E Tay’s Blog

Liars Poker and Allie Prescott Get\’s Caught With a Purse!!

E Tays Blog on bluffmagazine.com

SCOOP, April Live Events, a Dirty Thirty and coming up in May….

Link to Bluff Blog HEREI will be blogging over @ http://blog.bluffmagazine.com/author/esther-taylor/ as well. More video blogging for the WSOP and such as well as the same blog I will continue to have here.

Thanks and good luck!

Had a good run in Rincon. I actually told a few people I had a good feeling about this tournament because it was my first circuit event and my first time being at Rincon. I just have this superstition about me having a little run good the FIRST time I play a certain event. I said the same thing about WPT Biloxi, and I had the chip lead after day 1 and then I blew it. I think I messed with my superstitions a little bit that time. Well anyway, let’s start with the 1k.
156 players. My first table was actually pretty tough. It was the late registration table, so of course all the young degens were at it. Pretty solid table, had this kid Scratch who ended up making the final table with me in the main. The kid plays great. So the first couple levels were a bit slow, and our table broke. I got moved to a little bit better table. Eric (Rizen) Lynch was the only player I recognized and he was playing with a shorter stack. There was another girl, who I actually have to give props to too, her name was Kim and she was from Japan, and she was super solid as well. Well anyway, I did what I was suppose to, played solid, and my reads on people right now are incredible. Not really too many interesting pots, played my usual style of pot control and value. Had a pretty big hand where a “usual” limper limped, Rizen raised, 1 smoothie, 1 smoothie from the small, I wake up with KK, I three bet, limper folds, Rizen folds, smoothie 1 folds, and SUPRISINGLY the small blind calls. The flop came A53 rainbow. Check I check behind of course. I am going to check ALL pairs behind here on this board, even if I had AK, AQ I’m still checking behind. The turn was a K! Guy bets 1/4th the pot, now it’s the K of clubs bringing a flush draw which I’m not TOO concerned about. I raise anyway, a small raise for value to leave the buy 5k behind in a pot of 15k. The river is 10 of clubs. Not the greatest card in the world, but he checks again, and so I put in the 5k and he calls with AQ. Pretty big turning point in the tournament for me, it gave me a decent chip lead over my table. We got down to the bubble and by now I have a little below avg stack and I raised the first hand on the bubble with 1010. A guy moves it all in, and now I tank. Ok, first of all, you don’t know how many times I bubble these 1k’s because I just DON’T care about the money at that point, and I am willing to play huge pots. This guy has made too many plays like this with extremely marginal hands, 4 times I saw him show down AJ like it was the nuts. I just absolutely KNEW I had the best hand. Sometimes I think too quickly though and act too quickly and make mistakes. I decided to take my time here, talk to the guy a little bit, yell at him a little…blah blah blah… There was something about his calmness in this hand where I go to shove my stack in and at the last second, even though it HURT so bad I folded the hand. He flipped up AA. PHEW. That fold saved me, and eventually we were done for the night, playing the final table the next day.
Final table was not too tough. There was I pretty good player, called himself Ha-bee-bee and there was also Kim from Japan. I grinded a below avg/avg stack all the way day to 4 people, and I got in a huge all in with Habibi for the chip lead. I had AJs and he had KJ. The flop came 883, I couldn’t imagine a better flop, but I still found a way to lose. SIGH. 4th place for just under 13k. S’ok though, I even said that I guess the run good was saved for the Main Event…..
Day 1 I was a little bit late, but had already bought in few days before. I get to my table and I see Paul Smith, Mickey Mouse Mills and Devo. Not the best table I could think of seeing as the field was only 106 players and there were so many unknowns. Interestingly enough, Paul and Devo both busted in the first couple levels. I had a real insane start of the day. I chipped up pretty quick to 26k. Mickey was playing kind of a short stack early, when he limped in , I had 88 I raised, he called. The flop came 854 all clubs. He checked, I bet ½ pot, he raised I moved him all, he called with JJc. The turn was the Kc and the river doesn’t fill, and Mickey gets up to leave. He doesn’t even realize he has the flush. I’m like, “you’re gonna win this one”. That was a 18k pot, and pretty important at the time. So I was down to about 13k. Chipped back up to 35k, back down to 15k back up to 33k. All in like the first 4 levels. From there I pretty much played average stack till we got down to about 4 tables. I raised on the button with 69s, this crazy asian calls from the small and the big blind calls. The flop comes k95 one spade. Checks to me, I check. The turn is the 3 of spades, Crazy Asian bets 1/3 pot, I call. River is an off 8, he checks and for some ungodly reason I thought I rivered two pair, and so did a massive over shove for value. This takes 3 minutes to finally call….during that time I realized the mistake I made. When he called I was like sigh, nice call…but he wouldn’t flip his hand. At that point I realized I just got the thinnest value, he flipped up a3. THAT WAS HUGE. Right after that hand I got moved again. I had Shaun Deeb to my right, and another a couple other decent players. Shaun and I were chatting, messing around and we were being dealt one more hand. I had made a joke about his opening ranges, and of course he raises the hand right before break. I get KK, I three bet. Guy in the small blind, who is actually a very good player, cold 4 bets, Deeb tanks and folds AK, and five bet shove and get called by 1010. That pot gave me chip lead with 26 left and I held that lead until the end of day 1 with 16 left.
Day 2 we went pretty fast from 16 down to a final table of 10. I spewed off 100k in chips doubling up one short stack and having to raise fold a few times. I went to the final table with an average stack again. I played pretty patiently, knowing where my spots were and picking up important pots here and there. I busted on Cosmo out with 88 against AQ which is just SUCH a sick hold for me. I’m not a favorite in races like that.  That was an important pot. Here is the big hand. Pilgrim was short and shoving his stack in every chance he could. Tryba opens from early, Pilgrim shoves and 4 bet shove with KK. Tryba lays JJ down face up and Pilgrim flips up A4. Flop comes J104, turn was clean and river A. SIGH. That was such a huge beat to take there. After that Pilgrim was unstoppable, busting players and winning every hand. I was so tilted after that I had to get up walk around, Deeb was there sweatin me and he calmed me down a bit. I had to maintain composure and really focus, because now I had to work twice as hard. We finally got down to 3 handed and I was the short stack. I played a big hand with Charles where I raised with 89 suited, he called. Flop came 887. Check, check. Turn was J. He bet I raised he called. Then he checked dark. The river was a 7, and so I moved all in. Another over shove, but definitely getting value here. He called and showed 710. That double up was HUGE, and at that point I was felt like I could really win this thing. Finally we got to heads up and Pilgrim had about 4 to 1 in chips and we made a deal to chop everything evenly. People are not going to agree with this, I don’t even know if I agree with it, but that’s what was done. So I took 2nd place and took home $118,000. I’m disappointed I didn’t get the win, but I really feel like there is many more opportunities for me. I really really REALLY want to express how much it meant to me, all the support I got throughout the final table. I don’t know if people realize how mental this game is, but having tons of support and friends behind me, it makes THAT MUCH of a difference. I realized that in this tournament more than ever, there were times where I could of blew up, and had constant encouragement, it was just amazing.
Ok well that’s that. Just realized how boring this blog may seem. LOL. Anyway, I will be playing SCOOP for the 10 days, and I will also be playing Bellagio, Venetian Deep Stack, and Caesars Circuit events. April is such a busy month in Vegas, but I am EXCITED for it all. I am taking most of the month of May off, except for going to New Orleans to play the Circuit main there, that’s it. Then World Series of Poker….Here I come.
Peace & Good Luck!

Exit Interview With Joy Miller

Click fo\' Video-skie

This has nothing to do with poker, but thought since this trip is so refreshing and relaxing, it would be refreshing to blog about something other than poker for once. I left on Sunday for an 8 day Cruise on Carnival. We left out of Ft. Lauderdale, FL around 5pm. First things first. They lost my suitcase. I’m not sure how they can lose a suitcase from the base of the boat, to the inside, but they did. What a bummer. I would say the total value of that suitcase was somewhere around $2000, but they decided it would be fair to give me $300. LOL. That seems fair, for NOT having any of my stuff the whole cruise, on top of them losing everything in it. (OBV being sarcastic) O well though. I really didn’t want this to ruin our trip, so whatever, there are worse things that can happen I suppose.

So anyway our boat is nice. Our cabin reminds me of like a college dorm. There are 10 deck loaded with pools, bars, V and B ball courts, gym, golf, Casino and of course food. Yum! There are some small $100 tournaments and 1-2 NL, but I am not playing one single hand of poker while I am out here. Also the internet is only $1 per minute, so I won’t be playing online either.

Monday we arrived in Cozumel, MX. Beautiful place. We took a taxi about 2 miles into town, but for some reason it took 20 minutes to get there. We walked through the village and checked out all the little shops and stands. We decided to walk back, which for someone who hasn’t done a work out in CENTURIES, was a mistake. (the next day I swear I had shin splints and I pulled a muscle) LOL. I didn’t really buy anything in Cozumel, pretty much because I have purchased every type of thing there is to purchase in former trips like these. I have no clue where any of that stuff is.
Tuesday we were on sea the whole time. Ericka and I pretty much just lounged out by the pool and did some major relaxing. WOW. It was honestly SO nice. My skin hasn’t been in contact with this much sunshine in a long time. It’s amazing. I read through a whole book! (I know) called the Secret Life of Bee’s. Very good book.
Wednesday we arrived in Costa Rica. What a BEAUTIFUL place. Now Carnival tries to rape you and make you book everything you want to do on the island through them, but this guy told us that it so much better if you just find good deals on the island. So the moment we got off, this guy named Ricky came right up to us, and we teamed up with a newly wed couple and he would give us a tour for $40 each. Great deal it seemed like, so we got in his car and away we went. First he took us to an amazing sight seeing spot. Then we went to look at all these monkeys in these trees. Then we got to actually hold a baby monkey. THAT was amazing. Then we went to a Banana plantation and got a little education. These people work their ASSES off and make on average $1000 a month. Incredible how blessed we are, and how most of the time aren’t thankful enough for it. (we’ll talk about this later) After that we spent time at a beautiful beach where we ate lunch. Then he dropped us off for shopping back around where the boat dock was. Pretty incredible day for $40! Loved it.

So today we arrived in Colon, Panama. We got off the boat and we really didn’t know what we were going to do. We decided, let’s just start walking and go exploring. Well…..I don’t even know where to begin. I have been in 3rd world countries before, (last year I was in Ecuador and saw poverty that was unfathomable), but here…. O my god. It was unbelievable the poverty, the destruction, the oppression there is in this town. We walked down the streets and it was exactly like walking thought the 9th ward of New Orleans RIGHT after the destruction. But this is what their world has ALWAYS been, and there is nothing in place to make it better. I know I joke a lot and whatever, but I am real serious when I say my heart literally hurt for these people. We have it SO EASY. Especially as poker players, and I would hope that I can remember this on a DAILY basis. Poker is such a selfish career and I hope that we can ALL remember to be thankful and give back in our own ways to encourage the spirit of generosity and healing.
Ok enough lecture. We are now back on the boat, and we are heading to Florida which will take all of Friday and Saturday. Sunday I will be back on US land at 8am, and I will be back to work on Sunday Majors. I will let you know about the end of the trip next time.
Peace and good luck!

Video 2

Otay.  Lots to talk about I guess.  Let’s see here.  I want to say I played about 6 events at the Wynn Classic, and what a bust that was.  I can’t really think of a tournament series where I just had a total goose egg on cashes….I mean I at LEAST get in there for the good ol’ min cash, but NOOOOO, not in this series.  There was one 1k tournament where I, along with like 8 of my friends made it super deep.  We were down to 20 players, and they paid 15 spots, and I decided to get involved with the following hand: guy completes the small blind, I check the J7 hearts. Flop AK10, two clubs.  Guy bets half pot, I call.  Turn is the Q of clubs, guy checks I bet 7k which is about 65% pot.  He like MIN RAISES me, I call.  The river is the 10 of hearts and now he stuffs it all in.  I WANT TO FOLD THE HAND SO BAD!!! Why don’t I just fold the hand? Instead I decided to play solid for 12 hours to donk it all off in one hand with 18 left.  Anyway, the guy tables 97 of clubs and I am crippled and out in the next hand.  It was really unfortunate because even with so few people left, I was in, Allie Prescott was in and Matt Brady (who had all the beautiful chips) was in and it would have been sick for us all to make a FT.  Instead Allie and I decided to bust in the same hand on the bubble and Brady went on to FT the thing.  How good does he play?  GG focker. J

Nothing else interesting really happened, I just couldn’t really get much going.  I feel like I’m playing decent, it just wasn’t the series for me I guess.  My last tournament was today, the Pot Limit Omaha 1k with Rebuys.  OMG.  I renamed it the NutJob Invitational because these people were going insane.  The problem was they only had 50 players show up to play.  Now I kid you not when I say saw some clowns in for 7-8 rebuys and quit right before the rebuy period was over.  Alls I have to say about that is…WOW.

Ok, lets talk about this Bluff/Lock Poker Challenge… LOL.  Ok I guess its not that funny, and I should be putting way more effort into it.  The problem is, these guys are putting in 12 hour days on LOCK poker every single day.  I guess I should have cleared my entire March schedule for this, because there is NO way I can keep up.  Also, I started out with sit and go’s and I played them terribly.  Sigh.  Well I’m not completely out, and I’m not giving up.  I’m going to try and run this 20 bones up. LOL.

Tomorrow I leave for a cruise with one of my best friends from growing up.  I am actually really excited about this, because I feel as though it is going to be amazingly refreshing to get out of a casino, away from poker and spend some quality time with my girl.  She knows NOTHING about poker, so I will have a  whole 8 days of not talking about, thank you lordy.  We leave out of Florida and we go to Panama and Costa Rica I’m pretty sure.   I am the most unorganized, travel person you will meet, so even though we leave tomoro, I still don’t know for SURE where we go to. LOL.  I’m not sure how the internet thing is going to work overseas, but I will try and keep the blog and video blog updated.

As soon as I get back from the cruise I am flying straight into San Deigo for the Rincon Circuit event.  This will actually be my FIRST Main Circuit Event, so I have a feeling I’m going to be crushing faces in.  Also I LOVE San Deigo as a city.  I have some really great friends there that I am excited to be able to spend some time with them and maybe allow my yellow skin to see that thing we call SUNLIGHT. J  After that I will be back in Vegas to play Bell, Caesers, Venetian Deep Stacks and of course SCOOP on pokerstars.com. 

That about wraps it up.  Peace and Good Luck! J

The Bluff Online Poker Challenge (BOPC), sponsored by LockPoker. com, is set to kick off this Sunday, March 1st with a field full of top online poker players all vying for the chance to be on the cover of the poker industry’s leading publication.

The challenge will have over 20 of the world’s top online poker players including 2008 BLUFF Magazine Online Poker Player of the Year David “The Maven” Chicotsky as well as Shaun “shaundeeb” Deeb, Kevin “BeLOWaBOVe” Saul and Lock Poker qualifier Jeffrey “Duralast” Romano.

“We’ve got the best players in the world raring to go,” said Eric Morris, publisher of BLUFF Magazine. “Over the next 31 days we’ll see who’s got the skill and the discipline required to come out on top.
”

Lock Poker held an exclusive qualifier during the month of February where Romano collected over 50,000 frequent player points to claim the exclusive invitation to compete with this elite group.

Each player begins the competition with $200 and has the entire month of March to build their bankroll playing in multi-table tournament and sit-n-goes exclusively on LockPoker. com. The winner is determined by the player who shows the greatest return. Players will not be permitted to reload their account at any time and once the initial $200 is gone players are eliminated from the BOPC.

The winner of the BOPC will be featured on the cover of a future issue of BLUFF Magazine while the first and second place finishers will each receive a team entry to an upcoming Dream Team Poker event.

The Complete BOPC Field

* Ari “Bodog Ari” Engel
* Eric “Rizen” Lynch
* Jeff “Yellowsub” Williams
* Garrett “GBecks” Beckman
* Phil “USCphildo” Collins
* Brett “Bhanks11″ Hanks
* David “The Maven” Chicotsky
* Brian “Sno0oman” Hawkins
* Brett “Gank” Jungblut
* Kevin “BeLOWaBOVe” Saul
* Adam “AJUNGLEN” Junglen
* Maria “Femme on Felt” Ho
* Chris “Moorman1” Moorman
* Esther “Etay” Taylor
* Soren “Kongsgaard” Kongsgaard
* Matt “Plattsburgh” Vengrin
* Brian “Devo” Devonshire
* James “Krsykunuck” Worth
* Mark “P0ker H0″ Kroon
* Brandon “any2cantu” Cantu
* Shaun “shaundeeb” Deeb
* Tom “SBRounder” West
* Tim “Tmay420” West
* Russell “RDCRSN” Carson
* Jeffrey “Duralast” Romano

The BOPC begins March 1st and runs through until Midnight on March 31. Fans can follow all the action through the daily scoreboard and video blogs from the players at www. bluffmagazine. com/bluff-poker-challenge and www. lockpoker. com/challenge.

I will try and attach my video blog to this blog, but imma little slow when it comes to all this computer/blogging stuff, so we will see how this goes.  Since there are only to women in the challenge, myself and my good friend Maria Ho, everyone should OBV be routing for one of us.  This should be a lot of fun!