Dirty River Poker

New 2010 Standings

2010-07-15T19:02:00.001-05:00

2010 Standings

Final Tournament of '2009'

2010-02-11T09:17:00.002-06:00

Well, afternoon backing out of our date to allow those to play a local poker tournament, and around free poker, football, etc., we're ready to finally close out the 2009 season!!

Sunday, March 7th, @ 1:00 pm, a nice - hopefully big - 2 pt event. With 30 players, 1st can take 36 pts out of the event, easily qualifying for the playoff with just this one event.

Plans are to have the playoffs on March 27th with the Championship April 18th or 25th. Hope to finalize the 27th as a for sure before the 7th, but for now ... it's on!!!

Structure on the 7th is a $10,000 chip count with a bit longer levels, including the 500/100, 1200/2400 levels.

Playoff Discussion

2009-12-15T12:05:00.005-06:00

There has been some discussion in the past of 'opening up' our Championship. Obviously this a very two-edged sword. Those who compete to get in, might feel like something is being taken away from them if someone is allowed, simply by putting more money in, to buy-in their way in.

On the other hand, there would be a much bigger prizepool as well to compete for, potentially.

Based on first half standings, 50 pts was about 13th, and 30 points was about 30th. Based on the prizepool, without the $40 entry for the Championship, the seats for the 18 person Championship were worth approximately $150, and since, at our playoff we gave 1 out of 3 people seats to the Championship, they were worth approximately $50.

Here are some proposals:

Allow anyone to pay the $40 + $50 to play the playoff. Again, we advance 1 out of every 3 players.

Allow only those who have played at least one tournament in that session to pay $40 + $50 to play.

Allow anyone to pay $40 + $20 penalty (for not making the top 30) + $xx determined by vaule of $50/number of points for 30th place. In a case where 30th was 25 points, each point would be worth $2. Therefore someone with 10 points would pay $40 + $20 + $30 to play. Someone not playing at all would pay $40+$20+$50. Someone missing the cut by 1 point would pay $40+$20+$2.

And the final option, at least here, would be the same as the last one, except, again, only allowing those who have played at least one tournament in the session to participate.

Thoughts are very welcome!!!!

Standings

2009-12-15T12:03:00.001-06:00

2009 Standings

2009 Second Half

Upcoming Tournaments

2009-12-15T12:02:00.003-06:00

December 19th, Saturday, 1 pm is our next tournament. $40 is the buy-in.

Scroll down for the Standings post.

The next two tournaments after this will be January 3rd and January 23rd.

Congratulations to Jelly!!

2009-12-11T19:07:00.002-06:00

Jelly brushed aside 16 other competitors to capture the first place prize at our first 2009 DRP Championship. Bjorn was runner-up with Nick and NosCat rounding out the top 4.

Jelly will probably play a WSOP event this summer, hopefully being able to join 2 other competitors from the second 2009 Championship.

Championship This Coming Sunday

2009-11-29T16:56:00.003-06:00

December 6th, we will wrap up the 1st Championship of 2009. 1:00 pm at 3421 19th ST.

15,000 in starting chips with 75/150 starting level with 35 minute blinds.

100/200, 150/300, 200/400, 250/500, etc.

Scroll down a couple posts to see the 2009 and 2009-2 standings.

We'll see everyone soon.

Right now, I would plan on December 19th, January 3rd, January 23rd being the dates of the next 3 tournaments.

Championship Date Change

2009-11-03T19:51:00.003-06:00

Because of a large number of the players wanting to play the River Cities Showdown tournament (2 days) on November 14th, we are in the process of moving the date for the Championship to Sunday, the 6th of December. I am contacting each person involved individually to make sure there will not be any conflicts. More updates will follow.

November 15th Championship

2009-10-22T14:41:00.002-05:00

Our 18 player Championship of the 2009 1st half is coming up on November 15th, Sunday, at 1:00.

All players are starting with 15,000 in chips. Blinds will start at 75/150, 35 minute rounds. There will be a 250/500 level plus all the other levels that will make blinds double every 3rd round.

Remember, the top 12 still have to buy-in for this tournament, the wild card qualifiers have already done so.

Updates will be coming with the location.

Standings

2009-10-20T16:16:00.001-05:00

2009 Standings

2009 Second Half

Website Disabled ... for now

2009-10-20T15:59:00.002-05:00

Well, the website was disabled, long story short. So, I'm going to try to just do this for awhile again and cut and paste standings and send out the link and so on.

Next tournament will be November 1st, a 12:30 start at PB & J's house. This is going to be a $60 buy-in, $7500 chip start. We will be looking to have the same number of tournaments, or so, to even out the 1st and 2nd half pools. This has been an extremely hectic year for everyone and it really seems to be difficult to schedule tournaments without too much conflict.

Along with that was the struggles to schedule the playoff and Championship. The Championship is set to be November 15th, 1:00 pm. $15,000 starting stack for everyone, 75/150 starting blinds, 40 minute blinds**.

Also, we are looking at getting a tournament in either on November 13/14 or weekend of November 20, plus December 6th. River Rat is running a 2 wk session for the Vegas HPT on the weekend of the 20th, plus December 13th weekend, with the freeroll the following weekend.

So chances are likely that are final tournament of the second half will very likely be in January, and we'll just have to look ahead as best we can and set the playoff for an off date in February - (13, 20, 21).

Other than all this - hope to see you this Sunday at PB & J's!

Long, Long Time

2008-08-14T21:02:00.000-05:00

So I see the last entry was about Event #6 - WOW. So I suppose one could say I took an early summer vacation?

I guess truth be told, just like a lot of people, poker becomes a sidebar at times. Granted, for me a sidebar is not nearly the same as it might be for many others. I still make an effort to play, but don't necessarily press the issues. 3 kids, married life, work, travel, you name it - they all take their toll.

Since April 1st, here's a quick rundown of all things poker that I can think of. I started, briefly, the free poker again in Fargo, but after suffering 3 long weeks of dead cards, I decided to save the rest of my bad luck for Vegas, which went about as well. 2 tournaments, 2 coin flips lost. I hate coin flips to begin with, but sometimes they become unavoidable. The cash games were about as good. The first session, 2nd hand I get dealt KK and run into AA - yeah, you all know the story. So, Vegas trip = about -$500 in poker, thankfully some good picks in the sportsbook make it a nearly even weekend for gambling.

Truthfully, the trip was partially paid for with a couple decent hits online (one of which I busted 6th for $550 with KK that lost to KQ for 1/3 the chips in play - first was $2,700) and time spent working instead of playing poker. So all in all, as much as I truly whine about poker, it has been good to me and I should smile - right? If only we could all have a rosy view.

Well, Dirty River is looking up for me, and the fall is almost here. Life might settle down one of these days, I might even move to Fargo to avoid energy costs, which I'm sure if anybody wants to hear my opinion on, they will.

I'll try to make my next post much sooner than the 4 1/2 months it took to make this, lol.

Event #6

2008-04-01T12:21:00.000-05:00

Well, the 1st quarter came to an end and the 2nd quarter started with a 31 entrant, 1.5 pt event. There were quite a few players who could make a run at the top 10, and 4 did, only 2 would make it though.

Cowboy would begin to make his run early on and keep it rolling, at one time winning a pot with KK vs 4 other pocket pairs - 2 of which were QQ. He would keep it going well into the final table.

Be Love (Bert), although not in top 10 contention, would make a huge run too thanks to a fortunate river. Be Love limped for 400 and the blinds called. Flop is 846 and Peanut Butter leads from the BB only to get reraised by Be Love to about 2500. Peanut Butter moves his final 4900 in and Be Love calls with top pair top kicker A8, but Peanut Butter had flopped top/bottom with 48. Turn brought a K and the river brought a 6 to give Be Love a better 2 pair with 8866A vs 8866K. His legs would get chopped out later when his KK ran into Nick G's AA. That hand propelled Nick G up the ladder to make a run at the top 10. He would need to finish 1st to get in though.

Be Love, in the meantime, got a good chunk of chips back through Big Slick. Be Love raised fairly standard preflop and Big Slick called. Big Slick checked a T98 board with 2 diamonds. Be Love bet and Big Slick moved all-in and Be Love called. Be Love showed QQ with the Q of diamonds and Big Slick showed 88 for a flopped set. The turn was a 3rd diamond, now giving Be Love about 13 outs and he got there twice with the J of diamonds on the river.

Ruby Cube came into the tournament needed 5 places within the points and let it all hand out when he got it in after the flop with just AQ against a pair of 2's, but a Q came on the river to save him and he used that to grind his way all the way to a 6th place cash and a cruel outing after his TT lost to K9 on runner runner flush.

Andy N was the final entrant who would make a run, laying low for much of the tournament, and this huge hand set up the heads up match. With about 4 left, Nick G, Andy, Cowboy, and Tallywacker, Cowboy had over 50% of the chips in play and it looked as if nothing would stop him, until Andy moved in with Ducks and Cowboy called with AK. J66 flop, 9 turn, river blank, and Andy doubled up to around 80K, and after Cowboy eliminated Nick in 4th, and Andy eliminated Tally in 3rd, Andy would have around 100K to Cowboy's 130K. As it turned out, the winner and only the winner would get into the top 10. And this is how the final hand played out. Andy checked from the BB as Cowboy completed to 8K. Andy checked the A56 flop and Cowboy bet 15K, Andy called. Turn brings a 3rd club, a 6 of clubs. Again, Andy checks and Cowboy bets 25K, and then Andy moves all-in. With 96K, about 40% of the total, in the pot, Cowboy called with AJ, J of clubs and Andy showed 64. No club, no Ace on the river and Andy won the tournament and moved into 9th, just ahead of Cornhusker, who ended 0.5 pts ahead of Cowboy.

We will try to work out a date for the top 10 that works for KTK, Shipmann, Rob W, Kramer, Peanut Butter, Ruby Cube, Andy N, Cornhusker, Tallywacker, and Texas, and they will compete for a couple tournament seats.

The 2nd quarter, as well, will be an invitational tournament for the top 10 for a couple HPT quality tournament seats.

Next tournament is April 27th, a 2.5 pt event.

Saturday's Results

2008-03-17T09:37:00.000-05:00

A looooong day of poker ended up having Wolf winning the Pineapple nightcap after Nick G took home 1st in the early Hold-em.

Don't know if it was because of 2 tournaments, the early start, or whatever, but we had 30 show for the first tournament and 23 for the 2nd, a little bit less than anticipated.

Both final tables were marked by very even chip stacks and there was never a favorite for winner until they won their final hand.

Both tournaments were also marked by all different entrants in the money as well, which considering the tournament was a bit surprising, although there were a good number who played only one or the other.

Congratulations to all those players.

1st quarter is wrapping up and there are 16 people who are within 20 pts of 10th place. With 40 people at the next tournament, a cash is worth 24 pts, and could vault someone into the top 10 with a little luck.

This will also kick off the 2nd quarter, which will go through June 22nd.

There is no date set, as of yet, for the 1st quarter championship. It will be at the convenience of the individual players.

The 2nd quarter and the 3rd quarter championship are tenatively scheduled for the Sundays after those quarters respective final tournaments. There are a large number of people heading to Vegas at the end of June, and the Mille Lacs HPT is back in September.

March 30th is the next tournament, a 1.5 pt event.

Slackin'

2008-03-02T12:59:00.000-06:00

Yes, it's been a month and a half, 2 Dirty River events, Dead Money Open, Dirty River Championship, and yesterday's benefit tournament for Kayla Dumas.

So, we might as well begin with the first of them all, the Dead Money Open. Not much to say about this tournament as all but a very few, and all the regulars, got skunked. First big hand I saw was Jareb's KK getting tangled up with AA preflop. Jareb was out the door. In the meantime, in other rooms, Scott lost to flopped set over set, Seth lost with Jacks full on the flop to Kings full after KK caught up after the money went in. Pete lost after the first break with AA to QQ, Horner lost later in tournament with QQ vs 99. Overall, a fabulous day. My sob story? A preflop raise from 300 to 900 and I call with 88 and we get another caller to see a 3 way flop. Flop is 842, 2 clubs. Original raiser leads for 1800 and I move in for another 4,650. After a loooooong deliberation on the raiser's part, he calls with 99c. Turn Ac, River Kc, and I'm out the door. UGH. I felt I was playing so well too, that I really didn't need a call, although anytime you're better than 9-1, you obviously want that call.

Next tournament played was the first 1.5 pt event of the year for DRP. Again, we got over 40 to show for the event, and when it was all said and done, Fishhooks bested Tallywacker, who was by far the quietest at the final table, heads up with K6 vs Tally's JJ. It was just that sort of day for Fishhooks.

But of course the big show happened another week later as the Dirty River Championship went off. Fireworks happened immediately as Jelly reraised Rubycube preflop to 2000. Ruby made the call and the flop came T high, both checked and a J came off on the turn. The money made it's way in and Ruby spiked a J to make a set of J's to best Jelly's pocket AA. Next to take a huge hit was Bin2win when he made a lower flush against AceTen. Bin flopped open-ended and a flush draw and bet only to be reraised big by AceTen with 2 overs and a flush draw. The turn card brough the club and they got it all in. Big Slick busted with TT to Kramer's KQ which caught 4 diamonds and Rubycube made a move on Kramer with a flush draw, but Kramer had unfortunately caught two pair Aces and sixes. Cowboy wasn't able to make it and Peanut Butter was the only one to bust at the 2nd table before we combined to the final table.

Kramer, Blondie, Tim F, Cornhusker, NosCat, KTK, AceTen, General, Texas, and Lefty were our final 10. Because of all the action on the one table, those players had a decent chip advantage vs some of the others. General, Texas, and Cornhusker were all extremely short and in very short succession, General, Texas, and Cornhusker went down. Cornhusker's hand, although not a lot of chips, was dramatic when his AT couldn't catch Lefty's KK - because of not just one, but two more on the flop. After these bustouts, the stacks were all very deep, with the chip leader being Tim F around 55K, followed by Kramer at 37K, with AceTen, Lefty, Noscat, and KTK all in the 25K to 30K range. That all changed in a hurry when Blondie raised UTG and Kramer reraised from the big blind and Blondie moved in. Kramer called with AA and Blondie had KK. No help came and Blondie busted big in 7th place. All of a sudden bubble play began in a hurry ... but would last for nearly 3 hours.

After about 1 hour of bubble play, the chip stacks began to look dramatically different, and told an interesting tale of how play was beginning to unfold. In order around the table: Kramer - 84K, Tim F - 36K, NosCat - 19K, KTK - 18K, AceTen - 23K. It became an all-in fest between NosCat and KTK for the next hour until KTK was eliminated on the bubble. By this time, Lefty had made a serious move to 104K in chips during bubble play. At this point, play progressed fairly quickly again because of the huge disparity in chips. NosCat would be next out, followed by AceTen, and finally by Tim F.

Kramer and Lefty worked out a deal that both will be playing $1500+ events, including Kramer the $1500 WSOP event.

Good Luck to both those and Tim F, KTK, and NosCat with their HPT/similar seats.

Sunday Happenings!

2008-01-15T10:24:00.000-06:00

Two tournaments were played on Sunday. First, Event #1 of the 2008 season was played at 1:00. 44 people showed up and at the end, Tomi H and newcomer Rick S battled for 1st. First Rick doubled through, Tomi, then Tomi doubled through Rick before Tomi and Rick got them all in again with Tomi's A3 needing to catch up with Rick's A7. On the turn, it did in a big way when she made a straight. No 3 on the river meant Tomi won Event #1 and begins the year with 25 pts, going a long ways towards the 1st quarter Invitational and even a good start to the Yearly standings.

Event #2 will be a 1.5 pt tournament on the 2nd, Saturday, of February at 1:00

The 2nd tournament was the 18-person Qualifier for the final 4 spots into the Championship. 15 players showed and the big hands drove the play. Tomi's 45 flopped the wheel when Bjorn flopped 2 pair with A2. Cowboy caught quads. Matt B and Scott K got them all in on a Q high board with 11 players left. Both had KQ, Matt B was freerolling with KQc with one club on the board. The improbably became reality as the board went runner-runner club to make our final table. Tomi, Bjorn, and Cory B busted fairly early at the final table to leave Cornhusker, Tim F, Slinger, Tallywacker, Big Slick, Matt B, and Cowboy.

Tallywacker would knock out Slinger with KQ against 99, the Q coming after the board ran out T763. Tallywacker would then bust after seeing a 4 handed flop of 653 with AJ and Big Slick holding 52. Matt B would be our Championship bubble as his A9 hit on an AK7 flop, but Tim F was holding pocket 7's to win the hand.

Good luck to everyone on the 10th of February as you battle for the 5 prizes, including the WSOP seat!

Healthcare - Part II

2008-01-10T12:11:00.000-06:00

Cost: When you get sick, or you feel a twinge in a muscle, or wake with a sore neck, what is one of your first thoughts? Besides the basic "I could really do without feeling like crap" I think "How much are they going to charge me if I go to the Dr.?" This thought includes knowing the amount of your copay, to not knowing other things such as cost of lab tests, cost of prescriptions, unknown costs. It's no wonder that we don't like to go to the Dr.! I realize it's not a simple proposal to figure out what is wrong physically with a patient, but isn't there some way to give us an idea how much something will cost before we have to commit?

One of the biggest negatives of a Nationalized/Universal Health Care system is the idea that the free market provides the absolute best cost savings for products. While I am a wholehearted believer in this idea, this is only true when one knows exactly what they are getting and they know the value of it before they are forced to buy it. As we've seen recently with energy sales, the price of a product is not necessarily driven by the actual cost of the product. Far from it, it's driven much more by the demand and need of that product by the consumer. Profits in the energy sector have ballooned because at every level of distribution and sale, they are able to take a huge markup in price because no one is able to question it because of the need of the product and the inability to compete with the person selling the product.

Imagine yourself in the desert, stranded, completely unable to get to any place that offers you relief from the thirst and heat. Now imagine someone comes along and offers you a glass of water. The value of the water is low, but because you need it so badly, they are able to offer you an exorbitant rate on that water. Note: I use need here and not demand. Demand, in my mind, conveys a completely different idea. An idea that a good or service you are offering is a completely discretionary expense by your customer, and therefore you have to actually compete for their business. Need conveys that the customer cannot go without a certain product and the only competition becomes who sells them a good or service.

Probably foremost in my mind of the current cost of health care, is insurance. Not what I pay, but what the hospital or clinics pay. What they have to pay for malpractice protection. What is that cost to me when I receive treatment of any kind? Is the cost of the insurance passed on to the treatment for which it's specifically intended or is spread over the entirety of the business as an overhead? Prescription drugs, hospital equipemnt, and basic material also have to have some sort of insurance or hospital grade attached to them. Are all these things the largest cost of my bill? If they are, what can be done to reduce them without reducing quality of care? Would it be viable to be able to sign waivers to reduce your cost of care? Obviously these are questions I have no answer for, but may be the single largest contribution to the ballooning of costs in the medical field today.

Next in cost would be the salary and benefits of it's employees. Definitely always a rising cost, is it something that can be looked at as being out of line in some sectors? Not nursing or staffing, but specialists and especially executives. I do believe in being able to set your own worth, and therefore I have an issue with any talk of curtailing salaries, but at what point does something become that exorbitant, especially concerning executive salaries. Can there be more diligence taken in the hiring of these positions so as to not have to pay these large salaries?

Every year, we continue to have advanced technology in every form of medicine. Because we have new technologies, are the old ones obsolete? Or, is it feasible to have levels of care to give the customers choice: Instead of using the brand new technology, use the 2 year old technology. How much choice should we give a consumer that cannot comprehend the complete picture of his or her own problem?

Finally, accountability of costs. If there is no checks and balances for the cost of a product to the consumer, does the hospital/clinic necessarily care what the item costs them, or can they simply mark the item up a comfortable amount. How many times from the manufacturer to the end user does each item receive a markup? Tougher standards in showing the actual cost of a product all along the line could be a good first step in keeping costs from rising too dramatically.

To be honest, I'm not sure where to go to solve the problem. But the first step must be to have people agree that the current situation is a problem. Whatever we do, we must start now. A basic form of Universal care that covers the basics but implements regulations and cost controls on other aspects of the system could possibly work. I do believe we're past the point of saying that controlling costs of the healthcare system through free market forces is the best way to go. Those who use this argument are either reciting a standard line without additional knowledge or are currently benefitting from the current system.

How can so many other industrialized/Western nations provide basic healthcare for their citizenry and we are stuck with THIS???

Healthcare - Part I

2008-01-09T18:59:00.000-06:00

Preface: As I began writing this I realized I was and wanted to write about these subjects without putting in or quoting any research from news or other public sources in forming any opinion or question because I believe that's how the majority of Americans would contemplate the questions posed and the issues faced by themselves and their peers.

Well, why not start big? Personally, I view Healthcare as the biggest of all the major issues. The cost of insurance plans have continued to have double digit increase for many of the past 7 years, thus doubling the cost while wages have not typically doubled for the same job over that span - especially in the Red River Valley. I have a family of 5, and the cost of my insurance plan including employer contribution, has ballooned to over $10,000. So BCBSND receives 1 stack of high society every year in an effort to protect me from calamitous ruin due to an unforeseen hospital bill. On the surface, that gives me a very sick feeling seeing that number. But that, in my opinion is far from the worst of it. Each time we visit the Dr. we see a $20 bill. Then we have prescription drug costs, lab tests, and this year, maternity ward costs. So in addition to our upfront costs - which at least are pre-tax dollars, we have out-of-pocket expenses that, although aren't enormous, are sometimes difficult to deal with - and this is as a family that is by all means very, very healthy. I look at my situation and feel we probably have a best case scenario - supposedly. I see many, many other families that would have a much harder time - be it financially or physically - than us when it comes to paying and receiving quality healthcare. I'm sure this is only 1 of many different anecdotes that our leaders have to consider. So what are the issues? How can we solve them.

#1 issue: Cost. From the first visit, to each test, to each and every drug you take, why and how is the cost to the consumer determined? This is absolutely the first big hurdle that has to be tackled. Is it due to their own liability insurance at each and every level of business? Is it due to rising salary costs? Is it due to rising material costs? How about executive salaries? Better technology but at what cost?

#2 issue: Availability. How do we get everyone who needs treatment for an ailment what they need? Why do so many in America not have insurance?

#3 issue: Preventive issues. Are there programs that can be implemented to reduce the need?

#4 issue: Effectiveness of care. From pills prescribed to treatment in a facility, are we getting the best care?

Obviously most of the latter issues deal with a monetary issue as well, but are a little more in depth to their respective topics than just plain 'how much'?

To delve into each issue quickly at first, I'll look at the bottom first and work up.

Effectiveness of Care: If I would decide to go without health insurance, would I receive the same level of treatment? Even with health insurance are the poor treated differently in the current system because they may be seen as risk to not being able to pay for certain treatments? There are many who believe this is most assuredly the case with the current system, and if so, then the system needs to change. At least to the point they are told why they are not receiving the same quality of care. Risk and reward is part of our lives as poker players and I think most of us understand a gamble, but we want to know as much information before we put our chips in the pot as well. If there are 'generic' options that cost less, give me the information to decide if it saves me money, but there has to be an incentive to taking this option if I'm on a healthcare insurance plan.

Prevention. From a national standpoint, to state, local, corporate, and personal, I think most of America has failed in this regard. The lack of incentives (since obviously just plain good health is not incentive enough) at each level has led to a ballooning for the need for various heathcare items that could be avoided. Obesity - to whatever extent, is one of the leading causes for needing healthcare. Could there not be corporate, state, or federal incentives for joining health clubs, achieving certain levels of body fat %, weight status, cholesterol levels, etc.? If a company (and IBM has done a program along these lines and seen huge savings) were to give incentive to their employees - monetary bonuses - to achieve certain levels of weight loss/status, do you not think employees would take advantage of such a program? Why does everyone in my health care group get the same insurance rate when I have been more healthy as a general rule than them? This is how car insurance works, why not health care?

Availability: From the homeless to the reckless college student to the working poor, there are many in America without health insurance for one reason or another. But most all of us agree, that every person needs some form of basic coverage. However, once again, we mostly disagree on the definition of basic as well. From my knowledge, most states do provide healthcare for children from poorer families. These leaves the adults and why they are without healthcare. One debate I cannot begin to accept is that there are 40 million people in America without insurance because they cannot afford it. After looking recently at health plans, there were some basic plans for just $100 a month and there are catastrophic/disability coverages for less. Yes, that can still be a lot of money for some, but not all 40 million of those that are uninsured. Could it be that many Americans are choosing to gamble without health insurance for a certain amount of time and pay for the expenses out of pocket? I believe more and more everyday are taking this route because of their and others experiences with the current health system.

I'll continue with Part II shortly or in a day or two, the subject of which will be the cost of medical items, insurance, and procedures. I will also try to formulate a theory or two to get my mind working on what could possibly be down to help solve this issue.

Political Rants

2008-01-09T10:29:00.000-06:00

Everybody realizes this is for the most part, a poker blog, but it is also a blog for myself as well. And because my mind works in absolutely mysterious ways, I'm going to put a few political topics up, after all, it is the season!

I am actually going to try to present the topic journalistically, and have no political affiliation. This does not mean that I won't necessarily support one side of the issue, but merely give differing views, as seen through my eyes, of different sides of the argument.

Maybe it gets people to think about the different topics, maybe it just helps my inner demons. Either way, you can review them, pass over them, comment on them, ridicule me, slam me, or ignore me. Either way, I hope you enjoy yourself!

Over .... For now

2008-01-08T09:02:00.000-06:00

Well, it ended for me last night. A quest for a 3rd straight FPN Fall Championship. In 2005 and in 2006 I was League Champion and had a bye straight to State. This year, the road was considerably more difficult this time, as it led through regionals at which they only advanced 10% of the field.

On top of that, I barely made it this far. I played league at Old Broadway this year, as did many of the others that I know. Of course, this makes the league more difficult in my mind - but this had been the case in the past 2 instances at the VFW in West Fargo and at JT Cigarro's. On paper, it looked good, making points 7 of the 14 (16 possible) weeks I played. But the problem was, I didn't go deep in the tournaments I pointed in, except the last two, which were the least attended. Therefore, I actually only made the regionals because of a double qualifier at the site.

That brings me to last night. I'd been playing pretty well lately and cards had been falling fairly well for me as well, so I was pretty confident coming in. My plan was to try to double up early to get myself safe from the jump from 100/200 to 200/400 that occurs right after the first break. First step towards that was this following hand. I have 32c UTG and limp for 100, the guy to my left makes it 400 and it's folded to me. I have to admit that this is probably not a play that normally should be made, however ... I decide to call 300 of my remaining 2900. Couple reasons: Flop hits me hard, it will be well disguised; second, I don't believe the kid necessarily had a great hand; third, he was invading - literally - my personal space at the table and I wasn't liking it (not a good reason obviously). Flop came out Kc5c3d and I checked to him. He bet 500 and I immediately but calmly said all-in. He proceeded to table ATo and said my K is good - as I show my hand. He was a bit upset that I called 400 preflop with that hand to say the least, but I was happy.

Next hand was the big one. AQs UTG, I limp for 150. Same kid makes it 500 to go, and the BB calls, and I call. Flop is 5s4s3h. First off, when I see this flop, I KNOW I will NOT be folding to any bet on the flop. BB leads for 700, I call (because of action behind) and raiser goes all-in for another 1,450. BB calls, I have around 3,200 total and decide to just call, leaving myself with enough chips if I don't hit. Ad comes on turn, and she checks. At this point there is 8,000 in the pot, and I really saw no point in putting the last 1,000 at risk if need be although I was 99% I was ahead - reasons for this have more to do with the player who checked. River is a blank and I scoop the pot against the BB KK as the raiser mucks (a pocket pair)

From this point though, thing got rough. I struggled to stay around 8,000 for much of the rest of the tournament, getting QQ once and stealing at 300/600, stealing with 45 at 300/600, all just to stay afloat. Then this hand that haunts me. Based on a personal read from a very recent hand, after the kid on the button made it 1800 total to go on my SB, I had A9c. Here's the mistake: Based on my read, I either move all-in here or fold. I call and the flop is KK5. Here's the problem with the flop: If I am to lead out, he most likely will not believe me and put pressure on me, if he bets, I have to put the rest of my chips at risk with a check-raise and be 100% right, but even if he has 33 he could call. Check-check on the flop, so when a 7 comes on the turn, I bet 1,500 but he min raises to 3000. I decide to fold, still feeling he's making a move, but I could still be behind. I leave myself with 3,800. Very next hand it's folded to me on the button and I move in with AJ, turns out it was a good time to look like I was steaming as I get called by AT out of the BB and I make a better 2 pair and move to 8,000. I steal from UTG with A9 and that sets this play up from the SB. UTG raises from 400/800 to 1800 and I have 33 in the SB. I decide to call and put pressure on him on the flop. Flop is K57 and I bet 1800, he deliberates but eventually moves in for another 1400 at which point I fold, knowing I'm beat leaving me with 4400. I really though he'd deliberate about the K (I hoped for an A actually) but still decided to move with his mid pocket pair.

We color up and move to another table with 24 left. I steal once with 78s to move to 6000 (blinds 500/1000) and then the final hand. After going through the BB, I am in the SB and it's folded to me. I have Q8d and I move in for 5,000 total, knowing the lady who has about 7500 total in the BB, has to have a great hand to call. Unfortunately she wakes up with AKd and I fail to improve.

The only hand I really regret how I played is the A9. I think the play in that situation was to fold, I lost 3,300 that I could have really used on the following hand! LOL - hindsight is always 20/20.

Hopefully, for me, things will still run even keel this weekend at Dirty River, after those 2 tournaments I'll decide about playing the Dead Money Open.

Good luck at the tables ... except against me!

'Best' Poker Players

2008-01-02T09:03:00.000-06:00

This has gone through my head at various times over the years: What makes a person a better poker player than anybody else? Does it have to do with starting hand selection, their bankroll, the stakes they play at, how often they play?

Over time, it has seemed to me, that no matter how 'good' you consider a player, any leak in their game can severely diminish their profit potential. But, again, should pure profit be the only mark to which we measure the ability of a player? In other words, if someone grinds, recreationally, at smaller stakes, and shows a consistent profit every year doing this - enough to pay for all costs in addition to some profit for pleasure - is that better than a player who, admittedly by the previous player, could beat him at nearly any game, but because of a leak in his game, does not show the profit of even the recreational player?

If the larger stakes player loses huge pots in games he has no business in, whether it be just because of the stakes, or the other players seated at the same table, that leak does not necessarily mean that we would consider one player worse than another. However, this one leak, is enough to keep this player from showing a potential profit.

What if you do have a very profitable player, but he cannot manage his money and is always broke? Obviously we don't consider him a poor poker player, but depending on the point in time, the money (we've all been here) can affect how one approaches a game, be it cash or tournament.

What if you have a profitable player, without a huge leak, but is going through various personal issues? Births, spouse problems, personal money, family deaths, etc. can all affect people differently, but in my experience are one of the biggest effects on a person's game.

In determining a 'good' poker player, do you completely separate the above issues from the actual play? Do you consider some but not others?

I've typically looked at a poker player as a 'whole' person. Someone who understands the game to a point that they can see all the angles, knows when they're over their head, realizes where their comfort zone is, realizes where their opponents comfort zones are, has the ability to take advantage of the weak players when they can be taken advantage of, has the ability to take advantage of the strong players when they are playing weak. But, in addition to their play, someone who can manage their personal life so that it does not have an affect on their game. Whether this is recreational, amateur, or professional, this ability is among the most important and yet most difficult to accomplish.

The margin for profit in any one game can be extremely small; no matter the stakes. One bad session can set anyone back weeks, months, or years. No one is above letting various things getting to them. Whether it's personal issues, their bankroll suffering, or just lack of confidence due to just plain bad luck, everyone has to go through these situations. Even the most accomplished pros will say that at some point in their live, maybe multiple times, they've gone broke.

None of us are as good as we think we are when things are going well and we're nowhere near as bad as we perceive ourselves to be when things don't go right. The ability to understand why things are how they are is nearly as important as understanding what your opponents cards are in any given hand.

The one thing I would love someone to figure out for all of us - Tell us how to switch from one frame of mind to the other, because when you're on the low end, it seems impossible to do until one day, it just 'happens' for you ...

Happy New Year!

2007-12-31T18:09:00.000-06:00

Another year is passed, the 5th year for Dirty River. Again, this was another year of growth for the league. This year consistently averaging nearly 40 players per game. Hopefully the ideas that we had at the beginning of 2007 will come to fruition in 2008.

In February, 5 of our players will be playing in tournaments of various buy-ins, including, potentially, a WSOP tournament. Then, throughout the year, we will hopefully send more of our players to Heartland Poker Tour, or other local events, in hopes they can build something of a 'roll to play even more tournaments.

Hopefully everyone enjoyed the past year, if there was anything someone had as a concern, please let us know and we can address it.

Here's to a happy, healthy, and wealthy 2008!

All Qualifiers set ...

2007-12-18T13:39:00.000-06:00

The top 30 are set for the 2007 season. Turned out on Sunday that there was no change due to the tournament, only minor changes in the top 12 positions. For those who don't know or forgot, following are the chip stacks for the February 10th Points Championship.

1st: $25,000
2nd: $23,000
3rd: $21,000
4th: $19,000
5th: $18,000
6th: $17,000
$1,000 less to ---
12th: $11,000
13th-16th: $10,000

The tournament will have a very slow structure, play will last nearly the whole day, leaving someone very happy around 11:00 Sunday night with their ticket being punched to a $2,500 tournament.

Suggestions are always welcome ... we will look at what we can do to improve everyone's experience and continue to give people opportunities to play in bigger tournaments. Most of us truly believe that this is one of the best home leagues in the area - by far, and it has shown this past year by the results that our player's have had in bigger tournaments that they have been able to play. We have no doubt that the rest of the group could have equal success given the opportunity as well.

See everybody on January 13th!

Running Around

2007-12-13T09:11:00.000-06:00

I'm sure the regulars have noticed I haven't updated the blog. And it seems they've stopped caring, because nobody mentioned it to me!

Obviously I haven't updated since the last tournament. Quick synopsis of that is as follows:

31 people showed up to play. I decided to introduce antes into the tournament mix and I feel they went pretty well, and we'll discuss the possibility of implementing them in tournaments next year.

Play seemed to be tight early, then there lots of bustouts before the final table, which turned into a major grindfest. Eventually Cpt Fission burst and headed home in 10th, opening the door for more bustouts. Except the short stacks - including Bin2win and Lefty - we're winning their races.

Big hand for Lefty came on a 3-way all in when he was holding 22 vs A2 and AK. This was about the only big hand he played until heads up. He ended heads up with Bin after his 22 ran down Ruby's 99. KK vs KJ - Lefty vs Bin2win - has one of the big hands that allowed Lefty to comeback from a 10-1 chip deficit to win his 2nd tournament of the year.

_______________________________________________________________

Other happenings

The final tournament of the year is on the 16th of this month, with just a few things to wrap up and decide before we begin our playoffs. January 13th is the date of the qualifier and 1st tournament of 2008 - put it on your calendar! Qualifier will begin on January 13th as soon as all 18 players are available to play. There will be some leniency allowed, but it's requested that every available player be there no later than 4:00 or provide me with a phone number to reach them at to keep them updated on a start time. Top 4 will move on to the Main Event on February 10th. Good luck to everybody!

I will be contacting players who were regulars this year to discuss upcoming options to next year's format. From what I can tell from the grapevine, most everything will stay the same in the coming year. I am going to push for 20 dates, each of the 5 dates will have a promotion attached to them. HPT qualifiers, DPT seats, local seats, casino seats, Vegas trip for WSOP, are some options for these 4 tournaments. This should help with interest during anytime of the year to give any players something significant to play for.
Buy-ins, dates, times, chip stacks, etc., will also be on the agenda to discuss. Even if you are not one of the 'regulars' please provide any input to myself or anybody who you know who is a regular. Thank you,

We're always interested in hosts for the tournaments. This year, we needed room for 4 tables everytime, with an option for the 5th table. Next year, we may have to consider a regular 5th table. Anybody who can help with hosting duties, contact me ...

Year is wrapping up!

2007-11-19T15:53:00.000-06:00

This Saturday was 2 of the last 4 events of the year as people positioned themselves for the huge tournament in February. Kramer and Blondie absolutely blew the 1st and 2nd positions out of sight, opening up 65.5 and 68 point leads, respectively, on 3rd place.

Kramer was able to overcome Tim F, Blondie, Cory B, Bjorn, Slinger, Bin2win, Trent C, Nick T, & Hunt.

Tomi H took down the Razz nightcap, getting out to a huge lead and cruising into heads up with Kramer. Blondie, General, Bin2win, Big Slick, Cory B, and Ken H rounded out that final table.

Last 2 tournaments will be on Saturday the 1st and Sunday the 16th. Both will be 1.5 pt events. Any good finish will be enough to boost someone several spots up in the standings. Again, the higher you finish in the top 12, the more chips you will start with at the Points Championship.

Discussing next year at this point, we will be having a meeting, comprised of as many of the regular participants throughout the year as possible. Tournament dates, buy-ins, type of game, prizes, will all be discussed once again to plan the rest of the year and provide a good mix of everything to give everybody a chance for the big prize. If you want to have input, but you were not a regular, contact me or anybody you know was a regular, and let them know if you would like to see things changed, stay the same, or some mix. Thanks, everyone!

Relevant Points Championship Dates

2007-11-06T13:47:00.000-06:00

Just thought I'd get this on the blog so it could be checked at anytime. The last tournament of the season that you will able to get points in on Sunday, December 16th. The 18 person playoff for the final four spots will take place on Sunday, January 13th, after the first tournament of the 2008 season. The first tournament will start @ noon, and the playoff will start @ 4:00 at the soonest to whenever all participants will become available (if they played in the first tournament - otherwise 4:00).

The Points Championship will start @ 12:00 noon on Sunday, February 10th. And it will start at noon promptly - no exceptions. All players who are present at 11:50-11:55 will draw their seats and anyone who is not present at that time will have their seat drawn for them and will begin to be blinded down.

Make sure to check the points to see where you are at. There will be an email/text message sent out to all applicable participants of both events as well.

NL Championship

2007-11-05T10:00:00.000-06:00

What a party! Always is at Lefty's, and this one was going pretty good at 2:30 when I left, lol ...

42 people showed up, and after all was said and done, new player Tim F was left holding all the money and the 60 points that came along with it. Those 60 pts put him in serious contention for the top 30, which 30th is currently a tie between Wolf and Fishhooks. Cory B was the other player who made a huge jump in points with his 3rd place finish. With still 5 tournaments remaining over the next month and a half, it will be a wild finish for those remaining spots in the top 30.

The battle for the top 12 has also gotten extremely tight. 12th is currently 128, while 15th is only 7.5 back. The other big points news was Blondie passing Kramer with a 5th place finish. Those 2 are now up by just over 30 ahead of 2nd place finisher Lefty, who moved into 3rd.

The first very significant hand late in the tournament happened like this. With 11 people remaining, Fishhooks made it 6,000 to go at 1,200/2,400. Tim and Hunt call behind. Flop is 345 with 2 diamonds. Hunt leads out for 12,000, Fishhooks folds and Tim calls. Turn is the J of diamonds, and once again Hunt leads but is raised all-in by Tim. After much deliberation, Hunt calls all-in with 6d6x while Tim has him dead with Td9d. This hand gave Tim the chip lead heading to the final table ... a lead he would only relenquish very shortly.

KTK was first to bust - against Fishhooks who called his short all-in with AJ, KTK had A8 and the flop came 8JJ, leaving KTK to runner runner quads - which never came. Ol Lady was then busted by Tim to leave us with 8 reamining - only 7 were getting paid. Ruby Cube moved all-in for around 10K with 1,500/3,000 blinds and got a call from Texas' QJs. K9x on the flop and a T on the turn, bubbled Ruby in 8th. Fishhooks knocked out the next after Ryan L called all-in blind and Texas called all-in with AT. Blondie busted in 5th - and then the biggest hand of the night transpired ...

Tim F and Fishhooks were 1 - 2 in chips and Fishhooks raised standard preflop, getting a call from Tim F. Flop came J high and Tim F bet, Fishhooks raised all-in and Tim F called. Tim had top pair top kicker with AJ, but Hooks had KK. Turn was a blank but the river was an Ace giving Tim 2 pair and a significant chip lead - well over half the chips in play. But it wasn't over by any means as both Cory B and Lefty doubled through Tim to make things nearly even at one point with Tim at 160K, Cory at 160K, and Lefty at 110K. But it was Tim's day as he proceeded to knock Cory B out and then Lefty out.

It was a great time and hopefully people are still interested in the remaining of the year with points and more good times ahead.

Next tournaments are on Saturday, November 17th. NLHE at 11 and Razz at 5:30.

Thoughts for the coming year ...

2007-10-23T19:22:00.000-05:00

Just thought I'd begin the discussion on the next year of Dirty River Poker. This year we saw the average attendance nearly double and with a slight increase in the number of tournaments along with a few higher buy-ins, we will be able to send people to a total of 6 or more HPT qualifiers, 4 more local tournament seats, + a $2,500 tournament of the player's choice. But as always, I look for ways to improve upon a good thing. Following are some of the major factors I like to consider when scheduling tournaments for the coming year.

1) The amount of time that needs to be put in to make a legitimate effort. Obviously there are some who make every tournament, some that make most, some that make half, etc. The goal with the various buy-ins, doubleheaders, etc. is to allow players to pick and choose if need be what tournaments they feel they must play to compete, but also allow those who want and are able to play more often the opportunity.

2) Amount of money that would be spent throughout the year: Either on a monthly basis or in a single tournament. We try not to push the envelope too far for those who may not have the means to do so. Especially those with families.

3) Give everybody something to continually play for. Being such a long year, there always needs to be something to keep people's interest. Thus the bigger tournaments towards the end, so everybody still (even those who hadn't played a single tournament) has a chance to compete for the prizes. This year we had a 5-week bonus for (2) HPT seats. Next year the plan will be to do at least as much.

4) Times of tournaments. Most are on Sunday to work around most people's schedules, although there are some on Saturday for various reasons. Obviously the goal is to not alienate anybody from not being able to play any particular tournament and we make every effort to give plentyl of advanced notice of intended dates.

Now some of the thoughts that could be considered for changes for the coming year.

1) More tournaments - either more 2 a days (both NLHE or otherwise), possible 2nd chance tournaments (a tournament half or less the original tournament buy-in beginning at a specific time after the first tournament has begun), possible smaller buy-in weekday tournaments, more frequent (every 2 weeks, 3 weeks at most) weekend tournaments

2) Higher buy-in tournaments - More $60 total, more $80 total, with or without the same number of $40 tournaments

3) Flatten the prize structure of the final tournament. Now that everybody knows what we are playing for, I think it's possible to just put a percentage to the year-end prize instead of a set amount.

4) Increase the number of HPT seats given out throughout the year. 1 or 2 seats for every 5 or so tournaments played. This gives everybody the opportunity to play for something no matter where they may sit in the overall point standings.

5) Adding a set amount to the year-end pool to play. $20 to the playoff and $40 to the Championship. This adds an extra $1,000 to the prizepool - however distributed.

6) Expanding the year-end tournament to more participants. 18 or even 20 is a possibility without changing much. Should it be linked to average attendance? The average amount per participant in the Championship prizepool?

I'm sure there are other ideas that others would have, but I am just looking to start the discussion in time for next year.

Scott Eckert wins the Deadwood HPT

2007-10-22T09:24:00.000-05:00

$64,133. That's the amount (plus entry into the HPT Championship in Gary) that Scott Eckert was able to take down yesterday at the Lucky in Deadwood. Not really a lot of details other than Scott was a 2-1 chip dog going into heads up play.

It's been a good year for the Fargo crew in the HPT, with Alison Kelley, Thane Fliginger, Dave Baxter, and Don Eagan all making final tables this past year.

Hopefully Tim Jacobs will continue to lead the HPT League in Mahnomen (or Mark Lawson, Ken Hamilton, or Pete Bushey replace him) and take another free entry to Gary and they have a good showing in a tournament that is estimated to have at least FIVE TIMES the Deadwood prizepool.

October 13th Results

2007-10-14T14:08:00.000-05:00

2 great turnouts for the NLHE and Crazy Pineapple tournaments, getting 40 for the first tournament and 31 for the Crazy Pineapple. The first tournament, Cpt. Fission came from well behind to post a well-needed victory to help secure his spot in the top 12. Ron O was able to beat Pat A heads up in the Pinespple tournament, giving both major points towards either securing top 12 spots or making a run at the top 12.

The next tournament will be huge!! The big 2007 Dirty River Poker NL Championship event on Saturday, November 3rd, starting at 12:00 noon. $10,000 in starting chips with much extended rounds, this tournament will have as much play as you can get in a one-day tournament. We are expecting a rather large crowd, and RSVP's would be much appreciated. 50 to even 60 would not be out of the question and any final table finish will make a huge difference in the point standings.

How long has it been!!!

2007-10-11T12:46:00.000-05:00

Alright, alright, I know it's been ages since I posted anything, much less the results of the past tournament.

First, we'll get to the last tournament as best as I can remember 2 weeks ago. Lefty came through with his first DRP win, besting a final table of Duff, Seth M., General, Hunt, Dale C., Kramer, Jelly, Slinger, and NosCat. Lefty has now moved up into the top 12 in standings with his 3rd top 4 finish in a row. The final hand pitted Lefty against Duff, by the turn the board was Q high with 3 diamonds and all the money went in with Lefty holding K5d while Duff had KK.

Of course that's about all I can remember, except for the hand that busted me, and nobody wants to hear about that.

Coming up through the rest of the year are (3) $40 NLHE, (1) $60 NLHE, (1) $100 NLHE, (1) each of ($40 2 pt) Pineapple, Razz, and LHE. So as you can see, there is still plenty of moves to make in the standings. 30th place is within 40 pts of 12th, and there are 20 people within 40 pts of 30th. Remember that depending on turnout at the Championship Event on November 3rd, any final table finish will likely be worth 40 pts!

Coming up Saturday is the doubleheader NLHE and NL Crazy Pineapple. Pineapple is played the same as NLHE with the following exception: You are dealt 3 cards, and you discard 1 card after the flop betting is COMPLETED. The Crazy Pineapple will have a very similar structure to the $40 NLHE except play with $10,000 in chips.

We will be looking at scheduling dates for the following 2 events: The 18 person playoff for the remaining 4 Final spots, and then the 2007 Dirty River Poker Points Championship. My first thought is the Points Championship is probably going to be taking place in February to avoid scheduling conflicts with any Gold Rush FPN tournaments.

We are going to probably just schedule a Sunday for both tournaments - far enough in advance and each person will responsible to ensure they will be able to be present or they will be blinded out eventually ...

7-Card Stud Championship

2007-09-04T12:23:00.000-05:00

This Saturday we will have the 7-Card Stud Championship Event. This will be following a regular 1 point NLHE event at 11:00.

For those of you who have not played 7-Card Stud, here are some of the basics.

The first round of dealing the cards is such: 2 cards down, 1 card up to each player in order from the dealer clockwise. Before each subsequent deal (4 more) there is a burn card and after the burn card the players receive their next card up on 4th, 5th, and 6th streets and down on 7th street with 1 card being dealt each time.

In the event that there are not enough cards to deal everybody a 7th street, the burn cards will be used to do so. First with all remaining cards and burn cards being shuffled together, a burn card will be used if possible, if not possible but there are enough cards to be dealt, there will be no burn card. If there are not enough cards, even with the burn cards, the last card is a community card for all players. This scenario is only possible obviously at a full table with nearly everyone seeing all the streets - a very unlikely scenario.

Betting proceeds as follows: Everyone antes before the hand is dealt. Ante is typically 1/8 of the big bet on the hand. After the 3 cards are dealt to each player, the low card has to post the 'bring-in' which is typically 1/3 to 1/4 of the small bet on that hand. Every subsequent betting street, the high hand commences betting. 3rd & 4th streets are at small bet levels, 5th, 6th, & 7th streets are at big bet levels. The one exception to this is paired boards on 4th street. Anyone can bet the small or the big bet on that street. High hand is determined by position in all cases where there are ties.

There are obvioulsy many more rules concerning misdeals, burn cards, etc., we'll cross those bridges - hopefully very few of them - on Saturday.

Remember, that this event is worth 2x the points of a regular tournament. Basically the winner of this event, if we gather 24 players, will receive the same number of points as the winner of a 54 player 1x point tournament.

Hope to see everybody try their hand at stud!!!

Robb N U wins Event #12

2007-08-27T23:06:00.000-05:00

Robb N U walked away with his 2nd DRP event win on Sunday. It was the 2nd largest take in DRP history and the 42 points boosted RNU's standings in the points. Now sitting with 70 pts in 16th place, he's poised to make a move at the top 12. RNU continually played pots, and with a combination of shear aggression and continually showing a good hand, he was able to move up into contention. First big pot, was against Lefty who moved in with 7300 at 600/1200 and RNU called from the SB creating about a 15,800 pot. Board came 78695 creating a straight on the board, but RNU held KT to make a bigger straight. This provided RNU with the chips he wanted to play his game and with 16 remaining he was among top 6 in chips (Kramer 50K, Jelly 44K, General, 38K, RNU 33K, Cowboy 33K, Tallywacker 32K) representing nearly 65% of the chips in play.

General got his chips by cracking Pajamas' AA earlier with QQ when a Q fell on the river, then surviving when he moved in with KK only to find himself up against AA again, only to get another K on the river. Then he again had KK against Cpt Fission's AA and again caught a K. This was a huge hand for Cpt, as with it he would easily have been chip leader nearing the final table. As it turned out, with 12 left Cpt woke with AA in the BB. Jelly, Wolf, and General all had limped for 1600 and Cpt reraised 4000. Jelly called as did Wolf and General. The flop came out 889 and Cpt moved all-in for his remaining stack only to be called by Wolf's J8. Cowboy would be next to bust and we had our final table.

Tomi was extremely shortstacked and would be first to be eliminated. Peanut Butter came to table short-stacked only to finally get it in with AJ vs RNU's KJ and double up, but then drastically lose to Tallywacker's all-in with 88 to PB's JJ. 3 spades came on the flop and 1 on the river to give Tallywacker a 4-card flush. Being very short-stacked after that experience he would soon be out in 9th. Fireworks flew to eliminate Ken in 8th. General limped at the 1200/2400 level only to be raised to 10K by Wolf who was reraised to 25K by Tallywacker. After much deliberation Ken moved all-in for 30,800, Wolf called all-in for 26,300, and Tallywacker called the extra 5,800. Wolf showed AA, Tallywacker KK, and Ken QQ. The Aces and Kings held and Ken was eliminated in 8th place on the bubble. Tallywacker would be eliminated by Wolf when the board ran out 88J8J. Tallywacker couldn't lay down and Wolf showed pocket K's for a bigger fullhouse. General's good luck would finally end as we was eliminated in 6th place. Kramer would be eliminated in 5th after being shortstacked and moving in for just over 20,000 and being called by Wolf with A5h. Kramer had the lead though with KK and when the door card showed a K it appeared he was way out in front. But, the other two flop cards were the 3 and 4 of hearts. A Q on the turn gave Wolf 10 outs total heading to the river. No heart but a red deuce nonetheless gave Wolf the wheel and the hand. Jelly would be eliminated in 4th after the flop came out Q52, Jelly bet and was reraised by RNU. Jelly called and the turn was a T. Jelly checked the turn and it was checked behind by RNU. An Ace on the river and Jelly bet was reraised by RNU and Jelly instantly moved in and was instantly called. Jelly had flopped 2 pair (5's and 2's) but RNU rivered broadway with KJ to create a monster chip stack with 3 remianing. RNU now had about 250,000 chips to equal stack of approximately 60,000 of Ruby Cube and Wolf. Ruby Cube had been fairly quiet doubling through RNU once with a higher flush. But on a flop of A52 they got it all-in after an unraised preflop action. Ruby showed Q5 but RNU showed 88. A diamond gave Ruby 14 outs to hit on the river, but they were blanks and RNU busted Ruby in 3rd. A longer than expected heads up match ensued with Wolf moving his stack from 60K to 120K to 60K constantly. Eventually they got it all-in with AT (Wolf) vs 99 (RNU). All low cards came and RNU was the winner.

Some other notable hands were RNU limping with 57 and flopping 557 followed immediately by hitting a set on the flop with AA vs Kramer's QQ. RNU nearly lost a significant amount of chips, but it turned into a double up through Wolf when a move on a J73 flop when Wolf bet, RNU raised and Wolf called worked out for RNU when a K came on the turn. They got it all in and RNU showed KT and Wolf J8. Wolf failed to improve and RNU doubled up.

Our next 2 tournaments will be on Saturday, September 8th. 11:00 am will be the start for a $40 NLHE, followed immediately at 5:00 by a 7-card stud $40 2 POINT EVENT. Remember there are less than 20 pts separating 12th from 24th and a 24 entrant Stud Event would be worth 30, 26, 24, 22, and 20 for the cashers of that event.

We'll see you in less than 2 weeks!!!

Back from Vegas

2007-08-14T15:56:00.000-05:00

Damn am I flippin' tired today ... And I slept more than I had ever slept in Vegas. I was never feeling 100%, but still. Anyways ---- Jim Tallakson chopped a poker tournament ($60 - 65 entries) for $712 and Roger Tangen hit a royal flush on the slots for $1,000 to make their weekend pretty good --- even if Roger did fall down an escalator, lol. Sports betting was pretty good to all of us and overall the weekend was another great weekend in Vegas, and of course, I can't wait to get back, lol.

Poker, however, was being a bitch to me again, so I pretty much avoided that. I would get JJ cracked by A2, KK cracked, flopped straights cracked and whatever else. In other words, the poker gods were not with me, so I did not test their patience this weekend, lol.

Other things happened too, but as we all know the saying ... What happened in Vegas --- NEVER HAPPENED!!!

DRP Event #11 Recap

2007-08-07T13:23:00.000-05:00

Blah, blah, blah ... Yes it's taking me forever to get this blog updated!! I'm heading to Vegas on Thursday so people have to give me a little bit of slack, right? No??? Alright then, here goes!

First of all, 40 people again was another great showing for what is still apparently summer on the Northern Plains, so that's very nice and raises the question on how many people will actually be showing up this fall??? I guess we cross that bridge when we get there!!

Secondly, not that people want to hear about me, but man do I suck lately!! I have AK run into KQ ... oh that's good! No ... not when a K and Q come out ... left with 1,200 and no 10-outer saves me ... blah, blah, another sob story - on to the good stuff!!

Things seemed to be slow going in eliminating people considering we only started with 5,000 in chips. We still had 33 left at the break! By the 2nd break, we came back to 17 people, still quite a few. Our defending champion went out in 19th when Tallywacker's 99 ran into AA. Later Pat A would survive with KQ vs AA and then bust at the final table with AQ vs AA. Pat A also busted Peanut Butter with AQ vs PB's 77. Thane made a calculated play on a 949 board against Texas putting him to a test for all his chips, but Texas called with 55 and Thane had AJ and didn't improve. This set up Texas to be able to continually make calls to bust short stacks leading up to the final table. KJ catching against 44, then A9 catching against a short stack QQ. These were enough to set up Texas for a nice final table. Going into the final table a number of stacks looked to be in good shape including Ron O, Bjorn, Texas, and Chad R. Nick T would be the first to bust, soon followed by a similarily short stacked Brad D. The next bustout was a surprise as Bjorn opened for 6K at 1/2K blinds and was reraised all-in by Chad R to 37,400. Bjorn contemplated and eventually made the call with TT only to see Chad R show JJ. Bjorn failed to improve and was left with only 4,500 and was soon eliminated in 8th. Cpt Fission would bust in 7th when his QJ failed to improve against Bin2Win's JJ, even with a T & 9 making him open ended on the flop. Cowboy would be Bin2Win's next victim as his K9 was beat by Win's AK. Chad R reraised Ron O when Ron came into the pot with a 3x BB bet. Chad put him to the test for all his chips and Ron called with AQ while Chad tabled 44. An Ace on the flop gave Ron a nice chip lead and left Chad with about 24K in chips. Bin2Win would get that elimination as his AJ held up against Chad's A9. But after eliminating 3 players in a row, Win suffered some losses and was eventually called all-in by T7 when he had AJ, and T eliminated him from the tournament.

3 handed play got interesting when Texas raised and then was reraised all-in by Ron O. Texas eventually decided to make the call, having about 40% of his cips in the pot with his raise. Texas showed QJ as Ron showed AK and after a lone K came on the flop it appeared that Ron would have a dominating chip lead going into heads up play, but a turned Q and rivered Q kept Texas alive and when Mike F eventually moved in for his final 30K and was eliminated by Texas it set up a short heads up battle. Texas eventually called Ron O's all in with K7, Ron table Ax ... but a turned K gave Texas the lead and the win.

Congrats to all, and look forward to our first 2x NLHE event of the year on August 26th!

Rob Whalen & Tony Uhlir split 1st at Cully's Kid's!

2007-07-22T13:32:00.000-05:00

Yes, that's right, Tony Uhlir goes back to back in an amazing feat! Although there was officially a chop of 1st place money, Tony made it all the way just as he did last year. This year, that brought him $6,400 compared to last year's $10,000. Rob Whalen carried a chip lead off an on for much of the last half of the tournament after the final break.

At the final break, the 3 top chip counts were Rob Whalen with 54,000, Shawn Morrissey with 50,500, and Shawn McNealey with 43,000. Tony Uhlir had just doubled up going into the break and was sitting just above the 25,500 average with his 26,500. Brandt Johnson, Rob Whalen, Bjorn Heide, Tim Jacobs, Ivy Brown, Ron Olson, and Scott Krein, were all among players I recognized as still participating with 58 left.

Unfortunately Scott was short-stacked and was eliminated soon after play started back up. Next to leave was Ron Olson. Tim and Ivy both made the final 2 tables but unfortunately were eliminated before the money. Tim was short-stacked and just plain card dead through much of the tournament and was nearly all-in on the first hand of the final 2 tables with an unfortunate redraw that put him in the BB. Tim was able to turn a 6, but lost on the river to an 8 as Bjorn was holding A8. Ivy had a rough day as with 3 tables left she moved all-in and Jason Loos called all-in with J3 from the BB having much of his money already in. The flop brought 2 treys and the river rubbed it in to Ivy as she caught her Ace on the river. Then at the final 2 tables she called all-in for 22,500 with 99 after Shawn Morrissey had raised with QJ. A Queen on the flop and nothing to save Ivy eliminated her from the tournament.

Before we get into the money, no tournament can be complete without a mention of the first elimination of the tournament. During the first round, Jon Rubis and Jeff Nelson get involved in a hand. Flop comes out J high with 2 hearts. Jeff bets the hand strong and Jon calls. Turn peels off a blank and Jeff moves all-in and Jon calls. Jon has KJh and Jeff has AJ. Any heart of K will give the hand to Jon. A heart peels off on the river and we have our first elimination of the tournament.

Roger Tangen, Jareb Raan, Jon Horner, Leroy Turner, Nick Taralson, Scott Eckert, Thane Fliginger, Cory Biloki, Troy Walseth, and Brad Donabauer were other players in the event. Scott had a tough break about halfway through as he was cruising along when he raised with AK and Ron Olson moved all-in behind with AT. A ten peeled off an Ron won an over 18,000 chip pot ... a pot that would have put Scott near or in the chip lead at the time. Thane Fliginger suffered a similar feat on a huge pot when his AK lost to KJ preflop. The result of the hand left him crippled and soon was eliminated.

IN THE MONEY

After a relatively short amount of hand for hand play starting at 17 players, we moved into the money. 15th through 11th place were as follows:

Louis Whirlwind
Nick Reed
Andy Alsop
Andrew Ryan
Galen Brown

The final table consisted of: Shawn McNealey (56,000) Brandt Johnson (60,500) Tony Uhlir (76,500) Jason Loos (54,000) Jack Hoffner (80,000) Chuck Udart (50,000) Shawn Morrissey (100,500) Bjorn Heide (30,000) Brian Mattson (60,500) Rob Whalen (91,500)

The very first hand of the final table, Bjorn Heide found himself all-in vs Brian Mattson. Bjorn showed 77 as Brian showed AK. No Ace or King or straights or flushes and Bjorn more than doubles to 78,000.

Our first elimination came after Tony Uhlir tried to pick up the blinds with a raise from the cutoff with K7c. Chuck Udart called all-in from the BB with KT and was looking to be in great shape. But after a 7 and no T came, we had our 10th place finisher Chuck Udart - $360

After that Brian won back some of his chips by raising and picking up the blinds. Then he raised to 38,000 with KQd and had Rob Whalen immediately move all-in behind. Brian Mattson decided to call, having more than half of his chips already in the pot. He was very dissappointed to see that Rob had him crushed with KK. Nothing to help Brian, and we had our 9th place finisher Brian Mattson - $480

After losing a rather large hand, Bjorn moved all-in for 16,000 (6/12K blinds) and had Shawn move all-in behind. Bjorn had KQ, but Shawn had AA. Bjorn caught some significant help as there was a J and T on board by the turn, but no A or 9 came on the river and we had our 8th place finisher Bjorn Heide - $640

We had to wait a long time for the next bustout as play seemed to slow significantly. Jack Hoffner eventually found himself short-stacked and with only 31K left at 15/30K he just called from the SB to see a flop as Shawn Morrissey decided to check. The flop is 89T and Jack announces all-in for his remaining 1K. Shawn calls with AT and Jack needs to improve his K9. A ten on the turn and an Ace on the river more than sealed Jack's fate as our 7th place finisher was Jack Hoffner - $800.

Shawn McNealey found himself on the unfortunate side of pair vs pair as he moved all-in with 66 only to have Brandt Johnson wake up with KK immediately behind. Flop improved no player and Shawn was crippled with only 5K. He found himself eliminated on the next hand with T9 to Rob Whalen's A6. Our 6th place finisher is Shawn McNealey - $1,200

Another long time before more eliminations would take place from 4 handed on as we arrived at the official blind cap of 20/40K, but still had 5 players remaining as no one seemed to lose when all-in. First huge hand developed when Shawn Morrissey moved all-in and Rob Whalen called. Shawn showed A3 as Rob tabled QT. Flop came out Axx, all hearts with Rob holding the Q of hearts. Rob and his railbirds went crazy when a heart peeled off on the turn but needed to be sedated because it was the 3 of hearts keeping Shawn alive. With 4 outs to go, it was Shawn's turn to celebrate when an Ace rolled off on the river, doubling Shawn up in a huge pot. 2 hands later Brandt Johnson, short-stacked, found himself all-in with KQ, but called without having to put more chips in by Tony Uhlir. Tony had 74. Flop came out K87, and Brandt continued to stay alive, but a 4 on the turn looked to cost Brandt his tournament life until a Q peeled off on the river.

However, Brandt's tournament would soon end when Shawn moved all-in with AQ and Brandt called with AJ preflop. A Queen on the flop and turn eliminated our 5th place finisher Brandt Johnson - $1,600

Shawn would continue his run as he oved all-in with AQ once again and Jason Loos would call all-in with AT. Queen and Ten on the flop kept Jason alive, but the river brought another Queen not another Ten and our 4th place finisher was Jason Loos - $2,000

Shawn's fortunes began to fade as he began to continually lose blinds and his stack was eaten away. The big blow came when he moved all-in with KJ and Rob Wahlen called all-in with 22. Flop was J5J and Shawn was ecstatic. A 2 on the turn sent Rob and his railbirds over the edge before they were once again told that Shawn was far from dead as any 5, J, or K would still win him the hand. But a harmless card fell on the river and Rob doubled through Shawn.

Rob moved all-in and a shortstacked Shawn called all-in with T7. The board improved no one, and our 3rd place finisher was Shawn Morrissey - $2,800

Immediately upon the elimination of Shawn, Rob and Tony discussed chopping the pot and they agreed to chop it right down the middle. Going into heads up play Rob had $360,000 and Tony had $300,000. The tournament was played out and Tony eventually won with A7 vs 72.

Congratulations to Tony Uhlir and Rob Whalen for their victories and $6,400 cash!

Running Bad ..

2007-07-18T19:50:00.001-05:00

So what do you do when you realize you are running so bad with cards that you should literally not even attempt to play? It seems its gone that way for me for a significant amount of time. Besides an occasional bright spot, things have just been awful. By this I mean having KK run into AA, having AK/AQ vs 99/88 and not catching, running absolutely card dead at the wrong times in tournaments, consistently being one notch below on the best hand. There's only so many times that these situations can come up in a tournament or cash game and you avoid going broke. Obviously in a tournament, there comes a time when you have to catch or be able to play cards in position and not have other people catch.

So what do you do? Do you just take a significant amount of time off, or do you try to 'play through it'? Do you believe in 'rushes' and 'coolers' etc. Do you believe in running hot or cold? Personally it seems that when I run hot, it's hot, and when it's cold, it's the very depths. I'm sure a lot of other people feel the same way, or maybe others play in such a way that the ups and down aren't nearly as dramatic. Granted, I know that the style of play I choose tends to make the mountains higher and the valleys lower, but eventually you have to come out of it, right? You start to question whether or not you should ever play again. So you take a step back and try to examine how you play the game, you start to question every move you make in a tournament, things you have done repeatedly in the past that have succeeded all of a sudden no longer are working.

Well, I have to try to figure it out in the next 3 weeks, as my Vegas trip is coming up then. By then, hopefully things will have turned around, otherwise it will be one long trip ...

Running Bad ..

2007-07-18T19:50:00.000-05:00

So what do you do when you realize you are running so bad with cards that you should literally not even attempt to play? It seems its gone that way for me for a significant amount of time. Besides an occasional bright spot, things have just been awful. By this I mean having KK run into AA, having AK/AQ vs 99/88 and not catching, running absolutely card dead at the wrong times in tournaments, consistently being one notch below on the best hand. There's only so many times that these situations can come up in a tournament or cash game and you avoid going broke. Obvioulsy in a tournament, there comes a time when you have to catch or be able to play cards in position and not have other people catch.

So what do you do? Do you just take a significant amount of time off, or do you try to 'play through it'? Do you believe in 'rushes' and 'coolers' etc. Do you believe in running hot or cold? Personally it seems that when I run hot, it's hot, and when it's cold, it's the very depths. I'm sure a lot of other people feel the same way, or maybe others play in such a way that the ups and down aren't nearly as dramatic. Granted, I know that the style of play I choose tends to make the mountains higher and the valleys lower, but eventually you have to come out of it, right? You start to question whether or not you should ever play again. So you take a step back and try to examine how you play the game, you start to question every move you make in a tournament, things you have done repeatedly in the past that have succeeded all of a sudden no longer are working.

Well, I have to try to figure it out in the next 3 weeks, as my Vegas trip is coming up then. By then, hopefully things will have turned around, otherwise it will be one long trip ...

DRP Event #10

2007-07-16T12:53:00.000-05:00

It's been a looooong time! So, I'm going to try to make a better effort to start writing more in the blog. First, let's recap yesterday's events!

42 --- yes 42 showed up to play poker during the summer. But, enough about us all being degenerates!!! We had a good time and there's nothing to be ashamed about! After all, you probably saved yourself getting wet by being indoors!

Of those 42, we ended with a relatively unique final table! Of the 10 players there were exactly 2 regular season wins between them. 'Cpt Fission' and 'Bin2win' each have been with the league for awhile and each have had 1 win + numerous cashes. There were 3 that made their first final table, Michael K (1st event), Mike L (2nd event) and Wolf (4th event). Ron O made his 4th final table of the year, Scott K and Ken H both made their 2nd, and Nick T made it 5/5 in final table appearances, this being his best showing, finishing 3rd.

But, the big win went to 'TallyWacker'. A bit of a hard luck story, this was his 29th league event, only previously cashing once. Finally he got a bit of luck and took down his first DRP win!

The day was marked by early exits for many of the top tier in points. Blondie, Kramer, Slinger, Peanut Butter, Jelly, Pajamas, Frickin, and Pat A, would all make exits before the points. This left the door wide open for 'NosCat' - formerly 'BigBoy' to make a huge move. However, nursing a short stack all day wouldn't work out and he would bust in 13th. Actually accumulating 10 pts, at least 3 more points than he might have had had Dan S and Matt B not busted to Cpt Fission on a 88 vs KK vs AA (Cpt. Fission) hand when the board improved no one. Amanda F would bust in 14th, leaving Scott to finally be put out of his misery when he was in the BB with less than the BB amount. Texas and KTK (12th & 11th respectively) rounded out the rest of the pre-final table finishers.

Michael K was the first to bust at the final table, his run actually began to be halted much earlier in the tournament. With 16 remaining, Bin2Win moved in with AK and Michael K called with 88. A 23K pot brewed at a point when the average stack was only $13,125. With an A Bin2Win took the hand and set himself for a deep finish. Scott K was the next to drop, actually surviving on a short stack for a couple orbits thanks to this hand. With 1K/2K blinds, Scott moved all-in for 4K. Folding around to the BB, TallyWacker called blind for the additional 2K and tabled 45o. Scott had JTd and was about a 2-1 favorite to win the hand ... until ... the flop is A23 rainbow!!! Unbelievable until the nearly unthinkable. With only possibility of surviving being runner-runner straight cards, a Q peeled off on the turn, and a K on the river!! Unfortunately for Scott it would not propel him deeper into the tournament. As soon as Scott busted, Wolf was in the BB for 3K of his 4K and failed to win the hand and was our 8th place bubble boy. Ron O busted in 7th and Cpt Fission would bust in 6th due to the big hand of the tournament. Mike L opened for 6K at 1K/2K blinds and Cpt F called from the button. Flop came out TQT and Mike L led out for 6K and Cpt F called. Turn was another T and again Mike led for 6K only to be reraised to 16K total. Leaving Mike with only 2,500 behind, Mike after nearly 5 minutes of deliberation moved all-in for the additional 2,500 and Cpt F called with 77 only to see Mike table 99. Drawing dead to a chop, Cpt F didn't get there and the 63K pot went to Mike and left Bill with around 15K. Bin2Win would get shortstacked and move in from the button with A4 only to be called for the additional 5K at 3/6 blinds by the BB (in the dark) with 82. An 8 sent him to the rail. Ken would bust in 4th and Nick T ran into a monster while holding AA. All-in for around 4x the BB, he was called by Tallywacker with KT. The flop nearly put all the nails in the coffin immediately when it peeled off QJ9. No runner-runnre for Nick as he was done for the day. The very next hand, having over a 2-1 chip lead over Mike, Tallywacker moved all-in with A6c. Mike called with A7 off. The board brought a 6 on the flop to give Tallywacker the lead. But with a 3rd diamond and an 8 that gave Mike a gutshot on the turn, it was far from over until the river bricked out.

Congratulations to TallyWacker and we'll see everybody on August 6th!

Dirty River crushes the Doublewood

2007-06-11T06:19:00.000-05:00

30 showed up to play the $100 Doublewood tournament this past Saturday. Not surprising considering lack of advertisement and the absolutely beautiful weather - which there's been an absolute lack of. 7 regulars Dirty River players participated. JimWolf, Scott Eckert, Corey Eslinger, Jareb Raan, Tim Jacobs, Jon Shilling, and Jon Horner. As it would turn out, the top 4 finishers would be from this group.

2 of the Dirty River players were knocked out by their follow group members. Scott Eckert and Corey Eslinger both finished within a handful of people away from the final table. Tim Jacobs busted Scott and then Jon Shilling busted Corey with ducks on a A52T board with Corey holding AJ.

Jareb Raan survived early on at the final table when he moved all-in with KJd and was called with AK. Fortunately for him the board came all diamonds on the flop and he was able to double up there and then again a little later when he had AA vs Shilling's KQ.

Tim Jacobs nearly busted in 5th place after he moved all in from the SB with 86 only to be called by the BB holding A6. An 8 on the flop gave Tim the lead and the last two 6's in the deck gave him an unneeded full house and secure the top 4 spots for the Dirty River crew.

Hopefully there'll be bigger tournaments come this fall that Dirty River can try to do just as well at in the future.

Rebuy Event

2007-04-17T19:49:00.000-05:00

The 'second half' of the season is starting up! Well, actually, the last 3/4 of the season is starting up with our Rebuy Event on the 22nd of April.

$20 gets you into the tournament. $1,000 in chips for the $20. Unlimited rebuys are allowed anytime your stack is at or below $2,000. These rebuys are $10 each. A $10 add-on is allowed for all players at the end of the rebuy period (3 rounds of 30 minutes each). You receive $3,000 in chips for this add-on

Blinds will be starting at $25/$25 instead of the usual $25/$50 to allow a bit more play during the rebuy period.

It's time to start paying attention to the standings for the WSOP freeroll! Remember, everybody in the top 12 will be invited, but they will also start with different stack sizes. 13th-30th will play a qualifying tournament for the final 4 spots, but again these 4 spots start with less than the rest of the field (although by no means short-stacked with $10,000 in chips and $25/$50 starting blinds with 30 minute rounds)

'Pot Committed'

2007-04-04T13:46:00.000-05:00

We've all heard it many times before. Someone says "I have to call, I'm pot committed". In some situations its fairly obvious, other times it leaves you scratching your head wondering if you should or if someone else should make a call.

I'm going to offer a bit of a different way of looking at the situation in regards to tournament poker.

The standard thought process is the amount of your call into the amount of the pot you can win. In other words, if you have to call $1000 and can win $4000 (without your call included) you have 4-1 odds to call. This comes most typically from cash game situations. In tournament play, this situation may most often come up when a short stack moves all-in and someone is looking to call cold or from the Big Blind, or when someone moves all-in on a reraise to someone who has already raised the pot. Either one of these situations can be before or after the flop. Each situation requires the caller to put the raiser on a range of hands that he either is or is not ahead of. Then he must place a value that he is behind (assuming he most typically calls if he figures he is ahead) and whether or not he should call.

In tournament poker, however, I do not think it's nearly as cut and dry as saying "I have the nut flush draw, so I'm at least only a 2-1 dog, and I'm getting a 3-1 price so I have to call". Another situation would be if you raised with a marginal hand and then a player moved all-in and now you're getting a 2-1 or maybe even 3-1 price, but your read is that you're either a coin flip (1-1) or have high live cards (3-2) and you decide that it would be wise to call because you have the price to call. But this cannot be the deciding factor in whether to call or not.

I believe the ultimate deciding factor is the difference between the amount of chips you will have, in relation to the blinds, after you:

A) Call and Win
B) Fold
C) Call and Lose

If you call and lose the hand and you are left with less than 5x the blinds, it is very, very, difficult to justify a call in any situation no matter what pot odds you are getting. Tournament poker is not a game of small edges. You want to be the aggressor and be getting your chips into the pot when you're a 3-1 favorite to win the hand when you put your chips in the pot. This 75% edge is not necessarily just your chances of winning the hand if its played out though. It is also a 'feel' that each player has when they place a bet and figure their opponent will fold. For example, if you feel you're a 50% favorite to win the hand, but place a bet that you think will get your opponent to fold 50% of the time, that is your 75% edge.
Now, when you are the caller, you have absolutely no fold equity in the pot. You call, you are at the mercy of the cards. If you lose the hand, you are at the mercy of the cards if you are left short-stacked. You no longer have the ability to be an agressor and pick up pots with showdowns. An example of a situation in which I don't think it would be wise to gamble to win a pot with a marginal hand. You raise with QTs - a standard raise of 3 BB, you have a total of 15 BB. You are reraised to 9 BB by someone who moves all-in. If you call, you are left with 6BB, but let's also say that blinds will be moving up very shortly and leaving you with just 5BB. Now you figure you're at worst a 2-1 dog here, very possibly all the way to just a coin flip and if you call and win, you've eliminated an opponent and you have 24 BB. If you fold here, you're left with 12 BB. So, now we have a difference of 24 BB, 12BB, & 6 BB. At almost all stages of the tournament, I don't believe it's a wise choice to make this gamble. In most tournaments - except extremely deepstacked tournaments - 12 BB is at least an average stack at most times and still allows some very good aggression, while leaving yourself with 5-6 BB (the most likely of the scenarios to happen) will leave with nearly nothing to do but risk your entire stack on a marginal hand that a big stack can more easily call.
Obviously there can be situations where you can make this call. If it gets very short-handed at the end of a tournament, blinds will come too quickly around possibly to even leave yourself with 12 BB. Also you cannot consistently raise and then fold when reraised, otherwise you will eventually be looked at as weak and people will start to take advantage of that. But in the vast majority of near-full table situations in tournament poker, you simply cannot risk putting your tournament life at stake for a chance at extra chips that do not greatly improve your chances of winning the tournament.

Now a situation in which you should call. You are in position and raise to 3.5BB and you have 20 BB behind, play is 5 handed. You have QTs. BB moves all-in for another 6 BB. If you call and lose you have 14 BB, your oppenent 19BB. If you fold, you have 20BB and your oppenent has 13BB. If you call and win, you are 4 handed have 33 BB and very possibly a stranglehold at the final table. Now here, the difference between calling and losing and folding is simply very little. You almost can't afford to not make this call with any two cards, much less two cards that are, again, typically no worse than 2-1 and possibly as good as a coin flip. Also, the extra chips you gather by calling and winning do greatly increase your chances of doing well and possibly winning the tournament. Having 50% of the chips with 4 players or having 30% or 22% of the chips with 5 people left is a huge difference. In this situation, the chips are simply to valuable to let them go because even if you lose the hand, you are not crippled.

It's these numbers that you need to look at in tournament poker: What are the chances my opponent folds to my bet? What are my chances of winning if I lose this hand? What are my chances of winning if I win this hand? Looking at these questions rather than cash game pot odds will give a different perspective on your decisions in the future.

March 25th Tournament

2007-03-13T11:44:00.000-05:00

Our next tournament is set for Sunday, March 25th, starting at 1:00.

This is our first $60 buy-in of the year, and if attendance holds true, will pay out $600 to first place!

Starting stacks will be $7,500 with $25/$50 starting blinds. The same blind structure will be in play except rounds will be 25 minutes from round 11 ($800/$1,600) on.

We will be planning on 5 tables, and we will be pushing to be dealing at 1:00. I will ask everyone to take their seat at 12:55 and we will begin dealing with whatever people are on each table. By 1:15 we will balance the tables if need be.

Please RSVP if possible and I can plan for the number of people and if you give me a call (cell # included in e-mail) I can get you in play by 1:00 as well.

Look forward to seeing everybody on the 25th!

March 4th Tournament

2007-02-28T08:58:00.000-06:00

We're going to be starting at 2:00 this Sunday, March 4th ...

$40 is the buy-in, with a little bit of a twist ... some added levels.

With the increase in participants, and larger prizepools, it was discussed that there should be a bit more play in some crucial time periods. Therefore a $500/$1000 and $1200/$2400 level have been added to extend the tournament during that time and hopefully allow some more and better poker play rather than an all-in fest ...

We'll see everybody there!!

Boy, I played Donkalicious

2007-01-29T13:15:00.000-06:00

My first mistake was staying out way too late and drinking the night before. I had told myself I was going to get a good night's rest - and I did not get anything close to it.

When play started for the Dead Money Open on Sunday, I seemed on edge and just not focused like I should be. Third level in, it cost me big. Up to that point, I hadn't got any big hands but was able to hold my own.

Then, at 75/150 with 2 limpers in front of me, I raised from the cutoff with Q7o to 700. The 2 players who had limped were rather weak players and I thought at the time that there was a good chance they would fold. This was the first mistake as the 2nd limper was a really weak player, but also a calling station. He was a player that would just make erratic plays as well. He calls the 550 more and we see a flop. Flop is 733 and he checks, I'm thinking this was great as I now have top pair and really there should be no way I'm beat. He calls my 1,200 bet. Turn is an Ace. Of all the cards, this is the one I was worried about the most as I could see this guy calling with Ace high on that flop. He then checked, so I again thought I had the best hand. I bet 1,200 and again he called. Thinking back, the play would normally be to push all-in for 2,750 total, but I'm not sure he folds anyways. River is a J, he checks, I check behind. He shows pocket 8's.

A couple hand laters he limp calls 150 then 950 total with ATd and turns the nut straight to beat my pair on the flop and to rub it in, I make a straight on the river.

Looking back, I should realize that the play against a guy like this is to get a premium hand and take all of his chips because he will call all of his chips (or double me up) off.

Can't say for sure, but I think that with the proper preparation before the tournament, I could have made a much better decision in this situation.

Preliminary Schedule

2007-01-23T09:42:00.000-06:00

Tourney Date	Buy-in		Game	Points
21-Jan	$ 40.00		NL	1
10-Feb	$ 40.00		NL	1
10-Feb	$ 40.00		PLO	2
4-Mar	$ 40.00		NL	1
25-Mar	$ 60.00		NL	1.5
22-Apr	$ 20.00	REBUY	NL	1.5
13-May	$ 60.00		NL	1.5
2-Jun	$ 40.00		NL	1
2-Jun	$ 40.00		RAZZ	2
30-Jun	$ 80.00		NL	2
28-Jul	$ 60.00		NL	1.5
25-Aug	$ 40.00		LIMIT HE	2
22-Sep	$ 40.00		NL	1
22-Sep	$ 40.00		7-CARD	2
6-Oct	$ 60.00		NL	1.5
20-Oct	$ 40.00		PINEAPPLE	2
3-Nov	$ 80.00		NL	2
18-Nov	$ 40.00		NL	1
9-Dec	$ 60.00		NL	1.5

Nobody Makes the Right Play All of the Time

2007-01-22T15:06:00.000-06:00

Nobody among us is good enough that they make the right decision every time they are forced to make one in poker, no matter the varying skill levels of each player. Be it the day, the moment, or just plain a wrong read, we all consistently make decisions that cost us in tournaments or cash games.

Therefore, it would behoove all of us to tone done or all together do away with our criticism at the tables of other people's play when they don't make the 'right' decision in our eyes. Whether or not it was the right decision, they made it for better or worse to their own stack.

Criticizing play of others only serves to drive anybody away who would wish to join a group of players such as our own. We would like to think that we are more than willing and open to allowing new players of all skill levels to join us and improve their game. Everybody among us could use improving in their game at any given time and none of us are above any others when it comes to making donkey moves.

So, please, do not berate other players at the tables or at any other time. It only serves to thwart new players coming into the game.

Thank You,

Corey Eslinger
Dirty River Poker

Win a WSOP seat or one of 4 HPT seats through DRP

2007-01-15T09:06:00.000-06:00

Win a $2,500 WSOP or one of 4 HPT seats this year through the Dirty River Poker League. More details will be available on the website later this week. But, following are the rules that will be posted there. We also hope to get the schedule up on the website as well a link to stats genie which can host the standings and is user friendly for the groupl

2007 Rules for Prize Giveaways

1. All prizes will be paid out in the form of a seat or cash equivalent. Cash equivalency is 65%. Remaining value of 35% will roll into next year’s prizepool

2. Grand prize is a $2,500 seat. Grand prize will consist of 62.5% of the total prizepool value up to the amount where the grand prize will be a $2,500 seat and $1,000 in travel expenses. Consolation prizes will be valued at 42%, 28%, 18%, & 12% of the remaining prizepool.

3. 2^nd place will be a $500+ HPT seat, 3^rd will be a $300 HPT seat, 4^th will be a $200 local seat, 5^th will be a $150 local seat with excess paid in cash. Cash equivalency of these prizes is 65% of the entire prize, not 65% of the seat + cash.

4. April HPT seats are a $340 prize package or $220 cash equivalency

5. Player of the Year and Player of the Year runner-up receive a $150 buy-in to the Dead Money Open at the M&J Saloon in West Fargo in January. Dirty River Poker has a 25% stake in these players in this tournament.

6. Player of the Year receives a traveling trophy with all POY’s names engraved on it.

7. Points Championship tournament may include a buy-in of $20-$50. Any amount less than $4,000 in the prizepool will be made up by a buy-in of participating players of no less than $20 and no more than $50.

8. Points Championship tournament will consist of 16 players. 12 of these will receive direct invites by being in the top 12 in points at the end of the year. The remaining 4 spots will be filled with a wild card tournament consisting of the 13^th – 30^th in the point standings. This 18 person tournament will send the top 4 finishers to the Points Championship. This will be a $60 tournament structure.

9. Points Championship tournament will be a tiered chip stack start. 1^st-16^th will start with the following chip stacks: $25K, $23K, $21K, $19K, $18K, $17K, $16K, $15K, $14K, $13K, $12K, $11K, $10K, $10K, $10K, $10K. This will be an $80 tournament structure with 30 minute rounds plus starting at $25/$50 (approximately 10 ½ hours of play max.)

10. Each tournament will consist of a 80%/20% split prizepool. 80% to be paid out that day, 20% rolled into the Final Tournament and/or seat giveaways throughout the year, POY award, etc.

11. Tournament Director’s prize winnings contribute to the Points Championship prizepool as follows: Total amount, in dollars, of prize winnings won during all preliminary events (excluding PLO, Razz, LHE, and Pineapple to which TD pays in) equal or less than than the total amount of all buy-ins of these events, goes into the Points Championship pool. All winnings above this amount TD gets to keep. All seats won through the Points Championship tournament by TD are staked by DRP for 25%.

12. Host of each site receives half off of buy-in. Certain stipulations may apply.

13. April HPT Giveaway will be top 10 in points after the first 5 tournaments and will have the same structure as a $60 tournament.

14. Point System: 1 point is awarded for participating, 1 point is awarded for cashing, 1 point is awarded for winning. 1 point is also awarded for every place in the top half of entrants. (e.g. 24 entrants – 12^th place receives 1 additional point while 10^th would receive 3 additional points)

15. Certain tournaments will be worth more either depending on buy-in or being a Championship Event. All Championship Events are worth 2x points, while $60 are worth 1 ½ times and $80 are worth 2x points.

Friday's Tournament

2006-12-14T10:38:00.000-06:00

Just posting a quick reminder about the $40 buy-in tournament at Jon Shilling's at 3508 N Elm St at 6:30 tomorrow ... Just in case anybody was by the website and wanted it listed at the top of the page ... lol ...

December 10th Holiday Inn Tournament

2006-12-11T10:47:00.000-06:00

I'm getting word that Mike Pacat and Amy Roehrich split 1st place yesterday at the Holiday Inn ($50 buy-in) Tournament in Fargo. They both walked away with around $1,125!! Toby Roehrich also made the final table out of a field of 100 people!

Congratulations to those 3!

DPT Invitational

2006-12-11T09:20:00.000-06:00

First off, congratulations to Jon Rubis for making his 2nd straight final table for the DPT. Also congratulations to Aaron Diedrich who was still playing when we left Bismarck. Jon finished 10th after a roller coaster of a 2nd day, after a day 1 that saw him run out to a nice chip lead before coasting to the end of the day with a stack about 50% above average.

Unfortunately for me, I was done on day 1 ... and this after getting out to a great start. Through the fist coupled orbits of the first round, I bled off about 1,500 in chips before I was dealt pocket 8's and was in a 5-way raised (to 200) pot preflop. The flop came out 838 and I did my best to hide my excitement. The preflop raiser bet out 1,500 and I called, and the turn he bet 3,000 and I moved all-in for 3,750 more. He eventually called with QQ and I double up to around 17,000. At the 100/200 level I made a few moves and by the end of the 200/400 level I was up to nearly 30,000. During the 300/600 level though, thing took a bad turn. I got involved in a pot that I shouldn't have and ended up with a monster draw and tried to push around a short stack. Unfortunately for me the short stack had flopped a set and didn't even think twice about calling all-in. It was a 4-way raised minimum pot to 1,200 that I called out of the blinds with 49d. The flop came down 2 diamonds Q68 and a guy bet 1,500. I called, and when the turn brought a 7, I moved in on him. He called and showed 66. No straight card, no diamond came and I was down to around 21,000. I then had QQ and smooth-called in late position a raise to 2,200. Unfortunately so did a limper, and when a flop came out 676 and he bet out I reraised and discovered he called with A6. I was soon down to 7K at the break, and coming back to the first hand of 400/800 in the BB. I proceeded through a series of hands to work back up to 11,200 in the first orbit of blinds. I was again in the blinds when 4th position, Mark Berger, DPT Player of the Year, raised to 2,800. I knew he had a big hand, I put him on AK. I looked down at 88, and just called - knowing he was coming with if I went all-in. The flop was 653, and I decided to let him continuation bet, which he did for 3,000, and I moved all-in for 8,400 total. He thought awhile and eventually called 5,400 into the 17,400 pot. An A came off on the river and my tournament was done.

Very disappointed, especially since there was a series of decisions I could have easily made that would have definitely affected the outcome of my tournament. Yes, cards are cards and some of the turns that they took were definitely bad, but I typically try to play to eliminate as much of that as possible, and my decisions didn't bear that out.

Jon on day 2 survived after slow-playing AK on a AJ9 flop (raised preflop, 1 caller), and moved all-in on the turn T. Unfortuantely the preflop caller was holding KQ, but a Q came to save him. He eventually got back to around 60K when Nick Thomas made it 14K to go from the button at 2K/4K, Jon moved all-in with AJd, and Nick called all-in (42K) with QJc, and caught clubs. Short stacked moving into the final table, he moved his stack up to 45K with KK and AJ blinds pick ups, but then ran into a limper (AA) when he had A4 in the blinds and his day was done.

Aaron Diedrich had a very up and down day. At one point he was looking to become a mostrous chip leader, but his AA got cracked by TT after the money went in after the flop. A T for Toby Croteau came off and Aaron was down to 20,000 at 1,500/3,000. He moved up to around 30,000 before the break and hung around that size for quite awhile before making a move on Tami Perry. Aaron rasied all-in with 86c, and Tami woke up in the BB with AK. The flop brought 2 8's and Aaron doubled up and moved to the final table with just under 70,000 (98 entrants - 98,000 average).

Mitch is hoping to bring the DPT back to Fargo this spring, and we will look forward to the tournament as the structure allows for absolutely true poker play.

The Year in Review for DRP

2006-12-08T09:37:00.000-06:00

Well, what a year this turned out to be!

This year our participants included a WPT Poker Stars Carribean Adventure 2nd place finisher, at least 4 or 5 HPT final table participants, 4 of the 6 major tournaments in Fargo-Moorhead (Roger Tangen - Dead Money, Pete Bushey - Doublewood, Chad Ransom - Harwood, Corey Eslinger - Playmaker's) were won by charter members of DRP or individuals who played in the tournaments, a major Dakota Magic Weekend Warrior tournament winner (Jon Shilling), and of course the DRP Main Event Champion (Jason Kramer) who was also the Player of the Year for DRP.

I realize not all of the better players in the Fargo-Moorhead area play in our group, but as good as 'home game' groups can get, this is a damn good group. Fortunately we're mostly here to have fun, and this has always been the intention with our payout structure - to encourage participation and keep the people coming back.

This year our attendance ballooned to see our largest crowds and largest prizepools. Totals for this year, nearly equaled the previous 3 years combined in terms of pools. We branched out and brought in many new, good players around the area, and the word spread quickly. For the time being, we are going to be going back to a 'home game' atmosphere - at least until spring starts.

Obviously our attendance cannot continue to grow much beyond what it has been. Logistically, no matter where we play, 30-32 is about the max. With this in mind, the coming year will hold more tournaments - but with a bit of a different flavor. There will be various Championship Events in Hold-em, PL Hold-em, H.O.R.S.E., Stud, Razz, and Omaha. With the increase in number of tournaments, the other tournaments are mostly going to $40 buy-ins, but there will be a couple $60, an $80 Championship, and a $100 buy-in. We will be having a meeting at the December 15th game with about 6 of the charter members to discuss some details that I have come up with. We will try to tweak structure, dates, etc., as we go along to benefit the majority of people.

This coming year, the Points Championship will be just top 10. Discussions have occurred that led us to make this decision. Mainly, it is based on the feeling that the top 16 included too many people and the top 10 lose a benefit of playing good poker throughout the year. With this in mind, most people in the top 10 will have to participate in a fair number of events to qualify. Doing rather well in 3 of the bigger events may still get you there, but 1 good showing at the largest will probably not. All Championship Events are rated the same for points, there will, however, still be the increase in points for number of participants at the event.

We will also try, during the coming year, to foster more a social atmosphere for the games. During the first couple months, with holding the tournaments at homes, we will see if this helps. Cash games, Friday nights, Saturday nights, snacks provided, etc., will all be ideas that we will try to use to encourage a more social game.

Any and all ideas are always welcome,

We will see on the 15th at 6:30!

Corey Eslinger

2006 DPL Fall Championship Recap

2006-12-04T14:26:00.000-06:00

Well, I'm starting to recover. You can't win them all, right? lol .... you can only try.

It was a great tournament, and I thought it allowed for quite a bit of play. As most of you know, I haven't played a lot of big tournaments, and therefor my scope of reference in the past was limited to tournaments in which I had played and never had accumulated chips. This tournament started out quite eerily in the fact that within the first orbit, I found myself with 7,000 in chips. Obviously still very early in the tournament, but definitely not the start I wanted. Over the next hour and a half, I was able to build my stack up to mid-teens respectable stack. One of the best hand was A9c UTG. I limped and the flop T86 - 2 clubs, I led out 900 and was called in 2 places, turn was the 2 of clubs, and I led out 1,500 and was fairly surprised when both opponents folded.

After the break, I began to build a pretty decent stack into the twenties, where I hung around for quite awhile. Eventually I started to get some good cards. I ended up with KK vs Mark Lawson who called a preflop raise, nothing hit on the flop for him and he folded to me. Towards the end of the 8th level, I went on a mini-rush. Had JJ and raised from 1,600 to 5,000 and had 2 callers. Flop hit 772 and neither called my post-flop bet. Then I called from late position a raise to 5,000 from the 2nd position. Unfortunately, we were also called by the button which complicated my planned pot steal after the flop. The flop came Q73, 2 hearts, and the raiser checked. I proceeded to bet 8,000 with my pair, and the button and the originial raiser folded (rather perturbed). (The contents of this hand have not been revealed to protect the innocent :-) ... lol) So at the 2nd break I was up to a very nice 41,500 ... which put me towards the top 10 with about 49 remaining in the tournament.

After the dinner break we came back and I had 2 hands in a row that I took down called preflop bets with a postflop bet of my own. One of the hands was KK, the other I'm drawing a blank on. I was now up to almost 70,000. I soon ran it up to just under 90,000 before things went terribly wrong. With AKs I raised from 3,000 to 12,000 and was called from the SB. Flop was JTx, and he checked. With 27K in the pot, and him only having 27K or so left, I bet 25K. Hoping he hit nothing, but even a J or T didn't have me in too bad of shape here .... unfortunately (after undue, drawn-out theatrics) he called with TT - a flopped set, and no Q came to save my ass ... I was down to 50K. From there, I couldn't stop the bleeding until consecutive, uncalled all-ins with 56h and JJ to bring me back from 24,500 to 36,500. I then had KQ and raised to 12,000 from 4,000. The BB went all-in for more than I had. I went into the tank, and looked at the clock. We were just about to go to 3,000/6,000 which meant I would have only 4x the BB if I folded .. and the blinds were only 2 hands away. I decided to call because of past events with this player, feeling he wasn't that strong and I was in decent shape. It ended up a coin flip when he showed 55. I Q on the turn and a K on the river, doubled me up to 75,000 .. where I stayed until we went to 2 tables.

Starting at 2 tables, the rush began. With an AK that 2-paired on the flop, with an 87 that 2-paired on the flop and turn, with JJ, with KQh, I proceeded to balloon my stack to 308,500 as we went to the final table. I even had AA (only time during the day) in the BB ... and had called a short stack's all-in blind ... wow ...

As we went to the final table, I won one of the very first hands with KQ. I had raised preflop and was called, and when the flop came low paired with an even lower card, I led out with 36K. After I was called, I was prepared to shut down, but the K on the turn saved me, and although there was no further action I won a very significant pot off the 2nd in chips going to the final table. I know had almost 3x as many chips as the next closest. However, after that, things shifted, through eliminations some stacks grew up, and when I raised with A8 and ran into a short stack AK, and raised with QJ and ran into a short stack A8, I was back down to around 300,000. Things stabilized for me at that point, just picking up the occasional pot as chips flew around the table. Eventually I built my stack to 400,000 after winning about 60,000 off of Cory Solberg when I caught a pair on the flop against his AK.

Coming back from a short break, we were now at 10,000/20,000 and I was UTG. KK again and I raised to 60K and Cory called from the BB. J35 flop and he pushed in, and I called. He showed QJ and with a 3 on the turn to take away 3 outs, he blanked on the river and I moved to around 600,000. On the very next hand though, the worst thing happened. The next in chips, eliminated 3rd in chips and his stack grew to about the same as mine.

After a couple of hands 3-handed, that's when the fateful QJh happened. Normally I would check-raise all-in at some point in time during the hand, but I felt my opponent would call with whatever pair, and after the Q on the turn and the 2nd K on the river ... I convinced myself I was ahead ... unfortunately. I would have still had around 400,000 had I not made the call ... about a 2-1 dog, but with 10,000/20,000 blinds ... plenty of room.

One mistake is all it takes in tournament poker, and I made it at a very bad time. We'll just have to try again :-)

I could feel the sand between my toes ...

2006-12-04T02:32:00.000-06:00

Through 10 hours, I was able to play great poker, survive one coin flip, go on a massive rush, and it all came down to the same hand I won the DPT event 2 weeks prior ... QJh ...

I flopped a gutshot and flush draw, turned a Q, and then when the river brought a 2nd K, I somehow convinced myself I had the best hand. Unfortunately it was not the case and my opponent did have a K.

It's a hand I'm sure to relive over and over .. especially considering I could fold and still have around 400K against my opponent's 800K ... hindsight is always 20/20 and I had trusted my gut all day ...

Things really seemed to be going my way, and I'm very disappointed in the outcome, although I did receive a few consolation prizes. I will be playing at the DPT Invitational this coming weekend and hopefully the hot streak will continue.

Honestly, I think I have to gain a little bit of perspective on today before I can write more about it ....

We'll talk soon ...

December 15th Tournament

2006-11-27T15:45:00.000-06:00

Hello, everybody!

It's going to feel like a lifetime by the time we shuffle up and deal on the 15th of December for the last event of the 2006 season.

Friday, the 15th of December, is the date of the tournament. The location is Jon Shilling's house in North Fargo at 3508 N Elm St. $40 is the buy-in and be there by 6:30!! Cards will be in the air at 7:00 sharp. We probably only have room for 30-33 people, but we may be able to make room for more. I don't necessarily expect this many, but it's up in the air as this is the first tournament of this size we will have back in a house setting since this spring. Please RSVP if you can. I plan to bring snacks and beverages and Jon plans to have some as well.

This is the last tournament that you will be able to receive points before the Points Championship Freeroll the weekend of the 7th of January. If you are close to the bubble, either the 6 that are barely in, or those that could pass them, make an effort to come as a good showing here, can win your way into what amounts to a $75 buy-in tournament!!

Hope to see everybody there!!!

Corey Eslinger

Coming Down

2006-11-22T19:59:00.000-06:00

Well, I think I'm officially coming down from the win. I finally got one under my belt after so many tries, and well, now it's time to start trying more, lol. Still bouncing around which 'Bucks' tournament to participate in. The big-boy tournament in Bismarck for $200 with all the DPT final table participants, or the Bucks tournament in Fargo that same weekend.

Pros and Cons to both, from distance to travel, structure, opponents, prestige, reward, etc.

However, regardless of which one these I decide to play, the dates of the next tournaments are pretty much set in stone - at least the weekends of.

December 15th or 17th will be the final $40 tournament, and the last to receive points, of the 2006 DRP year. Either Friday night or a Sunday afternoon for this tournament. It sounds like Jon Shilling will be hosting the event, and I'm working out the details with him currently. All top 16 will come back on the weekend of the 7th of January to participate in the freeroll. Check the standings for your position, and what you might have to do to make it!

The first tournament of the 2007 season will be the weekend of the 21st in January. I was shooting for the 28th, but the Dead Money Open is already scheduled for that weekend, and too many of our group would be interested in playing that. Also, having our tournament the week before, would allow some to treat it as a satellite for that tournament as well.

We hope to have the December tournament at a house in town, and I will be providing a few 'extra' refreshments for everybody. We will be scheduling a cash game after the main tournament, and I hope to have the tournament on Saturday and we can have a little bit more of a party. So whether or not you'd like to participate in the tournament, stop by an hour or two after start time and meet your fellow poker players!

Talk to ya all soon!!

1st Annual Playmaker's Classic at the Venue

2006-11-20T03:10:00.000-06:00

Starting this past Saturday at 1:00, 203 people ponied up $150, either directly or through satellites, for the First Annual Playmaker's Classic at the Venue. Mitch Schock of the Dakota Poker Tour and who cashed in 29th position at this year's WSOP Main Event, was the director of the event. With 1 hr blinds and a very liberal blind structure, it allowed for a very, very nice amount of play during the tournament. 9 rounds were to be played on each day - turned out only 8 would be played on day 2, but first things first. I'll give a little bit of chronological order as best as I can remember the events of this past weekend, along with the names, and how they occurred.

First, I was able to move from 10,000 to around 15,000 during the first round by making a straight against AK, and winning on a pot that my opponent missed his flush on. During the next 3 hours, very little occurred to me or for me, and I hung right around the 15,000 mark. During the 300/600 round I began to make some good moves and built my stack to around 27,000, but in a short series, and through a course of 4 hands I played, my stack dwindled down to 7,300. First hand, Aaron Dietrich raises to 1800 from late position and I call with KQ on the blind. Flop is 982, and I check raise his 2,400 bet to 8,500. He pushes all-in, and I am forced to muck as he show an A6. Then I proceed to call Steve Madsen's preflop bet with my KJ. We both check the flop, but he calls 3,000 after a J falls on the turn. He checks an A on the river, as do I, and he shows AQ to win about an 11,000 pot. Then the last hand of the round, I limp with AT, and it's folded around to the blinds who call and check. The flop is KT7, as the SB checks dark. The BB also checks and I bet 1,200. The SB goes all-in, enough that it would cause some severe damage. He shows a K4 after I fold. Then the first hand after the break I have J8 in the blind and call Aaron's preflop raise with all intentions of moving all-in after the flop if I catch a piece. Fortunately for me, I don not and I fold myself down to 7,300. By the end of the round I had moved myself back up to around 16,000 by taking many, many pots down without a call. After I got moved to another table, I built my stack thanks to AQ and 66. With AQ, I flopped JT9. There was a preflop raiser that I called, and I now called his post-flop bet. The turn brought a 3rd club and another J. The raiser proceeds to check, and I move all-in for 20,700. He comtemplates, and folds KK face up. My 66 then made a set against an opponent who had a pocket pair that was trying to represent a bigger hand. At the end of day 1, I was sitting with 78,000 even. I had Jareb Raan, Jeb Johnson, Ryan Hanson, Tim Jacobs, and Jon Rubis all joining me into Day 2. At the beginning of Day 2, I caught some early hands, one of them being AA UTG, raising from 3,000 to 13,000 and calling Ryan Hanson's all-in bet of around 35,000. He had KJs, and the QcQs6d flop looked rather good to me, but a Ts on the turn all of a sudden opened a can of worms. Fortunately for me, the Td fell on the river and gave me the pot. I had worked up to 120,000 at the end of this blinds level. During one of the subsequent blind levels I proceeded to dive bomb from 145,000 to 70,000 after I made a full house to quads from the SB to the BB, and then had kicker issues that lost me 50,000. Things began to turn around though with 2 table remaining as I knocked Tim Jacobs with a J6 vs 46, with a 6 on the board, and then eliminated another player as QQ held against K9. A big hand earlier in the round had by QQ against Aaron's QQ around Nick Mertz's AK. Mertz was all-in and was eliminated when his AK failed to catch. With 13 remaining I was now 2nd in chips with around 230,000, and for the first time felt I had a legitimate shot at going deep into the final table.

At the final table, it didn't take me long to get my money in with QQ vs TT preflop and move up to 450,000 in chips. From that point I basically sat back and watched the play. Jon Rubis was very aggresive at the final table and eliminated a player with a straight flush with pocket 5's and then later had 22 run down AA. The player with the AA was eliminated shortly thereafter with A8 vs Rubis' KJ. An A on the flop wasn't enough to hold off runner-runner J's. Jareb Raan was able to double up and survive to aroudn 5th although he had a very quiet final table and came into the final table with under half the average stack in play. The first chink in my armor was losing with AQ vs AT when the AT rivered a straight for a 200,000 pot, and then I lost with AJ vs AA - against Aaron Dietrick, who else. After that hand a was down to 100,000 and doubled right back through Aaron with AJ vs A8. That left me with around 200,000 with 4 remaining. The next big move was by Brad, who raised was reraised by Jon, and then went all-in. Jon called with AQc, as Brad showed JJ. The Jacks held and Aaron had a commanding lead. I went into the tank to figure out how I could possibly overcome a huge deficit. Brad had about 1.5 million, Aaron had around 400K, and I had 220K. It didn't take long as I moved over the top of a 70,000 chip raise by Brad with 55. He called to try to knock me out, based on the number of the chips in the pot, with 97. All blanks gave me the hand and doubled me to 450,000. Next I called a preflop raise by Brad again. This time with AJc, calling it with every intention of moving all-in no matter the flop. The flop came 2c2h3h. Fairly inocuous, but after Brad bet, and I moved all-in, he called with Q3. A 4 on the turn gave me more outs, but it was an A on the river that doubled me up to 900,000. I was able to elimiate Aaron shortly thereafter as my AKc went up against his A4. A 4cJsQc on the flop, a 9d on the turn, but a Jc on the river gave me the nut flush and sent Aaron home. Heads up only lasted 3 hands. On the 3rd hand I min raised with QJh, and Brad called. He bet out at a KJ6 flop for 150,000 and I called, the turn was a blank and he moved all-in and I inst-called being 95% I has ahead. He flipped A7. The river was a blank and that made Corey Eslinger the winner of the Playmaker's Classic at the Venue and a winner of $6,605!!!!

There were many, many people who were rooting for me on Sunday, and I'd like to thank all of them for their support. They know how much it means to me to finally win a tournament like this. Although I'm not a proliferant participant in tournaments around here, they have realized how much it means to me.

Also like to give a personal thanks to Mitch Schock and his tournament structure which allowed me to play some of the best poker I could play and overcome times of adversity and play a great game!!

2006 DRP Championship

2006-10-19T21:24:00.000-05:00

We have moved our Championship Event up 1 month due to conflicts with playing a tournament the weekend before Christmas.

This year's Championship Event is an $80 buy-in. 25 minute blind rounds, $10,000 in starting chips, and blinds that only double every 3rd round after the first break, should make for some great poker play at this event.

We are set to begin at 2:00 p.m. on November 4th, a Saturday. Registration will start around 1:00. BYOB for your own refreshment as this tournament is going to be at a private residence in West Fargo. Some snacks will be provided at the tournament. The tournament is expected to last until around 10:00, of course depending on number of entrants and play style. Last year, our tournament started at 3:00 and was done close to 9:00.

Based on 40 paid entries (there is a freeroll spot and the TD spot), the prize pool will be $3,000 and first place will be $1,000 and paying down 7 spots. Also at stake, seats at the Points Championship freeroll in January. This tournament and a $40 tournament in December are the final 2 left to obtain points for the Points Championship, and with the potentially large number of entrants, even a good showing, much less great, will go a long ways to getting you your seat. Anymore than 35 entrants and the winner of the $80 event could conceivably qualify for the top 10 just with this tournament. However, that is not a given, as even a 12th place finish with 36 entrants is worth 32 points in the standings and would keep anyone with 48 or more points currently in the standings ahead of the winner.

Currently the Points Championship will be the Top 10, as the TD has only cashed $310 of the possible $570 this year that is eligible for the prize pool. With even around $150 in cashes in the next 2 events, the Points Championship could become a top 16 tournament with a prize pool over $1,200. Either way the prize pool looks to be over $1,000 for the Points Championship.

There will be sure to be cash games as the tournament progresses that will lead into the night.

If everybody could please RSVP with me as to how many bodies could possibly be coming, that would be a great help. He have the room and tables for up to 60, we just have to make arrangements for chairs, so please, even if it's a possibility, let me know.

Thanks, everybody, and we'll see you on the 4th!

Corey Eslinger

$60 Tournament, September 10th

2006-08-29T21:49:00.000-05:00

Well, summer is coming to an end. If you're like me, you have mixed feelings on it going. Glad to see it go because I was way too busy, but sad to see it go because winter isn't a whole lot better.

The first of the 4 last 'major' tournaments will be on September 10th, Sunday @ 1:00. We'll have to see how it goes, being the first Sunday of football season and all, if it's too crowded to play, attracts too much attention, etc.

The buy-in is $60, the October and November tournaments will be $40, before the $80 December finale. Plenty, plenty of people are still in the running to make the points championship at this point, even someone who has not shown up as of yet.

We will be starting with $7,500 in tournament chips with blinds at $100/$100 again, 20 minute rounds.

I am going to show up a little bit early this time, and if anybody has any suggestions of getting money beforehand instead of at the site, I'm welcome to those ideas.

Hope to see everybody there!

All-Time Points leaders (2003-2006)

2006-08-13T01:06:00.000-05:00

Jason Kramer - 175.7 (30)
Corey Eslinger - 152.8 (34)
Roger Tangen - 127.3 (30)
Pat Anderson - 113.5 (19)
Bill Burgess - 103.9 (31)
Jason Hubert - 95 (24)
Marvin Holm - 78.9 (14)
Eric Coughlin - 75.9 (12)
Mike Pacat - 66.5 (14)
Greg Joubert - 62.7 (17)
David Jarrett - 61.5 (15)
Ryan Hanson - 59.6 (17)
Paul Muchow - 59.4 (11)
Bobi Joubert - 51.4 (13)
Marty Tallakson - 50.5 (10)

Number in parentheses is number of major tournaments attended

Sunday, August 13th @ 1:00

2006-08-02T21:15:00.000-05:00

Our next tournament is scheduled for August 13th @ 1:00.

$40 is the buy-in, and we will be using the new blind structure as listed in the previous post.

Based on the feedback I've received, preliminarily, from those I've talked to, it's as least an idea that we should at least try out, if not fully implement.

I know I've talked to a few people who are going to be out of town, so I'm not sure how many will be there, but if you could drop me a note through your e-mail or here, that'd be great. The past tournaments were 20 and 27 entrants. Starting in September, I do believe we will be pushing 30 with fall attendance.

Hope to see you all there!!

Possible Blind Structure Revision

2006-07-31T19:08:00.000-05:00

Following is a proposed revised starting chip count/blind schedule;
Reference Jan. 13th post for original blind structure.

The reason for the change is some discussion as far as the meaning of the first couple rounds. I know people like to use them as a get to know time and feel around. However, after thought and debate, taking these rounds out and adding more later in the tournament seem to be more beneficial to all players in the long run. As you can see by the blind schedule below, we have gone from doubling every other round to doubling every 3rd round for many of our tournaments. Obviously we are also eliminating the need for the $25 chips, but may introduce them, for the time being, as $2,500 chips until I acquire more $1,000 or acquire a new color of chip of a larger denomination.

I also posted the maximum time in playing time (not including late starts, breaks, chip ups, table breakdowns, etc.) that each tournament would take with 20 people. 24 person tournaments would last approximately 1 round longer, 16 person, approximately 1 round less.

Blinds:
#1: $100/$100
#2: $100/$200
#3: $200/$300
#4: $200/$400
#5: $300/$600
#6: $400/$800
#7: $500/$1000
#8: $600/$1200
#9: $800/$1600
#10: $1000/$2000
#11: $1200/$2500
#12: $1500/$3000
#13: $2000/$4000
#14: $2500/$5000
#15: $3000/$6000
#16: $4000/$8000
#17: $5000/$10000
#18: $6000/$12000
#19: $8000/$16000
#20: $10000/$20000

Exceptions - not limited to - are as follows

$20 tournaments
$4,000 in starting chips
$500/$1000, $1200/$2500 & $2,500/$5,000 eliminated
17 minute blinds
20 entrant tourney time = 3 hours

$40 tournaments
$5,000 in starting chips
$1200/$2500 & $2,500/$5,000 eliminated
20 entrant tourney time = 4 hours 20 minutes

$60 tournaments
$7,500 in starting chips
$2,500/$5,000 eliminated
20 entrant tourney time = 5 hours

$80 Tournament
$10,000 in starting chips
20 entrant tourney time = 7 hours

20 minute blinds typical

25 minute blinds for $80 event

Tony Uhlir wins Cully's Kids

2006-07-22T23:00:00.000-05:00

Tony Uhlir was able to take down the entire $10,000 first place prize today!

The event saw 109 people show up to play (Mike Commodore was blinded for 2 rds, and had his chips pulled 5 minutes before he showed up) for a prize pool of $19,300.

Everyone started with $5,000 in chips and cards were in the air around 12:15. During the first 2 levels of blinds, only 2 people were kncocked out. The first, Jon Shilling, flopped a set of 4's only to lose to a turned set of Q's.

After we returned from the break to 100/200 blinds, things began to speed up dramatically and by the next break, through the next 2 and a half hours of play 71 more would find the rail. After the 3rd break, 36 players came back to 1000/2000 blinds, and in literally 1 hand on each of the 4 tables, 6 people were nearly simultaneously eliminated and we were down to 3 tables. It was on this table that Matt Cullen mad his last stand with A9 to AQ, but he couldn't catch up and was eliminated from his own tournament. Things continued rather quickly right through until we got to 16 people. Then after a short hiatus, more people had to leave the tables. Eventually we were at 12 people left and started hand for hand play. One big hand was Jason Stewart surving an all-in with J9, with the 9 of spades against 2 others, 88, which was all-in for less than Stewart and TT which had them all covered and there were thoughts that the final table would start after just one hand of bubble play. Robert Thompson (TT) caught a set on the flop but there were 3 spades. Both Jason and the entrant with the 88 and flush draws, but Jason's was still bigger. 88 improved slightly with a gutshot draw on the turn with a 9, but a spade on the river gave Jason a huge pot and we still had 11 people playing. Eventually, Annie Cullen was forced all-in for just 2K in the SB with 89, we had another all-in on the hand for only 5K while 2 others called the 10K blinds. the 5K all-in had 99 and won the hand as the other 2 hands were both KT and made no improvement. We went to the final table with:

Mohammed al-Naseer - Seat 1
Tony Uhlir - Seat 2
Jason Stewart - Seat 3
Robert Thompson - Seat 4
Jeff Hogan - Seat 5
Gail Brookings - Seat 6
Andy Moseng - Seat 7
Percy Perkins - Seat 8
Josh Dahlstrom - Seat 9
Mark Cullen - Seat 10

Things started off fairly quick as Jason ($300) and Percy ($400) found the rail early as J4 and QQ respectively found the rail against KK.

Jeff Hogan lost a huge hand to Mark when his Q9 failed to improve against Mark's AJ after he hit a J on the turn. Soon after Jeff ($500) was eliminated with K5 ($4K) on the same hand as Robert ($600) ($7K) when Mark hit a J on the turn again with AJ.

For the next while, the only hands won were by those before the flop as they went all-in to steal blinds. Eventually 2 hands would knock heads as Mark's JJ went up against Andy's AK. The flop was QQ3, the turn was a J to seal the deal for Mark and send Andy ($700) home in 6th.

Soon after on a hand we actually saw a flop on, Mohammed had K6 and Tony had 54. After check on the flop and check on the turn, Tony bets 14K to put Mohammed ($800) all-in. Mohammed shows K6 to be out in front of Tony's 54. But on the river, a 5 falls and Tony rakes the 68K pot.

Josh continued his plan to steal blinds, but when he was in the SB, he got caught with one too many of those attempts. He raised all from the SB with 63 while Mark woke up with AK and doubled up with a $180K pot when the 63 failed to improve. Josh was still left with a number of chips but they migrated into the pot shortyl thereafter with K8 for 73K total. Gail called from the BB for another $43K with QJ. Josh was ecstatic to be thinking of picking up the pot with K high, until the river brought a J to bust Josh ($1,000) in 4th.

3 handed play was extremely cautios as the only move was all-in several, several times without a call. Eventually Mark moved all-in with A9c, but, Tony woke up with AhKh in the BB and immediately called, and after a flop of 268J6, Mark moved to the rail with a $2,000 finish.

Heads up play last about 5 minutes, if even, when Gail ($3,000) moved all-in with KT for about $180K total and Tony made the call with A9, after a flop of 3QJ48 giving Gail an open-ended, but failing to improve.

Thus Tony Uhlir wins the 2nd Cully's Kids poker tournament!

Sunday, August 13th, $40 buy-in

2006-07-19T16:15:00.000-05:00

Tenatively, I am setting the date for the next tournament on Sunday, August 13th at 1:00 - same place. I will try to get an e-mail out as soon as I am able to confirm the date. There is also a possibility of Omaha PL, Razz, and NL on the 9th of August - each a $20 game. The only way the NL would count ( it would be the 3rd event of the night ) towards points (only 1 pt) would be if the game starts with 8 or more people.

All Time Cashes

2006-07-18T10:44:00.001-05:00

Another WSOP prestige, is the all-time cashes, which Phil Hellmuth currently holds the record for. Our list, again in major events, is as follows.

14 - Jason Kramer
11 - Roger Tangen
11 - Corey Eslinger
9 - Jason Hubert
9 - Pat Anderson
6 - Bill Burgess
6 - Mike Pacat
5 - Greg Joubert
5 - Marvin Holm
4 - Paul Muchow
4 - David Jarrett
3 - Gary Murphy
3 - Thom Hunter
3 - Kurt Hendrickson
3 - Marty Tallakson
3 - Craig Peterson
3 - Chad Krump
3 - Ryan Hanson
3 - Steve Erickson
2 - Eric Coughlin
2 - Jon Rubis
2 - Bobi Joubert
2 - Jeb Johnson
2 - Jon Shilling
2 - Brett Karlsrud
2 - Jason Steven
1 - Many others

Follow this up with best % cashers (min 10 tournies)

1. Pat Anderson - 45%
2. Jason Kramer - 42%
3. Mike Pacat - 38%
4. Roger Tangen - 33%
5. Paul Muchow - 33%
5. Jason Hubert - 33%
7. Marvin Holm - 31%
8. Corey Eslinger - 30%
8. Greg Joubert - 28%
10. Gary Murphy - 27%

All Time Wins

2006-07-18T10:44:00.000-05:00

Just thought with the WSOP going on, I'd post our own list of 'bracelet' winners, if you will. These include all major events ($30 or more).

6 - Jason Kramer
3 - Marvin Holm
2 - Thom Hunter
2 - Bobi Joubert
2 - Marty Tallakson
2 - Jason Hubert
2 - Pat Anderson
1 - 17 others

Points Championship

2006-07-17T16:22:00.000-05:00

This is an update on this post from December.

Based on current participation and number of tournaments, we are on course for over a $1,200 prizepool. This, of course, provided I still am able to cash for a bit more. It would be an estimated $1,300 prizepool if I max that out. Therefore we are going to have the top 16 advance, based on the chip format below.

I would like to get some feedback on possible payback at this tournament.

$500, $350, $200, $150, $100, or,

$500, $300, $200, $125, $100, $75, or,

$400, $300, $200, $150, $100, $75, $75, or,

$500, $250, $150, $100, $75, $75, $50, $50, $50, or,

$400, $250, $150, $125, $100, $75, $50, $50, $50, $50,

Any of the preceding are a possiblity or a combination. Do you prefer a top heavy payout, more graduated, more spots, etc.

_____________________________________________________________

The Points Championship this year will be for the Top 10, if the prizepool is below $1,200. If we would somehow manage to eclipse $1,200 though, we will bring the Top 16 into the tournament and pay the final table.

As before, there will be a bonus for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. As well, there will be a difference in starting chips for 11th-16th place if we happen to achieve the $1,200. Last year the chip counts were 10K, 9K, 8K, and 7K for 4th-10th. Added for a $1,200+ prizepool would be, 11th &12th would start with 6K, 13th & 14th would start with 5K, 15th and 16th would start with 4K.

Comments are welcome, and this is not set in stone as of yet. The possibility is fairly remote that we would achieve the $1,200 prizepool level, but it will all be based on how attendance fares this year.

If we average 16 people for each tournament, the likely prizpool will be between $1,000 and $1,100.

$100 or more possible buy-in

2006-07-12T15:38:00.000-05:00

Wow ... what a scorcher it's going to be this week. Thankfully we'll be inside playing poker in air-conditioned comfort!

Wanted to bounce around an idea for a tournament. It would be a (preferably) 8-10 person tournament with a substantial buy-in ($100 or more). The game would be NL Hold-em. I'm resisting the urge to lobby for a H.O.R.S.E. event, as that tournament started today in Vegas at the WSOP.

The blind rounds would be 30-60 minutes or so, with plenty of starting chips, and would be an all day tournament.

Just wondering who would possibly interested in this? If we have interest to 16 people (doubtful), we could open it up to a 2-table format.

$60 Tournament, Sunday July 16th

2006-07-10T13:08:00.000-05:00

Hello, everybody,

Well, it's the dead of summer, and I'm going to try to get a poker tournament going!

Yea, we'll see how many people show up. Last month we had 27 show up for the $40 tournament, I doubt we would get that many again this month, but we'll see how it goes. If you could, please drop me a not saying you would be making it, just in case we do fill up (32).

It is looking possible that we can end up with over $1,200 in the prize pool for the Points Championship (provided I actually start cashing at some point), and therefore the top 16 all have a shot to advance. Check below for the current standings. If you are not on the list and would like to know where you might be or how the point system works, just drop me a line.

The winner of this tournament should receive somewhere around 40 points, which would almost be enough to get them in at this point, and that's only based on 20 entrants!

Hope to see everybody at 1:00!!!

WSOP 2006

2006-06-29T10:37:00.000-05:00

The WSOP 2006 has just kicked off and it got me to thinking about a few things concerning it.

If you had $10,000 of absolutely disposable, non-need, just for poker income to spend during the 6 weeks of the WSOP, how would you spend it? Would you take all $10,000 and plop it down for the Main Event? Would you play $1,500 events, nightly $200 events, side games, satellites etc.?

Personally, I would probably play some of the $1,500-$3,000 events, play some $500 to $200 side tournaments, probably play some cash games and satellites as well, I might even play the $1,060 satellite for the main event. If I happened to hit one of the games, I would very seriously consider playing in the Main Event at that point. The biggest issue I have with the main event now, is just the sheer size of the field. You are talking 8,800 people and 7 days - only 2 days of actual play, before you get to day 3. The one alluring factor still is the $10K in starting chips and 2 hour blind rounds + the fact that blind rounds towards the end of day 2 start to really progress slowly, doubling only every 6 hours. This would be the hard part about saying no to that, and I eventually might just say go for it. Of course all this is assuming you actually have the time to do it. Imagine ... 7 days completely committed to being in Vegas and possibly not even cashing in the event! So you're looking at playing 3 days of poker, 8 actual days to just find out if you cash. Now - don't know how many of you have been to Vegas, but 8 days in that city might just kill me ... I think if the drinking and gambling didn't, laying by the pool in the summertime taking in the scenery would go a long ways towards greatly increasing chances of skin cancer.

One of the issues they have seemed to start to address is the amount of the buy-in. $10,000 for the Main Event, in my opinion, should be bumped up. Maybe not to $20,000, but at least to $15,000. Most of the players qualify through satellites and such, so it would probably only cut a percentage of those down. I understand the nostalgia of anybody can win and it's always been $10,000, but we're now talking 37 years that the buy-in has been $10,000 - inflation wise, the buy-in is about 1/10 of what it was in 1970, thus the large field.

This year however, they implemented a $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. event. That's alternating rounds of limit Hold-em, Omaha, Razz, Stud, and Stud hi-lo, with the final table being played NL Hold-em. I think most of the professionals believe that this is probably the true test of who actually is the best poker player in the world. So depending on the success of this event, it may begin to receive some more billing as the premier event in the future.

I know of a few people who will be playing in events out there this and good luck to them and any others who will be playing. Hope to see you names in the standings, and hopefully one our group will have a spotlight on them one of these days.

$40 Tournament Results

2006-06-11T22:59:00.000-05:00

27 people came out this Sunday to play a nice easy game of poker. We all love and hate this game some times, and today was no exception for many of the entrants.

This started out eerily enough when shortly after we starting Bjorn lost with a nut flush to a full house. Pocket Aces were flying all over the place, the first to lose big with them was Jim Tallakson to Jason Hunt's pocket Jacks with a Jack on the flop. Later Roger Tangen had his cracked by pocket sixes, and Pete Bushey had his cracked by 68 on a 682 flop. With those kind of beats, it wasn't surprising to be down to 18 by the first break.

Play continued rapidly until about 12 were left and things started to tighten up. Finally Corey Eslinger was elimnated with 22 vs AT and an A on the flop for Cassie. The final table of 9 was set: Eric Coughlin, Jason Hunt, Chad Krump, Cassie, Jon Shilling, Dan Jordet, Travis McNicholas, Gina Deutsch, and Mike Pacat. Amazingly about 1 hour and 15 minutes passed before the first player was eliminated. Not without trying though. The huge hand was Travis's KK vs. Mike's JJ, when on the flop a J and a K made an appearance, but a Jack on the river gave Mike quads to keep him alive. Jason Hunt hit a Q on a flop with QQ against Cassie's AK, but with a J as well and a T on the turn, she also pulled a miracle. Gina kept on grinding it out, being down to 2000 at one point before tripling up, eventually she went all-in for 21000 with 88, but Jon had AA and had her covered to send her home in 4th. Cassie eliminated Chad and Jason on the same hand, as they both had A3, but she had more than enough chips to call and catch a pair and send Chad home in 6th, Jason home in 7th. Mike went out in 5th, Eric Coughlin went out 3rd, and after 1 hand and Cassie hits a boat, Jon was out in 2nd.

Congratulations to Cassie, and see everybody on July 16th! $60 buy-in. It appears the limit will be 32 for number of participants. Please e-mail during the week prior if you will be making it, and you will be on the list in that order.

Kurt Hendrickson won the 5 person mini satellite for his seat at the Main Event Satellite Freeroll in November. Congratulations, Kurt, and nice to see ya again.

$50 Heads-up Tournament

2006-06-02T12:11:00.000-05:00

Pete Bushey is organizing a $50 Heads-Up Tournament in Fargo on the 9th of July. The optimum number players we are looking for is 32. More or less can be worked with via mini-satellites and round-robin formats. If you are at all interested, please contact me. This is to be a one day event with cash games I'm sure to follow or possible during.

June 11th $40 Tournament

2006-05-26T08:29:00.000-05:00

Hello again, everybody!

After poll results came back, it appears the 11th works out really well for everybody who responded.

I will be sending out an e-mail to everybody with all the particulars, but the time will be 1:00 on Sunday, June 11th. The location looks good for the same place as May 21st.

Talk to everybody soon!

**Note: $40 Tournament as per structure below (January 13th post)
**Exception: $5,000 in starting chips

$60 Tournament Results

2006-05-21T20:32:00.000-05:00

Hey, everybody!

It was a fabulous day for some poker. We had 20 entrants for our $60 tournament, and after all was said in done, newcomer Dennis Whalen took home first place! You may recognize the name if you have read this blog before, from his 2nd place finish in February at the VFW in Wahpeton.

The final table of 9 consisted of Rob Whalen, Roger Tangen, Corey Eslinger, Dennis Whalen, Jim Tallakson, Pat Anderson, Bjorn Heide, Jon Shilling, and Jason Kramer. First to go out was Pat Anderson as he went all-in with QQ and Roger Tangen called with AQ. With an A on the flop, Pat headed home (earlier he was all-in with KJ vs Kramer's AA and the turn and river brough a K and a J). Next to depart was Rob Whalen then Jim Tallakson was involved in a huge pot - about 30K or 30% of the chips with 7 left, when his J kicker fell short to Dennis's A quicker with top pair Q. Next out was Corey Eslinger when his AK failed to hit against Roger Tangen's TT. Jason Kramer was sent home by Roger Tangen as well in 5th when his TT was so close, yet so far behind Roger's JJ.

The big hand of the night came as Dennis raised UTG with AJ from 4,000 to 8,000. Bjorn folded, Jon called from the SB, and Roger went all-in for 30,000 total. Dennis called and Jon folded. Roger showed QQ and Dennis had AJ, but caught up in a hurry with an A on the flop. The pot worth 68,000 in chips, gave Dennis nearly 3/4 of the chips heading into 3 handed play. Not too long after Bjorn was gone followed by Jon giving Dennis the win.

Lucas Roach won the 5 person mini satellite for a seat at the Freeroll satellite in November. A side note to today's play is that there were 4 sets of quads dealt, 3 of them being quad A's and 1 being quad Q's.

The next tournament should be June 18th or 25th, same time same place for $40 this time.

Upcoming Events

2006-05-15T22:32:00.000-05:00

Hello, everybody,

Just thought I'd make a quick post with some upcoming events for the coming year.

1.) Our Freeroll Satellite & Cash Satellites in November. Tenative schedule for November is our $40 November tournament on the 5th of November, and the satellites on the following Saturday, the 11th.

2.) Possible Heads-up Tournament running throughout the rest of the year. The tenative format calls for getting 8, 12, 16, etc. people to commit to the tournament, with seeds then being drawn and matches set based on player availability before monthly matches or possible other times, with the Championship Heads-up game being played the day of our Satellite Day in November.

3.) Our $80 4-point tournament on December 3rd or 10th. The date is slightly up in the air because of possible scheduling conflicts with local tournaments, including, but not limited to, a $100 Roughrider Poker Tour event in Jamestown on the 3rd.

4.) Dakota Poker Tour's $150 event at Playmaker's on the 19th of November.

5.) Heartland Poker Tour's $300 event in Flandreau, SD on the 26th of November.

Of course, schedules may need to be changed for other reasons, including Dakota Poker League events that may arise with players from the group competing in finals.

Freeroll Satellite Tournament

2006-05-11T14:39:00.000-05:00

Hey everybody!

We are going to be giving away one seat to our $80 December Tournament!

Here's the details:

The first 5 people who bust out of our monthly tournaments (major NL Hold-em tournies), if they stick around, can play a super satellite to a 7 or 8 person satellite for the $80 tournament.

You can play multiple times, however, if you win multiple times, you will start with the same number of chips, it will reduce the entrants in the main satellite though.

The super satellite entrants will start with $5,000 in chips with 20 minute blinds and blinds starting at 100/200, 200/400, 400/800, 800/1600. So the tournament will last an hour max to determine who moves on.

The Main Satellite will be held in late November on a day when we will hold other cash satellites for the $80 event ($20 buy-in).

The satellites will start with $5,000 in chips with 100/200, 200/400, 300/600, 400/800, 500/1000, etc. blinds. The Main Satellite will pay only the winner to the $80 tournament, while the cash satellites will pay top 2 from an 8 person tournament.

Comments are welcome on this idea!

May 21st $60 Tournament

2006-05-10T19:39:00.000-05:00

Our next tournament is scheduled for Sunday, May 21st, at 1:00 at Jim Tallakson's in Fargo.

For more details e-mail me and/or check the blind structure listed further down this page.

Hope to see you all there!!

$50 Tournament results

2006-04-23T21:23:00.000-05:00

What a day to have a poker tournament!

While it was 75º outside with sunny skies and very little wind, 20 of us got together and played poker inside.

There were only 2 players eliminated during the first hour of play with starting stacks of $5,000 in chips. One of those was Pat Anderson who, with 22, hit his set on a 652 flop, after some raising and reraising and a call, the turn comes a 7 and all the chips migrate into the center of the table. As it turns out Mike Lukes has pocket 7's and leaves Pat crippled with 175 in chips. Roger Tangen was able to clean up the bounty from the big blind on the next hand.

Again there were only 2 players eliminated during the first 2 rounds after the break, but than things started to break loose. In one hand, Bobi Joubert took out Mike Lukes and Greg Joubert, who were both all-in for $1,500. She had 44 and spiked another 4.

It was a day of comebacks for 2 of the stacks, as both Bobi and Corey Eslinger were down to 500 in chips at one point. Corey was all-in with money in the blind for 500 total with 94 and caught a 4, doubled to 1,000 instead of being eliminated in 18th, went on to build his stack to over $10,000 at points and hung on to place 5th. Bobi had much better cards when she went in with better cards, but the results were the same. She had her stack up to almost $20,000 when she caught a gutshot straight draw with J8 on a board of QT39. Jason Kramer called the all-in with 33, and caught a T on the river to send Bobi home in 6th on the bubble.

David Jarrett survived on a short stack diet for much of the final table to finish 4th, Kramer suffered some of the bad luck he had put on other people during the tournament when his TT was cracked by Mark Lawson's A5 on a monster hand for 3rd position.

This set up a lopsided heads up battle between Mark and Ryan Hanson. When it started Mark had about $75,000 to $25,000 chip lead, but soon it was about $93K to $7K when Ryan finally called all-in and double up twice. Pulled almost to even before again being crippled on a "bluff gone bad" as Ryan put it. But then double up two more times to take a slight $53K to $47K lead when Ryan was dealt KQ and Mark 22. All the money went in, and on the turn a K came off and Ryan won the tournament.

Ryan and Mark each had 5 bounties, Kramer had 4, Bobi had 2, Bill, Roger, Corey, and Paul each had 1.

The next tournament is tenatively scheduled for the 20th of May. This will be a straight up $60 tournament - no bounties.

$50 pics

2006-04-23T20:49:00.000-05:00

$50 Tournament

2006-04-17T21:32:00.000-05:00

This Sunday, the 23rd of April, at 1:00 is our next tournament. It is a $50 buy-in, with $10 of that going towards bounties. We'll see how the bounties go for this tournament, it's a nice little twist, but we might not do them again until the year-end $80 tournament --- based on popular opinion of course.

I know many are going to try to do the $330 HPT event up at Thief River Falls, and good luck to you guys if you make it through to Sunday!

If you have not already received details, drop me a note and I can get them to you right away!

Back from Vegas %#@*%!

2006-04-11T10:25:00.002-05:00

Well, we're back from Sin City. First, we had a great time making our donation to the city to help pay their enormous light bill. We had a bunch, a bunch, of free drinks throughout the weekend.

Unfortunately the stupid St. Louis Cardinals couldn't come through for us Sunday night!

We didn't play much poker at all ... most of the time we were too drunk to think about taking that adventure on. We did play a tournament at Harrah's, and although knocking out 5 people felt good, losing with A8 to A6 in a situation that basically spelt cashing, sucked major.

Of course, we already thinking of trying to head back, with new and better ways to lose our money. Right now, we are going to let our eyes adjust back to sunlight after barely leaving the confines of Treasure Island for 4 days. We will get back into the swing of things on April 23rd with our $50 tournament though and we can talk more about Vegas when I see you all!

Heading to Vegas!!!

2006-04-04T10:40:00.000-05:00

Those big ol' jet wheels will leave the ground of Hector International at approximately 8:55 this Thursday evening and by midnight I should already have lost some money in Fabulous Las Vegas. With any luck, I can break even, as I have the past 2 times to Vegas.

Plans are to play a tournament somewhere in Vegas. $100 at the Orleans that draws about 220 participants is the one I'm leaning towards at this point. A couple sessions at the poker table for $1/$2 NL, and a couple sessions at a craps table, plus sports betting on the NBA, MLB, and Frozen Four (Where's Minnesota?) should provide for a fairly busy weekend. With any luck at one of the $1/$2 sessions, I may try out the $200 min/max game at the Bellagio ($2/$5 blinds). Or we could just drink in the bar and play video poker while watching our sports bets, lol.

Depending on how things go on Friday and Saturday, I could find myself killing time on the ski slopes NW of Vegas on Sunday, but that would be a stretch, as I would have a hard time getting that much ambition.

If anybody has any suggestions on what they have done that they like when they're out there, or anything else, let me know!

Hope to have good stories and pictures when I get back!

Pete Bushey wins Doublewood Tourney

2006-04-03T11:26:00.000-05:00

Congratulations to Pete Bushey for winning $2500 at the Doublewood Tournament on Saturday. They had a total of 74 entrants and paid top 10.

Roger Tangen from our group got 6th. I, unfortunately couldn't stick around for the final table to see how Roger was eliminated by Pete.

In what had to be a big hand for Pete, Roger had about 40K in chips, so the pot size was over 80K or almost 25% of the chips in play, Pete called Roger's all-in pre flop (or reraised Rog all-in) with KQ to Roger's JJ. The flop came off ATx, but the turn brought a J, and the river did not pair the board, and Pete's straight held. With that win, Pete had to have 1/3 to 1/2 of the chips in play with 5 remaining.

$60 pics

2006-03-27T20:13:00.000-06:00

$60 Bounty Tournament results

2006-03-26T20:12:00.000-06:00

Jeb Johnson wins the $60 Bounty event. After what was a very slow moving tournament for much of the day, the final table accelerated rapidly to end the tournament at the $1000/$2000 blind levels - with $95,000 in chips in play, this was very early for any tournament to end.

There were 19 entrants, Jeb won 7 of the bounties (his own included), David Syvertson had 3 bounties, Bill Burgess, Eric Coughlin and Michael Syvertson each had 2, Jason Kramer, Eric Parvey, and Mark Lawson all had 1 each.

The first truly big hand was when Mark Lawson went all-in with 77, and Jeb called with AK, with an A on the flop and no help, Mark was first out at the final table, and Jeb had a monster stack well north of 20K. Play slowed, as some shorter stacks were eliminated with some tough beats, Nick Taralson, Bobi Joubert, and Pat Anderson were the next 3 out. Then Michael and David Syvertson went out in amazingly short order near the bubble in a matter of 3 hands. Both were around 2/3 to 1/4 of average stack at that point of the tournament.

Eric Coughlin, bubble boy himself, got 4th to cash, Eric Parvey slid into 3rd, and the battle of the 2 stacks ended with Jeb's QQ holding up vs. Bill's 77.

Preliminary plan for next tournament is a $50 buy-in with $10 towards bounties on the 23rd of April, a Sunday. Stay Tuned for any possible changes!

Bounty Tournament

2006-03-14T11:24:00.000-06:00

Our $60 Bounty Tournament will be held at 1:00 on March 26th at Greg and Bobi's. There is a $10 bounty for each person knocked out (winner receives his/her own bounty).

Let me know if you can make it, this past tournament had 19 entrants, so participation has been close to starting with 3 tables at anytime we get most everyone to show up the same week!

Jason Kramer wins the $30 PL Hold-em

2006-03-13T08:35:00.000-06:00

Jason Kramer wins the $30 PL event. He had 19 people at the event, including 3 new people, Matt, John, and Rob. KK seemed to be the very unpopular hand to have this evening as it lost a large number of large pots.

Kramer survived his first all-in of the night as he and Jim got them all-in with AQ (Kramer) vs AJ (Jim) with A23 -- all clubs, but no one had a club, and no J came and Kramer doubled up and seemed to avoid any significant pots until later in the final table.

Unfortunately for Eric Coughlin he once again was busted on the bubble vs Kramer just after he was unable to have KQ hold up against K3, even after the flop gave him a heart flush draw, leaving Lowell with only 2 outs. But a non-heart 3 fell on the river.

Ended up Jim had Kramer all-in heads up with 77 vs Kramer's T6, but a T saved Kramer and shortly thereafter Kramer's 88 held up vs Jim's 33.

Our next tournament will be at Greg and Bobi's on Sunday, March 26th, at 1:00. This is a $60 ($50+$10) NL tournament including bounties. Every person you knock out, you receive $10.

Hope to see you all there!

$30 Pot Limit Hold-em on March 11th

2006-03-05T14:05:00.000-06:00

Our next event is set for March 11th at Greg and Bobi's in south Fargo. The address is in the email that I sent out.

The exact time is not set as of it yet, but should be either 3:00 or 4:00 in the afternoon. One plan might be to take a couple vehicle (my van, another vehicle that can have a lot of people) and go to the casino after the event gets done around 8:00. Let me know if anybody is interested in this.

For those of you who have not played PL before, it may take a bit of getting used to. First of all, the pot size and how it's determined. The pot size includes all blinds, calls, and bets, including the amount needed to call the original bet before a person raises. For example, if the blinds are 100/200 and 1 person limps in for 200, and then you want to raise pot, you can raise 700 to 900. This includes the blinds, the one call, your amount of 200 that calls = $700. Another situation would be 100/200 blinds, 2 people limp for 200, 1 person raises 600 to 800, and now you want to raise pot. The pot is now $300+$400+$800+$800=$2300. So your raise can be to a total of $3100. Obviously by this last example, it shows that there can be huge jumps in raises by reraising the pot. Be careful then when you announce 'pot raise'.

Look forward to seeing everybody there!

Brook Lyter on the World Poker Tour

2006-03-01T11:01:00.000-06:00

According to the worldpokertour.com, the premiere airing of the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure is set to air Wednesday, May 3rd, at 8:00 p.m.

Hope everyone has a chance to watch it!

Rebuy Tournament Results

2006-02-26T19:56:00.000-06:00

Good evening, everybody!

We just completed our rebuy event, at which we had 18 participants. Surprisingly, there were not a lot of rebuys, only about 1.5 average per person, and then the add-on.

The final table started and Greg Joubert was first all in with QT vs Jim Tallakson's KK. The flop was KJ6, the turn was an A, but the river was another J giving Jim the house and sending Greg home. The next one out was Rusty Petermann when he went all-in for 6200 after Marty Tallakson had raised to 3000. Rusty had 33, while Marty reluctantly called the 3200 more with the KJ. After 4 blanks, the river brought a K, and Marty won a nice sized pot. The next 2 went out on the same hand. Matt Morse called all-in for 1200 on the button, while the SB, Corey Eslinger, and the BB Bobi Joubert, called and checked. The flop is J84 -- all diamonds. Check-check. The turn is a T, and after Corey checks, Bobi bets 2000, Corey calls all-in for 1800. Bobi has just made her straight against Matt's AK and Corey's J9. The river card is a J and Bobi takes her first two out at the final table. She was far from over, as she eliminated Jim in 6th when she called his all-in with JJ to Jim's 88. She then eliminated Eric Coughlin on the bubble, after he went all-in with KJh, and Bobi called with 33 and all 5 cards were blanks. In the money Jason Kramer took out Jason Steven with A9s vs JTs. An Ace and a T came on the flop, but the rest were blanks. Jason Kramer was eliminated next when he hit top pair J, with KJ, but Bobi again made the nut striaght with Q9. The heads up was very short lived, as the 2nd or 3rd hand in, Marty raised, Bobi put her all-in, and Marty called with AK. Bobi had AT, and caught her T on the flop and won the tournament.

Our next event will be March 11th at Greg and Bobi's in south Fargo at around 3:00 or 4:00. It will be a $30 Pot Limit Hold em event.

Hope to see you all there!!

Limping and Calling

2006-02-23T14:25:00.000-06:00

Hello, everybody,

Because of a few instances I've run across recently I thought I'd spew my thoughts out about what I see as one of the worst plays, typically, in poker. Limping into a pot and then calling large raises.

First, let's divide the different scenarios for each limping and calling:
1. Limping with a monster in hopes someone with raise behind you
2. Limping with a mediocre, 2 paint, type hand
3. Limping with suited connectors, gap connectors
4. Limping with small to medium pocket pairs
5. Limping with junk hands - do I really need to give examples? - to 'see' flops

Second, depending on cash games, early tournament, mid tournament, latter tournament, all the above scenarios would play differently. I'll try to focus on mid to latter tournament play.

1) Limping with AA or KK in hopes of a raise behind is a very dangerous maneuver depending on the current play at the table. If there is a lot of raising pre-flop at the table, this could effectively trap those behind you who like to bet pot size to chase people away. Calling the raise in this situation, I would only advise if you're going to be heads-up with your opponent who raise, after the flop. Typically you'd check to the aggressive player in hopes that he stabs at the pot, if he does, there is no more fooling around, you have to make a raise at that point.
Preferred to this, in every situation, I would make a standard raise, 2 to 3x the BB amount, and hope that someone wakes up with a playable hand. The problem with limping is if the pot is not raised after you, you may end facing a multi-way pot with AA or KK, which is very dangerous.

2) Limping in with mediocre hands, QJ, KT, KJ, QT, JT, A9, AT, even AJ etc., before the flop, especially in early position is probably the most, even including garbage, perplexing of all these scenarios. It is so easy for someone to wake with a hand that has you dominated before or after the flop. If no one raises and you see the flop and hit top pair, you could very easily ship large amounts of chips to your opponent due to a kicker situation or them hitting 2 pr, straights, etc. And, if you do call a reraise in this situation, you are almost always behind, either to a pocket pair, or to a big card, big kicker combo. In my opinion, I would avoid playing these hands from early position at all, if you do play them, be the first to enter (including any limpers) and raise. If your raise is called before the flop and you are out of position, against 1 person, I usually would suggest betting at the flop in most situations. If it comes with an Ace, you could be able to get away from the hand and be confident your opponent may have that Ace. If you are reraised preflop, you are most certainly beat, and depending on chip situation, knowledge of your opponent, you can lay the hand down without anymore invested. I recently saw a person call the BB from UTG with QJo, and then call an all-in for nearly 7x the BB, this with 7 people left in a tournament.. If you think it's good enough to win against an all-in like that why wouldn't you raise?

3) Many people love suited and gap connectors because of the pots they can win if they hit against good hands. Problem in NL Hold-em is that unless you hit a monster flop with them, you can throw away a lot of money chasing if you are calling decent raises before the flop. Limping in with these hands is not a terrible option, but you have to be willing to lay them down before you see the flop if there is a decent raise. Again, raising with these hands, preferably in position is a great move. There is an element of deception obviously, and if you do hit your flop, your opponents will usually be unaware of how strong your hand is, if you miss your flop, you can still, with position, put pressure on your opponent to fold.

4) Limping in with small to medium pocket pairs seems to be the preferred way to play these hands by most people. Typically, I still prefer the raise, as it typically reduces the number of opponents who see the flop, and the number of overcards you will be up against. Again, position is very key with these hands, and if you are in early position a limp to see the flop and hit the magic set is not a bad play. If you are raised preflop, the more callers the better your odds are to call, but even so, I would only recommend calling a significant raise when you've limped before the flop, if the amount of chips you can win if you hit your set are worth it. To me, you shouldn't put more than 5%-10% of your chips in the pot when you call the raise. You are not then pot committed after the flop, but if you hit your set, you can bust a monster overpair, or top pair/top kicker type hand and make it worth the risk. Calling close to 20% - 25% of your chips with these pairs is a terrible move and will send you to the rail quickly unless you get extremely lucky.

5) Finally, limping in with garbage hands. Well, some people do this because they just enjoy to play, see flops, outplay their opponents, etc. If you're going to play garbage hands, play them aggresively in position. But the biggest suggestion, don't play them!

In closing, all of these plays have some merit in different situations, and you obviously have to play to whatever is most your style of play. You also have to keep in mind, the opponent you are playing against and their tendencies if you know them.

SCHEDULE CHANGE!! - PART 2!!

2006-02-21T09:24:00.000-06:00

The host is again Jim Tallakson as of today ... his address is in the e-mail as sent out ... if you need more details, please e-mail or comment.

Thank you, and hope this doesn't cause too many problems!!

And yes, the tournament is still Sunday at 1:00!!

________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________

Due to something that came up with our prospective host on the 25th, and he can't host now, our new host will be Roger Tangen and the day will be Sunday, February 26th at 1:00. I will be sending out the e-mail this afternoon!

Thanks, everybody!

BTW, Robert Whalen, who works with Roger Tangen and placed 4th at the Vet's Club tournament, just made a 4 way chop for $2,300 at the first night of the Weekend Wariior's Tournament an Dakota Magic ... Congratulations!!

Casino Night

2006-02-20T09:20:00.000-06:00

Was entertaining the idea of coordinating a "Casino Night" after one of our upcoming poker games and wondering who would be interested. Personally, I vote for Dakota Magic down by Hankinson.

Depending on interest we could coordinate transportation to and from possibly as well. Let me know!

Upcoming Tournaments - Hosting

2006-02-17T16:31:00.000-06:00

Our next events are scheduled for the weekend of March 11th - a $30 PL Hold-em event, and the 26th of March, will be Sunday for sure - a $60 NL Tournament, including $10 bounties.

If you would be able to host BOTH tournaments, let me know. The weekend of the 11th is flexible as to which day it will be, the $60, will be on the 26th.

Let me know!!

Rebuy Tournament, February 25th

2006-02-13T21:17:00.000-06:00

Hello, everybody!!

Our first official league rebuy event will be held Saturday, February 25th, at 1:00. I will send out the appropriate e-mails to those on my list, if you want the details, just send me an e-mail at caeslinger@yahoo.com.

The initial buy-in is $10, for which you will receive $1,000 in chips, rebuys will cost $5 for which you will receive $500 in chips. You will be able to have unlimited rebuys during the first 3 rounds of play, at anytime you are at or below $1,500 in chips. The final add-on will be at the end of the first 3 rounds and will cost $10 for which you will receive $3,000 in chips. We will be following the $40 buy-in blind structure as listed below.

Last year we tested this out, 10 people participated and the action was really lively, but everyone seemed to really enjoy the format.

If you can make it let me know!!

Vet's Club Tournament - Roger Tangen takes 3rd!!

2006-02-11T20:17:00.000-06:00

This Saturday, there was a field of 60 players at the Vet's Club tournament in Wahpeton, ND. The buy-in was $100 and everybody started with $2,500 in chips.

Final table was Clair Filbert, Dave Pauly, Dave Taylor, Bill Bilben, Jessie Schuler, Dennis Whalen, Robert Whalen, Eric Hanson, Ken Quam, and Roger Tangen. The blind structure at this tournament was extremely fast paced, which I will make a comment on later.

Clair Filbert was eliminated first in 10th and received a bottle of booze from the Vet's, 9th was Dave Pauly for $150, 8th was Dave Taylor for $200, 7th was Bill Bilben for $250, and 6th was Jessie Schuler for $350.

As blinds started skyrocketing up Robert Whalen made a move with A high for a total of $12,000 and was called for the extra $4,000 by Ken Quam with K2, the A high held up and he was safe for another round. That put Roger Tangen on the hot seat, when UTG, he moved all-in for just $4,000 with blinds at $4K/$8K. Ken Quam moved all-in behind him and then Dennis Whalen called all-in behind him, the small blind and big blinds folded. Roger Tangen was all-in for $4,000, Dennis was all-in for $14,500. Roger had 55, Ken had AJ, and Dennis had AK. Flop is 533!!! and Roger flops his full house, the turn and river were blanks, and Dennis won the side pot of $25,000, while Roger won the $20,000 main pot. Ken Quam ended up being next out in 5th for $450.

4 handed, and blinds at $6K/$12K, Dennis limps in, and Robert moves all-in for an extra $2K ($14K) total, Eric calls from the SB, and Roger and Dennis call the extra $2K ... a 4 way family pot worth $56K, which is over 1/3 of the chips in play. The flop is A53, and Dennis moves all-in. Eric and Roger fold and Dennis shows A8 much to the chagrin of his brother who is holding 44. The A holds and Robert is out in 4th for $550.

3 handed, the play is cautious, but with the blinds as high as they are, there isn't much waiting around. Eric moves all-in from the SB, and Roger calls immediately from the BB with KT, Eric bemoans that he got caught with 84. Roger had $12K in the BB and another $25,500 back. So the pot will be worth $75K, or exactly half the chips in play. The flop is 84Q, and Eric takes a stranglehold lead on the hand, with a 6 on the river, Roger's fate is sealed in 3rd for a take home of $800.

The final hand of the night saw Dennis moving all-in from the SB with A5 for a total of $26K, Eric called the remaining $14K (he had an approximately 5-1 chips lead going into the hand) with 37o.

The flop is 254, and the turn bring the 6 and Eric makes the straight, eliminating Dennis in 2nd for $950, and taking home $1,700 for first.

Congratulations to all players!

My comments on this tournament are this. It was advertised to be taking up to 100. When people arrived, they said they only had room for 60. The blind structure was insanely fast for people putting up $100. The rounds were only 25 minutes long and they doubled every round, plus you only started with $2,500 in chips.

I understand that you may not run tournaments on a regular basis, and while I can say it was nice to see only 10% being taken out vs. some heftier cuts by houses, this does not make for an enjoyable process for almost anyone playing the tournaments. Blinds increasing as fast as they did make it too much of a crapshoot for all players involved and skill becomes almost obselete as a factor. Also there should have been a better process of balancing and breaking tables down. I wish the Vet's all the luck in their future tournaments, and personally I am willing to offer my help to them or any other site who is looking to run a charitable tournament.

Rebuy Event

2006-02-09T19:34:00.000-06:00

Our first Rebuy event will be held the weekend of the 25th/26th of February. Stay tuned for further details.

The buy-in will be $10 for which you will receive $1,000 in chips. During the first hour (3 20-minute rounds) there will be unlimited rebuys for $5 each (you receive $500 in chips for each rebuy). You can rebuy at or below $1,500 in chips. The final add-on at the end of the first hour will be $10 for which you will receive $3,000 in chips.

Razz Tournament Results

2006-02-09T08:58:00.000-06:00

David Jarrett took down the $20 Razz event, he won most of the big hands at the end and had an enormous chip lead going into 3 handed play. Jason Kramer was behind to Corey Eslinger with 2 cards to come and caught an 8 to make an 86 low to beat Corey's 97. David then called Jason's all-in draw ... Jason needed any 3,6,7,8,9,T, or J, but missed on the last card and David won.

In the $20 NL nightcap, Mike won the big hand of the night, eliminating David, Travis Rodriguez, and Roger all on one hand with 67d. The pot was worth 43,500 - there was 90,000 chips in play. This made a 7 person table, only 4 people left out of the 9 who started.

Mike ended up finishing 3rd, as Jason Stephen went on a run and took his chips when he had Mike all-in with KJ to his QJ on a J high flop ... but a Q on the turn gave Jason the pot and about a 3-1 chip lead going heads up with Corey. Corey check raised all-in on a K86 flop with K4, but Jason had 89 with a flush draw. The turn brought the flush and Jason won $100 for his efforts.

Payout Structure Discussion

2006-02-02T10:26:00.000-06:00

Over the past week, and even before that since Brook Lyter took 2nd at the PokerStars Carribean Adventure, and now recently when Roger won the Dead Money Open, I have had some discussions concerning the payouts each place should get when it comes to these major tournaments.

It is my opinion that the difference between the top 5 or 6 spots should be a 50% increase. Typically first should be right around 30% of the prizepool - depending on the size of the tournament. In the PCA, it was just under 25% with 724 entrants, and the last WSOP, it was only around 12%.

Typically, it was the accepted to practice to pay about 10% of the field for major tournaments, however, with the boom in satellite play, that number has grown for some of the recent events. The PCA and recently complete Borgata Winter Open paid about 25% of the field. The WSOP, however, stuck with the 10% of the field rule, which actually was more than they paid out the year before, as the year before they took 10% of the tables that started, and paid that amount of tables x 9 per table.

My opinion, would be that if you are to pay 25% of the field, the bottom half of the cashes shouldn't necessarily get the amount of the buy-in back. This is obvioulsy done for qualifiers through satellites, and even if you pay in completely, you are getting something back for your efforts, where in the past you would have received nothing.

There should be larger jumps at certain points of the payout. At the 10% of the field mark, at the final 2 tables, and making the final table. Each one of those accomplishments should be rewarded more than say moving from 9th to 8th place at the final table - percentage of payout increase at least.

The large discrepancies between first, second, etc. lead to more dealmaking on chopping pots than there should be. Playing for an extra $2000 when you already have won $4000 seems a lot better than having to play for an extra $4400 when you have won $3300. As anybody who was played heads up for a tournament knows, this, of all places is the most determined by luck. Both players had to have luck to get here, don't get me wrong, but playing heads up at this point is usually a crap shoot, and you the 2nd place person should not feel as if they were screwed out of so much money.

I think the WSOP this past year had it about as fair as I've seen ... the payouts seemed to reflect the large amount of luck and skill it takes just to get the final table and didn't overly reward 1st place by such a large amount compared to the rest of the final table.

Roger Tangen wins at M&J!!

2006-01-30T08:47:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, Roger Tangen won over $4,000 at the M&J's Dead Money Open. The final table became a series of chopped pots to pare down the heavy difference between 1st place and the rest. 4th took down $2,500, 3rd - $3,500, and 2nd and 1st was a chop for over $4,000.

The biggest hands came before the final table for Roger as with $2K/$4K blinds he ended up calling an all-in with ATs ... Curt Hoffart had KK. But with a Q on the flop, J on the turn, and a King on the river, Roger made his straight and moved up to nearly $50,000 with about 25 left to play. From there he coasted into the money, and after a deal was made with 17 left, to give the bubble boy his money back, the play was fast and furious. However, with 13 people left, Roger had $4K in the SB with only $16K back. The pot was raised to $24K in front of him and he called all-in for $20K total with KQc, he was up against Ad5c. The flop was AcTcX, the river brought the 2c giving him the nuts and more than doubling him up to $48K. The next hand, the UTG player went all-in for $20K and Roger called with KJo. The UTG player had 88 and it was a race until the flop came AQT, flopping Roger the nuts once again. The next hand, Roger limps in for $8K and Chad Ransom moved all-in from the small blind for $11K total. Both the BB and Roger called the extra $3K. An Ace came on the turn and Roger bet $15K, making the BB fold. Ransom showed A7h, but Roger had AJ, and with a J on the river moved his stack, in 3 consecutive hands to $102K from $20K and moved to the final table in good shape, as average would be $80K.

Congratulations to Roger Tangen!!