They’re gettin’ deep in the NCAA tourney, and not one of us has filled out a proper bracket? With basketball tourists in town, Boyz II Men are playing 1/3 and 2/5 at the Mirage … and Kenna James is sitting behind some big stacks in a 25/50 game at Red Rock? Good time to discuss the practicalities and pitfalls of selling your action in cash games. And if you’re looking for backers on Craigslist and end up in a poker-coaching pyramid scheme … well, we’re not ones to judge, but just be sure to watch your wallet and wear a condom. All that and Awesome Andrew’s Awesome Vegas Living on the View, a new sky-high lounge at the Palms that replaces the Playboy Club of old with checkers and Connect Four … at a time when casinos are kinda-sorta cracking down on drugs and hookers at their nightclubs and pools.
Every week I open tab after tab and occasionally star a website intent on sharing it with you in some sorta blog capacity … hopefully before my browser crashes. So in an attempt to keep tabs on the poker-industry, here’s a grab-bag of relatively new (to me at least) and noteworthy sites to visit because either they’re really good or I owe someone a favor.
— Former Neverwin/Donkdown bandmate (and WSOP bracelet winner) Todd Witteles is going solo to be a crusader for clearing out the scumbags in poker. (And Dan Druff doesn’t need-no fancy “blog” or “forum” software to do it!)
LegalPokerSites.com — These guys hustle to stay on top of poker-related legal matters across America and worldwide … and provide a thorough rundown of the newsbuzz should a certain site’s editor need to catch up with what’s been going on!
StackemCoaching.com — Yet another training site … but this one (led by John Kim and Joe Tehan) focusses on live play and offers coaching via audio lessons and live sweats with their stable of pros. Their students (and coaches) make up many of the local grinder thugs, and thus SEC is shaping the way a certain sect of Vegas player handles their chips these days.
IGamingNorthAmerica.com — Politicians, regulators, and gaming industry nerds executives descend upon Planet Hollywood over the next few days for a boutique confab with Oscar Goodman introducing Caesars’ chief bean-counter to deliver the keynote. Who woulda ever guessed such a policy-wonk road show like IGNA (with panels on taxation modeling, regulatory timelines, internet security, and liquidity paradigms) would be such a hot ticket in 2012?
StupidBetz.com — Possibly in preparation for the inevitable legalization of making semi-obscene jackass-style prop bets online … or maybe just to encourage stupid behavior for money … this site pays out “stupidbuckz” for people to eat bugs, shave heads, and stick tongues in mousetraps.
I’m sure Jamie Gold and Las Vegas will eventually become friends. I for one have a whole new respect for the WSOP-champ in Residence @TropLVPoker after hearing his interview on Donkdown; and philosophically, he’s trying to bring some of the same things to the Tropicana that the Pokerati Game tries to bring to the Palms. But still …
Really … $1k an hour? I mean that’s not quite Carrot Top money, and supposedly Gold’s already had five students pony up … but jeesh … you’d think at that rate they could at least afford a nicer sign!
CardRunners hired Nicolak because their other pros needed someone who could buy beer.
Finally … a new pro at CardRunners I can relate to. The kids at CR are smart and all — and really do offer probably the very best poker training available on the internet — but as I’m sure many of you who’ve signed up for TrulyFreePokerTraining have discovered, they also can be a reminder of the life hard-working poker players over 32 will never live no matter how many MTTs you take down.
Something about John Kim, aka Nicolak, the newest CardRunners instructor, connects with the aggressively balding. Not sure if it’s because he can remember a day when Atari was our internet, or because his scores have come in tournaments that seem a little more realistic to a lower-stakes player. Check out his Hendon Mob stats. He also recently began cohosting Cash Plays on PokerRoad, with Jeremiah Smith, a skill-based show I don’t listen to enough.
I’ve played with Nicolak once, at Detox, and he certainly doesn’t fit the mold of your typical high-stakes online aggro-baller. In fact, he seems way too mentally fit and life-steady to be a truly successful poker pro. But he must be doing something right …
Check out his personal blog, where he writes about balancing the game as a career while supporting a loving family and fantasy football team. He’s been publicly chasing a $1million bankroll goal all year, and is only about a quarter of the way there so far. You can just see his pursuits are a more familiar grind to many, whereas I’m not so sure they are yet for Jungleman.
Here’s the latest episode — a good one with Phil Hellmuth in studio talking a little EPT-Berlin robbery, significance of the NBC Heads-up, and his recent non-collapse collapse at Bay 101.
They also talk with his “mindset coach” Sam Chauhan … and the process of keeping players focussed.
It doesn’t get weird until Andrew Feldman and Bernard Lee start to talk about Hellmuth shirtless.
The usual crew talked a little (new era) poker on TV this week — 2M2MM + PokerStars Million-Dollar Challenge — and then BJ number-geeked out on Daniel Negreanu’s breakdown of WPT performance stats … and a Calling the Clock segment on coaching at the WSOP main event.
“The simplest reason why I’m doing this — I want to win, and I think it will help,†said Shulman.
Shulman and Hellmuth’s relationship go way back, as the two have been friends for years, all the while maintaining a successful business relationship. Hellmuth was an obvious choice when Shulman started to seriously consider getting a coach for the final table.
“I turned on the TV and I was watching Tiger Woods or something, and I realized — every single player has a coach,†said Shulman. “No matter how good or bad my game is, it can always get better.â€
While there are plenty of jokes to made about how yeah, Jeff Shulman stands to learn a lot about the business of being a professional poker a-hole … actually, what a good move!
Forget the betting and raising and reads … Hellmuth just gave ESPN a great story line, and guaranteed himself a lot of additional (sellable) airtime. (UB jersey allowed?) The 11-bracelet king of WSOP champions — who’s well-aware that people love to hate him — on the sidelines keeping the self-appointed November Nine bad guy in check? That’s gold, Jeffrey, gold I tell ya!
Whether or not Hellmuth ends up throwing a chair remains to be seen, but either way, it’s easy to see how Happy Shulman, by partnering with the Poker Brat, just gave WSOP Inc. a gift.
