Lamb: 2010 POY landslide victory
By Arnold Warner

Picking off opponents is an important ability to have as a tournament poker player, so it makes a certain kind of sense that The Cardroom’s 2010 NorCal Poker Tournament Player of the year is an ex-Marine sniper.

Mark Lamb of Livermore ran away with the title this year, amassing a whopping 10,866 points and registering 95 tournaments generating points (TGP). For those not doing the math, that averages two scores per week.

He wasn’t the only one racking up large numbers of points either. Second place Rellie Sigua of San Bruno had 7,714, third place Tony Nguyen of San Francisco had 7,436, Hillsborough’s Pat Lyons was forth at 7,337, and Xian “Bob” Tang from Foster City came in fifth with 5,962. Any one of these five totals would have won the first two years of the contest. click here to read the whole article!

Kings star hosts Capitol tourney

On Nov. 28, the Tyreke Evans Celebrity Poker Tournament benefiting the American Diabetes Association (ADA) was held at the Capitol Casino in Sacramento, with 68 players paying $220 each to help raise awareness about diabetes and rub elbows with some stars.

Evans is a guard for the Sacramento Kings and was the 2009-2010 NBA Rookie of the Year. While he’s not a big poker player himself, he thought this event was important enough to lend both his name and his time to the effort. He said, “I think this was a good event to do. I’m looking forward to getting better at it and learning how to play.”

Players received 3,000 chips and re-buys (3,000 for $100) were available until the first break, at which time there was an optional add-on (5,000 for $100). At the end of the night they had raised over $14,500 to support the ADA. click here to read the whole article!

Kilker wins at Venetian

On Nov. 16, 2010 Petaluma resident Michael Kilker won Event 23 of the Venetian Deep Stack Extravaganza IV, taking home $21,748. The buy-in was $300 + $40 for this no-limit Hold’em tournament and had a total prize pool of $90,613 with 313 entries.

Kilker was born in San Francisco, but his family moved to Peta­lu­ma when he was two years old. At 12 he started playing poker with family and friends for ever-increasing stakes. When he was 16 he says he started playing at the now defunct Billiards Cardroom with a fake ID. Eventually, though, he was found out and had to take his game elsewhere. click here to read the whole article!

NorCal Poker Ambassador
I'll go all-in when I want to
By Randall Rapp

So here’s my pet peeve for this issue: I hate it when someone says, “I put you all-in.” Let’s be clear on this. You can’t put me all-in. That’s up to me. You can bet enough that, in order to call, I would be all-in.

You can say, “I bet whatever you have in front of you,” or go all-in yourself. But you can’t “put me all all-in.” That’s up to me.

Now that we have that settled, let’s get on with our most recent journey. click here to read the whole article!

The Scoop
Recipe for a successful poker career
By Mark Lamb

Editor’s note: Mark Lamb was the winner of The Cardroom’s 2010 Poker Tournament Player of the Year Contest. He has graciously agreed to share some of his insights into the game with you, our faithful readers. If you have questions you’d like to ask him or issues you’d like to bring up, you can contact him by email: mark@thecardroom-norcal.com.

Over the years I’ve been asked many different questions by many different types of players: players aspiring to be better or win more consistenly, players looking to take their game to the next level, and some just looking for that first level.

“Whats your secret?” they ask. “How do you get so lucky?” “Can you teach me how to play?” These three are the ones I hear most frequently, so I will attempt to answer them to the best of my ability. click here to read the whole article!

Stop schooling the fish!
By Bernard Harris

What would you do if you stumbled across a broken ATM that was spewing $100 bills? Assuming no legal consequences, would you take the money or would you try to fix the machine? Unfortunately, I see the latter occur every day on the felt. Fish and donks are the above mentioned ATM. They happily print money like the U.S. mint and pass it out like candy to all players at the table. You’d think no one would be foolish enough to rock this money boat. Alas, you would be wrong.

There exists a breed of player who feels it is his or her duty to correct bad play. They delight in rendering post play analysis and often will do so without any prompting. “You bet too little and priced in the flush draw. You should have bet X amount so you didn’t give pot odds. The river in that spot is an easy fold with only middle pair. You should never chase a flush on a twice paired board.” click here to read the whole article!