I think I was in Los Angeles at the end of last summer. Somewhat amazingly, that was the last time I was outside of the desert. I did go to Palm Springs with my girlfriend and met some family there for Thanksgiving … but that’s still in the desert. I didn’t go home this past Christmas for the first time ever in my life, and I haven’t left Vegas once in 2012. This can’t be healthy. I need to get out for a while.

This was THE nit festival of all nit festivals. Your normal hourly rate simply does not translate when you remove the fun-loving, didn’t-come-to-fold tourist factor and replace it with the game-has-obv-passed-me-by-but-I’ll-still-sit-here-and-fold-for-$10/hr-zomg-dreams-do-come-true jaded older Vegas reg. I mean, it was truly miserable.

Las Vegas is awesome. We all know about the availability of booze and gambling 24/7, and the ability to keep whatever sleep schedule you desire. As cash game poker players, we never have to endure the pain of an alarm clock’s rouse, as Vegas embraces daywalkers and nightowls alike. The cost of living is relatively low, especially considering the quantity and quality of entertainment options available as compared to other cities with similar offerings, such as LA, San Francisco, Miami. If outdoor adventure is your thing, you can find plenty of that at places like Red Rock Canyon; hikes such as the Gold Strike near Hoover Dam, which takes you all the way down into the Colorado River; and weird natural beauty like the Valley of Fire. And for those less willing to leave Clark County, there’s the peaceful Summerlin suburbs, and the increasingly interesting downtown Vegas scene.

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A little reminder that The Maven Training boot camp gets underway next weekend … and Pokerati readers get a discounted price. By all means it’s an investment of time and money … that’s why they call it boot camp! No push ups, but otherwise rather intense. If you don’t see the proven ROI in being a Maven graduate, well then you’re probably not ready to step up your game.

Real life training for poker live and online, with a community of continued support and education. Click here for the Pokerati discount, and otherwise just be sure to tell ‘em we sent you.

Mickey Petersen: could be the Lebron James of Poker.

Quick lesson today — from another 20-year-old kid who seems decidedly anti-baller despite going on a hella baller tear since he began his “career” two-and-a-half years ago. Now a CardRunners instructor after turning pro fresh outta high school, Mickey Petersen, known among avid onliners as Mement_mori, is in the running for CardPlayer’s Online Player of the Year at #13 … and ranks 2nd in the world over at 5+5, with qualifying results spread across 18 pages.

Though CardPlayer’s OPOY counts only $1.05 million earned with 18 final tables and two wins in the past year, Pocket Fives totals his wins at $2.7 million. But the stat I find most mind-blowing with this Gen-Z Magic player (inspired by the likes of David Williams, Eric Froehlich, and Dario Minieri to make the crossover into poker, he tells CardPlayer) … Petersen’s average cash is $1,527 … in 1,778 money finishes! Gotta think Phil Hellmuth couldn’t claim more than double that (live and online) over his entire life even if he included cash games … which says a lot because Hellmuth had already won the main event before Peterson was even born.

With Peter Eastgate retired and Gus Hansen one of the losingest players of the year (even if he takes down a WSOPE bracelet today ), seems like Mement_mori (Latin for “Remember you will die”) has easy claim as the best player in Denmark even though he has yet to cash in a live event. It doesn’t cost online players a thing to get their Cardrunners schooling with financial aid from Truly Free Poker Training. (Sign up here – promise you’ll qualify.)

Just read a fantastic, eye-opening, blog entry about variance in poker. I highly recommend you read it if you are serious about playing poker for a living.

The brilliance contained in this article is how you react to it. After reading it take the following quiz.

Which statement below is most accurate:

A) They (The Pros) aren’t as good as everyone says they are.

B) You aren’t as good as you think you are.

Had an interesting convo last night with @HeartlandPokerTodd (not his real twitter name, though it prolly should be) …

Todd Anderson from Fargo, North Dakota, bought into his first WSOP Main Event a few days ago, and we were talking about the value of chips acquired early in this $10k, long blind-levels, triple-stacked tournament. Before long we began to conclude that a player would be fine making it to Day 2 without playing a single hand. We couldn’t agree, however, on where that chipstack would be at the end of Day 1.

So here is my attempt to calculate it … feel free to disagree and/or disparage:

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Our good friends at CardRunners want you to know about a contest they’ve got going … the CardRunners Video Challenge … where you’ve got a chance to show your educational mettle in an effort to win cash and possible side-work.

We’re more than happy to pass on the info, and encourage you to follow your dreams of becoming a Hollywood an internet star by teaching online poker geeks to mathematically extract more money from their less-educated opponents.

CardRunners Is Giving Away Almost 10k In Prizes

CardRunners is going to pony up $5,000 for the best poker video, so if you ever wondered how your poker training teaching skills match up against the competition, now’s your chance.  We’re inviting you to submit the best poker training video at http://www.cardrunnersvideochallenge.com before 11am PT on July 1, 2010 to be eligible for the big payday and an offer to become a CardRunners instructor.

Spielberg. Coppola. You.

Visit CardRunners Video Challenge and submit your soon-to-be famous poker instructional video by following the stated instructions.  Don’t forget to review Tech Support 101 and Lee Pryztula’s Crash Course on Video Making.  It’s gonna be magic, baby.

“First Prize is a Cadillac Eldorado. Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third Prize is you’re fired.” Actually, the real prizes are:

Grand Prize: $5,000 and an offer to become a CardRunners instuctor
Second Place: $2,500
Third Place: $1,000
Fourth Place: $500
Fifth Place: A deluxe poker chip set valued at $175

Cool. Sign up to submit your video here.

If you haven’t noticed yet, the folks at CardRunners just completed a major overhaul of their newly expanded poker training website. Now more than just Brian Townsend’s blog … lol, you mean there was more to it all that time? Anyhow, now with a slicker interface and an even bigger library of training videos for players seeking either quick, situational refreshers or more serious studies on reads and subsequent actions throughout a game …

This week, I vid’d up with Markuis, apparently quite the low-stakes heads-up no-limit specialist. He must be good … because the bets and hands all seem to work out right for him on four separate, simultaneously running tables. I suppose it’s my task to figure out how … and maybe why.

To fast-track your path to success, get a little drinky before “school” and you could be 8-tabling his action. (Double the knowledge?)

Put in your own table-time for even more full-length CardRunners video lessons — Markuis heads-up excerpt below — at TrulyFreePokerTraining.com.

We don’t necessarily talk much strategy here at Pokerati, but I’m gonna make an effort to occasionally chronicle my own errors at the table with the goal of not repeating them (often). I had a pretty good session of Pokerati 1/2 (no-limit hold’em/PLO round of each) at the Hard Rock. In for $400, I had made a nice come back from about $80, rebuilding my stack to about $800+change — thanks to Katikin-on-tilt — when I got 6d 8c 9c Jd in the small blind. With about four limpers I threw in the buck.

The flop: 6-7-10 rainbow.

I tossed in $6 … had to build something. The cut-off, a solid player and the other big stack at the table with about $700, also mostly from @JaKatkin, called.

I know better than to bet the non-nuts in Omaha … and my instincts were screaming, “That Ace is not a bad card for him!” But I convinced myself it might also have given him something like A-10, which he likely wouldn’t bet, but might call with.

The turn came another 7, to put two hearts on the now-paired board. He bets $20. I pot it for $82. Alarm bells go off for my opponent but he calls. I start thinking about the boats he might have. Not pocket 10s. 6-7 was a possibility, but I think he woulda raised me on the flop. Pocket 6s was a threat, but not a big one, because I had one. 7-10 was scarier, but same thing … I think he woulda popped me on the flop with either of those hands.

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We all know how poker offers many rewards to the smarties. (Well, some of us do. Don’t tell the others, please.) So no surprise, really, to see poker featured over on the Chronicle of Higher Education website this morning.

In an article titled “What Poker Can Teach Us,” James McManus (Positively Fifth Street) shares a number of arguments on poker’s behalf, suggesting how poker helps us in various areas such as politics, business, and even in the struggle to come to a better understanding of the human condition.

The article adapts material from McManus’ long-awaited, forthcoming history of poker, Cowboys Full: The Story of Poker, which finally hits the shelves later this month.

Part 2 of his tutorial with Kristy Arnett … this time Schneider talks about how to play “royalties” and deuce-to-seven in the middle … along with some additional strategy to out-point your opponents.

It was dinner break on Day 7 of the main event — and hoping to finalize our patch deal with the really big money (and camera time) getting nearer, I joined Tom Schneider, along with Julie and Robert Goldfarb, at a Vietnamese restaurant with less than 30 minutes before play resumed. But alas, so much for Team Pokerati cracking the top 50 … all they wanted to do was play Chinese for $10 a point.

Here’s his latest instructional vid, teaching Kristy Arnett how to play everybody’s favorite 13-card game:

It’s something that wasn’t written about in Super/System … yet everyone has to consider it. Barry Greenstein has a good vlog post up about what goes into making a decision about which day to start in the WSOP main event, where he gives his thoughts on why day 1c may be the toughest field to wade through — with input from Justin Bonomo, Roland deWolfe, and Sorrel Mizzi. Check it out here.

Today is the first day of the 2009 main event. I’m sticking to my guns and saying the field size will be anywhere from 3,000-12,000 and offering 10:1 odds on anything outside of that. Just made a wager on the over for 5,000 … easy. Anyone else wanna offer that line? Seriously, it’s such a wild guessing game, and yet in the end, why do I think it’s gonna be just a few hundred less or just a few hundred more than last year’s main event field of 6,844? People can get their money off of PokerStars, right?

Meanwhile, Team Pokerati final tableist Gregg Merkow won his main event seat last night … and now is trying to figure out the differences between Day 1A-1D:
via Facebook

Winner winner chicken dinner won my seat to the main event in mega sat. today but can’t decide what day to play fri,sat,sun or mon.

Good question. Though as Kevin points out the numbers will likely differ noticeably as the 96 hours that constitute Day 1 progress, is there really a difference in the types of fields you can expect on each day? One more donkey-filled than another, for example (and is that a good or bad thing, lol).

Choosing when to play, of course, is the first of many decisions that will be part of someone’s journey toward becoming the winner. But it may also be the least relevant and simply depend on the player and his or her life schedule.

PokerNews has a pretty cool new(ish) feature on YouTube called “Hand of the Day” — where they get two players to break down a specific tournament situation in a relatively interesting way. In this episode, they talk to Bryan Devonshire and Noah Boeken about an unusual hand in $1,500 Limit Hold’em where the dealer dropped the stub and exposed three cards from the bottom of the deck:

Before I go any further, let me make one thing perfectly clear. I respect everyone who’s made the final table of the $1,500 No-Limit Hold ‘em Shootout. It’s a great accomplishment and one I’d be happy to emulate.

That said, my question is, couldn’t this be considered the easiest WSOP bracelet to win? Sure, it’s a tournament that started with 1,000 players, but the winner only has to defeat 26 of them to claim the prize. It’s not the same as a $1,500 donkament where you’re likely to see 1- or 200 different faces on your way to the final table, or even a 10K event where you may face 40 or 50 different opponents as tables break and shift.

This is essentially three sit & gos. Tough? Sure. But compared to other tournaments?