Poker news tagged with 'blogger the prince of freerolls'

Interesting stuff from the tables this week. Last week I wrote about a player getting himself into trouble in the patented pocket pair vs Ace-King spot, and the same spot returned to my table this week as well. A final table, no less.

Read more » The Problem With Ace-King...

It seemed fitting that I should receive an earful after a bad beat this week, just after a month of articles about the effects of ‘luck' in poker. With a number of pleas specifically about not giving an earful to your dealer should you get a bad beat. Clearly, he disagreed with my opinion.

Read more » Live By Luck, Die By Luck

To finish off my round of blogposts on Luck, and its effect on the game of Poker, I thought I'd try something a little different. I've researched what various game creators have done to try and create a ‘luckless' version of poker, all the while preserve what makes the game so great in the first place.

Read more » Predestined By The Poker Gods

Over the last few weeks I've been writing about the effect luck can have on Poker, how some game designers have looked to combat the sometimes unfair effects that luck can have on the game, such as by playing Small Ball poker, or even creating new versions of Poker entirely.

Read more » Relying On Yourself

I've got some ‘splaning to do, again. Another week, another lack of a post. Nearly two weeks, because this one will be late too. I've got some ‘splaning to do, and some ‘pologizing too.

I have to apologize to my editor, Thomas first and foremost. His support of my writing, and myself personally in the last few weeks has been a great comfort. I'm sorry to let him down again, and especially without a great explanation. In fact, I'd say it's a downright generic one.

Read more » Right Place, Right Time

Phil Hellmuth would win every tournament. Apparently. If it weren't for luck, every tournament would be won by the player who had read the most poker books, or could read their opponents the best. But what would that game even be?

Read more » If It Weren't For Luck...

You may have wondered why I didn't write anything last week. You may not have, and that's okay too. The reason for my absence was due to what happened to me whilst walking home from the casino last Tuesday night.

One of the many drawbacks of working at a casino, along with handling drunk people and the fact that they're playing poker and you're not, is that your shift often ends early in the morning. Usually between that gap between after the last bus for the night and before the earliest bus the next morning.

Read more » Riding Your Luck

I see a lot of bad beats whilst dealing. I see even more of them on the freeroll circuit, and every single one of them, regardless of being a digital ace on the virtual river, or even dishing out a miracle two-pair myself, it never fails to make me wince.

Read more » Got Rivered... Again

Coming from the online arena onto the felt of live poker, one of the most drastic changes that you notice is the level of talking between players. Rarely does any hand pass without at least one of the players talking about something.

I've heard everything from pocket deuces vs Ten-Jack suited, talk of the latest signings of the local soccer team, to rants about the idiot that cut them off on the drive here.

Read more » The Art of Coffeehousing

Working at a busy casino in one of the UK's major cities understandably means that you get large amounts of rookie players making their first timid steps into the live poker world.

I enjoy it. To be honest, it's the only time when I'm dealing for players that are less knowledgeable about the game than I am. I make sure they use the right chips, play in turn and know the etiquette. I try and keep them safe, from the nefarious sharks circling them.

Read more » Lucky Donk

Imagine you're playing Pot-Limit Omaha freeroll. On the first hand you get some okay cards, with some decent draws. In your four hole cards, there's a suited connector, a couple of unsuited one-gappers and all of them are above 9.

But here's the problem. There's a player that's raising the maximum amount at every opportunity. He's in early position and raises the max when it comes to him, and then raises the max after someone re-raises in middle position.

Read more » Wolf-Sheep and Sheep Wolves Story time

I risked most of the money I had scraped together through Freerolls on a heads-up sit-and-go. Both of us put in 25¢ each, and the 50¢ goes to the winner.

I was playing against a guy called Jolep. He was from Russia, and I hoped he loved Mint Julep's as much as I did. Me and him could connect over that, talk about Julep's vs Mojito's, and it'd be a fun game.And then it wasn't. And then it took forever and it was miserable and it was the worst poker experience I've ever had in my entire life.

Read more » Blocking the Hail Mary

As you may have read in my last piece, being the Prince of Freerolls doesn't exactly pay the bills. You can't pay for dinner with tournaments tickets, you know?

But what does, sort of, pay the bills is working as a Poker Dealer at one of them live poker places. The ones where you someone has to count out the bet sizes every time, and the ones where you usually don't have the correct combinations and chips, and some poor sap has to give you change every time.

Read more » From the Screen to the Felt

I’m looking at my bankroll right now and it says $0.34. Over the last six months it’s said anywhere between $0.00 and $12.56, but right now it says $0.34. Thirty four cents. About the same price as a Milky Bar, or one of them crappy candles that are about the size of the ‘OK’ sign you can make with your hand.

Thirty four cents is not a lot of money, but I dread to think how many hours I took to earn it. How much that thirty cents has cost me in blood.

Read more » 34¢ of Blood