Running Good Is Fun

Considering I had only made about $120 the first half of the month, I thought my goal I had set of making $300 in the second half was highly unlikely. I was way wrong and I have to thank my excellent tournament play for setting off the run. Last Friday, while coming off my turkey day hangover, I decided to jump into two tourneys. Well I ended up shipping both of them and with the new found cheese I was able to move up in stakes finally. As you can see from the graph, you can probably tell where I moved up in stakes because I went on a sick run from bouncing back and forth between +/-$50 to a straight upward slope +$400. I don’t really think my play changed either, but rather I finally started holding more often in hands I put it in as a favorite. Either way this was definitely the jump start I needed. I’m feeling really confident going into this month, and now that my bankroll is almost 1k, it’s time to start making some real money.

In my last post, I mentioned I’d write a post about the live WSOP Main Event coverage, but before I get to that I want to talk about live coverage of poker tournaments in general.  I first really got into watching live final tables online last year when I found out PokerStars streamed many of the final tables from their European Poker Tour (EPT). I would skip class if possible and go to computer lab and watch all day as they normally started at 7am my time and ended around 2 or 3pm. One thing I really liked was the commentary and realized that having actual poker players commentate on the action was the NUTS. And actually watching a tournament play out without already knowing the winner is a bonus as well. Fast forward a year and a lot of other tournament series have also started streaming their final tables online. So when the WSOP announced that it will be showing live coverage of the main event on ESPN3.com, I wasn’t too surprised. I was fairly shocked however when they announced that the final table will also be shown live on ESPN. Live television coverage of poker tournaments is still a work in progress, but many people believe it is the future of televised poker. I’d have to disagree, just because I don’t think the casual fan will be able to really get into it. When the final three played down for the bracelet, even I had a hard time staying awake through the 4+ hours of heads up play and I’m a fanatic. Overall, though, I loved the coverage. I had never heard Olivier Busquet speak before but he definitely gets the award for best commentator.  He was so insightful and articulate; how he doesn’t have more commentary work is beyond me.  Antonio was also good and even Phil Hellmuth had me cracking up with his absurdities and “great reads”. Although I don’t think live television coverage is here to stay, I gladly welcome it with open arms and hope they bring it back next year. But I really feel that online streaming is the best place for it. Shipshape.

P.S. – My buddy found this great article on the estimated taxes paid by each player at the final table this year. It’s a great and quick read. Check it out here:  http://www.taxabletalk.com/2011/11/09/the-real-winners-of-the-2011-world-series-of-poker/