Heads up Play

After a few days of torrential downpour, the sun is shining here again and I’m sitting outside listening to On The Rail (as you do) and I’m struck by the fact that the next time Nick and I podcast we may ACTUALLY be on the same continent, same country and in the same room. Miraculous! Obviously given the work that Nick and I do together, we really are great friends and so I’m looking forward to welcoming that pasty Englishman to my new neck of the woods here in sunny California.

Before that happens though, I’ve got the final table of the WPT Invitational to host in LA and then I’m up to Las Vegas to play the NBC Heads Up Championships. I have to make a confession here… I’m terrified by the HU portion. As Nick and I talked about in our last podcast, I’ve been working on my Heads Up game and I can report that it has not gotten better! I’m still frustrated as hell by the whole thing but as Nick has pointed out to me, I’ve never really had a big downswing before and it really will make me a better player.

When the results are coming in and everything seems easy, most people (me included) just don’t put the effort into analysing hands or working in a methodical way on their game. Dealing with the downside of things… well I’m certainly putting more work in. I can see where my game has improved and I’ve been going through hands with people I really respect and although I have some definite leaks, I can see the progress. Thats great and all…. but… yeah. Hopefully the results will follow.

God, it’s so hard not to be results oriented!!!!

PartyPoker.com recognizes Croatia, Poker awards were glamorous

The lazy one is back!

Depressing weather in the UK does not affect the cheery mood – poker is finally taking us serious. Just as I was finishing my breakfast, I received an email – Party has signed our Dragon – EPT final tabler – Dragan Galic has become their team member. Congrats Dragon, there are many guys that would love to be in your spot – being so close to Miss Kara Scott AND being sponsored to play – HEAVEN!

Here’s a wee picture, I know I’m such and attention seeker!:)

Dragan has cashed tons last year ( http://pokerdb.thehendonmob.com/player.php?a=r&n=100008) so it is no wonder he got stolen by one of the fastest growing sites in the industry. I am very proud to be Croatian and say that we finally have a horse for the race. No offence, aye, it’s just a sayin’!

It’s also been brill for me lately – I am packing my bags and heading to Budapest. The first stop this year and a great value tourney that I will be presenting – 5 days of solid work which comes in heavily on me since Paris – done the Poker awards which was FABULOUS! Thanks to Nic and Bruno, I spent 5 gorgeous days during the Valentines period in this amazing city eating snails and waiting in lines for Eiffel tower for about a week. Thought it would be a great way to treat my boyfriend for his 30th birthday – freezing to death on top of a metal construction. Still, smugling champagne and being all disgustingly romantic above Paris saved the day – Happy Birthday once again, Rury!

The Poke awards were really posh tho – the ACF has given me the honor of presenting the event and I must say I felt like a princess – champagne, expensive gown, lights at Champs Elysees…felt like a Cinderella. But of course, every carriage turns into a pumpkin and every Prince turns into..Devilfish singing  ‘Johnny B.Good’. Had to be there to experience that, but here a little video for you to feel the love.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xcakq8_european-poker-awards-2009-aviation

Gotta love fisheZ.

Here are the results of the Awards. Thanks again, Nic!

Player of the Year – Vitaly Lunkin
Europe’s Leading Lady – Sandra Naujoks
Rookie of the Year – Antoine Saout
Tournament performance of the year – Jeff Lisandro
Internet Player of the year – Patrick Antonius
Poker staf person of the year – Edgar Stuchly
Innovation award – Eddie Hearn
Lifetime achievement award – Bruno Fitoussi

wonderful….wonderful

Another week another poker destination – this time EPT Copenhagen. As you know from my blog I love working the big poker events but there’s been so many in quick succession this year I’m suffering event blur!

One note of interest is that this trip was the first totally cashless trip I think I’ve ever had. I only visited the hotel and airport (a tragic but standard state of affairs for one of these working expeditions) and everything, including taxi, could be paid for by card and things in the hotel charged to the room. I expect in my lifetime cash will disappear altogether from our world. In fact it’s quite hard to get hold of and as a sometime live poker player can be a nightmare. Can someone please talk me through ‘daily withdrawal limits’ on my bank account??? It is ridiculous I can only take out a couple of hundred quid per day when it’s my money….

The EPT live broadcast was a blast as ever. Although the tournament final table featured some passive play bordering on the extreme including a very long (I think 3 and a half hours) heads up. James and I in the commentary booth struggled to keep it together and the chat became increasingly surreal and comedy based. I’d like to think it kept people watching during the ‘check down’ fest the play had become but it also might lead to us being sectioned as it was pretty random!

In other news its awards time in cinema and it looks like the Hurt Locker will sweep all before it. I think it’s a top notch film, very tense with amazing set pieces BUT it has a couple of problems in my eyes. First very few people have seen it furthering the disconnect between film establishment and the audience. Second I don’t think it will stand the test of time very well – it doesn’t have a ‘story’ as such and I don’t think really compels rewatching.

My films of the year were Avatar, UP and Inglorious Basterds – with a slight edge to Basterds. I actually think it’s a dark horse to win the Oscar as it’s a very actor and script driven film with an unusual take on a subject matter the academy loves. I found out yesterday it’s 16/1….lump on because it’s not the most likely to win but that is real value in my eyes.

Manchester and back again

Just finished the Manchester UKIPT. It was the second leg of the tour but the first in England and it looks like this tour is going to be a full on ride. Originally we’d thought about 300 players for the event but ended up with 520 with poker tables spilling onto the gaming floor and everyone struggling to keep up. Not only that the atmosphere was great – already the tour has a great mix of serious poker and people looking to have a great time. I’m seriously excited by the potential of this tour – I think it’s going to set records on a regular basis and discover lots of new playing talent. More than that I think anyone that comes to an event is going to have a really fun experience. On the first morning of the weekend I hosted an poker tutorial where online qualifiers could attend for free and discuss some tournament hands and share their ideas – Julian Thew (just signed to Stars) was there to lend his expertise. Doing this sort of thing and when people get together to talk poker new ideas always emerge – they’ll be one at each UKIPT event so hope you can catch one.

In other news my own poker playing is suffering at the moment. I’m struggling to find time to play when I can be fresh and focused and it’s so tough to do well against good players when you’re not at your best. Having said that I’m running horribly in 2010 – way below expectation – and I’m only slightly down so I feel like I’m playing okay and it could be much worse! Had fun the other night where at one of my tables a reg was abusing a fish for his ‘bad play’. This is a massive pet hate of mine – first because he should be encouraging the bad player if he says anything – and second because its full on rude and borderline pathetic to do it behind the safety of an internet connection. Anyway this reg was already tilting and after I stuck my oar in he went off the deep end jamming away a couple of buy ins before quitting….it was something so see

Away from a frustrating run and aggression in the chat box I was reminded in Manchester of the charms of playing live. At the end of the tournament I sat down in a late night low stakes cash game with some locals. The emphasis was on fun and in the space of a couple of hours I was slow rolled with Aces, offered to be set up with a 24 year old Russian model and bought Don Perrignon… I swear the game was low stakes! Sometimes poker is just the most fun you can have in the world – even on Valentines day!

On The Rail Podcast #30 Released

Dear On The Rail Member,

For a limited time you’ll have exclusive access to the newest edition of the On The Rail podcast.

In the latest edition, Nick and Kara dial in and form a transatlantic web of words as they discuss their recent poker activities and have one of their infrequent rarely rated strategy chats. This time they discuss heads up poker and how to learn a new game quickly. There’s also a competition where you can win an Ivey wannabe set of kick ass headphones.

You’ll need a password access it on the site, this month it’s : goblin

Click here to listen:

http://www.ontherail.co.uk/podcasts/on-the-rail/on-the-rail-30/

In other news, Nick will be at the Manchester UKIPT from 11th-14th Feb. Then doing live commentary on the EPT Copenhagen final stages on 20th-21st, so check him out!

That’s it for this edition of the newsletter, as ever, lets us know what you think about the podcast by posting comments on the site.

Best,

Nick and the team @

www.ontherail.co.uk

On The Rail #30

In the latest edition, Nick and Kara dial in and form a transatlantic web of words as they discuss their recent poker activities and have one of their infrequent rarely rated strategy chats. This time they discuss heads up poker and how to learn a new game quickly. There’s also a competition where you can win an Ivey wannabe set of kick ass headphones.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (47.3MB)

Le Oscars and Le french

Hey you crazy kids – you look great

This is going to be short as I don’t have much on my mind (pretty standard)

Just watching the Oscar nominations come in. I think it’s an amazing year for films.

The Hangover, Up, Avatar, Hurt Locker and especially Ingloriuous Bastards are all awesome examples of great film making and writing

I’m constantly struck by two tendancies – a lot of which comes from the critical class – one is to view everything contemporary as less than films of yester year and second is to view things like comedy or action adventure as ‘less’ when actually they’re harder to do than drama.

I think the Oscars need two things – first a best comedy oscar as comedies never get any recognition of any kind and second for more actors to thank the writers!

In other news I’ve been in France for the EPT. It was a lot of fun. And I’m stuck for something insightful to say. …..Oh they call wifi – wee fee….which is amusing to me!