Posts Tagged ‘Poker Shrink’

November Nine Picks by Pokerati…Two Days Early

by , Jul 14, 2009 | 11:20 am

How smart are we? Wait…That’s a loaded question. Rephrase: How close can we come to predicting the November Nine?

We shall see! The Poker Shrink is putting the poker media to the test by encouraging our degeneracy asking us to bet on our picks for the November Nine. With 64 players remaining, some media members are picking our favorites/randoms to go all the way over the next two days at the WSOP. Who are we to shy away from a challenge?

Jen’s Picks:

Dennis Phillips
Phil Ivey
Billy Kopp
Ben Lamb
Ludovic Lacay
Leo Margets
Tom Schneider
Nick Maimone
Andrew Lichtenberger

Dan’s Picks:

Phil Ivey
Tom Schneider
Tommy Vedes
Antonio Esfandiari (Go Iran!)
Ludovic Lacay
Eugene Katchalov
Ben Lamb
Andrew Lichtenberger
James Akenhead

Kevin’s picks:

Billy Kopp
Phil Ivey
Jeff Shulman
Eugene Katchalov
Tom Schneider
Andrew Lichtenberger
Jeff Duvall
Nick Maimone
Ludovic Lacay


Clickworthy WSOP Links

by , May 29, 2009 | 12:03 pm

We know Pokeratizens already know to get your official hand coverage and chip counts at PokerNews WSOP.com, while supplementing it with some sex Wicked Chops, drugs Tao of Poker, and rock-n-roll PokerRoad.

But a few other spots on the internet you may not want to forget about this 40th WSOP:

Hardboiled Poker — Shamus is covering the action on-the-felt for PokerNews, but he provides his real analysis of summer life at the Rio at HBP.

BJ’s Photo Blog — a higher level of poker photography.

Poker Shrink — Dr. Tim’s doing “The Poker Mind in Depth”, where he ignores the concept of doctor-patient privacy and takes his couch sessions with Daniel Negreanu, Mike Matusow, and Phil Hellmuth semi-public.

Benjo — If you speak French, you naturally will want your fix of les World Series of Poker from the Frenchiest French guy on media row.


The Return of Books in Poker?

Two new offerings that people may actually want to read

by , Apr 6, 2009 | 2:17 pm

Once upon a time, poker books were everywhere and everything. Then we found that saturation point, right around the time the poker boom was coming to an end … and it became harder and harder to really care about the latest poker tome … poker books stopped selling, the bookstores took down their dedicated poker racks, and uber-poker geeks like yours truly built up a pile of literature still collecting dust while waiting to be read. I swear I’ll move beyond page 26 of Bill Chen’s The Mathematics of Poker one of these days!

But probably not before reading two books that we can expect later this year: Lost Vegas, by Dr. Pauly … and Check-Raising the Devil, by Mike Matusow (with Tim Lavalli and Amy Calistri). Lost Vegas will be based on much of what we’ve been reading over the years on Tao of Poker, though I personally know the book is what Pauly’s been saving his best, so-far untold stuff for … so I’m confident every poker-industry douche insider will be eager to read what he’s been holding back.

Likewise, Matusow’s tale promises to be the kind of interesting auto-bio that even my grandmother could enjoy — lots of sex, drugs, and crime that just so happens to be set in the world of high-stakes casino gambling and/or prison — by a guy who has seen up-close-and-personal the good, the bad, and the really bad side of it all. Judging both these books by their recently completed covers (click to enlarge), I gotta think there might be something to these pokery stories, even though neither promise to tell you anything about how to play Ace-King.


This Last Month in Poker History

by , Dec 1, 2008 | 4:30 pm

A few people have asked me WTF I’m talking about saying that November 2008 will go down as an historical month where everything changes/d. To spell it out, you have:

The November Nine — historic simply as it pertains to the conclusion of a single not-so-little tournament that seems to be the barometer for all things related to the poker industry.

Midnight Rule-push for UIGEA Regs — we’re just one of 100 single-issues affected by the Bush administration’s attempts to party it up like frat boys and trash the joint before checking out … but regardless, it means we have a whole bunch of additional clean-up to do.

60 Minutes/Washington Post Exposés — whether it’s determined to be fair-and-balanced good-for-poker coverage or a damning hatchet job hacked with a double-edged blade of lies … the Thanksgiving weekend stories represent the official exposure of the online poker biz, hairy warts and all, to the non-poker world.

Clonie Gowen vs. Full Tilt Lawsuita loyal soldier turns on her poker-biz commanders, with attempts to air grievances in American court threatening to bring the multibillion-dollar operations of a super-private jurisdictionally challenged business into the public domain. While FTP reps actively petition the Feds to let them open these books but only if they can pay extra taxes, the former Full Tilt covergirl arms herself with a taser gun and takes aiming at a Red Pro.

Formation of Cereus — the two most scandal-ridden online poker sites officially join forces to create a recovering cheater supersite, flooding their own tables with “refund” money to keep the action moving.

Plug Pulled on PokerBlog.com — hardly the biggest deal in the bigger picture … but PartyPoker’s apologetic canning of Dr. Tim represents a new fiscal reality facing even the most legitimate of online poker sites and their workers.

Introduction of HB 222 in TexasTake 2 on trying to bring the game that had everything to do with the creation of an $18 billion industry (subject to all the hubbub above) back home where it belongs.

All this, of course, is going on in the midst of a major lawsuit related to internet authority in Kentucky — where unprecedented government action has shaken up/down the online poker industry, forcing noticeable shifts in business ops and resource allocation. Clearly:


Head in the Game

Shrinky-dink takes down PLRGC2Ev1

by , Nov 24, 2008 | 1:49 pm

We love the guys at PokerListings more and more … not only do they bowl well and generally produce quality poker content, but also, they get it: They can buy a blogger’s affection by throwing freerolls with quality cash prizes at stake. Brilliant, as the British would say.

In the first go-round of the Run Good Challenge, the guys hosting the event dominated. Oops, not very hospitable. But they rolled the money over and then the ladies started winning, including Change100’s victory in the Grand Final. But in event #1 of Run Good Challenge 2: Electric Boogaloo, the one only semi-employed male in the field with firsthand memories of Bobby Riggs losing to Billie Jean King took it down — kudos to Dr. Tim for making a stand on behalf of chubby white bald men who, frankly, needed the inspiration to know, Yes We Can!

The Shrink won $600 for his Sunday-morning skills, fending off attacks from his writing partner Amy Calistri ($300) and longtime Pokerati fave Michele Lewis ($100).

California Jen, Liz Lieu, and Lacey Jones apparently missed the starting bell, but yours truly woke up to his PokerStars alarm this time — seriously, you get a rousing beep on the first hand if you register for the tourney pre-sleep and leave Stars running overnight — but couldn’t get his head fully in the game before pushing all-in with his Q3o vs. the eventual winner’s Q8s (on a flop of Q-8-x) … damn, finished 11th out of 14, which seems about right for how I played almost into Level 2.


“It Feels Good to Run Good!”

Or so I’ve been told …

by , Sep 10, 2008 | 6:15 pm


While Jen was slaving away covering the WCOOP on the PokerStarsBlog this weekend, I was extremely busy playing in a $1,000 freeroll on PokerStars (12 players max). I’m sure it won’t make her extra-happy to know that I overslept for this special-invite tourney and logged in with an M < 1. But that's what it took to make the final table -- playing tighter than ever. My stats en route to finishing 9th:

During current Hold’em session you were dealt 122 hands and saw flop:
– 0 out of 21 times while in big blind (0%)
– 0 out of 22 times while in small blind (0%)
– 2 out of 79 times in other positions (2%)
– a total of 2 out of 122 (1%)
Pots won at showdown – 1 of 2 (50%)
Pots won without showdown – 0

The series of events is called The Run Good Challenge — mad props to our friends at PokerListings for putting it on. 10 independent typists and two professional bloggers from Listings … duking it out in a game of online hungry-hungry hippo for real American cash:

Event 1: NLHE, regular Stars Structure (Sept 6)
Event 2: NLHE, turbo structure (Sept 13)
Event 3: NLHE/PLO, regular structure (Sept 20)
Grand Final: NLHE Deep Stack structure (Sept 27)

For the three prelims the top three spots will pay: $600, $300, $100. Grand final will consist of top five performers from external bloggers plus best of Dan or myself and will pay all six spots: $1,000, $650, $400, $200, $150, $100.

Sweet, no? Be sure to click below for “live” chatlog coverage from the feature table — kinda interesting to see how entertaining poker can be when you eliminate the hands. (And gives you disturbing insight into the sick minds of bloggers competing in a tournament that couldn’t happen at the WSOP without the entire final table being sent to the penalty box.)

More…


Tao of Pokerati: Mike Madderall

by , Jul 12, 2008 | 7:04 pm

For some reason that’s really kinda hard to figure out, everyone likes Mike Matusow … maybe its because he encompasses the issues of every emotionally disturbed pre-adolescent boy any of us knew or were. So when you can be entertained by his downswings, how can you not celebrate his successes and root for more? After all, if this guy who clearly got in lots of trouble in elementary/Hebrew school can do it, why can’t we, right?

That’s just a guess, really, on my part. But Pauly tries to get down to the brass tacks of it all by talking with the Poker Shrink, who happens to be working on Mike’s autobiography with Amy Calistri. And in doing so, we learn not only about Mike’s strategy that brought him to Day 5 and what he’s looking to do moving forward, but also the Shrink tells us about Mike’s performance enhancing drug use — and the mutual benefits of Adderall, a drug that keeps certain people sane and happens to help them focus on the poker at hand.

Episode 25: Mike Madderall

[audio:TOP-Madderall25.mp3]