Happy New Year!

As twenty-ten winds down, it's interesting to think about all the stuff that has happened this year. For us though, we focus on the poker world. This is kind of pathetic (yet we love it) because in the grand scheme of things poker is near the bottom of the food chain of what should be important. People starve, are homeless, are needy, and we just complain about "this sob 3 outs me."

This is our life however, so we must come to enjoy it. Through ups and downs, 2010 has been a cool poker year and life year. Here are some of the more memorable moments.

- Abarone68 shipping the $16 leaderboard and continues to wreck a "solved game." - tic tac toe is a solved game, not sngs
- Meeting a certain player (likes to remain nameless) who ended up ripping 16s this year and changing the course of his poker playing career from breakeven to beast
- Jay Weezey playing 10k games in one month that weren't super turbos lol
- The Giants winning the World Series
- Coaching different guys from around the world
- Losing >25lbs this year (still more work to go)
- Simplicity8 being victimized by the DON scandal, giving up on SNE, and then ripping up 300-400+ games a day to earn SNE (boom)
- Becoming good friends with Bagclip2005
- Retiring from 16s
- The poker blackout not happening

As for person of the year, I have two people I can't decide between. So I'll just mesh them.


No wait, Aaron, not even close to person of the year. Maybe top 68 though. Person of the year, hands down, not even close...

Your Bad Beat Story Sucks, Brah

If you've ever suffered what you think to be the worst bad beat of your life, wait till you see this. This is from the new game show on Fox called "The Million Dollar Money Drop." All I gotta say is, gtfo Fox.



And here is the article where a Fox rep tries to push it aside.

Let's review what type of money they lost from a poker standpoint.

3,720 Sunday Million Buy Ins
50,000 $16 9 mans
$15,400 in RB with Supernova from those 9 mans
Close to the minimum for final tabling The WSOP Main Event
3.2 Million bb's at 25nl cash
Enough EV to wait for a better spot
20% of Isuldur's upswing rampage
66,666 $12 180 mans
1.6 million KOs in $3 90 mans
Roughly 400,000 bad calls to respite Juandadi and breakeven
Enough rake spent to earn 4.4 million vpps
Enough rake spent to earn 24.2 million fpps (not including SNE boost)
Enough fpps earned to buy 8 porches from the Stars' VIP Store
1 durrrr pot
1,143 Battle of the Planet wins at 16s
1 losing night of Chinese Poker for Phil Hellmuth
4 million bbs at bb20 in 16s
400,000% equity at 16s
1,438,848% equity at 6.50s
The right to never game select ever

Too Late, Can't Sleep

So I'm just chilling in my friends kitchen at 4:30am while everyone is asleep. I was planning to drive back home from christmas break but it felt too late in the night. I couldn't sleep, so I loaded a long set that lasted 5 hours. I think I'm supposed to be frustrated, but I really don't care right now. I made 2 final tables in mtts but no big cash. I played a weird $10 Fixed Limit Hyper Turbo mtt and got 9th - now that is a weird game. I also played a $33 mtt with about 500ish people and got 7th. It was really kinda just who the f cares when I lost. I raised the CO with QJo about 20x deep. The tightish bb flats and we see a flop of KTx 2 spades. Pot was 37k and I had 100kish behind. I thought about just jamming flop, or like 1.5x'ing the pot, but I ended up checking after he checked from the bb. The turn was an ace. Bink. He led 21500. I decided to raise to exactly 43500 b/c the exact previous hand I bluff raised 34500 and folded to a shove vs another opponent. Maybe no one even noticed. So the bb calls raise. River is 2s. He leads 35000 and I instantly jam in the rest b/c the progression of the hand makes a flush really unlikely. It just looks like a high 2 pair like 99% of the time for him. He turns A9s up, and I just shrug as my room closes out. Oh well, gg, gl next time.

1/2 NL, [x] wat?

I went to a casino with my friend, and we played some 1/2 nl cash. Bought in for 100bbs and immediately lost 100 bucks straight. Most of it from 2 hands that were really weird. The first was just an all in (sigh). I made chat with this nice guy on my right, and all he could talk about was how today wasn't his day and that he was down to $33 bucks. I literally say, "don't worry you'll double up" as a new hand was being dealt. Ya, he doubled off me within the next 30 seconds with my KK < AQ. That's cool, at least I had to take a 20 mile trip to lose another one of those. -GV, gas value.

Shortly after a weird hand ensued where I chose to limp behind an EP limp with ATc after debating raising or not. It folded to some 30 yr old guy who limped. Imagine Ryan Seacrest if he gained 25lbs and wore a hat. The sb completes, and the bb checks. We see a flop of AhKd3d. I just bet $5 into a pot of 9. 2 callers. Pot is 24 as we see the 9h peel on the turn. I bet 6, and Ryan Seacrest calls, other guy folds. Pot 36 to river. River is Th. He checks. It really feels like he has a missed diamond draw, weak ace, or most likely Kx. I bet 14 for value and he calls. I confidently turn 2 pr up as he shows me K5h. Um...?

I end up getting it back from this same player a little bit later when I have AKc on Ax5c7c and he has a red AQo. We get it all on the flop for like $250ish and I take it, nice.

I proceed to weave a bit and I win 3 pretty nice hands with pure air. One hand in particular was vs. an older guy with slick gray hair. Folds to me utg+3 and I make it 6 with 65o. Btn, nitty shorter stack who loves flops but hates missing lol calls with 40 bucks behind. BB, slick grey guy, calls with $200ish behind. Flop 983, they both check to me and I decided to peel. Turn Q. They both check, I bet 8 into 19 only grey guy calls. On flop I noticed he didn't care as the moment he missed (I assume) he went right back to watching Gus Hansen pwn a wpt on TV. LOL, ty casino TVs. I assume he has a gutter now or a weak Q. River is a 2, complete brick. He checks, and I bet 22. Interestingly, he had raised 22 four different times pf and it became a well known joke that when this particular player bets 22 he has pocket tens. He asks me if I have TT and folds. Ship it 6 high.

I ended up only 50 for the night tx to a pissed off 3b I made over a straddle with 96o and then flopped the nuts. No fun there, just some guy and his gf got mad at me for playing 96o. I wanted to say it's a sex position, maybe you guys should try it when you get home. But I held it in.

The only hand that bugs me is this one. Utg, basically a blinged out slum dog millionaire guy with his gf behind him, min raises. His gf has got like 10 bracelets on, bro. Anyway, I thought it was weird, cause he was always 8/10 raising pf. His image was, however, very tight. He had $350 ish, at this time I had $285. I flatted with K8c. One other guy called in blinds. We see a flop of 872 rainbow, 1 club. Slum dog bets 10, I call. Other folds. Turn 3c, he bets 20. I think crap, he's blinged out nit, he has it. Stacks are like 100+bbs deep, so I roll my eyes inside my skull and call. River is Qh. And this is where it gets weird. Throughout this hand, and the whole night actually, the entire table was just making snap decisions. All night. And here, this guy, starts tanking and counting his chips. I felt this vibe just fall across the table. What is he thinking about now? Why isn't this an easy bet for him. What changed? JJ? He hates the Q? He sat there shuffling his red $5 chips trying to figure out what to do. After about 25-35 seconds, literally, he bets 40. And then, he starts staring at me. He looked petrified. wtf? What is he afraid of? He never looked ever. The entire hand. Now he's staring into my eyes. It felt so awkward. So I asked him, "did you min raise straddle pf or did you raise?" I knew he raised. But wanted to hear what he said. Nothing. He just stared at me so worried. I roll my eyes and say "worst call ever" and call. He flips AA. Huh, how cliche.

Our new 18 man coach is...

Entim! I'm stoked to welcome Entim to the site. He will be making beasts of some 18 man players for the $6/16 level on Stars. He is a 20 yr old poker pro from Ireland, and I'm pumped about this.

Please send in your 18 man applications to Glitlr@sngprotege.com before spots get filled up.

And in the words of NBA Jam...
boomshakalaka

Accepting 18 man students very soon!

I'm very pleased to say that we will be accepting new players for 2 table sngs soon. We are in the process of adding an 18 man coach, and I'm very excited about it. Stay tuned for more information.

As for the site, I'm pretty satisfied with it so far. There is a guy, no joke, who has shipped 7 180 mans already. Congrats!

The Fail

Keeping my abarone trend, I'm stickin with these 'The' titles. I had my first experience in Full Tilt final table deal making. That (not sure how) new deal making thing they have where they bring up ICM or chip count or whatever form of splitting the prize money is kinda interesting. So when we were 5 handed (just a 3r, nuthin fancy) these guys wanted to deal. 5 handed had been going extremely long. I was all in only 2x, winning both, but everyone else kept recycling chips by outdrawing each other left and right. It lasted over 1.5 hrs before they started talking a deal.

Since I had a raise in the pot from utg when they all hit deal (4/5 it displays) I said "if you fold I deal" thinking it was funny. So they did. Awesome. Next hand I posted my BB, and they paused again, asking me if I'd deal. I then noticed that if they walked me I'd get the slight chip lead which means most money at deal, so I said, "walk me and we deal." Woot, free pot.

So we go to the deal page, and this is when I learned how much Full Tilt sucks. The fancy number-filled page (which includes a chat box to discuss the deal) pops up with an additional mini screen that shows who gets what dollar amount and accept/reject button. BUT YOU CAN'T DISCUSS THE DEAL IN CHAT! Everytime you try, it gives you that annoying windows/vista beep sound when you can't access something you are trying to click. So how are you suppose to discuss a deal, if you can't say anything? So I hit reject, to try and type to the other players. I get half a sentence in before the accept/reject window pops up and I'm restricted from typing again! Grrrr, this really pisses me off.

Eventually someone else hit decline and we went back to the game. The only reason I considered dealing was because 5 handed had been going so long it had turned into 10x stacks. And even though clearly that's beneficial for me in terms of knowing what to do, we all know how cruel variance can be. 5th was 1k, first was 4.1k, 2nd was 2.6k, and the deal would have given me 2.5k. So it's like locking up 2nd place for sure. But ldo, 3 hands later I bust in 5th, gg gtfo.

Cliffs:
1. Discussing deals means you should have the option to discuss.
2. Deals are for idiots (unless life changing money).
3. I'm an idiot.
4. Fail.