PAD

I managed to catch Poker After Dark yesterday. This weeks installment is a cash game and has its usual interesting cast of players like Phil Laak,Tom Dwan,Antonio Esfandiari, Kenny Tran, Bob Safai and Phil Hellmuth. I really like the cash game format as opposed to the usual 120,000 dollar winner take all this show usually has. There has been a lot of great interaction amongst the players and of course the usual lying about what they folded. A prime example yesterday Phil Laak who was actually on a straight flush draw and he made a huge bet around 70,000 dollars and Safai who had an open ended straight draw finally folded. Asked afterwords what he had Laak said a pair of Queens. Its so funny because they can do it with a straight face knowing that Safai will see what he had on TV. I also think Dwan was getting a little tipsy as he twice asked for another round of drinks. Anyways love the show and hope they do more cash games.

I was reading Vegas Rex's blog yesterday and I guess Las Vegas had a bikini parade down the strip yesterday. They got just under 300 ladies, gave them each a bikini and 100 bucks to parade down the strip and then the Las Vegas mayor declared summer had officially started. You gotta love Las Vegas. I also loved Rex's pictures of the event.

Yesterday I mentioned that in our recent provincial election we had only 53% of the eligible voters cast ballots. Well it appears my numbers were wrong. It was actually worse as only 48% exercised their vote. That is so pitiful.

Well the final 4 of the hockey playoffs are set and it will be Chicago against Detroit and Carolina against Pittsburgh. I would love to see a Chicago and Pittsburgh final but Detroit will be tough to beat.

I played a live game last night and once again really couldn't get anything going. Managed to steal a couple blinds and also took one guy out when he pushed with A,7 and my A,K magically held up. I lost a lot of chips chasing a flush and straight draw where the odds said I should but neither materialized so I was fairly short stacked when I got AQh in middle position. I pushed got 2 callers which surprised me and when the Q hit on the flop I figured I might triple up. They were checking it down until the river when a K hit and one lady bet , got a bit of a dirty look from the other lady and a realization from me that I was gone. She flipped over K9..A strange call but she hit her river card so who am I to question. I had the other lady beat or so she said when I showed what I had. So that's 6 games in a row were I haven't final tabled. Not the kind of streak I like!!!!

Poker after Dark

I caught a little bit of Poker After Dark last night before I headed out to play a live tournament. This one has Gavin Smith, Mike the Mouth, Phil Laak, Gavin Smith, Phil Hellmouth and Clonie Gowan. Now that's a lively bunch. Anyways I watched one hand and Clonie got dealt Q10 and Gavin QJ. Gavin managed to get her off the hand but it was her reaction after which was hilarious. She tried to tell Gavin that she had tossed A9. The flop had come A rag rag. It was hilarious as Clonie knew that Gavin would watch the show after and see she certainly didn't have A9. Too funny.
Now poker players aren't always telling the truth(no kidding) when they tell you what they had but for Clonie to do this knowing she had the big cameras on her was priceless. I am sure Gavin would be shaking his head later wondering her motivation.

I know if I am playing and someone folds to my hand and asks what I had I will in most cases say great lay down. Even if I had nothing. The rare exception would be if it was a total jerk at the tables and then I might try and get into his/her head by saying something different. In most cases I have a reputation of playing premium hands and I try and cultivate that. People that I play almost never see me bluff so I can get away with it when I rarely do. You gotta love Clonie for doing that on camera. Telling him something totally different that what she had.

I though Clonie looked great last night. She was wearing the school teacher glasses. Then again she always looks good. Phil Hellmouth looked so different last night without his trademark ball cap. Almost didn't recognize him.

I was totally card dead last night in my tournament except for one hand. Got big slick once. Raised it up. Got one caller Flop came 10,9,8 rainbow. The caller then bumped it up and looking at basically nothing I folded. The rest of the evening I basically got blinded away. The only other hand of note I had Q3 in the big blind. flop came Q79. Not bad . Not great. Anyways I bet got one caller. Turn was a 5. I checked and so did she . River brought a 8. I put her on Q something so I just checked . So did she. Turns out she had 10,6 and got her straight on the river. Boy did I play that bad. Got knocked out when I pushed with KJ suited in the SB and the BB called (he was priced in) with 10,2 and of course he caught his 2.

I see Vancouver now has the reputation of the gang capital of Canada. There have been 42 shootings and 20 people killed in the past few months as the battle goes on. With the Olympics coming in 10 months I don't think this is a great image for our city. I know they are spending a tremendous amount of police resources trying to clean it up and there was a huge arrest last week. Let's hope that these arrests will slow down the gun battle but I somehow doubt it.

Fulltilt versus Pokerstars

I had a lot of free time yesterday with so I played a lot online switching between Fulltilt and Pokerstars. I used to play online at Pokerstars a couple years ago then changed to Fulltilt about a year ago. I tried a few smaller sites but seem to have stuck to the 2 big poker powers. I like both sites as they both have features I like and dislike. On Pokerstars I like the fact that people can post their pic and also what city they are from is displayed which makes a more friendly environment. With Fulltilt they have those silly avatars that really need to be dumped. I like the accessibility of the previous hand function on Fulltilt. Pokerstars has it too but FT is much easier to navigate when you are trying to see what your table mates previous hands were.

Pokerstars does have the feature which tells you how often you are seeing the flop etc. I like that and very easy to read. As you can see both sites have some great features.

As I only play online for practice and to sharpen my game I am not sure which site I would play on if I was actually going to put some money on my account (or unless I win a freeroll). I have a lot of friends who do play online for money but I have never done it for the simple reason is that I love to play live. I can certainly understand people who do play online for money if they don't have casinos close by and if you are playing the small stakes you really can't lose too much. I also realize that that the online sites have been the main reason in the overwhelming increase in popularity of the game and for that I am thank full but I live in British Columbia and here we have lots of casinos. In the Greater Vancouver area alone there are 7 casinos that have poker rooms.

I played 3 freerolls yesterday at Full Tilt. One of them which starts at 340 PM EST starts registration 40 minutes prior to the start. That freeroll filled in 4 seconds. 2700 entrants. Too slow on the click and you are out of luck. I also managed to finally get in on the Canada freeroll which until I sent them an email at FT hadn't been able to access. Its great to have that access now.

I never cashed in any of the freerolls as you need a lot of luck just to get far. No matter how well you play there are so many players that go in with anything, don't respect raises that the suck out factor is huge. I will keep trying as I have said that's the only way you will see me on the pay side of these sites. Yesterday I got eliminated in all 3 with the percentage factor in my favour and yet the underdog knocked me out all 3 times.

I was reading the Pokergrump (one of my favourite blogs) and he had a bit about Johnny Chans appearance on Poker After Dark. I managed to catch a few minutes of the show. I like PAD but it always seems to be on at times when its tough for me to watch. Jennifer Tilly looked great and I love her personality. Of course I am a little biased as she grew up in BC. She is very distracting at the table with her low cut tops. Of course that's her intention.

The winter Olympics will be here in 10 months and yesterday they announced that ticket sales have been excellent. All available tickets that have been released so far have been sold. Thats great news in this economy. Most of the venues are finished and things are looking good. Lets hope it continues.