COLUMNS

(UPDATED: 09/08/08) Wild Bill's reflections on poker, sports, and issues facing the Gulf Coast:

VIDEO OF THE WEEK UP

"They are going to have to play for all their chips. I shove. Folded around to one guy who insta-calls. Set over set maybe. No, meager little flush draw (nice call?) Alright, I've probably doubled or tripled my stack, I don't care if he hits. This is just the situation I wanted anyway.

Turn is a spade. Table celebrates because the maniac has lost a pot. Blissfully, unaware that the board could pair. I contemplate interrupting their celebrations a bit but the dealer fires off a river brick. Okay, what do I owe.

I'm told he has me covered. What? I've won just about every pot we've played. He hasn't won a hand. What do you mean he has me covered. The guy shows me a stack of huge chips he's got at the bottom of his stack. Where the f did those come from?

The "floor" comes over and says you get extra chips for drinking. Like for every drink you get 20% of your starting stack. He says I'm gone. Wait a second, Scooter, I've been drinking in that bar for four hours. Me and my friends just cleared a $100 tab to walk over here.

Where the f are my extra chips. I needed to ask for them before the hand. Just then I notice a waitress come to the table and give a guy a drink and drop two of the big chips in front of him. WTF. Alright. "[+]

IF YOU'RE TOO CAREFUL

[UPDATED 09/05/08] ReidG ...who was raised in New Orleans and lives in Mobile brings his perspective on the Gulf Coast scene to GCP.NET.

"So today, I was ready to get back into action at the Beau. I decided on playing the noon tourney instead of a cash session. And within the first hour of the tournament, I witnessed some of the most mindless, head-scratching, woeful poker I have seen in quite some time.

It was just downright awful for a bit there. I couldn't exactly decipher a reason why... At any rate, this is how it got going for me today. After registering for the tourney, hitting the restroom, and smoking a cig, I missed my first few hands but got back in time for my first BB.

The action folded around to the CO, an intense, loose, middle-aged Asian dude I've played with before. He opens for 450. Yes, the super-standard, 9x open raise. So the button and SB fold, and I look down at what else? AA. The first hand I've seen in 8 days.

Well here we go already. I just call, preparing to check-raise this fool as soon as possible. The flop comes K65 and I check to him. He checks behind and the Jh hits the turn.

I lead for 600 into about 900 and he doesn't take long to raise me to 2600. Really? I exercise my best discretion and just call instead of getting crazy right off the bat.

The river sorta bricks--it's an offsuit 4--and I check. He bets 3000 and I call immediately. He shows 65 for two-pair and right off the bat, Ive lost 6k from my 10k starting stack. Real good then. ." [+]

SOUTHPAW ROUNDER

(UPDATED: 09/05/08) SPR breaks down hands and offers his perception of poker on the Gulf Coast.

BEAU TO TUNICA

"Sorry for the delay folks. The internet has been a bit hard to get to recently.I am currently in Tunica and have been here since getting the boot from the Beau at about 4am sunday.

As the site was updated by Bill I believe, I finished 18th in event number 2 at the Beau. It was a decent cash. It could have been really special, but I have still not learned how to win w/ AA when I get it allin preflop.

A guy shipped it w/ kj off and I called w/ AA and the flop promptly came kk8. The turn was a jack and this guy said and I quote "wrap it up he's drawing dead" I do not think i have every wanted to hit a card so bad in my life. This guy did not even realize that I could beat him w/ one of the 2 aces. Go figure.

I played the 1st $500 event at the Beau which I believe had about 440 players. There is nothing that I remember eventful from that event except for the fact that I ran out of chips(busted) w/ around 90 players left. " [+]

MTT Player of the Month

July: Colonel Mustard

Poker Fiction

[UPDATED: 08/26/08]PLAYER N scribes a tale of grifters, sleaze balls, and beautiful card sharks all hustling on the Coast.

A BREAK FROM THE SERIAL STORY

"When I'm pitching cards I do little things to keep it interesting. I'll try and land them under a player's hands if they are resting on the table, I'll try and topple a chip stack if it's close to the action or I'll make a complaining player have to stretch to get to them.

The nine seat has had to do a lot of stretching to get to his cards. He's been on a 5 hour heater and is weighing down his side of the table with redbirds and yet he's barely thrown us dealers a bone. Plus, he's slowrolling like his a 9th grader playing cards for the first time.

At the dealer change, Janie told me to beware and she wasn't kidding, Seat 9 is a no tipping a***ole.

A***oles that don't tip deserve to be f***ed with. I'm not obvious about it as sometimes the nice people that actually do tip, tend to take sides against a lippy dealer. But if they really push me, like this guy has done a couple of times, most people will side with the dealer.

It's tough being liked when you are pitching cards. Only one person can be happy per hand. And per revolution that means I've made most of the table mostly unhappy. The idiots don't seem to grasp they are only "entitled" to win one hand in 10.

If they have any talent they might be able to drag 2 or 3 out of ten or win huge pots instead of small ones and turn a profit. But the way they see it, they want to win 10 hands in 10.

Sure I say the sarcastic "thank you" when they give me nothing, but with a jerk like this one it means nothing. Right over his head. Or sometimes they'll catch it, as he did a hand ago. "I've tipped you already," he bitched. "You want all my profit? This rake's killing me anyway. Moral of the story, just do your job, deal the cards, and be thankful you found somebody willing to give you a paycheck. Or go to college and get real job." He winked too. I hate f***ing winkers."" [+]

POKER IS LIFE?

(UPDATED 08/17/08) Goondingy, pure aggression on the felt, examines live poker action:

"I missed the first level of 25-50, 20 minute levels with a starting stack of 5000. I play my first hand in middle position, with a limp. Three others come in and the big blind raises big. I fold. I finally look around the table and recognize two other players, we will call them A and B. The rest...lunchboxes.

Well three levels later I am down to about $3500 and this hand occurs that I am not involved in. Early middle opens for a raise and A calls. The flop is AQ7 rainbow.

"The lunchbox who raised checks, A bets half the pot. LB, calls. The turn is an 8. LB, checks, A fires in a pot sized bet. LB calls. The river is a J, rainbow board, and LB goes...all in. A thinks for a minute and eventually fires his cards towards the muck. One turns up, an Ace and the player asks for the other...A looks at the LB and turns the other over for him, a Queen for top two.

The LB goes, "Gosh, you laid that down!" I think A had the odds to make the call but it was pretty obvious that the Jack on the river made the guys hand...so what did the LB have? Shoot, let me spoil it...K 10 hearts. YEP.

"This is the part that I did not like but said nothing...it's a home game. The guy shows us his hand and A smiles and says, "That's one of the hands you could have had, you're not good enough to bluff there." I shake my head and some of the other guys laugh a little and A finishes with "...what, buddy, it's true isn't it?" [+]

MY FIRST MAIN EVENT

(UPDATED: 07/08/08) Philly Tom is going to the WSOP's Main Event. Read all the details about his journey there....

WSOP WRAPUP

"Well, it's hard to explain how to feel right now. I went out there not knowing exactly what to expect considering I play less poker than almost everybody else in that room.

The scene was a spectacle to say the least. With thousands of people walking around between the Main Event, the super satellites, the cash games, poker pros, celebrities and the Poker Expo, it was sight to behold.

The first hour or so of playing, I think my inexperience showed. I was nervous and tentative and questioning whether I even belonged in the same room as some of these guys.

These players were more aggressive than any others I'd ever played against. Found out after a couple of hours that one of the guys at my table was Dr. Amir Nasseri from High Stakes Poker. Good aggressive and fearless player." [+]

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THE LATEST

WORLD OF POKER UPDATES (09/08/08)

DOYLE BRUNSON BREAKS BREAD WITH MICHAEL PHELPS. Insert Dolphin, fish, shark, water puns and jokes here. Doyle's blog is a pretty good read. After dinner, he says Michael wanted to try and out-drink Doyle's son Todd Brunson which is a bad idea. Todd wearing an Affliction shirt in the photo is probably a bad idea too. Granted it's not like he's wearing a Miley Cyrus shirt but it's probably a brand that is a little too young for the guy. Go to : Doyle on Pokerroad for all the details.

Virge also has a post up where he too spotted the Olympian in Vegas: THE LONELY ROAD. And for those that prefer their news to be more salacious gambling911.com has a report of Phelps in a Vegas strip club. In another article they suggest Phelps may join Doyle's room and that's the real reason for all the hobknobbing and if Michael was lucky they knobhobbing. One of the gambling911 articles has a picture of Phelps and lady stripper. No word if he got his SuperMicheal on or not on his Vegas vacation but it appears he had a lot of fun.

ONLINE LEGALIZATIONS EFFORTS CONTINUE. An update on poker pages has a quote which I think boils down the argument for legalizing the game as succinctly as possible. Joe Brennan Chairman and CEO of iMega said, "You have a law that criminalizes an activity that's illegal online, but perfectly legal offline. The rights that we have as Americans should translate to the online world; there should be no inconsistencies. We should have the same rights online as we have offline." Yay, First Amendment rights, the constitution and all that legal jargon. Read more at Poker Pages.

ONLINE POKER UPDATES (09/06/08)

DURRRRRR DOES IT BIG. Pink Flamingo Kid has a Wednesday to remember. Tom "Durrrr" Dwan played in four $400k + pots and won three of them. Try these numbers on for size $447,785, $474,949, $476,305 and finally $499,037. For complete details Poker-King has it covered. You might remember Dwan when Wild Bill was hypercritical of him a few weeks ago, The future of poker is bleak but for a better profile of him, the talented Nicole Gordon gets it done for Pokernews here. Pic from pocketfives.com.

WORLD SERIES OF ONLINE POKER COMMENCES. TODAY. 18 days of action. Ending on September 22nd and including a 25 k high rollers heads up event there will be a lot to railbird on Pokerstars the next couple of weeks

ACTION AUSTIN MARTIN IS ALIVE. He's got a blog post up and promises more. Since he's gotten a partner to help him out we'll believe him, for now. Martin, who once owned an online poker room is getting back into playing online.

MATT 'CUB' CULBERSON WON THE FOURTH EVENT AT THE GULF COAST POKER CHAMIONSHIP. That's not really online news but we still wanted to recognize him, Philip Totty of Albany Georgia (event 3 winner), William Jarret of Cartersville, Georgia (event 2 winner and do yourself a favor and check out his mug shot on pokerpages) and Houston's own Jeff Timms (you guessed it he won event 1). Actually since the GCPC has been called off you can probably find all these guys online anyway.

WORLD OF POKER UPDATES (09/04/08)

POKER PLAYERS, WELL DUPLICATE POKER PLAYERS, HAVE SPOKEN ABOUT WHO THEY ARE BACKING IN THIS YEARS PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. The Wall Street Journal has the details: Duplicate poker players speak.

TJ CLOUTIER IS SAD HE ISN'T GOING TO THE GCPC. Read all the details here at pokerpages: Angry at Gustave. By the way TJ has a myspace page. Weird. Make him your buddy here: Social Network with TJ.

PHIL HELMUTH SPEAKS OUT ON THE IMPENDING ABSOLUTE ULTIMATE BET MERGER. He also touches on the cheating. Here's some spin:

"The people in charge were so impressed with the level headed way that Leggett handled the scandals that they began to consider him for COO. They knew that UB needed someone strong, with an impeccable record, to carry the torch forward and clean up the sites. They knew they needed someone who had a huge commitment to security and integrity, so that UB could win back the players that they lost, and grow the combined UB and AP site into one of the top two or three sites in the world. They watched as Leggett personally took almost a thousand phone calls to the affected players, and committed himself--and the site--to giving players a safe and secure environment to play online poker."

Hmm, being a phone jockey qualifies you for COO? There's more to Phil's thoughts, also on pokerpages: Phil's Rantings and snubbed by Serinda Swan

GULF COAST UPDATES (09/03/08)

GULF COAST POKER CHAMPIONSHIP HAS BEEN CANCELED, FOR NOW. Pokerpages has reported the tournament is canceled, for now. We hope to get in touch with Johnny Grooms to get a more in-depth statement.

However, the Gulf Coast Casinos have been cleared to reopen by Mississippi. We will have info on the Louisiana casinos as it becomes available to us. If you still have power we understand that none of the online casinos went down for the count, though there are a couple of sites we wished got hammered (the servers not the people).

DENNIS PHILLIPS HIRES THE ORACLE ROY WINSOTN AS A POKER COACH. This is bad news for the chip leader of the WSOP Main Event. Here's why: Wild Bill's take on the November Nine. In short, cameras will be trained on the guys that did the training and not the truck driver with a mound of chips at the final table.

OUR THOUGHTS GO OUT TO OUR FRIENDS IN HOUMA, GRAND ISLE AND THE LOWER PARISHES. As many of you know GeneD, Southpaw Rounder and several friends/contributors of the site are Houma natives. We hope when they get back they find things as they left them. Also, with all the foul weather Gustave brought in-land our thoughts and prayers are also going out to our friends in Baton Rouge and points north.

HURRICANE REPRIEVE UPDATES (09/02/08)

GUSTAVE DRENCHES MOST OF THE COAST. We hope that everybody made it out alright and that your families and homes are safe and sound. The Gulf Coast Poker Championship is on hold. Stay tuned to the Beau for the latest updates. They have a letter from their President George Corchis up on their site right now at: THE BEAU.

EVACUATED AND BORED, WILD BILL LOOKS AT NEW POKER PRODUCTS THAT ARE GAG GIFTS AT BEST. Check it out at DINE ON THE WHALES.

CHEATERS SUCK, ABSOLUTE MESS. Interesting read at Gambling 911: Better Ways to Spend Ill Gotten Gains . Staying with Gambling 911 BoDog is unraveling a bit, too. You might know them as Cake Poker: Calvin Ayre is a Millionaire.

GULF COAST UPDATE (08/31/08)

GUSTAVE, WHICH MEANS GOD'S STAFF, BARRELS TO THE COAST. Please be careful if you are in harm's way. We wish you and your loved ones the best in the coming days. Be smart, and if in doubt be overly safe and err on the side of caution. We hope this storm will come in with a whimper and go out with one too. Anyway, stay safe folks. -WB

GULF COAST POKER CHAMPIONSHIP UPDATE (08/31/08)

GULF COAST POKER CHAMPIONSHIP CONTINUES TO BE AFOOT. We have the official results of the first 2 events. You can see the official results here. Thanks goes out to Johnny Grooms for getting these to us.

Event #1

Event #2

I just left the event this morning and there were still lots of people there playing. They had some nice turnouts for the first couple of events breaking the 500+ mark. All the locals were there as well as several other named pros.

Here are a few photos:

Tiltin Texan and Gabe Costner

Southpawrounder

13th place finisher in the 2nd event Cody Carlino

Jared Leblanc from Lafayette who also cashed

I will have some more stuff up soon. I am being pressured into evacuating for this "Kite Flying" weather we are having. Peace out- GD

LOCAL NEWS UPDATE (08/29/08)

GULF COAST POKER CHAMPIONSHIP IS... STILL AFOOT. Southpaw Rounder and the Tiltin Texan are in the money for event #2.

Update: 27 left. Southpaw just got aces cracked---would have been chip leader had they held. Villain went all in with a medium stack (suicide bomber) with KJ. In the small blind Southpaw wakes up with bullets. Calls. Flop is KKx. Turn is a J. Villain says, "He's drawing dead." Davey is willing an ace to come because of his opponent's inability to understand hand rankings. Arguably he also wanted an A to come because he desired to be chip leader in an event where first place pays over 30k... arguably.

Update: Tiltin Texan is out in 24th. Pictured, in happier times, this is another solid tournament performance for the man from the great state of Texas. -WB

For more news that no longer qualifies as the latest, because... it's no longer recent, follow the link below...

ARCHIVED NEWS BLOTTER>>>

COLUMNS

POKER IS WAR

(UPDATED: 08/23/08) Gene D's outlook on the local and national poker scene:

"I have been reading all the poker sites recently looking for some content for the site when I keep coming across the "State Poker Tournaments". Lets see now...There is the Oklahoma State Poker Championship in Tulsa, The Florida State Poker Championship in Pompano Beach, The California State Poker Championship coming up which Ben Affleck won years ago, and the Arizona State Poker Championship in Scottsdale last weekend. The tournament at the ASPC ended last week and they cut it off at 450 players with a $500.00 buy-in and they payed out 3 places. Get this payout

1st Place $100,000
2nd Place $40,000
3rd Place $20,000

A little math here and my question is ..."What happened to the other 65k?"."[+]

THE POKER MONKEY

[UPDATED: 08/29/08] Poker Monkey shares his insights on the tournament poker circuit, life in general, and the battle to make it happen:

"I don't know if I am supposed to feel good when I finish 31st out of 3,225 players or not. You win like $20 and yet you beat over 3200 players and played for over 6 hours. It gets very frustrating.

And then you end up losing with hands like....holding KK...guy raises UTG, and you RE RAISE 75% of your stack only to have the guy go over the top with A6...and of course hit the Ace....what do these people think about when they make those plays?

It is just SO bad online...the play, it makes you wonder what is going on at the other side of that computer. I had a guy yesterday that was hitting EVERYTHING he was playing. It was the $3 rebuy...and first was $5400.

We were in the money and getting deeper. I had just got moved to this clowns table and was watching him play hands AGAINST big early raises with shit like 8-10, 4-6, 2-9...and hitting EVERY TIME! So when he limped in....got two more limpers...and I looked down at AA in the BB....

Even though I had a lot of chips at that point...there was almost 5500 in a pot when the blinds were 200/400....I typed in there...."well if MR CALLING STATION wasn't in this hand...I would just raise to 3000....but I will shove here with THE BEST HAND IN POKER" and move in.

HE CALLS...the others fold. He turns over 9-10 offsuit. He makes a full house. I am out."[+}

THE LONELY ROAD

(UPDATED 09/08/08) Virge's road is the internet highway, he's now one of the top online local players:

WATCH LONELY ROAD VIDEO NOW

"The traditional 24 hour day doesn't really exist as a formal measure of measuring time in Vegas, especially for a poker player. Barring a tournament that you want to play, there are no formal constraints on your time. I would say you go to sleep when you're tired, but it's more like you sleep when you can't stay awake any longer or the game breaks.

My previous "day" started around 3:40 PM (on a Thursday by normal standards) and ended at 3:35 AM (Saturday morning by normal standards). I got out of bed with the intention of cashing a Full Tilt check and paying a bill before the normal businesses closed at 5, but alas I spent too long talking poker to Lusky so I missed that.

After walking the dog, eating, and showering I put in about 1500 hands online; I had plenty of energy to play longer, but I was feeling restless and decided to go out to play live. My friend Josh was at the Wynn putting in hours for their $2,500 giveaway promotion, but I really wanted to do the new Hard Rock room again so I went there. " [+]

AUSTIN MARTIN

(UPDATED: 09/05/08) Austin Martin, former owner and operator of an online poker site brings his expert knowledge and home game expertise to GCP:

"Well, I am not sure that I am back, but at least I am going to get a post in once every six months or so. Seriously, I am going to make an effort to post more regularly. Poker hasn't been kind the last six months, so it has been hard to motivate myself to post here.

Also, I have started playing online again, so it is easier to post while playing, which is what I am doing now. Actually, I am playing live and online at the same time. Talk about multi-tabling.

Regarding my online play, I am focusing on my specialty, multi-table tournaments. I typically play the 45 man turbos on Stars, although I am currently in the $70K guaranteed ($11 rebuy). I have only had to buy in once so far, so hopefully I can make this a cheap overall investment. I will post again later with my results (it could be several months from now, but eventually I will do it). I

f you would like to see how I am doing, my username is Strumey. I currently still hold my shark status at sharkscope, but have been on a bad run lately, so it might be in jeopardy."[+]

The cc Line

[UPDATED: 08/28/08] Shoats tackles sports gambling, fantasy sports and of course poker. He also pledges to snap off lunchboxes at every opportunity.

"A few years ago ESPN, as part of their WSOP coverage, had little features called "The Greatest Hand I Ever Played." Offhand, the only one I can remember was a great bluff that Gavin Griffin made on his way to a bracelet victory. They were nice little stories and they added clips of the hands to augment it.

Overall a good little break from the action without having to go to commercial. Much better than the moronic "Nuts" pieces they do. Really, do I care if pros have leaks worse than the Titanic and bet $50,000 on three holes of golf or play Rock, Paper, Scissors to kill time?

The reason I bring this up is because I melted down in the bizarro counterpart to this feature, which I feel certain is The Worst Hand I Ever Played. I can see a producer figuring out exactly how they are going to document my facial tics after I have irreversibly blown the hand, how they are going to put my awful decisions into slow-motion to make them more dramatic, how they are going to throw some voice-over of a fake poker announcer (I wonder if bizarro Gabe Kaplan is available) to mock me and wonder aloud exactly what the hell I am doing. " [+]

GCP.NET's Official Forum is Full Tilt Forum

DA ROCK OF ACES

(UPDATED: 07/19/08) Da Rock, tells it straight from the dealers' box and the winners' circle.

"Hey guys, after a long absence and some technical difficulties I am back, but just briefly to let everyone know that DAROCK has decided to expand my skills to other people, meaning that I will be teaching people how to deal the game of poker. I will offer poker dealing classes to anyone that wants to make the money that they deserve.

So if you have an interest in knowing how it feels to be on the other side of the felt, contact me thru email or comments for details, classes are starting soon, real soon. Well crew I've got to run. talk to ya soon, and I will again try to write about my Vegas trip that was not published..".[+]

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The Spice Rack

[UPDATED 1/21/08] Lafayette's latest and greatest poker player, Spicer dives back into tournament poker after some time away from the game:

"I just got back from a weekend trip to Biloxi. I played in Saturday and Sunday's 15,000 guarantee tournaments. Saturday had 125 entrants, I finished somewhere between 25 and 20. Sunday's tournament had 75 entrants and I finished 9th, in the money for $600. Very nice. I played very tight (pocket 9's or better, AK, AQ), and caught very few hands on Saturday. I hit Trip Jacks holding J-8 offsuit, I had like 3 big blinds left and I had to do something. "[+}

POOL AND POKER PLAYER

[UPDATED: 06/28/08] DEREK "GRINDER" RIDLEY is a local pool and poker player who plays mostly MTTs online and is as adept at stick as he is at poker:

"weeeeeeeeeeeeee...... Good week so far......
7 out of 2097 in the $3.30 rebuy on Poker Stars for $718 and
1 out of 180 in $4.40 - 180 man on Poker Stars for $216.

I'm also a member of Poker X Factor now for about 4 months, and it definitely paid off tremendously. If you have questions please look me up. I'm getting deep pretty consistently, just need those hands to hold late in tournaments.... GG.......... " [+]

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