July 2009

  • July 2009
  • 24 The Best of Phil Hellmuth: A look back at the finest whines available to humanity
    30 Year by Year: The stories that made the World Series great
    36 Lifetime achievement award: Bluff honours Donnacha O’Dea
    52 James Akenhead: UK young gun heads to Vegas
    Thrills:
    10 The Beat: With Neil “Bad Beat” Channing
    12 Bluff Newswire: Rolling poker news from around the globe
    16 Wicked Chops: Irreverent poker backchat
    18 Nick’s Column: Nick Wealthall limbers up for the Main Event
    20 Dr Tom’s Poker Infirmary: Is your poker game sick?
    22 Poker in the Park III: Europe’s biggest poker festival is back!
    28 Our Kelly: A tour of Dublin’s newest card club

    PRO-Spective:
    40 Grassroots: Supporting poker in the community
    44 One to One: The UK’s favourite charity tournament
    46 Betfair Caesars Cup: Europe to take on America at the WSOPE
    48 Being Phil Laak: The Unabomber reflects on his misspent youth
    58 Paddy Power Poker Pro: Jamie Gold on life in the limelight
    Virtual Felt:
    60 Online Report: Snoopy catches up with Laurence Houghton
    62 Bluff Labs: The low-down on staking sites
    64 Poker VT: Taking your game to the next level
    66 On the Button: Stuff we’ve pulled off the web
    Wisdom:
    68 Mike Caro: Inspired ramblings from the Mad Genius
    70 Pickleman: How much do you need for a good ol’ Vegas spin up?
    72 Action Jackson: When to keep your mouth shut
    74 JJ Hazan: How to battle a tournament full of Swedes
    76 Jonathan Little: Playing with monsters
    78 Joe Hachem: A former champ remembers
    80 Bonomo: Justin final tables the $40k
    82 Navarro: Poker psychology from an ex-FBI interrogator

    84 Table games: Team blackjack with Les Golden
    89 Rizen: Eric Lynch on the importance of table draws
    90 Annie Duke: Quit your WSOP moaning!
    92 Full Tilt Lessons: With Nick Schulman
    94 Off the felt: Slutsky gets his ass whipped by children!
    96 Card Gang: $3,500 of free money up for grabs!

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Dear Dr Tom,


My girlfriend thinks that I am completely poker obsessed. It’s partly true, I guess. I mean, sure, I like to play a bit, be it online or with friends, but it almost seems as if I have become a bit of a bore in her eyes...

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Dear Dr Tom,


I have issues with bankroll management. I know how important it is – yet I do not have the patience, or the time, to grind my way through the low stakes until I eventually have enough to play the stakes I want to play. What is your best advice for me? Is there some other way around this problem?


Sam, Dublin

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Dear Tom,


I was playing a NLHE STT with some friends when one of them went berserk due to a bad beat. He started moving all-in pre- or post-flop, regardless of position. He was getting lucky, and began winning some chips back until he had more chips than me...

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What is acceptable to say when you are on the battlefield of a poker table and what is not? Paul Jackson discusses.

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Bankroll management? Bankroll Schmanagement! That’s the biggest lesson I’ve learned from running the seminars at the Bluff Europe Poker Academy. The title of our first series was “what the pros know”, yet the strongest interest from my bankroll management lecture came from the pros themselves.

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Dear Tom,


I’ve been doing well playing online sit-n-gos and regularly getting in the top three, or, to be more specific, the top two. You see, my heads up play seems to suck dramatically. Is there any general advice you can give for the heads up sit-n-go player?


Oggy, Birmingham

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James Akenhead was a whisker away from winning a bracelet at last year’s World Series. We caught up with him on the way to Vegas to chat about his obsessive personality, the healthy state of British poker and why Mickey Wernick thinks he’s the new Stu Ungar.

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Dear Tom,


I always seem to get myself in a fix during tournaments in small blind/big blind confrontations. I never believe my opponent has anything, even when he’s re-raising me. I have never found any decent small blind / big blind tournament strategy in any of the books. What kind of hand ranges and situational aspects should I be thinking about? Advice please!!!


SB, Mars