An Exciting Future Awaits

Interesting times around here at Hard-Boiled Poker. Lots of “life stuff” happening, about which I am going to be entirely vague today, I’m afraid. Will try to be less so as the week goes along, however. Wednesday -- an anniversary for HBP -- seems like it might be a good day to try to start being more specific about some of these changes concerning yr humble gumshoe.

Glancing a little further down the calendar also reminds us that Wednesday is momentous in another way, as it will be exactly one month until the start of the 2010 World Series of Poker (on May 28th). I think I’ve mentioned that I’ll be back at the Rio once again helping cover the sucker for PokerNews. Will also have some other things happening this summer, including a quick excursion down to Lima, Peru in early June to help cover the Latin American Poker Tour event.

Before we get there, though, there is the PokerStars Spring Championship of Online Poker which starts this coming Sunday (May 2). That’s also going to keep me plenty busy as I’ll be helping cover several of the events for the PokerStars blog.

The SCOOP schedule is a monstah. There are 38 separate events, each of which has a “low,” “medium,” and “high” tournament associated with it, meaning 114 distinct tournaments happening over a two-week period. The total guaranteed prize pool is $45 million, although it is probably safe to assume there will more than that ultimately won.

I’ve managed to score a seat in one of the “low” events -- a limit hold’em tourney -- so I’ll be fighting for a tiny share of the cabbage myself. Click here to see the entire SCOOP schedule, including all of the buy-ins and guarantees.

In other tourney news, I’m afraid I don’t have much to report concerning my so-so showing in that Battle of the Bloggers Tournament 5 Invitational last night over on Full Tilt Poker, where I busted relatively early on (in Level 7).

I logged on right around start time and found there was a new update to install. Took a few minutes to complete, actually, which meant I had to miss the first orbit or so. Kind of indicative of my tourney as a whole, really, as I found myself having a hard time getting anything going pretty much from the beginning.

(Come to think of it, when it comes to my jingle brain & tourney strategy, I probably could stand to install an update there, too.)

Actually picked up pocket kings twice during the first three levels or so, though got zero action despite the fact that I had been quite active otherwise. Had slipped below the starting stack a little when the chip leader joined our table two seats to my left, thereby making blind stealing a less simple matter.

Finally I was moved to a new table, although by that point I had fallen below 20 big blinds and was starting to look for a spot to double-up.

One such opportunity soon came. The hand began with poker author and Full Tilt Poker blogger Michael Craig opening with a 3x raise UTG to 360. Craig had built up a stack early on last night -- in fact, he had over 13,000 when this hand began, which put him in second place, I believe.

A player in middle position called Craig’s raise, and it folded to me on the button with A-K. I shoved my remaining 1,800 or so, Craig quickly called, and the third player folded. Craig showed pocket fives, the board ran out jack-high, and presto! that silly little frog avatar I use had vanished.

Thanks again to AlCantHang for pulling together the BBT5 and especially for the invite. (Get all yr BBT5 info here, by the way.) Will try again next Sunday!

Lots of other stuff to occupy me between now and then, though. More to come!