I woke up early today (by my standards) so I could get some stuff done and enjoy some time outdoors before the 4:00 p.m. CT heads-up events. After getting lost in some mindless web browsing just before the tournament, I looked at the clock in the corner of my computer. 4:02. Huh… that’s funny. Why haven’t my tables popped up yet?

Oh… because for everything I did today to ready myself for these tournaments, the one thing I forgot to do was register. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem, but there’s no late registration allowed in heads-up tournaments.

I’m going back outdoors. I may or may not come in for Event 08, a set of $11-$109-$1050 buy-in no-limit tournaments that start at 7:00 p.m. CT. At least I can mosey in past the hour for those.

If Bodog were to operate sans-sponsored pro, I might think they’re onto something. The whole sponsorship thing just screams “bubble” to me (but if you’re reading this Stars/Tilt, I’ll still take one! … eh, who am I kidding?) What puzzles me about Bodog is that they seem to shake hands with the sponsored pro concept but do so with the grip strength of Stephen Hawking.

Just today they announced they were parting ways with newly-minted WPT Champion David Williams and in his place signing… Amanda Musumeci. Who?! I had to Google her just to find out who she was. Since her poker resume is, to put it nicely, modest, I was left to conclude that she must just be really attractive. But I’ll have to keep waiting before I find out since I can’t be sure any of the images that appear in the Google Images results for Amanda Musumeci are actually her. None of the results depict anyone sitting at a poker table which might be because she has never cashed in a live tournament.

Musumeci joins Evelyn Ng to form the Most Uninspiring Lineup of Sponsored Pros Ever. The fact that they parted with Williams a week after he wore their patch while winning $1.7 million in front of the cameras at Bellagio and yet still retain Ng, who hasn’t cashed in a live tournament in nearly two years, seems to suggest they operate with a “what haven’t you done for me lately?” methodology. In that case, hey Bodog, I’m over here! You even interviewed me once, what do you say?

I don’t know what goes on behind the scenes with the decision to drop guys who sit on top of the poker mountain like Williams and Justin Bonomo and whether it was the players or the poker site who initiated the end of their agreements, but I can speak from experience and say that whoever is running Bodog’s sponsorship program is quite likely wholly incompetent. I’ve twice won satellites to major live tournaments on their network. In each case, they tried to get me to sign some agreement in which I essentially had to hand myself over to them for a full calendar year in exchange for zero compensation.

After winning a 2008 Irish Open package and reading the fine print that said they had exclusive sponsorship rights to me for a full year after the tournament, I laughed at them and told them I wasn’t going to sign their silly document. In Ireland, I took their free hat and shirt and reminded their agent that since I never signed their ridiculous sponsorship agreement, the only place he’d see me wearing their shirt was at the gym.

After winning a package to the the £10,000 buy-in 2008 WSOP-Europe Main Event, they emailed me the same ridiculous document to sign. I told them “no thanks” once again, only this time I received an email from their player coordinator who informed me that since I wasn’t going to sign the document, they weren’t going to register me for tournament in London. I pointed out to him that nowhere in the fine print of their WSOP-Europe satellite promotion did it say winners had to sign a sponsorship agreement in order to be registered for the tournament. After he responded saying it didn’t matter, I took it a step further and asked him if he really thought it was wise to upset a high-volume customer who runs a major poker information portal. He called me twenty minutes later and had nothing to say other than, “there’s no problem, Mr. Albertson. We’ll register you for the tournament in London.”

One need only look at their market share to see that Bodog is clearly not in the hands of adept management, but their actions with regards to sponsored players just seem head-scratchingly incompetent. I can only assume Bonomo and Williams left under their own prerogative because even a monkey is capable of realizing that you don’t drop those guys from your brand unless you have to. So since they left under their own prerogative, I can only assume Bodog was no longer giving them a good reason to stay on as a sponsored pro. And if that’s the case, then why is Bodog even trying anymore? Either stop trying to maintain sponsored players altogether or, if you’re not prepared to spend the money to attract the game’s top talent, throw lowball offers at several b-list players who probably have no chance of getting a deal anywhere else. Try to build a real stable of pros even if they are the Schleger’s and Dunst’s of the game and not the Ivey’s and Dwan’s. That or just stop trying altogether, but please, don’t just put out a “stable” of two players, neither of whom have done anything to deserve their sponsorship status beyond winning a coinflip at the point of conception, and think you’ve done something good for your business as a result.

Getting some distance away from any area you spent a significant length of time and then going back kind of helps you appreciate certain things you used to take for granted. There are definitely some qualities unique to small towns. For instance, my parents didn’t think twice about just leaving their front door unlocked Saturday afternoon in case a visitor they were expecting who needed to drop something off came by before the four of us returned from a walk.

I spent Saturday night out with a few friends in a nice suburban area just outside of Indianapolis. We went to this place called ‘Pinheads’ which did a pretty good job of fusing bowling with a nightlife experience. We all bowled pretty terribly. There were probably a few reasons for this, but I think one of them was that the lanes were poorly lit. There were all these black lights and neon lights to make you feel like you’re at a club or something rather than just standard flourecent lights. That’s fine for the purposes of recreational, non-competitive bowling, but I think the game becomes much more of a challenge when the lanes aren’t well lit.

In our first game, I gave my friend 40 pins on a $20 bet (I’m a pretty good bowler). I needed only a 125 to cover. We went double-or-nothing on our second game with him getting 60 pins and my 111 was nearly enough to cover again! I think all of us posted about the worst scores of our lives which I guess will happen when you’re throwing a houseball down a dark lane.

After that, we went to some other place that sells beer pong set-ups for a little more low-stakes gambling and competition. I used to be a really solid beer pong player (I think being tall is a bit of an advantage in that game), but after two years of not playing I feel like I kind of lost my edge. My girlfriend and I got beat pretty handily by two of my friends despite my assurances that if she could make one shot we would win the game (she made two).

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When we got to our gate at the Indianapolis airport today (I’m flying back to New York with her for week), I noticed our plane had a Baltimore Ravens-themed paint job. Take a look at what I mean:

At first I thought that maybe it was a team plane owned by the Ravens and that they lease it out to airlines during the offseason. However, a Google search yielded that it was part of a marketing campaign AirTran did to drum up business in Baltimore, a city in which they are the second-largest air service provider.

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There’s a couple of things I’m excited about for this trip to New York. On Saturday, we’re going to Yankee Stadium to see them play the White Sox where, apparently, my girlfriend and I will each have a small bet on New York.

“I have a good feeling about the Yankees next weekend. We should bet on them. They’re going to win.”

“But baby, we don’t even know who’s pitching yet or what the odds are!”

“I know! But I still think we should bet on them.”

So hopefully it’s hip to be square on Saturday.

Also, the Tribeca Film Festival is in town. On Tuesday, we have tickets to see Dog Pound. I don’t really know much about it yet other than that it has to do with the juvenile correctional system.

I get pretty excited to spend time in New York. It’s not a place I’d want to permanentally reside because of all you have to give up in order to live here (basically everyone in this city seems like a huge square to me), but it’s still a fun city to hang out in for a few days at a time. On that note, I’m heading out for a bagel.

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Oh that bagel will have to wait a sec. Before I forget, I wanted to link to a few articles I wrote for the PokerTips strategy section the other day. Mixed games, especially 8-Game, seem to be getting decently popular, so we thought there might be some interest in related strategy content:

Intro to 8-Game
7 Card Stud Strategy
Razz Strategy
7 Card Stud Hi/Lo
2-7 Triple Draw Strategy

Gotta give thanks to my buddy Sebastian Sabic, who can be seen playing 8-Game for the highest stakes on PokerStars under his screenname ’seb86′, for helping me out with the 2-7 Triple Draw article. I understand the Stud games well enough to write beginner-level strategy content, but I’m still pretty much a complete n00b at 2-7, a game that Sebastian is one of the best in the world at.

Alright, it’s the end of the quarter and as usual I kept a list of the movies I saw this quarter with a letter grade. Hope this is useful to someone out there. I haven’t watched as many movies in the past couple of weeks, and probably won’t for the next several weeks, as I normally do thanks to a newfound addiction to Entourage. What an amazing show. I can say with full confidence it’s the best TV show I’ve seen in terms of dialog. I watch it with subtitles on so as not to miss any muttered gems. I’m already through the first two seasons and will probably start on season three after I finish this post. Watching several seasons of awesome TV shows in chronological order is the nuts.

Here are a couple of links I want to post before I get to the movie grades:

1. I wrote a knockout tournament strategy article for PokerTips that might be interesting to tournament players.

2. My buddy Timex wrote a blog entry about semi-retiring from poker that I think is worth a read. He’s had a ton of success in the game and is finding himself in a bit of an existential crisis at the age of 20. I think Timex is one of a handful of young guys out there who have made tons of money playing poker such that they’re no longer super-motivated to keep playing and also a little out of touch with the rest of society and people their age due to their submersion in poker and rapid ascension to a state of wealth. It’s a tricky and unique place to find yourself at 20 and I find it interesting to observe from a sociological standpoint. I think the key for guys like Timex will be to find another arena in which they can compete for high enough stakes to hold their interest and still feel they’re +EV at whatever they’re doing. To me, the business world sounds like a clear (and perhaps only) option. I hypothesize that in a decade or two you’ll see a lot of guys who were formerly really successful and big into poker make waves in the business world and only play poker for fun on rare occasions (ie: WSOP Main Event).

3. My buddy Jason Day started a humor blog on various social issues. His latest entry is about the ridiculousness of Tiger and Jesse James playing the “sex addict” card when they got caught cheating. Check his site out, I think you’ll find his writing to be really entertaining and on point.

Alright, without further ado, first quarter 2010 movie grades:

A

Wall Street – Fantastic. Can’t believe it took me so long to see this.

A-

Funny People – A very complete comedy. Check it out.

The Book of Eli – Love Denzel and post-apocalyptic stuff, so the combo of both of them rocked.

Brooklyn’s Finest – I’m a sucker for a cop drama.

B+

Sex Drive – Hilarious comedy kind of cut from the same cloth as American Pie. Seth Green’s character killed me.

Invictus – Somehow, at the age of 79, Clint Eastwood finds the time and energy to make at least one, but usually multiple movies each year. And every single one of them is usually damn good at worst. This is no exception.

A Serious Man – Coen brothers film that is kind of a modern day (well, sort of, it was set in the late 60s/early 70s) story of Job from the Bible. This is one of those movies that you appreciate more by reading about it after seeing it.

The Blind Side – I had been really reluctant to see this after reading the book for fear that the movie would ruin it, but it was mostly solid.

Green Zone – Very concise storyline, didn’t try to do too much like war movies can tend to do. Solid.

Hot Tub Time Machine – Made me laugh more than I thought it would

C

Repo Men – Pretty damn terrible, but it had its moments.

D

Couples Retreat – This was so disappointing; rarely laughed.

Tell-Tale – Just awful.

beatpokernow.com

This was the first failed poker website idea I had. The concept was basically just to create an online poker strategy portal. I had this idea in 2005. At the time, one of the reasons we threw in the towel was that the poker strategy website/affiliate market was really competitive. It just didn’t seem worth the work to try to penetrate the market. Of course, since that time, the market has gotten ridiculously more competitive. Looking back, we probably should have followed through on this idea and worked to crank out a nice site. I always thought the URL was kind of nice. I let it expire a few years ago and it seems as if someone else has picked it up. Or maybe I still own it, I’m not entirely sure.

Anyway, since throwing in the towel on this poker strategy site idea, other sites like CardRunners and StoxPoker have sprung up and gone on do really well (granted, on a much different business model than the one we had). Hmm… oops.

thewmarketplace.com

Back around 2005-2006 trading W$ and T$ was really popular on PokerStars. Basically if you won certain satellites you got paid in the form of W$ which could only be used to register for certain tournaments (I believe PokerStars still maintains this practice). Anyway, this idea was basically just to undercut market exchange websites, the largest of which was cashmanbrian.com. I figured charging like 1% less juice on the exchange than other sites did that I could seize a lot of market share. This wasn’t a well thought-out idea and construction on the site was never completed; this was probably for the best anyway, I think PokerStars has changed their policy on trading W$ such that a site like this wouldn’t have really gotten very far even if it did begin servicing customers.

europokerdb.com

Once on a flight back from Europe, which is how I get a lot of my decent ideas since I’m less distracted on a plane than I am otherwise, I got the idea to basically rip-off thepokerdb.com and create a site that lists tournament results for non-US facing sites that left the market when the UIGEA was passed. This was not nearly as good of an idea as I thought it was at the time. Not only would it have taken an immense amount of work, but it would have been really easy for thepokerdb to undercut all of that work by simply tracking tournaments at the sites they weren’t tracking at the time. The barrier to entry was just too low, non-existent really. I think the farthest I got on this idea was buying a couple of domains and picking a few people’s brains about the viability of the project before realizing it was probably too impractical.

sweatalert.com

I still maintain that this is a great idea if it could be implemented. Basically I noticed that anytime myself or one of my friends went deep in an online tournament, we’d have to open up an AIM window for each person we wished to alert of our progress. One night I got the idea to make the whole process automated. Rather than open up a new AIM window, send a new text or email, or start a new forum thread for each person you wished to notify of your progress in a tournament, you could simply post it to a website that dispatches the news to anyone who subscribes to your alerts.

This website actually came close to getting launched. You can still see it now online. The trouble was: we could never figure out how to integrate it with AIM. The idea was that someone could enter in information about the tournament they’re going deep in and click “submit”. Upon doing so, AIM messages would be sent out to all of their sweat subscribers. We could just never figure out how to bridge the gap between someone clicking submit on a form and AIM messages being dispatched as a result. I think Bluff Magazine has some type of “alert” system via thepokerdb to notify you when certain players go deep in online tournaments, so this idea was probably never really worth investing a whole lot in. Pretty good URL though, huh?

I haven’t played much poker in the past few months. I’ve kind of put it to the side for a few other things, mostly just going out and being social and not staying inside to multi-table all evening, but the pendulum has swung back the other way. For a few nights in a row now, I’ve had the option to go out and do something social or stay inside and play tournaments. For the first time in a while, staying in to play tournaments sounded more fun.

As almost always seems to be the case after extended periods of minimal play, I feel fantastic about how I’m playing. I know I’ve talked about this before, but I really feel like I’m at my best when I come back from a break. I would imagine many poker players feel this way. I feel like when you play all the time you kind of slip into a routine where your thoughts aren’t as engaged with regards to poker. You reach a point where you’re just going through the motions more than you should. I feel like I’m analyzing every decision really well right now. I played the mini-FTOPS Razz event the other night and the PLO rebuy today and cashed in both. Despite limited experience in both of those variants, I think tournaments such as the mini-FTOPS events are very beatable if you’re focusing and thinking at a high level even if you’re not well-versed in that particular variant.

In the PLO event, I was chipleader with around 200 players left. Unfortunately that doesn’t mean much in PLO, a game where gold can turn to dust in a hurry, which is exactly what happened when I got a flush all-in against two-pair on the turn for an absolutely huge pot that unfortunately did not hold up.

Poker is alive and well though. Anytime I have an extended break from the tables, I always worry that when I come back I’m going to find the games have dried up and are full of regs. Today’s 4,600 player $10 rebuy PLO event was nice reassurance that these worries can be set aside. I guess I’m not too unlike a lot of players who feel like they’re waiting for the other shoe to drop in terms of poker being a fun and profitable venture. I keep thinking that any day now everyone will get really good and I’ll go from feeling like a strong player to an average one as a result. But I’ve been waiting for a while now and it doesn’t seem to be happening. I saw the Sunday Million got like 35,000 players or something ridiculous a couple weeks ago. Poker is alive and well!

I want to make poker one of my primary focuses in life again from now until the WSOP. I’m hoping to live in Vegas this summer, which is something I’ve actually never done despite having gone out there for five summers in a row, and take a significant shot at a huge payday. I mean, why not? I’m young, have fairly few responsibilities, the games are really good, and I’m really hungry to succeed in that arena. Who knows how many more years all of those things will be the case? I might as well try to capitalize on it while I can.

While I was writing this post, just played the following hand in a $10 rebuy on PokerStars. Aren’t people funny sometimes?

PokerStars Game #39458709789: Tournament #284011111, $10+$1 USD Hold’em No Limit – Level V (75/150) – 2010/02/08 21:47:07 CT [2010/02/08 22:47:07 ET]
Table ‘284011111 57′ 9-max Seat #5 is the button
Seat 1: spartan44ga (1500 in chips)
Seat 2: enheda (5910 in chips)
Seat 3: magi8000 (4350 in chips)
Seat 4: Goonasabi (6120 in chips)
Seat 5: thtsjusmygam (4295 in chips)
Seat 6: McShove (6935 in chips)
Seat 7: fred535 (6375 in chips)
Seat 8: flor3nc3 (2625 in chips)
Seat 9: Ozone23 (6280 in chips)
McShove: posts small blind 75
fred535: posts big blind 150
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Ozone23 [Ad Ah]
flor3nc3: folds
Ozone23: calls 150
spartan44ga: calls 150
enheda: folds
magi8000: folds
Goonasabi: folds
thtsjusmygam: folds
McShove: folds
fred535: checks
*** FLOP *** [2s As Ac]
fred535: bets 300
Ozone23: calls 300
spartan44ga: folds
*** TURN *** [2s As Ac] [Jh]
fred535: bets 600
Ozone23: calls 600
*** RIVER *** [2s As Ac Jh] [9d]
fred535: bets 1200
Ozone23: raises 4030 to 5230 and is all-in
fred535: calls 4030
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Ozone23: shows [Ad Ah] (four of a kind, Aces)
fred535: shows [Ts 9h] (two pair, Aces and Nines)
Ozone23 collected 12785 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 12785 | Rake 0
Board [2s As Ac Jh 9d]
Seat 1: spartan44ga folded on the Flop
Seat 2: enheda folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 3: magi8000 folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 4: Goonasabi folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 5: thtsjusmygam (button) folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 6: McShove (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 7: fred535 (big blind) showed [Ts 9h] and lost with two pair, Aces and Nines
Seat 8: flor3nc3 folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 9: Ozone23 showed [Ad Ah] and won (12785) with four of a kind, Aces

I’ve been playing a fair amount of poker at the new Rush Poker tables on Full Tilt. I love love love Rush Poker. It’s made online cash games fun for me again. I’ve been doing pretty well by playing like ridiculously aggressive. Like I’ve been raising any two cards anytime it folds to me in the hijack, cutoff or button and I feel like it’s been solidly +EV doing so. People are just addicted to that “Quick Fold” button and love getting on to the next hand that there’s some value in dwelling in the moment a little bit and trying to win the hand you’ve been dealt rather than moving on to the next one. My average hands per hour at Rush Poker is around 195. The average average (haha) hands per hour is more like 270, so I’m definitely playing way more pots than most people.

I spent last week in New York and had a really nice time up there. We went to the Letterman taping on Monday and got front row seats. Apparently they seat people based on how you do in an evaluation process when you pick up your tickets. Somehow we wound up in the front row with all of the attractive and smiling people despite the fact that we made zero effort to appear to be having a good time when we picked up our tickets. Good beat. Here’s the view of Dave interviewing Bruce Willis. I could literally use the stage as a foot rest which was pretty ballin’. Sorry for the poor image quality; we weren’t allowed to use a camera so I kind of had to sneak this one on the sly with my phone and I think maybe my hand was a little shaky or something. That, or maybe the iPhone camera just sucks (more likely).

I just positioned myself in front of the TV to start watching Super Bowl pregame coverage five hours before kickoff. I love Super Bowl Sunday. I’m a total sucker for it. The coverage, buildup, suspense, flash bulbs at kickoff, commercials, all of it, love the whole thing. I’ll probably fire up a couple of the usual tournaments so long as I’m sitting here doing nothing, but I really don’t want to play too many to where I can’t primarily focus on the game.

I’ve got a fair amount on under 57 and am also exposed to the Saints moneyline. Before the playoffs started, a buddy and I went back and forth drafting teams. He took first pick (Colts) and I got the next two picks (Chargers and Saints), and then we went back and forth one-and-one after that. Anyway, whoever’s team wins the Super Bowl wins a few bills, so I guess I’m sort of rooting against the Colts (even though I’m really not since my heart is kind of with them being from Indiana and all). As long as the under comes in, I’ll be happy no matter who wins!

Alright, last thing, did an interview with Mike McDonald this week on PokerTips that is worth checking out if you’re a poker fan. He’s off to a sick start in 2010 and really has put up some unbelievable results despite not even being old enough to play in the U.S. yet.

Henry Waxman made himself look like an idiot. Keep in mind he was the Congressman who led the witch-hunt on interrogating MLB players about steroid use yet during his interview he seemed completely clueless regarding very basic facts about steroids including whether or not anabolic steroids are legal or illegal in the U.S. It’s terrifying how incredibly stupid most Congressmen are.

The film went into other aspects of performance-enhancers in American culture such as musicians who use beta-blockers to remain calm during performances or students who take Adderall to perform better on tests. Should they have an asterisk by their name? Or what about pilots who are mandated by the Air Force to take amphetamines during long flight missions, the same type of amphetamines that if taken by a baseball player might land them in a Congressional hearing. It was definitely thought provoking and eye-opening and gives viewers a different viewpoint to consider regarding steroids than has been hammered into our heads by after school specials.

I played some online poker tournaments today for the first time in a while. For the past several weeks I’ve either been busy traveling or waiting on a laptop arrive which prevented me from playing the regular Sunday tournaments. Up until just a few days ago, I was down to just the desktop I have in my room. I don’t have a TV in my room (I need to fix that) so watching the NFL playoffs in the living room and thereby skipping the Sunday tournaments has been my preference for the past few weeks.

Today I got to do both. The NFC Championship game was great, but I didn’t like how it ended. At the start of the playoffs, I bet that the Saints would not win the Super Bowl at odds of -515, so I’m disappointed that I’ll have to sweat that bet to the end. I really thought they would have lost by now, and they probably would have if Brett Favre had scrambled rather than thrown across his body on what might have been a horribly lackluster final play of what was otherwise a brilliant career. The Saints should feel really fortunate to be going to the Super Bowl. Minnesota should have won that game notwithstanding having turned the ball over four times before Favre’s ill-fated decision.

The Colts are 4 to 5.5 point favorites in the Super Bowl depending on where you look. The over/under is 56. I love the under. I could see it getting up to 57 and when it does, I’ll probably try to get a decent sized bet in so I’ve got more rooting interest than just the big Saints fade.

Two Super Bowls ago I enjoyed the sporting event of a lifetime not only because was it the best Super Bowl ever played, but also because I was on the Giants, unhedged, at 70:1 odds to win. Last year was another really good game but it didn’t go my way at all. I was on the Cardinals moneyline so it was pretty painful watching that freak defensive TD to end the first half by James Harrison and then the sick catch by Santonio Holmes to seal it in the end. If my money is on the right side of the Super Bowl every other year, this year should be pretty good!

What do you like?