Adam LaBare's Poker Blog

Sitting here playing tonight and just received the following notification in game:

Administrator: New SNGs: we have just launched new Sit&Go tournaments, offering a wider variety (and higher buy-ins) for HORSE, HOSE, and Razz. Enjoy!

Figured it worth mentioning...Been waiting on these for a LONG time on stars. Long over due in my humble opinion. Anxoius to hear others thoughts on it.

Lates...

Oh...and go check out www.pokerxtreme.com gosh darnit!

Adam


Technorati Tags: pokerstars.com, sng, horse, hose, razz, SNGs, pokerxtreme.com, wsop, hold em

Today’s the day…
Please check out PokerXtreme.com.

While this remains a “work in progress”, I believe we’re at a stage where it’s time to open this up to the masses.  Registration is entirely free as we build our user base.  Semi-Pro’s and Professional poker players are strongly encouraged to get on board early as you will have the ability to provide your services to the masses first. 

What exactly is PokerXtreme.com?  Good question.  Let me sum it up like this:
Imagine a cross between rec.gambling.poker, myspace, and match.com. Combine the three and you have PokerXtreme.com. 

We’re biting off quite a large chunk here…but I have faith that this will appeal to poker enthusiasts.  In the end, it’s been really fun developing this site and I only hope to continue adding on.  We have a lot of functionality in store for the site and entirely believe our members will be thrilled. 

Anyhoo, check us out and let me know your thoughts, questions, or concerns.  I thoroughly believe the success of this site will be dependant on the feedback form members and the actions we take as a result.  This will be a site for the players, by the players.  Yes, sounds cliché, but that’s what I envision.

Thanks all!


Technorati Tags: www.pokerxtreme.com, pokerxtreme.com, rec.gambling.poker, match.com, myspace.com, poker for myspace, pokerspace, mypokerpsace, poker, wsop, hold em, world series of poker

Okay…so I’m not sure if my head is necessarily above water just yet.  However, there is a light at the end of the tunnel.  Although, that might be a train.  We shall see.

Here’s the latest.
I’m pretty much done with the backbone on the site I’ve been talking about.  We’ve been testing it over the weekend and feel pretty good about it.  No major bumps, so that’s a good thing.  Throughout the day, I’ll be securing certain areas and getting it ready for the masses so to speak.  As soon as I get that accomplished, I’ll be posting a link here.  Good feedback thus far, so I’m very excited.

On the poker front…
Didn’t play much Friday and Saturday…but did get a good chunk in yesterday.  I was intent on getting in the $500 MTT on stars via satellites…but that didn’t pan out.  I ended up a little scattered brained later on in the day.  It’s sad when McDonalds and a renegade hair dresser can put you on tilt.  I was doing great with SnG’s and what not…left to go grab a bite to eat.  Decided to get a quick haircut.  Apparently this “hair dresser” was out the day when teaching the use of clippers.  Sigh.  I miss my barber.  From there, went through the drive through and was asked to pull forward since they had to cook fresh McNuggets.  Frickin’ 10 minutes later I’m still sitting there with my thumb up my ass.  I go inside to which I’m greeted with an “oh…we forgot about you”.  I was livid.  I get my food, leave…only to realize they forgot the BBQ sauce!  AAAARGH.  So…now I fucking have a Slingblade looking haircut and I’m without BBQ sauce…needless to say, it took a while to cool off upon returning home. 

Once things calmed down in my noggin’, I got on a pretty good roll with SnG’s…ended up plus for the day and went to bed early.  Although, upon waking up this morning…I realize I still have a slingblade looking haircut.  Sigh.

On that note…more to follow.  Hopefully I’ll have some good news on the site later today.

Later


Technorati Tags: poker, wsop, hold em, mcdonalds, slingblade

Okay, I’ve been a horrible blogger this last week.  For that, I apologize.  However, I should have my head back above water late this week. 

The side project I’ve been speaking of has pretty much consumed my time.  I’m pleased to report that the development of this project should be at its end early next week.  For those curious about what I’m working on, I’ll be releasing extensive details this week here on my blog.  I’ll also be opening the site up for early beta testing as soon as tomorrow.  If anyone is interested, please let me know directly and I’ll gladly involve you.  Click Here to do so.

At this point, what I can tell you is that this site is obviously poker related.  It’s geared toward a community setting for poker enthusiasts with technology that makes this community experience unlike any other poker community out there.  It’s more than just your typical forums.  If you want to be one of the first few to check it out, let me know.  I could use some quality testers.

Anyhoo…on to poker stuff.
While my playing time has been limited, I of course have made some time to take part in my daily fix.  With limited time, I find my results are somewhat limited…but I do have positive news to share.

As I recently stated, I reset my pokerstars account to $150.
Over the past week, that $150 turned into $4 whole dollars.  That was an eye opener.  This obviously bummed me out, but I did not admit defeat.  I had $40 left on bodog and $27 over on Titan.  Decided to work on those sites for a few days to cure the pokerstars withdrawal.  Here’s a current breakdown.

$200 on Titan
$120 on Bodog
$70 on Stars

Total: $390

A few notes.

• If you reset your bankroll on any given site, you damn well better adjust your approach.  While I thought I had a decent game plan for Stars, I put too much faith in the poker gods.  While I saw my roll depleting, I just said to myself, it’ll turn around if I just keep playing my game.  I played my game, but continued to be faced with variances that I could not address with this bankroll.  I was playing the wrong tournaments.  So, when you make an adjust to your roll, make sure you’re playing the right buy-in events.

• I’ve had my head so far up pokerstars ass the past few years, adjusting to a different site can actually affect your game.  While I made the necessary adjustments, I found when I first went over to Titan and Bodog, I didn’t take it seriously right away.  In times past, I casually put a few bucks on this site or that site to check it out and take part in various bonus promotions.  But with the majority of my bankroll always being with pokerstars, I created a mindset that the money I had on these others sites was nothing more than funny money.  Change that line of thinking if you ever find yourself in that situation.  Once I got over that mentality, I actually found the tournaments on bodog and titan to be very loose.  I was reminded of tournaments on Stars 4 years ago.  I played in titan’s $25k guarantee Sunday and found the path to the money to almost be simplistic if you just stick to your game.  I played a tight/aggressive game and finished 26th.  Obviously would have liked to do better, but I felt good at the end of the day.

• Give yourself time to adjust to the different graphic interface and options.  I’m so used to Stars that I was getting extremely frustrated when I couldn’t find quickly the payouts on a tournament while playing at bodog.  I was in a re-buy event and obviously couldn’t determine the payouts until after the first break.  When the break finished, I couldn’t find the right link to determine that information to save my life.  I finally found it…but jesus, shouldn’t be that hard to determine.  In the end, it was my own stupidity for not familiarizing myself with the software ahead of time.  So, in the end, it helps to know your options ahead of time as opposed to the middle of a tournament.

Not sure how I feel about having my bankroll spread out on a few different sites.  I may keep it the way it’s going, I may consolidate back to stars.  Not sure.  I’m encouraged I took the $4 on stars and turned that back into $70.  I may just see where that takes me before making any adjustments.  We shall see.

During the past week, I’ve received several quality emails asking very specific questions about my play and strategy in certain situations.  I will be sharing a few of these questions over the next few days.  I think the questions posed are worthy of discussion and I will be happy to share.

Thanks everyone and good luck at the tables!


Technorati Tags: poker, hold em, bodog, titan, pokerstars, adam labare

Rode the proverbial poker roller coaster this weekend.  Didn’t play much at all Saturday.  Spent the day floating down a river on a tube.  Was fairly relaxing and a good day overall.  The Florida sun apparently is mad at me though which has resulted in the fine burning of my skin.  Sigh.

Got to play a chunk on Sunday.  Was doing pretty well on 6 person SnG’s.  Got back to even and decided to donk it all away on a $38 table.  Amazing how cards can be going one way, change your buy-in, and BAM…like night and day.  I would normally consider the fact that I’m playing with a different type of player…but in this case, that was not the scenario.  These people were idiots too.  I just couldn’t hit a flop worth a damn and my stealing backfired on several occasion.  Oh well…today is a new day.

Side Project…
I’m hoping to gain some momentum on this today.  I had grand aspirations for progress over the weekend, but that did not work out as planned.  For those curious as to what I’m working on.  I’m not going to shed a whole lot of light just yet.  However, I will say that I have quite a few different poker domains that I have tinkered with on and off for the last couple of years.  I did some brainstorming last week on how I can re-ignite a flame on one of these sites and came up with an entirely different model that may be of interest to those in the poker community.  Long story short, I’ve not really seen this done to the extent that I am able to bring forth.  Will it catch on?  Who knows.  I would like to think so.  We shall soon find out.

Movie Review Time…

World Trade Center
8 out of 10 stars
Okay…I’ve not really prepared any sort of internal monologue for this movie review therefore I will be writing this from the hip so to speak.  First things first, I did NOT want to see this movie.  I refused to see Flight 93.  I felt it was just too soon to be subjecting this tragedy to the scrutiny of Hollywood.  Plus, as a red blooded American, this was clearly the worst tragedy I’ve ever been subjected too in my short life.  I was a kid when the shuttle exploded, various skirmishes over seas with other countries never really hit home, etc.  But this was the first real world event of my adult life that shook me to my very foundation.  I remember the events like they happened just yesterday.  They disturbed me, they angered me, they saddened me.  I wept.

So, subjecting myself to the re-telling of these stories was not something I wanted to endure.  I lived through it once.  Why on earth would I want to do it again? 

You need to see this movie. 

While not the greatest movie ever made; I do believe it is an extremely important story.  I’ll sum it up like this:  For 5 years we’ve heard nothing but horror stories involving the lives lost and the families that have suffered as a result.  We’ve heard about the horrible war being fought over seas with more senseless death.  However, this story is not about death.  It is about survival.  This movie centered on the Port Authority Police Department in NYC and the courageous job they did.  Sure, plenty of death in this movie.  But, the story around the two main characters in this movie was inspiring and a story worth telling.  For those expecting Oliver Stone to take some strange approach to the whole thing, worry not.  Oliver Stone tells this story with dignity and respect. 

I recommend this movie, highly.

On that note, I’m going to sign off.  Lots to do today.  Good luck everyone.


Technorati Tags: Poker, side project, World Trade Center Review, world series of poker, wsop, hold em

Hey all...
Bear with me and my lack of posts yesterday and today.  I'm working on a side project that may be of interest to some of you.  When I get these little initiatives in my noggin', I tend to go balls to the wall until I finish.  Should have things ready late today if not tomorrow morning.  Depends on how much real work I have in store for me today.

Take down some damn pots!
-Adam


Technorati Tags: poker, wsop, world series of poker, adam labare

Not a very productive evening, that’s for sure.  Played in a 6 person SnG which pretty much summarized my entire evening.  Imagine if you will sitting down to this table, and in the first 20 minutes being dealt AA 3 times, KK 2 times, QQ once, JJ Once, 1010, once, and 99 once.  I hit trips on all hands but 2 of them…yet still won those hands.  Got to a point where people were so afraid to be against me, they were just folding after the flop even though it was free to check.  20 minutes in, and I’m heads up with a huge stack.  I still end up placing 2nd.  Sigh.

Was just one of those nights.  I ended up calling it an early evening.  If I couldn’t take a first place finish with those cards, I didn’t deserve to be playing last night.  So, off to bed I went.

Odds and Ends…

Having been on vacation for a week and a day, had the opportunity to catch quite a few movies.  While perhaps a little outdated, I’ll share my brief thoughts and review each.

Miami Vice
6 out of 10 stars
Growing up in the late 70’s and 80’s, how could I NOT be a fan of Miami Vice?  I loved this show.  Hell, my Mom and I would make a point to do the whole “bonding” thing every Friday night as she was just as big of a fan.  Pastel T-shirts with a jacket…how cool was I?  Cough.  Anyway…when I first heard of this movie, I was pretty excited.  At first, I wasn’t sure how I felt about Colin Farrell and Jamie Fox playing Crockett and Tubs but after a few previews, I let myself go with it.  So, first day of my vacation was that opening Friday, and with a wife that absolutely did not want to see this movie, I caught a matinee while she was stuck at work which was probably best.  She would have hated this movie.  Myself?  Well, I liked it…but it wasn’t all that I thought it could be.  I understood that Michael Mann didn’t want it to be like the show…but I think they were safe with the lead actors anyway.  But all in all, it was certainly a guys movie.  Plenty of shoot em up scenes.  Some really cool scenes at that.  But in the end, I found the movie to be lacking.  I think the romantic interest was stupid and unnecessary.  At the very least, it could have been done far differently to present some sort of interest.  Jamie Fox didn’t play as large of a part as I was thinking.  Granted, it always WAS about Sonny, but I expected a little more “team work” I guess.  Long story short, the movie had far too many holes for me.  I almost found the ending comical as they purposely left it wide open for a sequel.  If the movie was good enough, make a sequel.  Don’t make the first in a potential movie franchise so blatantly obvious.  On the positive side, I did like the cinematography and the way this movie was shot.  The first person angles and distorted pictures were almost overkill, but it was true Michael Mann and I liked it.  I recommend this movie only if you go into it with the right frame of mind.

Ricky Bobby
8 out of 10 stars
For this movie to be the second largest opening for a comedy was well deserved.  Who knew Bruce Almighty has the record for the largest comedic opening?  Odd.  Anyway, this movie was just all out funny.  The only down side to this movie is that some of the comedy felt forced and there were a few slow spots for plot.  While Will Ferrell could certainly carry this movie, Sacha Baron Cohen makes the movie.  I’ve caught the Ali G show on HBO a few times and found it good for a few laughs…but I haven’t given this guy enough credit.  I’ve seen more and more of him lately, and he’s just funny as hell.  All in all, Ricky Bobby was a funny ass movie.  A little predicable, but it doesn’t all end up exactly how you think it will.  I’m sure this movie will be quoted for some time to come.  Good stuff!

John Tucker Must Die
4 out of 10 stars
Okay…disclaimer.  My wife made me see this movie.  Personally, I thought this teenie bobber movie sucked.  There were a few funny parts, but cmon!  Perdictable to a fault, mediocore laughs, etc.  I knew I was in trouble when literally, I was the only guy in the theater.  Sigh.  Don’t waste your money on this.  Can’t believe I’m reviewing this movie.

My Super Ex-Girlfriend
7 out of 10 stars
Having seen John Tucker Must Die the day before and my wife prodding me to go see this with her, needless to say, I was not geared up to see this movie.  I just felt it would be to contrived and obvious.  I was wrong.  I really enjoyed this movie.  It was actually quite funny.  Really wasn’t what I thought it was going to be.  I’m glad I gave this movie a chance.  A welcome surprise.  Go check this one out if you haven’t already.  Granted, it’s not a Ricky Bobby, but it’s good.

A Memorial…
So, we’re on vacation and arrive at our cabin to glorious views and a very relaxing setting.  10 minutes in and we’re just settling in and all of a sudden, WHACK!!!  Something just crashed into the front door window.  Without any idea what this could have been, my wife opens the front door to discover a quite dead green bird.  Of course she freaks out a little and wants me to miracously bring this bird back to life.  The blood around it’s beak led me to believe this would not be possible.  However, a happy wife on vacation makes for a good vacation.  So, I pick this bird up and do my best bird CPR.  I watch as much Animal Planet as the next guy, but this bird was not coming back.  So, stupid me should have left well enough alone.  But this was the first interesting thing to happen on our adventure, so I get the camera and take a picture of this little guy.  Apparently, I was being disrespectful to the bird according to my wife so, as a result, I promised to write a eulogy/memorial.  Here Goes…

Hector The Bird
Born: ? - Died: July 2006


Hector lived a simple life and will live on in our hearts forever. 
Going from tree to tree, to cabin window, Hector was a free spirit. 
We will always remember you Hector. 
You made this world a better place.
You will be missed. 
Adios my friend…adios!

I need to play some poker...sigh!
-Adam


Technorati Tags: poker, wsop, world series of poker, miami vice, ricky bobby, John Tucker Must Die, My Super Ex-Girlfriend, Will Ferrell, Sacha Baron Cohen, Jamie Fox, Colin Farrell

Ahhh…
Back to reality.  Been some time since my last post.  However, the vacation was very much needed.  While away, I managed to play zero hours of poker which was actually enjoyable.  Was good to give my mind a rest.  Was out of town for 5 days and started to get back into the poker groove last Friday.  Nothing to report however as I have not done jack shit since my return in the way of winnings.  I have decided to “reset” though.  Meaning that I withdrew what funds I had in my stars account and left $150 in there to work with.  Sort of wanted to start fresh, with a clear mind and specific goals.  Here’s the plan:

Start: $150
Every time I double the original $150, I plan on removing 30% as incentive.  The extracted amounts will be placed in a separate banking account.
So, for example, I build the $150 to $300 and will remove 30% which is $90 and place that in a separate savings account.  Build the $300 to $600 and remove $180.  So on and so forth.

I’m not exactly sure how this will work out.  But one thing’s for sure, I want to start feeling the fruits of my labor if that makes sense.  If I want to seriously pursue a tournament circuit, I need to start approaching this more logically and with a specific purpose.  So, play my game, put money away, keep focused.  The end goal will be to participate in as many big buyin tournaments that I can over the next year. 

Current Bankroll: $99

Heh…laughable I know.  Came back from vacation and haven’t seen a decent run of cards yet.  So, here’s hoping I can make something happen tonight and get back on track.

Vacation…
Long story short, it was everything I could have possibly hoped for.  The view from our cabin was beyond our expectations.  It was just pure relaxation.  No need to rush anywhere, no need to over plan.  We relaxed in our cabin, did the tourist stuff in Gatlinburg, went to DollyWood (big disappointment), saw deer, bears, and turkey, ate far too much, etc. etc.

Took some pics if anyone is interested: Click Here
I'll be sharing some of my favorites in tomorrow's post.

Anyhoo…
Today’s post will be short as I have a LOT of catching up to do on the work front.  I should be back in the swing of things come tomorrow. 

Take care,
Adam


Technorati Tags: poker, pokerstars.com, wsop, world series of poker, vacation