Rizen Poker

Playing in a KABA charity tournament tomorrow in Topeka

Just a quick note, i'll be playing in a charity poker tournament tomorrow in Topeka for the Kansas Association of Blind Athletes. I was unable to make the event last year but did donate to them, and I think the idea is really cool. They're raising money mostly for their beep baseball team (wikipedia entry for beep baseball is at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Beep_Baseball_Association). Basically it allows visually impaired people to compete in baseball using beeping balls and buzzing bases. From what I understand, some seeing people participate too, but they must play with a blindfold on.

At any rate, as you can imagine the equipment for this is not cheap, and since these athletes are hitting the balls with real bats the expenses can add up quickly. There will be a bounty on my head at the tournament and the winner is going to receive a $300 stake in my overall world series performance this year. It should be a fun event.

Unfortunately I didn't have the information in time to get this out earlier, but if you happen to live in the Topeka area the tournament is at McB's Sports Bar & Grill in Topeka, KS. It's $30 if you get there early (11:30am) and $35 at starting time (noon). For those of you that can't make it, if you would like to contribute to the team you can go to their website at http://www.kabasports.org/kaba/ and click on the 'Support KABA' link or just go directly to http://www.kabasports.org/kaba/support.htm

The page even gives you an idea of how much the equipment costs and there are some links with more information if you're curious.

-Rizen

REAL quick update

I've seen a few people commenting lately on the lack of updates. I should have done a better job communicating this before, but I'm going to be VERY slow on the updates until World Series of Poker time. I just have a lot of things to take care of in the next few weeks and not nearly enough time to do it, plus I really need to recharge the batteries a bit before then. As many of you long time readers know we're in the process of building a new house, so we're trying to get all the important stuff picked out before we go to Las Vegas for six weeks. In addition the book is going out the door soon (I'll have pre-order information ready for you all in about a week) and I'm trying to record enough videos for PokerXFactor.com that there will still be some new content going up from me while I'm in Vegas and don't have to try and do that and focus on the WSOP At the same time.

In real quick news, Craig, a reader of the blog won the cover design contest. Sometime in the next week or so I'll post a quick interview with him as well as post a copy of the winning cover design. Also, in poker related news I won the 40k sniper on UB about a week and a half ago and took second in both 11pm 100+9s on Sunday night. I also final tabled the FTP 65k twice in the last week or so I believe. It's been a REALLY good few weeks for me online.

So for those of you disappointed with the lack of updates, I should have communicated better. There will probably be 2-3 more between now and the WSOP, but probably not much more than that. You'll get more updates than you could ever want once the WSOP starts though. I'm going to be live blogging the entire series with regular podcast updates on most breaks as well as end of day recaps (if I get home at 4am, they may be more like beginning of next day recaps).

I'm looking forward to the series, but have to take care of some other issues before then to make sure that I'm not distracted while I'm down there. I do want to say though that I really do appreciate those of you that wrote to say you'd like more updates. I do enjoy writing the blog, and I enjoy knowing that there are people out there that enjoy reading it as well. We all have to recharge to be at our best though, and these next few weeks I'm going to do just that.

-Rizen

ITH Cover Contest Link Fixed

The link in the cover contest post is fixed. That's what I get for not clicking the link after I set it up. Sorry for anyone who clicked on it and didn't go to the right place!

-Rizen

Book Cover Design Contest

We are getting very close to completing the first volume of the hands book. My publisher, Matthew Hilger, is having a cover design contest for the book. If any of you are interested in trying to design a cover for the book, go to this link to the ITH poker forum to get details. He is awarding $300 or a $300 stake into his WSOP winnings to the winning design.

-Rizen

Out of WPT championship

I'm out around 110th. Ran 99 into JJ and didn't get there with about a 20 big blind stack. I'll do more details in a few days after i get home and get settled in.

-Rizen

Still in WPT championship

Just a real quick update. I finished the day with 56k in chips. Not really where I wanted to be, but I'm one double up from average. I had a really tough table today with Carlos Mortensen, Steve Billirakis, Tom Dwan, Jordan Rich, and JC Tran. It was just a blur of aggression and I was pretty card dead all day. Really, I've been pretty card dead all tournament so I guess it's somewhat of a blessing to still be in. I haven't had AA a single time yet, but I did crack JC Tran's QQ with TT towards the end of the day to get the stack I have.

So I'll look to play patient poker with 20-25 big blinds and hope to catch a mini rush at some point. If I can do that, or get lucky if I run into a hand, I like my chances. I'm going to get some sleep though. I'll be doing podcasts again tomorrow.

-Rizen

WPT Championship Podcasts

I'm bumping the podcasts to the top. This post will automatically update the podcasts as I update them every 1:45 or so. The first one should go up around 2pm PT time. My podcasts form Saturday are still up there too. The blog itself will NOT be updating, the the podcasts will. Please subscribe if you want to get e-mail alerts every time I update it.

-Rizen

WPT Championship tomorrow

I'll be playing flight 1A at the WPT Championship tomorrow at noon PT. I'll be podcasting from there as well. I think I figured out why some people got confused on the updates last time. Every time I update the podcast there is not necessarily a new post. The old post podcast player will automaticlaly update when I record new podcasts. You can also subscribe to the podcasts and get e-mails when I update them. I'll be updating every break (90 minutes) tomorrow. We're scheduled to play 5 levels tomorrow as well. We start with 50k chips so the structure is great and I'm looking forward to it. I'm going to get some rest now though so I'm in good shape for tomorrow.

-Rizen

One outaments

Well, I think I was the first person to bust in the $5k event. About 30 minutes in we took a flop 9 ways all limped. I had 55, the flop was Q53. The UTG limper bet, a MP person called, I raised it since my hand is very vulnerable 9 ways. The UTG player called and the MP caller folded. The turn was a 3. The UTG player checked to me. i actually considered checking behind at this point to let him get there if he was on a flush draw, but I bet instead. He studied me for like 2 minutes then min-raised. At this point there was 9150 in the pot and I had to call 2000 more and he had 3400 behind. I actually could really only put him on QQ, 33, and AQs at this point, and had it been a much deeper stacked event I would have considered folding. I'm not folding a full house here though. I figured it was best to call since my hand really wasn't vulnerable anymore. I was either way ahead or drawing to one out. I called. The river was the Ts and he bet 3000 of his 3400. I don't know why I didn't just shove. I had him covered by about 1500, but I just called. He tabled 33 and I was down in the 1500-2000 mark.

Shortly after that I had AA UTG and raised and got 3 callers. Flop was K53, and I lead into the pot for 500 of my remaining 1500 and got one caller. Turn was a K. I probably could have just shipped it there but I figured if I did that he played pretty perfectly and i wanted the best chance to double up. If i checked I thought he might bet with a hand i could beat, but he'd never call my bet with a hand I was ahead of. I checked and he checked. River was a 7 and we got it all in, he had 64s and I was out.

-Rizen

Out in Vegas for WPT Championship

I was really busy after I got home from Foxwoods so i haven't been as diligent in keeping this updated as I should be. That being said I arrived in Las Vegas last night for the WPT Championship event later this week. I'm playing the $5k event that starts at noon today. The structure looks really good for a preliminary event. 10k starting chips, 60 minute levels, and 25/50 starting blinds with reasonable increments. It will obviously move faster than your typical WPT deep stacked event, but it should move slow enough there will be plenty of time to look for good spots.

I got some feedback from some people in Foxwoods that they never were able to listen to the podcast of my bustout hand, and others that could. I haven't had time to look into it, but it may be because the podcast is on this site and PokerXFactor, so it's possible one site got updated and the other didn't. I dont' know, i'll try and look into it soon.

I'll do my best to do a recap and talk about some of my recent online results tonight. In the meantime I'm going to podcast today during the breaks, first of which should start around 2pm PT.

-Rizen