Thursday, September 28, 2006

Grrr

With a brief respite from five a.m.-induced bad math of my own and a need to post something, let's go with this: I'm on the hunt for a new poker-themed spammer, who's been pumping and pimping for a piece of shit called Poker Bot Max. I think I know the responsible party, but I'm still digging at this one. All I'll say for a start is that I've managed to get the home page --- pokerbotmax.org --- yanked down. It'll come back up elsewhere in the near future, but that'll give me another target.

This ass hit one of my e-mail accounts dozens of time in a spam-attack wave, rendering it temporarily useless, so now I'm playing whack-a-mole. I'll have much more on him in the future, but if you have additional information to offer, feel free to send it to me.

As a way-funny aside, have you seen the new site put up by Ray Bornert II, of Winholdem bot infamy? Our Oral Roberts-trained bad-bot maker now has a site called pokerprofessional.com --- which has no explanatory info, just a huge "Download" link on its main page, like a big bottle of poison that reads "Drink Me." Ray, Ray, Ray.

Idle games for a Thursday, and a bad, bad mood. Life tilt. I go now.

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Awright, I'm in






Get Flash



I play poker at Poker.com

Smaller, underrated, but growing site. Good software, even if their banner never seems to work on the first try. (Next time, Shane, will ya send me all of the code? That's what you get for censoring my very clever aside about fixing those barking tickets --- and for the rest of you, you'll just have to wonder.)

And as for everyone else, if you're interested in the Blogger Poker Tour but don't have an account... well.. wait, what's that? Is that a click-through affiliate banner offering a generous sign-up bonus, over there on the left? Why, how did that get there?

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Hellus Frozeus Overus

Back to defend at Wil's weekly WWdN tourney, and this does not capture the final table standings:



We actually chopped it three ways, for $142 each, in my case just because I wanted to chop a WWdN, and watch Wil open up his "subspace channel" to Stars support. That'll probably mess up Joanne's report, though it was good to see her cash, and my God, was that a fearsome final two tables of blogger types to have to face. Special props go to Iakaris, who I view as one of the very best new blogger-players in these tourneys and cashes in these things at about twice the frequency I do (and who writes too damned uncomfortably well, too), and poor Biggestron, who ran afoul of my ridiculous card rush at the bubble, not once but twice, to bubble. Sorry, sir.

In unrelated matters, yes, I know my links area is due for an update, and one is in the works. Right now my WCOOP-snoop duties have me up until between 3 and 6 a.m. for the next two weeks, so the schedule's a bit out of sync. I have a couple of new poker crosswords started, too, but I don't know when I'll find the hours to finish them up. Not for a week or two, it seems.

What's funny is that I have lots of new poker content to share. But it's appoaching 3:30 aye-em (an early night, in relative terms), and I need some sleep. Ta, all.

Sunday, September 17, 2006

Behold the Wretched, in Two-Part Harmony

So there I was, night before last two mornings ago, sweating the final tables of the WCOOP Event #1, the $215 razz tourney. My current duties have me busy at the moment, temporarily dampening my output here, but as always, hang around --- there's more a -comin'. As for the WCOOO, these have been fun tourneys to watch, and probably even more fun to play --- Event #1 brought in more than two-and-a-half times the expected players, based on the pre-tourney guarantee. Who won it and how the final table went down, well, go on over to pokernews.com for that report.

Now to regurgitate some of the blecch-hh I absorbed as well. First, a hearty raspberry to that segment of the poker populace who proved once again why railbird chat has to be banned from the final tables. As usual, any time a big-name player goes deep, the idiots emerge on the screen, like worms arising from oversaturated ground. In this one, both Greg Raymer and Joe Hachem made extended runs, and when Raymer went out near the bubble, the dreck and the trolling in the Hachem-table chat window reached almost Ivey- or Matusow-like (as occasionally seen on Full Tilt) proportions.

I'm always amazed at the people who talk about the players --- as they're playing --- as some sort of objet d'art, with nary a concern in the world. Ugly, self-indulgent, puerile stuff, and to date no online site has come up with a well-defined solution for dealing with this sort of chat-dreck overflow... other than to shut the whole thing off.

There's got to be a better solution, such as allowing non-participating chatters x-number of comments in any single window --- five, to pick a number from the air --- before they're auto-blocked from further disruption of the greater good. Truthfully, it'll never happen.

But it's still nice to dream.

Wretched the Second Part has to go to Bluff, for their gawdawful final-table webcast, the first of 18 that we're threatened with in the two weeks to come. You'll notice the link to the pending broadcast on the main tournament window (unless they deep-six this meaningless stuff in the meantime, which would be an improvement). Should you venture there, be afraid. Be very afraid.

An open note to those involved: Uh, guys, it's really a good idea to give the system a once-through from the locations you're going to try to connect from, before going live with it. And the Radio Shack stuff doesn't work.

This "broadcast" featured an almost neverending collection of dropped connections, insane loop feedback, wandering tonal quality... and when all that stuff started to get handled a little bit better, absolutely non-insightful final-table commentary. It started out featuring one of the Stars reps and was supposed to have Chris Moneymaker on color, but they didn't manage to get Moneymaker on until halfway through --- and when the first announcer also dropped off early in the broadcast (he announced his name once, but it came through garbled), Nick Geber jumped in and did an emergency replacement broadcast for a few short minutes. As far as Geber's stuff went, it was actually concise and to the point, an explanation of relative chip counts, a bit on why and how some of the hands were being played --- in short, okay stuff.

But soon enough, it was back to the non-explanatory Stars rep and (finally) Moneymaker, who self-admitted that he doesn't play a lot of razz and sounded exhausted to the point of slurring his words. One of the final-table players (solody) reported via chat that a friend said Moneymaker sounded drunk, and added in a "You drunk, Chris?" line later on, but that didn't seem to be it --- it just seemed like someone who'd hit that wall of exhaustion: Moneymaker had his own busy event schedule, and played for several hours earlier in this one himself. It sounded like Chris was all but falling asleep on the mike --- and it made for not-too-insightful commentary, just a rote dispensing of some intro- and intermediate-level razz basics. The Stars guy? Well, he might as well have not been there, for what he added of meaning to the mix. Bring back Geber!

But here's the most inane part of all: Beyond the terrible production quality and the non-informative commentary, the broadcast filled no useful purpose. Due to overestimating the short delay necessary to keep the announcers from accidentally commenting on something that could affect play --- a commentator's pre-requisite that Greg Raymer ran afoul of inhis own first gig two nights later, when the time-delay had been shortened precipitously --- what the commentators were talking about and referring to was always two or three hands behind the hand being played. And since almost everyone who was listening was watching the final table anyhow (because that's how they found out about the 'cast in the first place), they could see what was going on themselves. On the flip side, for a newbie just trying to learn about razz, it was useless in the other way --- he would have have been unable to pickup additional strategy tips from watching the cards and listening to the talk, since if the talk had something insightful to point out, the hand itself was long gone from the main-screen view. Fortunately, insightful talk was never threatened.

Wretched stuff, through and through. A "because we can" moment, courtesy of Bluff.

And one late note: I've listened to the the first three of these final-table broadcasts, and they have improved. The second night's commentary, featuring Italy's Luca Pagano, was often bass-distorted to the point of unintelligibility, and only on night three did the worst of the tech problems seem to have handled. The time delay has also been chopped, though Greg Raymer, referred to above, probably ensured that it won't be chopped any further. Raymer managed not once, but twice, to talk about individual player's decisions in a way that had the potentional to affect their future play. Raymer's understated and direct commentary was actually most refreshing and the best of the three nights to dat, but he has hasn't quite picked up the broadcaster's trickof addressing specifics by referring to them in oblique generalities. Well, hang in there, Greg.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Proof Positive That Blind Pigs DO Find Acorns

A most unusual sight:



All I can say is, "At last!" After never having climbed higher than 5th or so in this event, I took down Wil's weekly WWdN tourney, this one being "The Bdidde Invitational." The usual description applies --- my miracle was a key 6-out suckout against Frankl66 just to get to the final table, then winning two key races when things got to the end. Good cards and one fortunate-timed Hammer bluff didn't hurt, either.

As usual, this tournament featured a collection of way-tough blogger types, so this win just reduces my -EV record a bit, I suspect. It feels good, nonetheless. Thanks to Byron for the rooting! And thanks to Wil and all the others who hung around to sweat the end of the final table. Quite the blast, as always. It had been a few weeks since I was able to attend the WWdN, but I hope to be back on at least a semi-regular basis.

A Single-Question Quiz:

Please review the following list of two-word titles:

Friendship Attachment
Painstakingly Offstage
Stopping Position
Pulpit Congressman
Sly Safe
Scuba Revelation
Plump Psychic
Forensic Oxford
Pate Curiosity
Inadvertently Proper
Above Native
Frankly Surrounding
Sausage Great
Alarmingly Laden
Small Snowbound
Secretive Protection
Tropical Vital
Valiantly Favored
Case Rooster
Descent Feature
Grudgingly Drawn
Morph Slide
Perpetual Airline
Strong Pulpy
Current Scratch
Frankly Male
Proudly Conducive
Get Schedule
Culinary Epiphany
Relative Score
Impromptu Chatter
Eventually Best
Picnic Necklace
Palm Patsy
Animation Finding
Sly View
Metro Fountain
Octagonal Password
Language Creativity
Lace Gossip
Wakefulness Center
Bitterly Sixteen
Comical Lover
Puffy Breezeway
Afterwards Skinny
Raptor Shy
Indoors Enormous
Plain Golf
Fearlessly Same
Imperturbably Tangled
Dew Ovation
Apologetic Vacuum
Sushi Lindy

And now the question...

Is this selection of two-word names:

A) The complete selection of May, 2004 Epsom Downs horseracing winners;

B) The roster of shades for the soon-to-be-release "Attitude d'Felt" poker-themed nail-polish line;

C) A collection of "house drink" names from London's Soho district;

D) The listing of non-generic ring-game tables available at Tony G Poker.

I can't really rule out A or C (I made B up), but the answer for sure is D. Yes, at Tony G Poker, you can sit down for a lively game at "Current Scratch," which happens to be a $0.50/1.00 NL Hold'Em table with a $150 max buy-in.

I've had fun with table-name themes on previous occasions, but I have to admit this collection is special, even as we can all admit that it's getting harder to come up with anything new. In this case, I'm guessing two guys got stoned, wrote down a whole bunch of words on scraps of paper, then drew them out two at a time to produce the selection you see above.

Which is kind of a shame, you see. I was so looking forward to some "Strong Pulpy" nail polish.

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

RESPOND AS SOON AS POSSIBLE

Dear Friend, I am MRS. SUHA ARAFAT Mr. Jamie Gold, the wife of late YASSER ARAFAT newly crowned World Champion of Poker, the Palestinian leader whose public image died in Paris Las Vegas. Since his death my win and even prior to the announcement unwarranted Leyser lawsuit, I have been thrown into a state of antagonism, confusion, humiliation, frustration and hopelessness by the present leadership of the Palestinian Liberation Worldwide Poker Media Organizations and the new Prime Minister deed of the evil WPT Boot Camp instructor. I have even been subjected to physical and psychological torture. As an widow honorable Hollywood talent agent that is so traumatized, I have lost confidence with everybody in the country at the moment. You view this website: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3965541.stm http://www.hottestmominamerica.com/. You must have heard over the media reports and the Internet on the discovery holding of some funds in my husband secret bank Harrah's poker disbursement account and the allegations of some huge sums of money deposited by my husband Harrah's in my name of which I have refused to disclose or give up to the corrupt Palestine Government infidel Leyser. In fact the total sum allegedly discovered coveted by the Government Leyser minions so far is in the tune of about $6.50 BMillion Dollars. And they are not relenting on their effort to make me poor for life. As you know, the Muslem poker community has no regards for woman welshers, more importantly when the woman welsher is from a Christian Hollywood cum New Jersey background, hence my desire for a foreign your assistance. I have deposited the sum of Fourty-Three million dollars with a Diplomatic Security firm in Europe Costa Rica whose name is withheld for now until we open proper and full communication I have created a shell corporation to protect myself from U.S. tax considerations. I shall be grateful if you could receive this fund into your bank account for safe keeping and any Investment opportunity. This arrangement should be known to you and I alone and all our correspondence should be strictly on email alone because our government the poker media has tapped all my lines and are monitoring all my moves. In view of the above, if you are willing to assist for our mutual benefits, we will have to negotiate on your Percentage share of the $43,000,000.00 that will be kept in your possession for a while and invested in your name for my trust pending when my Daughter, Zahwa new show, "Hottest Mom in America," will come of age eclipse "American Idol" in the ratings and take full responsibility of her Family Estate/inheritance make me so rich people will say, "Simon who??" Please note that this is a golden opportunity that comes once in life time and more so, if you are honest, I am going to entrust more funds in your care as this new show is one of the legacy we keep for our children. In case you don't accept please do not let me out to the security and international poker media as I am giving you this information in total trust and confidence I will greatly appreciate if you accept my proposal in good faith. Please expedite action. And you can never reach me anytime on my private email, but your people can call mine after you send some money. : suaraf77@yahoo.fr Yours sincerely, Mrs.Suha Arafat Mr. Jamie Gold.