If you have an enduring home poker league you're going to inevitably hear about other area leagues. Or, sometimes, as was the case with the CPL, you'll have some members who strike out on their own to form a league on a different day or with their own structure. These other leagues offer a great opportunity to add an element of fun and excitement to your own home game via the InterLeague Challenge. This is the live version of the online forum challenges that you sometimes see. For your home game it offers a common "opponent" to go after as you determine which league has the better players. Be sure to set the structure and ground rules for such a match well in advance of game day. Extra fun comes into play if your league's are able to communicate in some way to talk smack before you play.
Here are some examples of the whole idea (including some smack talk) from our own CPL challenge that will be conducted with the West Side Poker League this Saturday. As background, several former CPLers, including the highly successful
"Ninja" Milne and
JP "The Executioner" left to create or join their
WSPL. The idea was put forth to see if the students (that's the WSPL) were now better than the masters (that's us) and a challenge was issued.
We've created a two match challenge - No Limit Hold 'em (played each week by the CPL) and HORSE (played often by the WSPL - though they also play NLHE). Each match has a total value of 100 pts with position finish accounting for number of pts given to a player/league. The league with the most pts will be crowned the winner. And, since it's poker after all - we kept elements that cater to the individual as well as a "team" component. For fans of either the CPL or West Side - here are the team lineups:
HORSE TEAMS
CPL-----------------------------vs.---------------WSPL
Mark "Verbal" Cardenas----------------------Gene Milne
"Karaoke" Phil Fuehrer ----------------------Brad Smith
Mike "Blind Me Down" Behr ------------------Jodi Milne
Pam "Black Widow" Muldoon----------------Brandon Altman
HOLD EM TEAMS
CPL-----------------------------vs.-----------------WSPL
Greg "NewLife" Durand -------------------------Amy Altman
Bill "Comeback Kid" Lanoux --------------------John "JP" Pouliot
Steve "The Chaser" Bennewitz-------------------Larry Delmatio
Mike "Unabomber" Bowman--------------------Victor Bettendorf
Voni "The Rookie" Khang
------------------------Jill Schmidt
Then there's all the pre-match hype that goes into these sorts of championship events (sorta like a UFC vs. Pride event). We've used the end of the last several podcasts to advocate for the CPL, but some emails have been flying around as well - such as:
From Gene: All I want to say is when we kick some CPL butt , "Your going to have to tuck that tail pretty far up the back side" :)
From JP: Is Phil actually playing? I thought he retired, and is now committed to
blowing smoke up the CPL skirts full time on their podcast!
and,
From BMD Behr: I'm actually surprised we're still going through with this game next weekend. I expected the West side guys to have come up with some excuse for not being able to play so as to not be completely humiliated on there own home turf.
So, there you have it. Add some inter league competition to your home poker league to spice up the action, add some camaraderie and create something a little special.
If you’re going to run a home poker league over a course of time – someone will be interested in knowing who holds various records. You should, then, find some way to keep track of these records if for no other reason than to trot out the fact that you win 85% of the time when you’ve won the first hand of the week (or whatever esoteric stat works for you). Look for a future post to discuss league management software and website – some of which allow for such stat keeping. For now, however, here are some records and all-time leaders from the CPL (which we use an Exel spreadsheet to keep track of). The CPL has finished up two complete seasons (6 sessions total – Spring, Summer and Fall sessions make up a season with each session consisting of, usually, 11 weeks), which, in total make up 77 matches that have been played. And, while there have been tweaks from time to time this is still largely comparing apples to apples (since we’re in charge we’re saying it is exactly like comparing apples to apples). So, here’s a look back at the first two CPL seasons and the CPL record books. Most Points in a Session
Karaoke Phil – 128.8 (Summer, Season I) JP “The Eliminator” – 120.8 (Spring, Season II) Mike “Blind Me Down” – 113.8 (Fall, Season I) Most Regular Sessions (11-weeks) WonKaraoke Phil – Summer, Season I and the recently concluded Fall, Season II (95.4 pts) Mark “Verbal” Cardenas, Blind Me Down Behr, Jeff “Matusow” Matson, and JP “The Elimator” have each won one session. Most “Career” PointsKaraoke Phil – 506.9 Mark “Verbal” Cardenas – 476.5 Malinda “Nemesis” Cardenas – 422.85 Mike “Blind Me Down” Behr – 401.9 Bill “Comeback Kid” Lanoux – 366.2 The following records are based on a minimum of 16 matches played within the CPL: Most Matches PlayedMark “Verbal” Cardenas – 74 Karaoke Phil - 72 Malinda “Nemesis” Cardenas - 70 Career Wins
Karaoke Phil - 11 Mark “Verbal” Cardenas and Malinda “Nemesis” Cardenas tied with – 9 4 players tied at 5 wins each Times in the Points (top half finishes)Mark “Verbal” – 43 Malinda “Nemesis” – 39 Karaoke Phil – 36 Percentage of Time WinningKaraoke Phil – 15.28% (11 of 72 matches) Malinda “Nemesis” 12.86% (9 wins in 70 matches) Mark “Verbal” – 12.16% (9 of 74) Vince “Cursed One” Castellanos – 11.76% (2 of 17 matches) Jeff “Matusow” Matson – 11.63% (5 of 43) NOTE: In seeking to confirm whether a Mike “BMD” win is either a “rare” or “100-year” event we have ascertained that prior to his Season III, Week I win Mike had pulled off the feat 3 other times in 49 matches. That 6.12% winning percentage puts him in 13th place of 14 qualifying CPL players (minimum of 16 matches). However, take a look at who leads the next CPL record. Percentage of the Time in PointsMike “Blind Me Down” – 65.31% (32 times in 49 matches) Jeff “Urkelnator” Kuhlman – 61.54 % (24 of 39) Mark “Verbal” – 58.11% (43 of 74) Malinda “Nemesis” – 55.71% (39 of 70) Steve “The Chaser” Bennewitz – 54.76% (23 of 42) Honorable Mention goes to JP “The Eliminator”, Gene “Ninja” Milne, "Whatever happened to" Damon and Jill “JJ Gold” who, variously, have the percentages to qualify as top record holders in some of the these categories but who have failed to play the required 16 CPL matches to qualify.
Month 2's Google Analytics results are in and we're looking pretty good. Our attempts to broaden out the blog to include Home Poker League Resources, Poker News and things like the Hand of the Week look to be paying off. As we did last month - here's the map of our site's visits:  Still heavily Midwest, but we're up 13.5% on hits from various cities (59 cities last month to 67 this month), and up 15.6 % on visits (377 to 436). We also saw hits coming from 14 different countries (up from 11). This last point is of some interest. Cities with the most visits were largely the same: Minneapolis and St. Paul led the way again. Circle Pines and Hennepin County moved up a spot with Burnsville replacing Hopkins in the top 5. The item of interest is that Sydney, Australia came in 6th - we're branching out - and, a g'day to all you down under. On the keyword end of things, our coverage of the area's two biggest card rooms (Canterbury Park and Running Aces) led the way with 19 visits from searches. Add in our various news visits (most often about one of the two card rooms) and you have another 7 visits. Our Home Poker League Resources saw 10 visitors checking us out (with the new "Missouri Chip" getting 6 of them). This month's stats saw us hit our high water mark for unique visitors in day at 17 - on October 29. We're pretty consistently between 10 and 15 each day. On the browser end of things - over the two full month's of stats - IE leads with 65.56% of visitor browsers, Firefox is at 19.075, 12.30% use Apple's Safari system and Google's new Chrome browser is the choice of 2.71%. Finally, it pays to give players monikers mimicking pros. We had 7 visits from people looking for either our own league players, people with similar names to our players and those actually looking for Mike Matusow and Phil "Unibomber" Lakk, but finding our versions of them. Drop us a line if you'd like to see us add features or items - we love hearing from you.
There are a few reasons to form and play a home poker league: camaraderie, something fun to do, or win some coin are just a few. Aside from these aspects one founding idea for our league was to improve our games. If our game was so great our bankroll would be too – it isn’t yet and that’s the thing - hence, the CPl player improvement goal (and hopefully future bankrolls). That leads us to today’s Home Poker League Tip. We’ve recently implemented what we’ve termed the “Missouri Chip” - as you may have heard in some past podcasts. As we all know (okay, maybe not more than 10% of the population outside of Missouri) is that the Missouri state motto is “The Show Me State”. What does that have to do with poker, you ask? The Missouri Chip gives you an opportunity, once per match, to force an opponent to show his/her cards. For leagues that have player improvement as a goal this is an innovative way to add an educational element to the game. No, not teaching all your members trivia about all 50 state mottos, but allowing a player to see just why they are folding. Did they get the pants bluffed off of them? Did they make the lay down of the century? Does Tina really go all in during the first level any time she’s dealt 8/3 off suit on the button and she’s first in? The Missouri Chip gives players a chance to learn a little something about playing styles and difficult situations. For our league, it’s one chip per person per match. You may only use your chip immediately prior to (or with) your fold. If more than one other opponent is still in the hand (say a bet from Tom and a raise from Jane) and you fold you must designate which player’s cards to see (for example, “I’m going to use my Missouri Chip on Jane and fold.”). Finally, if a player doesn’t use their chip and gets knocked out the unused Missouri Chip goes to the player winning the hand. Obviously, we have a few more minor rules regarding the chip but this gives you a starting idea for your home poker league. Use the Missouri Chip in your league to add an extra element of learning for your players and improve everyone’s game. Note: Listen to the 10/13/08 podcast to hear a discussion of the Missouri Chip
Okay, the first month of Google Analytics is in and here are some highlights (this is basically site traffic for those who aren't familiar with "Analytics"). We had 377 visits from 107 unique visitors. This came from 11 countries and 59 cities. Here's the map of the locations our visits came from to us:  As you can see we're pretty heavy on Minnesota, but we're trying to expand and grow. Prelimary numbers from month two seem to bear this out. Our top 5 cities visiting us are Minneapolis, St. Paul, Hopkins, Circle Pines and Hennepin County (all here in the Twin Cities). As for keyword searches the two card rooms we talk about the most (Canterbury Park and Running Aces) lead the way. Searches for Canterbury Park (including their Fall Poker Classic) yielded us 10 visits. Running Aces variants brought in 8. Our Home Poker League resources (which we added well into the month) accounted for 7 visits, with folks looking for various poker definitions brought in 4 more. Finally, the now resurrected Hand of the Week had 2 web searched hits. Ahh, fun with numbers.
Hello Everyone! The CPL Tournament of Champions (TOC) is this Saturday at 1pm at CPL Headquarters in Blaine! Remember the buy in for the TOC is $25.00! Members are welcome to stop out as early as Noon to get settled in. Drawing for seats begins at 12:50pm and the cards start flying at 1pm.....Also the TOC is a potluck....so bring something to share!! Below are the final point totals for the 2008 Winter Session, the starting chip stacks for the TOC and the blind structure for the TOC! Good luck to everyone on Saturday! | | Total Points | Starting TOC Chip Stack | | JP | 120.80 | 6840 | | Shane | 114.10 | 6570 | | Jill | 92.20 | 5690 | | Bill | 91.20 | 5650 | | Wally | 89.30 | 5580 | | Damon | 85.30 | 5420 | | Gene | 73.70 | 4950 | | Mike | 72.80 | 4920 | | Jeff K | 71.30 | 4860 | | Tim | 70.10 | 4810 | | Mark | 69.30 | 4780 | | Steve | 64.10 | 4570 | | Pam | 58.00 | 4320 | | Jodi | 53.20 | 4130 | | Wanda | 49.40 | 3980 | | Brad | 39.00 | 3560 |
| Malinda | 32.10 | 0 | | Greg | 30.80 | 0 | | Phil | 30.30 | 0 | | Jeff M | 10.40 | 0 |
TOC Structure:| Level 1 | 10-20 | 25 min | | Level 2 | 20-40 | 25 min | | Break | | 10 min (Race off Red Chips) | | Level 3 | 50-100 | 25 min | | Level 4 | 100-200 | 25 min | | Break | | 10 min | | Level 5 | 150-300 | 25 min | | Level 6 | 200-400 | 25 min | | Break | | 10 min | | Level 7 | 250-500 | 25 min | | Level 8 | 300-600 | 25 min | | Break | | 10 min (Race off All Blue Chips) | | Level 9 | 400-800 | 25 min | | Level 10 | 500-1000 | 25 min | | Break | | 10 min (Race off Black Chips then Race off White Chips) | | Level 11 | 1000-2000 | 25 min | | Level 12 | 2000-4000 | 25 min | | Break | | 10 min | | Level 13 | 3000-6000 | 25 min | | Level 14 | 5000-10000 | Till Tournament completed |
-- CPL Director Mark Cardenas and CPL Co-Director Phil Fuehrer Find the Podcast on ITunes: CPLDirectors Podcast
Hello Everyone! Below are the CPL 2008 Chip Denominations that we will be using this year. RED CHIP=10 BLUE CHIP=50 BLACK CHIP=100 GREEN CHIP=200 (New) WHITE CHIP=500 GREEN PLAQUE=1000 ORANGE PLAQUE=2000 YELLOW PLAQUE=5000
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