I hit a pretty big pot hole on my way to the WSOP today. Apparently once you make enough money that you can actually get paid from Google Adsense, they suspend your account. They say that I broke the rules by directing traffic to my blog and so they have invalidated all the traffic that I have directed to their advertisers... And the whopping $132 that I earned over the 2 years that I was an member of Adsense will apparently not be paid either.
So, for everyone who has visited my blog the last 8 weeks, I thank you. For everyone who invited someone else to visit, I really thank you. I will still be blogging about my poker adventures. I hope that I can provide content that you will find interesting. Comments and suggestions are appreciated.
There is still 74 days left before the WSOP so I will just need to double my efforts playing poker and if anyone is interested I am still selling shares for $4/share no minimums. As of today there are 1,350 shares still available.
I image that once they have to pay me for affiliate links (when you actually buy something after clicking on an ad from my site) they will find some reason to avoid paying that as well so I am pulling everything except the Amazon ads. If you are planning on buying something from Amazon, if you visit here first and click on the amazon ad, it may help me out... A possible side benefit is, without all the ads maybe my page will load faster.
I am not giving up on my goal, not by a long shot. Even with this setback I have still reached 12.68% of my goal (graphs will be updated after I rearrange and pull out the google portion of the goal) so it is still full steam ahead.
Down a bit but not out. I just need to figure out some newer and better ways to reach the goal.
Craig
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
2010 NBC National Heads-up Poker Championship
SPOILER WARNING!!! Reading this blog entry will give away the match-ups so if you want to be surprised when you watch this on TV, you might not want to read any further.
On Sunday Heather and I went down to Caesar's Palace to try to get seats to watch the 2010 NBC National Heads-up Poker Championship Quarter Finals. We arrived at 10:30am and we were the second people in line, and we got fantastic seats for four of the matches. I can't imagine with the seats that we had that we would not be shown on TV when it airs (NBC is starting the broadcast on April 18th but since we didn't arrive until the quarter finals it might be 2 or 3 weeks later), but I digress.
In case you don't know how the HU Championship is setup it is exactly like college basketball's March Madness tournament with 64 players starting out all broken down into brackets where if you win you move on, if you loose you are out. There is the "Sweet 16", "Great 8", "Final 4", and then finally a championship although I think that the NCAA owns those particular words so NBC doesn't use those terms.
So the quarter finals (the same as the "Great 8" this year was Eric Seidel vs Peter Eastgate, Scotty Nguyen vs Jason Mercier, Annie Duke vs Jerry Yang, and Doyle Brunson vs Dennis Phillips. What is really incredible is that Peter Eastgate, Scotty Nguyen, Jerry Yang, and Doyle Brunson are all WSOP Main Event Champions and for a while there was a chance that the final 4 and then the final 2 could have all been main event champions which would have been really cool to see. However, that isn't the way that we were hoping for things to go.
Our picks before the cards got into the air were for Eric Seidel, Scotty Nguyen, Annie Duke, and Doyle Brunson to win. At the end of the first two matches we were 2 for 2 when Seidel was able to take out Eastgate with what seemed like not much effort and literally moments later Nguyen knocked out Mercier.
Now at this point I really need to give major kudos to the NBC staff. We were the second people in line in the morning and the stage director made sure that we got to keep out seats to watch the second two matches (although we did get moved back to the second row to make room for family and friends of the players). I don't know her name but she was very nice.
The next two matches started and my only real complaint was that they had a guy with a microphone who would occasionally talk but he really needs to take some lessons from Matt Savage. He sucked. He wasn't letting anyone know what was happening at the table so as another observer tweeted, "it was kind of like a morgue"
That started to change after Annie was handling Jerry quite easily and had a huge lead when in the space of maybe 20 minutes they got all-in a total of 4 times. In each case Jerry was way behind with very little chance of winning and the first three times he hit his miracle card on the river to stay alive (actually on his first All-in he hit his card on the flop not the river but still...).
It will be interesting to see how they portray Annie on the telecast. By the third suck out you could see that she was frustrated however, she never let the disappointments affect her game. She never expressed anger, never took it out on her opponent. There are some "Pro" poker players who could learn a lot from how Annie handled herself. This is the sign of a true professional. As the case so happens, Jerry's luck ran out on the 4th all-in and Annie moved on.
The match between the Godfather of Poker, Doyle Brunson and one of the original November 9 members and eventual 3rd place finisher, Dennis Philips was not quite as exciting. Dennis seemed to have the upper hand for most of the match. Doyle did have to get lucky on his first all in to hit runner runner for a higher two pair beating Dennis' flopped two pair. Alas, it wasn't enough and not too much later Dennis knocked out Doyle.
So there wasn't going to be a final 4 with all Main Event champions but Heather and I saw 3 of our 4 choices win. Our next pick was for an Annie Duke vs Scotty Nugyen final.
Unfortunately there was going to be a 90 minute break before the next match and NBC couldn't guarantee that we would get seats for the final 4 match ups, plus neither Heather or I had eaten all day so we didn't stay.
If you have read this far you shouldn't be too upset when I tell you that Scotty wasn't able to beat Eric Seidel but Annie Duke did dispense of Dennis Philips and the final was between two friends. The final round is a best of three match at this year there was no blow out. Annie took the first round, Eric took the second round and it came down to the sudden death third round, and while I don't know all the details, Annie won and is the 2010 Heads-up Champion!!!
Next year we are planning on going for all three days, and watching every match possible.
Craig
On Sunday Heather and I went down to Caesar's Palace to try to get seats to watch the 2010 NBC National Heads-up Poker Championship Quarter Finals. We arrived at 10:30am and we were the second people in line, and we got fantastic seats for four of the matches. I can't imagine with the seats that we had that we would not be shown on TV when it airs (NBC is starting the broadcast on April 18th but since we didn't arrive until the quarter finals it might be 2 or 3 weeks later), but I digress.
In case you don't know how the HU Championship is setup it is exactly like college basketball's March Madness tournament with 64 players starting out all broken down into brackets where if you win you move on, if you loose you are out. There is the "Sweet 16", "Great 8", "Final 4", and then finally a championship although I think that the NCAA owns those particular words so NBC doesn't use those terms.
So the quarter finals (the same as the "Great 8" this year was Eric Seidel vs Peter Eastgate, Scotty Nguyen vs Jason Mercier, Annie Duke vs Jerry Yang, and Doyle Brunson vs Dennis Phillips. What is really incredible is that Peter Eastgate, Scotty Nguyen, Jerry Yang, and Doyle Brunson are all WSOP Main Event Champions and for a while there was a chance that the final 4 and then the final 2 could have all been main event champions which would have been really cool to see. However, that isn't the way that we were hoping for things to go.
Our picks before the cards got into the air were for Eric Seidel, Scotty Nguyen, Annie Duke, and Doyle Brunson to win. At the end of the first two matches we were 2 for 2 when Seidel was able to take out Eastgate with what seemed like not much effort and literally moments later Nguyen knocked out Mercier.
Now at this point I really need to give major kudos to the NBC staff. We were the second people in line in the morning and the stage director made sure that we got to keep out seats to watch the second two matches (although we did get moved back to the second row to make room for family and friends of the players). I don't know her name but she was very nice.
The next two matches started and my only real complaint was that they had a guy with a microphone who would occasionally talk but he really needs to take some lessons from Matt Savage. He sucked. He wasn't letting anyone know what was happening at the table so as another observer tweeted, "it was kind of like a morgue"
That started to change after Annie was handling Jerry quite easily and had a huge lead when in the space of maybe 20 minutes they got all-in a total of 4 times. In each case Jerry was way behind with very little chance of winning and the first three times he hit his miracle card on the river to stay alive (actually on his first All-in he hit his card on the flop not the river but still...).
It will be interesting to see how they portray Annie on the telecast. By the third suck out you could see that she was frustrated however, she never let the disappointments affect her game. She never expressed anger, never took it out on her opponent. There are some "Pro" poker players who could learn a lot from how Annie handled herself. This is the sign of a true professional. As the case so happens, Jerry's luck ran out on the 4th all-in and Annie moved on.
The match between the Godfather of Poker, Doyle Brunson and one of the original November 9 members and eventual 3rd place finisher, Dennis Philips was not quite as exciting. Dennis seemed to have the upper hand for most of the match. Doyle did have to get lucky on his first all in to hit runner runner for a higher two pair beating Dennis' flopped two pair. Alas, it wasn't enough and not too much later Dennis knocked out Doyle.
So there wasn't going to be a final 4 with all Main Event champions but Heather and I saw 3 of our 4 choices win. Our next pick was for an Annie Duke vs Scotty Nugyen final.
Unfortunately there was going to be a 90 minute break before the next match and NBC couldn't guarantee that we would get seats for the final 4 match ups, plus neither Heather or I had eaten all day so we didn't stay.
If you have read this far you shouldn't be too upset when I tell you that Scotty wasn't able to beat Eric Seidel but Annie Duke did dispense of Dennis Philips and the final was between two friends. The final round is a best of three match at this year there was no blow out. Annie took the first round, Eric took the second round and it came down to the sudden death third round, and while I don't know all the details, Annie won and is the 2010 Heads-up Champion!!!
Next year we are planning on going for all three days, and watching every match possible.
Craig
Sunday, March 7, 2010
NBC Heads-up National Championship
 | This is a picture of the backdrop to the set. I will post more pictures and my thoughts on the tournament later this week. |
Friday, March 5, 2010
Updated Dashboard
The dashboard has been enhanced with 4 additional graphs that breakdown my progress in each of the three categories of earnings and shows my overall progress in terms of $$ not percentages. You can see the updated graphs here.
Scroll down to see the new graphs. As of today I am reached 11.82% of my goal with 85 days left to go... Anything that you can do to help me reach my goal is greatly appreciated!
~Craig
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Complete Dashboard view now available
The complete view of my progress can now be viewed at Progress Dashboard and you can also find a link to it in the middle column near the bottom of the page.
I will be updating this a few times a week.
Craig
I will be updating this a few times a week.
Craig
Monday, March 1, 2010
Final Draft of New Format
It is here at last. After I don't know how many revisions I have reached a proposed final draft and I would really like some feedback. Colors, size, format, graphics, anything. I have only so many different browsers and platforms that I can check out everything so if there is anything that doesn't look right just leave me a comment and I will see what I can do to fix it.
The next thing I am working on is more content. Most stuff will be poker related but not strategy or anything like that but more like thoughts and feelings, successes and failures at the tables. For the strategy and analysis check out "My World Of Poker" at http://pokershark70.blogspot.com
Craig
The next thing I am working on is more content. Most stuff will be poker related but not strategy or anything like that but more like thoughts and feelings, successes and failures at the tables. For the strategy and analysis check out "My World Of Poker" at http://pokershark70.blogspot.com
Craig
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