Bay's McEachern is voice of WSOP
By Barbara Engler

The voice, even more than the face, is what you recognize the most and the quickest. As one half of ESPN’s anchor team for the World Series of Poker since 2003, Lon McEachern’s voice is heard throughout every broadcast. It’s his job to let you know who the players are, what the action is, and occasionally give the needle to his partner Norman Chad.

In his spare time, however, McEachern has been spotted playing the game at San Jose’s Bay 101 and Garden City Casinos. While he’s not exactly a regular and harbors no grand illusions about his game, he is serious enough about his job as a broadcaster to have developed a love for poker that shows through in every WSOP episode ESPN puts on the air. click here to read the whole article!

POY champ comes to Lucky Chances
By Arnold Warner

In the second version of The Cardroom’s Player of the Year “On the Road” tour, 2009 champion Gerry Davidow took his game to Colma to take on the field at the Lucky Chances Casino on Oct. 17.

Lucky Chances players have taken the POY contest by storm this year.  Currently, regulars at Lucky Chances hold eight of the top 10 spots in the 2010 race and 32 of the top 50. This is primarily due to three deciding factors: 1) larger than average field sizes, 2) larger than average buy-ins, and 3) a high percentage of tournament players signed up for the POY contest.

All of these were in evidence on Oct. 17, when 111 players (plus 23 re-entries) ponied up the $200 + $25 entry fee. All of Lucky Chances tournaments have a guaranteed first place payout, and this Sunday morning it was $10,000. The prize money collected was $26,800 and, with Lucky Chances adding $880 to the first place prize, the total prize pool was $27,680. click here to read the whole article!

NorCal Poker Ambassador
The family that plays poker together ...
By Randall Rapp

Your humble Ambassador visits many different poker rooms throughout Northern California, so I always feel at home no matter where I find myself. Recently though, I had a chance to take this up a notch and get the whole family involved.

Club One Casino
Fresno

From Sept. 30 to Oct. 3 Club One Casino hosted their Oktoberfest Poker Tournament. This event had a $25 buy-in with three first days (Thursday to Saturday) with the final 30 from each of those days returning on Sunday to play for the $10,000 guaranteed prize pool.

It just so happens that Saturday, Oct. 2 was yours truly’s birthday, so, in honor of my impending senility, I bought seats in the tournament for myself, Mrs. A, Son A, and Daughter A. The four of us would have the chance to bond as a family in a way that can only be done at a big poker tournament! click here to read the whole article!

Are you reading opponents or yourself?
By Bernard Harris

It’s a typical spread-limit or no-limit game with the usual suspects. Ms. Mouse is on the button contemplating Mr. Maniac’s big bet. She looks at the A-7-2 rainbow flop, the stack of chips in front of Mr. Maniac, and her A-J hole cards. She called Mr. Maniac’s preflop raise then bet the flop after he checked. But then he sprung his check-raise trap and now Ms. Mouse is seeing goblins under the bed.

“You got A-K huh?” she says over and over again. Likewise, the rest of the table mumbles a similar analysis. Finally, Ms. Mouse shows A-J and then folds.

“Good laydown,” replies Mr. Maniac before mucking his hand.

Unfortunately, odds are that Ms. Mouse and the table were wrong. Mr. Maniac had been raising all day from every position with complete garbage. He’d also been hyper-aggressive and check-raising a large percentage of his hands on the flop, turn, and river. Sure, Mr. Maniac may have had A-K but it’s more likely he was just making a move. click here to read the whole article!

Tales from the Floor
Tournament players are a breed apart
By Johnny Coldeck

Tournament players seem to crawl out of some burrow in the poker world and show up in our little club each week. While many of these breeds are not available for daily live play, the different species flock like lambs to the slaughterhouse of the weekly poker tournament.

One herd creature never seen without his entourage is the Home Tournament Champion. In this context, the word “entourage” means any number of lackeys who admire and respect his poker tournament skills. More often than not, these are the only players in the tournament (except the player himself) who do. When this guy gets taken out of a tournament, there are three or four buddies to console him and assure him that he got robbed of a victory he deserved.. click here to read the whole article!

Televised Poker
Doubles Poker? Whack me with a racquet
By Raymond T. Akers

You’ve gotta give the big thinkers in the television industry credit: They won’t give up on a concept until they’ve beaten it every which way to Sunday—and back again. This has never been more evident than in the recent rash of head-scratching poker shows with special themes.

Over the past year there have been three that have stood out for their own “special” reasons: “Face the Ace,” “Million Dollar Challenge,” and “Doubles Poker Championship.”

The one thing they all clearly have in common is the almost total lack of strategy and skill in use by the players involved. The accelerated structures of these shows force players into “shove or fold” mode so quickly that they might as well be playing Blackjack. click here to read the whole article!