WSOP time!

I leave for Vegas tomorrow. I won't be posting much during the series but I will be doing a Podcast during every break to keep people up-to-date on how I'm doing. You can find my podcast on the home page of my blog or at www.InternetTexasHoldem.com. Also at ITH, you can hear Rizen's and Pearljammer's blog during the series.

Winning Poker Tournaments by Rizen, Pearljammer, and Apestyles

Winning Poker Tournaments - One Hand at a Time by Eric "Rizen" Lynch, Jon "Pearljammer" Turner, and Jon "Apestyles" Van Fleet will start shipping in late June. This is the 4th book I have put out with Dimat Enterprises, a publishing company I founded. My first two books were solely written by me, the next one, The Poker Mindset, was a collaboration with Ian Taylor. Really though, that was his book and I just helped guide him from start to finish while writing it. This new book is a stepping stone for my publishing company as I am now starting to publish other poker authors. Of course, the plan is to maintain a certain brand and quality with all the books Dimat puts out and I am really proud of this book. There is no doubt in my mind that players are going to really love this book.

The book looks at over 170 hands in depth. It is a huge book. It will be 6 x 9 format with 400+ pages. But it is the quality which I believe everyone will be talking about. If all goes to plan, the book should start shipping June 23rd. You can preorder at Amazon or at ITH (the quickest): Preorder Book at ITH

This will probably be my last post for a while, however, I will be calling in to my podcast during the WSOP for frequent updates. You can find the podcast at my blog or at ITH.

Good Sunday

Well, not really - but I feel really good about how I played. I actually think it is the best I've played in quite some time (forgetting my Cake Poker blunder where I only saw two suits on the flop, not three). I only played 6 tourneys yesterday compared to my usual 10.

In 4 of them, I played down close to the money. I came quite close to winning a seat to the WSOP, finishing 49th and 36 seats were awarded. i was pretty much short-stack to average stack the entire time in all four tournaments. I had a hard time getting things going, but when I did have cards, it seemed that my decision making and timing were spot on. I made some really nice calls as well as some nice folds - some of them plays I probably wouldn't have made six months ago. I think I am really starting to understand the advanced online player better, and thus, am able to make better reads and outplay them more frequently.

This is probably the last time I will play until the WSOP. Every year I feel more confident and better prepared than the last, but this year I think the difference is quite substantial. Working with Eric, Pearl, and Apestyles, while also playing a lot myself online has done wonders for my game.

Vegas time baby!

The Sunday tease

After my big win last Sunday in the FTP750K, I was ready and excited to play again on Sunday. The day started with a bang. At one point, I was 2nd in chips in the FTP WSOP satellite with about 12K in chips, I would have been top 40 in the Sunday Millions with 3 times the avg stack of 28K except my aces lost against J3s, and I built a stack up to 12K in the FTP750K. In fact, I actually built nice stacks in practically every tournament I was in. I'm pretty sure that I at least doubled up in about 7 of the 10 tourneys I was in.

With such a great start in so many tournaments, it is baffling that I didn't cash in one. In fact, I didn't get close to cashing. To fall so hard I had to suffer some pretty bad beats. The J3s hand was probably the worse but there were plenty of other bad ones. If anyone wants a good site to play at, try Cake poker. My opponent called a big checkraise on the flop with a gut shot and 2 undercards on the board and the stacks were relatively short - just a horrendous call and unfortunately he was rewarded for his mistake by hitting a 3-outer.

My buddy Rizen knocked me out at Poker Stars. It was a race with my AQs vs his 99, but the gods wanted to punish me and let me flop a pair only to see Rizen hit his 9 on the river.

I did misplay some hands, particularly in the 100RB event where I misplayed aces. A horrific turn card came and I couldn't drop my hand when my gut told me I should. There were a couple of other tourneys where I got my money in bad.

It was all one big tease. Build up some really nice stacks only to see them all fall.

I won't be playing next Sunday as it is Mother's day so I hope to be back in the saddle in a couple of weeks.