Eric Morris Blog

I am just back from Las Vegas after flying out to cover the NBC Heads Up tournament. This is always one of the most fun events to cover as most of the industry people and poker pro’s are in pretty good moods and readily available for interviews and to discuss new business ideas. Plenty of business was conducted and we hope to bring a couple of new ideas to fruition sooner then later. Enough about the boring stuff.

The highlight of this trip is playing in the Pro AM cash game organized by Chris Capra of Lotus PR. Lotus PR handles the PR for Poker Stars and for the second year in a row I was invited to play in the 1/2 NL cash game, which featured the likes of Orel Hersheiser, Chad Brown, Peter Eastgate, Greg Raymer and actor, Don Cheadle. The buy in was $200.00 with as many rebuys as needed. As you can imagine when you bring in world class players along with actors and athletes who have a decent amount of cash at their disposal, the game can get out of control very quickly. The first hand proved this to be the case. Note, that donkey poker was encouraged and expected. Top pair and one card draws will always be called on a push and the 27o will be played as AA. Once you embraced this, losing didn’t seem all that bad.

Before I get into the meat of what occurred, I have to mention Raymer! This guy absolutely killed me. Greg shows up about a half hour into the game with a grocery bag of Korean food. I am not sure what he ordered, but the smell coming from his direction was borderline intolerable. He opened some container that smelled like it had been rotting for years. I can honestly say that the fumes took over the poker room at Caesars. It was enough to make your eyes water. Once he finished and discarded the remnants of his meal, it was almost like looking down and seeing pocket Aces and raking a huge pot. Pure satisfaction and relief! Greg then was ready to play and let me tell you he came overly ready to play. He sits down to my immediate left and starts pulling out envelopes of cash. he then declares he is buying in for $17,000. Needless to say the entire table protested and he was forced to buyin for the amount of $200.00.

So back to the game! I lost the first pot when I called Chad Brown’s all in with top pair and Q kicker only to find him holding KK. No problem….rebuy! Orel then was the recipient of Peter Eastgate’s continuous pre-flop pushes with marginal hands. I think Eastgate went down about $600.00 in the first 20 mins. Needless to say Eastgate did not really care if he won or lost. I just could not take advantage of his willingness to give money away.

Raymer finally gets into the game only to take the same approach as Eastgate. However, this time I was able to take advantage of his generous betting patterns. I must have taken about $600.00 from Raymer. I also enjoyed battling with Orel as he was one baseball player who I absolutely despised when growing up. I was a huge SF Giants fan and if you know anything about baseball, Dodger and Giants fans do not get along at all. Orel caused my many years of misery as he was an absolute Giant killer, so it was nice to give him a little payback on the felt. I do have to say that he has a great sense of humor and I enjoyed the back and forth banter with him during the night.

The game started to wrap up around 3:30 AM when Daniel from www.dreamteampoker.com came up with the idea of everyone putting in $20.00 and letting the cards run with the winner taking the pot. LOL at Daniel for being the biggest loser after coming up with the idea.

I have to say what a great night of low stress poker, not to mention coming out +EV did not suck! Chris Capra did a great job organizing the game and I cannot wait until next year. I just hope that Joe Hechem does not run away scared this year!

Don, Ali, Daniel and Orel

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Yesterday was the beginning of the BOPC and I have to say that there were a few surprises. Duralast, the Lock qualifier, worked his way to the top of the leader board, David C (Maven) has played a total of 260 SNG’s for a total of 27 hours of play and Bryan Devonshire worked his way from $13 back up to almost $200.00. MATTHEW VENGRIN looks as if he was going for broke and used $162.00 to play in one tournament and is now sitting at $38.00. Let’s see if he can work his way back, similar to Debo.

On a personal note, I think these players are finding it difficult to play low level buy in tournaments. Plays that would work on larger buy ins are not effective at the lower levels. Betting someone off an A preflop is next to impossible and most players will be called down on 3rd pair or a 1 card draw. Personally, I think the smartest play is to just play ABC poker. Don’t get fancy and just wait for your spot to make moves with premium hands. Odds are that you will get a caller. Once the bankroll is built up, they can then start playing larger buy in tournament and utilize the skills that have made them world class players.

For those of you that have not seen the BOPC page, please have a look at www.bluffmagazine.com/bluff-poker-challenge

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Today has a been an incredibly busy day trying to finalize all aspects of the Bluff Online Poker Challenge. This has been a huge endeavor and it is nice to see all the hard work paying off. I can also say that the players themselves are looking forward to the start of the challenge based on the emails I have been receiving. I also take great pleasure in announcing 3 new participants, who are considered to be at the very top of their games. the 3 new players joining the challenge are Moorman1, Sbrounder and Shaun Deeb!

The addition of these 3 players will definitely make the competition much more challenging and fun to follow.

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By now many of you have probably had a chance to read Bluff Magazine’s 3rd Annual “Poker’s Power 20.” As you can imagine I have had some good and not so good feedback. However, most of the emails I have received have been very positive.

Obviously, Bluff has a say in who makes the list, but we do ask for the opinions of many industry professionals when compiling the end results. This was the first year when the number one spot was a unanimous decision; that being the World Series of Poker. We also have a few new entities who broke into the “Power 20″ for the very first time. The list of new players include, Wicked Chops Poker, Ivan Demidov, Card Runners a generic spot just called “Backers.” All have contributed differently to the poker world in 08 and it will be interesting to see if these entities can continue to climb the latter and/or maintain their position on the list.

Below is the list in reverse order:

20. Wicked Chops Poker
19. The Backers
18. Poker Players Alliance
17. CardRunners
16. Ivan Demidov
15. Players Advisory Council
14. Doyle Brunson
13. TwoPlusTwo
12. PokerNews
11. World Poker Tour
10. Professional Poker Players
9. Bluff Media
8. Poker PROductions
7. Daniel Negreanu
6. Barney Frank
5. Poker Royalty
4. Full Tilt Poker
3. ESPN
2. PokerStars
1. WSOP

I am curious to know if any of you readers put together a list, who would you have included that did not make our?

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So as everyone probably knows we are about 2 weeks away from the start of the Bluff Online Poker Challenge, which will be hosted on Lock Poker. We have invited many of the top online poker pros to participate and truly wanted to believe that this would be an opportunity for Josh “JJ Prodigy” Field to make amends with his past and prove he is a world class player. Well, this story did not turn out as we had hoped and JJ Prodigy will not be participating in the BOPC. Below is a statement issued from Lock poker and the Cake Network.

“Josh “JJprodigy” Field no longer able to compete in Bluff Online Poker Challenge

Lock Poker announced Thursday that Josh “JJprodigy” Field will no longer be able to compete in the Bluff Online Poker Challenge set to begin on March 1st, 2009.

“Due to recent actions by Josh that breached terms and conditions on the Cake Poker Network we are forced to remove Josh from the competition” said Lock Poker VP of Marketing Derrick Maloney. “We’ve had a few additional changes to the list of competitors, mostly due to personal commitments, and have had no problem filing their shoes as the interest level has been overwhelming.”

The competition will bring together some of the best online poker players such as Bodog Ari, Eric “Rizen” Lynch, Jeff “Yellowsub” Williams, Garrett “GBecks” Beckman, Phil “USCphildo” Collins and Brett “Bhanks11″ Hanks. Each player starts with $200 and has 30 days to build their bankroll. The player who shows the greatest return will be featured on the cover of an upcoming issue of BLUFF Magazine.”

Sometimes you just want to believe the best in people and if given another chance they will change. Unfortunately, this was not the case and we ended up with “egg on our face.”

On a positive note, we have just confirmed participation from two well known online pros; Mark “PokerHo” Kroon and James “KrazyKanuck ” Worth. We have also received tentative confirmation from one of if not the top online pro, which I will be happy to announce soon.

All in all, the challenge is shaping up nicely and I personally am looking forward to March 1.

Please also be on the look out for $5k bonus tournament we will be running on Lock Poker very soon. This tournament will only be available to individuals who open an account through the Bluff website, so please click on any banner or link if you would like to participate.

Have a great week!

Eric

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I have received quite a bit of feedback regarding the BOPC with the majority being positive. Most of the negative response has been why we are not allowing cash games to be included. This question has predominately come from non participants and not the players themselves. The answer is pretty simple. The invited players are for the most part tournament players, which is why this specific challenge is SNG’s and MTT’s only. When I asked a couple players how they would feel about allowing cash games being allowed all were against them being included. One player stated that it would change the whole contest and players who were losing would go play 25/50 NL. The player went on to state, whoever ran hot for the last 30 minutes could potentially win the contest. I couldn’t help but agree; therefore we have decided to keep things the way they are.

One other negative comment I received was why we are allowing JJ Prodigy to take part in the challenge. For those of you who do not know the history behind JJ, he began playing online poker at the age of 16 with much success. He also has been caught cheating and is not allowed to play on PokerStars nor at any of their land based events. JJ is now 19 and despite his past history is a world class player. Our feeling was that we wanted as many top online players to play as possible and love him or hate him we believe he should be included (let the bashing begin). Love him or hate him we do know that JJ will have a huge following and it will be interesting to see how this turns out. Also, as a preemptive strike to all the haters, Lock Poker will be conducting audits on a regular basis to ensure fare play.

As I stated at the beginning of this blog, most people have provided positive feedback and it I know a good portion of poker players are really going to enjoy following the challenge on a daily basis. I should also mention that in celebration of this challenge Bluff and Lock Poker will be running a $5,000guarenteed tournament. This will be a $1.00 + 0 buy in and will be announced shortly. Only people who register by clicking on a Lock banner via the Bluff website will be allowed to take part in the tournament. So, if any of you would like to play, please make sure you join Lock Poker from the Bluff site. Tentatively we are planning the tournament for the end of February! Keep checking back for the exact time and date.

In other news you will start seeing more special tournaments and bonus offers from some of our partnered sites in the near future. We are working at providing Bluff readers and site visitors with some great offers that you will not be able to find at other sites, including padded tournaments, entries into Sunday tournaments and free subscriptions to Bluff courtesy of the likes of Doyles Room and Absolute Poker.

Any comments or questions? Please email me at eric@bluffmedia.com.

Have a great weekend!

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Yes, I too have caught the blogging bug and hope to give everyone insight on what is going on around the Bluff Media camp as often as I can!

By now you all have seen the new site design and I personally think it looks great. Much cleaner, easier to navigate and over all more aesthetically pleasing to the eye. A special thanks to Jeff, Darren and Arseni who worked countless hours in order to launch on time!

Seems that word has gotten out on the Bluff Poker Challenge, which will begin March 1, 2009. For those of you who have no clue what I am referring to, the BPC has been in the works for a couple of months now. Bluff has invited 20 of the top online players to compete in a 30 day challenge where the winner receives the cover of Bluff. Each participant will begin with $200.00 and can only play SNG’s and MTT’s. Participants can play as many of these tournaments as they want, but no cash games will be allowed. All participants will be video blogging on the Bluff site and discussing how things are going for them daily or as often as possible. I am sure each player will have some great insight for you the viewers. Some of the player confirmed are, Eric “Rizen” Lynch, Jeff “YellowSub” Williams, Garrett “GBecks” Beckman, John “Apestyles” Van Fleet, Brent “Bhanks” Hanks and Phil “USCphildo” Collins. All are very well respected and established players and I am very eager to see how this plays out. Stay tuned for a full press release next week.

If anyone has any questions, please do not hesitate to email me at eric@bluffmedia.com.

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