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No New Orleans Focus
While filming Celebrity Poker Showdown (CPS) in New Orleans recently, I had some free time and stopped by Harrah’s poker room to hang out. I say “hang out” because whatever it was that I did there — I bought three bottles of Dom Perignon for the players at the table and sat in on the $2-$5 blind no limit Hold ’em game — I would not exactly want to call it playing poker. Sometimes, it’s not easy for me to play low-limit poker and maintain my focus. I guess I need something meaningful at stake before I bring my A game.
Sitting behind me were my agent, Brian Balsbaugh (from Poker Royalty); the man who is second in command at the World Series of Poker, Ty Stewart; and my CPS co-host (and former “Kids in the Hall” star) Dave Foley. I was trying to give Foley a lesson, but mostly I’d hear myself saying something like this: “You really shouldn’t play the 6-3 off suit for $20, but I’m going to anyway.” In other words, I was employing the strategy of playing almost every hand, which is not a good idea if you plan on staying at the table for very long.
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Win Your Way In!
In the UltimateBet.net Poker Challenge III Finals, shown Final Four weekend on FSN (Fox Sports Net), six players had a crack at the $200,000 first-place prize, but second place was a whole lot of nothing. Thirty-one players had won their way into the televised tournament through a free promotion at UltimateBet.net, and none of them was used to playing poker for more than a few dollars. But now they were playing for $200,000 for first, and nothing for second, so the pressure was on!
The following five men won their FSN televised six-handed tournaments — and $10,000 each for first place — to qualify for the finale; Josh Taub, Adam Marshall, Tom McCormick III, Mo Poons, and New York State Trooper Mark Cianfrini (sin-free-nee). This had reduced the 30 men down to five, and then a wild card online qualifier, Scott Friend, was added to the mix. (By the way, I was announcing this finale for FSN along with regular announcers Barry Tompkins and John Vorhaus.)
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Having the WPT in my Back Yard
Not so long ago, another World Poker Tour (WPT) championship hit San Jose, right in my back yard. It was pretty nice driving just 20 minutes from my home to the Bay 101 card club to play in a WPT event. Unfortunately, I would be leaving Bay 101 on day one with a bad taste in my mouth. It’s one thing to take bad beats (get seriously unlucky) in some big pots. It’s quite another to draw hands decent enough for me to survive and thrive on day one, but instead play a terrible game of poker, self destruct and then drive home feeling like an idiot. If it had been simply bad luck, then I could have quickly forgotten about it, but for two hours straight I played no-limit Hold ’em like a donkey!
I had been blessed with some really nice cards, and about four hours into the tournament I had run my $10,000 starting stack up to more than $50,000. With that much in chips, I could have left the room, driven home, taken a nap and still made it to the end of day one with more than $30,000 in chips. Normally, with $50,000-plus it would be easy to last through the rest of the day, notwithstanding some really bad luck, which was quite unlikely. All I had to do was fold my weak and marginal hands, and wait for advantageous situations to come along.
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Dealing in the Bad Boys of Poker
Queen of clubs, 10 of clubs, Qc-10c, Qc-10c … Phil! Wake up! You’re having a nightmare. And you would too, if you lost a $230,000 pot and then a $350,000 pot to your opponent’s Qc-10c the same night! At the recent World Poker Tour (WPT) “Bad Boys of Poker” special, I finally made another WPT final table. (Of course, only six of us began the event, so technically I started at the final table.) I was there with Tony G, Mike “The Mouth” Matusow, Men “The Master” Nguyen, John Robert Bellande and defending champion Gus Hansen.
With the blinds at $3,000-$6,000, and the antes at $500 a man, I opened a pot for $18,000 in early position with Kc-Kd, and The Master called me one off of the button with Qc-10c. The flop was Q-J-9, I checked, and The Master checked. We both checked on the flop because we were slow-playing our hands.
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Big Doings at the WPT Celebrity Invitational
After playing in the Commerce Casino’s $10,000 buy-in L.A. Poker Classic on the World Poker Tour (WPT), on Feb. 19, I was all fired up to play the WPT Celebrity Invitational at the Commerce six days later. Poker has been really hot, and I have never seen that many stars in this event before. For me, it was a great pleasure to meet James Garner (of “Maverick,” “The Rockford Files,” and countless other TV shows and movies over the years). As a poker player, how could I not love Garner? (Did I mention that he starred in “Maverick?”)
I was off to a fast start when I raised it up with A-4, the flop came down 4-4-4, and someone moved all-in on me with A-J high! We started the event with $10,000 in chips, and I was immediately up to $30,000 in chips. That’s a pretty agreeable way to start. Then I ran into Mark “I Can’t Help It” Seif. Lately, Seif cannot help but win poker tournaments, including an amazing two World Series of Poker tournaments in 2005. He has no fear (as the following hand will show), and a lot of talent.
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Arrived Late, Left Early
Man, was I looking forward to playing in a World Poker Tour (WPT) event, any WPT event. I had not played in a history-making event with a huge prize pool since November, and the Commerce Casino’s $10,000 buy-in L.A. Poker Classic proved to have an especially huge prize pool, including $2.4 million for first place. After skipping five major events in January, and watching my contemporaries like Daniel Negreanu, Scotty Nguyen and Michael Mizrachi win, I was raring to go!
After all, I’m a proud guy, and seeing all of these other guys win had stirred me up a bit. Yes, I did win a $700,000 condo at the W Hotel, Casino and Residences, Las Vegas tournament held in January, but I doubt that anyone in the poker world respects that win — against a bunch of movie stars — very much. So off I went, for a 6:30 p.m. start, and I was actually on time for the first time in years. (In retrospect, I wish I’d come 70 minutes late.)
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