Random Thoughts to Bring in the New Year

As 2009 comes to a close we at CPL Poker Blog and Podcast want to wish you a very happy and prosperous 2010.  Happy New Year!!

We also thought it would be a great time for some random thoughts and reflections on 2009.

The Good - This has to be the blog and podcast.  Readership and listenership is up - a trend, we hope, that continues into 2010 and beyond.  Thank you all for stopping by and listening to the show(s). With that increase came our first unsolicited advertiser (777.com)  - check them out.  It's a nice aggregate site of various poker rooms and casinos with reviews, bonuses, etc.

The Bad - In order of how much they irk me (least to most).  What's with the Bellagio's Five-Star World Poker Classic schedule??  Okay, the tourney takes place in 2010, but they released the schedule today.  ALL of the tournaments are rebuys!!  Seventeen prelim events leading up to the main event and all of them are rebuy events??  Huh? 

"FAIL" - apparently the trend for the kid's these days on the interweb seems to be the use of the word "FAIL" to mean some variation of "didn't go well".  As in, "tried to get in to the midnight showing of Avatar - long lines - FAIL".   If things go really bad you can call it "epic fail" - as in, "I flopped a four flush on an A high board, played it like I had the A. Moved all-in on the river with a massive Q-high only bluff.  Epic Fail - guy snapped called me with his pair of 3s".  Hey, here's some advice - using any variation of the term FAIL in 2010?  Epic Fail.

Pronouncing Tolkien - A Swedish online poker phenom by the name of Isildur1 stormed onto the scene in October.  This has led to innumerable mispronunciations of his name by such folks as Ante Up Podcast, Raw Vegas TV/Wicked Chops, and Mike Matusow (BTW- clean up that foul mouth, Mike, damn).  Each tending to butcher the name by pronouncing it along the lines of:  IZ-ill-der.  My God - do you even watch movies?  Over three years (2001 to 2003) the Lord of the Rings Trilogy racked up 17 Academy Awards and each film ranks between 2nd to 15th in All-Time Worldwide Gross Receipts.  Okay, I can live with some regional dialectic variations in the pronunciation - give me ih-SEAL-door or ee-SILL-dur, or some mash of the two, but NOT -  IZ-ill-der, that's just....Epic Fail.  Now go read Silmarillion as punishment.

The Ugly - Only one thing can go here (and I won't go into too much detail).  At the end of 2008, I set a couple of simple poker goals for 2009 - results-type stuff.  I didn't hit a single one - not one.  Let's hope 2010 is much better - for us all.

2009 CPL Best of Music Podcast Released!

Check out the podcast by clicking on the players on the left!

Episode 68 is the CPL Best of Music 2009 broadcast! 
Mark and Phil count down the top 10 songs played on the CPL Poker Podcasts in 2009! Bumper Music by Stew, Tunnel Music, and IKKI. Follow us on Twitter at CPLPOKERPODCAST! Enjoy!!

MN Poker Game Turns Violent

The Mankato Free Press is reporting today about a weekend home game that didn't go well.

Apparently, J.L. Turner, 47, decided he'd had enough of a polish-named bloke (D. Wojciechowski, 32 years old) and "used a baseball bat to assault" him. Wojciechowski was treated for minor injuries at a local hospital.  No other details are available at this time.


Our only guess here at the CPL is that they decided to try RAZZ for the first time to "mix it up some".  We all know what can happen when the cards start flying in RAZZ.

BREAKING NEWS - 2010 WSOP Schedule Set , No $50K HORSE Event

The WSOP has announced next year's (2010) WSOP schedule.  There are several changes from previous years.

The biggest change may be the elimination of the $50K HORSE event.  It will be replaced with a $50K 8-Game Mixed Event called:  "The Player's Championship".  This will be Event #2 - a 5-day event beginning on May 28.  The game will consist of: Limit Hold'em, OH8, Razz,  Seven Card Stud, Seven Card Stud H/L, No-Limit Hold'em,  Pot-Limit Omaha, and 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball.  The final table will be solely No-Limit Hold'em - and, likely, televised by ESPN. For HORSE purists there will be the usual $1,500 and $3K events along with a new $10K Championship event.

The "stimulus" $1000 tournament idea is back and expanded. Does that mean the economy is in even worse shape???  There will be 4 - $1000 bracelet events in 2010 (and the Ladies and Seniors tournies are also at that level).  A little more opportunity for those of us who don't have the really big bucks to put down on a tournament.

One other tweak is the "big" NL Hold'em event.  Last year they ran a $40K event for the 40th Anniversary of the WSOP and noted that it wouldn't be a recurring event.  Well, Harrah's stuck to their word - 2010's WSOP Event #52 will be a $25K NL Hold'em (six handed) affair.

The full series of tournaments will consist of 57 events again (plus the Ante Up for Africa Charity event) and run from May 28 to July 17 (the final table - with that played out sometime in November).  You can see the full schedule of events here.

Deadline Extended - 2009 Best of Music Survey/Contest - final round

You're in luck if you haven't yet participated in the survey and contest.  We won't be recording the 2009 Best of Music Podcast until this weekend.  So, we've extended the deadline to Friday at 4 pm.

All the details are explained in our 12/10/09 post.

And, don't forget - we're looking to give away up to $40 in our prize pool (you will need to have a FullTilt poker account as it'll be a transfer) - so, that's just one more reason to participate.

Minnesota State Poker Tour - John Dragich wins Inaugural Event

St. Cloud resident John Dragich, 20, beat a field of 130+ Monday night to win the inaugural event of the Minnesota State Poker tour held at Canterbury Park in Skakopee, MN.

According to MN Poker Magazine, heads up lasted all of one hand. Dragich picked up pocket As to Chase Wood's K/2.  Chase, also 20 years old, who was 3rd in chip count with 18 remaining hit a K high flop.  All the money got into the center and Dragich's aces held on to win. Dragich wins $34,765 and a custom diamond bracelet for his efforts.  Woods picks up $19,866.

Tour co-founder Bryan Mileski, who was chip leader with 18 remaining, busted out in 7th.  The tour picks up again at Grand Casino Mille Lacs in February with a Running Aces stop in April.

Congratulations to Dragich and all the final tablists.

Minnesota State Poker Tour - Final Two Tables Set

There's still plenty of play remaining but the final two tables of the inaugural MN State Poker Tour are set.

Tour co-founder Bryan Mileski leads the remaining field with 203,300 in chips. Kevin Reichel with 200,800; Chase Wood (199,400), John Dragich (185,700) and David Grandstaff (164,800) round out the top 5.  The final 18 are slated to play down to a winner beginning at 5 pm tonight at Canterbury Park (Shakopee).

This kickoff event of the MN State Poker Tour - a $1000 + $100 Main Event - saw 130+ entrants and is  offering a diamond bracelet (from Continental Diamonds) to the winner.  See pics of it here.

The winner of the event is set to take home about $34,000 - and the bracelet.  We'll keep you informed as we learn more. 

2009 Best of Music Survey/Contest - final round

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Ahh, the time has come.  The Round 2 survey is up (Click here to take survey) and ready for you to vote on who will be our Top 10.

And, "YES" - we're still GIVING AWAY $40 as part of this 'Best of"  promo (the prize pool will be FullTilt cash transfers to the winners - so you'll need an account there to qualify for the prize portion).  For those hitting this up for the first time - here's how it works.

You'll see our top 15 songs broken out in groups of three songs each (obviously 5 groups total).  You'll rank the songs #1, #2 and #3 for each group.  There will be two "flight groupings" - rank the songs, we'll then mix them up in a second grouping and you do it again.  Additionally, you'll have a chance to select the song you think will be the ultimate overall #1 selection.  The survey will stay up until 6 pm on Thursday, Dec. 17, 2009.

Anyone can rank songs but there's one more hitch to winning any prize money (in addition to needing a FullTilt account) - you'll need to listen to the Best of Show (which should be out right around Christmas time).  We'll only be announcing the winners there and setting the deadline for contacting us back telling us you heard your name on the show and requesting your winnings (we'll give winners several days to listen/contact us).  We'll be giving away 2 - $10 prizes for participating and a $20 prize from the pool of those who successfully picked the eventual winning song.

All songs can be found at GarageBand .  Here are the songs in their Flight 1 Groupings. Song Name (Band Name).  Follow the links below to listen to the songs on GarageBand if you need some refreshing.  Find the survey here.

Flight #1
Group1 - Ex Girlfriends (Suzanne), Machine (Uber Cool Kung Fu), Haircut (Gold Standard)
Group 2 - Eyeliner (Parachutes Fail), These Last Days (Thinland), I'm OK (Uber Cool Kung Fu)
Group 3 - Killer Sea (Stealing Seconds), Sink With Me (Dime Theory), Construct (Little Tin Box)
Group 4 - The Driving Seat (Leslie Rich), Missing (Justin Bell & the Lazy Susan Band), Flicker (Morrisson)
Group 5 - Don't You Need Me (Justin Bell and the Lazy Susan Band , Have a Little Hope (Burgess Norgaard), Life Like This (Crista McCrae)


Flight #2 - we've adjusted the match-ups for this round (rank them one more time and we'll have our top ten):
Group1 - Don't You Need Me (Justin Bell and the Lazy Susan Band), The Driving Seat (Leslie Rich), I'm OK (Uber Cool Kung Fu)
Group 2 - Machine (Uber Cool Kung Fu), Missing (Justin Bell & the Lazy Susan Band), Killer Sea (Stealing Seconds)
Group 3 - Eyeliner (Parachutes Fail),  Have a Little Hope (Burgess Norgaard), Ex Girlfriends (Suzanne) 
Group 4 - Life Like This (Crista McRae), Sink With Me (Dime Theory), These Last Days (Thinland)
Group 5 - Flicker (Morrisson), Construct (Little Tin Box), Haircut (Gold Standard)

Thanks for participating and we hope you like the show.

2009 Best of Music Survey/Contest - round 1 advancers

Okay, round 1 is in the books and half of the 2009 songs have been eliminated. Thank you to everyone who participated. These are all Minnesota bands and listed on GarageBand.com. The following songs advance to the Final Round (listed in alphabetical order by song title):


Construct - by Little Tin Box
Don't you need me - by Justin Bell and the Lazy Susan Band
Driving Seat  - by Leslie Rich
Ex Girlfriends - by Suzanne
Eyeliner - by Parachutes Fail 
Flicker - by Morrisson
Haircut - by Gold Standard
Have a Little Hope -  by Burgess Norgaard
I'm Ok -  by Uber Cool Kung Fu
Killer Sea - by Stealing Seconds MN
Life like this - by Crista McRae
Machine - by Uber Cool Kung Fu
Missing  - by Justin Bell and the Lazy Susan Band
Sink with Me - by Dime Theory
These Last Days - by Thinland

We're putting together the next survey (it'll be like the last one, but only half as long obviously).  From that, we'll take the Top 10 songs for our Best of Music Show (due out around Christmas time - give yourself a gift and take a listen).  The round 2 survey should be up about the 9th or so and we'll leave it up for about a week.

If you did Round 1 - do the upcoming round as well for additional entries and more chances to win a piece of the $40 prize pool that we're giving away (again, winners need a Full Tilt account and will receive their winnings via transfer - see the 11/20 post for more details).

The Rookie Gets First Victory During Week 11!

Voni "The Rookie" scored her first victory during the final regular week of the 2009 Fall Session!  It was another Wine Night that has become quite popular at the CPL....and the chips were flyin' pretty fast and there was a good amount of aggression all night long!  The Rookie was the most aggressive during the night....3,4, and 5 betting with monster hands and with complete air made The Rookie a force to be reckoned with....especially once she gathered up a significant chip stack!
In heads up play against Verbal, Voni's aggressive style was almost her downfall.  The Rookie started heads up play with a big chip lead however a few hands into it and Verbal had gained the chip advantage!  Then the Rookie found herself All In and behind Pre-flop with her tournament life on the line.  However great catches was something the Rookie had done all night....and during heads up was no exception.
Congrats to Voni for her win!

Finishing in 3rd was James, who had another great night of poker!  This finish added to his point total nicely and has him seeded in 3rd place for the upcoming CPL Tournament of Champions on 12-12-09.
In 4th was Bill "Comeback Kid".  Comeback had a steady increase in his chip stack all night and it was his highest finish during this Fall Session.  The points were greatly needed for his TOC match.
In 5th was Mark W, who continued his strong play in the league. If a few key hands at the end of the night went differently Mark would have been in great shape to win the week.
Kenji "Don't Do it" Yang finished in 6th hanging on as the short stack at the final table for a while before getting eliminated.
"Heads Up" Kamholz rounded out the points in 7th after surviving a flurry of eliminations before the final table.

A great finishing week for the Fall Session!  Thanks to all of the CPL Members and good luck in the TOC!


CPL Final Leaderboard Fall 2009

Points Awarded During Week 11

NewLife Scores 3rd Victory During Week 10!!

Matching the feat of The Unabomber, Greg NewLife Durand has won his 3rd CPL match of this 2009 Fall Session!  This victory adds even more chips to his TOC coffers and keeps him in contention for the Most Points in one Session record!  Congrats Greg!

Kelli G had a great match and was heads up against NewLife at the end of the tourney!  Unfortunately she was deeply short stacked compared to NewLife and although she stayed alive for a number of hands during the heads up play....she never really mounted a threat to his stack.  In 3rd was Wanda who had a very strong beginning to the evening and saw her chips leave her at the end of the match.  In 4th was Blind Me Down, who was desperate for points before going into the TOC.  In 5th was Verbal...who stayed around and stayed alive and ended in 5th.  In 6th was Kenji "Don't Do It" who had a pretty good outing...Rounding out the CPL Points in 7th was Nick "Headsup"!
Congrats to all of the CPL Point earners!

CPL Quote of the Week:
"I'm glad I'm not hosting after this week!" --Comeback Kid while settling in at Wittig's place


CPL Leaderboard Week 10

CPL Points Awarded Week 10:

Round 1 Deadline EXTENDED to 12-3 - get an entry in for your shot at the $40 prize pool

Our 2009 Best of Music round 1 survey closes at 11:45 pm Central Time - tonight. EXTENDED to 12-3-09 at 8:00pm.
The full details of the survey and contest are in our 11/20 post (below).  You can find the survey here.

In short, we're asking our podcast listeners/blog readers to help select the Top 10 songs played on our CPL Poker Podcast over 2009 (all Minnesota bands).  And, we're giving away a $40 prize pool in the form of transferred money on Full Tilt - so you'll need a Full Tilt account for this part - but anyone can rank the songs.

There'll be a round 2 coming out soon, but don't miss your chance to give your input on round 1 too!!

Monday Madness and Best of Music contest/survey

It's NLHE tonight for Monday Madness - 8:30 pm central start time. Open to everyone - password is: CPL

And, don't forget that Round 1 of the 2009 Best of Music Survey and Contest runs until only 11:45 pm on 12/02. Anyone can take the survey and help decide who the top ten will be for 2009. And, if you have a Full Tilt account you'll be entered into a drawing for a $40 prize pool that we're giving away. We've had several entries, but relatively few people have (or are willing to tell us their screen name) Full Tilt accounts. Get in on the action. You can enter again during Round 2 (the Finals) - so get in that extra entry now.

Click here to take the survey (see full groupings, etc. in our 11/20/09 posting below).

BREAKING NEWS: UIGEA Postpones Rollout 6 Months

The CPL has just learned that on Friday (11/27/09) the Treasury and Federal Reserve announced that it would postpone implementation of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) for 6 months based on the petition filed by the Poker Players Alliance (PPA). This is a big win for poker and may be the first step in allowing legislation to be passed to legalize Online Poker in the USA.


Join the CPL in this fight and become a member today of the Poker Players Alliance.


Read more here on Cardplayer.com.

Happy Thanksgiving and more

The CPL would like to wish all our readers and podcast listeners (btw - the new podcast with the last half of our interview with Phil Mackey is up - see the player to the left) a very HAPPY THANKSGIVING !

Also, don't forget our Best of Music 2009 survey and contest - help us select this year's best songs and you might win part of our $40 prize pool (yes, we're giving away $40).  See the 11/19 post for full info and:


!! Click Here to take the survey and enter the contest!!

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CPL Best of Music 2009 - Survey and Contest Round 1

We are live with Round 1 of our Best of Music 2009 contest.

!!Click Here to take the survey and enter the contest!!


We're GIVING AWAY $40 as part of this 'Best of"  promo (the prize pool will be FullTilt cash transfers to the winners - so you'll need an account there to qualify for the prize portion).  Okay, here's how it works.

In the survey (btw - Round 1 will stay up until 11:45 pm on Dec. 3 2, 2009 - edit on 11/22 - we meant the 2nd) you'll see 10 groups of three songs each.  You'll rank the songs #1, #2 and #3 for each group.  There will be two "flight groupings" - rank the songs, we'll then mix them up in a second grouping and you do it again.  Additionally, you'll have a chance to select the song you think will be the ultimate overall #1 selection (for the Top 10 Podcast).

Anyone can rank songs but there's one more hitch to winning any prize money (in addition to needing a FullTilt account) - you'll need to listen to the Best of Show.  We'll only be announcing the winners there and setting the deadline for contacting us back telling us you heard your name on the show and requesting your winings (we'll give winners a few days to listen/contact us).  We'll be giving away 2 - $10 prizes for participating and a $20 prize from the pool of those who successfully picked the eventual winning song.

All songs can be found at GarageBand .  Here are the songs in their Round 1 Groupings. Song Name (Band Name).  Follow the links below to listen to the songs on GarageBand!

Flight #1
Group1 - Construct (Little Tin Box) , Killer Sea (Stealing Seconds), One From Two (Burgess Norgaard)
Group 2 - Flicker (Morrisson), New Day (Live Native), I'm OK (Uber Cool Kung Fu)
Group 3 - Ex Girlfriends (Suzanne), Even Though It's Wrong (Mushmouth), Don't You Need Me (Justin Bell and the Lazy Susan Band
Group 4 - Sink With Me (Dime Theory), Loser (Quarter Roy), Missing (Justin Bell & the Lazy Susan Band)
Group 5 - The Driving Seat (Leslie Rich), Wanna Say (Loft), Winning War (8 Switch)
Group 6 - Prelude (Kip Blackshire), Upside Spiral Down (One Great Day), Haircut (Gold Standard)
Group 7 - These Last Days (Thinland), For the Taking (Casey Petersen Band), Good Enough (8 Year Weight)
Group 8 - Machine (Uber Cool Kung Fu), Freeter (Professor Sketchy), All Right Psycho All Right (Toolan McDonald)
Group 9 - Eyeliner (Parachutes Fail), Still Standing (Morrison), I Wish - Thoughts of Home (Left Behind Acoustic)
Group 10 - Have a Little Hope (Burgess Norgaard), Can't Make you Love Me (1/2 Act), Life Like This (Crista McCrae)


Flight #2 - we've adjusted the match-ups for this round (rank them one more time):
Group1 - Have a Little Hope (Burgess Norgaard), One From Two (Burgess Norgaard), I Wish - Thoughts of Home (Left Behind Acoustic)
Group 2 - Machine (Uber Cool Kung Fu),  I'm OK (Uber Cool Kung Fu), Can't Make you Love Me (1/2 Act)
Group 3 - Construct (Little Tin Box) , Winning War (8 Switch), Haircut (Gold Standard)
Group 4 - All Right Psycho All Right (Toolan McDonald), Eyeliner (Parachutes Fail),  The Driving Seat (Leslie Rich)
Group 5 - Flicker (Morrisson), Still Standing (Morrison), These Last Days (Thinland)
Group 6 - Don't You Need Me (Justin Bell and the Lazy Susan Band, Missing (Justin Bell & the Lazy Susan Band), Freeter (Professor Sketchy)
Group 7 - Upside Spiral Down (One Great Day), Wanna Say (Loft), Life Like This (Crista McRae)
Group 8 - New Day (Live Native), Good Enough (8 Year Weight), Sink With Me (Dime Theory)
Group 9 - Even Though It's Wrong (Mushmouth), Loser (Quarter Roy), Prelude (Kip Blackshire), 
Group 10 - Killer Sea (Stealing Seconds), For the Taking (Casey Petersen Band), Ex Girlfriends (Suzanne)
.

Suck Out - A Horse with no Name Recognition - Set to Continue

Okay, it's been a little while, but we're about ready to get back to it.  We only promised that we wouldn't take as long as the Tom "durrr" Dwan Challenge and we're still on track to beat that.


As a refresher for our newer readers (as readership is up considerably since our last Suck out post two months ago).    Suck Out! is the CPL's own Docu-Series on staking. Part One can be found here (Forward/Intro), part two here (Staking), part three here (Backer's Perspective), the Horse's Perspective (part IV) here and the Match 1 results (part V) here. The results for Match 2 are here.  


So, why the delay??  Mostly just life stuff - the wife insisted on repainting the basement.  Sure, it's a nice Viking's purple now, but I'd rather not have had to do it.  Then there's all the winterizing activities you need to do here in Minnesota.  

I was still playing some poker, but mostly OH8 Limit cash games.  I even played an $11 tourney or two, but, I didn't have the right "vibe" for risking someone else's money on it - so those were on "my dime."  Probably a good thing as I didn't cash in any of them.  We're back now and well rested and match 3 will be covered in our next podcast  (not the one we finished last night but the one coming out around Thanksgiving).   


You've got a little time to catch back up on the series as were set to continue next week.


Karaoke Phil

Mark Wittig Scores First Victory During Week 9!

Mark Wittig showed the CPL what he was capable of during Week 9 by being the last member standing and taking down the top spot during Week 9!  A great week of poker for Wittig as he slowly gained chips throughout the evening...then with 4 players remaining kicked it into high gear!  In heads up play with Wittig was Mike "Unabomber" Bowman who continued his record breaking session by saving himself from a much earlier exit and fought back all the way to heads up play!  In third place was Kelli G, who played a great match and was poised to take first place herself...but the chips left her stack in a hurry.  Still a great finish for Kelli.  Fourth place goes to Malinda "Nemesis" Cardenas, who also had the potential to win the night with 4 players remaining but it seemed that the cards were against her.  In 5th place was Voni "Rookie" Khang.  The Rookie had a great middle round evening and lost her stack just as fast during the late rounds.  In 6th place was NewLife as he returned to the points for the first time since clinching the TOC seat.  Rounding out the CPL points is yours truly Verbal, who had high hopes earlier in the evening just to find his chips dwindle away during the middle rounds.

Thanks to Bill for hosting during Week 9!!

CPL Quote of the Week:

"We have a saying around here...no drinking small warm Coronas!"--Bill "Comeback Kid" Lanoux

CPL Leaderboard-Adjusted

Points Awarded During Week 9

ITunes Podcast correction and Monday Madness for 11/16

First off - there was some sort of glitch with the podcast on ITunes.  It worked everywhere else, but for some reason it cut out at the Phil Mackey interview on ITunes - it has now been corrected with the v3 (version 3) upload.  So, if ITunes is your preferred method of getting your podcast doses of CPL wisdom - that's the one you'll want.

As for tonight's Monday Madness game.  - it'll be NLHE at 8:30 pm central time.  And, the password will be: CPL

Breaking News - Minnesota "Poker Player of the Year" created for 2010

The new podcast is out (media player on the left) and we interviewed Phil Mackey, co-founder of both the Minnesota State Poker Tour and Minnesota Poker Magazine.

Phil was very forthcoming in our interview. One item in particular is of note. He "was going to save this for the December issue of Minnesota Poker Magazine," but decided to break the news with your own CPL Poker Podcast that they have created a Minnesota State Poker Player of the Year Competition.

The POY points begin on January 1, 2010. More than 500 poker tournaments have been identified across the state as POY eligible tournaments including the 6 bracelet events that make up the MN State Poker Tour. It is believed that this will be the first time there has ever been a statewide Player of the Year chase in Minnesota.

Says Mackey about the POY chase, "We owe it to players (in Minnesota). Let's find out who the best player is." He mentions such MN heavyweights as, 3 Putts, Brad Berman, and Jeremy Dresch as examples of potential winners.

Curse of the Final Table - or, how doing really well is sometimes all you ever wanted

Since we're on the topic of the WSOP Main Event, we thought we'd talk a little about an oddity we recently encountered. In looking to set up various interviews for the podcast (the player is to the left btw and we'll have Phil Mackey from the Minnesota Poker Tour on the next show) we came across what we are tentatively calling the "Curse of the Final Table". The curse has it that final tabling in the WSOP Main Event but not finishing in the top three may end your poker career.

We heard back from two "almost was's" in the form of Daniel Bergsdorf and Dan Nassif.

Bergsdorf finished 7th in 2005 (Joe Hachem's year) winning $1.3 million dollars in the process. We caught up with Daniel in his native country of Sweden to ask if he'd be interested in being on the podcast. Following his deep run in '05 we found out he had a few more small cashes over the next couple of years, but nothing big. In declining to be interviewed, he let us know that he speaks "terrible English". But the real reason is that he plays "almost no live poker nowadays". Huh?

In many ways, Dan Nassif was the first Dennis Phillips - A regular guy (in this case an advertising sales exec) from St. Louis, MO who had a great run. Dan busted out in 9th in 2006 (Jamie Gold's big run) to earn $1.5 million. How has Dan done since in live tournament play and the WSOP? About nothing. We caught up with Mr. Nassif who last played live poker at the 2007 WSOP (no cashes). Apparently he's "just been playing online and haven't done that very much either. I have been busy with other things." Other things??

What?? What is going on here? These guys are in their prime (Bergsdorf is now in his early 30s and Nassif his late 30s). They both clearly have talent and gotten so close to the golden fruit. And, they both garnered life changing winnings (and experience) that gave them ample bankrolls to play and prosper.

Yet, they both have quit - at least quit any semblance of "serious" play. Is it a fluke? A pattern? We're calling it a curse for now, but we'll provide an update one way or the other if we learn more about it. One thing is for sure - the CPL Directors are committed to turning "pro" should they ever score a $1+ million pay-day.

WSOP Main Event

Congratulations (we suppose) to Joe Cada for taking down the WSOP Main Event. We at the CPL believe it's his high water mark (even though he's now the youngest champ ever at 21) and that we'll not hear much more from him over the next 50 years.

However, it's a good time to revisit our series on the "Best Damn WSOP Main Event Players in the 2000s". This link here is our final "redux" entry but is has additional links to the other several posts on the topic.

Happy Anniversary Deadwood, SD

It was 20 years ago this month (that's November 1989 for the math challenged) that casino gambling was legalized in Deadwood, SD. For the geographically challenged, Deadwood is on the far Western border of South Dakota - you know, more or less, "nowhere". Come to think of it, maybe all of South Dakota is, more or less, "nowhere". Just a little humor there SD - we Minnesotans usually pick on Iowa, but I thought I'd give them a little break. Many consider the legalization as having "saved" the area - the industry now brings in about $1 billion a year.

We pass on "Happy Anniversary" congratulations to Deadwood's casinos. The CPL is quite fond of Deadwood and its numerous casinos. In fact, Karaoke played his first two live tournaments there during a trip in August 2006. He played at both Cadillac Jack's and the Silverado - almost cashing in one of them.

New Podcast and Monday Madness 11/09

The newest podcast is up - the 63rd episode of MN's only and longest running poker podcast - includes a review of the WSOP Final Table, and a casino review (Stratosphere in Las Vegas). And, look for an interview with MN Poker magazine's Phil Mackey (and MN Poker Tour founder and KFAN reporter) on the next podcast.

Tonight is also Monday Madness. It's a night for action junkies as we'll be playing PL HA - 8:30 pm Central start time (Private Tourney Tab on Full Tilt). The password is:

CPL

Unabomber Scores 3rd Win During CPL Week 8!

Week 8 of the CPL was not scary because it was a few days before Halloween, or because of all of the great costumes that were worn (see pics below), it was scary because Mike "Unabomber" Bowman won yet another CPL week! This is Unabomber's 3rd win in 8 weeks and makes him a shoe in to break the all time scoring record in the CPL! Unabomber played his normal game of aggression and reckless abandon that has paid off time and time again. The great mask helped too!

Nick "Heads Up" Kamholz again made it to heads up play (his 3rd such feat in 8 weeks) and again Nick found himself ahead in chips going into the heads up play...and again Heads Up saw those chips end up in the hands of his opponent. Always the bridesmaid...never the bride. Heads Up has however clinched a seat in the TOC with his week 8 performance.

James Aguilar finishes in 3rd...another solid performance from James.

Wicked1 finished in 4th...a fine, fine showing for Wanda who is starting to gain footing in this CPL Fall Session.

Mike Behr in 5th...after taking beats by both Unabomber and James...I expect Blind Me Down smashed some pumpkins when he got home.

Voni in 6th...happy to get points...unhappy to lose so many chips to Unabomber.

Bill in 7th...not sure what it is with Comeback Kid and the point bubble these days....

It was a great week and super fun with the costumes!

CPL Leaderboard-Adjusted

CPL Points awarded during Week 8

CPL Halloween Night!!

Your host and dealer for the evening...Dracula!!

Wicked1 and Heads Up deep in thought....

Kelli G (as an old time golfer) and Blind me Down (as a pumpkin)...great costumes!

Roman Mark Wittig relaxes with Newlife after getting knocked out early...

Unabomber giggles maniacally to Verbal...

FullTilt Makes the World Right Again

Karaoke attempted to play the FTOPS Warm Up event this past Sunday but could not get into the Full Tilt server until he had been blinded out of the tournament (in about 18500th position of the 43,000 that had signed up). Seating took about 15 minutes to complete (before the tourney actually started) with Karaoke attempting to log in about 5 minutes into the beginning of the seating time. For the next 90 or so minutes he repeatedly attempted to log in - only to go through cycles of "connected", "trying again", "connected", "trying again".

On Monday he fired off an email to Full Tilt support letting them know of the problems he had the day before. He was quite polite (no, really, polite - actually only requesting "at least a partial refund" of the 1100 FullTilt points he had used to sign up for the tourney).

Yesterday he received a response in which Full Tilt acknowledged "unexpected connection and lag issues for some players" on Nov. 1. Their review of his account showed "you were affected by the connection and lag issues." They then credited his account with 5.50 T$ (Tourney Dollars) - the full value equivalent of 1100 FTP (FullTilt Points). That's probably a wee bit nicer than giving back the actual FTPs.

FullTilt makes good on tech issues from their end and makes the world right again. The CPL thanks and congratulates Full Tilt Poker for doing the right thing.

IRV Victories Celebrated

The CPL is happy for a couple of Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) victories here in Minnesota yesterday.

Minneapolis implemented their first election under IRV and it went off quite well - no weeping seniors in the corners of elementary school gymnasiums because they just couldn't get it. We think the official results for the races where IRV needs to be used (those with a top candidate receiving fewer than 50% of votes will be done well before Thanksgiving. The Dec. 21 date that detractors kept throwing out is (and always was) a joke.

And, in the other "Twin" City - St. Paul voters favored a switch over to IRV with the ballot initiative passing 52% to 48% (Karaoke voted FOR the IRV switch). St. Paul voters should get their first taste of IRV in the 2011 elections (City Council).

It's likely that if IRV were in place in 2008 - Michelle Bachman would have lost.

New Podcast Released and Monday Madness PW!!

Click the player at the left for the newest podcast episode (#62).

And, the password for Monday's Full Tilt game is: CPL

Getting Jobbed at the Table? Follow this Saintly Advice!

**A "Stronger Squared Poker Analysis" entry**

You're playing that tournament and the hands you see are, at the best, off suit 3-gappers. Hand after hand after hand is 9/5, 7/3, J/4 and maybe a K/3 UTG. Then the UTG (a solid player) makes a min raise which is 2-bet from UTG+1 (who's the tightest rock of a player you've ever seen). It folds to you in the hijack position (2 to the right of the button) and you look down at K/Q suited. Your heart momentarily flutters. "Ahh, FINALLY a decent hand," you say to yourself. "I haven't had a good hand in days - I've got to play this." That's a big mistake. You should fold - yet again - and wait for a hand or good situation - yet again.


Today we live in an age of instant gratification. We can get instant credit, search the web for instant answers and much more. We have little patience for anything that takes time. The average attention span for an adult is about 20 minutes (can you say 30-minute sit com). That's bad if you're a poker player. What you should do is to try and follow the example of St. Monica - the patron Saint of Patience. Years (and I mean years) of prayer, coupled with a strong, well-disciplined internal character, finally led her to convince her husband and son (later to become St. Augustine) to become pious.


Recently, I have been reminded of the value of patience several times when it comes to poker. A couple weeks back I was watching a friend of mine play a 45 person SNG on FullTilt. These pay out the top six. He made the final table (9 players) as the short stack with 7 or 8 times the BB left. He folded. He folded again. He kept folding until he was down to 3 or 4 times the BB when he went all in and doubled up. He went back to folding - living up to his home league nickname "Blind Me Down". He got down to 5 BBs, moved all in and doubled up again. He got into the money. Some more folding took place before another double up (with about 7 BBs) and a card rush propelled him to full victory (and the hefty first place prize for this was no $2.25 tourney).


Later that week I was in the bar poker league I play in. We reached final table (8 players) and I had 4BBs left. I folded and folded and folded. I was able to double up (plus a little extra) once and steal blinds once but pretty much kept folding. I got a little lucky when the big stacks decided to start to take each other on with 5 people left. Next thing I knew (in literally 6 or 7 hands) I was heads up with the chip leader. I was in terrible shape with only about 10% of the chips (about 10K in chips to 110K) and finished in second after two hands of heads up play. But, even in free bar poker, 2nd tends to pay something - 7th or 8th doesn't. I didn't needlessly push or call and was rewarded, just as Blind Me Down got rewarded.


An additional two or three clear examples of the value of patience happened to me or others I was observing since then. It's happened often enough that it seemed like a good time to write about the importance of patience and to reiterate the gem that ancient Greek poet Hesiod wrote: "If you add a little to a little, and then do it again, soon that little shall be much." Or, in poker parlance - a few double ups puts you back into the game. You are never forced to call (or push). And, sometimes, even when the "math" is right or you've FINALLY gotten a hand after being "card-dead" since Air Supply was HOT, your knowledge of the game screams at you to exercise patience (i.e. - "I'm beat, fold and wait") or, at least it should (see the example I led off with at the top).


Saint Augustine learned well from his mother (St. Monica) and wrote that: "Patience is the companion of wisdom." I hope this post reminds you of that truth.
.

Karaoke Phil Wins CPL Week 7!

Karaoke Phil stands strong during a marathon 3 hr 30 min Week 7 and outlasted a field of 16 CPL members to take the top spot for the week! A crazy crazy week of poker which saw 3 quads during the night (including quad aces) and on the lower table no-ones hand was safe as runner-runner along with miracle flops were rampant. It was the first win for either of the CPL Directors and a much needed win for Karaoke. The first place points have vaulted him into 5th on the CPL leaderboard. Congrats Karaoke! Coming in 2nd place was James Aguilar! It was another fine performance by James which has moved him into 3rd on the leaderboard, and also makes him the third person to clinch a seat at the coveted TOC! Congrats James!

In 3rd place was Malinda "Nemesis" Cardenas. Malinda had a great night of poker and the blinds simply caught up with her to take her out in 3rd. In 4th place was Kenji "Don't Do It" Hang. Kenji was on life support for quite a while at the end of the match...but wouldn't give up his seat until there was only 4 left. In 5th place was Bill "Comeback Kid" Lanoux. Comeback went into complete Blind Me Down mode and found himself not only in the points but all the way to the 5th place spot after putting a big hurt on Jerry. Mark "Verbal" Cardenas was in 6th place. This is Verbal's fifth week in the points out of seven...but can Verbal win a week? In 7th place was Kelli G, who continues to be dangerous with a solid style of poker. In 8th was Mike "Blind Me Down" Behr. This is only the third week in the points for Blind Me Down, who was on a serious slide for the last four weeks. Blind Me Down needed these points with only 4 weeks left in this session.

CPL Quote of the Week:

"Sure, its the only exercise I get." --Comeback Kid, when asked if he would shuffle.

CPL Leaderboard-Adjusted

Points Awarded During Week 7

Monday Madness and Site Numbers (Norman Chad and Two Plus Two Forums)

It's a funny game, but we're playing it tonight at 8:30 pm Central - it's PL HA (Pot Limit Hold 'em and Omaha). Password is: CPL

On to our Sept to Oct site numbers - it's record time. In fact, records abound. Norman Chad gets the two points for the goal, but Two Plus Two poker forums gets the assist.

We did a story on Norman Chad cashing in this year's WSOP (one of the Stud8 tourneys). On ESPN's Main Event coverage on Sept. 22 it was mentioned several times, but with few details. That sent people searching the web for more info and to us and gave us (at the time) records for unique visitors. Then a Two Plus Two poker forum post by someone named abracadabrab on Oct. 14 linking to our story really drove them in. Ultimately, we broke a daily unique visitors record with 62 and a daily visits with 69. Overall, we saw our best month ever with 503 visits from 202 cities (both new records) from 24 countries (a high tie). ESPN coverage appears to be responsible for about 70 visits with Two Plus Two bringing in about 85 more. Here's the map:
Finally, this month saw a first - Minneapolis dropped from it's #1 visit location (a spot it's held since we really kept blog stats - Sept. 08). St. Paul is the new king, followed by Minneapolis and Hennepin County. Circle Pines, Minnesota comes in 4th with S. St. Paul (MN) and Fargo, North Dakota tied for 5th. For our international destinations: Sydney, Australia was in 9th, and London (UK) was tied for 11th.

Tourney Structure Op-Ed

We talked about (on the podcast) and posted about tweaking our blind levels and then Tournament Director Matt Savage opines about Deep Stack Tournaments and tourney structures in this op-ed piece from Poker News. Is he listening to our show? Take a look.

CPL Adopts New Blind Level Structure

As discussed on the latest CPL Poker Podcast....the new blind levels and blind lengths will be as follows starting during Week 7 of the CPL Fall Session.

After much internal discussion regarding the removal of the 150/300 blind level earlier this session...the CPL Directors have opted to add this important mid level back into the CPL. To balance the time added to the tournament by re-adding this blind level...the early blind levels have been reduced in time.

We hope everyone enjoys this newest structure!

The CPL Warm Up Rounds--

10/20--12 min

20/40--12 min

30/60--12 min

BREAK--Race off Red Chips

The CPL Get Busy Rounds--

50/100--16 min

100/200--16 min

150/300--16 min

BREAK--Race off Blue Chips

The CPL Elimination Rounds--

200/400--14 min

300/600--14 min

400/800--14 min

500/1000--14 min

BREAK--Race off Black, then White Chips

The CPL Plaque Rounds--

1000/2000--12 min

2000/4000--Remainder of match

Unabomber Wins Again During CPL Week 6!

Mike "Unabomber" Bowman won his second CPL 1st place title of this Fall Session during Week 6 when he bested a field of 14 members out in the lands of Plymouth. This win not only put Unabomber back on top of the CPL Leaderboard, but also secured Unabomber a seat at the coveted CPL Tournament of Champions in December. This is the earliest anyone has clinched a TOC seat! Congrats Mike!

It was a crazy night of early technical difficulties with the tournament clock...and a mishap with the chip counts gave everyone an extra 300 in chips about 30 min into the match! This is what happens when we let Greg count out the chips! In the end all was set right and the match continued! The rough start was definitely felt later in the match as 7 CPL Members remained as we entered the CPL Plaque Rounds!! Wow! But once the 1000/2000 blind level started up...the folks started falling....

Making a fine finish in 2nd place was James, who was incredibly steady throughout the whole match until heads up...where he was went into heads up even up with Unabomber and was quickly disposed of to give Unabomber the win. However another great finish by James!

Greg NewLife Durand finished 3rd. This finish also secures NewLife a seat at the TOC in December! Both NewLife and Unabomber share 4 wins out of the first 6 weeks of play. Quite the domination so far!

In fourth was Mark Wittig who made his CPL debut in fine, fine fashion...staying the course and playing a conservative style of poker which did well for him until the blinds caught up with him. Welcome to the CPL Mark!

Congrats to Verbal, Comeback Kid, and Karaoke Phil for also making it into the CPL points for the week!

CPL Quote of the week:

"3 white chips, 5 black, 10 blue, and 20 Red...3000!"

--Greg "NewLife" Durand making the case to the CPL Director that his chip count was accurate. (he is actually 300 short...missing 3 black chips)

CPL Leaderboard--ADJUSTED

(This is the first week of the adjusted leaderboard...everyones worst 3 scores are removed from the total)

CPL Points Awarded During Week 6

FullTilt Updates Interesting

FullTilt's latest software update has some notable additions.

Most interesting to the CPL Director's is the institution of 7-Game Mixed tournaments (MTT and SNG). Karaoke has already partaken in a couple of these - taking down a $10 SNG and getting sucked out on in a $24 MTT (finishing 44 of 197). The games include the standard HORSE games - though the order is different - with NL HE and PL OH added in to the mix.

Secondly, there is a new Cashout Tournament option - half of the entry fee goes to a standard payout structure with the other half going to the "cashout" pool. At any time a player may cashout 10% to 100% of their stack. So, for example, if you entered a $10 tourney - $5 of that would go to the prize pool and the other $5 to the cashout. If you cashed out after the first hand (say you weren't in the blinds and didn't bet - so you have your full stack) you would get $5 back (your cash out half). Karaoke tried one of these and it seems cashouts came in two varieties: a) those who were severely shortstacked and preferred to get something back and quit rather than try to fight on and b) those who had significantly increased their stacks then cashed out their buy-in and "freerolled" for the rest of the tourney. An interesting twist that will require further analysis.

Lastly: You've seen it on High Stakes Poker and PAD, now you two may "run it twice". That's the scenario where you get all the money in before the river and both remaining players agree to run the board twice. It's usually done with hands that are coin flips and tends to produce a chopped pot - basically a little insurance-type thing. It's fairly limited in scope right now as it's being tested but should be in wider circulation soon.

Andy Bloch Interview Part II and Charity Events

The second part of our interview with Andy Bloch will air on our next podcast - due out the evening of 10/16. Take a listen (player located at the left) - part I is currently up and ready for your listening enjoyment.

Also, Andy has been working with a couple of charities and we'd like to pass on that info. He just finished playing in the Habitat for Humanity Poker Tournament in El Dorado County, CA - you can learn more about that and donate here.

MSCharitypoker.org is hosting another tourney (with Andy Bloch) in November. This one will be in Westchester, NY on Saturday, November 7th at T&J Villaggio Trattoria. Good Luck to all the players moving "all in to find a cure."

Breaking News - Minnesota State Poker Tour Announced

The Minnesota State Poker Tour has been created by Bryan Mileski and Phil Mackey and will feature a series of 6 $1100 buy-in diamond bracelet tournaments. The idea is to provide more affordable prestige tournaments (hence the bracelets) while still having large fields and big payouts.

The structures are also very deep stack. The main event tournaments will see players starting with 15,000 in chips and blind levels that are 50 minutes long.

While the "Tour" doesn't fully begin until February 2010, with an event scheduled for Grand Casino Mille Lacs in Onamia, a "launch" event is planned for December at Canterbury Park. Other locations being slated for the tour include Running Aces, Northern Lights (Walker), Jackpot Junction (Morton) and Grand Casino Hinckley.

Of the two founders, you may recognize Phil Mackey - a radio personality from KFAN (though we're not sure he's actually still on - their poker radio show seems to have died last year in November after 18 episodes and the baseball season has ended for the Twins).

This tour could end up being a great end-of-season prize for home leagues throughout the state with Satellites for each main event priced at $250.

Podcast w/Andy Bloch and CPL Monday Madness!

Episode #60 of the CPL Podcast is in the can and will be up shortly - it includes Part I of the interview with Andy Bloch and a review of Black Bear Casino and Resort in Carlton, MN.

And, we have the next 5 weeks of Monday Madness! all set up. Tomorrow's game will be HOE with an 8:30 pm Central start time - password: CPL.

NewLife Durand Wins Again During CPL Week 5!

Greg NewLife Durand Wins CPL Week 5 during Wine Night with an incredible come from behind heads up victory over Wanda "Wicked1" Bublitz!

In his second victory in the past 3 weeks, which has launched him to the top of the unadjusted CPL Leaderboard, NewLife went heads up against Wicked1 severely outchipped something like 5-1...but after a few quick hands all in and NewLife was back in the thick of it vs Wicked1....and soon after accumulating some chips....took the lead heads up and made quick work of Wicked1 to score his second victory of this Fall Session.

Wicked1 had an incredible night of poker all the way up to the heads up portion....catching straights and flushes at the right time and mowing down one player after another while amassing an incredible chip stack along the way!

Gerry Willy finally made it into the CPL points finding his way to 3rd place. Verbal had the rug pulled out from under him as Wicked1 went runner runner to take him out in 4th place. Nick "Heads Up" Kamholz went out in 5th (his 4th finish in the CPL points out of 5 weeks)...and Mike "Unabomber"Bowman rounded out the CPL points finishing in 6th.

CPL Quote of the Week:

"You know you're in trouble when you have more Missouri Chips than actual chips" --Nick "Heads Up" Kamholz

CPL Leaderboard (Unadjusted)

CPL Points Awarded During Week 5

The Monster wins CPL Week 4!

Bud "The Monster" Abbott takes down CPL Week 4 with an amazing come from behind heads up match in a week where chips were flying from person to person all night long!

Nick Kamholz took 2nd place after having a massive chip lead going into heads up play against Monster, but squandered away chips again and after losing his chip advantage....it ended quickly. This is the 2nd time in 4 weeks that Nick has been heads up with a significant chip lead....both times ending in defeat.

This is why the CPL is announcing that Nick Kamholz will forever be known to the CPL as

Nick "Heads Up" Kamholz.

Kelli G. took 3rd after getting punished early by Verbal...but she never said die...and after battling back...took the 3rd spot.

Greg "NewLife" Durand ended the night in 4th patiently taking shots at pots and slowly building his stack...but it was not his night and he ended in a respectable 4th. His 3rd week in the CPL points out of 4 weeks played.

Sarah Heath (her chips at least) ended the night in the 5th spot as she built a stack early...but after Sarah had to quickly leave the match (she didn't feel well) her stack survived player after player and won 2 All In's....bringing her to the 5th spot.

Rounding out the CPL points was Verbal in sixth place and Kenji finishing in 7th.

After Kenji's pleadings with the dealer to protect him during an all in....the CPL has decided to offer him the following moniker. Kenji will be forever known to the CPL as:

Kenji "Don't Do It" Vang.

CPL Leaderboard (Unadjusted)

CPL Points Awarded During Week 4.

BREAKING NEWS - Pitbull Poker Update

CPL Poker Blog and Podcast has confirmed that Pitbull's Casino operations have now been suspended. This is in addition to the poker section that was disabled last week. The web site is still "up" so to speak, but no games of any sort (even play money) are being offered. Additionally, most of the affiliate sites are either now defunct (Novi Poker, Allin Poker, OnlinePoker66, 5dimes, etc.) are either shut down entirely or have migrated to other poker clients.

BREAKING NEWS - Pitbull Poker loses its bark?

It is being reported that struggling online poker/gaming site Pitbull Poker has not only shut down but that its Directors have been arrested in Costa Rica.

We have logged into Pitbull to check out the scene. Everything appears to be up and running until you get into the site a little. As you try to get into the Poker Room you find that no tables will load and one's account information (available money, player points, etc.) also does not load.
Apparently PokerScout is also showing that there have been "0" players in the last 24 hours.

On the other hand - the "Casino" portion of the site still appears to be fully functional - so you can keep playing blackjack and casino war if you want. Karaoke, though, is thinking he won't ever see the $40 he has there, but since that was an increase from the free $10 he was given when he signed up it's not a loss of any kind. Pitbull did, however, have a very cool logo and tag line:

Pitbull Poker - Sit Stay Play

NewLife Durand Takes CPL Week 3!

Greg NewLife Durand is the winner of the Week 3 of this Fall Session of the CPL! Greg had a pretty mild night until he started to get some chips during the middle rounds...then he turned on the NewLife jets and used those new found chips aggressively to build and build his stack!

In the end NewLife was heads up against Unabomber with a very significant chip lead...and it was all over in a few heads up hands. A great win for NewLife!

Congrats to Unabomber for another fabulous finish in the CPL! This weeks 2nd place finish keeps Unabomber on top of the CPL Leaderboard!

Kenji finishes in 3rd place after surviving several "all in" moves! Nice job during week 3 for Kenji! Wanda Wicked1 ends the night in 4th! Wanda also survived a few all in moments and moved her way nicely into the fourth place!

Nemesis, James, and Nick rounded out the CPL points. Congrats to the CPL point winners!

CPL Quote of the Week:

"You would fold this hand even if those were 3 Aces!"

--Verbal to Blind Me Down as Blind Me Down was on the point bubble with Nick all in before him.

CPL Leaderboard (Unadjusted)

CPL Points Awarded During Week 3