I Love This Game!

Remember last week, when I said I hated poker after the most frustrating session I'd ever played? Well I love it again. Last night made up for last week. It was unreal. I got absolutely run over by the deck all night long. I lost count of how many straights I flopped, but it was at least 15 or 20. Every bluff attempt worked, every laydown was the correct one and the right card fell on every close call for me. I was actually the only player in the game that finished in the money. With 8 people playing, including me, I won $360.

By the way, congratulations to Greg Raymer for winning the 2004 World Series of Poker last week. There was a record 2567 entries for a total prize pool of just over $24 million, including a $5 million prize pool. Greg, who is known as fossilman, is not a big name but he was a regular poster in the rec.gambling.poker newsgroup for years and was known as a very good no limit player. A couple years ago, Greg was looking for backers because he wanted to step up and play larger tournaments (he was already doing very well in the smaller tournaments at Foxwoods in Connecticutt) and numerous people who knew him and knew how good he was gladly stepped up to back him. If the numbers being thrown around in RGP are correct, those backers hit it big to the tune of over a million and a half. Nice investment. By all accounts of mutual friends, Greg is a great guy and obviously a great poker player too. Nice to see his dream come true.

Keep your eye on ESPN, they're going to start airing the WSOP in July, I believe, and they're not just showing the championship event this year. They're also showing some of the preliminary tournaments that lead up to it. The complete schedule for when it will be aired on ESPN is available here.

By the way, Paul Phillips was knocked out of the championship event in only 2 hours when he got all his chips in with a 2-1 advantage over a maniac who was raising over and over again with absolutely nothing. Paul got in with JJ with a flop of 932, but the maniac was the one who pushed all in and Paul called. Maniac turned over 45 for the open ended straight and hit it on the river. Frustrating way to end it, but he had a very good WSOP all things considered. He made 3 final tables, 2 of which will be televised.

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Congrats Ed. Sounds like you had a night of fun. While you are having this lucky streak be sure to buy a lotto ticket :-)