January 11, 2006
I talked about playing texas holdem in a $120,000 buy-in tournament in Monte Carlo, a seven-player affair carried live on Fox Spots Net and Sky Sports. We flew over there for just two tournaments, the first of which I covered in recent columns. The second texas holdem tournament was the $25,000 buy-in Monte Carlo Millions, to be shown on FSN and Sky Sports at a later date, with a sell-out field of 120 players and a first-place win of $1 million.
Because we started with $50,000 in texas holdem chips, and the blinds were moved up slowly and incrementally, there was a lot of play (and thus skill) in this texas holdem poker tournament. With 60 of us coming back for day two, I was feeling pretty good about my chances, still holding almost $100,000 in chips. We would play down to the final nine players, and I was feeling at or near the peak of my game. I was on!
Golf is a game of skill, just like texas holdem poker. But as with any game of skill, you have to make the most of the technology available. Poker has the online gaming like texas holdem, while golf has GPS. Both are incredibly useful tools for improving a player's texas holdem poker game and overall success at the sport. PartyGaming, parent company of PartyPoker.com, is the first online texas holdem poker company to use the GPS system for advertising. Golfers use the GPS units to get the distance between a golfer's location and the hole, view graphics of the course and communicate with the clubhouse or pro shop. "GPS Industries' advertising network represents a unique way to invite consumers within the golfing community to continue their competition online at the world's largest Special Bonus for texas holdem players online poker said," said PartyGaming's head of marketing, Sanjay Balakrishnan.
On the third hand, with the blinds at $500-$1,000, the defending champion, Player X, made it $4,000 to go in first position. In the big blind, I looked down at 2-2, and pondered my decision. Normally, I would merely call, to try to flop trip deuces, but my radar was on, and I felt some weakness from Player X. So I raised it up $12,000 more, and Player X called. The flop was 8-8-5, I bet out $16,000, and X folded quickly.
On the very next hand, all hell broke loose! The player on the button raised it up to $3,500 to go, and I looked down at J-J. What to do? I could smooth call, trying to trap the texas holdem poker big blind as well as the original raiser, or I could go ahead and reraise. I opted to smooth call. Now the big blind (Player X again) proceeded to make it $15,000 more. I was watching him closely as he announced his action and threw his texas holdem chips into the pot. The whole time I was asking myself, 'Can he beat pocket jacks? Does he have pocket queens, kings or aces?'
As he acted, I knew that he wasn't expecting me to be reading him, because I had given no indication of strength at all. This gave me an edge, not to mention the fact that I had just read him right the hand before. I felt pretty certain that I had the best texas holdem hand, so when the player on the button folded, I announced all-in and pushed my imposing stack of around $105,000 into the pot.
