Hugo's Blogspotting: 6 March

The Poker Den

Andy Ward has been enjoying The Poker Den TV show this week on British television. Forget about High Stakes Poker, this is the show according to Mr. Ward.

“The play is about the same, the commentary is much worse (Gabe Kaplan rules), but there's so much additional comedy that it's just great.”

Of course the comedy that Andy refers to here is purely unintentional; I have tried to watch this show, but find the production values so excruciatingly poor that I can’t bear it. I’m glad that Andy finds it entertaining as he has managed to express perfectly one of the ludicrous features of this poor man’s relation to High Stakes.

“What's meant to be funny, I think, is the voiceover which you must check out at least once, I'm in stitches listening to it. It is the most brilliantly exaggerated sort of gangster cockney I have ever heard, I mean clapped my shells on. "THIS GEEZER GOT MUGGED OFF LARST TIME" roars the voice "CAN E PUT THE SMILE BACK ON IS CLOCK THIS TIME RAHND".

Spot on GEEZAH, END OF.

I guess one thing that is refreshing about this program is that while other poker TV shows spend hours trying to convince us that poker is a sport these days and that poker tournaments are thoroughly respectable, this show takes the game back to its roots – dodgy underground spielers populated with sharks all carving up one star (if they are lucky there will be one other donator in the game that the host has somehow lured in with the promise of a free Chinese takeaway and endless credit when he goes skint).

In fact, the way the game is marketed these days the image that the Poker Den presents of a cash game is probably how the general public think poker played for real, cold, hard cash is like anyway.

Andy goes on to describe one of his favourite moments from the show and I must say this does sound like it’s a classic – I look forward to seeing it on youtube.

“……when the egg rivers Devilfish in a completely gross cooler and practically slowrolls him because he can barely read his hand. Then, and I really hate it when people do this to me, he comes over and gives it lots of really sorry, if you'd done this or that blah blah. Devilfish overdoes it sometimes, especially with dealers, but I didn't mind just this once when he said, fully on camera and in front of everyone, "It's alright, I understand - you're a fucking idiot".

That, I have to say, is hilarious. I can just hear the Devil saying that in his Hull accent, a perfect mixture of deadpan and disdain.

They Play So Bad

Another great one for telling players how bad they play when they win a pot off them is Phil Hellmuth. He has been knocked out by internet hotshot Tom “Durrr” Dwan at the NBC Heads-Up Tournament and has wasted no time putting a new blog up telling his faithful readers how badly Durrr played (just so you know, Phil had AA vs Durrr’s pocket 10s).

“I heard that he was a really good player. But moving all in for $20,000 with 10-10 when the blinds are $150-$300? Not one pro I talked to could even say that his play "Wasn't bad," never mind that no one would say it was a marginal play. Why risk all of your chips against me pre-flop with 10-10, and the blinds so cheap? I'm sure that I induced him to make a bad play, as I always do.”

I can imagine the scene after Durrr sucked out – Hellmuth running to every one of his fellow pros and recounting the bad beat story to them looking for affirmation.

Naturally Phil tells Durrr how bad he played those 10s to which Durrr responds by offering to play him heads-up for $100k.

“……he did what all the young guys do when they're a bit insecure, he challenged me to play heads up for $100,000. Durr knew he played the hand poorly, and if he doesn't know now, he will understand how bad a play he made in two or three years. Will I play him heads up in the real world? Absolutely! But on my terms. I don't need the money, and I have nothing to gain from playing him heads up, whereas he does have something to gain.”

Shane Updates!

Elsewhere Shane “Shaniac” Schleger has finally updated his blog after a long silence. To make up he has written an extra long entry which should please his many readers.

Shane writes an excellent (as usual) post about playing in the WPT Invitational which is a $200k freeroll featuring many poker pros (eligible for a seat if they have won or purchased a seat in the $25k WPT Championship event) and invited celebrities (think Jennifer Tilly and James Woods plus a load of actors you have never heard of).

Shane sums up the mood of this tourney perfectly when he writes,

“The amount of money and exposure at stake is just enough to get both pros and celebrities out of the house, but not quite enough for either group to truly care about being there. At various points on day one, I heard Danny Alaei, Mimi Rogers and Meat Loaf express a desire to bust out and go home.”

Shane makes it to Day 2 of the tourney and finds himself at the same table as David Singer and Phil Laak. Nothing unusual there you might think, three pros in a soft field, of course they make it to Day 2. Except that Phil Laak didn’t play on Day 1 having been playing in the NBC Heads-Up tournament.

“Singer, looking in Laak's direction, muttered semi-audibly, "I can't believe they actually did it. They let you in. I should know to expect this by now, but I still can't believe it."

Shane continues,

“I've played with Singer on a handful of occasions, and I knew he wasn't going to let this go quietly. Singer can reasonably be described as either a "watchdog" or a "rules nit," depending on your definition of each term and your disposition towards David Singer.”

Shane makes the observation that it’s actually quite handy having one of these types at your table sometimes as you don’t have to worry about being “the asshole at the table who ruins it for everybody else”.

So what happened? Did Singer take this piece of poker corruption to the top? Did he kick up a storm and cause all hell to break loose? Not quite. He just carried on grumbling about it and making sarcastic comments while Laak just told him that, “They put him in late”. I like Shane's response:

“I said, "look, David, 'late' in this case clearly means two or three hands before the night ended. Either bring it up with the tournament director or let it slide."

Hopefully that shut him up. Shane goes on to say that he feels it was improper of Laak to accept late entry from the tournament organizers and I have to say that I agree. It certainly doesn’t change Phil Laak’s image of being a bit of a chancer, does it?

If Men Raises You Must Fold

Sticking with bad behaviour, Justin “ZeeJustin” Bonomo writes a good blog about everyone’s favourite cheat Men “The Master” Nguyen. Men is famous for staking players and putting them in tournaments. It is also well known that if one of his horses is on the same table as him and Men raises or re-raises then that horse must fold, no matter what cards he has. Allegedly.

Anyway, ZeeJustin is playing in a Mix cash game with Men and another Vietnamese gentleman. This Vietnamese gentleman has been playing tight and showing down good hands when the following hand comes up in the Badougi round:

“VP (Vietnamese Player) Raises, Men calls, and 2 white guys call. Everyone draws 1 card except one of the white guys who draws two. VP bets, everyone calls. Everyone draws 1.

The bet doubles after the second draw. VP still fires out. By now it is clear to the whole table that he had a strong draw. Men raises. The two white guys begrudgingly fold, and VP has a very pained and angered look on his face as he is looking at Men. Men starts blabbering saying, “You know I got the goods!” VP then does something that is extremely bad in his spot… he folds. The odds that he doesn’t have a one card draw to a better hand are extremely low in that spot. Basically, the line he took is never correct, and would be absurdly uncharacteristic for this player to take in this spot… except for the fact that he is backed by Men, and his deal forces him to fold in this spot.”

Wow, no wonder Men The Master has won the Cardplayer Player of the Year Award before. Not hard to have consistent results in tournaments when players are dumping chips to you. Allegedly.

Bite The Hand That Feeds

Seeing as underhand behaviour at the poker tables seems to be the main theme this week I shall continue with an article from Grapsfan at AlwaysBluff about Jonathan "FieryJustice" Little.

This kid has been a big winner online as well as in the live tournament arena which has earned him a sponsorship deal with Full Tilt. Part of this deal is 100% rakeback (which maybe the only way some of these “red names” get any money at all – that’s a tongue-in-cheek comment, I promise!).

“On National Sportsmanship Day, I find it deliciously ironic that Little was let go today by FTP for violating its terms of service. The 100% SNG rakeback was just WAY too tempting...he had people playing his "red" account around the clock. He was seen playing 24 hours a day, over 150 SNGs a day. Several of his massive sessions were at the same time he was playing the NBC Heads Up Championship.

Oops.”

Well, there’s a new definition of greed for you. Or as Grapsfan puts it,

“Maybe Little, with $2 million in live cashes since the start of 2007, doesn't care. It's still just phenomenally dumb.”


No Need To Look

Tom Sexton continues with his excellent series on Archie Karas on his blog at PokerNews. This week he focuses on the various heads-up Razz games that Archie played with Chip Reese and Doyle Brunson back in the day.

Apparently Archie destroyed these legends at poker; how much of this is true or exaggeration is hard to tell, but nevertheless he must have been hard to play considering the huge bets Archie was prepared to make at the dice table and other forms of negative EV table games.

“I always gave Chip the most credit for playing me more than anybody else, and playing sky-high limits Chip and I probably played over 25 times. For me, playing $10,000/$20,000 limit in poker was penny ante, because I would throw the dice for a million in a few seconds, during a roll.”

Chip Reese was considered the best, with the various Stud games being his forte, so what was Karas’ strategy?

“When we first started playing high at $8,000/$16,000 limit in seven-card stud, Chip noticed I wasn't looking at my hole cards one night. He said, 'Archie, you're not looking at your hole cards.' I said, 'It's okay, Chip. When it is time to look at all the cards, we will do it together.'"

Chip laughed at Archie's remark, but inside, he must have felt that any control of the match at such high stakes was evaporating. Archie asked me, "Do you know why I did that, Tommy?" Before I could guess why it might be helpful to not look at your hole cards, Archie continued, "I did it to take the bluff away! A man will begin to hesitate to try and bluff or steal a pot, if he thinks his opponent is crazy enough to call anyway.”

Hugo 'Chimney Sweep' Martin

Check out Poker Verdict's Blog Directory here