Bingo At The WSOP 2006

Before you start going off and saying that Big Papa has gone soft, Read the story. I have stated many times that I am the “Luckiest Guy In The World” and that is true but, not because I hit the 2 outer.

I am lucky because God has given me the best house full of girls a man could ever ask for Lucy, Lyndsey, Kaity and Mackenzie. There are no boys in Big Papa’s house even the dog is a girl. I wouldn’t change a thing.

Lucy is the best woman a man could ever hope to find, she takes care of me and I don’t know what I would do without her. I had to laugh the other day she was on the phone with someone and I overheard her say “I can’t wait until the world series of poker!” She went on to talk about all the things she was going to do and how all of our girls would be there, on and on. The thing you need to know is that Lucy has never played a hand of cards, none of the girls have and she doesn’t want to. She loves the WSOP because she knows how happy it makes me and instead of acting like I am dragging her there she makes her own fun, shopping and doing the pool thing. That is just the kind of woman she is and it’s not an act, she LOVES it! The fact that there is a poker game going on really doesn’t matter to her very much. If you guys could find a girl like I did, you would be damn lucky because God made very few like my Lucy.

The point to all this is that my Lucy asks me for VERY little and I love her very much, so when she asks, she gets. “Baby Boy, maybe one night if you get knocked out would you go play Bingo with me this year at the World Series?” I gave my stock response “I would love to.”

We were getting ready to go to the Gold Coast, we read on the internet that that was the Mecca of Bingo in Vegas and if I was going to play Bingo I wanted the highest Bingo action in town, when John Galt himself call our room. “Hey, Bubba let’s go to the RIO and stab some fish in the gills at the Sit-n-Goes.” I said that I couldn’t I had plans; I was REALLY hoping he wouldn’t ask. He did, “I am going to play Bingo with Lucy and I don’t need you to give me a bunch of crap about it.” Then the man with steely nerves said something I couldn’t believe. “Can I come?” I told him to meet us at the cab line in front of the Bellagio, but if all he wanted to do was come and make trouble I would be kicking his ass.

Lucy was Giddy, she LOVES Bingo and tonight the boys were going with her to do something that was only for her. It is the only thing that she does that is even close to gambling. We got out of the cab and we could see the RIO from the Gold Coast, it was in fact across the street. Lucy made the offer as is her style, “You guys are just being nice to me, you two just walk right over there to the World Series and let me do my bingo that is where you want to be huh?” We laughed, don’t be silly we want to, besides you are probably saving us a ton of money, I mean how expenses could bingo be? We were about to find out.We walked into the Bingo hall upstairs and got in line to buy in, now for those of you who are not hip, you don’t have to dob paper at the bingo hall anymore if you don’t like to do that. They will sell you a little laptop computer called a TED with all the cards you want to play are loaded up and it marks all your cards for you automatically. I told Lucy to get whatever she wanted cards wise and she was discussing with the lady what the best deal was and I turned to Jason and said “You want side action?” and he said “Does Rose Kennedy have a black dress?” he continued with “How much?” and I told him I thought that $100.00 for closest to bingo when it gets called would be fair and he said “Ok, but Texas rules.” I agreed to that. Texas rules is like double or nothing except the player that is behind gets to declare a double for more so that if he wins he is not just even, he is ahead.
Lucy had decided what she wanted and was shaking her head at our negotiations. “You boys can’t walk across the street without making a bet on which gets there first, let’s get our machines people are waiting.” What she really meant was people are looking at us and wondering what we were doing, she hates that. It was going to be a bad draw for hating that tonight. I asked her how much I need to play the lady for her Ted and she told me $36.00. I paid for her and she was off to find us a table, likely in a corner to reduce her embarrassment for our extra gambling which she was sure was illegal and were going to get arrested for.
I ask the lady behind the counter how much for the most cards one of these computers will hold and she said “Everything, all the special and all the extras?” The most you can buy is what I want. She did some number crunching on her POS and declared that the most money you could spend on Bingo at one time in the Gold Coast Bingo Hall was $214.00! I said perfect we will take two. She laughed and so did we, Jason said “Can we play more than one machine?” she said no that was illegal.

We collect our machines and go sit next to Lucy and she warns us to turn off our phones before it starts, I guess that is a major breach of Bingo protocol. The first game is under way and we find out that it is a progressive with three other casinos and the prize is $50,000.00 there might be something to this Bingo after all.

I am not going to try and describe play by play Bingo action; I wouldn’t know where to start except to say we had a ball! When you get one away from a bingo your little laptop makes a ding and I will tell you, believe it or not it is thrilling. Jason and I had money all over the table with our side bets and instead of getting in trouble the little old ladies kept coming by our table asking us who won the side bet! Next time we would just bring black chips from the Bellagio that would be much more discrete; Lucy liked the sound of that.

I can’t remember how much we won at Bingo but, I do know that we laughed and had the best time, Bingo is part of the World Series for us now and Lucy made her own little “Bingo Tribe” that night. The next time someone asks you to do something that sounds stupid don’t be too quick to judge, you may just laugh your ass off like we did.

I am a lucky man for reasons that I am sure are obvious.

Money Management For The Non Professional

There are a ton of good articles written by professionals regarding this subject.
Just type in to Google: poker money management
http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&q=poker+money+management

There is a ton of information out there for professionals and it is easy to find.

I am not going to try and get into money management for playing poker professionally, mainly because I think playing poker as a profession is a dumb idea, mainly due to the fact that if you are smart enough to beat poker in that significant a fashion your earnings in a profession without the huge built in luck factor would be 10 times your poker income. You could then amass your fortune, live off the interest and play poker fulltime without regard to paying bills with your bankroll. I think that makes you a very dangerous player and that is the road I am taking, but I have talked about that before. See you pros in five years when I am 50 and out! So for now, the advice I have to give is from the viewpoint of a recreational poker player, which is who I am.

This money management tip is for a trip that involves any kind of gaming. I play poker today because years ago I found that I could have fun and play in the casino for much longer playing poker than in the pit. Playing $5.00 a hand black jack $100.00 can go in less than an hour, that same $100.00 can last 5 or 6 hours in a poker game even for a new player. Poker in my opinion is just a better choice.

The first concept that we need to address is that there are two types of money, spending money (Real world money) and bank roll. The two should NEVER be mixed.

We need to develop a pre-trip plan which will help us determine how much money we need to bring to spend on meals, hotel and entertainment other than gaming. Then we need to determine how much we are going to “spend” total on the trip for our gambling entertainment.

I need to mention here that under no circumstances should you ever use and ATM in a casino or on a gaming vacation, EVER. Decide how much you are going to spend gambling on your vacation before you leave the house, take that money with you in cash, there is a safe in the room. The fees that the bank and the casino charge for cash advances should be enough to let you know that you have a problem and should get professional help if you are willing to pay those percentages just to get back in action. I will repeat this because it is important, if you cannot determine a budget and stop gaming of any kind including poker when you have reached that limit you are addicted and should stop gambling altogether before it gets worse.
Enough said about that, now we need to decide on the amount that we are willing to lose in our pursuit of action. Once we have done that I use the envelop method, your bank will provide you with half a dozen of those little white envelopes if you ask them. Divide the amount of gambling money you are going to spend total for the trip into the number of days you will be there and put that amount into as many envelopes.

When you get to the hotel take your first envelope out and put the remaining envelops in the safe in your room, if there is not a safe in your room the hotel will have a safe deposit box at the front desk. If there is neither you are in the wrong hotel. I suggest splitting the money you now have in your pocket in to two units also, spending money in your wallet and gaming money in your money clip. Ladies may just want to keep the gaming money in the envelope and put it in your purse.

Now you are ready to go get em! The money you have is all the money you can gamble with and when it is gone you are done for the day/night. Now we further budget decisions, let’s just say for the sake of example we are on a 4 day trip to Vegas and our bankroll is $2000.00 so we have four envelopes, three in the safe and $500.00 in our money clip. Now it becomes pretty easy to decide whether or not we should join our poker pals who are entering the $500.00 buy in multi table tournament at 10:00 am the day we arrive. Have fun guys, I am going to go to the Luxor and sign up for the $50.00 noon event and play 2/4 limit and see if I can make back my entry fee before it starts.

The management part of this is easy, you only have $500.00! Now let’s say our hero lost the $500.00 for day one by 8:00pm. You are done. You have no more money for gaming until 6:00am the next morning, if you ever break this rule you need to stop playing poker you have no self control and are at risk of making larger mistakes. This program is easy, and you have other money and lots of other things to do, go to a nice dinner and see if your wife wants to go to a strip bar. Who knows that night may be the most fun night of the trip, just no more gaming.
The neat thing that happens now is that the next day you have a fresh new start and a brand new FAT $500.00 bankroll! Let’s say that on day two we do much better and at 3:00am we are headed back to the room with a net gain of $700.00 + The $500.00 we started with giving us a total of $1200.00 in our money clip / Working bankroll. Nice job player! Now we have some money management decisions to make.

(A) Refill day one and day two’s envelops, leave day three in the safe and try to play on your $200.00 white meat.

(B) Refill day two’s envelop, leave day three in the safe and play on a $700.00 daily working bankroll.

(C) Leave day three in the safe and play on a $1200.00 daily working bankroll.

(D) Take out day three and play on a $1700.00 daily working bankroll. Remember its YOUR MONEY it’s ok to play higher if you want to; you are just being responsible and thinking about your choices. The only thing I would state here is that you need to be prepared to lose it all and when you do; you have to check your ego at the door on day four and step down to limits more fitting your $500.00 bankroll. Do NOT Chase any money you have lost in the larger game with your smaller daily working bankroll. Before you step up I would consider that it is hard to step back down and I would also warn you that just because you now have a larger bankroll does not mean that you are a better player. You may be better off staying at the limit that won you the money.

Managing your money in this fashion is fun, you have more control and in the long run you are giving yourself time to make the best decisions for you and your situation.
I will tell you right now that I chose option (C – Save day three and play on the $1200.00). This is the best choice for me because I can play a little higher and I still have choices while remaining inside my money management guidelines. Let’s say that I stumble and fall and get busted at 6:00pm on day three, I can still decide that if I want to continue to have fun and play (I am in Vegas after all) that I can go back to the room and reload with my day three envelop and restart my session at the $500.00 working bankroll level.

Let’s say that our hero (You) makes the play I would have made and heads out the door with $1200.00 in his pocket and $500.00 in the safe available if necessary. We play a $250.00 buy in tournament with our now larger working bankroll and what do you know all those years practicing at the pokerschoolonline.com pay off. We make third place, we should have won it but a donkey called our all in with 56 and cracked our AA, what can you do. Third place pays us $1850.00 so we are now working with $3050.00 and $500.00 in reserve. Let’s take a brake and have some dinner with our lovely wife and beautiful daughters, they are sure to want to hear every detail of our conquest. Hey, it’s my story I can make up stuff that would never happen.

The point is this it’s time for a brake and another group of money management choices.
(A) Play the 3050.00 and go back to the room and get the day three envelop and play a total working bankroll of 3550.00. We are on a roll and we should buy into the largest cash game we can after all we are leaving tomorrow or are we? I could easily do this for a living, run this up to 50 or 60 grand and ……

(B) Go back to the room and refill day one and day two leaving us a $2050.00 working bankroll and $1500.00 in reserve with $500.00 still earmarked for day four. This is a neat choice because we have the total bankroll we were willing to lose protected in the safe on day three and if we leave in that spot we leave even and that by itself is a nice achievement.

We make the smart choice and head out into the night rested and well feed with two grand to play with and happy girls, life is good. Let’s say we play a little higher, now is a good time. We are not worried about the money and we are feeling pretty good. We enter the 15/30 game up one level from our normal 8/16 limit holdem game and we learn something. The players at the higher level are better and we learn that this is a good thing, they are not out classing us, we have practiced and we are ready. The play at this level is more predictable and because it is a larger game than we are used to we are playing tight but aggressive, watching the players identifying their tendencies, guessing their hands (to ourselves only of course) when we are not in a hand and then using all this information when we have cards worth playing.

3:00am tired but very satisfied we book a nice win in the 15/30 $1600.00 up for a total working bankroll of $3650.00 with $1500.00 in reserve and $500.00 earmarked for day four. We are off to bed and when we get up we need to do some more money management planning.
I am not going to drag this out any more you get the idea. I will just say in summation that my move on day four is to play a $1650.00 working bankroll of the total $5650.00 I have available to me on day four, assuring me that worst case scenario I take home $4000.00 booking a nice $2000.00 win for sure.

When I am in the airport at 3:00 going home I have just over $5000.00 bankroll and because hey I was up and I gambled a little. I also have $1200.00 of the $2000.00 in real world money I didn’t spend on other entertainment because I only busted one day and I was playing so much.

What a trip!

You will notice that this system is designed to focus on keeping me in play NOT as an income device. I love poker and I want to play, the worst thing that you can do is lose all your money on day one and like I said going to the ATM is just a sucker’s play. Be your own best friend at the poker table, make a plan before you leave home and stick to it. I have used this system for over 20 years and I hope it helps you enjoy the game of poker as much as it has helped me.

Mark

Seven Card Stud Sit & Go At The 2005 WSOP With Karina Jett

I was at the 2005 WSOP with the tribe and we were farming sit and goes, these are one table, winner take all mini tournaments that allow players to get into larger events for less than the full buy in.

It works like this; let’s say that there is a $5000.00 event tomorrow, they will run a single table for $525.00 and Harrah’s keeps a cut for running it and the winner gets 5125.00 the bulk of this being paid in the form of $500.00 tournament buy in chips which can be exchanged for a seat in the next day’s event or any event that year.

The truth is that these chips are used as currency and are regularly bought and sold at the series. There are players that play these sit and goes all month and never enter one of the larger events, it is pretty juicy. The other cool thing about these events is that you can play a smaller version of the larger event at a nice price and the truth is that if you can’t beat the sit and go you might not be ready for the larger event. It is also a great place to try a game that you are new or less skilled at and that is the meat of this little poker story.

John Galt and I were in the lineup for the sit and goes and when they say sit and go they mean it, when ten players are ready they fire up a table. We were waiting for a hold’em game when the brush called out, “We are seating a $175.00 single table STUD sit and go.” I looked at Jason and was like you want to? He is a very good stud player. I know about as much about playing stud as George Bush does about basic economics. In other words I don’t have a clue except that it is poker.

We are walking over to the table where they are going to have it and I say “Ok Jason tell me how to play this while we are walking over there.” He says “Just play good hole cards and watch what the other players have.” Ok then, I guess am ready! We are sitting down I see Karina Jett in the #2 seat and I have to say that she has always been very nice to me and is truly a class act. Her husband Chip is the same way true professionals both of them. Karina can also play, well.

http://www.pokerpages.com/players/profiles/26327/karina-jett.htm

We play for an hour and a half and get down to five of us and the antes are getting up there. I am at the point where I need to make a move, my door card is a 2 of hearts and I have a 3 and a 4 in the hole. This may be it, I bring it in and it is folded around to Karina who is showing a Queen, everyone else folds. The next card I get is a 5 and now I am open ended, Karina draws a 7 and bets, I raise and she looks at me with the (Do you have a set already) kind of look and calls. Fifth street gives me a 10 and her a 4, she checks I bet, she calls. Sixth Street is the same I am just betting hoping she will give up and lay down something like queens believing the set story. I am trying to sell and she keeps calling.

We get our last card down and I am too far along to quit so I bet dark and she calls with her last chips, she is all in. I am sure I am beat and actually say “Good call, I was on a straight draw.” She flips over two pair Queens and tens and I flip over my down cards and to my amazement I caught on the river! The ace of spades! I had the wheel! I said “I am so sorry Karina, I bet dark and didn’t look, and I made the wheel.” The dealer is pushing me this giant pot and Karina is just sitting there shocked. Then I look at Jason and he says “Real professional Boss!”

I have to admit I was screwing around and in the end I really did feel like a doofus, but now I have a bunch of chips so, let’s do this. We go for another half an hour and Jason has to get it in the best he can and gets knocked out. Then there were three. I offer to give him stud lessons later as he is leaving and he questions whether my mother was married to my father.

Two hands later I look down and see rolled up Aces, Sweet! Long story short I get it all in and the other big stack at the table makes a straight on the river. Poetic Justice. I had a chance to win that thing too.

I guess the point to this whole story is you don’t need to be the best or really any good at all to have fun playing poker at the world series, so get out there and do it. Life is too short to sit on the sidelines thinking you are not good enough.

Every time I see Karina on T.V. now I am just a little embarrassed, but I still say it, “Hey I played with her before!” I am sure when sees me on T.V. she will turn to Chip and say “Hey, That’s The Guy!”

Don’t get too serious, it’s just a poker game after all.

2007 Feb In Vegas Hoyt And the 20/40 Short Game

The 10 / 20 no limit game is a big game for me especially at the Bellagio because the players buy in for so much and are not afraid to put you to the test. The game is 10/20 blinds but some of these guys are playing 30 grand or more behind.

It is particularly bad when it is short handed because the blinds are coming around so fast and you have to open up and play more hands or you will just get ground down. I shouldn’t have been there, I knew that, but Hoyt Corkins sat down and if I was going to do something stupid tonight I was going to do it sitting next to a world class player, to his left if possible.

I went and bought $1200.00 in orange $20.00 checks and had $800.00 in cash behind, this had become my preferred buy in to this game. This buy in gave me chips to play and a not so easy amount of cash for my table mates to wonder what I had “behind”. I was un-racking to Hoyt’s left when the cowboy himself turns to me and says “We are playing 20/40 blinds because it is short handed but everyone has to agree, so if you want 10/20 instead just say so.” I said the only thing a guy with two testes could say “No problem.” Gulp. Holy Mary! Not only are you playing shorthanded with one of the world’s greatest players, you just agreed to double the stakes!

I quickly figured whatever this is how you get experience and I wanted that more than anything. I want to take my place at the table. I need to keep pushing and if I really work hard I will be one of the best with a life time of stories about how I got there. I already knew how this was probably going to go down. Experience was expensive and I had already bought a bunch of it to get where I am now. You need to leave a bunch of skin on a ton of nails before you get over those fences of experiences.

I knew my ego and bankroll were in for a pounding, I was excited! I also knew that you don’t learn anything new standing on the beach; you need to get out there and swim. Minutes later I couldn’t even see land and the metaphorical sharks were glad to see me.

I spent the better half of the 30 minute down folding and I was stuck around $200.00 just posting my blinds. I was just bleeding money I had to decide to get in there and play or get up and admit I had no business being there. The truth was I didn’t really have any business being there but I wanted to play, I wanted so badly to belong at that level. I felt like a small boy riding his father’s bicycle, the bike was too big for me but I had heart and if I could just find a downhill part that might be enough.

I looked down and saw AJ in the big blind, it was folded to Hoyt in the small blind and he made it $100.00. He always made it $100.00. I had just about had my fill, I call. The flop came down JJ4 rainbow. Hoyt fired out $300.00 and I paused for a second and called. The turn was a 7 and the Alabama Cowboy made it $600.00 to go, I counted out the six hundred and said well I guess that would leave me with about $800.00 left, I am all in. The man in the hat fired his cards in the muck and I showed him what he already knew, nice hand said. A $2000.00 pot off Hoyt Corkins, this bike might not be too big after all. I visited with him over the next couple of hours of mostly small ball poker and small talk. I told him that I thought he was a class act as far as name brands went and he asked me if I was going to play in the world series of poker this year.

I said that I was and he said he would see me there. Hoyt got up to go get a candy bar and one of the others got called to the main game. The feeder broke up and I started swimming for the beach, I took my time there was nothing out here I needed to be afraid of, not today anyway.
I met up with the cowboy in the main game later and you won’t believe what I saw, more on that in the next blog…..

Hoyt & The Main Game.

The Jerk In The Vegas Seven Card Stud Game

I suppose you might call this a rant rather than a blog and I wish I knew this belly crawlers name because I would post it here. I was waiting for the 10/20 no limit feeder game to fill up a little more as it was three handed and I am just now feeling comfortable in that game, but shorthanded was not in my comfort zone yet. So I decide to sit shorthanded in the 20/40 limit stud game, why I thought that was a good idea only the lord knows, but I sat.

I bought in for a rack of red ($500.00) and I play fairly tight in that game jacks or better split and nines or better wired, so I was sitting there four handed anteing and mucking a lot and this guy who I can only describe as a fifty year old “I’m so much better than you California type” was jamming the pot at every street and the other two guys would call the small bets and when the big bet came he would auto fire and they would lay down. I pick up rolled up threes and make quads on Fourth Street and I check raise Mr. Wonderful and he re pops and so do I. He gives me the, you are supposed to fold not raise look; “can you beat a full house?” I say “So I need quads?” he re-raises so do I and then he calls. I bet dark and he mucks his hand, he says nothing and I stack his chips.

This is where he pissed me off, like five or six hands later I pick up three spades and figure I will call and see what happens, long story short there is mass action and he is aggressing the whole way and I am calling all his bets. We get our last card and I have completely missed so I bet $40.00 and he goes into the showing me one of his down cards is a jack telling me that with his other cards he has a straight and raises and I am sure he is totally full of shit so I re-raise. He turns his hole cards face up and says you got me and I wait until the dealer turns his cards over and puts them into the muck and show him my cards to tell the jerk he folded the winner.

Then a thing happens I cannot believe! He says “Wait, I call” and puts out $40.00 and says “Tabled Hand” I say no way and the floor is called, Tim who is a friend of mine and a very nice guy says “Mark, I am sorry but if he tabled his hand (ie: turned his hand face up and put them on the table) those cards are playable, it isn’t very sportsman like but he is right.” I was red hot now “Tim his cards were in the muck!” This jerk was yelling so loud for this pot that Jared the floor supervisor walked by and this was his undoing. He carefully explained everything to Jared and I mean everything including him showing me the Jack and Jared says “I don’t care about the tabled hand push this man his pot” and points to me. He goes on to say that if Mr. Wonderful exposed one of his cards to an active player his hand is dead right there.

That was the final decision and I started racking up my chips when Mr. Angle shooter says you’re picking up? I said “I don’t play cards with assholes and you qualify. He says “So your calling me and Asshole?” and I said stood up, he stood up and I had him by at least a hundred pounds and I was pissed! “If it is too noisy in here for you we can go outside and visit.” He sat down and I finished racking up. What a jerk, he plays in that game all the time and seven stud is not my game I am just learning. I sit at the highest limit there is in that casino for that game and give him action. Honestly he has the best of it and he wants to pull some cheap crap like that? I won’t play in that game with him again until I have a much stronger game, first I play to have fun and second when I play him again I will have the best of it. You can shear a sheep many times but butcher it only once. I feel sorry for the guy fifty or sixty years old and his integrity tank is on empty, what a wasted life.

Just then Hoyt Corkins walks by and sits in the 10/20 No limit feeder game. I yell over to Tim and say put me on the list for the 10/20 and he says seat open boss I will lock it for you.
More on this in the next blog “Playing short with Hoyt”

2007 Vegas Jason’s BirthdayFeb In Vegas Seven Card Stud