The Gnomes

Phil Gordon: Even Jesus wouldn't bet all of his chips on a Jack-three!
Dave Foley: Or, well, if he did, by the time the cards hit the table they'd be different.

"Celebrity Poker Showdown"

If anybody ever says that Poker Source Online is too good to be true, they don't know what they are talking about. Just a few hours ago I picked up another couple of parcels from Amazon, thanks to vouchers through PSO (referrals, got to love them) and in the past month I have added the following to the DVD collection:

Viva La Bam, seasons 2-5
Interview With a Vampire
16 Blocks (not even in cinemas in Australia yet)
Syriana
Clerks: The Animated Series
Clerks Tenth Anniversary edition
NCIS Season 1
Law and Order: Criminal Intent seasons 1 and 3
Reno 911: Season 1
The Girl Next Door
The Aristocrats
Sarah Silverman: Jesus is Magic
Chasing Amy
Sky High

Not to mention a couple of poker books and some clothing. Not bad for folding for a few hours, huh?

And speaking of the poker books, I plan on doing a review for "How to Cheat Your Friends at Poker : The Wisdom of Dickie Richard" once I complete it.

I had a post last week that unfortunately got deleted before I had a chance to throw it up here. The small of it was another home game with some positive results. Weirdest hand of the night was a semi-bluff on the flop with 52o, get two callers. I decide that since the flush hasn't come yet I can try to get rid of the flush chasers with a hefty bet on the turn, but I get both callers again. The river brings the flush and as I am first to act I am done with this hand. I fired two bullets, I didn't have enough to make the third one count now the flush had come. The other two guys checked and bottom pair was good enough. I put them both on a flush draw, and it turns out they were actually on the straight draw. Thing looked up from there and I cashed out a little earlier but well in the black for the night.

I've come to the point in my online playing where I am not chasing any more bonus' at the minute, so I just play when I feel like it. It's a pretty sweet little arrangement when you think about it. Since my good friends at Full Tilt poker keep this blog happy, I steer 100% of my action their way these days.

After having very little luck and playing otherwise poorly, I managed to loose what I had left when my flopped two pair was no good for a flopped straight. I lost another huge pot with pocket queens(JJ4AQ – and he has AA), and pocket kings was treating me no better (AAx flop, thanks for that). Later when playing, I was dealt QQ in the big blind and had 5 callers in front of me. How much would be enough to push everyone out? Bugger that, I'm just checking. The flop was AKx, and there was much post flop action. I was actually kind of happy that pocket queens only cost me $1 on that on.

Which is a weird state of mind. Usually when you receive big pairs, you expect to win something. For me, I only count AA, KK and QQ as big pairs. But now, when I get KK or QQ all I am thinking is to limit my losses. How's that for positive thinking?

Look at me whinge? Yeah, I guess my AA are still picking up blinds while I keep paying off everyone elses. Even the example above of Queens full beaten by Aces full, I could have gotten away from. There was a raise and a re-raise pre-flop, and I keep telling myself that a call-raise-re raise means aces but I keep calling just in case it means AK. It hasn't been AK yet, just keep on paying off those aces.

Had another clown at the table complaining about how rigged the site was, because they were dominated pre-flop against someone and couldn't overcome them. Now I've heard people complain for loosing to "Divine Intervention" (that's what we call a one outer these days) and complain, and even when you know it isn't true when something like that happens you can understand someone feeling pretty crappy about it. But when you make a horrible all-in with KJ and you get called by KK, can you really complain? Bah, maybe it was the Random Number Generator Gnomes.

Step 1: Rig online poker sites so good players always loose and bad players always win.

Step 2: …

Step 3: Profit!

Ok, so there actually is some profit being made, but I think this is just a ploy by the gnomes to get our underpants. It's just a theory, but to be honest how else to you explain the bad beats in online poker, huh? That's right you can't! It's the gnomes I tells you!

You know what I hate? When you are down to the bubble in a SNG, and every other player at the table gets down to 1BB, only to come back and double up twice to be back to comfortable. This guy has been down to under 1BB 3 times, only to rise once more like grandpa on Viagra, and everyone else has been there too, except yours truly who has plugged away and keep at about the average just waiting for one of these small stacks to loose a coin flip. Then, after all this when I have my turn as the small stack, I loose to a four flush on the river. That sucks my friend, and I blame the RNG Gnomes.

Lately, I've also had the pleasure of watching some more poker on TV, namely the Celebrity Poker Showdown with Dave Foley on commentary. The particular tournament I was watching was from 2004, but Dave Foley was pure gold all the way through. The other poker I was watching was some of the newer WPT events, but I'm not sure when the tournament was only that this was the first WPT show I had seen since Shana left. Who the hell thought the two cameras in the middle of the table would be a good idea? What have we gained from this camera view? A nice two-shot that has poor colour, focus, perspective and dimenions? Great, that is so much worth it when the side effect is two giant black speed bumps in the middle of the table.

Hole Cams = revolutionised televised poker.

Middle of the table cams = let someone justify their job. Innovation for the damn sake of it, with no benefit and only a down side.

Can anyone please explain to me why they thought this was a good idea?