Hey all. For the second week in a row I'm posting something I wrote two years ago. Since it never got published, I share it with you now. Enjoy.

Top Five Mistakes Players Make Heads-Up

Everyone loves heads-up poker.

Or at least the concept of heads-up. It's sexy. Mano-a-Mano. You against the enemy. Hero versus Villain. It's the pinnacle of a poker tournament. The paradigm of the mind game. Your will opposed against another's. And there's no where for you to run, no where to take cover. You've been thrown into the arena, and it's winner take all.

Disclaimer: The following strategies will apply generally to online play even though they will translate live. I won't delve into any physical tells or tips you can get when staring down you're lone opponent. Because while you can find a low limit heads-up game online in seconds, in a casino it's next to impossible. And you can of course always play your roommate on your coffee table, but you usually both stop halfway through and end up watching Rounders anyway. And although this article will cover only heads-up hold' em, a lot of the theories translate to all the poker variants.

The Leaks:

1. Don't play Ace-Rag Out of Position.

I can't tell you how many WSOP or WPT final tables I've seen where both players put in far too many bets pre-flop with generally weak hands. Part of that can be attributed to fewer blinds and the shove-happy tendency players have when the finish line is so close in sight, but their play is still far from optimal. What I see in events like this or the NBC Heads-Up Poker Championship is the complete overvaluing of hands, especially pre-flop. And even more specifically, ace-x hands.

I understand the rationale; it's one I used to think correct myself. The general unsound logic goes something like this: I will only get dealt an ace 15% of the time. If I have an ace, it's even less likely my opponent also has an ace, so unless he has a pocket pair (also highly unlikely) I have the best hand. Since I have the best hand I should raise. Raising with the best hand is good. I am a good player. The end.

However, one extremely crucial element of reasoning is left out of this. Heads-Up No-Limit Hold 'Em is NOT a pre-flop game. It's a post-flop game. Assuming this isn't Season Two of the World Poker Tour, you're each going to have more than 10 blinds when you're heads-up, and that means your big pots are going to come post-flop. View it the way you do High Stakes Poker on GSN. Remember all those classic all-ins? How many of them went in pre-flop? What, one? They're all big pots after the flop. That's where the play and the skill come in. However, many classic hands in tournament poker are classic all-ins pre-flop, and that's how many players approach heads-up. From a tournament view. And it's wrong. That's how Dan Harrington approaches it in Harrington on Hold 'Em Volume III, and he's wrong.

The problem with Ace-x out of position is that it just plays terrible. They key to heads-up is capitalizing on big hands, and you just don't make big hands with ace-x. Obviously you are just as likely to make two pair or a full house with a hand like Ah6c as you are with a hand like Js4d. When someone makes a standard 3x open from the button heads-up and I have A7 through A2 off suit, I just fold. I am aware that I probably have the best hand at the time and I fold. Because it's not a pre-flop game. And ace-rag isn't worth nearly as much as you think it is.

Let's look at what happens if you do play the hand though. If you flop your lower card, you are likely going to have bottom pair on the flop, and now you have to play an unfortunate check-calling game with a weak pair or attempt to later turn your hand into a bluff. And if you flop an ace, you are basically going to get into the classic position of winning a small pot or losing a big one. Your opponent isn't going to put too much money in the pot when there's an ace on the board that beats him, and it's also going to be hard for you to fold if your pair of aces is beaten by two pair or an ace with a better kicker.

Of course you can always catch him bluffing. But are you playing your hand as a bluff-catcher? No, you were trying to play it for value. The key to heads up is making deceptively big hands and extracting thin value because both players rarely have anything. Fold that ace-rag in the big blind. Go ahead and do it. Your value comes in position. And it comes after the flop is spread.

2. Raise the turn

Raising the turn provides you the opportunity to represent three different kinds of hands. Big hands, floats and draws. And all can get folds from your opponents, which, generally, is what we want in poker.

Now, let's say you have a monster. You're in the big blind and you flat with 55 and the flop comes J-5-2. If you check-raise the flop and your opponent folds, you feel pretty stupid, or at least I would. You've just "bluffed with the nuts." You've gotten hands to fold that were clearly way behind you and now you've stopped him from bluffing future streets. Oh, well what if he had aces or ace-jack? Yes, what if he had another huge hand? Then it doesn't matter when you raise. People don't fold over pairs heads-up. You're going to win a big pot in that spot no matter what. However all you accomplish by raising the flop is getting hands like KQ to fold. Hands that could have improved on the turn, but that you've now chased away.

Floating is less important and less common, but it allows you to rep some pretty big hands. It is especially useful on very dry boards because it allows you to represent only big hands. For example floating with ace-high on a J-10-7 board with two clubs doesn't really make sense because your opponent is just going to assume you have a draw and not slow down when the turn bricks. But if you call with ace high on a Q-7-3 board, now when your opponent checks to you on the turn you can easily represent a queen. VERY easily. Of course there is danger in floating, which is if your opponent bets the turn you will have to decide whether to float to the river or just fold right there... or raise. It can be a very delicate spot, however your hand does look very nuts-ish if you do float two streets then bet.

As poker has evolved, people have learned more and more about the semi-bluff. It's another sexy play that people love to use. But a lot of time they use it too early and this is especially true in heads-up. A lot of players after flopping a big draw, say the ace-high flush draw, want to either check-raise the flop or look for opportunities to semi-bluff here. And it works well most of the time. There's of course nothing wrong with winning the pot right then and there if you semi-bluff the flop and your opponent folds. But there's a way to make even more money. Let's look at what happens when we semi-bluff the turn. We'll accomplish a few things. We get to see an extra card if we call the flop and can now play our hand slower if we turn the nuts and our opponent keeps betting. But more importantly, we still have lots of fold equity by raising and semi-bluffing the turn and have won an extra big bet from our opponent when he folds. And if he doesn't fold, he's usually going to slow down on the river and not bet. You can now check back if you feel he's super strong OR you even now have a chance to make him fold on the river if you think he's weak enough. And if he folds river you've won a huge pot. And why shouldn't you? Your hand looks very strong. But it's this last part that leads us into:

Full ring players are going to turn over better hands more than heads-up players. It simply stands to reason because of the numbers. If six players see the flop, turn, and river, someone will pick up a stronger hand more of the time simply because of the sheer number of cards used. In Omaha, ace-high rarely takes down a mulit-way pot because there are twice as many cards used. But in heads-up no-limit hold 'em, your opponent will rarely have a strong hand by the time all five cards are laid out as well.

Everyone knows about continuation betting the flop nowadays. Long gone are the days of yesteryear when your friends would only c-bet with the nuts. Or ol' Grandpa at the casino would only c-bet when he has aces. It doesn't take a world of courage to c-bet the flop or to raise the flop with the ace-high flush draw. What is important is river aggression when you now can no longer beat any hand. That's what separates the men from the boys. There are no back door outs. There are no runner-runners. There's only raise and take it.

Let's look at a familiar situation where river aggression will take down pots. If you have AK and your opponent has 77 don't you think he's going to call most of the time on a Q-6-2 flop? I do. He wants to see your action on the turn. Well, he may or may not call your bet on the turn if you both miss. But now what does he do on the river on a Q62J5 board? Calls are hard there. That's just a basic example.

The key to river aggression is being savvy enough to know your opponents range. When you raise the river, especially if you check-raise the river or re-raise the river, you are completely polarizing your range. You either have basically the nuts or nothing. And people will always be afraid of the nuts. This line is especially good when you feel your opponent is going for very thin value on the river. Re-raise and see what he does. You'll be amazed at the hands you can get to fold: pockets aces, two pair, a lot of pretty strong hands for heads-up.

Players regardless of their demographic tend to think themselves super heros when it comes to heads-up play. All poker players generally consider themselves good poker players. Rarely is someone a self-acknowledged awful player. And so if everyone (this writer included) believes themselves better than half the field then they are certainly statistically better than their sole opponent heads-up. Therefore, they want to show off their big bag of tricks and prove their worth. For instance:

"Ok, with my big hands I'll limp in. With this hand I'll min-raise. Now I'll 4x. Now limp-raise. Now I'll lead flop! And this time I'll check back the nuts until the river!"

No, wrong, stop it. Just stop it. They don't see your hands. Hands in hold 'em rarely go to showdown. This is because with only two players neither of you ever has anything. So usually the aggressor wins the hand. And the sample size that your opponent sees is not going to be big enough to justify all these fancy plays. You need thousands of hands with one opponent before fancy-play syndrome ever has any merit.

This FPS rarely accomplishes what you want it to. The point of the game is to make money and win chips, not to completely dumbfound your opponent. If your opponent knows what you have and you're still winning every hand, then who cares. Keep playing the same way and keep stacking the chips.

5. Do NOT balance your range

Again, no one sees your hands. Think about the full ring games that you are generally used to. Let's say you've been making standard 3x raises and continuation-betting all flops. If you're opponents are folding to 100% of those c-bets, then would you ever balance your range by checking back when you flop air? No, it doesn't make sense. Yet, as heads-up is sexy, people want to feel sexy by doing things they would never do at a normal poker table. Floating the flop and turn with hands with zero equity. Making ridiculous size raises pre-flop. Varying the raise sizes pre-flop. Trying to bluff on the worst possible boards.

If you limp with Aces one hand, and then 4x it the next time, and your opponent sees neither hand, and then you limp with J8 one hand and 4x it the next time have you actually balanced your range? No, all you've done is balance your range to yourself. And what's the point in that - so you can feel mental contentment about mixing up your play? Look at this way: Don't level yourself. That could actually be a 6th point, but we'll include it in this category. Leveling yourself is of course describing the Sklansky levels of thinking. (Level One - what do I have. Level Two - what do they have. Level three - what do they think I have, all the way to Level Infinity). Heads-up, players tend to give way too much credit to their opponents and think they have to play this monster meta game, and they don't.

Novice heads-up players tend to think along these lines, "I 3x raised with aces last time I had them, and bet all streets, and he folded river. He must know I have aces when I raise and barrel. So now I'll limp aces and check-raise the flop and he'll never see it coming. Yes, yes it's perfect. Everything's going as I have foreseen." (Evil laugh).

Sadly, no one is thinking that. All your opponent saw was you have a big hand on a very specific board, and he has no clue if you actually had aces. Also, if you have aces and keep getting paid, why change your play? If players keep calling your all-ins when you have the nuts why would you ever not go all-in with them? For the sake of balance? Is it because you hate money? Is it because you don't like winning? Don't balance against an opponent until you have a lot, A LOT of hand history against him. You know what you're holding and no one else does (unless you're playing Russ Hamilton. Hardy har har). So don't balance for the sake of balance. Do it when it gives you an edge.

So we've come to the end. This was a lot of advice, some of it unnecessarily long-winded, but these are important things to consider when diving headfirst into heads-up. Some of these rules transcend into full ring, into poker tournaments, and even into other poker variants. But they're five big mistakes that run rampant when players get down to one-on-one. Overcome these mistakes and you're well on your way to overcoming the opposition.

(Note: I wrote this comedy article for PokerNews about a year ago, and seeing as it never got published I thought I would just share it with you as this month's blog.)

Now in the past year unless you've been dead, in a coma, or a dog, you'll have realized the government basically shut down online poker.

It's a sad, lonely time for poker. Former grinders are having to do near-impossible tasks like wake up early, get actual jobs, talk to other human beings, and bathe. All were laughable before April.

Now as many of you already know, online poker was created in 1997 shortly after Al Gore invented the internet. And in that early hour, the very first two online players sat down, each deposited $20, loaded a heads-up table, and were immediately robbed by Russ Hamilton.

Yes, the history of online poker is an ugly, sordid affair. Almost as ugly as the players themselves (see Luke Schwartz).

But as poker enters its Dark Ages, these former online whiz kids have been forced to stand up, brush themselves off, walk out their front doors, and get ready to be criticized for being nerds just like they were back in junior high school.

Except unlike jr. high, they won't be able to get jobs because they have no prior work experience.

Generally on a job application or resume, "Professional Poker Player" ranks slightly less impressive than 'McDonald's Fry Cook,' or 'Jersey Shore Cast Member,' or 'Actually, I'm Homeless' or 'Actually I'm a Dog.'

If you don't believe me, go apply for a job, tell them you play poker for a living, and then the two of you can share a laugh while security escorts you from the building outside into oncoming traffic. (And that's just for a job at Red Lobster).

Still, the online poker player is actually very smart, so in turn, very proud. However, sometimes this pride comes off as super duper smugness. Kind of like an Oscar winner talking about politics. Or maybe a Jersey Shore Cast-member.

I mean, with their pale greasy skin, general feeling of superiority, massive emotional swings, and complete disregard for social norms, online poker players are basically Gollum from Lord of the Rings.

Now sure, for a while things for you, Gollum, were great. You were living in your little cave feasting on the fish all day, so to speak. Sure, you hadn't been outside in years and you mumbled to yourself all day, but you had your precious online poker. Well then one day the US Government (i.e. hobbits) waltzed into your cave. And one particular hobbit, Bilbo Baggins (the Department of Justice) came and stole your precious right out from under your tiny nose. And now you have to befriend those stupid hobbits just in hopes of seeing it again. But they're holding your precious pretty close to the chest, and you don't know if you'll get it back.

Also Patrick Antonius is Aragorn because he's just so handsome.

...And Liv Boeree can be Arwen.

And Russ Hamilton is Shelob!

-We should note that while Gollum is of course emaciated and wiry, poker players are just a pinch heavier and look basically as if a walrus mated with say, a potato.

As we close, I'll leave you with three important tips to securing that real job. Just a few peccadilloes that can give you a "leg up" on the competition.

In conclusion online poker community, my main point here is this: remember that what goes down must come up. The government has cracked down on the poker sites. But their return to the US seems inevitable. And before you know it you'll be dragging pots again, your bankrolls will skyrocket, a light from the shadows shall spring, and in the end you'll come out on top, just like Gollum did.

Wait, what happens? Oh, well, maybe McDonald's is hiring.

So as some of you may or may not know, I work for both the Epic Poker League and the World Poker Tour (although Epic may cease to be by mid June when they go to bankruptcy auction). And through both those jobs, I've learned a little bit about how much money there is in this business, and how much untapped potential there is to poker in general.

I believe in my last blog I mentioned how I was going to talk about the battle for television dominance, but I think in this blog I'm going to slightly steer away from that and focus more on the direction I think televised poker and poker in general need to go.

So let's get down to brass tacts whatever that means. Online poker and live poker are now forever intertwined. I'm sorry if you're old and a poker purist and you have some autographed pictures of Puggy Pearson on your fridge, but that's just the way things are. And more and more it's looking like Party Poker and Pokerstars are becoming the only two players in the online game.

And Stars is winning the game.

Pokerstars as we all know and appreciate has done everything right by the poker community, but we forget that Party has done everything right as well. We forget simply because they backed out of the U.S. market once they felt online poker was illegal. Something we can all respect if not necessarily agree with.

Well, as Stars and Party both built their clienteles and rosters, they started sponsoring televised poker to attract customers. They did this so well, that eventually they thought "Well hot damn, we should just make our own shows and tourneys!"

And viola, they did. The EPT and the Big Game and NAPT and all the others were born.

And as poker has picked up in worldwide likability, so has the desire to be at the forefront and to be the most trusted name in the game. Online it's Pokerstars and Live I believe it's the World Series of Poker. Not to take away anything from Party Poker or Lock or the World Poker Tour, but I think those others are at the top of their respective fields.

But let's look behind before we look forward too much. A lot of people forget that the World Poker Tour actually came BEFORE the poker boom. Yes, the Five Diamond World Poker Classic at Bellagio that Gus Hansen took down? That happened in May of 2002 and aired well before Moneymaker smashed the '03 Main.

And ever since the WPT and WSOP blew up television ratings at the beginning of the century, everybody has since been trying to cash in on their success. We all remember the endless amount of poker on television around 2005. Celebrity Poker Showdown and Poker Superstars and the like.

But as the UIGEA was passed and then Black Friday happened, the number of poker shows on television has dwindled down to what started it all: the WSOP and the WPT. Those are the only two names in the game right now, but I suspect that may change. But honestly, I hope it doesn't.

Televised poker in nature has a really big problem. There's no simple way to do it live. "We'll do it live!" may sound nice in theory, but I was bored to death watching Pius Heinz win the Main Event last year. And so was everyone else. Even Pius Heinz!

You can't make it live because final tables take way too long to play. Solution: speed up the final tables. No, you can't do that because it's unfair to the players who are playing for millions of dollars. Now obviously, I'm not the first person to realize such things. Early on for the WPT, they had great structures until the final table and then all hell broke loose. Blinds would go up virtually every hand, and players were all in like crazy and it was awesome and I loved it. Hence we had a slew of random winners and some who even won twice and then fell off the Earth (Enter Tuan Le).

But they were more fun to watch. I have a friend who plays super turbo SNGs online with a pretty decent success rate. And it's so much fun to watch him. Watching people flip their cards and gamble is a lot more fun than slowly grinding someone down. The all-ins are great to watch, but awful to play. And no one's going to play structures like that for that much money. The WPT realized this and changed for the players. Poker on TV will probably progress to the point of virtually live. But the only way to do it truly live is to sequester the players, and where's the fun in that?

These are just general rambling concerns of mine though. What I'm more interested in talking about is who's going to be in charge of these television shows.

Look, EVERYBODY wants a piece of the proverbial poker pie. I work(ed) for the Epic Poker League and Daniel's absolutely right. It's no secret that Epic wanted to get in on the online action. They wanted to be a major online presence, a major live presence, and have a major website where NVG was discussed and news was reported. It seems that won't work out. But I wouldn't at all be surprised if some of these sites joined up together somewhere down the line. If 2+2 teamed up with Pokernews or if Stars bought the World Poker Tour, etc. Not necessarily those things, but some consolidation would be great. In my own opinion, poker needs to have one unified poker league and it be the only one people cared about. All other sports have this. MLB, NFL, PGA, NBA, etc.

It would just be nice to have one mammoth league that holds tournaments around the world year round and they culminate in the Main Event during the summer. I'm not saying it should be the WSOP or WPT or EPT. It would just be great for players and fans to have One League and One Ranking system. Let everybody agree on what the biggest tournaments are and who the best tournament players are.

I think in the years to come this will happen and I think it may carry over to online as well. Here's what's going to happen online. All players are going to realize that the biggest tournaments and most money to be made are going to be on just one site. And everyone will play there. It's just more money for everybody. The pros, the poker sites, the countries that tax them. Literally everybody wins. Except the fish. But the fish always lose.

Pokerstars is leading this charge into battle already. They appears to have a business model unlike any other. And it looks as if they're prepping themselves to take over poker in all aspects. TV, live tourneys, and the online market.

In fact, the NAPT, unless I'm mistaken, had their events scheduled right around the same time as the WPT events. And if that trend had continued, WPT might not have been able to survive. They might have had to shut their doors and the NAPT would have become the new WPT. But then the DOJ stepped in.

Again, Pokerstars' growing poker monopoly isn't a problem for me. People may fear monopolies, however monopoly's are generally bad because the company sets their own prices. And a poker site can't really change prices that much. Maybe raise the rake or registration fees, but I don't think that would happen. Especially since players make the game, and honestly, nobody NEEDS to play poker.

So I suppose that's the general direction poker needs to go or will hopefully go in my opinion. But maybe not. Or maybe I'm wrong.

Remember when the mega millions lottery hit something absurd like $700 million or something a few months ago. Do you have any idea how much money that is? That's like $70 million $10 bills!

Anyway, the point is people want to gamble, gamble. Why? Because it's fun and awesome. And poker is simply the most fun gamble out there because you have the most control. I've said before that poker is just as competitive as any actual sport. The only problem is that it's 100% mental whereas most real sports are both mental and physical with varying combinations of that balance. (Golf being more mental and less physical than hockey for example).

This means poker doesn't need time off and big games and tournaments can run all the time. This supersaturation of poker tournaments causes diminishing returns in the ones that are played. I still think a bracelet and a WPT title mean a great deal. But with so many events, they mean less and less.

If you're reading this blog, then you love this game. Or maybe you just love me and are reading my blog. Either way, you have excellent taste. Anyway, the point is that we all want poker to be mainstream, to be as good a game as possible, and for others to share in the competitive joy it can bring.

I can't wait for it to get there, and to see poker's second Golden Age. It's on its way.

Keith

PS I promise my next blog will be much more coherent and ramble substantially less. My heartfelt apologies.

I'm trying to remember the first time I ever saw poker on television. I want to say it was the 2004 WSOP that Greg Raymer won. Now I learned how to play poker when I was very young, but like many others all I really learned was what hands beat what. I think I was taught 5-Card Draw, and I believe, at least for my generation, 5-card Draw was generally assumed as the only poker variant that even existed. They weren't poker variants. This was the game of poker, simple.

So I want to say that that WSOP was my first experience with televised poker, but as I grew more interested in the game, I naturally became more interested in all the different shows. And the WPT was of course one of my favorites. Little did I know at the time I would go to work for them.

The story of my employment honestly starts with playing on TV back in '07. That coupled with my moving to Los Angeles allowed me to meet a lot of poker-industry people. But my track with the WPT begins in August of 2010, when the WPT held auditions to be the host of the "Raw Deal," the show's latest segment at the time. A cavalcade of card players, including myself, either submitted videos online or came out to the Bicycle Casino to interview/audition for that role. The process was a lot of fun albeit very fast, and it let me show off in front of the camera and meet the show's producers.

Now from what I'm told, the producers narrowed those thousands down to Tony Dunst, Phil Collins, Tiffany Michelle, Ali Nejad, and myself. Now let's just cut to the chase here: I'm hands down the least famous of those five. Everyone but Ali has deep runs in the Main Event, and Ali had already hosted like eight other poker shows before this. But evidently I did a good enough job in my interview and audition to warrant a meeting with Adam Pliska (the President) and Steven Heller (the CEO) and Joseph Grimm (the Executive Producer). After it was all said and done, they went with Tony, which I totally believe to be the right decision out of the five of us. I think Tony does an excellent job. And now that I'm friends with Ali, I know he would have done just as good a job as Tony. They're both great at what they do. Of course I wouldn't have been all that bad either.

That being said, I stayed in touch with the EP, Joe Grimm. I would tell him how my entertainment career and poker career were developing and he always seemed rather interested. He eventually told me that he really wanted me on board with his team simply because I have a broadcast journalism degree, I know an absurd amount about televised poker, and I'm occasionally intelligent. So originally I was to be a producer on the show back in season 9, but there really wasn't enough room to bring someone else on midseason. Then I was supposed to be the live commentary guy for the final table, but they gave that to Tony Dunst as well... yeah. Finally season 10 rolled around and Joe got me the producers gig. And here we are.

That job so far has had two aspects: the one is working in the studio, putting together and editing the shows. And the other being out in the field, gathering the actual tournament coverage, getting player interviews, and watching the Royal Flush girls parade about.

I won't go in depth too much about the ins and outs of working in the studio. Just know that basically everyone who works there is smart, genuine and good. As anyone who's had any job will tell you, half of the enjoyment of the workplace are the people around you. And everyone who works at the World Poker Tour is pretty grounded, intelligent, and laid back. I haven't seen any arguments or disagreements while there. Everyone seems to enjoy working with everyone else. The only downside is that nearly everyone there became a poker player after getting the job, not before. And without calling them out too much on it, I'm the only employee on staff who's really any good at cards.

Luckily, when I'm in the field, this knowledge of the game comes in quite handy. My interactions with the players go much more smoothly. I respect the players we interview, but they don't intimidate me. Also I can talk strategy with them, and poker players can pretty quickly identify other true poker players minutes into conversation.

Now if you're curious as to what I actually I do while on location, it's very simple: I yell at the camera crews. If you ever find yourself at a WPT stop and you see someone with either large curly hair or a buzz-cut (I oscillate between the two) walking around telling camera crews who to film and why, then that's probably me. My job out in the field is rather straight forward. I grab players for interviews during the breaks. I tell camera crews who to film. I tell them what hands to cover. I also grab a camera and film myself if a monster pot appears out of nowhere. And on our final televised table, I'm doing about eight different things simultaneously as all the producers are running around like madmen on our final day. It's high stress and long hours, but a lot of fun.

But you know what the best part for me is? The absolute best part?

The money.

But you know what the second best part for me is? The absolute second best part?

It's finding out all these stories, all these gems, that the general public doesn't know about. Stories and backstories and explanations that I've always wanted to know. Tales of some of my favorite pros and about the show's history itself. Luckily, I am huge fan of the show and have been for some time, so my curiosity is endless.

-Why was there a different hostess every season for so long? Shauna Hiatt, Courtney Friel, Amanda Leatherman, Layla Kayleigh, etc. Who got fired? Who quit?

-Who staked whom in which tournament? Carlos Mortenson, Tuan Le, David Chiu - they were all backed when they won their 25k World Championships.

-What happened to the WPT stops at Reno, at Tunica, Aruba, etc?

-Remember when Doyle Brunson and company were going to buy the WPT for 250 million?

-Who has the best WPT ROI? The worst?

-What was it like having Budweiser and Cadillac and Full Tilt sponsor the show? What feuds have their been with other shows on TV?

Many people don't care about that sort of thing, but I always did. And now I get the inside scoop. And it's a lot of fun for me. The producer's gig and working in poker aren't my career goals. If you read this then you'll know I have pretty high aspirations as a screenwriter, but for now, I'll take it. And love every minute of it. I think in the future I'll be going into the studio a lot more and contributing more creatively. But until the show gets cancelled or people no longer watch televised poker or until I get to be wicked famous, I'll be happy to go into work there any day they'll have me.

The bingo. The bango. And that bongo,

Keith

P.S. Next time: the war for network poker dominance.

Maybe in some distant blog in the distant future I will write about what it was like to be on The Best Damn Poker Show. In 2007, there were roughly 400 different poker shows on television and somehow I landed on that one. Annie Duke and Phil Hellmuth were the hosts and it was more or less a disaster. It got horrible ratings and was seemingly produced without a lot of forethought. The premise was kinda awful as well and yes, I think will write a blog about it some day.

However I've stayed in touch with the actual poker players from the show, although we don't talk on any consistent basis by any means. That's why I was relatively surprised when Annie Duke called me in December and offered me a job working for the Epic Poker League. We discussed what I would be doing, and how much I would get paid, and if I wanted the job. She had to clear it with the higher ups, but after a few weeks I filled out my paper work and was officially working for the site.

The plan was for me to write the Global Poker Index article every week and once we felt I was performing well at that, we would move onto additional articles and working with the actual tournaments. After a few articles, I was assigned the monthly Player of the Year column as well.

Annie Duke and our statistical expert Mary Faulkner and I would basically collect all the data from every tournament that the Hendon Mob tracks. We would crunch the numbers in our database and decide what were the top stories. We would then present that data on the site and people the world over could follow just who were the best 300 tournament players in the world. As that article would come out every Wednesday, Tuesday was really the only day of the week I worked as we wanted our statistics to be as up-to-the-day as possible. We would get the data that morning, put it through the calculations and determine just who were the best players in the world that week.

Annie, while very demanding and no-nonsense, is great to work for. She has a very clear vision of what she wants, and she's a very good teacher. But I would mostly work side by side with Mary: she and I would go through the data and then send our final articles to Annie to proof and edit. And while I would get "red-penned" a lot by them both, the system was running smoothly and we all seemed to have a great working relationship. That is until Federated Sports and Gaming, the parent company, filed for bankruptcy.

It came as a shock to most of us really. I won't go into exactly what happened. Suffice it to say that some of our investors backed out and we were put in a corner. A lot of players were really depressed about this while others seemed somehow pleased, although I'm not entirely sure why.

It really sucks to go on hiatus from writing for the site. Epic took care of their players and staff very well; financially and personally we were all well provided for. But as the day-in and day-out description of my actual job is more cut and dry, I thought I'd close the rest of this article with some thoughts on Epic Poker as a whole.

Annie once wrote a blog about why the Epic Poker League is necessary. And if I could find it, I would post the link, but I can't. But here's what being a television producer has taught me: the cameras want to capture something/anything and sadly, poker has become less and less and less vocal. Did any of you watch the World Series of Poker Europe Main Event final table? No? Why not? Is it because you took a shotgun to your head half way through out of boredom? A lot of head-phone wearing, hoodie-covered, socially inept 24-year-old genius poker players 4-betting each other into oblivion but never saying anything is super boring to watch.

That being said, in the Golden Age of Poker (2003-2006) we were introduced to a lot of players who are very memorable. We associated those players with being the best in the game, but the fact is they aren't and they really never were. They were either loud and proud or just in the right place at the right time to win a tournament when everyone was watching. I suppose Chris Moneymaker is the best example. All these stars came out of the poker boom just because they won tournaments in those three years. These old pros that were semi-famous before the boom became super famous after the boom. And no offense to T.J. Cloutier and Daivd Sklansky and Mike Caro, but they just shouldn't be the bigger names in the game considering how good and smart some of the younger players are.

Here's what I think: I bet if you went up to one hundred random people on the street and asked them to name 5 poker players, they would name Phil Hellmuth, Johnny Chan, Doyle Brunson, Daniel Negreanu, and Phil Ivey (if they could name any at all). Some might argue for Erik Seidel or Chris Moneymaker. But the point is as far as tournament poker goes, some of those guys aren't even winning any more. I think all five of those players are still some of the best in the game. But our tournament winners are Mercier, Elky, Seidel, and a slew of young players. The 2009 WSOP Tournament of Champions voting showed just how far off the general public was in their assessment of who the best in the game is. The Epic Poker League and the Global Poker Index were trying to show the world just who really was the best in the game: who in 2012 is crushing the game and why.

Let me make it very clear that I was originally confused by Epic Poker, but that's before I understood what they were trying to do. They're trying to do something no one else has done before. They wanted to showcase the best in the game and treat their staff and their players like royalty. ESPN and the WSOP certainly hadn't done that. Remember all those free rooms you got at the Rio for playing the Main Event? Or all those meal comps they handed you or all those kickbacks ESPN gave you for putting you on TV? Oh you don't? That's because there aren't any.

EPL was trying to change all that. Pros first. That was our mantra. Epic launched a very good Facebook app that they're hoping takes off. They've created a great news site at epicpoker.com and they are running a terrific tournament series. Here's something else: the EPL wants other leagues to succeed. It's player base, the way we calculate the GPI, are all dependent upon the results of the WSOP, the WPT, the EPT and so on. It wants other shows to get good ratings. The success of the EPL is good for poker and vice versa. Now I completely understand the sense of betrayal that some players have towards the last event and the freeroll being potentially cancelled. As far as that goes, I am almost in complete agreement with Matt Glantz, who wrote about it here: http://www.mattglantzpoker.com/blog/2012/03/01/epic-3rd-and-long/

Can the EPL come back and still work? I don't know for sure, but I think so. I believe so. The EPL team seems confident. And while investors are likely to sign up, it's really dependent upon the players and the fans. Something similar to this, the Professional Poker Tour, was instigated by the World Poker Tour back in 2004, and it failed pretty miserably.

But what will work is the GPI. I believe completely in the Global Poker Index. I think it is easily the best ranking system poker has to offer. Better than Bluff's or Cardplayer's or what the WPT and WSOP use for their PoY calculations. I won't go into all the benefits of the GPI calculator but it weighs things other ranking systems don't like field-size, buy-ins and much more.

The people I work with for the EPL are all super-smart math people, highly logical, mega sarcastic, and pretty cool. They all seem to have a pure love of poker. You know those old men who really love baseball or boxing and talk about the science of the sport and its pure excellence and how the game isn't what it used to be. That's the way I feel about Epic Poker. It's what poker could and should be. All the dealers are hand-picked. The players get comped like crazy. All the staff is legit. And outside of Daniel Negreanu hopping around belittling Annie at every turn, the poker community seems to be pulling for us as well.

And the more I talk to Annie Duke, Mary Faulkner and Eric Faulkner, the more confident they seem that we'll be back and better than ever. And when we do come back, I hope I get to return as well, and try to improve upon what I've already started.

Keith Woernle

Note: However, I'm not completely out on the street. For right around the time my stint with the EPL came to a close, I got a phone call from the executive producer of the World Poker Tour offering me a job. Until next time..

What a difference a year makes. When I last left this blog some really big things happened to me poker-wise. Namely, I won a World Series of Poker Circuit ring, and Black Friday.

Oddly enough, that victory, easily my largest score thus far, came one week to the day before Black Friday. One week to enjoy that success before the dark times, before the DOJ.

The two biggest things that have happened since then are that Annie Duke called me and I asked me to begin working for the Epic Poker League and Joseph Grimm, executive producer of the World Poker Tour, asked me to be a producer for the WPT. And I am now doing both.

In the coming weeks or days or possibly even right now, I will write two more blogs: one titled "What it is/was like working for the Epic Poker League" and another titled "What it's like working for the World Poker Tour."

Oddly enough, I haven't really played all that much since my victory: I've only played 3 WSOP circuit events since winning one! I actually made a deep run last weekend in the $355 San Diego event. I got 19th out of 500 or so players. I took some really bad beats after we got into the money and I won't bore you with them. But it is rather painful to get that close and not final table the event. But my WSOP Circuit stats are actually getting moderately impressive: 4 cashes in 10 tournaments lifetime, all in the top 20, with one victory of course.

I should probably play more events and I suppose I could go out and get backing, but I really hate being backed or selling any decent part of myself. It's a pride thing I suppose.

I traveled to Vegas this summer to play a handful of tournaments. I believe I played 5 tournaments overall during the ten days I was there. Three Venetian Deepstacks, one $1500 bracelet event, and one event at Caesar's. I made a deep run in one of the Venetians, but fell out in 29th out of like 900 or something.

I've been really pleased with my tournament play and strategy. I think I have a pretty good edge over these fields, and when I have more time/money I look forward to playing more.

Outside of that I've only played the sporadic cash game, but have faired pretty well. I don't miss being an online pro. It sucks to have less money, but I think I'm much happier. In my humble opinion, I think poker is an amazing hobby and am awful profession. For the dreamers and optimists, there just isn't much hope that the life of professional poker gives.

I want you, the poker world to know something. Yours is a very small world. It will never be mainstream because poker just isn't enough of a spectator sport. It is just as competitive as baseball and football and hockey and ping pong, however all those sports are battles of body and mind. And poker is purely a mental battle. And it's just not fast-paced enough. I'm gonna do my best in my jobs to make poker more entertaining and watchable for everyone, but something I can do for the poker world is create a really good film about it. That's one of my goals. It won't glorify poker. It won't condemn it. It will be my little love-letter to the game. And (modesty was never my strong suit) it's going to be very, very good.

But before I do, I think I'm going to finish my other comedy scripts first. I have finally landed good management for acting and writing in this city of Los Angeles. And I need to pitch something that's a guaranteed sell first, but I can't wait to finish the poker story I have written so far.

Anyway, this was just a simple few words to say I'm back. I'll try to write a blog once a month. The next two will be a little behind the scenes about working with Annie Duke and Ali Nejad and Mike Sexton and Vince Van Patton.

So until that next time,

Keith

As I type these first couple words, I'm still somewhat in deliberation on how magnanimous to make this story in the first place. I know I can get a little long-winded both when I talk and when I write, but this isn't particularly my fault. I am, after all, very VERY interesting. But I guess this story is about winning a World Series event specifically and not all the little building blocks that helped me get there. So I suppose I will give only a moderate amount of backstory.

So my friend Darren chopped the Pokerstars Sunday Million. That's the biggest tournament in online poker and Darren got 2nd place for $100,000. Watching him play was amazing, and a few days after the dust had settled, he asked me to come visit him in St. Louis where he lives. Sort of a mini-vacation. We could hang out, party a bit, and maybe play some of the World Series of Poker Circuit events, which would coincidentally be in St. Louis that week.

However, I said I was a little too busy in LA to be taking a week-long vacation. Also, I didn't want to spend the money on a plane ticket regardless of how good Darren's mother's cooking is. And it is very, very good. However, Darren said he would buy my plane ticket and pay for our hotel room in St. Louis if we played the circuit events.

And that little bit of generosity was just enough to put me over the edge. So I booked a flight to St. Louis for one week.

Darren and I actually only went and played the last weekend of events. We were too busy hanging out with Darren's friends and family. And the event that I won was actualy the first one I played.

Let me preface this recap by saying I'm not really a tournament player. Not a great one anyway. I much prefer playing cash games because in tournaments you almost always lose. And I loathe losing. I'm very competitive, but also I'm in general a very upbeat, positive person. I think if I played tournaments all day every day I'd kill myself.

For example, last year at a Tunica WSOP event, I got 8th place out of 570-something people. I lost AK against A4 in a chip lead pot to get eliminated at the final table. That 8th place finish really stung. Had I won that pot, I feel I would have definitely made at least $10,000 in that tournament, but... that's poker. I had come close before, and I remembered how very painful it is to come that close and lose by so little. And I'm just not cut out to lose that often.

Anyway, here's how the tourney went down. (Basically here I will be recounting some of my bigger hands. If you don't know pokerspeak, then I may lose you, but I'll speak English occasssionally also.)

(Note: For fun, I'm going to include verbatim all the texts I sent my friends and family as the tournament progressed. Kind of fun to read now.)

Text 1: About to play a $500 buy-in tournament in St. Louis. Send some good luck mojo towards my general direction.

When I registered, the field was a little smaller than I had imagined. Only 276 people had entered this $500 event, and I was expecting about 400. But my original table had only three young people at it, which is generally very good. Older players are generally tighter, can be outplayed, etc. So I went with a game plan to focus on the veterans at the table.

My first big hand went down when I raised two kings in the cutoff, and got calls from the old man on the button to my left, and the big blind. The flop came a gorgeous Ks-Jd-3c. Oh, the nuts. Well, that's fine. I bet here and got raised by the man on the button. This presented a pretty interesting dilemma. I don't want to raise and get worse hands to fold, however I also don't think he's bluffing. But when you have the nuts, it's unlikely they have a big hand too, so it's best to let them fire. Sigh... The turn was the 3 of diamonds. I checked my full house, he bet. I called. The river was the queen of diamonds. I checked. He took a long time and bet small. I of course raised this bet. This old man then whined a little bit before folding KJ face up. And I was bitter.

This hand got me steamed up a good bit. Here I was presented with a beautiful gift of top set versus top two, and I slowplay it to make the minimum. Pretty frustrating.

From that point on, I preceded to run into hand after hand, and I slowly got down to 5,000 from our original 12,000 starting stack. Then this hand happened.

I raised A6 of clubs from the hijack position. Blinds were 100-200 and I made it 550. The 40-year-old on the button called and the blinds got out of the way. The flop came 5-8-3 rainbow. Something I've been noticing about my image and about my betting is that people very rarely believe my continuation bets on the flop or my raises pre-flop. I'm young and I have a certain look, but people generally like playing back at me. So on this flop without any hand at all, I checked. I was probably going to check-fold and let him have it, but my hand has some minor showdown value, and I wanted to possibly try to get to the river cheaply. He checked behind.

The river came a blank 9. So now we're looking at a 5-8-3-9 rainbow. I checked again and this guy bet 1100, which is roughly the size of the pot. This is of course the interesting part of the hand. I have shown pretty decent weakness thus far. If I had any sort of hand, I doubt I would check twice, and this guy knows this. So why would he bet so big? I guess he wants me to fold.

So, I called. When I called I figured my hand could look like a draw to him. J10,Q10,10-7, or maybe just a lone pair of 9's. The river came: another 8. So now we have a board of 5-8-3-9-8 and I have Ace-six. I checked again.

This guy took a little time before saying he was all-in, which would put me all-in. A bet of about 3,400. And I decided to head into the tank. Basically, it came down to if I felt he had an eight or not. Obviously all I have is ace-high, but if you study poker enough, you know that he rarely has better hands. He checks back threes and fives and other weak hands that beat me. I won't get into a ton of strategy, but basically it comes down to this: Why is he betting so big? Big bets usually represent two things. He has a big hand and wants to win a big pot or he is betting big so I will fold. My hand looks weak to him. REALLY weak. I've checked all three streets. If he has a huge hand he needs to milk me...

Again, it's real important to ask yourself why is your opponent betting and what does my hand look like to him. I didn't c-bet. So is he trying to get value out of a nine? Highly possible. I don't have that many nines in my range thought. Also, it just seems that against an unknown player with whom you have not set up a dynamic against, that you're not going to try to get hero calls out of them early on. And an eight likely bets for value. So I thought about it and thought about it. And I softly said, "Call."

Now I don't really speak that much at the table, and I basically don't speak at all while I'm in a hand. This gives a lot of people the impression that I'm a quiet, introverted person. And not the outgoing, dancing, singing idiot that I actually am. So when I called, nothing happened. The dealer didn't hear me. But that guy heard me. Oh man, that guy one hundred billion percent heard me. And he wasn't happy. After about five seconds I looked at the dealer and said I had called.

He said, "Nice call" and flipped over J10. I flipped over my ace high and took the pot down, along with a lot of table respect.

From then on, it was small pots. Oh, also I hit lots of sets. I don't mind telling you this. None of them were in particularly big pots. But I flopped that set of kings I told you about earlier, then I flopped a set of Aces twice. I flopped a set of sixes and a set of fours and a set of threes. All in the first 6 hours. I won all these pots, and although none of them were big pots, I didn't show any of these hands. So it allowed me to win them easily and without too much worry.

I had also been texting a lot of people during this time and they had been wishing me well. But it these big tournaments I like to stay super-centered and focused, so I only look at my phone during dinner break, and at the beginning or end of the day. So I apologize for not texting back all the people who wished me well.

Text 2: At dinner break. Half the field is gone and I have chip average. Darren is in also and has a little above chip average.

My next actual big hand came a couple hours after our dinner break. Darren had chipped up nicely to right around 100k, when the average stack in the room was 70k. Darren's very good by the way.

I began this hand with about 50k in my stack, well below average. A very large stack had just sat down to my immediate right and he probably had about 200k. Well about one orbit in, I raised with AK off from under the gun. This big stack in the big blind was my only caller. The flop came down 9-9-4 rainbow. It was checked to me and I c-bet with the intention of calling a shove or re-re-raising all-in myself. The guy had that look about him.

But instead he just called. The turn was the king of clubs, which also put two clubs on the board. This guy then lead into me for about 3/4 of the pot. For whatever reason I do a pretty good job of feigning weakness when I am strong, and I did that here. The speed of my call must have made it look like I had JJ or tens or some similar two pair hand. Because when the river came a third nine and he went all-in and I snap-called, he said that he didn't have anything. I showed my nines full of kings and doubled up to 100k. And it was time to play real poker again.

As we approached the money (30 players got paid), I didn't get involved in too many big pots. In fact I slowly went down in chips. A lot of this was because Ari Engel was moved to my table. Ari is a moderately well-known online pro and he was moved to my immediate right with 36 players left. And as the money approached and the players tightened up, Ari raised every pot. And I do mean EVERY pot. This left me in an interesting position. I was not able to steal blinds and antes as easily as he was because he was always the first one into a pot. I basically began 3-betting him with weaker hands and calling his raises in position with stronger hands. This strategy worked, but I still treaded water around 90k until we got into the money....

As everyone knows, once you get in the money everything changes. The all-ins come fast and often and it wasn't long before we were down to 27 players. Unfortunately for me, I was completely card dead up to that point. When we got down to three tables however, everything changed.

Darren got moved to my immediate right when they broke his table, which of course made us smile. Not that we would be colluding or anything, but three times in the past Darren has been moved to my table in a big live event and all three times one of us busted within one orbit. Twice him, once me.

And I tried to even the score four hands into three tables, but fate decided against it.

With the blinds at 2k-4k and 80k in my stack, I raised to 10k with A10 of diamonds from under the gun. This is a questionable play in and of itself, but what rally sucked is when the button made it an even 20k to go. This spot sucks. I never have the best hand here. I'm out of position. I don't have many chips left, but I'm getting 5 to 1 on my money. Whatever, I call.

Jh-5d-4d. I checked here because I figured this guy was ALWAYS c-betting, however I believe this is a mistake. I'm never folding on this flop, and the guy can pot commit himself with hands I can elicit folds out of. This is exaclty what happened. I checked, he bet 25k, and I immediately jammed my remaining 35k more in the middle, and he snap-called with AK of clubs.

I was a little surprised by how fast this guy called an all-in with just Ace-high, but I suppose there was a lot of money in the pot. I stood up and prepared to leave even though I had 12 outs and was essentially on the bad end of a coin flip.

I pray a lot when I'm playing. Selfishly, shamelessly, I ask God for help. I'm not sure if He answers me... but I'll take it if He does.

8 of spades on the turn. I sighed. It was a pretty deep run. I should be happy with my cash.

A jack of diamonds slams the river. Boom. I mini-fist-pumped. I screamed "Yes" a few times under my breath. Meanwhile, this guy cursed for about a solid two minutes. He cursed me, poker, the day I was born, everything. But I didn't mind. I had just doubled up to 45 blinds and was back in the game.

The rush continues: Move to exactly one orbit later. The blinds have gone up to 2500-5k and I am in the same position with two fives. I limped under the gun. I almost always raise, but did not want to commit myself with multiple short stacks on the table. Also UTG limps can look very strong to opponents, etc. (I also think limping here is a mistake looking back, but it won me a big pot. Again, I don't play perfect). Now the same 40-year-old dude on the button made it 15k, which is a very small, very weird raise. I truly believe he did not see me limp in because his 15k raise just doesn't make any sense. Blinds fold and I called.

Ad-5c-4h.

Oh, another set? Don't mind if I do. I check, he bets, I call. The turn was a 6 of diamonds. I check, he goes all-in and I beat him into the pot. Now usually in this spot he has AK again or another big ace and is drawing stone dead. However, I wasn't too excited to see him flip A7, a hand that has 8 outs against me. The turn however was a scary-looking-but-safe 7 of clubs. I knock him out, and he does some more cursing.

I was still stacking the chips from that hand when on the very next hand the kid under the gun makes it 12k to go. It folds around to me in the big blind and I look down at two red queens. I think a lot of players try to play their hand too carefully here and make a smallish raise to induce action, but since he only had 100k left I though a big raise may entice a call as well. So I jammed. He thought about it for 30 seconds. Then he called and flipped two tens. And the the flop came Q-6-Q, which means I have quads, and which means the only way I lose is if the casino blows up.

I would end up getting KK and QQ again in the last hour of the night, but I lost both of them in moderate size pots when an ace flopped and two other players were in the hand.

After that I basically played normal for the last couple of orbits. But on the very last hand of the night, it folded around to a guy named Peter on the button who jammed in his last remaining 11 blinds and I looked down at AK in the big blind. I made the easy call, Peter had two fives, but I flopped and turned aces. And that was that. I had gone from 70k with 27 left to 400k with 16 left. All in about a level and a half.

16 were coming back for day two. Darren, a guy named Don, and I ordered a couple celebratory shots and all had a beer before going back to out hotel rooms. I didn't sleep extremely well that night. I was too excited about the prospect of winning. I was chipleader. Chipleader with 16 left. Looks like I would have another shot at a final table, and my friend Darren was going to be there with me.

Text 3: I'm chip leader going into day 2. 16 players left. Average stack is 200k. I have 400k. Darren has 300k. 1st is $32,000. 276 players started. Send more good luck vibes this way.

I slept about 3 hours that night. I woke up the next morning at 7 and began pacing. I texted people back. I called my girlfriend and brother and a few friends. And mostly I just focused on my game plan, which was basically this: don't do anything too stupid.

Text 4: We're starting in 10 minutes. So again, send loads and loads of good luck vibes and mojo! Going into radio silence. My next text will be from the final table.

But when we came back Friday afternoon at 2, my heater showed no signs of cooling down.

One orbit in, the blinds were 3000-6000 with a 500 ante. Under the gun made a largish raise to an even 18k. I flatted with pocket 8's on the button and the blinds got out of the way and we saw a flop.

Jd-8d-3s. Oh, one of those set things I've been hearing about. Why, yes, I'll take it. UTG c-bet here 20k. I think raising here is really stupid. And so should you. So I flatted.

The turn was a seven of diamonds, which made me say in my mind, "Oh, good. That one." Obviously I went from having the second nuts to about the 200th nuts, but... I still like my hand. UTG checked to me, which he is going to do with all his missed hands and his marginal hands on this board texture. I then made a largish bet of about 65k and he wasted little time before going all-in for about 130k more. I'm not in love with my hand, but I'm just not going to flop middle set and fold. I called.

He showed two aces with the Ace of diamonds for a flush draw. I'm not sure what he was thinking I would call with that he's beating or what I would fold. But I think he just figured he had AA and wasn't folding heads-up.

I held.

So, I have recently just finished stacking that dude's chips when I look down from under the gun at two aces myself. "Oh, well if you insist," I say.

Blinds were still 3k-6k, so I opened to 15k. To my immediate left, a young internet wizard made it 35k straight. The button, a guy about 30 years old, then called, and the woman in the big blind went all in for 55k total. Well against raises, I like flatting pre-flop with the aces sometimes, and sometimes I re-raise with them, and very rarely do I fold because that's just stupid.

However, I kind of need to thin the field here. I'm not about to let four people see the flop. But, I am in an interesting position, as I know the young gun to my left probably isn't 3-betting the UTG chip leader as a bluff. And NO ONE flats a three bet with a weak hand. So they're both strong, probably. I am in a position though as the chipleader and the original raiser that my raise can mildly look like an overbet squeeze, attempting to pick off the supposed dead money in the pot. So I took about a minute to look like these things were going through my head, and plopped out two gray 100k stacks next to my original raise, making it 215k to go.

The guy to my left then quickly shoved his whole stack of 350k. The guy on the button then went on a little vacation into the tank. Now, it's pretty clear to me once this guy is tanking that he either has QQ or JJ. I think AK, 10s, and 99 are all no-brainer folds. Also, I'm not particularly sure if I wanted a call or not here, as the pot is already monstrous, and 3 of us are already going to be all-in.

He shows the dude to his left his cards and folds. They were jacks evidently. The old woman flips kings and the kid flips queens. I flip aces. And the crowd goes wild. The flop comes down without any cards above an eight and I hold.

Then followed lots of high-fives and cheers and comments of how sick this game is.

It took a long time to stack all those chips. And after I counted them all I had 1.1 million. With 12 left. And only 3.3 million total chips in play. So 33% of the chips in play with 12 left. Kinda cool.

My hands were then pretty uneventful as I tried to just play solid until the final table, which came soon enough. Darren was there too, albeit somewhat short-stacked. I still came in as the chipleader, although I had fallen down to right around a million even in chips.

Text 5: Final table. Chipleader. Send that luck!

(You can read on the WSOP news story about exactly how all the final hands went down, but I'm just going to talk about the big hands I was involved in. Note: there are a lot of errors in the WSOP coverage, but its mostly accurate- http://www.wsop.com/news/2011/Apr/3276/KEITH-WOERNLE-WINS-RING-EVENT-7-AT-HARRAHS-ST-LOUIS.html)

I didn't knock anyone out at the final table except second place. That's how bad my cards were and how poorly I played. I think I tried to use my big stack too much. I made really light calls, and really bad shoves, and they all added up to cost me a lot of chips. But one by one people kept falling. If I just held onto my 1 million in chips I would only be down 2 to 1 when we got down to heads-up, but I didn't.

I was mildly frustrated when Darren went out in 9th. Besides having swapped some small percentage, he was my friend and he went out in brutal fashion. He lost about 80% of his chips when his AA lost to Ari's AJ, when Ari hit jacks on the flop and river. Very gross. Then he lost AJ to AQ after flopping a jack. Rivered again.

Personally, my next huge hand of note came against Joel, the guy who ultimately got 2nd. This hand sucked. I still don't know how to play it.

On the LAST hand before the break, Joel raised from the cutoff and I called with Ad10d from the big blind. The flop came AAK rainbow. I check-called. The turn was a 9. I check-called. The river was a 6. I check-called. And Joel had AJ to out-kick me by one. I've thought about this hand a lot since it in essence doubled up Joel and cost me 3/4 of my stack, but I'm not really sure at what point in the hand I should fold. I guess on the river. I don't know. We went on break, and I had lost a lot of chips. A lot.

Text 6: On break. 8 left. Darren got 9th. I'm short stacked. Doubled up 3rd place with a10 vs aj after an AAK flop heads up. Send loads of luck now.

After that hand, I had to focus very hard on, well, staying focused. I still had about 30 blinds, and was probably in 5th or 6th and had exaggerated in my text. But I talked with Darren a bit and tried to get back in the zone. From that point on, I basically treaded water.

I would chip up a bit and then call super short stack all-in shoves with 33 or 22. I doubled up short stacks probably three times that level, but basically I folded my way to another break. My only real saving grace was that Joel and Ari, the guys in 1st and 2nd were both to my immediate right. And the two of them were just crushing everybody. I think I had gotten back up to 500k, much less than I started the final table with, but it was enough to be in 3rd with 6 left.

Text 7: Ok ok comeback time. 6 left. I'm in 3rd.

At this point, Darren and I just talked a lot during the break. How to play optimally, who to target, what hands to play, and how to chip up. Again: Don't do anything stupid.

But with 5 left I put the money in way behind again, alebit in shocking fashion. I raised AK of diamonds from the button and the short-stacked guy in the big blind jammed in 15 blinds and I snapped. He had AA. Oh. That one.

But I was still in third. And the other two guys got short stacked. They had to keep shoving and they would fall.

And suddenly we were 3 handed. For the last 30 minutes of 3-handedness before the dinner break, Ari and Joel beat me up pretty good. I slowly lost chips. They slowly won them. That was until Ari raised from the button and I looked down at two queens.

I'm all in. He called. And he showed two tens. Mini-cooler for him.

Flop. A-K-Q. Not bad, not amazing.

Turn. Ace. Quite amazing.

River. I don't remember. Who cares what it was.

That doubled me up, and then we went to dinner break. I was still short, but I had about 400k again and was at least going to have 16 blinds when we returned from break. Blinds would be 12k-24k.

Text 8: Dinner break. 3 left. I'm in 3rd and kind of short. But I'm feeling good. I'm ready for heads up! Send as much luck as is humanly possible. I need the mojo now!

I probably said about ten words during dinner. It consisted mostly of Darren yelling at me. Mostly about how bad I had been playing, but also about the perfect strategy for three-handed play and how to play my current chip stack. We went over dozens of situations, and just discussed how to play perfect with what I had left. We walked around for twenty minutes. I sent some texts. I tried to stay super focused. It was going to be a huge uphill battle to get to heads-up.

Or so I thought.

Text 9: Cards back in the air. Here. We. Go.

Maybe I shouldn't call them out on it. I don't know. I respect them both as players, but Ari and Joel clearly had something worked out when we returned from break. All I know is that Joel and Ari are friends. Joel was a former student of Ari's. Ari is a poker tournament training coach. And Joel was wearing Ari's badge that had his website shown on it. Both these guys have won circuit events before. So make your own conclusions.

I believe we played three hands before we got to heads-up. And here's how that happened:

Ari was on the button with roughly 800k or 32 big blinds.

I was in the small blind with roughly 400k or 16 big blinds.

Joel was in the big blind with roughly 2 million or 80 big blinds.

Ari open-jammed all-in. I folded. And Joel called in the big blind.

Ari had KJ offsuit and Joel had A7 off suit.

And the ace-high held up. Now, if Joel's hand was better or if Ari's hand was better I wouldn't say much. But Ari was an extreme small-ball poker kind of guy. And Joel, his student, was very similar. I had never seen Ari do anything like this and I had played at the same table as him for about half the tournament. They are both very sound tournament players and this hand just didn't make any sense.

Now I'm not saying they did anything wrong, and I'm certainly not angry over the outcome. I just think they clearly had some form of agreement and that their play is indicative of that. However, I've racked my brain as to figure out WHY they would do this. Doesn't it look like they can pressure me into third place anyway? Why take the risk to get into a giant chiplead. Sure they are almost certainly going to win if one eliminates the other to get to heads-up, but it doesn't seem to be worth the risk to me. If anyone has any clue as to what their strategy might have been I would love to hear it. Nothing makes sense to me.

Meanwhile...

Ah! I'm heads-up! Awesome. How did this happen? Who cares. Let's go! Darren was losing his mind over on the rail. He was saying many profanity-laced things to Joel and informing him that I was a better player. And it only got worse as heads-up progressed.

Joel and I didn't say much as heads-up began. There was a small ceremony as Riley, the tournament director, brought out the WSOP ring and announced that we were heads-up. But then we got right into it.

I had 14 blinds when we began. However, I'm a heads-up reg. Joel wasn't. I knew both these things. But he didn't. Not yet anyway.

Joel raised all-in the very first hand and I folded. On the second, I did the same thing with A9 of clubs. When tournament players get to heads up they make two big mistakes: they begin thinking its a pissing contest and that it's simply a matter of naked aggression opposed to calculated aggression. Also, they see the finish line, and get very anxious for victory. And it is tempting to play fast, I know. When you have the chip lead heads-up and your opponent goes all in pre-flop, every hand looks good. All of them. All his chips are in the middle pre flop. He's the only guy left. Just dish out one more bad beat and the title and the money are yours. Trust me, I get it. But it's not optimal play.

Joel called with A3 of diamonds. And despite him hitting two diamonds on the flop, I held. I then progressed to win hand after hand until we got to another huge all-in pot.

I raised with AK. Joel 3-bet with AJ. I went all-in. Joel called. I held. Chiplead. Darren cursed and yelled. A lot.

Darren was being pretty loud and Joel asked numerous times if he was going to stop. But I more or less pretended I wasn't affiliated with Darren. All of Joel's friends stayed a little more quiet and polite than mine, but, uh, oh well.

So after this AK double, we were still close in chips. But now I had 60 blinds, and that's when the fastball came out. I basically soul-crushed Joel over the next hour. If I 3-bet as a bluff, he folded. If I check-raised bluffed, he folded. I bet for value at the right times, I folded at the right times. I called at the right times. Also it helped that Joel kept assuming I was 3-betting light when I wasn't too often.

I 5-bet jammed 4 times when we were heads-up and Joel folded every time. EVERY time. That's a lot of 4-bet bluffs. Again, I won't go into all the small finesse plays I did, but they worked pretty well. And I built up a lead of 2.7 million to 600k. And then we flipped for the ring and I lost.

Joel 3-bet jammed when I had 77 and I called. He showed A8.

Flop was 10-4-4. So far, so good.

Turn was another 4. Getting so close I could taste it now. I clinched my first, ready to yell, the river card was coming.

8.

Crushed. Joel doubled through me. It hurt a ton. It was very hard to get my head back in the match after coming so close and then getting rivered.

And then Joel got the momentum and pulled to even again.

(Joel asked me numerous times to chop or to make a deal, but I would go over and discuss it with Darren who would convince me each time that it was a bad idea. Actually, he wouldn't so much discuss it as much as he would yell at me that he would kill me if I made a deal.)

Joel and I went back and forth for two hours then before THE HAND was dealt. And it's one I probably won't forget any time soon.

The blinds at this point were 25k-50k with a 5k ante. We had colored off all the 1k chips, so both are stacks looked fairly diminutive.

I had 1.79 million. Joel had 1.56 million.

He min-raised to 100k on the button. I looked at 9d7d and called. Pretty standard.

The flop was Ad-Kd-4s. I checked. Joel checked behind.

Turn:10 of diamonds. Bink. And I bet 115k. Joel makes it 285k. Well, that's interesting. My hand is very strong, but I'm out of position and don't want to give him a cheap river card. And a lot of river cards are bad for my hand. I count out his raise and slide out another 500k stack along with it, making it 785k. And he goes all in.

I wasn't overjoyed. I would HATE to be drawing dead here. But I have the third nuts. If you got it, you got it. You can't lose what you don't put in the middle. But you can't win much either. I call.

He has two tens for a turned set. He turned a set. I turned a flush. Heads-up. That's really, really, quite gross. So we waited for the river.

I'm glad they didn't make us wait too terribly long. The crowd of thirty or so people pushed in. I absolutely believe in positive thinking while I'm playing: visualizing the card you want, focusing on positive Zen energy, and all that crap. I don't know why it works, but it does, so I'll stick with it. Well, when Joel flipped two tens there, time stopped. I remember very little of the next two minutes. All I remember is standing up and thinking about no cards at. Not visualizing the 6 of spades or 3 of clubs, or anything like that. All I did was picture the ring. Clear and beautiful in my mind. The ring and me wearing it.

And I looked down at the board as a jack of diamonds appeared on the river. The same jack of diamonds that I had myself rivered earlier to stay in the tournament. I still had a flush and he still had a set. And there were no more cards to come. Not that hand. Not for the rest of the tournament. Because the tournament was over. I just stared at that river card for a few moments. I put my hand over my mouth. I mildly heard the insane screams coming from the rail, from Darren, from other friends, from his friends. I thanked God in my head. And then I started a smile that didn't leave my face for roughly the next four days. I vaguely remember shaking Joel's hand and telling him he played well. I remember shaking Riley's hand, and then I went over to hug Darren.

I didn't say much. Maybe I was tired. Or in mild shock. The WSOP blogger came to ask me some questions. I took a few photos with the photographer for the website. And I just kept smiling. I was so happy.

Success in poker, and in this world, is customarily gradual. Your victories are usually slowly earned and won, but that 32k victory was a pretty decent size leap for me. I don't really play tournaments. I grind out cash and do just fine. But I had never made a 5-figure score in one day before and this certainly was that. We celebrated. I texted and called people.

Text 10. I lost heads-up. It hurts so bad. Don't want to talk about it.

I know. Not cool. I couldn't help myself. So I texted right after.

Text 11: Oh wait. Nevermind. I won! I'm $32,000 richer. Call you all soon. I'm so insanely happy right now. You all have no idea.

Looking back, I don't know how I would have felt if the river had paired. I would have been twice all-in with the chip lead on the turn heads-up for a ring and lost both times. That would just have been cruel. Luckily, I'll never have to know.

The win washed over me slowly and gradually and has felt good every step of the way. I've done a little press. And I've said thank you a lot. I've talked to a lot of people. And I've told them about my big hands, but I thought it was best to just write it all down.

I've played an average amount since. Three more tournaments, one more cash. And I haven't really spent the money. With the crackdown on online poker, I decided I needed to save it until I figure out what the next step is. I don't consider myself a pro poker player in the first place. I'm always putting my writing/acting/comedy career first.

But that win sure feels good.

And the money will eventually fade, the allure and press will fade. But the ring will always be there. It won't stop shining, for me at least. And while I certainly plan to earn and win more money than that $32,000 before all is said and done, this win may be the most special to me. Because it was my first real tournament win. My first hard-fought victory. It was a live tournament. It was the World Series of Poker. And I won.

Keith

There have only been three things in my life that I was so captivated by while doing them that I was unaware of the world around me. Three things that would have me so immersed in the moment that I wouldn't notice the very walls coming down around me. And that's been playing baseball, playing poker, and writing.

Well, maybe playing Goldeneye 64, but that's a video game. That doesn't count.

Summer before junior year was amazing. I spent a lot of the time in Hawaii with some friends doing nothing but surfing, playing poker, getting sunburned and reading Harry Potter 6.

So when I came back tanned and refreshed for junior year, I was eager to play again. But, as aforementioned, Josh and Russell weren't hosting the usual home game anymore.

However, my old friend Tommy was. He said he had put a little work into his new apartment. And I was about to see just how much.

I went over to Tommy's and beheld an actual poker table - cup holders, a sunken felt, leather. This was a $1400 poker table, and Tommy had also bought Pharaoh casino chips. Clay, compressed, crisp. Remember at this point I still had never even played in a casino. I was 20 and probably easily could have gotten in one, but I naively assumed it would be much harder to play poker once inside than it actually was.

But Tommy showed me what he had put together. The table, the chips, and tournament director software for his computer. It was legit. It was time to get the cards in the air.

Strangely enough, I don't even remember the first game we ever played. Whether it was tournament or cash, or for how much money. I just remember the game's evolution. And the size. It kept growing. We often had three tables set up in one apartment, which is a lot for kids in their teens and early twenties.

We would hold games twice a week. A big tournament on Sundays, and some low-stakes cash games during the week.

Now, I being the shallow, conceited elitist that I am, assume that I'm usually better than everyone at almost everything for really no good reason at all. I think maybe I beat someone at chess once when I was 8 and this was evidence enough for me to feel this way forever.

So while I thought I was probably one of the best players at this game, I didn't make a whole lot of money. I imagine I was getting outplayed a lot at first but I attributed my losses to runbad, variance, bad luck, etc. But the money was small enough ($20 buy-ins) that these were negligible losses.

There were people at the game who ran good (Will Hodges). There were people who ran bad (me). But we all had a great time. Tommy and I used to joke that Will would go home and practice winning coin flips. He would just deal himself QQ to AK and practice coming out on top. He was very good at racing. One of the best really.

I shutter to think at how bad we all were back then. I don't think I raised a straight or flush draw for my first year and a half. Someone eventually told me about the idea of semi-bluffing and my world exploded. Imagine the possibilities I said...

Collin and I used to come home and write on our dry-erase board how much we had won. There were countless mornings where I woke up to see Collin having written ''+15'' or ''+20'' or some equally small number. But it was big money to us.

Also at this time, I began writing a weekly humor article for our school paper, The Daily Mississippian. That was always due on Sunday, but even if I hadn't finished it, I would be over at Tommy's grinding away. I would stay up until 6 am writing my article after we had finished playing.

Tommy eventually introduced a Tournament of Champions where a little money was taken from each tournament. He introduced "The Big One," which was a $30 tournament with 4 tables. I bubbled that one.

Eventually, we interspersed these home games with trips to Tunica and its casinos. Those reading this may not be aware of just how many casinos there are in Tunica, but it's actually the third largest casino center in the U.S. behind Vegas and Atlantic City.

Collin, my old roommate, was the first person to find real success there. At the time Collin's strategy was to always ALWAYS limp AA, KK, and QQ. Because this way no one ever knew you had a big hand. See, it makes sense.

Collin's lovely plan worked perfectly when his QQ met A3 on a Q-3-3 flop. Well they got stacks in, and that was all the evidence he needed that his plan was a perfect one. He has since adopted a different strategy.

I remember 3-betting with aces once at the Gold Strike in Tunica. I got a set of sevens flopped on me, and got stacked for a full $300. I moped downstairs to a Southern-style restaurant and eased into a vat of depression while ordering a vat of beer-soaked, butter-filled, fatty lipid-infused Southern cooking. I morbidly chewed my big meal 'o' grease and looked around at all the other people who might as well have been preparing for hibernation with the copious amounts of cholesterol they were consuming.

I thought to myself, ''I'm smarter than these people aren't I? I go to college on an academic scholarship. I get really good grades. I read books for fun for crying out loud. Surely, I can figure out a way to be profitable at this game.''

I then shoveled some ice cream onto my medium rare 38 oz. steak. And asked the waitress for more gravy, please. Little more, please. Oh, just leave the whole bucket. And the ladle. Thanks.

I would eventually recover and come back and be victorious, but I still remember just how devastated I got over relatively minor losses. $300 is of course not a completely insignificant number, but I would get steamed losing just my $20 buy-in over at Tommy's.

Which I did. A lot.

We would keep detailed results of who had won the most money, and it was never me. Tommy didn't take a rake, there was no tournament entry fee, and Tommy was always the tournament director. Tommy would probably be a great casino tournament director today if his other careers don't work out (racing and journalism).

The game also never really started on time. Customarily, Tommy would set it to start at 5 pm or so, and cards would get in the air around 6:15. We would play. I would lose. David Wiggins or Will Hodges or Brantley would take my chips with their stupid aggressive play.

I also met Darren at this game as well, although Darren and I wouldn't really become friends until after I had graduated and achieved some level of fame and direction (very small amounts of both).

These games lasted deep into the night. And not to rank friends, but probably four of my top twenty friends I met because of this game. And five of my top fifty friends if you count Collin. (That's a little joke, buddy).

Once Tommy and I stayed up all night simply talking about poker. Just talking. About nothing in particular. The World Series. Big hands we had played. Sick beats. The usual. We then went and got breakfast at 6 am and I headed into work from 8 to 5. That was a slow day.

Tommy and I actually have had a standing $20 bet every year since 2005 whether or not someone we've actually heard of wins the Main Event. I get the no names. Tommy gets the pros. And I've been merrily collecting that money every year and plan on collecting it for many years to come. So thank you Joey, Jamie, Jerry, Petey, Joey, and Johnny. (Editors Note: Evidently the trick to winning the Main Event is having a name that starts with the letter J).

I wonder if at Ole Miss there are any more great home games like that. I imagine there's one somewhere. But not like that one.

I made some lifelong friends at that home game (Tommy, Brantley, Darren), some lifelong enemies (Mitchell), and maybe even learned a thing or two.

I miss that game. But maybe, just maybe, it's not the last time all of us will play together. Those guys still love to play. And from what I hear there are a series of tournaments in Vegas this summer. And I can think of nothing better than playing at the same final table again with my old friends from back home. It just won't be in Oxford, Mississippi anymore. It'll be at the Rio. New faces will replace old. But the poker will be the same. And maybe even my friends or I can win one. For old time's sake. For the Oxford Poker Club. For the greatest home game ever.

Keith

Look, poker's hard now. Yeah, the game used to be easy, but that was yesterday and yesterday's gone. Poker's going to get easy again, it just may take a while. I'll explain how later, but that's a tale for another day. So here's a story about the good ol' days when it was easy. And when I was easy money. Dead, easy money.

I had no idea back when I started playing poker in 2004 that I would still be playing it in 2011. I had no idea how much there was to learn, and I had no idea how in love with the game I would fall. The first time I ever played Texas Hold 'Em I got a royal flush. Had I known it would be the only time I ever had one live, I might have taken a picture, or at least attempt to treasure the moment, but I just took down the pot. I folded my cards face down, and I went about my business. Poker's easy said I, and I went on playing, not having any clue what I was doing. (Oddly enough I got another royal flush today, my fifth ever I believe). That first game was at my friend Daniel's house. It was my freshman year of college and I was home for Christmas break. It would be the only time I played my entire freshman year. Because poker really started my sophomore year at Josh's apartment. And poker became real for me my junior year at Tommy Joe's apartment with the greatest home game ever.

(And by the way yes, I am from the South thank you very much. There we have names like Tommy Joe and Billy Bob and every girl's name is Mary-something.)

My sophomore year was busy as I had started multiple jobs at the Student Media Center, and also managed to convince a good-looking girl to date me. So while at said Center, my friend Josh informed that they would be having a poker tournament at his place. $5 buy-in. There would be food and chips. So I went. And lost. And then went back next week and lost some more. I continued this lather-rinse-repeat process for many weeks, having no clue about any strategy whatsoever. Finally, I started asking around, and attempted to figure out how to actually play. I'm talking the basic basic strategies, like what to raise with pre-flop. Now before this fascinating concept was brought to my attention I thought it brutish or unsporting for someone to raise pre-flop. I mean, if they raise, I might have to fold. And then I can't win. See, it wasn't very nice. Also, for about the first two months I thought if no one had raised when it got to me I should always ALWAYS limp in. It's only one big blind, right? Meanwhile, I never won. But I had a thirst for the game, and it was no where near quenched.

We loved the game back then. We fell in love with it. I think a lot of college players turn to poker because it fills the competitive void left in them from high school athletics. I was very close to playing college baseball, but decided to rip my shoulder up a bit and I turned down some offers from smaller schools to go to a big SEC one instead. And I don't regret it... I don't completely regret it.

But it was Josh's home tournament that really started my passion for the game. My girlfriend at the time always played with us as did many other ladies. I believe the game make-up was about 70/30 men-folk to ladykind. We mostly all saw the flop. Sometimes we would even bluff when we were feeling spicy. And sometimes, just sometimes, we would check-raise.

Well, one day, a couple months down the road some freshman walked in. Typical arrogant teenagers. Look at these little punks - raising pre-flop, wearing ipods, wearing sunglasses, using weird terminology that I had never heard of. My friend Ben Piper whispered to me that some of these guys had actually read poker strategy books. This of course astounded me. Strategy books? On poker? No, no, this was just too much... Now all I really remember of them was this guy named Brantley and another guy we called Deuce (I'm sure his real name was Winston or something equally boring). But they came in and ran everyone over, took the money, and hit the road.

I HATED Brantley. Yeah, hi Brantley, I hated you, you smug little bastard. All you did was raise every time. Now for those of you that don't know of my largess, I'm kind of tall and muscular and weigh 210. And Brantley weighs 140 pounds soaking wet. But he continued to beat me up and down and then wouldn't even talk to me when I asked him why he was being such a jerk at the table. A jerk I tell you! He would raise pre-flop a lot! And then sometimes when I had a draw he would raise me out of the hand. Unbelievable.

Well, my hatred of Brantley slowly decreased as I began to not be such a poker imbecile. And sadly he's one of my better friends now. He was one of the few that transitioned with me over to the new game the following year.

Now some of you may be thinking, "Keith, could you really have been that bad?''

Yes, yes I was. Here's a hand I remember very vividly because it would be the first time I met Tommy. So Collin, my aforementioned former roommate, went all-in pre-flop with a short stack of about 15 big blinds in early position. I had been whittled down to about 20 big blinds and looked down at K-9 off-suit in the hijack. And I called.

Yes, I called.

No, I don't think you're getting it. I called. I called the bet. I called his all-in. With K9 off. At a full table with four people left to act. When it was 3/4 of my stack. Well, it folded around to ol' Tommy Joe and his giant banana hands in the big blind, and he said, "Let's make it a little more. I'm all in."

I then complained for a good long while about my bad luck. My awful luck. Of course, I was pot committed. I called. Tommy flipped aces and Collin flipped two nines and the aces held.

It's inconceivable!

Idiocy of this nature gushed out of me for a solid half year before, lo and behold, I managed to get better and actually win one of these two table tournaments. I still remember crushing my friend Andrew heads-up. If I recall, we played some super standard final hand that involved my flopped two pair taking down his queens. I no doubt prided myself on my perfect play for weeks to come after that.

There are so many memories that I'll mention but not delve into. People folding the nuts, arguments whether flushes beat straights, my buddy Chetan who always wore sunglasses and had an unlit cigarette in his mouth so that he could be just like Sammy Farha.

In fact Collin and I still quote Josh and Russell over a mammoth pot they once played. I forget the board texture, but Russell and Josh, who both look a little bit like tusk-less walruses, got the money in on a three-to-a-flush, paired board.

Russell: OK, I'm all-in!

Josh: I call! I'm all-in!

Russell: I call! FLUSH!

Josh: FULLL HOUUUSSEEE!!!!!! WOOOOOOO!!!!!! GET SOME!!! GET SOME!!!

Russell: OH NO!

Mama Walrus: Arf, arf!

We ended up playing all year and even through the summer when a lot people (myself included) went home. It was a great game, but something changed when I came back in the fall of 2005. Josh and Russell didn't want to play as much any more. They realized they weren't winning. Their fire had gone out, the wind out of their sails. But my junior year of college changed me in many ways. I broke up with my girlfriend. I got a new job that would change my career vision and my life. And I was invited to a home game that would refine an redefine my game. It would introduce me to lifelong friends, and put me in the position I am today. It was the game at Tommy's place and the Oxford Poker Club.

Til next week,

Keith

Sorry gang, I try to write these blogs weekly, but it was just one of those weeks where everything piled up and I didn't even have a lot of time for even the mighty poker. So that being said, this week's entry will be a little short. I did play a little on Friday and some today and made my standard few hundred. It's getting to the point where I'm very surprised if I ever have 2 or 3 losing days in a row. The caliber of players I am up against at these low stakes just aren't good enough. I think this is what it must have been like in the old days (2004) when people played 5-10. The computer just printed money.

Anyway, as I'm somewhat overrun this week, I wanted to preview next week's blog, which will talk about how I got involved in the game in the first place. I always enjoy hearing people's testimony, and I don't mean that religiously, but just how they came to be where they are. So this will be mine.

That blog may even need to be a 2-parter. But it will cover my first game my freshman year of college. How Michael Brainerd and Collin Hulbert and I started playing together, and most importantly the Oxford Poker Club and the home game at Tommy's house. That home game, well there will never be another like it.

All that and more. Tune in next week.

Keith