The Hendon Mob Newest Articles

I Was Robbed! Again...

marius@thehendonmob.com (Neil Channing 'Bad Beat') — Mon, 14 May 2012 16:56:44 GMT

I lived my first 42 years on this planet without being robbed. I mean, I lost to runner-runner flushes a couple of times, people came back from needing three snookers after outrageously doubling the green, and sometimes I had a chip or the odd onion ring stolen off my plate, but overall I ran quite well in terms of people setting out to assume ownership of stuff which I'd gambled my fingers to the bone to own.
Then in 2010 I had a small setback.
I can't even remember now whether I had...

Amarillo Slim: the Man in the Giant Hat

marius@thehendonmob.com (Vicky Coren) — Sun, 06 May 2012 12:51:13 GMT

Amarillo Slim
Vicky Coren wrote a column about poker legend Amarillo Slim.

He was six foot three, but taller in his high-heeled boots and 10-gallon hat. The hat was wrapped in the skin of a rattle-snake that he claimed to have killed himself. He'd been gambling in dusty American state...

Genting Poker Series Leg 2 - London

Thu, 03 May 2012 12:18:22 GMT

Although I was never in doubt that the GPS Leg 2 in London was going to be the most popular stop of the Genting Poker Series, still I would have not have predicted it to be a total sell out!!
Genting Poker Series580 players entered the main tournament, which created a whopping prize pool of 232k and a sweet 50k for the winner:) Not a bad pay for a weekend’s work!...

Play as Badly as Possible and Get Lucky

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 12:02:11 GMT

The Ironsides
Last month, Barny, Ram, Joe and Ross left 26 women with smiles on their faces. Sadly, no hot tubs, sex toys or well-thumbed copies of the Kama Sutra were involved, but the occasion was still a happy one for everybody, with the possible exception of divorce lawyers. The Battersea Ladies football team – sponsored by the Hendon Mob – manage...

The Dealer Thought Everyone Had Folded

marius@thehendonmob.com (You are the Tournament Director) — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 14:38:04 GMT

This one was sent in by David Blane.
At the Boylepoker IPO, the largest live event I had played, I was dealt 88 in middle position and raised. Everyone folded and the dealer pushed me the pot, whereupon I returned my cards. I'm always very deliberate about the order of this. Then a French guy two to my left, who I couldn't see clearly, said he still had cards. The TD was called and ruled I give him my freshly stacked chips as his was the only remaining live hand. Surely this can't be right?...

Sport Psychology

marius@thehendonmob.com (Matthew Hilger) — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 14:41:02 GMT

Sport psychology is the study of how psychological factors affect performance. Similar to sports, poker is a game where psychology plays a major role in the outcome. My publishing company released a book by Travis Steffen titled Peak Performance Poker. This book looks at how diet, nutrition, and exercise can impact one’s cognitive abilities. There is also a chapter on sports psychology where Travis discusses popular sports psychology techniques such as self-talk, countering,...

How to Get Rich Playing Poker, Part 2: Exploiting the Matthew Effect

marius@thehendonmob.com (Alex Rousso) — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 17:06:35 GMT

Last month I looked at how to get rich playing poker. I considered there to be two ways: 1) the Joey Knish way – of grinding, day in day out, until you’ve made enough to call yourself rich; or 2) the easy way. The easy way was, I admit, a bit of a con in that I said that you had to get lucky. To be honest, this isn’t really what the easy way is about. The easy way is about putting yourself in situations where you’re more likely to be lucky and then, crucially, knowing...

Las Vegas Team Challenge III Live Final

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 11:20:46 GMT

Las Vegas Team Challenge is an online league which works on a simple premise. You enter the league by registering a team of 4 members and then play up to two tournaments online each week for 3 months in order to collect as many points as possible for your team.

Las Vegas Team Challenge
The higher your finishing position is in an online game the more points you earn for the team.
This is very important as in...

Unleash Your Hidden Poker Memory, Excerpt

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 14:34:34 GMT

Unleash Your Hidden Poker Memory
Excerpted from Unleash Your Hidden Poker Memory: How to Win at Texas Hold’Em by Turning Your Brain into a Poker Tracking Machine by Bennett Onika.
This is not a how-to-play-poker book but a book on how to train yourself to instantly recall vast amounts...

How Much does He Lose in this Pot?

marius@thehendonmob.com (You are the Tournament Director) — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 09:30:39 GMT

This one happened to Darren Sprengers, a Mob Forum regular.
Player A shoves all in and it is Darren’s turn
Darren says to dealer "How many chips does he have"
Dealer says without counting the chips "around 8500 chips"
Darren checks his own stack and calls.
Player A wins the pot and the dealer counts his stack and says that will be 13500 chips
Darren says "hang on you said 8500 chips, if it was 13500 I would have folded"
How do you rule?...

Game Day Preparation

marius@thehendonmob.com (Matthew Hilger) — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 11:24:01 GMT

I don’t truly always like eating healthy, and sometimes I’d rather have a burger or a chocolate bar, but it’s already proven that it negatively affects your play if you eat bad foods. If I'm putting bad things in my body—especially on game day—I'd be wasting my time in a big tournament.
—David "The Maven" Chicotsky

Every year at the World Series of Poker I am amazed at how some players come to battle. Some fly across from another continent...

Living Right

Fri, 16 Mar 2012 11:53:29 GMT

The girls of Battersea Ironsides Women’s FC are on a heater. Our Third team won their league a fortnight ago, and this week, thanks to Brentford Reserves dropping two points away, our own Reserves secured their league title without kicking a ball. Now it’s all down to the First team to secure a memorable treble.
With luck like this, I’d say we’d been “living right”, but then again I’ve seen the ladies on a night out. After a few hours supping lagers...

Vegas Insider: 2012 March

marius@thehendonmob.com (Steve Hall 'A Brit in Vegas') — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 17:53:22 GMT

February 2012 sees a darker version of me.Not doom and gloom but tanned due to a wonderful SoCal winter.Many of my days have been spent at,the great race place,Santa Anita Park.Briefly, Bob Baffert has 15 wins from the last 17 races in which he has had runners.A long time pro told me to bet apprentice Eswan Flores blind and thank him at the end of the meet.Eswan has ridden 28 winners this meet including Irish bred Tones at $29.60 on Sunday.
Genting has been the talk of the track.Their casino...

Online MTT Player all in but away, can they win the hand?

marius@thehendonmob.com (You are the Tournament Director) — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 18:20:44 GMT

This one was submitted by Tony Ure:
Player is in an online tournament and is sat out at the start of the hand. Blinds are 1,000/2,000 and antes are 200. The player only has 150 chips remaining so is put all in by the antes. Is this players hand live, i.e. can he win the portion of the antes that matches his 150 "bet" or would you fold him and eliminate him from the tournament.
Obviously much easier in the live environment as you can see the player is not at the table.
I have...

Playing The Board - Is This a Split Pot or Not?

marius@thehendonmob.com (You are the Tournament Director) — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 15:30:49 GMT

This one was sent in by Nikolaos Paparis.
I am in a pot on a A T J flop after calling a raise pre flop from another player.
Play is heads up and checked on the flop. The turn is a King, again both players check. The river is a Q.
One player goes All-in and the other calls.
ATJKQ non flush board and is a split pot .
The player who bet all-in show AK and the other player mucks his cards.
Some of the players at the table said ‘it’s a split pot’ but the two players involved...

Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 16:29:42 GMT

The least impressive piece of mind reading I ever saw involved Uri Geller. Back in 1995, the Israeli spoon-bender was taking part in a TV show in which he was challenged to help Reading FC win the Coca Cola Cup. Essentially, this involved him directing “positive energies” onto the pitch and making amazing predictions about what would happen next during games. When Reading faced Southampton in an early tie, the Saints were awarded a dangerous free kick on the edge of the Reading...

Poker Strategy - Set Mining Part 3

marius@thehendonmob.com (Matthew Hilger) — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 15:23:52 GMT

This article includes excerpts from the latest Dimat release, The Math of Hold’em, by Collin Moshman and Douglas Zare.
This is the Part Three of a three-part series looking at set-mining. In Part One, we looked at what could go wrong when set-mining. You could be three-bet behind you forcing you to fold, you might lose set-over-set, you could be outdrawn, and in those cases when you do hit a set, your opponent will often fold in a bi...

Poker coaches are not the Holy Grail

marius@thehendonmob.com (Carl Sampson 'The Dean') — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 16:25:06 GMT

I guess that this article may upset a few people but that wouldn’t be the first time would it? This week I want to talk about poker coaches and coaching sites and the effect of them when it comes to making people money. If you want to improve your poker game then you learn from people better or more knowledgeable than yourself... that is a given! However what is certainly not a given is in how you interpret the knowledge given to you and then implement it. By the way I am referring to...

The International Team Event

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 17:32:37 GMT

With less than 2 weeks to go and with 8 players booked for the Hendon Mob Forum team already, I just about managed to secure my place in what turned out to be a winning team ;)
I have never played in a proper team event before where “proper” entails the meaning of soft playing, slow rolling and choosing to play differently against your team members.
All of this and even the additional option to consult your team captain on a specific action or move at the table were strongly...

Poker Wisdom of a Degenerate

Mon, 27 Feb 2012 15:19:44 GMT

Recently published on Kindle and available on Amazon here a few short excerpts for you:
Includes sections on making deals, staking, borrowing and lending, playing whilst drinking and playing on a hangover!
"I like to assess what drives my opponent to play poker; once I have this information I can quickly gain an insight into how they will approach their game so I can tailor my decisions to reflect their act...