Poker Blog: The Best of the best

What’s a blog? A “blog” is an abbreviation for “web log” or an online journal. Blogs are not just pages and pages of written text; they can take on different forms of self-expression and often include pictures, audiocasts, and even video clips. When I first started blogging, there were only a handful of web logs and sites devoted to poker. Slowly, more and more poker blogs started popping up from amateur and part-time players, discussing anything from personal trip reports to bad beat stories. There was a time when I could read every poker blog inside of an hour. About a year ago, I found it took me four or five hours to read them all, and that’s with skimming the majority of them. Today, there are nearly a thousand or so. That’s a lot of bad beat stories to stomach.

There are poker blogs written by pros, semi-pros, and novices. There are poker blogs covering cash games, or live tournaments, or even strictly online play. There’s a blog from a Poker Geek and a Poker Nerd. There’s also a Donkey Hunter and a Donkey Puncher. How about a Poker Princess or a Lady Poker? How about Poker in the Weeds or a Poker Shark? You name it, there’s probably a poker blog out there using it as a theme. Some blogs are nothing more than a vanity project boasting about how great of a player the author is, while others will discuss in boring detail about how they can never win a hand. There are some blogs that specifically detail the rise and fall of an online bankroll, while other blogs are nothing more than half-baked and poorly written conspiracy theories of why online poker is rigged.

It’s nearly impossible to sift through the mix with the sheer volume of poker blogs scattered on the internet. Luckily for you, the bigwigs at Bluff asked me write about which are the best blogs and which ones you should be reading. Hey, I’m biased. Not only do I have a poker blog, I happen to be good friends with a lot of the poker bloggers. I’ve played thousands of hands online with poker bloggers. I played with bloggers in home games and in casinos. I’ve gone on three-day Las Vegas benders with some and I even puked in one blogger’s car! Sorry, Daddy.

Though New York City’s Paul “Dr. Pauly” McGuire has been regaling his readers for years with tales from poker games in locales as random and far-flung as Hilljack, IN and West Hollywood, CA, he truly gained notoriety and a broader audience when he moved to Las Vegas to cover the 2005 World Series of Poker for Poker Player Newspaper and Fox Sports.

For six weeks, he live-blogged nearly every final table and gave poker aficionados everywhere an alternative spin on the daily events at the largest poker tournament in the world. Whether it was reporting on the last five pros he took a piss next to or Doyle Brunson capturing his tenth bracelet, Dr. Pauly’s wicked wit and Hunter Thompsonesque style transported readers at home right onto the tournament floor. Since the World Series, Dr. Pauly has been out on the road, covering WPT and EPT events, bedding drug-addled blondes and writing his longgestating Las Vegas book. The Tao of Poker is a daily must-read for poker fans. Skip a single post and you just might miss out on something as delicious as a play-by-play of a couple having sex in a stall next to him in a casino bathroom or as touching as his firsthand account of Barry Greenstein’s PLO victory that Barry dedicated to poker blogger Charlie Tuttle, who lost his battle with cancer last June.

http://taopoker.blogspot.com

If you like drunken rants and uber-posts, then you need to visit Guinness and Poker. Inspired by the protagonist from Confederacy of Dunces, Ignatius J. Reilly, otherwise known as Iggy to his cyber audience, has carved out a niche for himself as the uber-blogger or the Blogfather. Make sure you have ink in your printer or three hours or so to kill because Iggy’s posts are super-long.

Iggy quit his job and now plays poker full-time, mostly online. The selfadmitted alcoholic spends late nights drinking Guinness and crafting posts that make your head spin because there’s so much information and so many links in them, filled with the best gems and nuggets from various poker blogs and poker forums like RGP and 2+2. There was a rumor that Iggy was a midget or a sober-housewife from Ohio. His true identity will always be a mystery.

http://guinnessandpoker.blogspot.com

Las Vegas and Poker Blog is the source for Las Vegas poker news. Created by two Las Vegas locals, the Poker Prof and Flipchip give you a sense of what it’s like to be a part of the Las Vegas poker scene, with daily updates on all things Las Vegas. Flipchip is one of the most respected and talented photographers in the poker industry, and Las Vegas and Poker Blog features his amazing photos along with an extensive photo gallery of various events he’s covered. The Poker Prof doesn’t write as much as he used to, but his style reminds me of Robert Pirsig. These days, the Poker Prof is spending most of his time working on the ever-evolving and expanding site while holed up in an undisclosed bunker in the Nevada desert. That’s where he created cool and useful items like a handy list of different Las Vegas tournaments, which you will find on Las Vegas and Poker Blog. It is the perfect guide if you are heading out to Vegas and looking for somewhere to play. Flipchip and the Poker Prof have been covering the World Series of Poker the last few years and will always be present at any major tournament, whether it’s Nicky Hilton’s New Year’s Event tournament at Caesars Palace or at the World Poker Tour Championships at the Bellagio.

http://www.lasvegasvegas.com/pokerblog

Where the hell is G-Vegas, you ask? It’s the South Carolina home of Up for Poker triumvirate CJ, Otis, and G-Rob; three friends who met in television journalism and began writing about their home game and casino exploits in a group blog. Their unique personalities and diverse styles shine through in each post, making for a fantastic mix of poker musings. Though CJ’s recent rush in NL tournaments may have earned him the nickname “The Luckbox,” make no mistake; he’s a force to be reckoned with at the tables, both live and online. His in-depth tournament recaps take you right inside his play, from forewarning unsuspecting Vegas tourists of his impending river suckout, to staring down Chris “The Armenian Express” Grigorian in a recent NL event in Tunica. The debonair and handsome G-Rob, who’s also a local G-Vegas celebrity, tries to convince his readers that he’s one of the worst players alive, but I’m not sold. G-Rob is a true student of the game with an aggressive, unpredictable style. Then again, this is the same guy who tried to buy in for $60 at a $400/$800 Omaha game with Chad Brown and Mimi Tran. Maybe he’s just nuts. Otis is a feature writer for the Poker Stars Blog and can frequently be found on the tournament trail. Not only is Otis a solid poker player, he has earned the respect of everyone in the poker community as a great author.

Otis paints word pictures of the William Faulkner variety, with his colorful posts ranging from a tear-jerking conversation with his ailing father to being pushed off a pot by the lovely Isabelle Mercier during a tournament in Europe.

http://www.upforanything.net/poker

If there was one guy who I think should go pro, it’s Double As. By day he’s a mildmannered engineer, loving husband, and father of two. At night and on weekends, he’s Superman. Whether it’s in tournaments or in cash games, this online poker player crushes the competition. Double As cashed in his first ever WSOP event and he’s won online satellites to different major tournaments including the Poker Stars Caribbean Adventure. He offers up the best poker advice on the web, especially on how to play No Limit Hold’em. No one put more thought into how to play Q-J suited in a short-handed game and no other blogger has explained pressure points more eloquently. Double As is currently writing a book on No Limit Hold’em, which I expect will be one of the most widely read of all time on that subject matter. Double As not only knows how to play excellent poker, he explains it in a concise and understandable manner. Double As is a site that I go back and re-read because his entries and poker advice are highly valuable. http://doubleas.blogspot.com

Grubby is quite simply, the gourmand of poker bloggers. Whether it’s the high-end sushi at Green Valley Ranch he ate after killing a NL table, or the free club sandwich that Harrah’s “Diamond Lounge” comped him thanks to his atrocious slot play, there’s virtually nothing Grubby won’t eat, gamble on, or blog about. A playwright by vocation, Grubby quit his job on the East Coast and moved out to Las Vegas to take a shot at playing poker full time. His wonderfully crafted stories honestly depict life as a Las Vegas local, from whoring slot bonuses with his sister Grubbette, to getting bad-beat at local casinos, to playing poker tournaments on the Strip with one of his hot lesbian friends. Ever wondered about the subtle intricacies that make a great buffet? Grubby has it down to a science and can’t wait to let you in on his secrets. Besides poker and food, Grubby has become famous for adding a new word to the collective poker vocabulary. Grubby nicknamed 7-2o as “The Hammer” after one guy in his home game (ironically his last name was “Hammer”) bluffed with 7-2o and scooped a big pot. Grubby ran Hammer Challenges and contests on his site where you would win a progressive jackpot if you dropped The Hammer. It had to be during online play and you had to send him your hand history to qualify. Since then, The Hammer has become part of the daily poker vernacular and bloggers, readers, and pros alike have been “dropping The Hammer” in home games and casinos around the world. “I knew The Hammer officially made it when I saw it mentioned on Wikipedia,” Grubby once told me. http://www.pokergrub.com

Dan Michalski explains that his site Pokerati is “an electronic conversation about poker among a stack of semi-educated writertypes who spend too much time thinking about the game.” It’s a site that features poker news, poker skills, and poker lives, and tries to bring its readers news about the poker world and semi-intelligent strategy discussions. Dan Michalski is a journalist from Dallas and is an exceptional writer, with several of his pieces appearing in national publications such as the New York Times, Penthouse, Maxim, and Cosmopolitan. Michalski surrounds himself with beautiful women whenever he can, and hosts tournaments at the infamous gentleman’s club called

The Lodge, where strippers deal cards and remove their clothes for tips from the players. Anyone with those sorts of high-end organizational skills is a must-read in my book. Several of Michalski’s friends from Texas also contribute to Pokerati, which is a forum to chronicle their minor-league exploits in poker. Heavily involved in local politics, Michalski often weighs in on the legal and illegal aspects of poker. For the last two years, Michalski has shown up at the World Series of Poker and reported several juicy nuggets of information on Pokerati, including posting pictures of himself drinking with some of your favorite pros during WSOP parties. If you want a journalistic touch to your poker news from an opinionated Texan, then Pokerati must be added to your reading list. http://www.pokerati.com

In the literary tradition of Al Alvarez, HDouble shares some of the best poker strategy on the web, specifically on how to beat the “no fold’em” style of play in Southern Californian card rooms. The former semi-professional-football-player turned-computer-programmer from Los Angeles has quickly made the jump from low-limit grinder to the high-limits, which he’s detailed on his blog, using the great advice of Izemt Fekali and Abdul Jalib along the way. HDouble co-wrote a supplement for Poker Tracker with Iggy called the Poker Tracker Guide, which explains how to fully utilize software that tracks your online hands. He hosts the infamous Murder’s Row home game featuring some of your favorite bloggers including Joe Speaker, Bill Rini, The Poker Geek, and Change100. HDouble also penned a hilarious series of posts called “HDouble at the Movies.” His dissertation on the Big Lebowski and poker ranks as one of my favorite posts of all time. http://cardsspeak.servebeer.com/

Joe Speaker is the best writer you never heard of. It’s hard for me to ignore great writing and that’s why I read The Obituarium everyday. Joe Speaker quickly established himself as one of the community’s top writers and tournament players. In early 2005, he won a seat into a WSOP event by taking first place in a poker blogger’s satellite and has been on another rush as of late, chalking up over a dozen online and live final tables. On The Obituarium, Joe Speaker smoothly riffs on a multitude of topics, such as his rationale behind a certain tournament move or why he went on mega-tilt.

He has an amazing sensibility which you pick up in his writing; his posts are marked with influences from John Steinbeck, Richard Ford, and Nick Hornby. Joe Speaker intertwines life with poker in such a masterful way, that you often forget you are reading a poker blog. http://obituarium.blogspot.com

Table Tango is authored by Linda Geenen, who has been posting as far back as 2000. The Las Vegas local shares insight into her pressure-packed job as a poker dealer at the Bellagio Casino. Linda tells it like it is and pulls no punches.

One night she’s working the high stakes Big Game with poker celebrities such as Sammy Farha or Doyle Brunson and the next she’s dealing to a bunch of drunken tourists at a low-limit table. Whatever happens, you find out about it.

Linda dealing to Ben Affleck and Matt Damon one night was one of my favorite entries from Table Tango.

If you want insight into poker from the perspective of a veteran poker dealer, then Table Tango is a site you need to start reading. http://table-tango.pokerworks.com/

Daniel Negreanu’s Full Contact Poker is home to one of the internet’s more entertaining blogs. Equal parts poker commentary and poker lifestyle, Daniel throws back the curtain on his life as a top player on the tournament circuit and an emerging star in the Bellagio’s legendary Big Game. http://fullcontactpoker.com/poker-journal. php

Paul Phillips recently put up a post explaining how he didn’t run a poker blog. The former-dot-commer-turned-professionalpoker- player has a blog where he discusses both poker and life as a new father. Read through his archives for several gems from a WPT champion. http://extempore.livejournal.com/

Shirley Rosario is a pro who writes a journal on her site Poker Babes. A former prop player at the Bicycle Casino in L.A., she also hosted Live at the Bike.

Her journal is a collection of updates on her Omaha 8 and NL tournament play, both online and live. Her journal entries from the 2005 WSOP represent some of her best work. http://www.poker.babes.com/poker/gam es

The 28-year-old, Yale-educated Matt Matros wrote a book called The Making of a Poker Player, after making a name for himself with his third place finish in the 2004 WPT Championship.

Now a regular on the tournament circuit, Matros’ journal is full of stories about his play and laced with brilliant nuggets of poker theory. http://www.mattmatros.com/journal.htm

The author of Twenty-one Outs Twice, Chris “Triple Draw” Fargis recently won a WSOP circuit event in Tunica for Triple Draw Lowball.

Although he plays a lot of No Limit Hold’em tournaments, you will often read about him playing Badugi, Triple Draw, and various high limit mixed games. http://www.twentyoneoutstwice.blogspot. com/

Joe Sebok is not just an up-and-coming pro, he’s also an excellent writer. The son of Barry Greenstein made two final tables at the 2005 WSOP and is on the verge of a breakthrough year.

Stop by his blog to read about how he’s playing in different WPT events. http://news.pokerpages.com/index.php?o ption=com_simpleblog&task=userView&use rid=86&Itemid=73

Lou Krieger, the author of Hold’em Excellence and many other numerous poker titles, recently started up a poker blog.

Krieger posts editorials on the most recent issues in poker, such as the addition of a $50,000 buy-in H.O.R.S.E. event to the 2006 WSOP schedule or the legality of online gambling. http://loukrieger.blogspot.com

Richard “The Quiet Lion” Brodie is the author of one of my favorite pro blogs. He’s written a best-selling book called Virus of the Mind and also worked with Bill Gates and wrote Microsoft Word.

He’s a world traveler and is always updating his blog from the road, whether he’s on vacation or playing in a tournament. http://www.brodietech.com /liontales/blog.htm

Andy Bloch was a member of the M.I.T. blackjack team before he turned to professional poker.

He posts updates on his main site where you can keep tabs on where he’s been playing and read updates on his personal protest against playing in WPT events. http://www.andybloch.com/gl/pub/index .php

The last thing I’ll talk about is not a blog. It’s a podcast, which is kind of an online radio show that you can download and listen to at your leisure on your laptop or on your iPod. Podcasts are becoming a popular form of communication and self-expression. During the 2005 WSOP, Phil Gordon recorded daily podcasts of events in which he played.

For the Lord Admiral Card Club podcast, Cinci Sean and Brent Stacks are two friends who play together in a home game in Toronto, Canada. They co-host a weekly podcast dedicated to poker.

They feature interviews and clips from bloggers such as The Poker Prof, Dr. Pauly, and Columbo with his “One Minute Mysteries.” Stop by their site and download their most recent episode. http://lordadmiral.libsyn.com/