Scott Diamond "The Deputy" Blogs again

scott diamond · #1 (**permalink**) 12-02-2008, 11:41 AM

No Live but On-Line

I have played a few sit n go's on-line at Pokerstars lately. I won a 5.00 satellite into the 70k nightly event only to get my AA cracked 3 from the money. I have taken two 4th place finishes in a 38.00 45 person sng for 400.00 profit and won a 15.00 satellite to get into last nights 70k event.

I am doing good in satellites but when I get into the main, my cards dry up. It would be so nice to take down one of those nightly tournies. First place is usually around 12k.

For those of you who do not play on-line it is quite an experience. I have never seen so many ALL INS ever! There is a huge LUCK factor in the events I play. The $6.50 tourneys usually have better players than the $60.00 ones. People are really reckless with their money and us conservative players struggle to compete.

It passes the time by as I need to be at home right now. The girls are back in school for only two weeks until Christmas break after having the whole month of November off due to our year around school schedule.

My Mother in Law is not getting any better and sadly its only a matter of time. She is having some exploratory surgery Thursday and my wife is on pins and needles lately, so I need to be home for her.

Plenty of Poker tourneys coming up, I want so bad to go visit at the Five Diamond Classic next week, will keep you updated.

In the mean time please do me a favor. Go to Pokerroad.com and sign up. Its free and they have a great forum with alot of different talk about strategies and up to date information in the Poker World.

Enjoy your Holiday Shopping and please be careful.............

Take Care....Be Safe...........

FYI for those of you who do not know I blog at Wisehandpoker.com

scott diamond · #2 (**permalink**) 12-03-2008, 02:35 PM

Am I Living The Poker Dream?

It's tough to be Poker broke right now. This is really the first time since I started in August of 2006, I have not had funds to play poker.

I am blessed though, all my bills are current and I have a good job that brings me a steady income. It always seems when you get a little extra money something comes up and you have to fork it out.

I have cashed 7 times this year in tournaments and have gone deep in 6 others. With just a little more luck I could have won 2 of those tournaments and in the 6 others at least made the final table in all of them.

If you have been reading my blogs they explain my down swing of late and I looked back at my game to see if I was pressing or playing scared. I spoke with a few players who I have had the honor of becoming friends with and they tell me I am playing SOLID poker and the tables will turn soon.

It has been a long 6 months since the beats started at the WSOP Seniors Event when I had the guy crushed with two pair ,QJ on the flop vs his KJ. He then went on to catch a runner runner straight and my downfall began.

I am really proud of myself though how I have evolved as a Poker Player. My wife is not surprised though. She knows how when I take something on I am bound and determined to whip it. She has seen me do this at work or with a few tough projects I have taken on over the years.

The Fallenheroes Charity is another task I am trying to make well known. I have had some outstanding Poker Players get involved and it's only a matter of time our tournament gets so big, we will fill the ballroom at the Bicycle Casino to capacity.

I am very frustrated on how the cards have been falling for me, but I have to realize I am a noob in the Poker World and if I am paying my dues at the beginning, so be it!

I have learned a great amount of patience while involved in this game and it has carried over into my everyday life. There will be many more tournaments in my lifetime and I am only 6 years away from retiring. If I continue to grow as a Poker player as well as a father and a husband then my time here on Earth will be a successful one.

I have met so many great people in my lifetime and I am sure there will be more. The Poker doors are open for me thanks to many and I want to be a great ambassador of the game as I am a great ambassador for Law Enforcement and most of all, the great ambassador of my family!

Last night as I thought about blogging today one of my twins, Bianca who is the youngest and the most outgoing was mad at her older sister Jennifer. Now Bianca is only 4 years old going on 18. The things she sometimes says is mind boggling. How can a 4 year old be so intelligent is beyond me, she did not get it from me!

Bianca is upset with Jennifer and she tells me she is going to run away. I say "yeah sure" if you go outside I am locking the door and no dinner for you.

About 20 minutes later dinner is ready and I call the girls who were in the living room watching TV. NO Bianca......Jennifer where is your sister? Jennifer says. "She left daddy, walked out the front door pulling her suitcase behind her"...WTF.....

I go outside and she is no where to be seen....Panic sets in and as I run back into the house, turn the stove off and grab my keys to the truck my neighbor across the street hollers at me.

Bianca is in the house across the street with her friend David. My neighbor is chuckling because Bianca has her suitcase packed and told them she was going to her Grandmothers house.

I know Bianca is upset her Grandmother is very ill, but I was not sure if I was going to laugh about this or be really upset.

I sent her to her room and called the wife and told her. As I was on the phone Bianca with those beautiful eyes comes downstairs and says she is sorry and she is going to be a good girl. Whats a father to do? I sent her back to her room and told her she can explain it to her mother when she gets home.

KIDS!!!! Anyway at 3 am this morning she wakes me up and asks me to hold her tight next to me while we sleep. PRICELESS...............

Take Care.....Be Safe.................

You can find my blogs at Wisehandpoker.com

scott diamond · #3 (**permalink**) 12-09-2008, 11:00 AM

Tournament Trail is Over for 2008

Last night was the finale to the Ho Ho Holdem Series at the Bicycle Casino here in LA. The 125.00 player appreciation tournament drew a crowd of 472 players.With 4000 in starting chips and 30 minute levels, it was going to be a race.

I had a table of pretty good players and this one young guy who had to be an Internet player. He was raising out of position with any two suited cards. How I know this is 2 times he had to show and both times they were garbage hands. The funny thing though he hit a 5 on the river once and a 3 on the turn to win both pots against face cards.

Early I had AA against a short stack who went all in with 77 and my aces held up and when I made a big bet pre-flop and on the flop with 10-10, KQ called and a Queen came on the turn and I had to fold. He showed acting all proud he called my flop bet of 700 chips, when not one face card was on the flop.

I was down to 3300 chips when I had AQ and two players bet 700 chips pre flop ahead of me. One of the players was Mr Internet and I shoved. Mr Internet called me with 2-5 spades for another 2700 of his chips which was two thirds of his stack. He flopped a 2 and I could not hit and off I go to the Valet.

I played 20 tournaments this year and cashed in 8 of them and with some luck I would have cashed or made a run for the trophy in a few others. My game and especially my reads have improved dramatically this year and although somewhat dejected, I feel really good about my game.

I am paying my dues early in my Poker career and as in life, we all look forward to the New Year for change. I do not have any complaints about how things in my life are going right now, other than the fact my Mother in Law is very ill and my wife is just not the same as she struggles with the knowledge her mother will not be here much longer with us. I just hope she can have one more Christmas with us and the girls.

I am going to continue to analyze my game and work some overtime to build a bankroll for 2009. The LAPC starts here at Commerce January 22nd 2009 and I am already looking forward to it.

I will probably play a few of the local evening tournaments between now and then to stay sharp if my schedule permits. Thats the beauty of living in the LA area with so many casinos offering daily and evening tournaments. They range in price from $40.00 to $120.00 and usually have good turnouts.

Thank you all for coming here to Wisehandpoker and reading and commenting on my ups and downs in the Poker world. I look forward to being able to write here and one day be able to show you a picture of the first place trophy I have won at a big tournament,

Happy Holidays to ALL of you and Happy New Year...............................

This time of year please be extra cautious and remember, Be Safe and Take care.......

.

scott diamond · #4 (**permalink**) 12-19-2008, 10:47 AM

The Holiday season is upon us once again and as 2008 comes to an end we begin to prepare ourselves for the New Year.

This time of year seems to be special to so many. People seem to be more polite and you hear of so many good things people do daily.

Could you imagine if this was they way people acted all year round? The gift of giving is truly a great one, however it is also the time of year the crime rate increases as well as suicides.

With the economy the way it has been the past several months, stores filing bankruptcy, banks going under and even the American car companies in trouble we tend to ignore the possibility of a depression.

Could you imagine in this great country the long food lines of the twenties and thirties?

Men getting up in the morning standing in freezing tempertures to get a loaf of stale bread to bring home and feed the family.

Working for pennies a day to pay the mortgage, fighting huge crowds hoping you get picked for that little work available.

It just does not seem real that this country could be in that position again. We just had close to 500 people pay $15,000.00 each to compete in a Poker tournament!

Recently we had 6800 people pay $10,000.00 to play poker, seems amazing with the way our economy is.

We need to remember the holiday season is the time for giving and not receiving. The three wiseman who bought that little baby in a manger gifts traveled from afar to give. They showed tremendous will and compassion towards another.

Let us not forget this as we bring in a New Year with so much hope and promise.

scott diamond · #5 (**permalink**) 12-25-2008, 09:20 PM

http://s105.photobucket.com/albums/m...t=102_1516.jpg

Christmas at the Diamond House

scott diamond · #6 (**permalink**) 12-30-2008, 12:26 PM

Cashing Out On-line

There have been many stories in the Poker media lately about on-line Poker. Some of
the forums have posted many a theory and quite frankly several of them are very interesting to me.

I have always said, we Poker players need the on-line sites to help promote the brick and mortar Poker Tournaments.

The money these sites put into the game is tremendous, but is it costing us, the players who do not benefit from these sites?

I am by no means a professional Poker player, however I have indulged myself into this new found hobby of mine and have spent countless hours reading,studying, playing and talking to others about Poker.

It can be a very cruel hobby and a rewarding one also. I watch these players on TV and there is no doubt the game has changed immensely since the hole cam is at every event now.

Bluffs are still a part of the Brick and mortar game and someone once told me if you do not bluff in a tournament, your not going to win.

On-line however is all about the HUGE bluff using your position and All-In button more than I have ever seen and almost anyone with a Pocket pair is always ALL-IN.

I have tried to sharpen my skills by playing at home recently and I won a little bit of money I thought would be handy for Christmas, so I cashed out.

It is the second time this year I took some winnings off of the site and I have to tell you, I TRULY believe I am somehow being punished for doing so.

I know your shaking your head as how an ON-Line site new you cashed out and has the ability to give you bad cards. If you read some of the forums and the threads have computer programmers who study these things and although a few of the scenarios are far fetched, others seem so very possible.

After all the Poker community has been rocked with problem after problem and glitches in software still happen to this day. Whats to say a programmer cannot put in a specific name and tell the random card generator to favor players x,y, and z over a,b,c,and d?

Is it possible, of course it is. Is it being done, who knows but I know for sure I cannot believe how frustrated I am when I play on-line. I am very patient try to make a move here and there and when I sit for almost 4 hours and get my stack to a certain point, only to have some 1 outer constantly appear to beat me one has to begin to think how these ranked players can constantly be winners day in and day out, when you do not play any different then they do.

I want nothing but success for some of these On-Line sites but I also want them to be fair to EVERYONE. When you write a complaint or you have an issue and you send it to there support staff, you always receive some reply you do not like. It's a pre-written statement.

Until regulation hits these on-line sites the majority of players are going to be very skeptical. Huge numbers of people are still logging on and playing, how and why I sometimes scratch my head. The cash games I cannot comment on because i have rarely played them. The tournaments are a whole different story and as much as I love poker I have lost my faith for a few of the On-Line sites and I will only continue to play at one knowing the 50 or 100 dollars I have there is going to be for entertainment purposes only and do not expect to walk away with a huge profit as others do!

The site where I have cashed out and is the reason for my blog today, PS...is deleted from my computer for ever. You can still find me at FT chillin though.........

Take Care...and Be Safe..............

Happy New Year all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

.