Archive for April, 2009

The Fall of the Fold

Tuesday, April 28th, 2009

Has anyone else noticed the striking trend of no one folding these days?  I don’t know if I’m just playing terrible players, or they are just this LAGTarded.
Here’s the one that sticks out in my mind:

I’m UTG and get pocket aces.  The blinds are 15/30.  I limp in with my aces.  It folds all the way around to the button, who raises it to 90.  The SB calls the 90 and the BB folds.  I reraise it up to 270 (I limped UTG and then 3bet into 2 people, hint hint).  The button folds and the SB calls the 270.

So I’m putting the SB on 10+ and AQ+.  This is early in the tournament so we both have average stacks.  The flop comes 57K all hearts.  The SB bets out 660 into me.  I’m thinking this guy hit his King (possibly holding AK).  If he had something stronger (like trip Ks), surely he would check to the person who 3bet preflop.  I push over the top of him with all of my 1300-some chips.  He calls.

Now that he calls, I’m thinking, “Okay, he has trip Kings.”  What did he turn over?  78 of hearts for a flush.  I was drawing dead after the turn.  This guy called an UTG limp/3bet with a 78 of hearts.  It’s no wonder why it’s so hard to win an MTT these days because how can you dodge these donk bullets for an entire tournament?

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Pay attention to the DonkTards

Tuesday, April 28th, 2009

They can get under the skin of even the best player. Whatever their reason, be it tilt, displaced aggression, or just general stupidness, DonkTards can wreak havoc on a table. I’m talking about the player that pushes in every hand, no matter what they have. Every single hand they are shipping it in. When the cards are shown, they are pushing with 74o, K3o and everything else. Of course these DonkTards eventually get knocked out, but they usually suck out on a few hands and take some other hard working player’s chips first.

So what’s my point? My point is pay attention when you are playing with a DonkTard. Don’t limp or put in a small raise if you don’t have the intention of calling his all in. You are just wasting your money if you aren’t going to call their all in. THINK ABOUT IT!!!

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Interview with Pro Poker Player Joe Sebok

Sunday, April 5th, 2009

Joe Sebok burst on to the poker scene in 2005 in a huge way and has been going non-stop ever since. This is one poker player with his hands in several pots (pun intended). Between playing world class poker, running his website PokerRoad.com, and doing whatever young rich guys do, he was cool enough to take a few minutes of his time to answer a few questions for us.

RockStar Holdem:  You’ve been playing poker for about five years and are still a young guy.  Do you see this as a stepping stone to something else or is this looking like a solid career to you?  (It does to us.)

Joe Sebok:  Everything in my life has always been a stepping stone to something else.  Translation:  I get bored easy.  Haha.  I’m sure I will always play poker in some capacity, but there are other aspirations that I have in life, aspirations that poker is helping me to achieve incidentally.  I’ll always be invovled, but I’ll definitely be involved in other things as well.

RH:   We’ve read that you’re an entrepreneurial type of guy.  What kind of business would you be running had you not clicked so well with poker?  And, growing up with The Bear (Barry Greenstein) what took you so long to get hooked?

JS:  Well Bear never played cards with me as a kid, to his credit.  He pushed sports and education, so those were the things I focused on most.  I think he understood that those foundations would enable me to have a strong and successful life, more so than poker alone.  I owe the poker boom itself to getting involved with the game.  Without it, I probably would never have at all.

As far as another business, it would probably either be a web one (like PokerRoad.com) or something in music.  Maybe a mixture of both.  I just like to be doing new things all the time, so maybe it would be several.  You never know…

RH:   We’ve read that you are pretty competitive; do you and your poker buddies ever play heads up just for bragging rights?

JS:  Haha.  Nope, not at all.  More like headsup for shots of vodka.  :)  I think we all love having fun, more than we love having money.  Maybe that’s just me though…wait a minute…

RH:   We know you’re a big fan of prop bets.  Tell us about a crazy one and with whom you bet and who won.

JS:  The most public one was the one with Gav and myself at the WSOP, where I lost and had to dress up as superheroes for 4 days.  It was…the best.

The best ones that never happened were when I was trying to create a poker reality show based around prop betting.  Would have been super sweet, but it ended up collappsing in pre-production.  Too many cooks in the kitchen…sigh…

RH:   According to Wikipedia (I guess you’ve made it if you have a Wiki entry), your three-year winnings total close to $2 million.  That’s not a bad living.  What do you splurge on?

JS:  Man, I see that number and all I can think of are all the close finishes and almosts.  It probably should have been about 5mill.  The funny thing about me is that I really don’t value or care about money at all.  I am probably the least materialistic person that you will ever meet.  In fact, I still drive my old Nissan Xterra that I had in college.  Not even a new car!  I really enjoy doing things rather than having things, so my money will always go towards trips and things like that.

RH:   Have you seen any good movies lately, perhaps Jeff Goldblum’s The Fly?

JS:  Ahhhhhhh!  Why you gotta bring that up!?!?  Terrible childhood memories…see my blog, as I guess you already have!

I love movies actually and it’s one of my favorite things to do; go out to see them. Haven’t seen anything amazing recently, but did catch “Last of the Mohicans” on tv, and that’s one of my favorites.

RH:   For anyone who has never been to your site pokerroad.com, tell us why we should check it out.

JS:  Wow. It’s a one-stop-shop for all things poker entertainment related.  No one else has the kind of access into the professional poker world that we do.  They just don’t.  We will continue to bring that world to all of you, and we’ll only get better at it.  In fact, I have some pretty sick plans for the ‘09 WSOP on PokerRoad, so stay tuned for it…you won’t want to miss it!

RH:   You’re becoming a well-recognized face.  What are the perks of being a hot young poker player?

JS:  Haha.  Well, thank you.  Hmmm, I dunno.  Panties thrown at you?  Millionaires giving you their car keys?  Nah, none of that happens of course.  The coolest thing is when fans come up and tell me how much they love PokerRoad and how whether it was a funny radio show or an interview they saw, it helped them through something that they were going through.  That kind of stuff is just priceless.

RH:   We’re music lovers here at RockStar Hold’Em.  What types of music might we find on Joe Sebok’s Ipod?

JS:  Oh man, right in my wheelhouse!  There’s nothing I love more in life than music, so you asked the right question.  I have over 70 gigs of music and I have been seeking out new stuff since I was about 14…it’s my passion for sure.  Some of my favorites are Red Hot Chili Peppers, John Butler Trio, Beatles, Fall Out Boy, Citizen Cope…trust me, the list goes on and on and on and on and on and…

RH:   Being the music aficionado that you are, given the choice, would you rather win a grammy or a WSOP Main Event bracelet?

JS:  Hmmm, I think the Grammys have really gone down in appreciation. It seems that they have the same people voting on the awards for 50 years, so a ton of the newer stuff always gets lost on them.  I would probably have to go with a WSOP main event bracelet here.  Now, if the question was to be a huge rock star of a huge poker star…that answer is easy…rock star!

Thank you very much for taking the time to answer our questions Joe.  Good luck at the tables!

Ty, ty… :)

You can find more on Joe Sebok at www.PokerRoad.com.  Joe Sebok is the founder of PokerRoad.com, Co-Host of widely popular PokerRoad Radio show and regular blog contributor.  PokerRoad reaches out and provides industry news as only poker insiders can.  As well, PokerRoad is reinventing the concept of poker radio, one show at a time.  PokerRoad has your ears covered for everything from strategy to gossip to just general poker tomfoolery.  PokerRoad is a one-stop radio network.  Along with the addition of video content in the pipe line, it is obvious that  PokerRoad is a must for any serious poker fan.  PokerRoad supplies the very best in “PokerTainment,” from the people who invented it.

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When it rains, it Pours

Saturday, April 4th, 2009

I couldn’t do anything right tonight on FTP (or should I say I couldn’t do anything to prevent continuously receiving ridiculously bad beats).  These are the nights that I honestly wonder what the deal is with the absolutely stupid amount of bad beats in online poker.  I understand that you are seeing more hands therefor you are more likely to see bad beats, blah blah blah.  I’m not buying that reason.

Besides the bad beats, you might as well not even play a pocket pair of 10s or lower.  The number of face cards that hit the flop in online poker is unbelievable.  Online, I give hands like QK, JQ, etc waaaaaaay more worth than in real life, because it’s almost a given that you are going to flop some face cards.  It’s utterly ridiculous.

If it weren’t so convenient to play online, I wouldn’t.  I promise you that.  It’s like you are playing a completely different game.  A lot of the skill goes out the window because it really doesn’t matter if you have the best hand, because that’s probably not the one that is going to win.  It’s kind of like playing bingo.  And the players online are willing to chase all the way down to the river.

On my final hand of the night on FTP tonight, I was short stacked with pocket 3s.  I limp under the gun and it folds to the BB, who raises it.  I call.  The flop comes 4 7 8.  I check, he bets, I call.  The turn is a 2.  I bet, he reraises me all in.  I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have anything so I call.  Sure enough, I made the right read, the right call, as he had K 6.  Nothing but a gutshot.  Then the river came.  All together now…… a 4.  He hit his gutshot straight on the river to knock me out.  Nice.

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