What's in a day two?

Believe me when I say that I am not one tell, listen to, or even like ‘Bad Beat Stories’, and the rest of this post is not meant to represent one at all, but merely the story of the last hand of a major poker tournament which I did not win;)

The question is, can I, (or anyone else), learn from plays that are made on the felt, whether right or wrong…?

There’s two levels left in day one of the WSOP Main Event, (three hours or so), and we are on a break… I am at the concession getting a banana to hold me over, and I see a guy who is sitting across from me at my table, who has been a folding machine. He says to me, “Making it to day two…that’s the key. My plan is to make it to day two.” Now on one hand, I am pretty sure that every player who’s ever won a major event, made it through to day two, however I think I am fairly safe in assuming that it was not from this style of play or thought process, of, “Make it to day two at all costs.” Before I get to my last hand, let me digress.

The ‘Folding Machine’, after folding literally 70 straight hands, including every one of his blinds which had been even min raised, he pushed all in UTG, met no resistance and took the blinds. Even though he did not show his cards, everyone’s X-ray vision glasses must have been working perfectly, because we all saw two aces.

To my last hand…

With 30 minutes to play in day one, I have about $17k in chips, I am in third position, and it’s folded to me, (I had been folding pretty consistently, just playing premium hands), so to mix up my game, I raise 3 times the BB to $1,200 with 9-7 of hearts. Action folds to the button who calls, the blind fold, so with the ante’s, there’s $3500 in the pot.

Flop comes out A-4-6 all hearts. My heart flutters…can I be in a better situation…I suppose, but for now, I’ll take it. Now with three hearts on the board, and my highest being a 9, I think, let me make a move at this pot and take it down right there… I bet out $3k, button thinks for a minute and makes it $6k, (min raise)… I think for about 10 second about the folding machine at the other side of the table, “Make it to day two at all costs.”… F’ that, “I’m all in!”… the button thinks from literally 5 minutes…finally calls, shows a set of 4’s…turns a 6 for a full house and my main event is over.

I am not telling this as a bad beat at all, you can draw your own conclusions, but know this, on day two for everyone else, I was on a plane back home to my wife and kids, so I’m the real winner anyway:)

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Rob Gallo

CEO

rob (AT) SunPoker.com

Rob Gallo is the CEO of SunPoker.com and is incharge of the business development for SunPoker.com. Rob is passionate about developing new and out of the box marketing ideas and promotions that help advance the state of Online Poker in a whole.

Life without Poker

I was going to do a well researched blog about how a lot of the Poker Pros we know have lead some cool lives, like the Male Model life of Patrick Antonius, or the Rap Group Life of Daniel Negreanu... or the fact that a lot of poker players give up jobs such as lawyers to focus on playing the game of poker.

The blog was going to be an amazing piece of Poker Playing Journalism, figuring out the in depth psyche that motivates the players to leave the job security of their 9-5 for the risk and reward of playing Poker Online and Live.

But instead I present 2+2's view of Where the Pros would have been had they not played poker.

The Karate Kid and Family Guy ones made me laugh a lot.

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Greg Harrison

Poker Room Manager

greg (AT) sunpoker.com

Greg is the Poker Room Manager for SunPoker.com and focuses on Marketing, Promotions, Branding, and the over all experience of our end user.  He focuses on creating a positive environment where poker players can feel like they belong to a group, not numbers at a company.

Charity Poker - All In for a Good Cause!

About a month ago me and a friend decided we wanted to give back to our community here in Antigua, we thought about many different ways to help raise money and eventually we decided the best is of course poker. And so with that in mind we decided to invite the ladies of Antigua to "go ALL IN for a good cause."

Last week Saturday (20th Sept.) was our first attempt to raising money for the Disability Advocacy Programs in Antigua...oh wow I tip my hat off to every event coordinator, every tournament director and every person in the background that has ever organized such an event. What a mission and a real task it was, every time we got tired we had to remind ourselves that it was for a good cause and that thought alone kept us going.

Amazing what soft hearts women have for charities :-) A total of 40 women played in the No Limit Texas Hold'Em tournament, we had SunPoker girls, Bodog girls, WSEX girls and even female dealers from the local casinos coming out to support. But by far the most interesting women were the ones who have never played a singlehand of poker until that night. The amount of folds on Straights and Flushes that were made that night were beyond adorable...but for charity they were all willing to give it a go and by the end of the night with the help of the best dealers, which included two of SunPokers very own staff members, those girls were almost....ALMOST ready for a real cash game.

At the end of it all, the hard work paid off, the ladies had a blast (I'm sure the endless flow of alcohol helped) poker is a big hit amongst the new ones and most importantly money was raised for a worthy charity here in Antigua.

To here's to the ladies of Antigua going ALL IN for a good cause.

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Abi Mansoor
PR Manager
abi (AT) sunpoker.com

Abi Mansoor is the PR and Customer Relations Manager at SunPoker.com. She works with our SunPoker.com customers to ensure they are taken care of and to help spread the word about playing poker online with SunPoker.com!

Rant!

What can you say about a Tuesday…there is nothing worth watching on TV, although ESPN has new episodes of the 2008 WSOP main event on for two hours (8:00 – 10:00PM) hear on the East Coast of the US. Will DVR it of course, just in case there is footage of me busting out with 30 minutes left to play in day 1. (The story of my last hand in the WSOP main event to follow next week, and you can vote on what you would have done…)

I know it was months ago that the WSOP took place out at the Rio in Las Vegas, but it was not until last week, while I was watching the movie “Lucky You”, that I recognized a guy in the final table of the movie who was at my table in the Main Event.

It was David Oppenheim, and at the time, (while he was gathering in my chips), I thought the guy was a real prick just rolling over the table… Then after I saw him in the movie, I realized that, “Yes, he is that same prick.” I mean that in the nicest possible way.

I suppose he’s a good poker player, he aught to be if he does it for a living and has to feed his fat ass…I’m sorry is that too much animosity…I should make fun of his weight. Perhaps he’s using his poker tournament winnings to maintain his Rogaine treatment regiment, and that’s why he bald…did I say that out loud…oops.

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Rob Gallo

CEO

rob (AT) SunPoker.com

Rob Gallo is the CEO of SunPoker.com and is incharge of the business development for SunPoker.com. Rob is passionate about developing new and out of the box marketing ideas and promotions that help advance the state of Online Poker in a whole.

Memorize this statement!

I just read about another live poker game robbery and thought about how it can still be a dangerous world when it comes to playing poker live.  This being said I still do play poker live although I mostly stick to online games, I always love the social aspect of live poker.  

I was reading a news article on a private home game that was robbed and came across some advice from Johnny Hughes that I think everyone, including Non Poker players should learn.

"Any Poker Player Should Memorize this Statement:

 'Take all the money, please don't hurt anyone and we won't call the law'

- Johnny Hughes"

I think this is valid for any situation when it comes to being Robbed.  You can try and stop it and risk death or you can lose your money and live to play poker another day!  Its always better to be safe than sorry!

As far as poker goes, both live and online poker are great ways to have a lot of fun and win some money, just always be smart about dealing with bad situations!

I want to wish the people that lost their friend in this horrible robbery my condolences and wish the best for them!