Merry Christmas

Its Christmas Eve and its been a while since I last blogged. I have been putting in medium volume online but my results have been abysmal. I am thinking I will take off until Monday after Christmas. I am really looking forward to going to my parents that day and staying there until the Friday after New Years. My finacee will also be joining me there for about 3 days but then she has to go to Malaysia on a business trip.

After I leave my parents I will be going to Biloxi Mississippi for a week or so to represent FeltStars at the Southern poker Championship at the Beau Rivage, which is a WPT event. Not sure if I'll play in the final televised event or not, but hopefully I do. Anyway, Merry Christmas to everyone out there, and best wishes for a wonderful New Year.

If anyone is in Biloxi for the WPT event stop by and say hello.

Remember, sign up for FeltStars at http://www.feltstars.com/, and use the bonus code Boot n Tee for a 300% deposit bonus up to $3000 and 30% rakeback. See you on the felt!!

Til Next Time....

Back from Vegas- Trip report and Online play

Well, I am finally back in Houston after a nice long trip to Vegas.

As far as poker goes the trip was pretty dismal as I ended up winning the equivalent of only 1 buy in in the games that I was playing for the entire trip. Overall I feel like I played pretty well so I am trying to not be results oriented.

Overall the trip was a great success though as I FINALLY (after 5+ years) proposed to my girlfriend on the observation deck of the Eiffel Tower at the Paris Las Vegas Casino. She of course said yes. It was very beautiful as we were 500+ feet above the Las Vegas Strip, with the fountains at Bellagio dancing in front of us as I asked her. She seems to love her ring that I picked out. After that we had a nice (but grossly overpriced) dinner at the Eiffel Tower restaurant (Thanks Mom and Dad for picking up that bill as our Thanksgiving gift!!). The last week of my trip was spent mostly playing slots and $4-$8 limit hold em with my fiancee. We got to spend time with our old friends who we used to work with and eat at all of our favorite restaurants in Vegas. We had a great time.

Today was my first full day back playing on FeltStars. I put in 2665 hands in my session and had a nice win. Planned on playing for 8 hours today but I started getting tired at about the 7 hour mark and called it quits 7 1/2 hours in. Oh well, close enough. I think my 6-max game is really coming around, and after 150k hands I am winning at a rate of about 5bb/100 which I would be ecstatic to keep up. I plan on playing a bunch tomorrow as well, and taking a break to watch the SEC Championship game. I think Florida will beat Alabama, but Im not sure enough to put any money on it!

Oh well, guess thats all for now.

Til next time....

1st live tourney in Vegas since WSOP=epic fail

I decided to join a friend of mine today at the Venetian for the DeepStack tournament. I of course entered the event with high hopes which faded away pretty quicky after losing half my stack bluffing and the other half when I got all in preflop with AQss vs AThh for 28 big blinds. He promptly flopped a ten and turned a ten. The good news is that I only wasted 2 hours of my day in it and got to grind cash games for the next 7 hours. The 5-10 was pretty tough today, and I started off my session by getting 100 big blinds in with QQ vs AK and losing that race. Luckily I managed to recoup those losses and ended up winning a half a buy in by the end of the day.

On Thursday night I went to the Wynn and played in a great 5-10 game. I was lucky enough to pick up AA vs KK to win a 200+ big blind pot and ended my session winning close to 2 buy ins.

The last 6 days have been swingy to say the least, but I am definitely enjoying playing live again. There definitely is still some very soft spots out there, more so than on the internet I think, but its just a matter of getting adjusted to the more passive style of live play. I am rarely ever running into other players who are 3betting preflop with hands like 76 offsuit and K5 suited like I do everyday online.

Anyway, gonna hang out with my buddy and do some poker coaching tomorrow during the day, have dinner with him and his wife tomorrow night, and then plan on playing a nice long session at either the Bellagio or the Wynn after dinner. I prefer the Wynn but kind of feel like playing 10-20, so I'll have to call them and see if they have a game going or if I need to go to Bellagio to find one.

Got a twitter update from all star tournament director Matt Savage saying that they are down to 27 players on day 1a of the 250k guarantee at Commerce and that my good friend Joe Tehan is still in and above average in chips with 101k. Sure hope he takes it down! Joe is a great player and has helped me a lot with my game. Good luck Joe and see you next week back in Vegas for some poker and bowling!

Oh well, guess its time for some TV and then off to bed.

Til next time....

Long Day-2 sessions

I played two seperate sessions today for a total of 12 hours table time. I felt that I really played well all day but ended up losing a buy in. It is still an adjustment getting back into live poker. Things are just so different from the internet. Even in the bigger games that I have been playing, there is so much more limping preflop and 4 way pots than I ever see online. I posted the question of the best way to handle these situations on the Deuces Cracked forum and am eagerly awaiting responses from other pros who play these size games. Speaking of training sites, I have subscribed to about 6 of them in the past few years, so I think one day I'll dedicate a blog to reviwing eacj site and my thoughs on their videos. Anyway, just thought I'd give you guys a quick update. I am really enjoying playing live again even though my results arent there yet, and even after 12 hours today I cant wait to get up and play again tomorrow night.

But now its time to watch an episode of Dexter and get some much needed sleep!

Til next time....

WSOP Heads Up Finale

Last night i went over to Bellagio and was playing in the 5-10NL for about 5 hours. I had been chatting some with the gentleman 2 seats to my left whom turned out to be Ken "Teach" Aldridge, winner of the $1500NL 6-max event at the 2009 WSOP. When he left he invited me to join him in the VIP seating area at the Rio to watch the conclusion of the main event of the WSOP final table. I of course jumped at this opportunity and proceeded to have a great tiem talking poker with him and watching history be made as Joe Cada became the youngest main event champ in history. Ken was a great guy and hopefully a new friend. I am also looking forward to seeing the ESPN coverage of the main event heads up battle and see if my ugly mug made it on TV. There is a good chance because I was sitting behind WSOP Novemeber 9'er Steve Begleiter, as well as one seat over from multiple WPT winner Jonathan Little and 2008 November 9'er Ylon Schwartz.

As for poker content, my hand of the day is one that I lost. Here's the setup:

5-10 NL at Bellagio, the table is unusually passive preflop, with not a lot of raising and very very little 3-betting going on.

I am dealt A5hh in the small blind. There are 3 limpers, i complete and the big blind checks. The flop comes down Q-5-3 with 1 heart. I decide to lead out with middle pair and an over, as well as backdoor nut flush draw. I bet 30 into the 50 pot and got called by a late position limper. The turn was the 5 of spades. I decide that his range is a lot of queens and all straight draws, so I think betting again was right because if he has a queen then he will likely come along thinking that i likely dont have a 5 since i led the flop. I bet 110 and he called. The river was an offsuit Jack and now I bet 300 for value, because he wasnt the type of player to bluff a missed draw if I check to him. Unfortunately he decided to min raise me to 600. I hated this, but ultimately decided that since my perceived range is heavily weighted towards Qx, and even QJ, that he could be raising any 5 for value, and of course I beat those hands. But as suspected he revealed 33 for 3's full and raked the pot. I still feel like I played the hand well even though I lost, because I thought the hand through and analyzed my opponents each move. It was because of this analysis that helped me recoup those losses later in the session.

Til next time....

Las Vegas

I flew into Las Vegas last night for a few weeks of cash games and tourneys. The Venetian Deep Stack Extravaganza is in full swing and I plan on playing a few events while here. I will probably play one $340 event, and a few $550's, as well as the $2500 main event. I will mostly be playing cash games while here though. It looks like my mainstay will be the 5-10NL at the Venetian and the Wynn, and ythe 10-20NL game at the Bellagio.

I am staying with a friend and his wife for 16 days, and then my girlfriend is coming in the day before Thanksgiving and we will be staying on the strip for a week. I probably wont do much serious playing while she is here, but I plan on grinding a lot of hours before she arrives. Once she's here we dont haveany real set plans except for tickets to PeepShow starring Holly Madison frm "The Girls Next Door." That should be a fun show. We have 1st row center stage tickets.

Other than that I plan on eating all the foods that I miss most from my 4 years living here, and I also plan on doing some condo hunting as we hope to buy a place here sometime between now and February or March while the prices are super low. I'll try to blog poker results as I start to play more.

Til next time..

Always a Day Late and a Dollar Short

As far as the world of blogging is concerned, I of course am way behind the times. This is my first blog and hopefully I will be able to keep up with it at least on a weekly basis. I am starting this blog in conjunction with my new partnership with the online poker site FeltStars. I was recently named one of the first 3 pros signed to the site, and hope for a long and prosperous future with the brand. For those that don't know, FeltStars is part of the Merge Network which includes established sites like Carbon Poker and PokerNordica. It is definitely a new kid on the block, but I have the utmost confidence in its management team and in the software used by the network. I also think that the players will be treated fairly due to the fact that the poker room manager is a former WSOP tournament director and he understands the needs and desires of the players, and is willing to do his best to meet those needs.

I will try to relay poker content in my blogs, as well as the life of a poker pro playing both online and live. I will probably stay away from posting numbers when it comes to wins and losses as I feel that takes away from the actual content, but we'll see. I'll leave you with the webpage announcement which will give you an overview of my poker resume and a little bit about me.

Benton "BootnTee" Blakeman

Benton started playing poker while attending college at Nicholls State University in Thibodaux, Louisiana during the fall of 2001. It was during this time that a family friend who had been playing for years took him under his wing and taught him the ins and outs of the daily grind. Almost immediately Benton consistently beat the $4-$8 limit game at the local bar where he played every night, as well as the games at the casinos in New Orleans where he would travel to several times a week in search of action. Upon graduating college in December of 2002, Benton, at the young age of 21, packed up his car and moved to Las Vegas. Throughout the last 5 years he has concentrated on playing in cash games, primarily No-Limit Hold Em, both in casinos around the country and online. Although he has put up impressive cash game numbers, he has also put up some very impressive tournament results both online and live as well, racking up $200,000 in cashes.

Tournament Results
1st place in 200k on UltimateBet for $45,000
4th place in 200k on UltimateBet for $13,000
2nd place in Fifty-Fifty on FullTilt for $8,300
Final Table finish in the Sunday Brawl on FullTilt
Multiple wins in the $33 rebuy on UltimateBet
4 way chop in Bellagio $1080 Weekend tournament for $13,500
2 way chop in a $550 event at the Grand Poker Series at the Golden Nugget
Multiple wins in the Poker Zone tournament at the Mirage.

Benton can be found playing four to eight tables of $1-$2 to $5-$10 No Limit cash games online, and $5-$10 to $10-$25 No Limit cash games at the casinos. Benton currently resides in Houston, Texas with his girlfriend Kim and their two dogs Virginia and Henry. He still travels to Las Vegas and Los Angeles several months out of the year. His screename on FeltStars is "BootnTee" and he can be reached at bootnteepoker@yahoo.com. Feel free to email poker questions to him or inquire about private lessons.

Til next time.....