Poker.com is offering another reload bonus. Act fast because it expires on Sept. 30th. Also, don't forget about Royal's Bluff Till you Drop Bender!

• 50% up to $250
• Use bonus code RELOADSEP06
• Must accumulate 250 comp points for each $1 in bonus money.
• Valid until September 30th at 11:59 PM ET
• Bonus releases in increments of $10
• Bonus does not expire.
  

Did you play in Event #1 of the Blogger Poker Tour? Um, why not?

Well, get off your ass and get your blog registered because I will be hosting Event #2. That's right, on Oct. 7th Royal's Bluff Till you Drop Bender hits up Poker.com.

Why should you play?

1) Its a Freeroll
2) Only 74 players entered last event.
3) Its a $500 Freeroll with the top 10 getting the cash.
4) There are only seven events and the top 20 players qualify for the championship.
5) That's 25% of the field making the finals. It's still 20% if we get 100 people.
6) Once you make the final...how about 1 in 20 chance of a $12,500 Aussie Millions package?
7) Everyone who makes the final gets at least a $275 grand coupon on poker.com
8) Its a Freeroll for goodness sake!

The last month or so I've been working on a series of posts about finding value in online poker. This weekend we're heading up north to cabin for the weekend and hopefully I'll have some time to write and finish up the first part. Let me give you a sneak preview though.

Freerolls can be very good value, especially those with limited entries. Double especially those with limited entries and great prizes. How you take a free 1 /74 shot at a $12,500 poker tournament package? Absolutely! So why are you wasting time reading this post. Get over to the Blogger Poker Tour main page and sign-up.

I play on Poker.com under the nick DawgRoyal and I plan on being rude and winning my own event. Stop by and try to stop me! If you sign up please be sure and enter DawgRoyal as your referrer.

Stop back later for the event password.

I've only once knowingly hit a one outer. It was two years ago during a local weekly league and my two blacks jacks were all-in against Mark's AT of hearts. The flop was a horrible Ace heart heart flop and I was instantly drawing to the Jd or a paired board and the Jh. The turn rubbed things in a little more with a T giving Mark 2-pair and the nut flush draw. Now only the Jd would save me. As is the case in these all-in situations someone is typically commentating. "Only the Jack of Diamonds will save..." is interrupted by that very Jack spiking on the river. Overall Mark took it pretty well. I know my "Well, I was a big favorite when the money went in." comment sure helped. :)

I'm sure I've hit plenty of other one outers, but I don't remember any others with the cards turned face up. That was until last night...

I'm playing in a turbo $55 double shootout on Stars trying to win a seat to the WCOOP main event. With about 4 players left in the first table I'm happy to re-raise a smaller stacked raiser with my QQ. This is a turbo and the blinds are already getting big. It's simply unfortunate that he flips KK and I'm in trouble. Of course the flop is all clubs, he has the Kc and I do not have the Qc. My chances are already cut in half with three less cards to see. "How about the Queen of hearts?" I quietly ask the computer screen. And holy shit there it is on the turn! My one outer! Of course I didn't even need to see the river to know the re-suck was coming. Sure enough, a 2c on the river and my one outer is no good.

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I was about even stacked in the first event of the Blogger Poker Tour when we had to leave for Joe's bday dinner. Somehow how I blinded into 23rd place...I was hoping for 40th! Congratulations to ReplicantPoker for taking down Event #1.

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I mentioned a few new leagues last post and I've already go one more to add. One of my sponsors Poker Source Online is starting up their Fall 2006 Poker League. Here is the info.

Poker League Standings and Schedule:

• Wednesday, October 4
• Sunday, October 8
• Wednesday, October 11
• Sunday, October 15
• Wednesday, October 18
• Sunday, October 22
• Wednesday, October 25
• Sunday, October 29

League Overview:

Time: 9:00pm EST

Venue: Absolute Poker

Weekly Buy-in: $5 + .50

Pre-requisites: Signup for a PSO account and have a real money Absolute Poker account. Players are not required to have signed up for Absolute Poker through PSO, nor are they required to have done any PSO promotions.

How to Register: You must register for the PSO Poker League ONCE before your first poker league game via your "My PSO" account area. Simply go to "My PSO" and select "Poker League" from the left menu. Enter your Absolute Poker account information and submit the form. Your name will be on the list of eligible players, which will be submitted to Absolute Poker the day before each tournament. Please register on PSO only once.

Remember, however, that you then must register via the Absolute Poker software before each tournament starts. Enter the tournament lobby and register. The tournament entry fee will be deducted from your Absolute Poker account. As with any online poker tournament, you can unregister from the Absolute Poker tournament lobby at any time before the tournament starts and your entry fee will be refunded.

Payout Structure: Standard Absolute Poker tournament payout

Individual Event Prizes: PSO Points will be awarded to the Top 3 finishers in each event:

• 1st Place -- 25,000 PSO Points
• 2nd Place -- 17,500 PSO Points
• 3rd Place -- 10,000 PSO Points

PSO Points will be added to the players� accounts within 5 business days of the event.

Event Scoring: Players will be awarded league points based on a formula that will take into account both order of finish and the number of entrants in the specific event. Thus, finishing first in a larger tournament will earn more points than finishing first in a smaller tournament.

League Standings: Tournament scores will be totaled for each player and standings will be posted on the PSO website. To determine the league champion, each player�s Top Five finishes will count. Players are not required to participate all eight events, but to be eligible for the Overall Prizes, players must participate in at least five tournaments.

Grand Prize: At the conclusion of the league, the player with the highest point total will be awarded the Grand Prize, 140,000 PSO Points ($1,400), plus a buy-in to Absolute Poker�s bi-weekly $100K Guaranteed Tournament ($200 + $16).

Runners-Up: Second through fifth place overall finishers will also receive PSO Points prizes, as follows:

• 2nd Place � 80,000 PSO Points
• 3rd Place � 50,000 PSO Points
• 4th Place � 30,000 PSO Points
• 5th Place � 20,000 PSO Points

Bonus Prizes: But wait, there�s more! The following bonus prizes will be awarded each tournament:

• Knock out a member of the PSO staff � 2,000 PSO Points
• Knock out one of the players in the top three of the overall standings � 2,500 PSO Points
• One of the three randomly chosen winners � 5,000 PSO Points

PSO staff are not guaranteed to play in every event, but chances are, there will usually be at least two or three in a given tournament. Look out each week for current event information in the League Forum � PSO staff's Absolute screen names will be listed there.

Through five events, anyone who has played in every tournament will qualify as one of the top three overall players. Once the league has reached event six and beyond, anyone who has played in five events will qualify. These bounties will be announced in the current event information in the Forum, as well. Like PSO staff, there is no guarantee the top three will play in the next tournament.

It will be up to the players to keep track of the bounties. It is ultimately the responsibility of the bounty winner to let PSO know whom they eliminated, but we do ask that those with bounties on their heads also try to pay attention to who knocks them out and let us know, as well. An official bounty thread will be posted in the League Forum for the bounties and bounty winners to announce who eliminated whom.

The random prizes will simply be awarded based on three randomly generated numbers after each tournament. The players that finish in the place corresponding to the numbers will win the prizes. Members of the PSO staff are not eligible for the random prizes. If the randomly generated number corresponds to the place of someone from PSO, the prize will go to the next place down. If that PSO staff member finished last, the prize will go to the next place up.

Those players who win a bounty or finish in the top three ARE eligible for the random prizes.

Additional Rules:

• If a player registers for a tournament, but does not play, that tournament will not count toward the required five for the Grand Prize.
• Any player who is deemed to have exhibited poor sportsmanship, which includes, but is not limited to, abusive language or taunting, excessive stalling, or discussing an active hand, will be disqualified from winning PSO prizes for that tournament and will not have the tournament count toward the required five for the Overall Prizes.
• Cheating is strictly prohibited. PSO reserves the right to ban any players from this or any future PSO-sponsored events if they are found to have cheated. Any prizes won may be forfeited, at PSO�s discretion.
• All decisions by PSO are final.

I'm really pleased to see more sites finding value in the league format. It's an inexpensive way to reward your loyal players and even bring a few more into the normal mix.

Several new seasons have started or will be starting soon.

The Bluff Poker Tour started Thursday and Event #2 is this Sunday. The events are low buy-in ($10-$20) and usually include some type of added prize in addition to the normal payouts. In the Bluff Poker Tour you play 17 Events across different poker sites and earn points based on your tournament finish. Top scorer at the end of the season wins a Caribbean Poker Classic Lite Package.

Airfare from Miami or London

9 nights at the St. Kitt’s Marriott

All inclusive meal plan

$900 in tournament vouchers & cash

If the winner is married, we will pay for her/his airline ticket

Dates: Nov 25-Dec 3rd!

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The Holdem Poker Club Championship kicks off Season 2 on October 1st. Holdem Poker is a PokerNetwork skin similar to PokerRoom or Hollywood Poker. The Club Championship is a series of 12 events covering various poker games. Entry is free using loyalty points.

Season II Prizes – The Final
The winner of Season II will receive a prize package worth an estimated $14’000 to the WPT LA Classic held at the prestigious Commerce Casino in California between 02/24/07 - 03/01/07.

The second place prize will also be WPT related. A $4’000 prize package to a WPT Boot Camp in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Remember, you must be 21 years of age or over.

Season II Prizes – Weekly Events
Weeks 1 through 5 you will be able to compete for the following prizes:

1st: $300+$20 Scheduled Poker Classic Qualifier Ticket
2nd - 4th: $50+$4 Scheduled Poker Classic Qualifier Tickets
5th - 15th: $6+$1 Scheduled Poker Classic Qualifier Tickets
16th - 30th: $1+$0.1 Sit and Go Turbo Poker Classic Tickets

Weeks 5 through 11 you will be able to compete for the following prizes:

1st: $300+$20 Big Deal Ticket
2nd - 4th: $50+$4 Daily Qualifier Tickets
5th - 10th: $10+$1 Tickets
11th - 15th: $5+$0.5 Tickets
16th - 25th: $2+$0.25 Frenzy Tickets

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Poker.com's Blogger Poker Tour Season 2 starts today. It's free to enter, as of now only 58 players registered for event 1 and the prizes are solid.

I'm playing today, but stupid people with stupid birthday parties (j/k Joe) mean I'm only going to get an hour or less of play in. Here's to a big stack and a bleed to a decent place!

The Blogger Poker Tour is back at poker.com! Season 1 had few players, many bad players and excellent prizes. It looks like season 2 should be even better as the prize pool is increased and a leader board is implemented.

What you could Win!

If you've got a poker blog stop by the official site and signup. The first event is this Saturday.

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Here’s the week 2 Larry Johnson update:

126 Rush yds
41 Rec yds

0 TD
1 Fumble

14 Points

RB Standings

1. Tomlinson, Ladainian SDC RB 44
2. Gore, Frank SFO RB 43
3. Johnson, Rudi CIN RB 41
4. Westbrook, Brian PHI RB 34
5. Brown, Ronnie MIA RB 30
6. Taylor, Chester MIN RB 30
7. Johnson, Larry KCC RB 28
8. Taylor, Fred JAC RB 28
9. Barber, Tiki NYG RB 27
10. Dunn, Warrick ATL RB 27
11. Jackson, Steven STL RB 25
12. McAllister, Deuce NOS RB 25

Week two was another consistent one for LJ, no TDs. The Chiefs did look better running the ball though…even when they shouldn’t have been. How about trying to actually win the game before OT? I understand that is mostly the lack-of-Trent Green factor, but c’mon!

Last year Denver was the #2 defense against the rush. LJ ran for 140 and two TDs in December against them last year. If LJ scores 14 points every week is he a top 5 back? He would not have been in 2005 as 14 x 16 = 224 which would be good for 7^th place (actual 6^th since LJ himself was above 224 last year).

This one is going to be close. If the 2006 LJ is going to become the second coming of Faulk he has lots of work to do!

Larry Meter – 65%
Change + 5%

Even with his broken numbers from last year I don’t think Larry Johnson is going to be a top 5 fantasy back this year. I mentioned as much during a fantasy football draft…mostly to aggravate the guy who has him as a keeper. I didn’t nearly get enough of a response so I posed this question to my buddy Dozer. “Do you think Larry Johnson is a top 5 back?” Of course he said yes and a $20 prop bet was quickly agreed to. Our scoring system is a pretty standard (1 pt. per 10 yds rush / receive and 25 pass, 6 pt. per TD, 4 pt per pass TD).

Here’s the week 1 Larry Johnson update:

68 Rush yds
80 Rec yds
0 TD

14 Points

RB Standings

1. Gore, Frank SFO RB 26
2. Tomlinson, Ladainian SDC RB 20
3. Westbrook, Brian PHI RB 19
4. Brown, Ronnie MIA RB 18
5. Taylor, Chester MIN RB 18
6. Barber, Tiki NYG RB 17
7. Taylor, Fred JAC RB 17
8. Henry, Travis TEN RB 16
9. Jones, Julius DAL RB 16
10. Johnson, Rudi CIN RB 15
11. Bell, Mike DEN RB 14
12. Dunn, Warrick ATL RB 14
13. James, Edgerrin ARI RB 14
14. Johnson, Larry KCC RB 14
15. Green, Ahman GBP RB 13
16. Jackson, Steven STL RB 13
17. Lewis, Jamal BAL RB 13

Larry Meter (Chance of making top 5 RB) – 60%

14 points is a respectable week. However, there were more negatives than positives. First, the loss of Trent Green could be huge allowing defenses to focus more on defending KC’s run. Second, KC simply couldn’t run the ball like they have the last five years. Of Johnson’s 17 rushes 10 of them were for 2 or less yds. This is against a Cincinnati team that was 20^th in the league last year against the rush and that Johnson rolled for 201 yds in January. In that game only 7 / 26 rushes were for 2 yds or less.

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I have a really respectable team in one fantasy league and a pretty poor team in the other. Hopefully this LJ prop bet and a few others will pay for my fantasy league!

The $1,000 courtesy of Joey Porter and Dante Culpeper was nice as well.

Unlike Magic: the Gathering or competitive video gaming, two of my past hobbies, the rules of poker are not generally dynamic. The rules of hold 'em have not and will not change in the future. The strategies are relatively defined and the key to being a sucessful poker player is knowing when to apply each strategy. I'm not saying poker is an easier game to learn. However, there isn't a new set of cards every three months changing rules. There isn't a hot new game every two or three years forcing you to re-learn the basics if you want to make money.

The same is true for online poker. How does one site distinguish itself from another? Excellent customer support (PokerStars). Fantastic marketing and a huge player base (Party Poker). Freerolls, bonuses, special events, etc. Every site is trying to do these things within their marketing budgets. It really isn't often that a site has truly done something innovative. Here's a few off the top of my head:

Full Tilt Poker

• Focusing on smaller WSOP event (Race for the Bracelets).
• Piece of the Pros promotions from 2005 (what happened this year guys?).
• Allowing you to rotate your table to any seat (maybe somewhere else first?).
• Tournament window now shows all satellite tournaments with the ability to bring them up directly from the same screen.
• Custom Avatar events.

PokerStars

• VIP Program
• Ability to spend W$ for WSOP events.
• WCOOP
• Unlimited tournament tables.
  

PokerRoom

• Their Pokah! community and integration into player profiles.
• Team tournaments / leagues (great idea not so popular yet).

Poker.com

• Blogger Poker Tour (I know not everyone participated in this, but honestly the value was so great you were stupid not to play. "That's pride fucking with you. Fuck Pride")
• Tournament of Champions (30 or so low buy-in events with a great prize for 1st...and a points system not so top heavy. The boys at Full Tilt tried to copy this idea and screwed it up royally. Yeah I never properly bitched about FTOPS Event 1.5. What a joke!)

I guess my point is there really isn't much innovation in the online poker world. I really like the above ideas, but it's not much for the last three years or so.

We now have a new player who won't be overtaking the big boys anytime soon (or ever for that matter), but does offer some real innovation.

Cake Poker

Okay, chessy name and some of the tournament names are equally junk. However, they're dropping two excellent concepts on the poker world.

• Gold Cards - This is an additional player reward program that randomly happens after a certain amount of rake has occurred at a table (~$10 from my testing). The gold cards can be turned in for cash, tournament entries, and other prizes. I'm not sure I can express how cool of an idea this is. It takes the bonus round fun of a slot machine, the collectable nature of sports cards and integrates them into poker ring games. Getting a gold card is neat, cashing it in during the daily lottery is profitable and gazing at your massive gold card collection brings a feeling of contentment.
• 1% ownership in the Cake Poker company. I'm going to ignore the potential legal issues for US residents and say this idea is fantastic. Yes, I know pokershare has this to some extent. In this case only three people will each win 1% of cake poker shares. There is no requirement to play a bunch of raked hands to keep your shares from getting diluted.

The downfall is that right now the site is small and the ring games are rather scarce. I've been playing there for over a month, but didn't want to post something until there were a few more regular games. Tonight we had a $10/$20 full ring game going for several hours.

It's not very often you get a chance to be one of the first to try out something new with this much promise. Download Cake Poker, get a few gold cards and let me know what you think. Most importantly say hello before you stack me!