TV Hand Analysis 1: Michael DeMichele vs Eric Crain

Whenever they show a Non-All-In hand on Television (other than HSP and PAD), it means that there was something very intriguing going on.

Here is the first in a series I'm starting called "TV Hand Analysis"

Here is the hand in question, from the 2006 USPC at the Taj Mahal. Between Michael DeMichele and Eric Crain.

DeMichele raises from MP with KQ of hearts. Standard raise. Crain has the button and calls with a Monster Stack and 86 of Spades. Decent call from here, but I prefer a Re-Raise to control the betting. However, in Eric's mind, he is going to raise DeMichele whatever the flop has when DeMichele C-Bets, unless the board brings a monster for Crain or a Royal Board of non-spades... Another reason to Re-Raise, though he didn't know it at the time because he wasn't known yet, was that Joe Pelton was the BB. Pelton won the WPT event and finished 3rd in another immediately before the USPC took place, but those episodes had yet to air... The Blinds Fold. (so much for Pelton)

Flop: 9-2-2 Rainbow. Obviously a great flop to Bluff on.

DeMichele checks; If he bets, Crain will probably bluff-raise no matter what he holds, and force DeMichele off. But if he was thinking this, he should've bet and when Crain raises, Re-Raise. But that's just my ROT. Crain checks for the same reason, I believe.

Turn is a 5 completing the Rainbow. Crain now has a Gutter Ball. DeMichele checks again. Crain Semi-Bluffs for Half of the pot, 5K. DeMichele is probably thinking either Bluff or Mid-Pair for Crain's range. Bluff includes medium/strong aces. DeMichele Check-Raises to 15K. Crain goes into thinking now. Does DeMichele have a big hand, or just AK, AQ, Mid-Pair? And why did he check the flop? To Check-Raise there? Crain decides to 3-bet to 65K, which is a massive overbet. The pot had 30K and he made it 40K more.

This is where DeMichele proves for the first (and definitely not the last) time that he is World Class. He decides to Shove representing AA or 99, which he would definitely at least check the flop with... Checking the turn with AA is problematic even though the board sucks. The Only hands Crain can call with are AA, KK, 55, 99, 22 and MAYBE QQ.

DeMichele was bluffing with the best hand, but I think he was 99% sure he made Crain fold a pocket pair (33-JJ, not 55 or 99) at the time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOvDjNwWfm4

-Kenny

BuddyDank Radio + New Blogroll

BuddyDankRadio rocks. I participated the past 2 weeks and absolutely had a blast. I added BuddyDankRadio to the Blogroll. I would love to one day join the ranks of NumbBono, Joanada and emptyman as a regular on their website. Also, Nik and RYZIES had a ton of fun listening and have toyed with the idea of having the CardPlayer Forum Radio Show, with myself, Nik, RYZIES, Lloyd and special guests (see Loretta, bnagy, Eusebio, etc.)

Plus I updated my BlogRoll. Be sure to check out 'WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO', which is perhaps the greatest video of all time, and the 'Best Blog Ever', the most underrated and underappreciated blog of all time!

-Kenny

The Final Standings of the NYRPS POY Race

Batya	204
NYRambler	133.5
TheSlinger	124.3
garrywhite	122.4
CheckinmyAA	121
Blyght	105.75
Mondogarage	98.1
pvanharibo	90.4
Qw1k_Draw	89.6
pureprophet	72
juiceybear68	70
jl131	69.25
Loretta8	42.5
lightning36	39.5
cemfredmd	32.5
TheAlbinoKid	26.7
Alive and Haku	22.5
pikachucards23	19
Didace	12
buckmango	9

The Main Event - LIVE BLOG!

I'm going to be running a live blog tonight for the Main Event of the NYRPS, starting at 9PM ET when the tournament starts!

8:34PM: Currently 11 people signed up. C'mon y'all!

9PM: 16 People In as the tournament starts... but Late Registration is still going on for 10 minutes!

9:06: A short-stacked KebertXelaMH runs into the Aces of GetYourWatch. Kebert was crippled by KK < AK vs Batya.

9:11: Tournament Closed at 17. Top 3 get paid, $204 to the winner, $122.40 to the Runner-Up and $81.60 to third. Unless myself or Blyght or a few others cash, the winner will win the POY race. Sick.

9:21: Card Dead. Waiting for The Hammer now.

9:34: Batya is at it again. Gets it in against GetYourWatch on a T-9-8 board. GetYourWatch holds 7-7, while Batya shows QJ for the nuts. No Runner-Runner Full House and GetYourWatch is out in 16th.

9:42: Out in the 4th Level, 15th place. Sucks. JJ ran into the AA of ugly chimp, and I know i should've folded the turn, but for some reason I had him on AK bluff attempt. Of course I was wrong (standard). A Bud Light should drown my sorrows.

9:44: 3-way all-in on a J-6-2 rainbow flop. Batya has J-T and covers, EllePeaKay has K-J and is all in, and RaysingCayne is the middle stack and has A-Q. Board bricks out and EllePeaKay triples up and RaysingCayne is out in 14th.

9:48: Kings are good for Qwik_Draw as he doubles up to 4800.

9:53: Chiefsfan828 finds AK and doubles up through the AQ of ugly chimp.

9:56: Blyght out in 13th: 55 < KQ of GarryWhite All In Pre.

10:01: craftrt2003 out in 12th: J-6 is no good on a Q-9-6-5 board against 10-10 of Qwik_Draw.

First Break: Here are the Top 5 in chips (11 left)

1. GarryWhite - 11,510
2. Batya - 11,305
3. Qwik_Draw - 6,615
4. Bull_G8er - 4,870
5. chiefsfan828 - 3,415

10:15: I missed the KO hands for pvanharibo and TheSlinger, but we're down to our Final 9!

1- Batya
2- garrywhite
3- Qwik_Draw
4- chiefsfan828
5- uglychimp
6- Bull_G8er
7- cemfredmd
8- madbrooklyn
9- EllePeaKay

10:22: EllePeaKay out in 9th. AK can't keep up with Qwik's J-9 sooted after the J hits the flop.

10:24: Qwik_Draw is at it again. A8 goes up against madbrooklyn's KQ and the board brings 9-high. madbrooklyn is out in 8th.

10:25: An 8 on the turn helps chiefsfan828 take out ugly chimp (who called All-In on the river so I can't see his cards). chimp out in 7th.

10:36: Qwik is at it again. A-8 sucks an Ace on the turn against cemfredmd's Q-Q. cemfred out in 6th.

10:48: Batya's turned Broadway with Q-5 is good against Bull_G8er's A-6. Bull out in 5th.

Bubble time.

10:54: Bubble Burst! 2-2 vs A-7 AIPF and a SEVEN on the RIVER for Batya knocks chiefsfan828 out in 4th.

11:01: Batya reveals himself to be from the 2+2 forums. Goooooooooo CP!

11:07: Qwik bites it as his 5-5 is no match for Batya's A-10 when the board has 2 aces AND 2 tens for the uber-house.

HEADS UP!

garrywhite - 27,380
Batya - 23,620

11:12: IT'S OVER! Batya got Garry down to around 8K in chips and was all in pre-flop with J-7 sooted vs Garry's A-Q. Garry hit a Q on the flop but the river brought a King High Straight for Batya and Batya wins the NYRPS Main Event AND the POY Race!

9th in the Fifty-Fifty

I'm Not Complaining. I was the Short Stack for the better part of the Final 20 players after I got trapped by A-A holding 10-10 on a 7-3-2 2 heart board, and A-9 of Hearts came along for the ride. That crippled me to 20K at the 1500/3000 level, but I tripled up with A-Q to around 80K shortly after. From there on it was Short Stack strategy, I sucked out with QJ vs AQ in Battle of Blinds by rivering a flopped OESD. I came into the Final Table as the Short Stack, then got it in with AQ for ~14BBs facing a raise... raiser had AK, GG Me.

$775 is still good tho, right?

(Main Event of the NYRPS is Tuesday)

(Today's my Birthday!)

-Kenny

The Main Event!

The Main Event! Next Tuesday, at 9PM ET... Password = 'epicfail' as usual...

Everyone who reads my blog... PLEASE post this info in your blog before Tuesday to get the word out. I'll be VERY happy if we can get anywhere from 27-45 people for this tournament.

-Kenny

NYRPS Event #13 Results

Only 5 people coughed up the $26 to play HORSE tonight... A little disappointed, but I know many people don't like Razz or some of the other games made up in HORSE... Hopefully everyone shows up for the Main Event next week...

In the end tonight, TheSlinger took down LJ heads up for his first NYRPS title, and moves ahead of Crush for 2nd in the Standings.

Here are the Standings going into the Main Event:

NYRambler 133.5
TheSlinger 124.3
CheckinmyAA 121
Blyght 105.75
Mondogarage 98.1
pvanharibo 90.4
pureprophet 72
juiceybear68 70
jl131 69.25
Loretta8 42.5
lightning36 39.5
cemfredmd 32.5
TheAlbinoKid 26.7
Alive and Haku 22.5
pikachucards23 19
Didace 12
buckmango 9
Qw1k_Draw 8

NYRambler Poker Series Event #13

Event #13, the first of the $26 Double Stack Events, is HORSE. Everything is still the same: Tuesday, 9PM, Full Tilt, Password = epicfail. Tournament Number 48673367 (since you can search for tournaments by tournament number now...).

After last week's huge payouts, there was a shake-up of the usual Me/Blyght top two, as CheckinMyAA jumped to second in the POY standings. If we have enough people for HORSE and the Main Event, there could be a bigger shake up still.

I still plan on doing something for both the POY and TOC. What it is, I still won't know exactly. Probably just Cash Transfer Prizes.

Oh, and be sure to check out my Mookie Winner's Profile, it's up now at Mook's Blog (See Blogroll)

-Kenny

Mooooooooooooooooooookie TAKEDOWN!

Finally! I take down my first Blogger Tournament, and it's in the King of all Blogger tournaments, The Mookie. I was playing really tight early on because of a 32K deep run (42nd) but once that was done I turned on the engines. I came into the FT as the Chip Leader, and the blinds were quite high, so the Action was fast and furious. I lost a big pot to Mike_Maloney when my set of 7s was turned by a straight from Mike's 9-8. However, I regained my chips by taking KQ against DrewFours and hitting a K to crack his Pocket 7s. Then, A-9 Sooted is good over the A-J of KngofKngs when the flush comes. Heads up, I picked up KK and got it in against Mike on a 5-5-4 board, Mike had 7-6 off... no 3 or 8 in sight and I grabbed the Mookie Title and the $200 first prize!

Check out Mookie's blog in the coming week to read all about it!

-Kenny

NYRPS Event #12 Results

Congrats to CheckinMyAA AKA crushmastac for taking down the biggest first prize of the NYRPS so far! This win launches him up to 2nd in the Overall POY Standings:

NYRambler - 133.5
CheckinmyAA - 121
Blyght - 105.75
Mondogarage - 98.1
pureprophet - 72
juiceybear68 - 70
jl131 - 69.25
pvanharibo - 48.4
TheSlinger - 46.3
Loretta8 - 42.5
lightning36 - 39.5
cemfredmd - 32.5
TheAlbinoKid - 26.7
Alive and Haku - 22.5
pikachucards23 - 19
Didace - 12

mondogarage takes 2nd (again) and pvanharibo takes her first cash with the 3rd.

Next week is $26 HORSE. Buy-in with Cash, T$ or a $26 Token!

-Kenny

Connecticut School of Broadcasting (Non-Poker Post, tl;dr)

www.gocsb.com

That's the website that leads to the Connecticut School of Broadcasting. After flunking out of College (I blame Poker), I needed a new life plan. I decided to enroll in here. But first I had to "audition". The Audition was Tuesday.

After the Head Guy at the Westbury Campus of CSB was done with his lecture, they decided to do the 'auditions' based on the order that the 10 of us that came out for this tour arrived in.

<~~~ #1. ****.

So I go into the Radio Studio they have set up and I do my "Radio Read", which is basically just reading 2 paragraphs and seeing how your voice sounds. I think I did very well, and I found out today that Marty (the head guy) loved it as well. BOOOOOOOOM!

Then came the TV. I had to read off of a Teleprompter. ****. I stumbled a bit, but afterwards Marty told me he wrote the script that way on purpose.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOk.

So today I called back to get the results. Marty said he loved everything about the Radio Read... "The TV was a different story". Rut Roh.

But it wasn't in a bad way, he just mentioned that I sounded different in the TV (nerves obv). He said my distinct Brooklyn Accent came through in the Radio (which has pros and cons, apparently) and in the TV I had the voice they were looking for (See: Iowan). He also said that the Camera likes me...... WAT?! I always thought that my looks made Steve Buschemi look like Matt Damon! Ok then...

So he finally says that I've been accepted.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

I go down there again next Monday and discuss payment plans (ugh) and that school (training) will start on September 15.

New Life, Here I Come!

Next Post will be a Poker Post, I Promise.

-Kenny

Update: NYRPS #11 Results and 3rd in the Mookie

Because of Commitments to things other than Online Poker (Yeah, I'm Shocked Too), I couldn't really promote NYRPS Event #11, which was Limit Hold 'Em. However, thanks goes out to cemfredmd for pimping it in his blog, and to Blyght for making the CP Post. lightning36 wound up taking it down for his first NYRPS win, with mondogarage taking 2nd. I'll post results probably after event #12, because I'm still kinda rushing around.

Last Night I made another Mookie Final Table, my second in 3 weeks. I came in as the Short Stack, but changed that quickly when, as #7 in chips, I take out the Short Stack with JJ. The entire Final Table I was constantly poking at pots, and getting involved. AJ vs Mookie no good, but AJ vs surflexus is goot. (Obviously I was ahead of Mookie and behind surflexus when the money went in). I was one card away from having a big chip lead going Heads Up with Waffles, but drewspop hit his 5-outer on the river. Boooooooo. Not too long after that, I race with Waffles to double up but His AK spikes a bullet on the turn to shoot down my sevens. 3rd is my best Mookie Finish, but I really want to win this tournament one day. Maybe Next Week. :)

-Kenny