets it all hang out in his book. His “straight no chaser” approach works very well.

Love him or hate him this book is a great read. BUY IT!

Lately, I have been putting my library to use in a different way. I have been studying more video from the past 3 years or so. The reason I have not gone back further is because I believe that this is where the game made another run in evolution. I believe the game began to play in a more hyper-aggressive style from that point forward even in large multi-table live tournaments. I have been studying the video and finding things that I hadn’t considered after the first few times watching them. I have several poker tournaments that I have video on and watch and analyze the strategy used. However, when you consider the changes that I believe have led the game to be even more aggressive than before it opens up the mind to other possibilities when some of the hands are viewed again.

I can always improve my game. It’s up to me to continue to find new ways of doing it.

I decided to jump back in this weekend and it sure paid off. My hands were holding up and I played excellent poker sans a bad beat at the Final Table. I took down 5th Place this time around in the $11 buy-in 180 player tournament. I still feel that I would have easily made it into the top three had I been able to avoid a little variance at the end.

I got off to a terrible start in this particular poker tournament and had to push with only $900 chips early but I managed to triple up when I did. Once I was back up to $3k in chips I went on a run and never looked back. I quickly moved up to $10k and then $15k with a straight and flopped nut Flush taking out two players in the process. Once we got down to the money I was able to maintain my stack and get to the “Promised Land” with around $13k. I quickly doubled up and got back in the hunt and things looked good at that point.

I watched the chips fly around for a hand or two until I picked up [A][K] and the short stack pushed. I insta-called and he turned over [Q][9]. The flop came down [9][9][X] taking half of my stack with it. I still had enough chips to wait on a hand though but it never happened and I went out in fifth place. Nice run and a nice cash but you are always working to win the whole thing. Back at it later on today.

According to sources Tom “Durrr” Dwan and Full Tilt are working on making him a Full Tilt Pro. I can only say that it’s about time. Dwan has certainly proven to be an upper echelon online poker player and has done well in live tournaments too. I think most of us figured it was only a matter of time before this marriage took place.

According to Howard Lederer, a Full Tilt Founder, they are banging out the details and working out the dollar amount. I am sure we will be hearing an announcement in the next few weeks if not sooner.

Where the hell are the November Nine? Where is Phil Ivey? Where is Jeff Shulman? Where are any of the November Nine? How come we are not seeing these poker players making appearances on every late night TV talk show known to mankind? Yes, I am at it again and this time I am royally P.O’d!!!!!!! What is the point of delaying the WSOP Final Table when the very players that are allegedly supposed to be promoting the game and garnering interest are nowhere to be found?

I am so done with this kind of nonsense. As I stated last year, I honestly believe that delaying the Final Table could be a boon for poker but the game will not benefit one bit if they are unable to get the players to co-operate. What better person to promote the game of poker than Phil Ivey who is acknowledged to be the best all-around poker player in the world? Sure, I get the fact that he tends to shy away from the media and can be down right reclusive but this is ridiculous. If Harrah’s is not going to do this right then abandon this delayed Final Table crap and let them play it out like they used to. This is beyond stupid for me. It has become quite clear that the players that claim they love the game so much have no intentions of being any kind of ambassadors for the game. That in-and-of-itself is a damn shame.

Playing poker can be an extremely rewarding experience. It can also be one of the most emotional, heart wrenching, unforgiving experiences you could have as well. Yes, we all can recall more than our share of bad beat stories at the drop of a hat. Poker will do that to you. The funny thing is that no matter how well you play we never seem to remember the days when we ran good for very long but the bad beats seem to last a life time. Why is that? I believe it is simply because of our human nature and quest for improvement. When I was a 19 handicap golfer I never remembered all of the great shots I made in a round but I could tell you every single thing about how I screwed up a hole with one bad stroke.

Perhaps it is simply the competitive nature of us people that play the game. Either way we all need to realize that when things are going good it is OK to enjoy the ride for a while. When things are going bad we also need to realize that over time the cards do even themselves out. I have a quasi-famous saying, “The math ALWAYS catches up to itself.” that I tend to live by when I am taking beat after beat. It always seems a lot worse than it is when the cards are not falling or your hands are not holding up. So remember that the next time things seem to be going down hill.

“The math always catches up to itself” -Curtom