Late last night, I hopped onto Full Tilt Poker to play a little tournament. I saw a 6-max tourney in the list that was already running but had late registration available. Perfect, it's late, I don't want to wait. So I signed up for this $3 tournament with already over 100 players in it. A little later I noticed that during late registration this number had doubled to just over 200 players. Great I thought to myself, if I make it deep in this one, it's gonna be a looooong night.

And, in fact I did make it deep. I got lucky a few times early in the tournament, sucking out and tripling up. After that I just played some great poker. I payed loads of attention to the players at my table and their tendencies. I noticed a guy limping in and folding for a decent raise when he did so, later in the tournament I pounced on him with any two cards when I saw him do this. I also made some beauiful resteals when my stack was around 15 to 20 bb (a point where I normally have trouble because I try to steal and fold for the push because I'm trying it with ace-rag). I folded every ace rag I found and just played very aggressive once the antes started getting in.

24 places paid and when we got to 25, I was actually the shortest stack. I waited for a hand, and finally when I had only 5 bb left I got AA on the big blind. Almost tripled up there and got QQ the hand right after it. This brought me back in contention with about 20 big blinds left again. I kept doing the resteal against weak opponents and coasted my way to the final table without ever showing down a hand. Still around 20 bb left.

The second hand at the final table I'm on the big blind and get dealt AK of spades. It folds around to the small blind who pushes a 40 bb stack in ... I think it over for a little while and put him on something like a medium pair that rather doesn't see the flop. That's a coin flip situation most likely, but since I'm the shortstack at the table I figure its my chance to make some chips and there is a reasonable chance that I'm ahead too. I make the call and he shows me KJo, my joy turns to grief though as a J hits the flop and I'm eliminated from the tournament.

Made about $35 on it, but more importantly I have shows myself that my tournament play has massively improved. Stay tuned to hear about my future (big) wins !!!

At our homegame, we've been using the tabletop, foldout kind of poker tables. They're ok to get started with, but now our homegame is getting pretty serious lately and I'm looking to improve the looks of our poker room. With hundreds of euros in every pot, it makes sense to save up for a proper table. And since i've been on a nice hot streak lately in the cash games, it's time to start looking around for poker tables.

There's a ton of sites that sell 1 or 2 types of tables, usually only the ones with the 'tent pole legs'. Not many sites I offer a big selection, except for 'Flop 2 River'. This site has tables of every type and price range. Check them out : Poker Tables

I'm personally looking at getting one that will seat 10 people and have proper wooden support. I will need to win tonights home game tourney, and maybe the one tomorrow night as well.... Then I should be set and ready to order a nice poker table.

In the last week of our holiday in Vegas, we were staying downtown, at the Binions hotel and casino. FYI: This is where the World Series of Poker was originally founded and Doyle Brunson and the likes were playing poker in the old days.

They have a lot of good things at Binions, a nice wall with pictures of members of the poker hall of fame, a very nice large poker room with well more then 20 tables in there, nice dealers and just about everything there is nice for the poker players. But amazingly enough, they don't have a single good deck of cards. All the decks come with the ace of spades the other way around in the deck, so when you take it out and put it next to the other cards it stands out because it is curved the other way.

The first time I noticed it was when the dealer was spreading out the cards, as they do when they open a new deck. I said: 'Is it just me or does that ace of spades look like its bent ?'. The dealer assures me that there are others bent that way too, and just starts the game. I don't think much of it, until later I see the card dealt to me and I immediately recognize it as being the ace without turning it over. I choose to ignore it again, because I figure it probably impossible to see it for the other players . Then a few hands later, I see this curved up card sitting under the card protector of the guy at the complete other end of the table. Even with his huge thing weighing it down on top of there, I could see it was the 'odd' card in the deck. So the hand is over but he mucks it, so I say : 'Sir, did you have the ace of spades ?'. But he says he doesn't remember because he is drinking ..

I say to myself, ok the next time it's dealt to me, I'm going to point it out before turning it over. And so it happened ... I get dealt the ace of spades (face down) and tell the dealer 'If this is the ace of spades, we REALLY need another deck'. One player goes all-in and because I think I'm the last to act, I flip open my cards and point out the ace of spades. I was a little pre occupied with the ace and didn't notice there was actually another player behind me who still had to act. Now the dealer tells me I can't flip open my cards like that ... and totally ignores my comment about the deck.

At this point I was totally steaming .. How can a card room like Binions possibly hire a dealer like this ? It kept going through my mind and the fact that the floor manager was not called at all bothered me as well. I asked the dealer one more time 'So, no new deck then ?', but he ignores me again. I've got steam shooting out of my ears by now and get dealt KQ and decide it's a good point to push right there (short stacked), of course I bust on that hand. I walk over to the floor manager to steam off a little and explain him the situation. He apologized but of course could not change the fact that I was out of the tournament.

And now the kicker, I'm talking to this manager guy as he is checking out some other decks and then he proceeds to tell me the truth behind it all. THEY HAVE NO GOOD DECKS. All of the decks at Binions come with a bent ace of spades !! It's because of how they are packaged (with the ace the other way around in the deck). They have tried everything but there is nothing they can do. I now suspect this is not only a problem at Binions but other card rooms too as they mostly get their supply of cards from the same area (Mexico is in fact where most of the cards in Vegas come from).

So, from now on I will be paying serious attention to this detail in card rooms and since there is nothing that can be done about it by the casino, i will just use it to my advantage.

This is a funny story that happened to me in Binions poker room during one of their tournaments. It all started like this ...

The blinds are 50/100 and an asian older gentleman tried to limp in from under the gun, but as he puts the chips in he utters a little cry of 'oops' because he put 1 chip too much in. Now it's a raise. He gets 2 or 3 callers, i'm not completely sure anymore. The flop comes K high and it's checked around. The under the gun player then calls a turn and a river bet from the BB. Eventually the hands are turned open and the asian man shows KK for trip kings, which lost to a rivered straight. Of course it was completely his own fault for trying to trick the table into calling and then slow playing it all the way to the end to try and make a few more chips.

Now the next day at Binions again, I'm sat to the left of a nice asian fellow who is playing very strong. I made a good laydown when he had flopped a straight and I was turned top pair with a good kicker. So I tell this guy the story about the OOPS move and just after I finish the story, he pulls a OOPS by inserting a green chips in between some black ones that he throws onto the table. but this time as a re-raise after it's already called by another player. Now .. does he have KK here, or is he just pretending to ? I did not put him on KK here, but after both the other players fold he showed us KK. I laughed my ass of at that table.

The asian fellow (Andy was his name I learned later) proceeded to reach the final table but was elliminated in 6th or 7th place when he had bottom set and another big stacked player had top set. I took down 2nd place that day.