Larry Allen takes his game from NFL to felt
By Arnold Warner

Larry Allen has always been a man of few words, but for 14 seasons he terrorized the NFL with his actions on the offensive line for the Dallas Cowboys and San Francisco 49ers. Considered a sure-fire first ballot Hall of Famer, the recently retired Allen now brings his competitive spirit to the poker tables of the Lucky Buck Card Club in Livermore.

“I’m real quiet at the table,” he recently told us, but his size alone makes him difficult to ignore if he’s sitting in your game. The 6’3” 325 pounder has maintained his physique despite his retirement. He still looks like the man who put fear in the hearts of defensive players throughout the league while playing a huge part in making big names for teammates like Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith, and Michael Irvin. click here to read the whole article!

NorCal players cash in WSOP Main Event
By Barbara Engler

The World Series of Poker wrapped up its 2009 season (except for the paltry detail of those nine guys who return in November to finish the Main Event) back on July 15. While Northern California may not be able to claim one of the nine, we did just fine on poker’s biggest stage.

We left off our coverage at Event 53 in the last issue of The Cardroom. Picking up from there, the next NorCal resident to make a final table was Faraz Jaka of San Jose who came in third place in Event 56, No-Limit Hold’em, Six Handed, $5,000 buy-in, held June 30 to July 2. There were 928 entries in this event, creating a prize pool of $4,361,000, of which Jaka received $400,525. click here to read the whole article!

NorCal Poker Ambassador
Ambassador to avoid limit in future
By Randall Rapp

Instead of the usual long weekend of constant poker, your Ambassador of late has instead found himself here and there around Northern California, playing poker wherever and whenever possible. That’s not such a bad thing either, as it spreads out the time and makes the geography a bit more inclusive.

What follows, in no particular order, are some of the cardrooms I’ve had the pleasure of dropping in on over the last couple of months. click here to read the whole article!

Kamikaze Corner
Know the structure before buying in
By Davin Anderson

On a recent excursion to Southern California I played in three tournaments at a large, well-known casino that, in order to protect the innocent (assuming there were any), will remain nameless. It was easily the worst experience I’ve ever had as a tournament player and I will point out several lessons learned from this visit.

The casino advertised that this year all of the tournaments in their yearly series would be deep stack. This brings up my first point: Don’t be misled by poker rooms that advertise deep stack tournaments when they really mean big stacks with big blinds. Deep stack structures allow play for between 50 and 100 big blinds through much of the tournament. When they provide large starting stacks but substantially increase the blinds and antes it is not a true deep stack structure. click here to read the whole article!

Tales from the Floor
Nicknames can be hazardous to health
By Johnny Coldeck

New players to our little club are often puzzled by the nicknames we use for our players. Some new players go so far as to try to pick their own nicknames, completely missing the point! The following is a series of stories designed to highlight how these poker nicknames come to be, and why some names stick and some don’t.

When Tony Campinelli first came into our little club, he was immediately liked and respected. A true gentleman (they are rare in our corner of the world), Tony was always immaculately dressed and very pleasant to all the staff and players. In fact, he would never take a seat at the table without personally greeting and shaking hands with everyone in the room. Unusually quiet at the table and vague about his personal affairs, it took almost a year for his real occupation to occur to us. click here to read the whole article!

Tales from the Floor
Running the floor not for faint of heart
By Johnny Coldeck

A lot of players seem to envy me for the job I have. I mean, on the surface, helping other people play games every night, joking with the players and making the occasional game decision seems like a pretty good gig, but it’s really not all strawberries and orgasms. There are a few situations which require tough judgment calls, and this job is not for the faint of heart.

We hired a new poker dealer this month, and we have discovered just how insufficient the interview/audition process is for our little club. It took all of a week for our players to dub him “Jimmy the Geek,” partly because he is handy with a keyboard, but mostly because “Sammy the Spaz” doesn’t roll off the tongue as easily.

With a big, toothy grin and a, “What are you guys talking about?” look on his face all the time, he is impossible not to like. He turns beet red when a woman speaks about him, near him or (if it ever happens) to him, and Jimmy the Geek is easily the least coordinated young man any of us have ever met. He has fallen down at least three times since he started working here, each time in spectacularly slow motion, and not, as far as any of us can tell, for any reason whatsoever (although there was a female nearby during two of the incidents). click here to read the whole article!

Tells-n-Lies
A life-changing hand of poker
By Victor Shaw

The term addiction is sometimes applied to compulsions that are not substance related, such as gambling. The term addiction is used to describe a recurring  by an individual to engage in some specific activity, ­despite harmful consequences to the individual’s health, mental state or social life.

Playing poker is not considered gambling by any true poker player. I will steal a quote from my favorite movie and take an excerpt from the website Science Daily. These will not prove my point but will lend a shred of credibility to my thoughts.

To quote Mike McDermott in Rounders: “Why do you think the same five guys make it to the final table of the World Series of Poker every year? What? Are they the luckiest guys in Las Vegas?” click here to read the whole article!

Three mistakes that can kill your game
By Bernard Harris

No-limit, spread-limit, and pot-limit games are the poker equivalent to high wire circus acts. It only takes one misstep to ruin a winning session. Not all beats are bad beats, many of them are self inflicted. Below are three common traps that ensnare many players. Stop making these mistakes and you should notice an immediate improvement in your game and bankroll. click here to read the whole article!

Distributor's Marketplace showcases special vendors
By Paul Giambroni

We started a special advertising section, the Distributor’s Marketplace, about a year ago as a way to highlight some of the good folks who help us hand out this newspaper.

Granzella’s Restaurant in Williams was one of our first participants. Not only are they one of our original and best distributors, they’re also the home of my favorite hamburger, the McCarty Burger. If you’ve never tried one of these babies I suggest you clip the coupon below and use it at your next opportunity.

Not long after Granzella’s arrival, the guys who work on both my car and RV came on board. All Wheel Tire & Alignment in Redding, owned and operated by the Pitari family, is a first class repair facility whose attention to detail has kept my vehicles running smoothly up and down the highway. With 1,700 distributors each receiving a bundle of poker papers, I need to have an ultra-reliable delivery vehicle. For the last five years they’ve made that happen for me. click here to read the whole article!