Curtis Mayfield III's Poker Blog

The Conspiracy Theorist

It never seems to fail. Someone loses a hand and inevitably the poker room gets blamed for it. How many times must we endure the rant of someone that got bad beat after getting their chips in the middle? It happens and it happens a lot more than I care to admit to. The fact of the matter is that if you play poker and you play it well you are going to take bad beats. Variance can be a very funny thing in that it swings both ways. For some reason a lot of players don't seem to understand this concept.

Don't you find it amusing how bad the poker room is when a card doesn't fall the way the percentages say it should. But when they catch the one outer on the river to win a big pot all of the sudden variance is no big deal? Amazing how that works. It really doesn't matter how well you play variance will be a factor in the game. You just hope it doesn't hit unfavorably in a large pot. That is the best that any of us can do. Basically all we can do is get our chips in the middle with the best hand and pray. It's the truth!

WSOP Main Event Broadcast of Final 27

I spent last night catching up with the ESPN broadcast of the Main Event. They played down to the final 27 players last night and it was fun watching the excitement escalate with every player that dropped out of the tournament. By now Phil Ivey is among the top four players in the field and is cruising while others are fighting to survive from hand to hand. Antonio Esfandiari was also very entertaining as he made his run toward pokers biggest final table but didn't quite get there.

One can only imagine what goes through a players mind after getting busted after being so close to making the final table. Guys like Darvin Moon are virtually guaranteed of making the final table at this point barring any major mistakes as he took down big pot after big pot with big cards. That has been the one constant during this tournament about Darvin. He does not play anything short of the best hand. I suppose we could all learn a less from him on that. He has also been running extremely well as anyone that is to win this should. As they have gotten closer to the final table the broadcasts have become more intriguing for me. Sure, I know who made the final table but I want to see HOW they made it. It's been a great ride for all. A few more days and we can watch the final table take place. How cool is that?!

Stay away from seats 1 and 10

I realize that most experienced poker players will never willingly choose to sit in seats 1 or 10. However, I do feel the need to discuss this scenario again after having had to sit in seat 1 during a tournament this past weekend. So what is the big deal? The deal is that the two seats I just mentioned have the worst visibility of any seat you can sit at the poker table in. That means you do not have clear view of your opponent(s) or their chip stack. Not good. You always want to be able to see your opponents with a clear unobstructed view because the idea is to gain any information you can from their immediate reaction to a hand. This is almost impossible to do from seats 1 and 10 because the dealer is in-between you and your opponent blocking your view.

Posted by Curtis Mayfield III on Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - 04:43 | login or register to post comments

Bet strong to force opponents out

I happened to stop by my local casino this weekend to play in a Deep Stacks tournament. This isn't out of the ordinary and I just happened to be feeling particularly well and decided to make the jaunt over. We started out with stacks of 11k each and of course we were playing No Limit Texas Hold'em. There were 90 players and ten tables to start off the tournament and the payout was for ten players. Great!

Things started out a bit slow and I lost about 2k early getting involved in hands while the raises were small and the blinds were minimal. After the first our the blinds had gone up to $200/$100 and I decided to slow down a bit when I picked up [Kd][Jd] on the button. I had about $8000 left in chips at this point when there was a raise to $600 in front of me with two callers before the action came around. Normally I would have folded this hand but there was so much in the pot I decided to take a shot and call. I also had position as well if the flop came down in my favor. Here is how the hand played out:

Posted by Curtis Mayfield III on Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - 04:41 | login or register to post comments

"You have the right to remain silent"

Poker players will never be confused with layed back types. Many poker players tend to be very egocentric and incapable of socializing with others very well. That does not mean that they are not successful people but it does mean that people that play poker tend to have extreme tempers and do not control them well. Yes, there are the John Juand's and Hoyt Corkins types but they are few and far between.

I played in a tournament yesterday and once again a player would have easily won his hand in a critical pot midway through the tournament had his ego been put in check and he kept his mouth shut. Instead after getting over half his stack in the middle on the river he began a long diatribe about how he was holding Aces and that he was not going to fold. After about one second of thinking his opponent in the pot called and raked in a huge pot. Again, proving what I have said many times over the years that talking at the table while you are involved in a hand is a lose situation for most people.

Posted by Curtis Mayfield III on Sunday, October 18, 2009 - 21:39 | login or register to post comments

Play your own game

TV has been a wonderful thing for the game of poker. It has given this great game of ours lots of exposure and brought many players to the game that otherwise never would have had any interest. TV has also allowed the game of poker to be show in it's true light most of the time. By that I mean that the image of the game has been somewhat misunderstood before people were able to see that poker is not played in smoke filled rooms with a bunch of bad guys holding guns. Those are things we should all be thankful for.

On the other hand, TV has also changed the game of poker and the player that play it. You do not want your game to be influenced in the wrong way by what you have seen on TV. Many of the earlier WPT tournaments showed the final table play with a structure that was so fast that it was an all-in fest. This led the viewers to believe that this is how the game is played until the structure changed in 2005. Even today the hyper-aggressive play of some of the players leads some to adopt a style that does not fit their game.

Posted by Curtis Mayfield III on Friday, October 16, 2009 - 05:09 | login or register to post comments

Set goals and be realistic

I stopped by my local card room last night but not to play poker. I actually sat down with a few of the regulars and began asking them what their goals were. I was curious and knew them well enough to ask questions that the average guy probably wouldn't about their game. One of the guys was in his late thirties and plays in the $5/$10 No Limit game. He is a business man and has done quite well for himself over the years. He also happens to be one of the better cash game players. So I asked him about his game and this is the feedback he gave me:

"Well, you know I tend to be a grinder. I love the game but I try not to be stupid about it. A lot of these guys think they are going to be professional poker players and do the TV thing. Me, I just want to be respected as a good player and if I win a tournament here or there that's fine. I don't spend a whole lot of time worrying about getting on TV or playing in the World Series of Poker and stuff like that. Yes, I would love to do those things and I probably will play a couple of professional tournaments but my main focus over the past two years has been building my bankroll."

Posted by Curtis Mayfield III on Thursday, October 15, 2009 - 16:49 | login or register to post comments

A.J. Benza dropped from High Stakes Poker

It looks like the long time tag team of Gabe Kaplan and A.J. Benza is no more. The folks that produce High Stakes Poker have decided to go in a different direction and Benza will no longer be a part of the show. High Stakes Poker just happens to be one of my favorite poker shows for a number of reasons the least of which is A.J. Benza. However, Benza served as an excellent straight man to setup Kaplan and seemed to thrive in that role.

Sure, no one is going to be asking A.J. anything about the game of poker but you have to admit that the show has done well despite having to find a new home on more than one occasion. For those of you that enjoy the show the producers are already looking at other talent to replace Benza along side Gabe Kaplan.  Aside from the hosts the show thrives with high stakes action from some of the best poker pros and amateurs in the business. Players like Doyle Brunson, Phil Ivey, Mike Matusow, Barry Greenstein, Jennifer Harmon, Freddy Deeb and a number of others have graced the tables with their presense over the years. So don't expect anything less with the show now going into its sixth season.

Posted by Curtis Mayfield III on Wednesday, October 14, 2009 - 06:42 | login or register to post comments

Naked Poker Players?

I have seen a lot of things in my lifetime but I never imagined seeing naked poker players. Apparently ESPN The Magazine thinks that this visual is good for mankind. I don't think so. Serena Williams? Yes. Dwight Howard? Ok. But Jennifer Harmon, Phil Hellmuth, Scotty Nguyen and Dan Negreanu?

Absolutely not!

Had I not seen the pictures for myself I wouldn't have believed it. Sure, the shots are closely guarded and certainly are far from complete nudity but the fact remains that this shoot was a very bad idea for everyone involved. Now I could go on and make all the obvious "pig" musings about some of the other celebs but that would defeat the purpose of this post. My initial reaction was "What's the point? Where is the win for poker?" The editor claims that the shots bring more attention to the game. Seriously, who wants to see Hellmuth's "moobs." The entire photo shoot is clearly an abomination to mankind and serves as a message to all poker players to keep their clothes on. 

Posted by Curtis Mayfield III on Tuesday, October 13, 2009 - 05:54 | login or register to post comments

Marla Schwartz 15 minutes of WSOP fame

This weekend I had the pleasure of seeing an amateur poker player do well in the main event as well as provide great TV. Her name is Marla Schwartz. Marla is certainly not new to the game of poker but you can't miss her at the poker table. She is the loud, happy, enthusiastic one begging the dealer to give her the perfect cards for her hand to hold up. At first she may appear to be a bit obnoxious and even out of place but after a while you realize that she is truly enjoying herself and is completely harmless.

The funny thing about Marla is that you couldn't wait for her to be involved in a hand. Even the pros at the table were getting a kick out of her post flop rants. Everyone seemed to be having a really good time despite the seriousness of trying to pick up chips to make a big run for the final table. I suppose that Marla may not be everyone's flavor and surely there will be people that don't care for her enthusiastic style. But to me Marla is good for the game and the kind of player that makes the game look good.

Posted by Curtis Mayfield III on Monday, October 12, 2009 - 15:03 | login or register to post comments