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Speaking of how much poker has changed, I bet you never dreamed of the day that a poker show would hit mainstream Las Vegas on the Strip. Well, it has. The Venetian and entertainment industry icon Merv Adelson have put together a fun, fast paced poker show set to debut this fall that includes myself, Doyle Brunson, Phil Hellmuth, Antonio Esfandiari, Phil Laak, Jennifer Harman, Scotty Nguyen, Eli Elezra, Todd Brunson, and Gavin Smith.
The show will have loads of audience participation, including a wireless hand held console that will allow audience members to play along playing the “9th hand.” All sorts of prizes available including a shot at one million dollars for a Royal Flush.
The audience member that has the top score during the show, playing along on his console, will join the top pro and top amateur seated at the final table for a three handed finale.
The show is set to air at the Venetian six days a week at 4pm with a prime time showing on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
The people involved in the production of this show are all top notch. Merv Adelson was the co-founder or Lorimar Telepictures as well as being the vice-president at Time Warner. Executive Producer Gary Smith is an eight time Emmy Award winning producer and director of esteemed live shows including the Tony Awards and the Emmy Awards. That represents just two key members of an established team and you’ll be able to read more about the others involved in the press release.
Personally, I think this show is going to be an absolute blast and can’t wait to get started! It’s going to be fun poker with a unique twist that will force the action a little bit. Besides, unlike any other poker tournament you watch live, this event will allow you to either be a player at the table, or give you a chance to make decisions from the audience. It’s a really cool concept and the mainstream attention it will attract will be good for poker as a whole.
When you drive down the strip you see all kinds of billboards and the like promoting shows and this show will be no different. There are some super smart people involved with the show that feel we have a real winner and I think they are right. When people watch poker they want to be entertained, and it’s no coincidence that we’ve assembled some of the more colorful characters in poker to be a part of the show. Guys liks Scotty Nguyen captivate an audience like no other, and Phil Laak and Antonio Esfandiari are a freak show all on their own!
Everyone is excited about the show and I’m glad we are finally able to talk about it. I’ll be sure to let you guys know more about it over the coming month.
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So last night after work I was able to spend some time having some fun. I went to my buddy Zvi’s house for a bit then planned on meeting some of the PokerStars peeps over at the Century Room- a pretty nice club in downtown Toronto. Zvi’s daughter Anna drove me down there and we met the guys in the outside area and had a few drinks. The bar closes at 2:00am and we didn’t get there till about 1:30am so I didn’t stay long. I said goodbye to the boys just outside the club and also, strangely enough, ran into my cousin Michael just outside the club! He is a club promoter that I usually call when I go out, and had no idea he was throwing this party. Weird coincidence. I start walking a few steps down the street to take Anna to her car when this steroid pumping no neck says, “Negreanu!!!” with a nutso crazed look in his eyes. I see that he’s wasted and wasn’t about to start any trouble, hoping he’d just walk away and leave me alone. He didn’t. He was really odd, “What do you want man!! Let me buy you a PIIIIIIIIIIZA man, I wanna buy you a freakin’ Pizza.” I told him I don’t eat pizza but thanks anyway. I continue to walk, but he walks with us. I take a step, he does too. “What do you want then man??? Whatever you waaaaaaaaaaant bro.” Guy looked totally nuts. I was about to give him the pound, saying, “It’s all good man, I just need to get out of here, it’s late.” Then I notice he’s preparing for a big time pound that might crack my knuckles and decided, nah, maybe a pound is not such a good idea. This goes on for a little while. Every time I started to move forward or backwards he was right there with us. Some people that saw this then stepped in. This dude looked like a huge MMA fighter and stepped right up to the guy and was like, “Leave him alone dude.” The guy comes up to me and says he’s a big fan and he’ll take care of this guy. This guy wasn’t wasted and seemed like a cool dude, but I told him no, let him be, I don’t need any fights to go down right here. They start arguing, “Bro, I’m NOOOOOT gonna do anything to him, relax.” The big MMA fighter was looking to really kick butt, and I thought we were looking at an all out brawl. Eventually as things got heated I grabbed Anna and made a getaway for the car. This all happened about 30 feet from my cousin and the Stars crew and no one noticed! LOL, I don’t know how they missed it because it was quite a scene, but I’m glad no one got hurt. ***************************************************************** Earlier in the day, on set I was in and out of the $200-$400 NL game on Stars, playing with various opponents including TakeChip, Purple”something?”, Genius28, and a guy named MadPotter. I was up like 90k before the last hand I could play for the day because I was about to go on set. I had about 130k in front of me and MadPotter had about 80k or so. He raised to 1200 and I called from the button with Kd Qs and one of the blinds called. Flop was a good one, Ks 10s 3s giving me top pair and the nut spades. Only three hands could have me in bad shape, the nuts, As Ad, or As K. It was checked to me and I bet it. The MadPotter check-raised me and I was ready to play a big pot in this spot. I re-raised him on the flop and he called putting about 50k out there already. The turn was a Jh giving me extra outs against a possible set, but also hit a hand like As Qh. He checked and had about 65k in front of him I think, and Elky was sitting there sweating me. I felt like checking, but something Elky said convinced me that I needed to get him off the As if he had it. I shoved and got insta called by As 9s… oops! The river was a 10c so had I checked behind on the turn, chances are that I lose nothing on the river if he fires. Oh well, I ended up winning 10k after losing that pot which was about 159k. I’m headed to the set today and am hoping to play some more on breaks but am looking to play some PLO or some 500-1000 HORSE or 1000-2000 HORSE. If you are looking to gamble later, come see me at Stars. Peace. the bum on the street]]>
Congrats to Steve Lipscomb and everyone else involved with getting the WPT a deal with FSN. Considering the negative buzz in the forums questioning whether there would even be a deal in place, I think all of us can not only breath a sigh of relief, but also feel an energetic kick start to a potentially perfect relationship.
The Travel Channel was never exactly the “right” place for a poker show, but hey, they served their purpose and at the time were the only ones willing to even consider putting poker on TV.
As for GSN, not exactly what they are trying to accomplish in terms of programming, but it’s a bit puzzling. They grab the WPT and have a potentially solid Monday 1-2 punch with High Stakes Poker, but don’t go forward with EITHER show? It’s not everyday that you see a network decide to can their top rated shows! Interesting strategy??
FSN, while not exactly a “one stop” network in that the programming is often more locally based actually suits the WPT perfectly and I think will elevate the brand simply because you’ll be seeing more of it. It’s on in bars and restaurants just like ESPN, and that’s something you simply didn’t find with either GSN or the Travel Channel.
So who is the WPT chick this year? Not entirely sure, but wanted to give a shout out to everyone’s favorite sideline reporter, Amanda Leatherman who has been handling the hosting duties for the Bellagio Cup. We always have fun, spunky interviews so now I’ll be motivated to get back to a WPT final table so I can bust her chops a little bit 🙂
Unfortunately for me, despite really wanting to play the Bellagio Cup, I had a previous commitment to be in Toronto shooting commercials immediately after the main event and will be here till my birthday. They are extremely long days but the commercials should end up looking awesome so that’s exciting.
As for my schedule, I’m not entirely sure what tournaments I’ll be playing in next. I’ll have to look over the schedule to see what makes the most sense for me. It will be a mix of EPT and WPT’s events for sure, just not sure which. Since I’m doing the commentary for the APPT now, I won’t be playing any of those this year. A tentative schedule might look like:
WPT Legends
EPT Barcelona
EPT London
WSOP Europe??? Not sure about this one, it might not fit
I’ll make sure to post an updated schedule as soon as I make final decisions.]]>
WSOP Stuff: So there are 27 players left in the main event of the WSOP and I actually recognize 5 of the names!
1. Tiffany Michelle. We all know Tiffany as the PokerNews chick who does interviews. Apparently she plays poker too, who knew?
2. David Reem. Only reason I know that name is because they added the nickname “Chino” and I know that thug- he a gansta’ yo.
3. Brandon Cantu. I know him because he laid me 5-1 to win a bracelet last year but didn’t find me this year, doh!
4. Scott Montgomery. Met him this WSOP actually, he seems like a good dude and I like the fact that he is more than just a hold’em player.
5. Phi Nguyen. Dude can play for sure, super nice guy too.
As for the other 22? No clue who any of them are which is pretty typical of the best value tournament of the year. The tournament is super juicy, and this may seem contradictory, but it doesn’t seem all that hard to win with the low caliber of play.
What I mean is that in order to gather a large stack of chips you hardly need to depend on expert play in order to out think great players, instead, you can simply wait for them to make major blunders because they will. It’s not surprising that Hellmuth did as well as he did with his careful approach.
I made two pretty deep runs the last two years but was out early this year losing with set over set, but even this year I felt like I was playing in a super easy game. Would never fold a set in that spot for sure, but if I didn’t lose that pot I could see getting to 100k pretty easily at that table barring some awful luck or another cooler. It’s just really easy.
So who is going to win it all this year? I have no freaking idea, lol.
UB stuff: There has been a ton of buzz surrounding the UB scandal recently and while I haven’t paid a lot of attention to the whole deal I did listen to a bit of Annie Duke’s interview on PokerRoad Radio.
She was explaining a bit about how the company worked and who is most likely at fault. It seems pretty clear, to me anyway, that the new owners are the losers in all this, hoping to buy a legit company and make things better. Have to feel a bit bad for them.
What I gathered from what she said is that a company called E-World holdings is where the shady things really started. So my question would be pretty simple: who is in charge of E-World holdings? It would seem like that would be the best place to look to find out where the super user problem really started.
No other large site has had this type of problem. Sure every site has dealt with issues of collusion and multi-accounting, but that’s a far cry from people involved with the company creating super users.
I wouldn’t put any of the blame on people like Hellmuth or Duke, I don’t think for a second that they had anything to do with any of this and empathize with the difficult position they now find themselves in.
When UB first launched I knew many of the people involved with the company. I never signed a deal with them nor did I ever receive any money from them or buy a piece of the company. I considered it, but chose to go a different way because I wasn’t all that comfortable with some of the people I heard may be involved with the company.
Anyway, as I mentioned at the top, I haven’t followed the entire scandal but based on Annie’s comments I think that if you can find out who is in charge of E-World Holdings you’ll be on the right track towards finding the people responsible for the super user accounts. You also might want to look into who was in charge of policing the bigger games from a security standpoint. If there is a connection there then you might have something.
It’s all really bad for poker, no question about that, but hopefully there will be a silver lining somewhere and the people responsible are held accountable and persecuted in some way.
Hellmuth stuff: Lots of talk of Hellmuth’s penalty than the reversal of that penalty. I don’t know the details of the reversal but wanted to throw my two cents at the implementation of penalties. I would guesstimate that about 50% of Hellmuth’s tirades are worthy of a penalty from the tournament director. When he mumbles to himself about his own bad luck or things of that nature I’d leave him alone completely. As soon as he starts calling people idiots and stuff like that- he’d sit if I was the TD. It’s just that simple. Insult the other players at the table and you sit.
Apparently he called Christian Dragomir an idiot at the end of play. Now, since they haven’t been enforcing this rule during the event up until then, it is slightly unfair to enforce it all of a sudden. Hellmuth definitely has a point.
If I were going to call these types of penalties on Hellmuth, they’d be done right away, early on day one. That way the precedent would be set and any further infractions would result in further penalties. He can say things like, “Keep playing like that and I’m going to bust you,” but it’s not cool to start calling people idiots and/or personally insulting them.
Golf stuff: I have a new record round! Played a solid week of golf and ended it with a sick round. Strangest thing, though, is that every time I have a record round it seems like I have to leave town and can’t play for two weeks. Happens again as I’m in Toronto for a couple weeks.
The day l left for Toronto we played a very fun and cool match up against Patrik, Nick, and their superstar anchor Jimmy. It was a scramble match: those three from the blue tees versus me, Christian our ace and my coach, Zvi, the Russian bear who can do a few things well, Ted “The HORSE idiot” Park who is supposed to be our short game guru and putter, and finally Sam S. the duck hooking longer hitter on the team.
The twist is that we play from the whites, but only get to use four balls per shot so one of our team members must sit. I’m the shortest off the tee so I didn’t tee off at all. I’m also not all that long on average but am pretty good with my wedges and short game so I played only from 120 yards in, while Sam S. would hit drives and shots outside 120 yards, then sit.
We couldn’t play a sevensome so we rotated who went first each hole and then waited at every tee box. Patrik always went first for his team, followed by Nick than Jimmy who was amazingly key for their team making some huge putts and approaches for them.
For our team, Ted drove first, then Zvi, Sam, and our ace Christian. My team, I just know was worried about Christian. Back to back days he shot a dismal 81 from the white tees! Luckily for us, he went to the range and got himself fixed in time to make some incredible shots on the day.
The bet was 50k a hole with an additional 5k carry over skins game. Hole 1 we both birdied and hole 2 we blew an 8 foot putt! I didn’t exactly miss my putt, was dead on line but it was slightly uphill and I left it a bit short. After 2 I was down 60k.
Hole 3 is a par 5 and Patrik’s team was forced to play a bunker shot from 190! Patrik hit a safe one, Nick didn’t get out of the bunker, but the ace Jimmy crushed one onto the green. They two putt for birdie.
Christian decides to rip one over the carry, about a 280 yard carry giving us a monster short cut to the green just 150 out. Unfortunately only Zvi hit the green and we missed the eagle putt.
Hole 4 we really blew it. Christian was long and left so we ended up using Ted’s ball. No one hit the green! We chipped up and in for par, but Jimmy made a nice approach and birdie putt so I was stuck 120k.
We both birdie #5, once again Jimmy drained a snake putt to save his team. On #6 Christian bombed a drive and we we had 65 yards to the pin. Christian and I both stuck one pretty close and we made birdie to get back to stuck 60k.
Hole #7 was a push and we screwed that up royally. From 95 out only Zvi hit the green and we barely missed the putt. Luckily they parred the hole too.
#8 was the all Christian. About a 25 foot breaking putt for birdie after all three of us missed and Christian drained it! Patrik’s team missed the green and made par so we were all square.
#9 was a par 5 and we are supposed to be dogs on that hole. They hit a bad drive and had tree trouble. Played a shot from behind the hole then they really blew the chip and putt making par. Christian bombed a monster drive then stuck an iron to about 5 feet from the pin. We up 55k after shooting 30 on the front to their 31. (We missed the unimportant eagle putt)
#10 we handed to them on a silver platter. From 60 yards out we all came up short and missed the green! I almost chipped in for birdie, just inches short, but we lost the hole. There was a ton of blood throughout the match and that wasn’t expected at all.
It was really tough for me and Sam to stay in a groove. Both of us are used to a fast paced round and this one was extremely slow with lots of waiting time, and we were also splitting shots. I went sometimes 45 minutes without hitting a ball!
After #15 I was up 2 holes and $115k, but their eagle on 16 cut it to a $60k lead. We both birdied 17 and on 18 we’d be first. We hit a bad approach leaving us a 35 foot uphill putt that broke left to right. Ted missed, Zvi missed and it was up to me. Miss this putt and unless Christian drained another bomb we’d be even on the day. Finally, though, I didn’t leave one short and drained the putt. Almost immediately after I hit the putt Christian, for the first time all day, said, “count it.” They made birdie as expected so we won one up shooting 60 to their 61. It was an absolute blast and a pleasure to play with those guys, true gentlemen. Can’t wait to do it all again.
Toronto Stuff: I’m in Toronto for two weeks shooting commercials. Got here early the morning of the 13th and my sleep schedule is screwed. Woke up at about midnight and ran into William Thorson at the restaurant downstairs. We had a few beers and talked about life and “stuff.” He’s a good dude and I was so happy to hear that he signed with PokerStars. We actually have a lot in common and he’s also a terrific player. Not as well known in the U.S. but he’s a “pretty big deal” over in Europe 🙂
I’ve spent the day doing, well, nada really. Sleep, MSN, watching CNN and golf. Very lazy day. I haven’t had a strawberry sorbet in like, forever, but today I had the sickest craving for one and couldn’t find one anywhere. I felt like a pregnant woman! lol. It was so strange. Anyway, time for bed y’all.
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The second night was a full day of golf followed by Sake, Beer, Big Duece, Golden Tee Golf and a late night. The next day was Ivey’s charity event at the Golden Nugget after a day of book signing and “stuff.” I didn’t plan on drinking at all. Then they sat me at Ivey’s table and everyone was partying so I figured, one more night I can handle.
Unfortunately I freaking hate Petron but that was the shot of the night. We eventually switched to Vodka but that wasn’t much better. It was white wine, beers, and a few shots that night and that was a bit much.
Last night was a much more sane night. Just the boyz over at the house for some Big Duece, Pool, and Golden Tee. A few beers, but they didn’t leave till like 6am so I slept in today.
3pm we golfed. I started out awful, played a good six hole stretch, and then finished awful. We played an “emergency 9,” the last hole essentially in the dark as it was nearing 9pm and no one could really see anything.
I picked up Mushu from Mom’s, haven’t seen the little buggar in days, wrote a column that was way late, and am now about to start my ritual. As soon as I log off here, it’s Rocky time baby. Gotta get pumped up and that’s how I do it every year.
Tomorrow I play day 1B. I plan on getting there around 11:30am and hanging out at the PokerVT booth in the EXPO. The booth really rocked the house on the first day and was quite the attraction. It feels really, really good to be a part of something that really does live up to all the hype and more. PokerVT, and also the book that I finished are both things I’m extremely proud of and the reviews have been incredibly positive. I can’t tell you how many times a day someone I know will come up to me and say, “Dude, I checked out PokerVT and it’s awesome.” If you want to know even more about PokerVT and get a chance to take a free tour you should head down to EXPO. Tell em’ I sent you 🙂
Night all, Rocky is about to throw down!
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24 players left and it shouldn’t be a surprise that close to half of them come from the big game at the Bellagio. I counted 7 guys who have all played the $4000-$8000 game:
Daniel Negreanu
Doyle Brunson
Barry Greenstein
Phil Ivey
Huck Seed
Ralph Perry
Lyle Berman
That’s the final table I’m rooting for along with any of: Erick Lindgren, Scotty Nguyen, or Farzad Bonyadi. Scotty and Bonyadi have been mixed game grinders for years at mid-high limit cash games and E-DOG, well E-DOG is my buddy so I gotta root for him too!
I think it’s important that this event continues to see excellent players at the final table with the odd surprise here and there.
Anyway, 1pm now and time to get ready for day 4. I have been keeping up with my video blog on a daily basis and as always you can find them at www.fullcontactpoker.com or at www.rawvegas.tv
Freddy, Scotty, EDOG]]>
You just can’t go-go-go everyday. There needs to be time to relax the mind and allow yourself to take it all in. Not to be preachy as I know how offended some people seem to get when you mention God or the Bible, but the Bible makes it very clear that a day of rest is extremely important. Of course, in the Bible that day of rest is also a day to worship God, but even for a non-believer the idea that a day of rest is important to ones sanity is still very solid. I do believe in God and my faith is something that is really important to me. When I’m happiest it’s usually because I’m making sure that I make time for God in my life. When I get self destructive and sloppy, things don’t seem to go the way I want them to. Recently I’d been praying for something pretty specific and just today at the strangest time it felt like my prayer was answered right in the middle of the Stud 8 or better tournament. In came in the form of an e-mail I received from a fellow poker player who is also a believer. Essentially my prayers revolved around the idea that I needed some help down here keeping me on the right path. Most of my friends are either agnostic or atheist. Not all, but most. I rarely discuss my personal beliefs with them because I don’t want to be all preachy and stuff. That often leaves me unfulfilled, though, since I don’t have a lot of people close to me that are also believers. Frankly, the only real “church” I am a part of us is the daily devotionals I receive from my ex-mother-in-law (that’s a lot of hyphens). I feel good when I read the daily devotionals, but it’s not quite enough food for the soul if that’s all I’m doing. Anyway, the e-mail I received from my poker player friend came at just the right time. It sparked something in me that has a tendency to fade when I’m “too busy.” I enjoy asking really tough “life” questions and speculating about the answers. I like searching for answers to all of life’s questions and having people around me that challenge me, be it atheists, Christians, Muslims, or Jews, ultimately strengthens my faith. ***************************************************************** When I started writing this blog tonight I had no plans of speaking about God or Faith . Looks like I’ve rambled on quite a bit and got off topic. The title of the blog is Rest and is supposed to be about me being wiser now, understanding that being well rested for the series is just as important as laying down middle pair when I get check-raised by a tight player. So back on topic, I could have played the $1500 PLO event at noon today on little sleep. It would have been a very high percentage opportunity to pick up some points for the Player of the Year race. I could have also played in the $1500 7 Card Stud event at 6:30pm when I busted from the tournament, but something inside me told me I needed to focus on my body first. That I couldn’t push myself too hard or it would cost me in the long run. So instead I’m home with Mushu relaxing and doing “nothing.” It’s been a while since I’ve done that…]]>
I just love player of the year races. I’ve had a good track record with them and they really motivate me to play better. I won:
1997 Best All Around Player in Foxwoods
LAPC Best All Around Player (forget the year)
2004 WSOP Player of the Year
2004-05 WPT Player of the Year
2004 Card Player of the Year
and now I’m in a fun race with a couple of buddies in Erick Lindgren and Barry Greenstien. The WSOP site has been really great this year with quick updates on the point totals. The top five at the moment are:
1. Erick Lindgren 185
2. Daniel Negreanu 170
3. Barry Greenstien 165
4. Vanessa Selbst 163
5. Jacobo Fernandez-Hernandez 157
The $50k HORSE and the $10K main event don’t count toward the POY points this year, but I think they definitely should count since both are open events. The thinking behind that is it creates kind of a triple crown vibe to the WSOP with the big 3 being the main event, the 50K HORSE, and the POY. Winning all three will likely never happen, but how sick would that be?
I’m playing good poker right now and making good decisions. Patience has been solid and while fatigue is playing a role my body is holding up pretty well thanks to being in better shape. I’m fighting through late nights the best I can and trying to get as much sleep as possible.
My next event will be at 5pm, playing in the World Championship 5k Stud 8 or better event. I haven’t done as well as I would have liked in Stud 8 tournaments, but I definitely think it’s my best game and it’s only a matter of time before I break through.
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I’m not doing the written blogs regularly, but you can watch my daily video blog every single day of the series at www.fullcontactpoker.com
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www.fullcontactpoker.com you can check out my video blog which is getting updated everyday. In addition to that, there is a funny new video up at www.rawvegas.tv of my golf match with Patrik. You will see the best putter in the world in his element 🙂 Oh, and by the way, I just won a bracelet! Woohoo. In 2004 I won the $2000 buy in limit hold’em tournament, and today, I did it again, winning the 2008 $2000 limit hold’em tournament. I rock at limit hold’em tournaments. I am super duper confident in limit hold’em tournaments as the game has been my bread and butter for years. As a teenager and in my early 20’s that’s exactly how I made a living, grinding it out in limit hold’em. The final table went, well, close to perfectly. I was in the zone and felt like I had a good read on what my opponents were capable of. Reading players actually happens well before you have to make that big decision. Before you are in that spot, you need to have an idea as to what kind of plays your opponents may try. The heads up match was bam, bam, quick as on hand #1 I got dealt 9h 10h and the flop came A-2-5 of hearts. Turn was a K and my opponent had AK with the King of hearts! Total cooler, and from there I didn’t lose even one pot to him. Not one. The win gave me my fourth bracelet in 11 years at the WSOP and that’s a record I’d like to improve on. I think I should have 5 or 6 in that time span and am going to work on making that happen. With the win I’m also one up on Ivey in our 200K bracelet bet and the $3000 HORSE event doesn’t count since I didn’t get a chance to play it. ***************************************************************** Tomorrow is the 10K heads up WSOP championship and I think they plan on capping it at 256. I am not in favor of EVER capping heads up events, but I don’t make all the decisions and too many people don’t understand how byes are completely fair to ALL participants and favor NO ONE. Enough about that. ***************************************************************** With my new book already released I am going to schedule some book signings at the WSOP, dates and times to come. If you want a copy of the book I worked on for the past two years, you can find a link on FCP that will take you directly to the purchase page. On a related note, if you haven’t signed up for www.pokervt.com yet, what in the world are you waiting for? Seriously? If you seriously want to get better at poker there is no good excuse for not having signed up yet. Ask the people who have already signed up what they think of the site and you’ll find that people are really blown away by the content there. There is simply nothing like PokerVT on the internet. Nothing. The small ball course alone is well worth the price and when you learn how to apply the lessons properly you are going to see just how easy hold’em can be when you have all of the proper fundamentals down. It’s really not possible for me to be bias I guess, since it’s mostly my content. So rather than listen to me, I implore you to check out some reviews or ask some people you know what they think. The response has been overwhelmingly positive. Nighty night all… I’ll be back to video bloggin’ tomorrow and everyday during the WSOP. ]]>