Blog Comments

  1. thepuffster's Avatar
    ...um...ugh... this is ...sloppy.

    It may be tempting to powder your pieces with speculative trivia which you might without close observation mistake for your "true unique writerly" voice--- resist, its a bore. This piece is weighed down by the self-aggrandizing. just say no to extra words.
  2. thesparten's Avatar
    Good blog and twitch
  3. BeerAndPoker's Avatar
    Bovada is very arrogant for sure. The part I should have included in my blog that I didn't even think about in the moment was what they said to me when I deposited.

    They gave me a tournament ticket which was good even though I would rather have the equivalent in cash. Anyways, the tournament I wanted to play was the night I deposited starting around 10:30pm and I made my deposit at 1pm. In the past whenever they offered me something like this I could get the ticket right away so I would be able to play that night but this time was not the case and it didn't matter who I talked to they have an automated system that credits tickets the following morning no exceptions.

    This got on my nerves because it was during a tournament series where I could only use it for a $50+5 event they had going on and the one I wanted to use it for that night was by far the best event left. They had two other events one was a rebuy/addon which having any satellite ticket for those events is worthless and the other was a 11am event on a Saturday morning which I'd rather not play poker at that time.

    The support rep I talked to from Bovada felt he was so superior when I told him they always would give me the ticket that day in the past and I know they can make the exception that he even said to me a few times "Sir, we emailed you about this deposit offer for nearly two weeks and you wait until today to deposit when you had two weeks of time to do so"? Even though that is correct who is this guy to even bring that up especially when I did deposit within the bonus period and now he has the nerve to say this to me in defense? Customer support should never say such a thing and it really pissed me off.

    I left Bovada because they annoyed me about something around sometime last September only playing a tournament here or there with poker points I had built up and if I knew the hassle I would have to go through I'm not sure I would have even deposited again.

    With that said the games are softer on Bovada over anywhere else serving Americans and even some ROW players play a lot on the site because of how soft it is. They have given people collusion refunds at times but to track whether the amount is proper is a very tough thing to do for any site but impossible for anonymous tables.

    Before I left I played a bunch of the bigger HU SNGS which the highest is $200 on there and for those type of games an anonymous site is a great advantage. Prior to Black Friday when I played HU SNGs on other networks fish would either not sit me that much or lose once then never play me again but now they will just sit me someone without knowing who they are and even if they decline a rematch they might just go sit in my new lobby I registered in right afterwards whereas if I had a screen name they could remember that I am not a guy they want to play.

    The better players are almost always going to sit first because if you sit with someone they are usually going to be a good player and not a fish. This holds true for HU SNGS with screen names but even more so with anonymous tables.

    As for twitch it's just something I've done for fun and it helps motivate me to play. Their have been several times I say "I messed that hand up don't ever do that people" but in parts it has helped me think about certain hands more instead of just getting too click happy.

    For you Druff I probably wouldn't twitch either for a few reasons. You play a lot of short handed limit holdem and I think people could pick up on a lot of what you do in that game where you wouldn't want to educate people but for NL their is so much more information on the game out there and so many various styles of playing that when tweaked properly someone can win playing completely different then other winning players.

    In NL you have to be able to really think in the moment and guess what the future will be even more so then limit which I'm not saying you don't have to in that game but the betting just gets more costly or can be more profitable if your plan of action works out. I don't think enough people watching me or even say watching JCarver are ever going to be able to think in the moment of what he is doing even if he tells them why because their brains don't think like him and with all the other variables if someone tried to mimic what he's doing completely they will misinterpret so much that it will cost them.

    I'm sure you would make mistakes as we all do but the key is having your own personal reasoning of doing things whether it's opponent dependant, setting up meta game,etc. but I'm sure people would find silly ways to troll you for them given who you are in poker. Even I've got trolled a few times playing and one guy last night for example was challenging me to some game HU and said to be streaming it so I just ignored his request.

    Druff - I know you used to do computer programming and there are a bunch of people in that field that are good players or could be putting in the learning effort. In ways playing poker really is like coding a program when you think about it in commands like "IF" "THEN" "ELSE" ,etc... You get the idea.
    Updated 05-07-2015 at 12:15 PM by BeerAndPoker
  4. Dan Druff's Avatar
    I have played on Bovada a whole lot since returning there in late September. I literally got under the wire with Western Union before they started clamping down. A few days later, I probably would have been denied or blacklisted. This was dumb luck, as I didn't even know that there was an impending problem, but just randomly decided to try Bovada again because football season was starting, and I figured more fish would be there.

    I agree that Bovada is very arrogant these days. They are arrogant for a few reasons. First, they are the biggest USA-facing room by far. Second, they actually DON'T want to grow anymore, fearing the DOJ will go after them. So they don't mind if you decide to take your business elsewhere, much like a restaurant which is full every night.

    Also, the anonymous tables open the possibility up for cheating, and it will be very hard to catch. The only reason GRAYCAT and others were caught was because of our ability to see screen names and datamine.

    Sadly, they're still the best option for US players, because they pay out reliably and quickly. They have been skimming $15 off my last few wire cashouts (their payment processors are doing this), and they aren't making it right for me. This also pisses me off. However, the bottom line is that I'd rather have a room which pays me and skims $15 of my $9500 cashout than one which either doesn't pay or limits me to $2000 every month. You can wire out $38,000 per month from Bovada, so this is a good place for high limit players such as myself.

    The anonymous tables used to bother me, and my criticism of them still stands, but I found a few advantages. First off, players can't datamine me or get stats on my own play, so they are forced to play a more "pure" poker game against me. Second, I don't have the psychological disadvantage of playing hands against players I've historically struggled against, which was always a problem for me. Third, if I'm slumping or getting beaten hard at a table, there is no embarrassment nor long term table image issues. I have found a surprisingly large difference in my results in games where I have a good table image versus a bad one.

    I am not a fan of Twitch. I don't watch them, nor do I broadcast myself. I prefer not to broadcast to the world if I play a hand poorly or do something stupid. It's bad enough living with my own personal shame in those situations. But to each their own.
  5. jacosta24's Avatar
    +1
  6. thesparten's Avatar
    Just found this blog. I'm a noon to poker but found that helpful.
  7. matos's Avatar
    good one lol
  8. sd858duece's Avatar
    he was probably butt hurt that he didn't get to keep more of the winnings... the amount he probably had to pay was not worth the amount he got to keep of the winnings...
  9. BeerAndPoker's Avatar
    Benford:

    I've thought of all angles and what you are saying certainly is one of them but even so it's a terrible approach to take. If you are really great at poker you want the game to continue to grow so new money can come in which trends up level by level to challenge the very top.

    Daniel Colman don't have to do media but he should at least respect the people who helped make the game grow to allow him the ability to make the money he has which those players did that by doing media after big scores.

    Mr. Colman is somewhat young but still has to realize what he says now is crucial to how people will perceive his overall character. He can be cocky all he wants but those who go that route in poker don't help the game grow unless they are that one exception because he has accomplished so much aka Phil Hellmuth. Like or hate him Phil has done enough to earn that pass to be an arrogant and a whiny asshole to everyone but poker don't have a spot for another guy like him imo. Don't get me wrong I'm not really trying to compare Daniel Colman to Phil Hellmuth but just trying to give an example.
  10. Benford's Avatar
    BeerAndPoker:

    I think the reason Colman's doing this is partially borne out of feeding his ego. If one says the game is dark and he wouldn't recommend it in a million years for others, he's basically saying HE can do this gig but YOU (or WE) can't. It's a bit like flaunting in our faces, "Look! See? I can do this, but Y-O-O-U can't! Nyeah! Nyeah" (sticks out tongue at you).

    It's an ego trip. (ie. You little kiddies shouldn't be doing this dark game that I've totally mastered.)

    He values the money and ego gratification more than being viewed as a hypocrite. His declining interviews shows he doesn't really care how people view him. Almost an invincible competitor there in more ways beyond poker there.
  11. BeerAndPoker's Avatar
    I agree with all you guys!

    A lot of poker pros will say it's a tough thing to go down the path of being a professional and they wouldn't encourage it but to take the approach Colman does with the game that has made him millions of dollars that he continues to play really disgusts me. Why the hell is he still playing if he finds it so dark?

    Some girl who is a stripper might not recommend other females go down that path but she isn't in a place to talk so disgraceful about that business if she continues to do it when clearly it's not bothering her from a moral standpoint. Daniel Colman is doing the same thing by continuing to play poker which he claims is such a "dark" game surrounded by a lot of negativity. Poker has been around forever and it should be a personal choice for someone to play or not.

    By Daniel Colman saying how dark poker is while he continues to play profiting off the game is just sickening.
  12. Benford's Avatar
    sd858duece - I agree; Colman's personal poker game is a very dark game.
  13. jacosta24's Avatar
    Great post, I don't really agree with Colman but everyone has there opinion...
  14. sd858duece's Avatar
    what coleman did was dark...
  15. Pooh's Avatar
    That's cool. You're better off than I thought you were so that's good. I feel the same way regarding authority which is why I work for myself. I won't even have employees because they don't work. Basically I own a job which is both good and bad.

    My only thing is you're entering your prime earning years and you want to take advantage of them. Take Druff for example. He's 40. Could probably be making enough money in the next ten years where he doesn't have to worry about money ever again.

    Do another show. Make it fantasy baseball.
  16. BeerAndPoker's Avatar
    I am 34 and last worked what a normal job in 2008. The last few years I worked for the man were very frustrating. I don't do well with power hungry authority whose too blind to see reality when things go wrong but instead just throws blame out at all the employees below them. That doesn't mean I wouldn't go back into the everyday work force if necessary or the opportunity was too good to pass up.

    I went to college and have a computer technician degree. When I went I originally I was looking into other majors and if I had to do things differently I would have gone straight into the business side since that is what interests me the most even though you really don't need a degree in the business field to do a lot of things in that line of work. I was a young entrepreneur a lot of my life from the golden days of ebay back in the late 90s when I was fresh out of high school to days in junior high selling candy bars or whatever to kids out of my locker. I only sold legal stuff btw.

    As for net worth that is not something I wish to disclose. I will just say I own a house that is paid for, have money in the bank, have money in stocks and mutual funds, etc... I look at poker right now as a supplement of income but before Black Friday it made up quite a bit of it. A part of me wonders why I worked a regular job up until 2008 when poker made me more money from 2005 and beyond. In my life I've worked what you could consider "normal" type of jobs with very little off time from 1996-2008. Even during college I'd estimate that I worked around 30 hours a week.

    I'm always thinking about my future and don't blow money on stupid shit that much. Just imagining the feeling of living paycheck to paycheck would tilt me to feel that broke yet everyone knows people in their lives that are in that spot without a care in the world. One thing I know is I refuse to be one of those guys that blows all their money on a few nice toys and suffers for it. If it gets to a point where I see things headed to a super rough point I would do what I have to with going back into a "normal" work force even though I'd prefer not to.

    Something people always say as a rule of thumb even though I don't live by this is that you should have a years worth of life expenses available to you if you quit a job to seek a new venture,etc... One year is way too little in my eyes especially if the opportunity you are seeking can be costly if things don't go right. All I can say is I will never let myself get close to a one year or broke type of place. I don't live an expensive lifestyle but I do treat myself to some things.

    -BNP
  17. Pooh's Avatar
    You seem like a pretty cool guy and I have a couple serious questions for you. I think you are around 30. What was the last job you had and when was it? Do you ever plan on having a 'normal' career and why or why not? Have you thought about retirement? What is your net worth?

    I am genuinely interested in reading the responses. If the net worth question is too personal then please disregard.