With the World Series around the corner and the Pokerati NLH/PLO on a Pre-SOP hiatus, I almost forgot to be thinking about my actual play. So what better way to begin insulating my bankroll than by listening to the latest episode of Cash Plays — featuring the biggest sucker outer in Epic Poker history, the one guy I consistently beat in the Pokerati game, and that other guy who I’m pretty sure is a pro!

audio download

Seriously, I know simply by thinking about poker skills and on-table situations (as opposed to poker news, poker laws, etc.) I’ll improve my game and presumably my results. For more serious felt work, they’ve increased the trial membership over at Stack’Em Coaching from three days to seven.

The poker room at Palms Casino Resort will close on May 2, with a new room, in a new location, under new management opening May 5.

Cantor Gaming confirmed recently that an 8-table poker room will be part of the Palms’ redesigned sportsbook (currently under construction) and say the new room will be state of the art in style and technology. Sources at Palms tell me that one of the tables will be equipped with hole card cams, a la Live at the Bike.

“We are honored that Palms has chosen us to manage their poker area,” Lee M. Amaitis, President and Chief Executive Officer of Cantor Gaming said in a press release. “By situating poker within the sports book we can offer customers maximum entertainment and convenience.”

Because of the partnership, the current staff at Palms must re-apply for new jobs with Cantor if they want to stick around. A spokesman for Cantor did not immediately respond to an inquiry seeking further details about the new poker room, and the cost of the project was not disclosed.

Late last year, the Las Vegas-based gaming company unveiled a new sports book at Venetian, the first phase of $30 million in renovations. Cantor has been taking over sportsbooks across Las Vegas — including the Venetian, Tropicana, Hard Rock, M Resort, and Cosmopolitan — but Palms will be the first location to open with a poker room as part of its design.

“Our decision to relocate the poker room to the new race and sports book was a natural one given the synergies that exist between poker players and sports bettors,” said Joseph A. Magliarditi, President of Palms.

“We are confident that a sleek new poker room will be a spectacular addition to our resort and one that offers poker fans the ultimate in poker playing experiences.”

Dan Michalski, who runs this site and has hosted a weekly half no-limit hold’em, half pot-limit Omaha game at the Palms for the past year, wouldn’t say much about the future of Pokerati’s relationship with the casino. (And he acts surprised when I can’t get a corporate casino flak to answer my questions!)

“Stay tuned,” Dan said in a text message.

So I guess that means there may only be a few more weeks to take his money in the Pokerati game — at least at the current past-its-prime Palms poker room.

I guess I’ve been somewhat slacking in the blog department. However, I’ve been fully engaged in grind mode ever since my last downswing and plan on writing an update in the very near future. In keeping with the grinding and writing theme, I’ve been trying out this new pokerchiptracker.com tool that allows me to log my day at the office. It’s pretty cool, in my opinion, because I like taking photos, I like writing, and I (sometimes) like playing poker. This thing lets me do all three at once. It also allows the user/writer to really bring the reader into the poker room with them, as well as provide for some creative opportunities.

Here’s a recent session that took me from Aria to the Palms.

More…

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!

Additional Resources

• Eliot Spitzer hooker money
• Wall Street Journal on $1,000/hr attorneys
• Richest comedians/Carrot Top net worth

It’s been a few weeks since my last post but the grinding hasn’t stopped. Well, actually I didn’t play much at all over the Thanksgiving weekend as I spent the holiday in Palm Springs with some family. Here are some photos!

I went into a bit of a breakeven stretch over the following four sessions. I have only myself to blame for this because I failed to use any sort of anti-jinx methodology. For example, say you send a tweet talking about how hard you’re crushing a game or how amazing you’ve been running at the tables. I usually don’t like to write such tweets because over 50 percent of the time they carry the jinx-virus, which will abruptly halt any and all rungood and stop it dead in its tracks. That being said, it is possible to tweet such thoughts to the twittersphere, but it would be foolish to do so without using anti-jinx protection. You’re simply putting yourself and your bankroll at risk without strapping on a hashtag along the lines of #plsdontjinxitkthx at the end of your happy tweets.

I don’t know why we call the poker gods, Gods, but we do. They seem more like a bunch of high school dropout, weird uncle, goofball idiots to me. When they abandon you, it is the filthiest, loneliest feeling you can imagine. But when they reflect their light on you for any kind of extended stretch, you feel, well, enlightened. Chosen. So in tune with everything you can hear the hum of the earth.

I somehow managed to sneak a $117 victory past the jinx-bouncers playing $1/$3NL at the Rio on the 1st of the month. But the next day when I ventured into the Palace of Caesar, his games of $1 and $3 were not so kind. I left @CLVPoker $400 lighter in the pocket, and followed that with a small $85 loss on the 3rd. My spirits were quickly risen on the very next day, which was a Thursday. Thursday evenings, as you should know by now, means Pokerati game night. The PLO/NL mixed game has treated me really well since its incarnation @PalmsPokerRm (#nojinxnojinxnojinx) and this particular Thursday brought happiness in the form of a $520 win, erasing losses from the previous two sessions. Unfortunately the breakeven stretch continued another day; on Friday I played a long, 10-hour session at the Rio dropping about $700 in frustrating fashion. Actually there was a pretty interesting hand from said session…

More…

Check it out. This story in PokerListings is probably a bit too kind without any LOLs. But hey, as a guy who’s key flaw in his plan to offer Pokeratizens the best low-stakes action in Vegas was not learning how to fold more often pre-flop, I’ll take the love!

While it is true that nowhere in Vegas could you “run it twice” in a 1/2 game before Pokerati NLH/PLO came to town, now plenty of poker rooms hardly blink when two or more players get it all-in and want to reduce variance by seeing more than one river … just like they used to do it on High Stakes Poker.

So crap now the secret of the Pokerati Game’s success is out:

• Offer games people want to play, at stakes they’re comfortable playing
• Give preference to poker rooms with skillful, supportive staff (and maybe a really big sign)
• Treat low-stakes players no differently than high rollers (h/t Benny Binion)
• Suck out often to keep the nits away

That’s pretty much all it takes to host a game that attracts tourists and locals alike. And now that I can expect casinos everywhere to be spreading Pokerati-style live action, I suppose my pioneering days are over and I can go back to being just another poor-man’s Jean-Robert Bellande.

The redevelopment of the the Palms Poker Room continues. While some of us can’t wait for the state-of-the-art-in-2003 room to step into 2005ish with the coming addition of an electronic Bravo check-in system … Joe, Bobby, Eldon and crew are pushing forward with their plans to bring non-$20,000 tournament action back to the Palms … starting with a Tuesday-night $100 HORSE tournament.

 

It may not be PLO, but hey, I’m no one-trick pony. More like a half-trick pony, lol. But regardless, I’ve been meaning to sack up and get more live, low-stakes Razz under my belt. (I dominated the $1,500 event in the ’07 WSOP for Playstation — won a bracelet and everything!) The tournament is just a couple weeks old and supposedly has gotten a great response from the start: three tables of tournament action last week, followed by a $4/$8 HORSE cash game as players started busting.

Something similar expected tomorrow. RSVP on Facebook here … and/or just show up @ the Palms tomorrow at 7:30pm.

CORRECTION(S): I got a few factoids wrong. According to Michelle Lau’s FB invite …

Michelle Lau

Every Tuesday night 7:30, last week was our first tournament. Also Palms is gonna spread a HORSE CASH game at 5pm ($4/8) Come on down, lots of fun and very playable structure.

 

Special thanks to Tricat in Vegas, who snapped a video of Pokerati Game, the Movie, as it played on the big screen outside on Flamingo. It’s an epic saga of … er … it’s an action/adventure in NLH/PLO told as a silent film of about 12 seconds. Powerful stuff:

And speaking of the game … congrats to TJ Downing and @JaKatkin … who won president and vice president in our Pokerati Game “election” on Thursday. For the wins, TJ will be representing in tonight’s $340 satellite* to the $1,500 Epic Pro-Am at Palms Poker Room … and Katkin will be taking a stab in a Sunday $180.

* special bounty tournament

I really hope everyone had a great time this summer playing 1/2 No-Limit Hold’em/PLO at the Palms. I know I did … even though my own poor performance over the past couple weeks kept my summertime bankroll graph a little below sea level. But still, it was great to sit down for just some good old-fashioned poker with so many friends, colleagues, old Dallas players, low-stakes Vegas grinders, poker media hangers-on … as well as various new players from multiple continents with whom I got to enjoy some incarnation of sucking out. Thanks to all who played and especially thanks to those who embraced the Pokerati Game commitment to keeping the best low-stakes action in Vegas douchebag-free. (A bigger challenge than you might think.)

Tonight, we’ve got a little game-sweetener: The two best players in the game will get satellite seats for the Epic Pro-Am (also at the Palms) — one for a Saturday $340 and one in a Sunday $180.

And to determine who these players are, we’re gonna vote. Totally subjective and very unscientific, befitting of my ongoing social poker experiment, aka The Pokerati Game … and hey, if you don’t like the way we do it, you’re welcome to heckle from the rails. (2-drink minimum, though.)

That’s pretty much it. We’ll be playing the game as usual tonight — 1/2 NLH/PLO round of each, $100 min $400 max buy-in, game changes on the one seat, option to run it twice in both games, $5 button straddle gets ultimate last action — except everyone who plays will also get a ballot. And on that ballot they get to cast two votes:

+1 ____________

-1 ____________

More…

I haven’t seen it yet on the big screen, but it should be there soon … celebrities galore expected for its Vegas premiere at the Palms. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry … oooh, the tension! Can only imagine how good Pokerati No-Limit Hold’em/PLO must look and feel in Imax.

As always, you are welcome and encouraged to run it twice.

As much as we’d love to be at the Hotel Club Casino Loutraki right now (site of the Greek Poker Cup 2, beginning today) PokerStars, as a place of virtual felts, has kinda dropped off Pokerati’s radar the way PartyPoker did back in ’06.

However, one thing catching my attention — not because of the results, but simply because they’re playing the game — Isildur1’s high-stakes No-Limit Hold’em/Pot-Limit Omaha Mix. (Hey, I know that game … we play it at the Palms! “High-stakes action for low-stakes players” is the buzzphrase I like to throw around.) Pretty sure because it’s heads up they don’t have an “ultimate button straddle” the way we do at the Palms … and I’m not sure if they can run-it-twice … as the nature of the match suggests they’re not necessarily interested in reducing variance.

But still, sounds like Isildur1 is playing it pretty close to the right way.

SuperStar Showdown

Team PokerStars Pro Viktor ‘Isildur1’ Blom enjoyed another SuperStar Showdown win on Sunday, when he defeated Norwegian player Terje ‘Terken89’ Augdal.

The match, which was a mix of No Limit Hold’em and Pot Limit Omaha, was over in slightly more than 1,500 of the scheduled 2,500 hands, as Blom blew his opponent away to rake in Augdal’s entire $150,000 Showdown bankroll.

Despite losing $10,000 in the opening hand, Blom quickly got on top and showed his dominance throughout, his win taking his total SuperStar Showdown profit to $651,941. It also means he now has an impressive 9-2 winning record (7-2 versus high stakes opponents) in the SuperStar Showdown matches.

For a full report, including replays of some of the key hands, check out the [report of the match at PokerStars Blog].

I spent the first part of today chilling at my place for a few hours, getting in a light workout then writing a couple emails. Then I made my way to the VW dealership. I drive a 2010 Jetta that I’m a pretty big fan of and it was time for my free 10k mileage maintenance and car wash. Before this car, I drove the 2007 version. Two days before my lease was up on that car, it got totaled when a drunk driver blew a red light in West Hollywood where my girlfriend and I were for the weekend.  Neither of us were hurt, thankfully.  He took off after we smashed into him, but he couldn’t get very far with the condition his car was in. A good samaritan followed him and was able to let the police know where they could find him. I had my car towed to a VW dealership and was like, “My lease is up… here’s your car back!” Then I leased a brand new model that same day.

I picked up KK in the first orbit of NL in late position, raised and picked up the blinds …

While at the dealership today I read through 944 magazine a bit.  If you happen to live in a city that 944 covers, and you like going out, doing stuff and checking out new things in your city, I highly recommend picking up a copy. I also highly recommend they pay me for this advertising I’m giving them but that’s probably not going to happen. There are always so many things changing in the city of Las Vegas–new restaurants, DJ appearances/residencies, happy hours, special events–that it is nearly impossible to keep up.  It’s fun to try though, and it’s obviously tough to get bored here.

After VW, it was that time: 7pm on a Thursday, which means Pokerati 1/2 PLO/NLH at the Palms.  When I got there around 8 there was a full game up and running and Danielle was already on the waiting list.  It took about 15 minutes before we had enough people to start a second table.  Pretty impressive, I must say, but not entirely surprising.  The half-and-half nature of the game is just so much more interesting and entertaining in my opinion, that I think you’ll eventually see it spread elsewhere more regularly.  This coupled with the fact that the WSOP is in full swing means there’s no shortage of players around.

More…

Crap, I’m never gonna get to that Deep Purple concert before Smoke on the Water … stepped away from the Pokerati Game @PalmsPokerRoom for a bit, and sure enough the draft of Joe Barton’s online poker bill — one crafted with more input from players (via the PPA) than squabbling online poker entities, and supposedly supported already by Harry Reid, has leaked out.

You’ll have to tell me what’s in it … I gotta go to the concert — and I’m sure the Senate Majority Leader from Nevada won’t be able to resist manipulating it in some way by the time it moves outta the house … but feel good overall that it will be more player-focused from the start than any that preceded it … simply because Black Friday put so many other battles amongst potential supporters to rest … and we’ll have to reassess, but I really think the conditions look strong for now as opposed to later. And I say that even though I’ll bet that Barton’s staff didn’t take my suggestion and include any provisions for splashing pots with concert tickets in the Pokerati game. (Didn’t they see I still have a 214 area code!?) Hey, special-interest politics is about compromise, right?

Maybe I’m wrong, but I just think the masses of poker players are in a better spot for such negotiations in 2011 than we were in 2010 … especially if this 101-page bill I skimmed is more than just smoke-and-mirrors on the water, which now it has no reason to be.

Click here to download a copy of the Barton online poker bill … so hot off the not-for-publication-yet presses, it’s listed as HR _______.

The Palms Casino Resort, one of the last remaining “family run” operations on or off the Las Vegas Strip — and home to the gloriously raucous @Pokerati Game @PalmsPokerRm — will likely become part of the Caesars casino empire. The Maloof family, 80 percent owners of the Palms, sold off their majority interest this week to investors that include TPG Capital.

Across the street from the Rio ... a true palace of low-stakes NLH/PLO.

Fort Worth-based TPG, of course, are majority owners of Caesars Entertainment, corporate overlords to the WSOP.

According to the Sacramento Bee, upon approval by Nevada Gaming regulators, the billionaire Maloof family will retain just 2 percent … with an option to rebuy up to 20.

Untested but presumably reliable sources say the Palms will almost certainly end up in Caesars’ portfolio of casino properties, following an acquisition path similar to how things went for Planet Hollywood … and should become part of Caesars’ Total Rewards program by year-end. Over in Sacramento, the buzz is all about what the Maloof sale means for the Sacramento Kings, who apparently need both a new arena and a player bankroll.

I can’t begin to think I really understand the high finance and debt restructuring of Big Casinos … so before I try to explain, you should probably peruse the past six months or so of SEC filings for CZR. There really is a rather fascinating story in the agate here.

I’ll be playing in a satellite for Annie Duke’s and Jeffrey Pollack’s $20k pro-am event tonight, at the Palms, starting at 7pm. I hope you are busy and can’t show up. Come by later for 1/2 NLH/PLO, sure … the Pokerati action @PalmsPokerRm has been bumpin’ all summer … but at 7 is the Federated satellite, and I probably like my chances better without you there.

Official qualifier info here.

It’s a $340 buy-in, with 20 percent of the field winning seats into a Federated 1500 later this month (or next?), with that event putting players into the Federated $20k Pro-Am. I think that’s how it works … I dunno, you better stay away until I make sure.

Federated’s first attempt for qualifiers didn’t go so well, as our good friends at Wicked Chops pointed out — only three people showed! Not necessarily surprising for a still forming league; it’s kinda hard to draw people to a qualifier for something that hasn’t ever happened before — no matter how big the names are behind it. The WSOP ran for I think like 11 years before they started filling satellites.

But tonight, our other good friends at the Palms Poker Room are guaranteeing not only 1 seat for every 5 players, but also 1 minimum no matter how few buy-in. That, of course, is why I’m playing tonight. By my math, if no one else is there tonight, I win!

The grand prize, of course is that $20k seat, where I’ll be able to play against big-name pros and hardcore grinders for $10 million!!! a six-figure payout and/or a chance to tell many of them en masse once and for all to suck-it!

Ahh, getting ahead of myself here … it’s supposed to be a professional league encouraging fair play, proper behavior, and golf etiquette … so have to wait for the right moment to make my made-for-TV scene.

First I gotta win tonight’s event, where my best shot, frankly, comes by just showing up.