Darkened Poker

Found this great forum post at “All Vegas Poker” that I have to share, so sad but true.

http://www.allvegaspoker.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=7710&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=210#p122774

Player Nicknames

1.  Norman Chad-Hole: Guy who cracks the corniest, most overplayed jokes at the table. ” Hey! You know why the call A-K The Anna Kournicova? Looks pretty but never wins! Wokka Wokka Wokka!” You should be allowed to slap this guy once a session.

2.  Phil Hell-Meth-head Guy who can’t shut up at the table, cant stay still. Jumps up after every fold to steal 2 quick drags from his cigarette/crack pipe, all the while yelling ” Deal me in dealer!!” because if he misses just one hand, the bugs and worms in his head will eat his brain.

3.  Daniel Negra-Nerd Spits out statiscal analysis of every hand, and is usually wrong. “Ohh, A-K vs pocket 7′s? Your a 114% favorite cause you got like 54 outs twice.”

4.  Phil Ivey-Watching You The tool at the table who tries to stare into your soul when you make a $10 raise. I Actually had a guy last week do this to me. He took his sunglasses off and turned to stare at me over a $40 pot. He said “Why do you look nervous?” So I said ” Cause I don’t know if you’re gonna call or try to kiss me” He folded.

5.  Eli Ez-She really going out with him? The 22 year old smoking hot model seated directly behind the guy who looks like Tom Petty mated with a Mastodon.

6.  Mike Matu-Suck Dude who spews his buy in all over the table for hours then finally gets a good hand and slow plays himself into oblivion- Begins yelling “F$#K this game! I cant belive my aces lost to 5-6 off suit!” We know buddy, we can’t belive you checked behind him on a board of 3-4-8 with three hearts.

7.  Tom Dw-hat In the Hell Are You Doing? Watched way too much Dwan on High Stakes Poker. Can’t understand why when he 3 bets out of the position with J7 he loses everytime. Thats cause he can read players post flop, and you suck donky sack. DURRRRR!!!!!!!!!!

8.  Phil Laak- of Brains Folds kings face up because he gets re raised. Folds his big blind in a tournement and leaves himself with only 1 BB left cause he “Had Crap” Open bets pocket aces for $200 cause he “Always Loses With them”. Makes you just want to go buy him a tin foil hat.

9.  Sammy Far-Crying Out Loud Guy who builds his $100 buy in to $2100 in an hour buy continually sucking out after calling large pre flop bets with crap. Only good news is he wil spew it all back before the night is over.

10.  David Bennyme-Another Drink This guy is blotto, but keeps drinking and babbling while playing. Usualy gives up too much information- Like he has a King, He only raises when he got top pair, He wears his wifes underwear, etc. TMI for sure.

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Darkened Poker

Even though this is horrible poker that even an average player will find is just barely worth watching it will probably be good for the game overall.  The quick run down of this show is Daniel Negreanu is sitting next to some poker newb and first tries to help him beat a celebrity heads up and win some money.  If that works he/she can then try and take on another poker pro for even more money but this time Daniel is in a sound box and can not help him quite as much.  If he/she beats the pro then they can face off against Daniel himself with no outside help and try to win 100k.

The Good:

• It does a good job of making poker look easy which will bring more people into poker and that is very good for game.  Not sure if it is just editing or the pro’s help but they make it look like the newb just cut through the celebrity, Vanessa Rousso and Daniel Negreanu.
• They also make it look like you can learn poker in 1/2 an hour of instruction, this is good for all those poker instructors out there.  I am sure more than a few newbs will be downloading a few instructional video’s and thinking they can now take on the pro’s.

The Bad:

• This is not a show your going to learn much from, it is so edited that most of the time nothing makes any sense at all.  All you see is the pro’s looking like complete idiots making bad calls and horrible bluffs.
• They also show Daniel making some great reads, which makes for great TV but also highlights just how bad Daniels play must have been when he lost the match later on.  I can only hope the producer told Daniel to let the preacher win.

The Ugly:

• The preacher was thanking god after every winning hand and pulling out Rosemarie every time he was all in.  There is nothing wrong with that except it reminded me of Jerry Yang winning the main event a few years ago.  That was ugly since he turned out to be such a poor ambassador and did nothing to promote the sport while he was the main event champion.  But on the other hand I do like people pushing all in with nothing but a draw and a shout out to god.

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Darkened Poker

I really did not need to see Phil Hellmouth without a shirt ever again, why ESPN would you do this to me.

Body by ESPN

Poker players being featured naked in sports magazines.  Well I guess that ends the debate on if poker is a sport or not.

High Stakes Poker Season 5 Episode 12

First Daniel Nagreanu was got stacked and started playing scared.  Now it seems like Phil Laak has taken over that role.  He has been folding heads up with mid pair when he should re-raise and he decided to bet 50k pre-flop with AA instead of playing the hand post flop.

The first great hand was Metzer calling 800 with A 8, Elezra raising to 1,600 with K T and Menieri re-raises to 9600 with 6 4.  Metzer with the best hand folds and Elezra with what is now the best hand calls.

Think this was just either a bad read or bad move on Menieri’s part, he most likely read Elezra’s min raise for weakness but re-raising him with a bad hand like that is not smart.  Elezra is not know for laying hands down once he has money in the pot, its like Menieri has not watch even a single episode of this show.  This would have been a good play against a non pro, but is bad against someone as aggressive as Elezra.  Elezra quickly makes a good call, not sure if it is because he read Menieri for making a squeeze play or he just does not lay hands down against aggressive players.

Flop: 6 10 4

Elezra check, Menieri bets 14k into a 22k pot and Elezra thinks for awhile and just calls.  This suprised me quite a bit, I expected Elezra to check to someone as aggressive as Menieri so he could check raise him.  There is not a lot of value in calling re-raises, hitting a vulnerable hand and then just calling a bet so you can be drawn out on the turn.  He must have picked up a tell of strength and just want to call on the flop to see if Menieri bet again on the turn.  Again this would have been a good play against a newb, but was a bad play against someone as aggressive as Menieri.  It is very unlikely he would not fire two shells so calling now is wasted money as he is unlikely to learn anything new on the turn.

Turn:  A

Menieri thinks and then bets 37k into a 50k pot.  Elezra thinks for awhile then folds, this was a good fold at this point as there was really nothing he could beat.  If Menieri had a big ace like he was representing pre-flop then Elezra was now beat.  One of the last hands that he could beat just got there so folding is the only option.

Very oddly played by both parties but it worked out for Menieri.

Season 5 Episode 10

This was just more of the same.  More bad news for Daniel who seems to have developed the ability to check raise every time he is behind in the hand.  Then Phil Laak decided to get in on the act of paying off Tom Durr in a small hand that made no sense on the river.

First hand Phil Laak ( J T ) calls a 4k raise from Dwan ( 8 8 ) and heads up to the flop.

Flop:  6 9 6

Phil checks, Dwan bets 6,300 and Phil check raises him for 21.3k which Dwan calls.

Turn: 6

Phil checks and Dwan checks as well.

River: 8

Phil checks and Dwan bets 9.4k.  Phil talks forever and finally calls.

Interesting things about this hand:

• I like the check raise by Phil, it looks like a set or overs like 10′s or J’s, the call by Dwan is pretty sick, I can only imagine he was looking to take it away on the turn if the flush got there as well.
• The turn gave Dwan the full house yet he did not bet even though Phil checked to him.  Did he think Phil was trapping or did he put Phil on the flush draw and wanted to let it get there.    I think it was a good check, if behind saves a bet, if ahead your not really making any money but what would pay you off on a board like that.
• River let the flush get there and Phil is smart enough to check, a flush is useless on that board so he is not going to get called by anything and most people would re-raise him off his hand.
• Dwan puts out the perfect value bet, 6-1 odds, Phil almost has to call him for pot odds alone.  But I am not sure why he did, he could no beat any other hand out there except a str8.

Second hand Tom Dwan raises to 5.4k on the button after two limpers with A Q and Daniel decides to call under the gun with A 8 .  Why might you ask would Daniel want to be in worst position with a crappy one way drawing hand?  Not sure…  Howard Leader and Laak call as well.

Flop:  Q A 2

Dwan bets 14.3k and Daniel calls, Howard and Laak fold.

Turn: 2

Dwan bets 34.6k, Daniel calls out that dwan must have and ace and then check raises him 84.6k, Dwan calls.

River: 4

Daniel now checks and Dwan checks.

Interesting things about this hand

• Dwan bet 3/4 of the pot on the flop which is a go away flush draw type of bet, Daniel did not notice that and called.  It is not terrible call if he was up against a newb that would not fire a second shell, but Dwan will fire all three streets.
• On turn Daniel decides to check raise Dwan, not sure what they point is with that.  If he is ahead in the hand why would he not let Dwan bluff again on the river, what could Dwan catch that would kill him.  If he is not ahead then he just gave Dwan a bunch more money…
• On the river Dwan checks, this is playing a little scared on his part, he would have to put Daniel on a 2 to be ahead.  If Daniel had a 2 you would think he would lead with it to ensure he got paid off especially after the check raise on the turn.

Before this Dwan had shown down 2 good hands, I am not sure if this is why Daniel decided he must be bluffing that time.  Not sure but this hand did not make any sense.

Can not wait for some new blood in the game next week, it needs something to shake it up…

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