WSOP Finally Here!

The World Series of Poker is finally here!  It's like Christmas eve for every poker player.  It will be interesting to see if the Euros can keep their increasing presence.  It will be also interesting to see how much more advertising can be squeezed into the amazon room and onto the poker pros.  It's starting to look like NASCAR at the tables with head to toe advertisements.

Good Luck to All at the tables!

Home Poker Tourneys = Hell

I played in a very low limit poker tourney the other day for "fun", the buyin was only $5 with rebuys if you busted. Everyone was drinking and having fun. However, there was one player who took a couple minutes with each decision...nothing is worse for an online player than a slow meaningless tournament.

talk about a buzz kill...

Am I the greatest Sit N Go player in the world?

According to my SharkScope graph....Yes, ok not really, I only play about 100 SNGs a year.

Maybe I should start playing more often.

I could grind out SNGs like Jhub3000 and basically live off of rakeback.

But I already have a good job and playing SNGs all day seems pretty dull.

Not only that, I can just play the stock market for another 5-6 figures a year.

So I think I'll just keep playing as a hobby.

But the freedom to just play poker sure gets tempting sometimes.

DJ AM found dead

DJ AM aka Adam Goldstein was found dead yesterday. Now I know what you're thinking, "Texter wtf does DJ AM have to do with Poker?" Oddly enough, a decent amount. Back in 2005 when PokerLizard could actually get a Press pass from Harrah's to cover the WSOP; I played in the Celebrity/Press charity tournament. This tournament has the worst structure of all time (except compared to the Gold Coast's daily tourney) with blinds escalating rapidly and a low chip stack to start, but it was free and it had some decent celebs (I actually kind of miss it, now that Ante Up for Africa has relegated it to total obscurity).

One of the celebs playing that year was DJ AM who had Nicole Richie with him, she was on a pretty popular show back in those days called The Simple Life in which she and Paris Hilton played to the camera and acted like morons. Anyhow, I'm playing in the charity event where each table gets one "celebrity" player and my celeb player is supposed to be none other than Doyle "Texas Dolly" Brunson, of course he never shows and my celeb ends up being nobody which kinda sucked....so basically Doyle can kiss MY butt (see Doyle's twitters about Peter Eastgate:

Doyle Brunson
Eastgate can kiss my butt. I slept 4 hours to b on timeTue, 16 Jun 2009 12:22
Doyle Brunson
Came to photo shoot with Peter Eastgate. He didnt showTue, 16 Jun 2009 12:19
Doyle Brunson
4 freaking hours of sleep..gotta USA Today photo shoot. this is too much...no more interviews or photos. gonna kill me...geeeez still in 10k).

Oh yeah, back to DJ AM, so I eventually bust out of the tourney and who gets moved to my exact seat but DJ AM, with Nicole Richie sitting behind him...I thought that was kinda cool for my tablemates since Doyle no showed. From what I could tell he seemed like a good kid, I saw him playing in the Main Event later that week.

I took a pic or two of him and Nicole which I'll try and dig up later.

RIP DJ.

Top 10 Worst Poker Shows

Let's face it, in the poker boom years many many many shows were rushed into production. And to be honest most of them really sucked. From Celebrity Poker Showdown to the current turd Face the Ace there has been no shortage of awful production values and terrible poker play. Checking in at Number 10 is:

Celebrity Poker Showdown. This show was hosted by the somewhat obnoxious Phil Gordon and the increasingly intoxicated Dave Foley of "Kids in the Hall" and "News Radio". Dave knew pretty much nothing about poker and to alleviate his boredom got increasingly blitzed as the tapings went on. Since an entire season was shot in basically one weekend it's pretty funny to watch him on the championship episodes.

The show was pretty much only as entertaining as the players, in some instances the show was very funny (See the wanda sykes episode) to painful to watch (see reality show episode).

Some players seemed to play decent (Michael Ian Black and George Costanza) but in most cases the poker play was laughably bad. Here is a clip of the worst episode of all time, per our interview with Phil Gordon:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LBdNddFp64

WSOP: I miss the cash

Back in the old days (2005) when someone won a bracelet they'd get their picture taken with a giant stack of cash. These days they get their pic taken with a fake bracelet. I can understand the WSOP trying to make the perception that the bracelet is more important than the money, but give me a break. No one really cares about the actual bracelet, just the win. I think the cash pics are more exciting for the general public. Check a couple out to compare:

Dream Team Poker a flop?

It looks like the dream team poker event at this years WSOP is going to be a dud which is a shame because it's a pretty cool idea and has been well received in the past. Basically, teams of 3 players compete against each other in a single tournament. However, they keep extending the registration deadline for teams, first it was,

"the first 300 teams that register get free custom Jersey's", then it was "register before June 16th"...now I saw an add on bluff magazine's site and it's "register before July 1st"

Maybe people are just waiting to register or real pros figure they will be burned out on poker and a $500 buyin event just doesn't interest them.then:

Quotes from DTP:

BEVERLY HILLS & LAS VEGAS, MAY 19, 2009:
Dream Team PokerTM has taken
theindustry by storm in the few short months since their inaugural event. Giving
teambasedpoker validation with their successful structure, Dream Team Poker will
host atournament at the 2009 World Series of Poker®. The event will be held at
the Rio® All-Suite Hotel & Casino from July 12-13, 2009 with the buy-in of
$500 + $60 per player($1,680 per team). The first 300 teams that pre-register on
www.dreamteampoker.comwill receive personalized jerseys for the tournament.

later:

Teams to register online on or before (extended by demand) June 16th , 2009 will
receive a set of three (3) customized jerseys with their specified sizes and
team name.