ITH Poker Forum

[Bullajami]

Been a member here for over 5 years, and I thought it might be fun to recount our happiest ITH memories thus far. Here are mine:

-Winning event #1 at the ITH-con at Atlantic City.
-Meeting Matthew for the first time
-All the cons and paloozas - meeting ITHers in person is never disappointing
-Virtually railing Matthew from the forums here in the 2005 WSOP
-Railing Nside live in 2008 when he went deep in the WSOP limit event.
-Being appointed a moderator (and later getting hired to work promotions!) at ITH
-Bourbon!!!!
-Taking a backhand to the beak from Taz on the floor at the WSOP
-Dropping $17K in online winnings on Mrs Bull for our 15th anniversary (made possible by ITH)

[chrisjp]

-Taking a backhand to the beak from Taz on the floor at the WSOP

Didn't witness it in person, but the whole story is one of the classics.

-Watching Matthew snap call an all in at the WSOP with five tables remaining, slam his AA face up on the felt, and then be quietly told by the dealer that the villain wasn't all in.
-Playing craps with Streak at the Plaza during ITH convention. From Dr. Accountant to Mr. Maniac.
-Mafia 2. My first and last. Getting San lynched when he was the Detective.
-Witnessing yanks go deep in the Main Event last summer.
-Helping Darus Suharto prep for the Main Event Final Table at Matthew's, November 2008. Sitting with nside at the Atlanta airport watching the Obama/McCain election returns trickle in as we awaited our respective flights home.
-Being on IRC as Taz, drunk as a skunk, won the Stars Million. Ditto when Taz won his seat to the Main Event.
-Paulif and Las Vegas heads up.
-TP bringing Hazey and Mrs. Hazey to my house to see where Las Vegans really live. Don't know how Paul talked them into it--I would have been leery too.
-Matthew raise bluffing all in on the river with The Hammer. The other guy smuggly mucking his 75o face up and Matthew then showing the 72. "Boy sir you sure have some b****!" -- awestruck kid at the table.
-Following the deep runs of people in live events on ITH, nothing better.
-Getting to meet the rest of Matthew's family, Diana, Joshua and Zachary (pre Isabel) at our house at 4th of July and having Joshua play with the sparklers AND not even fall in the pool.

Chris :

[ikeee]

Mine has to be my trip to vegas, met a lot of ITHers had a blast, and cant wait to come back.

[Taardvark]

-Realizing that this was a forum full of nice people interested in praising member successes, helping less experienced players get better, and just being a nice place to spend a few hours
-Posting my first final table thread and having close to a dozen ITHers railing me
-Meeting Chris in 2008 at the WSOP and having him and some of my other buddies railing me in my deep run in the $1.5K event I played in. Chris and I had a brief conversation before the event started, both having just read the Apes, Pearljammer, Rizen book. A couple of things that came out of this conversation came into play and helped catapult me to my deep finish.
-Meeting Nside, JFletcher, and Hazey at last year's WSOP.
-Playing NL100 with Toro last year and just watching the way he accumulated pot after pot was very enlightening.

[mchilger]

Wow - great thread...so many

- Having a post contest in 2003 in Sept or Oct and RobRobRob went crazy - that was the beginning.
- Reading all the rail posts when I went deep in 2004
- Battling by best friend, Sandsstorm, for the ITH main event crown - unfortunately the wrong guy won
- 3-betting 53 offsuit, only to see my opponent flip over 22, which catapulted me to my one and only WSOP final table appearance - the best part was hearing the eruption of ITHers who were railing me as they were in town for the ITH convention.
- Winning the FTP750K with IRCers watching
- Darus Suharto final table prep
- Meeting ITHers in Vegas, Mississippi, Virginia, New Jersey, and on cruises, especially my annual dinner over at the Platt's house.

By far though, these are my two favorites -
- Publishing a poker classic with our friend Piemaster. It's a great feeling writing a book by yourself, but it's a lot more fun and meaningful when you do it with someone else.
- Walking into the room of our first ITH convention - that moment epitomizes everything ITH is all about

Matthew

[taz115]

1. Buying the book and feeling a light go on. I was hooked on poker after the first chapter.

2. Idolizing the likes of Nside, toronexti, Primitive, Piemaster, Chevin, ebo8b, tallpaul, nukeduke, chrisjp, pokerelmo and many others who played way higher stakes than me and then working my way up into the games that they played (although I never played the mid stakes long I felt like a champ when I did play)

3. Bull opening my eyes to bonus chasing and playing ten sites a month back in the glory days. Man those were good days for players and affilaites.

4. Going to the Ith convention and meeting Matthew, Bull and nside... My Heros at the time

5. Seeing Matthew shove 53o on the bubble of the wsop FT and thinking he had to have somehow seen his opponent holding 22 to have made the move. The strategy behind it was incompreshensible to me at the time.

6. Staying up all night partying with Nutjob, Primitive and thew92. Man that night and the following day were legendary.

7. Staking toro in the Million when he made the FT for the second time. That was an awesome payday, 5k which doubled by bankroll at the time.

7. Transferring over $40k worth of ITHer funds to save them from Neteller being frozen. It was great to help those out who helped me out by contributing here and improving my game. I was proud to be able to return the favor.

8. Driving for 24 hours to get to Vegas for our meetup and the wild party that ensued right after. NJ headlocking a player will be a great memory forever. Getting a chance to get to know nukeduke, nside and Big Red Chef better was awesome too. Also really cool that you all got to meet Tara. That was an awesome week, I still feel bad that we missed RiverCascade though.

7. Winning my WSOP seat with chrisjp and pokerelmo helping me with bubble strat because I was inexperienced and drunk

8. Playing the WSOP and being at Matthews table was awesome. Party at Chris's house was great. I felt like a pro being in Vegas for the ME, battling against Matthew and getting a front row seat to watch him play for big stakes was just unreal. I even got to put him to some tough decisions although I doubled him up twice. Hanging out with jrspm all week was great. It was great to meet yankees too. Smacking Bullajmi in the middle of a hand at wsop was classic vegas degeneracy.

10. This one is so huge. When I won the Million I was already financially regretting playing the WSOP ME. I wanted to get married and was in a bit of debt. So my BR was low and I couldnt afford to supplement it. I thought I might tilt it off but instead I withdrew about $1k and decided to put my last $530 on one tourny. I was so happy when I cashed because it meant I didn't bust my whole roll like an idiot. I started drinking after the bubble and 8 hours later I was disgustingly wasted and $152,500 richer. The rail was totally wild and having everyone cheer me on was truly the best feeling ever. What ridiculous luck winning this tourny was. Shipping $15k to TP was a pretty proud moment to.

11. Flying to Virginia for nsides party was crazy fun too. I finally got to meet the one and only PauliF. Partying with NutJob and Pauli the first night was great... and I'm reasonably sure nsides party was great but my memory is spotty on that one.

And I think thats about it, lol

[krazytxan]

Been a member here for over 5 years, and I thought it might be fun to recount our happiest ITH memories thus far. Here are mine:

-Winning event #1 at the ITH-con at Atlantic City.
-Meeting Matthew for the first time
-All the cons and paloozas - meeting ITHers in person is never disappointing
-Virtually railing Matthew from the forums here in the 2005 WSOP
-Railing Nside live in 2008 when he went deep in the WSOP limit event.
-Being appointed a moderator (and later getting hired to work promotions!) at ITH
-Bourbon!!!!
-Taking a backhand to the beak from Taz on the floor at the WSOP
-Dropping $17K in online winnings on Mrs Bull for our 15th anniversary (made possible by ITH)

Hmm..you forgot to list your brother from another mother.

[taz115]

Was also a big highlight to chat win KT and he hubby in Virginia. I had chatted online a ton with KT but was nice to sit down and chat over breakfast.

[nsidestrate]

You guys have covered so many of mine as well.

• Walking into the room of the first convention, unsure if it might be both my first and last real life gathering of ITHers. I was fully prepared for the idea that we might want to ditch the remainder of the convention schedule and pretend we never did it. I've been to most every con or meetup since.
  
• Meeting my first ITHer in real life, Chrisjp. Chris acts as something of the ITH ambassador in Vegas and one couldn't ask for a nicer, friendlier host or a better representative of our community. In a sign of things to come, Chris's attention span for railing me in my first live tourney was considerably longer than my wife's.
  
• All of the phone-in live WSOP updates that Chris and I have done over the years. It still amazes me how accurately Chris can count a chip stack from two tables away.
  
• Paulif. Which story to cite? I guess I have to go with locking his shoes in his hotel safe to keep him grounded. Otherwise he was going to get in a death match with the leftmost Somoan bouncer. There was only one Somoan bouncer. If I could have been absolutely certain that the leftmost one was the real bouncer and not the figment of his imagination, it might have been to fun to watch.
  
• Nutjob putting his seatmate in a headlock to the drunken joy of all present.
  
• My good friend Taz drunkenly telling me of his love for his girlfriend, me, my wife, ITH and all things good in life. I confidently assured him that he should marry that girl post-haste before she wised up and he was clever enough to do so.
  
• Advising Bull on where to eat and how to wine and dine his lovely bride on their anniversary trip and hearing his delighted telling of the tale of how well it went. I'll use Bull as a stand-in for many of you, because he is a guy I would never have met but for ITH. His politics could hardly be more different than mine, our lives so unlikely to intersect otherwise, but I consider him a true friend. I have BBQ brothers in Arkansas, university professors in Pennslvania, gynecologists in Texas, sportswriters in California, stonemasons in Vermont, lawyers in NYC and on and on that I would never have met, shared food and too much drink with, loaded on my speed dial or anything but for ITH.
  
• Coaxing Niin to stop admiring the beautiful patterns of the Rio carpet and loading him into his hotel room, somehow ripping his shirt in the process. Fortunately, he had a closet full of identical ones.
  
• Having a Scandinavian hook-up who we could hang with in Stockholm and he'd show us the local scene. I'm resolved to get more travels in and meet even more ITHers around the world. Sami was the coolest and we have contacts in a lot of cities!
  
• Railing various ITHers on virtual tourney runs. The one that stands out in my mind is the deep run in the Million that Chevin made, because it seems like our first. But there have been so many from Tall Paul, Toro, Taz, Yankees and more. The excitement and good spirits of friends celebrating another friend's accomplishments that always pervades those moments is brilliant.
  
• The support of many ITHers during my semi-deep run at the WSOP limit event. It made the whole thing so much sweeter to hear Bull relay discussions on IRC and kept my wife and mom in the loop across the continent.
  
• The Darius training session and amazing poker discussions between Yankees, Matthew, Chris, Darius and Rizen.
  
• The first -palooza hosted by AuPanner and all the ones that followed. The one for my 20,000th post with surprise appearances from Matthew and ITHers flying in from Texas, Canada and Florida and some odd island in the Atlantic was something I'll never forget.
  
• To the extent I ever became any good at poker (which is debatable, for sure) it was due to the folks here. There were people ages ahead of me on the learning curve when I joined that taught me so much. I think especially of Pilchard whose generous posts were full of wisdom and a model of what ITH became. There were people who were progressing through the ranks at the same time as me who were a huge help to me to see them make the same struggles I did. Later on, there were people coming along after me that I could help and partially repay what I owed those that taught me. Eventually, when I thought I knew most everything, there were always new guys who came along and taught me that I better keep my skills sharp or I'd get passed up in a hurry. Some of them have gone and done that.
  
• There have been so many posts that make me laugh to think of them. From mafia to redpill's rise and fall, BD's mustache or Bull's projects you guys have provided countless hours of amusement.
  
• Memphis in May with NukeDuke and LeighLeigh. I guess it wasn't exactly poker based, but it never would have happened without ITH and the parts I remember were as much fun as I've ever had.
  
• Meeting Matthew and becoming friends. The whole reason I joined ITH was because I was following the Main Event and noticed that he was making a deep run. I thought "he's the guy who wrote the book with the cool starting hands chart" and I was vaguely aware that the book mentioned a website. I went to see if there was anything about his WSOP and landed hip deep in this. Over the years, we have met in various poker rooms, each other's homes and had countless phone conversations about the state of ITH. Matthew is a model of the kind of guy I try to be. Kind-hearted and generous with his time, I've never heard a bad word said about him. I've said it before, but the tone of ITH reflects Matthew's sensibilities in so many ways.
  

[chrisjp]

All of the phone-in live WSOP updates that Chris and I have done over the years. It still amazes me how accurately Chris can count a chip stack from two tables away.

The best was when I borrowed yankees' cell because mine was running out of juice and nside thinking, "omg it's yanks himself...he's busted."

It's amazing how I can call nside from the Rio, 24/7, and about 99% of the time that he actually answers. I don't think that Dr. Oz would approve of his vampire like sleeping habits. But it's wonderful if you want to get tournament updates quickly out to ITHland.

Chris

[taz115]

What an awsome trip down memory lane. Best thread in a long time. It's awesome that Ive met so many ITHers.

It's also amazing to me how many ITHers are truly great poker players. The proportion of us that have had success is amazing considering how small of a community we are. Seeing a guy like Willem work his way up from the micros to being an unbelievably great player epitomizes what I'm talkin about.

[Bullajami]

Hmm..you forgot to list your brother from another mother.

I tried to stick to events, rather than people, as I felt like I'd just screw it up somehow if I tried to list everyone I've met that I am richer for knowing - not least of which is my b.f.a.m. Piscivorous (or yourself, for that matter, Becks!)

Loving the posts. Best Poker Community. Period.

[Bullajami]

Oh, and let me add one...

When Torch came to my house for Bullapalooza in 2006 he toured my workshop and expressed an interest in taking up woodworking.

Now look at this
I have tool envy.

[nsidestrate]

Seeing a guy like Willem work his way up from the micros to being an unbelievably great player epitomizes what I'm talkin about.

When I was thinking about players I watched come up the ranks and blow past me in poker skill, Willem was exhibit A.

[Suited_Jock]

- Meeting all the UK ITH'ers

- all the support I got from everyone on my WPT run (regret not hiring an interpreter for phone updates to nside)

- Being a winning horse in sharkdaq

prob loads more