WPBT WSoP Satellite #3: Noble Bloggers

"We're all one bad beat away from being a rail bird." - Tao of Pauly

Quote me on that gem. I don't want some donkey fucker from North Dakota ripping that off.

I thought about spouting out a detailed write up about our latest adventure on Noble Poker, but then I said fuck it. Do you really care if G Rob dropped the Hammer on me at 9:26pm EST? Or that I dropped the Jack Hammer at 9:41pm EST? Or that at the end of the first break I found myself seated at the same table as my brother for a third straight tournament, with 57 players left he sat in last place? Or that I went on a mini rush and my chips jumped from T1200 to T2700 after I won four straight pots? Sure that's kinda interesting.

But hey, let's get to the sad bad beat tale? Maybe it will get me a sympathy lay somewhere down the road. Nothing gets chicks hotter than bad beat stories. I got knocked out by SoxLover. He's a friend of F Train from law school. I dunno what's worse... being a lawyer or being a Red Sox fan? I had the Hiltons tag-teaming me and those damn wenches screwed me over. For fuck's sake, losing to pocket Jacks when you have an over pair is embarrassing!

Pocket Jacks have lost more big pots than any hand in the history of poker. It's a kick in the junk when you lose to Jacks, especially when you think you're sitting pretty with the Hilton Sisters then WHAM! Kicked in the junk. Your chips are abruptly shipped across the table as your avatar is sucked out into no man's land... the virtual loser's lounge... where you get to whine to your fellow bloggers who have already busted out, and got a refill, and blogged about their bad beat. Of course you are banished to the cyber rail, eagerly waiting for your chance to say something funny so your fellow bloggers don't think you're a total brain dead freak that has no other interests other than playing on Party Poker for 25 hours a day and reading poker blogs.

Like I said in my opening quote, one bad beat ruins your entire tournament. Fuck man. Hiltons losing to Jacks. Oh well, shrug it off and move on. At least I didn't get knocked out with AK again.

OK, I know you could care less about who fucked who over in what position and how many outs so and so had and blah blah blah. Sometimes blogging all these flops makes my head hurt. Ever get that feeling? Maybe I'll skip the hand by hand stuff and just give you the line ups because that's everyone's favorite part of the write ups. So here we go.

My Starting Table:
Seat 1: Gracie... She's the spider-hater from Gainesville, Florida. She cares little for long lists, yet feels compelled to create them upon occasion. She hates Justin Timberlake and is an Elliot Smith kind of girl.

Seat 2: Madroxx... His agent failed to submit a bio sheet by press time.

Seat 3: Maudie... The word on the street these days is: Don't mess with Maudie. She secretly is the head of the Oklahoma version of the Crips. When some snot nosed kid who cut her in line at the grocery store, she quickly had his knee caps broken by her roving band of thugs. She recently made the FBI's terror watch list and bumped Ibrahim Salih Mohammed Al-Yacoub out of the Top 20.

Seat 4: DrPauly... Your hero. He likes long walks on the beach, Orange Gatorade, and secretly writes 46 haikus about Katie Holmes every day. He's still hungover from his three day bender in the Midwest.

Seat 5: G-Rob... The Kent Brockman of poker bloggers is always fun to have at your table. You can tell by the way he walks, he's a woman's man.

Seat 6: Gamecock... He's pathetic at poker. Or just pathetic? He's part of the ever expanding South Carolina poker blogging community. There are rumors that in honor of the first southern state to secede from the Union that the SoCaro bloggers were going to start up their own tournament circuit... the SCPBT after the Vegas trip. Just rumors, folks.

Seat 7: StB... The Beer City Poker native has been a regular at my table the last few tournaments. He likes to tool on Dutch Boyd, but don't we all. We think he is one of the few bloggers who can compete with Al Cant Hang in the beverage consumption department.

Seat 8: M3Boy... reader. No other data available at press time.

Seat 9: Katansas... reader. No other data available at press time.

I like pictures. Don't we all? I'll let the screen captures tell the rest of the story because it's 2am and I'm lazy. You can click the pics to enlarge. I will say that Otis made another final table (I was happy that he got to play in this event!) and that Spaceman and Bad Blood also played great poker. The final four agreed to chop second place's prize money and give away only one seat. The The Fat Guy almost made it to the big show. On his birthday he nearly pulled it off. So close, TFG!! Wes came from behind to win it, so hat's off to you. Congrats to everyone who played and participated the last few weeks. Special thanks to Iggy for setting it up.


I Wonder if the Fat Guy had the Hammer?


Then there were two...


River'd!


Congrats Wes!


Third time's a charm right? 83 bloggers and readers forked up $33. They were all gambling on a win, a big score, the shot of a life time... the chance to be flinging chips along with the pros. Not against the fish on Party Poker, but against certified, rip your throat out, take all your chips and dignity Las Vegas sharks. Those dudes and dudettes devour hundreds of eager amateurs from Hootersville, Iowa every year who think they can hold their mud against those pros you see on the TV. You're the best one in your home game but to them you are the fish. You might be an internet celebrity, but the pros mock you and call you "dead money" behind your backs. They salivate like Pavlov's frothing dog when you show up at the table with that fresh tourist glow and flash them that what-the-fuck-am-I-doing-here glance. Sure try to hide it behind shades and a baseball cap. It's futile. They can sniff out your soul faster than Keith Richards can rip a gager of Peruvian snowflake during set break at Altamont Speedway back in 1969. You are the longest shot on the board and yet, you still sit down to play. Why? Because in poker anything can happen.

Bob. Russell. Wes. Stop by their blogs and wish them luck. They're all going to Vegas with our money and will try to show them how we play poker and how fuck around and we'll drop the Hammer with reckless abandon at any moment. Attack, gentlemen. Don't be a bunch of pussies either and fold your way out in 374th place. Don't back down against the sharks. The worst thing a bully wants is to have someone push back. Kick the big dogs in the junk and don't stop until they fall out of their chairs and you snag all their chips and they walk back to their exspensive cars withering in groin-numbing pain.

Take your time, but be decisive. Once you allow fear to enter your mind, you're fucked. Eliminate fear and you can fall into the zone, the groove that all players want to fall into at some point, when you're making perfect laydowns and bold calls and every card falls into place and you're winning every coinflip and building up a chip stack bigger than Dirk Diggler's crank.

Make us proud guys. Show the poker world that on June 3rd, you can ride the wave of luck, skill, and courage all the way to first place. When you slide your first World Series of Poker bracelet around your wrist, don't forget about how you got there. And I'll end this pep talk with a movie quote from Karate Kid to appease Bob's twisted sense of humor... "Strike first. Strike hard. No mercy."