Matt

Looks like Live at the Bike is starting back up. Here's the link:

Live at the Bike

I used to play in this game all the time a few years ago. My friend Bart Hanson is still doing the commentating.

Well hi there! I see the last time I blogged about poker, I was complaining about Scott Clements to Full Tilt poker support.

I just poked around my 'friends' list on livejournal, and it looks like the only person that updates his blog regularly is terrence chan. Good ol' Terrence, the master of HU LHE.

I hear that Live at the Bike is starting back up... maybe I should stop by one of these days. I live in L.A. now.

It seems like livejournal has been pretty much overtaken by other blogging sites, like google blogger and wordpress. Back in the day, livejournal used to be the shiznit.

Scott Clements is a much better poker player than me. His tournament results are extraordinary ($3MM in tournament winnings.)

He has his own 5/10 NLO8 table on Fulltilt. Lately, he hasn't played at all, and the action has totally died off. Since I really enjoy the 5/10 NLO8 and the game attracts some megafishies (not Scott of course), I emailed FullTilt support to complain.


Original Message Follows: ------------------------
Hello Fulltilt Support,

I used to really enjoy playing the 5/10 No Limit Omaha 8 game with Full Tilt red pro Scott Clements. However, he never plays the game anymore, and the game does not run. As a result, my play on Fulltilt has decreased. Can you call Scott at the gym and ask him to get the game going?

Thanks,

Matt

Original Message Follows: ------------------------
Hello Matt,

Thank you for writing in.

I apologize for the delayed response.

I did notice that, at the time of this writing, there aren't any active 5/10 NL08 games running.

Scott Clements appears to have his own table, and still continues to play 0maha 8 games.

Generally speaking, poker players aren't known to last too long at the gym; in time, I'm sure that he'll be back for some action.

I wish you continued success at the tables Matt.

Kind regards,

Shujiro
Supervisor
Full Tilt Poker Support

I was traveling for half of September, but managed to play about 7000 hands overall. My results were pretty good, winning about $3100 at holdem and $2800 at PLO.

Holdem (HU limit and some NL):

From 2008 poker

Pot limit omaha, most 2/4 CAP PLO on Fulltilt:

From 2008 poker

A bunch has happened on the poker front. A while back I won a second entry to the WSOP on Stars ($12,500) and took the cash again. So overall I ran pretty good in WSOP sats this year, spending about $1K and winning $25K worth of entries.

I also discovered I'm pretty good at heads-up limit holdem. I was inspired by the coaching videos from interweb poker phenom TheBryce. Basically his story is: he won $2.3 million in 2007 playing HU limit on fulltilt, then cashed most of it out and semi-retired from poker. He has a ton of videos on Stoxpoker, some of which are also on youtube.

Since watching a the Bryce videos, I've played a bunch of HU and done pretty well. Overall I'm up about $12,000 this year, mostly playing at the 8/16 level, with some higher stakes thrown in. My stats at specifically 8/16 limit HU are: 11,000 hands, $8200 won, 4.62 BB/100, $108/hour. I'd say it's a good result to make over $100 an hour playing 8/16 limit. I admit that the competition is abysmal in these games, so I don't expect to sustain these results if I move up. However, I'd like to play another 10,000 hands at $8/$16 before I attempt to tackle $15/$30.

Today I won an entry to WSOP 2008 on Stars, which is valued at $12,500. Apparently they put the money directly in your account now. I'm glad to learn that, because it's an easy decision for me to just take the cash.

I won my way in through the WSOP Steps ladder, which is a series of progressively higher buy-in sit-n-goes. I began at the $7.50 Step 1s, played 76 of those, and eventually won my way up. When I reached Step 6, I got lucky and won the first one I played. Overall, my investment was about $425.

I would love to say it was my brilliant play, but I simply ran extremely good in both Step 5 and 6. In the Step 5, I won a 20% shot for all my chips, then a 35% shot. In the Step 6, I won 2 coinflips for all my chips, then a 75% shot, then a 55% shot, then another 75% shot, and suddenly I had all the chips and the win.

My intention is to cash almost all the money out of Stars, start over with the $7.50 Step 1s, and try to win my way up again.

Regular readers will note the lack of posts in this blog... oh wait, there aren't any regular readers anymore, lol. I completely stopped posting because there was nothing but bad news on the poker front. It's not especially interesting to read 100 posts about losing. So I resolved to only post when I had some good news. Which I do - I finished 6th in the Stars $10 rebuy last night for about $2000.

Overall, though, I barely play poker anymore. A few months ago, I went back to work full time. Amazingly, a job opportunity fell into my lap out of nowhere. I actually like it - it's the sort of job I wanted 7 years ago. All I had to do was quit my old job, move to California, gamble for a living for one year, lose $40,000, and voila! Funny how that worked out. Overall, my life is much more balanced now, and I only play for fun. It's been said a hundred times, but it's true: poker is a fun hobby but a shitty job.

They won't ban me from the ring games! I received a nonsensical response.


Hello Stars Support,

Can you ban me from playing ring games on your site? I only want to
play tournaments. I lose all my money in ring games because your
jerkoff site is rigged against me. So can you block me from ring games
only?

Roswell
Matt



PokerStars Support
to me

Hello Matthew,

Thank you for your email.

I'm afraid we can not ban you from ring games on our site at this moment. I
find it strange that you believe the site is rigged, surely if you win money
in Tournaments but loose it in cash games, this would indicate that you are
a better Tournament player than a cash game player.

If you have any further integrity concerns, please let me know and I will
happy to discuss them with you.

Please let us know if you have any further questions.

Best Regards,

AlexM
PokerStars Support Team

Nothing exciting happening to me at the tables lately. Just playing low-buyin satellites for the WSOP on Stars. I've occasionally been playing ring games, but I'm going to try and quit forever after this hand.

Basically I decided to let him keep betting into me all the way, because I was pretty sure I had the best hand. (warning: bad beat alert.)

*********** # 46 **************
PokerStars Game #9258404095: Hold'em No Limit ($1/$2) - 2007/04/05 - 00:27:02 (ET)
Table 'Jugta' 6-max Seat #6 is the button
Seat 1: scandal21 ($28 in chips)
Seat 2: carrotsnake ($714.55 in chips)
Seat 4: Ldonnie ($606.30 in chips)
Seat 6: Roswell ($258.10 in chips)
scandal21: posts small blind $1
carrotsnake: posts big blind $2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Roswell [Qs Qh]
Ldonnie: folds
Roswell: raises $5 to $7
scandal21: folds
carrotsnake: calls $5
*** FLOP *** [Qc 5d 4h]
carrotsnake: bets $12
Roswell: calls $12
*** TURN *** [Qc 5d 4h] [6c]
carrotsnake: bets $33
Roswell: calls $33
*** RIVER *** [Qc 5d 4h 6c] [Ks]
carrotsnake: bets $75
Roswell: raises $131.10 to $206.10 and is all-in
carrotsnake: calls $131.10
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Roswell: shows [Qs Qh] (three of a kind, Queens)
carrotsnake: shows [8s 7s] (a straight, Four to Eight)
carrotsnake collected $515.20 from pot
Roswell leaves the table
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $517.20 | Rake $2
Board [Qc 5d 4h 6c Ks]
Seat 1: scandal21 (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 2: carrotsnake (big blind) showed [8s 7s] and won ($515.20) with a straight, Four to Eight
Seat 4: Ldonnie folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: Roswell (button) showed [Qs Qh] and lost with three of a kind, Queens


Unfortunately on rigged Riverstars, people bet into top set with gutshots and hit. Fuck this site. I emailed support and asked if they could ban me from ring games and let me play tournaments only.