Bigger Deal

The phone rang. It was my friend T. “Have you heard?” he asked. Whenever a New York poker player asks me if I’ve heard, I know that he is about to tell me some bad news. Poker is illegal in the big bad city, which means that the clubs are targets for both cops and [...]

In my previous blog we talked about basic principles of playing a rebuy tournament. This outlined the structual changes during the event, specifically the rebuy period, that effected changes in the players’ rebuy strategy. Now it’s time to look at how different playing styles can operate within these guidelines. I have decided that there are [...]

The main news to emerge from our fifth Tuesday Night Game, sponsored by PokerStars, is that there is now a baby cow in Tipperary named Tony Holden. This singular honour came my way around 1.30 a.m., thanks to a communications breakdown during the frenzied heads-up that climaxed a feisty final table. After a deal made [...]

Cardinal Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester, was check-raising the Duke of Somerset. The Earl of Salisbury was mulling a bet from Sir Humphrey Stafford, whose brother Sir William was staring down My Lord of Say. Boy, was this was some unusual poker tournament. At the dinner break, bread and soup (with a dash of vodka) was served [...]

Math(s), as readers of my poker books will know, has never been my strong suit. But I do now know what ‘exponential’ actually means. The number of starters in our Tuesday Night Game tournaments, hosted and sponsored by PokerStars.com, has indeed grown exponentially since they started in October. The first tourney boasted a decent 190 [...]

It’s not going so hot. In the last two tournaments I’ve played in I’ve had my aces in the hole busted / cracked / spat upon / knifed / shot / strangled at birth. The elation of seeing them was nothing to the pain of watching them crash and burn – once on the flop [...]