Who's at your Dream Table?

Photo illustration by Chris Cosenza using NBC photos

This week is the debut of Season 3 of Poker After Dark, and the first episode is being called the Dream Match because the Rutgers student who won the seat in a freeroll got to pick the pros he's playing against this week. Scott and I talked a little bit about this on the show last week, but it got me to thinking: What would be my "Dream" table? Who would I love to play against in a Poker After Dark match? This isn't as easy as it sounds. There are a lot of players out there and only five seats to fill. And do I go with the pros I think I match up well against so I might have a sniff at the $120K? (Stop yer laughin!) Or do I go with my idols? Maybe I pick pros that get on each other's nerves, allowing me to sneak past them as they gun for each other? (I said quit yer laughin!)

After some careful consideration I decided I would want to play against a combination of all of these. So, here's my table:

Seat No. 1: Me
Seat No. 2: Todd Brunson. He's hilarious (even if he still doesn't know who I am after a few conversations at the WPT and WSOP events plus numerous AIM messages) and he's brilliant. His Stud/8 chapter changed my poker life. I can think a few things more entertaining than sitting next to him for a few hours (provided I last that long).
Seat No. 3: Doyle Brunson. Do I really need a reason? Plus with Dolly on Todd's left maybe Todd will loosen up and remember who the hell I am.
Seat No. 4: Daniel Negreanu. This was a tough pick for me. I've met Daniel on numerous occasions and he was pretty damn cool. He's a chatter box at the table and his ability to put people on hands and then announce it to everyone is pretty astounding. And, if I want to play the best I'd have to have him there, plus Scott Long got to play with him in the Vinny Lecavalier tournament and I didn't, and I just can't live with that for much longer.
Seat No. 5: Phil Hellmuth. He's my first poker hero, and even though his ego is 11 times too big for a human, he really is the best NLHE tournament player ever. I love the guy, and with the players I have flanking him, he's sure to go off on someone. I'd love to play a hand badly against him and have him berate me! It would crush me a little, but it would be so priceless.
Seat No. 6: Phil Ivey. He's my favorite player, and clearly I'd want him on my right. Plus with him acting AFTER Hellmuth you know he's just going to make the Poker Brat go insane!

Who just missed the cut?
Kenna James: He's a friend of mine now and I've actually sat down with him and played before, so I think he'd understand if I left him off the roster.
Barry Greenstein: I wanted to play against him because he's so good and so funny, but if he's at the same table as Ivey they won't care about playing and the prop bets would drive me insane.
Freddy Deeb: Yes, I know, he's my BFF, but Negreanu might accuse him of "Going South" in a tournament and who knows what the hell might happen then!

I could list dozens of players, but instead I was hoping you'd tell me who's be sitting at your Dream Table and why?

-- Chris

AIPS III Event #1 open for registration

AIPS III Event #1 (Limit Hold'em) has been created and is now open for registration.

Click here for all the details on the Ante Up! Intercontinental Poker Series.

- SCOTT

AIPS III: (Almost) All the Info

The Ante Up Intercontinental Poker Series, Ante Up!'s official listener tournament series, is back for its third season. Here is just about everything you need to know (except exact dates of each event, which will be added as we know them).

WHERE

FullTilt. Password for all events is "anteup".

WHEN

Thursdays at 9 p.m. or Saturdays at noon, Eastern time. All events have a $5+$0.50 buy-in, except where noted). Here's the schedule:

Thursday, January 17, 9 p.m. - Limit Hold'em (Champion: Zerkaboid)
Thursday, February 21, 9 p.m. - Stud (Champion: NewtSkins)
Thursday, March 27, 9 p.m. - No-Limit Hold'em (Champion: lj47)
Saturday, April 26, noon - Pot-Limit Omaha (Champion: theron74)
Thursday, May 22, 9 p.m. - No-Limit Hold'em rebuy (Champion: rascony)
Thursday, June 26, 9 p.m. - Razz
July - Pot-Limit HA (Hold'em/Omaha Hi)
August - Stud 8
September - No-Limit Hold'em 6-handed
October - Limit Omaha 8
November - No-Limit Hold'em double stack ($10+$1)
December - HORSE Main Event double stack ($24+$2)

PRIZES

The winner of each event gets their very own plastic banana trophy, suitable for showing off to your friends and family. if you finish in the top 20 percent of the field, you'll earn cold, hard cash from FullTilt and, more importantly, AIPS Player of the Year points. At the end of the series, the player with the most points will be crowned AIPS Player of the Year, win an incredibly tacky and unique trophy and be invited to be a guest on Ante Up! Gambit727 has graciously agreed to a new, one-year contract as Official Scorekeeper, thereby letting us have a scapegoat for any scoring questions, concerns or gripes.

BOUNTIES

Knock out Scott (OffDeadline), Chris (willhopper), Fasso (stpetebeach) or Columbo (columbo) in any event, and you'll get a public mention on this blog for this very important achievement. However, you'll no longer earn bonus points or swag. (Don't get greedy on us!)

WHAT ELSE?

We forget something? Well, just let us know and we'll try to answer it. Good luck!

- SCOTT

Episode #133: 'Kongkeys' Year-End Poker Awards

MAIN TOPIC

... and the winner is ... you, the listeners! Sit back and enjoy the second annual Kongkeys, our annual irreverent look back at the year in poker. Click here to listen the show.

The winners:

The “See, Politicians Don’t Need to be Hating on Poker” Award and Third base Kongkey
To the Florida Legislature and Gov. Charlie Crist.

Liger Kongkey

To Chris, for wimping out in the Paul Wasicka interview.

The “Our Security is Iron-Clad and No One Can Penetrate It. Wait, They Did? Really? Our Bad” Award
To Absolute Poker.

Round Mound of Rebound Kongkey

To Barry Greenstein, because about half of that interview had to be redone because of a technical difficulty.

The “New Poker Strategy Book Of The Year” Award
To the FullTilt Poker Strategy Guide: Tournament Edition, edited by Michael Craig.

Flomax Kongkey

To Real Deal Poker Academy owner John Plenzick, for his story about the most shocking thing he's ever seen at a table.

The “This is the New Pocket Aces” Award
To A-10.

Cheech and Chong Kongkey, or The Chongkey

To Eugene Todd Bro.

The “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” Award
To all the payment processors who went all chicken-livered on us proud Americans and pulled out of the U.S. market.

Eunuch Kongkey

To Jose Canseco.

The “What Have You Done for Us Lately? Wow, A Lot” Award
To Nikademus, for his most awesome fan Web site that chronicles all of the past Ante Up! shows.

Alexis Carrington Kongkey

To Mike Fasso.

The “Most Painful Hand of the Week Resolution in History” Award
To Scott from Texas.

Globetrotter Kongkey

To Scott Long, because no one has gotten more material out of traveling.

The “Roadtrip of the Year” Award
To Scott and Mike’s L.A. trip.

COURTNEY FRIEL KONGKEY

To Sabrina Gadecki.

The “Most Frightening Development in Poker” Award
To the swift acceptance of electronic poker tables.

The “Is That a Chip or a Saucer?” Award
To Monster Chips.

OTHER TOPICS

AIPS III: It starts in January with just a few nips and tucks. Look for the upcoming post with all the details. And AIPS II POY Corey Furbee picks up his trophy in person!

Poker After Dark debuts: In just a few days. Oh, and former hostess Shana is with child. (Photo courtesy NBC).

Too bounty ... or not to bounty: We chat a bit more about what the strategy for bounty tournaments should be ... and whether you even should play them.

Here's how you say it .... (Thanks to Clever Moniker) and this is how you spell it: Potawatomi Casino.

It's no wonder nobody likes onions: A self-proclaimed "hilarious" podcast Nobody Likes Onions has apparently launched an attack on our forum. But it beats us what, how, when or why.

Tampa Bay Poker Replay: A gentle reminder to local poker room managers to let us know what's going on!

One Minute Mystery: Columbo had A-K, but no diamonds, and our set holds up. Did you have the moxie to call?

HAND OF THE WEEK

Amy from New York (BerniceQ) writes in with a Stud 8 hand from a low-limit FullTilt table.

She brings it in with (6-6) 3 with mostly high cards on board and gets three callers.

On Fourth Street, she picks up a third 6 and raises it when a K-10 bets out. She gets a caller from J-7 and the original bettor.

On Fifth Street, she picks up an Ace and raises the K-K-10 and takes down the pot.

Chris doesn't like to play around in Stud 8, so he likes this play. While Scott doesn't hate it, he wonders if we were in good enough shape that we should have tried to entice the third player to see one more card.

NEXT WEEK'S SHOW

Poker resolutions for 2008

- SCOTT

Heads-Up Invitees announced

I'm back from vacation and absolutely swamped! If you've emailed me over the past 10 days or so I've been out of the office and it might be a while before I can answer. But one email that did catch my eye was from our friend on the inside at Poker PROductions, Dennis Oehring. No, they haven't extended Scott and me an invitation to play on Poker After Dark just yet, but he did send me a link to those who have been invited to play this year in the NBC National Heads-Up Championship. Again, my name is not on this list for some reason, but I'm working in it. Here is the link, and remember, they are only invited. There's no guarantee they accepted or will be playing. Notice Jerry Yang's name on there. I'd love to see him play in this and watch him shove with J8 again.

I also asked Dennis about Shana's departure from PAD to see what the deal is and I'm waiting for a response. Never hurts to try, and maybe he'll tell me if she's still doing the Heads-Up show.

-- Chris

Knockout tournaments: Down for the count for me

This weekend as I wrapped the last of my Christmas presents and finally finished off Ken Burns' The War (good, good stuff but, man, did it seem like it lasted longer than the actual war), I tried a couple of FullTilt's new Knockout tournaments.

"Knockout" is just a longer and less cool word for "Bounty." A portion of your entry fee goes to a bounty on your head. For each player you scalp, you collect his bounty. The pay table, of course, is dialed back a bit to accommodate the bounties.

What I found is to be successful in these tournaments, you need to play a style that I'm not comfortable with - hyperaggressive. For example, in a $3+0.30 KO tournament, 50 cents goes toward your bounty. To earn your entry free back, you'll need to knock out seven of the 90 entrants. (Of course, if you succeed in doing that you're likely well on your way to a top 9 finish and cashing).

Since you have to have more chips than an opponent in order to knock him out (master of the obvious!), I'm thinking the correct strategy to maximize ROI is to build up a stack early so you can attack those smaller stacks. And that means pushing the action and gambling early - pretty much the opposite of what you typically want to do in a double stack tournament.

So, for that reason, I'm not seeing a compelling reason to play these. The devil's advocate in me does make a good case for using these tournaments to learn to be more aggressive, which is definitely a weakness in my no-limit tournament play. And nothing says you have to win back your entire entry fee in bounties - even two or three consistently can go a long way toward improving ROI.

But for me, I think I'm going to tell FullTilt "thanks, but no thanks" for this new wrinkle.

How about you?

- SCOTT

Happy Holidays!

On behalf of Chris, Fasso, Deb, all of Team Ante Up! and the Long Family Christmas Tree, have a terrific holiday season and a happy new year!

- SCOTT

Spammed? Let us know

Several TampaBay.com bloggers are reporting that more and more legitimate blog comments are being flagged as spam by Typepad.Com filters.

We know that's happened to some of you. Typepad has detailed an administrator workaround so we can get those legitimate comments posted. So if your comment is flagged a spam, e-mail us and tell us under which post your comment was and we'll try to get it up.

- SCOTT

Episode #132: AIPS Player of the Year

MAIN TOPIC

Ante Up Intercontinental Poker Series II Player of the Year Corey Furbee (c furbee) gives us a ring to tell us about his championship run, how he got started in poker and how he found Ante Up! He won two bananas en route to this year's title. Click here to listen to the show.

And Chris and I hope to have the details for AIPS III ironed out in time for next week's show. If you have suggestions, post them here.

OTHER TOPICS

Shana's out: Of Poker After Dark, that is. We don't have many details, but the new hostess is the "Poker Princess" Marianela Pereyra. (That's her here in a photo courtesy of NBC).

Limit questions: Blog posters are unanimous that you shouldn't continuation bet in a no-fold'em hold'em game. Scott agrees - though argues doing it when you're on the button can work. Chris isn't sold. (What does he know about limit anyhow?) And Scott wondered if he should have raised on the river with the nut flush (he didn't), with a player to act behind him. Chris convinces him of the errors of his ways.

Presidential poker: Michael Shackleford of Wizard of Odds says only two candidates have public opinions on online gambling. Republican Ron Paul wants online gambling regulated, while Republican Mike Huckabee is against online gambling.

Ante_Up_Fans: James from New York is finding out just how expansive and friendly the Ante Up Nation is. Every time he sits down on FullTilt, his online handle (ante_up_fan) gets noticed. Awesome!

Tampa Bay Poker Replay: Two cool promotions coming up. The Silks at Tampa Bay Downs is giving away $599 every half hour on Christmas Eve (10 a.m. to 10 p.m.) to the highest hand. And Derby Lane is planning "The Pretender" tournament on Jan. 13. It's heads-up. Field is 100 players for $100 entry, top 7 make the money.

HAND OF THE WEEK

Jason "Chipstakked" of Blue Springs, Missouri, offers up a no-limit hold'em hand from a $50 buy-in live MTT. There are 27 of 40 players remaining when he tangles with Villain, who is the chipleader and has been aggressive, raising and reraising with marginal hands.

The Villain limps, and Jason looks down at Ac-10d in the small blind and limps, too. The big blind comes along.

The flop: As-10c-6h.

We advocate check-raising against an aggressive opponent here, but Jason settles on a "small ball" strategy and bets out the minimum of 200. The BB folds, and the Villain calls.

The turn: 5d.

No danger here, so Chris is ready to end it. But Jason sticks to his guns and bets the minimum again and the Villain calls.

The river: 4h.

Doubtful this card hurt us, unless the Villain was sticking around with pocket 4s or a crazy gutshot draw. Just as Jason announces "bet," the Villain moves all in. Jason's 500-chip bet is binding ... but he decides he's good and makes the all-in call. We agree, reasoning that the Villain is unlikely to have a better hand.

We all played it right, as the Villain turned over A-4.

Scott makes a case for how Jason's "small ball" tactic likely made him more money.

NEXT WEEK'S SHOW

Our annual "Kongkeys" - the year's best in poker and Ante Up. Please e-mail us with suggestions on categories and winners! Let's make it fun!

- SCOTT

One Minute Mystery: The Case of the Funhouse Mirror

A little twist this week: Columbo is the opponent, and we have to ponder what he's doing.

It's Level II of the AIPS Main Event no-limit hold'em tournament.

Columbo min raises, and we look down at JJ on the button and reraise.

The flop: 8d-Jd-Ad.

Columbo checks, and we put out a pot-sized bet, which Columbo calls.

The turn: Kh.

Columbo pushes all-in.

What does he have? And what do we do?

Times file photo