The PokerListings Daily 3-Bet is a lonely night at the Palms turned into a massive heater in the Gold Coast $1/$2 game.
Any tips or articles worth a look in a future 3-Bet, let us know in the comments below.
Today in the 3-Bet we find PokerStars pro Max Lykov explaining what it takes to be a good poker husband, WSOP Main Event 21st-place finisher Maxx Coleman lamenting what might have been and an intriguing new poker television show getting ready to start filming in the US.
1) Max Lykov: Sit in a Room or Learn to Play
Great player, great teacher.
Any poker player in a long-term relationship knows just how difficult it can be to balance the two things you love most.
Poker is an all-consuming, all-encompassing enterprise. And if your partner is on the outside looking in, it can become pretty tiresome to wait out those tournament hours alone in a hotel room.
PokerStars pro Max Lykov's solution? Teach his wife to play. Finally getting a visa to play at this year's WSOP, Lykov felt he needed to be there to earn his living. He also wanted his wife to come with him. So something had to give, as he explains in a new blog post:
"I told my wife I had to go and that she should go with me. I said, 'If I you want to sit in a room the whole time while I play, you can sit in a room. But I can teach you to play. It's not difficult because I know how to explain things and I think you're pretty smart ...'
"My wife is a special case of course. Honestly, it's not really difficult to understand how to be a winning player at small stakes. The challenge was starting my wife out slowly enough. It's like learning to ride a bike. The first time is not that easy."
End result? His wife won more than him in their first 10 days in Vegas. And she's now got the fever to win a tournament.
2) "I Feel Disappointed I Didn't Get Farther"
Just 20 players short of $8.3m.
Speaking of another classic poker player connundrum: How exactly do you explain to people that you're horribly disappointed to earn $285,000 in a poker tournament?
Derby, Kansas native Maxx Coleman had the chip lead at the end of Day 3 of the 2013 WSOP Main Event. He went on to finish 21st and take home $285,408 - an amazing accomplishment by any stretch of the imagination.
As we all know as poker players, though, it's what you leave on the table that can haunt you, as Coleman told The Wichita Eagle:
“I feel disappointed I didn’t get farther,” Coleman said. “Everyone who finishes 19 to 27, it all pays the same. I know if you make the final nine, you’re guaranteed $800,000. The winner gets $8.3 million.
“I was 20 people away from $8.3 million.”
We hear you, Maxx. We hear you.
The 23-year-old Wichita State graduate, who was playing in his first WSOP, should have plenty of years for another crack at it though.
3) Poker Night in America: First Event August 10
Next step in TV poker?
As history as shown us, how poker goes on the American television market tells us a lot about the state of the overall poker economy.
Lots of poker shows on TV? Lots of new cash in the poker economy.
The launching of the WPT Alpha 8 series on Fox Sports is definitely one good sign poker in the US is on the rise again, as is the coming debut of Poker Night in America, an intriguing new show from the co-creator of the Heartland Poker Tour.
“One week you might see a celebrity-filled poker game from a Hollywood mansion," says Todd Anderson, the creator of Poker Night, "the next week could feature a high stakes cash game and the next a big tournament from a US casino,”
“We’re looking to film the biggest and best poker events and bring them to the viewer in a fresh approach to televised poker. We think the world is ready to watch poker in a whole new way.”
Four events will be taped this year, according to the Poker Night website, starting next month at Turning Stone Casino in New York with a $1,650 buy-in $500k guaranteed tournament.
The next events are scheduled for Sept, Oct. and Nov. Air dates are tbd.
