FUSIS

Fusis, that’s what the strange looking text image at the top says, it’s Greek for stuff and the origin of the word physics (file that in the “useless thing I didn’t need to know” catagory). Today’s post is just a bunch of stuff from the past couple of days.

WPT at the Mirage:

Okay, the Mirage WPT event is over and done with, with Eli Elezra taking top honors and a million dollar purse. Other notables at the final table include Scotty Nguyen(5th), John Juanda(4th) and in third Gabe Kaplan, yes that Gabe Kaplan. You can read some of the gritty details on Lion’s Tales, where he busted out early. One slight correction, Toby finished in 15th according to this.

WSOP on ESPN:

Well, it was a ball to watch and read on Up for Poker, even being in the room is nothing like watching ESPN and seeing those mucked hole-card and finding out the rabbit hunting what-might-have-been rivers.

First episode retrospective: I knew Gavin Griffen caught some lucky breaks, but… wow. He went All-In and 4 out of 5 times his cards were the underdog. 4 out of 5 times he hit the board to win. Twice, with a wired under pair that hit trips. I know you have to be lucky to take the gold in the tournaments, but this was beyond luck, the cards ran over this guy. The one time Gary Bush would have sucked him out on the river Bush folded (he would have hit a straight). My favorite comments from the episode came from Phil Hellmuth and Gavin Griffen.

Phil Hellmuth: “The kid made at least 30 mistakes while playing.”
Griffen: “I only made a couple of mistakes the whole time.”

Well, I’m thinking Phil is closer to the mark on this one, Griffen is a good player that got very lucky. TJ is a great player that doesn’t need a lot of luck.

Second Episode: TJ Cloutier, Howard Lederer, Dutch Boyd… wow, what a final table. Razz, it seems, is a hateful game (I don’t play, but I’m sure Felicia Lee a Razz master has some thoughts). The game is slow, aggravating and even watching the cards at home I felt frustration when reading the boards and seeing Lederer end up with 3 pair on the river twice. The thing I loved here was the conversation between Howard and TJ.

Howard: “You have to be crazy to play this game”
TJ: “You got that right”

I really grinned when Howard and TJ were both showing 5-7-9 and both has A-2 in the hole, raise, re-raise, re-raise…
TJ: “We both have the same hand”
Howard “I know we both have the same hand TJ”

Only with players at this level would you hear that kind of a conversation, I’m still grinning at that patronizing tone a very frustrated Howard took with T.J.; and of course, Lederer’s comments that sum up the episode best:
Howard: “It take a lot to get me in a bad mood, but Razz will do it”
Howard: “I got in a bad mood, but I didn’t let it effect my play, and a bad mood is part of Razz”

Okay… what the hell happened to Boyd when he went heads up with T.J.!? He literally became a calling station with (for Razz) crap cards. In two hands Boyd gave his chips to T.J. He fell apart. If poker is a game of patience then Razz is a game of hibernation. Unfortunately for Boyd, the brain is not what you want to hibernate. Boyd is another good player, except the cards didn’t run over him the way they ran over Gavin Griffen. That final table was one of the most entertaining I’ve seen. It was even fitting when Dutch asks T.J. if he could hold the bracelet and T.J. consoled him with, “You’re going to win a lot of those.”

Foxes and Farmers:

While reading middle tournament stage play strategy on riding the F-train I couldn’t help but think about Tom McEvoy’s foxes and farmers analogy. In a nutshell, from the middle stage to the end of the bubble in a tournament is the period when players are divided in the farmers that spend their enegy trying to protect their chips long enough to make it into the money, and the foxes that are stealing the farmers chips to build a stack that can win the tournament. Tom calls this the period of the tournament when the top players build their monster stacks. I agree. The middle stages with a middle stack is a great time to build it up by identifying the farmers and stealing their blinds and ante’s with a smooth bluff. This, along with a couple of real hands produces a comfortable stack for beyond the bubble play.

A little non-poker “It’s funny, laugh” content.

Ugarte from Rick’s Cafe has put up a site called “Anybody but Bush” to capitalize on election humor see if people really would prefer anybody (or thing for that matter) to W. Well, head on over to see if Bush can take down opponents like Don King, Castro and Milosevic. Some of the opponents are very humorous, Limestone is listed, but I will only vote for an inanimate carbon rod.