That State of Mind

The METRO Teams Up With Pokerstars!

2007-12-04T14:25:00.000+08:00

The METRO MAIN EVENT slated for this weekend, Dec.8-9, has been officially moved to Jan.26-27. Although it might be an inconvenience to some who have already cleared their schedules (and we apologize for it), the good news is, POKERSTARS, the world’s largest online poker site, has teamed up with The Metro to make the event bigger and better than anybody expected!

Pokerstars, in cooperation with The Metro, will be presenting the first event of a series of major poker tournaments for 2008. Tentatively called “The Poker Master’s Tour”, it will be the biggest poker series the country has ever seen. Pokerstars aims to adopt existing major local tournaments like The Metro Main Event all throughout the year which will then culminate into a “Philippine Championship” that will coincide with The APPT Manila 2008 sometime around the last quarter of the year.

Just to spice things up, Pokerstars will be providing TV coverage complete with a TV table with hole cameras, just like we see on Poker shows everywhere. They are dedicating a 1 hour show that will be aired on cable TV featuring the METRO MAIN EVENT.

Also, they will be providing online freerolls and satellite tournaments for local poker players to win a seat to the Main Event! By signing up at Pokerstars.net, players can join these tournaments and win their seat in the satellites. There will be an estimated 30 seats up for grabs into the P30,000 buy-in Main Event, which you can win for free!

The series of tournaments (starting with The METRO MAIN EVENT) will end in a major tournament estimated to have a 10 MILLION peso prize pool just in time for APPT Manila 2008.

This great tournament just got even better, thanks to Pokerstars. Make sure you are ready to play in the biggest local event in poker this country has ever seen! Again, seats are limited, so make sure you get yours asap! Stay tuned for further announcements about the online tournaments.

See you at the METRO!

Somewhere In The Country, A Village Is Missing It's Idiot

2007-11-30T14:56:00.000+08:00

What an idiot.

That's the best way i can describe soon-to-be former Senator Antonio Trillanes. What an idiot.

I was heading back home after attending the Casino Affiliate Convention in Macau (which was awesome, the country not the convention hehe) and on our plane, they announced that there was a curfew back in Manila. WTF?!?

Apparently (and i found out when i got home through the news), the grandstanding senator walked out of his trial with a handful of his men reportedly while shouting "If you want change, come with me!" and then proceeded to the Peninsula Hotel to use it as his "headquarters" and then from there incited people to rebel and take to the streets to oust president Gloria. That's how stupid he is. He walked out of his trial for rebellion TO COMMIT THE SAME CRIME ALL OVER AGAIN.

Can anybody say "define irony?"

I guess he expected AT LEAST several thousand of his SEVEN MILLION voters (he won his seat with that many votes apparently) to follow suit and support him in his noble "quest"..

A few dozen showed up.

He had ten times more support when he was a complete nobody doing the oakwood mutiny back then.

I mean, c'mon DUDE. People are tired of that bullshit. People just wanna work hard, make money, and enjoy it in peace. We don't want another EDSA. We'll have EDSA 4, 5 ,6 up to god-knows-how-many-more if we follow idiots like you.

Well, GMA was obviously not too happy with Sen. Trillidiots antics and brought the full might of the Philippine Military to Makati, tanks and all. It was fun watching them piss their pants when the government gave them FIVE minutes to leave the building, and when they did not, fired tear gas and had an APC fire those big 50inch shells to break the front of the building and then ram it into the lobby. Their supporters "(all 11 or so of them) held their ground and were promptly arrested along with their stupid leaders.

The media people who so willingly put themselves in harms' way also also acted like little crying spoiled brats when they got detained by the police and handcuffed. Apparently they think they are above the law. IDIOTS. They were basically in a crime scene, and any magdalo soldier could have pretended to be media and escaped if they were not detained and questioned. Also, it is standard operating procedure to detain ANYBODY in a crime scene for questioning, witness testimonies, etc. They were released several hours later, hopefully with a box of tissues and a lollipop to stop them from crying like babies.

I hope this is a lesson to these idiots. People want change, but not a revolution. People just want to work hard, make money, and enjoy the fruits of their labor in peace. The country is finally moving forward for the first time in the past decade, showing great signs of economic progress, and seeing the biggest influx of investors since the last time the Philippines was the "Tiger of Asia". Then these Idiots do something like this...

Kudos to our countrymen for taking this in stride and being "business as usual" about it. The stock market was apparently affected but shot right back up after the government showed it was in control. Any sane Filipino who can think for themselves just shrugged their shoulders and went on with their lives.

To the village who lost it's idiot, congratulations, you've found him. He won't be returning annytime soon though, not after he gets impeached from the Senate and charged with crimes that will send him to prison for the rest of his stupid life.

Peace!

Setting The Record Straight

2007-11-12T12:52:00.000+08:00

I remember a joke that someone told me a long time ago, and it has stuck in my head ever since. It goes, "you know what the only thing you can rely on to be absolutely true in a newspaper? The date." If found it to be true more often than not. I had a good laugh this morning after reading two minor news publications' front page coverage of an "illegal casino" at the Metrowalk Complex in Pasig.

The article, baseless and uninformed, talks about The Metro Card Club.

"The casino starts to come to life after office hours or around 6:30 p.m. and operates until the wee hours of the morning. It is open every day.

It claims to be under the auspices of the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor) and has a business permit from the Pasig City government.

But no city official has admitted allowing a casino to operate in the city. It is not clear under what license the casino operates or if it is, at all, sanctioned by Pagcor."

DUH. I can help shove the Metro's license to operate and Memorandum of Agreement under PAGCOR down this reporters throat if he even bothered to TRY finding sources for his allegations. Every night we have a PAGCOR representative on the floor at The Card Room!

"The website www.metrocard-club.com says the casino’s vision claims "to make the Philippines the place to play Poker in Asia, and be competitive with the rest of the world in the poker industry."

"We are committed to promoting the game of poker all over the country, providing players with a sense of community among other players and a place where they feel safe, secure, and comfortable while playing the game," it said."

Well said. I should know, i wrote it ;) That's what we provide at the Metro, a Legal, safe, secure place for poker players to play the game they love. We are NOT a casino. We don't have slots, table games, house games. Our door is open to anyone who wants to see for themselves.

"Metrowalk tenants and clients are worried that the wholesome image of the newest restaurant and entertainment destination in Pasig City would be eroded with the continued operation of the casino. A restaurant owner who declined to be named said: "If the casino continues to operate, we may have a difficult time maintaining our patrons who go for clean and wholesome entertainment here in Metrowalk.""

Oh, so a discreet members poker club will ruin the "wholesome" image of Metrowalk? And the DILDO SHOP with sex toys ON DISPLAY for the whole public to see is ok with Metrowalk? Yeah, a sex shop can be found in Metrowalk, INSIDE the main complex itself. How's that for hypocrisy?

This is a laughing matter to us because we all know where it's coming from and what the intentions were when the articles were written. They even made accusations that drugs were being "peddled" inside the card room. Pathetic. It's pretty obvious that this is a smear campaign aimed at a legitimate organization to make us look bad and give us trouble. Also, it's almost Christmas time, so these corrupt journalists will take anything to make an extra buck, or force organizations such as ours to pay them to shut up.

We say BRING IT ON. We have everything on our side, all the legal documents, and we will be backed by the local government and by PAGCOR itself.

There's an old Filipino saying that goes something like "the tree with the most fruit is the one that gets the most stones thrown at it." (translates badly into english hehe) Yeah, people want some of that fruit, and theyll keep throwing those stones to get them. We've been through this before too, so this time we know what to do.

The people responsible for this is a pathetic bunch. Just compete fairly, like we do. In the meantime, we'll just be going about our business providing the best poker experience to the poker community.

See you at The Metro!

A REAL Guarantee: The METRO MAIN EVENT

2007-10-16T16:57:00.000+08:00

Here is something to look forward to this coming Christmas season, a little present from the guys at The Metro.

It's a 2-day, deep stack, P3,000,000 GUARANTEED prize pool tournament. Note that there is no small asterisk beside the "3,000,000", then a super small font text at the bottom saying "* only if we reach 100 players". Yes, we are REALLY guaranteeing it. No gimmicks. No Cheese.

We are already starting satellites at The Metro every week, so start playing them to earn your seat! Due to seating constraints, the tournament can only have 110 players maximum, so make sure you get yours in time.

I'll probably play too (gotta start grinding the cash games now hehe). It's gonna be the highlight of the year in terms of local poker tournaments for sure!

We'll keep everyone posted. See you at the Metro!

POWER Foundation Charity Event Results

2007-09-26T17:27:00.001+08:00

Another charity poker tournament wrapped up a few days ago, and it was a huge success. We raised P183,000+ for the POWER foundation, which helps women and children who have been abused or are in need. Hopefully we can do this more often and show that us poker players are more than just degenerate gamblers ;)

For more details and pictures, just go to The Metro Website!

Congratulations to everyone who participated! You are all winners!

Dreams Do Come True

2007-09-24T02:53:00.000+08:00

More than two years ago, June 3, 2005 to be exact, a man had a dream. It was a simple dream.

---------------------------------

"What I Dream of..."

A regular game. A place I can roll into after work. A place where I can play for a couple of hours, guzzle 8-too-many sanmig lights, push chips around, and generally try to look like i've done this before.

Yes, I need a cardroom! don't get me wrong, hombres y mujeres, I am quite happy with the number of games i'm hearing about and getting to play now - a huuuge difference since the early days (last April). But I need a cardroom!

No civilized nation on earth does not have cardrooms.

The very definition of civilization includes running water, cheap power, a couple of theatres, mcdonalds, and cardrooms!!

We were supposed to have a cardroom open a few weeks ago at the Pan Pacific. It hasn't opened. I cannot get any reason why it hasn't opened.

Somebody open a cardroom. PLEASE!!!! Actually, somebody open three cardrooms. Or three people open one each. Whatever....

posted by nickg at 1:40 PM on Jun 3, 2005

-----------------------------------------

You got what you wished for bud. It's a good thing. ;)

Metrocardclub.com

2007-09-17T16:12:00.000+08:00

Check it out! The site is actually still under construction, but you'll see schedules and other stuff on the working site.

See you at The Metro!

It's A Good Thing: Poker For A Cause

2007-09-17T14:35:00.000+08:00

Do a good thing this weekend.

here's the write up for our charity event this saturday directly ripped off from Poker Filipinas by yours truly ;)

For those of you who don't know, I and a number of other characters that you know are partners in a company called Ace Technologies, a Philippine company operating card rooms in this wonderful land of ours. We currently operate three rooms - The Metro Card Club in Pasig City, Runners Card Club at the San Lazaro Leisure Park in Carmona Cavite, and the Metro Madayaw Card Room at the Casino Filipino in Davao.

A major component of our corporate mandate is to educate, inform and to the extent we can, uplift certain segments of the community by promoting poker as sport, entertainment, and fund raising mechanism for deserving charities.

Last March 3rd, we ran a great charity event at the Robinsons Galleria in Pasig, with the beneficiary being the Sinag Kalinga Foundation, a charity providing care, love and dignity to the destitute aged folks among us. During that event, you helped us raise roughly P140,000 for the foundation. That money went a long way.

It was a good thing.

This Saturday September 22, we are hosting a charity event for the Power Foundation Inc., a Pasig City based charity providing safe havens, care and rehabilitation for women and children in abusive life situations. P500 buy, with multi rebuys until level 4.

We'll be playing for sponsored prizes, here's the list:

Prize List for the 2nd Charity Poker Tournament

1st: NEO Laptop Computer
2nd: Sony PSP Slim
3rd: Fujifilm Digital Camera
4th: Coby Portable DVD Player
5th: Nokia M-5300 Cellphone
6th: iPod Nano 2GB
7th: Gameboy Brighten
8th: Altec Lansing Speakers
9th: Creative MP3 Player
10th: Epson Stylus C95 Printer

We are expecting more sponsored prizes to arrive during the week. So I do hope to see y'll there - 1pm Saturday, Sept. 22nd. The Metro

2007-09-13T14:44:00.000+08:00

The Metro Tuesday 20K Freeroll

2007-09-12T12:19:00.001+08:00

Unless you've been living under a rock the past month, you probably have heard about the Metro 20K freeroll every tuesday. This is probably the only TRUE freeroll around, since they dont charge players "entrance fees" and there are no REBUYS. (Rebuys in a goddamn freeroll???) P20,000 up for grabs for the first 50 players to register. Ten minutes after the 6:30pm registration, the 50 seats are usually already all taken!

The event got a special mention in a great article on Pinoy Gambler recently, so check it out!

The Metro Seventy-Five

2007-09-04T02:12:00.002+08:00

For those of you who are sick and tired of the rebuy/addon epidemic spreading in the poker tournaments all over Manila, here's something to look forward to every week!

The Metro Seventy-Five, a weekly P75,000 guaranteed NLHE freezeout. No rebuys, No add-ons, basically the Poker purist's game. Here we weed out luck as players start out with 10K stacks on 50/100 blinds, a great structure, and a playing field with several names worth millions in poker winnings and championship titles.

Perfectly priced buy-in at P2000+200, most players who know what they're doing will be able to test their skills every week and take a stab at the nice pot too.

Oh, and the winners get bragging rights in the Metro Wall of Fame, plus a cool t-shirt made exclusively for winners of this tournament!

See you on Wednesday! And watch your backs!

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Registration starts at 7:30pm, tournament starts right before 9:00pm. If you want to pre-reg, text 0905-254-5369. Only at The Metro Card Club, Located in Metrowalk, Ortigas, Pasig city.

The APPT Crowns It's First Champion

2007-08-27T04:10:00.000+08:00

My apologies for the abrupt stop with the updates from the frontlines of the APPT. The Wireless internet connection was so bad that we were disconnected about 90% of the time. I decided to leave at around midnight and just update from the comfort of my own home.

I left with 4 players left in the game, and 3 hours later we have a champion. After surviving three all-in hands right before the final table bubble on day two, American student and online qualifier Brett Parise outlasted a tough final table field and probably played the best poker of his life to win over veteran player Ira Blumenthal and take down the $180,000 prize and the championship trophy.

Final Table from MY Point of View

He has 180,000 reasons to celebrate!

All i can say is, what an awesome event. I'm just proud to have been a part of this thing, even if it was just a small role blogging about the tournament. I met a lot of great people, and everybody was just super friendly and helpful and just great. I had the pleasure of working with other bloggers from all over Asia, and i believe i also made 2 or 3 friends out of it too. This whole event did so much for Poker in our region in a span of 3 days, probably accelerating it's growth by several years.

Blogger Brigade

Professional Mahjong Player and Japanese Blogger Jenn Barr

It doesnt get any better than this for our poker community. The APPT has cemented our place in the poker world as a legitimate home for poker in Asia, and we also proved ourselves great poker players by having the most people in the money from any of the forty countries who joined the tournament. 6 of our men out of 24 ITM's just goes to show we know what we've been doing all this time. Good job for everyone in the money!

I'm playing the next one in Manila for sure!

----------------------------

The money winners:

1. Brett Parise (USA) $179,775
2. Ira Blumenthal (Thailand) $113,858
3. Nicholas Bamman (USA) $62,921
4. Van Marcus (Australia) $44,940
5. Maor Feldinger (Isreal) $35,955
6. Roger Spets (Sweden) $26,966
7. Bas van Liere (Netherlands) $20,974
8. Kazuhiro Sato (Japan) $14,981
9. Derrick Hernandez (Philippines) $11,386
10. Steve Junhee Yea (South Korea) $8390
11. Carlo Gosselin (Thailand) $8390
12. D’amor Nario (Philippines) $8390
13. Alexander Fitzgerald (USA) $5993
14. Carlos Lascano (Philippines) $5993
15. Ronald Javier (Philippines) $5993
16. Se Jin Lee (South Korea) $5993
17. Eric Sia (Philippines)$4794
18. Nicolas Chouity (Lebanon) $4794
19. Steven Djingga (Indonesia) $4794
20. Kelly Flynn (USA) $4794
21. Seung Soo Jeon (South Korea) $4794
22. Ronald Singson (Philippines) $4794
23. Jean-Marc Hauducoeur (France) $4794
24. Dan Idema (Canada) $4794

Things Slowing Down

2007-08-26T18:36:00.000+08:00

Things are slowing down quite considerably here in the Pokerstars APPT final table after losing Japanese player Kazuhiro Sato and Bas Van Liere and the field going to the final 6 players.

Hands are finally holding up, with Sato being eliminated by JJ vs his flopped top pair ten, and Van Liere's A-T running against K-K.

Down to six, now we're REALLY playing poker.

Who Ever Said Poker Was A Skill Game?

2007-08-26T17:00:00.001+08:00

It has officially become the night of the underdog as we go through this final table. After Derick's sickening bad beats, we find Ira of the Bangkok crew all in on the turn with a board of K-9-9-T holding K-T. Opponent shows 8-9 off for trips on the flop, and it's looking bad for Ira.

The miracle Ten on the turn says otherwise and Ira doubles up through the big stack!

Intense action. Come over and watch if you can!

APPT Final Table Has Begun, Last Filipino Gets a Bad Beat with AA!

2007-08-26T16:02:00.001+08:00

Here we are, day 3 of the biggest Poker tournament in the history of Asia. I'm fortunately sitting here with all the other internet media/blogger people from all over the world as i write this down. Pokerstars has built an awesome TV venue out of the Hyatt Ballroom here, and the air here is simply electrifying.
You can feel the intensity of the atmosphere as everyone braces themselves for some final table action.

It is just the third hand of the day and Kazuhiro Sato of Japan has just moved all in! Apparently nobody wants to risk too much this early when everyone folds.

The same man has just gone all in for the third time, and Derick H. wakes up with pocket queens! He calls the all in and Sato shows A-9. Flop comes A-K-T. No help from turn and river for Derrick and he gets hurt bad while Sato doubles up.

A couple of hands later, Derick raises from early positon, only to be re-raised by young american player Brett Parise, an online qualifier who won his seat through a Pokerstars Satellite. Derick goes in the tank for several seconds then makes what seems to be a desperation all-in given his recent bad beat. Brett Calls him and Derick triumphantly flips over Pocket Rockets! Brett shows Pocket Tens and is dominated 4-1.

The poker gods had other ideas and decided to be even more cruel to the last Filipino standing when the flop came J-9-T, giving Brett a set of tens. Turn and River didnt help Derick, and he is officially out of the tournament. He won $11,386 for his efforts. Good job man! We all know that if not for those bad beats, you would have taken this whole thing down!

So Action continues, and the only person left to cheer for is our good friend Ira from the Bangkok crew.

I'll be updating again very soon today, so stay tuned.

---------------------------

Overall, what a great experience for our young poker community. After today, Poker is going to go into hyperdrive all over Asia and the Philippines, and we will be at the forefront of all of it, we being the Filipino poker Community. We have all come a long way from our humble beginnings from 2-3 years ago, and now we are ready to take on the competitive tournament poker circuit at the world stage, as proven by Derick who made the final table and had to take 2 bad beats in a row just to get eliminated!

Go Philippines!

APPT Final Table

2007-08-26T03:18:00.001+08:00

After sticking it out for 12 hours just to give an up to the minute update about the Pokerstars APPT main event, we finally made it down to the last 9 players and the TV table.

Amor N. busted out at 12th for an $8,000+ payday, and the last 12 players took at least 2 hours to make it to the last 9! The small stacks kept doubling up on the river! Finally, after the final guy busts out (sorry i dont even remember who it was), everybody cheers and was glad they could all go home and sleep for tomorrow's big event.

One Pinoy left standing to represent our country in the televised table which will be shown all over the world. Derrick Hernandez, a seasoned poker veteran in both the online and local circuit, played excellent poker all throughout and managed to recover after his big stack got hit, and now he has more than average stack going into the final table. Go Bord!

That's our man in the middle of the table

i will be there tomorrow at the Hyatt ballroom where the awesome and insanely expensive TV table is set up, giving more live updates from the front lines!

See you there!

Doc Butch and Carlo Lascano

2007-08-25T20:30:00.001+08:00

Another two of our countrymen are out, doc butch and Carlo Lascano from davao. They won $6,000.

Good job!

In the Money at the APPT!

2007-08-25T20:30:00.000+08:00

We are in the money!

Japanese player Norihito Suzuki has just busted out going all in with a super short stack and getting called by 2 other players to seal his fate as the bubble boy!

Six Filipinos out of 24 players left, and at least 2 of them have a good chance to make a run for first with their huge stacks. I think our boys represented our local poker community very well today, taking up 2 seats in each table out of 4 tables left.

Everybody is guaranteed just shy of $5,000 for their efforts right now.

Congratulations everybody! now go win the whole thing!

BUBBLE TIME!

2007-08-25T20:00:00.000+08:00

Bubble time!

25 left, 24 paid.

At least 5 of our guys left.

Philippines represent!

27 left in day 2 of the APPT!

2007-08-25T19:54:00.000+08:00

Hand for hand time.

The players can smell the money.

24 places paid, and we are now hand for hand.

At least five of our guys are still in, RVS, Eric S., Derek H. doc Butch, and Amor N. Most of them have good stacks too.

The prize pool for this three-day event is as follows:

1st: $179,775
2nd: $113,858
3rd: $62,921
4th: $44,940
5th: $35,955
6th: $26,966
7th: $20,974
8th: $14,981
9th: $11,386
10th - 12th: $8,390
13th - 16th:$5,993
17th - 24th: $4,794

Good luck Bords!

APPT Manila

2007-08-25T15:50:00.000+08:00

Poker in the Philippines has come a long way from it's early beginnings around 2004. From small 100 peso home game sit n' gos, improvised chips, make-your-own-rules poker then moving on up to bigger MTT's (P1,500 buy-in! 100+ players!) to underground cardrooms sprouting left and right, and then to the Casino's and PAGCOR finally accepting Poker as a legitimate game.

Today, i'm here at the Hyatt hotel and casino in Malate, Manila writing on-site about the biggest poker tournament the Philippines, even Asia, has ever seen. The APPT is a series of $2,500 buy-in tournaments to us by Pokerstars, the biggest online poker site in the world today. Using Manila as a kick-off point, they will be hosting tournaments all over the region culminating to the main event tournament in Australia.

Why did they use manila as a kick off point? well, Mr. Jeff Haas, APPT's president, described the APPT's mission and vision to help develop Asian Poker and develop the region as the next poker frontier. Apparently, the leaders of the poker industry has noticed us in our little corner of the world when Jeff noted that the largest poker market in the region was the Philippines. Doesn't that just make you feel proud to be a part of the Philippine Poker Community?

The APPT officially kicked off two days ago with a press conference, a great party and celebrity/media freeroll tournament. Our very own Nick G of Pokerfilipinas won the tournament and a seat to the main event worth $2,500! Not only that, he busted out Pokerstars player and multiple WSOP bracelet holder Daniel Negreanu heads up at their table in the semi-shoot out event. Priceless! I had the chance to exchange a few words and photos with the 2005 world champ Joe Hachem, who didn't seem affected at all by his poker fame and was such a cool guy. Daniel was pretty cool too, and we got to chat for a few seconds before i took a picture with him.

just to get an idea, Joe Hachem and Neil Arce walked into an elevator heading up to the poker area. Joe was looking down at his feet when two guys walked in and saw them wearing their Pokerstars logos an said "hey! you guys from Pokerstars?" to which Joe, still looking down, replied "you could say that." and the guys jumped up and said "joe Hachem!" haha... great story

I strongly recommend the local players to come over and watch this event, and be a part of poker history.

Stay tuned for more updates coming very soon. It's currently day two and we are down to 49 players with 24 being the magic number for an ITM finish.

Ill be here til we see our boys make it to ITM ;)

The Metro: Poker's New Home

2007-08-22T00:54:00.000+08:00

Flashback:
About two years and several weeks ago... Somewhere on a rooftop in Greenhills, during the middle of an "underground" poker tournament.

Checkpoint: so what do you wanna do?
NickG: i wanna build a card room.
Maverick: let's do it.

2 weeks later, The BBC opened it's sliding doors. It also opened every other door of opportunity for the local poker scene to grow into what it is today. For 100 days, Poker had a home in Manila. After that, poker exploded into the Pinoy consciousness.

It's been a long journey from the 2005 BBC days.

By some twists of fate, our little poker crew met the right people at the right time, people with the same vision and passion for the game. From our humble beginnings we then moved on to bigger and better things...

Not long after that, a plan to create the ultimate dream for the poker community was hatched by the now much bigger crew. A Card Club located outside a Casino, a place where poker is the only game, a place that poker can really call home.

The long wait is over.

Today, Poker has a new home in the country. The Metro Card Club.

The Metro officially opened it's doors five days ago. Seriously, it is officially the best place to play poker in this country right now. Just ask anybody who has been there. Just look at it. It's a thing of beauty! Imagine a place where you can come as you are, feel comfortable, hang out with your friends, have a few drinks, and play poker all night long. A place where you can feel safe while playing, where you know that the people running it know what they are doing, and the people you are playing with arent there to cheat you or rip you off. A new era in our local poker scene has began with the opening of The Metro, and it's a good thing.

Come by. Everyone is welcome. It's our gift to the poker community, made not just of brick and mortar, but of hard work, sweat, and sacrifice. The foundations are there, and poker in the Philippines has officially been built a new house.

Now it's up to everyone else to make it a home.

See you at The Metro!

300K gtd Poker Weekend was a Blast

2007-08-08T13:25:00.000+08:00

So another successful tournament for the whole crew wrapped up last saturday. 60 seats filled, awesome poker play, great group of players, and everything else you could ask for in a poker tournament.

These big tournaments are always a reunion of sorts for us guys who were there when the seeds of Pinoy Poker were being sown. Funny that the guys who made the final table were mostly the same guys who were playing poker a couple of years ago in the regular home games, the "underground" MTT's, and of course in the hallowed poker grounds of the BBC...

Congrats to Mnlgrnd, one of the true legit Pinoy online poker pros in the country, for winning 2nd place for a nice P72,000 payday! Same goes to Nick, who sat to my immediate right most of the tournament, for playing a solid game and taking the whole thing down fro P114,000+ last man standing of maybe another 6,000 i think. Good job guys!

Check out Poker Filipinas and ManilaGrind for pics and other details.;)

P300,000 Guaranteed Tourney!

2007-07-31T13:52:00.000+08:00

The next 300K guaranteed tournament is coming up this Saturday, Aug.4, at the San Lazaro Leisure Park and Casino in Carmona, Cavite!

It's a P5000+500 buy-in freezeout tournament. Expect the best players to come and play.

Minimum Payouts:

114,000
72,000
45,000
30,000
15,000
12,000
12,000

See you there!

Houston, The Ice Cream Has Landed

2007-07-14T10:33:00.001+08:00

Neil has finished his run at the WSOP main event as of today, busting out on TT vs. AJ for 222nd place out of 6,358 players, and a nice week's pay of 51,398- more than any filipino based-player's winnings ever in a poker tournament.

The man accomplished a lot of firsts and made history this week in the biggest stage in poker, and like another historical guy named Neil once said...

"one small step for man... one giant leap for mankind."

Neil made one small step for all of us Filipino poker players by making a big last minute decision to play in the WSOP, and he made one giant leap for all of us by showing that, yeah, we DO know what the hell we're doing back here in the RP! That our poker community IS going in the right direction!

SO if you're reading this buddy, we just want to make sure you know we are DAMN PROUD of what you've done. Beating 6,136 players means you've outlasted more players that the 5,500+ that World Champion Joe Hachem beat in 2005! You have single-handedly done more for the Filipino Poker community than any poker tour or poker organization can dream of doing.

Knowing Neil, he's probably disappointed by the fact that he didn't win the whole thing, since this guy won't settle for anything less, be it 222nd or 2nd place. Let's all make sure he knows the magnitude of what he has accomplished, and make him feel like the true winner that he is!

Also, a special mention to the crew who stuck with Neil all the way although they busted out early. These guys represent the future of poker in the RP, and proved this by also cashing in other side tournaments in Las Vegas while waiting for Neil!
RVS, Alan, Amor, Eric, Franco, and Renan, thanks for all the support!

Although i lost $500 or so by not taking Neil's prop bet, i don't really care. I know that when he gets back, we are going to have one SICK party!

Go Dirty Ice Cream!

Dirty Ice Cream IN THE MONEY!

2007-07-13T09:30:00.000+08:00

Yup. The WSOP main event bubble just burst. 621 left after a grueling 3 days of non-stop poker action. 6,358 players weeded down to the players who can now call themselves WINNERS in the biggest poker event on the planet!

Time for me to get that rope... hehe. Neil "Dirty Ice Cream" Arce just burst the bubble sitting on 165,000 in chips and is guaranteed at least $20,000! The players are on break right now, and man i can only imagine how good it must feel to be able to say that "I cashed in the main event of the WSOP! Fucking A neil you rock! Special mention to our good friend Isaac "The General" Galazan, a WSOP bracelet winner from previous years, who also is ITM along with neil.

Now the hard part is over bro... it's time for the HARDER part! hehe! Go deep! WIn some big bucks! REPRESENT!

Now can i eat that siling labuyo and get my 1%...? pleeeease? (i woulda made $200 already! F#$%^!)

130K on the Last Level for Day 2!

2007-07-12T10:19:00.001+08:00

Neil now on dinner break and will resume play for the last level of Day 2B afterwards. No official count yet of how many players remain, but im sure Neil has outlasted more players in the last 3 days than most of us will see in our lifetime!

His stack is at a fighting 130,000. Damn... awesome! Barring any sick Quad Aces vs. Royal Flush kind of hand, it's safe to say Neil will go on to Day 3! Bro, we're damn proud for you for making it this far! Go kick some more ass and win that thing!

If Neil wins a million or so dollars, i'm gonna go get some rope and hang myself for saying no to a 1% piece of his winnings on the condition that i eat a whole friggin siling labuyo! HAHA! I might regret that for the rest of my life LOL!

WSOP updates

2007-07-12T03:29:00.000+08:00

Day 2B just started today, and our prayers and hopes go out to Dirty Ice Cream, the only guy left in the Philippine contingent of poker degenerates! Go bro! It's just A chips! hehe...

So the numbers are in... 6,358 players joined the main event this year. That's a 25% drop in attendance from last year, but still the second largest field in history. Payouts this year are much better, since JUST making it ITM (621st place) will get you $20,320, more than double what you bought in for. Payouts? Here they are...

First: $8.25 million
Second: $4.8 million
Third: $3 million
Fourth: $1.85 million
Fifth: $1.25 million
Sixth: $956,243
Seventh: $705,229
Eighth: $585,699
Ninth: $525,934

not bad at all...

On another note, how about Alan's story? Oh man. It's a sickening hand...
It's level 1, blinds are 50/100, starting stacks are 20K. Alan's in LP and has a 26K stack at this point. UTG (loose player) raises 250, gets called, and Alan peels wired Kings! he re-raises to 1000, and everyone folds to UTG who thinks then re-raises 5000. Alan calls.

FLOP 4-4-10 rainbow.
Check - Check.

TURN K! Nut full house! guy bets 3K, Alan raises 6000, gets called. River A. UTG shoves all-in for almost all of Alan's chips, if he calls he'll have 1,500 left. Time is called on him after he thinks for a long time.

Alan makes the call, and UTG shows A-A for a rivered higher full house. holy...

Too bad for Alan, i know he could go deep in that game.

So there, just look out for neil on ESPN! go go go!

Represent!

2007-07-10T13:49:00.000+08:00

In 2 hours, Day 1D will finally break for Day 2. Although i've heard that most of our comrades have fallen, i am glad to say that two members of our little crew have made it to the last level before the break for day 2! Neil Dirty Ice Cream and Ronald The Boss are the last two survivors of our Philippine contingent! While Ronald has a short stack, neil has an average stack of about 30,000 as of the last update i got!

Go boys! Make us proud! Skylounge crew represent! ;)

A total of 6,300++ players joined this years main event, 2500 less than last year. The bill against online gambling in the US did take its toll. But still, a $60 million Prize pool aint so bad! Expect around 8-9 million dollars for first place!

Tales from the WSOP

2007-07-07T20:02:00.000+08:00

News from Las Vegas, straight from our friends who will be playing in the main event of The World Series of Poker!

So Dirty Ice Cream calls me up and tells me how theyve been going around vegas having the time of their life, meeting players like dan harrington, jen harman, phil gordon, and a ton of other poker superstars! Neil also played a little bit of $2-$5 NLHE and won $400 too. Theyre coming in to the main event on DAY 1-D, which is the 4th day one. AS of today, DAY 1-A just finished and they had 1,250 players, and registrations are still climbing fast! It's gonna be big!

Anyway, Here's a REALLY funny story:

The whole Pinoy crew is walking around the casino and they run into one of the poker superstars of High Stakes Poker. Eric, the ACF rounder, comes up to the guy and says

"What's up Sammy!" to which the guy replies

"Excuse me I'm not Sammy! Sammy's an asshole!"

HAHA! The guy turns out to be Freddy Deeb! HAHAHAHA!

Oh man i wish i was there.

Good luck guys! make history! WIN THE DAMN THING!

WSOP Invasion!

2007-07-04T14:24:00.000+08:00

Every poker player in the world has, at one point in their poker life, had a dream of playing in the biggest tournament of them all, the granddaddy of all poker tournaments, the WSOP $10,000 main event. Who wouldn't, with the chance to win ridiculous amounts of money and become famous beyond your wildest dreams? Last year's champion won 12 MILLION DOLLARS.

That's HALF A BILLION PESOS. Boing.

oh, another thing, the biggest prize of all. Immortality. Your face up the wall of champions among the poker legends of our time.

This year, that time has come again. The main event is going to start 3 days from now, and our very own Filipino contingent of players are flying in to Las Vegas tonight to play in the biggest stage in the world of poker! Yup, a bunch of brave souls are going to face a field of thousands and thousands of players from all over the world to take a shot at the WSOP bracelet and millions of dollars in cash.

Oh how i wish i was a part of that group!

Our very own Neil Dirty Ice Cream, Regent's Franco M., Alan E., Renan, Jenny, and ACF rounders Eric and Amor (i hope i got that right and didnt leave anyone out) are gonna represent the Philippines! These guys are gonna come back with some great stories and hopefully tons of cash for a big party back home hehe! Let's all cheer for them and send our prayers out for them to win and make some good money! Make us proud guys!

Neil, ill take that 1% share of your action and eat that siling labuyo! just make sure you win!

-----------------------------------------------------

APPT SATELLITE SERIES UPDATE

Last monday got us 2 players winning a seat to the P12,500 buy-in Level 2 satellite for a chance at the $2,500 seat! Rodolf "Sexual Choco" and Cho F. won their seats in a 2-table tourny. The next ones are going to be in CAPONES on THURSDAY, JULY 6, and FERRULE in Libis on FRIDAY, JULY 7. We'll be texting out the details by tomorrow!

See you!

Asia Pacific Poker Tour!

2007-07-01T09:49:00.000+08:00

This is what every local poker player has been waiting for. The APPT. A REAL poker tournament with a life-changing 20-30 million peso prize pool, a substantial buy-in that will make EVERYONE play seriously, and a field full of top world class professionals and poker legends we only see on TV.

Our little group will be helping our local poker community by running multiple satellite tournaments all over the metro with buy-ins ranging from P600, P1500, P5,500, and P12,500. The smaller buy-in games will be level one satellite and will win you a seat to a level 2 satellite where you can win the seat worth $2,500! Let's fill this tournament with as many local poker players as possible and show the pros how we roll here in the RP hehe!

I will post the schedules as soon as possible. First satellite will be at CCW Cafe on July 2, buy-in 1400+100 freezeout. It's located in the corner of Guijo st. and Sacred Heart st. so come if you can!

The METRO Davao!

2007-06-26T16:45:00.000+08:00

The Metro Madayaw, our first class poker room in Casino Filipino Davao, is hosting it's first major tournament this coming weekend, The San Pedro Festival Poker Tournament! It's a 2000+300 Buy-in with optional rebuy and add-on. Nick G's gonna be flying over to play, and as much as i would also like to go and play, things are pretty busy here too.

Check it out if you'll be in the southern Philippines this week, or if you know any poker aficionados from Davao who would like to play some good poker.

The Downswing

2007-06-14T15:16:00.000+08:00

Here is a really funny article by '1.21 gigawatts' from pocketfives about the poker player's arch-enemy, the dreaded downswing. The past weeks has been a testament to how harsh this game can get, since ive lost all my profit for the first two weeks and then some. On the slow road to recovery though. Trust the math, i say. ;)

-------------------------------------------

The Downswing
by 1.21Gigawatts on 3/29/2006 06:31

On a dark and gloomy day in May of 1572, it rained in the Atacama Desert.

Then, 400 years later, it finally rained again.

Talk about a dry spell.

And if you've played poker long enough, you've probably experienced the same thing. Maybe not 400 years, but it can sure feel that way. It's when nothing is going your way, your opponents keep getting the best of you, and the cards are running as poorly as Stephen Hawking in a footrace

(I'm going to hell for that one.)

Everyone's been there before, and everyone has their own story to tell. Still, that doesn't make it any easier when it's been two weeks since your last winning session.

The downswings in poker can be brutal. So brutal in fact, that you begin to question your own skill level - not to mention your own sanity. You start asking whether or not you're even good enough to play this game. And sometimes when it gets really bad, you start wondering why you ever loved this game in the first place.

But hey, that's poker, right? A game where the law of averages works in its most volatile state. Where you're either on the heater of a lifetime, or stuck in a three-week drought of misery. It's never easy, even when you think you know everything there is to know about the game. Because you always have to deal with that one thing:

Variance. And there's no stopping it.

Still, the variance pill becomes harder and harder to swallow with each losing session.

"Forget it," I said to myself earlier tonight. "I just flat out suck."

I have lost all confidence. I am Jack's crumbling self-esteem.

It's the low point in a poker career; the worst run of your life. When you're completely card dead and all you have left to rely on is a crappy continuation bet on a ragged flop.

It's when you pick up pocket Jacks and say to yourself,

"Please let there only be one overcard on the flop, because I'm sick of seeing all three."

It's when everytime you raise with A,Q or 9,10 you get repopped by the guy in the small blind who hasn't played a hand in hours. And then when you do pick up Aces, you win nothing but the blinds.

And don't even get me started on pocket kings. I'm so fed up at this point, the only cowboys I want to go near are the two guys from "Brokeback Mountain."

But it's not like you're always missing the flop. It's just that when you do connect, you're running into monsters anyway. But that doesn't matter, because top pair, weak kicker never looked so good. I guess that's where the bad play sets in. After 89 missed flops in a row, a simple flush draw begins to look like a thing of beauty.

"You mean I'm not a 6-to-1 dog right now!? Hell, I'm all-in then."

That's when it becomes the last act of a desperate man. Sure, I'm probably drawing dead, but how many times in life can we say we got all our money in with a 15% to win? It's a proud moment (during a downswing) as far as I'm concerned.

It's when the only pots you're not losing, are the ones you get to split 3-ways.

It's when you've completely given up on small pocket pairs, because they stopped hitting months ago. It's when you sit and play for three hours and 380 hands, and the only full house you see is another lousy rerun on Nick at Nite.

It's when you finally do flop top two pair, your opponent loses connection and sits out, and you get to check it down with him while he's away (thanks to disconnect-protection).

Lucky you though, because he rivered a set anyway.

But hey, that's poker. And that's variance. Get used to it. And make sure you're never playing above your bankroll. Otherwise, a two week drought could temporarily put an end to your poker career.

Just know that the swings happen to everyone, even the best players in the world. And that eventually, it will all turn around. The good cards will come. And it will rain again.

And like they always say: When it rains, it pours.

The Return of the Comeback

2007-06-02T20:11:00.000+08:00

It's been a while... i miss this place. So many things have happened since my last post. The last two months have really beena crazy circus, what with the elections and everything that comes with it. Speaking of which, i have officially lost whatever iota of hope i had for this country's system.

I witnessed, first hand, blatant cheating and disgusting political tactics. My mom ran for re-election for her city council post in Pasay. Everyone who knew anything about our local city politics knew she was a shoo-in, and even the INC (a huge block voter) put her in thier ticket, which they rarely do for independent candidates. A few days before the election, she received a text from one her her political rival's "hound dogs", so to speak. "Nung huling election, pang anim ka. Ngayon sisiguraduhin namin pang pito ka na." In Pasay, only six councilors are elected per district. Election day comes, and my mom is in panic. We got word that in several precints, dozens if not hundreds of her votes are being voided! The reason? My mom's name is Antonia, and she goes by the nickname "Ate Tonya". They were not counting her votes that didnt have "ate" in it. Sickening. She also lost in one of her strongest bailiwicks, a depressed area where she spent a lot of time helping out and doing projects. People came up to us and said that men were going around giving 500-1000 pesos to people to NOT vote my mom.. we couldnt believe it. And when counting came, i personally witnessed 5 votes magically turning into 51 votes in the final tally. In the end, my mom held on to a slim lead for 5th position, then slid down to 6th, and in the final day, went down to 7th, where she finally lost by a few hundred votes. I really pity this country. I was so disgusted. I really cant see this country going anywhere in the next 50 years unless we have a bloody revolution or something.

anyway....

Poker-wise, Ive been seeing my fair share of hands and games lately, but seldom in the live games. Yup, I'm now officially an online micro-grinder, putting in the hours
in Super7casino, a DGN poker network member site. I blindly stumled in my first few weeks playing and losing, getting a feel for the game. Down to $3 at one point, I finally stumbled upon Chris Ferguson's Bankroll Management System, with which he turned $1 into $20,000 over a period of time. It got me rocking the ring games, and in a few weeks, i somehow turned my last $3 into $135+! It works SO well, you have almost ZERO risk or ruin. And thanks to the convenience of Super7, i was able to withdraw $80 instantly and enjoy the fruits of my labor hehe. I'm now on track to making a daily grind of an extra $200-$300 a motnh, if i run well ;) Not bad for something i do for fun eh? Pang kape-kape... hehe. And it's so easy to withdraw and deposit too!

So if youre looking for an easy and convenient wasy to scratch that poker itch anytime anywhere, just tell me and i can hook you up instantly. Dozens of local
players are already playing and enjoying the online poker scene too!

In other news, the long awaited opening of the The Metro is expected to be delayed once again,and because of... what else? Two words: Electoral Protest. Sucks to be caught in the crossfire but all we can do now is sit and wait. Let's cross our fingers and hope for the best.

Speaking of the live poker scene, there has been a lot of action everywhere! You can find a game anytime, anywhere now, which is a good thing. But ive also heard people complaining about some organizers and how they run their games. From blinds changing on the fly in a 22,000 peso Million Guaranteed tournament to Guaranteed pots being given only if they hit the amount of players needed to fill the pot. Geez. I guess it's a fact of life that there will always be some people who will do anything to make a quick buck. Let's just be aware of these things and be on the lookout for scammers.

On the upside, there are also great games all around. Even the PPT has learned from their previous fiascos and made a great payout structure and blinds schedule for their P3M tournament. The PBT is thriving in their new home in the Hyatt and more and more people are playing in their home games and elsewhere.

so there... whew. I'd like to congratulate a couple of guys from the crew. Dirty ice cream and Sunshine, congratulations on the new baby boy! That kid's first words should be "All-in" ok? Also, congrats to the boss, or should i say "Hon. COngressman"? hehe! Time to churn out the poker legislation!

So there. I'll update more often for sure. I'll also post my progress from my ring game adventures... I've been making about $6 an hour in the last 3 days doing my daily grind, that's at an average of 3 hours a day only. As soon as the stats get more substantial, ill post the updates hehe.

Till next time... watch your backs!

NickG's $1,000 Pinoy Poker Freeroll!

2007-04-19T11:55:00.000+08:00

Yep you read that right!

Nick G, on the occassion of his 30th birthday (WTF!?!) on the 25th, will be celebrating it with a nice little gift for us pinoy poker players in the form of an online freeroll with ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS up for grabs!

Any poker player in his right mind will not let this pass!

All you have to do is go to Super7casino.com, download it's poker software (DGN poker network), register a free account, and youre good to go!

Here are more details:

SATURDAY, APRIL 28, at 7PM manila time

Under TOURNAMENTS, go to PRIVATE, then NICKG's Birthday Freeroll, and register there.
The password is Nickgbday.

(be careful coz there are TWO tournament tabs and you might get confused)

only 100 seats are available so register as soon as you can!

Don't miss this opportunity guys, it doesnt happen too often ;)

VOTE NICK FOR SENATOR WOHOO!

Poker For a Cause!!!

2007-03-04T22:38:00.000+08:00

Last Saturday, March 3, marked another first in the Philippine Poker scene. Out little group managed to pull off the first ever PAGCOR sanctioned charity poker tournament outside a Casino, and ran a successful, UNRAKED, 107-player No-Limit Texas Hold-em tournament that saw EVERY SINGLE PESO from the P500 buy-in, rebuy, and add-on go to the beneficiary. Every ticket bought was in effect a full donation to the Sinag Kalinga Foundation. Congratulations to everyone who participated in this noble effort to help others while promoting the game we love.

The game started off with some crazy action, with several players pledging to go all-in on every hand for the first ten hands in order to raise more money for the founation. True enough, we saw several people double and even triple up on the first hand! By the time the rebuy period ended at the 4th level, we saw more than a hundred rebuys go into the pot. Everyone was having fun, eating the loads of free Holy Kettle Corn Popcorn Courtesy of our good friend Aris. After the dust from the chaotic rebuy period settled, although i do not have the exact number of rebuys and add-ons, the tournament raised no less than a total of 141,500.00 Pesos! An amazing figure considering the small buy-in!

During the short break for add-ons, the Head of the Sinag Kalinga Foundation gave a short talk. Their founation helps the indigent and destitute senior citizens, the lolos and lolas that live on the streets, under bridges, and have no home. They give them a place to call their own, activities to keep them busy, food, clothing, medication and a chance to spend their twilight years with dignity and respect. His talk warmed up everyone in the tournament, and they all applauded loudly after we announced how much money they had collectively raised for the Foundation.

Then the real tournament began. Most of the people who played too tight early on eventually got caught by the blinds and busted out one by one. As the field came down to 2 tables, everyone tightened up since they could smell the prizes getting closer and closer. Eventually, the bubble burst and the field was down to eleven players. AWhat was funny was, whenever it got down to a certain prize that someone wanted, they went all in and hoped to bust out! On guy kept going all in and kept winning! Another one wanted to go all-in then muck his cards! But it was all in good fun, and everyone was enjoying the action.

11th place got a consolation prize of P5000 in NCC's that can be played at the casino filipino. 10th place got an iPod Shuffle, 9th got a Canon Digicam, 8th was a Sony PSP, 7th place got the Sony Ericsson W810i, 6th was the BOSE Speakers, 5th the 19" LCD TV, 4th got the coveted 80GB iPod Video, 3rd teh trip to Palau, 2nd was teh NEO Laptop Computer, and first place got the trip to Boracay for two with accomodatons at the Boracay Mandarin Resort Hotel.

Congratulations to all the people who got to the final table, not only did you win the great prizes, but you also helped out a noble cause. Some of our regular poker buddies even made it to the final table too. Che Roces, who found herself just lucky to barely make it to the final table, ended up winning the whole thing! Good game guys!

Thanks to all our sponsors too, without them this would not have been possible. And thanks to PAGCOR for allowing this to happen and seeing how this can be a great way to put Poker in a positive light in the eyes of the public.

Expect more, and bigger, better tournaments like this from us soon!

Let's all help promote poker and support future events like this. In the end, we will all watch local poker grow and reach heights like we've never seen before!

Let's Play for a Cause

2007-02-21T15:40:00.000+08:00

On March 3rd, we're having a big charity tournament at the Robinsons Galleria in Ortigas. With just a P500 buy-in, you have a chance to test your poker skills and win any of our awesome prizes! A Laptop, 80GB IPOD video, Playstation Portable, Canon Digicam, 19" LCD TV, IPOD shuffle, Sony Ericsson W810i, Trip to Boracay, Trip to Palau, and more!

See you there!

Runner Runner!

2007-02-21T02:25:00.000+08:00

It has been almost a month since my last post. It's been a pretty busy month, that's for sure. I have almost no time to even PLAY poker. Damn i miss playing.

For starters, the good old northern poker hub started off the year with a nice progressive pot series for the first quarter of the year. From the regular P800 buy-in game, theyr'e taking P50 off from the pot and building a progressive pot which was jump started by the house with a P5,000 contribution. People are starting to get competitive since they are expecting the pot to reach more than P30,000!

End of january saw a big tournament in cebu, which of course was represented by the crew. 11 guys came to represent, and in a field of 102, 4 of them got in the money. Checkpoint louie was 12th, Isaac "The General" was 6th, Dirty Ice Cream was 4th, and the boss, Ronald, chopped with the chip lead for top money in the tourney. Not bad eh? hehe.

February came and we started to see the end of the cold morning as it started to get warmer and warmer as we get closer to summer, which is officially coming in about two weeks. (yeah beach time!)

Last Feb.15, we officially started off our spanking new 10 table cardroom in the awesome San Lazaro Leisure park and Casino in Carmona, which is called The Runners Card Club. What a beautiful place! For the first time in my life, i bet on and watched a real live horse race haha! They are fun to watch! Damn when you see your horse streaking past the rest of em on the last stretch to the finish line, youre gonna jump and scream like a kid in a candy store, even if you only won 200 pesos!!! Not to mention the big roomy poker area with a panoramic view of the entire race track! Gamblers heaven!

Our first night got a couple of ring games rocking with the boys from manila. Then Sunday came, and we had our inagural P5,000 + P500 300K GUARANTEED pot tournament, which totally rocked the joint! 53 players from all over came and played what you might say was the best tournament we've seen in a loong time. The 35,000 peso extra money in the pot made it even sweeter. (yes, we DO give our guarantees!) We had a pure NLHE freezeout tournament, with none of that multi-rebuy and add-on gimmicks to get the pot pumped up (and i honeslty think those are supposed to be a novelty at best, not a staple, as we see in the tournament available nowadays). We saw most of the regular rounders get in the money, since our structure was made to weed out dumb luck and reward skill and strategy. The Player of note on the final table was the man of the San Lazaro Leisure Park himself, Atty. Boy Reyno, who finished 3rd place with a P45,000 payday, a paltry sum to the guy, but he played seriously for it nonetheless. Chopping with 1st and 2nd for at least a P70,000 profit for each was Adrian and Genghis, casino ring game rounder and home game specialist, respectively. Congrats to the winners! I'm sure the next one will be much bigger!

I hope i get my internet connection in the Runners card room up and going, so i can update more regularly. We're gonna guarantee more quality poker for the weeks to come, poker the way it's supposed to be played. If you do have time, come and visit on a racing weekend, coz it really is only about 15mins from alabang (hey, 10 peso toll fee wont lie right? hehe.) heck, i come from pasay and it takes me longer to get to libis than to Carmona!

Till next time! Watch your backs!

Let's Play

2007-01-29T12:25:00.000+08:00

Would you like to play?

C'mon, it's easy.

52 cards, neatly arranged by suit and rank
Alone, their value is little more
than the number or face with which each is stamped

But let them dance on green felt

Let them be touched by hands
That know how to coax the connections

By a mind that can choreograph perfection
from the devilish swirl of infinite possibility

And suddenly, 52 separate soldiers become an unforgiving army
of kings and queens, deuces and jacks, aces and nines

then their value is measured in treasure, in riches
in hopes and hardship
in wasted lives

in broken men.

C'mon, it's easy.

Let's play.

2007 WILL ROCK!

2007-01-01T14:24:00.000+08:00

What a year eh?

If you want to see a great retrospective on the year 2006 in Poker, check out Nick's PokerFilipinas website! He wrote a great article on the entire year and the events that happened in the poker industry here in the RP.

But looking forward to 2007, i can barely contain my excitement. As most of us already know, this is the year that Poker in the RP will finally have a place to call home. Not a Casino, not an underground room, but a legitimate brick and mortar card room that is purely for the game of Poker, and tailor-made for poker players.

But more important is the fact that this place will be run by people who ARE part of the local poker scene, who knows what poker players actually want and need. International standards for rules and policies; fair and player-friendly tournament structures; cash games stakes and limits that will cater to every poker joe, from Mr.High roller to your average grinder to the recreational weekend player; an environment that feels like YOUR OWN, where everybody will know your name.

In this place, players will ALWAYS be put first above everything else.

Stay tuned and watch out for announcements, it's coming sooner than you think! ;)

2007 in The Metro will rock!

A Good Year

2006-12-25T19:01:00.000+08:00

And so this is Christmas, and what have you done? Another year's over, and a new one's just begun... or so John Lennon Says.

It's that time of the year when we look back and tell ourseleves if we made this year a good year for ourselves, but also a time to look forward to the new year and make the resolutions that we think will make this coming 2007 a better year.

Personally I had a rollercoaster year, much like a poker playing sitting through a loose, aggressive cash game where there is a complete disregard for the size of the blinds and the bets are based on the size of the bankrolls.

The year started of on a low note, with legal bills being the brunt of the problem hehe. I'm sure i dont have to explain this. Much of the year was so-so for me, but we saw a lot of improvements in the local poker scene like the Weekly and now daily poker tournaments being run at the ACF and the like. New places to play also came along, and poker really had a big boost in the manila scene. Also, the Davao and Cebu poker scene also picked up the pace to try and catch up with Manila.

Third Quarter of this year was a particularly trying one for me personally, with a lot of outside factors coming into play. My family went through some rough times, especially in the political scene here in Pasay. I also went through the end of a relationship, and those things things are never really easy. All these things came on top of each others too, like several bad beats one after the other. By the end of the 3rd quarter, i was super low on chips. Super small stack. But like i said before, you gotta keep playing right?

Well, by september this year, things started to change for the better. What seemed like curses turned out to be blessings in disguise, and things started to fall into place on it's own. The Political crisis turned out to be a blessing for my Mom and Dad, and now they are stronger than ever. I got to know who my real friends were during these times, and im thankful for that too. I also got to meet new people, and make new friends that i otherwise might have not if things stayed the same. Plans that were just thin air at the beginning of the year were now turning into brick and mortar, and i could see the future bright and clear. Dreams were turning into reality when it came to Poker, with the coming of what should be the best thing for Poker here in the RP since those steel sliding doors first opened more than a year ago.

As for Christmas, i couldnt have asked for a better one. This year was probably the best Christmas Eve i have had since as far as i could remember. I had an awesome lunch with an amazing friend and her family, had a great dinner with my family, and just to add icing to the cake, OCTUPLED my P1000 buy-in in our yearly family poker game! Man, what a crazy game! The presence of Checkpoint Louie turned our 10-20 game into a 10-100 game! I got three Pocket Aces, all of which paid off handsomely in a span of 4 hours, and not a single bad beat for the night!

Didnt get many gifts, but got the few that really mattered most to me. Christmas Day today was just spent taking it all in, just relaxing at home with the family. It's amazing how things can just pick up right at the end and make you almost forget all those times when you thought there was no way things could get better.

I really feel like i just sat through a rough, loose-aggressive poker game and managed to take down the pots that mattered at the very end, and cash out a big winner =) I've always been an optimistic person, and i believe that things always work out for the good to those who work on it. There's still a lot of work to be done though. But yeah, this turned out to be a good year.

Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year to Everyone and we hope you like our Christmas Present to the Poker Community this coming January! ;)

I can't wait for 2007!

Rebuy/Add-on Fiesta Insanity!

2006-12-16T15:46:00.000+08:00

Yesterday we had the novelty idea of having a low buy-in, Unlimited Rebuy/Add-on Tournament at the Nortshide Place. Due to the small buy-in of 300+30, we had a full house with 55 players trooping over and joining the festivities.

Nothing could have prepared us for what was to come.

From a players point of view, man, it was loads of fun and crazy poker play! But for guy like me who RUN the games, my god, what a nightmare! Running around getting rebuy s and add-ons and all at the same time making sure they pay for it, get their chips, their change, etc. gave me quite a cardio workout! whew!

After the dust settled at the end of the rebuy period on the 4th level and everyone had made their last add-on, the final tally was insane!

55 entries, 116 rebuys, and 50 add-ons!

For a 300 buy-in game, the total pot shot up to P66,300+! Nice fat payout awaited those who would have the endurance to make it to the final table. And what a great final table it was! We had mostly familiar face like NickG, Che, Ariel, Benjo, Aris, skippy, and a few other regulars. Che had the HUGE chip lead mot of the time, having about 250K of the total 750K of chips in play most of the time. Final 4 players saw Aris finishing an amazing 4th place after having less than ONE BLIND on the bubble, and managing to do a J.C. miracle comeback (think 5 loaves of bread and a couple of fishes feeding thousands) when he turned it into 80K in chips! Three way action got a bit intense before, finally at around 5am (yep), with almost equal stacks, they decided to chop the pot for a nice P15,500 payday for each of the warriors. Note that ariel and benjo never even made a rebuy and only had one add-on! Che had maybe 2 rebuyss and one add-on, so not so bad either!

Congratulations to the guys who made it in the money! Till next time... NOT! haha!

That was too crazy. ;)

WPT Philippines TV Schedule

2006-12-08T01:28:00.000+08:00

Let's All watch our good buddy Bryan this coming Dec. 15 on the first showing of the WPT Philippines Poker Madness event!

Rockin' The Blogger Tournament

2006-12-01T13:44:00.000+08:00

It's been a while since i've seen a collection of some of the best poker players in the local scene all under one roof, and all playing a tournament. What an awesome game! Excellent line up of players, great venue, and free booze courtesy of Gamefrog, what more can a player ask for?

We had 20 players total, most of whom were poker bloggers, some were regular contributors to the local forums, and some were online players. We had two of the last ACF wednesday champions, a couple of online pros, several of the regular rounders, the pokuh godfatha, a few guys who've won the Sky Tournament several times, and throw in the BBC500/bounty hunter winners and youve got one helluva poker tournament comin up!

Here's the full line-up. Barbiemanila and NickG, Maverick (me!), ManilaGrind, The German Snake (she's back!), Aris and Oging of XPL, Jonard of JPT, Del and Ed of ManilaPoker, Pola, Ariel, 11finger, Gamefrog and his cousin, Gino and Juano of StonerPoker, Che, Jazminator, and Jardine of JGPT.

We were supposed to start with 21 players including JJ the Duke, but he got a big headache and decided to go home before we started. Too bad bro, you missed a great game! It would have been a different game with the Duke in the house too hehe. We started off a bit slow, and only till about an hour in did we get someone to bust out. I won a ot of uncontested pots and built a nice stack early in the game, which i carried to the final table.

Some big hands i remember were one where i busted NickG (sorry bro hehe) when he raised with a small stack, and i just smooth called him with K-K on the big blind hehe. I Checked the 10-high flop, knowing he'd push. I called and he showed 9-9, and no 9 came to the rescue. GG nick! I also have to mention Del, who i sucked out on about three times during the night! First big hand against him was when i had 10-8 spades on the BB and called his min-raise from late position. Flop came Qs-7s-8d, and he pushed me all in (he was big stack on the table then) which i instantly called hehe. I spike the 10 on the turn and beat his QJ top pair. The two other hands came in the final table when i pushed with A-2 and cracked his Cowboys, crippling his stack, and then finally busting him out when we banged heads again and i spiked my over card against his 4-4. GG del!

If you were there to watch the game, you'll notice there were hardly any mistakes made, and there was always aggressive action on the table. CALL is not a word in most of these players vocabularies!

I finally made it ITM along with what turned out to be a BBC reunion of sorts, with Me, Barb, Che, And Mnlgrind being the final four players. It was a super tight game that point, tight being there was a lot of action but no bust outs. I almost eliminated Che when she made a move pushing with 4-3 suited which i called with her favorite hand The Ducks. She spiked the 3 on the river and doubled up on me! i made a few tight folds when Mark pushed UTG for about half my stack and i folded A-10 being next to act. Didnt play too aggressive with my big stack and eventually the blinds caught up with me and i busted out after che, finishing third.

Heads up ended up being a duel of the online pros, Barb and MnlGirnd (Mark). After a few hands, with Barb having about a 3-1 advantage, we had an all-in from barb with Q-10 vs Mark's A-8. Flop comes A-10-10 and it's all over! Good Game Mark!

Congratulations to Barb for winning (Again...) the first Pinoy Poker Blogger Invitational! Thanks to all those who came and supported the game too! Let's do it again!

GAME ON!

2006-11-29T14:50:00.000+08:00

Game on tomorrow guys! I wont even bother with getting aheadcount, just show up if you want to play ok? i guess everyone knows the details na, nothing has changed naman for the last post i made.

I hope we get at least two 7-8 handed tables!

We can run a ring game on the side if you guys wanna bring some friends along.

see you there! text the others if you can guys, help me out!

Watch your backs!

Blogger Tourney Update- sort of bad news

2006-11-22T11:21:00.000+08:00

So far i only have these players who have confirmed for tomorrow's blogger tourney.

Me, nick, barb, 11finger, mnlgrind

Pola, (2) stoner poker guys, Ariel, che and jaz(?)

(2-3) guys from 110 poker, JJ the duke...

a lot of players have not confirmed if theyre coming or not.

that's about it. 14 players at best. Worst case scenario is we move it again next week. You see guys i need to get enough players to cover the dealers, staff, etc, and at least something for the house expenses. It has to be worth it for the house to open on an off-day kasi.

It really looks like we should move it again so more players can join too. End of the month, next thursday is 30th if im not mistaken (payday!) might be better.

it's tough organizing these gigs hehe. Cmon guys, let's all participate! Sorry for the inconvenience, i was all psyched to play tomorrow too. I guess we really have to move it.

These are the details:

POKER BLOGGER INVITATIONAL

Buy-in: 1000+200

40 max players

Standard Freezout tournament, no add-on, no rebuy.

5000 starting stack, 50-100 starting blinds, 20 min levels.

reg at 8pm. First deal 9pm.

Weapons of Mass Destruction

2006-11-19T14:47:00.000+08:00

Someone should declare Manny Pacquiao's hands as weapons of mass destruction. His right hand should be called Nagasaki and his left hand Hiroshima.

With a show of force that left the great Aztec warrior Erik Morales shaking his head while sitting on the mat in Round 3 of the fight, Manny proved once again to the world that he's the best of the best. Every punch had murderous intentions behind it.

Poor Morales. He's gonna retire now for sure. Marco Antonio Barrera must be peeing in his pants right now, having flashbacks of HIS knockout in the hands of a Pacman that was then half the fighter he is now.

The 2 million dollar payday isnt so bad either.

Go Manny! Make us proud!

Catching Up

2006-11-17T15:13:00.000+08:00

I finally won first yesterday after getting ITM eleventy-billion times and not finishing first. I think it only happens once a year, on November the 17th. Sayang i was saving it for the WPT but it happened in a low buy-in home game hehe.

I got crippled in another tourny when my K-J flopped trips with no draw on the board only to bang into someone with K-Q. My AJ push gets called by QT and hits the Ten. Next to Bubble!
Poker poker poker. I always say i'm tired of it and i could use a break from playing but all you need to say is "Laro Tayo!" and i'm there.

Next saturday, make sure everyone supports the Charity Tournament at the ACF run by our good friends from Assumption, which will benefit the World Vision foundation. I'll most likely play and it's gonna be a reunion of sorts too coz i bet we'll be seeing a lot of the "Old School" guys who will also come to play :)

It's been a while since my last decent post, and it will probably be quite a while before i write something that actually has substance hehe. It's been a pretty crazy couple of months for me, and my family too. All i can say is Philippine Politics suck big time. People will try to destroy you AND your entire family just for some stupid position, and for the big money that comes with it. I guess it's all a part of being involved in the whole thing. It's one sick and disgusting machine that is sucking the life out of this country and will probably lead to the eventual irreversible demise of the good old RP. I honestly can't see anything improving for us in the macro sense as a nation in the next 50, maybe 100 years. So i say find your niche and make a killing at it while you still can! Ok enough of this bullcrap hehe.

Blogger tourny is most likely a go for next Thursday, so PLEASE register here by posting a comment. It will be your official reservation for the tournament. I have to know how many of us will be playing exactly, so do it ASAP! NOW! Bago mag dilim paningin ko! hehe ;)

The past maybe three weeks i've been sleeping early and waking up really early (7am sometimes!) and it's really killing me during the days when i have to be iworking the weekly games. But you DO get to accomplish a lot of things by waking up early, like leveling up in FF12 haha!

Inspite of all the bad beats and suckouts, literally and figuratively, it's great to know that there are still things to look forward to and things that make us want to wake up and keep going. ;)

Last week i raised QQ in early position and got two callers, flop came Q-3-6 or something, and i checked, got the next guy to raise, the next one to re-raise, so i pushed all in and got called by the second guy with a lower set hehe. Or had someone on my left push all in PF only to see wired aces in the hole. ahhh the simple pleasures of this poker life... and, there are BIG things to look forward to for the Poker Scene this coming 2007 too.

It's gonna be a fun year for poker here in The Metro. ;) And all over the RP too!

***************

I'm listening to this classic Dave Matthews song right now. Damn where do people learn to write songs like that! "I watch you there through you window and i stare at you wearing nothing, but you wear it so well..." or "Hike up your skirt a little more... and show your world to me." WTF!? hehe.

"Sweet like candy to my soul, sweet You rock and sweet You roll..." now that's a good line ;)

***************

Instant Update: Played again tonight and won again! Had most of the chips when it was three-handed after the bubble burst when JG turned the ass end of the straight and i got the Higher straight, which I DIDNT SEE till we flipped over! i went all in with what i thought was a busted flush draw!!!

Playing drunk is NOT a good thing hehe!

Don't tell me i have to wait till next year to win again!

Playing with the Pros

2006-11-09T12:08:00.000+08:00

A few days ago, the day after the PAPT tournament, i got a message from my good friend Alan about taking the Aussie group of Poker pros including Mark Vos, the 22 year old WSOP bracelet holder. Too bad i had to be at the Northside Poker place and couldnt come and party with them. (and they partied hard that night! till 9am!)

Anyway, the next day i got another invite and Alan was actually asking if we could run a little poker game for the group in our place, but time constraints led to the game being held at Alan's awesome pad in The Fort. Of course, i wouldnt pass up the opportunity to watch or even play with these guys, so i went there and had Bryan (hometown champ hehe) come and hang out too. Turns out almost all the regular guys were invited too, and most of the big table players came to take a stab at these young poker pros. I ended up just watching the game ($300 buy-in, 13 player tourny anyone? hehe.) but Bryan, with a WPT championship under his belt, had the privilege of getting staked by a couple of our friend and playing with them! Helps to be The Champ hehe.

The game was practically a turbo game, and Atty. Erick even busted out on the first hand after his A-K ran into K-K. (i dont know who pushed all in but it ended up being his A-K vs, Mark Vos' K-K). The last three guys had one of the locals Lal G. and two of their crew, johnny and harold. It was interesting and fun to watch these guys play. They are actually online pros and have a very different style. Most of the play was pre-flop, with the timing of pushes being a critical part of their play.

Ring game of 200-400 came after and most of the local guys like Franco and this other guy i forgot who won the most money! An amazing hand came wehn there was a raise of 2,000 PF and 4 people called.

Flop of 7-7-5 saw a three-way all-in worth about maybe P120,000!

First guy had A-7, Second guy had 5-5, and yes, Third crazy guy (one of the locals) had 7-5 off! No ace came and he won the whole pot! whew. Another Huge pot of almost 100K was when Franco called a 10,000 PF raise from Kim, the german guy, and saw a flop of A-J-Q. Check-check on the flop then All-in on the turn saw that Franco had K-T and the Kim holding A-J! Six outs for a full house seemed like a monster with a pot like that hehe.

Another funny thing is, these Aussie pros were playing their version of the "blind sattelite" game we are all accustomed to, but they played it with $200 PER HAND! Mark Vos ended up losing more than $2,000 BEFORE the tournament even started! Yikes! Too bad Mischa wasnt there to play with these guys, coz he woulda loved it! haha!

Our side table low stakes cash game had two of the pros including Mark Vos sit down and play crazy hehe. At least i could say i played with the WSOP champ!

It was a great night, and those guys were also quite impressed with the quality of our players, saying they expected the play to be softer and easier. I ended up leaving around 4am but i heard their game lasted well into the day.

I'm now pretty sure, after watching them play, that we can hold our own against the top players in the world! Keep them coming!

Let's Get It On!

2006-11-06T14:19:00.000+08:00

It's been a while sine i last posted something that wasnt 2 sentences long hehe. Mostly due to me getting quite busy with work and also because my biological clock got screwed big time and became NORMAL! I have been sleeping around 10-11pm and waking up at 6-7am! It's torture for someone who works in poker, given the ungodly hours our players play.

So what's been happening? Well, for one there's that Pan-Asia Poker Tour that had a good run this past weekend, getting around 60 players for their $500 buy-in MTT and about 40 for their $2,500 MTT! Wow, who woulda thought it would get that kind of reception? They hardly marketed it and had barely a month before they came here. A good friend of ours Alan E. managed to get ITM in the main event at 6th place too, getting him about just under $4,000! Nice game bro! Mind you, this was a game with the likes of Noli Fransisco playing. I can only imagine how much action there was in the side games!

Ok, now on to the main topic.

The Poker Blogger Tournament.

I've decided (and if it's ok with everyone) to have it on a thursday night, Nov.16, so that it's right after payday hehe. How's 8pm? Let's start at 8:30 sharp. Weekends seem to be out of the question and of course MWF is reserved for our regular poker nights, so thursday seem to fit in just right.

Buy-in at 1,200? We should get at least 1,000 into the pot so as to make the pot nice and sweet.

I figured our expenses for the dealers and maybe one guy at the bar will be around 3,500 at least. Food we can order nalang, pulutan lang naman. Gamefrog said he'll sponsor about 100 bottles of beer so drinks wont be a problem hehe. 200 a head will cover it naman as long as we have around 20+ to 30 players.

Ok, we'll just use the standard tournament at Skylounge, which has 20-min levels and smooth blind increases, with a 5K starting stack at 50-100 starting blinds. We've seen a lot of quality play with this structure, with the consistent players making the money majority of the time.

Headcount muna: (if i fail to mention you, please say so). I'll also include active members of Pokermanila too. The more the merrier!

Me
nick
barb
11finger
suited
gamefrog
mnlgrind
nutsboy
tilter
Atty. Erick
ariel
che
jaz
JJ
marco A.
Pola
JPT
(the guys from 110 poker league, tell us who's gonna represent!)
(Pokermanila guys, give us a headcount too!)

Who else hasnt been included? if you dont see your name here and think you are eligible for the tournament, please be heard!

So there, that's gotten most of the bases covered i guess. I'm going to 100% confirm our venue but it's 99% sure to be in Sky.

So let's get it on!

***
I'd like to give a shout out to our very own PokerFilipinas guru nickG for getting selected as Poker Blogger of the Month by Pokerlessons.net! Way to go putting the Philippine poker scene on the online map!

Till next time, may the edge be with you.

On the Map

2006-11-02T10:51:00.000+08:00

Look what i found on Google-Earth!

About the Blogger Tournament, sorry for the delay. I have really urgent personal matters that need to be prioritized first... like FF12 haha! just kidding. No seriously, just couldnt find the right time to schedule it yet. I haven't even been able to update my blog recently anymore. Will keep everyone updated.

Peace!

Update

2006-10-25T17:29:00.000+08:00

About the Blogger Tourney, a lot of stuff has been happening these past few weeks and i just couldnt finalize things. Been working too, helping out at the Northside poker place.

Anyway, let's play the sunday tournament of 11finger online first, then the live tourney will most likely push through on a thursday maybe next week or the latest, next next week. yeah weekday i know it sucks, but more people wont be able to play if we do it on a saturday i think.

I'm gonne try to do a headcount soon and post it here.

peace out.

World Poker Tour Philippines

2006-10-19T16:48:00.000+08:00

The first ever officially sanctioned WPT tournament ended a few days ago, with our very good friend and poker aficionado Bryan Malantic surviving three days of poker and getting that last burst of great poker playing with a mixture of luck at the right times and places to take down the first title. Awesome all-around game by Bryan, who managed to just scrape by day one at just above the starting stack after losing half his chips early on. It was about a P200++ thousand payday plus a seat into the 25K buy-in main event. It's funny, because Bryan and i learned how to play poker together, but he laid low from playing for a while, so although i knew he was a solid player, almost EVERYONE has never seen him play! Bryan will have a LOT of fans after the first episode is aired on december hehe.

Funny how he never really intended to play until a day and a half before, when someone convinced him to cancel his other plans and play the game.

I personally dint play simply because 15K was too big for me to gamble on one tournament and i was on a poker hiatus during the height of the sattelites and big MTT's giving away seats. I, along with a LOT of my other friends are SURELY going to play the next one in december though! That one will for sure be bigger and crazier hehe. That WPT TV setup was wicked! I'll have some photos to post soon, just waiting for nick to email it to me or something.

Anyway, it was awesome to see one of our very own, someone who TRULY knows and loves the game of Poker, to represent the poker community by winning the first WPT game in the Philippines. Congrats to all the players who were a part of it, as well as the Marco and the PBT who made it all possible, and of course Emi and the ACF staff for handling it very well and letting them use the awesome venue.

See you in December! TV table here we come!

Go Bryan! Represent!

2006-10-16T06:07:00.000+08:00

Six players.

More than P600,000 in the pot.

One chance to make history...

Let's all troop over to the ACF main theater today and watch the first ever WPT final table in the Philippines! The awesome main theater of the airport casino has been primed and set up with a world class WPT stage setup complete with hole cams and the works.

And what better reason to watch it than to cheer on our very own friendly neighborhood Tournament Director and good friend Bryan M. as he fights to win the P208,000 1st prize, a seat in the WPT championship, and a shot at poker immortality as the FIRST WPT Philippines champion!

See you there at 6pm when the first cards are dealt!

Go Bryan! Wear the BBC shirt proud! WOOOHOOOOO!

Super Tight is Right

2006-10-10T15:00:00.000+08:00

Ever since i started playing poker, i have heard the saying that "Tight is Right." Turns out to have been true all along. But up to what extent is being super tight aggressive considered effective? I have made ITM 3 out of 3 times in the last 2 weeks, all in 30 player MTT's. I bubbled once in a Sit n Go, but only because of a bad beat with QQ. 100% ITM is pretty good right? i mean, 3 games isnt enough of a sample, but it's pretty consistent. I also won in the last 2 ring games i played using the same strategy (a little bit looser though), making more that double and even triple my buy-in.

Last night, i played the regular monday MTT again, in which i placed 3rd last week. I decided to stick to my ULTRA tight srategy again, since it has been effective for me the last few games. 50-100 level i got Q-Q in EP, raised it to 500 and got one caller. Flop was 5-7-6, she bet 800, i raised to 1600, she called. Turn 8, she checks, i find it fishy and check too. River is another 6, and she bet 2000 which would almost put me all in, so i fold the Queens. She shows 8-6 suited for the boat. Damn. Nice call pre-flop hehe. I was down to my last 2K but managed to eke my way into the final table with a short stack, taking down small pots here and there, stealing and using my ultra tight image.

Near the bubble with a short stack, i shifted my play to ULTRA FRICKING TIGHT. I folded AK offsuit when i was UTG, didnt even limp it in! Raised with AQ in LP, got pushed all-in by a loose caboose in the SB who had about half my stack, and i folded it. "AA or KK only" was my mantra, and sure enough, KK came along and someone raised 4K, i pushed 11K in, and got another all in to my left. Initial raiser folds, and all-in guy shows JJ. Boom, almost 30K in chips for me total.

Then i got Q-Q UTG again, limped it in, since i knew for a fact that SOMEONE was gonna go all-in at this point (we had about 2 short stacked guys). Sure enough, guy on my left pushes all-in and everyone folds to me, so i happily called. I was goddamn ready to fold those ladies if one of the bigger stacks pushed! Guy shows K-Q and spiked the goddamn King on the flop. Lost half my stack to that. Got lucky on my BB when chip leader limped and i checked my Q-5, and flop came Q-J-5, checked it, he pushed me all in, i called and doubled up. When i got ITM (5 places), i was super short stack. Called a push with A-7 and the guy had A-10, so a 4th place finish again for me.

Ok, i was ITM in my last 3 MTT's, but 4th, 3rd, 4th place lang. I was going for the win last night, and i knew i could do it, but sadly the tide turned on me when my Q-Q got screwed by the K-Q. If i took that pot down, i KNEW i could win it.

So, do you guys think that super tight is right? Or will playing this way get me stuck in ITM limbo forever, never letting me win First Place unless i get lucky?

For now, i'm gonna be sticking to this gameplan. Super tight is right!

You Know You've Seen It All When...

2006-10-09T13:33:00.000+08:00

I got a text from one of our good friends and poker buddies yesterday. He's in the US right now and is of course checking out the tables and playing poker. Here is the message in it's entirety:

" Hey dude, it's Ram. (Perty to most- mav) In a $120 tourny, had 88 vs JT suited. Flop QQ8. I flopped a boat! He bluff bets, i called. Turn was 9, giving him the straight. Perfect! He bet big, i raised most of his chips, he called. River was... 8! I had QUADS! We tossed the rest of our chips in and HE WON! The last 8 gave him a straight flush! An hour later they tell me that hand wouldve won me a $70K jackpot in the casino. Odds.. 2.5 million to one. Fuck. Now i've seen it all."

Sick huh? hehe. Quads beaten by straight flush. In a tournament too. No bad beat jackpots to be won. Well, That's poker! We signed up for this. hehe.

Milenyo

2006-10-08T17:53:00.000+08:00

(wrote this last thursday after we first got our power back, but only managed to post it now due to internet connection problems)

Sometimes things really have to be taken away from us for us to appreciate them even more. After super typhoon Milenyo struck about 7 days ago, we lost our power, water, and phone lines. Ok, no problem, we’ve been through this before. Little did we know it would take the authorities 7 days to restore everything back to normal in our area. Yesterday, we got our normal lives handed back to us a week of living in the dark ages.

Lying in my own bed has never felt so good in my life.

Man, what a storm though. A huge tree in our yard literally cracked in half! I even went driving around the metro the very night after the storm hit us, and it was as if Godzilla himself passed through Metro Manila. I saw cars crushed under huge billboards that fell on the road, vans and trucks tipped on their sides, trees all over the place, and all kinds of devastation.

A few days after the storm, we were all bitching about the lack of power and all the inconveniences that came along with it, and the utter ineptitude of the authorities to do something about it as fast as we wanted them to.

Then I came across this article in the paper about a simple farmer in the province who had been saving up for his birthday for 3 whole months so he can treat his wife and kids to Jollibee. Yes, he was saving up for THREE MONTHS, to save P1, 000. The typhoon tragically struck a few days before his birthday, and a flash flood killed his entire family, his wife and kids.

He ended up spending the money to bury his family on his birthday.

Kinda shut up my bitching.

Puts things in perspective huh?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

So on to other, more mundane things like poker. I’ve been playing more the past weeks with some good results. Mostly I play the SnG’s at JG’s place, and ive only monied once in several games. Last night I was sure I was gonna take it down when I was cruising with about 3k in my stack all the way till we were 4 handed on the bubble, then I shifted my super ultra tight gear to a more aggressive one and had about 5K+ in the 200-400 level. I look down and see pocket queens UTG and raise it 2x BB, getting re-raised by the new guy on the table who has never really played poker much and has been playing for two months. All night he has been surprisingly lucky and has the biggest stack on the table! I push after the re-raise and he calls quickly with AQ, the perfect scenario for me at this point. If I double up, I’m surely gonna take this win. Ace on the flop says otherwise and boom, bubble boy again hehe.

Two days before that, I played the northside Monday 30 player MTT and played the tightest poker I have ever played in my life! I just wanted to play it like I would an online game, never tried to be “cute”, and just played straight up. Folded AK, 10-10, KJ’s, QJ’s, all pre-flop, JJ on the flop with one overcard, things like that. Only played AKs, KK, AA strongly, all of which got me rewarded. KK tripled me up and AA doubled me up.

I got to ITM with a decent stack of 20K+ in the 1k-2k levels. Got it down to 3 players at the 2k-4k level with about 24K in chips in my stack. I had been playing ultra tight all night and everyone knew it, so I decided to make a move when Ariel (big stack) raised AGAIN on the button about 2.5xBB. I had pocket sevens and decide to push him all in for about 20K more, figuring if he called, I would be a slight favorite. He instantly calls and shows A-A which sealed my fate for the third place finish.

Night before that, I was at a friend’s home game MTT at the fort, 3 tables with bounties of 200 per player. Ended up taking 4th place and took out 3 people along the way!

So the past week, I’ve been playing really good and have so far only lost when I had my money in way ahead. I’m hoping to keep up the pace and play a lot more in the nest few weeks, and maybe build up my bankroll again so I can play the bigger MTT’s.

Watch your backs!

Ace Crackers and Getting Wasted

2006-09-23T18:19:00.000+08:00

I played a couple of days ago at JG again, the same big stack long levels game that we've started to play recently. I was really intent on bagging a win this time, and ive been sharpening the SnG skills online too hehe. I started the game playing solid, till i trapped this other guy with two-pair A-J making him push all in on the river after i feigned weakness and checked the turn when the Ace came out, almost doubling me up!

At the 150-300 level, i had about 5,000+ in my stack, which i think was 2nd or 3rd in chips, and we were 6 or 5 handed at this point (we started with 11 players). I got Aces UTG, and raised it to 900. Everyone folds except the Big Blind, who takes quite a long time thinking before deciding to raise me to 2,000. I promptly push my remaining 4,000+ in the pot, and i have him covered by more than 1,000. He takes several minutes before declaring that he was gonna make a bad call, and shows pocket 8's! I'm already thinking about how im gonna run over the rest of the players after winning this hand when the flop comes 7-8-9! No help from the turn or river and i'm down to 1,000. BB comes to me and i get pushed all-in by a raiser, which i call with KJ and it holds up. I'm thinking i can still do some damage and make a comeback, and a few hands later i raise to 600 in LP with A9, and get one caller. Flop comes Ace and two spades, and i push 1600 all-in. Other player thinks for about 5 seconds and makes the call with a K-high flush draw. River is a spade and im out! ouch! Those damn aces...

Better to bust out with the best hand than on a crappy play right? yeah sure, it still sucks though hehe.

Next day i got to play with the same guys at a friend's house on her birthday party, just a fun 100 buy-in game. Got tipsy and played like a loose-caboose and donked my way to busting out at third. We then proceeded to get drucking funk on this great tasting white wine which i think our host had several cases ready for the guests hehe. Damn i've never been so wasted in my life! i think i was having a drunken debate with this other person about religion and shit! I hardly remember going home (hitched a ride with JG) and good thing i didnt bring a car since i couldnt even walk straight! Damn, good thing i didnt get a hangover today, that wouldve sucked big time. So that's what it's like to get puke-drunk and have the world spinning and shit like that. I'm not a drinker and i've never gotten that drunk in my life, so that was a new experience for me!

Let's do it again! hehe!

till next time... watch your back!

Never Underestimate a Donkey!

2006-09-22T15:53:00.000+08:00

Today , i have found a new respect for Donkeys all over the world! Read this article i found online and see fo yourself. NEVER underestimate a donkey ever again!

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DONKEY vs. MOUNTAIN LION

A couple from Montana were out riding on the range, he with his rifle and she (fortunately) with her camera. Their dogs always followed them, but on this occasion a Mountain Lion decided that he wanted to stalk the dogs (you'll see the dogs in the background watching). Very, very bad decision...

The hunter got off the mule with his rifle and decided to shoot in the air to scare away the lion, but before he could get off a shot the lion charged in and decided he wanted a piece of those dogs. With that, the mule took off and decided he wanted a piece of that lion. That's when all hell broke loose... for the lion.

As the lion approached the dogs the mule snatched him up by the tail and started whirling him around. Banging its head on the ground on every pass. Then he dropped it, stomped on it and held it to the ground by the throat. The mule then got down on his knees and bit the thing all over a couple of dozen times to make sure it was dead, than whipped it into the air again, walked back over to the couple (that were stunned in silence) and stood there ready to continue his ride... as if nothing had just happened.

Fortunately even though the hunter didn't get off a shot, his wife got off these 4...

Busy week/ Poker Crackdown

2006-09-16T13:04:00.000+08:00

Ok I haven't posted anything in a while, mostly due to my fairly old PC crashing due to a worm or virus. It just kept shutting down on it's own. But fixed it now so i have to tame down a bit on the downloads hehe.

I've been pretty busy the past weeks. Last week, i hosted and ran a charity tournament for an group of young Indian professionals. They had a four table MTT, and wow did those guys love playing poker. They kept on playing until the sun was almost up, and they still wanted to borrow the chipset so they could take it home and keep playing there! Fun game, great people, great food and drinks, great party! Made a bunch of cash to raise funds for the charity they were supporting in the process too.

Played some small games here and there. Still on a bit of a hiatus from poker (i almost only play once or twice a week now) and the times i have been playing, i wasnt rewarded for my lack of practice hehe. Last night at JG's house in Dasma, i kept getting premium hands and hitting the flop, only to get outdrawn or killed by a bigger hand like trips. I flopped top pair/top kicker twice and twice someone had a set! Went all-in in LP after several limpers with 9-9 when i was short and ran into J-J on the BB. Lost all my coin tosses too. I was first to bust out and decided to go jump in the pool and go for a swim nalang hehe!

This week i ran this poker game in Absinth as a part of an event which launched the Antiquary brand of Scotch whiskey. They had a cool set-up where registered participants in the event got 2000 in play money cash which they could exchange for chips and play in the play money 50-100 cash game. If you win enough, you can cash out and "buy" stuff like Cigars, Wine or Whiskey glasses, Money Clips, etc., from the prize booth. Most of the players were new and i even had to sit down with some of them and explain the game while they played, but i would have to say that the poker table was THE highlight of the event! Everyone crowded and watched, and players old and young were playing and haveing a great time. Even the Head Honcho, (who was wearing a Kilt) a genuine Scottish guy, sat down and played. Late into the game, he had murderous intentions of catching this young kid who kept going all-in on him 90% of the time! He called me to his side and whispered "watch me i'm gonna catch this kid! just watch!" hehe.

That event showed how poker really has a mass appeal that can get anybody hooked. There are really no boundaries in the poker table. Age, race, social status, all these things didnt matter. Everyone had a great time and i'm prety sure a lot of those guys will start looking for a game they can play regularly ;).

Moving on to other bigger things, last night while playing a friendly one-table game at JG's house in dasma, we heard the news that two regular running poker games in Makati and Pasig were raided by the NBI. The Makati game was pretty harmless, a very small buy-in SnG format game (and they never play cash games) with mostly young people looking for a good time after work. The Pasig game was supposedly a PPT sattelite game but i believe they run cash games too. Anyway, i heard they were all brought to the NBI office in Manila, but i also heard that they have now been set free after several negotiations. I'm pretty sure they couldnt really find any reason to detain the players, but i dont know what they are going to do about the organizers, if they are pressing charges or not. No details yet really, but i'm sure we'll hear the whole story soon enough.

I would have to say that i sort of have an idea of what they are going through and our prayers go out to them. I hope they resolve the issue as soon as possible. I guess PAGCOR is trying to send a message out there. The only thing i can suggest is for home game organizers to keep it small and private. We have to understand that these games have been running for a long time and are very public about their games. The Makati game even has a private cable channel televising their tournaments.

Maybe soon enough we wont have a need to go to "underground" poker rooms, and have a place where everyone can play poker with peace of mind in a safe and legal environment. We DO have that now in the ACF poker room, but not everyone likes going to the Casino. Till then, we will have to settle for small, private home games.

Again, our prayers go out to those involved. We hope everything works out in their favor.

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On a lighter note, i decided that our Poker Blogger Invitational should be postponed until around mid-october, when Gamefrog gets back. That way, we will have a major sponsor on our booze and food haha! Share the wealth, share the love!

Love-Hate Relationship

2006-09-11T04:54:00.000+08:00

Today was a nice easy sunday that i reserved for a 1-table SnG at JG's place, 500 buy-in deep stack game. 3000 stacks, 10-20 starting blinds with 30 minute levels. Good for some "socializing" poker, nice and relaxed. LItlle did we know that about 3 hours into the game, nobody would bust out yet, and there was only ONE rebuy! The small stacks just kept doubling up. Had a good game, got Kings thrice, won some big pots with some nice plays, but ended up busting out i think 5th when i had about a 3K stack on the 300-600 level, and went all in with A-8 after the small blinds limped in. He calls and shows 10-10, and that was it for me. I just got impatient hehe.

I actually enjoyed the game a lot. There was one particular play i made which gave me a rush that i havent felt in a long time. I raised 200 on 30-60 (not sure) on the cut-off with 9d-8d after not playing a hand for a while. Got 4 callers, yikes! Flop comes Q-2-3 rainbow. Everyone checks to me, so i bet 500 on pocket balls! Everyone folds except the last guy, who has been chasing draws a lot, doing the hwole check-call-check-call-fold thing. I was really wondering what he could be flat calling me with on a flop like that, and when the turn came J, he checked again! I thought for about 10 seconds, then pushed all-in for 1800 more with nothing but a gutshot prayer for outs hehe! He thinks for a while and asks for a count of my chips before finally folding. (whew!) It just shows i havent been playing for quite some time now since i really got a rush from playing that hand. Sometimes, it feels good to trust your judgement, and even though you could be wrong sometimes, it pays off when you are right.

Later that night, i remembered that my friend had a game in the Fort, and i decided i wanted to at leat just hang out and have a few drinks at his place, maybe play some poker too. Ok, if you dont like bad beat stories, stop reading now hehe.

Lets just say there was a player, european guy, who was raising almost P500 on almost every hand in the 20-40 game, and would call all-in on bottom pair or ace high. And he didnt care about the money too, since he owned a whole floor on the condo/building we were playing in! So i waited patiently and managed to double my stack to around 2K after a few hands. I was already contemplating cashing out since he was really raising 4 out of 5 hands to 500 even if the pot had less than 100., and we were already 4-handed in the table. Then it came. AQ suited i raised 200, he calls. Flop Q-5-10. HE bets 1000, which is about 60% of my stack. By the turn, which was a J, i was all-in. He show 5-3 offsuit, and promptly spikes the 3 on he river. ouch ouch ouch. He eventually lost a lot of money and gave it all away to the other players. One guy sat down and had a 10K stack after 3 hands because of him! wow. I'd play that game all day and night if i had a bankroll that can take the beats hehe. Later pushed with QQ, for about 1K, he calls with Q-3, but the other caller had AK and hit the K on the flop. Not my night. hehe.

Had a nice little glimpse of what i've been missing the past month or so i havent been playing. The rush of the big bluff, the sick beats, ahhh... that's why Poker really is a love-hate relationship. Sometimes the cards love you, sometimes they dont. We live to play another day!

Gotta keep playing.

Happy Birthday Blog!

2006-09-09T14:19:00.000+08:00

A couple of days ago marked this blog's first year in existence. We've come a long way from that time to today. I cant believe that so many things have happened in a span of 365 days. Good or bad, i'm grateful for all the experiences.

May we have many more brithdays to come hehe!

Awesome Game, Miracle Three, and the Crocodile Hunter

2006-09-04T12:42:00.000+08:00

Yesterday i decided that it would be worth my time to go and watch the final table of arguably the best tournament ever set-up in the RP today. Small field of 50, Big guaranteed pot, deep starting stacks of 200xBB, hour long levels (1.5hrs for final table), and excellent players all around. It's was a poker players dream scenario.

The action was pretty intense, with chip leads changing hands several times, big bluffs being pulled off (and shown), and the best thing about it was there were hardly any bad beats. A couple of hours later, the bubble finally burst and everyone stated playing more relaxed. When it was down to three, they eventually agreed to a chop and everyone got 120K each, plus 10K to the chip leader. Awesome game from everyone, including the staff who ran it. Derek, who won the million peso title, showed some class when he gave P10,000 to the staff as a tip, and the two others followed suit, making the staff jump with joy for the 30K tip hehe. Amazingly, the whole final table lasted for about 5-6 hours only. Congratulations to the finalists and of course to our very own Barb Galan who came in to the final table 8th in chips and eventually won it all. Why am i not surprised?

What a great game. It will serve as a benchmark for tournaments to come, and i hope that poker tournaments in the future will follow suit. Quality poker. Nothing gets better than that.

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So i decided to play the ring game after about a month of not playing. Fun table with regular poker buddies, but lost my first 1K when my raised AK got 2 callers and got my A but someone who called my raise with K-5 got 2 5's on the board. Left with 600, i pushed the very next hand with A-J and got called by 6-6, no love from the deck for me.

Hand of the night for me was my last hand. I was down to about 800 after a total of 2K in buy-ins, and got 3-3 UTG. limped it, got callers, MP loose player raises 200, he gets 2 callers, i decide to push my last 700+ in to at least isolate one player, but i get 4 callers! Flop was 9d-Jh-10d and i was ready to go home. Turn came Jd so the flush and straight are already there, and im already standing up to leave, when the beautiful 3 of clubs falls on the river! Wohoo! i win the 4K pot and eventually end up cashing out 3500 after playing a few more pots.

Damn it feels good to spike the river once in a while! I almost never get to experience that since i dont play that loose. I even folded Kh-Kd on a flop of Ad-5d-7d after i bet 500 on the turn and got re-raised 1500 by dirty ice cream, who showed two pair A-7 after i folded. The rabbit hunt showed a King to add insult to injusry too hehe. What a rush. Last night, i remembered why i started to play poker, and that is purely for the thrill and the rush of the game.

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Off-topic: i got news from yahoo just now that Steve Irwin, the aussie croc hunter with the TV show, died today while filming in the great barrier reef. He was killed, of all things, by a stingray that stung him on the chest. He died before the Medevac chopper arrived. I admired the guy's passion and love for his craft. He was 44.

The Variance of Life

2006-09-01T02:58:00.000+08:00

It's pretty much a cliche when we compare poker to life, but really, it IS so much like life in so many levels that you can't deny the truth in the sayings. Poker is a microcosm of life.

Life is the dealer that shuffles your deck, and whatever cards youre given, you gotta play it. Sometimes you get premium hands, win nice pots, and have a healthy stack. There are days when nothing can seem to go wrong and you feel like youre on top of the world. But you can also get a bad run of cards, with heart-breaking bad beats that just wrenches your gut and make you want to pull your hair out. I'm pretty sure everybody has their own version of these things, and I myself have several experiences that fall into these categories.

But, like poker, it's not WHAT cards you get, but how you play it. Like my favorite poker quote says, "Only losers blame the cards." One thing most poker players hate are bad beat stories, and i've heard and had enough of those to last me a lifetime. For me, with life, i hate "bad beat" stories too. If something bad happened to you, dont throw a pity party for yourself, because everyone has their own problems to deal with. Play your cards! Deal with the cold deck. Life goes on. The next hand is coming and you gotta keep playing. Will you stop playing a tournament just because you got a bad beat? nope. But you have the choice to either suck it up and take it like a man, or whine like a crybaby, go on tilt, and blow off your entire stack on stupid decisions. Dont blow off your entire life with stupid decisions just because you had some bad experiences. The only thing that matters is how you played your cards. As long as you have a chip to play with, youre still in the game. You gotta keep playing.

Poker really is a mirror of life. How you play reflects how you live, how you are as a person deep inside. The beauty of it is, if you have a firm grasp of the intricacies involved in the game and know how to play the game at it's highest level, it will also reflect in how you live your life. When youve learned to accept bad beats as nothing but the uncontrollable fall of the cards, you start to treat events in your life as the same thing, Life unfolding like a deck of cards. Once you learn how to make the most out of both your good cards AND bad cards, you also learn how to make the most out of your good AND bad experiences.

I have to admit that i only have a feeble grasp of what i'm talking about, but it's a start. It all starts with awareness anyway. I'm using this wisdom i learned from, of all things, poker, as i write this article down. I'm going through a pretty bad run of cards right now, and the beats just keep on coming. And im not talking about poker.

Variance in poker is like variance in life, and because of a simple game of cards, i know what i have to do.

I gotta keep playing.

...

What Should Maverick Do?

2006-08-30T18:16:00.000+08:00

Since Gamefrog already has his "What should Gamefrog Do?" article, i was thinking of making something of the same sort, but more on the flipside. Although this is mainly a poker blog, i though it would be nice to add a new flavor to the mix. I'm goint to put real-life scenarios that has either happened to me or to someone i know closely. Read on and you'll get the idea...

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The scenario goes like this:

It's a nice wednesday afternoon and Mav decides to buy some DVD's at a mall in Makati. He's already on EDSA when he notices that his car is number-coded for the day! He realised this because there was an MMDA ninja hiding behing a post that suddenly sprouted from nowhere and is now trying to flag him down! He sees an opening on the right side going into a street deep into the heart of Makati, which is teeming with more MMDA agents. He also realizes that he hasn't renewed his license which expired about 3 months ago!

As he makes for the exit, he sees one of the agents from his rear-view mirror mounting his motorcycle...

What should Maverick do?

Appreciate your comments on this. Will post again on this tomorrow. hehe!

Absence Makes The Heart Grow Fonder

2006-08-29T05:00:00.000+08:00

So I've been absent from the poker scene for quite some time now, save for the once-in-a while invitation to a home game or tournament. I go visit the northside poker place and i'm greeted by people (who i used to see literally every single day) as if i was gone for ages. Most of my poker buddies have noticed my absence from games that i would always play before without fail. I've also been declining invites almost everyday to play poker too.

I myself couldn't believe i could turn down an invitation to a poker game. I've gone a long way from last year and even early this year when i played every single day and all i could think about was poker poker poker, and more poker. Last year, when i had the chance to get into the poker business and play a part in the local poker scene with some good friends, i happily quit my somewhat lucrative (although sucky) job with the country's top real estate developer. THAT was how much i loved the game. I've always dreamed of doing something i truly love for a living, if not be a part of the "business" of it. When we opened up the first professionally run private NLHE card club in the RP, i was ecstatic. It was a dream come true for me to be involved in something i love doing and at the same time make some cheddar doing it.

So what happened?

Maybe it's what they call burnout? Maybe it's also because i burned through most of my bankroll on a 3-month losing streak early this year. Maybe it's because i suffered from a severely painful sore throat for more than one month because of smoke inhalation from too much time in the poker rooms, or that i've gained 20 pounds from all the months of inactivity. Maybe it's because sometimes, just sometimes, it isn't fun anymore. You know something's wrong when things are not as enjoyable as they used to be.

So i decided to take time off from poker (and give my aching wallet a big break hehe) and focus my energy on other things. In this process, i've rediscovered life before poker. I've been spending about 4 times a week at the gym now. I've also touched base again with old friends from college and high school (although theyve now learned to enjoy poker because of me hehe). I've realized that i'm really not missing much by not playing as often as i did before. I can still play, and i still do, but i dont make it a priority. I used to decline invites to birthday parties or get-togethers just because i have a game to play that day. Now it's the other way around. And the beauty of it is, it makes me appreciate the game even more.

Don't get me wrong, i'm not quitting poker anytime soon, or anytime in this lifetime at all. Nothing can beat the rush of making the final table of a big MTT, or flopping the nuts and getting bet into by multiple players. There's nothing like peeling your hole card on the big blinds after a raise, re-raise, and seeing Black Aces smiling back at you. Raking in a huge pot. Pulling off a HUGE bluff on the river after firing on the flop and turn. Laying down a monster and seeing that someone had a better hand. Ahhhh. Nothing like it at all.

I'm probably going to concentrate more on online poker once i get a substantial bankroll again, and maybe stick to the big MTT's if i'm gonna play live games. The pioneers of our local online poker scene has paved the way for others to get an idea of what's possible. I'm also gonna spend less time in the smoke filled rooms and look for more non-smoker friendly games hehe. I'll probably be back in the business aspect of the game too, maybe be more active running tournaments and games like i did before, or maybe even get a regular poker gig in the future. Need something to sustain the bankroll in case it takes a hit again hehe.

Overall, i havent lost my faith in what Poker can achieve here in the RP. There's really nowhere to go but up. Everything is improving by the day, and each game gets better and better structure-wise, quality-wise, and pot-wise. There's a lot of things in store for us in the very very near future. By US, i mean the poker community. I'm very exicted about some things that are going to happen soon , big things. By 2007 we're gonna have more poker action than we ever dreamed of here in the RP, both online and live. Can't wait.

Watch your back!

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off topic...

I've heard rumors of a poker game that's more like "High Stakes Poker" but in Pesos. hehe. If it was true, I won't be surprised. Seven-Figure Buy-in anyone? ;-)

A Glimpse into the Future

2006-08-24T14:22:00.000+08:00

Here is a glimpse of what could be awaiting the future of some of our online players here in the RP. It could happen. hehe.

That crazy guy up there is Newt_Buggs, a very successful online player who makes over $200,000 a year playing poker, AND, he didnt quit school while doing it. I read an interview with him and he is a player that is never satisfied with his results and is continually learning, even though he plays $530 Sitn Go's regularly. Yup, that's 16 tables he's playing at the same time. His mouse? he's using two! And he has chips for shuffling to boot. Sweet.

Click HERE to see his awesome results! This actually is a pretty old post of his on 2+2, more than a year old, so just imagine where the guy is today. hehe.

I say give our local players a year or two and we'll have one just like him.

Watch your back!

Philippine Poker Blogger Invitational

2006-08-19T20:33:00.000+08:00

So what do you guys think? I think there's now enough of us to have a nice little get-together/ poker tournament and get everyone to know each other better. I believe most of us already have spent a considerable amount of time playing with and against each other, but there are also quite a number of new blogger and online players that we havent really personally met, and what better way to do that than a nice little MTT for poker bloggers and online players.

I'd like to get some feedback from everyone about all the important details we need to consider. When it comes to the physical set up and equipment, no need to worry about that as we have the resources available to have at least a 4-table gig. Things like the venue, the buy-in, time and date, etc. ae all important so that we can accomodate everybody.

I suggest an invitational tournament, and only those qualified or invited can play. Of course, anyone with a poker blog can join (as the name states) and i'm sure we can also consider the regulars at the Pokermanila forums.

Suggestions:

- 500+100 buy-in. (for this part, we can have a consensus and have a figure everyone is comfortable with)
- 4-5 tables max.
- Food and Booze contributions from everybody.
- Freezout NLHE. No rebuy or add-on. We use our skylounge tourny structure.
- Let's make it a party!

Feel free to add or suggest anything that might be helpful. I'm guessing we can put this together by about one month from now? And just to make things easy, let's have a headcount here in the blog. Just post your comment and confirm if you want to join so we can have an idea as to how many will play.

I'm in! That's one seat... 39 to go?

See you at the felt.

Almost There with Success and Failure

2006-08-18T19:33:00.000+08:00

Here is a part of a post from the twoplustwo forums by one of the most successful online and live players, Darrell Dicken aka Gigabet, entitled "Almost There with Success and Failure." I just couldn't help but share these insights to my friends in our poker community. Enjoy!

...

"The game that most of us play is really very simple. You get 2 cards, 5 cards come up, and you do a little betting here and there. Best 5 card hand wins.

With a game this simple, why do so many people have so much trouble ending up ahead of where they started?

The real game is about people, not the cards in your hand. If you know a person well enough, you can read their hand, and once you know what they have in their hand, the game becomes a cakewalk. The problem is, we have all of these predisposed ideas of who a person is based on ideas that have been placed in our heads by our society. You have to be able to eliminate all of these ideas. Once you train yourself to be completely judgement free, you will become a more complete player. Anyone can read a persons hand based on his actions and seeing common tendencies, ie., a beginning player will commonly bet small when on a draw, and bet big when he has a made hand. What about more experienced players? What does it mean when they bet 2/3s of the pot one time, and than bet pot the next? They are certainly experienced enough to know not to bet the same pattern for the same types of hands. So how can you figure out what they have? Well, get to know him, watch him play. Try and figure out what he is thinking, he has to be thinking something. Put yourself in his spot, what kind of hand would you have if you were betting like that?

Now do this for every hand for every player that is in the hand, for every player at the table, for every table that you are playing at. Try and eight table while doing this exercise. Put effort into every single hand that is played out at your table, not just the ones you are involved in, every single hand. Every time there is a showdown, and the losing hand is mucked, open up the hand history file, and see what he had. Go through the hand again and see if you can figure out why he willingly showed down a losing hand(something that should rarely be done.)

...trust your judgement 100%. Practice trusting yourself, you will be wrong enough in the beginning to doubt yourself, but don't let that stop you.

I call this an exercise, but this should be done on every single hand that is played out at any of your tables for the rest of your poker career. This is how you become a real player, then you can ignore the "sng" formula and really start to play. Post flop is where the real game is at, and it is fun to play. Use your bets to pull information from your opponent, and then when you know what he has, trust your judgement 100%. If you think he is on second pair, but will not fold unless you bet your whole stack, then bet your whole stack(unless of course you have a better hand than second pair, which is unlikely since players like us can rarely beat bottom pair), even if it means your tournament is over if you are wrong. Practice trusting yourself, you will be wrong enough in the beginning to doubt yourself, but don't let that stop you.

There is a strong possibility that I am the most active player in the world, and I can honestly say that this is something that I do on nearly every hand. Imagine, 6000 hands a day on average, just watching and learning, with no predisposed judgements of the other players. This is what it takes. Bad beats are no longer bad beats, they are just the cards coming out randomly, evening themselves out over time. What is really important is learning the thousands of languages that different people speak through their actions at the table. Believe me, it isn't some spiritual science, it is listening and learning without prejudice."

-Gigabet

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I suggest reading the whole post in the link provided above, as it goes deeper into the topic. Till next time!

The Sure-Win Fishbowl Raffle Strategy

2006-08-17T14:49:00.000+08:00

Yesterday started off pretty good when i joined the freeroll at Bugsy's Club and went deep at 16th place out of 551 players. Won myself a bunch of points to play with and convert into money once it reaches a certain amount. I couldve gone deeper but missed some big pots when i found myself tightening up too much late into the tounament even though i had a healthy stack due to the fact that all the big stacks were in my table. I love the bugsy's site, where their freerolls average around 600-9r00 players only, with the same prize pools as those at Stars where 10,000 players join! Players ae pretty decent too, once you get past the early stages of all-in festivals.

After that, I and a couple of friends went to the UNO lounge party at Mati in Rockwell. It was OK, nothin much happening, but the important part was the open bar hehe. The highlight of the night was when they picked out the raffle winners and i ended up getting the top prize! The cheapskates at Nokia (everyone thought they were giving away phones accessories or even a phone) gave away a bunch of products like laptop bags, skin care packages, etc. I got a nice little Samsonite clutch bag (the kind used for pesonal items, toiletries, etc) which was worth around P2,000.

I have to give credit to NickG for his "Fishbowl Raffle Sure-Win Strategy" which i used to win the raffle hehe! I swear, it works! Nick has won several prizes using it too, and this time i have a personal testimonial hehe. Nothing can beat "The Edge"!

Ended up watching my brothers gig at Capones then having a little bit of a food trip at Tropical Hut Hamburgers (Classic!)

And that was the end of my somewhat productive day. Till next time!

Free Poker!!!

2006-08-15T04:03:00.000+08:00

To all the guys who love playing the freerolls online, i found a great site that has their own freeroll tracker so that you know where all the action will be! It's updated daily, so you never have to log on from site to site to check out the schedules.

Not only that, they also offer freeroll tournaments for their members and special freeroll tournaments in different sites using their passwords.

Here are some other things they offer:

Free Poker: no deposit money, just click the links!

Free Poker - Free Bankrolls
Free bankroll? That's right they give away free poker money! Visit their free poker bankrolls page. They also give out $25 bankrolls at various poker rooms to members that contribute in the Poker Forum.

Free Poker - Tournament Stakings
Another way to get free poker money from the site is getting staked in tournaments. They run private play money sit and goes, the winner recieves a staking in a tournament. If you win with the stake you pay back 50% of your winnings keeping the staking fund growing.

Just go check out this link to AJpoker. No bankroll yet? No problemo!

If there's a will there's a way hehe. Good luck to everyone!

A Year Ago Today

2006-08-11T13:33:00.000+08:00

One year ago today, a certain place opened its sliding steel doors for the first time.
In this place, a lot of firsts were made. Raked cash games. The Big table. A regular Multi-table tournament. Basic rules and etiquette in a poker room. The first 20-hour game! Heck, it was the first texas hold'em poker cardroom ever established.

It was a place which was eventually called a second home by most people who play the game.

In this sanctuary of poker, individuals who might have not even shared the same room together were playing poker at the same table. A retired Colonel, a canadian rapper, a shady, S.O.B. attorney, a student, a Pro basketball player, a Mayor, a model, a scion of one of the most powerful men in the country, etc., etc., the list just goes on and on. Rich, middle class, poor, there were no boundaries of class or education. The beauty of poker in it's purest level.

Hundreds if not thousands of hands of poker were played, dozens of players developed immense skills, hundreds of hours of conversation were exchanged, ideas were born, people bonded, and friendships were etched in stone.

To everyone who ever stepped into that smoky, cold air after opening that sliding steel door, who stepped into a part of history, thanks for being there. Some might say it was a flash in the pan, given how long it lasted. But for a lot of us, it was a bolt of lighting. Seen by a few, but the thunder heard by all. It came at the speed of light and left as fast. But it started a fire that is still burning to this day.

After all is said and done, we will never forget.

Let's toast one for The BBC, that state of mind. Cheers!

One Red Paperclip

2006-08-09T16:31:00.000+08:00

There's this awesome blog that JG told me about, and i couldn't help but want to share it. I guess some of you have heard about it too, but nonetheless, check out the One Red Paperclip blog. It chronicles an amazing journey of one man to trade one red paperclip and eventually end up with a house. Yes, a house. The internet is one awesome place to make impossible things possible.

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In the WSOP, I'm currently updating every 15 minutes and getting to hear about final table action from Cardplayer. Jamie Gold still has a huge chip lead with 25.5M in chips at the 80K-160K level, but nipping at his heels is a great pro player, Allen Cunningham, with about 17M in chips. Ten players remain and nobody seems to want to bust out just yet, with the action mostly getting folded to pre-flop raises.

Although Gold seems to be a solid player, i'm rooting for Cunningham. A real pro deserves to finally win the main event, plus, Allen Cunningham is one of the most unassuming, humble, yet underrated pros of today. The guys has several WSOP bracelets to his name too.

12 million dollars. Still gives me goosebumps hehe.

Bubbling Out

2006-08-07T20:53:00.000+08:00

Iv'e been playing poker for quite some time now and just yesterday i realized that i've never really felt what it's like to bubble out. It's either i bust out away from the bubble or make it into the money. But not yesterday.

I was invited to play at a friend's place to a two table tournament with a 600 buy-in, with 2 rebuys until the fifth level. Most of hem were new to the game so i thought i had a good chance to win some cash, event though the tournament was super turbo. (40-80, then 80-160?). True enough, the rebuy period ended without me having to rebuy and having a healthy stack. The turbo nature of the game eventually caught up with everyone except the two guys with the biggest stacks, and it was time for players to get lucky in order to win. I was one of those lucky guys when someone went all-in and i had him covered by a bit, and i called with AQ suited. Before i called, he said "i want to show my cards." to which i didnt agree. He flips over AK off and the board came A-Q-x-x-x, almost doubling me up. By this time, the average stack was about 5xBB and i was forced to push with A-9 after the big stack raised. He had KK, and no ace came to the rescue, eliminating me on the bubble.

It really drains you to bubble out. I mean, after how many hours of hard work, you go home with nothing. I won two bounties and got something back, but still, it sucks. I didnt even have the energy to play the cash game after and ended up watching the game for a few hours. They finally convinced me to play but i only did because we were 5 handed and i managed to eke out a small win to soothe my aching heart hehe.

Like i said to everyone at the start of our tournament, "I'd rather bust out in the first round than bubble out!" It's the worst thing that can happen to a poker player. Everu\yone's gotta experience it though hehe.

Next time. Watch your back!

The Bubble Just Burst

2006-08-05T11:19:00.000+08:00

It's official: The WSOP bubble has burst! All the players still playing in the World Series of Poker’s main event now have something to cheer about because they’re in the money.

And most of them did when tournament officials made the announcement.

The bubble burst when a player who finished 874th got knocked out. A line was already forming at the cash-out podium, and players both weary and happy handed the friendly Harrah’s official their slip to receive the $14,597. The next cash bubble occurs at 820. All the players who finish 820 and higher are guaranteed $15,504.

The plan is to play until there are 600 players left tonight. Right now. it's the dinner break, and there are about 735 players left. There are some big names still alive and surviving namely Annie Duke, Ted Forrest, Hoyt Corkins and Darrel Dicken. AMazingly, Daniel Negreanu started the day 6th in chips with about 330,000+, but now has sunk to 55,000. I still dont have the details as to what happened to his stack but knowing the skill level of that guy, he must have taken some sick beats.

I'll try to keep up with the action and post some results as soon as possible!

WSOP Insanity!

2006-08-02T18:10:00.000+08:00

It's official: the World Series of Poker Main event has begun. The Grandaddy of ALL NLHE tournaments all over the world has kicked-off and the numbers are insane.

The Main Event, a $10,000 buy-in NLHE freezeout tournament, officially registered 8,773 pariticpants, ultimately creating a MONSTER pot of about $87.7 Million Dollars. Day one had to be divided into 4 days where about 2000+ players play down to about 800-900. As of right now, they are on day 2A, which combines TWO day one finishers until about 700 are left.

Several big name Pros have already been eliminated. Gus Hansen, Dutch Boyd, Micheal Mizrachi, Jen Harmann, Doyle Brunson, Phil Hellmuth, and many others were unable to wade through the minefield that is the main event, alive. It's either they got really unlucky like hellmuth who had his JJ run into QQ and KK run into AA, or they just dont want to waste three days of their time and then get busted out of the money eventually. They make more money in the few hours playing in the high stakes cash games than struggling in the tournament.

And now, (drumroll please), the numbers are in; the official payout schedule of the WSOP 2006 main event.

873-820th- $14,597
819-775th- $15,504
774-721st- $16,493
720-667th- $17,730
666-622nd- $19,050

and so on and so forth...

63-55th- $123,699
54-46th- $164,932
45-37th- $247,399
36-28th- $329,865
27-19th- $494,797
18-16th- $659,730
15-13th- $907,128
12-10th- $1,154,527

12-10th place is guaranteed at least $1.1 million! Wow.

9th $1,566,858
8th $1,979,189
7th $2,391,520
6th $2,803,851
5th $3,216,182
4th $3,628,513
3rd $4,123,310
2nd $6,102,499

What a crazy payout huh! $3.2 million for FIFTH place! SIX million for SECOND!
And the craziest part of all...

1st $12,000,000!

Twelve Million Dollars. Twelve Million. The biggest ever prize in the history of sports and gaming. An amount of money that will last a lifetime to the lucky bastard who takes home the prize! Just to give you an idea, $12,000,000 translates to Php 636,000,000. Yep. Over HALF A BILLION pesos.

Can it get any bigger than this? My friend nick and i have had discussions about how POker might be peaking in its popularity and we might start seeing the main event entries reaching a plateau or even declining in the next few years. But then i realized that right now, millions of people are playing online poker with dreams of one day playing in the WSOP main event. Millions of people UNDER 21 are killing the online poker rooms and making six figure incomes. They can't wait to turn 21 and take a shot at the Big prize. I believe now that th pots are only going to get bigger in the next few years, and the peak of poker popularity is yet to be achieved.

When are WE going to represent the country in the WSOP main event?

Only Losers Blame the Cards

2006-07-29T02:04:00.000+08:00

Had a good start to my day when i joined this freeroll on Bugsys Club, a great poker site for anyone tired of the insane crapshoots in the big sites. 947 players joined and they were giving away something like $130 for the top 40 places, and i've joined it a couple of times before with no success. This time i went real deep and placed 31st, won something like $0.50 (LOL) but generally had a great game and had fun. I like the fact that you start with 10,000 chips and 25-50 blinds, so lots of room to play. Busted out when i had 8-8 and raised it, and got one caller. It was 10K-20K at this level, and i had about 180K left. When the flop came 7-high, i pushed all in, got called, and he showed Kings. Good game!

The previous night it was my cousin's birthday an of course there was poker too! It was sort of the highlight of the night hehe. At 10-20 blinds, we played for about 5 hours and i ended up winning about 3,200! Always fun to play with the family, and so far i've never lost in our family games hehe. There, i had a freeroll into the 20-40 game at Pert's house friday!

Well, i'm actually writing this from perty's house, and of course that only means one thing. Busted! Had A-A, re-raised a raiser, got two callers, and i went all in on the flop of K-9-10. the first guy folded, and then the last person called with J-10, bottom pair, gutshot. (must... call... the draw...) true enough, the Q came on the turn. ouch. Left with about 500+, i pushed with 8-8 after a small raise from the same person who called my all-in. She then said, "i have to call", calling about 500 more, with 9-10 offsuit. Turn, 10. "i knew it would come out." she said after the hand. Lesson learned: Dont play against a psychic. After that, here i am, writing this. Hehe.

This time, i dont really feel that bad first of all since i was basically freerolling, and second, i have adopted a new poker mantra. I swear, after hearing this poker quote, it profoundly affected the way i see the game.

"Only losers blame the cards."

I realized how true that was and told myself that i will never blame bad cards or bad luck if i ever lose. The cards just fall as they fall. It was already pre-determined after the dealer shuffled the deck, so why make it an excuse right?

Only losers blame the cards.

Watch your back!

Poker for a Cause

2006-07-28T11:46:00.000+08:00

LEt's all chip-in and help a good cause using our favorite game. Not only does it help others, but it helps promote the game of poker in a positive light.

--------------------------

Calling all Poker players and Friends, be All in for Benjo this August 12!

Event: All in for Benjo, A Benefit Texas Hold-'Em Poker Tournament
Venue: Airport Casino Filipino, Paranaque
Reg: 12:00 nn
1st Deal: 1:30 pm
Buy In: Php 2,000

Get the chance to win one of these prizes:
- your very own customized poker table from Kustom Kowboys worth
P35K( www.kustomkowboys.com)
- an overnight stay at Seawind Boracay
- 20K item from Technomarine
and many more!

About us:
We are a voluntary independent group supporting a series of events
raising funds for our friend Benjo Marquez, who is only 25 and was
recently diagnosed with stage 3 Hodgkin's lymphoma (cancer of the
lymph nodes).

Benjo and his family are in great need of financial support. Benjo has
made DJing a career and depends greatly on the income he receives from
it, as their family has not been as financially stable since their
father passed away. Needless to say, they need all
the help they can get, especially since he has started chemotherapy
sessions. He will need extensive medical attention.

For tickets and reservations:

Celine : 0918-907-2156
Rose : 0918-934-4655
Sookie : 0917-529-8837
Tricia : 0917-534-6059
Kai : 0917-555-55

Pokerstars Results

2006-07-27T02:40:00.000+08:00

I just finished playing the Moneymaker Tournament on Pokerstars. Although i thought i played pretty good, i also was reminded of how sick this game can be. We started out with 10,000(!) players, typical for a pokerstars tournament. After winning and losing several hands, i found myself with about an average stack about an hour into the game. I had a big hand against A-8 when i had K-8 and we hit top pair on the flop. Lost a chunk of my stack and after that, tried to play really tight and wait for a good hand.

A few hours and 5,000+ bust outs later, i find myself short stacked and ready to push. One incident i remember was wehn everyone limped and i felt like going all in on the button with 9c-7c, but decided to fold. Flop came 9-9-7! Argh. missed my chance to quadruple up there! Next hand was A-Q off, so i decided to push after nobody raised. I got one caller with A-9 clubs, a dream situation for me. I had him covered but i would be left with 2xBB if i lose.

Flop came rags with 2 clubs! turn, rag. River... club. After that, pushed with JT and had a billion callers and lost to a suited quads LOL! Nice hand, nice game. Always happens to me, no surprise anymore hehe. Coulda been sweet to qualify fo the next round, but i guess 10,000 players is just too much of a crapshoot to even dream of making it ITM. It's amazing how the WSOP main event winners get through those thousands of other players with their sanity intact. It must be a totally stressful experience. oh well, had a good game.

So, if you have a Stars account, give it a shot. Theyre running it almost everyday, and if you have Pokerstars FPP, you can join for 10 FPP if you lose your first try. till next time!

Pokerstars Moneymaker Millionaire Tournament

2006-07-26T22:00:00.000+08:00

Just in case you didnt notice, i changed my URL to thatstateofmind.blogspot.com. Just thought it would be more convenient and appropiate. To the guys who have me linked to their sites, i dont know how it will affect the links but i guess it will be fine.

I've always wanted to replace it coz there is a bbcmanila site (from the bbcmanila events group) and i didnt want to create any problems with them in the future. I didnt know i could change the URL until today though, hehe.

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I will be joining the biggest free tournament ever, the Moneymaker Millionaire Tournament at Pokerstars, and i encourage everyone with a pokerstars account to give it a shot. Even if you dont have a money account, it's a FREE ENTRY tournament. If by some miracle you survive until the final round, you get a shot at the $2.5 MILLION prize pool and a wicked Aston Martin DB9 Volante! Check out the link i provided to get more information about this event, which is the biggest freeroll tournament ever.

Good luck to everyone who decides to join!

A Nice Rush; Apologies

2006-07-24T04:11:00.000+08:00

I had a nice little friendly game with some old poker friends at Jard's place last night. We had a small sit n go which i busted out on, but we decided to play a 5-10 ring game in which i won almost 3,000. I was on a sweet rush and had people going all-in on me when i was holding the nuts! Afterwards, i got a text about the 1K sattelite for the big WSOP style tourny, so i decided to ride my rush and give it a shot. We started with 33 players, and my rush DID continue! I had almost 13,000 by the end of the FIRST level on 5K starting stacks! I was getting KK, QQ, AQ, etc all in succession. Then, it happened. First, i had KK and raised it, and someone went all in for a little bit more with AJ. Ok, im thinking im in good shape here, but the guy got a running straight in the turn and river, needing ANOTHER King to make it! My QQ vs, JJ getting just a split pot when the board made a straight. I got AQ, KJ, KQ, ATs, raised them, bet them, called raises, but got NOTHING out of it. The rush HAD to end sometime huh? Eventually, i had about 6,000 on the 800-1600 level, and had to go all-in on AK, which the chip leader called with JJ which he limped in. Oh well, it was a good game!

After busting out, i thought i could pass some time playing the ring game, so i bought in. Just wanted to see some cards, made some small talk with sunshine who i was sitting beside with. Nope, the rush wasnt coming back antime soon. I lost all my chips after raising with QJ, hitting the J on the flop, betting, getting raised all in, which i called. The guy had AJ and a nut flush draw, so i didnt even have to see the turn a river to know that the Q wont come out. Ended up breaking even for the night, losing what i won at jards. It was all good, had a great time. It's nice to feel that rush once in a while.

But there was one particular hand where i acted like a complete idiot and managed to upset a good friend of mine, Sunshine. She was on my immediate left and straddled the blinds, so i was making drama as to why she had to do it on my BB. After about 4 or 5 callers, i decided to just call with a decent hand (A-9 or A-T something like that), but she went all-in! I have to admit i was still tilting from the previous hand where i had AKs and hit the Ace on the flop, all-in, but lost to pocket fours that made a flush. I really, really wanted to see her hand coz of this. Someone called her all-in so i asked to see the hands, which she didnt wanna show. I dont know what i was thinking, but i insisted that i had the right to see it, since someone called it already. I kept insisting to show the hand but realized i was being a prick and so asked her if she can just tell it to me later, but it was too late and the dealer showed it, a steal attempt. I really didnt mean to do it on purpose but at that time, i wasnt thinking straight. No excuses, i apologized to her afterward but i could see she was upset. I'm really apologizing not for what i did, but because of HOW i did it. If you get to read this, sorry about that. My sincerest apologies. Hope it's all good.

---------------------------------------------------

Anyway, I'm hoping to get some of that luck again tomorrow in my regular monday tourny. I need to book another win soon, gotta fatten that emaciated bankroll hehe.

Watch your backs!

The 3rd Monthly ACF5000

2006-07-23T03:49:00.000+08:00

The ACF5000 had it's third tournament yesterday, and what a great tournament it was. Fifty players came to play in search of that coveted ACF5K silver bracelet and a chance to win a sweet pot which came up to 250,000. As usual, the regulars were there to play, but there were also a lot of new faces. Although we would have wanted to seat more players fo a bigger pot, the 5 table tournament set up a good field and a decent sized pot, which is actually more favorable to the players.

First deal came, and instantly there was big action. The Atty. Pokemon, winner of last week's Charity Poker event, busted out on his first hand within the first 4 minutes, getting KK run up against AK, which hit the Ace. Like nick said, that guy's a man of extremes! It's either he goes deep, or busts out quickly. After he busted out, nobody busted out in the next 30-45 minutes or so! Just a sign of the great poker action to come. Midway through the game, D.Ice cream neil ran into Quad fours after he hit top pair and was betting into an old guy who developed a huge stack calling every hand and raise and hitting monser hands. Another veteran of the poker scene Jun Uy played only 2 hands, KK and JJ, getting cracked both times and busting out in the process. When it was down to 11 players, the field was down to several familiar faces in the poker community. Big Wally, Barb, Sunshine, Atty.Eric, Skippy, were all there. Barb had the smallest stack in the field and at the 1000-2000 level, she went all in for 4,000 and managed to double up! After that, she managed to double up again a few hands before Sunshine busted out to the Chip leader Richard who called her small all-in and hit something. Good game Shine!

Coming into the final table, we had Richard, a new guy, with the chip lead, about 110,000. Second was Big Wally, who had 106,000. The rest were somewhere between 20-80K stacks. Barb played awesome in the final table, and managed to go up to 50K from the 4K stack she had just a few levels before. Atty.Eric busts out in 6th (or was it 5th?) after he went all in when the chip leader just limped in, and was called anyway. His KhQh didnt catch anything against the AT-off, so he took home P12,500. Barb was next to go, going all-in with AK suited and getting called by both chip, leaders and after seeing the whole board unfold rag-rag-rag-rag-King (yahoo!), Big W. shows his AA on the river!(awwww!). Good game for barb who won P25,000! Skippy followed a few hands after when the blinds finally took its toll, and the 2 chip leaders Richard and Wally having about 95% of the chips between them, called his all-in and busted him out. Awesome game for skippy, who used a BBC chip as his card weight and winning a sweet P45,000! One for the BBC skip!

Heads up was a showcase of skill and experience over luck. Big W., a seasoned poker veteran, put up a clinic for the chip leader, who was playing the ACF5K for the first time. He proceeded to dismantle and pick apart his opponent slowly but surely. It was no one-punch KO, but round after round of jabs and footwork, wearing his opponent down and frustrating him the whole time. Richerd never knew what hit him. They started with about 270K vs. 230K chips, and after about an hour, Richard was surprised to find himself with only 30K left, and Big W. having about 95% of the chips. No huge hands, no All-ins, just steady betting and raising. Not once did wally have to go all-in during their heads up match. Richard was eventually forced to go all-in on the BB, and busted out, taking home 72,500 (Big W. Agreed to a chop early on although he had a slight chip lead). Awesome game from Wally, and it shows how skill DOES matter especially in key situations like heads up matches. He won P72,500 (supposed to be 85,000, but they chopped), the ACF5K bracelet, a wicked pair of Ray Ban Aviators, and bragging rights as the new ACF5000 Champ!

I was totally exhausted after a whole day of standing and talking and walking around. Passed by the slots on the way out and couldnt resist nick's slot machine success stories, so i gave it a try and won a grand! Wohoo! LOL!

Can't wait for the next one!

The Beauty of the Home Game

2006-07-20T16:33:00.000+08:00

The last three days have been quite slow for me, partly because Kath has been in Turkey since monday. I wanted to watch a movie since kath and i always watch on wednesdays, but realized that it would suck to watch alone, so i opted fo some sidewalk DVD's instead hehe. Just bought a mountain bike yesterday, and took it out for a test ride by riding from my house to nick's, which is about 6 or 7 kilometers away. Damn i thought it was closer than that! It took me 20 minutes to get there, and my legs were burning! But it's a good start for my weight loss odessey hehe. With poker, I've been playing quite a lot but only the small home games and the Monday tournaments, and although i've been winning lately, the most would be 1K or 2K a night since the stakes are so small. Had a good time at a friends place last night, winning a SNG after taking a huge bad beat when my Aces got cracked pre-flop by a QT making a straight,(big stack vs big stack) had about 360 left in the 100-200 level and managed to claw my way back and win first place!

But what's good about this is, I've rediscovered one of the first reasons why i play poker anyway; to enjoy and have a good time. I've almost forgotten how poker is such a social game that we can play for 6 to 7 hours straight and have great conversations and discussions about everything under the sun. It's funny watching bad beats and everyone just laughs out loud about it since nobody is playing for serious amounts of money anyway! And, you get to meet a lot of new people too.

When you start to really get serious about poker, it can get TOO serious sometimes. A big losing night can really get you upset, and i've even seen some people come to a point that they want to punch someone in the face just because of how they acted at the felt. I've heard harsh words exchanged between friends just because of poker. Some people have even disappeared from the scene because they lost huge sums of money and have started accumulating debt because of it. Sad but true.

If you find yourself playing poker too much and too seriously, take a break from your usual games and find a small home game that you and your friends can play in or better yet, set up your own game at home and get the booze and food flowing. Make sure the stakes are lower than what you are used to, and don't forget to invite new players and introduce them to the game. I guarantee an awesome good time!

I'm also planning on starting online ooker for real money soon, just looking for an easy way to make my deposit and get started. Fish is doing pretty well and i'm getting envious so i can't wait to start!

Till next time.

Deal a Helping Hand

2006-07-17T02:12:00.000+08:00

Yesterday was a great day for the poker community as we showed that we are not all just about money and winning. Marco and his PBT crew helped raise about P300,000 for the NOVA Foundation for the Differently-abled through the first Deal-a-Helping-Hand Charity poker tournament. This just shows that Poker can be used as a productive tool in our society when put in the hands of competent people whose main motivation is not to make a pretty profit, but for their love of the game and the desire to promote poker.

We had about 8 tables yesterday, and the first six rounds were pretty fun. There was just the right mix of celebrities and regular poker players to make it very interesting. With unlimited rebuys, there were a LOT of crazy plays! Kit, a regular in the poker rooms all over the metro, even won a prize for MOST rebuys (4D/3N stay at a resort in boracay!) since it would have meant that he was the one who donated the most to the foundation. And true enough, good karma ame his way and he ended up winning 2nd place overall, taking home a 32-inch Flat TV!

As for my game, played for about two hours till the blinds just caught up with me. Thought i'd double up early when my AK suited hit and A on the flop and i pushed all-in, and it turned out that my caller woud split the pot with AK off. Had KK twice, doubled up my small stack on one and stole the blinds with the other. Eventually pushed with A-Q off after several limpers came in, got called by a big stack with K-10, hit her K on the turn. But i never had to rebuy so it was a pretty good game for me. If there were no rebuys i probly would have gotten deeper too, but hey, it's for charity and it was fun!

Congratulations to our regular poker buddies who made it ITM (Top Ten), namely, Neil A. who got 8th place and won an Apple IPOD 20G (and later swapped it with 7th place for a 29 inch TV), Atty. Eric S. another great player and high stakes veteran who bagged 6th place and won a Canon Digicam. Too bad for Jun Uy who got busted 11th on the bubble when his chips were just enough to cover the ante and ouldnt get any playable hand at all. The eventual winner who won the 32-inch LCD TV is a character we all know as Pokemon (Surprise surprise!) who surprised a lot of players who know him by playing a solid game. Everyone who made it there played really well and they really deserve those prizes.

I hope there will be more events like this, and hopefully more players will join and support this cause, since it will really help the growth of our local poker scene, give the game credibility, and make people aware of how poker is not just gambling and making money. Till the next one, see you at the felt!

Back From The Dead

2006-07-11T12:33:00.000+08:00

No , I didn't go anywhere. It's just that my home internet connection is back! It's such a hassle going to internet cafes just to update this blog or check my email, so after two weeks i finally get to post something again. It took more than two weeks for the PLDT DSL guys to finally tell us that they CAN'T install in our area, duh. So we got this other Smart WIFI service which turns out to be powered by PLDT DSL! Weird.

So what has been happening these past few weeks? Poker-wise, i have not been able to play as many tournaments as i wanted to, but i've been having some success at playing small-stakes home ring games. The funny thing about no-limit hold'em is, even though some of the blinds we play go as low as 3-6, i still win the same amount of money as i would in a 20-40 game! BUT, it somehow feels much more satisfying hehehe. The biggest i've lost in one night is about 3 buy-ins which is 900, but i've won 2,000+ twice in a week in the same game! If we convert that to the regular 20-40, i would have lost 6,000 or something. The wins in the 20-40 on a grinding night is usually somwhere in the 2k-4k range, on a good night maybe 8k-10k. So in proportion to what you can win and what you can lose, the small home games are actually a better bet. AND what's more, these "fun" home games have free booze and food to boot! So if you havent been seeing a lot of me in the regular games, i'm probably in one of my home game invasion missions hehe.

Another thing that has kept me busy the last two weeks was the supposed departure of Kath who got a job to work in Turkey for the european summer. Instead of the usual poker nights, we decided to spend more time together since she will be gone fo about 3 months. After saying her goodbyes and mentally and physically preparing for the long trip, july the 5th came and it was time for her to leave. After bringing her to the airport and a tearful goodbye, i went home. A few hours later i called to wish her a safe trip, and it turns out they were not able to leave at all! To cut the long story short, one of their companions had questionable papers (which turned out to be incomplete) and they were detained at the airport, missing their flight. Kath could have just gone ahead and gotten on the plane since she was traveling on her German passport which meant she didnt need a visa or anything, but she stayed since her friend who owned the place she was going to work in was forced to stay. It turned out to be a mistake because the Airport guys saw this as an opportunity to make some money ( Kath's friend was an American citizen, which to translates to $$$) and held their passports after letting them go, saying "just come back after three days and everything is going to be ok, it's just standard procedure to verify your papers" etc etc. Well, they COULD get their passports, but for a goddamn price, and an insane one at that. So, Kath's trip was postponed until they could get the passports back. Hopefully, she will be traveling already by the end of this week. These are the times when it sucks to live in a third world country where corruptiona dn extortion is a fact of life. Those greedy SOB's are the reasons why our country will never really improve, and this is a sad truth. Our system sucks. Check out her story at German Snake's blog.

Next topic, i was really looking forward to the NOVA foundation charity poker tournament to be run Marco A.'s group which is this saturday at the ACF! Not only will it be for a good cause, but the prizes are great too! Sadly, i will be out of town with the family so i wont be able to play. Check out their site at dealahelpinghand.blogspot.com for more details.

There, these are the things i've been up to the past two weeks i was gone. Expect more articles from me now that i have an internet connection at home again!

See you at the felt.

The 2nd ACF5000 Tournament

2006-06-28T15:14:00.000+08:00

Great game at the ACF5000 last saturday! Although the field wasn't as big as expected (57 came to play) it was nonetheless one fine tournament, with a nice big chunk of change of around P95,000 to the winner plus the Silver bracelet and a pair of Ray-Ban Shades courtesy of Lal Gopwani, Ray-Ban Honcho and a good poker buddy of ours.

Final table action was solid, with several bad beats and race to the river situations. Hommi made waves when he beat the chip leader two hands in a row with his trip 2's against K-5 two pair (i think). What are the odds of that? Same hand twice in a row wth the same people! Mark, a poker regular and solid player, eventually took the chip lead for good in a decisive hand that literally won the tournament for him. Small stack French guy Jean (sorry i cant remember all the names) goes all in for about 70K, then Mark also goes all in for about 95K total, leaving the chip leader with a tough decision to call or just fold and let them eliminate each other. After a few minutes of thinking really hard, he decides to call and flips over K-K! Wow..i couldnt believe he realy thought about it that long, i dont know anyone who would have folded that hand anyway. But his worst fears came true when Mark flipped over his A-A! Jean Showed 7-7 and then t was down to 3 players. Chip leader never recovered and busted out at 3rd place for about P43,000, leaving Vince and Mark to slug it out. Mark has about a 3-1 chip advantage, and when Vnce pushed all-in on the first hand of heads up action when he hit his middle pair, Mark quickly called with an open-ended straight draw, which he hit on the River! Great Game for Vince who took home P62,000 plus bragging right to his poker buddies who will surey play the next tournaments from now on. Congratulaton to Mark on a job well done on the final table. As usual the ACF guys did another awesome job on the tournament!

I'm looking forward to the next one already! Hope we fill more seats next month for more exciting poker action. Make it a habit!

Updates, News, etc, etc.

2006-06-23T16:48:00.000+08:00

It's been ten days since my last post. I was just too lazy to go out and check my email and update the blog since the PLDT guys have been delaying my DSL reconnection for the longest time. What's new?

So what happened to the WBCOOP on Pokerstars? Well, i managed to win a few pots early on, stayed on average stack for the first hour, which by around that time around 700 players have already busted out of the 2244 registered participants. The first 20 minutes was a breeze since in my entire table, only one other guy was playing, and everyone else was sitting out! Then, i got moved to another table where about six other guys were also sitting out, but i was sandwiched between two bigger stacks, the one on my left being very aggressive and playing every pot with me. I decided to make my move when i had Q-9 on a flop of Q-8-8, betting the flop, raising the turn, all of which was just called by aggressive guy on my left. I figured if he had an 8 he would have raised me to see where he's at. So on the river, i checked to him, hoping he would make a move (i wasn't putting him on an 8 at all, since the last hand he flopped trip 9's and i though it was unlikely he flopped trips again) and sure enough, after about 30 seconds, he bet enough to put me all in, which i called. Yes he had A-8, bye bye for me!
The other guys like JJ, Marco, Nick, and Jaz were also playing while chatting with us, and congrats to Jaz for outlasting all of us and busting out at 183rd in such a big field. She would have gone deeper had she not been rivered by an Ace when she pushed with pocket nines. Good Game guys!

What else has been happening? Havent been playing much, mostly due to bankroll considerations. Played a fun 3-6 home game in makati, which i bought in for 300 and cashed out 2,000! I need more nights like that hehe! Looking forward to the ACF5K tomorrow, which i'll be helping run with NickG again. Hope we break the 100 player mark for a nice fat pot. Hopefully, the new rules will prevent any of the previous events that marred the last tourney and make for a clean and fun tournament this time around.

NBA news! Miami wins in 6! Wohoo! I never lost faith hehe. Go Wade! A nice little gift for Championship hungry Payton and Mourning. If anybody deserves a championship ring, it's the Zo. Battling kidney disease and going through a transplant then still playing at the level he played, wow, that guy is made of something tough! FIVE blocks in game six. That's heart right there.

Hmmm... well that's about it for now. See you tomorrow at the ACF5K!

Oh, check out http://manilagrind.blogspot.com/ for some awesome pics!

Sun, Sand, and Sea

2006-06-13T11:19:00.000+08:00

Just came back yesterday from a much needed vacation from the daily grind. Nothing like the sun, sand, and sea to refresh the senses and make you feel as if you just got out of a washer and dryer all squeaky clean and stripped of all the grime and dirt of city living. And i got a nice dark tan to boot!

A few of the poker regulars have gotten somewhat tired of the NLHE game we ALWAYS play, so they decided to have a weekly low-stakes mixed game to introduce other forms of poker like Omaha, Deuce to Seven Lowball, Pineapple, and the like. We tried it last week and everyone felt like little kids playing a game for the first time! Man, everyone was a fish. You can see them smile wide when they make good hand, or there were some who coudnt stop giggling when they made a great draw. Everyone chased their draws, overbet, over-estimated the strength of their hands, and made stupid moves and donkey plays! It was one fun night. It was like playing poker for the first time again. I love it.

It's time we learned how to play poker games other than NLHE. I've been playing mixed games even before i learned how to play NLHE, but mostly it was dealers' rules and played with wild cards. It was fun, but it was mostly a showdown game, with straight flushes, quads and "quintas" going head-to-head most of the time. It wont hurt to learn how to play other poker games right, with proper rules and the like.

I bet it's easier to win a WSOP bracelet playing Kansas City Lowball since only a few hundred join those events as opposed to the NLHE events where thousands of players join.

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In other news, there has been a lot of talk abot upcoming tournaments and man, we wont be disappointed! There's supposedly a P2.0M guaranteed with a 5K+1 buy-in, then there's the 10K buy-in WSOP format 400K guaranteed, and of course the big kahuna year-ender, a rumored 5M (to 10M!)guaranteed with a 10K buy-in WSOP format 3-day event!

I can't wait.

Allegations

2006-06-07T16:20:00.000+08:00

All my life, i have never made any enemies. I'm a very peaceful person, and every untoward situation i have been involved in has always been handled in a civilized and non-conforntational manner. Although i've taken up martial arts and boxing, i've never been in a fistfight, except maybe with my brother when we were kids. I was taught to value honesty and integrity, and was always aware even at a young age that i was born into a family with a last name that i cannot just tarnish by doing anything stupid or dangerous.

So imagine my surprise when i heard that someone was spreading rumors that I, along with Jaz and even Kath, cheated last monday during the tournament where i placed second. The story goes that, when it was down to three players, Jaz and I were colluding to beat Rosh, plus, they even made up a story that during the crucial all-in hand where i called with my nut flush draw/ pair on the flop hand and it turned out he was bluffing, kath was behind them and miraculously saw his hole cards and signaled for me to call the all-in. Duh.

First of all, i was chip leader most of the time. When he went all-in, i had him covered by more than 30,000. Anybody who knew how to read a board knew that it was an automatic call on my part, after i had led out betting 11,000 before he went all in for 30,000 more or something. D.Ice cream was there, and so were several other notable and respected players who will attest that nothing of the sort happened.

The person telling these stories is someone insignificant in the poker community. He was actually the railbird who was disturbing and sitting at the table giving unsolicited advice to Rosh the whole time at the final table. Maybe he was embarassed when i asked bryan to please make him leave the table since he was really getting on our nerves, so he decided to make up some story to get even. i dont know, but he looked pretty drunk that night, and he isnt really the sort of person with a nice clean track record in the community. When his sister, a good friend of ours, confronted him with the story, he said "it's true,other people saw it." When she told him that other people who were there will attest otherwise, he said "Of course, those are your friends, theyll side with you!" Then he said, "Pikon lang kayo!" It turns out he had some interest in rosh because of some staking deal they had or something, im not really sure.

Honestly, if we did cheat the kid, how stupid can we be if he still won right? It's really absurd. I can't think of any reason for me, kath, and jaz to destroy our reputation and the respect of our peers by cheating at a measly 800 buy-in tournament. I admit i was really pissed when i heard about it, but i soon calmed down and realized that nobody who knows us in the poker community will even believe the allegations, and coupled by the fact that the source isnt someone of good moral character anyways. If anybody we dont know does believe them, we dont really care. If you have to accuse us, dont do it behind our backs, and confront us about it.

What's important for us is that we have a clear conscience. I don't really know if Rosh in involved in this, but i hope not, since he seems to be a nice kid, and he played well that night. I myself will never cheat in any way, shape, or form at a poker game. I love the game to much to do so. Not only that, i have invested too much time and effort in the poker community to just blow it all off on a stupid tournament for 5,000 pesos.

I really felt i didnt need to defend myself given the circumstances, but on since Kath and Jaz are also involved, i just felt i had to say something about it.

Peace.

A Nice Little Win

2006-06-06T12:16:00.000+08:00

Sometimes it's ironic that, when people go to a game where they had no intention of playing, but on the last minute they somehow get to do so, they end up making it deep or even winning it. I've seen it happen many, many times. The last minute sub, the guy who was just there to watch, etc, etc, somehow end up in the money in a tournament. It's like the bread that always falls butter-side down, or the phone that always rings when you're in the shower. Maybe it's just some sort of freaky coincidence, but to the superstitious, it's something to think about.

That's exactly what happened to me last night. I went to the usual North-side monday game, where they were having a mini 800 buy-in tournament. Got there late since i had no intention of playing, and was just there to hang out and watch. When we got there, the game had not started yet, so we decide to join. To our dismay, they returned our buy-ins after saying that the game was already full. At the last minute, they decide to add one more table and accomodate us and several other late-comers. As we were about to begin, another guy really wanted to play and sat down in one of the empty seats being blinded out, asking if he could take the seat. This was where i made the remark that "Oh no, it's usually the guys who weren't really supposed to play that end up winning it." And so the tourny began.

I managed to get a nice rush of cards in the first few levels and maximized each hand into getting as many chips as possible. By the 3rd or 4th level, i was major chip leader. "Ther is no skill in this game!" was my battle cry.LOL! When my little rush ended, it was time for another player, Rosh,(i dunno if i got the spelling right) who will turn out to be my nemesis for the night to get his rush, and wow, what a rush! He managed to win several big showdowns and also took out one of the big stacks at our table, giving him twice as many chips as i had. I decided to cruise my stack to the final table and then get aggressive when i get near the money, which i could really afford with my stack. Although this worked well, i also watched Rosh build an even bigger stack as he took people out left and right.

When it was down to 5 players, we were all ITM. It quickly whittled down to 3 players as the small stacks got busted, and by this time, i had already shifted gears and regained the chip lead, although by only 10,000 or something. Now, it was down to me, Jazminator, and Rosh, and by this time we had already been playing for 5 hours. We were already discussing a deal splitting the remaining 18,000 3-way, leaving about 1,500 more for the eventual winner. Surprisingly, Rosh, who said it was his first time to make it this deep in a tournament, didnt want any part in the deal, saying he wanted to play it. It was fine by me, but another hour and a half into the game, we really wanted to chop it already and get this 6 hour game over with. Still, he didnt want to chop, because i think he misunderstood that it meant ending the game and denying him of a chance to win his first tournament. The chip lead had changed again to his side by this time, and a railbird was giving unsolicited advice to Rosh to "keep playing, youre so good, it's your first win" etc.

I decided to play more aggressively and stop thinking about chopping it, and started to think more about winning the damn thing. I took the chip lead after a few rounds, mostly by playing really aggressive and winning big pots with no showdowns. Jaz got busted out soon, but not before i took a huge hit to my stack. I had A-5 spades on the SB, which Rosh called from the button, i called, and jaz checked. The flop came spade-spade-5c, so i decided to bet around 11,000 or something. Jaz folded, then Rosh looks at me and says "All in!" I took me about a minute to consider it and i decided that the guy probably was making a move, since he would have normally bet if he had a piece of the flop, and not go all-in. So i called, and he shows a 10-8 diamonds, a bluff. i had him covered by this time with about 20,000 left for me, and i was way ahead with my pair and flush draw. But as luck would have it, the 8 hit the river,giving him most of my stack and the major chip lead.

Heads-up took almost another hour, with me managing to climb back to about 50,000 but still small stack compared to him, who had about 100K. I saw that he wasnt as experienced in heads-up since it was his first time, and true enough, he never called a raise or all-in all throughout our match. I never folded a hand pre-flop on the SB heads-up too, following a few tips from Harrington on Hold'em Vol.2 on heads up play. Eventually, after about 7 hours of playing, I get A-Q on the BB, and he raised 10K, making me go all-in. As soon as i flipped my A-Q over, i saw his eyes light up and i immediately knew he had me beat. He flips over A-K, and that was that, no miracle here. I was just glad it was over. I won P5,200 which wasnt so bad, but first place was P9,500 which would have been sweeter. Great game for Rosh, and everyone who made it ITM. Great Job by the TD, and the dealers who were also really tired. The last three hands were dealt by D.ice cream himself, which sealed the deal for me to lose the game LOL!

Finally won something after a looong drought, and it was made a little sweeter by the fact that i wasnt really there to play. Maybe i'll try to "not play" every game and just barely make it to the first deal, and maybe it'll give me better luck and a clearer head for optimal play.

Looking forward to the next one!

Joy to the Fishes in the Deep Blue Sea

2006-06-02T13:10:00.000+08:00

FISH ( P ) (fsh)
n. pl. fish or fish·es
Any of numerous cold-blooded aquatic vertebrates of the superclass Pisces, characteristically having fins, gills, and a streamlined body.

Fish. Poker players, as we all know, have a different definition of the word "Fish". For us, it defines someone who is sitting at the poker table with a lot of money to blow off and not a lot of skills to play and win. They are usually rich kids who watch too much TV poker, then decide to play a live game, unknowingly sitting with a table full of poker veterans. Basically, it is someone who is playing at a table which is way out of their league.

Just this week, i sat at a table with one big fish. This kid , sitting on my left, dug his own grave even before the game started, throwing his Rolex Watch in the middle of the table saying "all-in oh!" thinking it was cute. By doing that, he put a big red bulls-eye on his forehead. He then proceeded to blow off about P9,000 in the 20/40 game in a couple of hours. One time he tried to be cute with his Pocket Aces by not raising and got busted when my Q-J suited hit two-pair on the flop. The next day i bought some new jeans and a couple of shirts. Thanks!

Anyway, everywhere you go, fish abound at the poker tables. But, i believe that, in the ultimate reality of things, we are all fish, in one way or another. We always hear stories from players of how great they are and their mind-blowing plays and wonderful bluffs. But only a few will admit their donkey plays and admit that they sometimes play... like fish. Most poker players have an over-bloated estimation of their so-called "skills", especially new players, thinking that because they won a tournament, they can win the WSOP if given a chance. We have to realize that, although we lord over most of our home games or whatnot, all it takes to be a winning player is not rainman-like poker skills but to just be a little bit better than the players at your table. In a table full of fishes, the smartest fish among the bunch will still win.

Look at it this way, Phill Hellmuth is probably one of the best players out there, but in the Big Game, he is a big fish. Several Poker Pros that we admire are actually considerd to be fish in some of the biggest games out there. No matter how good you are, you can be a fish. I dont think Phil Ivey, Doyle Brunson, Chip Reese, and Barry Greenstein would play with each other over and over again and just pass around their money. They need fish at the table, and even the best players can be fishes at that level.

Being a good player doesnt have to mean you have the best "skills". What's more important is Game Selection and Bankroll Management. Another is to resist that donk in all of us and avoid the mistakes that will cost us in the long run. The winning player is usually the one who makes the least mistakes, since you dont need skills to play the nuts and win big showdowns. I know a lot of us know the feeling of donking off all our chips on a bonehead play, one that we could have avoided easily.
Playing winning poker is about making the right decisions, and taking the right risks.

Sharks are fish too. They just happened to be the fastest, strongest, meanest fish out in the water. But not all sharks are Great White Sharks, the pinnacle of the underwater predators' evolution. Great whites have been known to kill and eat other sharks too.

We are all fish. If we just know what waters to swim in and which other fish to play with, we can be a frickin' fat and happy fish!

Recognize the Place?

2006-06-01T14:32:00.000+08:00

Just wish we took more pictures in the place.

Here's one of nickg in a heads-up match with the Grouch. Game Face! P100 buy-in yan hahaha!

i miss those brick colored walls.

Guilty or Innocent?

2006-05-30T15:30:00.001+08:00

Just got word that the people involved in the ACF5000 incident were, as i expected, denying their guilt and pleading innocent to all the charges, saying they were unaware that signaling and soft-playing were unacceptable at a poker tournament.

Maybe if Louie didnt act so arrogant and didnt curse and scream too much during the game, people would have listened and given him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe if they didnt show that they checked their full house because their friend was in the hand, they would have been more believeable.

Ignorance of the law is no excuse to break it.

We don't really know them at all, and we welcome their side of the story if they do have one. Our group's main priority is not to destroy their names or personally attack them, (no last names or photos are going to be included in any article, even though a lot of people are demanding it) but rather to protect every other players' money and of course protect the integrity of our organization and the events we provide to the poker community.

The very fact that we allowed these guys to play, it was our responsibility to assure that they knew the basic rules and regulations of a poker tournament at least. A guy was disqualified from the $10,000 WSOP main event because he put his chips in his pocket when he was asked to move tables. He didnt know better, but it was no excuse. We as an organization want to maintain this kind of integrity in enforcing the rules, and the fact that we let them get away with the prize money at all showed a lot of restraint on our part to make a big fuss over it. Security was actually on standby to eject them from the casino, if i'm not mistaken, but we exrecised full restraint on our part, giving them the benefit of the doubt as to their innocence.

Everyone who knew what they were doing on that tournament floor saw with their own eyes the events that transpired that night. Numerous individuals experienced in the field are willing to testify if it has to go down to something like that. They plead innocence by virtue of ignorance, which sadly, is a losing case.

Good luck to them.

The ACF5000 Incident

2006-05-28T15:47:00.000+08:00

I was really excited about working the ACF5000 NLHE tournament yesterday, because i know that it was going to be one awesome game. I barely even slept because of the party from friday night, going to bed at 6am and waking up at 9am to go to the ACF and prepare for the tournament. Not surprisingly, by the time the game started, we had 88 players and a P440,000 pot up for grabs, plus a sterling silver bracelet for the winner! That alone says a lot about the growth of the poker community and the reputation of the tournament organizers (ehem..), since P6,000 isnt exactly a cheap buy-in. But the people came and the fat pot was built, guaranteeing another great day of poker action.

About 30 seconds going into the game, a record was made! The fastest bust out in RP poker history was made, with two players going heads up with J-J against a well hidden A-A on a flop of 5-5-6! Sorry Blake, but that's poker! By dinner break, we had more than half the field busted out too, even with the slow structure, there was a lot of big hands and big action. I observed a lot of great plays by several poker veterans and big hands banging against each other, and i probably saw more pocket aces in one day than i have ever seen in my life!

Special mention to Jardine of the JG game who finished in 6th place taking home P26,000, crawling back from a tiny stack to build a more than 100K stack going into the final table! Also to Marco of the PBT, who had a rollercoaster ride going into the final table and finsihing in 7th place for i think P22,000+. George, last week's champion, also made a great run for a repeat championship, but ended up in 4th place for a P44,000 finish.Congratulations guys, well done and great game! Great Job to Tournament Director Emi Mungcal and the PAGCOR staff for another excellent tournament!

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The article above was what i was expecting to write as i watched the tournament unfold yesterday, making mental notes of great plays and players who had an excellent showing in the game. But sadly, something scarred the face of this tournament and left a bad taste in everyones' mouths.

Ok, now down to the REAL topic of this article. Cheating, collusion, signaling, soft-playing, and disgusting poker behavior by several certain individuals who made it to the final table and cheated their way to a 1st and 2nd place finish, robbing everyone else who played honest and straightforward poker.

About halfway going into the game, i was observing a particular table where a couple of my poker buddies were playing. Several players then went up to me and compained about some explicit collusion going on in their table between a certain group of noisy, obnoxious players with no table etiquette or respect for other players. They said they check down strong hands and signal each other with nudges and eye contact whenever they were in a hand together. I told them that we will try to observe them and see what we can do about it, but that it is really hard to prove collusion unless it is done blatantly, or caught in the act.

The final table came, and two of these players were still in the game. I knew these players were soft-playing, but the first real incident i saw was when this Louie kid who was playing obnoxiously all night, screaming obscenities and slamming cards at the table whenver he was in a showdown, got involved in a hand with his friend Ron.
After calling pre-flop, the flop came A-K-9. Louie bets 20,000, which Ron hesitanly calls, making several gestures before finally doing so. The turn came Ace, and Louie smiles and checks, which Ron also checks. The river was a blank, and which was then checked down again. Louie then shows a K-x hand, and Ron shows his A-9, for the Full House Aces over nines. Huh?

...The turn came Ace, and Louie smiles and checks, which Ron also checks. The river was a blank,and which was then checked down again. Louie then shows a K-x hand,and Ron shows his A-9,for the Full House Aces over nines. Huh?

What the fuck was that? And they did this all smiles, and if they weren't sitting across the table from each other, i'm sure they would have given each other high fives. Jardine even asked Ron, "why did you do that?" to which he just smiled and shrugged. Maybe they are just that ignorant that they didnt know they were actually CHEATING? Nick and i saw this, and i could see the disgust in his face. So i went up to Emi, the excellent TD of the tournament, and told him about it. I said that these guys have already been complained about early in the game, and he was clearly disturbed by it, and then said that we should observe it more closely.

As the game went on and people were busting out, the Louie kid managed to build a monster stack bigger than every other chip stack combined, mostly because of several bad beats against then chip leader Jardine. The guy was hitting running full houses with 10-7 for chrissakes! It was then that he got involved in another hand with Ron. Pre-flop, Louie looked at his hand then looked directly at Ron, and proceeded to WHISTLE while giving a "dont call im gonna make a move" look! Ron still called, but then Louie raised it big and then again looked intensely at Ron, shaking his head. Another person then called, and Ron folded his pocket sixes. Louie then proceeded to win the hand and bust someone out with a runner-runner straight.

As this was happening, Emi and i looked at each other and i could see the look on his face, a look of disgust and anger. He wanted to approach them in the middle of the hand but i advised him to wait until the hand is ended. After the hand, he asked louie to stand up and pulled him aside. Ron then asks, "why? what's happening?" and i told him that they were caught signaling, which he then vehemently denied.

Yeah right dude, what do you think we are, stupid?

So the night ended unclimactically with the two of them winning 1st and 2nd place(after a great chip dump from Louie to short stacked Ron calling All-in with 6-4 off)
and taking home a combined 220,000, which they chopped. Louie even declared that he "would have chopped it even if Ron had only 100 in chips." Sadly, the great event had to end like that, with the cheaters getting away with the money. It was summed up rather harshly by one of the PAGCOR officials who were watching the final table by saying "walang kwentang tournament to...", which sadly had some truth in it.

But, the important thing is, their sorry asses are never going to set foot in any Poker tournament hosted by our group, or even Marco's PBT crew. They just destroyed their non-existent reputation and screwed themselves in the ass for P200,000. I hope it was worth it for them.

I hope that everyone learns a lesson from what happened last night, and thinks twice about cheating other players of their hard earned money. Maybe these punks get away with it in their small home games, but a 440,000 pot is not a joking matter anymore.
Let's all be vigilant about this style of play, and protect each other from these kinds of players.

To the Louie Kid who won it, wear your bracelet proud. It's your first and last one. Good Luck with your home games, it's the only place you guys will be playing from now on.

Blink

2006-05-25T12:41:00.000+08:00

Funny story, i was playing my regular tuesday night wild 20/40 game in the old makati place, which by the way, is probably the longest running holdem game in town, if i'm not mistaken (we started around october 2004 i think). Anyway, i was UTG with Q-5 offsuit, and as i looked at my hole cards, i was overwhelmed with a desire play it. For a fraction of a second, i wanted to limp it in, even raise it. But logic took over and i threw it away, of course.

Flop comes 5-5-5. ouch. Turn, Q. Then here comes the betting, raising, firing away the chips! Man, it would have been a nice little pot for me. I really hate it when that happens.

Have you ever had that feeling? Ive always found myself in situations where something in my gut was telling me to either play a hand or fold it, and it turned out ot be right. Sometimes, when i go all-in pre-flop and it's time to show the cards, it's either i feel completely relaxed or i have a sinking feeling in my stomach that makes me wanna throw up. Just yesterday in a ring game, i went all in on a flop of 9-6-3 all clubs, with my pocket 9's making a set. I got one caller with pocket 4's and one club, but i felt totally relaxed and sure enough, i took the pot down. In the same game, i raised with Q-Q in late position, and then someone went all-in, which i called. She had A-9, and i felt my stomach do somersaults. Sure enough, the Ace comes on the river. Story of my life.

...is it possible that our intuition or gut feel, our so called "Blink" instinct plays a valuable part in our game...?

So is it for real? Is it possible that our intuition or gut feel, our so called "blink" insinct, plays a valuable part in our game? It seems impossible, but it has happened too many times for me to just ignore it. Sometimes you have a strong hand, but something tells you to tread carefully and sure enough, someone has you beat. Sometimes i go with my instinct and push with marginal hands, and it would work to my favor. I've peeked at pocket kings and intead of feeling pure joy, i felt a sense of foreboding and doom, then proceeded to get busted by an A-x hand. I've raised with 4-3 on gut feel, and watched it make a straight on the flop. Do we really have that internal radar in us? How can we use it to our avantage?

It's actually quite hard to filter it from the all the junk in your head, because sometimes we think too hard and the message becomes jumbled. A friend has told me that if he listened to the little voice in his head all the time, "he would go broke playing poker!" Funny but true. I've been damaged quite bad by "listening" to that "instinct" and chasing that nut flush draw all the way to river, going broke because of it. I'm sure a lot of people have had similar experiences with this phenomenon, so i guess i'm not gonna be alone on this one.

I'm certain we all have this internal "spider sense" in us that warns us of danger, in poker or in our lives in general. It's probably the human survival instinct in all of us, and since poker is some sort of "life and death" situation, with all the stress and psychology involved in it, our senses pick up things unconsciously that we would ignore otherwise, things that will warn us of danger, or opportunities. Poker legends have probably honed and mastered this ability and have learned to listen to it and use it to their advantage. I'm sure we can achive that level of mastery too, as long as we put in the countless hours of experience and time which will help our imperfect "filters" become clearer, and help us distinguish the difference between the voice of the crazy gambler in our heads and the voice of that poker jedi in all of us.

Tagaytay Wrap Up

2006-05-22T01:00:00.000+08:00

Congratulations to Casino Filipino Tagaytay for having another successful tournament last saturday. About 64 players (i think) coughed up the P11,000 buy-in, although a few won their entry through satellite games. Most of our friends made it deep, but only one made it ITM. Neil "Dirty Ice Cream" came in at 8th place, winning about P20,000++ and of course solidified his status as one of the better players out there, being consistent not only in the big games, but also in tournament finishes. One thing he complained about was that although he has probably made it ITM in more than half the tournaments he's joined, he has never actually won one. Dont worry neil, maybe you're just reserving your best perfomance for the WSOP hehe!

I didnt play, so no stories from me here. But there were a few interesting anecdotes from other players regarding the tournament. The most common story was the one of "Mommy Dolly". According to the players, Mommy Dolly stumbled upon the cash game they were running before the tourny, played for a while, then decided to join the tourny. It was her first time to play and practically had no idea about the game.

By the end of a few levels, she was busting people out left and right, calling all-ins of up to 60,000 with 4-2off, 10-7, ANYTHING, and hitting it hard! She hit everything she played, and by the time it was down to the final table, she had about half the chips in play. She even called an all-in from Neil with a rag hand, flopped an open-ended straight draw, but lucky for neil, it was one of the rare times that she didnt hit it. (tama ba?) I dont think she won it though, since eventually we all know the math will catch up, and the last person we talked to said that she had a small stack when they left the casino. In the small game we had right after in our place, whenever someone would make a stupid call or crazy play, they invoked the name of Mommy Dolly! LOL!

As for me and several other poker buddies who trooped to tagaytay, we had a blast! First thing we did when we got there was have some Bulalo and Crispy Pata... mmmmm! Had to make sure we had our insurance cards just in case of a heart attack though. We then had several short handed small buy-in tournaments just to pass the time and have fun. Eventually, players form the tournament started to arrive late in the evening, bringing booze and getting ready for a little poker party/ drinking fest. The cold weather really made the alcohol enjoyable as it kept everyone warm and buzzed. A small 20/40 game was also rocking alongside the party, and everyone was just chilling and having a good time. By around 5am, there were around 6 or 7 of us left, just chilling out in the cold and talking about poker and other things, related or otherwise.

To those who came and even brought drinks and stuff, thanks! To those who couldnt come or follow, sayang. But there's surely gonna be a next time, so let's make sure we'll be there! till next time!

Where is Everybody?, - New Beginnings

2006-05-19T16:08:00.000+08:00

It's been a really busy week. Poker-wise, i havent been playing much, just a couple of the regular tournaments and a couple of ring games. I'm going to try to get a seat tonight at a sattleite game for Tagaytay, so i'm crossing my fingers for that.

There isone thing i noticed during the past few weeks. There hasn't been much action going around in the poker blog community! The poker blogs havent been active at all. The sites i used to check out everyday for new articles and discussions have been pretty quiet. Are we getting tired of the game? I noticed that during our weekly tournies, people rarely ever stay for the cash game anymore. Games end up pretty early nowadays compared to before too. Are we reaching some sort of saturation point?

They say summer is the worst time for people, financially speaking. For some reason, peole have more money during the last quarters of the year, and the leanest times are summer. This phenomenon is explained by the coming school season, the drying up of the christmas bonuses from last year, etc. Maybe this also has some kind of effect on poker games. Poker IS a very very capital intensive "business". You gotta have money to win money. And the truth is, majority of us do not have money to burn just for poker games. Those weekly tournaments do add up, and sometimes more than we expect, or can afford.

Maybe that's why attendance in the regular weekly games have been thinning out, and i can't blame them. I havent been playing much too, thinking i'll just use the money i would otherwise risk on poker on some other more important things. But i'm talking about the regular community of poker players. I know the big game is still rocking, and so are the ACF poker room players.

Hey fellow poker writers out there, it's the least we can do to keep the poker community updated and interested in the game, even if some arent playing that much anymore. Keep those articles coming!

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Damn it is hard work moving out of your house. Our family is moving to a new place, just near our old place. I've lived here for almost 20 years now, and it's amazing how much junk one can accumulate throughout the years. I even found notebooks and folders containing my 7th grade notes and activities! There is so much crap that i realized that all my important stuff fits in just one box. It's hard work. But new beginnings are always good. A new place, a new atmosphere, a new aura. All that junk and baggage can be pretty heavy and it really does slow you down. A new place makes everything seem lighter and brighter.

See you at the felt!

Tagaytay Party!

2006-05-19T04:30:00.000+08:00

Watched the Da Vinci Code movie today. I dont know what the hell the Church is fussing about over some fictional movie. Are they that insecure? There were 5 cinemas out of 7 showing the movie in G4, and we got there around 9, by which time all the movies were sold out until 11:30! Good thing Kath thought about Greenbelt 1 cinemas, and sure enough, we got tickets and there was more than enough space too.

What a turnout. I havent seen such a movie mob since "Star Wars: episode 3". Everyone was eager to watch, thanks to the Church and its over-reaction.

I bet they got a cut out of the worldwide sales of the movie or something. hehe.

The movie? Good. Just good. A fun movie. If you read the book, you'd be a bit disappointed, since the movie cannot really include everything from the book, and they left out a lot of the details that really made it interesting to the readers.

I'm waiting for X-MEN 3. That'll rock for sure!

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The Tagaytay Casino Tournament is coming up tomorrow, and my status as of now as to if i will play is zilch. Havent won a satellite yet, and the last day is today, so maybe ill get a chance to win one later. Crossing my fingers. I'd do anything to play in Tagaytay, heck, i'd even take a stake even at 70%-30%! I just wanna be a part of it, just playing is gonna be a reward enough for me.

We'll be going up to Tagaytay a little bit earlier than most people, since we will actually be preparing our place for a little get together we planned for the whole Poker Crew who's trooping up to the game! Our place is less than 10 minutes away form the Casino, about 2 minutes from the Rotonda. To those who still need to ask, what else do you think we'll be doing there? We're gonna bring booze, food, music, and of course, we'll have our own Poker game! It's going to be an overnight thing so no need to worry about driving home at night!

Everyone is invited! If you bust out early, at least you know there's a party waiting for you! See you there!

New Look

2006-05-18T07:10:00.000+08:00

I
finally figured out how to change my templates to something a bit original. I hated the previous puke green color of the site, and it took me quite a while to get a new one and figure out how to install it hehe.

I'm finaly learning something about this HTML thing. But, i still dont know how to insert photos in mid-article and also to have banners and ads put in the site. Oh, and the one thing i REALLY want to customize the banner or header of the site! To the guys who know how to do these kinds of stuff, help! hehe.

nice hand... watch your back!