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.