Poker Room Hustle

I am extremely glad to announce that High Stakes Poker will be returning to TV for a fifth season. It was mentioned earlier on in the year that GSN will not be renewing their contract for a fifth season, however all that has changed and the show is set to return. There are many rumors floating around the net, like the show will be airing in February 2009, and that it will feature Pot Limit Omaha as well, however at this point these are just rumors and nothing has been officially confirmed yet. I will keep you posted on exactly what is going on however, In the meantime just be happy that the show is back and that we can continue watching the most exciting Poker Game around.

Heres A Pot From HSP Between Doyle Brunson and Guy Laliberte

Alright its been a while since i posted any tunes so i thought i will post a new Track. Its a big tune from Kymani Marley and it should give inspiration to all you hustlers out there on the daily grind. Enjoy!

The World Poker Tour Has Officially commenced its latest season, Season VII, and the event that kicked things off was the WPT Bellagio Cup. With a buy in of $15,000 and featuring a field of 446 players, the event attracted a large number of dedicated pros and awarded a nice hefty paycheck to the winner, as the prize pool was lifted to well over $6 Million. The final table consisted of some famous names, such as Full Tilt Poker Pro and recent WSOP Bracelet Winner David Benyamine, and John Phan, who has also had an amazing year this year, as he recently captured his first 2 WSOP Gold Bracelets in the 2008 WSOP.

However the player who emerged victorious in the first battle of the WPT’S Season VII, was online poker pro Mike Watson, he ended up taking out David Benyamine in around 34 hands of heads up action to capture the title and approx $1.6 Million in cold hard cash. On the final hand of the night Watson moved all-in from the button pre-flop holding Qh 9s and was called by the short-stacked Benyamine who held Kh 9h and was clearly dominating Watson. A miracle Queen appeared on the flop and put Watson way infornt, and when a king failed to appear on the turn or river, it was all over. Benyamine picked up a generous $840,295 for his runner up finish, and continues his incredible form which he has displayed throughout this year. On top of the $1.67 Million in prize money Watson also receives the WPT champions bracelet, the Bellagio Cup bracelet and the $25,000 entry into next April’s WPT Championship.

This is Watson’s first ever win in a WPT tournament, and with 7 other cashes in previous outings at the WPT, I think he will pretty relived and at the same time overjoyed by his first victory.

Other notable finishes include:

David Pham in 9th ($90,495),

John Gale in 11th ($64,640),

Daniel Alaei in 20th ($51,710),

Ted Forrest in 26th ($38,785)

Barry Greenstein in 30th ($38,785).

Joanna Krupa

If you are to become a good poker player and make a living of playing poker in the long run then you must realize the fact that poker is a long term business. No single session will determine how good or bad you are at poker, it should be fairly clear that in order to become a winning poker player you have to be consistent and win over the long run. You could win $5K over the course of a week but then blow it all in one night if you are not dedicated and disciplined enough to play No limit Poker, therefore you must have the right attitude when playing in order to succeed. No limit Holdem is a very tricky game and if you don’t approach it with the right mind frame and knowledge you will wind up going broke in no time at all. It is essential to be aware of the variance factor in no limit poker, and be prepared to handle bad beats, miracle suck outs, and also have the discipline to avoid gambling in certain situations so you don’t end up tilting and donating your entire hard earned stack.

When you play poker for a living (No Limit Cash Games) you should be in the mind frame that the game is continuous, it never stops, you could come back 5 hours later or even the next day and continue playing. Therefore you should approach every situation independently and not get too attached to any single hand (unless you have the absolute nuts), because the fact remains that, there are plenty more hands to come and there will always be a better spot to get your money in if you feel you are beat. So do not risk more than you have to on any particular hand. Study your opponents and the board to the best of your abilities, if the board displays cards that are likely to have you beat (e.g. flushes, straights, 4 card straights or flushes etc.) and your opponent appears strong then lay your hand down. It doesn’t matter whether your holding pocket aces or you have trips, when your beat your beat, and laying your premium hands down when you know your beat is what separates the pros from the amateurs. With that being said always remember who you’re playing against, you may have to call an opponent down with mid pair at the river, only because he is a loose aggressive player who has the ability to continually make plays and bluffs. So there are a lot of factors to take into consideration when you are involved in any particular hand; analyzing them separately and individually on each hand without emotions affecting your judgment, is what’s going to help you become a better no limit poker player.

Remember The cycle is continuous, so don’t put pressure on yourself to make a certain amount in one night or think that “I have to win a hand in the next half an hour”. Instead just let the cards do there job, you do yours, which is play solid poker, and let everything else flow into action. If you begin to think objectively about every situation (this can be done by taking a third person view of the hand and analyzing the situation objectively without any emotions), suppress your emotions at the table and understand that the game is continuous and there is plenty of time left for you to make money from your opponents. Then I assure you will gain a significant edge over your competition and will see yourself making better reads, better decisions, and overall, playing better Poker in No Limit Cash Games.

For all you dedicated Poker players out there who are doing it tough, but are confident you could make decent money playing online poker only if you had a legit bankroll, there is a great way to get in on the action, and it is commonly known as Player Staking. These days staking players to play online poker has become a large business and many people are out there looking for players to invest their money in. There are plenty of sites that offer these services and if you are interested in getting staked or maybe staking a player yourself, then you can check out this List of Sites from Do or Die Poker. I believe you need to provide the investor with some statistics about your poker play in order to get staked, and these can be obtained from Bluff Magazine or a site like Shark Scope. So If you believe you have what it takes to get staked and are ready to hustle up some extra cash for doing nothing but playing poker then check out some of These Sites and find which one is best suited to your liking to start hustlin up sum cash.

One of the most anticipated and sophisticated events of the 2008 world series of poker is The $50,000 H.O.R.S.E event, it can be arguably considered as one of the most prestigious and prized events in the whole WSOP schedule, as players have to prove their skills over 5 different variations of the game. With the steepest buy –in in WSOP history and the skills required to play 5 games at top notch level, I think it is quite easy to understand why all the top pros can be found in this event, taking their shot at the title and the glory. Well the event was indeed packed full of pros, and the final table featured a truly start studded line up, with the likes of, Erick Lindgren, Barry Greenstein, Huck Seed, Patrick Bueno and a few others, all up the players on the final table had collected 16 bracelets between them over the years.

The quality of play was of the highest caliber and after a grueling session of poker which lasted over 300 hands, Scotty Nguyen emerged victorious in a heads up clash over Michael DeMichele to claim the precious bracelet and the Honors of winning one of the most prestigious events of The 2008 WSOP. Scotty, who is very well known amongst the poker community, has added to his steadily increasing tally by making this his fifth gold bracelet. Scotty has also become the first player to win a Main Event and the HORSE world championship event, an achievement worthy of great recognition, and for his efforts he has taken his lifetime earnings to over $9.3 Million after collecting almost $2 Million for his first place finish in the HORSE Event.

Heres An Interview With Scotty From PokerNews.com