08 March 2010

» Horses for courses

When JJ Hazan bravely stood up in the Dragon’s Den last year to try to get funding for a series of tournaments, we saw a glimpse of a rare phenomenon: what the world outside our little niche really thinks about whether poker is a “good bet” or not.

03 February 2010

» Human donkey wins poker tournament

After a final table which lasted a marathon 26 hours, the champion of the inaugural Global Poker Tour was crowned in London yesterday afternoon. Unknown player Mark Shetland from Surrey, UK survived a veritably terrifying final table which included Daniel Negreanu, Vitaly Lunkin, Dario Minieri and Jason Mercier.

12 January 2010

» Pickleman at the Unibet Open Warsaw

About six months ago I wrote an article about the Unibet Open, London. I talked about wild parties, rock stars, and a feel to proceedings that was somewhere between the Olympics and the Oscars. This weekend I had my second drink from the cup, and I loved it. But whereas my first taste of the Unibet Open left me feeling hedonistic and carefree, my second has left me with a serious conviction: this is how a poker tour should be.

27 November 2009

» String-bet Nazis must die!!

What a wonderful word “jobsy” is. It’s a peculiarly British word. Not because being jobsy is a peculiarly British thing to be, but because only the British would actually come up with a word to slag someone off who was being so.

28 October 2009

» Is poker a young man’s game?

There’s an experience in poker which I want to put a name to. Let’s call it the Grinder’s Lament. It runs something like this: when you win, it feels like just another day at the office; you make money playing poker, that’s what you do for a living; Plan A worked – it’s nothing special. But when you lose it feels like the world’s caved in.

08 October 2009

» Dealer’s Choice is the new Hold Em

If my column is anything to go by, some time after 2015 there will be no more fish left in the game. Instead, the poker world will be populated by twenty-something university-dropout cyborgs who 50-table against each other, merely pushing money back and forth while the site makes money from the rake.

22 September 2009

» Running to Stand Still

If 2008 was the year of the four-bet shove light, it should be no surprise that 2009 became the year of the light call of the four-bet shove. Such is the nature of competition. Today’s clever new trick is yesterday’s cliché.

17 August 2009

» The Great Escape

Pub quiz question: who was the first act to perform the title track from the album Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band at a live gig? Before you think I’m getting all reverse-reverse psychology on you, yes, it was written by the Beatles.

12 July 2009

» The Vegas Spin Up

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.

29 June 2009

» Brits abroad

One of the nicest things about being in Vegas for the Series is the sense of camaraderie between the Brits that you meet when you’re playing out here. No matter what tournament you’re in, there are bound to be some familiar faces. In the Venetian PLO $550 was Paul Jackson, Karl Mahrenholz and Paul Parker amongst many others. In fact, you can barely play a PLO tournament out here without there being a Brit at your table.