PROP [blog] | Poker Clothing | A Degenerate Lifestyle Brand

I feel like becoming an excellent poker player (and a variety of other professions like day trading, golfer, customer service rep, et al) you have a mode in which you suppress your emotions.  Nothing gets to you - at least on the outside.  Look at Ivey.  When was the last time you saw him wince, or get really happy during a fortunate moment at the table.  You don’t.  And that definitely seems to be a trend.  Look at Durr.  He is the most laid back cat you can imagine - perhaps he throws monkey fits in his room alone, but I doubt it. Yeah you might be stuck $1M and winning this tourney for $600k only sort of helps, but getting stuck $1M in the first place requires a slight bit of insanity and emotional withdrawal.  I guess it speaks to what’s so dangerous about addiction, you can never quite get that same high after the first go.  Maybe its all the prozac, I dunno….someday I hope to have this level of excitement again:

Ok kiddies - we at PROP do not claim to be experts in this arena, but we do certainly want to make sure anyone that comes across this site is made aware of a few things:

Cliff note version:

Absolute Poker Scandal - super user accounts, capable of seeing hole cards, winning at ridiculous rates, caught from an email slip up from the AB sending some hand histories erroneously…AB did refund some money (approx 1.2M USD)

AB buys Ultimate Bet

Ultimate Bet Scandal - Russ Hamiliton (former owner, and main event winner) current ‘villian’ suspected of being tied to a bunch of super user accounts, just like AB.  Who knows.  Could have been him, could have been a team of others.  Who cares really.  I don’t need a witch hunt to decide where I play online.  The ‘new owners’ of UB have since tried to make good, and refund a bunch of money to players who played against these suspected names.  

Shady shadesville.  Don’t play these sites.  Cheating is possible online.  There is no question that collusion, multi-accounting, ghosting/account selling deep in mtt’s - all of it exists.  To what degree?  No one knows for sure.  Sites want to make the illusion of safety….whether it exists or not.  However, major sites - poker stars and full tilt - have in there best interest to keep the gravy train rolling - to proactively keep the sites as secure as possible.

High stakes cash games - if you are regularly trading 10k+ with people, do your homework.  Just kind of a common sense approach, that it is better to know, or know of, the people you’re playing against.  Minus the random fish here and there, generally you should have an idea of the people you are playing with.  Google is your friend here.

Nat Arem - he’s a primary source of information on this subject matter - due to him having conducted onsite company investigations (to the extent they let him)…

Pokerroad - Haralabous Vulgaris and Barry Greenstein have spoke candidly about this subject.  Check em out.

Regardless of what anyone says - the only way to punish these scandalous sites, is to make your voice count, by not playing them, not supporting them through affiliates and what not, and where possible educating your circle of influence on the subject.

All poker, online or live, it behooves us all to be careful, informed, and aware of our surroundings.  Angle shooters, cheating, chip dumping, scandals exist, don’t be naive.  Proceed with caution but certainly keep playing.  

Besides…most of us degenerates don’t care if you sit at a table with your buddy on the cell phone, exchanging hole card info.  You’re a monkey if you need to do that, and your buddy is too.  I’ll beat you both, and enjoy it : )  Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.  Now, if its a table of you monkeys, and we’re playing PLO…well stop that cuz knowing half the deck ain’t cool.

On stars, you see a lot of german kids who rock the Intellipoker Logo as their pokerstars icon - apparently there is some points bonus programs between that site and stars…you generally only see these guys at the lowest stakes online, but just so you know what you are playing against:

This almost seems fake it’s so good:

Very MXPX ish, but those silly japanese crack me up everytime:

Chop it up.  Will made a three way deal at the final table for $125k.  Ship it.  When he recovers from the event we hope to have a posting from him detailing the tournament.

Will is currently sitting with an average ish stack with 9 to go. Yippee.

Hand details will be posted soon - but apparently two big stacks just battled in a AA v KK preflop war, and AA coming out victorious.  Now this guy has a mega-stack and is abusing the rest of the table…

Who can make a music video without using a single camera?  Radiohead.  They’re super sweet and they just released a new music video for ‘House of Cards’ off their In Rainbows Album.

Here’s how some real smart people made the video:

And the video:

Can you fit 15 marshmallows in your mouth, without swallowing them, and being able to close your mouth completely in 2.5min?  Gavin Smith thinks he can, and put his money where his marshmallows are.

Watch the bet unravel here.

It would have been an interesting story to see a reasonably attractive girl make the final nine.  Especially in light of the final table delay, in which Harrah’s/ESPN are bound to create a reality show story build up of the event.  She’d be a little easier on the eyes than say….Dennis Phillips.

Interestingly enough, her ego and some poker karma seems to be at work in her eventual demise.  For those of you who don’t know.  Tiffany Michelle is/was a poker journalist for Pokernews.  A great site, run by the infamous Tony G.  Well, Tony is a good guy, and put a bunch of folks in the Main Event to help them out, and publicize his site at the same time.  Tiffany was one of those people.  She was to play for 33%, on a complete freeroll, in exchange for promoting Pokernews.  Oddly, most pictures you see of her have her littered with Ultimate Bet patches.  She was rocking one Pokernews patch…

To be fair, as accustom in the WSOP - the patches/deals grow proportionally to how deep you are in the event.  In addition, Tiffany isn’t the first one to either add to their sponor list, or jump ship all together. This is a shady process that goes down when you make deals on napkins and throw money at broke poker players.  It makes sense from a supply and demand perspective, because there is less real estate, and more guaranteed coverage of individual players. It’s worth noting she does get a little extra attention on this issue because she is a voice (online video hostess) in the poker industry, and a female in a sea of males.

However, where the ego/karma bit comes in for her is in communicating with her sponsor.  First off, it is only fair you give your main sponsor a call/text/email to inform them of your intentions.  A well connected guy like Tony G could in fact help you along on your mission to acquire sponsorship dollars (most likely from his own main site sponsor, Poker Stars).  But do you do that?   Na.  Just slap a few shady ass Ultimate Bet patches on like you’re a slave to collusion, cheating, super users, and Russ ‘I’d steal money from my own mother’ Hamiliton.  

Fuck that.  If I was Tony G, I’d pimp slap you across the face for being a shady, money/fame hungry, female dog.  Now, she did have a Pokernews patch on at all times, and when interviewed on Pokernews she covered up one of her UB patches on her chest…but come on.  Show respect for the people that put you in the position in the first place.  It seems we can be quick to forget where we were before we got into the limelight and started playing for $9M.

This little incident reminds me of the Poker Bowl last year - a team event, where Will was playing on the Bluff Magazine Team alongside Paul Wasicka and others.  They had team jersey’s (Oakland) but Will was going to wear a PROP patch to support the brand.  The fine folks at Bluff informed him that wasn’t possible as they were all going to wear Bluff patches….Will reluctantly agreed.  Paul Wasicka, well he didn’t cuz he’s got an exclusive deal with Full Tilt, so he was permitted to wear a different patch.  Lesson learned - big companies in the industry can do whatever they want.  Small ones - f.ck you.

Whatever, either way.  I’m sure Tiffany is a nice enough person, but I have never met her so it’s just a guess.  It was probably poor judgement, caught up in the moment type stuff.  She was playing for $9M.  And that kind of money can make anyone do silly things.  Minor beat for Pokernews.  A win for a shady cheating bastard site, Ultimate Bet.  

Final Thought: Why the hell would you promote UB unless you have to like Phil Hellmuth??  

Every time I make a run, girl, you turn around and cry
I ask myself why, oh why
See, you must understand, I cant work a 9 to 5
So Ill be gone til november
Said Ill be gone til november, Ill be gone til november
Yo, tell my girl, yo, Ill be gone til november
Ill be gone til november, Ill be gone til november
Yo, tell my girl, yo, Ill be gone til november
January, february, march, april, may
I see you cryin, but girl, I cant stay
Ill be gone til november, Ill be gone til november
And give a kiss to my mother.

$900k upfront.  Playing for $9M in November.  GL kids of the 2008 WSOP Main Event Final Table:

GOGOGOGO.  

Founding PROP team member, Will Lin, has made it through the field down to the final 18 players of the Venetian Main Event, $5k buyin.  This tournament series, the Deep Stack Extravaganza II, has been great with excellent field sizes, lots of chips, and good structures.  

More details on Will’s run will be presented as they come in.  For now, GL Will!

Jeremy Joseph, who goes by “Buttercup” around the Niagara Falls Fallsview Casino in the Western New York area, is currently the chip leader of the 2008 World Series of Poker Main Event with 2.8M in chips and second place is at 1.8M…GL!! GOGOGOGO.

Still 215 people left, and a long way to go before the final table, he needs to get to 13-15M chips to have final table stack, and fight for the $9,000,000 first prize.  GL kid, b-lo needs a new hero.

The 2008 World Series of Poker can be summed up with one word:

Downtick.

It was an expensive few weeks, with very few highs for the PROP team.  I’ve seen a bunch of blogs already go into detail about their bad beats and monkey punches.  So, blah blah blah, ditto.  On a positive note: one team member had a decent cash game series winning 5 figures.

We played a bunch of Venetian Deep Stack events with 3/8 shallow cashes for minimum wage paydays.  These tournies are the greatest thing ever invented and I am going to try and play every event next year.  Start with 12k chips @ 25/50 w/40min levels, and monkeys abound with buyins ranging from $330 to $5k and first places upwards from $40k.  Screw the $1500 bracelet events…3k chips…bah humbug.

The team spent most of our time @ the Wynn.  Highly recommend Okada for tepanyaki (sp?).  It’s like Benihana only better (bout $120/ea).  Also ate at Wing Lei, really good chinese food, but pricey (paying for convenience and great service).  SW - good times for steak, but service can be streaky.  One time we were there they got the filet temperatures all mixed up at the table…still a cool restaurant.  Tryst - cool, as long as you don’t have to wait in line.  So either know someone, pay a ‘host’ some cash, get there early, or eat at Okada b4 hand.  Table service is recommended but if you’re a dance dance revolutionary, probably not necessary.  European Pool is chill, gets a little crowded and greasy watered on weekends.  Terrace Point Cafe - good for breakfast/lunch b4 poolside or late night after clubs/poker.

Rio: Gaming Expo - dumb.  If you weren’t there, you didn’t miss anything imho.  Same stuff as previous years, except a few less booths, and a little less money being spent on the show.  Poker recession in full effect there.  Harrah’s did do an excellent re-design on the floorplan.  The satellite room being separate was great.  The color coded stuff made things easier to find.  Better, albeit not great, food.  Overall improvement.  Looking forward to seeing how the final table delay works out…

Bracelet Highlights: Can’t wait to watch the 50k horse on TV.  Scotty Nguyen, Lindgren, and DeMichelle will be really fun to see the cards in play and hear the table chatter.  Phil Ivey lost all his bracelet bets, bought out of most early it appears.  He’s still the man - and if rumors are true - the Full Tilt Gravy train is producing enough monthly scrilla that even a degen like him can’t gamble it all away.  Negreanu got a bracelet in a 2k limit holdem event - another good tv event, as he has one of the best on camera personalities in the biz.  Lindgren also got his monkey off the back and had a monster series, bringing his wsop cashes to almost $7M lifetime.

Notable Prop bet recap:  Biggest bets obviously belong to Mr. Ivey giving 1.8 to 2.2 to 1 to many said to have exceeded 2.2M and 200k on individual bracelet bets with a few.  Matusow wins 100k from Forrest for losing 50lbs, then goes on to win a bracelet and have a few other nice cashes.  Fitness apparently pays. Bball…Anyone else lose money on the Lakers?  Still nothing tops Lindgren’s 200k bet from last year - walk 4 rounds of golf in Summerlin, and break 100 in all four rounds…in 110′ heat. Brutal.

Introducing the amazing….shit box?!?  Sounds a lot like a pet rock, but much sweeter, courtesy of The Brown Corporation: