Our plane to Dublin was delayed by four hours due to ice on the runway and this meant that we arrived two hours late for the start of the Green Joker Poker European Deepstack tournament. The game began quite well for me, however, in that I managed to take down a decent pot by check-raising with an inside straight draw against a player who, as Mick McCool informed me shortly after I took my seat, had been extremely active.
One of the nicest things about being in Vegas for the Series is the sense of camaraderie between the Brits that you meet when you’re playing out here. No matter what tournament you’re in, there are bound to be some familiar faces. In the Venetian PLO $550 was Paul Jackson, Karl Mahrenholz and Paul Parker amongst many others. In fact, you can barely play a PLO tournament out here without there being a Brit at your table.
Dear Dr Tom,
I picked up pocket fours in middle position in an aggressive 5/5 No Limit Hold 'em game...
By his own admission, John Tabatabai had a torrid time of it at the World Series last year. We caught up with him to see how he’s preparing to do things differently this year.
Dear Dr Tom,
I’m playing a madman in a heads up cash game. He’s baiting me like crazy. Suddenly he says, “All in next hand!!!!” The hands are dealt and he insta-shoves. I have Q-8. Now, because I can be sure he’s doing this with a completely random hand, and because Q-7 is the median hand of all Hold’em poker hands, should I call?
Matty, North London
Well, I’ve finished my first tournament in Vegas 2009 and there’s already a story to tell. I have a shiny new baseball cap with “Binion’s Poker Classic Final Table” stitched onto it. Is that the story? Yes and no. The real story is that I bubbled.
Hi everyone, and welcome to my Vegas blog.
This is my first post, and it’s so avant-garde that it’s starting before I’ve arrived. That’s because even before my first trash hand gets dealt and goes straight into the muck, I’ve got something I want to share.
To win any tournament nowadays you need a lot of luck and you need to be running well. In the past it may well have been enough to avoid bad luck in order to prosper, but not any more. There are now so many good players and even the bad players tend to be aggressive these days.
If you’re a poker fan, player, or have just caught a few hands of poker on television in passing, then you know Daniel Negreanu. His name, his face, his voice, and his likeness have graced every form of media.
We’re breaking the first rule of Fight Club. Bluff Europe now has its very own Poker Academy, ever more training sites are springing up on the web, and there is now an established profession of “poker coach”. Opportunities to improve your game have never been so prevalent.