CC Explores WSOP

Who CAn Last Longer??

It is time for the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas. My question is, "Who can last longer?" Chris Moneymaker, Greg Raymer, Joe Hachem, Daniel Negreanu, Gus Hansen, Barry Greenstein, Phil Helmuth, Mike Sexton, Doyle Brunson, Phil Gordon, Howard Lederer, Mike the Mouth, The Sheik, Men the Master, Johnny Chan, Ted Forrest, Chris "Jesus" Ferguson, Mark Seif, Erick Lindgren, Michael "the Grinder" Mizrachi, John Phan, Antonio Esfandiari, Dave Ulliot, John Juanda, T.J. Cloutier, Scotty Nguyen, Dan Harrington,
Marcel Luske ..........and so on and so on.

My vote is for Greg Raymer.

How about the women? Jennifer Harman, Annie Duke, Kathy Liebert, Clonie Gowen, Cindy Violette, Evelyn Ng, Jennifer Tilly..........and so on and so on.

My vote is for Jennifer Tilly.

Crashed and Burned

I couldn’t say this any better than Bloody P does. “On the poker trip, Mistress Variance took me for a 190 mph ride on the Autobahn last night and wouldn't let me wear my seatbelt. Or my goggles and scarf.”

I lost every possible way you could playing .10/.20 Limit and then .05/.10 Limit at Poker Stars. I lost twice when my full house was beat by a better full house and we aren’t talking small potatoes when my Eights over Aces beaten by Tens over Eights. Two pair Ace/Queen beaten by 7/8 Diamonds when he hung around long enough for a runner/runner to make his flush, after calling preflop raise with 7/8 sooted!! Twice my Two pair (Ace/Jack and Queen/Ten) were beat by straights when caller stayed with 2 gapper and 3 gapper (8/Jack and 7/Jack)!! It was freaking awful. My wife says to take some time off and regroup as, “You can’t chase luck.” I want to get right back into the saddle and take some time off after I have a winning hand. If I stop now I will only dwell on these awful, awful beats. I start to question if I am really cut out for poker, if I am the fish or the donkey, instead of the other guy. I question if I am really any good at this game when I feel that I am or can be with more practice.

I know I tilted some today and started playing hands that I probably shouldn’t have. That pissed me off that I tilted instead of stopping. It has been a very bad 3 days in a row at Poker Stars. I want to sit down and play tomorrow morning but I probably should take the day off to recoup and plan on playing again on Thursday. That would make more sense as one day away from the table is probably a good thing.

Royal Flush Beats 4 of a Kind

This is something you don't see every day. You can see that I (LZFSB3)
folded my quality hand, professional poker player that I am.

A Quiet Week

I’m not playing much poker this week. Running errands and playing golf have put poker on the back burner for a few days. I did become a real money player at Poker Stars in anticipation of doing my Poker Challenge at their site. I sat down and played at a .10/.20 Limit Holdem table and won a $1 dollar after about 30 minutes of play. This was just a short test to get used to their tables and layout. I like the layout of the site and it works very much like Absolute Poker so I am very comfortable at Poker Stars. This week-end I will be playing a lot more poker there and hopefully will have much better news to report early next week. I am about half way through Miller and Sklansky’s book Small Stakes Hold’em: Winning With Expert Play. I know that I am learning lots but will have to reread it to really get the full effect as it is so full of quality information.

Golf has been about average this week. I have gotten my handicap down to 11 strokes for 18 holes and am working on getting it down to 10 by the end of July. My putting is doing quite well but now I am not hitting my irons very good. I am going to hit into my net quite a bit this week-end in preparation for Monday’s match.
I have been playing golf all summer with my friend Terry. He is a better golfer than I am. He carries about a 7 or 8 handicap for 18 holes. His drives are usually straight but not real far. His irons are so-so. It is his chipping and putting that keeps his scores down. He is an excellent chipper and putter. He gets at least one or two birdies per round which helps to wipe off any bogeys he gets and keeps his handicap low. It does get tiring to here him say how he was “lucky” to sink that putt or make that chip. If I played against him just a couple of times, I might agree that he was lucky, but I have played with him over 20 rounds and each and every round he makes excellent chips and excellent putts. He is not lucky, he is good. He is making me a better golfer but it is hard to get beat time after time. I have started getting strokes from him based on our handicaps. That is making our rounds very competitive. It is the only way I can compete on an even basis with him. He has shot in the 70’s or low 80’s more times than I have ever shot in my entire golfing career. My lowest 18 hole round is 79 and Terry averages around 80 or 81 strokes. My goal is to get good enough so I don’t have to get strokes from Terry. Maybe by the end of July I will be there. I hope so. I would really like to hear Terry comment on how “lucky” I am or to hear him say time after time, “nice par” or “nice birdie”.

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Jennifer Tilly vs. Phil Helmuth - Public Opinion Poll

	Bloggers like: Jennifer Tilly
78%(+)	opinmind.com

	Bloggers dislike: Phil Helmuth
50% (-)	opinmind.com

I Sucked

1904th out of 2247 bloggers. I sucked and there is nothing else I can say. Very, very disappointed in myself.

Poker and Golf - my two passions

My two great passions are poker and golf. No mystery there as reflected by the name of my Blog. Oftentimes I will try to arrange a marriage of poker and golf as I feel they are very similar in a lot of ways. In golf there are different ways to play a course or a hole or even a singe shot. In poker there are different ways to play a tournament, a flop or your hole cards. One day you can get every draw you are in, get the best cards and not get sucked out on and the next day nothing goes your way, losing to set over set, pocket aces getting cracked by a donkey with 7/2 offsuit and they hit their two pair or trips or full house. The same is true in golf. On one day every putt will drop, every chip will end up as a tap in and the next day the putts lip out or the chips are chunked and you don’t even reach the green. In poker a bad beat can put you on tilt and in golf a missed putt or bad drive can do the same thing. In golf slow players can make you furious and so can the slow poker player that you have to wait and wait and wait for them to make a decision. In a recent post I have Doyle Brunson as the King of Hearts and Arnold Palmer as the King of Clubs. I think you can safely say that each is as important to his craft, is as respected in his field by everyone, and both have helped put their respective talents to good use for the total benefit of their sports (yes, poker can be termed a sport) and themselves. I think you can argue that Daniel Negraneu and Tiger Woods are the newest superstars of poker and golf, respectively.

I think everyone can play poker and everyone can play golf. But maybe not all that well at first. Both games take a lot of dedication, a lot of practice, a lot of reading on different techniques to use and how to play certain ways. The best golfers and the best poker players study their craft and work hard at achieving a high level of play. Some golf courses just conform to your game better as do some poker rooms.

It is my goal to become good at both of my crafts and so far I feel I am achieving that. I am playing some of my best golf ever and it is because I am playing a lot. I am playing some of my best poker ever and I think my hard work will help to make me an even better player.

It may be a bumpy ride but I am really looking forward to many, many years of good poker and good golf and hope I never get tired of either.

Losing Session Today

Today I had my first losing session at .10/.05 Six Max at Absolute. I have been playing the Six Max tables to get ready for my Limit Challenge starting July 1st. Today I had a couple of beats that I can't really call bad beats but were bummers none the less. The first one was when I was on the BB and got K/9o and flopped K/9 for two pair. I kept betting and MP kept calling and he gets his 10 on the river to beat me with a higher two pair. Then I get Pocket Kings and raise them up preflop only to have one caller. The flop is all rags but two clubs, turn and river are clubs so I get beat by flush with A/K instead of taking down a nice pot. This sounds really dumb but if he's not holding clubs I break his Ace/King but, because they are clubs, he probably kept calling my bets. I managed to come back quite a ways but ran out of time as I had to get ready for work so wasn't able to turn things around into another winning session. So far my pattern is to lose the first couple of hands and be down about 1/3 of my buy-in and then I get real tight and start to bet quality hands and come back to make a profit. I am going to have to watch my early play and try to start off on a winning note and keep going instead of start of losing and make a come back. Must remember to only play when I have lots of time to make my comeback.

Music I'm Listening to while playing Poker
1. Frank Sinatra Live at the Sands
2. Bruce Springsteen - The Seeger Sessions
3. Rufus Wainwright - Cigarettes and Chocolate

Elvis Presley - King of Hearts

Long Live the Kings

King of Hearts
Doyle Brunson, one of the greatest poker players ever and Arnold Palmer, one of the greatest golfers ever (King of clubs, get it?)

King of Clubs

Poker Challenge and 79 Strokes

Limit Holdem Challenge
I am in the process of starting my own Limit Holdem Challenge, similar to what
Poker Wolf and Sloe Times are doing. In fact I am going to copy Poker Wolf’s almost exactly. I hope to do it on Poker Stars site. I am planning on getting back into Limit Shape on Absolute Poker by playing the 6 Max .10/.05 and .25/.10 Limit Holdem games. I am going to use the rest of the month of June to read and reread Miller and Sklansky’s book Small Stakes Hold 'em: Winning Big With Expert Play and to play on Absolute to get in the best shape I can with my Limit game to complete this challenge and, hopefully, blow it out of the water.


I will keep you posted on how I do.

Best 18 Hole Score Ever
I shot my best 18 hole score ever today, a 79 (7 over par). My previous best was an 81 earlier this year. Basically I just carried my game over from the Wednesday rain out. I had a couple of birdies (one was a chip in on a par 3), a lot of pars and only two double bogeys, one on the front and one on the back. I was still putting really good and was getting my approaches, chips and lag putts a lot closer to the hole so I didn’t have a lot of those 8 to 10 foot par putts to salvage. Actually, there was only one longish putt for par that I managed to salvage. I have updated my scores in Game Tracker and my handicap stands at 11.46 strokes. My next goal is to get it down to 10 and then maybe, single digits by the end of the year. It all comes down to the short game and if I can keep hitting my chips close and my lag putts within tap in distance. If I can do that I will make a few birdies along the way and should keep shooting low scores.

Low Limit Holdem and Surviving Hell Day!!

I survived Hell Day (6/6/6). I started playing around with Limit Holdem on Absolute this week as I am going to change from playing my SitNGos to Limit Holdem. I have not played Limit Holdem for well over 6 months so I am just taking baby steps so far to see how it goes. I have played a total of about 1 hour in the last two days and have made a nice little profit of over $3 dollars. Laugh, will you, but that is as good as I could do on a $1.20 SitNGo, finishing in first place. So far I am having fun with the Limit Holdem. I am playing 6 Max games as Absolute does not get any players at the Low Limit Holdem games for a full 9 person table. Nobody plays a full table game until you get up to $2/$1 games or so. I am not quite ready for that yet. Probably in July I will be moving up to those tables and trying to win my $10 a day. My bankroll can support it but my emotional state and the state of my game right now is not ready for that commitment yet. Soon though. So for the next little while I am going to play No Limit MTTs and Limit Holdem ring games. This week-end will be the biggie as I will be able to play for several hours and will find out how good I am. I am reading Miller and Sklansky’s book Small Stakes Hold 'em: Winning Big With Expert Play and am really impressed with it. What an excellent book. I hope to have read and reread it within the next couple of weeks so it will help me prepare for my move up in limits in July.

Golf Rained Out
An excellent round of golf was rained out today. I was two under after 3 holes, even par after 6 holes and finished at 3 over for the back nine at Briar Ridge. Two double bogey holes did me in. One was a penalty stroke for a lost ball I hit into the woods and the other was when my approach shot went into the greenside bunker and I had a bad up and down, taking 4 strokes to finish the hole. It was raining steadily the entire time we played so we called it quits after nine holes. I’ll give it a try again on Friday. My putting was the difference. I made two nice birdie putts after having two very nice approach shots to get within 10 feet of the hole. I also made three very nice putts of around 10 feet to preserve par. Hopefully this is just a precursor of things to come with my putting. I am putting with a lot more confidence than I have had in a long time and that is making a world of difference in my game. I only had one bad lag putt that led to my only bogey and, even then, I almost holed out the 8 footer for par. It was a left to right breaker that I just didn’t get quite high enough and missed it on the low side. I have 3 more rounds to put into the PGA Tour website score tracker before I will know if I have lowered my handicap from 12 to 11. It has to be pretty close.

6th Place Finish

I finished 6th out of 258 players in a $2 MTT. Was knocked out when my pocket 10s were beat by largest stack when he rivered a queen. I coulda been a contender. I also finished 27th out of 325 players in another MTT so I was pretty happy with my game last night. I won a SitNGo, too, so maybe taking two days off was a good thing.

I Need Help My Fellow Poker Bloggers

I need help from my fellow Poker bloggers but to get to what, why, where, I need to give you some background and that entails focusing on questions number 3 and 19 of TripJax’s 21 questions.
Question 3 is Why do you play poker? And question 19. is What is your primary poker goal and are you close to accomplishing it?
These two questions have basically the same answer for me.
I play poker for two reasons, to make money and because I love the game. My goal is to make enough money so that I won’t have to work my part time job in the spring, which pays for my golf.
My primary goal for playing online poker is to make money. I presently work for the second largest information technology and business process outsourcing services worldwide. That is where I make my primary income that keeps my household in the lifestyle we presently enjoy. I put in an average of 45 hours per work not counting the 2 hour commute. In the spring I have a part time job with a company, which boasts more than 21 million tax customers, is the leading tax return preparer in the US; it also prepares tax returns in Canada, Australia, and the UK. If you can guess which companies I am employed by, good for you. This job is to make enough money to pay for my golf membership at the local golf course plus a little left over for things I want, i.e. funding my online poker.
My goal is to make enough money playing poker so that I will not have to have my part time job in the spring and, hopefully, to help pay for a nice summer vacation. I want Online Poker to be my part time job. A job that I can work from my home, make my own hours and work as hard or as long as I want to. A job that really doesn’t feel like a job because you enjoy it so much. It would be like playing golf for a living. How can you not love that? We are talking about $2000 to $3000 dollars a year. How hard can that be? I only have to average winnings of $10 dollars a day for about 300 days of poker play to reach my goals. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been that easy. I am probably averaging .50 cents a day in poker winnings. Not much but winnings none-the-less. I keep telling myself that you have to learn to walk before you can learn to run. Right now I am still crawling. I thought I was ready to walk but have taken a hit in the last week and am questioning whether I can get up off my hands and knees yet.
Now how do I accomplish my goal of making an average of $10 dollars a day playing poker? Any help my fellow bloggers can give me will be greatly appreciated. What site should I be playing on? Right now I am playing the majority of the time on Absolute Poker but am considering putting a $100 dollar bank roll on Poker Stars. What game should I be playing? Right now I play MTT and SitNGos on Absolute. I play very little limit or no limit ring games. The low limit (micro limit) ring games on Absolute don’t get much play at the nine player table. They do have a lot of 6 Max games but I am not a big fan of 6 Max as the people come and go so fast that you can’t get a read on them and often times you are playing with only 3 and 4 players instead of six. This means the blinds come around a lot faster and if you play tight you are losing quite a bit of money to the blinds before you even play a hand.
My request of my fellow bloggers is to help me with which site I should be playing and which game I should be playing to achieve my goals. I know there will be a lot of questions about what type of player I am and what do I consider my best game, my best qualities as a poker player. I would like to hear what you have to say and then answer those questions as they come up. I thing that will allow me to better formulate an answer that will be more specific for the questions that are asked. Thanks in advance for the help.