The PokerWorld, Chico, and everything in it.

Since the beginning of December, I've shifted my play from PokerStars to a much smaller site. I'm happy with this change and wanted to relate the experience to the Wayward Searcher and readers of this blog. The intention of this post is not to grow affiliate traffic at the site, with the current situation of being financially linked with the operation of a pokersite.

The first of December I received an email from a poker related site that I'm not sure if I can mention here. I'll check on this and make another post on it if possible. The nature of the situation may give my readers enough information to guess what I'm talking about, but Wayward Searchers, as usual, are lost. This email contained enough incentive for me to check out PokerWorld. Looking at their homepage, there are various promotions. They have a 20% bonus on all deposits, freerolls, a football pick'em promotion, King/Jack of the day, and 2006 WSOP involvement. The football promotion was a bit unclear. They had large dollar figures but didn't specify if it was limited to players at the site, or what was needed to win cash. The King/Jack of the day looked intriguing. PokerWorld picks a table type for the King and for the Jack, currently $2/$4 LHE and $5/$10 LHE. Each day they track who had the most hands (I'm unsure if the hand being raked is a requirement) on those tables. The top five players for the day with hand counts above 250 are given prizes for both tables. No prize wasn't given out the previous day, so it looks like they don't get much traffic at those levels or they don't update this promotion often. (update: the King/Jack promotion is no longer mentioned on the site) The mention of the 2006 WSOP tie ins were interesting, even if it was too late to capitalize on them, because they showed that those packages do (or did) exist.

At this point, I was willing to give it a shot. I downloaded the software (over duh-ial up) and installed. Their client was okay. To go to tournaments, you needed to click a button that opened a second client window. In cash games they offered Hold'em, Omaha, and Stud. Hold'em had the majority in not all of the traffic. In Hold'em, about two-thirds of the traffic is on the micro NLHE games. I set up an account with $500 (play money, of course). It was easy to get into the $10NL or $20NL games. There was usually one or two $100NL or $200NL games going on.

For the last year, I've been a LHE player on Stars, using PokerTracker and PokerAce HUD. Playing on this site would mean I'd have to adapt to NL play and cast aside my data crutches. In the last two weeks, my $500 has turned into more than a grand. I've had a couple big hands. A couple of $100 dollar hands, one with AA vs KK, and QQ vs KK with a Q on the flop. I also lost $100 on a hand with KK vs TT, all in preflop, with a T on the turn. Mostly, it has been in $20 and $50 chunks. There are bad players here. Monday night, an action $200NL table was full. It had big pots and players per flop. I got in and on the other side were three stacks around $300 and another just over $200. In the next 20 minutes, there were two stacks above $500. One player ran his up to $700, and then back down again when he got in a match with the other big stack. I stayed around until he left and made $50 off him. After he was gone another player mentioned that he ran off $600 the day before. I won $80 from him on a KK hand with an AAx flop. He called my continuation bet with me acting last. He checked the river and so did I, and the pot was mine.

The software does not show history, so losing mucked cards are truely mucked. Getting a seat is a bit tricky. If you leave a table with more than the max, you have to return with that amount, which is all well in good. However when you try to enter the table, if you try the max, you lose the seat. You don't get a reminder asking if you want to join with the previous amount. Multi-tabling doesn't always bring the table needing action to the front. It's worse if you have a browser window open also. The bet amounts aren't all displayed unless you put your cursor above the stack of chips. They automatically show you the amount in the pot before the betting round, and the total amount including all action to that point, so you can either deduce the bet amount from that, or place the cursor on the chips.

In my two weeks, here are the things that stand out to me. The bonus is very slow to clear. It clears in $10 increments. The bonus points have little value. You can use them to buy into tournaments, but they accumulate slowly. The guarantees that they run are mostly rebuys. It appeared to me that it was a freezeout, but I was mistaken. The guarantee is set up that with the rebuys and the minimum number of players, it should reach the guarantee. If the posted time goes by, it will wait around until they get the minimum number of players. It seems to share players with check and fold as well as a few other sites, and the players are aware of this. There are strict cash out rules to the site. You must send them a copy of your ID to be eligible. If you are eligible, there will be a $15 fee, unless you meet the following three rules:
1) Previous deposit made through Neteller (maybe same method - mine was Neteller)
2) No withdrawal of any type has been made in the previous 7 days.
3) The account has been open and active for the last 30 days.

I plan to continue to try this place out exclusively and see how I do there. One bit of wisdom that has gone around the poker blogger group is that a bad interface and low volume of players will keep out the sharks. I can see that here so far. If something more develops of this, I'll try to provide an update post.

Sponsored Post: Card Room Supply

First an update on ReviewMe. Other bloggers have weighed in on this topic with much discussion, but I think it is mainly a rehash of previous ad revenue discussions, with personal opinions of those behind ReviewMe interjected. They kept up their end of the bargain for the first post I did. I received the payment about two weeks later, proving to me that there is cash flow from this. About three weeks later, I've received the first legitimate review offer from Card Room Supply. Which, if you continue to read this post past the first paragraph, you'll noticed I've accepted. Before I get into the actual review, I want to offer up a suggestion to the ReviewMe business model. As most already know, they split the fee with the blogger from the advertiser for the review. In the past, I've done a couple of product reviews in exchange for samples of the product. Cash is very liquid, but I like the samples. I'd rather have twice the money to use in the advertisers store to buy a product, and then post the review. With that deal, the advertiser would most likely give more, since they would write off the item at cost. They'd probably be willing to pay out more in store credit. I suggest that ReviewMe offers that option to the advertiser, where applicable. I'd bet it would be a more involved post and not as dry as some of the reviews we've seen (and done) up to this point.

At first glance, you notice that Card Room Supply has a great selection of tables. I would say this is their strength. Their selection runs from the common fold out table top to fancy legged fixed tables with lots of thick wood used and matching chairs. They will even do custom graphics on the felt. They also include various other game tables in their selection. Both board games and casino games are available.

They have a modest selection of chips, chip sets, chip cases chip racks, Copag playing cards, and any button you'll possibly need. If you are setting up a serious poker game, they offer a selection of drop boxes.

The bottom tab on their sidebar menu includes a few interesting items. They include a Poker Tournament Timer, Dealer DB, All in Tournament Organizer and Timer. The Timers and the Dealer DB are useful things for players to have for informal games. It saves the pain of resetting the microwave every so often, or missing the beep over all the action. I have the Dealer DB and have been pleased with it's set-up, design and use. The other timers appear to offer more aid, possibly with setting up the structure and controlling the blinds, ante, starting chip count and level time to manage the tournament but I may be mistaken.

The Dealer DB seems to be a little pricey, but I received mine through involvement with Poker Source Online and didn't pay cash for it. The tables can get expensive, but they appear to be worth it.

ScurvyDog also has a review of these guys posted. Feel free to remark on this company if you have experience with them in the comment section.

I feel like I owe my site better and more content after posting this so . . . Coming Soon! I've deposited a bunch of cash at a smaller site and have been trying it out. I'll relate my experiences there next week, hopefully.

Argosy Trip Report - 11/11th and 12th (Lawrenceburg, Kentucky)

Just returned from a nice trip to the boat this last weekend. My friend had procured 4 tickets to the Cincinnati Bengals and San Diego Chargers game on the 12th. We decided to turn it into a gambling weekend with an overnight at the Argosy casino in Lawrenceburg, Indiana. Over Saturday evening, we all separately arrived at the casino. I must have shown up at a busy time, as the main parking garage was full. They rerouted me a few blocks down the road into their alternate garage. There were numerous warnings to get my stub stamped or I'd have to pay a dollar to leave. After they bussed me back to the casino, I handed the shakey valet in the window my stub. He extended his tattooed arm back with my stamped stub, and also handed me $5. I couldn't tell if he thought he was making change or if they were paying me for parking down the street, so I acted like I knew he was going to pay me and walked away wit! h the money. When I got upstairs, I ran into a couple from the bus. They got the $5 as well. I spent the rest of my walk wondering how I could take advantage of this system where I get paid $5 to let them stamp a stub. Now that I think about it, that is probably why the girl at the parking garage was pushing the button and handing the parking passes to everyone that came in.

My friends were at the roulette table when I found them. The table was full, which was fine with me. Soon, they busted out or accepted fate and pulled what was left of their money of the table. They offered to railbird me while I played, but I was fine leaving the casino up $5. Only one of them would be willing to play at the poker tables on the boat, so we didn't do that while everyone else was there. Before we left, I needed to get change for some smaller bills, if you can follow my logic. I had a roll full of $20s, which were about 20x too big for where we were headed. At the cashier I asked if they could break the $20s, and bit when the kid told me he couldn't do it. He called me back and we did the deed. I toked him a $1 since he got me with the joke and we were off.

We had planned on playing poker back in the room, between all of us. I had brought my PokerSourceOnline chip set and case (which has the Copaq cards substituted in and a PokerDB button with blinds timer also). We didn't get to that though, because from the bar, one guy had too much to drink and bailed.

My poker friend and I left the other three guys and headed back to the casino - two guys weren't interested in going to the game and just came to hang out and gamble. We put our names in for the $3/$6 limit game and they put us on the same table. I got my chips while my friend said he needed to hit the bathroom first. I sat down in the 4s and started in right away, without having to post or wait for the BB. A couple of orbits went by and my friend still wasn't back. I was concerned, but didn't yet venture from the card room looking for him. Another orbit, and then I tried to call him. Two orbits later, I spot him at another table. He said they put him there when he came back. So I play for a while, get up a little. Have one hand where QQ flops the top set on an all club board with maybe 5 in the pot. An early position limper raises on the flop, I reraise and everyone else drops out. She ju! st calls. Either she has the flush, or she's drawing to it, I think. The next card pairs the 5, and she bets. At this point I'm thinking she has the flush, but I don't understand why she still raised when the board paired. She had sat down very recently and probably doesn't have a read on me as a tight player yet. I reraise to see how far she'd go, but she just called. She carried herself smartly with little talk, so I started to half expect the lower full house now. Quad Fives didn't enter my mind. The river was a blank, and she bet again. I raised and she called. She had the King high flush, and I had a nice sized pot.

A younger player comes to the table a little later, and one of the players remarks "He's back for some more" to his girlfriend, so I peg him for being loose and/or weak. At one point I raise on the flop by throwing out 6 chips. He's not in the hand but he complains that I didn't have to say raise, and a dealer got on him earlier for string betting. The third time he brings this up, the dealer explains to him what a string bet is, but it's kept all friendly, he was a friendly drunk. He then tells his story about how he had to take out the bosses daughters and then came here afterwards. The guy to my left says he busted the friendly drunk earlier in the night, which explained the "He's back for some more" comment. Later I see the friendly drunk raise on a Q84 flop with two hearts. He gets reraised and then calls down with the board showing Q84 Q 2 with 74o. I comment quietly to my right th! at I'm not leaving as long as he had chips in front of him. All four players who heard it nodded. Soon after he busts out. We have about three open seats on the table, and people seem to be slowing down. About 5am, I'm up $100, and start racking my chips. The guy to my left says he's going also. I don't like to play shorthanded as I'm not as comfortable yet with the aggression needed, so I decide to check on my friend. When I cash out, the same cashier is there, he hands me $401. I ask him if he remembers what I had earlier and he doesn't. I tell him I'm up $101 and tip him the $1 anyway.

I find him on the top level playing craps and having a good time. I watch him for a bit and he says he's good to stay around. I'd rather stay up all night than sleep for two hours and want to avoid going back to the room. When I go to the boat, I shouldn't go in on the room, because I don't use it, unless we play poker there. I'll probably continue to pay for it though, just to encourage them to come along. I stick around for a bit to watch the dice and head out once he hits his backing bet. Back to the poker room and I get $200 in chips this time. They have two tables, one full and one with 4 to 5 players. I don't want to play with 5, so I color my chips up to $25s for easier carrying. I wait around and watch college football highlights while waiting to see what would happen. There are a few $1-$3 NL tables around also. My last trip, I busted out my meager live roll with Kings against Aces. &nb! sp;It was after about 5 hours, but I had to bum a ride back from a hotel worker after that, and didn't want to have that happen again. I wait for a spot on the full table and get in on the 7s. I sit on the button on the only open chair. I ask the dealer if I can play after the button. The 9s says 'now wait a minute.' I ask the dealer and she confirms. The 9s sulks a bit, someone says what's the difference, and he keeps up with 'it makes a world of difference' I make note of this, and hope I can use it to push his tilt forward, but I don't get any playable hands. I would have liked to raised my first hand with him in the big blind if it had folded to me while saying 'let me make up for not posting blinds' but the pot was too multi-way at that point.

The 10s is raising constantly. I notice after I limp into a few multiway pots and he raises after me. One situation comes up where there are 5 or so limpers, I call with ATo, he raises, one of the limpers reraises, 2 others call, I call, he caps, and it ends up capped. "Good luck getting anyone out of the pot now," I say to which he responds "That's good!" The flop comes AK8o. It's limped around, I bet, he raises, one early position calls, I call. I think I'm beat, but the pot is big enough to hope on hitting the J for the straight. It doesn't come, and he flips over Aces to drag the pot. "I'm getting all the cards now" Later in the night, he's not raising as much and I realize that he was getting hit with cards, that's why he seemed aggressive.

There is a quiet, non-assertive guy in the 1s. Numerous times, he'd be the third person involved in the pot and someone wouldn't realize he was involved. He gave off a weak image. There was one instance that made me question his poker skills. He and the 10s from before were involved in a hand heads up. I don't remember all the details, but the 1s called him down. The 10s showed an overpair to the board, pocket Kings. The 1s looked at his cards and put them down face down. The 10s and I started talking about something, the dealer starts pushing the pot his way, and then the 1s says wait a second, I have pocket Js and there is a J on the board. The dealer calls over the floor who says that if he threw he cards down and not forward, they weren't mucked. I kept it to myself because the 1s wasn't putting up a fuss. The dealer didn't do a good job of describing the situation, because even though he th! rew the cards down and didn't fling them, the were out past the yellow circle. There were no other cards for them to touch on that side of the table. However the 1s had been getting good cards, like I mentioned earlier, and had a big stack so he said he didn't care and it was done.

Later on, I get in a pot with the 1s. I have pocket 5s and I raise in late position to see if I can take it, since the 'weak' 1s is in the BB. Now that I'm revisiting it, he may be more of a calling station. That is one part of my game I need to work on, tagging other players. It's the reason I don't play shorthanded so much. I should drop down a few levels on line and play 6 max so I can get accustomed to this. Back to the story, the 1s calls my raise and we are heads up. The flop comes with all overs to my pp, something like Q88 with two clubs. I continuation bet and he calls me. The turn is the 5 of clubs, putting three clubs on the board and giving me a boat. I check to see if he wants to bluff at the flush or has hit it. He bets, I raise, he calls. The next card is the four of clubs. I bet, he raises, I reraise quickly and so does he back at me. The dealer says that's a cap, but! then realizes we are heads up and can keep raising which I considered. At this point I should have put more thought into it. I see that if he was playing a trash hand from the BB, he could have hit a straight flush, but that is unlikely. He could have quads, but that didn't enter into my thought process. I was scared that he had QQs and had a higher boat. I thought, that's enough for me, the pot is as big as I want it to get in this situation and I called. He had AJc for the A high flush. Looking back, I should have ruled out the QQs for him because he didn't raise preflop. Not raising the Qs on the flop could be slow playing a flopped full house, but the information from preflop should have told me enough about that. I gave too much credit to him hitting that straight flush, if that was the case, I shouldn't have expected to see it anyway, like quads.

After that hand, he had less than $20 left, so it wasn't like we wou! ld have been there all day raising it up to all-in. I didn't lea ve $200 on the table with him, but at the time, I didn't know that. Those are points I need to work on. I had played down about $40 at that point and that hand brought me back up around even. After that, it was around 6:30am to 7am, and the table started to lose players. We got down around 5 handed and the two guys to my right started getting aggressive. I waited a bit, and then started picking my spots to reraise them. There were enough times where they'd fold to keep me afloat. The two players to my left started complaining about the play and that they didn't get anything to play. I didn't point out that the other guys didn't either, but that didn't stop them. After an hour of that, I was down to just over $100 (even for the trip), and kept looking for an excuse to leave. I had $106 in the cutoff at one point, so I put a live $6 out to get back at the aggressive guy. Two players called, and he reraised. I looked at my cards and saw Q8o. I called. The flop came KQx. He bet, and I reraised. He tossed his cards around in his hand and mucked. I showed him the Q. ! ;He whispered in his neighbors ear. I could tell he didn't like me playing back at him, he wanted to continue to run over the table with trash.

About then is when the table started to fill up again. The rested morning players started to join us all-nighters. An older gentleman came in on the other side of the table, and in late position, I was dealt Aces. The flop came with an Ace. on each street, he'd bet, I'd raise, and he'd call. I think this hand ended up full house over flush also, but that seemed to be the theme for the night.

Anyway, I ended up about $80 on the trip. I think next time when it gets shorthanded, I'll either switch to NL or sit out. We'll see.

My friend had left at 5:30am. I called him and he came back to pick me up. Went to shower, then straight to Hooters for the pregame. A boat takes us from the restaurant in Kentucky to the stadium. It worked out pretty well. Except for the game with the Charger come back and the 4 LT TDs.

For the future of this blog, we'll see if it finds a direction. I'm playing mainly on line right now, with a B&M trip every few months. I started this wanting to keep it just poker, but there isn't enough new territory to find there to keep going. I don't want to make this a personal blog that talks about poker occasionally. We'll see what I have time and interest to do with this.

Sponsored Post: ReviewMe

I'm jumping on the ReviewMe bandwagon also. The rest of this post will match what you've seen on multiple blogs elsewhere, so feel free to skip it.

Poker bloggers have reviewed different products in the past in exchange for a free sample. I've done a couple of these myself. ReviewMe is setting themselves up as a go between for those people with the products and us people with the audience to talk about them. In this case, though they say they will pay with cash instead of product. This is my first review. ReviewMe says I'll get paid for it. If I do another one in the future, then you will know that it worked. I haven't seen any reviews on another blog other than this initial one, but I'll keep watching.

The only requirement I see about the reviews is that they are at least 200 words long. There is no requirement that I approve of the product, write a glowing review, or that I even spell correctly.

Doing a search for poker, I am the 28th or so poker blog to jump aboard this. They rank the worth of your blog on a 5 star ranking. Even though I rank 1 star out of 5, it looks like I am paid more than a random 3 star blog, so the system is not so straightforward.

If you are looking for another revenue stream, this may work for you. It looks like we'll see how this does as a community.

Roshambots are Coming!

Normally this blog stays very true to poker related subjects and products. However, there has been a very serious development in the side game of Roshambo that I would be remiss if I didn't relate to you, Wayward Searcher.

Honda is developing a device to read the minds of Roshambo players!

This research reveals that MRI-based neural decoding can allow a robot hand to mimic the subject’s finger movements ("paper-rock-scissors") by tracking the hemodynamic responses in the brain. Although there is an approximate 7-second time lag between the subject’s movement and the robot’s mimicking movement, the researchers succeeded in gaining a decoding accuracy of 85% . . . By utilizing such methods, it is expected that the same result could be achieved with less time lag and more compact BMI system devices.

Start using your tin foil poker hat for playing Roshambo today. Hemodynamic responses are a huge tell. Right now they are 7 seconds behind, but how long until they make up the gap, neurally decoding the brain as the throw is being made? Also, they are looking at 'more compact' systems. If someone wants to Roshambo you for $100, first check to see if they have a huge ass I-pod on their belt. If so, leave immediately. Especially if the headphone jack is plugged into their elbow.

Already, Phil Gordan is training himself to think rock while throwing scissors.

Perhaps HumanHead and the Mrs are early testers of this technology, and it is already in use . . .

The full article is here, without the spin:
ATR and Honda Successfully Develop New Brain-Machine Interface Creating Technology for Manipulating Robots Using Human Brain Activity

How to Protect Your Big Pocket Pairs

First raise preflop. Second get a card protector from PokerGuard.com For reasons I listed out two posts ago, I ordered a custom card protector from PokerGuard. In the previous post, I added my mock up, but no links to the site. The product was so nice, Wayward Searcher, that I'm going to recommend it and link it up here. I sent them the order on 5/1 and finished the images on the 8th. My order went into production on the 9th, and I received it on the 12th! They made it and it shipped faster than I could put the images together. I only did the minimum shipping freight for the US Postal Service also. It came in under $51.




They have many designs to choose from, which you can add a custom message to the back. There are standard round protectors with intricate images on them, as well as card shaped caps. I went with the double custom, and sent them images for the front and the back. I sent a mock up showing how they should be positioned, and they did a fine job of laying them out. There were two images on the front - the A shield and the word Meek. On the back, it had three images. A ring of text saying Meek's Poker Bank Roll, an outline of Ohio, and my signature. The sig and the outline were superimposed. It didn't seem to be a problem for them. They requested the images be bigger than 100kb to ensure a quality machining.

They added a couple more nice touches. The card cap comes with a felt pouch. The card protector is itself protected by a usable and unobtrusive acrylic case. So what is supposed to protect the acrylic case? I'm checking if I can add a viper card alarm that says "Please step away from the cards" in an authoritative voice. I hear it is a good option to have if you play in Detroit.

My trip to Iggy's office is coming up in three weeks. That will be the first live experience for this Troy Ounce of silver from PokerGuard.


PokerStars is doing the 5 billionth hand promotion. Every 5 million hands from here on (4.930b, 4.935b, etc), they give away $5k to the winner of the hand, and $2k to everyone dealt in on it. I'm stalking the hand count, and opening as many low limit tables as I can when it gets close. I figure each table gets about a hand every 7000 hands. One table would give you 1/7000 odds. two, 1/3500, and so on. Not so bad for a shot at $5k. It would be better to have a table that folded around on every hand right up to it. Just burn through them.

I think I've got a problem with this card protector now. I like this thing too much. I'm carrying it around in my pocket, but not showing it to anyone. I pull it out every once in a while to catch a peek. The next step is to start calling it 'my precious'

State of the Roll Address

A man in a gray suit approaches the podium and speaks, "Ladies and Gentleman of the press, please rise for the Player of the Poker Bank Roll"

Meek enters in a dark suit and addresses the press.

"My fellow poker players (and Wayward Searchers), this is a critical time in the life of the Poker Bank Roll. My Poker Bank Roll and I, we have endured recent hardships, bust outs, failed trials of new games, and unprofitable bonus chasings. We have reached a new low point, and are putting together a new plan towards the road to recovery. It is a hard road, not easily travelled. We will reach the land of continued growth, without asking for help from living expenses or other bank rolls, except for those that we bust. I ask for your support in the upcoming elections, that I may continue to play and grow this bank roll, and that we should all prosper. Ask not what your bank roll can do for you, but what you can do for your bankroll. Thank you very much."

Yes it is a hard time recently in the poker world for me. The Roll is down, nearing a thousand, after being up to three grand last year. I recently put a small amount into PokerShare to chase a bonus there, along with a PSO gift. For the $50 deposit, I had a $50 sign up bonus, as well as 9000 PSO points, which have a street value of about $90. PokerShare was recently added by PSO, and they had a shotgun start special to the first 5 players to sign up. I shot for this and missed, but still had a few nice incentives to go with. Until I started playing at PokerShare. For bonus clearing, I've become a $1/$2 limit HE player. My strategy comes mostly from Small Stakes Hold Em. However, with PokerShare, I've hit a large road bump. They are on the TAIN network, and don't have a lot of traffic. Also, it's based in Europe, so their peak times are during the day in the US. At peak, they might hit 3000, with 500 players for EST evenings. Also, most of the players are Aggropeans. Short handed no limit is the game. It's hard to find a limit HE game or a full ring game there. I do like to play NLHE MTTs, so I thought I'd try to find a full ring NL game. These do spring up occasionally. I put the full $50 on a table, and happen to sit down with Falstaff at a table. He and I get in a hand a little bit later with a third player. He hit a flush on the turn against my over pair, but he had odds to go for it with a third loose player staying in the hand. Yes, I did pay off his value bet on the river. It wasn't a big hit to my stack, though and we started chatting about one of his projects. A few hands later, I get QQ, and take the lose player for the ride. There is an A on the flop, and I donk raise the rest of my stack into the pot. It was a bad move. He had AK, I should have thought that half of his playable hands contain an Ace. Before I did it, I commented to Falstaff in another window that I was going to go broke here. At the same time, I've got a similar table open on UB, with all of my UB stack on it. I get QQ there. Three way all in preflop on that table and I'm up against KK and KK. I bust out of UB also.

At that point I take a walk. Busting out can happen, especially when I buy in at a table with my full deposit, so I reload for another $100, to chase the $50 I lost, plus the $150 coming in incentives. If I play even from here on out, I'll be up $100. With $100, I can open two of the $50 tables. While playing, I hit a set of threes and bust a small stack. I comment to PokerWolf in IRC, "I play poker to destack people with sets" He agrees that it's a great feeling. 5 minutes later, I see a flop with 7 3 from the blind, and hit two pairs. I think, how do I get all this guys money into the pot. Obviously he was thinking the same thing, having flopped a set of tens. I destacked myself there, and took another walk. I'm playing bad, but I can be honest about it.

Looking back, I'm probably doing something similar to what I'd read in a recent post (that I don't remember the source - I thought it was EvaCantHang, but no.) I'm playing NLHE as if I'm in an MTT. I'm trying to double up, instead of make money.

That is the State of the Roll. I can be honest about it. Not good, but I think I see the path to improvement. LHE with occasional NLHE MTTs. Maybe I'll play some micro NLHE to get the licks down, but not right now.

I dub thee 'Exalted Protector of the Cards'

Earlier this month, the heads up Goddess ran the Heads Up Challenge 3. Will Wonka took first place in this event and part of the prize package was a customized card protector. If you recall a previous post on this site, (of course you don't, Wayward Searcher, I know you only stumbled across this poker blog with your search for 'extra large rainbow colored stretch pants caught in dryer' mysteriously dropped you here.) I was in the market for a customized card protector. Having recently found a legal poker room down the road in Bellefontaine, Ohio, my desire has since increased.

Crappy cards look so much better with a one ounce piece of .999 fine silver on top of them. Furthermore, that talisman actually helps to attach a table image to yourself. There is a post on another blog that references this concept. Other players tie your actions into that hunk of metal, and better remember what you are trying to show them. If you fold for a half an hour and then suddenly put your card protector out there on the cards, they more easily remember that you haven't played many hands.

Luckily, Veneno is within my rather small circle of communication (College-educated talk for I got her YIM id (Nerd talk for Puedo hablar con ella (Spanish for I know how to reach her))) and she pointed me in the right direction. After going through the company's website, I've settled on the custom image double side protector. I've placed my order, but I'm waiting for them to ask for my customized graphics. Here is the custom design I am going to submit.



Note: My signature will be on top of the outline of the state of Ohio. I thought it would be wise to remove it from public display on the internet. Poker is rigged, and people steal your identities, or so I hear.

I'll do my best to keep you, Waywaryd Searcher, updated on the progress. If anyone has experience with these guys, please let me know in the comments. Their site was lacking on examples of drawings turned into custom protectors.

My last post (or you could just page down instead of hitting the link) was a review of the Chip Tree from H2I. I've noticed that they reference my review, and put it second, below Biggestrons! However, they pulled out the lame "well built chip display" as the quote. I thought they'd go with "looks like it can withstand several forehead slaps." or "If you constantly have idiots at your homegame (and you should) who need to be reminded the value of the chips, this is the product that will do that." but alas, they did not. I will email them to see what their line of thought was. If not for laziness, I'm guessing they needed smaller endorsments.

Chips Don't Grow on Trees, You Know!

No, this isn't a post about how valuable chips are in a tournament, and how you, Wayward Searcher, should protect each and every one. This post announces a new poker product by H H Innovations, the Chip Tree. Also, thanks to Biggestron for informing me of this product.



They were kind enough to send me a sample product to review. I set up a hand on the dining room table so you could better see the product. Either through laziness or preference, I chose a wood background instead of felt. How about the hand I cold decked there. Hammer vs suited slick. On the flop, slick gets top pair with the A high flush draw. The hammer gets . . not much, runner - runner straight, flush, and straight flush draws. Of course suited slick makes the A high flush on the turn, and the hammer pounds out the straight flush to take it on the river. If I had this to do over, I'd put the flop as A45 to give the hammer the gut shot straight draw at that point also. I'll digress from my fantasy poker hand and get back to the product in the middle of the shot.

On the surface, it is a modest, but well built, chip display. It does this job superbly. However, what H2I does to elevate this product to the next level is to also send the chips with the denominations imprinted in easy to read font. This master stroke, along with the 2 by 5 layout of the chips, allows the chip tree to be used as a mid game informational device. You, Wayward Searcher, are able to easily display the value of the chips in your game. It may not all-together eliminate the question, "What are the greens worth, again?" but it gives you something sturdy to beat the idiot over the head with when they do ask. The Chip Tree looks like it can withstand several forehead slaps. At my next home game, I plan to conduct a stress test on the product. I will post the results here, if the test does occur.

Revisiting the rigged hand tangent and the Chip Tree, I also messed up the chip counts. There are entirely too many white chips on the table for them to be worth 500 each. Additionally, if the red chips are still in the game, there aren't enough of them there. A nice coincidence is that the denomination chips in the Chip Tree match my chips with the suits around the top edge and the dots on the side. Also, the rest of the poker supplies on the table came from my promotion fulfillment's in Poker Source Online (Chip set and case, Copaq plastic cards, DB dealer button/timer) I just finished a promotion on Poker Rewards of 750 raked hands for PSO which gets me PSO points as well as entry into an exclusive $10k freeroll.

That, Wayward Searcher, is my product review of the Chip Tree. If you constantly have idiots at your homegame (and you should) who need to be reminded the value of the chips, this is the product that will do that.

Phil Hellmuth as Cheater McCheaterson

Ask most people for their take on Phil Hellmuth and you, Wayward Searcher, will get various results. Most of those would include the phrases spoiled brat, world class NLHE tournament player, tantrum thrower, hunormous ego, etc. However, if Hellmuth appears on the television when my wife is in the room, the one word that she associates with his name or image is 'Cheat.' Once I think she even has gone as far to labeled him as a 'Cheater, cheater pumpkin eater.' However I may be mis-attributing that quote from one of the kids recent arguements.

(update: Phil was on 'High Stakes Poker' last night. Phil lost a big hand and started cussing. 'That's what you get, Cheater McCheaterson!' was MrsMeeks response from the kitchen)

How could MrsMeek have that almost one-of-a-kind opinion of Phil? My guess is that it is a result of a collision between a marketing ploy and Phil's ego. The story is this. We have Verizon cell phones. Not because they are a good company, but because they are the only service I could find that actually pulled a signal in my house. Verizon intentionally disables my camera phone, so that I have to pay them to download the pictures I took, either per picture or with a monthly fee. In other countries, this phone uses a cable to connect to a PC and download the pictures. But here in America, Verizon disables that feature. Anyway, we have these cell phones from an evil company, and they offer games on these phones. I'll check through for a trial game every once in a while - you know there are no free games - and happened to catch a two day trial to Texas Holdem by Phil Hellmuth. I thought I'd try it out and download it. It was a tournament style game, where you are playing at a table with Hellmuth and a few other tables. The play was going pretty standard when I get the Aces. Nice. I raise and its just Phil and I left for the flop. The flop comes A J x. Nice. Now how to get money out of a multiple WSOP bracelet holder. . . I bet, he raises, I go all in, and he calls. Hellmuth shows K8o. He would then proceed to runner runner himself a straight. I realize at that point that it is truly is Texas Holdem by Phil Hellmuth's poker game - he can not be beat. I surmise that when they were making this game, they couldn't design a software that played as well as Phil plays and fit it on the mobile phone OS. They took the best compromise they could, they rigged the game.

At that point, I stopped playing the game, and went back to the crosswords on the cell phone. My wife however, was mildly curious about poker. I showed her the game, and of course she had the same results after three tries. She'd do good against everyone else, except Phil. MrsMeek came to the same conclusion, however she harbors long term resentment because of it.

If you, Wayward Searcher, are ever watching Phil play, and he happens to go into one of his tirades, If you hear a female heckler from the crowd shout, "That's what you get, Cheater, McCheaterson!" You can be fairly certain it was my better half.

Repping Ohio & a turn Ace

The fine people at PokerStars were looking for poker players to represent Ohio versus the other states, and then the rest of the world. I play poker, live in Ohio, and have 50 fpp: I met the requirements! So did 99 other PokerStars players. PokerStars deemed the best way to determine who of the 100 would represent Ohio was to throw us all into a heads up tournament. First round, 72 of us played while 28 waited so that we could get into the 'power of two' sweet spot. I won the first round, then had to wait for my next opponent. That's what is wrong with these things, the wait. If they could set these up to where the second and later rounds could play while the earlier rounds were still going, I think it would be an improvement. This would lead to longer waits towards the later rounds, but the time waited by players overall would be diminished.
I used aggression to march through a few more rounds. In the time between rounds, I research the tournament further. The winner of this tournament will be the third player on the Ohio team. The Ohio team will then play matches against other teams. These teams will then form USA teams. This was concerning to me. I've pokered on line for a few years now, but never played as part of a team, with others depending on me. Even if I won this, I didn't think I was up to that task. I was having confidence issues in my ability at that level. On top of that, the players don't get any prizes out of this until it reaches the Team USA stage. How much time was I going to spend waiting between heads up matches for no payback? This didn't look as attractive anymore.
My style continued to move me forward. I don't consider myself a goods heads up player. My heads up history is a loss to Veneno. I've had some experience finishing tournaments, but by then the blinds, or the hours of play lead that to be a quicker time frame. However, what I was doing was better than my what my opponents were doing.
From 100 to 64 to 32 to 16 to 8. I actually remember some of this game. Through aggression, I chipped up on the guy. Pulled a few bigger pots and was at a 2.5 to 1 advantage. With JJ (Walker), I raised it to my higher raise level, about 6x. He calls and the flop is TQK. I continue bet big, and he reraises me all in. I'm pretty sure I'm behind. I believe if I fold, we are back to even. If I call and lose, I'm behind a bit. I call and get my suckout Ace on the river. He says he hated my call. If I were him, I'd want a call in that situation. Anyway, it is what it is. He could of had AJ, with me drawing nearly dead. I move on to the next round with 4 players left. That one passes with little of note, and quickly. I get a chance to watch the other game and see if I can pick up player tendencies. Our match starts, and I chip up with the same aggressive game I've been playing. I get up to a 2-1 lead and we get it all in, my 55 vs his A6. The flop is harmless, but he turns and Ace. Now I'm down. However, I continue to play my game and get the lead back. I'm tired and a bit loose at this point. I get A 5 with a 5 J J flop. I bet big and he pushes. I know it's a bad call as a click call. I felt like I was owed from the last turn Ace that has kept this game going. He has QQ here. With no help, I'm way behind in chip count. We dance back and forth a bit before I'm out. The turn Ace earlier in the game tilted me, as well as the lack of enthusiasm to continue. Looking back at my overall performance against my opponents, I now feel that I was better than each of them, and I allowed a worse player to go along to represent Ohio. I have let down the entire state. All because of a temporary lack of confidence and a turn Ace.

I am.

I am Poker Champ.
I am Spartacus.
I am Gladiator.
I am Tiger Woods.
I am what I am.
I am Canada.
I am Sam.
I am smert.
I am a bandwagon poster.
I am Meeks Poker Bank Roll.
I am Meek.
I am.

Little Orphan Annie is full of shit.

My Poker Bank Roll is at zero. I have hit the felt.

Yesterday, I had a very strong feeling that today would be sunny. The local weatherman, Jym Ganahl , said it 'most likely would be' sunny. That's bankable. The furthest he usually goes is 'a good chance' of sun 'in areas'. I did more research. I checked the radar. I examined the dopplers. I verified the super duper dopplers, the dandy dual double-down dopplers. I picked four blades of grass, held them up between two fingers and released them. I consulted tarot cards. I watched the leaves on the old oak tree. I sent smoke signals. I phoned my uncle Paul and asked how his knee was doing. I scanned the sunset for sailors delight. Every possible sign pointed to sun today. It was a great bet. I moved all of my bankroll, sans the odd cent, to weather.com. I bet my bottom dollar that tomorrow, there'll be sun.

Don't you know it rained all day. Little Orphan Annie is full of shit.






That's my thinly veiled April Fools Day post.

Status Report, Level 3 Pimping and Just Wait a Week

The good news - I hit a peak this year. The bad news of that is there was a downward slope on the other side of that peak. I had mentioned this peak before, but now I'll give you, Wayward Searcher, more details. I built my 'fortune' through limit poker and bonus chasing. Occasionally, I would spend money on MTTs for fun, but not expect any profit. I ground my way up to around $1500 this way. With the bonuses thrown in, I don't think I can say I'm a winning player yet, but I have some room to maneuver. I had $100 left on Titan, and was working on spending that on $10 to $20 MTTs. Then I hit one for $500 or so. Score! Then I hit a second one later that week for about the same amount. The next week I hit a third. My bankroll had doubled to nearly $3000. Had I found my sweetspot? I figured I'd do best to keep trying these. I played one a day until I lost about $600. I don't think my attitude or strategy or ability changed, but those are the results. Since then, I have not embraced the return to limit, and have lost another $500 or so trying out Omaha8 and NLHE. I think I'm ready to start the grind again and continue the climb. That's where I am right now, looking for my grind on AbsolutePoker or UltimateBet. I tend to start a table and look for loose players using PokerTracker. That determines if I stay or not.

Another interesting note, I've tried some Felicia advice when I'm joining a limit table. I've done this 3 times on the $1/$2 UB tables. I'll join and wait for the blinds. After the blinds pass, I'll raise the next five hands preflop. This buys me a loose/aggressive image. If someone else is PokerTrackering me for the first time, my VP$IP will be 50 after the first round. It'll then stay in the 30s or so for a while, taking time to truly reflect my tight play. I'm buying this image with those 5 hands, however, the three times I've tried it, I've made money. After those 5 hands, I've been up $10, $30 and $2. Usually, no one else plays back at me, and they'll fold on the turn, possibly because I am new. I've usually got position, since I'm doing it on the button through middle position. To aggression, I'll give it up, but if the reaction is passive, I'll throw another bet or even a big bet at it. It's an interesting ploy. Also, as Felicia recommended, you get to see how others react to a maniac sitting down at the table, and then see how you would react to the same situation.

As you, Wayward Searcher, can see to the right, I've started accepting PSO advertising. I had actually posted a banner of theirs prior to their asking me, but I've pulled it down to put up this one, which, you know, they actually pay me to post. I've tried them out and feel they are worthwhile. I'll leave it at that for now, as I've had 2 recent posts completely dedicated to them.

I considered following DoubleAs in pimping PokerSavvy in a post in exchange for a freeroll entry. I put the post together and published it. Then after realizing that the are the same type of service as the official poker site of MeeksPBR, I removed the post. If you are a non-Wayward Searcher, and you are reading this through the RSS feed, you saw the post. (Reading this site through an RSS feed is akin to using a High Def video image bounced off of three satellites in order to read bathroom graffiti in East LA, in my opinion.) So what does not posting for PokerSavvy accomplish? That I'm pulling level 3 pimping moves? (What am I pimping, What do they think I'm pimping, What do I think about what they think I'm pimping?) That I like to end sentences in question marks? I don't know. It is what it is.

A chat room colleague recently tipped me off to a very local, very legal cardroom here in Ohio. I think I'm going to try it out. It seems on the up and up, from what I can gather. However then the chat room colleague tried to talking me into driving up to NW Ohio about an hour away to play in a 5/10 game. I need about a grand for that I'm thinking. I'm not degenerate enough to cash out $500 to a $1000, drive an hour away for a maybe illegal activity with someone I just met on chat. Maybe come April I'll be up for it, but not the very same week . . .

Rebirth of a Blog

When I created MeeksPBR blog, I wanted to do something I felt was interesting. I would be more apt to keep it going. You can see where that got me, big archive gaps. It was an interesting concept, I thought. Having my bankroll be the author would ensure that I posted(1) only about poker.
(1- I'll use posted here and not wrote. I don't to confuse what I do with writing. For that you can see other blogs and links)
However, that was also it's downfall. I handcuffed the blog to only be about the results and the grinding. Maybe a better writer would have gotten more out of it.

I am ditching my mask, and posting as me. Will this save me from being a shill? Is it too late? Will Meek drop his roll chasing flushes? Or will he cash it all out to get snookered in an underground 5/10 game in Lima, Ohio? Tune in next week for 'As the MeeksPBR Turns.'

For this do-over, I am going to give you guys a few things: a status report and a name. The status report I'll save for the next post. The name I'll knock out right now. I need a nickname to address my audience. I'll steal this from Stephen King and his 'constant readers.' Not that it is stealing if I reference Mr. King, and not that I have readers, constant or otherwise. The majority of my traffic comes from two sources, web crawling search engine bots and the searchers who accidentally get misled to this site by those bots. From here forward, I'll refer to you affectionately as 'Wayward Searcher.'

So until the next post, Wayward Searcher . . .

Poker Source Online

I've told you guys before about the semi-secret Poker Source Online. You know how friend referals go. You have a friend refer you to a poker site, and you split a reward with the friend. The friend usually gets the bigger share. Well, with Poker Source Online, you get to keep both of the rewards. Most players don't refer others here, because they want in on the action. However, I say it's the players account, you should get as much back as you can. Hence, I'd rather have a player sign up for PSO under me once, than sign up under 5 sites under me. It's all about you! Anyway, PSO has reached 25,000 users! quite a milestone check out their Poker Forum to see the talk of the users of this service. You can see what the other people say before you get into it. If you do, sign up under PSOMeek.

Update on MTT success

Well, I'm back for my update. Last post, I'd mentioned good results in Titan Tourneys. I ended up getting 1st or 2nd in MTTs on Titan in January! I doubled the bank roll with those wins. However, that lead me to play more of these MTTs, exclusively. In February, I gave half of it back, all on Titan. So now I'm trying to hit Party SnGs as well as grind on UB, with the occasional Aruba shot. Nothing newsworthy, past the four tourneys in two weeks. I'll see you guys on X-Chat, Yahoo, and the tables.

Titan reload

I had just about MTTed my Titan account empty, then this.

Got up to 8k in chips towards the middle with three straight hands - AJ, AJ & AK, taking out 4 players. The first AJ was a big suckout, hit broadway vs QQ & AK. Then had some luck at the end. It was 3 handed for a long time, then I called raises with a naked K, and a naked A to knock each of them out on consecutive hands. both of those were unimproved, catching steal attemps. For about ten minutes it was raise, or reraise and fold, with not much being called.

I've said it before, I like Titan tournies.

Concurrently with this, many bloggers hit a 180 SNG on stars. I woke up with Peacecorn on my right for a couple of orbits, then we split up with no action. Peacecorn lasted the longest in this tournament, but no one monied.