Poker players often refer to what they do as a "grind." I’ve never really cared for that terminology or the negativity that goes with it. For some, they use it as a way to say they are treating their play like a real job, putting in significant hours and really doing work. For many, though, it's just a way to complain.

He couldn’t keep a straight face as he said, “I didn’t see it. I don’t know him well enough to do that.” Everyone else was falling out of their chair laughing. Johnny Fink has a reputation for slowrolling and gets great pleasure out of getting someone. He is a nice guy, everyone likes him, and his goal is just to have a good time, but for whatever reason, he loves to turn up a ...

“Sorry the game wasn’t any good; they just weren’t gambling last night,” a dealer from a game that I go to every once in a while told me after I had come up to play in one of the games that wasn’t as wide open as usual. The game was a $5/$10 round and round game with Hold'em and Omaha. Often, this particular game can be wide open with huge pots hand after hand and money moving around ...

Ever hear someone say they don’t like Pot Limit Omaha or PLO/8 because there is no way to bluff' If so, you have identified someone you want to be playing against who is missing out on a big part of the game. I play in some of the loosest games you can find with plenty of action and a mass of players who are getting to showdown with a high percentage of hands. Even with that, I find myself ...

Pool and poker have always gone hand-in-hand, both serving as vehicles for gambling where a skilled player has an advantage and, in the right situation, can be profitable over time. The other night, I watched “The Color of Money,” in which Tom Cruise is an up-and-coming pool player with a lot of talent and Tom Newman is a wizened veteran trying to show him the ropes.

“When you are hot, keep shooting,” and “The only way to get out of a slump is to shoot your way out of it” are the mottos of shooters and how I always viewed my role on a basketball team. A decent jump shot was generally what I brought to the table. If I was in the game, I was in there to take a shot when it came my way.

Often, I find myself going for a flush down low, as it is one of the most common royalties to make. But, sometimes going for a flush isn’t the right play, and there are some significant issues with playing for flushes in Open Face Chinese Poker. The four-point bonus is great, but trying to make it can often leave you with a hand that doesn’t build well and is all-or-nothing at the end. You ...

Royalties are extremely important in Open Face Chinese Poker, and preserving the opportunity to make them as long as you can is a key part of the strategy of the game. At the same time, balancing the chance to make royalties with not giving away the other parts of your hand and opening yourself up to getting scooped is also important.

Each week, I try to figure out what will be the most interesting topic to write about. Usually, driving down the road or standing in the shower, I have a lot of ideas and start thinking about an outline for the article. I come across one key line of thought, usually a sideline of what I originally intended the topic to be. Around that particular thought, I am usually able to build out an ...

In the incomplete information game that is poker, it's all too easy to dismiss situations as standard instead of actually thinking about them and finding an edge. That’s not to say that there aren’t plenty of straightforward situations, but lots of times as players, we take the easy route and excuse a play that we pass off as standard when there was actually enough information available to ...

For decades, gin was the game of choice for players waiting around for a card game to start. It could be played with just a couple of players, as a hand or game doesn’t take that long and is a great filler while waiting on enough players to get the poker game going. A few months back, all the rage about Open Face Chinese Poker (OFC) caught my attention. I did a little research on the rules, ...

Every once in a while, I go to a game that is smaller than what I usually play. Sometimes I do so for the purpose of being able to play differently and try some new things out. Sometimes I do so just to kill a few hours and see how the games are outside of the fairly tight circle I play in. Generally, it's a good experience. I can be the action player, get creative and run some bluffs I ...

Gross generalization, right' How could I know if you should bluff more' I don’t even know who you are. You could be the most active, three-barreling, never-let-a-hand-go, aggressive player to ever play. You could be tighter than Allen Kessler on a money bubble. Well, you are right. I don’t know you and maybe you are the exception, but in general, most players don’t bluff enough and, ...

Having the right mindset about winning, losing, and the reality of the odds and math behind poker is an important part of understanding the game and keeping yourself in the right frame of mind. Players who often complain about bad beats and bad luck are often just expressing frustration or showing that they really don’t understand, or even care to understand, the math behind the game.

2012 is almost complete. We have rolled into December and less than a month remains in the year. In poker and in life, setting goals is common and important, and many of those goals are evaluated annually. If poker is more than a hobby, then having some clear-cut goals is an important part of what you do, and working toward them should be something that lasts longer than the first couple of ...

Swings are part of the game. I have come to embrace them, but over the last few weeks, I have been all over the place. Luckily, I have followed big losses with big wins to balance things out, but all of this up and down variance has made me step back and take a look at what I am doing to cause it.

With Greg Merson winning the WSOP Main Event live on ESPN early Wednesday morning, poker on TV has been a hot topic of conversation this week. I missed him winning it, though. We watched all night while playing cards, but the game broke up sometime after 1:00am and I went home and watched another hour before calling it a night. Then, I had to be at my business the next day fairly early, so I ...

This week, an article by Donnie Peters from PokerNews has gotten a little buzz about a topic that has been one of my top talking points over the years. His main premise is that the recent evolution of poker has led to the game being more serious and less fun, which is generally bad.

Most poker players, like most people, don’t understand different. If it isn’t what we are used to and comfortable with, then something must be wrong with it. With the boom of online poker and online poker communities, the evolution of the game has increased exponentially. Players can quickly and effectively improve in a very short period of time by studying, reading, discussing, ...

Most of my reading lately has been centered on small business and finance. Although neither of these topics directly relates to poker, I often find many correlations that get me thinking about my poker game. Recently, a weekly newsletter list I am on sent an article about looking at your business with critical eyes, or, as the author put it, with the eyes of a stranger.

Players who sit down at a table, get a little ahead, and magically have somewhere they have to be are generally given a hard time by the others at the table for being “hit and run” artists, but a lot of times, these players aren’t only hurting the game, they are also hurting themselves. For live games especially, the logistics of getting to a game and taking a seat at the table are ...

Winning is fun, but for long-term winning poker players, embracing losing sessions and understanding their importance to your overall objectives can help as well. In this particular instance, I am focusing on players who play in regular live games with the same group of people on a regular basis, but some of the ideas will hold true even for casino games and online play.

The luck element of poker is what makes it such a great game. On any given day, any player can win. Over time, the skill element holds out, but in the short-run, almost anyone with a basic understanding of the rules can get hot and do well.

The game was our normal $5/$10 blind Pot Limit Omaha game and started around 1:00pm. Around 10:00am the next morning, the game was still going strong and players had been in and out all day. The game was still good, or great actually, but I knew fatigue was starting to set in. If I were going to keep playing, I would have to focus just to stay at a reasonable level of play and not make a huge ...

When I go to the World Series of Poker, I plan out a schedule of events and know ahead of time that those are the tournaments I will be entering. I often buy in early to avoid waiting in lines. But just because I am playing the events doesn’t mean I don’t take advantage of the opportunities available in the satellites that are constantly going on around the WSOP.

In a few days, I am headed to Las Vegas and planning to play three or four World Series of Poker (WSOP) tournaments, including the Main Event. The trip is not with the intent of it being a vacation or “for the experience.” While I have some other reasons for going out, one of the main factors is my perceived positive expectation playing in the tournaments.

For the first time in over five years, I won’t be spending much time at the World Series of Poker. In years past, I was usually out there for a majority of the Series and felt like I was connected and part of the inner circle. This year, I won’t be heading to Vegas until early July when a majority of the events are complete and the feel of the Series changes as everyone shifts into Main ...

Today, I was sitting in the driver’s seat of a 1995 MasterCraft Prostar 210 looking down the glassy calm lake at a slalom course. The sun was beating on my shoulders and a longtime friend and skiing partner of mine was pulling on his vest and getting ready to hop in the water for his second slalom set of the day. I had my phone in my lap and happened to see a few congratulatory Tweets aimed ...

Everyone has bad beat stories and most people get tired of hearing them. We all know someone who just can’t help but tell them all the time, while others make hands into bad beats when they were really just bad plays. I’m sure I've told my share of bad beat stories too.

The topic for last week’s column was by request, but writing it got my mind turning and led to a lot of other ideas. Some of those will pop up down the road, but I closed my previous column with my two-word strategy tip for beginners: “Don’t Limp.” There is a lot of value in that little tidbit, but in poker, you should always understand why you are doing something instead of taking ...

The growth and explosion of online poker mirrored my own growth in the game. I came into poker as the online boom was beginning and although I started playing in small live games with friends, I quickly added online play to my routine.

During the first level of a $300 buy-in tournament, a guy wins an all-in and celebrates like he just doubled up with four people left in the WSOP Main Event. It seems all too common in poker, and many other competitive activities, for massive overreaction to events that don’t warrant that sort of emotion.

A few years back, I had the opportunity to be an instructor for one of the two-day poker seminars. I took the job thinking I would be able to make a few bucks and have a new experience. At the time, I didn’t expect the largest benefit would be how much it would improve my poker game. At the seminar, the coaching was pretty basic and along the lines of what I expected, but the kicker for me ...

Although I got my start online, a vast majority of my play has been live poker. Other than in tournaments, I think I have only played live poker heads-up on one occasion, and never really sought out heads-up games online. However, I recently ended up playing a decent amount of heads-up $5/$10 cash games online.

Wanting to do something and actually doing it are two different things. After last week’s column about taking a leap and learning a new game, I received a few e-mails from players saying they wanted to learn a new game, but were unsure how to go about it. Some of the common questions were along the lines of, “How experienced should I be at No Limit Hold’em before I try a new game'” and ...

For as long as I can remember, strategy games have been part of my life. I grew up with Rook, Spades, Chess, Checkers, Risk, Monopoly, and all sorts of other card and board games where, to me, figuring out the optimal strategy for winning was the objective. Add to that a few turn-based and real-time strategy computer games and you can see where my view of games comes from. I always wanted to ...

Live games are much more enjoyable to me than online games. Driving to games, getting there early, having to wait, getting into a game that is full and not being able to get a seat for hours, and the sometimes brutally slow pace of play are all among the negatives of playing live poker. For me, that is all made up for by the social aspect of the game that is lost online.

In the sports world, Tim Tebow has been the topic of the year. Without him, one wonders what ESPN and sports talk radio would have found to fill the time. He is a phenomenon, a combination of belief, determination, luck, perseverance, work ethic, and the right attitude.

Obrestad (annette_15) and John Juanda. One is the face of the young players groomed on the virtual felt. The other a longtime pro making a living out of poker long before the online boom. Both are World Series of Poker Europe Champions. The WSOPE had a storybook inaugural event in 2007 that couldn’t have been scripted better by the most talented of screenwriters. On the day before her 19th ...

tournament poker there is no doubt that the main event at the World Series of Poker is the marquee event, but once you get beyond that tournament there are a handful of other high profile events that help define the poker community. Among the elite tournaments are the championship events of the World Poker Tour and the European Poker Tour, along with a few other high profile events including the ...

last major event of the year in the US is the Bellagio Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Championship. It is one of the most prestigious events of the year. Every December all the top pros turn out at the Bellagio to compete. Last year Eugene Katchalov was able to capture the title and the $2,482,605 top prize in impressive fashion at one of the quickest final tables to date. PocketFivers ...

Just across the border and not quite out of the mist of the beautiful waterfalls known as Niagara Falls, the Fallsview Casino spends most of the year as a host to mostly tourists, honeymooners, and a gambling location for locals coming from nearby Toronto, Buffalo, or smaller towns in the area. For one week a year, the Fallsview is host to the biggest names in poker. We’ll have all of the ...

The Legends of Poker doesn’t show up on any schedule or calendar as the first event of anything, but in the minds of many poker players it marks the new season of live tournament poker. With the World Series of Poker wrapping up (for all but nine) in mid July and the Bellagio Cup finishing up just a few days later, the tournament circuit regulars have had a month off between live majors. The ...

The series of tournaments at the World Series of Poker are intense. The 53 events leading up to the Main Event have all the drama and suspense any player could ask for… but it all pales in comparison to the Main Event. For the $1,500 bracelet events the Amazon room and surrounding area is packed for the first few hours of the day as thousands of players and a smattering of fans crowd in hoping ...

The World Poker Tour Championship at the Bellagio is a $25k buyin and brings out most of the big names in poker, both from the live and online realms. By the time play was down to the final 6 Cory “UGOTPZD” Carroll was the leading representative of online poker and Gus Hansen led the way for the live pros. The tournament ended up having 545 entrants, a smaller field than last year but not ...

The World Poker Tour event at Bay101 in San Jose is a little different than any other tournament out there. Matt Savage has done a great job of developing a tournament that players look forward to going to and that many call their favorite stop of the year. Brandon Cantu (right) will most likely be among those singing the praises of the Bay101 Shooting Star event. Cantu was the player that ...

trip to San Jose for the Bay101 Shooting Star World Poker Tour event will be a new stop for PocketFivesLive. Last year scheduling conflicts prevented coverage of the tournament, which saw four known pros go to the final table in the unique format used at Bay101. Each table starts with a “shooting star” and that person has a $5,000 bounty on their head going to the player that eliminates ...

Sorted by end of day chip count: ...

1FUHSDANIEL397,1001572SCHULMANJOSEPH288,300283BURNSIDEKYLE279,700264IVEYPHIL276,200175ESFANDIARIANTONIO261,500246MILLSMICKEY ...

The Los Angeles Poker Classic always draws one of the largest fields of the year, with last year’s event having a top prize of almost $2.5 million and second place brining in about $1.2 million. With so much money on the line almost all of the top pros turn out for the event, and with the World Poker Tour Celebrity Invitational on the heels of the LAPC, there are more than a few celebrities ...