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!!

.

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