1st Eric

2nd Pawps < Eric Flop Turn River Chips in Preflop

3rd Angelo < Pawps Flop Turn River Chips in Preflop

4th Fluffski < Pawps Flop Turn River Chips in Preflop

5th Nick TAB < Pawps < Eric Flop Turn River Chips in Preflop

6th The feeling < Pawps Flop Turn River Chips in Preflop

7th George C < TAB Nick Flop Turn River Chips in Preflop

8th Nick N < Eric Flop Turn River Chips in Preflop

9th Dr Con < Pawps Flop Turn River Chips in Preflop

1st Paul Pav

2nd Dr Con < Paul Pav Flop Turn River Chips in Pre

3rd Tony < Dr Con Flop Turn River Chips in Pre

4th Dr Eric < Dr Con Flop Turn River Chips in Pre

5th Nick Pav < Dr Con Flop Turn River Chips in Pre

6th CK < Dr Eric Flop Turn River Chips in Pre

7th Maninga < Dr Con Flop Turn River Chips in Pre

8th Christian < Tony Flop Turn River Chips in Pre

9th Brad < CK Flop Turn River Chips in Pre

1st Chris Caris
2nd Graeme > Chris Caris Flop Turn River Chips in Flop
3rd Avraam > Chris Caris Flop Turn River Chips in Pre
4th Dingo > Graeme Flop Turn River Chips in Pre
5th Rick X > Chris Caris Flop Turn River Chips in Pre
6th Nick Pav > Graeme Flop Turn River Chips in Pre
7th Paul Pav > Dingo Flop Turn River Chips in Pre
8th Maninga > Chris Caris Flop Turn River Chips in Pre
9th Nick Pen > Graeme Flop Turn River Chips in Pre

9th Ralph was knocked out in 9th before the final tabke was formed.

8th MJ <Pawps Flop Turn River

7th Tommy <Nuno Flop Turn River

6th Pawps <Nick P Flop Turn River

5th Luca <Nuno Flop TurnRiver

4th Dr Con < Nick P Flop TurnRiver

3rd Nick P <Anthony Flop Turn River

2nd Anthony < Nuno Flop Turn River

1st Nuno

9th - Dingo ( > to TAB Nick)
8th - Nick Pav ( > to Tommy)
7th - Christian ( > to Grahame)
6th - Pandelli ( > to Grahame)
5th - Tommy ( > to Arthur K)
4th - RTAK ( > to Eric)
3rd - Eric ( > to Grahame)
2nd - Grahame ( > to TAB Nick)
1st - TAB Nick

Officers search for suspect in shooting at Gresham poker club.

How would you react to this headline? I have mixed feelings. I feel bad for the victims and their families. Two were injured; one is in stable condition the other unknown. On the other hand, I never even knew there was a card room in Gresham. It's 11 miles away. Maybe there are more nearby that I don't know about that don't get shot up.

It's been a long time, but I haven't had much of anything to say about poker. Hopefully you find this post useful. If you don't think taking player notes when you play online poker is a good practice, you can stop reading this.

I was recently in a tournament against some players I knew I had notes on, but that nice little triangle in the corner that signifies stored notes was not appearing. What?!

I did some digging, and it turns out the player notes you enter are stored on your computer. That means any notes you take on one computer will not be available if and when you play on a different computer. This could be especially devastating if you take good notes, win some cashola, and get a new computer to go pro (like a good player would). Or, it can just be a big annoyance for a player like me, who plays on different computers over the course of a week and likes to remember basic notes on common opponents.

File Locations

There is a fix. The player notes information is stored in easily readable XML files. You can view (and edit) these files with any text editor. Here are sample locations and names of the files:

File Structure

Like I said earlier, the file structure is XML, which is human readable, but has a few quirks. Go here for a tutorial if necessary.

Below is a sample player notes file from a Mac. The PC version is essentially identical. Note the "do not edit this file" comment. You can ignore that.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!-- Do not edit this file -->
<PLAYERDATA version="1.0" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.fulltiltpoker.com/schemas/client http://www.fulltiltpoker.com/schemas/client/PlayerNotes.xsd" xmlns="http://www.fulltiltpoker.com/schemas/client" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
<NOTES>
<NOTE PlayerId="Big Donkey" ColourIx="7" Text="Terrible&#10;&#10;calling station on river" />
<NOTE PlayerId="Great Player" ColourIx="13" Text="Do not play against this guy" />
</NOTES>
</PLAYERDATA>

Here is a table that describes the "NOTE" element attributes:

The value of the text field may contain some weird looking characters, such as "%#10;" in the example above. These are just encoded versions of a new line. Some other characters, such as greater/less than and apostrophes are also encoded.

The Solution - Moving/Consolidating Files

Warning: the Full Tilt application writes out the player notes file after you close the application. Any notes you take while the application is running will not be reflected in the file real-time. Any edits you make to the file will be lost if you then exit the application.

If you need to reinstall everything or get a new computer and want to transfer your notes, just keep this file and put it in the right place on your new install. If you are converting between a Mac and PC, you may have some of character encoding issues (such as "%#10" showing up instead of a new line), but you will be able to see your player notes when you start the Full Tilt application and fix it from the application, or by editing the file directly.

It is slightly more complicated to consolidate files from two computers into one file. The basic problem is if a file has two separate player note entries for the same player, it is indeterminate as to which note will appear or get updated, so you may "lose" notes without even switching computers.

A little by-hand magic can solve this problem if you don't find or write a script to help you. I didn't want to write a script just yet, so this is the procedure I followed. I used Microsoft Excel to help me remove any duplicates:

1. Close the Full Tilt application on both computers
2. Copy both files to the same computer
3. Copy all of the lines that begin with "<NOTE" from each file into Microsoft Excel
4. Sort the file by column A
5. Look for duplicate "PlayerId" attributes, which should show up right after each other; Copy the "Text" value from the second one into the first and delete the second row from the spreadsheet
6. Replace all the "<NOTE" lines in one of the files with the rows that remain in the spreadsheet
7. Save the file and put it into the original location

The Fun Begins...

I hope that helps. It might be interesting to find other uses for knowing the location and contents of these files. Here are some suggestions. I suggest using an XML editor. Good/fancy text editors will usually support context-based highlighting to make it easier to read XML.

• You can check out all the notes you ever took (without running into the player). I went through and updated a few notes on players I recently played against and cleaned out a few useless notes.
• If you don't want to use any poker opponent/hand tracking software, you know where to go to look up the players who you have marked as easy targets. I've often had times when I knew I took a note on somebody, but I couldn't remember who it was.

Let me know if you can think of other ways to use this file. Thanks for reading!

The Latest

Hey everyone it has been ages since I posted on here how about I get you caught up. Or the non poker playing that I have encountered over the last 4 months. Anyway basically to sum it up I have played at a minimum online and nothing live at all.

The Setup

Everybody starts out with 6k in chips and the starting blinds are 25/50 the pay out is 3 places and tonight he had 8 people participate I guess on a normal basis there is 12-14 people. After the re buys the pay out was 30,70,140.

My Start

Basically I just folded a few rounds and sat patiently. I hit a flush on the river out of the big blind against a flopped 2 pair that this guy slow played and it bit him in the ass. Not to much later, I pick up with the blinds at 100/200 I made it 600 to go in middle position and I got 2 callers. The flop came out action goes check, bet 1k I go instantly all in and was called. This guy to the right of me flips over the turn brought him a double gutter with his outs being any Queen, 9, or a King I was sweating it out. The river put out a blank and I picked up a much needed pot and started to command the action in late position only. If I would of lost this pot I would of been under 1k and most likely out in 8th place and a early night.

Knockout Stages

We still had our original 8 when the re buys were over after the 1st hour. I was 2nd in chips and looking good with the average stack of the other players were about half of what I had. With this in mind I had the confidence to have a money showing for sure. I stole the blinds a couple of times from late position and kinda just hung around waiting for the blinds to climb up to have some people just go all in cause they had to. I picked up I raised 3 times the big blind and he goes all in I called after deliberation. The host had I pulled it out and took out the 1st guy. After some play we were down to 6. Play was pretty tight I was caught stealing a pot and stole some pots just hanging in that 2nd place spot and waiting for people to make mistakes. I ended up taking out the 6th place guy with in a 3 way all in pot with the short stack all in and with me and the other guy checking it down.

3 Handed

After a knockout of the guy to the left of me and a showdown pre flop with vs we are in the money and now down to 3 players the blinds at this point are 500/1k. With being 2nd place in chips and 2.5-1 behind the chip leader I was hoping to get my money in good and see what happens. I picked up in the small blind and it was a 3 way limp pot. The flop comes out I bet out 3,500 and the chip leader goes all in after not much thought I called pretty quick. He shows with outs being an 7 or a diamond to catch I did not get unlucky and won. This was a huge pot that turned all the momentum to me cause I ended up doubling up through the chip leader and have all the makings now to win. I took out the former chip leader with you guessed it vs .

Heads Up and Food for Thought

We get down to heads up and it took about 30 hands going into the heads up match I had at least a 3-1 chip lead. In the Beginning he won a few pots and narrowed the gap a little bit. I proceed to chip away at his dwindling chip stack with a lot of flop betting and pre flop raising. I ended up with the winning hand of and he didn't connect with that I was happy to end about 4hrs of play and the win. He was kind enough to take the picture that I now have on my Facebook page.

With this being a weekly thing on a Thursday I am very happy that I can finally play in a weekly game. A big thank you to Steven for inviting me to the game and a thank you to Anh for hosting. With that I am ready for bed it is 3:15 am. Take care and may all your pots be monster.

So for those of you who do not know, I am very good friends with one of the co-owners of this site. I will below add the post that was ready April 24th 2009. I then will give a recent update in the weeks to come.

What is Chad Luck?
So by now I am sure most of you have seen the post Chad luck and the poker failure by Jason Moungey. In this post I will do my best to explain Chad luck as well as give you some good laughs. Not to overstate the obvious but I have not been blessed with the best of luck in my life. However in high school I did win the WI state baseball championship as the starting 2nd basemen on a team with many players better than I was. In college I lead the Midwest conference in RBI's for freshmen at the School Harrison Ford flunked out of (Ripon College)! Yes the professor that told him he would be nothing also gave me an "F". How did that happen? Well my academic advisor, and head baseball coach told me to make up the Fri classes when we were out of town as all of our games were double headers, so we missed some Fri classes. When I talked with this old ....professor he said that was "NOT" an option, if I miss,I fail! Meanwhile the Baseball coach wanted his starting 2nd basemen at the games. I know who cares about baseball, I failed! I also got a "C" in a business class that I was Acing when I told the professor he was wrong about the tax laws because I owned a business back in Madison (he was not so happy with me after that!). To make it worse in college I loved football way better despite baseball being the sport I was best at. As the "Kings" receiver, yes KK LOL, I saw about 25 to 35 of the 60 offensive plays. I was the 3rd receiver on a team that like the Kings set, aka, 3 receiver set. My QB was one of my best friends and we often went to casinos together. I wound up with no catches that year and when he tried to force me one late in the season, it was intercepted and returned for a TD! There is a little background on me.

Near the end of last year after much deliberation with my girlfriend and great friend Jason Moungey we decided to pack up my uhaul and head to the Bay area! I own a uhaul for my business (Toy and game sales). No unfortunately not the good ones like dildo's and dolphin men LOL! I knew Jason from my store as he and his friend played in Magic: The Gathering tournaments. Then when he went to college at the University of Wisconsin he also managed my stores and helped me become better at Magic. We would later form a team and Jason had a great amount of success playing at the highest levels. I was fortunate enough to qualify twice for the Pro Tour and one time my sister, Jason and I went to Rome for a tournament! Jason played in tons of Pro Tours over his Magic career! As we pulled out of my driveway back home I turned to Brooke and said "I hope we don't blow the tranny". I do not want to go deep in this adventure but we made it from Madison, WI to Arlington Wyoming before this happened. For those of you that care, it is a small town about an hour outside of Laramie in the middle of NO where! After a gruesome week we bought a new uhaul and headed for the Bay area! On a Sunday last fall we pulled in to the Raiders game with an hour before kick off! I am a huge NFL fan so we hit the game. After the game our truck was dead and we would get a jump (took 3 hours and 3 diff. AAA drivers) and head for the San Mateo bridge. Yay we are almost to Jason's when the alternator goes and we have no lights in traffic on the bridge! Jason's leaves his friends at dinner and helps us limp to his house! That was easy maybe we should give poker a shot!!!!

So with a ton of help from Jason, his group in the Bay area, and some of his poker buddies that play full time helping me understand this game better, I decided to try my luck on Carbon poker playing small buy in tournaments. After about a week my $60 bankroll had turned into $117. The next week I would play in 9 tournaments and I ended 5 of them losing to Quads! My girlfriend thinks it is funny that people call me a cooler, not sure why? Ok so that happens sometimes I can live with that. Then I will not get into details but if you have read Jason's post "Chad luck and the poker failure" you know what happens next. After a few big hits, I get my roll up to $270 and I am feeling pretty good! The I am knocked out wit 88 vs 88, yes he flushed me out. Then I get knocked out wit AA as another guy has AA, so there is a limp and a raise 3x,I push, the guy that limped calls and the AA calls. We were drawing dead post flop as the guy hit his set with 99, no flush or straight draw, just DEAD LOL! Most of these are a few from the money as well. Then once again near the money I pick up KJ, flop Kx7 and get a guy to call for almost his whole stack with Q7, he rivers the 7 as you could have guessed! I go on to get 5% sucked out on the river two more times that same day! The next day starts great as I am 3 away from the money in a good prize pool and I flop the A high straight! The money goes in and he rivers the J for quads! If that is not bad enough, I later flop the nut flush with a straight flush draw. The draw hits and when I get min re raised I know I am beat by the higher straight flush and somehow do not lose all my chips (see pic!)!

I did miss a few days of poker as my girlfriend had to go to the ER in the middle of the night. She tripped and got cut up very bad on her arm and side by ceramic plates. She had 27 stitches and we were up for like 30 hours straight. Man does luck have to be bad in life as well as poker? She is doing better and did not even miss a day of work. She is a server and carries the trays with the arm she hurt of course. I would post pics but it was SICK. We do have them on facebook for those of you we are friends with. Ok I need to stop this now as I am getting sick thinking about that ER visit.

After a small money today my account sits at $120.65. The big hit came when I get AK suited in the hijack and try to raise but my raise button is gone and the all in does not work! I hit time and all I can do is call, great I just let the blinds play free! I flop a K but there is a draw which I do not have and again nothing is working, after a few seconds it lets me shove, the comp freezes, then a few seconds later I see two people felted. Guess it was lucky they thought I limped weak LOL! I then restarted my computer and finished with a $22 profit!

I guess the biggest thing I have learned is this game is crazy, no matter how good you are or how high you percent of winning, if they have outs, you can loose! I hope this helps others that are frustrated with this game as well as provided you POKERSOUP.com lovers some good reading! I do hope to see all of you on pokersoup more! Special thanks to Jason, Adrian, Jeff, Steven, and Graham for all your help and support over the past months, and years!

I want to end wishing you all the best of luck, but I will not jinx you as there is NO doubt in my mind I AM the ultimate COOLER LOL! So do I believe in luck? I did not much in the past but I am starting to think we all may need some (MINE STILL SUX updated 10.30.09)! Until next time, see you on pokersoup and the tables!!!!

BUTTER4 aka the Ultimate COOLER

Well, I'm really back, it seems. I mean, my luck is back.

Saturday, I played online only once, a $6.00 +$0.50 Knockout tourney, 90 players. I finished 6th, earning $27 plus $4 for busting 4 people. First online win in a long, long time. Got a couple of lucky coin-flips, but would call my final hand a bit unlucky: third in chip stack, I re-raise all-in with a 3-BB raise by a short stack, early position guy. The BB has me outchipped and calls, the early raiser goes into the tank, and finally goes all-in too (pot committed anyway.) BB shows and the short stack . Flop comes so my hopes went way high for a microsecond, to crash right away when I see the set of nines. Turn and River did me no good - nor to the short-stack guy - and I busted in 6th position.

Sunday, I made it to Thunder Valley: the 3pm $30+$3 shoot-out tournament, 45 players. OK, I made it also into the money, and again, we unanymously and immediately agreed to chop ($225 apiece.) What I wanted to share was more along the lines well developped by Dan Harrington: how the structure and the payout must shape your strategy.

We started with 5 tables of nine. My goal was to be one of the top-2, as then you move to the final table with the 2 top players of all the other tables, and start FRESH (full 3,000 stack, new reset blinds.) First, I waited for something to play with, but got the driest set of hands in a long time. Tried a couple of middle suited connectors that missed pityfully, and after 4 orbits of that, blinds went up again and I was down to around 2,000. When I saw in late position I decided to shove, but the young lady on the BB (who doubled up on the very first hand on a questionable play but very lucky flop) called and showed . Flop came so I made bottom pair but she paired her ace. I said "I can still hit a King or a Three" and she responded "Goodbye!" Nice. The turn came blank with but got my lucky river with a beautiful . I doubled up - and survived - and crippled a bit the young brat, whom I busted - with some pleasure I might add - a few hands later. Finally, I avoided the big stacks, attacked the short stacks, increased my lead and busted the last guy in 3rd position.

On the final table, I smelled very weak players. I recognized a bunch of regulars, whom talked right away of chopping, whatever. So my strategy became to not get involved - unless a big hand comes. Well, I slowly went down to about 1,200 chips as 3 people got busted (always the same story: they got involved in hands that turned bad, either lost or folded to strong pressure, lost chips, and forced all-in with a miserable stack and increasing blinds, semi-ok hands, and lost.) I am BB, blinds at 400 already, and the guy on my left is down to 800, and he pushes all-in. The guy on the button says "Sorry, but I really have to call" (not very cool, by the way, to speak like that with other players still in the hand, but that was a common theme at that table: I wished we had a dealer to shut those guys up.) My hand is average at best ( and I fold without second thoughts. The busted the all-in (what did I say about shoving late in the game with small pairs?!) and I was ultra-short stack but 6th! As those guys came back saying "let's chop" I did not oppose it, you can guess!

Nice weekend!
Fred