When Poker Room Managers wing it.

Definitely my favorite wtf face, and most popular Jackie Chan Meme

Have you ever experienced a What the F$*% moment at the poker table? Okay let me rephrase that, have you ever witnessed a What the F$@# moment at the poker table vs. a Floor Person's decision on a hand. The gentleman that made the decision was actually very polite and a good floor person for the most part, But in the middle of a cash game hand facing a raise and 3 bet and having 3 players go to the flop. When the dealer burned then place 3 cards down for the flop, apparently one of the cards stuck to the cards and when flipped the stack over I noticed That I hit my set of 9s then when the cards spread out the Dealer reveals the middle card, and then two more cards.....Crap....Just my luck. The Two cards that were obviously not the issue spread out evenly but the other two cards were overlapping and one barely showing the other. I cant recall exactly but I want to say the flop was K 9 4/7. Ok so I'm sitting with a set and not saying a thing and then obviously floor has to be called cause of the mistake. Here's where one of the weirdest decisions I have ever heard comes into play.

The floor person walks up, asks whats going on. The dealer gives the run down as usual and it was detailed exactly as what happened. But instead of staying a smooth understanding process, this guy says...."Well......lets do this. Take the four cards in the flop and put the deck down by the side. Flip the cards over and shuffle them around. The first three you flip over will be your flop." Every one at the table looked at the Floor Person like, Is this guy serious?? I hope he's joking? and the What the F#@% faces were all looking and kind of laughing in disbelief when it was obvious which cards were and issue. 

Don't know what the "WTF" face is? Here's some examples:
 

So If this were me, I would have suggested two things.
A. Just chop the pot and play another hand
B. Play back the events that just happened to determined which cards were meant to be on the flop. So therefore when the burn falls the 1, 2, and 3 card that is placed faced down before being flipped over is the flop cards. When flipped over it is now 4/3, 2, 1 and clearly the card revealed at the end would be the burn card.

Well after hearing the logic of "Well this case atleast two out of the three cards on the flop will be correct." and of course when he did this, my 9 that gave me the set magically disappeared fml. Well the three players (Including myself) disagreed to invest anymore money into this weird ass pot and just decide to chop it three ways and play a normal hand. I mean technically, I guess my plan B and his suggestion would have worked out the same way, but the main focus would be to not affect the Turn and River as well as the 3rd card on the flop. Either that or just pay attention to which cards were stuck. In that case you could determine which of the cards is the exposed Burn card and which belongs in the flop. But I am just a player and don't run the floor obviously. This definitely took the cake as one of the weirdest floor decisions that I would expect to see in a home game or back alley of a bar, but in a well established poker room, this definitely caught me by suprised. Had to get a good laugh out of it either way. The standard ordeal is a premature exposed card or a killing of the deck and usually it is a dealer that makes the error and can be easily fixed.....well with experienced dealers and floor managers. But when something like this happens, how can you not just wing it? honestly, how many decisions were logically thought through and not just a basis of "wingin' it"

Well thought I'd share this WTF moment with everyone.

Matt S.

Spare change for the Homeless and baby news (Non Poker)

OK so I'll start off this blog by talking about giving to the homeless. I understand that they some how, put themselves in the rough spot that they are in. But, I also understand (or try to atleast) how hard it must be to be stuck in that situation and even harder not to dig yourself into a deeper hole rather than build a ladder (hypothetically speaking) to climb out of the hole. Last week I was filling up my gas tank and a man walked up to me and asked for a dime....."A dime?" I asked him. Thinking to myself, "What does this guy expect to do with a dime?" But then I quickly thought about it and realized that he didn't want to ask for a large amount and at that point ANYTHING would help. I have ran into this situation atleast 2 other times that I can remember in my life. And all three times I was definitely not rich, but atleast in a better situation than they were and felt the need to help them out in some way.

The first time it happened, I was living in Morgan City and just started working for Oceaneering Intl. in 2007 trying to make a name for myself and making just enough to pay the bills while bumming a room out of my cousin's trailer for $200 a month. I was in a crappy state of depression, never had money to actually enjoy myself and lived far enough away from my friends that I barely got any visitors. I went to Walmart for either groceries or what not. As I was leaving, There was this man standing near the exit of the highway in some ripped camouflage pants and a raggedy button up shirt in his late 50s - 60s. It just looked like he was on his last leg, exhausted sitting outside and his sign (Yes on a cardboard box) had good spelling and punctuation and was just asking for something to eat. I had a $5 left in my wallet, rolled down my window and stopped and handed it to him. His pure excitement and gratefulness of me giving him that just hit me. He was saying God bless you over and over with the biggest grin on his face. As I drove away, I was hit with tears running down my face. It was like That situation was put in my life to show me that no matter how hard I think that I have it, There is always someone out there that is going through a harder situation that I am and just made me even more thankful for what I did have even though at the time it was not much.

It just looked like he was on his last leg.

The next situation that I came across, I was going play the May events in 2009 for my first time and have been just playing the cash tables having decent success. I was driving from Destrehan where my father lives and making the journey back and forth each day (For 3-4 days). One of the days when I took the exit by Claiborne near the Superdome, There was this grungy looking young dude who didn't seem like he had a bath in a long time. I am sitting here with money in my pocket heading to risk it on a gamble when this guy is stuck begging outside and I can just feel his desperation. When I buy stuff with cash, I put my spare change in this Coin collector and when full it adds up to about $20 dollars. Well I have been adding change at the time over a course of a month and a half to 2 months and had near $15 bucks just random change. when I got right next to the guy, I rolled my window down half way and told him to put his hands out. He cupped his hands and I grabbed the thing and just dumped the whole thing into his hands and watched his eyes light up as coins started overflowing and falling to the ground out of his hands. Again he was overzealous and thanking me over and over. He was about as excited as I would be if say I won a huge pot at the poker table, if not more excited. I can't say that I know what these guys will do with the money but I do know that they were in desperate need for some help and I can just feel the pain they were going through. I try to put myself in other peoples shoes and know how hard it would be if I were in that situation.

Going back to last week, the guy asking for a dime. He was very polite, made sure he didn't get too close affecting my personal space and even though He probably lied about a bike that he rode, he did have a grungy cell phone that I guess the government apparently gives people now which kind of annoyed me but its whatever. I told him to let me finish pumping my gas and I can see what I can do because I didn't have any cash on me. Again, The coin collector thing was in my truck but all I had in it was about 6.75 in change. He said no problem and just waited patiently. I asked him to move away as I go in my truck and I'll give him some change. and he stepped back a few steps. I finished pumping the gas, opened my truck then grabbed the container. I told him here you go and dumped the Quarters, Nickels and Dimes into his hand and again. That big huge smile came out and he said AWW MAN THANKS GUY! GOD BLESS YOU! And I got in my truck and drove away as he just waved bye. Again, I am sure some how they put themselves in the situation they were in, but I also believe that everyone deserves the chance to get themselves out of it, but I can only do so much to help. I just got a great sense of happiness knowing that I had the ability to make someone's day just a little bit better even through the hardship they are going through at the time.

With the due date just 2 months away, We are getting more excited with the arrival of our little girl, but I am also getting fear built up cause I don't want to be shit deep in debt, but its starting to look that way. I think that is one of my biggest fears is the money situation, but like I posted above I just have to keep my head up and keep working hard to get through it. I guess I'm mostly afraid because I was never big on surprises and the unknown and this is definitely a big UNKNOWN. I just hope everything goes smoothly at the delivery and both the wife and the baby come out healthy. Unfortunately this will probably put a hold on my poker funds for a while as I try to adjust to this new life. But it will be hard as I am so passionate about poker and wont be able to put as much time as I would like (Based strictly off my income) hopefully I will be able to sell some action in some future events to help build my bankroll in some way. Registering for baby stuff was more enjoyable then registering for wedding stuff I guess cause I can imagine playing, holding, feeding (well maybe not feeding right away cause my nipples don't produce milk ;) haha) but I have been waiting for this moment my whole life (For as young of a life it is). I think this is the scariest time of my life even though it is such a big blessing, I am just afraid that I might screw up and want to do the best that I can. I know how bad I run not only in poker but in life in general and I don't want that to affect my little girl as well. I guess all I can say is I try my hardest...


I guess that's all for now.

Matt Stroud

Event One of the Southern Million Dollar Heater was Sick!

So I made the Journey Saturday to Biloxi, MS to take a shot at the 200k Gauranteed tournament. Feeling Confident and hoping for some run good to make a deep run. I learned that Day 1A already pretty much met the Gaurantee with 681 Entrants and they were expecting to crush it by Day 1B. Well they did, and then some. It doubled as another 772 players entered the next day and there were fish swimming everywhere at the tables hoping to get Lucky and enjoyed Gambling for fun.... so basically the typical players you love making money off of. That's if you are running well that is. And this weekend, was not one of those weekends for me one bit.

In the Tournament I lasted for 4 breaks and had the pleasure of some Laggro donk snapcalling my all in with K7 suited vs. my KJ in the SB and then flopping his flush draw and turning the flush to knock me out right before the Break and crush my hopes of making that deep run. I posted updates on my twitter Account @acadianapkrplyr so go follow me for future tournaments.

Well then shit got stupid. I talked myself into taking a stab at 1 2 5 plo that was running in the tournament room and sat with 320. I worked it up to $838 waiting for a poker buddy to finish his SNG. I was feeling super confident as these PLO players were just calling me down as I held the nuts or close to it each time I bet and I felted two different players who rebought in for more. Once my friend was done we went look for some supper and decided to eat at the HardRock since the line for the buffet was just painstakingly long and I felt the pits of my stomach rumbling in hunger. After we finished our supper I made the mistake of going to the restroom and be pleasured by the graceful sound of a man yakking in the Sink the whole time I was at the urinal almost losing it at one point and hoping I would finish soon so I could get the hell out of there. All I could here is HOOOOAAAARRRGHGBLBHFRAR, HUUAARGHGBALRRAAAH, Repeat 10x.
I tried to warn my buddy not to go in there because its no pretty sight or sound, but he insisted he had to go and even watched the guy after he finished his theatrics once he was done expelling his insides.

When we got back to the poker room he was starting to head home and I noticed they took my chips off the table and turned the 1-2-5 PLO into a 2-5-10 PLO game so I went searching for a 1-2 NL game and ended up losing a couple buy ins to basically put me back on square one of where I was at after I lost out of the Tournament. at about 1 AM I got with Mr. Bill Phillips of gulfcoastpoker.net and he let me crash in his room and we shot the shit about random topics before we were both exhausted and couldn't talk anymore.

When I headed towards the Cash tables the next morning I was searching for PLO mainly 1-2 but without any running, I put my name on 1-2 NL and 2-5 NL. They called my name for 2-5 and the beginning of being trolled by the Pokergods Began. Its like they were trying to get me to lose to either 3, 2, or 1 outs the rest of the day and it was just brutal. One of the main things I hate about the Beau Rivage cash games is there is no limit to what the players can buy in for, so if you don't have deep pockets you have next to no chance of being able to compete with taking the swings of poker. So if you start to run bad and take a tough beat, or 2 in a row for that matter, you are screwed and leave yourself shaking your head. First, I buy in for 350 and there is a straddle for 10 and myself along with 3 others see the flop which comes K86 and I have Kc9c goes check, bet 25, I raise to 75, fold, fold, Call from the guy who bet 25.
$195 in the pot and turn falls a 3 rainbow board. He checks, I bet $140 and he raises me basically putting me to a decision of all in or fold. So I shove and of course he turns over K3 for two pair and I don't catch up.
I rebuy in for $500 and about 5 hands later I have $480ish when a guy with about 1200 straddles for 10, I am on the button and look down at A10 os. Someone raises to $40, I flat along with 2 others and there is $160 in the pot. Flop falls A 10 5 and I have top 2. Straddle checks, another player checks, raisor pre bets $100, I opt to flat again with 2 others to act behind me, straddle guy calls and other player folds. There is now $460 in the pot and I have $340 left and the turn comes an ugly Kh. Asian guy bets $300 but I still think he has AQ or AJ and I shove all in. Well of course guy who straddled reraises over the top and gets the raiser to fold and shows QJ. I am just speechless, annoyed, and wondering why this dumb crap always happens to me. I go back regretting I didn't just open Jam the flop, but that is such a scared way to play it I didn't want to go that route.

Well I am fortunate enough to have both Ross Leitz and Blake B buy pieces of action for the $550 nooner which only had 156 runners and I was also gonna watch a bit of day 2 of the 200k gaurantee as I had a number of poker buddies still in and chasing the money. Well I show up late and quickly double up my stack but of course the trolling of the pokergods continued as this one guy just had my number. I first had to lay down top pair with QJ on a Q95 board where I raised pre bet flop and he raised me then on turn put me all in. Then about 2 revolutions later I'm UTG and limp with JJ and the same guy raises 1,100 with blinds at 100 200 25 ante. I have 9.8k and this bet just looks like a small to mid PP to me so I jam and he snap calls and shows AA.....FML I am out after about 3 hours in the $550.

My last shot at anything I was going to play a $100 SNG where first gets $550 and 2nd $350 and we all did a $20 last longer. Before I registered for the $550 Bill told me the SNGs have been really easy and I took his word for it. Well this was during event 1 of course and when I go sit down. Here comes Jerry Monroe that won the IP Biloxi WSOP Circuit main, a guy that cashed 6 out of 7 SNGs last night while I was playing cash, and Andy Moon, a very talented young grinder out of the Acadiana Area. Needless to say there was maybe 2 fish at the table and the rest were pretty solid players. I started out great doubling through one of the fish when he shoved a pair of Aces no kicker on a AK10 board (I had K10) and knocked him out. Then I won a nice pot with AA and in no time had 5700 as the starting stack was 2000. I get AA once again when my stack is at 4600 and there is a raise to 450, then a reraise to 1100 by Monroe. I chose to flat as I put him on KK, QQ, JJ and know he will pay me off with the right flop so no need to rush it pre. A guy behind me with like 400 left throws his chips in there and the original raiser folds. Flop comes QJ5 and Monroe shoves and I snap call and show AA, he sighs and shows KK and turn is the 8, river 6...baby stack had 6 5 and triples up. This will come back to haunt me but I now have 8400ish. Instead of just going walk away and eating Lunch or something I choose to continue to play like a dumbass. What happens?? well I guess the Pokergods find out how good I'm running and decide to show up and start trolling again. the 2nd largest stack decided he was going to start reraising me every time I raised. So when I looked at AJos and raise my standard 425 with blinds at 100 200 and he did his standard reraise to 775, I reraised to 2000 and he shoved and I snapped called, He showed KJ os and dont worry flop comes Jd8d5d neither of us have a diamond. Turn is a blank, Im almost clear, then here it comes Kd on river to rob me of what I deserve and blasts my stack down to 3500. I lose another pot and get down to 2650 and another gets knocked out so there is 5 left and I have 2nd smallest stack. I shove first hand and collect blinds. next hand I'm UTG+2 and look at 1010 and shove again, guy who cracked me with KJ shoves all in, then SB shoves all in. The Button shows KK and the SB shows AK and I ask the dealer for the 10 to save my ass. Right in the window the 10 rears its ugly head!! I'm saved and looking like I will be able to get this thing again. Until the Case freaking K hits the turn and laughs in my face and says...yea right dude, get the hell out of Biloxi.

Yet again, I am down to $0 thanks to running like absolute dogshit at the worst times. Looks like its back to the drawing board as my New Years Goal of $5000 profit is now in the back burners as I start the year out in the negatives.....awesome.

GL to the rest of you.
Matt Stroud

Things have been BUSY

I am finally getting around to updating this thing. I have been stupid Busy with both work and making sure the upcoming League is gonna be set up since we are moving locations. Also I have been working with a good friend of mine Mike Silvas and we have been creating a website for Acadiana Poker Players. We just put the site live to try and get some input from our poker friends to see if we can improve the site in anyway and fix some bugs that may currently exist. To go along with the website and APP League (Season 3 already. Unbelievable) I have created a new Card Protector that will sell for $6 a piece. I think it is a great price since most Card protectors run for about $10-20 bucks that are custom made. This card protector is made of Ceramic and is between 43-45mm in Diameter so it is bigger than a standard poker chip and smaller than a dealer button. I chose the Octagon shape to specifically differ and avoid any chance of Dumb Dealers or Poker Players from getting it confused with one of the two.

How do you like the design?

The company that is making it for me is a great poker chip company based out of Georgia I believe. He has mostly been doing this by word of mouth but hopefully he will agree to advertise on our website www.acadianapokerplayers.com be cause he always does a great job from my experience so far. I bought some ceramic poker chips from him as well as I always wanted a nice set of my own and he sure did not disappoint me. Thank you Steve Petusky as I hope to do future business with you as well as bring you much more future business!

The T-shirt situation has been a bit of a pain in the butt because I am still searching for a company that will provide good pricing and Design for when I create them. The previous company I was going to was charging me different prices almost every time I went there and I had to continue to bring my original receipt to prove the price that I paid before. They also messed up on printing my last batch of shirts, took their time to respond to my emails and phone calls, and always were very disorganized when I went to their business to pick up the shirts. I was tired of the headache so I decided to look for another company/person to do this and still have not found any luck. If you have someone in mind that can help me out please let them or me know so I can get this stuff done!

I Want to thank the following guys for helping in preparation for the website, league, etc. and also want to help bring attention to some of my friends who are looking for players in games they want to have as well. Thanks Linden and Barbara Comeaux, Jimmy "Luckbox Leprechaun" Rogers, and Tommy Hebert for helping in preparing the upcoming year for season 3 of APP League! Can't wait to win the trophy this year as I blew it the two previous years haha. Thanks alot for Mike Silvas in putting up with my continuous questions about the website and patiently putting up with me. I am looking forward to doing business with you and hopefully it goes great (He wants this blog to go to the website btw so if we ever get to that point I hope you continue to follow!) I am currently looking for players that would be interested in blogging on the website as well, so If you would like to give me a shout here or on my Facebook and let me know what you would want to blog about!  And even though I hate to admit it. Thanks Mike Fontenot for sharing thoughts on things others are afraid to input on. You have helped make multiple adjustments that I have overlooked in the league. now we can just work on communication hahaha.

I didn't have much of a New Years Celebration as work wore me out. I went back and forth from Lafayette, LA to Port Fourchon, LA working on a big project for work about 5 times over the past 2 weeks and was on call for the Christmas Holidays. So when it came time for the New Year's "Celebration" I was just exhausted and went to sleep at 10pm haha. I went have supper with the wife at Chili's and also watched a movie on bluray before hitting the bed so it was a little something. New Years Day I hit up New Orleans with my buddy Tommy who suprised me with Last Minute Saints Tickets and even though the wife and mom was pretty pissed at me for not spending the holiday with them (I'm such a horrible guy) I think it was still worth it and fun as it was the first Saints game I have been to since 2008 and watched them destroy Carolina 45-17! My favorite part was when the whole crowd simultaneous chanted WHO DAT WHO DAT WHO DAT SAY THEY GON' BEAT DEM SAINTS" three times before the kickoff to start the game! I wish I would have been prepared cause I would have been yelling my lungs out with them. The amount of charactors that go to Saints games are hilarious from a Saints cow, to a Saints Halo character (Video game), to the Saints boxer and Saints' wise men, to the personalities of the long time season ticket holders that surround you in the 600 levels. I love every minute of it and would eat their $9 Jambalaya til there is no tomorrow but only buying the $8.50 beer if I'm dying of thirst haha.

After getting home and getting chewed out a bit more from the wife, The next day I wanted to treat her to a date. Well that turned into her wanting to go get some new shoes she needed. Then THAT turned into me getting the last minute urge to go bring her car shopping since hers was going to crap and we still owed a good amount on the vehicle. She intentionally wanted the Kia Soul....yes the hamster car (See commercial below) and I did my research and was prepared to go to war with the Salesmen but I knew that Tommy (My best man and long time friend) brought his mom to the dealership across the street of her house and she got them an awesome Brand New Nissan Rogue top notch for a stupid Deal....Like unbelievable. So I called her and asked her if she can help "work her magic" for us and told her the details of what we were looking for etc. Well that completely U-Turned and they brought us two options which were both Brand New that fit our Price Range.

We could choose between a Nissan Altima (which my wife owned a previous older model before) or the new Nissan Versa SL with all kinds of cool additions so we test drove it, liked the size, the specs (Bluetooth, Ipod hookup, 30-38 mpg city/hwy, etc) and Decided on this one. So Tommy's mom who the dealers and her know each other on first name basis with all the deals they have worked with each other whether it be with friends, family, or personally have started their wages. First it was the trade in Value for the junky 2005 Ford Taurus. I was expecting between 1200-1500....nope 2000 and that was on the first offer haha my jaw dropped. Next they showed us that they dropped the sticker price of the car from 18750ish to 16995. I was trying to get this lower but all they could offer was a $150 credit which we put towards a window tint we are going get done at the end of the week. The deal was almost done. I was getting second thoughts and Tommy's Mom smacked me back in reality and told me to relax, I'm getting a really great deal and its better than what we had, just enjoy it! I am so glad she was there to help us and we owe her big now cause we couldn't have got it by ourselves. I have a talent of getting screwed by car dealers but Mr. Skyler Vaughn and Mgr Greg Leblanc at JP Thibodaux were top class and very helpful and friendly throughout the process!!

Proud New owner of the 2012 Nissan Versa SL

I will wrap this up with some New Years Resolutions. Since I have finally come to understanding with bankroll management I believe I can try to work on obtaining a profit this year instead of either breaking even or being slightly in the negatives. Here are a few Life and Poker related Resolutions I have in mind.

1. Find a church and start to Attend Regularly. (God is Important in my life)
2. Continue to stick to what I learned from many great players around the Gulf Coast and extremely grateful they shared their advice with me!
3. Obtain a profit of $5,000 or more for the year!

I think number three is extremely doable and I hope to make it more but I want to start small and work my way up! Going to start that off with the $200k GTD at the Beau Rivage this weekend so hopefully I will bring good news!

-Matt Stroud