I haven't played online in months since the old neteller days and wanted to try my hand at some of the wcoop events so Adam suggested I give ePassporte a try. Well I have and so far NO GOOD. I first tried using my Visa card and it was rejected. No biggie. I assumed it was one of those issues with the credit card company not wanting to fund a gambling site so I thought I would use the bank account option. I tried that but received a 'communication error.'

I next tried a second CC and it worked fine. Only funded $150 to start. I won my first $109 sng, but then bubbled a few times, and had a few interesting hands so I needed to reload. Today I tried to use the CC again and received a 'rejected by your bank' error. I called my bank and they told me that they not only didn't reject any transaction, but there wasn't any transaction. So I called epassporte and after waiting on hold for a while was told that they have been having a CC processing issue since Sunday. What? Is this a some type of Mickey Mouse operation? The guy told me to try a bank account. I mentioned that I did on Friday, but received an error. He knew about that but said it was a problem last week and they worked it out. This is not good!

Anyway, I decided to try the bank account option again and received the same error again. Oh, well. I guess I can ask some friends to transfer some money to my account, but maybe this is a sign. Who knows.

I was reading Bond18's recent post The Worst Player I know and it made me think of a video I saw a while back. If you enjoy watching guys go off on their opponent after receiving a bad beat, you'll love this one. Enjoy!

I was just reading through a thread on twoplustwo that really hit home to me. The author of a post was playing a $1000 satellite to an EPT event online at Pokerstars when a player at his table was deliberately stalling on every single hand by taking the maximum time to play. This has happened to me a number of times and it drives me crazy. It usually happens to me during one table sit-n-goes, so the only issue is the time the sng will take. In the case of a big MTT the stalling has serious consequences because you don't have as many hands to play as other players in the tournament.

The poster wrote to Stars and they told him that there was nothing they could do. He kept on complaining and asked who has taken over since Lee Jones left. Here's what they wrote:


The position formerly held by Lee has not been filled at this time but there are a few people who have taken those responsibilities. However they are not going to tell you anything different. Your simply not understanding there is no violation here so we cannot take any further action. EVERY player is given the full time to act on their hand and is their decision if they wish to use that full time.

Again I am sorry your frustrated but you are going to have to accept that this time is given and they can use it even if you would like them to act faster.


Regards,

Trent
PokerStars Support Team



Nothing they could do? Totally legitimate and within the rules? I completely disagree. If this were to happen in a live tournament the floor manager would give a warning and watch the play. If it continued to happen EVERY HAND they would certainly penalize the player. I have seen it happen many times and 100% of the time the floor manager will take a stand and penalize the player.

Pokerstars and other online sites really need to take action on this. It's not really that difficult. If a player takes the maximum time on a certain number of hands and always folds the hands then they should receive a warning. Once the warning is given the player should receive a penalty. What is so difficult about that?

Event #37 - $2000 Pot Limit Hold'em

I get to my seat, which is #6 and find Jeff Lisandro seated there. He apologized and moved to seat 5. Jeff won the bracelet the night before in the 7 card stud event and lots of guys came by to congratulate him. He's a great guy and a fun person to talk too. In fact, he was probably a bit too much fun to talk with because we really hit it off and I probably wasn't focused as much on my poker as I should have been. Jeff told me stories about his years managing poker rooms in Russia, grinding it out in rooms all over the world playing different games and some crazy stories about some poker screenplays he had written and how his stories have been stolen from him and made into films (some very well know films!). At first I was a bit skeptical but after a few minutes of hearing the details I had no doubt what he said was absolutely true. If you run into Jeff and have a few minutes of his time, ask him about this. Interesting stuff.

The bracelet could not have gone to a nicer and more deserving guy. Unfortunatley for Jeff, his luck did not go well at this table. Twice his TPTK was beaten by a better hand. The first time he had AJ on a J high board, but had to fold when it was clear on the turn that his opponent had the flush. That hand hurt him and he was pretty much pot-committed when his AQ hit on a Q high board, but his opponent had KK. I wish we could have played together more, but I'm sure we'll cross paths in the future.

What about me? Well, not a lot to report. Early on I raised with AK, hit a A4x high flop. Raised an early position raiser (I had raised PF and was called by the bb). He reraised me all-in and I called. He showed A4, but the board paired on the river and I doubled up. Nothing much happened for me after that. No good cards, most of my moves backfired, etc. Out in about 3 hours. Oh, well… that’s poker!

That night I played two $525 Satellites and had a lot more luck. In the first one everything worked to perfection. I hit some good hands at the right times, but mostly I accumulated chips by picking on the weaker players at the tables. Even at the $525 level there are usually 4-6 players who cannot possibly win. They are either much too weak-tight or too loose-aggressive. They do not know how to adjust to the structure and even if some of these weaker players get lucky early on, their tight style and inability to value their hands when the blinds go up allow the more aggressive players to run over them towards the end.

In the first satellite when we got down to 3 players I had $9k and the other two players had $7k and $4k respectively. We agreed to a $2k/$2k/$1k chop. It might seem a bit weak to chip when I had a nice chip lead, but I find that once the blinds get to the 400/800 level it turns into coinflip after coinflip situations. If the other players are understand this and are not tight players (no need to chop with someone who will fold anything but a premium hand), it's just better to level out the variance and chop. Nothing wrong with a $1500 profit

On the second satellite, I got off to a great start and doubled up pretty quickly, but a guy called my $175 raise (I had AA) at the $25/25 level with 65o from MP and hit a 65x flop. I doubled him up and was back to even – I was a bit worried on the turn that I was beaten, but at that point I had the nut flush draw and felt there was a reasonable chance I was ahead. Nothing much happened after that and I managed to survive a few coinflips and suckout situations (I was on both ends of the suckouts) and was at about 4k in chips with 3 left. The big stack offered me $1k and I happily took it.

Not a great day, but not a bad day either. I broke even, played some good poker, had fun meeting Jeff. Nothing wrong at all.

Tomorrow (Saturday) I'm playing in the $1500 NL event. EdmondDantes is coming into town and will be staying with me. We'll be having breakfast with Shane Schleger (Shaniac) and will try to hook up with Andathar and Nath for dinner.

Good night!

My first wsop event of 2007. Pretty excited and ready to open up my game. I get lucky and am at a table full of tight-passive players. Over the first few levels I pretty much have my way with the table. I'm not trying to look crazy and reckless, but there are tons of places to resteal against weak players to my right and I quickly build my stack from 3k to 8k by the second level. There were no major premium hands that held, just lots of hands like this:

I'm in the SB, a late position raiser makes a standard raise, the button calls, I can see that the late position raiser is not happy so I pop it and they both lay down their hands. On another hand UTG raises to 225 at 25/50 blinds, UTG+1 calls, it's folded to me in the BB and I push with 2600. The stack sizes were awkward to raise and I didn't want to call. They both folded and showed JJ (UTG), AK (UTG+1).

One hand I'm on the button and a MP raiser makes it 300. There is one more caller and I call with A9o. The BB comes in too. The flop comes 5TJ all hearts and I have the Ah. It's checked to the guy to my right who makes it 800. He has about 2.5k left and I have 6k. I push and he folds and turns over JT.

I was in the 6 seat and there was a very good young player in the 1 seat. He was also giving the table fits, but since we were on opposite sides of the table we rarely were in pots together. I tried to avoid him and I think he tried to avoid me. It was enjoyable to watch him give the guys to the right and left of him fits. He would constantly put them to the test with raises and reraises. The few times they fought back he seemed to have a hand. Here's a picture of my table. You can see the guy in seat 1 -- do you recognize him? Yes, those are my chips in front of the empty seat. Hey, guy. Stop counting!




Towards the end of the 200-400 level a short-stack woman who was very passive limped for 400 and it's folded to me on the bottom and I made it 1200 with 75o. I was surprised when she pushed. It was only 1350 to me to call so I did and sheepishly turned over my hand. She had only KTs. A beautiful 7 came and I won. The table was now on to me but luckily it broke soon thereafter with me at 13k in chips.

The table I was moved to had several stacks at my level or higher. Dutch Boyd was across from me (I was seat 1, he was seat 6) and had about 22k and the guy in the 10 seat had about 25k. On one of my first hands the seat 10 player who is on the buttom raises to 1000 (still 200-400) and I feel he must have gotten his chips through aggression... and I don't want the table to think they can mess with my blind so I pump it to 2500. I probably priced him in and should have raised it more. He called and we see the flop. It came AQx and I check, but do it fairly quickly and confidently. He checked too and I really don't think he liked the A. I made it 2.5k on the turn when a 7 hit. I had 75 so now I at least had a pair and some outs if he did have something and called. He folded telling me he had 99.

A few hands later the same guy limped for 300 from MP and I raised to 1300 with A9. He agonized over it and called. The flop came TT2 and he checked. I bet 2k and he called. I decided to give up right there and he checked it down too showing 66! I blew that one, but oh, well.

A guy with a huge stack -- about 35k in chips came to the table. He took a good pot off of Dutch -- I'm pretty sure he just froze Dutch via his position and took it away when Dutch checked the river and he bet. Maybe he had a hand, but I don't think either of them did.

On one of my last hands at this table Mr. Big stack makes it 1200 and I'm on the button with A5o and call. The flop comes A rag and I check. He checks too. I was thinking of going for a check raise or just check fold, but I liked the free card and was happy to do it again on the turn. On the turn I was definitely going to check-call and see what happened on the river, but he did check. On the river I lead out for 2k thinking he could never put me on an A. He called and paid me off.

I also won a few hands with mid position raises with half decent hands like 88 and AT. Twice they were called and I CB and took the pot on the flop. The table broke with my stack at 19-20k.

The dinner break was fast approaching and not a lot was happening at my new table. There were no recognizable faces there and my stack was definitely one of the top 3. Both the guys to my left and right had bigger stacks, but neither seemed too strong or out of line.
Dinner was scheduled for 7:30, but there was to be a 15 minute break at 6:50 at the end of the 200/400 level. On the last hand before the break UTG makes it 1200, a LP player calls and I make it 5k from the button with AA. Adanthar feels that I should have raised about 4-4.5k to make it a bit more attractive for them to call. He also felt that would have been the perfect amount IF they both called since the pot would be about 16k and I could push any flop and that would be about a pot sized bet. Unfortunately, I didn't have the benefit of his advice until after the hand! Nevertheless, I made it 5k, thinking that it would look like a blind steal and perhaps I would get called by a hand like 88-JJ or even AJ or AQ. The UTG did have AQs, not sure about the other guy. So I come back from this short break with 24k.

A few hands go by and we’re approaching the dinner break. I get AA again in MP and raise to 2000 (300-600 blinds with 75 ante). A woman with a 16k stack pushes and I call. She turns over TT and rivers a T! I’m down to 10k. Oh, well. Still not out of it.
I eat dinner with LakeofFire and discuss strategy. We decide that I still have time with a 11.5k stack and about 40 mins left in the 300/600 level. I don’t want do anything stupid but will look for good spots to push in LP or to resteal if the situation is right. I can’t wait too long though before my stack doesn’t look scary to anyone. The one difficulty I do have is that there are a bunch of shorter stacks throughout the table so I can’t just push or resteal with any two if they are left to act.

On one of the first hands I see when back from dinner I completely screw up my plan. I get A5 in the MP+1 and think about pushing but change my plans and limp. The blinds complete and we see a 993 flop. They check to me and I decide to try and take it with a 1500 bet. The BB pushes and I just gave away 2.1k and am now around 9k in chips… great.

When it gets to my button a LP guy raises to 2k. His stack is around 15k and he’s been very active. Perfect position to push with any two… right? I look down at K3 and decide to wait for a better opportunity. I think this was my second mistake. So now my third mistake. On the next hand I’m on the button and it’s folded to me. The guy to my left has 15k and the guy in the BB has 35k. I feel that the SB needs a hand and even with the big stack, the BB isn’t going to throw away 9k without a hand. I don’t want to wimp out so I don’t look at my hand. I push and the BB calls with A8. I turn over 85o and after a quick turn of the cards I’m sent to the rail. Made it down to about 400 out of 2600 (top 280 pay). Oh, well. I played well and felt good about my game. I just need to learn how to make my AA hold up better.

Since we’re talking about significant river beats, there was one hand earlier where I’m in the BB and the SB with about 5k pushes. I look down at AQ and call. He turns over A9 and starts to walk away as the cards don’t help him… but we had to call him back for his 10k in chips when the 9 fell on the river. Another hand I called a push from a small stack with 4k who had K9. I had 77. The flop was AAJ with two spades. The turn was a 3 so she’s looking for a K, a 9 or a spade. No, none of those come and she leaves, only to be called back when we realize that the river card, which was a J gave her the pot. It wasn’t obvious at first. Okay, I’ll admit, I also won a few suckout hands!

My next event is tomorrow’s pot limit hold’em event.

* It was about 10pm when I was knocked out and decided to play a few one table sats. The line was really long for some reason, but they had some seats for a $125. I normally play $525 and $325, but when I looked at the players being seated it just looked like pretty soft competition AND there was a 20-something amazingly beautiful girl in a nudepokerdorm.com tee shirt in the 10 seat and they were offering me the 8 seat so I took it. She works for a company that has a website ( you can see it here ) and they also do parties where the girls come and player poker with you and your friends. They take off one article of clothing every time they lose a hand. Sounds like fun.

The play was very passive. I think it was absolutely impossible for about 6 of these players to win. We chopped at 3 left so I decided to play a second. This time I had a huge chip lead with 2 left. The guy asked for $200, and I was happy to give it to him and take $1k for myself.