Poker From The Rail

Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail

I must be honest. I didn’t pay very much attention to the Big Money Sunday games this week and you’ll just have to forgive me. There was too much work going on with packing and prepping for an early morning flight across the country to Las Vegas. That doesn’t mean I didn’t notice (friend of the blog) Mark “dipthrong” Herm finish second in the Sunday Brawl yet take the most money away after a chop. Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy also headlined another loaded $200,000 rebuy final table with Mario “Pokerccini” Puccini and Ross “zestfulyclean” Myers.

The entire staff of Poker From the Rail is now firmly entrenched in Las Vegas and preparing to bring you our perspective of the world’s biggest tournament series. All the news and action from around town, not just inside the halls of the Rio Convention Center. Writeups, tournament reports, videos and as many high-grade pictures we can upload. There will be plenty to go around and we’re working on a post to let you know the best places on the internet to get your WSOP fix over the next two months. Feel free to start right here.

Don’t forget to join our Poker From the Rail WSOP Fantasy League. We’re still working out the swag for prizes but you should get in early.

Fantasy Leage: Poker From the Rail
Password: 2010WSOP

The action kicks off Friday afternoon with the $50,000 Player’s Championship and we’ll be previewing the series over the next few days.

While we iron out coverage details, feel free to enjoy the following video. The Ivey Room opened up this week at Aria and PokerNews were able to interview the man himself. Ivey doesn’t speak very often on camera but when he does it’s worth checking out.

Big Money Sunday results after the jump

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Tags: 2010 World Series of Poker, AlCantHang, Big Money Sunday, Bloggers on the Rail, Phil Ivey, WSOP

Read more | Comments (0) | May 25th, 2010 Play Online Poker at Full Tilt Poker

Posted by Dave McCarthy | Filed under Poker News

Top 5 Poker Stories of the Week, May 15 – 22:

5. Bracelets and Beer Pong in the news as the WSOP approaches…

4.  Durrrr’s nosebleed downswing continues…

3.  Ivey’s Room at Aria opens

2.  A photoshop poker-Godfather parody appeared on Two Plus Two

1.  The House Ways and Means Committee debated legalization, regulation, and taxation of online gambling in the US

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Read more | Comments (0) | May 22nd, 2010 Play Online Poker at Full Tilt Poker

Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail

Things are really starting to get busy around the halls of blogger central as we all prepare to descend upon Las Vegas for the 2010 WSOP. Players are making their travel plans, building a roll, crushing the satellites, and whatever else it takes to make their way to the biggest tournament series of the year. Your trusty blogging teams will be there beginning until the very end bringing you the details.  All eyes will turn towards the Rio in just one week.

Not everyone will be able to make the trek to the desert for the WSOP but that doesn’t mean you can’t participate in other ways. There will plenty of outlets to get your daily fix of action from live reporting to daily writeups to odd ball stories you won’t read anywhere else. We also have a few contests running along with the MSOP (Mini Series of Poker) all which will give those sitting at home a chance to win some decent cash and a little swag along the way. Here are just a few things we have running.

Fantasy Poker League

In my many years on this earth I have played the “fantasy” version of just about every sport on the planet. Even NASCAR which takes a lot to admit. This year we’re going to try something interesting with the Full Tilt Fantasy Poker Leagues. I’ve created a group called “Poker From the Rail” that is open to everyone.

It’s easy enough to create your entry and join our group, just pull up the FTP Cashier and chose My Promotions. From there you can enter the Fantasy Poker League. Entrants pick their 15 favorite players per event and rank them based on how you believe they will do. Then you just sit back and wait for the results to come pouring in.

We are still working out the prizes but you can be sure there will be plenty of swag thrown around to our top readers in the pool as well as those who perform above myself and Dave.  All our readers are welcome to join and we look forward to competing.

Fantasy League: Poker From the Rail
Password: 2010WSOP

Mini Series of Poker

If my faded memory serves me correctly, this will be the second year in a row that Full Tilt is offering up the MSOP tournaments. These tournaments are a smaller version of the WSOP events and will run at the same time. While the big guns are playing their way through a sea of fishies at the Rio you have the opportunity to play the same game online at just 1/100th of the price starting with Event #1 next Friday. These events have huge guaranteed prizepool and will draw a lot of players. Similar to MiniFTOPS, these games are a great way for the lower bankrolled player to make a big score.  Satellites are now running throughout the day.

We will try our best to track these games as we also cover the WSOP.

Poker From the Rail Videos

Would you like to see yourself or your friends up here on the pages of Poker From the Rail? Will you be running from the Pavilion to the Amazon Room to the Bad Beat Bar? Road-tripping down Las Vegas Blvd with your friends? Why not capture it all on video and let us have a look.

Every phone/camera/PDA now sports a video camera with remarkable quality and we’re looking for the best WSOP related videos from our readers no matter what you want to show us. There are more things happening around Vegas over the next two months and it will nearly impossible for us to see everything.  Myself and Mr. McCarthy will have our little cameras with us at all times but this is your chance to be a part of the blog coverage.

I’m sure we can come up with something for the more entertaining videos we receive and we’d like to highlight at least one a week. If the flood gates open with videos than we’ll expand. If you have a video you would like to show us, email [email protected] and we will definitely check it out.

Tags: 2010 World Series of Poker, AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, Fantasy Poker, MSOP, WSOP

Read more | Comments (1) | May 20th, 2010 Play Online Poker at Full Tilt Poker

Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail

It almost seems sacrilegious to talk about other tournament series in Las Vegas during the summer when most of the poker world turns it’s eyes towards the Rio for the WSOP. But it would be wrong to dismiss the opportunities which are out there away from the mega-lemur fields running in the Amazon Room. Just about every casino with a decent size poker room will be offering so great value events to compete with the WSOP and pull some players their way.

The interesting non-WSOP series for me would be downtown at Binion’s where they generally offer similar events as the WSOP at just a fraction of the cost. I plan to take a day off from my WSOP coverage for a mass blogger invasion of their Limit Omaha/8 event on June 25th. Binion’s is just one example of the games you can find around town during the summer and guest blogger Tuscaloosa Johnny brings us this year’s schedule of events. They are well worth your time if you are in town and not ready to slap down a big buyin at the Rio.

Poker tournaments abound in Vegas this summer
By Tuscaloosa Johnny Kampis

The buy-ins of World Series of Poker events too big for your bankroll? With the number of rival casinos feeding off the popularity of poker’s biggest tournament that’s no problem. Several other casinos offer summer tournament series with buy-ins between $200 and $1,000. Here’s a look at some of the other events you can try between trying to satellite your way into the WSOP Main Event.

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Tags: 2010 World Series of Poker, AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, Guest Posts, Tuscaloosa Johnny, WSOP

Read more | Comments (0) | May 18th, 2010 Play Online Poker at Full Tilt Poker

Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail

Jeremiah Smith in the foreground, Phil Ivey’s favorite masseuse in the background
Photo credit: Wicked Chops Poker

Another Big Money Sunday is in the books along with MiniFTOPS XVI and this one brought a some huge paydays. I can sit here discussing many theories on why it happened but this time around we saw 22 of the 30 events with some kind of overlay in the form of free money from Full Tilt Poker. Whatever the reason, the series sported over $1,000,000 in added money across all events meaning over 15% of the prizepool was provided by your friendly FTP Poker room. That is great value no matter how you look at it.

The cream of the crop was MiniFTOPS XVI Main Event which went over it’s $1,000,000 Guarantee for just a $70+$5 buyin and drew nearly 15,000 players. The structure was slow and deep making for a 17 hour tournament which finished up in the wee hours here in my part of the world. “RioMata” was your Main Event champion further advancing the premise of making big payout events available to the lower bankrolled.  There were few events which were dominated by the big name players but the fields were incredibly tough throughout the series.  Our top money earner for a single event was “Salamander6″ who collected an even $150,000 for the 2-Day event title.  ”mc4chess” was the runaway player at the top of the Tournament Leaderboard with a “green loving” 420 point total.  He made the cash in six MiniFTOPS XVI events with 2 final tables and an outright victory in Event #4.

With the conclusion of the Main Event it hit me. This will be the last tournament series I cover until a little event called the World Series of Poker.

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Tags: AlCantHang, BBT, BBT5, Big Money Sunday, Bloggers on the Rail, Jeremiah Smith, MiniFTOPS

Read more | Comments (1) | May 17th, 2010 Play Online Poker at Full Tilt Poker

Posted by Dave McCarthy | Filed under Bloggers Corner

Top 5 Stories of the Week:

5.  Fantasy WSOP unveiled…

4.  Matusow’s WSOP prop bets adding up…

3.  PPA to rally in Washington state…

2.  The nosebleed regulars were busy…

1.  New online gambling hearing scheduled in the House Ways and Means committee!

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Read more | Comments (2) | May 14th, 2010 Play Online Poker at Full Tilt Poker

Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail

We’re just a few short weeks away from the start of the 2010 World Series of Poker and the excitement is starting to build. Flights are booked, bankrolls are set, it’s time to sling some chips at the Rio. The vast staff here at Poker From the Rail are busy making a game plan for our coverage of the next two months and are ready to hit our stride come May 27th. While we brainstorm on how to dodge all the distractions in Sin City we will begin bringing you a series of guest posts on getting yourself ready to hit the series.

Tuscaloosa Johnny has plenty of experience dealing with the grind of Vegas during the Series and we’ll start of with a fun post. Everyone these days can be found with some sort of electronic device plugged straight into their head constantly these days whether it’s an iPod, iPhone, iAnything. Johnny has a few suggestions to load up on your chosen mp3 device for your flight to Las Vegas to get yourself ready to go. While I tend to lean more towards the guitar-heavy, vocal-straining style of music, I’ll be sure to add these to my list.

Vegas playlist for your iPod
by Tuscaloosa Johnny Kampis

The World Series of Poker is only days away. You’re beginning to pack your bags (don’t forget the sunscreen) and have printed your boarding passes at home. Before you hop on that plane remember to load up your iPod with all of your favorite tunes. In fact, to get you in the mood for your stay in the glitz and glamour of Sin City I’ve compiled my top ten list of Vegas themed tunes you may want to add to your playlist. Some of these have become unofficial Vegas anthems more due to the singer (Elvis, Sinatra, et al.) or the big band aspect than the subject matter, but all should get you pumped for the trip at 40,000 feet.

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Tags: 2010 World Series of Poker, AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, Guest Posts, Tuscaloosa Johnny, WSOP

Read more | Comments (1) | May 12th, 2010 Play Online Poker at Full Tilt Poker

Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail

As the name of our blog indicates, we spend a lot of time railing poker games throughout the week and yesterday did not disappoint at all. I’ve become used to the standard series of railbird messages during the huge Sunday games full of beggars and fanboys. Most are harmless and the more annoying are eventually caught in the automated spam filter, others mix things up with a fine combination of horrible grammar and the constant chirp chatter of ALL UPPERCASE TYPING. Occasionally things go way beyond what could be expected from polite society (re: Annette Obrestad’s first red pro tournament rail) or common sense poker strategy (re: bad players telling WSOP bracelet winners how bad they play).

Throw in last night’s combination of high buyin games along with the lower rolled tables in MiniFTOPS and there was a goldmine of insipid blathering from a bunch of passenger-seat advisors. One of the great draws of Full Tilt Poker is the ability to chat with the pros/players at the tables but I am not shocked when fellow participants find it necessary to turn off their observer chat. It seems Amanda “Mandy B” Baker was last night’s pro to ridicule as she found herself getting closer to a possible final table appearance in the $750,000. In the end she came up just short in 11th place and set the rail off on their own to editorialize her play for the next 15 minutes.

Good times on the rail.

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Tags: AlCantHang, BBT, BBT5, Big Money Sunday, Bloggers on the Rail, Jim McManus, MiniFTOPS

Read more | Comments (0) | May 10th, 2010 Play Online Poker at Full Tilt Poker

Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail

It’s been fun around the “halls” of Full Tilt Poker this week especially here in my dungeon. We saw the introduction of Annette Obrestad to the roster, FTOPS XVI finished it’s marathon, the Battle of the Blogger Tournaments 5 continues along it’s goal of sending bloggers to the WSOP, and now we prepare for the beginning of MiniFTOPS XVI. As they say, no sleep for the wicked.

FTOPS XVI concluded on Sunday with the Main Event hosted by newcomer Annette Obrestad and features a $3,000,000 Guarantee. The player pool fell just short of that mark meaning there was nearly $280,000 in money added by Full Tilt. The tournament ran for over 14 hours and once WSOP Champion Brock “bobcards2″ Parker was eliminated the remaining 5 players made a deal which saw them all winning at least $200,000. “Kirbynator” was your eventual champion taking home $327,057 for the win and also the custom avatar. During her Main Event run, Obrestad was a trooper and continued to answer questions during her “Pro Chat”, many of which were becoming a little loco. That was nothing compared to some of the comments she was drawing at her table. Later this weekend I will be posting some excerpts from the chat with her best questions and answers.

The last week of FTOPS XVI also saw several big online names claim a title making for some great final table action. The most entertaining would be the $300 6-max rebuy Event #18 which ended with a battle between two heavy weights. In the end Shannon “BLUFFforRENT” Shorr outlasted Nick “FU_15″ Maimone to take it down just a few days before his college graduation. Other big names putting their names down as FTOPS champs were Matt “I Pay Ur Rent” Iles, Tim “BegsClutch” Begley, Jeremy “thechemist83″ Gaubert, JC “PrtyPsux” Alvarado, and Mickey “Mement_mori” Petersen.

The Battle of the Bloggers 5 Challenge (hence forth known as BBT5) put several more players into the Tournament of Champions where five players will earn seats in the 2010 World Series of Poker. Half of the ToC field is now set and includes a nice mix of old school bloggers, new players to the private tournaments, and one online pro. Everyone is welcome to join us for the Poker From the Rail tournament on Monday and The Mookie on Wednesday. You can check the Battle of the Bloggers page for more details. Listed below are those who have qualified for the ToC.

jjok
maigrey
VinNay
xkm1245
dignitasODEE
Matt “All In At 420″ Stout
hoyazo
KeepFloppin
NYRambler
TexansBaby
oossuuu754
pvanharibo

MiniFTOPS XVI kicks off today featuring 30 tournaments with $7,000,000 in guaranteed money for 1/10th the buyin of the standard FTOPS series. This time around you will find three new Rush Poker Tournaments including what should be an insane $20 rebuy with a $250,000 guarantee.

Event 6: A $150K guarantee $50 + $5 Rush Poker Turbo NLHE Tournament
Event 13: A $50K guarantee $24 + $2 Rush Poker PLO Knock Out Tournament
Event 29: A $250K guarantee $20 + $2 Rush Poker NLHE Rebuy Tournament

Yet again another chance for the smaller bankrolled players to earns big bucks for a small price. Be sure to check out the MiniFTOPS XVI schedule for details, pick your game and give it a shot.

After the jump you can find the results from FTOPS XVI:

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Tags: AlCantHang, BBT, BBT5, Bloggers on the Rail, FTOPS, MiniFTOPS

Read more | Comments (0) | May 7th, 2010 Play Online Poker at Full Tilt Poker

Posted by Dave McCarthy | Filed under Bloggers Corner

The likelihood of Mike Matusow running naked down Las Vegas Boulevard is now positively correlated with gender equality.

On Wednesday night’s episode of Poker2Nite, Mike Matusow promised to run naked down The Strip if three women win bracelets at the 2010 World Series of Poker.  The poker show’s co-host Scott Huff appeared to be fishing for an inflammatory statement: he prefaced a question about female poker players with, “it’s always great to have you here because…you don’t hold anything back.”

Referring to wins by Vanessa Selbst at the NAPT Mohegan Sun, Annie Duke at the NBC National Heads up Championship, and Liv Boeree at the EPT San Remo, Huff asked Matusow, “Is it the year of the woman, and what is your over/under on bracelets in this World Series won by female poker players?”

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Tags: gender inequality, las vegas strip, Mike Matusow, naked

Read more | Comments (1) | May 6th, 2010 Play Online Poker at Full Tilt Poker