Uber like Monday Morning

So the midget Pocahontas set up this little tourney thing last night, and I played in it. I didn’t bust first, and outlasted some folks that are way better than me. Those are the only good things I have to say about my play. SOMEBODY, however, is going to the World Series on the backs of the poker bloggers, and it couldn’t have happened to a cooler chick. Way to go, Gracie! So after never getting my head anywhere right for the excellent structure Paradise and the Iggsta set up for us (20 min. levels, 2500 starting chips was great), I busted out to work on some stuff for this dance concert I’m designing.

That lasted all of 45 minutes, before the siren call of the trackball beckoned me back to Paradise. I’d never played there before (interface sucks), so I was curios to see what they offered in their “misc. games.” Lo and behold, they run the Holy Grail of Falstaff Donkey Poker, Crazy Pineapple! I love me some crazy pineapple, it’s kinda like Omaha, only for the retarded. You only have to be smart preflop and on one street, then you dumb it back down and play Hold ‘Em again. Perfect for the ADD action-junkie like myself! Not to mention that since No Limit Crazy Pineapple is a staple of our home game, I thought I’d have a slight edge on the “hmmmm…what’s crazy pineapple?” brand of interweb donkeys. Up 30BB in a little less than an hour says that not only was I somewhat correct, but also that the variance bitch was blowing sunshine right up my ass, too. That paid for my tournament entry twice, so I ended the day on a positive note, woke up in a sunny disposition, and ready to get all uber on ya’ll.

So here’s what absolutely none of you has been waiting for – Falstaff’s picks for Bloggers to money in the WSOP. This collection had a ton of time put into it (my whole drive into work, about 20 min. today), so take it for what it’s worth. There are a fuckton of other bloggers with the chops to money in a WSOP event, these are just the ones I’d happily buy a piece of based on experiences with them at the tables or the fact that they write strategy posts that I have to print and take into the crapper for further contemplation. You guess who is who. Lemme know who else you think is gonna cash this year, or if you think my picks are fulla shit. We oughta run a pool or something.

1. Ryan – well, duh. You absolutely cannot discount his success at the LA Poker Classic and the experience he picked up there, not to mention that fucker can solid play.

1. Continuing in the well, duh vein – DoubleAs. If you’ve never read his blog, please come play in my home game. If you read him regularly you are no longer welcome. Aside from his big-tourney experience and previous WSOP cash, dude is a seriously deep thinker about poker, and his stategery posts and hand analysis makes me read them once, go away, click back and read them again later. And if you’ve actually ever watched him play, his focus is like a laser, while mine is much more reminiscent of a disco ball on meth.

1. WPBT 2005 seat winner BigPirate is my next pick. The big man from the little state can solid play some cards. I’ve played across from Wes a couple of times now and if he’s raising, I’m folding. Unless, of course, it’s at my home tourney and I’m in full on donkey mode, when if he’s raising, I’m losing. Pirate is a master of shifting gears and putting a good read on his opponents, and has the results to show for it. A quiet, solid, tight player while the cards are down, Pirate gets a ton of respect and is perfectly capable of making a move or three with his table image. Just don’t get caught when he’s not making a move or you’re going to be keelhauled.

1. It takes luck to win a big tourney, and you can’t talk about luck without talking about CJ. We give him a big ration of shit for being such a luckbox, but the fact is that you make your own luck in this game, and coming into an uncontested pot in position for a tiny amount of money is gonna pay off big when it hits, and CJ puts himself in a position to be able to score off those orphan pots and that puts him in a strong enough chip position to keep picking off the little pots, and then he doesn’t have to fear the big pots. There’s some bald Danish guy that employs a similar strategy, and he does pretty well for himself, too. CJ will be the “buddy” at the table, joking around and laughing a lot, having a good time. BETWEEN HANDS. And then he turns it on to play solid poker. He rides the luckbox reputation and G-Robs you (convincing you verbally that he’s a terrible player while raking your chips into his stack) until you’re sitting around wondering “how did I just lose to a 10-4 off suit?” It ain’t the 10-4 that buried you, it was the 8 other pots that buried you.

1. Aggression and stamina win championships, and our boy Gunz has that in spades. BadBlood is another deep thinker, he is constantly analyzing his game and the game of those around him, and people that pay attention worry me at the table. Okay, they worry me when I can use enough of my cocker-spaniel puppy attention span to notice that they’re paying attention. BadBlood spends a lot of time looking for leaks in his game and plugging them, and he’s running out of leaks to patch. He also has a strong table image going for him, his monster biceps and shaved head give him the look of someone who’ll bench-press you through the ceiling if you put a bad beat on him. That doesn’t work on those of us who know what a gentleman and teddy bear Blood really is, but don’t underestimate his ability to frighten a siding salesman from South Bend. Blood has a good table sense, and can feel the right moment to move over the top of you for the kill. This nose for weakness and his constant study of his game put him on my list if he goes to the big dance.

1. She was on my list before I knew she won last night, and I don’t mean like Wil’s list. Although she was on that for a while, too. Gracie is the koala bear of poker bloggers, she’s cute, she’s cuddly, she’s sweet, you get between her and a chipstack and she’s gonna feed you your own liver. But she’ll smile so sweetly while she does it. Let’s face it, women are underestimated at the poker table, and our blogger sistren are willing to take huge advantage of this fact. Gracie is truly a wonderful, sweet loving person. And she will carve you up into little bitty pieces at the poker table. She also she works on her game A LOT, and has a good sense of her strengths and weaknesses, and plays to her strengths at the table. She’s way more fearless than she thinks she is, so don’t even bother trying to push her around. And she’ll do a double SoCo shot at 11:30 AM with me and BigMike, so she’s totally GracieCanHang.

The Dark Horses – there’s folks that I think would have a fantastic shot at cashing at the WSOP, but they’re gonna be stuck working most of the events, so it limits their shots. But NEVER discount Pauly’s experience in the environment to give him a strong chance to cash, it just depends on if he can actually find time to play. And Otis is pretty screwed by work commitments, too, or he’d be high on my list as well.

So there are my picks for cashes at this year’s WSOP. There are a ton of other great poker-playing bloggers out there like Felicia, Tanya, Drizz, Bobby Bracelet, Hdouble, Iggy, Byron and more that I can’t even name, but I actually have to try to get some work done today. Go read Drizz’s last post. He wins at life.