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Nov 27, 2009

I lost all my money gambling... what should I do?

Came across an old email when going through some old files. It's interesting how many of these types of emails I've gotten in the last few years. Here is some advice if you've lost all of your money playing poker and don't know what to do.

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Dutch -

I will start by saying that I never imagined I would hit rock bottom like this, requesting help from someone I've only met on a few occasions, but I feel like you might be in a position to help me. I only decided to write to you because you've been through a lot and I hoped that with all things considered, you might view my dilemma a worthy cause. In case you don't remember me, my name is . We played a $37 freezeout at the Southcoast together with our girlfriends (mine busted out with J's on the first hand and yours went on to win the tournament). I ran into you again in the hallway at the Rio, in between WSOP tournaments. Anyway, I'll get to the point. I graduated from college with an English degree and a writing minor. I have yet to put my education to use in the real world, as I moved to Las Vegas with dreams of playing poker for a living. As I'm sure you know, the temptations of living here are overwhelming and often times become extremely problematic. Case in point - during the past month I've become wreckless with paychecks and the tips I make at work (work is a serving job at across the street from Green Valley Ranch). It's common for me to take a weeks worth of earnings and lose it all in a matter of minutes on table games I shouldn't even be playing. In the past, I've always found a way to bounce back. My life to this point can probably best be described by the introductory paragraph of your blog - "I'm an idea man who never seems to catch the big break, but always catches the little ones when I need them most." This time, however, I'm stuck with nowhere else to turn. Two nights ago, I foolishly decided to take advantage of Bodog's instant check deposit method, and loaded $2000 into my account that I didn' t even have. Somehow I ran up the balance to just under $7,500, but knew that I was still in trouble because I couldn't cover the deposits I had made. If you're not familiar with Bodog's policies, they are as follows: If a pending deposit is declined, any monies won during the pending period are considered by Bodog to be invalid. So I was sitting on almost $5,500, but needed to find a way to get the $2000 into my checking account before my deposits hit. Enter my old roommate Dave. He was very gracious to me during my world series of poker run - allowing me to move to a new place with cheaper rent, despite the fact that I still owed him $1600 in back rent. After I'd won the $5,500 - I got in touch with Dave and told him I found a way to pay him back in full - but it would require some financial assistance on his part - enough to ensure my deposits were processed by the bank. He agreed to transfer me the necessary funds, and once everything had cleared, I planned to cash out the entire amount and pay Dave the $2000 he lent me to be sure everything went through, + the $1600 I owed him in rent. At this point, things seemed to be taking a turn for the better - I was going to have almost $4000 that I didn't have before, and felt as though I'd learned my lesson on a positive note, if that's possible. Today, however, disaster struck. I got greedy and decided to continue playing; you've never seen $7,500 lost so fast. So now instead of being up $4000 and paying off a hefty debt, I owe Dave $3600 and don't know how to tell him I lost all of that money. I have gone into a state of serious depression and not knowing what to do, literally to the point of tears. I have already exhausted all of my other options. I don't keep credit cards, I have no savings, and I've already borrowed from everyone close to me.. I don't know what else to do. I do know that I have a serious problem to deal with, and am considering getting professional help. I haven't found it in me to tell Beth, my girlfriend, for fear of what might result. I am ashamed of what has happened, and dissapointed that I let things get so bad.

If there is anything you can do - I would forever be in your debt. Please get in touch with me if you're able, and I can go into more detail if you wish.

Thank you for listening

==========

Man, brother... that's quite a little hole you dug yourself into. I can't give you money... there are a lot of better uses for it and a lot of people in worse spots who I have to say no to. Best I can do is give you some advice... I've dug a lot of holes.

First off, remember that there is always a trapdoor at the bottom of every barrel. No matter how bad things seem right now, they can get worse if you don't handle this right. DO NOT do anything desperate like holdup a bank or slit your wrists. Nothing illegal or self-destructive.

You need to come clean with your friend right away. Tell him exactly what happened. Then find someone to borrow $2k to pay that back ASAP or get on a payment plan and make weekly payments. Promise to give him interest on it if need be.

I don't know if you need to tell your girlfriend about this. If you're super close to her and plan on marrying her, or you already share so much in your life that she's going to figure it out when she checks your bank account, or she's friends with the guy Dave... then you need to tell her. If things aren't too serious, then she doesn't have to know your business.

You also need to stop gambling until you get your self-destructive streak out of you... and be thankful that this happened when your net is $5k and not when it's $5m and you have a family and a house payment. If you want to make it as a poker player, you need to learn money management... it means a lot of things, but one thing it definitely means is you can't be in a hurry and have unrealistic expectations about what the game will give you. Don't try to win the money back.

A lot of players wrestle with a common demon... no matter what they've won they feel the need to risk it to win more. They aren't satisfied with anything... and the bigger your bankroll gets, the less satisfied you get with thousand dollar days.

You got to keep reminding yourself that it's all relative. You're not in that bad of shape. There are a bunch of kids dying of thirst in Africa and a bunch of Cuban men rolling cigars in Havana for $15 a month. Sounds like you've got good friends, a good girl, and a lot going on... maybe you feel like you don't deserve success and that's why you get yourself in holes like this one. That's something you need to get over. It'll follow you around in everything... not just poker.

That's about all I got. Good luck.

-db

Nov 17, 2009

Never write your name and number on a napkin...


Guys... do yourself a favor and listen to this little tip I'm about to give you. No, it's not about how to play poker. It's about how to pick up a stripper at a club.

I've been helping Michele go through her old receipts. Mixed in are dozens of Sapphire napkins with just some random name and number. If you're trying to get a girl you meet to actually pick up the phone one day and call you, don't think that a name and number on a napkin will do it. Don't think that a business card will do it, either... there are even more of those.

You've got to do something to stand out... so far the only one that we've gone through that actually stood out was one that had a little message on the napkin. "It was great meeting you today, my friend. Always believe in yourself. You are an angel. Name and number." It's a little different, at least... but that guy didn't get a callback either.

I asked Michele what a guy CAN do to get a stripper to call them. Nothing. There isn't anything you can do. You're drawing dead.

Nov 1, 2009

Introducing Bluff.com... or how I dusted off my stack in the second level of the 750k guarantee.

I've been waiting for a good hand history to come up that I could use to demonstrate the power that is Bluff.com. I've been talking about this cool poker site for awhile now. Basically lets you take a hand history and embed it right into your website. It's a great poker tool, and it's free. And now it's ready for anybody to signup and use.

So here it is... how I dusted off my chips in the 750k guarantee today on Full Tilt in only the second level. Poker is all about pain management... and you are almost guaranteed to feel some pain in every poker tournament that you enter. It's a strange fact : the deeper you get in a poker tournament, the worse it feels.


from Dutchalicious -- free Hand History Analyzer


Now back to battle... actually still have some chips in this 750k... back up to 630 and gearing up to make the biggest comeback in my poker history. And up to 72k in the massive 44,000 player field FTOPs Warmup. That would be a pretty cool score, turning $5 into $22k. Griiiiiiiiiiiiiiind.

Oct 15, 2009

Freelancer.com

Today I'm working on getting some of my poker sites translated into other languages. I worked up a pretty good affiliate deal with an online cardroom, but they don't accept US players. That means I somehow have to find a way to get foreign poker players to a website where they can then click on an affiliate link.

This is not really the easiest thing for me to do by myself. I only speak one language. Sure, I know how to order a drink in Spanish and pick up a girl in French, but I have no idea how to say "I'm all-in" in Italian, or "raise" in Chinese.

Nope... it's like the old joke goes.

"If you call someone who speaks three languages 'trilingual' and you call someone who speaks two languages 'bilingual', what do you call someone who speaks one language?" American.

That's where a site like Freelancer.com, comes in handy. I've written about outsourcing sites in the past, but this one is the best I've found when you're looking to get work done that isn't strictly design work (for that, I strongly recommend 99Designs).

Anyway, if you are a broke Italian poker player (or Albanian poker player, or whatever), and feel like making some money translating some poker content, check out the Freelancer.com website and bid on my translation projects!

Oct 11, 2009

No news is bad news...

A couple of people have asked about the situation with Roy Winston and why I took the blog post about him welching on our $5k POY prop bet last year. They naturally assumed that we had resolved the issue. We haven't.

The reason I took the blog post down was because after reading some feedback in the forums, I realized that I came off sounding like a self-righteous ass. That's why I deleted the post. It wasn't because Roy finally did the right thing. No, Roy Winston still hasn't paid me the $5k he owes from our bet from last year.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, here it is in a sentence: Roy Winston and I made a prop bet for $5k in 2008 on who would finish higher in the Cardplayer POY race, and when I won he flat welched on the bet. The last time I talked to him about it, his response was a simple "fuck you."

He writes a pretty regular blog for Cardplayer. Maybe he'll weigh in here and explain why he shouldn't have to pay the bets he loses... I'm thinking he'll just keep ignoring it, though, and instead of defending his reputation in the poker world, as any wrongly-accused person would, he'll just keep writing lame posts about the risks you take in playing private home games and about how much he can't stand cigarettes. What a tool.

It just goes to show one of the big risks in making prop bets. Even if you are pretty sure you're an overwhelming favorite to win your bet (as I was in this case), you are taking way the worst of it if there's a healthy chance you won't get paid.

Something that Johnny Hughes (one of my favorites of the old guard players) wrote really stuck with me :

"It does not matter who you welch on.
It does not matter why you welch.
It does not matter how much you welch for.
If you welch, you are a welcher, the lowest scum in gambling."

Poker Tilt and the Bicycle Black Ghost Deck

Yes, I know I haven't blogged since the WSOP. It's been a couple months and I've finally gotten myself out of my post-main depression and back to working on something productive.

I've been working on a new landing page for my poker domain names. The one I'm testing out right now is Poker Tilt. It definitely beats the old landing page I was using.

Right now I'm setting up the little affiliate links. Bobby told me to link to what is the coolest deck of playing cards I've ever seen in my life. It's called the Bicycle Black Ghost Deck. Check it out by clicking here, or just click the picture. You're going to want one.

Bicycle Black Ghost Playing Cards

May 31, 2009

WSOP 2009 is underway!


Here is what a landmine looks like after cracking your aces and stacking your chips.


Played my third tournament today... the $1k donkament. There are bound to be a lot of bad beats this year, so it's only fitting that I run into a random landmine. This time, the landmine took the form of Peter Feldman, a Full Tilt red pro who plays online as "Nordberg". The hand went as follows :

Blinds are at 25/25. Starting stack is 3k and after winning a few small pots, I'm up to 4500. Nordberg is in the BB and has lost a few pots, so he's down to 2500. I'm in middle position and look down to see two black aces. I limp in hoping that someone will raise behind me... the SB does that... makes it 150. Nordberg makes it 450 and I'm a little unhappy because I know when I call there really is only one hand they can put me on. I call and the SB wisely gets out of the way. Thought about shoving, but didn't want to give Nordberg a chance to get away from his hand in case he had something like tens or jacks or queens.

The flop came QJ3 with two clubs. I didn't love it... but when Nordberg bet out 650, leaving himself with 1400 behind I figured he didn't flop the set. And I was very confident that my hand was good after I pushed all-in and he tanked. But he was pot-committed, I guess... the pot was laying him 3:1, so of course he has to call with his AKo (sarcasm). The ten hit the turn and he stacks up a 5500 pot while I'm left with right around 2k. I float for about an hour and finally raise preflop after a limper with AQo... the blinds had jumped to 25/50 and the BB himmms and haws and raises. We had exactly the same amount of chips and I was pretty sure I wasn't dominated, so I put the rest of them in. He flips tens, and the board stays clean for him. Good game.

Seriously... there are going to be a lot of land-mines in this tournament and a lot of them are going to be wearing online cardroom logos. :) Michele told me she heard a couple of older guys talking in the sauna today about how most of the top name pros don't know how to play poker. What they should have said to be more fair is that most of the top name pros don't know how to play poker WELL.

May 18, 2009

WSOP 2009 Schedule

So I've worked out my schedule for the 2009 Series. A few people have asked me what I was playing for fantasy leagues and what not... so here it is. I'm very excited about the Ante up for Africa tournament. I couldn't sell the backers on the $40k, but I'm scheduled to play in a satellite a couple days before so hopefully I'll make it in. If you happen to have forty gs lying around and want to put me in it, let me know and I'll be happy to add it to my schedule.

Not a lot of $10ks this year... but plenty of chances for 2nd bling - 29 chances for gold. My game is pretty sharp... I'm coming off of an FTOPS win and feeling very confident. I've spent the last week watching all the old WSOP episodes and am going to be really studying the hands and working on my reads. I think it's going to be a good year.

Hoping to work out some sponsorships before the series starts. Would be nice to get a little coin for a logo or something. If you have any leads, hit me up and we'll work it out : dutch@dutchboyd.com.


WSOP 2009 Live Schedule

WSOP SUPER
1,530.00
Tuesday, 5/26/2009

WSOP O8
1,500.00
Friday, 5/29/2009

WSOP
1,000.00
Saturday, 5/30/2009

WSOP PLO
1,500.00
Monday, 6/1/2009

WSOP 2-7 LB
2,500.00
Tuesday, 6/2/2009

WSOP 6
1,500.00
Wednesday, 6/3/2009

WSOP
2,000.00
Thursday, 6/4/2009

WSOP
2,500.00
Friday, 6/5/2009

WSOP Stud
1,500.00
Saturday, 6/6/2009

WSOP 6
2,500.00
Monday, 6/8/2009

WSOP HORSE
3,000.00
Tuesday, 6/9/2009

WSOP SO
1,500.00
Wednesday, 6/10/2009

WSOP O8/Stud 8
2,500.00
Thursday, 6/11/2009

WSOP LHE
1,500.00
Friday, 6/12/2009

WSOP
1,500.00
Saturday, 6/13/2009

WSOP HORSE
1,500.00
Sunday, 6/14/2009

WSOP
2,000.00
Monday, 6/15/2009

WSOP
1,500.00
Tuesday, 6/16/2009

WSOP Stud8
10,000.00
Thursday, 6/18/2009

WSOP LHE
2,000.00
Friday, 6/19/2009

WSOP
1,500.00
Saturday, 6/20/2009

WSOP Mixed
2,500.00
Sunday, 6/21/2009

WSOP Razz
2,500.00
Monday, 6/22/2009

WSOP O8
2,500.00
Tuesday, 6/23/2009

WSOP Mixed HE
2,500.00
Wednesday, 6/24/2009

WSOP PLO8
1,500.00
Thursday, 6/25/2009

WSOP LHE SO
1,500.00
Friday, 6/26/2009

WSOP Stud8
1,500.00
Sunday, 6/28/2009

WSOP 6
5,000.00
Tuesday, 6/30/2009

WSOP AFRICA
5,000.00
Thursday, 7/2/2009

WSOP ME
10,000.00
Friday, 7/3/2009