Jackpot Jay's article about Fossilman

[M2d]

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=lovinger/040920

nice fluff piece, but, since it's about a nice guy whom I respect and all, I'll let it pass.

as the husband of an eye doc., though, he didn't ask the question I wanted to see: are those holographic glasses uv protected? Well, Greg, are they?

[M2d]

online, it's for subscribers only, so I'll copy and paste:

The River Queen

A Maxim staffer with major balls crashes the World Series of Poker and comes home a winner.

Maxim, October 2004

By Erin Ness

As told to Joseph Bellotti

Damn, my hands are shaking?Gotta calm down?I need to read this situation right?He?s bluffing?Is he bluffing??What?s this guy?s name anyway??If he has an ace in the hole, I?m dead?If I lose, I?ll still have some money left?But I?m on a major streak?Stop thinking about cigarettes?My cards are pretty strong? He?s got a low chip count?He?s trying to buy the pot?Can I beat him??Damn, it?ll cost me $40,000 to find out?

It?s sometime during the middle of day two of the World Series of Poker at Binion?s Horseshoe, one of the classic Old Strip casinos in Las Vegas, and I?ve got a pocket queen-jack off-suit and $75,000 to protect.

?Check,? says the first guy.

?Ten thousand,? says the second, tossing in 20 pink-and-black $500 chips.

?Call,? says the next player. The pot is now larger than my annual salary.

The fourth guy?s been quiet all day. No smack talk, no big bets. He?s older than the rest of us, maybe 60, and his sunburned face and beady blue eyes are telling me nothing as I stare across at him through my $5 sunglasses. Then he wraps his hands slowly around his stack like a killer going for the throat. ?All in,? he says, pushing his chips forward.

?Call,? I say confidently, pushing my stack forward and into the huge pot.

Then he flips over his cards: a pair of aces.

Oh, my God, I can?t breathe.

Lady luck
This story started in May. I was at my desk in the photo department when an interoffice e-mail popped up with the subject headline ?Chance of a lifetime!? The message invited all employees to play in the company poker tournament, with the winner getting an all-expenses-paid trip—including the $10,000 buy-in—to the 2004 World Series of Poker in Las Vegas. Apparently, the guys at Maxim play cards a lot, but as soon as I read that e-mail I knew it?d be me going to Sin City to represent.

See, I?m a poker fanatic. When I?m not playing it with friends or online, I?m watching it on television. For Valentine?s Day, my boyfriend even bought me Doyle Brunson?s Super System, known as the bible to poker aficionados. So while I am decidedly no professional, I am certainly a student of the game.

Sure enough, after three long nights, I beat the Maxim boys—a feat made easier by the fact that they drank a lot of beer. Me? I played it straight and stuck with water.

Ante up
Four days after busting out the guys, I?m walking out of Harrah?s enormous Vice Presidential Suite and into the tournament room at Binion?s. The place is buzzing with excitement—players, dealers, cameramen, spectators. The tournament clock in the corner ticks away the minutes until game time. Then comes the announcement: ?Welcome to the World Series of Poker. Shuffle up and deal!? Everyone claps, and we all quickly get down to business.

Sitting behind me is James Woods; behind him is last year?s champ, Chris Moneymaker. At my table alone sit two titans of the poker world: Chris ?the Armenian Express? Grigorian and renowned women?s player Cycalona ?Clonie? Gowen. Neither of them acknowledges the 25-year-old girl wearing a MAXIM T-shirt as the first hand is dealt.

I get a king and an 8 in the pocket—a decent hand. The flop comes up ace, 8, 10. ?All right,? I tell myself. ?I have a lowly pair at the World Series of Poker!? But I fold, an act that immediately helps calm my nerves.

I finally win the 10th hand with an ace-high flush. Four to the flush on the flop, I bet big and rake in $8,000 when ?the river? delivers my fifth heart. Now I can go home happy, having won at least once. But, of course, that?s not what happens. What happens is I beat out 2,576 people, make a name for myself, and take a run at the $5 million grand prize.

Raising the stakes
All the ?Dead Money? (a.k.a. amateurs) is eliminated on day one—all of them, that is, except me. But I?m earning respect, and pros like the Armenian Express and Phil Gordon impart their wisdom: ?A pro plays the players, not the cards.? ?Don?t go all in against a guy with a low chip count; he has nothing to lose and might get lucky.? ?There?s never any shame in folding a good hand.?

By midday, having already played more than 700 hands of Texas Hold ?Em in the past 24 hours, I?m hopped up like a junkie. Several big wins—including two $20,000 pots won on the mighty river?have given me an incredible high. And my favorite dealer keeps giving me the goods.

That?s when ol? beady eyes decides to come in over the top with a $30,000 raise.

After catching my breath, I mull over my pocket queen-jack off-suit and mentally prepare for elimination. The flop comes out: two nothing cards and a jack. Big deal, a pair?I need another jack or queen to float a full boat.

The next card, ?Fourth Street,? is no help to either of us. I?m dead?

Then comes the river?a queen!

I scream and drop my head to the table. What the hell just happened? How much did I just win? I?m quick to rise to my feet and shake my opponent?s hand before he walks away in disgust. Next thing I know an ESPN camera is in my face, with the interviewer asking, ?How do you feel about being called ?the River Queen???

Cashing out
At one point I was up $160,000, but now, deep into day three, I?m down to only $15,000, and the competition for breaking the top 225—the official winner?s bracket—is fierce. I?m folding 90 percent of my hands and becoming increasingly paranoid about making the cut. I?m playing tight and sweating every second. But then, finally, the announcement is made and it?s official: ?Congratulations, you?re all in the money!? Everyone claps and cheers. For a few minutes there?s a cease-fire as players congratulate each other before getting back to business.

Now it?s just a matter of time. The cardinal rule in Las Vegas, of course, is that your luck only holds out for so long. And, sure enough, I go all in with a king-queen off-suit and get burned by some guy?s ?big slick,? an ace-king. I watch as the hand is played out, and as I get up to leave the table, I hear over the PA: ?Erin Ness, first tournament ever, was just eliminated.?

The room breaks out into a standing ovation, and I hear shouts for the River Queen. But all I can think about is how angry I am for playing that hand. It takes an hour to get out of the brainwashed poker world and back to reality, where I realize how well I?ve done. I?m a winner in the World Series of Poker! I placed 207th, in the top eight percent, and am the second to last woman to get eliminated.

I take my chips down to the cage in the basement and exchange them for $10,000 in cash, bid farewell to my Vice Presidential High-Rollers Suite, have a shot of tequila at the bar, and stroll out the casino door and into the real world.

Now everything is back to normal—I?m nobody again. But for a brief time I was a celebrity among the big shots, winning thousands of dollars in the blink of an eye, losing it all, and making my name as the River Queen.

[M2d]

With these No Limit Texas Hold ?Em tips, you?ll be flippin? off your boss (and banging his wife) by Turkey Day.

1. Never Bet on the Strength of Your Hand
Bet against the best possible hand on the board. Who cares if you?ve got a full house if someone has a hand that could send you back to your filthy motel?

2. Fold Often in the Early Rounds
Only play very strong starting hands—the pros fold about 80 percent. And to win big later in the game, you?ll need the reputation of being a tight player.

3. Pocket Jacks are for Suckers after the Flop
Folding with two faces is tough, but unless you?ve got a third after the flop, there are more than 200,000 hands that will beat ?em. Don?t question us.

4. Get Caught Bluffing
Losing a relatively small pot with a bad bluff may well turn out to be the best bluff of all. And—whatever you do—never voluntarily show your bluff hand.

5. Avoid the Tilt
We?ve all been there. You start losing, then bet irrationally to get back in the game. Stand up, walk around, smoke pot, tickle a hooker—whatever it takes. Just stop playing!

[M2d]

Greg Raymer, the 2004 WSOP champion, was a working stiff. Now he wipes with C-notes.

Q: You won $5 million at the 2004 WSOP. But you?re also a lawyer and will continue working, right?
A: No way. I quit my job the next day.

Q: We heard your wife had you on a pretty short poker leash for a while. Is she happy now?
A: She certainly isn?t giving me grief about playing anymore. Eight years ago I promised her I?d take a $1,000 bankroll, and if I lost it I?d quit forever. To build up that bankroll, I started buying inexpensive fossils and selling them at tournaments as card protectors. That?s why some people call me Fossilman.

Q: You entered the same online satellite tournament that Chris Moneymaker entered last year. What?s the biggest mistake amateur poker players make?
A: Without a doubt amateurs play too many starting hands. On the first turn of betting, you need to be folding something like 85 percent of the time. Some of the most skillful players I know are still losers because they play too many starting games.

Q: What was your greatest moment of the tourney?
A: Beating ?the Mouth.? Mike ?the Mouth? Matusow—this really loud, trash-talking, unpublishable-expletive kind of player—was really getting under my skin. I had something like $250,000 left in chips when I went all in, and he went into this whole drama—going on and on about how he was sure he had the best hand and please, God, let me be right. It was hilarious! At one point he put his hands together like he was in prayer, looking up at the sky, and he was like, ?Please, God, let the good guy win just once!? And I thought, Is there anyone in Las Vegas besides Mike who thinks he?s the good guy? And even more amusing, he finally called my bet, and when I turned my cards over, he started jumping and shouting, ?I knew it! I knew it!? Then he pulled a pair, and I pulled a flush. That was a great moment, because I just don?t like that guy.

Q: That?s one big stack of cash you won. What are you going to do with it?
A: Well, because of that deal with my wife, a few years back I went out and solicited some friends to invest in my bankroll. One guy bought 10 shares for $5,000, and I just sent him a check for $360,000. So on the $5 million, I get $1.7 million after taxes. If I were a British citizen with no backers, I could take the whole $5 million home and pay no taxes because of a tax treaty between the U.S. and Britain. But now I have to keep playing.

Q: Will you be watching yourself on ESPN this month?
A: Oh, yeah! I want to see if I got bluffed and see if I made good decisions. And I wanna see myself win!

[Sundevils21]

[ QUOTE ]
day two of the World Series of Poker at Binion?s Horseshoe, one of the classic Old Strip casinos in Las Vegas, and I?ve got a pocket queen-jack off-suit and $75,000 to protect.

?Check,? says the first guy.

?Ten thousand,? says the second, tossing in 20 pink-and-black $500 chips.

?Call,? says the next player. <font color="blue"> The pot is now larger than my annual salary.
</font>

[/ QUOTE ]

lol

[fnurt]

This sort of article is phenomenal for poker. I don't want to hear one bad word about it!!

[M2d]

I bet up my home game, so I can money in the WSOP. it is great for poker.