Just uploaded the March Daily Tournament Schedule Spreadsheet, which, for those unfamiliar, is a one-stop listing for all daily and monthly tournaments at all 14 local card rooms (including Diamond Jo in Iowa and St. Croix in Wisconsin).

The most notable addition to the March schedule is a $200 buy-in deep stack tournament at Running Aces every Saturday at 2:00. Players start with $20,000 in tournament chips, and from what I’ve heard in February, players absolutely love it. I’ve yet to play in this new tournament, but certainly plan to do so soon.

Also be sure to take note of the upcoming special events, listed on the Tournaments page and in the right sidebar; On March 6th, Treasure Island is holding its second “Island Tournament” of 2010.  The buy-in is scheduled to be $1,000+$100.

On March 21st, Running Aces is holding a $500 buy-in “Pot of Gold”  tournament, just a few weeks before hosing the second Minnesota State Poker Tour event of 2010.

Well my current trip to the Commerce has come to an end.  I wound up busting out of the main event with a bit of a cooler with nut flush versus a full house.  The way the pot played I just got stuck and I guess had a bad read on my opponent.  The turn out was great with well over 700 players and as usual Matt Savage put together a sensational series.

Even with the snow I was able to catch a late flight back home to NY.  I am really missing my wife so it’s not all bad, although I would much preferred her to catch a flight out here to watch me go deep in the event.

I am trying to work out the details in my schedule to head to The Horseshoe in Indiana.  They have a great schedule of events with a heads up and main event that I don’t think I can resist.  Here is the link for those of you interested.

http://www.horseshoehammond.com/EventsDetail.do?locationCode=UHA&detailName=chicago-poker-classic-detail&eventTitle=Chicago%20Poker%20Classic

Ashton “TheASHMAN103″ Griffin, who hails from Florida but wrestles at Southwest Minnesota State University, took down the PokerStars North American Poker Tour $25,000 buy-in Invitational High Roller Bounty Shootout tournament on Thursday night. Including his bounty collections and the first place prize, Griffin took home more than $500,000.

This “high roller” shootout format was invite only, and 49 players were spread across seven tables to begin the tournament. Griffin won his first table, and was joined by Hoyt Corkins, Joe Cassidy, Peter Eastgate, Scott Seiver, Brett Richey, and Faraz Jaka at the final table.

Last summer, Griffin, 21, won the Full Tilt $25,000 buy-in heads-up tournament for over $500,000. Even though he is primarily a nosebleed-stakes cash game specialist (over $4 million won online since the beginning of 2009), he has a knack for crushing high roller tournaments.

The NAPT tournaments were all broadcast live at http://www.napt.com/tv/, but they will also air on ESPN 2 with hole cards in the near future.

For a detailed write-up of how the final table played out, including details about why Griffin was taking naps during breaks, check out the PokerStars blog.

1st – $560,000: Ashton Griffin
2nd – $100,000: Hoyt Corkins
3rd – $95,000: Joe Cassidy
4th – $215,000: Scott Seiver
5th – $95,000: Faraz Jaka
6th – $90,000: Brett Richey
7th – $85,000: Peter Eastgate

This article appeared in the February issue of Minnesota Poker Magazine. Three weeks after the issue hit the racks, Everett Carlton made a deep run in the Minnesota State Poker Tour event at Grand Casino Mille Lacs. For his 4th-place finish, Carlton earned $9,021.

Everett Carlton: Among the State’s Best
by Phil Mackey

Everett Carlton has become a fixture on the Minnesota poker tournament circuit, although some people may recognize him from an ESPN final table at the 2006 World Series of Poker. Everett finished 7th in the $1,000 rebuy event for $92,000. Allen Cunningham went on to win the event, and the table was littered with notable pros.
Since his poker career began five years ago, Everett — a St. Paul native with a large family and an athletic background — has earned over $300,000 in tournaments.

I caught up with Everett while he was playing cash games in Amsterdam — one of the many places he loves to travel. In fact, Everett says he travels nearly six months out of the year, playing tournaments and no-limit cash games ($5/10 and $10/20 NL).

Phil Mackey (PM): I’m guessing you are a professional poker player, right? As in, you don’t have a traditional day job?

Everett Carlton (EC): I never know how to answer that. If you mean is poker the only thing I do to earn money, then I’m not a professional and would never really want to be. But I do play poker for money and I do make money playing poker. And investing and trading the markets has kept me very busy. I  think I know more about the stock market than most stock brokers, and have done very well over the last 30 years. But poker has scratched my competitive itch, and the money is good too.

As for a traditional day job, that hasn’t happened to me since 1976.

PM: What did you do before playing poker and the stock market?

EC: Up until five years ago, I had never played a hand of poker. It’s funny, but I only got into poker to promote something else. A childhood friend of mine has been living in Vegas for 25 years and has made a fortune beating college football and college basketball. I mean that’s all he does, just college football and college basketball.

He’s an amazing handicapper. For years, I’ve encouraged him to sell his picks, but he was never interested. I realized that by playing the poker circuit, I would be surrounded by hundreds of people who may need that service. The rest is history. After five years, I found that I can make money playing poker, and the other business is doing well, with many clients, among them three well known poker pros. And my childhood friend hasn’t had a losing year since 1998. Things are good.

PM: Your tournament resume is very impressive, with several WSOP cashes, etc.

EC: My resume is only impressive if you omit the fact that I don’t have a major tournament win. I’ve had lots of cashes and final tables in my first five years, but no major wins other than some local wins. That’s not only disappointing, but it’s unacceptable to me. I’m working on some things that hopefully will change that. I primarily play tournaments, but haven’t traveled to a tournament since last summer for the WSOP. I’m getting ready for a trip to Biloxi to play in a week of preliminary events. I’m excited to get back into the tournament swing.

PM: What was your 2006 WSOP TV final table experience like? Pretty stacked final table, with Chino Rheem, Allen Cunningham, Andy Bloch, Alex Jacob and Steve Wong.

EC: That was an amazing final table. I think I was the only unknown player at that table. I actually met Steve Wong in Amsterdam six months prior playing cash games over there. I remember talking about the WSOP coming up. And here we are, both on the final table. I still see him around, he’s a great guy. And I was able to talk with Cunningham later about some situations. He couldn’t have been nicer, and the same for Andy Bloch and Alex Jacob. I went into that table as the second short stack behind Alex. I never wanted to just move up. I wanted the bracelet, but ended up finishing 7th. Very disappointing.

PM: Is traveling one of your passions? How often do you go to Amsterdam and/or Europe?

EC: Traveling has always been a big passion of mine. I lived in Europe for a few years in the early 80′s and traveled all over. Now with poker, I’m making at least eight trips a year to play cash games. I love Paris, an amazing city. And the Aviation Club is right on the Champs-Elysees. The French love to bluff and they hate giving up a pot. There’s consistently more action in those games than any I’ve ever seen. Same goes for Amsterdam. Although in Amsterdam, the biggest no-limit game is 5E/10E ($8/$16), but it plays like a $20/$40 no-limit game. I’ve been spending lots of time over there this year. Lately, my Euro bankroll is growing faster than my dollar bankroll.

PM: When playing tournaments, do you have a specific style or strategy? Are you more mathematical, or do you play by “feel”? A lot of people would look at your resume and wonder, ‘how does he do it?’

EC: I like to think I change styles depending on my table. A table is like fingerprint — no two are alike. There are 9 players with different styles and in different states of mind, which will both change as the game goes on. It’s a poker players job to figure out what those other players are doing and why. And how to best exploit that.

If, in life, you can quickly process information, both seen and unseen, and are able to make a good decision based on that information, you’ll succeed at poker. Although I know the math, I’m primarily a ”feel” player. If I think my opponent is weak, I’ll put the maximum pressure on him. I’m not always right, but I’ll always go with my read.

PM: Do you have poker industry friends, or people you travel with? People you talk poker with?

EC: I talk about poker situations with local friends, as well as with the Vegas poker pros who subscribe to my handicapping service. As for traveling, I prefer going solo. I can make my own schedule and come and go as I please. There are friends and people I know at almost every destination, even in Europe.

Actually, when I go to Vegas for two weeks in April to play in the WSOP Circuit Events at Caesars, I bring my 79-year-old mother. I set her up in a room at the Mirage. I think it’s her favorite two weeks of the year. She loves it there and loves the slots. It’s fun to watch a 79-year-old turn into a 25-year-old. I hardly see her the whole time, except to meet for dinner. If she shows up!

Like my fellow blogger here at MN Poker Mag – Michael Hughes: My Journey to the WSOP – I, too, play in the Free Poker Network (bar league).   I’ll be joining Michael for the State Tourney in May (or whenever it happens) for the WSOP promotion after winning session 1 at my bar (Erik’s in St. Paul).  But, first comes the State Tourney for last Season – “The Fall Spectacular” – my third consecutive FPN State Tourney.

I’ll be heading up to the Shooting Star Casino on Friday to prep for the big day on Saturday.   Across the state there have been 251 qualifiers – the top 7 players will win airfare/hotel packages and a spot in the exclusive 25-player National Championship in Vegas.   Main prize there? A $5k WSOP Circuit Main Event seat!  Another $7K in various others entries will also be given away.

The odds will be difficult but I feel a few things are in my favor.  First, not all 251 people will show.  The last time we were in Mahnomen there were 30 or so no shows for a bigger prize pool.

Second, I’m playing well.  I’ve struggled recently in our home league, but finally took that down this week.   In the FPN, I’ve final tabled (it’s an 8-player table in their league) 8 of the last 10 tournaments (average field size of 33) and played better than my finish looked a couple weeks back in an HPT League Match (36^th of 75 players).

Next, I hope to learn from experience – as I noted above, this is my third straight FPN State Tourney.  I have much more confidence now in how to play my way through it.  It’s a bit of deeper stack tournament and I’ve “rushed” a little too much in my first two appearances (going out about a third of the way in on one and about level 3 in the other – ouch).

Finally, FPN does a great job of keeping track of various stats – average points earned per tourney, “winning” and “losing” streaks (really streaks of finishing top 30% or not), a “power” ranking they created and more.  Players are segmented out in numbers of matches played – allowing for more apples to apples comparison.  You need to play at least 25 times before they start listing your stats.  I’m currently in the 50 to 99 matches played category and ranked 11^th statewide (of 2720 players) for average points earned per tournament with a Power ranking of 74^th. It’s simply another chip in the confidence stack – I can compete with these guys (and gals).

I hope to have some good news to report on soon.

Karaoke Phil/MNted

Listen to MN’s only poker podcast at: www.cplpokerpodcast.com

Ok, so here’s the deal, we have been super-pumped about the turnout at Canterbury and Mille Lacs for the Minnesota State Poker Tour. The fields have been great including over 200 players for Friday’s two qualifiers in Mille Lacs.

We’ve totaled 130 and 124 for each of the first two main events which is phenomenal in just a short period of time putting this together.

The HPT totaled 65 players in their first event and it took them 6 events to top the 100 mark. So we’re shattering those numbers in what’s classified as a down market for poker. And obviously after word got out the HPT exploded!

Like I said, we’re ecstatic about the results thus far and the host casinos have been elated as well. But…..I’m not ready to relax yet. I want these events to consistently draw 150+ and we’re so close to doing that already. Not only that, I want to launch a campaign right now to draw over 200 main event participants at Running Aces in April.

Is that an extremely lofty goal? Absolutely. But let’s get it done. Tell your friends and family. Tell your fellow poker players. Tell your co-workers. Tell everyone you know.

I was told today that, “Running Aces qualifiers and satellites don’t draw well.”

Maybe not. But they haven’t had the MSPT before.

200 players generates a 1st place prize of roughly $60,000. That’s a prize pool this state only sees at the Fall Poker Classic main event. Let’s hit that number!

PUMP IT UP! LET’S DO THIS! SPREAD THE WORD!

200!

For those of you pining for another shot at a Minnesota State Poker Tour title, the upcoming Running Aces MSPT schedule has officially been released.

The qualifier schedule is very similar to the Grand Casino Mille Lacs schedule, but a Wednesday evening $250 qualifier has been added to give players one extra shot.

Qualifiers:
- Wednesday, April 7… 6:30p
- Thursday, April 8… 11:30a
- Thursday, April 8… 6:30p
- Friday, April 9… noon
- Friday, April 9… 7:00p
- Saturday, April 10… 10:00a

Main Event:
Day 1: Saturday, April 10… 5:00p
Day 2: Sunday, April 11… 11:00a

As usual, there will be $60, $90, $150, and $250 single table SNGs running all day every day.

Troy Graphenteen, known as “stringbend” and “stringbendr” online, recently accomplished a pretty rare feat, scoring two $10,000+ multi-table tournament cashes in one day. On February 10th, Graphenteen won the Full Tilt “Fifty-Fifty” for $11,657 (1,227 entrants), and he took 2nd in a PokerStars tournament for $10,145.

Not a bad day. In fact, getting heads-up in two enormous fields on the same day is just down-right sick.

I actually caught up with Troy on Facebook the other day for a couple quick questions:

PMac: What are your overall thoughts about hitting two huge scores in such a short timespan? That’s sick!

Troy: I wasn’t really thinking about the accomplishment at the time.  I was just trying to focus on the 3-4 tournaments I was still alive in.  The final table of the first one went pretty quickly, especially the heads-up.  So, after I won that one, I was left with just 1 tournament with like 18-27 players left.  At that time I started thinking, wow, this could be the start of chance to get a Triple Crown.  That final table was more of an up and down battle where finally I got heads-up with an aggro who wasn’t gonna let me play too much post-flop poker even though we were still relatively deep stacked.  I took my chances with a KJo 4-bet all-in and I didn’t win the race against ATo.  ATo was definately in the upper end of this guys 3-bet range, but I was still live and didn’t hit.  Oh well, I’ll have to get a Triple some other time.

PMac: This is pretty rare, obviously… Did you sense it coming?

Troy: No, I try not to think about my poker game like that.  I just keep trying to get better and concentrate on playing the best mistake free poker I can.  I’ve worked really hard on my tournament play over the last year, adjusting to the evolution of the game.  The hard work has payed off for me as I have had several decent wins over the past few months.  I know I’m playing at a real high level right now, and hopefully, I can use these last few wins as a springboard to bigger and better things.

- Out in Los Angeles, Kyle Keranen, from Minneapolis, won a $300 buy-in LA Poker Classic Event last Tuesday for just under $25,000. He beat notable pro Theo Tran heads-up.

Keranan also has career cashes in the World Poker Tour and the Fall Poker Classic.

- Trevor Hills, from Inver Grove Heights,  finished third in a PokerStars.com Venetian Deep Stack event last Wednesday for a $16,000 chop. I swapped emails with Hills, who was obviously pumped up about his successful Vegas venture.

“I travel to Vegas about three times a year to play tourneys,” Hills said. “I am a semi-regular at Running Aces, usually play the Saturday afternoon tourney there and the occasional Tuesday night tourney.  Have a full time job, so I don’t get to play as much as I like.

“This was my biggest cash ever.  Have had quite a few $1k-$4k cashes in local Running Aces, Canterbury, Treasure Island and Turtle Lake tourneys, but 16k is the biggest.  Trying to get on the circuit a bit more this year.”

What an awesome week. Bryan and I truly had no idea what kind of turnout to expect at the Minnesota State Poker Tour event at Grand Casino Mille Lacs last week, because A.) our magazine is still relatively new (8 months), B.) the MSPT is still BRAND new (2nd event), and C.) the economy sucks, and not as many players are buying in for $250 and/or $1,100.

Well, the qualifier numbers at Mille Lacs wound up crushing the qualifier numbers from Canterbury in December, and it sounds like everybody loved the Main Event structure. Bryan and I are thrilled, because we obviously founded the MSPT, but hats off to the GC Mille Lacs tournament staff for running a great event. Once MSPT week begins, the casino runs the show, and there were hardly any hiccups last week.

Jeremy Dresch has now won three huge tournaments since October (two HPTs and an MSPT), as well as final table at the Fall Poker Classic Main Event. The dude is sick.

As Dresch and company redrew for final table seats, I couldn’t help stare at his massive stack. Some might call this “chip envy.”

Many of you who visit this website and read Minnesota Poker Magazine on a regular basis have probably seen Bryan and I out and about, covering tournaments and chatting with players. Bryan is obviously a fairly well-known player around Minnesota, because he used to play the local circuit regularly, as well as make trips to Vegas for tournaments. He also plays in most of the local $1k events.

I, on the other hand, have always been the “railbird” over the last few months. I’d been dying to finally dive into a big, live tournament and splash around, but with a small bankroll and millions of work-related things going on, I simply was never able to.

I’m sure a lot of local players probably didn’t even know I played poker!

I played a few HPT events back in 2006, and I’ve played a smattering of local tournaments at Canterbury, Running Aces, Northern Lights, GC Mille Lacs, etc. over the past few years. But I play almost primarily online. $30 and $50 sit ‘n go’s, to be exact (you can Sharkscope me for proof – “Phabulous” on Full Tilt).

After qualifying for the Main Event via $250 satellite on Valentine’s Day, I wound up with probably the best table draw in the entire room on day 1. There were 3-4 solid, tight players at the table, and 4-5 calling station-types. My plan was to feel things out for the first two levels, then start putting pressure on the tight players while pot-controlling the ‘stations.

Of course, this plan completely blew up after about three hours, when I ran QQ into KK (folded on a dry, 9-high board), then AJ into AQ against one of the calling stations (on a dry, A-high board), and a couple other cooler-type spots.

Steve Buettner

I officially slipped under 10 big blinds for the first time around level 6 (300/600 w/ 75 ante), and at one point I was under the gun with $5,000 chips with the blinds at $600/$1200 and a $100 ante. I shoved blind, hoping for any semblance of fold equity, and somehow bought the blinds. On the next hand, I received a walk in the big blind. Two hands later, I was moved to a new table and doubled through Steve Buettner (finished 6th) just before the end of day 1 to FINALLY move above the starting stack of $15k for the first time all tournament (went into day 2 with like $25k).

On day 2, I wound up sitting with Mark Dunbar to my right and Bev Paulson (3rd place) and Tim Votava to my left for much of the day. John Morgan and Alec Anderson sat on the other end of the table. My plan was to 3-bet shove on Dunbar’s late position raises (likes to make a lot of cutoff/button raises) while I still had 15-18bb or so. I successfully re-stole once, but eventually dwindled down to 9 or 10bb again, thus leaving me with ZERO fold equity on a 3-bet all-in.

Anyhow, I somehow managed to work a stack that was anywhere between 5 and 10bb for approximately three hours on day one, and for four or five more hours on day two. The only time I got my money in bad (until the end) was right before level 11 (blinds about to be 1500/3000), when I shoved 16k w/ K5s. John Morgan looked me up with KJ, but I spiked a 5 to stay alive.

Ideally, I wanted to amass a larger stack so I could play a more “sophisticated” game. But that simply never happened.

I eventually grinded all the way down to the money bubble, then to 15th place, virtually never picking up any playable hands on day 2 (OK, I picked up AK once and KK, but bought the blinds both times). And I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I thought to myself, while nursing a short stack, “if action folds to me, I’m all in with any two cards,” only to have somebody open raise in front, then get snapped off by KK or AA to my left. Lucky.

My stack never grew beyond $35k, until the money bubble burst (I think I sniffed $45k for a couple hands w/ blinds at 3,000/6,000, but busted a few hands later). I think playing so many SNGs online definitely helped me play a short stack for so long. I feel like I have a really strong sense of “push/fold” poker, and where to draw the line in terms of fold equity.

Can’t wait for the next MSPT event at Running Aces…

Note: This is the second post in our “Suck Out!” serial. You can read the first posting here.

Staking

This serial is about staking and our encounter with it. Before we get too far into the series we should be sure we are all on the same page as there are a few terms and concepts you should know.

Poker is divided into tournaments and cash games. Tournaments play down to a winner (or until a “deal” is reached) while a cash game is simply ongoing play where you sit down to play and then leave as you wish – while the game continues (or breaks up if it’s 3 am and your wife is screaming at you to shut the hell up so she can get some sleep). Usually, at lower stakes anyway, players pay their own way.  If it’s a $125 tournament at a casino or sitting down at a home cash game with $40 the player digs into his pocket uses his own cash.

Sometimes players are “staked”. This is certainly more common for pricier cash games or tournaments, but with online poker it can be for any amount or money level. Staking means that someone else is putting up the money being used. Stu Ungar’s third WSOP Main Event (ME) win in 1997 is, perhaps, the greatest story about staking.

For years Ungar had abused cocaine and led a self-destructive lifestyle. The 1980 and 1981 back-to-back ME winner had reportedly gone from broke to millionaire to broke 3 or 4 times. His poor decision-making in his life meant that he had barely played in the WSOP since 1991. But then April 1997 rolled around. Stu wanted to play again, redeem himself. His bankroll had other plans. Stu was broke. Billy Baxter, a close friend of Ungar’s, offered to stake him in the Main Event and Ungar was able to register minutes before start time, the last player to register for the tournament. Stu went on to win his third WSOP ME Title.

So, in staking, you have someone who provides money, or invests, in a player. The one with the money is called a backer. The player, or the one being staked, is typically called a “horse”. The backer and horse come to agreement on the terms of a staking including money splits, playing requirements and any other conditions.

Staking is often a losing proposition in the short term in tournament play.  A horse may go several tournaments without cashing. As a result, many stakings include a “make-up” or “cake” clause. Simply put, a make-up clause means that if a horse loses an initial stake – say a $1500 WSOP tourney buy in that the player busts out of before cashing – then the player will need to make up that $1500 the next time the backer stakes him. For our example, say the backer decides to stake the player for a second $1500 tourney. This time the player cashes in the amount of $5500. Rather than splitting the $4000 profit from this tournament the player needs to “make up” the previously lost $1500 due to the cake clause they had in place. That means the actual split is on only $2500 after the player makes up for the other $1500 he lost.

For “Suck Out!” the total stake is $55 to be used in 5 – $11 tournaments. The tournaments may be multi-tables or sit-n-goes: horse’s choice.

Listen to MN’s only poker podcast at: www.cplpokerpodcast.com