Friday, October 14, 2011

Stewman is back playing online poker...sort of

What's up peeps. Been off for a while. Haven't played a hand of live poker in two months. Spent early part of summer playing a ton of O8 and one O8 tourney which I final tabled and after making a 5 handed deal, walked away with $2200. I blew a large portion of that in cash games and decided to take a break.

A few days ago I started playing on-line again. Of course, my options are limited and since I'm basically broke, my options were even less. I decided to try out the new free Southpoint poker which gives out prizes including cash and a monthly tourney into the WSOP main event. In my third tournament which was a qualifier into the Big Monday $500 tourney, I finished 2nd out of 254 people. Top ten got seats plus site points which I Presume can get me prizes, not sure. Anyways, I still go the touch for low buy-in or free on-line MTT's. Play was awful as expected early on but I have to say got better as we got deeper. I was 2nd in chips entering the final table and when we got heads up I had a 3-1 cl but after a bad bluff on my part, I was now short stack and could not recover. Monday is the tourney. Not sure what first place gets, probably $100-200. Money is money though. I'll take it.

The software is nothing special but is fine for what it is. I'll play occasionally for some of the nicer prize tourneys. Just good practice to try some new strategies and keep somewhat fresh till I can play live again.

Monday, July 11, 2011

Friday, July 08, 2011

Final standings heading into ME

BigHeeb is currently in the lead by half a point. He has 3 bracelets and 16 FT's.

Stewman has 2 bracelets and 17 FT's.

So unless I FT the ME, BigHeeb should prevail by the slimmest of margins.


Friday, July 01, 2011

New Micros



The Fricke roll is classic!!! Excellent work again!

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

WSOP update with $$$ totals



This is getting really close boys and girls. Heeb should past me tonight in money and possibly in points. Up to Grinder and Elky.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Lederer sighting

wsop update

Mercier ships Heeb's 3rd bracelet of the tourney. He now has 6 final tables to go along with his 3 bracelets worth 89 points.

Stewman has 2 bracelets and 14 final tables for a total of 122 points.

In the 10k horse we are down to 23 players. Heeb has 3 left including CL Binger and I have 1 left in Monnette going for his 2nd bracelet.

Thursday, June 16, 2011

wsop update




We both have two bracelet winners and I have 10 final tables versus Heebs 4. Running away with it!!!

Monday, June 13, 2011

Quick WSOP update





As you can see, I am annihilating Heeb!

Saturday, June 04, 2011

WSOP 25k HU update

Heeb and I tied each getting one of our guys to final eight which we considered the final table. Dwan and Busquet could not get further. It is a draw. GG Heeb!!

Monday, May 30, 2011

WSOP Fantasy Teams

Stewman's Team


BigHeeb's Team


Too tired to do a proper analysis but it obvious to everyone that I should coast to an easy victory once again this year.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

WSOP Bets

So BigHeeb and I have made several WSOP bets. Here they are:

#1. Jeff Madsen will win a bracelet this year.
I gave Heeb 7.5-1 on $50 for this bet. The plan is if Madsen wins a bracelet this year I would have to buy Heeb into a Venetian $330 DS event and also $45 in cash. I get a 25% of his net profits on this bet. If I win he pays me $50

#2. Who will win a bracelet next, Jeff Madsen or Erik Seidel?
Heeb picked Madsen and I picked Seidel. We have $100/year on this. If no winner, next year bet becomes $200. We shall reevaluate the amount of the bet if it goes into year 3. Either add another $100 or double the bet to $400

#3. $25K HU
Loser pays for Wynn Buffet when in Vegas next trip. Method to determine winner has not been determined.

#4. $50K Horse
Loser pays for Shibuya or Nobu during our visit either later this year or next year to Vegas. Method to determine winner has not been determined.

#5. WSOP Fantasy Draft.
We each will pick 20 players and use same formula as last year. $100 bet on this, straight up.

Saturday, April 30, 2011

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Party at the DOJ



Not MrSrslySirius best but still pretty good.

Friday, April 15, 2011

D-day for online poker has arrived

http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/April11/scheinbergetalindictmentpr.pdf

In a word, WOW. This is huge. We knew this day would come and I for one thought it would be much earlier than today. I'll have to see if I can login tonight on the poker sites. Not sure if those domains were the ones seized. This is such a joke. On-line poker is no different than the stock market which many more people partake in and much more money is "gambled" every second than what is gambled in on-line poker. This government needs to regulate and tax this instead of indicting people. Even the companies and players want this. When was the last time a industry was begging to be regulated and taxed.


EDIT:

From Pokerati.com


12:20 PM - Pokerstars is starting to block US players from their cash games, and its hard to think the others won’t follow suit.

12:00 PM - News orgs both in and out of poker are starting to come together with their releases. Pokernews is the first (and so far only) poker news site to release something on the subject, whereas the WSJ, Fox Business, and Forbes all have releases as well. At this point I’ll refrain from posting a story unless it reveals any new information, as now the story is gaining traction, but needless to say here is where we stand:

The download IPs to Full Tilt Poker, Pokerstars, and the Cereus Network are reported to have been seized by the US Government.
The charges are widely varied and include bank fraud, illegal gambling, money laundering, and UIGEA violations.
The owners of the three sites have been targets, but so far none of them have been apprehended. Some other defendants related to the banking end of the accusations have been arrested and are due for arraignment in the coming days.
About 75 bank accounts in 14 countries have been seized or are in the process of being seized by the US Gov’t in connection with the indictment
As of 12:05 PM PST, UB.com is still seized by the DoJ. fulltiltpoker.com and pokerstars.com are still up and running. All three clients are reported to be up as well.
11:45 AM - Gary Wise (of former Poker Beat and current Pokerstatic & ESPN fame) posted a short blog on the subject. I agree with both things he has said. The sites are in trouble, the DoJ did this for a reason, but poker will go on….it may be much more live-based than online-based after this, but it will go on.

11:30 AM - Just after taking a quick glance at the DoJ’s statement, this is definitely the real deal and likely the result of years of investigation. In other words, they aren’t messing around. The fact that SDNY is asking for $3 BILLION dollars in damages certainly suggests they plan on bankrupting the companies involved and shut them down. Of course in any civil case you generally don’t get as much money as you ask for….but the repercussions for online poker in the US now that the Department of Justice has definitively said “what these sites do is ILLEGAL” could be massive.

11:20 AM – Marketwatch has the first story on this. The indictment is against the founders of the three sites and includes the seizure of 75 bank accounts used by the sites and payment processors. The DoJ has also released the necessary information about the indictment on their website. Looks like its definitely serious.

11:06 AM – This is a fast moving story, so its worth just getting something up now and elaborating later, but it appears that the three biggest US-facing poker rooms, Pokerstars, Full Tilt, and the Cereus Network, have all been hit with illegal gambling charges. Right now UB.com is the only page that I can see that has the “official DOJ notice” of a site seizure, but FTP and Stars are currently still up. If this is true this could mean a world of hurt for US poker players, depending on how things go down.


Wow on-line poker in America will never be the same. Pokerstars already blocking players. Once FTP follows suit, no more on-line poker in America.

Gary Wise with screenshots of the home pages.

This is just the beginning of indictments also. I'm sure Howard Lederer and Chris Ferguson will get snapped up also with their association with Full Tilt Poker. I hope not but wouldn't be surprised.

Liv Boeree stealing



Apparently a popular game show in England.

Thursday, April 07, 2011

Pokerstars shares the wealth

Average slaary at stars is $113,000...pretty sick.

http://blogs.forbes.com/nathanvardi/2011/04/07/how-casino-mogul-steve-wynn-went-all-in-on-online-poker-and-pokerstars/?partner=yahootix

Now that Wyn is on board, we might finally get some regulation in the next few years.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Rincon 2011 Poker Trip Report

So got back Monday from my yearly weekend trip to hang out with BigHeeb and play some Rincon tourney's and cash games at Pechanga. The trip started out ok as I scored a marginal cash game win at Pechanga playing 4/8 limit holdem. While winning $45 is nothing great, it was nice to book a win at Pechanga which is a rare thing for me.

We played the $340 tourney on Friday and it got 331 runners. Ship the over/under bet on field size to Stewman. I played for about 5.5 hours and was playing pretty good but not my best. Missed value bets on 3 hands that probably cost me about $5000 in chips because I'm sure guy calls everyone. Nonetheless I was CL at my table for most of the time till I lost half my stacks with 1010 to 88 when guy flopped a set after calling my preflop reraise. I folded on a K8x flop after he check raised me. He showed me 88. After that I raised again with 88 and folded to a guy who put me all in. I'm confident I was beat there. Then my final hand a few hands later was against same guy with 88. Folded to him again and once again he raised. I looked down at 66 and pushed all-in for a 4.5x raise and he calls with AA and I'm out. BigHeeb had better luck and after doubling up with A9 of hearts against KJ on a Jxx two hearts board, he was rolling and eventually made the money till maybe the sickest hand of his poker life came up.

Heeb had about $120k in chips and raised UTG with AA. 2nd position player moves all-in and then fold, fold, fold and then another all-in and then another all-in (CL of the table and only guy who has Heeb covered). Pot is estimated to be almost $500,000 in chips. They turn the cards over and Heeb is up against 99, QQ, and KK. Flop is JJx, turn is a blank and river is a of course a King and send Heeb packing in 28th place for a $200 profit. Very disappointing but this is Heeb's 3rd straight cash in a tournament. Last March at Rincon, he was part of a deal 12 handed, then he won the nightly tourney at Venetian in November and then this result. On a heater, too bad he can't play more than he does. While I waited for Heeb, I played 1/3NL upstairs in the new poker room. Won exactly $200. After downing a drink to console Heeb, we jammed to IHOP for some late night comfort food.

Saturday was some lunchtime playing at Pechanga again in 4/8. We both lost, with me dropping $100. That night we went to Tilted Kilt with Mrs. Heeb to watch UFC fight's. We saw the soon to be G.O.A.T. Jon Jones dominate the overrated Shogun. Jones has a bright future. After going home and dropping off Mrs. Heeb we headed back to Pechanga and played 8/16 for a few hours. I dropped $210 while I believe BigHeeb won $325. I played decently taking three sick beats on the river to a CAL who had no business even seeing the turn. I kinda went on tilt for a little while after dropping $500 in 2 hours and made some comments disparaging her play to her. Not something I was proud of. I never do that but after the lunch session getting beat on the river in crazy pots that players had no business being in, I was tired of it. I was going to leave but BigHeeb convinced me to stay because the game was juicy and spotted me another $200 and I ended up getting $290 back.

The next morning, BigHeeb gave me a much needed pep talk and some strategy. He broke down some key fundamentals about Limit Holdem, especially at Pechanga. I took those to heart and we went back and played for about 8 hours Sunday. I ended up $110 which doesn't seem like a lot but I played much better and implemented Heeb's advice. Of course his insight was dead on and I feel more confident than ever in limit holdem. I feel like a light bulb went off. Still got some glaring flaws to work on especially the ever key value bet. I miss way too many in every session but working on that. Considering going to play this Friday to try and build a roll for the WSOP.

Overall the trip, I ended down about $300 which is the tournament buy-in. I'll take that compared to my last few trips where I lost everything. It was fun hanging out with Heeb and the family.

For those who don't know BigHeeb 91, he is the best holdem player you have never heard of. The kid has all the fundamentals down pat for both cash and tourneys. He just needs that one big break. Anybody out there who reads this, contact us about a backing gig for BigHeeb at this years WSOP. Guaranteed to make a profit from him.

Tuesday, March 08, 2011

NBC HU results

The tourney is over and Eric Seidel is victorious and so is Stewman. I annihilated BigHeeb91. Not even close this year. I also won the 2nd chance bracket so two meals and one night of drinks on BigHeeb.

Saturday, March 05, 2011

BigHeeb's second chance bracket



He has Elky and Greenstein in the finals with Elky winning it all.

Stewman's 2nd chance bracket for NBC HU



I have Busquet and Galfond int he finals with Galfond winning it all.

Friday, March 04, 2011

1st round done in NBC HU

BigHeeb's Bracket




Stewman's Bracket



After round one Stewman has 19 and BigHeeb has 13. Both of my finalist are out and only 1 semifinalist left. Heeb has 1 finalist left and 2 semifinalist. Shocker of the day was Emmit Smith beating David Williams

2011 NBC HU Bracket

BigHeeb91's Bracket




Stewman's Bracket



So I have picked Phil Ivey to triumph this year and BigHeeb91 has picked Elky to win. Elky is a very good HU player but has been on a cold streak as of late so I don't like his chances. Ivey is over due and I truly think this is his year. This years field in my opinion is the hardest ever. Tough choices. We shall see who wins. Meals at Rincon are on the line. Go team Stewman!

Tuesday, March 01, 2011

Seriously, get a life

While this is an extremely impressive result, I can't but help say to myself, get a life!

http://theandrewli.blogspot.com/

SNE in 59 days, a new pokerstars record.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

SrslySirius is a genius

Black and Yellow



Wow, just amazing for all us poker degens who get all the references

I am not a toolbox


Mesageboard Grinder

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Mizzi vs. Racener

I think Gary Wise says it all. I haven't even looked at the 2+2 posts and probably won't, but nonetheless, can we get two less credible people in the poker world. I mean Vinnie Vihn's chair has more credibility than these two.

http://jgarywise.com/?p=261

Update: http://jgarywise.com/?p=286

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Praise Baby Jesus

http://blogs.abcnews.com/george/2011/02/senates-number-two-republican-jon-kyl-set-to-retire.html

One of the biggest opponents of legalizing on-line poker is going to retire.

Friday, January 28, 2011

Hilarious Poker Rap Song



Hey I got a question
Is the durr challenge finished yet?
I miss sammy and his unlit cigarette
I don't really care if you queers hate rapping
Straight maxin wit gabe Kaplan
My hottie's a blonde and her bodys the bomb
I won her flippin quarters from bobby belande
Think you can beat me, well that is erroneous
I mack hoes like Patrick Antonius
You wont see me coming with the Derringer sparking
But you will see me cumming on Jennifer Harman
Girls come in twos like when noah crafts an ark
I don't mean the show but ill poke her after dark
Come on annete obrestad shake ya ass
Girl get low like we're playing razz
I just went broke so in the meantime?
Picking up Asians
With barry Greenstein

Yeah it's the pokerz
I play it everyday
Got the sturdiest chip stacks
From Tournies to six max
Hate us for nothing
straight flush or bluffing
Please Believe
Ill be caking and crushing

Im durr on the river goin for the killshot
Playing lodden thinks with Antonio and phil laak
Who the hell let alan Meltzer on tv?
every time I see him I think its in 3d
Vanessa selbst looks like a manly dude
But id rather bang her over annie duke
Im glad full tilt
doesn't check my credit score
I can get a whore with just a single metaphor
all my skinny girls are astounding with brain
But I date fat chicks just to balance my range
If we're playing heads up then id prolly win
At the party wit Bacardi like im scotty wynn
Just face it children im here to make the millions
Make em see defeat like they were david Williams
When it comes to ranges my brain is higher
So watch me triple merge like an asian driver

Yeah it's the pokerz
I play it everyday
Got the sturdiest chip stacks
From Tournies to six max
Hate us for nothing
straight flush or bluffing
Please Believe
Ill be caking and crushing

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

WBCOOP Blogger Badge 2011

Online Poker

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker! The WBCOOP is a free online Poker tournament open to all Bloggers, so register on WBCOOP to play.

Registration code: XXXXXX 588987

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

The Micro's rock



I love the the motorcycle driving by taking the chips...LOL Bellagio!

Saturday, January 22, 2011

http://stewmansworld.blogspot.com/

If anyone interested, I have started my own blog. I will continue to contribute to this blog on all things poker.

Friday, January 21, 2011

One of the greatest lay-downs



Jump to 7:00 minute mark. This is one of the greatest lay-downs in poker history. This was live on ESPN last Saturday. The Poker Caribbean Adventure (PCA) is one of the three or four biggest tournaments of the year. Winner gets $2.3 million, second gets $1.8 million. Thinking through like he did and listening him to explain his reasoning it makes sense but the way Oliver played (a maniac) during the final table makes this a tough lay-down.

Oliver ends up losing the heads-up battle. Like Daniel said, this hand will come back to haunt him.

Interesting blog piece

http://ftrain.blogspot.com/2011/01/online-poker-not-out-of-dukes-league.html

Interesting take that Pollack and Duke may start their own on-line entity.

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

New Pro Poker League

New Pro Poker League
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/poker/news/story?id=6032880

Saw this post yesterday on a new pro poker sports league. This league is being started by Annie Duke and Jeffrey Pollack. Pollack is the former commissioner of the WSOP and is currently chairman of the PBR and a former NASCAR and NBA executive. This is not the first time an attempt has been made to form a pro poker league. On the face of it, it sounds like a great idea that would be successful. However, Duke and company face a big challenge ahead of them. The biggest obstacle will be sponsorship from mainstream companies. To create the prize pools, they will need corporate sponsorship from other than poker related entities. So far this has proven impossible from well known and established companies. The WSOP has been successful in getting Milwaukee's best, Jack's Beef Jerky, and Planters Peanuts. This is fine and dandy but for a professional league to be successful you need more leading commercial companies like soft drink companies, leading beer companies, fast food chains or a cellular provider. This will prove difficult for them I fear as there is still a stigma associated with poker and gambling in general.

The second issue is who do you choose to play and what criteria do you create to allow for new entrants to gain admittance and for exempt players to keep their spots. There are so many top notch poker players from around the world that this will be hard to limit to 200. They will get all the old guard that are popular and have had significant TV exposure in the past. This will include people who have not done much in the last 3-5 years but because they were big at the poker boom in 2003-04 they will get invited.

The third issue will be tv coverage. For this to be successful they need a network to host it. ESPN may or may not since the calendar is full of more popular sports and they show a good amount of poker right now with the NAPT and the WSOP. Other cable channels will not expose this to the common man. The people who watch on Fox sports, GSN and Versus are hardcore poker junkies like myself, not your causal weekend sports watcher. ABC, FOX, NBC, or CBS need to be the destination. I suspect Fox or NBC may be ideal since they already show poker related content.

I wish them luck and hope they are successful but I feel it may be difficult to accomplish this and sustain it successfully.

Tuesday, January 04, 2011

2010 Year in Review

So 2010 is over and my poker results were in one word 'Meh'. I ended up in tournaments but down in cash which seems to be my pattern.

I did a poor job of keeping track of my stats which is a goal for me to improve on in 2011. Tournaments I cashed in one at Rincon for $2k after a 11 or 12 handed deal was made to my chagrin but was the right choice since I was guaranteed like 4th or 5th place money. I won't count the teammates tourney which was lame but was 1 for 2 at Rincon this year. Heeb also cashed in the same tourney as me but skipped the O8 tourney. I busted 18th when they only paid top 9. I then played 1 midnight tourney at the WSOP and busted when my KK was no match for AA. Heeb won the last longer for that one. I flamed out in sng's satty's going 0 for 5. Disgusting. After that only played 2 more evening tourneys at Venetian in November and busted in those as well taking a sick beat when my AQ was no match for A4 on a ace high board. However, I did make a profit in that tourney when Heeb took it down in a truly dominating fashion.

Cash games were amazingly bad once again for me. Pechanga losing streak continued and really made me think about never playing there again. Of course this won't happen as that is the home casino for Heeb and he enjoys great success there in the truly juicy 8-16 game which I cannot master. I don't know how much I dropped but it was in the thousands. I had one big winning session at the 10/20 game at the rio. I can remember what the amount was but between $500-700. Besides that a few small wins but mostly just loss after loss. I don't feel like my game has worsened nor do I feel the quality of players is better. I'm actually at a loss as to why I continue to lose. I started out between 2004-2007 with no losing years. Now in 2008-2010 I have lost and lost big every year.

On-line provided me the opportunity to improve other games for me. Played a ton of micro-stakes limit O8 and micro tourneys from 8-game mixed, horse, PLO8 and NLH. Unfortunately I had no big cashes as my small stakes prevent me from winning anything of significance. Did take a shot in the weekly $215 FLO8 (after winning a DS satty) but busted in the 30ish range when only top 12 paid. Quality of play in that tourney was real poor which surprised me. I did finish up in $3.30 sngs but after I fo in spurts on those. If I could play those a solid year straight and put the volume in I'd for sure make a little profit. Overall I only deposited $200 on Pokerstars and $25 on FTP. Tried Rush poker and really liked it but eventually lossed my $25 investment plus the $10 bonus I unlocked.

Outlook for 2011 is very bleak which saddens me. I bought a home last year and lost a roommate which hit the pocket book hard. After blowing close to 4k in poker and related travel expenses between the WSOP, Labor Day and November vegas visit, my bankroll is really hurting. I am hoping to be able to play some events at Rincon in March but right now I'd say that it is unlikely unless I win mega millions tonight...one time please!!!!

We shall see but for now I'm expecting not to make the trip out. I'll instead save for the WSOP in June, primarily to play in cash games and maybe try and satty my way into a tourney. Basically same as last year. Beyond that I don't know. With financial limitations setting in, 2011 will be a limited year for me in terms of trips and money spent playing. Hopefully Heeb can still play and make some money.

Good luck all!!