O-Poker

I was in New Orleans this weekend (trip report to follow later today or tomorrow) and forgot to unregister from the FTOPS Satellite Challenge Freerolls. They had 4 separate freerolls that you qualified for by winning 2, 3, 4, and 5 satellites to different FTOPS tourneys. (I think I won sats to 6 different FTOPS, but didn't play any of them).

I checked my email when I got home last night and I guess I finished in the bottom money spot (90th out of 291 players) in one of them.

"You finished the tournament in 90th place.
There has been $40.00 added to your account."

Forgetting to unregister cost me $13.40 in rakeback. So, thanks to sliding into a money spot in a freeroll that I didn't play, I netted $26.60 in online poker over the weekend even though I didn't log into my poker account once.

I was going to post a Recap of Joe Cada's Letterman interview, but Short Stack Shamus has already done an awesome job of recapping his appearance. Go check out his post.

I only had a few additional thoughts:

1. Cada seemed stiff at times, but more relaxed than most of us would be on Letterman at 22 years old. (or ever)

2. Letterman was prepared for the interview, but at times seemed to be at a loss for questions, or maybe at a loss for funny commentary.

3. Kudos to Cada for mentioning that he started playing on "Pokerstars" at 18 instead of 17. Also, Kudos for not wearing PS logos for the interview.

4. Cada did a decent job explaining that poker was different than gambling, but missed the opportunity to explain how the skill aspects of the game outweigh the luck factors.

Overall, he did a great job and should be a great spokesman for poker.

-----------------------

EDIT: Link to his CNN interview

Link to his CNBC interview

Just wanted to remind everyone to set their DVRs to record Letterman tonight. Joe Cada is going to be on his show. The guy is young, but from some of his initial interviews it sounds like he is going to be a good spokesman for the next year. He has a true internet background and is very likely to speak in support of internet poker. He told Time magazine, "I support the right to play poker online. Poker isn't gambling. It's a hobby, an activity, a game. It's not about luck.""

Also, if you missed Saturday Night Live this weekend they mentioned him during the weekend update. They showed a picture of him with the $$$ and mentioned that he dropped out of college to play poker and won $8.5 Million. Then said something along the lines of, "This should be a lesson to other kids thinking about dropping out of school. You aren't him and you aren't going to win the WSOP ME."

Should be interesting to see how well he does on Dave tonight.

One of the better players at the Final Table won (even if he did have to suckout a ton to win)

Bax/Sheets run good.

The people that take the Luck side of the Luck vs. Skill argument where given some ammunition.

ESPN did a great job of editing the FT in such a short time.
- I'm glad they added an additional 30 mins to the coverage for the heads up portion.

- My biggest complaint of their coverage is how quick they rushed things after Ivey busted out. At 10:50, there were 4 players remaining. By 11:00, they showed two bust outs and two commercial breaks.

- I really wish ESPN would sell a DVD set of the entire Final Table with whole cards. They could dub the Bluff Radio coverage over the top of the footage that doesn't have Norm/Lon commentary.

Next time you see one of those posts where someone is complaining about online poker being rigged because their opponent flopped a set against them or hit a 3-5 outer on the river, remember some of these hands. Live poker is so rigged.

Saout must have been playing really tight and staying out of Ivey's way for Ivey to let go of those Jacks preflop when he was so short.

How long is Kevin Schaffel going to be having nightmares of his AA losing to KK?

How do you get all in preflop as the biggest stack against the 2nd biggest stack with AQ?

How do you get all in preflop with 22 against a very solid player for 40BBs?

Every time I started feeling like Darvin Moon was a decent player trying (a little too hard) to portray the "I'm the worst player here image," he would do something really stupid.

- I can understand his logic for trying to bluff people out of pots, but I don't understand his thinking with KQ. I also don't understand why he lied to his family about what he had (QQ instead of KQ). Maybe he was too embarrassed? I did enjoy his reasoning for why he would have folded QQ there getting 1,000,000,000 to 1 pot odds to call.

- The not calling with KQ will probably be talked about for a while, but I think his QJ hand was a bigger mistake. How does he call off his entire stack heads up with QJo? He still would have had plenty of chips if he folded. I know that once the hands were turned up it was the correct call, but he couldn't have known that he was against an underpair.

I think non-poker players probably enjoyed the coverage. I played in golf tourney on Monday. A couple of non-poker players started talking about the WSOP ME. One guy immediately said, "Don't tell me who won. I'm going to watch tomorrow night and I don't want to know who won." He doesn't gamble or play poker, so I was a little surprised how into the WSOP he was.

Goodbye, 2009 WSOP. Time to start planning for the 2010 WSOP. I have the itch to play in the 2010 Main Event now.

I am getting one small benefit of the poor economy - severely discounted vacations. As recent as a year ago, the only offers that I ever received from Harrahs were for free nights in Las Vegas during the week and reduced/free nights during the WSOP. I guess Harrahs started getting desperate to fill up their hotels around the country, because I started receiving weekly (sometimes 6-8 per month) free/reduced air/hotel offers to various Harrahs properties around the country. A couple of months ago, my wife and I decided to book one of their offers to New Orleans. Airfare for me and my wife, transfers to/from Harrahs New Orleans, and four nights (Thurs-Sun) all for $198 total.

We don't head out until later in the month, but I am starting to try to figure out the best places to eat, drink, play poker, etc, etc. We haven't been to NO in 9-10 years.

Hopefully, some of you have been there more recently.

Where is the best place to play poker? Harrahs? Are there even any other places?

Do they run any daily/weekly mtts?

What limits usually run?

Any suggestions on bars/restaurants/things to do?

My plan for October was to try to get back on track. I decided to really focus on my game and try plugging as many leaks as possible from major leaks all the way down to the minor leaks. I played mostly 50NLHE/PLHE during October with a sprinkling of 100NL mixed in (usually on the weekends). I also wound up playing more live poker than usual this month.

Online Cash Games = $+1,018.95 (avg of 3.30 ptbb/100)
Online Tourneys/SNGs = -$3.20
Rakeback = +$439 (including 2 a day bonus from Sept)
Live Poker = +$560
Staking = -$26

Total Online = $1,428.75
Total Live = $560
Overall Total = $1988.75

Biggest Winning Day of the Month = $562 (all at 50NL)
Biggest Losing Day of the Month = -$229 (all at 50PL)



Overall, I feel pretty good about my play this month. I actually lost 3 buy-ins at 100NL, and still finished up decent for the stakes that I played. I had a little trouble adjusting to 50NL at the beginning of the month, but think that I eventually made the correct adjustments. I still have some leaks, but at least I have identified them and am doing my best to avoid them.

My biggest leak by far is playing after being out drinking. Almost all of my biggest losing sessions this month were after a night out. I remember one night specifically this month. I went to a professional organization meeting after work that included several beers. I made it home around 10 PM. It was a Tuesday night, so I fired up the WSOP on the DVR. I had decided that I wasn't going to play since I had been drinking. About 30 minutes later I decided to fire up the laptop, convincing myself that I was just going to play long enough to get 200 FTPs for the day. I wound up turning the computer off 3 hours later down 4 buy-ins.

My second biggest leak is playing when I shouldn't be playing. I am doing much better with this one. A good example is this past Saturday night (Halloween and FL/GA football game day). I drank a few beers while watching the Gators stomp the Bulldogs. I switched to water towards the end of the game. Once it started getting dark we took the kids trick-or-treating. Several hours later we got the kids to bed. I was sober, but exhausted. I was still tempted to play some online poker, but forced myself to not to. Yeah me!!!

I am going to continue to play mainly 50NL/PL for at least the next week or two before hopefully switching to mainly 100NL.

Good luck to everyone in November.