Monday, June 26, 2006

in the books

Good game last Saturday. Field of 57, with 285K in the pot. Mark, ACF Poker Room regular and long time player, took home 94K after a brief heads-up match with Vince A. Damn good final table, with very few mistakes being made.

Glad this one didn't end in controversy ;).

Lal Gopwani of Ray Ban sponsored a pair of sweet shades for the Champ, so Mark not only has 94K and a bracelet, but also has brand new kickass eyewear. Hope we can bring more interested sponsors to the mix for the next one.

The ACF poker bosses are real keen on getting the 500 seat, 5 million tourney rollin' (slated for December). It's gonna have a 10K+1K buy (don't quote me yet), but we will be rolling out daily satellites from July on. Keep ya posted on all that.

Peace

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

ACF 5K June 24 Tourney Structure



Freezout, 10K start stack, 25 minute levels.

ACF5K comin' up

The 2nd installment of the ACF5K is on its way, kickin off at 2:00pm on Saturday the 24th. Blind structure (Structure's posted a few blog entries below) will be the same as last month's. We'll also be adopting all the rules instituted by Marco and Ed.

And of course, there's the bracelet...

Let's try to crack 500K in pool money this Saturday...

See you all there!

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Blogger Tourney on Stars

Online Poker

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code: 2808587





Monday, June 12, 2006

Bloggin for the sake of it...

Happy Independence Day to all!

My start-o-the-week blog entries are now likely going to be rehashes of events of the previous weekend. This is entirely the fault of the ACF boys, and of course Marco and Ed, who have, in a short period of time, turned us into Saturday afternoon warriors. Love it. Like I mentioned to some folks this past Saturday, I feel like I'm part of a congregation, meeting up with the same people once a week...just like goin to church, ain't it?

This past Saturday's event was another fun-filled helping of tourney hold'em, with 88 in the field (with 12 rebuys). I got scrunched around the bubble again to a (you guessed it) mathematical improbability. LOL. But I'll be honest. I lost that tourney in level 7, due to a dingaling play with AK (the Duke and Philip know what I'm talking about).

Thank the poker gods for Barb though, who jackpotted on a slot machine and took down 43K. Add to this another 12K on that same machine the previous Saturday, and that machine's now paid us 55K in a week!

The 24th is comin' and that means we've got the ACF5K to look forward to.I'd dearly love to see a 3-digit tournout. We built a 450K pot last month...let's crack that this month. Remember, freezout.

Back to the PBT and some serious observations. I'm real impressed with the way in which Marco, Ed and the ACF guys have developed a rules and governance structure that forces players to pay attention, and most importantly, behave. I'll be adopting their stye wholesale and thank them for having enforced some tough, strict calls. Now if I have to be an asshole, the precedent's been set ;).

Another thing about hanging out at the same place for 34566778787 hours every saturday is that one gets to shoot the breeze with just about everybody who's anybody in local poker. The gossip's great, as are the plans people are formulating. I might start an "overheard at the ACF" weekly on this blog.

1st piece of gossip: rumor of a 2M guaranteed tourney in September. Buy-in? 5K+1K!!!! woohooo! Details on this as I get more.

Sunday, June 04, 2006

What's next??

We've had some weighty issues of late. From a 30,000 foot view, it's all good. The conversations and debates are well worth the time and effort, I think, as it helps define what we are expecting of the poker community and those who work to provide venues and opportunities to play the game. In the past month or so we've discussed and debated issues like tournament structures, rake, acceptable profitability for game organizers, and finally, cheating. To me, these are all natural signs of a growing community coming out and defining expectations as well as learning.

Well, a little bit of diarizing now. After all, that's what blogs were originally intended to be, n'est-ce pas (diba)?

Came back from Marco and Ed's 1.5K+300 at the ACF, with a crappy taste in my mouth (was it all those Marlboro lights?) after having bubbled to a runner-runner flush. Just another bad beat, I guess. I feel a little crappy about it cuz in my mind I actually played the best tourney poker i have in a long time, online included (and I play a lotta those). But, please be clear: the beat on the bubble aside, the PBT guys put on yet another First Rate Tourney.

Before this, I haven't played much Texas Hold'Em at all...I've almost exclusively moved over to Omaha 8 to put a bungee cord on my bankroll. My Hold'Em swings have simply been eerily analogous to the Pirate Ship ride you'll find at your finer amusement parks. And profitablity has simply been all too successful at eluding me in this year of our Lord, 2006. Omaha 8 simply lets me play a game with itty-bitty variance (at least the way I play it, heheh) to get my game back in its groove - if it ever was in groove.

Yesterday's beat on the bubble just reinforced my loss-induced and growing sentiment that Texas Hold'Em, while undeniably a great game, is simply too prone to mathematical outcomes that even math itself would say wasn't possible. At least at critical times in a game - like the damn bubble in a 90-person tourney! So if you're taking a few too many bitch-slappings at the greasy hands of probability, try 08...

Which brings me to the next thing...when will we spread games other than NLHE? Local poker has become a single-flavor ice cream stand. Imagine skipping over to Baskin Robbins and finding that all they have available today, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, is plain vanilla. That's what we've got for poker here.

A few months ago I wrote, on this very blog, about the need for a cardroom. Somebody built one. Today I'm making the call for more plurality in the poker scene. Hook me up, fellas.