Card Talk
Testing out a new format with you guys. I want to be able to share more thoughts and ideas with you in a more personal way through video but in order to be able to do so at a frequency that is useful to you guys it kind of necessitates it being more quick and dirty...
Vegas Sherpa: Fergusons
The Vegas Sherpa segment will be a recurring feature where I share with members a recommendation of some off strip place to visit in Las Vegas. Today we'll take a look at a spot Downtown. When people say Downtown they are usually referring to one of three quite...
WSOP Main Event day one
I made day 2 with of the main. We started with 60k, returning with 88k and a dream. There were a few interesting hands but today I wanted to share some reflections on other aspects of day 1.I drew the Ballys room, by dinner time they had us seated 10 handed, ugh. One...
The Summer Poker Venues Compared
I've been here a couple weeks, covered a lot of ground and will share some thoughts. More than any summer I can remember there are so many tournament poker options this year. The venues are not all created equal though. Ballys/Paris: A lot of people are saying its a...
WSOP Logistics Part 2
Greetings from Las Vegas. This is not a drill, the WSOP starts this week. Here are some last minute logistical things to consider.1. As has been the case the last couple years you can load money into your Bravo account so that you can use the automated registration...
God’s Gift to Poker
This is going to be tomorrow's newsletter but I think its an important one and I wanted you guys to see it first.It was a great week for poker but I'm afraid the community is missing the big picture and getting fixated on the antics of one Phil Hellmuth. Despite the...
The Crippled Stack and Big Blind Ante
Which came first in poker, the chicken or the egg?Credit to my friend David for suggesting I write about this topic as this situation is rare (and I admit never really paying much mind to it) but it happened to him in a poker tournament we played in together. When it...
When is a blocker not a blocker?
One of the buzzwords you hear in poker all the time is the concept of a blocker. The idea is simple enough, you having a card means your opponent doesn't have it and there's strategic implications to that. But today I wanted to share with you something fun and...
Raising Any Two Cards at WSOP Main FT
If you were watching the final table coverage on Tuesday you would have witnessed an odd segment where the overwhelming big stack starts raising any two cards. Everyone knows this is what is going on and yet the opponents are folding pretty much every hand.You might...
Big Errors in the Small Blind
I was intrigued by the story of Amanda Botfeld and her dad in the tag team event and found myself looking up some of the reporting. These hands really caught my eye. Disclaimer, pokernews reporting has been known to be wrong so apologies if I'm judging these plays...
Some Covid-safe Vegas Recommendations
Maybe if you are going to Vegas at all you are on the less covid caution end of the spectrum. Personally, I want to both live my life and be as careful as I can reasonably be. So given that we are being treated to a rare fall WSOP with hopefully amazing weather here...
WTF Erik Seidel (updated)
GOAT? https://youtu.be/-ssscOwKVbY?t=12685
We Can’t Stop Talking About Phil Hellmuth, Part 2
Maybe Phil Hellmuth crushing is just what we didn't realize we needed right now. I was as skeptical as everyone else when he beat Negreanu heads up in the first challenge. When he won the second and the third I still assumed it had to be a fluke somehow. Phil pretty...
Reflections on the 2021 WSOP schedule
As you probably are aware the full schedule is now available. If you recall I had sent out a link to Kenny Hallaert's spreadsheet, you can find it here and he has already filled in all the WSOP details. As I explained before this is a live document and he updates it...
Elasticity in Poker
My dad was an economics professor and I have the happy memory of taking a microeconomics class with him probably about thirty years ago. He taught me classic micro concepts like supply and demand, and diminishing marginal utility. But I also remember a concept called...
GTO is Relaxing According to Lex Veldhuis
I saw an interesting exchange between Jordan Drummond (of BBZPoker) and the infamous Lex Veldhuis. If you are new school you probably know Lex from his Twitch streams. If you are old school you might remember him from the old High Stakes Poker episodes. If you want...
Forced Changes That Helped My Poker Game
Maybe you once experienced a big change in your life that had you stressed out but turned out just fine in the end? Maybe it turned out even better than before. Perhaps a job or career change, or perhaps you had to move to a different school, town,...
The Last Poker Generation
Live it up, we might be the last poker generation. Poker in one form or another has been played for a couple centuries. Maybe you assume it will last forever? There is a realistic case to be made that the game won't outlast our lifetimes. You guys know the...