Lap Band Tightening the Bank Roll

It’s been sometime since the PokerBat has graced the blogosphere with the world’s greatest poker blog.  Since you last saw him the PokerBat has finally done something about his ever expanding waistband.  Don’t think the Bat didn’t hear every person that sat down at a table immediately ask if the table could be balanced only to look my way, see my purple sweat pants, and the folds of my body overhanging a solid quarter of the table and sigh in not so muted disgust.  No, the Bat heard it all.  You obese-ists out there should really settle down, and take a long, hard look at yourself in the mirror and maybe then you’ll take a shotgun to your own testes and dirtnap til eternity.

Nonetheless, The Poker Bat finally had to admit his weight had become too much to bear.  The Bat came to that recognition this last year.  Thankfully, the death of online poker may have saved the Bat’s life.  Now, with live poker becoming a dreary affair with few friends thanks to Bat’s heft making every table shorthanded, and forseeing a future of possibly being crane lifted from his upper Louisiana love shack, the Bat decided to do something about it.  He squeezed himself into his cherry Mazda Miata to drive to the clinic.  Before doing so he had a friend with a forklift help him get out of that same Miata.  A terrible day in the Bat’s life.  Any time you are wearing doors for pockets it’s time to step-back and reevaluate again.

Since then the Bat has sought real medical help and battled the silent addiction of sugar.  Used to be the Bat’s snack between snacks was a grip of pixie stix and a gallon of Kool-Aid.  No more.  After a lap band operation the Bat is looking svelte, sexy, and back in play.  The Bat traded grass and the munchies for wheat grass and scrunches.  The Bat used to have situations in every crevice of his body and now the body is looking like Jersey Shore icon the Situation.  It’s been a great eight months.  After surgery to move 49 and a half pounds of droopy flesh.  Already, the Bat has jumped to match.com after being stuck on Adultfriedster to find dates that mostly came to the Bat’s house and raided his fridge.  

The Bat can see his feet again, not to mention his other nether region appendage and there has been much joy in the Bat-house hold.  After sleeping on a mattress that wasn’t on the slab for the first time in decades and trusting the struts of the bed, the bat was embolden in other areas of life.  

The Bat’s most recent mail order bride from Belarusssia just came in and she’s a dandy.  The Bat has been softening her frosty marital response with offers to by her Ford Taurus and Levis jean jackets.  Still, the Bat knows it’s only a matter of time before her citizenship kicks in and the Bat gets another scrawled note like the last one, “I wont million Air.  You suffercate me in night when you rolls.  Thanks for USA passport, sams club card, and the lice.  I will try to forget you.   Always, Anis.”

Still, a fresh mail order wife is a bit like a couple of Red Baron’s pizzas fresh in the oven.  It’s going to get dirty and the Bat might regret but it’s going to be a lot of fun finishing it.  This new body and new wife Olga, the minx from mintz, has the Bat pissing swagger and perspiring red bull.  Must be time to get back to pokering.   

In fact, the Bat’s unballyhooed unheralded comeback to poker just happened.  The bat journeyed to that bedbug, flea and tick infested roach casino known as Hammond, IN.

Welcome to Bossier City, Welcome to the Bat’s Balls

Hello Gulf Coasters welcome to the Bat’s neck of the woods.  Kindly leave you money in the locals wallets and enjoy yourselves while you are here.

The Bat has all kinds of poker to talk about but first the Bat wants to talk about his balls.  Yes, if you do not like conversations that get teste, you might want to click away now.  If you have a sense of humor, preferable one that leans juvenile, pull up a chair.

The Bat’s balls are two giantic orbs that the Bat relies on to make bluffs and call down people, but that’s not all they are.  So let’s no longer give short shrift to their might or their heft, and they are mighty, they are hefty, and they are mighty hefty.

The Bat’s balls are fluent in Chinese and Esperanto.  If they could talk they could prove it.

What’s Esperanto? *Answer below, but let’s not make your eyes bleed any earlier than they need to and keep talking about the Bat’s balls, just know that Epseranto is a little used language.

The Bat’s balls are strong independent thinkers, in fact, on some of the grander issues that bedevil man they disagree.  One ball is a staunch radical monotheisist, the other an atheisist.  How does the Bat know this?  Quite simply, when making the bedsprings squeak the Bat says two things, and realize this is when the Bat’s brain has been seized by the balls, the first is… ”Oh God, Oh God, Oh God.”  That’s the monotheisist ball doing the heavy  lifting.  When the squeaky-squeaky is guided by the atheisist nut the Bat is known to say “No. God.  No. God.  No. God.”   The atheisist ball for whatever reason seems to wrap things up a bit quicker than the monotheisist.

The Bat isn’t positive which ball is which afterall, the whole right brain controls you left side and left brain controls your right throws the Bat.  Do they balls work the same way?

Now, the Bat has asserted his balls speak a vague international language other than the International language of love.  How can the Bat know this?  When all five bills of the Bat aren’t crushing a bedmate, sometimes the Bat will talk to these ladies of the night.  One time he met the rarest of breeds.  Finding an American who speaks Esperanto is difficult, because we aren’t much into international unity and speaking anything other than English.  However, one flower that blossomed in the Bat’s Shreveport shanty spoke the language Esperanto.  And sure, for many ladies, paid and or drugged, the Bat’s balls speak to them, but that is in a more etheral sense.  This lady literally had a conversation with them.

Here the athesist ball and the monothesist ball were in concordance, on the day they spoke to this lady.  Here’s how…  She’s also a skilled morse code enthuisast and she realized the tip-tapping of the Bat’s balls was actually a riveting conversation about the deficit.  Now, the fact the Bat’s balls are also conversational in morse code should not be a surprise afterall they are attached the Bat.  What some men learn in a humble prisoner of war cell in desperate need of connection, the Bat’s balls just know innately.  It should be more surprising to you that this strumpet could follow along.  Realize when the Bat’s registering on the richter scale it seems unlikely that a bedmate should have their mind on anything but the Bat, but not this lady, she had the excellence of nerve sensitivity to follow along with the conversation of the Bat’s balls as well as endure a minute and half of a fat rippling good time.

In some ways, we should celebrate her, not the two conduits of molten man lava swinging with mighty heft between the Bat’s legs.  Course,  that wench also enjoys bathing in Ajax so in some ways she’s a genuis and in others a moron.  No, the Bat’s balls are 100% genuis so let’s shine the spotlight on their magnificence.  If they could write or hold a paintbrush, man could stop writing and could stop painting because the Bat’s balls would put an exlamation point on art, a level that could not be topped nor even compared to.  Indeed they would render all other works of art as intriguing as a toddler’s refridgerator picture and would rend the written word obsolete.  In some ways, it’s a blessing those balls are contained in such muted state because their prolific genuis would have us question our ineptitude.

Probably other balls would get jealous.  Robert DeNiro’s balls, saggy, wrinkly, and stretched to the knees as they are, would question the choices they made in Cape Fear or Taxi Driver.  Self-doubt would overcome them and render DeNiro a flacid Focker.   Yes, Dick Cheney’s balls would stop kick-starting his heart, Phil Ivey’s balls would shrink when he got near a craps table, and your balls would lose their way.  Mankind would fight a tragic battle with their balls trying to use the flap in the underwear as a means to suicide.  In such a world you could only pity your balls.  The Bat’s balls could channel Picaso while your average balls can barely figure out how to move closer to the body and further from it because of temperature and/or confinement.  Suddenly, the world’s balls would be depressed and depressed balls don’t produce offspring.

So, in some ways we should be grateful we don’t hear the clarion call of the Bat’s balls because to listen to them while beautiful the after-effects much like dabbling with crystal meth or looking on the glowing visage of an angel would be corrosive to society as a whole.

So in short, thank you for coming to  Bossier City.  Thank you for sitting at a table with the Bat, despite knowing how handicapped you are, because not only are you playing against the Bat you are also playing against his balls.

*It’s a contrived interanational language “”alexically predominantly Romantic, morphologically intensively agglutinative, and to a certain degree isolating in character”.^[14] The phonology, grammar, vocabulary, and semantics are based on the western Indo-European languages. The phonemic inventory is essentially Slavic, as is much of the semantics, while the vocabulary derives primarily from the Romance languages, with a lesser contribution from the Germanic languages.”  That explains it right?

Nutria, Lions, and Gazelles

Fresh from a World Series of World Class ass stompings the Bat is going to answer some reader mail…  Don’t get you pasties in a tizzy, this is a legitimate request for a hand analysis…

 

Granted anything in a (xxx) are the Bat’s words not this reader…

“OK, so here is the hand I mentioned on your voice mail the other day (when I begged you to give me a morsel of that Bat knowledge because you, the Bat, are a poker legend, part myth, part reality, 100% genuis).

There’s a raise to 8 or 10 and a few callers. I’m in the SB and look down at KK. I raise to 36 and 2 people call. Flop comes 5,5,10 with 2 diamonds. I lead out for $75. First guy folds. Next guy, who is the only guy at the table who has me outchipped (I began the hand with about 600, he had about 900) makes a raise to $275 (so you got 500 left and he’s put half of that in.  He just pulled up to your driveway with some Bisquick, some Nutria, and a shotgun.  Time my friend to make some dumplings). 

Backstory on the table and this guy. He was big stack when my table broke and I was moved to this table with 400, I took a nice pot from him when I flopped top set and turned a boat and let him lead three streets and then popped him on the river (Why do the pulling when the donkey does the pushing?  Back in the old days we used to call donkeys producers, sharks were wolves, and suckers were lambs.  You’d shear a lamb but never skin him.  These days its donkeys and fish.  Tomorrow they’ll be Lions and Gazelles.  They may run fast but they are still just dinner to the Bat, and you always have to pay the Lion). He was yapping at me then that he had the best hand and I came back at him and we hadn’t played a hand since (maybe a half hour or so). 

So with this bet, I think he has a hand (or he’s steaming and stealing like the sharps used to do on the riverboats) and I’m trying to figure out if he’s trying to get back at me, or as I suspect, he has hit the flop big and is banking on me calling/shoving (sorry dear reader he’s banking on you folding, even through the email the Bat can smell the larceny.  It’s  a gift the Bat has like a drug sniffing dog at an airport the Bat can smell 1 part B.S. per 1,000,000) . I can’t give him credit for AA since he would have reraised the $8 and certainly would have reraised the $36 (with a caller) preflop. So I tank and ask him if he has A10. After a bit he asks for a clock and says that I’m just going to fold (in my opinion trying to make me call) but the dealer won’t give it to him since he’s in the hand. The floor comes over and gives the clock to him (the Bat has a simple rule for people calling the clock… they get clocked for reals).

So I fold the KK, don’t show and he mucks facedown, which I take to be a real hand, I think there’s nothing he would have liked better than to show me a bluff or some kind of small hand (good point, but he likely had JJ). If I call the flop, I have to call the turn, which is almost certain to be an all in (yes, once you’ve called the flop you’ve made the correct decision he’s on garbage again, so let him shove the run and snap him like crisp bacon).

Thoughts?”

 

1.  The Bat has a lot of thoughts.  So many thoughts in fact, the ones he discards could fill a library of knowledge and advance mankind a 100 years.  Course the Bat doesn’t burden himself with man’s plight, solving the debt ceiling, the energy crisis, and answering the age-old question is Oprah really gay, because the Bat has better things to do… like getting all the answers on the Family Feud correct to a percentage point, and figuring out the best way to stores sock in a suitcase (the answer is line the perimeter, on their side, with them unfolded… you’re welcome).  As for thoughts on your question beyond the answers in green here they come brace yourself:

 

2.  Always go broke with KK on a paired board that is two to a flush.  Who cares if your very action announced that you have an overpair and some sucker is trying to stack you.  You show those gentlemen you aren’t folding Gold, when some rube has put you on AK and you collect the chips.  Plus he thinks you got none of it and all he has is a lousy flush draw.

 

3.  Some dude calls clock on you, retaliate, next time action is on him, call

clock.  Preflop, anytime literally anytime he pauses, and don’t say “Clock?”   and look to the dealer for permission, be the alpha male and say “Clock!” assertively as though it’s the only possible statement.   Always, act stunned, surprised, and confused when he gets upset.  When he keeps arguing and he will turn to the dealer and shrug saying  ”This is why I called clock.” 

 

 He’ll really get incensed and say he’s only taking this long because you called clock, don’t let the perfect logic get in the way of needling this jackhole, point to watch and say “fold, already, this is ridiculous, I may have to call the floor.”  Surely, this will get the guy to stew longer, saying something like “Please call the floor.  I will call the floor.” 

 

 Turn and wink at the rest of the table whether they are on your side or most likely not.  For no  reason, at all other than the fact, winking can be fun.  When the floor gets there, simply say, “It’s been five minutes for this guy to act.  He probably doesn’t even have a hand.  How can he make a decision this long.” 

 

Ignore all questions about the insta-clock and keep insisting on focusing on the real time that has since transpired.  Then when cornered make the absolutely true statement “I called clock because I anticipated exactly this would happen.  This has taken forever can he please act.”

 

4.   Tell him he hoodwinked you but to be careful because you murdered your grandmother for less.

Black Friday, Thieves, Scumbags, and Poker Players

Black Friday, or as GCP puts it aPOKERlypse NOW, has come and gone and so has the Bat’s money. The Bat’s got cash sitting in an account that is frozen somewhere.  Not since a local congressman Crooked Jefferson, a bad 1-2 player at Harrahs btw, stored bribes in his freezer has so much Louisiana cash been on ice.  Apparently the DOJ and Homeland Security think going after online poker is good for business and good for the economy and good for our… safety?

As for business:  If it’s their business, yeah that make sense, been great for the business of the federal government.  Good for the people’s business? Don’t think so.  Cash strapped police departments just ran an illegal payment processor in concordance with the federal government to generate 500k in revenue.  Go to this local poker news site for more.  They’ve also frozen 100s of millions of dollars, which they will soon parse out to bloated federal programs any day in all likelihood.  Don’t be surprised if the IRS and state governments asked you for taxes (many of you already paid on Black Friday) on those funds you can kiss goodbye.  They’ll get you both ways.

As for the economy:  Hello, 50k of newly unemployed poker players.  Also, goodbye money that they spend freely, when that’s what the economy needs most people spending money like we aren’t in a recession.  So big airball on that one.

As for safety:  Not sure terrorists are the ones whose moneys been frozen.  See most of them live out of the United States and can still withdraw their money.  The ones that can’t are the average citizens that live here.  Not really helping matters at all.  Course that’s what we’ve come to expect from Homeland Security which makes their involvement all the more head-scratching.

The Poker Bat, has been on a bit of a sabbatical, but now that the Bat sees part time poster Kai Landry has gotten a blog out, which happens about as often as every other leap year, the Bat needs to dust off the cobwebs and blog.  This is the best he could come up with.  Moving on…

What else has been going on in the Bat’s life?  The Bat has been crushing games on the flooded side of the Mississippi.  Is it that hard to ask for our government to build levees that can handle better than a 1 in a 10o year flood?  The Bat hates to take monies of people suffering but that’s what usually happens in poker anyway.

The Bat has also been sighted at the World Series of Poker-Circuit event going deep in a tournament.  More than one tournament.  Any cashes to his name?  Uh, no.

The Bat won’t bore you with one outers or tales of runner-runners because the Bat don’t get badbeated out of a tournament he bluffs off his chips like a man.  These internet kids taught the Bat a thing or two about three or four betting just turns out when the Bat was polarizing his range with bluffs those kiddies had the goods.  The Bat is tired of polarizing, especially Full Tilt polarizing his online bankroll.

Swear it was like Halloween, every time the Bat made a move on a child in a tournament or a cash game, the little f’er had something in his goodie bag.  The Bat saw more pocket aces in somebody else’s hand then he’d care to see for a lifetime.

Vegas is calling the Bat, with that yearly siren

‘s song.  Come crash your boats on our shores while the other fools is holding quads–the Bat believes that is how the ditty goes.  Las Vegas, personified, would be like Katy Perry to the Bat.  She looks good from far, seems entertaining, and promises an ample bosom of pleasure, however up close, as Russell Brand is discovering Perry bears more than a passing resemblance to one of the cartoon step-sisters of Cinderella (google it, as close as Bieber is to a lesbian, alright the Bat googled it for you… you’re welcome), she’s probably spanx-ed and corsetted into appearing to have an awesome body, but without that elastic is likely all saggy tissue, muffintop, bingo wings, and mushiness, and that… voice, ugh.

Perry’s voice is like many singers interesting for one song, but then loses it’s bite with repetition.  It’s different so evokes a few listens, but far from the talent of other singers to become an iPod staple.  Can you imagine what Lothario and former womanizer Russell Brand is feeling now, that voice probably grates on his last nerve, and she’s probably comfortable enough to let it all hang out around him and pass gas.  You know being constricted all day must do a number on her bowels.  Sure does on the Bat, anytime he double t-shirts in to flattened his man-boobs.

Okay, that’s Katie Perry.  That’s also Vegas.  She’s fun for a night or two, she’s exciting enough to carry your interest, but don’t marry her, in fact, don’t stay too long with her, if she knows you aren’t in it for the long haul, try to wake up before she does and get our of town or else you’ll lose ALL your money.

The Bat wants to go the world series and may just do that, despite knowing behind the fake Katie Perry glam is an ugly step-sister.  But the Bat wants to ask Phil Gordon why he put a Bad Beat on the Bat’s Bankroll, and why he’s still asking for a piece of the players winnings to donate to charity.  You want a piece of my live bankroll too, now that you got all my online bankroll.  The Bat doesn’t think so Phil, your charity is all good, but the Bat has to question anything you do now, at least until the Full Tilt ship is righted.  And it takes a lot of gall to be front in center asking for money when your company is holding many players bankrolls.

Alright, poker players the Bat will be back with more… soon.

SuperBowl Thinkin’

The Bat watched the SuperBowl, one of 111 million people that did.  The Bat took a break from reading online poker news and playing poker online to do so.  Not worth it.  The superbowl in a word was:  Yawn…

*Big Ben gets another title and then goes down in history as a great quarterback?  That was the thrust of the pre-game hype even though the Wild Card team was justfiably favored.  Not interesting, but certainly reason to root against the Steelers as Rothlisberger is as charming as a coked up Disney Teen and as responsible. 

The real theme to this game?  Aaron Rodgers duplicates the success of his hero Steve Young by replacing a legend and winning a Super Bowl.  Slightly less non interesting but still boring.  Rodgers grew up in the Bay area and revered Montana and Young, but the 49ers passed on him because he seemed a little too confident. 

Confidence in a quarterback… no, you don’t need that… certainly don’t need somebody oozing in it to the point of being slightly obnoxious (Dan Marino, Jim Kelly, John Elway, Troy Aikman)…   how’s the non-confident Alex Smith working out?  One quality Rogers shares with his heroes?  Self-assuredness.  Then Rodgers goes to the Superbowl and puts up the kind of numbers only Montana and Young have matched.  Alright, that’s actually a nice plot line.  Shame the Bat in all the SuperBowl hype didn’t hear about most of it until after the Superbowl. 

In effect, the guy wasn’t playing against the ghost of Brett Farve in Green Bay, he was trying to match three legends.  Well done kid.  As for the aholes from Green Bay who went to the Super Bowl and wore Farve jerseys… get a clue.

*Next up, the National anthem.  Bat loved the over on 1 minute 54 for Christina Agulera.  Timed it, but started late and seemed like it was over two minutes.  Now the Bat hears because she botched it, a lot of weird payouts have happened at the books.  One paid out the under (wtf?), one paid out the over, and one couldn’t figure it out and paid both.  How hard is it to figure it out… heard of TiVo and a stopwatch.  The other easy prop bet was her holding the big note in the song.  Take the over with that drama-bomb every time.  Certainly don’t want to go anywhere near her under. 

*Michael Vick got a key to the city in Dallas.  WTF?  As far as the Bat knows the guy has no connection at all to Dallas, unless they are dog-fighting buffs.  Also, the Mayor is coming out and saying he knows nothing about the key in some reports.  In others he owns it but says:  “I will be open and more respectful and careful in how I move futuristically,” this makes sense only if he was a back up dancer for the halftime show.   This almost makes the Cowboys inept hosting of the Super Bowl look professional–who knew Dallas was so backasswards. 

What has Vick done to deserve a key?  Not killed or maimed or tortured any dogs since he got out of jail?  That gets you a key?  In the city of a rival?   Kate Gosselin hasn’t abused a husband  since her divorce maybe Disney World should have her leading a parade.  Gary Glitter hasn’t been a pedophile since he was put in jail, maybe he should be knighted.

*The Bat also is in the minority when it comes to the half-time show.  This chubby old coot almost wanted to get up and dance when he saw the curvaceous Fergie in a Tron outfit.  For a moment, the Bat felt like he was at a futuristic rave where everybody spoke in Auto-tune.  If only everybody electronically warbled when they talked, the world would be such a better place.  Who knew people would try to sing like Stephen Hawking. 

The Peas had Fergie sounded pitchy, but her shaking warmed the cockles of the Bat’s underbelly.  No idea who that Usher was that descended from the ceiling but he certainly got the Bat’s moobs jiggling too.  He’s probably a lot of fun at a picnic.  And shout-out to Slash playing a riff from twenty years ago when he was relevant.  Wonder if he thought then he’d be carted out by “important” bands like the Black Eyed Peas as merely an aside, a dusty, dinosaur relic to give them some sort of Rock cred, a literal live action footnote.   

All right, that’s it for the Poker Bat this week.

The Poker Bat is About to be Atwittering…

The Bat is going to sign up for a Twitter account to let you know his Texas Hold em poker ruminations.  Why?  Because the Poker Bat is big time.  BIG TIME.  He graduated from bwin poker school and now he’s going to consume the world.

Remember when Elvis Presley was king of Las Vegas, a guy who wore a girdle lest his sequined muffin top flop out causing his leather-esque jacket to ride up that belly, made by American staples like fried banana penut butter sandwiches and beer, and expose that gaping belly button.  Once freed it would open up a sprinkler of sweaty, stinky, belly button juice spraying outward with every hip gyration on the legion of female, formerly teenaged fans that fawned at his feet? 

When he was on stage his burly voice, stiff hair, bushy sideburns and swagger still made the ladies swoon like his torso’s containment wasn’t a miracle of innovation and akin to trying to stuff a buick into a gary coleman jacket.  When that gut was contained and those pipes were chirping he was still… Elvis.  Didn’t matter that pills had waged a war on his innards like a light saber slicing through a snow beast’s sternum to provide a Jedi safe harbor for a night on a snowy planet,  didn’t matter that Elvis was all shell and no man, he was still Elvis because he sounded like it. Didn’t matter if the fans swaying at his feet were swaying at the concept of what he used to be, they still swayed.

The Bat’s Twitter account and soon to be his millions of followers don’t care the man slinging words into the vastness of cyberspace, is no longer the young, hip, indefatiguable, lurid, virile (but not viral), template of poker masculinty, instead the Bat morphed into a flabby chuckleberry, with a future of cranes breaking into a house to hoist his ass to safety and away from the teenagers he bribes to deliver him Popeyes around the clock. 

Fat Elvis?  This is mortally obese Elvis.  That is the Bat’s future and he’s fine with it.  “Love that chicken from Popeyes!”  Course, nobody else, needs know that about the Bat.  Sure, as the Bat prepares to venture out in the Twitterverse you his loyal blog readers with your dime store understanding of his 0.25 cent words know who the mammonth of a man really is, but the rest of the world lies unsuspecting.  To them the Bat’s bluster will be authentic, he will be the man he used to be, the man that would bluff his entire bankroll and his buddies bankrolls on a hunch he could get his opponents to fold.

Twitter offers the Bat the chance to be that man again.  So the Bat will conquer twitter one retweet at a time.  Joe Seebok, a living breathing walking Greenstein grumper, poker-road CEO, and UB shill with more twitter followers than anybody else,  beware those heavy footsteps behind you is the looming giant ego of the Bat coming to swallow you up.  SeeBiscuit think you have a lot of twitter followers wait til the Bat does his best Sumo Wrestling move and simply falls on you.  Squish-Squash broken leg–you are going to the glue factory. 

It may take a year, it may take two, but the behemonth that is the Bat is soon to rule the Pokerworld in terms of followers.  When the Bat sets a goal, unless it’s a daily walk around the block, the Bat doesn’t let anything get in his way of reaching it.

Doesn’t matter that the Bat burns a bankroll quicker than Andy Dick a crackrock, the Bat always returns better and… bigger than before.  So yes,  as that crane looms over the Bat’s house, the Bat will be on his smart phone twittering some witticism that will have his lady fans thinking he’s still that cute, ironic, twenty-something he used to be and one day that will lead to the extra follower who will give the Bat supremacy in the poker twitterverse.

Phil Hellmouth, Daniel Negrunion, all you fools better watch out because the Bat says, “I think you hear me huffing, and I think I’m about to fall on all of you.”

The Poker Bat Will Attack and You Don’t Want That! II

The Bat has so much good to say about the Brat, he of 11 Texas Holdem bracelets, and his leaving UB why not keep writing about it. You come to see what nugget of genius the Bat has turded onto this blog every week or so, and you care about Phil Hellmuth so the Bat will give his stable of low IQ readers more of what they love. You got another helping of the Bat’s thoughts about the Poker Brat. Look inebriated inbreds that make up the Bat’s readership understand, it can not be awesome reader mail every week, because the Bat has to count on you writing something legible or to figure out how to use your email often another to give the Bat something to answer.

Rumor had it that Philly had a stake in UB, but it’s doubtful any new deal with an established site will give him a piece of the pie.  An up and coming site, sure, but those usually don’t last too long.  As Deliverance Poker and the Mizrachis can tell you.  The Bat has to wonder why Phil, Doyle Brunson and Johnny Chan don’t open a site called 30+ poker. You really want to learn poker from the best?

Not for 30 year olds and over, though it would likely, successfully cater to that sub-group, but the 30+ would signify the number of bracelets they all wield. Doyle has Doyle’s room, and Chan has what All-In Energy Drink? Doyle’s Room is probably giving Doyle a little chunk of change but these three guys banded together are game-changers.

It’s not 2005, but for many older players that will be logging in once the restrictions are gone, poker is Doyle Brunson, Johnny Chan, and Phil Hellmuth. Hell, to those law-abiding or no law but still abiding citizens (and not in a “The Dude Abides” kind of way, in a “there is no law outlawing poker but the older folk will still abide by the law they imagine outlaws poker”) poker stopped in 2005. Amarillo Slim and TJ Cloutier could probably be milked out of the last of their brand value too. Not like they would spurn the offer.

It would kind of be a poker site for those new to computers but old to the game. The 30+ would also take into account that the threesome might still win more bracelets (don’t laugh) so why limit it to how many they have now and have to change the name later. Or if you don’t want to go whole hog and build an entire brand around it, why doesn’t an established site kind of create an legends league for players over 30.

Sure, the Bat’s readers are more interested in popping their face acne then popping into Hellmuth and Brunson’s hypothetical site, but there is probably a group clamoring for it. How many times has the Bat seen some old-timer clunkily look out of place on the virtual felt and in the chatbox as it is. Gotta be some money to made by pooling them all together and they can check every street to their Nittiest contentment.

Then the guys like Doyle, TJ, Phil would have hand again as they’d suddenly be comparatively aggressive. If you build it they will come. Then the question is would youngsters flock to that site because they think they can steamroll it. What a problem to have people flocking to a new poker site to play poker.

Never understood why sites hired winners, why not hire degens that are known to give away money to represent you. Okay, advertisement, this guy is forced to lose his paycheck every Tuesday from 5 to 10. First come, first serve. Seems like the powers that be got it backwards, who wants to play with the Best?  Better to play with the guys that still think they are the best.

The Poker Bat Will Attack And You Don’t Want That!

The Poker Bat, your ambassador to poker knowledge and Badassador to the rest of the world, has some thoughts on his favorite Brat. The Bat imagines one day he’ll get the chance to sing “Philly” as the grizzled veteran Sam Grizzle once called him, off the table after dismissing that nit with deuce seven special that hit real snug against his over-valued overpairs. Until that day, the Bat must admit he’s enjoying every mis-step by Hellmuth as it comes to online poker games.

Good ol’ Philly (and by the way, it should be “ol’ ” why does Ole Miss use ole that’s something Mexicans say, not Mississippians) stubbed his toe on his way out the door at UB. He and Annie Duke picked up and left the embattled poker site, and now UB is headed by noted poker pro Joe Seebok (?). What is Cereusly going on over there. While Philly will probably land on his feet as the face of some poker entity’s online poker tournaments what will happen to Duke?

The Bat knows rats are first off a sinking ship and the Bat doesn’t want to call good ol’ Annie Duke and good ol’ Philly Hellmuth rats but they are jumping ship. The Bat’s wondered why big brother Howard hasn’t been signing Annie’s pay-checks for some time, so it’s probably only a matter of time before Duke is cuddling up to Jennifer Harmon in Full Tilt gear. Though you got to wonder if the self-declared best woman in poker is going to enjoy another woman at her side in photos. Her friendship with Erik Seidel could help get the deal done, though likely it’d just take Howard’s consent–at least it appeared that way in the Jimmy Fricke email fiasco.

The real question is does Full Tilt need her? What kind of market does Duke provide? What new players are going to sign on because Duke is there? Truth is parting ways with UB might be welcomed both by the company and by Duke. UB is still a yellow and black mare on the reputations of many associated with it and now Duke doesn’t have to answer questions on their behalf anymore. For UB, the volatile Duke while at one point a strong advocate also brought some “haters” to the brand.

Phil Hellmuth is as divisive as he is popular. Nobody is a better self-promoter in the game, including Daniel Negreanu, and lately Tony Dunst. While Hellmuth is a brand, you need only look at his Tiger Woods wannabe hat to see that, he’s not opening any new doors for many sites either. Truth is there are sexier possibilities for new sites, and Hellmuth doesn’t really fit the Full Tilt mold.

PokerStars seems a better fit despite their movements to go young and international, Phil seems to be the type of star that could cozy up to Daniel Negreanu in one of the Pokerstars specials, and offers a good counter point to the potential of Jason Mercier. They have a great stable and he wouldn’t be out of place there because unlike Duke he kind of transcends a brand.

Philly kind of likes to be the Main Guy so perhaps a stake in a new site or a European one looking to make inroads in the United States. The merger of bwin-party poker is interesting as they might have the kind of clout to afford poker’s biggest free agent and he’d be a great marketer of them when they return to the United States after U.I.E.G.A. is overturned. They are a very savvy consolidation and the Bat wouldn’t be surprised if Hellmuth is squarely on their radar. Course, the only problem with singing Philly Hellmuth is you get Philly Hellmuth.

Meep, Meep, Learn how to be the Poker Bat,

Bat’s random Holdem poker thoughts…

The Bat loves it when a guy is bluffing with the best hand then turns that sumbitch over like he just stole the crown jewels of Denmark.  Nice try alligator face but you can’t show up someone when every draw misses and even if you checked it down you still would have won.  Even worse if there is some value for the idiot to check for showdown.  The Bat’s not writing this blog to educate you unwashed masses on the importance of show-down values there are plenty of other places to read about poker strategy like Brandon Jarret’s blog, but since some of you come here to get a kernel of knowledge from the Colonel of poker here are some freebies…   

Use these with descretion, but you folks clean your laundry downstream of a Union Carbide plant so the Bat realizes that’s going to be difficult for you, but try.  And most of these don’t deal with online poker tournaments but maybe you’ll have better luck with them than The Bat has. The Bat thinks the worst spot to be on the poker table is in the big blind.  The Bat knows many of you get taken by the fact you should defend your big blind at all costs.  Why play a big pot from there out of position?  Yes, that’s the conventional question and it’s answer is conventional wisdom.  But you start listening to conventional wisdom and you’ll never play a big pot.

If the pipsqueak to your right tries to get frisky a couple of times in a row, by the way what table are you playing on these days where pots are unopened to the blinds mulitple times, just fire back at him with a five x raise of his raise and immediatly start whispering “Do it… Do it…  Do it…” while caressing the rest of your chips.  Make sure the caressing is perverted… not menacing.  That’s very important.   Then ship it regardless of what the board comes if he checks… and he will check every single time.  Five times out of six you are welcome.  The other time you try it and it fail don’t come complaining back to the Bat.  You lost the hand because the guy could smell Coyote on you from a mile away and he went Meep Meep.

When you succeed quote the Devo song “Whip it” preferably these lyrics “Whip it, Whip it good” in as soft a voice that he can still hear, as you pick up your new chips.  Then wink at the guy and hold the eye shut for an awkwardly long time, almost like you’ve forgotten how to open it again.  Then the rest of the session look at him and make a slow, painful looking wince as you shut the eye, as if simply looking at him causes half-blindness.

Playing from the button is one of the most powerful spots on the table.  Problem is everyone knows that so it’s harder to steal from, but everybody knows that now, so you can steal again, as most people rate you as having hand.  Yet, in poker when you zig like Zig Ziglar you want them to think you are zagging likw Adam Morrison, so the Bat advocates stealing from the button at your lesiure.  Three bet, open raise, and if the feeling gets you call, and bet any unopened pot postflop.  Once you’ve done this a few times somebody is ready to look you up.

Now, you gotta channel the spirit of somebody a lot braver than you are, and since you have the courage of a stuffed animal and the imagination of a math teacher, the Bat gives you permission to imagine you are the Bat.  Your skin is invulnerable, you have a titanium hide, and you crush all players.  It’s fun to be the Bat.  Anyway, once they are ready to look you up, even more reason to bet.  Find those two pound weights that now chafe your upper legs, Pokerbat, and bet Ming the Merciless-ly.  They want to play back but they wonder if this time you got the hand.

Then stomp on their soul, by humming Lady Gaga’s pokerface and indicating you are going to muck as soon as the flop is dealt.  If they bet, pull back your cards and raise them, hum louder.  If they don’t bet, simply bet.  When they fold, then wink… and, again hold that eye shut so long, somebody thinks you are about to have a seizure, and then huskily whisper “I’m the Poker Bat…”

Poker, Poker, Poker, relax for 5 Minutes, Poker, Poker, Poker

The Bat is a crass individual, we know this. He is a steaming pile of anger, heartache, dysfunction, and Texas Holdem poker game genius. The Bat finds it aggravating that the rest of the world hasn’t recognized the complex, tortured soul that should be dominating poker at every level. Well… except for the min stakes and low stakes… and for that matter, the Bat doesn’t need to dominate the medium stakes either… well, the Bat should be dominating poker at its highest level. The nosebleeds. The rest of you can have the other levels.

Course, the Bat doesn’t have a bankroll to go all Isildur1 on the rest of the World. The Bat would like a bankroll to sit down with Phil Ivey and Tom Dwan and teach them the meaning on sitting on a pile of dynamite when the other guy is holding a lit match because that’s what it feels like when you are in a hand with the Poker Bat. You think poop goes through a pigeon quick? Try to look into the Bat’s soulless eyes as he triples barrels you to kingdom come in a Pot Limit Omaha game.

With that public safety message out of the way, the Bat is so looking forward to the Harrahs event in December. The structures are fabulous, the noted Nolan Dalla’s tournament reports are first class, and the event runs as smoothly as any does down here. The Bat thinks he could dominate the best of the rest that will populate the fields. The Bats says the best of the rest, because the rest of the best are headed elsewhere.

The World Series of Poker Satellite Circuit has seen fit to cannibalize itself and compete with itself. Why not throw a tournament in New Jersey at the exact same time, where anybody with a glimmer of hope to make the National Freeroll, will go there instead. Or Foxwoods with Darvin Moon or wherever that fellow bumpkin is hosting an event. Plus, Tunica had or is having something.

Seems like you can go most of the summer without a tournament but you can’t go a couple of weeks in the winter and spring without them overlapping. The Bat thinks these casinos should pay attention to what the rest of the world is doing. Each is too busy peeing on their piece of the snow to look over their shoulder to see where everybody else is peeing. Don’t pee into the wind or in front of others peeing. Tournament directors and casino managers must like getting wet when they go to the bathroom.

Speaking of peeing, the Bat recently played all night in a marathon high-low session and despite tossing back a few sixers didn’t pee for 12 hours. See, a half-hour into the game the Bat looked in on the bathroom and it made a truck-stop stall look like a dinner plate. Bat couldn’t tell what the different shades of gunk and funk were, so the Bat decided to pass up the ol’ WC. Then when the Bat got in his car, all at once there was a pressure like the Bat’s never felt from his kidneys clear to his firehose. Bat tried to get out of the car and get back inside or at least make it to a bush, but before he could get gone he went, if you know what the Bat means. Literally, the door was open only a second before the floodgates were.

The Bat will be cleaning his vintage car for days now. But it smells like the stairwell of the Harrahs parking garage which is oddly appropriate as that is where the Bat is headed next.

Anyway, the Bat destroyed the poker game but the poker game arguably destroyed the Bat’s car.