shit for blog

As this guy has graciously and subtly pointed out, this blog has turned to shit.

I can’t even disagree. When I was playing a lot of tournaments, I had some finishes and situations I thought were worthy of a blog post. IMO tournament play is 10x more difficult than cash game play. With increasing blind levels, table changes, fluctuating stack sizes, table conditions, etc. you really have to play your best poker when you get deep. Otherwise, you just get run over or find yourself pushing all your chips into a monster and calling it a night.

For the past few months, I’ve been spending the majority of my playing time at the cash tables. I spent some time playing ring games in the past. But, I didn’t really enjoy it. Well, all that had to change. Big tournament scores are just too few and far between.

Low stakes cash games are not that glamorous. The stakes I’m currently at, most players are just playing straight forward ABC poker. You can exploit this to some extent. You can make moves against certain players for small pots and you’ll run across the occasional donk (or two) at a table trying to run bluffs constantly. But, for the most part when you’re facing a big bet you’re beat. So, you just fold and move on. If you go broke, you reload / regroup and continue with your session. There aren’t a lot of interesting situations for me to post about.

re:Bodog

While I was dead set on making it in tournament play, I dropped buy-in after buy-in at Full Tilt with only one decent finish during a 3-month period. I was a losing tournament player. Something I hate accepting even to this day.

I had a couple hundred $$$ sitting in Bodog that I almost forgot about and decided a change of scenery would be good for my psyche. In August I finished 2nd in Bodog’s daily 10k guarantee and never left.

Shortly after that, a marketing rep at Bodog kicked off a weekly Blogger tournament. Bodog had become my new home so, I decided to pimp it hard. Bodog was willing to pump up the prize pool enticing players to give them a try. After some brief discussions with Bodog’s marketing rep, we agreed I would be the tournament “host”.

Many of you have created new accounts and given Bodog a try and I thank you for that. Several of you have said you like the tournament structure and added T$$.

There’s been a lot of complaining about Bodog’s software, payouts, inability to do player to player transfers, etc etc. Bodog has its shortcomings. But, they are trying to improve. They recently launched a new software client. By far, It’s still not the best and misses several basic features such as saving hand histories, live tournament leader boards, etc. Their delivery of cash payouts has improved as well. Here’s a 3rd party opinion about that

Will Bodog be around forever? Who knows. The UIGEA bill passed in 2006 making it difficult for players to deposit to online gaming accounts. Several sites still openly accept U.S. players. Bodog is just one of many. If you’re worried about your money in Bodog, just don’t leave much in there. Same goes for all other sites. Remember when we thought Neteller was safe?

Thanks for stopping by. -smokkee