Benga of the Week

Alright, it's time for the weekly benga. It's about the best or worst beat that I saw all week long. Played the cash game and a 7 handed last Thursday, lost tons of money playing the 20-40 table and landed 3rd, which unfortunately was the bubble place. I got pocket queens twice, lost twice, pocket kings twice, lost once. Skipped the BBC500 coz I had to report to my parole officer hehehe.

Then the poker itch got into me, and the itch to gamble.

Played gin rummy against my old man, first for fun, then it got serious. It started out with a 50 peso bet, then turned inot a 100, then to a high of 150. Lost 200 bucks to him, which he gladly took. Then he took us, his three boys out for dinner. What a gracious gentleman.

Called up fish, borrowed his chip set, went home then challenge my family to a 5 handed SNG. My liltle sister, who was supposed to sleep over her friends house, learned that we we're going to play, she immediately ask us to pick her up so she could join us. A 7th grader passing up on a slumber party to play poker against her older brothers, hehehe what a sight. We played two games, the first of which was a 200 buy in, with a 70-30% split between the winner and the 2nd placer, then we went to play a 100 winner take all tourney.

Here's the benga hand:

First game, final three. Me, short stack, Martin, my youngest brother, who eventually won, was chip leader coz he took out my dad and my sister at the same time. Justin, my protege, average stack.

I went all in with JT, Justin Called with pocket duece. Flop was:

QUEEN NINE KING! I flopped the straight!!!!!!!!!! Then the turn card was a queen.

Daddy Tee: Panalo na yan si Mike:
Mike: Wait, a queen or a duece will save his ass
Justin: La na yan

River was a duece....................................................................


BENGA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

JGPT Girls featured in FHM!

Check their scintilating shots over at The Riverhouse!!!

The Downswing

"Some days you're the windshield, and some days you're the bug." - 2+2

2 months ago, I started playing rings, I thought I knew the right stuff to get chips at the table. I was wrong. Instead of getting chips, I ended up losing...and having a scorched roll to go with it. I had to adjust, losing is tough and nobody wants to lose, that's for sure. But no matter how I press my edges, I still get beat. Every poker player's worst fear - The variance monster, laying bad beats, takes your chips, burns your roll, leaving you with almost nothing. Playing through the variance is tough, I can't be pretentious and blame JUST the variance, the way I was playing that time was also a reason why I was losing.

After a few weeks playing the rings, I was down 10k. Like I said, I had to change the way I play - the transition from sngs, mtts to rings, that was the plan. I cut my losses to 4k. Then I got cocky, went down, went up, went down, went up. It's a financial rollercoaster, now I just want my grind time and slowly...slowly claw back.

___________________________________________________________________

Last night, I played a 2 plus 2, 10 handed single re-buy SNG. The pot was sweeeeet, I bubbled, that wasn't sweet. The worm and the grouch won heavy pots, nice one bros. Patience does pay right? hehe. Anyways, I just want to comment on what transpired that night. Last night I got a call from the grouch, we talked about some things - of course, poker related stuff. I just wanted to post this...

'The truth is that when bad players are winning and you're losing, they're not only playing better, but better against you.' - 2+2

Yes, some players are BAD but last night there were no bad players, fo sho. Which makes things even more difficult for anyone to take down those kind of games. 'They're not only playing better, but better against YOU'. Limit your mistakes or better yet don't make any. It's not that you're read, it's just one of those days when nothing goes your way. They did play better than you, but it doesn't mean you're a bad player.

To all the players experiencing the downswing....

Self-realization comes with experience and discipline, and it's the toughest part of gambling to master. Everybody looks great when the cards are falling for him. The ones that keep reaching into their pockets with a grim look on their face no matter what the situation are the ones that haven't conquered their own egos or, worse yet, their own addictions. Show me the player that not only can play when he's behind, but can pack up and leave without any hesitation or apologies, and that's the player I'll put my money on.

In the end, playing when you're behind isn't much different than playing when you're ahead. You just need to make the proper adjustments to your opponents. Staying off tilt is much easier when you can make sense of a situation, and losing streaks don't seem to occur as often or last as long when you stay in control. When you learn to recognize that a situation has changed, through experience and study, you will learn how to adapt.

The best players I know are masters at adjusting to changing circumstances, and rarely, if ever, lose control of their game or their bankroll. Good luck! - Rich Sudy of 2+2.

Damn those guys are good.

Can you dig it?

Fishizzle!

Blessing of the bad beat

Bad beats, everyone hates them. And why wouldn’t anyone? You were miles ahead, pure domination, and then a freak card rivered and took away your stack of high society. You just got benga! You go home, feeling stupid, contemplating about the hand, trying to re-analyze everything, trying to figure out your mistake. Turns out, you didn’t do anything wrong, poker happens.

After reading the first part of the Skalansky book, I got a renewed respect or view for bad beats. According to the book, bad beats will always happen to the better player because chances are the better player entered that pot ahead. HE made the right decision when it mattered most, then simply got out carded by the amateur.

Poker happens

Benga!

hail the logo of the camp

 

Pick a Hand

AKs or Pocket Queens. A lil bit of info for you guys... pre-flop according to the Poker Stove QQ vs AKs... QQ will have a 8% advantage pre-flop or exactly 53.951 to 46.049. :)

Take your pick, may it be according to statistics, favorites, superstitious beliefs etc...

I'm kinda leaning towards the dog hand here...

Fish-Out

The Rooftop Invitational

Another tourney in the books. The A55 Rooftop Invitational brought together the tougest poker players of Manila in one roof...top. There was 30 players, 150+k pot, the winner got paid handsomely and went home with the trophy.

Congratulations the winners of the rooftop invite, Pablo, Big Wally, Ace S., Jun Uy and Aries. Also the A55, Poker Filipinas and BBC group for another successful tourney.

Big thanks to Jardine G. and Big Wally for the support, I really wanted to win it or at least make it deep into the tourney, I did not want to disappoint you guys. Unfortunately, poker happens.

Tomorrow will be another day, another tourney, another chance to win it all.

Fish

I'm not your energizer bunny plus THE BENGA OF THE WEEK

Man, what a tournament! Intense! Just like what NickG said, there was very little dead money on that tournament. You know what I'm talking about, the Rooftop Invitational.

None of the soldiers of the camp made it into the money, heard that Fish got run overed by the Siberian Express and my trip ochos got rivered by trip aces. Thriller(aka Goma) was our only hope. We decided to leave him for a while, let him do his own thing, grab something to eat coz my parole officer(aka my girlfriend) showed up for support. When we got back, Thriller had a huge stack, but eventually lost it again to the Siberian Express. We failed to bring home the bacon today, too bad, but everythings cool. That's poker.

I can't think of a way to become pretentious while writting this post, other than that tournament drained our energy. We were hungry like a wolf, ate our hearts away over at Congo. Gone are the days when we have the power to drive all the way to Alabang, play some cards, then drive to Ortigas Center to play more cards. As the field gets tougher and tougher, it gets harder too physically, mentally, and emotionally.

Texas Hold 'em - takes a minute to learn, but a lifetime to master!

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Benga of the Week

I'm trying to write the Benga of the Week every Saturday. It will be about the worst beat, the best bluffs, best plays, etc. or can be about anything worth shouting BENGA!!!! What does benga mean? I really don't know, but from what I understand, it's what you shout when you hit jackpot or somthing. Realy don't care what it means, it just feels good shouting BENGA! when you hit your card on the river to beat the schmuck who went all in with 7-2os.
Blinds 50-100

Dealer, pocket 8s, I raised 200 more for a total of 300, got re-raised 200 more by the guy to my left, everyone folds, I call.

Flop came King 8 Queen, rags.

The guy went all in for his last 530 I think, got him covered. Added a lil hollywood, ask him if he would show his cards if I fold, he said yes. I called my tirps.

Turn card was a junk, river card was an ACE! Benga!!!!!!!

Went on tilt, went all in next hand with A7 Diamonds, got called by pocket queens, Flop comes 7, 3, 7. BENGA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Good play, great cards, one pretentious player

BENGA!!!!!!!

beach house

 

pretentious bong strikes again

 

how cute

 

Life is good....

 

heavy drinkers

 

everybody loves mikee

 

oops... wrong door...

 

the prophet, the prime minister of the Bong Nation together with the Pretentious Bong

 

u aint macho bro

 

again, being pretentious

 

200 empty bottles of beer

 

goma, tilter, fish, grouch, no.1 rounders. the camp baby

 

benga!!!!

 

mike g, the grouch, tilter having a great time

 

he's going down!!!

 

tilter had way too much san miguel

 

Blogging My Ass

Okay...Last Tuesday night, after a night of beer bongin' san mig lights, chuggin' gin and juice, the camp played some poker.

It was Tipsy, Goma, Grouch, No. 1 Rounder, a friend and Fish. We played for... pride. (Some guy said, 'Pride lang?') I was laughing my ass off. Anyways, same shit, different day. We all wanted to kick No. 1 Rounder's ass since he was 'rusty' haha. You being rusty is an understatement, start reading you gay ass. I was fancy'ing things up, stirring some shiz at the table, but Tipsy had to ruin my party. It was like a game of tag - who's going to catch who. All I can say is, it's damn good to see your opponents, thinking of folding top pair because of something they 'think' somebody has a better kicker and/or a set but then it's all about psyching out each other, proving who's got bigger balls, making laydowns, slow playing monsters...

I think that there will be no consistent winner in the Camp Hold'em games because we all started playing the game at the same time, made the same bad call, going/calling an all-in with nothing (couple of outs), we all studied the game, reading books, websites, have conversations about the game etc...Not being equally skilled but we do have our own strengths and weaknesses. We just need to learn from each other and continue to develop our games by helping each other out, pointing out our weaknesses and gradually improving more on our strengths.

Tells, plays, aggression, patience...BENGA!

Fish-Out!

If someone is interested... i'm selling shares for sat...i'll give you guys a good deal :p

The Boys are Back in Town

After taking a three day vaca, with a couple of friends, lots a booze, good food and no poker. (okay i lied, we had like 2 or 3 games :p) I guess everyone needed a break from the stress, bad beats and hate mail. The whole camp sat down and talked about cards for like 20 minutes, sharing experiences, strategies, bashing No. 1 Rounder most of the time! hehe then it was time to become pretentious, it was beer bongs all night for everyone. It was an awesome break.

Last night the boys got back to the state of mind and played the re-buy satellites for saturday. Goma won the seat from the first SNG, Grouch, won second. In the 2nd SNG, I cashed in 2nd against Big Wally. I was a good feeling ITM'ing the first night back in town not just that but the fact that three of the campers ITM'ed last night.

Saturday is a day away, I just hope to be in the right state of mind, remain focused, and not pretentious. It's a big one, with a small field, I'll be shooting with some big guns, including the Siberian Express hehe. Thanks to a good friend for believing, you gave me the inspiration to play good poker on Sat, won't let you down bro.

I'll bring it...

Fishizzle!

A Tribute

Everything
Lifehouse

Find me here
Speak to me
I want to feel you
I need to hear you
You are the light
That is leading me
To the place where
I find peace again
You are the strength
That keeps me walking
You are the hope
That keeps me trusting
You are the life to my soul
You are my purpose
You are everything
And how can I
Stand here with you
And not be moved by you
Would you tell me
How could it be
Any better than this
You calm the storms
You give me rest
You hold me in your hands
You won't let me fall
You still my heart
And you take my breath away
Would you take me in
Would you take me deeper now
'Cause you're all i want
You are all i need
You are everything
Everything

Hero or Zero

I really don’t know any game with as much complexity as poker. This game never fails to impress me every single day. You prepare for the play, assess the situation, make a decision based on the imperfect information that you have, and then hope that your plan works out. If you get it right, you’ll win most of the time, but getting it right will never be an assurance that you will win every time. Occasionally, you will lose, and the explanation of it will be so enigmatic that it can drive you crazy. It’s like farting, yeah that’s right, farting. Everyone mastered the art of farting especially in public places, doing it in a very discreet manner at the right place and at the right time. But what happens when it’s not only gas that you discharge? Uh-oh, plan foiled, you just sharted. You will get a million different opinions about it, whether or not; it’s the right thing to do.

I’m glad poker is getting more and more sophisticated as we speak. The members of the Camp already have different personal approaches to the game, we’re currently sharing our own opinions to each other to help create and develop our very own unique style. It’s also happening at the state of mind* where people are know sharing their views with one another, truly a state of mind.

It’s just hard when you’re in a situation where you can be the hero, or you can go zero. I hate sharting!

Grouch

Put your money where your mouth is

To Pretentious Mike,

Here's your shot bro, I'm giving you a real chance of trying to take my money. Just come out in the open, prove that you are indeed Pretentious Mike, then we'll play heads up. Whatever the buy-in, limit or no limit, 10k up, lets do this. Just say where and when and I'll be there.

Let's see if your so called poker game and skills can cash the checks your mouth's been signing. Enough of this circus.


Grouch

Life Goes On

Okay, so the bad blood has been spilled and the hate mail is flowing. I guess this can only mean this blog is getting some damn heavy traffic. So, on behalf of my fellow campers, I'd like to say thank you to our avid readers and posters. We appreciate your participation and criticisms. There are a few of you loyal readers who don't post but just read our blog (you know who you are), but we are grateful nonetheless. A new dawn for poker is on the horizon folks. There are cards to be dealt and money to be won. So let's move on, pamper our bankrolls, and play some pokuh!

(To the Campers: The Braggart's Cup is just a few days away amigos. Better start practicing!)

here it goes

pre·ten·tious (pr-tnshs)
adj.

1. Claiming or demanding a position of distinction or merit, especially when unjustified.
2. Making or marked by an extravagant outward show; ostentatious. See Synonyms at showy.

I just like to share to all of the readers of our blog an interesting comment directed to me by someone named 'pretentious mike'

Mike

This is just becoming too sad. You talk about like you’ve been winning, well in fact, u've been losing (and to the times that u did win, u always seem to magnify it ). You talk about fishes, but it is common knowledge among the small and upcoming community of ours that you are one of the biggest fishes out here. You mentioned that its so lucrative to play with newbies, well its more lucrative for when mike tee is in a ring game with us: your countless buyins are amazing, good thing for us you have almost an unlimited bankroll.

But I give props to you: you always find a way to tell us what we should’ve done after we beat you to hand? If that’s not amusing, I don’t know what is. In fact we have this whole journal of your famous anecdotes. So I suggest mike that you should stop teaching us what to do after you bluff, your tells are enough for us.

Do you even realize that your fellow campers: mark and goma are way ahead of you in terms of skill? I remember that skyland tournament, you were out like what? 10 minutes into the tournament while your two friends were battling it out on the final 5, don’t bullshit me when you say it didn’t hurt a little bit, bet you didn’t get enough sleep that night. You should be indeed called “the flash”, you were out unbelievably fast.

And about that exaggerated break of yours, we all knew you are going to come back. But you should’ve stayed out longer: the stories about you were just too entertaining, too bad that we have to settle instead on your bankroll

So this is it mike, we just can’t stop letting you this way anymore. We all need someone to pull us out from being a condescending, obnoxious and hypocritical asshole, hope you take this as reflection and maybe you too can become a good player.(coz quite frankly you really are that bad)
________________________________________________

We are open to all suggestion and criticisms, it's a free world, say whatever it is that you have to say. From the looks of it, you, sir, just don't like me, don't like the way I play, don't like what I write in our blog, don't like the way I lose my bankroll, don't like the way I tell my stories etc. That is acceptable, I don't expect anyone for that matter to agree or admire me. If in your eyes i'm the biggest fish our there, then too bad for me I guess. I won't stop you from trying to take my money for I'm sure I'm also trying to take yours. Yes, Goma and Mark are ahead of me right now, and it doesn't bother me that they are ahead because they are my friends. I want to be better at playing, but I'm not bothered that two closest friends of mine are indeed better than me. As for my so called exaggerations, I can't help it, I'm one heck of a story teller. For the so called exaggerated break, I sent Mark out to have a press con right after I got the ban to up my popularity, I need the publicty.

If I ofended you in anyway, kindly reveal yourself in private, so that an avenue can be opened to clear things up.

Thanks for spending time reading and posting a comment at pinoyrounders.

Ticket to the promise land

There’s so much political turmoil around us these days, it’s affecting every aspect of lives already and it looks like it will just get worse and worse. And as a good citizen that I am, all I can think of right now is how to help our oh so poor country. ‘If I’m the president’s adviser, what would I say to her?’ Being a poker junkie, you know what I’m going to say.

Here are some of the ideas that I’ve heard throughout the years.

Legalization of jueteng – in my opinion, even if you legalize it, there’s still too much room for cheating with this game.

Legalization of marijuana – I heard this from a crazy classmate I had in my philosophy101 class. Convert all our land resources into marijuana plantations, and be the premiere supplier of Mary Jane to the whole wide world. C’mon, do we actually think this will be fucking feasible? I don’t think we’ll get much respect from the international community once we make marijuana synonymous to Philippines.

Shift to a parliamentary form of government – My answer to this? No matter what modifications you do to the bus, as long as you have a shitty driver and stubborn passengers, you’re riding a highway to hell at 160mph.

Train every Filipino to be the next Manny Pacquiao – should I even consider this?

Train every Filipino to be the next Efren Reyes – this is currently being done, but I don’t think this is the best way to do it. Why? Few tournaments both here and abroad. Even our pros are having a hard time making it their living.

Promoting poker to the masses – now that’s an idea! And why not, we’ve been gambling since god knows when? There is a growing market across the globe, and I think now is the perfect time for us Filipinos to jump on the bandwagon. Thanks to the Spaniards, we are so much fatalistic and there is no doubt in my mind that this will be a hit to Juan dela Cruz. My seatmate in my accounting class got a glimpse of one of my text messages about poker, then we started to talk about it, apparently, we plays with his friends and knows Texas Hold ‘Em as seven card poker. But still, poker is poker and the fact that it’s slowly trickling down to all classes of society excites me so much. Poker will replace checkers, chess, and other card games the family drivers play while waiting for their bosses. We’ll soon fear the dark skinned kid when he steps inside the poker room rather than the English speaking dude who drives an expedition.

Just a matter of time ladies and gentlemen.

And to the president, Ma’am, you might need me in your staff.

grouch

Online Poker

Like most of us, I started playing poker online (UB). Back then, it was sooo difficult to set up a live game, we needed to text players, drive north/south of manila just to have a good time playing cards. We'd have 2-3 games a week, 4-5 if we get lucky that everybody shows up, so the other alternative when not playing live games was playing online.

I used to play close to 8 hours a day, playing big freerolls at UB :p. Trying to hone some of my MTT skills hehe. I guess the best skill one could acquire while playing online is patience. 'Patience is a virtue, my friends' Imagine yourself sitting long hours waiting for Aces, Kings, AK, AQ, it's a loooong wait I tell you but it's well worth it when you do get the hand and win a huge pot. Prolly, the best thing about online poker is you get to see 4 times more hands than what you'd see at a live game thus more hands seen/lost/won = more experience. It's a freeroll! so you are not risking any dough playing online, its a very good way to practice your skills before you sit at the table.

Now, we do have solid live games going down every night, 2 big MTT's a month, a couple of homegames...online poker?! :( I hope that in the next few months, we'd get to have a online poker server that would accomodate the needs of cardplayers here in the Phils because most of the known poker servers do not accept transactions from the P.I., that sucks. Plus, I ultimately believe that online poker here in the Philippines would bring in more players to the community, inviting them to play Texas Hold'em - learn the game for free, have a good time and hopefully after gaining experience and confidence, we'll all hit the live games :)

THat's it for now folks more posts/pics to come.

Fishizzle!

The Shadow Knows

Anyone of you connected to Solar Sports of ESPN Asia, please let them know that I’m wishing that they air the latest season of the World Poker Tour and the World Series of Poker. This will benefit our local community grow and spread to the masses. But to be honest, I have another reason for wanting that to happen.

These shows edit out the boring part of the game, and only telecast the mega action that's happening on the table. We see Gus Hansen raising all in with 82os, and we go wow over that play. as a result, most of the new players think that poker is all about bluffing and tons of luck. After dumping tons of hours playing and losing my graduate school tuition, I know that this is'nt the case. As Dan Harrington said in his book, hold 'em is like real estae or the stock market. it's a game of imperfect information, and how you'll optimize the information that you have will be the key to your success. Pot odds, implied odds, position, your stack in relation to the blinds, the bet in realtion to the blinds, your stack compared to the stack of others at your table; these are the things that really matter in poker, especially in no limit texas hold 'em.

It’s always great to play people who think that poker is all about bluffing. How I wish I can play with these kinds of players every single day; it’s so lucrative. Every time they do a Gus Hansen or a Daniel Negreanu move, my bankroll gets fatter than my belly. Munch away ladies and gents.

Maybe I should change my nickname to “the shadow”, “night crawler”, “the invisible boy”, or the “the flash”. (you guys know why lol)

grouch