After a bit of downtime, it has felt great to get back on the MTT grind.  I came back with a bang!  On October 16th I took second in the PokerStars Sunday 500 for $45,000 and then on October 23rd I shipped the PokerStars Sunday Warmup for another $106,000.  Always nice to ship back to back big scores like that.   In other news, I am really excited about the upcoming arrival of my baby, who I like to refer to as “littledogpckt5s”.  He should be here within the next week to ten days, and I could not be more stoked about it!    I’m also really excited about all the stuff we have going on at Tournament Poker Edge.  We recently added a bunch of new pros including Mike “goleafsgoeh” Leah, Daryl “aaaaaaaaa” Jace, Brendon “brendooor” Rubie as well as [More...]

It’s been a while since my last blog, so I figured I should give a quick recap on what I have been up to.  Of course we are in the middle of WCOOP and I have played 5 or 6 events with a couple of mincashes.  I made a deep run on Sunday but lost KK to A7 with 16 people left, so needless to say I was not too happy with that result. I have also been playing a lot of Heads Up SNGs and Double or Nothings on Lock Poker.  My friend, and fellow Lock Pro, Marc Alioto has been giving me some tips and I’ve been giving him some MTT coaching. Speaking of Marc, he is one of the four new pros that we have added over at Tournament Poker Edge.  The other three are Brendon Rubie, [More...]

Well, to say that my summer in the TPE house for the WSOP was a failure would be a vast understatement. I went out there focused and prepared to do something epic. I did none of this. I had high hopes because in my limited live play experience I have had some pretty decent results. Nothing mind blowing, but I have done ok, including a second in a WPT prelim as well as some WSOP Circuit results that include a few final tables including a main event. I had just come off a cash in the PCA main event as well as making a couple deep runs in last years WSOP and I only played 5 events that year. My mind was in the right place but I wasn't prepared for the trouble I ran into. I have had Sundays online before where I have [More...]

The first week in Las Vegas for the 2011 World Series of Poker has not gone quite as planned.   I’ve had a few near misses including a pretty deep run in a Venetian Deepstack where I flopped the nuts and ended up losing to a rivered full house for 200 BBs with the bubble approaching.  I also made Day 2 of WSOP Event #8 ($1k NLHE) but after losing a big flip with 88 vs AK, I got the rest of my chips in with top pair and the nut flush draw but that was not enough to win the hand and I was out with the money bubble once again approaching. The good news is I've been caging 4 card poker.  But you know me, I want to win tournaments!!! I just registered for WSOP Event #13 ($1500 Shootout) [More...]

Hey guys. As you may or may not have heard I recently just singed a new deal with Lock Poker. Its a nice relief after dealing with that nightmare that was the CEREUS network. I no as representitives of the site we have to take responsibillities for our choice of representing that site. No matter how good your intentions are sometimes they turn out pretty horrific. Thats why Im so thrilled with the LOCK POKER deal. The owner of the site has been absoutely fantastic to deal with. She is all about the people she wants to make poker on lock the most enjoyable experience possible. That rubs off on all the people she works with including the pro's. I am joining a group of well established pro's some of them I have met in the past and not only [More...]

Despite the recent changes in the poker landscape, it’s business as usual for the bigdog.  I was able to take 2nd recently in the Poker Stars Sunday 500 for $42K and then a few days later took 2nd in FTOPS #31 for almost $11K. Along with a few other decent sized scores it was a good April overall.  SCOOP is now in full swing, and I’m looking forward to closing out May in strong fashion before heading to Las Vegas for the 2011 World Series of Poker.  Myself and the rest of the crew from Tournament Poker Edge have a house together and it’s going to be a fun summer.  I plan to play a ton of WSOP events as well as some events over at the Venetian Deep Stack series.  Some people have asked what “Black Friday” means for [More...]

So now that I'm back on the grind at AP/UB (my former home), I've decided to spice it up a little bit.   Approximately 5-6 years ago when I was only playing on AP, I used to win the leaderboard quite often. If I didn't win it, I was always close. I want to give it a try for the month of April and I figured the best way to do so was to drum up a little side action. I announced that I would be doing a straight-up even money prop bet on the Tournament Poker Edge forum to win the tournament leaderboard on AP/UB for the month of April.   This is just a way to add a little excitement and to stay motivated for the next 30 days. The Tournament Poker Edge community has been really receptive to this, and [More...]

Hey guys! I just finished up playing the second ever "bigdogpckt5s invitational". I made a much better effort at winning my own tourney this week as I finished in 5th place. I really thought I was going to stone-cold bubble the tourney because I was really short being 19 of 19 in chips and 18 people made the money. There ended up being an absurdly big pot on the bubble where "liqvandurr", the chip leader at the time, ended up 5-bet shoving all-in against "miguelprado". For those of you who don't know, "miguelprado" is Steve Gross. This guy, in my honest opinion, is THE BEST nl mtt player in the world! So on the bubble, with 19 left, "liqvandurr" 5-bet shoved Steve who was 3rd in the chips at the time with j7. Steve made the call with ak. The board flopped with blanks [More...]

  I decided to write this article today to stress a point that I’m not sure everyone quite realizes the importance of…the “killer instinct” you need to be able to close MTTs. Getting deep in tournaments is great, and obviously the first step you have to take before you can have a chance to close. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, in the MTT community has folded a hand or 2 that they normally would not have if they weren't on the bubble. It’s just human nature. You want to cash.   You get to a final table your 4th in chips with 9 people left. You have 35 big blinds and are feeling pretty comfortable with where you are. There are 3 people at the table with less than 10 big blinds. This is where people start thinking to themselves, [More...]

One of the biggest leaks that I’ve observed in poker players, even relatively good and experienced poker players, is understanding when to bet to extract value and when to check because your hand has showdown value. There is a very fine line between the two, and knowing how to walk it could make the difference between winning a tourney and watching from the rail. In this article, I am going to walk you through a few hands that I have played and my thought process behind them. The inspiration for this article comes from a hand I played today at the Niagara falls Casino. It was a cash game, but the same principals apply to tournaments. I was playing in a $5-$10 cash game and picked up 69hh under the gun. I originally sat with the max, $1000 but had [More...]