Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Review Week - Part 1

It's been a while since my last post. AGAIN, running bad (or just playing bad) has been the direct contributer.. I've probably gone through 2K... My Win $ at showdown over the past few weeks is at a horrid 40% which is almost unbelievable... but since I lived it, I believe it. SNGs have also been on the down side of the normal roller coaster that I ride... so the SNG Fest is officially over as I blew through my account balance on Full Tilt and haven't worked on a new e-wallet yet. My rakeback provider was nice enough to give me a partial payment for the month early so I do have a couple hundred dollars at Full Tilt; but I'm going to take it slow and easy.

I won't comment on the whole Neteller thing as there is plenty out there other than to say that it is just unfortunate.

Instead, I'm going to take of this blog space with a few reviews mixed over a few days... A little TV poker review, a SNG training site review and a non poker review...

We'll start with a TV Poker Review. Has anybody had a chance to watch Late Night Poker? At first glance, this is a great, great show. 6 world class players in a 20K buying winner take all SNG. Another nice twist is that there is practically no commentary. We get to hear most all of the table talk... not to mention that Shana Hiatt is back. The first week was actually pretty good as it had Phil, Mike the Mouth and Sheiky and Huck and Gus and Daniel, I think... so there was plenty of talk including an expected blowup by Phil Hellmuth who vowed never to play again... oh wait... he returned for the 3rd tourney..

Now, the second tourney is where I want to focus my attention. This was a table of WSOP Main Event Champions... Moneymaker, Gold, Ferguson, Doyle, Chan and Carlos.. I couldn't wait... I will say that I have NEVER been more disappointed in a poker show. First, there was practically no table talk. Shana finally got Jamie Gold to talk a bit. Say what you will about Jamie Gold (and they are probably all true); but I think this guy is getting a bit of an unjust rap. He may not be the best poker player in the world and he fully admits it; but he does enjoy it and for the most part is fun to watch. Unfortunatley, without much surprise, he had an early exit.

Now, for my real beef. The play has been... hmmm how do you say this... especially when it is about world champions.... suspect. Things like limping UTG... limping with Aces.. minimum raises.... etc, etc.... It's about enough to make me scream... not to mention that they had to take 2 hours to decide to fold when they were caught with a weak hand or bluffing... Of course, they showed their hands a bunch.. AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!...

To their benefit, it was a pretty deep stack tourney with a lot of play and they ARE world class players that pride themselves for their post flop play. The thing is... I didn't see it. Other than Moneymaker (who I of course was pulling for being one of the many people in this game because of him) who would make some moves, everybody else was a bloggers nightmare.... Weak / Tight.. I've never seen so many people pushed off of hands or not aggressive.

Perhaps that is why they have millions and I am almost Busto... I'm going to give it another week and see how it happens as this week it is Sammy Farha, Mike the Mouth, Phil, Andy Bloch and a couple others I can't remember right now..

Especially since High Stakes Poker is back on with original episodes, they will be my first priority to watch. The first episode was classic as usual as Gabe Kaplan and Daniel actually traded places and Gabe actually won some pots by bluffing.... nice!!!!

I'll be attending the weekly Mookie Tourney so I will see you there... Stay tuned for further reviews coming this week..

3 comments:

Dave said...

The one big difference between Poker After Dark and watching the pros on ESPN or the WPT during big tournaments is that on Poker After Dark, it's pretty much uncut and you see just about every hand. You really only get to see the highlights of the "big" hands on the other networks. After all, its all about ratings. If you watched a poker pro play every hand of his tournament, you'd get tired of watching him throw away the majority of his hands. You want to see action and in the real game, action only comes every once in a while. Most of the tournament is merely jockeying for the small pots between the times when you see a large pot. So don't judge P.A.D. for weak/tight play - it's just that you get to see all the hands rather than just the highlights.

WillWonka said...

I agree with you chipper.. but limping UTG and min raising... that what was really driving me nuts.. I love seeing all the hands. It is not boring to me at all... but if we are seeing all hands, I would expect to see more "moves" or reads or something..

I would just have liked to see more aggression... especially for a single table tournament... Obviously, these guys aren't SNG specialists; but I believe there are quite a few online folks that could role through these... for example, Huck Seed... I wasn't surpsised to see him do well since he plays a lot of SNGS and is among the top players on the SNG leaderboard at FTP... of course some of that is due to the stakes that he plays.

TripJax said...

Thanks for commenting on CineJax...it is a little project I needed to break the monotony.

I'll be interested to read more of your reviews.

On a side note, I've noticed, and read numerous places, that many of the pros are all about min raising or 2.5 X raising. If been using the 2.5 raise a lot lately cause I'm comfy with my flop play if I'm called...

Good luck wonka

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