Maybe its just me, but doesn't Mike Matusow look like Peter from The Family Guy?


Judge for yourself!

Party Poker $50 No Limit Hold'em - 5 players

UTG: $42.52
CO: $50.00
Hero (BTN): $49.25
SB: $64.31
BB: $50.64

CO posts a big blind ($0.50)

Pre Flop: ($1.25) Hero is BTN with K K
1 fold, CO raises to $1.50, Hero raises to $5, SB calls $4.75, 1 fold, CO calls $3.50

Flop: ($15.50) 3 7 A (3 players)
SB checks, CO bets $13.50, Hero folds, SB folds

Final Pot: $15.50

What should the button do now?

Some say its David Benyamine back on Full Tilt since his red pro days.

Some say its Doyle Brunson looking for some high stakes action now the big game doesn’t run as frequently.

Some say its George Bush looking for a new career after the Whitehouse.

Some idiot even said it was Batman.

Whoever it is though, they’ve had a pretty decent 48 hours!

There have been 63 monitored sessions with MR B TO U SON involved. In those sessions 4938 hands have been played. Those hands raked in $750,664.40 in profit equivalent to $152.01 per hand! Nice!

How did your love affair with poker begin?

Bit weird this one, but I walked into a department store and they happened to have some casino type promotion going on. There was a poker table plus dealer sitting there with an empty seat so i sat myself down without so much as a clue (nothings changed) and played a few hands. The rest as they say is history.

And where has it led you to today?

Still recreational but I’ve moved on a bit from the play money tables to the not so nosebleed 0.25c/0.50c. Its home for the time being but I think there’s more to come.

What’s you poker ambition?

I’d love to be able to play high enough that I could crush things for a few hours a week and have made a few grand. I don’t need millions, I just need enough to live a comfortable life with lots of travel, fun and adventure.

Live or online?

Online, only played live 3 times, with 3 of those times being a total disaster!

Cash or Tournaments?

Always cash, cash, cash!

Biggest poker moment?

Its lame! A $113 pot is probably my personal poker highlight, hitting Vegas was more of a general gambling highlight though.

60 minutes with poker legend Doyle Brunson or 60 minutes with poker babe Kimberly Lansing?

I’m engaged so Doyle Brunson, but call me Kimberly if you read this.

Want to share a poker tip?

Sure, whenever I’m losing I just check out the daily losses of some of the big online pro’s and my $150 downswing is nothing to their $750k losing day, so keeps me positive which is so important.

Thank you to SeymourCards! You can read more about him, well, eerrr here, or over at his blog.

There have been rumours and rumblings over the last week or so that Durrrr went bust.

In all honestly I have no idea why people believe such crazy things, the guy is up over $3.3m for the year from the nosebleeds on Full Tilt in addition to any other poker/non poker related income streams which I’m sure he has.

Just to put the other side of the story across, the rumour goes that Durrrr was dealt some heavy losses playing live recently and as a result had to withdraw his FT roll to cover his debts.

Anyway, as ridiculous as that may be, people still believed it, until last night that is! When Durrrr returned to the tables tearing things up with one of the most active nights on the nosebleeds in the last week or so.

Overall Durrrr finished up roughly $240,000 from the monitored tables, therefore being the biggest winner of the night.

It is widely believed that each of the four kings in a deck of cards represents a great ruler of the past.

The king of spades represents David, King of Israel, the king of Clubs represents Alexander the Great, King of Macedonia, the king of Hearts is Charlemagne, King of France, and the king of Diamonds is Caesar Augustus, Emperor of Rome.

Party Poker $50 No Limit Hold'em - 3 players

Hero (BB): $48.25
BTN: $55.27
SB: $49.00

Pre Flop: ($0.75) Hero is BB with T 7
1 fold, SB calls $0.25, Hero checks

Flop: ($1.00) 9 Q K (2 players)
SB checks, Hero checks

Turn: ($1.00) J (2 players)
SB bets $0.71, Hero calls $0.71

River: ($2.42) 7 (2 players)
SB bets $47.79 all in, Hero folds

What should the BB do?

So far this evening Brian Hasting's has run up a nice little stack on the new HA tables at Full Tilt.

Don't believe me? Judge for yourself...

Finnish player Sami Kelopuro, known online as LarsLuzak returned to the high stakes poker arena only a few short months ago.

Prior to this, in late 2007, Kelopuro had experienced one if not the most monumental downswings of his career, eventually busting from Full Tilt.

Following this Larsluzak vanished from the tables! The reason was apparently lack of action however I would assume it was more to do some soul searching and rebuild his confidence. No one would blame him for this.

October 13th 2008, however, saw the return of LarsLuzak to the virtual tables, playing at the nose bleed $500/$1000 tables on Full Tilt. I’ve been following his progress with interest over the last month and it actually seems that Kelopuro is still suffering from the downward trajectory he was on when he left the game in 2007.

So far LarsLuzak has played 235 monitored sessions on high stakes database and has so far racked up losses of $1,325.993! Not a good comeback.

His opponents describe his style as being that of a traditional aggressive European although at times his lines are somewhat random.

Only time will tell if Kelopuro can pull himself out of his tailspin, however if he does go on a hot streak his opponents aren’t going to know what’s going on.

It seems in the last few days Clonie Gowan, aka “Cycalona Gowen” has filed a lawsuit against Full Tilt Poker and associated companies and people.

The filing itself can be found here “Gowen vs Tiltware LLC, et al.”

Gowan is claiming all manner of things, including breach of contract and unjust enrichment.

Gowan claims that after a meeting held in May 2004 with various parties including Howard Lederer that she was offered a 1% stake in Full Tilt Poker, as part of Team Full Tilt. She was asked to promote the company amongst other things and accepted this offer. This 1% stake, according to her understanding was in both Full Tilt Poker and Tiltware, the company that leases its software to FTP.

Her claim continues that in 2007, all member of Team Full Tilt received distribution checks except for her. She subsequently asked for her fair share and was later turned down.

Apparently Howard Lederer latter offered her $250,000 for services rendered, which Gowan again turned down on the basis that the company (Full Tilt Poker) is worth $4 billion and therefore her 1% stake is valued at $40 million.

The plot thickens whereby there is actually no written, only verbal agreement between Full Tilt and Gowan.

Given the current poker climate in the USA at the moment I’m sure Full Tilt and its lawyers will be doing everything in their power to keep this out of the courts and settled privately.

There are several different theories of the origin of poker. The most likely is that the game of poker was formed from several different games.

Some historians believe that the history of poker derives from the Chinese game of dominoes and was first played in China around 900 A.D. Others believes that poker descends from the French "Poque" which closely resembles a 17th century 25 card Persian game called "Asnas". Asas was a game taught by Persian sailors to the French settlers of New Orleans. The game then migrated from New Orleans by steamboat up the Mississippi river and all the way by wagon and train to the west side of America.

The first written words on the history of poker comes from Jonathan H. Green in his chronicles from 1834. He wrote about a very popular game amongst gamblers on the Mississippi riverboats called the "cheating game". The deck contained only 20 cards and was played by a maximum of 4 players.

In the early 1900s all gambling including poker was declared illegal in the state of Nevada. This decision was later changed since the Attorney General of California declared that draw poker was based upon skill and not solely on chance.

Unfortunately we could be entering a period where poker is once again made illegal in the USA. Lets hope this doesn't happen or that Arnie and California come to the rescue again somehow!

I've been playing on Party Poker for about 2 months now, using the new software and thought it was time to share my thoughts in a 2 minute elevator pitch type review.

Software
I like it! Its new, its fresh, bright easy to use and understand. Its been built with the player in mind and it shows they have put a lot of thought into the user experience.

Features
Maybe too many! There are so many layers you can get lost exploring the points you have earned, have vested, rewards, bonuses, promotions etc. Great fun but I have no idea what I'm looking at half the time.

Players
My god, just terrible! Nuff said really.

Bonus
100% of to $500, its broken down in easily achievable blocks unlike some sites bonus structure where you'll need to clear 10,000,000,000 reward points to get your entire bonus in one go.

Overall
Its become the main site I play on now, can't really give a higher endorsement than that.

Maybe its just me, but doesn't Eric Lindgren look like Beaker from the muppets?


Judge for yourself

1) I won
2) I won
3) I won
4) I'm rich
5) I'm frickin loaded
6) Glad I don’t need to change these dollars into Euro’s!
7) Hahahaha
8) I won
9) Sing me the oooba song
10) "Oooba oooba oooba! Blah blah blah! Bop bop bop! Hey-hey-o!"

Brian Hastings spent yesterday tearing through the Pot Limit Omaha tables wiping out his previous 2 day losses of $400k with a mammoth session win of $760k!

Totally ridiculous numbers and the $500/$1000 tables at Full Tilt continue to provide uber high stakes action.

The big loser of the day was Gus Hansen, dropping over $775k, mostly to Brain.

These swings are pretty much part and parcel of the current high stakes action and no doubt Gus will be back winning big very shortly.

1) Who should I play golf with tomorrow?
2) Raise
3) Wonder if I can tee off at 2pm
4) Call
5) Better call Daniel
6) Check raise
7) He should be easy money
8) I'm all in
9) This should pay for my green fee's
10) Thanks for the pot

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The ultimate package! The crème de la crème for your brand. StackTown domination involves a 30 day roadblock of advertising across StackTown. The domination includes the header sponsorship, total sidebar 125x125 sponsorship, footer sponsorship and three, that’s right 3, full page blog posts across the 30 day period. The StackTown domination delivers unrivalled exposure and total cut through to our audience.

All advertising opportunities are sold on a 30 day rotation with payment in advance of placement. I do not automatically renew placements on expiry of the 30 days as I would prefer to have conversation with each advertiser on what’s working and what’s not and apply any learning’s to deliver a stronger package. Long term bookings however are accepted if required.

For information on rates and availability please email me on james@stacktown.com today.

Considering subscribing to StackTown?

Firstly let me say thank you. I’ll do my best not to disappoint. If I do, please let me know, but be gentle, I’m a sensitive soul!

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Yours sincerely

James

So, you want to get in touch?

Great, please do, I’d love to hear from you, after all that's part of the reason I decided to start this blog.

There are two ways that you can drop me a message.

The first way is through any post that I make. At the top of each post is a comment option, if you are kind enough to leave me a comment then I'll of course take the time to respond.

The second way is by emailing me. My email address can be found here, james@stacktown.com or within the footer of this site.

Again, if you take the time out of your busy day to send me a note then I will most definitely get back to you.

Many thanks for reading and I hope to hear from you soon.

James

For those of you that are new to this blog, StackTown, I thought it might be helpful to provide this post as a way of giving you some background information about me and the purpose of this blog.

About me

Firstly hello, if you've made it this far then I'd like to take the time to introduce myself. My name is James and I'm an addict...I mean poker player. Although sometimes the boundary between the two can become a little blurred.

I've been playing poker for about 3 years with moderate success at the cash tables. Nothing crazy, nothing major in the grand scheme of the poker universe. I'm a winning player, just, and am happy to grind it out for the love of the game.

Over those 3 years though I have gone through a whole raft of different poker playing stages. I started as a fish obviously, moved to recreational player, then to a serious join Card Runners type player, a even turned semi pro before eventually moving back to just being a recreational player. This is where I have found my niche at the virtual felt. I play for fun, I play for competition and I play to make a few pennies here and there. I know it won’t change my life but then again that’s not the objective.

It’s my love for the game that has really driven me though, the more I learn about poker, the community that surrounds it, the highs, the lows, the swings and roundabouts if you will, the more it pulls me in deeper. It’s that journey that has led me to this point. The point where StackTown comes into being!

The reason is that one of the main and reoccurring themes I have discovered in the course of my 3 years in the game, is that way to many players take the game too seriously! Lighten up people, after all if you can’t have fun then what’s the point? I’d say that about anything so it’s just as relevant here. Also there are way too many unsung players, those that play recreationally or the little known bedroom pro’s that make their living from the grind. You always hear about the Ivey’s or the Dwan’s, the Hansen’s and the Matusow’s, but what about Joe Poker? Joe Poker that probably plays more hands in a year than Ivey but takes home 1/10,000th of the money?

About StackTown

This is where StackTown comes in.

StackTown is here to look at the lighter side of poker. The funny, the ridiculous, the downright insane.

I aim to bring a little humour to the game and find enjoyment where maybe others thought there wasn't any!

I also want to bring the game back to the recreational player or the bedroom pro that doesn't have a sponsorship deal, hasn't won a WPT event or any of the million WSOP bracelets available these days. To that end I will be calling on many of you to help raise the profile of grass roots poker, give some airtime to the 10/20c grinder from Woking or Little Rock, or anywhere else for that matter.

Poker is the peoples game and the peoples game it shall remain!

About the name

If i’m honest, I was reading a magazine and there was a feature on alternative social networks. One of the networks was called elftown and it made me laugh.

I quite like the community connotations of the word ‘town’ so decided to include it in the name of this site. After throwing around a few poker related terms with the word town at the end I settled on StackTown!

I think it says it all, but then again I would!

Where you come in

I hope this blog will show a different side to game that so many of us love or love to hate. If it sparks debate, garners a little chuckle or maybe just infuriates then happy days! In any case, if you do enjoy my writing then I would ask for you to consider supporting my efforts, whether it be by commenting, giving your opinion, emailing posts to friends, or simply adding me to your blogroll.

Every little bit helps.

I'll be posting as often as I can so please check back frequently or even subscribe through Feedburner or another reader. My Feedburner feed is here.

Yours sincerely

James