Playing under our little satanic-spade banner … David Pflaster. Some of you may recall … he got his start playing at the Lodge and before you knew it was getting aces tattooed on his forearms, dealing in Dallas, and about a year ago moved to Las Vegas to make it as a low-stakes pro.

He actually seems to be doing it — says he’s just slightly better than breaking even in cash games while hitting some “big” scores in tourneys. More than $20k in the past few months in Caesar’s freerolls, another $10k win online … today he’s playing in the $2,000 NLH event … and with about half the field eliminated just before dinner break, he’s a pretty-big stack with about 18,000 chips (more than double the avg.). Seen here after just having taken out a player who moved all-in on his big blind in a hand where he woke up with pocket kings.

NOTE TO SELF: Satanic Spade … good name for a new death metal band!

UPDATE: According to Pflaster: “Dude, my Aces ran into Jacks.” His opponent was apparently a relative big-stack … so he’s now down to 3600, with blinds at 300/600 … and Pflaster in the big blind on the next hand after dinner break.

Yikes. But at the same time, on the previous break he and I talked about this exact situation, and how he’s learned his way out of it. We’ll see, no?

Former Lodge Amateur Poker player and Rounder Club honcho Terry Keratsopolous is at the final table at a WSOP-Circuit event in New Orleans. Haven’t found any semi-live coverage yet … but just an FYI for those of you who’d like someone to route root for.

UPDATE: It’s reportedly a $500+ event … First place is about $28k, 10th place about $2,800. They started the final table at about 4 pm eastern … and Terry was short-stacked, standing 8th in chips.

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I loved being a tournament director — training dealers was particularly fun at the Lodge, and I can think of no truer example of getting to be a benevolent dictator. You have some basic big rules to follow, and then lots of little rules that you can interpret in any number of arguable ways … but the ultimate determination is left to a supreme court of one — and there are no appeals, unless, of course, you decide to change your mind.

Bellagio tourney director Jack McLelland introduced a little democracy to the WPT today — responding to some complaints on Daniel Negreanu’s blog* — by putting his show-one-show-both rule to a vote among the remaining players, who overwhelmingly supported this seemingly sensible mid-tourney change. The short-stack lobby, however, was unsuccessful in persuading the Bellagio’s Dear Tourney Leader to lower the blinds.

From the WPT Live Updates:

Rule Change!
Tuesday, April 22, 2008 12:15 PM PDT

Before the start of play, Daniel Negreanu and Jack McClelland stood up on the stage next to the featured table to make an announcement.

McClelland talked about Negreanu’s blog, stating that Negreanu’s complaints about the show one card, show both rule may be valid, and that he would like to put it to a vote.

So he asked the room if they would be opposed to a rule change. The response was overwhelming to say the least. Nearly every person in the room voted to change the rule.

McClelland responded with, “In the words of Steve Lipscomb, “Ahh…. F#%K it,”" and just like that the rule was changed.

Players are still not allowed to flash a card in the middle of the hand, however. The rule only allows you to flash a card after the hand is over.

After McClelland gave himself a 20-minute penalty [for language], he did warn the players that he has been training the dealers for three years to turn both cards over, and that they should be patient with them as they learn the new rule all over again.

*NOTE: Still looking for a direct link to the post McClelland was referring to. If anyone has it, please pass along. Thanks.

North Texas fireworks kingpin Ran Nelson brought his tight-aggressive Dallas game recently to the Mandalay Bay.

Though I haven’t been writing much about anything it, I have been hitting the tables here in Vegas. Have sampled a handful of rooms and action … spreading the lore of the Hammer and the Sang all along the way, of course, as I seek to replace the competitive camaraderie of the Batface home game perhaps with something akin to Jackie’s back in the (Dallas underground hey)day.

That came easier than usual this week, when TBR-bro-in-law Patrick came to town. He was staying at the Luxor, so we met up at Cathouse for a drink. (Cathouse is basically like the Lodge without the nipples, and Celeb-chef Kerry Simon in place of Jose Luis.) A couple Lagavulins later, we walked over to Mandalay Bay, where we took two seats together at a $2/$4 no-limit table. This was bigger stakes than either of us had been playing, but hey, we were feelin’ half-drinky good, and it seemed a better option than waiting, as the room was totally full and festive on a Thursday night. A familiar face was seated with us – Ran Nelson, a very good Dallas player whom I hadn’t seen since the days of Jackie’s – what a delight. He had a new cardmarker, a square block of acrylic with his little Stuey guy inside of it, surrounded by chips from the various important poker rooms to Ran, including WinStar in Oklahoma and the old Sixth Street in Dallas.

I was playing great – more-than-doubled up in about an hour by trapping a well-stacked opponent in classic Dan-style … but then was back to square 1 a few hands later when I got unlucky on the turn … and back to square 0 when I don’t remember what I did but I am pretty sure it was stupid, starting with playing the likes of .

Mandalay Bay
$2/$4 NLH
Buy-in: $300
Cash out: $0
Food: starved
Drinks: $28
Net: -$328

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Pokerati limo driver Bob Haney, headed to Vegas where he will join nearly a dozen other Rounder Club expats in pursuit of a better poker life.

STATE HWY 287 (Somewhere in the Texas Panhandle)–Call it a whim if you will, but Pokerati has decided to relocate … to Las Vegas. And we’re en route right now. Like literally — as I type we’re slowing down for the junction with Farm Road 2530 as we head in to Childress. As far as I know, there’s no law against blogging while driving, right?

OK, that’s kinda a joke … we’re not stupid, and Pokerati likes to roll in style, which is why we have a chauffeur handling some of the commute. Meet Bob (pictured). Bob was one of the first Lodge Amateur Poker players … who would go on to win the LAP Player of the Year, earning him a seat in last year’s WSOP Seniors event. He woulda cashed, too, had he not gotten it all-in pre-flop with AA against 55 … only to see a flop of 10-5-5. Ah, yes, the 21+ hour drive from Dallas to Las Vegas will clearly be much more enjoyable as we get to trade bad-beat stories all along the way!

Anyhow, Bob is headed to Vegas, he says, “to pursue my new love, which is cards.” And apparently he gives me some sort of credit blame for his addiction playing poker cupid. So after recently getting fired from his job as a security guard under legally nefarious circumstances (two-time whistleblower vs. an allegedly embezzly boss), he said “fuggit!” and decided to hitch a ride with Pokerati to the Nevada desert, where he plans to go to dealer school and start a new chapter in his life.

Hmm, sounds good to us.

This post is not for 99.997 percent of the readers out there.

But for the guys in the Batface home game … they might find it hardly surprising to know that on Sept. 12 — or right around that day — “sangy farha” started playing (for play money) on Full Tilt. That was the same day of the tournament on Absolute Poker that has since thrown the online poker world into a tizzy. The hand being played that sparked it all: Yep, you guessed it … 9-2 offsuit, aka The Sang, which we all know is kinda like the hammer, only a little bit more powerful.

Because of his connection to the scandal, Drinky Sang may or may not be making future appearances on Beyond the Table as our strategy and psychology correspondent. Click below to listen to Sang’s screen test, recorded on a drive home from The Lodge in a pouring rainstorm.

[display_podcast]

You’ll hear him talk a little final table strategy, discount his monster play-money bankroll online, threaten to kill people, lose his online chat priveliges, question the presence of Tom Schneider’s genitalia, threaten to kill the guys at Ante Up, and fall in love with a wet puppy.

So be sure to tune in to current and future episodes.

As action gets underway today at the Arizona State Poker Championship, the Arizona Posse’s last man standing is Jesse McGinty. So wow, he’s like good or something. With 20 players left, they’re well into the money, and the Chinese/Irish/Italian master has 490k in chips … average stack is 225k. Pat Poels will be doing commentary for a local TV station not on the internet. I know a lot of you readers don’t really care about these guys yet, but really, they are nice dudes, smart and funny, tough like Rumble Fish. And they actually win a lot, so c’mon, get on the bandwagon now! (Or at least once McGinty makes it to the final table.)

By the way, Lisa in Scottsdale sends along a picture of one of the buttons from this event, with its familiar looking crest:

Meanwhile, in Dallas amateur action, Sang will be competing today in the quarterly Lodge Tournament of Champions in pursuit of a $1,500 WSOP seat rebate on his stripper tab/pole taxes.

The former Rev. Good Chuck in Fort Worth wants to play in the $1,000 Red River Roundup main event, being put on by the mighty-noble-legendary Winstar tribe of Thackerville, OK. We all know he’s a pretty good player in few-hundred dollar tournaments, so he’s looking to try his hand at something a little bigger.

But he also wants to do it with a little backing love. He has a potential investor, and he’s trying to figure out the best, most sensible deal for both parties. His initial thought is to allow the backer 30 percent for $500, or 50 percent for $800. As you know, we learned a lot about backing deals during the WSOP, specifically that the “you buy me in and get your money back + 50 percent” isn’t necessarily the standard. So anyone got any thoughts on this?

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OK, so maybe he isn’t the first amateur online qualifier, nor will he be the last … But he is the first Rounder Clubber to make accomplish such a feat, and that’s pretty cool. So big congrats to Chris Como, the most accomplished Lodge Amateur Poker graduate and Rounder Club alum. He invested $24+2 in a 336-player event on Full Tilt, where the top 25 qualified for a $200 event … where the top 9 out of 552 won a $12,000 main-event package.

(Sorry Como, can’t Google- hide your name any more … When you register for the WSOP, that becomes a matter of semi-public record.)

UPDATE: Numbers corrected above. Interestingly enough, the first tourney was the last super-satellite into the last WSOP-qualifying satellite on Full Tilt. Como played both events back-to-back, from about 6 pm to 1:30 am.

So out of however many hundreds of pros and thousands of amateurs in the main event, he is now someone whose progress Pokerati will be following — and we couldn’t be happier. Go Como! Make the final table and maybe we can get you a jersey.

In addition to him, below are other the players we care about might possibly be watching in a couple weeks:

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Pat Johnson, one of the most lovable cranky old bastards you might ever sit across from at a table, died last week at age 63 — after a motorcycle accident in Alabama. I don’t know many details about his death, but a lot of Dallas players know a few things about how he lived the last few years of his life …

Pat was a widower in declining health, and there was something charming about the way this semi-retired accountant chose to enjoy his senior singlehood — surrounded by attractive young women, playing amateur and low-stakes poker, riding his Harley, and (shamelessly) wearing a t-shirt that said “Grandpa Gone Wild.”

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Jay Greenspan did an interview with a poker radio show in Canada. In it, he declares that the Dallas underground is more vibrant than New York. He also talks about playing at the Lodge just slightly more than halfway through the show.

Click here to have a listen.

Friday, Saturday, Sunday … sorry about that … but anyone who spent any time at the WSOP understands how all the days just start to blur together.

Anyhow, to answer some questions: No, I will not be throwing the tournament at the Lodge today. Nor will I be in future weeks. Neither will B. Armendariz, as far as I know. This task has been put in the hands of “Wild Bill & Posse.” To be honest, I don’t know much about them. He clearly understands how to run a poker tournament, but I’m hearing he doesn’t yet see the value of 20-minute levels and non-doubling blind increases. I found that info out here and here.

So people are wondering if I am pissed. I am not. A little sad, maybe — but no differently than when I bid farewell to my kids at St. Mark’s. (When they get all drunk these days and for whatever reason feel the need to call their former teacher in the middle of the night, I strangely feel proud … and then hang up.)*

I will probably have much more to say about all this in coming weeks — or maybe not — because really, when you look at it, the transition Lodge Amateur Poker is going through is simply a microcosm of a new reality faced by poker everywhere, from free games at the neighborhood tavern on up to the WSOP. Inevitable corporate influence is hardly a bad thing — it brings more money and prizes into the game, which theoretically should make the game better. But from there it’s up to players and people who really care to make sure these interests don’t corrupt/pervert/bastardize the game.

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That was a new thing I had in mind for 2007 … PAL (Poker at the Lodge) as opposed to LAP (Lodge Amateur Poker). Seriously, where does the genius stop? But we’ll have to see what comes of that. So while I still can’t tell you what the thing will be called, I know a lot of folks have a lot of questions about the future of what we thought of as the Best Little Pokerhouse in Texas.

(By the way, thanks to all of you for the kind words and violent encouragement.)

I was hoping to get word of what to expect on Sunday up today — before you all check out from work. But a lotta poker-craziness going on right now, as we type … so if you want to know more about this curiously transitional period, check in with Pokerati on Saturday. That is all for now.

(Good) Poker on …

Just wanted to let you all know that I made it back safe and sound. In record time, no less. Left Las Vegas at 1:15 am PST and arrived in Dallas 8:45 pm CST — 17-and-a-half hours … and that’s with three stops for gas, one wrong turn, and a brief photo shoot at the Hoover Dam.

ALT HED: Sunday is the Day of Getting There

There was a game a lot of us enjoyed playing in Vegas called “Hooker or Ho?” On the road through rural Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, interestingly enough, Deco Chic and I replaced that with “Prison or School?” It’s not as easy as you might think to tell the difference.

Sorry I couldn’t get back in time for the Lodge tourney. I miss you all. Well, all except for about 11 of you.

LAS VEGAS–We’ll just call him C0mo, as in Perry with a zero. He wanted me to change his name to something like Cuomo or Chris C. because he feared Googlish repurcussions for his semi-gambling prowess. But I think he is still just trying to get rid of his nickname “Como the Homo.”

Anyhow, the Lodge’s 2005 player of the year asked me if he could use his prize money to buy into the $1,000 Bellagio tourney instead of a WSOP event, as he believed it provided better odds — such a math geek. Since game selection is an important part of poker and that’s really all I want for my players … good poker … I said sure, no problem. So he took his seat and found himself at the table with Miami John Cernuto and Michael “the Grinder” Mizrachi. Chris C. did better than they did … he took 4th place.

Payout: $40,000

Seriously, I have the chills and/or want to cry.

Only for a short time. Who knew that poker is still going on elsewhere, outside of Vegas, that has nothing to do with the WSOP? Today is the pre-season kickoff for Lodge Amateur Poker, as we’ll be throwing a heads-up tourney. I’ve only done two of these before, so I’m not sure how TD-intensive it will be. But if possible, I will try to live-blog the event (complete with strippers!) for those of you who can’t be here. Am pretty sure CardPlayer hasn’t bought the exclusive semi-live coverage rights to this one — though they probably should.

Am also getting excited about my return to Vegas. I am slated to play in the $1,500 NLHE event on Tuesday … a seat I won way back when in a United Events charity tourney. My tourney play has been garbage of late … but I’m feeling pretty confident that I have made enough mistakes over the past six months to get them out of my system.

Photos (by Jennifer Browning) are in from Event #3 of PSOP♦06 — the Lodge Tournament of Champions. Some of you won’t care about this, others will … but either way, the shots are good fun (work-safe, too … mostly).

Get a table and chips like the ones pictured above at Sadler & Carter, my favorite place for poker supplies.

Deco Chic’s photos from the TOC are trickling in … you’ll see more of them in due time. But I just had to share this one of the #1 and #2 ranked Lodge players … for a variety of reasons.

Reggie Perry, that’s who. Congratulations to “Sarge” for winning the Lodge TOC. It was a good match … the whole of which turned on one significant hand … when Greg Miles pushed in with his AJ on the button, only to run into Sarge’s AQ in the big blind.

The victory was also made more difficult by increasing rowdiness at the final table … which may or may not have had to do with all the drinks ingested by the railbirds, at least one dealer, a couple remaining players, and maybe one Tuaca-y tournament director. A few early elims also figured out that acting gay is a great way to get girls to take their clothes off (while others learned it just makes you look more gay).

Regardless … because of his excellent card-catching and estimable chip-stack-management abilities, we’re sending Reggie to the WSOP, where he will competitively represent in a $1,000 event.

Click below to see the final-table results:

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If you’re playing in the Lodge TOC today/tomorrow, you should be asleep right now. The rest of you can enjoy a sneak peak at what is arguably the coolest poker trophy to date.

Big prizes on the line … the winner also gets a $1,000 WSOP package.
2nd place: a beautiful Sadler & Carter table.
3rd place: the best set of home game chips we can find.

A few other special prizes in the mix as well. Maybe.

Also, dictatorial executive decision, made under the influence of Tuaca earlier this weekend … We’ll be choosing seats White Elephant style. That means we’ll do a random seat draw like normal. But then the top 5 finishers in the overall point standings will get to rechoose his or her seat, in reverse order. So Player of the Year, Bob Haney, gets the final say on where he’d like to sit.

The White Elephant poker plug-in is not addressed in Robert’s Rules of Poker, so we’ll be trying to establish the precedent: Dealers are to high-card for the button before the seat-changes occur.

Sorry about the post absence … busy … anyhow, you may have read here or here about a fun poker game that broke out at The Lodge between some Batfaces and traveling PokerStars — a group that included poker-blogger bad-ass Otis, Nolan Dalla (the king of all poker media), and Greg Raymer.

I would be the first (and only?) guy to suck out on Raymer … sending him almost to the felt when I pushed with AJs against his 88. He apparently loves that hand (and his correct sense of being ahead) … but that’s right — ace on the turn — and this one was for you, David Williams! Go Dallas poker!

Raymer would procede to mock my play (in a very friendly way) and call Shane “gay.”

Much fun, too many pictures, valuable podcasts in the making … oh, and some real poker business actually went down, too.

ALT HED: FMFFL!

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