From the team that brought you The R4v3n comes another excellent, fully produced and animated poker poem, “The Ballad of Jackie Mayfair”:
It takes a little while to get going, but I was pretty into it by the end. Enjoy!… Read full post
This Poker Stars commercial is pretty awesome. Just a warning: there’s a lot of graphic violence, so possibly not suitable for work/children:
The Freakonomics blog reports that an Israeli lottery last week picked the same six winning numbers that had been picked three weeks prior. Predictably, this seems to have led to speculation of fixing, as
… Read full postLottery officials denied allegations of rigging: “We are in the business of luck, and when it
Sorry for the lack of posts recently. Life’s been hectic in both good and bad ways. Some friends from college were visiting us in Portland over the weekend, which kept us busy but was a blast. I’m about to fly to Boston for a funeral this weekend, though. A long-standing … Read full post
I enjoy Stud/8 and all, but… it’s my birthday, bitches! No poker today. Good luck to those of you playing.… Read full post
It was one year ago today that my girlfriend and I left our apartment in Boston and became officially homeless. For the past year we’ve been without permanent residence, living out of a Subaru Forester, camping, renting garages and spare rooms when we can, and staying in hotels when there’s … Read full post
The second installment of my trip report from the main event of the 2010 World Series of Poker, covering Days 3 and 4, has just been published in the September issue of 2+2 Magazine. Here’s an excerpt:
… Read full postI came into Day 4 with a monster stack relative to the field.
Their flawless software that is now the best and most secure in the industry apparently produced this little gem in the UBOC O/8 event the other day. The bet sizes were all screwed up, enabling people to limp in for 15 at the 50/100 level, and for the player in … Read full post
I was telling my girlfriend about the latest online poker gossip/scandal involving an alleged chatlog in which Thorladen and Imperium discuss multi-accounting with the help of services like GoToMyPC that allow you to access other computers remotely from a different computer anywhere in the world. The basic idea, and something … Read full post
Here’s a sad but humorous exchange I had with FTP support today. For what it’s worth, I’m pretty sure I would have folded the river anyway, though that’s hardly the point:
… Read full postI just played a hand in the $1000 NLHE FTOPS event in which I activated my time bank, for
It’s hard to keep track of the proper procedures for encountering various potentially dangerous animals in the wild. With someone you are supposed to wave your arms and appear threatening, with others you are supposed to back away slowly, etc. While hiking in Yellowstone National Park we came across this … Read full post
This is a very thin river shove to begin with. It’s not that Villain is all that likely to hold better, but it’s also hard to see him paying off with worse. My hand looks very strong here and could easily be a full house. Still, people do talk themselves … Read full post
While I was in Germany, my girlfriend was hanging out in Northern Minnesota (long story). One night, she ironically attended a monster truck rally where she ironically purchased this camouflage hat for me. We’ve been camping in the Badlands of South Dakota, and between the hat and the scraggly beard, … Read full post
I’d been playing a 2-5 NL game at the MGM Grand for about two hours when Mary came to the table. She looked to be in her early 60’s, with a sweet face and the perfect little old lady vestments: a beige sweater with an oversized ceramic image of a … Read full post
Since we’ve got a lot of new visitors at Thinking Poker, and probably a lot of people who haven’t read my more monolithic trip reports (understandable), I’m going to start reprinting select stories that are buried in much longer narratives but that I consider among my best. This article is … Read full post
The girlfriend and I were driving yesterday from White River Junction, Vermont to Burlington, and is par for the course for us, we consulted the GoogleMaps application on her Blackberry for directions. To our pleasant surprise, Google actually suggested a route consisting of small highways and county roads rather than … Read full post
The vast majority of people who contact me about “advertising” are actually looking for some shady shit like this, though some of them express it more subtly:
… Read full post“I work for XXX and we are looking for you to publish some content of ours on your website. In exchange, I can
Some of you are probably aware of this controversy already, but in the Full Tilt Poker lobby, heads up tables are currently displayed in alphabetical order. What this means is that whoever is lucky enough to get Table Acre or other names that occur early in the alphabet have by … Read full post
Even after days when I’m totally immersed in poker, it’s pretty rare for me to dream about the game (or to remember those dreams, anyway). I’m sure it’s happened before, but I can’t recall any specific instances. I had two such dreams last night, though.
… Read full postIn the first, I raised
Ever since reading Tommy Angelo’s excellent Elements of Poker, I’ve been working on keeping calm and focused while playing live poker. This is no mean feat: the pace is glacial and the company grating. There are a million reasons to zone out, wander around, or get annoyed with someone. … Read full post
Full Tilt No-Limit Hold’em, $10.00 BB (3 handed) – Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
BB ($500)
Button ($2080)
Hero (SB) ($2060)
Preflop: Hero is SB with 3
, 5
1 fold, Hero bets $40, BB raises to $100, Hero calls $60
Flop: ($200) 6, … Read full post
We were looking for a place to stay last night in Estes Park, a resort town just outside of Rocky Mountain National Park. During the summer, the place is apparently over run with tourist families, but in December it’s a ghost town and lodging prices plummet. After walking out on … Read full post
I overheard a pretty funny conversation today that reminded me of another funny Halloween incident from some years ago.
A Critical Difference
The child in this story is roughly 9 years old.
Father: How was your Halloween party today at school.
Son: Ummm, this girl Matilda, it looked like she … Read full post
You may have seen David “Viffer” Peat on High Stakes Poker. He just sat down at one of my tables tonight and wrote this in the chat:
richreich: checks 
Viffer said, “omg”
joe E scar: bets $120
Viffer said, “just anyone in london”
foucault82: folds
loosefer: folds
richreich: calls $120… Read full post
Emily and I are currently camping in Nickerson State Park on Cape Cod. It’s a huge campground with hundreds of sites, and even past peak season it’s nearly at capacity. There just a few building with showers for the entire campground. The other night I visited one of them for … Read full post
Evidently there was a glitch on Poker Stars heads up Sit-and-Go’s that enabled players to start a new game using the “Rematch” button even if they did not have sufficient funds in their accounts. What you see here is a small stakes grinder who figured this out and hit up … Read full post
Emily and I were looking at used cars today, and though we weren’t even at the point of negotiating prices or anything, I found a few parellels to poker that I thought were interesting.
I should tell you about the guy we were dealing with first, because he was a … Read full post
When I made it through to Day 3 of the WSOP, my girlfriend came out to Las Vegas to be with me. Sadly, there didn’t turn out to be much more poker to watch, so we took the next few days to travel in the area. We were in Bryce … Read full post
For some reason, people in Vegas talk to strangers on the elevator, which is a total 180 from common elevator behavior anywhere else in the world. I think it has something to do with the general mood of the place combined with how crowded the elevators often are.
Usually it’s … Read full post
Shantel was a middle-aged black woman who for some reason developed a sort of matronly affection for me. She always told me that I was her favorite person to work with, but I don’t know why and the feeling wasn’t mutual. I didn’t dislike her, but she was a lot … Read full post
While visiting family in Maryland, I came across an article in the Baltimore Sun that I find funny on multiple levels. The article, entitled “New Meters Paying Off”, is about how a switch to centralized parking meters that enable customers to pay with credit cards has generated a big increase … Read full post
Our manager was in the store mornings almost every day, but even then he was usually in his office. Store policy was enforced on employees not through regular supervision but by the threat of surprise inspection by Carl, the manager at another branch owned by same person who owned our … Read full post
It never ceases to amuse me when my mistakes make me money. Here I meant to bet $99 on the river and accidentally bet $9. The result was inducing a huge check-raise bluff from a hand that almost certainly would have folded to my intended bet:
Full Tilt Poker, $3/$6 … Read full post
Bear wasn’t an employee, but he was one of our most colorful regular customers. I mean that both figuratively and literally: he was a hulking biker dude covered in ink from head to toe. Rose bushes encircled naked women on his arms, and his shiny bald head was decorated with … Read full post
This is an honest-to-God quote from the City of Boston’s official calendar:
Join the Boston Children’s Chorus (BCC) to kick off the start of the city’s holiday season! The singers will join Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino for one of the city’s most cherished events- the lighting of Boston’s … Read full post
Gary was a tough guy to work with. He had some mental disabilities that prevented him from engaging fully in the idle banter that generally passed between co-workers. Most of the time he did his job just as well as if not better than the other employees, but his strength … Read full post
Mark was our youngest employee. I knew him first as a customer who came in nearly every day and talked about how badly he wanted to work in the store. Sure enough, he started work on his sixteenth birthday.
The 7-11 was just a stepping stone for Mark, though. His … Read full post
I was feeling so on top of my game the other day. I was just really alert and creative, picking up on a ton of spots where I could steal pots if I applied enough pressure in the right way. This was the best one. Unless they have exactly Khxh, … Read full post
Norman was in his early thirties when I worked with him, and in retrospect a giant fuck-up. He was a lot of fun to work with, though. When we were bored, which of course was quite often, Norman would sporadically break into a verse or two of a self-invented ditty. … Read full post
Bear wasn’t an employee, but he was one of our most colorful regular customers. I mean that both figuratively and literally: he was a hulking biker dude covered in ink from head to toe. Rose bushes entangled themselves with naked women on his arms, and his shiny bald head was … Read full post
Hatty was about my age, maybe a year older, but very much a teenager. The 7-11 where we worked was in Baltimore County, but it was just over the city line on Edmondson Avenue. Thus, it was quite accessible by public bus, which was how Hatty got there for her … Read full post
I haven’t played much poker of late, but for some reason I was compelled recently to write a series of vignettes from my days as a 7-11 employee. I figured I might as well post them here on days that I don’t have anything poker-related to say. Please let me … Read full post
About five years ago, when I was a senior in college, I attended a panel on education reform that a professor of mine had organized. One of the panelists was “domestic terrorist” Bill Ayers. I don’t recall what Ayers was bloviating about, but he told some story about seeing a … Read full post
I’m not sure who this company is that they produced an ad of this length and production quality, but I thought it was awesome!
I was reading an autobiography of a guy whom I’d never known to be a poker player when I came across this rather detailed account of a big 5-card stud pot he once won. I’d be very surprised if anyone who hasn’t read this book himself were to guess the … Read full post
I was looking through my Stat Counter log today for a glimpse of how people were finding my blog, what links and search terms they were using, etc. I came across two funny ones. Well, the first is really more disturbing than funny. One person googled “How to kill … Read full post
George Carlin, one of my favorite stand-up comedians, died yesterday at the age of 71. I was fortunate enough to see him live at the Orleans in December, and of course now I’m doubly glad that I took advantage of the opportunity to see him when I had it.
I
I’ve never even heard of this magazine, but their ad is clever and pretty funny. It took me a minute to get it. If you can’t read it, the text at the bottom says, “Become the King of Bluff.”
When you play a lot of tables at once, one thing you need to factor into the decision is that you will occasionally make mistakes. And I don’t just mean poker mistakes like missing a value bet, I mean actually “Oh crap I clicked call and meant to click fold” … Read full post
I just came across a hilarious photoshop thread on 2+2 called “If They Never Played Poker…” Here are a few of my favorite pictures; they should give you a pretty good idea of what you’ll find in the thread:
I wonder if this is a record- I got and hit and run five times by the same guy tonight over the course of about three hours. On several occasions, he bought back within the same amount of money he had when he quit the last time, but I was … Read full post
Imagine that you are riding on the subway when a disheveled man wearing dirty clothes and a long, unkempt beard boards your car and begins to rant about how aliens got him and are coming for you too. He is crazy, you think to yourself, and probably you avoid … Read full post
Terrence Chan recently made the humorous observation that not only is the hand reporting from major poker tournaments largely inaccurate (this is well-known) but that the reporters tend to reconstruct the details in ways that make “name players” look good. He cites two recent examples from his own experience, one … Read full post
I was already enjoying The Onion article “Local Girlfriend Always Wants To Do Stuff” when I came across this passage:
… Read full postMaas’ obsession, however, has shown no signs of abating, and on Sunday she volunteered herself and Bertram to walk their neighbors’ dog when they go on vacation next
Like most people, I get a ton of junk mail. My girlfriend managed to get her name on a ton of catalogue mailing lists, so I get like two of those on an average day, and she doesn’t even live here now! Plus, we are both fairly recent college graduates, … Read full post
I heard this story from Bond, who heard it from someone else, so I have no idea how true it is, but I think it’s hilarious, regardless.
Some NLHE tournament or something, guy raises pre-flop, Chan calls out of the blinds. On the flop, Chan check-raises all him, and the … Read full post
I was browsing this blog from a Vegas taxi driver and was very glad to see this post about all the racism surrounding NBA All Star Weekend. I was in Vegas while Mandalay Bay was hosting the NBA All Star game, in fact I was staying just next door at … Read full post
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