Girls Rule!

After 4 events in the CMPPA season,  each event has been won by an Amanda. Yesterday was the 5th Annual CMPPA Charity event. We had a great turn out of almost 60 players. $1300 was raised for the Coborn's Cancer Center at the St Cloud Hospital. It was a lot of fun seeing some old faces and reminiscing about 10 years of Bar Poker in Minnesota.. Congratulation to Amanda Mock, who took down her third event of the young CMPPA season and has a big lead on the player of the year race. It's hard to believe that it has been 10 years since I started running bar poker at the Granite Bowl and even harder that later this spring the Granite Bowl will be gone forever. Even though we were not able to play at the Granite Bowl yesterday, I think the tournament was a great tribute to all that had played their over the years. Once again it proves that bar poker can unit a group of very diverse people for a great cause.


Why are the ladies dominating the CMPPA this season? I think it is easy to explain. Amanda is a very good poker player that has an advantage that I can never have. She plays a game that is mostly a male dominated game. I don't mean that in the sense that males are better, I mean that males out number the females. Looking at the CMPPA so far this season we have 30 members of which 5 are female. That is 16% of the field. We actually have a larger percent of women then what you would find in most tournament fields. I would think the average would be around 8 to 10 %. Her advantage lies in the male physique. Most males think they are better poker player then females. They also believe that a women is incapable of bluffing. This gives a good female player an advantage over a table of men, especially ones that she doesn't play with regularly. When a female bets or calls at a poker table most men will think that they have a good hand and thus fold to her bluffs. I believe a female that bluffs at pots will win a bigger percentage of those bluffed hands then the same skill level male will win. Of course, this will only work if the female player knows this and can use it to her advantage against a table of guys. I believe that Amanda knows this well and uses it to her advantage. I am guilty of this stereotype all the time. I have played with Amanda enough to know she is a good player, but if I am on a table with a female that I don't know, I will play her thinking she is a tight player and will only play if she has a good hand. Right or wrong this is how most men think. I try not thinking this way when at a poker table, but it is hard because so many women especially new players have the same style and are easy to read. So to those of you that aren't, I say take advantage of any thing you've got because most males will let you. To Amanda, I say good luck and keep it going your having a hell of a season so far!

Drink Dilemma

After a long drought, I finally have had some time to play some free poker. A couple of weeks ago I chopped the Friday Ultimate after playing really well all night. The last couple haven't gone as well for me, but then that's poker. I have been happy with the play of my new style and I believe that it is working well for me. Would really like to give it a try at a casino, but that doesn't look too promising in the near future. Today's topic is about what drinking during a bar poker does to your play. No I'm not talking about drinking too much which certainly can happen. I'm talking about the phenomenon known as the Drink Dilemma. It happens more often then you think especially late around the second break. You are having a fun relaxing evening playing bar poker and enjoying your beverage of choice. It is around the second break and you have a small to mid size stack, but with blind increasing your options are becoming less and less. You look down and your drink is about empty. Here is your dilemma. Do you buy another drink and try and grind it out and hope for the best or do you push, take chances or go all in to try and increase your stack before you order another beverage. This may not seem like much, but you can use a persons level of their beverage to your advantage. If someone moves all in or re-raises late in the middle of poker tournament one of the first things I will try and figure what is their motive for moving all. I will check their chip stack and compare it to the big blind. I will look at their drink to see if they are close to finishing it. A really big tell is when they ask a server for their bar tab while they are still in the game. I will ask them if they are trying to go home and see what their response is. This is all information that can lead you to folding or making the call. I will call with a sub par hand if I believe a person is making a move to double up or go home. The last two Friday's I have found myself in the dilemma. The first week, I pushed to try and double up and ended up getting knocked out quickly. The second week, I pushed it again, and managed to double up, so I bought another drink. How did that work out for me? Not so good. Right after I got my drink, I re-raised into Aces and got knocked out. I sure hate leaving a partial drink that I paid for, but there is nothing worse then getting knocked out of a bar poker tournament and having to hang around and have people want to talk about what happened while you are finishing your beverage.
So, remember, there are many tells in a poker game, but bar poker creates many ones that you might not face in a casino tournament.

New Year

Happy New Year all!

With the new year, I am hoping to once again start to write a few posts.
I haven't had a lot of time to play poker as of late, but when I do, I have been making the best of it. I have actually been on quite a roll playing at the Ultimate. I am thinking maybe I have found that line between playing hyper aggressive and more of a controlled aggression. It is fun to play and really leaves people wondering what you are up too. It also makes your big hands turn into bigger ones. I have also taken the attitude that if I lose a big pot that I am confident to know that I can bring it back. It does help that I play bar poker with lots of very predictable players.

This has been quite a year for me. A new job with a couple of big promotions and I think that I may have finally found something other then running bowling centers that I am good at and enjoy. I took a fun vacation to California with my wife seeing most of Southern California. I became a grandfather with birth of Logan by my daughter Kara. Kyle got his first after college job, bought a house and got engaged to a great future daughter in law. I continue to live life to it's fullest with the help of my kids to keep feeling young.

My organization that I am a part of continues to grow. The CMJTT & SMJTT that Kara and I run are looking to have our biggest turnouts ever and the new CMPPA season looks to be historic. This year marks the 10 year anniversary of the beginning of bar poker at the Granite Bowl and even though it is closed I am planning on hosting an anniversary event in conjunction with the annual Bad Beat on Cancer charity poker tournament. More details to come.

Next Saturday, January 11, begins the 5th season of the CMPPA. The organization has joined with the Free Poker Network to give CMPPA members a chance to win State Tournament seats and a chance at big prizes. Membership is still a very reasonable $60 with 10 scheduled events. More information is available at www.cmppa.com.

That's it for today.
I look forward to seeing many of you over the next few weeks and remember.
It's ok to fold a flush draw for most of your chips!
See you soon.

New TDA Rule

There has been a lot of talk recently about the new TDA rule about when a player must be seated in order to play in a hand at a poker table. Here is the rule.

29: At Your Seat
 A player must be at his seat when the first card is dealt on the initial deal or he will have a dead hand. A player not then at his seat is dealt in, he may not look at his cards, and the hand is immediately killed after the initial deal. His blinds and antes are posted and if dealt the bring-in card in a stud-type game he will post the bring-in*. A player must be at his seat to call time. "At your seat" means within reach of your chair. This rule is not intended to condone players being out of their seats while involved in a hand.


There has been much debate about this issue in the poker industry and it has been mostly negative. The 1st thing I would remind everyone is that the TDA rules are meant as a guide and any tournament director has the right to use whatever rules he chooses as long as it is clear to all their intentions. If you are running a tournament and don't like this new rule then just announce what you are going to use as your time frame to kill a hand if a player is not in his seat.

I personally like a couple of things about this rule for Bar Poker. It sets a clear time that you must be in your seat. How many times at a bar game has the dealer waited to deal the last card because they are waiting for a player to get to table. Happens all the time and in the long run of a tournament, that blinds go up fast, a few minutes can make a difference of several hands of play. The other thing that I like is that the player may not look at their cards. A player that looks at mucked cards almost always gives away if their hand was strong or weak by their reaction.

There were many changes and additions to the TDA rules, so you would like to see them all here is a link to their website.

http://www.pokertda.com/poker-tda-rules/

I am just happy that someone is trying to get a set of poker rules to try and keep the game uniform. I don't like that it is getting more specific about rules and it's getting harder to know all the exact rules, but at least it's not pages and pages long like the current WSOP rules.
Thanks TDA and keep up the great work for the game we love!

Card Dead

At a recent bar game late into the second hour a regular player began talking about how their cards had been bad all night. At this point in the night I had a fairly big stack and I had been pretty much card dead all night at least according to that players standards. So, why did I have a good size stack and that player was on life support? The answer is simple. Play the player not the cards. Any good player is able to take the nights when the cards are not running so good and turn it into at least a chance to cash, make the points or even win. It is one of the small negatives to league style bar poker that start with stacks around 10,000 in chips. A player that is getting less then ideal starting hands is able to fold his way to at least close to making the points and many times can make it depending on the other players. When I arrive at a new table, whether it is at the start of a tournament or just changing tables, I look around the table and see who I know and who I don't. Are their players that I can outplay or are they players that I can't make fold. What kind of starting hands do these players value. To some J-10 is just as good as A-K or a pocket pair. I am going to call a per flop raise with less of a hand to this player because I know what they could possibly be raising with and I also know with a flop that couldn't possibly have hit them that a bet or a reraise will probably make them fold. Then you have the player that thinks he is card dead. I am going to raise his big blind almost every time and he is going to fold most of the time. When he doesn't I am going to make a continuation bet and then if he doesn't fold I will watch my step he may have a hand. All of this can be done with any two cards in your hand. So, if someone tells me they are card dead and folding their way on I say good for me. I will be more then happy to take your chips. Poker is not always about the cards, it's about how you play what you got!

State Champions

First thing is disclaimer. This is not blog knocking the accomplishments of any Free Poker network player. I am happy for anyone that qualifies for any of their tournaments and I wish them the best of luck in their events and will be there following them if they post.

Recently, the FPN held their state tournaments including MN. When they get down to the number of players that they advance to nationals they proclaim them State Champions and give them a trophy. At the current MN event there were 254 players that were eligible to play. Now I am assuming that not all players were able to attend. They were giving away 20 National Tournament entries. These 20 are the new State Champions. That is approximately 10 percent of the field which is very close to the payout schedule of most tournaments. So, if you are using the FPN thought process at last years WSOP Main Event they had 666 Main Event champions. The last HPT event had 27 champions. Austin Monson is a MSPT champion and I am a champion of many poker events. The funny thing is I have never won an event, but I have cashed or "qualified" in many poker tournaments. So, why not call it what it is. You are only a State Champion if you are the last man, women or team standing. This concept makes the Vikings Super Bowl champs or the Wild Stanley Cup champs. The top 20 are National Qualifiers. then play down to an actual State Champion. I know that the FPN has done it before as Kari Davis from Willmar was a true State Champion a few events ago. I know that the whole discussion is kind of trivial but it bugs me to call someone a champion when they really are not.

Easter Casino Trip

Once again it's been a while. It seems my poker playing days are getting farther and farther apart. Last weekend for Easter I went to Milacs to use my free room and buffet coupons from the CMPPA charity event. I remember why I don't go there very often. I really like the people that run the poker room  and most of the dealers, but it's just difficult to go there and play. Here an insight to my weekend. I arrive at Casino a little later then I had planned and My Daughter and Son in-law had already checked in. Happened to meet Kenny in parking lot so we walked in together. Went to get on elevator and guard stopped and asked for our room key. Kenny took his out and shows him and then he asked for mine and my wife's. I said that we had just gotten there and that Kenny had checked us in and had our room keys up in the room. He wasn't going to let us in. Here we are with suitcase in hand and he wouldn't let us up to our room. Finally he says I will let it go this time and off to room we go. I play the $30 buy-in tournament in the afternoon. 8 full tables. I get to my seat and look at my table and realize I am the youngest player at the table, Great! I win a couple of early hands and things are looking ok, but blinds are 15 minutes and it painfully obvious that this going to an all in fest quickly. I survive to 1st break and through rebuy period and have about 5000 in chips. Not very good but at least I didn't rebuy. Early in next blind level I raise in mid position with KQ. I get several callers. Flop is KKJ. I bet about a little more then half my stack expecting everyone to fold. I get reraised by an all in for about half of what I have left. I call and he turns over KJ. A few hands later I am button with one caller ahead of me, so I push in with 88 and get reraised by big blind with AA. So ends my tournament. Later I sat down at a 3-6 kill table and it was pure hell as always at Milacs. No one ever folds. After an hour and $35 down I surrender and go to blackjack tables. I did make a little back later on a slot but not the best gambling weekend. But, it's not over yet. Milacs is a dry casino so if you want a beer you have to sneak it in. Funny, that they have a fridge in each room! We had a few beers in the room and watch NCAA games and played some cribbage, probably the highlight of the weekend. Everyone else gambles late but I decide to go to bed early, so I'm up early and everyone else is sleeping. I decide to go to pool and hit the hot tub. Get me suit on, grab a soda and head to pool only to get stopped by another guard because I can't have a drink in the pool area. I look at him and say "you really going to make me go back to room to get rid of soda". Yes, he made me go back to room. I'm a little irritated by now. Go back to room and go back to pool only to find out heater was turned off in hot tub and it's going to take 3 hours to heat up. Back to room! Later we check out and go to buffet. We have 3 free ones, so it's only going to cost us $18. Not bad for 4 people. I seriously wanted to ask for my money back. Food was poor. We talked to manager because we had taken some peal and eat shrimp and you could smell that it was bad. He didn't say much and they never even removed the bad seafood. It will defiantly be my last visit to Milacs. Hinkley is much better and only a 10 minute farther drive. My only question is why can't MN have a nice Casino? I have been to many casinos in many states and ours are some of the worse run ones and what happened to customer service and MN nice. I that also doesn't apply to the local Indian tribes. It's time for state run competition!

Bad Beat on Cancer Charity Event

Last months CMPPA Bad Beat on Cancer was another successful event for the CMPPA to kick off it's 2013 year. Once again the local bar poker community surprised me by having 52 players show up for the event and donate over $1100 to the American Cancer Society. Thank you to all that donated items for silent auction and or your time to make the event successful. It was a fun day raising money and remembering James Wang. It was nice to see Donita and have her and Ann speak about Jim and his love of bar poker and it's players. There were many great auction items with me taking home a package from Grand Casino Milacs and a pair of Timberwolves tickets. Got to see many people that I had not seen for many months and had a very fun poker table to start tournament. Now this is not your normal CMPPA event as extra chips were given to anyone that donated to American Cancer Society so most players started with 25,000 in chips. As most of you know that when you give bar players extra chips play tends to start fast and pots build fast. One of the players on my table almost doubled up on the first hand. I played a little less aggressive then I have been playing and ended the 1st break about 5000 down in chips. 4 of the first 5 players knocked out of tournament came off of my table so it created several big stacks early. As the blinds increased I picked up the aggression a little and was able to build a nice stack on my table with many big stacks. When we reached 20 players my table was broken down and the move was not kind to me. I went card dead for a long stretch but was able to limp my way to final table with a very small stack. On the final table my card dead hands continued until I was forced to push all in with a small pocket pair and managed a double up. This seemed to get me started and I soon moved up to a mid size stack. One of the players on the table had been drinking a lot and all of the sudden got very aggressive and even announced that he was getting tired of playing. He had moved all in two hands in a row and appeared to be giving up all his chips. The next hand he moves all in again and everyone folds to me. I am big blind and have A-3 off. It is most of my chips to call, but not all. I think for quite a while as I am sure that I am ahead of him and he is just continuing his pushing all in, so I make the call. He turns over pocket jacks. Wow, was i wrong! It doesn't look good for me. The flop comes out 3 suits that I have the ace of and the river brings another and I 4 flush him and take him out of the event. So much for my great poker instincts, well at least I got lucky and won the hand. It was the turning point for me. I went on to win the event by taking out the last 2 players on the same hand with 2-3 off by rivering a deuce. I finally won my first CMPPA event! It's was about time. Now it's too bad that I can't play in the event next month. Thanks again to all that came and played and donated. It was a day to remember.

River Rat Poker League

I went and played at the Ultimate tonight and of course the talk was about the disbanding of the River Rat Poker League. Now I have never played in any of the events but I am not surprised to see this happen. It had grown too big and too much advertising was being done about it to include Facebook and a website. Most of the talk was about why it happened and what could be done about it. Here is the MN Law about a social bet from the MN Dept of Gambling website trying to explain it.

Private, Social Bets

It is sometimes difficult to distinguish the difference between a "private, social bet" and illegal gambling. The best way to make the distinction is to look at the intention of the law.

Minnesota law makes any "bet" illegal. A "bet" is defined as "a bargain whereby the parties mutually agree to a gain or loss by one to the other of specified money, property or benefit dependent upon chance, although the chance is accompanied by some element of skill." According to this definition, any card game where the participants pay to play, and have a chance to win money, would constitute a "bet" and, therefore, be illegal gambling.

However, the criminal gambling statute creates an exception for "a private, social bet." The important thing to remember about a private social bet is that it cannot be part of "organized, commercialized or systematic gambling." The owner of the location of the social bet cannot derive any profit from the bet, organize regular occasions for such bets, or advertise their occurrence. Potentially, any gambling that occurs in a business establishment could constitute illegal gambling because the owner of the establishment derives the indirect benefit of increased patronage.

It appears that the law was intended to exclude from prosecution such events as penny-ante card games among friends in one's home, small spontaneous wagers between friends, and other spur-of-the-moment private transactions. Once those wagers occur on a regular basis at a business establishment, it is difficult to characterize them as "social bets," and the location of the event runs a substantial risk of violating the law.

 

 

 

So what actually are the options for the group. The first obvious one is to move all the games to a casino. I am certain that any number of poker rooms would be interested in hosting their events. The next option would be to continue playing but move events around and remove all the social media outlets, but they could risk a raid if the state decided it was worth their effort. I doubt the state would waste much time and on money on their group, but then again looked what happened at Granite Bowl. There is also the membership option such as the CMPPA. Create a legitimate business and take in membership and host events. The big problem is keeping to the states $200 max payout which doesn't seem to fit their structure.

 

I wish them the best of luck on whatever they decide.

2013 CMPPA

It's 2013! The beginning of a new year and a new CMPPA year. Our 1st event is the yearly kickoff Charity event in honor of one of our 1st CMPPA members. James Wang passed away during our 1st year of existence and so to honor him we now run the The James Wang Memorial Bad Beat on Cancer Hold-em Tournament.

 This years event will be Sunday January 20th in the poker room at the Ultimate Sports Bar in Waite Park. Tom has agreed to host our events in 2013. The CMPPA was dealt a big blow with the closing of it's 1st host McCann's, so hopefully we have found a new home for years to come. The charity event is a free holdem tournament with a silent auction. They will be opportunities to donate to the American Cancer Society and receive extra starting chips. All money raised will be donated to the local chapter. I hope that many of you will be able to attend and donate items to the silent auction. To date we have raised over $3000.

The 2013 CMPPA schedule looks to filled with all the usual fun events including the popular Team and Heads up events. The schedule will be posted on our website soon. We will be running 9 events total this to include 4 St Cloud Series of Poker Events. Your $50 membership fee gets you into all 9 tournaments and includes some special extras at non member events.

It once again looks to be a heated battle for the Player of the Year honors as last years winner Matt Decker looks for a repeat, but I am sure that we will all be gunning for him and the 2013 title.

Time to grow up!

I am starting a new job next week. I will be cooking at the St Cloud Hospital. I am a little over 50 years old and I suppose it was time to grow up and get a big boy job! It's the first job in my working career that offers a full benefit package and 40 hr work weeks. What am I going to do with all the extra time? It does require every other weekend but that is less weekends then in the past. It was a challenge to get this job. Over the years I have applied over 6 times for various positions including other cook positions and this was the first time for an interview. The hardest part of the process was trying to get my immunization records. 40 years ago they didn't keep such great records of such things and it took a blood test to see if I had antibodies in my system for Mumps, Measles & Rubella, which luckily I did or it would have been a 4 week delay to get shots. I am still going to be helping out at the Pizza Ranch for a couple of days a week. I am very grateful to Jackie and Darren for giving me the opportunity to work there for the past 3 1/2 years. I met a lot of great young people that I would have never had the chance to get to know. I'll bet that it was close to 4 or 5 hundred different people under the age of 25 over the time frame. It was fun to watch many of them grow over their time at the Ranch. The only thing that will be a challenge for me is this is the first job that my hours wouldn't be very flexible. No more last minute let's go to the lake or casino trips. They will have to be more planned out, but it seems a small price to pay. I may even get a chance to play some poker occasionally as a lot of my shifts will be early in the day. I guess we will have to wait and see.

The Lederer Files

I have been slowly watching all the parts of the Howard Lederer files on Facebook through Youtube. Thanks to Tony and Matt for posting. There are 7 parts so far and I have watched most of 6 of them. They are about 30 minutes each so it takes a lot of time to watch it all. A few things are apparent real quickly. One Howard is very boring to listen to. He talks in mostly a monotone voice and is trying hard not to look as the bad guy. He clearly has waited until he knew that he was mostly off the hook before coming forward. He talks a lot about what happened and how it happened as he sees it. It is an interesting perspective and I would recommend that any online poker player should watch and learn because what happened to Full Tilt could easily happen to any online site. If I follow correctly, He says that a big part of there lack of funds came from the fact that after the new law regulating the banks that Full Tilt kept giving players there full deposit and allowed them to play even though they were not getting the money from the processing company. So very little money was actually coming in and they were still paying out if players cashed out. I believe him that this was part of the reason, but there has to be more to it. What he doesn't talk about was what he and the other board members were getting from Full Tilt during this time frame. He does say that one point they tried to raise enough money from the board to try and keep the site going, but by then the government was so far into it's investigation that not enough money could be raised to keep Full Tilt alive. So now, Poker Stars owns Full Tilt but isn't required to pay any of the money back. The government has most of the money but why should they give it back. All they have to do is sit back and manage the lawsuits from players that lost the most and settle with them for a small amount. Meanwhile guys like me that had a small amount on the site are out of luck. I had maybe $25, so there is not much of a point in trying to reclaim it. For Poker Stars it's a big win. They buy out there main competitor when the US market opens up again and will have access to all Full Tilt player data base with really paying much of anything. It is a gamble for them if the US market doesn't open back up, but I would think that they know what they are doing and planning for the future. Here is a link to part 1 in case you are interested.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3g1wFJx461U&feature=relmfu

CMPPA Omaha Split

Yesterday was the St Cloud Series of Poker Omaha Hi-low tournament. It is one of my favorite CMPPA events of the year. It played out to be a very interesting tournament. My first table was mostly a solid bunch with a couple of loose cannons, but in Omaha unless the loose canons are catching they don't last long and that is exactly how it played out. The stronger players quickly weeded out the weaker players and we ended up with a table full of good players all with big stacks. The other table meanwhile was very loose and aggressive with that table knocking out most of the players. It even managed to put a few good players on tilt! The biggest wild card at the games was Josh. It was Josh's 1st CMPPA event of the year. Josh is a weak holdem player at best and not very knowledgeable about Omaha, so I expected a quick exit by him. Was I surprised. He managed a final table and finished ahead of my on the money bubble in 5th place. Congrats Josh. The funny thing about his play was that he didn't fold once all day perflop. Think about that. Not one preflop fold. And on most hands he called the turn and the river. I have never seen a stack go up and down as fast as his did. It made for a very challenging final table. At final table I was about average in chip stack, but when you have a player that won't fold it forced me to change how I was playing. Any raises that you would make would be called by Josh and then several players behind would call either because of pot odds or because they just wanted a chance at Josh's chips. In a way the skill was taken away because everyone just started limping most hands and you ended up with 3-4 players to see flop. This changes everything in a split games. It becomes who catches the flops and unfortunately it wasn't me. It didn't take me long to limp off most of my stack. It isn't how I would ever expect to play on a final table. It's just how it played out. In retrospect I just should have tighten way up and played my blinds and waited for Josh to be eliminated, but it's hard to pass up on the chance at free chips. That's the great thing about poker no matter what your style everyone has their day when everything goes right and you do well.

One thing that was very apparent yesterday was how out of poker practice I am. Not that I played poorly, but at how bad I was at reading hands that were turned over. At least I kept the table amused with my miss calls. In fact, it was one of those days when I got it wrong most every time. Omaha split can be a challenge to read the highs and lows, but when you are the tournament director you are suppose to it right most of the time. Glad I could provide comic relief.

Now on to my pet peeve of the day. I got invited to a home game after the CMPPA event last night. It was a $10 buy-in with one rebuy. It sounded like fun as My wife had to work last night and it was my birthday and didn't feel like going home just yet. The game was to start at 8pm. The ordeal to get there is another story (sorry Don), but did manage to arrive right at 8pm. There were lots of cars there and it seemed like everything was a go. This game was to held in the garage and he had a nice setup. I walk in and sit down to wait for the game to start and home owner announces that others had run to get chairs, so it wasn't going to start for a while. Ok, so I will wait. By 8:30 people are still coming and leaving to go eat or get beverages. I have had enough so I leave. I appreciate the invite to the home game, but please when you tell me to be there at 8pm don't start at 9pm. In this day of busy lives there is a lot I could have done in that hour and then arrived at 9pm. Also you are running a rebuy tournament, there were plenty of players there at 8pm to start and the others could have joined as they arrived. This is a big reason that I rarely play in home games or run them for that matter. I am a person if you tell me to be there at a certain time that's when I will be there.

Congratulation to Dustin on another CMPPA win in impressive style winning with quad queens on the last hand. Someday maybe I will win one!

St Cloud Series Event #1

This took a while but finally a little time to blog. Last months SCSOP event was a very fun and classic bar poker game. I played well all day and then made one mistake and It cost me my tournament. Chalk it up to another hard poker lesson. I had decided to play very tight aggressive in this event and that is basically how I played but my cards ran so good for the first 2 hrs that it looked as if I was playing hyper aggressive. It is funny how one player can change the whole way a table plays. Most of you know Carlos and I am not going to use code names for this story. Carlos was an hour late for this event and as the tables worked out he ended up at the table next to me. Now I didn't play many hands with him and he didn't get many of my chips, but he did change the outcome of my tournament. Carlos won several big pots when he first got to the table and amassed a big chip stack. I had been close to the chip leader the whole time. When Carlos has chips he opens his already lose game up even more and he extra loose at this point basically playing every hand and in his situation I probably would have played the same. Blinds are 100-200 and I have over 14,000 in chips. I am small blind and pot is raised and then reraised by another very loose aggressive player that usually has nothing when he raises. Person in front of Carlos calls and of course Carlos calls. I look down to 3-4 off suit. It's only 400 more and I sure that there is going to be at least 2 callers behind me and guy that reaised would never reraise. I figure see flop and then fold. Flop is 3-4-6 two diamonds. I am not putting anyone on 2-5 or 5-7 so I check to make a reraise. There is a pretty big bet and Carlos calls, so I move all in to try and get rid of at least one if not everyone. A couple fold and then it gets back to bettor and he insta calls, so I figure he has an over pair. Carlos thinks for like 5 minutes and then folds. Guy turns over 6-9 of diamonds. So he has top pair and a flush draw. Really! Reraise preflop with 6-9 suited and then call off almost all your chips with a draw. I am not sure of the odds here but depending on the diamond situation of other players he may have been close to 50-50. Turn of course is a diamond and my day is over. It was a poor play by me playing the 3-4 to start with but when you add someone like Carlos to a table it forces other to play more aggressive and it increases the pot odds to stay in hands. Had there been a raise and a reraise and no one else when it got to me I fold and am still alive. Now, Carlos did end up 2nd in tournament and I am not knocking how he played. I just need to learn to adjust my game even more for players with that same style of play. I will say that when he got heads up that instead of getting more aggressive he got really tight and it cost him the tournament. He did lose one big hand that he was drawn out on but he should have had a big chip lead at that point and was barely ahead to survive. Any congrats to Rod on his 1st CMPPA title. You played well and won all the big pots at the right time. Next is Omaha Split my favorite game so hopefully I will have something good to blog about next!

Blog Response

So, my blog yesterday created quite a discussion on Facebook yesterday. I'm glad at least someone is reading them. It's about my comments on the half point for non customers on Monday, Wednesday & Thursday nights at the Ultimate. As it was quickly brought to my attention, " We don't do that on Friday nights" by the Friday tournament director. My question is why not? As a former bar owner, I would not have wanted non customers to knock customers out and have them leave my business. If I saw this happening I would have had a private conversation with the non customer and asked to please start purchasing or don't come back. It was also brought to my attention that I had many such players when I ran games. There is a big difference between running games and owning the bar where the games are played. At McCann's, I had many conversations with Wendell about non customers and he was more looking at the numbers of players and figured more players was better then less even if they didn't spend money. Do I agree with this statement. Yes and No. First of all the bar poker industry has changed a lot since I owned a bar. I am guessing that if I still owned GB or South that there would only be one poker game at each place per week just purely on a numbers game. I was once told by a Marketing Guy that for every $10 you spend on a promo that the minimum return should be $100 in sales. So if a promo costs $100 which is close to the average bar poker game these days you would need $1000 in sale to justify the promo and that is only the minimum. There is the car in parking lot factor. If your parking lot is fuller it is more likely that someone driving by will stop and see what is going on. How many times have you gone to a bar that has an empty parking lot? Anyway if you have 50 players at your game which most local bar games do not get anymore they would have to spend an average of $20 each for you to hit your minimum to justify the promotion. The other comment was about about the Ultimate having the longest running games and I couldn't agree more. The Monday game at the Ultimate is the longest running bar poker game in MN as it was the original game that got the whole law changed in the first place and their biggest game the Friday one was also a GB game that got transferred when the new owners of the bowling centers couldn't justify running games anymore and believe me if the new owners would have been making lots of money on Bar Poker they would have kept the games going. I hope the bars keep running bar poker games as I love to go and play when I can, but most have moved them to nights of the week where there are only hoping to break even or make a small profit. Very few will give up prime time such as Friday and Saturday nights to actually try and profit from the promotion. I have been trying to help Dustin find a new home for his Saturday game and it has been very difficult. It has as much to do with the reputation of bar poker in the St Cloud area as it has to do with anything. I don't mean that in a negative way towards players, I just mean that the way bar owners think of it. Even the Casinos are having a tough time making a go of it, as management of Casinos continue to close and cut back hours of poker rooms. Bar Poker has evolved a lot in the past 8 years and it will have to continue to evolve if it intends to survive.

I'm back!

It seems forever since my last blog and that may be because it has been over a month. In that time frame I have played poker one time with a very respectable finish at the Ultimate. Of course the big news since my last blog is the closing of McCann's and the lose of three games a week in St Cloud. I always saw the closing of McCann's as enviable but was hoping for the them to keep going. They have been a great support for the CMPPA and the chance to play their will be missed. A big thank you and good luck to Wendell & Matt in their future endeavors. This really leaves a hole in the St Cloud bar poker market with not a lot of hope for someone to step and replace those lost games. There is still the Ultimate but he is not very committed to poker and will with any excuse cancel or change the payout of his games. The most ridiculous new rule there is the if you don't purchase anything you only get half of the points or prize money. I do understand why he wants to do this but I believe that he is going about it all wrong. He is encouraging players to not buy anything. I say if they don't purchase anything just give the tournament director the authority to kick that person out of the bar. Plain and simple. No purchase no play! Why as a bar owner would you want a non customer to be knocking out paying customers from your game. They just cost you money. Kick them out! A bar owner has the right to refuse service to anyone. Use that right! Anyway back to McCann's loss.

What does this mean to the CMPPA.

 Mostly we have lost our main sponsor and location to play. We can't trust that the Ultimate will follow through with allowing us to play there as he has already cancelled twice in the past. The Clearwater Legion will allow us to play there but it's hard to run events such as the St Cloud Series of Poker, which begins this month, and not play any of them in St Cloud. I am looking into possible other places but it's hard to get a commitment from others for Saturdays and we will need a place for two days for the main event. If anyone has ideas, please let me know through comments on blog or through my facebook page.

St Cloud Series of Poker

Begins on August 18th at noon at the Clearwater Legion with no limit holdem. The board of the CMPPA has decided that one month memberships maybe purchased for only $10 or you can purchase a rest of the year membership for only $35. The other events include Omaha Split, HORSE & a two day Main Event. For more info go to www.cmppa.com

Epic & Heartland Poker sale

A couple of weeks ago Federated Sports & Gaming was auctioned off from it's bankrupcy. It's assets included the Epic Poker League and Heartland Poker Tour. If you are a follow my blogs you know that I said from the beginning that this was not a good thing for the HPT to be bought out. Pinnicle Entertainment is now the new owners beating out several other potential buyers. If you read the court documents that have been released it states that the original owners of the HPT may be charged with fraud because of part of the payments from FS&G. Here is a link to article written by PokerNews http://www.pokernews.com/news/2012/06/epic-poker-league-heartland-poker-tour-acquired-by-pinnacle-12866.htm. Even though the HPT continues to run tournaments all over the country, there is no way that all this will not have a negative effect on it's future. What started out as two guys from Fargo's dream has turned into a financial and legal mess that will probably cost them everything. From my own experience once you have to get lawyers involved it will get very costly. I have always liked the original HPT guys and wish them the best, but am afraid it will not come out good for them as they are facing off with companies with deep pockets and nothing to lose. It's too bad, had they just stayed as smaller Midwest events instead of wanting to become the second coming of the World Poker Tour they would not be in current situation. Look how quickly the Mid-Sates Poker Tour has grown replacing them by providing the same tournaments with better structures and more of a chance for the local Casinos to profit. I just hope the owners the MSPT don't get greedy and forget the MN poker players that got them to where they are today as the HPT did.

Excited to play again!

Finally after almost months of no poker playing, I get off work early enough to go and play a bar game at McCann's. I am kind of excited. I get there and order a beer and a burger basket. I am planning on playing tight aggressive as I want the night to last for a while. Blinds are at 50-100 and just got to that level. I was a little late and also had to wait for a spot to open up. I get my place and my food arrives. I fold the first few hands and then call a preflop raise and fold on the river as my draws don't pan out. I am in later position and look down to see aces. Two limpers in ahead of me so I raise to 400. Small blind calls. I get reraised to 1200 by big blind. Two limpers insta call. I move all in for 3000 over the 1200. Big blind instantly move all in over the top. First limper insta calls. The other limper is unhappy but figures he is priced in so call for most of his chips. I figure the reraiser has Kings or Ace-King. Flop comes K-6-4. First limper moves all in. Now I am hoping he has A-K also. Other limper decides there is too much in pot to fold and calls the all in and leaves himself with 300 chips. Q on turn and 3 on river. The rerasier turns over K-J off. First limper has a set of 6's and last limper calls with a pair ofd 3's and hits river and still loses. So, I am out. Figures, I really want to play and I get donked out. Now , you may ask why I say that when I ended up with the 3rd best hand. Look at how this hand played out. I made a normal size raise with my aces. I then get reraised by K-J off with myself and 3 others in the pot. I have no choice but to move all in to try and get rid of players which of course doesn't work in bar poker. What could the K-J possibly be thinking with a reraise. He think he has the best hand! He think a small raise of 800 is going to get rid of other players. No he's just a dipshit that thinks K-J off is a monster hand. Had he just called the 400 raise instead of reraising with nothing. I am probably able to lay down my aces down as he would be first to bet and he would have because he has K-J off for gods sake. The 6's would have moved all in. The 3's would have folded. I would have thought about it a while and realized I was behind and folded. I would have lived on to play another hand and who knows from there what can happen. Instead I gobble down my burger and head home scratching my head as to why I ever play bar poker.

The past few weeks

It's been another busy few weeks. Working a lot and trying to get lake place ready for summer. Ran my year end Jr. Bowling tournament for the CMJTT and SMJTT a couple of weeks ago to make for the end of another successful tournament tour. Was a little surprised to only have 25 out of a total of 53 that could have bowled, but it went well and 16 of the 25 took home scholarship money. The rest just missed out. In the lower average division we paid 8 out of 11. Not a bad percentage. Work has been busy and it seems that I have been working a lot of 12 hour shift. I don't mind them but it is getting harder on my old body. It is not looking like I am going to get to play any poker anytime soon. In a couple of weeks is the annual CMPPA heads up tournament, but I will only be there long enough to get it started as I have to work all day. Trying to decide if I should go fishing today, but can't seem to make up my mind. It seems to the norm lately. Not sure if it's an old age thing or if I am just getting bored. I did have a nice time last weekend when my wife and I were joined by my son and his girlfriend for the Night Ranger - 38 Special concert at Jackpot Junction. The concert was excellent with Night Ranger being the best part. I also managed to win a few bucks at the casino so it made for a fun trip. Enough so that we are going to a Foreigner concert in July at Grand Casino Milacs. That's a little catch up on wants been going on lately. I am hoping soon that I will be at the lake so much that I don't have any time for blogs, but you know how that goes.

Blog update

Sorry, it's been a while again with blog writing. The spring is always a tough time of the year to make time for the computer as I am opening up the lake place and trying to get as much work done there as possible so I can spend most of the summer just having fun and fishing. Haven't played much poker and honestly haven't missed it much. There is a CMPPA event this coming weekend that I will be running to start but then have to go to work later in the day. I am starting to wonder if some of the things that I run in my life are really worth it. The CMPPA seemed like a good idea when I formed it, but that was when I was running 2-3 bar games a week. Now, with membership down, I am just not sure if it is still worth my time. Making an organization like the CMPPA work requires a lot of effort and I am not sure that if I don't put that effort in that anyone else will. I am grateful for the help that all the CMPPA board members give me but what is missing is me being at local bar games promoting the CMPPA and I just can't do that anymore. I am not ready to give up yet, but my feeling is that next year maybe the last year of the CMPPA. I also run several youth bowling tournaments that has grown to a north and southern MN divisions thanks to my daughter Kara. But, my end of the tournaments the Central MN Jr Traveling Tournament is dwindling mostly due to the fact that I am not in any of the bowling centers anymore to be able to promote it. It also doesn't help that most of the local centers here hardly even have a Jr bowling program anymore. Next season is the 10th anniversary of the CMJTT and I plan on running events here in Central MN, but that might be the end of it. I guess that I just might be getting tried of all the donations of my time that doesn't seem to matter to anyone else but me.