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September 30, 2005

2005 Player of the Year Update

With the year winding down, I figured it was a good time to update the CardPlayer@ Player of the Year standings.

The Top 20 are:
Rank, Player, Location, Points, Final Tables, Winnings
1 John Phan Long Beach, CA 4,212 7 $1,086,977
2 Ted Forrest Las Vegas, NV 3,448 7 $1,119,028
3 Maciek "Michael" Gracz Raleigh, NC 3,360 2 $2,119,960
4 Erick Lindgren Las Vegas, NV 3,192 6 $1,010,711
5 Michael Mizrachi Hollywood, FL 3,081 3 $2,302,899
6 Phil Ivey Atlantic City, NJ 3,032 5 $1,731,016
7 Hieu Ngoc 'Tony' Ma El Monte, CA 2,710 7 $1,139,278
8 Chris Ferguson Pacific Palisades, CA 2,700 6 $1,446,893
9 David Pham Cerritos, CA 2,612 5 $587,354
10 Amir Vahedi Sherman Oaks, CA 2,586 7 $604,299
11 Mark Seif Incline Village, NV 2,552 4 $832,229
12 John Hoang Alhambra, CA 2,501 12 $398,107
13 Minh Nguyen Lake Elsinore, CA 2,416 11 $486,122
14 Antonio Esfandiari San Francisco, CA 2,344 4 $459,246
15 Jess Yawitz St. Louis, MO 2,340 2 $455,911
16 Charidimos 'Harry' Demetriou London, United Kingdom 2,320 3 $406,005
17 Todd Witteles Las Vegas, NV 2,280 3 $477,920
18 Blair Rodman Palm Springs, CA 2,272 5 $488,640
19 Paul Darden Jr. New Haven, CT 2,224 6 $459,596
20 Farzad Bonyadi Aliso Viejo, CA 2,220 2 $748,490

John Phan has a pretty solid grip on first, a position he has been in for most of the year, but Ted Forrest is coming on strong.

Posted by fatbill at 09:57 AM | Comments (0)

Ultimate Bet Poker Classic

The Ultimate Bet Poker Classic is in it's final days, with the $5000 Buy In No Limit Texas Holdem tournament down to 26 players.

Notables among the final 26 are:

2 Kassem 'Freddy' Deeb 655,000 Chips
5 James Van Alstyne 406,000 Chips
10 Barry Greenstein 248,000 Chips

There were 647 Entries, with a total prize pool of just over $3 Million dollars!

Posted by fatbill at 09:53 AM | Comments (0)

September 23, 2005

Borgata Open

The Borgata Open No Limit Texas Holdem Championship event with a $9,700 Buy In concluded Yesterday! Here are the top ten:
1 Al Ardebili $1,498,650 1920
2 Ricardo Festejo $799,280 1600
3 Kathy Liebert $427,115 1280
4 John D'Agostino $349,685 960
5 Robert Hwang $299,730 800
6 David Singer $249,775 640
7 Justin Cuong Van 'J.C.' Tran $199,820 480
8 Gregory Fondacaro $149,865 320
9 Sid Miller $99,110 160
10 Woo Yang Lin $64,942 96

Don't know much about the winner, but this was his second final table for the year.

The United States Poker Championships got underway on the 19th at the Taj.... main event for that one is next month.

Posted by fatbill at 11:29 AM | Comments (0)

September 20, 2005

Normal things are happening...but anywho

Well let me start by saying I couldnt have played any better than I did, and thats my honest opinion. I had a couple hands of bad luck, actually really really baad luck. Flopped the beginning of the straight when someone had the higher end, that cost me big. Gained back a little and went in with a-k off a raise, that cost me a little as well...after that i was so short stacked that I couldnt do anything at this point ( 5th level or so ) went in with a mediocre ace and lost to a pair of paint cards...and thats how it went, just that fast. But the vision I had on the table and the instinct I had was good, other than the straight. It felt good and I think im ready for another one very soon, the feeling is coming back to me......and thats a problem for other people.

Posted by wilcone at 05:11 PM | Comments (0)

Harrah's WSOP Circut event

The main event to this circuit tournament concluded on Friday 9-16, with Chris Ferguson winning the $10K buy-in No Limit Texas Holdem Event. Ferguson became the first player to win two WSOP Circuit events with this win!

The main event for the Borgata Open started yesterday, with over 250 survivers going into the second day that goes on today....

Posted by fatbill at 10:26 AM | Comments (0)

September 19, 2005

Can I catch a break?

I played again with the guys at the club Sat night, and thought I played pretty well. I made no major mistakes, and what hands I played, I got what I could out of them.

Things of note.... We got down to the final 10, and I was one of three short stacks. I sat on my stack for a round, when this hand came up.
With me in the BB for $300, I checked my option to three limpers in front of me. The small made it $600, on an flop of 6 3 J rainbow. I had pocket 6's, so I went all in. He called, and my set held up so I doubled up and had some life.
Next hand, I limped with QJo. Same guys makes it 3x on a flop showing a Jack high. I thought about it for quite a while, and decided that based on past betting for this player, that he was on a draw. I called... he was on a flush draw, and didnt catch, so I doubled again, and now had enought chips to sit tight for a while.

We played 6 handed for what seemed forever. Chips going around the table, but EVERY all in, holding up for the shorter stack. Finally a player got knocked out, and shortly after that, with 5 remaining, this hand came up.
PREFLOP, guy under the gun goes all in. He has me out-chipped. He's a solid player, but not really that well off, chip wise. He's been known to make this move with any big card. I had AJo, and I called... he had A4o.... of course, a 4 hit on the turn, and I was out.

I can not catch a break with things get down to the wire.. and I'm steadily finishing 5th and 6th....

Posted by fatbill at 11:04 AM | Comments (0)

September 17, 2005

Texas Holdem Poker at the club

Well, the club is back up and running, and I got to play some Texas Holdem again, after taking over a month off. It's nice to have the club back operating, and seeing and playing with the guys there once again. The new setting is very nice, and it can accomodate 30-40 Texas Holdem players with no problem.

I played pretty tight all night.. largely because I either did not have hands worth a shit, or when I had marginal hands that I may have liked to limp in with, there were big raises in front of me.

It got down to me under $2K with the blinds at $600, and I was in for the big blind with K9s. There was an all in in front of me, and I was being moved to a new table after this hand ( to balance ). If I fold and move to the new table, I'm coming in with less than to blinds. I felt my only move here was to move all in and take my changes. I got lucky, as the other player had pocket tens, so I had an over. The flop gave me a K, and It held. Now I move with a somewhat decent stack, at least enought to make someone think if I made a move.

Play got down to the final 6, and I was just not getting hands. I finally got AQ, but the big stack bet out 2400 ( blinds were 400/800 ). I only had 2900 chips, so after a minutes thought I moved all in, knowing he would call for few extra chips. What I did not expect to happen, did... the Big Blind moved all in.
The Big Stack called with QJs, I had AQ, but unfortunately the Big Blind had AKo... .none of us hit, so the AK held, and I was sent packing....

Posted by fatbill at 10:23 AM | Comments (1)

September 14, 2005

50 Million Poker Players?

In an article I read recently the World Poker Tour estimates that there are 50 people playing poker! Thats 50,000,000!

The popularity in Poker, especially Texas Holdem Poker, has also contributed to a huge explosion in the book publishing business! The Las Vegas Business Press, in an article you can read HERE says:

"Poker's upsurge in popularity has been a jackpot for the publishing industry. New York City-based Cardoza Publishing is reporting a tenfold increase in sales for its poker-related titles and USA Today estimates that 60 poker books will make print this year."

Also, somewhat suprising.... "According to Huntington Press Publisher Anthony Curtis, the national leader in poker publishing is not Cardoza but Henderson-based Two Plus Two Publishing, run by Mason Malmuth and David Sklansky.
Gambler's Bookstore owner, Howard Schwartz, reads one of the many new books on poker. He says his store now has 250 separate titles on the card game, double the number in stock a year or two ago.
Between them, the pair have written 26 of Two Plus Two's 43 poker titles."

And now with the increased number of events from this years WSOP being shown on tv, I dont see things cooling down any time soon!

Posted by fatbill at 09:02 AM | Comments (0)

September 13, 2005

Texas Holdem and a stupid way of playing it...

Well my girlfriend and I wanted to do something the other night, so we went to a fair. Mind you, the only reason I went was to play Texas Holdem.

When I walked in they said that it was limit, which i understood...but this was outrageous. First you pay $2 to see your cards, if you wanna see a flop you pay 2 more, then to see the turn you must pay 3 and the river was 5. You can check, but if you didnt have the money than you had to fold.....i didnt like that concept but i played a hand. I got dealt a-q and called, flopped my ace and got outkicked after $20 spent into that pot. My luck was running shy so i took off as fast as i could, i cant play texas holdem like that, When I play i wanna be in a tournament.....

Posted by wilcone at 02:08 PM | Comments (0)

September 10, 2005

Reading your opponent

Ran across a good article by Daniel Negraneu talking about reading your opponent. You can read the entire article HERE

The opening states:

"You've no doubt heard the myth about needing a poker face to play the game well. I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Poker isn't about reading facial tics. It's about reading people."

He embelishes on this further:
"The truth is, an elite player doesn't focus much on body language. Instead, he tries to understand how you think based on the hands you play and how you play them."

Posted by fatbill at 07:51 AM | Comments (0)

September 09, 2005

Lots of online poker sites

I was just looking at some news feeds and reading some articles and realized that there are just a TON of online poker sites.

I have never heard of most of them, and never seen them advertised any place. How do they exist if they aren't visible?

I think that a lot of folks figured they would open their own room to get in on the 'poker craze', but never had a clue about how to market an online company....

Hard to say.. but from what I've read, there are over 300 poker rooms on the net today!

Posted by fatbill at 09:35 AM | Comments (0)

September 07, 2005

WSOP On TV

I have been watching more texas holdem than playing texas holdem over the past few weeks!

The World Series of Poker is being shown weekly on ESPN now, and I have included a page on the POKER TOURNAMENT INFO page that shows the schedule of events.

Of course, they are repeating them quite often throughout the week, so that if you miss them, you can catch em at a later date and time.

Posted by fatbill at 08:19 AM | Comments (0)

September 02, 2005

Legends of Poker results

The $5000 WPT Legends of Poker No Limit Texas Holdem event concluded. The top 10 in the event were:

1 Alex Kahaner $1,150,900
2 Kenna James $588,210
3 Jake Minter $333,600
4 Tim Phan $291,900
5 Todd Phillips $250,200
6 Kevin O'Donnell $208,500
7 Dao Bac $166,800
8 Eriberto Soto $125,100
9 Mark Bryan $83,400

Nice to see Kenna making a good showing...

The $10,000 WSOP Circut Grand Tunica event concluded Aug 25. The top 10 were:

1 Gregg Merkow $561,175
2 Bobby Law $309,490
3 Sonny Perry $170,050
4 Jeff Wood $136,040
5 Steve Rassi $102,030
6 Bryant King $85,025
7 Johnny Clements $68,020
8 John Juanda $51,015
9 Darrell Struck $34,010
10 Brian Ahern $23,805

Posted by fatbill at 09:04 AM | Comments (0)

September 01, 2005

Katrina Victums need our help

Although this is a texas holdem poker blog, there are events that transend our interests in entertainment and require our help.

Hurricane Katrina recently hit the gulf coast of the US, and the affects were severly damaging. I was sitting in Florida, just above where Katrina came ashore when it hit there, and can tell you it was not pleasant... and it was only a Cat 1 at that time. I was in Florida last year after two hurricanes to help with the clean up, and I can tell you that being without power for weeks at a time in the heat that they experience at this time of year, is not pleasant.

The People in the gulf region of the US need help. We all can pitch in by making a donation to the RED CROSS. ANY amount is helpful to bring these people some relief. They need simple basics of life... Water ... food ... shelter. If you have seen the pictures, you will notice that they are completely devastated. The Casino Town of Biloxi was wiped out, along with every casino there.

PLEASE take the time to make whatever donation you can afford to help with the relief effort for this disaster.

Posted by fatbill at 08:37 AM | Comments (0)



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