Meanwhile you know that if there’s one person who loves both of them, it’s me. It’s therefore kinda disappointing for me that I know so less about the personal taste of a lot of pokerplayers. It’s exactly for that reason I was so happy to see episode 15 of season 2 of Poker After Dark the other day.

A small conversation arises in this episode between Kristy Gazes and Howard Lederer. Gazes is a former cash game player from Los Angeles (she already announces her later switch to a career in the stock market during these episodes) who loves HORSE and HOSE games. That’s why she’s sometimes called ‘Mixed Games’. We know Howard Lederer of course as the brother of the great Annie Duke . But he also plays poker.

Kristy states during this episode that she discovered the British band Muse. Now that’s good for her and Muse is not a bad band, but then she says it’s a band ’similar to Radiohead’. Personally I think she is way off here: I think Radiohead’s music is a little more sophisticated than Muse, definitely if you compare their latest albums (Muse was a lot better on their first two albums, Radiohead was able to almost equal their former albums Kid A and Amnesiac with In Rainbows). Susequently Howard mentions that he’s gonna watch the Smashing Pumpkins in Brussels. Now why’s Howard going all the way to Europe to watch the Pumpkins? He must be a big fan . I’ll try to discover more personal tastes of the pro’s, meanwhile some lists, because I’m addicted to them:

Best Muse songs:

1. Sunburn (1999, Showbiz)

2. Plug in Baby (2001, Origins of Symmetry)

3. Apocalypse Please (2003, Absolution)

Best Radiohead songs:

1. Karma Police (1997, OK Computer)

2. Reckoner (2007, In Rainbows)

3. Knives Out (2001, Amnesiac)

Best Smashing Pumpkins songs:

1. Cherub Rock (1993, Siamese Dream)

2. Porcelina of the Vast Oceans (1995, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness)

3. Bullet with Butterfly Wings (1995, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness)

I started watching season four of High Stakes Poker this week. According to the poll, this is also your favorite pokershow. Not very surprisingly, the WPT didn’t get any votes ^^. Btw, if you want to see more interesting poker fragments from the pros, you can find it on this poker blog . I have to say this season is very very amusing till now . Of course this is mainly due to the presence of both Phil Hellmuth and Mike Matusow at the same table. Another spicy aspect is the fact the players introduced the famous ’seven deuce-rule’ in this season: every player has to pay $500 to the player who wins a hand with 7 2, with or without a showdown.

It was already in the first episode when the famous hand between Matusow and Hellmuth was played, which I already saw a gazillion times in various fragments elsewhere (starts at 4′30″):

So Phil reraises Mike’s Kings and the reaction from Esfandiari exactly says where it’s all about: you never know when somebody has AA or 72 . So maybe you can try a similar thing in your homegame to create some extra action^^. It’s very clear Matusow indeed thinks Phil has a very big hand here but he should have figured out there’s a reasonable chance Phil plays 7 2 to show everybody and boost his ego this way.

However, less famous but maybe more interesting is the last hand of the eipsode where the amateur Antonio Salorio almost goes broke thanks to the rule that was introduced by the pros (starts at 37′). Funny detail: it’s again KK versus 72. This time 72 is raised by the KK from Brian Brandon but Salorio doesn’t wanna give up and reraises. The flop doesn’t really help Salorio, Brandon flops quad Kings . Notice the excellent speech from Brandon after Salorio leads out: like Kaplan says, this is not something somebody would say holding quads. In what follows, Salorio only drags himself further and further in this pot and looses a LOT of money with his 72^^.

Hi, I watched some episodes from Season 3 of High Stakes poker the other day and I really have to say this is my favorite pokershow. You don’t have to watch to all those donkeys you see in the WSOP, the plays are really outstanding most of the time and of course there are the brilliant comments from Mister Gabe Kaplan.

Now let’s watch two very interesting hands from the last episode of the season:

The first hand begins at about 3′. The French cash game player David Benyamine mixes things up by raising with J2 off and gets called by Antonio ‘the Magician’ Esfandiari with low suited connectors. Benyamine makes a standard continuation bet when he hits middle pair and then Antonio makes an interesting play: he just calls with 4 high and no single draw, just because he believes he can take this pot with some action on the next betting round. Bad news for Antonio is the fact Benyamine hits two pair on the turn and his hand is quiete disguised. Antonio continues with his plan anyway and gets reraised by Benyamine. Esfandiari is really dragged into this pot now and fires one more bullet (!) which is called by Benyamine after some consideration: he mixed his play up and hit the cards, but he isn’t sure he’s in best shape there, making this a 237k pot. Antonio gives up the hand on the river after the check in the dark from Benyamine and sees his advanced play didn’t get rewarded.

The second hand is some kind of a similar play by Brian Townsend, only this time it succeeds . The hand starts around 24′ and it’s our 1 million dollar man “Yukon” Brad Booth who raises it up preflop with Q9. Townsend calls in the small blind with A4 suited and also Patrick Antonius is in. Booth bets the flop after hitting Queens and Sixes and Townsend also just calls, planning a move on the turn. Indeed, Townsend raises Booth’s bet there, perfectly representing he has a 6, sitting in the small blind. Great play, great show .

Shawn Sheikan keeps entertaining me in a great way . I have to admit, after having rolled on the floor laughing yesterday for the gazillionest time seeing him play, I’m starting to have some compassionnateness with him. The other guys just outplay him every time!

We already discussed the way to play a flopped set according to the Sheikh, and the way good players play a monster . And what happened when I started watching season 3 of High Stakes Poker yesterday?? Watch!! (hand starts around 5′20″)

So after the heroic Gabe Kaplan laughed with Daniel Alaei, Sheikhan raises, Daniel calls and checks dark. Sheikhan flops top set and ofcourse checks it behind :p . He leads out on the turn and Kid Poker IMMEDIATELY knows Sheiky has a set. But after the hand it gets even more painful if Doyle Brunson confirms he also knew Sheiky had a set as soon as he checked the flop and of course Shawn’s best friend Mike Matusow says everybody knew and Sheiky is a fish . Maybe Sheikhan should start playing against amateurs like you and me instead of combatting the great pro’s…

So I’m still watching some WSOP 08 now and then, maybe I have to decide to just watch it till the end, but I don’t like to watch one show in a row so I mix it up with HSP, PAD,EPT,… . However, I saw a very nice play from the Irish player James McManus today, sitting on the feature table.

The chipleader at that moment, the Norwegian player Sigur Eskeland, was also at that table. Interesting to know is that those two players already had a little history on the table: Eskeland had been using his stack and had been the table bully for a certain period. McManus noticed this behaviour and decided to stop it when he ‘bluffed’ Eskeland’s pocket sixes away preflop earlier with JdTd. Subsequently the following hand occurred (starts at 6′40″):

So Mcmanus senses excellently that Eskeland is trying to keep pushing the table around with another big reraise. But also after the second gigantic all-in reraise from the Norwegian, he’s still convinced his AQ is in good shape. Great play with all the camera’s pointed at you on the feature table to say the least. The AQ holds up on the board, like it always should be in poker after a showdown .

Now, I asked you after your favorite song on your poker-headphone a while ago and it happens to be that Hotel California from the Eagles is popular among the visitors of my blog because it won with 24% of the votes! I’m a little disappointed though that my personal number five, God only knows, didn’t receive any votes . Anyway for all the Eagles-voters, a live version of ‘Hotel’:

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I was watching the EPT season 2 and I saw one of the most exciting flops EVER (Copenhagen, Day 2). WSOP-Main Event 2005 winner Joe Hachem was one of the players on the feature table. He was playing aggressive and as a consequence involved in a lot of hands, among which this one. Luckily I was able to find the fragment on Pokerstars TV:

This hand has it all, hasn’t it? Brandon Sampson who degradates his TT to a drawing hand after an early position raise and is able to fold his overpair on the flop because he knows it’s beat, Hachem who calls for the implied odds and makes the information-raise on the flop, Morten Jensen who protects his flopped nuts with the all-in bet and Frode Fagerli who just can’t escape from his hand.

Only 6 songs left in the all-time music list and the number six is Pink Floyd - Shine on You Crazy Diamond:

I know, the quality of the studio version of this song (Is it still a song? I’d rather call it an epos or something like that) can of course never be equalised by whatever which live version. But the complete song (parts I - IX) could not be found on youtube . However, the brilliant light show and video wall (PULSE is still far ahead the best concert registration I’ve ever seen) still makes this (parts II-V) a very magnificant concert-opener. ‘SOYCD’ is a tribute from principally Roger Waters (who is of course absent in the clip) to former band member Syd Barett and became one of the best songs of all-time.

People who play poker on a regular basis will immediately know what I’m talking about. You sense that your hand isn’t good enough, but you make the call anyway, most of the times because your own hand is so enormous. Maybe it’s even more frustrating than making a donkey play. When you see somebody else doing it, you ask yourself why and some time later you do the same thing.

Today I saw an excellent example of this on the World Series of Poker (WSOP) from this year. The hand proceeds between the Italian player Andrea Piva from Rome and the American pro Erick Lindgren, who met eachother already in some previous hands. Piva picks up AcKc and raises to Lindgren, who calls with 44. The flop comes as following (starts after approximately 3′):

Ofcourse this is terrible for Piva, especially because he’s playing against Lindgren, who plays his monster very well (wonder if Sheiky would play it like this). The turn and river don’t help Piva and then he’s confronted with another enormous bet from Lindgren on the river. Piva suspects that Lindgren flopped his full boat with 44, he even says this out loud several times, but still it’s too tempting to call the bet and so he does.

Most of the times, those situations are about big pots, and that’s why it’s so important to be able to lay such hands down to make your way through big multi-table tournaments.

In the next section of the music list you’ll notice that the Beatles’ A Day in the life and Pearl Jams Black, two songs you can vote for in the poll, will certainly not be number one. Radiohead is well represented in this section with three tracks, with the recent and beautiful Reckoner on #73:

75 Dire Straits - Private Investigations (1982, Love Over Gold)
74 White Stripes - The Air Near My Fingers (2003, Elephant)
73 Radiohead - Reckoner (2007, In Rainbows)
72 Bob Dylan - Like A Rolling Stone (1965, Highway 61 Revisited)
71 Zombies - Time of the season (1967, Odessey and Oracle)
70 Nirvana - All Apologies (1993, In Utero)
69 Creedence Clearwater Revival - Sweet Hitch-Hiker (1971, Mardi Gras)
68 Pink Floyd - See Emily Play (1967, Piper at the Gates of Dawn (US) )
67 Beatles - A Day in the Life (1967, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band)
66 Metallica - One (1988, …And Justice For All)
65 Led Zeppelin - Achilles Last Stand (1976, Presence)
64 Guns ‘n Roses - Civil War (1991, Use Your Illusion II)
63 Radiohead - Paranoid Android (1997, OK Computer)
62 Death Cab for Cutie - Soul Meets Body (2005, Plans)
61 Nick Drake - Place To Be (1972, Pink Moon)
60 Monster Magnet - Negasonic Teenage Warhead (1995, Dopes to Infinity)
59 Jethro Tull - For a Thousand Mothers (1969, Stand Up)
58 Pink Floyd - Brain Damage (1973, Dark Side of the Moon)
57 The Byrds - Mr Tambourine Man (1965, Mr Tambourine Man)
56 Kraftwerk - The Man Machine (1978, The Man Machine)
55 Metallica - Sad But True (1991, Metallica (’Black Album’) )
54 Pearl Jam - Black (1991, Ten)
53 Al Stewart - Year of the Cat (1976, Year of the Cat)
52 Guns ‘n Roses - 14 Years (1991, Use Your Illusion II)
51 Radiohead - Knives Out (2001, Amnesiac)

I tried to play some online poker today, but I decided to quit after some bad beats in a row on the heads-up tables, to prevent myself from going on a tilt. Therefore I decided to watch some High Stakes Poker ( poker is really takin’ over your life once you’re addicted, isn’t it? ). I had the honour of observing my hero Daniel Negreanu once again.

It was on episode 10 from season 2 and Kid Poker was involved in a hand with Cory Zeidman. Zeidman, an advertising salesman but quoted a ‘poker pro’ now and then, is mainly a 7 card-stud player. Although he sure knew how to play poker, the difference with players like Negreanu became clear immediatley during the show. While Negreanu is really relaxed playing several hands and talking a lot, Zeidman very patiently waits on a hand, meanwhile almost admiring what he sees. Nothing wrong with that by the way, especially because he realizes the other guys play on another level.

The next situation is typical on this point. Daniel picks up Js8s in middle position and raises it up. Cory sees the AK offsuit he was waiting on and reraises. Daniel clearly realizes at this point he is behind but calls because he knows he can outplay Cory after the flop if necessary, moreover he checks the flop in the dark. Flop comes J T 5 rainbow and after some consideration Cory also checks. At this moment, the poker brain of Kid Poker makes up the balance and concludes that Cory has AK, which Daniel says immediately. Turn comes a Q which gives Cory broadway. Daniel checks, Cory bets and Daniel folds his pair of jacks while congratulating Cory with his nice hand.
Life must be good when you are Daniel Negreanu .

Besides playing and watching poker, I spent my time the last few days on my other passion: music. I was just wondering what my all-time favorite songs were and so I created a personal Top 200^^. In my following posts I’ll add 25 songs each time, from 200 to 1. By the way, in the poll you can vote yourself on one of ten songs I picked from the list. Those are all somewehere located between 200 and 1, including the number 1 .

200 The Byrds - Nothing Was Delivered (1968, Sweetheart of the Rodeo)
199 Bruce Springsteen - Jungleland (1975, Born to Run)
198 Flaming Lips - Moth in the Incubator (1993, Transmission from the Satellite Heart)
197 Madrugada - Stories From the Streets (2005, The Deep End)
196 Manu Chao - Infinita Tristeza (2001, Esperanza)
195 Rage Against the Machine - Guerilla Radio (1999, The Battle of Los Angeles)
194 Ray Charles - Hallelujah I love Her So (1956, Ray Charles)
193 The Rifles - She’s Got Standards (2006, No Love Lost)
192 Kyuss - Thumb (1992, Blues for the Red Sun)
191 ZZ Top - La Grange (1973, Tres Hombres)
190 Jethro Tull - We Used to know (1969, Stand Up)
189 Raconteurs - Carolina Drama (2008, Consolers of the Lonely)
188 Elvis Presley - In the ghetto (1969, single)
187 The Who - Baba O’Riley (1971, Who’s Next)
186 Easybeats - Friday on my Mind (1966, single)
185 Doors - When The Music’s Over (1967, Strange Days)
184 Pixies - Vamos (1988, Surfer Rosa)
183 Dire Straits - Tunnel of Love (1981, Making Movies)
182 Police - King of Pain (1983, Synchronicity)
181 Talking Heads - Slippery People (1984, Stop Making Sense)
180 Soulwax - Any Minute Now (2004, Any Minute Now)
179 Bishop Allen - Busted Heart (2003, Charm School)
178 Guided By Voices - Over the Neptune / Mesh Gear Fox (1992, Propeller)
177 Police - Synchronity II (1983, Synchronicity)
176 Wolfmother - Joker & The Thief (2005, Wolfmother)

As you saw in my last post, sometimes you will flop a set. A lot of beginning poker players will check those flops, hoping their opponents will bet. Slowplaying those sets is in their view the way to make the biggest profit. This is certainly not always the truth.

This subject came to my mind yesterday when I was watching Poker After Dark (S01E50). During the period Mike Matusow was still ON the table (that ofcourse didn’t last long thanks to his famous variation of good plays and absolute donkey moves, luckily he stayed around the following episodes to insult the remaining players), he had a small discussion with Shawn Sheikhan (perhaps the only player who is even more annoying). The flop paired a card, Sheikhan betted and the other player folded. Matusow asked if ‘Sheiky’ had a set and he responded instantly: “I would never bet out a set man!”.

According to Matusow, this told exactly “what a donkey Sheiky is”. Ofcourse ‘the Mouth’ has a point here: sometimes it’s a good play to bet your set. Depending on the texture of the board, there’s always a good chance your opponent also has a strong hand and your set will always be quite disguised. Because every situation in poker is unique, it’s not very useful to give examples. Nevertheless a short and simplified one: A player makes a preflop raise with AK and you call in the blind with 88. Flop comes A 8 J. If you bet there, he can put you on many aces and will certainly not lay down his AK immediately.

A much more interesting situation happened later on in the episode. David Benyamine (a French cashgame player) is in the small blind with Ts5s and called big blind Sheiky, who has Q2 offsuit. Flop comes TQT and suddenly Sheiky just bets out of turn. Benyamine says “I was gonna bet” and then checks. Now Sheiky also wants to check but the rules say he has to bet now. He bets and Benyamine immediately reraises (with his set ) after which Sheiky comes over the top again and Benyamine calls. The turn comes another Q, Benyamine is suspicious now and checks, so does Sheiky (surprise there, isn’t it Mike? ). The river is the last Q in the deck. Benyamine now knows: “I have to make that call anyway if Sheiky makes a bet so I better move all-in myself” and so he does. Ofcourse Sheiky calls and shows him quads. Ofcourse a giant relief for Shana Hiatt, because if Sheiky would have been eliminated, Matusow would be talking to her all the time…

Hi everybody. Today I saw a famous poker phenomenon during an episode of High Stakes Poker. It appeared on episode 1 of season 2 of this well known TV-show and it showed how you can fail in making the maximum profit with a very good hand by using your mouth too much.

The reason I immediately recognized it, I have to admit, is because I still make the same mistake a little too much in live games. The situation involved one my favourite poker players, Daniel Negreanu, and probably my least favourite professional player, Phil Laak. Daniel made a pre-flop raise with QJ suited and Laak calls with AQ offsuit. Oh yeah, as a big suprise Sammy Farha was also in the hand with (a decent!) hand: 67 suited (spades). The flop came QdJd8h and Daniel made a continuation bet with top two pair. Sammy folded and Laak raised with his top pair top kicker. Then the bad actor in Negreanu came to live. He mumbled something like “Oh boy” and subsequently started an elucidation about ‘the brutality of this game’. While Gabe Kaplan amused himself with this bad acting of Daniel, mister Negreanu made a big reraise. Phil folded the hand after some consideration, clearly not happy with what he had heard. Negreanu missed a lot of extra money by this way.

By the way, if you watch some High Stakes Poker soon, remember this little trick to amuse yourself: when Kaplan and his co-host AJ Benza show up for their introduction or conclusions, hold your hand in front of Kaplan so you can only see Benza. What you’ll see next is some excellent fake laughs by Benza, acting on such a bad level Negreanu can’t even dream about .