The Scoop w/ Scott Fischman

My buddy and fellow crewmate Scott Fischman, fresh off his final table in London at the WSOP-Europe, appeared on Adam Schoenfeld's and Diego Cordovez's show The Scoop. It's a good interview. I think my favorite line is when he's talking about the differences between playing cash games and poker tournaments. "Everyday when I wake up, I know I'm going to lose." So true. Anyway, take a look at the interview. He said some nice things about me, which I really appreciated.

ProPokerSchool.com

One of my fellow Crew members, Brett "Gank" Jungblut, setup a site some time ago called Pro Poker School. Now there are a lot of online poker training sites, many of them very good... sites like PokerXFactor.com, ChipRunners.com, RealPokerTraining.com, etc. ProPokerSchool.com is different then all of them, however, because it is 100% free.

Let me repeat that. You can go to Gank's online poker school and get poker lessons from a World Series of Poker bracelet winner and it won't cost you a dime. This is an incredible deal. Brett is one of the players which I credit for improving my game the most. He makes some of the most creative plays I've ever come across in poker.

As an example, a few years ago when the Crew was just starting out, Gank, my little brother Bobby, and myself decided to play a little three-man Limit Omaha/8 tournament. O8 is Gank's best game... I had played my fair share of it as a prop in San Jose... but Bobby had never played the game before and really didn't have much of an idea of what he was doing.

A hand came down where by the river, I had a very weak high hand and the fourth nut low. The board read something like 887QA. I had been drawing to the nut low with A25x, and made Bobby had been raising the whole time like he had flopped the nut fullhouse. On the river, Gank checked, Bobby bet like he'd been doing every street, and I called hoping to salvage half the pot. Then Gank check-raised. Bobby called. I was disgusted, as I realized that I was getting squeezed. Brett must have been playing a 23 and hit his nut low. So I shook my head and folded my 25.

But then when Gank turned over his hand, he had absolutely nothing and Bobby sooped the pot with something like a pair of Kings. I couldn't believe it! "Why the hell would you raise?!?" At first I thought it was the dumbest play I'd seen...

But then I felt schooled as Brett started laughing his head off while Bobby scooped the chips. I realized what had happened. Brett knew that I was going to be getting half the pot with my low and he decided that he would rather see the whole pot go to Bobby, since he had never played O8 and Brett correctly figured that it would be easier to get the chips back from him than from me. It was still to this day one of the more advanced plays I've seen at the table... pushing out a better player to make sure a weaker player wins the pot.

A year later, Brett Jungblut would prove to the rest of the world what I already knew... that he was a world-class poker player and one of the best Omaha Hi-low players around. He proved it by winning the $5,000 Omaha/8 Championship at the WSOP. It was one of the toughest tables I'd ever seen a WSOP final table, filled out by the likes of Erick Lindgren, Huck Seed, Miami John, Thor Hansen, Minh Nguyen, Brent Carter, Mike Wattel and Todd Brunson. There wasn't a single weak spot at that final table. And Brett emerged victorious.

Go visit ProPokerSchool.com today and improve your poker game for free.

My PokerHost Smoking Gun

I feel even more confident right now about my Poker Host domain dispute. Doing a website history search on archive.org shows me that PokerHost.com didn't even have content up until October 2004, where they announced they would be opening in December 2004. I registered the domain in June 2004, and had content up by September. That means I was using the term "Poker Host" in commerce before they were, arguably many months before (if their first use counts as December).

This makes me think that maybe I should respond to their effort to reverse hijack my domain name by responding in kind. I could conceivably file my own application for a trademark and file an anti-cybersquatting claim against them. The reason I wouldn't be able to succeed with a UDRP claim is the same reason they won't be able to.

A UDRP claim is an arbitration process. Under a UDRP claim, you have to prove bad faith registration AND bad faith use. Under the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, you only have to prove one or the other. It's a very important distinction.

If I could succeed in getting a US trademark, then their continued use after the trademark is approved would probably constitute bad faith. The nice thing about Anti-Cybersquatting claims is that you can not only get the domain name but you can also get statutory damages up to $100k besides traditional trademark infringement remedies such as defendant's profits (I wonder how much they're raking in every week), damages sustained, and legal fees.

If there's any IP lawyers out there who want to take this case on a contingency fee, feel free to contact me. lol.

PokerHost.net now a cyber-gripe site

I've decided to try and fight back against Poker Host Inc.'s frivolous and immoral attempt to hijack my domain name by setting up PokerHost.net as a cyber-gripe site where I'll be negative things about PokerHost.com. My plan is to get indexed in the search engines for the term "Poker Host" and "PokerHost.com". I want people to see what kind of shady operators these guys are.

If you've ever had a problem with their company, please email me about it and I'll try to get your issue some exposure. If you feel like helping me stick it to them, it would be helpful if you'd link to PokerHost.net from your own blogs, forum posts and websites, as incoming links is one of the primary factors that search engines consider when ranking sites.

PokerHost.com: A Bunch of Idiot Thieves

A funny thing happened to me today. I got a call from my mother who said I got a big package in the mail from an attorney out in Chicago, which she opened (gotta love moms ;). It turned out to be a UDRP complaint from PokerHost.com.

You can visit PokerHost.net and read the rest of the story and my battle to keep Poker Host Inc. from reverse hijacking my domain. If you want to help me out and protect the rights of domain owners against lame companies like PokerHost.com, you can help me out by posting a link to PokerHost.net

The Price is Wrong, Bob!

I love The Price is Right... I remember watching it every day with my grandma when she was alive. And now, with the miracle that is YouTube, I can watch the dumbest moments in the history of the show. These are hilarious. Check em out.

Ben Fineman

That's the name of the guy who ended up knocking me out of today's tourney. He's been around the circuit awhile and has wracked up over a half mil in what looks like only a couple years. I guess I should know these guys...

Back to Bellagio

So I haven't played much in the way of live tournaments since the disaster that was this year's World Series. Besides showing up at the Bike 10k for a few hours, I haven't played anything except Rodney Butler's home tournament back in Columbia. But I won that one, so I figure I'm ready to put up some scores at this year's Fiesta el Lago at Bellagio. It started this week, and today's $2500 was the first event for me.

The fields are fairly small, and are made up mostly of local pros and tournament degens... with a few rich guys and some foreigners thrown in. I started the table with Gavin Smith and a couple other guys I recognized. About three hours into the tournament, Arnold Spee (a regular on the trail) started really digging into Gavin... I really couldn't believe it, because this guy Arnold is usually really quiet and unassuming at the table... he's always come off pretty nice. But there he went for about two minutes just really going off on Gavin about how he annoys everybody with his table talk and how he only amuses himself. Then he said something about how the only girls Gavin gets are the ones he pays for, which I thought was kind of a lame thing to say. But whatever...

That's about the most interesting thing that happened in the tournament. I made a couple of pretty good calls... one time I limped with Q8o on the button and the BB decided to get crazy with Q4 when the flop came KQ5... he bet a good chunk on the flop, I called... then he went all-in on the turn which was a 7. I was pretty sure I had him beat, but figured he was semi-bluffing with a hand like JT... it was nice to have him drawing to only three outs. Then there was the hand where I raised utg with AQo to 3k with blinds 600/1200. We were down to two tables. The BB calls. He has about 18k behind him. I've got him covered by about 10k. The flop comes 9d4d3c. He checks. I continuation bet for 3k and he goes all-in for 15k more. It just didn't feel right to me. I thought about it for a long time, because I didn't want to look stupid calling him with Ace high... but in the end, I figured he must have been hoping that I had overcards and would release... I put him on a hand like QJs for a flush draw... or maybe even just complete air. He bet so much, I just KNEW he read me for exactly what I had and was trying to get me off of it. So I risked looking pretty stupid and pushed the chips in. He sheepishly turned over A5 for a gutshot straight draw and I had him drawing pretty thin. It came clean and I looked like a hero and that pot got me to about 55k.

That's as high as it would go. I had a lame hand go down where the SB decided to raise my BB... same level 600/1200. He makes it 3600. He didn't look like he was too happy with his hand. I should have just raised him right there, but instead I called with A4. The flop came out 722 with two spades. He checked and I bet 3600 with what I figured was the best. He thought about it for a bit and then reraised to 9000. I was so sure that he was unpaired to start with and I didn't really see how the flop could have helped him... so I decided to call. The turn came a 7, which I figured was a good card for me since I didn't have to worry about him having a better kicker with his Ace if that's what he had. He checked. I decided to bet small, hoping he'd put me on the full house. I bet 6k. He calls and I'm done with the hand. The turn comes a 5. He checks, I check, and he turns over 73. So lame. Whatever. I guess I've given beats with worse.

We go on dinner break and I come back utg. The blinds are up to 800/1600. I look down at 94o and fold. Ralph Perry raises to 4k and everyone folds. The next hand I'm in the BB and everyone folds to the SB (73 dude). He looks over at me and asks how many chips I have. I say I started with 30k. So he announces all-in. Such a lame bet, really... 20x the BB? Obviously he had shit and I was praying to get any sort of hand to call him with. I look down and see Jacks and instacall. He turns over A9o. First card off is an ace and I'm out in 15th.

So it goes. This is the life we chose.

Anyway, I feel like my reads are on and my game is sharp. I just need to avoid lame suckouts and I should be able to win at least three or four of these tourneys. Hopefully, I'll get all the bad beats out of my system in time for the $15k WPT at the end of the series. I would really like to make something happen in that one.