Greg FossilMan Raymer – Cardplayer Lifestyle https://cardplayerlifestyle.com Tue, 01 Aug 2023 14:43:00 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.3 Mixed Game Festival V Day 5 Recap: Raymer, Elezra, and the EPT Cyprus Prize Package https://cardplayerlifestyle.com/mixed-game-festival-v-day-5-recap-raymer-elezra-ept-cyprus-prize-package/ Fri, 07 Jul 2023 16:23:25 +0000 https://cardplayerlifestyle.com/?p=59558 It seems like just yesterday that we were eagerly awaiting the Cardplayer Lifestyle Mixed Game Festival V at Resorts World Las Vegas. And now, in the blink of an eye, it has come and gone.

The festival was a huge success by all measures. We saw dozens of excited mixed game players – some of whom traveled thousands of miles – join us for five days to play their favorite poker variants in the popular Dealer’s Choice format.

More players took seats throughout the week with limited knowledge of some games, eager to learn. We even had players venture away from No-Limit Hold’em to play mixed games for their first (and hopefully not last) times!

In case you missed them, be sure to check out our recaps from Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 as well.

FossilMan Spends The Day With Us


Day 5 action kicked off at 3 p.m., and 2004 WSOP Main Event Champion Greg “FossilMan” Raymer was already in the room and engaging with players at the start.

Raymer has been a staunch supporter of the Mixed Game Festival since its inception when he won the inaugural MGF H.O.R.S.E. event in October 2021 to earn a PokerStars Platinum Pass.

When play began, Raymer took a seat with host Robbie Strazynski and a full lineup of faces we’d seen all week long. Others came and went as the day turned to night, but Raymer’s presence remained a constant.

In case you missed it, Raymer played the WSOP Main Event on Tuesday, Day 1b, and bagged a top-25 stack in his flight. He will play Day 2 today, and we wish him the best of luck. In the meantime, we couldn’t be more grateful that he took time out of his summer schedule to play and hang out with us.

The Toughest $4/$8 Game in the World

Raymer’s presence was only the beginning of celebrity visits from the poker world.

Poker Hall of Famer and five-time WSOP bracelet winner Eli Elezra took a break from the high-stakes games to play Robbie’s stack for a few hands. I couldn’t imagine a tougher $4/$8 game anywhere on the planet during that time, but there also may not have been a more fun one.

Alek Gilles Is Going To EPT Cyprus

“You got me hooked,” said Alek Gillies on Day 2 of the festival. Gillies, a full-time dealer at Edmonton’s Yellowhead Casino, has been in Vegas all month, working his first summer as a PokerNews live reporter.

When asked what he meant, he said he had so much fun on Day 1 that he had to come to play again after his shift ended at the WSOP.

Gillies was back on the WSOP grind during the festival’s final day. However, he logged plenty of hours throughout the week, each hour giving him an entry into a random drawing for an EPT Cyprus package valued at over $3,000.

PokerNews' Alek Gillies

The draw occurred just after 6 p.m., and Gillies was selected randomly, earning a Mixed Game tournament buy-in of up to €550 with roundtrip airfare and four nights’ accommodation on the Mediterranean island this autumn.

“I’ve never been to Europe,” said Gilles via text message later in the evening. “I’m super excited!”

Upping the ante: Norman Chad hosts $20/$40 O8/Stud8

One of the greatest aspects of the Mixed Game Festival is that it makes low-stakes mixed games accessible for all. However, we also love that it has created enough demand to accommodate the occasional larger game.

WSOP commentator Norman Chad made his second appearance at the festival Thursday, helping to close things out with his very own $20/$40 Omaha 8/Stud 8 game. The game started at 6 p.m. with a full table and a waiting list.

Poker Hall of Famer Linda Johnson and Women In Poker Hall of Famer Jan Fisher were among those on the waitlist, arriving shortly after cards went in the air. Both found open seats at a $4/$8 Dealer’s Choice table in the meantime, ultimately making it into Norm’s game later in the evening.

Pokercoaching.com Player of the Day – Zak Zimbile

New to the Cardplayer Lifestyle Mixed Game Festival V, we are featuring a “Player of the Day” each day during the festival, sponsored by PokerCoaching.com. As a reminder, all Mixed Game Festival V attendees can receive a free one-week membership to PokerCoaching.com Premium just by asking Robbie in person for the special link. Check out this article with the specific details of what that entails.

Our final Player of the Day joined us this afternoon to play mixed games for the first time in his life. Naturally, he sat with Greg Raymer on his direct left.

Zak Zimbile was unafraid, eagerly looking to learn the games he was now playing. Raymer was the perfect teacher, explaining everything and helping Zimbile understand games like Drawmaha-Dugi.

Zak Zimbile

Zimbile has played poker on and off for over a decade but is a CPA by trade. Most of his clientele are gamblers  – poker players and sports bettors – and he’s even written articles for Cardplayer Lifestyle about poker players and taxes. He opened his own firm in Las Vegas within the past year and has been upping his poker volume lately, playing cash games three or four days a week.

Zimbile thinks some of the increased volume is due to the time of year. Summer is not only the busiest time for poker in Las Vegas but also after tax season ends. He is enjoying the grind while it lasts but is remembering to have fun, as evidenced by his desire to join us. Off the tables, Zak also loves rock climbing, especially indoors.

Festival Recap

The Cardplayer Lifestyle Mixed Game Festival V brought five days of events, giveaways, and $4/$8 Dealer’s Choice cash games.

Opening Day kicked off with a pizza party before cards went in the air on two tables. Later that night, four tables were running with more players present and waiting for seats to open.

Extracurricular events headlined Days 2 and 3 with the first-ever Poker Trivia Competition and Scavenger Hunt. Cardplayer Lifestyle contributor and veteran poker reporter Mike Patrick stole the show both days, but unanimous fun was had all around. Several prominent poker players also visited us on Day 3, including “Miami” John Cernuto, Norman Chad, and a trio of PokerCoaching.com coaches, Justin Saliba, Paul Beitelspacher, and Kieran Woods.

Poker Hall of Fame member Linda Johnson and Women In Poker Hall of Fame member Jan Fisher joined us on Day 4, occupying one of the two opening tables for the afternoon. WPT champion and WSOP bracelet winner Dylan Linde took a seat at the other, taking time to talk strategy with his tablemates and autograph his book, Mastering Mixed Games, for anyone who procured a copy.

The final day concluded with repeat visits from Johnson, Fisher, and Chad. We also concluded the festival by learning new poker variants, making new friends, and forging memories that will last a lifetime.

Thank you to everyone who was a part of such an incredible week. We look forward to the next Cardplayer Lifestyle Mixed Game Festival and hope you do, too. Be sure to join the Cardplayer Lifestyle newsletter to be among the first to find out where and when it will take place.

*Our daily coverage of Mixed Game Festival V is brought to you, with much appreciation, courtesy of PokerStars.

]]> Poker Tips by George: The History of Texas Hold’em https://cardplayerlifestyle.com/poker-tips-by-george-history-texas-holdem/ Sun, 02 Apr 2023 12:37:36 +0000 https://cardplayerlifestyle.com/?p=57948 Today’s poker games can be traced back to a Persian betting game called As Nas which was introduced into France in the late 16th Century and led to the French and German games Poque and Pochen. Later, these games came to the United States with the arrival of European colonists, evolving into modern-day poker. Currently, Texas Hold’em is the most popular poker game in the country. Created in Robstown, Texas, in the early 20th Century, the game spread throughout Texas and was introduced to Las Vegas in 1963 at the California Club Casino by poker pro Felton (Corky) McCorquodale (1904-1968). Corky was among the first players inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 1979. As more people learned how to play Texas Hold’em poker, the game rapidly spread into other Las Vegas casinos such as the Golden Nugget, Stardust, and Dunes.

These days, it’s far easier to learn how to play poker, Texas Hold’em in particular, at sites online like casinotipspro and other places around the internet. The fact is that far more knowledge is readily available in the modern world at people’s fingertips versus back in the old days when you had to find a poker book or have someone teach you the game.

Doyle Brunson

In 1967, a group of Texas card players, including Crandell Addington, Doyle Brunson, and Amarillo Slim, were visiting in Las Vegas and enjoyed the game. Compared to draw poker, in which betting occurred twice during a hand, in Hold’em you bet four times. And strategy played a bigger role in Hold ‘em. This they liked.

The World Series of Poker

Poker pro Tom Moore established a “Gambling Fraternity Convention” in Las Vegas in the late 1960s. Originally, a San Antonio, Texas businessman, Moore was part owner of the Holiday Hotel and Casino in Reno. At the group’s second convention in 1969, a tournament was held with Hold’em as one of the games played. The following year, Benny and Jack Binion purchased the rights to the convention and renamed the tournament the World Series of Poker (WSOP), with no-limit Hold’em as the main event. The WSOP started with only a handful of players, but by 1982 there were over 100 entrants. The WSOP has obviously continued to grow from there.

Hold ‘Em in Books, TV and Movies

As the WSOP grew, featuring Hold’em as the main event, a number of poker books became available for players looking to learn more about the game. Doyle Brunson’s Super/System was published in 1978. In 1983, Al Alvarez’ The Biggest Game in Town focused on the WSOP and stimulated the publication of other poker books and widely read magazines, introducing Hold’em to a growing audience.

READ MORE: Five Books to Help You Learn TheHistory of Poker

U.S. interest in Texas Hold’ em beyond Texas and Nevada also began to grow in the 1980s. California card rooms offered draw games, but Hold ’em was prohibited under a statute that made illegal the poker game of “stud-horse” (no longer being played). In 1988, Hold ’em was declared legally distinct from stud-horse in Tibbetts vs. Van de Kamp. This decision regarded Hold ’em as a game of skill. Almost immediately, card rooms across the state began to offer Texas Hold ’em.

Rounders felted

After a visit to Las Vegas, bookmakers Terry Rogers and Liam Flood introduced Texas Hold ‘em to European card players in the early 1980s. This nicely completed the cycle that started centuries earlier when poker was first introduced into the U.S. by European colonists.

A number of movies were produced prominently featuring Texas Hold ‘em, starting in 1998 with Rounders, starring Edward Norton and Matt Damon. Several other poker movies followed.

Hold’em tournaments were televised starting in the late 1970s, but became really popular starting in 1999 when hidden lipstick cameras were introduced to show players’ hole cards on the Late Night Poker TV show, and in 2003 when the World Poker Tour introduced lipstick cameras.

 

Chris Moneymaker

Chris Moneymaker and Greg “Fossilman” Raymer

Also in 2003, the WSOP experienced the unexpected victory of Chris Moneymaker, a recreational player who earned his buy-in to the tournament by winning an online tournament. This win by a non-professional player resulted in an outpouring of interest in the game of Hold ’em – and in online poker. Imagine, even a rank novice could become a world champion! And then, a year later, adding to the excitement, Greg “Fossilman” Raymer, another recreational player, took the 2004 WSOP Main Event.

Today, millions enjoy Texas Hold’em, and its future looks bright.

George Epstein ad

]]> Greg “FossilMan” Raymer is Looking to Recapture Some Magic at PSPC II https://cardplayerlifestyle.com/greg-fossilman-raymer-is-looking-to-recapture-some-magic-at-pspc-ii/ Mon, 23 Jan 2023 07:15:00 +0000 https://cardplayerlifestyle.com/?p=56922 With PokerStars Players Championship II on the horizon, Cardplayer Lifestyle has been bringing you the stories of some Platinum Pass winners. In case you’ve missed them, we invite you to learn more about Amir Epstein, Karl Robinson, and Chad McVean. In this final of four installments in our miniseries, we take a closer look at someone whose name most poker fans already know, Greg Raymer.

Best known for his 2004 WSOP Main Event win, the “FossilMan” won his Platinum Pass at Cardplayer Lifestyle’s Inaugural Mixed Game Festival. He bested 123 other hopefuls in a $200 H.O.R.S.E. tournament in October 2021 and has been clinging to his Platinum Pass ever since. Even so, while Greg knows what it’s like to be in the winner’s circle, he’s nonetheless been the victim of a pretty awful tournament poker run over the last year. Will PSPC II be the turning point?

Greg Raymer

Let’s go back to when you won your Platinum Pass. What made you decide to hop into our H.O.R.S.E. tournament in the first place?

The day before I had planned to compete in the $1,500 Seven Stud event at the WSOP. As I was leaving my room, I looked on twitter, and saw that the computers were down at the Rio, and all events were indefinitely delayed. At that point I decided to just head down to your Mixed Game Festival and have some fun instead. It was only there that I learned about this tournament the next day.  With the massive value of the added Platinum Pass, it was just too good to pass up, and I bought my entry for the next day.

There was initially no runaway chipleader at our 8-handed final table, but as an onlooker it seemed like you pretty much managed to steamroll your way to victory. When play got down to 4-handed, it appeared to me that you were brimming with confidence and that you had no interest in doing any sort of deal. What do you remember about your tournament experience, and final table play in particular?

While I appreciate your use of the term “steamroll”, it sure didn’t feel like that to me.  I certainly wasn’t running over the other players, and stealing a lot of pots. Mostly, I was betting with a strong hand and getting paid off. Or, when I had a modest hand, I was calling the other player down, and picking off bluffs. Especially once heads-up, my opponent kept trying to bluff almost every time I had a marginal made hand. I am always happy to make a deal, but only if it is to my benefit.

Honestly, with the Platinum Pass that was worth more than the entire prize pool, it is rather hard to come up with a deal anyway. Even if my opponent had wanted to buy me out, what was the chance he had enough cash in his pocket to do so?

You took home nearly $5,000 for your win as well as the first Platinum Pass to have been awarded after a nearly 18-month pandemic hiatus. Can you describe how that felt at the time?

Any time you win a tournament, no matter how large or small, it feels amazing. It is the reason we all play tournament poker, that rare moment of victory, and how great it feels.

Nobody realized at the time that it would still be more than a year until you’d finally get to cash in that Platinum Pass to take your seat at PSPC II. In the interim, unfortunately you’ve run pretty poorly in poker tournaments. In 2022, you recorded a shade under $20,000 in tournament winnings, which unfortunately represents your lowest total since 2003, just before you won the WSOP Main Event. To what do you attribute this downturn?

I attribute it to variance. Of course, I made mistakes in my play, and could have performed better. I know I’m not even close to perfect, and still put in the time studying, trying to improve and get closer to that impossible goal of perfect play. However, I would guess that I realized something like 70% or less of my theoretical equity in all-in pots this year. It also seems like every time I raised all-in with AK, I ran into AA an amazingly high number of times.

To what degree has your Platinum Pass – and the potential for your momentum could turn right back around at PSPC II – helped you stay resilient in the face of this downswing?

It is nice to have that Platinum Pass in my back pocket, so to speak.  However, I don’t think it has changed how I feel. I’ve been playing poker seriously for 30 years now, and as a full-time pro for 18 years. I’ve had plenty of bad runs, and many good runs as well. I am used to this sort of variance. Though it still sucks when you’re in one of the down periods.

On the plus side, at least according to what you shared in July, you’ve been running well in cash games. Had that continued In the latter half of 2022? What percentage of your poker playing time is cash games vs. tournaments?

How much time I spend playing cash varies quite a bit.  I love cash games, but am not a big fan of no-limit hold’em as a cash game. It is a great tournament game, just not that appealing to me for cash. I prefer mix games for cash, and those are hard to find. I play in some home games when not on the road, and those are all PLO.  I still prefer mix games, but PLO at least is better than NLH for cash. My run-good in cash games continues, though not as strongly as it had in the first half of the year.

You published Fossilman’s Winning Tournament Strategies back in 2019 and you’ve been a longtime contributing strategy writer for Card Player Magazine. Obviously, continuing to produce poker training content of this nature helps you stay sharp. In what way(s) do you feel you’ve gained the most from this as a player?

Teaching others always helps to improve your own knowledge and understanding, regardless of the subject matter.  Even if you were teaching me a purely factual topic, doing so would help you understand it better. When teaching a game like poker, students also notice things that you miss. Sometimes their questions give you insight into how other people think about the game. Even if what they are doing is a mistake you are going to help them fix, it can also be something you now understand, and can see in some of your opponents. The better you know and understand how your opponent is thinking, the more perfectly you can exploit that mistake, and win more of their chips.

Besides playing and keeping your game sharp overall, have you engaged in any other specific preparation for the PSPC II?

I think the important thing when preparing for a big event like this is to just show up well rested, and ready to go. I will fly in the day before, arrive in the afternoon, and just relax all that day. I won’t find a one-day event, or even a cash game.  I’ll just chill, and make sure I get a good night’s sleep. That will enable me to play my best on day 1, and hopefully carry me through to a deep finish.

Over 1,000 players competed at the original PSPC in 2019. A similarly large field is expected for the $25,000 buy-in PSPC II. Considering the unique, eclectic nature of the field (i.e., Platinum Pass-winning recreational players, high rollers, well-to-do businesspeople, and shot-takers), to what degree do you see yourself having a shot at a big score? What would cashing (min $30,000) – or, in a dream scenario, a deep run – mean to you?

Winning a tournament is the ultimate feeling. Winning a major event like the PSPC II would feel even better.  I focus on equity while I play. I don’t play tight to reach the min-cash, nor do I play only to win, with no regard for ICM.  Yet, in the end, it is only by winning that we can achieve that ultimate feeling you get from tournament poker. If I get deep, I will avoid risk and ladder up when it is smart to do so. But if I manage to go all the way, it will probably feel just as good, and mean just as much, as winning the World Series of Poker Main Event felt back in 2004.

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