Poker

I was recently sitting say anything in the event that the players didn’t catch it. After another minute of consideration the opponent called the $500, and after a weak bet from Tim on the river, went all in to take the pot down. Tim was fuming and proceeded to at a 5/10 live game in Las Vegas. For the sake of this story, I have given some of the players fake names to make it easier to understand. Player Tim had gotten into a bit of an argument with Jill and her boyfriend about the mandatory straddle that was in place when the couple sat down. Jill didn’t want to do it, but the couple wouldn’t take the open seats on the other tables. A few hands later Tim was involved in a hand with someone across the table. Tim was a pretty aggressive player who was known to raise with any two cards. Preflop Tim raised $50. He had one caller to the flop. The flop came out 6s 7d 6h. Tim bets $100 and his opponent says, “You don’t want to lose all of your money on this hand. I call.” The turn comes a 7c. Tim bets $500, and his opponent goes into the think tank. It seemed pretty obvious to me that Tim was bluffing, but his opponent was really struggling with the decision. He began to run through the hand out loud and then stated, “I shouldn’t call this because I really think you have a 7.” From this Jill, who was not in the hand said, “Well there is only one way to find out.” EEeeeks! I immediately knew her comment was out of line, but didn’t chew Jill out for opening her mouth and influencing his opponent in the hand.

Of course, Tim was right to be upset because in the end Tim’s opponent confessed that he was thinking of folding on the turn. Jill’s comment influenced Tim’s opponent to make a decision that he probably wouldn’t have made on his own. Jill’s comment also influenced Tim’s play. Had Jill not said anything, Tim could have made a better betting decision on the river. However, the comment put Tim on tilt and caused him to be distracted from the hand. The moral of the story is: If you are not in a hand and there is one in progress don’t say anything regarding the hand or its players until the hand is over. I regularly run into the situation where a flop comes out 6 6 2 and someone says, “Oh man! I threw away a 6.” As disappointing as that might be, it is not ok to announce this to the table because it inhibits an involved player’s ability to bluff at the pot. It could also induce someone to call a bet, knowing the chances of a 6 in hand is slimmer, though in actuality they are calling into a set. For this reason, it is bad etiquette to comment on a hand when you are not involved and/or if it is a multi-way pot. When the chips are being pushed to the winner, it might be ok to open up about your hand or add commentary. Just remember that comments that you make about a hand might influence someone’s decision in the end, and you wouldn’t like it if you lost money because another player influenced your opponent.

If you’ve played tournaments, you’ve probably run into the situation where you are short stacked and have to make a move soon. In these situations, you are looking for any two big cards or a pocket pair. I’ve been in this situation a million times, just praying that my next hand will bring me pocket aces. Instead, I will look down at pocket 3’s and have to make a decision. My first instinct is always to push in. My thinking is, “Hey, at least I have a pair. If I get called, hopefully my opponent won’t hit his cards.” This is the wrong line of thinking, and I’ll tell you why…

In an all in situation for your tournament life, pocket pairs should be off limits. Excluding the situation where you are on the button and it folds around to you, and even then this play is subject to debate. I don’t like the play of going all in with your small pocket pairs because at best you are going to be in a 50/50 situation. Granted, when you are short stacked, you don’t always have the luxury of waiting for a better spot than 50/50, but I don’t view this as the best 50/50 situation to be in. By this I mean that your small pocket pair is extremely vulnerable. Technically you might be 50/50 against over cards, but in reality they have a better chance of their hand holding up. If you are called, it is most likely going to be by over cards or a bigger pocket pair. If you are called by over cards your opponent might be behind, but they have 6 outs against you preflop to hit a higher pair. This could increase to several more post flop, taking into account their draws.

Remember, your chances of hitting a set on the flop are roughly 11.76% on the flop, so you have to hope that your pocket pair holds up. For me, a better 50/50 situation is going all in with live cards or suited connectors if I don’t run into a big hand. Theoretically, with live cards you have just as good of a chance to win the hand by hitting a pair as your opponent does when they have a higher non-pocket paired hand. This being the case, why not put your money in with K 7 suited which gives you the chance to hit a K, 7, and gives you an opportunity at a flush draw. This hand has more possibilities than a pocket pair has. The reality of going all in is that at some point you are going to be called, and you will have to run the hand out. This being the case, I prefer to get my chips in with the hand that has the highest possibilities after the flop.

Small ball poker is a method that has been made famous by poker pro Daniel Negreanu. I first became interested in the theory because I was having trouble with managing my chip stack in tournaments. In the beginning rounds I would bet my big hands substantially, and somehow people would still draw out on me. In the later rounds, I was having trouble compensating for the growing blinds, and I would tighten up the range of hands I would play when I was supposed to be opening them up. The problem for me was not that I didn’t realize what I was doing wrong, but it was hard to come up with a way to change my habits and implement a new playing style for tournaments. The small ball method seemed to be a great way to alleviate my problems without totally changing my playing style.

Small ball poker is designed to minimize your investments while still putting pressure on your opponent. It allows a player to have better control of the pot and the pot size, as to not risk as much of their chip stack and be pot committed. The general rule of thumb is to raise 2.5 times the big blind. The trick is to keep it consistent so that your opponent can never put you on a hand. In tournaments, the raise of 2.5 times the BB is going to give you the same results as raising 3 times the BB. Why not save some chips when you are going to be called anyway? This theory carries over to post flop play as well. There are often situations where one has to put in a bet to find out where their opponent is in the hand. Most of the time, the tendency is to put in a sizable bet that gathers information and leaves your opponent to make a decision on whether to invest more into the pot. This often leads to bigger bets than what is needed. Small ball teaches a player to minimize the bet in a way that you can gather the same amount of information without investing as much. Overall, small ball allows you to better control the pot.

Since tournament play requires a player to maintain and grow their chip stack, any bet is viewed as a threat. This is the reason why small ball works so well. A minimal bet to you, is still considered a risk to another player. As long as you don’t price someone in, these minimal bets will allow you to accomplish the same thing as large bets will.

In Part II, I will share with you my experience of implementing this small ball tactic in tournament play.

I’ve previously written about avoiding bad games, and finding profitable cash games where you can gain maximum value. Though this is the ideal situation, it is not always the case that you will be able to find an action packed game every time you want to play. For this reason, I wanted to write an article on things you can do to change the structure of a dull game. One thing that can be done is to get more aggressive with your play. This is always a good rule of thumb when playing in any situation. If the players are passive, you become aggressive. However, I find that in cash games, noticeable action comes from preflop play. By this I mean that games tend to be better when there is preflop raising. This means that players are more willing to take chances and gamble. They are not just going to play the nuts. This also creates more action post flop and creates bigger pots. The goal is always to be in situations where you are going to get paid for your big hands. So when you are trying to induce action by become more aggressive and loose, try raising all your marginal to high hands 3-4 times the big blind. At first you might just end up taking down the first few pots with your preflop and post flop aggression. Soon after, people will start to catch on and call you preflop. Hopefully this will help to move the game towards more action. The only problem with this method is it will give you a loose image at the table. For some people this fits with their method of play. For others, they prefer to contain a tight image so they can easily bluff people out of big pots.

To change a stagnant game, I prefer to use the straddle method. If you sit down at a game and realize that it is slow and unprofitable, most other players will realize it too. In this case, try to get the table to agree to a mandatory straddle. Usually I try to get the table to agree to a mandatory straddle for one round. If the players all agree to it, one round usually turns into 3 or more rounds of straddle. This really puts the game into action because players realize that there is more money in the pot per person on a limped pot, and the chips are worth fighting for. If the chips are worth fighting for, there will be action on the flop, turn, and/or river. This method is preferable to me because it costs me little to invest an extra big blind per round, it does not affect my image, it makes the other players invest in a better game for the table, and it gives players a reason to take action post flop. Instead of the table collectively aiding in a game that has no action, everyone gets involve to create action on the table.

If you cannot get the table to agree to a mandatory straddle, then the next best thing is to straddle yourself. This will at least build the pot so if there are limpers, the pot becomes big enough that action will occur post flop. Usually the right way to play straddles is to raise your straddle when you have the option, however, be careful with this when you are only trying to invoke action on your table. For one, if you are aggressive with your straddle, you might be investing more money than you should if someone wakes up with a big hand. If you are aggressive every round, someone will probably take notice and check reraise you. Notice, that this method for straddling is not to push people around at the table, it is to induce action and build pots. Therefore, you have to be careful about investing more money than it is worth

There have been several times in my poker career where I am in the small blind and look down at 4 6 of hearts and say, “I hope I can see a flop.” Inevitably, someone will raise and I end up folding the hand, wishing I could have seen a flop.

Lets imagine, that we are playing 2/5 No Limit Texas Hold’em. In this scenario, we are the small blind with a hand like 4 6 of hearts, facing a raise of $25 dollars. There are 6 callers and the action is on us. What are we going to do?

Though 4 6 of hearts is not the best hand we can hope for, our cards are live with that many callers ahead of you. Since we are in the small blind, the pot is laying us $23 to $150, or roughly 6 to 1. There are several possibilities that we have with your hand, so there is no reason not to see a flop. We decide to call the $23 and the flop comes 2h 5d 7h. Not only do you have a heart draw, but you also have a double gut shot. That gives you 15 drawing outs to hit a flush or a straight, and probably four more outs to go runner-runner 44 or 66, giving us a total of 19. This would be a great opportunity to raise $75 to see where you are at.

As the scenario plays out, everyone folds except the original raiser who just calls. There is a wide range of hands we can put our opponent on, so lets try and narrow down the choices. A big pocket pair, 9-9 to Q-Q is most likely. Q-Q become questionable, but if he had a pair like AA or KK he defiantly would have reraised on the flop. He could possibly have a bigger flush draw, like AK suited to QJ suited, so with our flush we will have to play accordingly. As well he may have that same range of hands but unsuited, looking to turn an over card. From this point on, it is important to use any scare card to bet on in order to get your opponent off their hand.

This means if you put your opponent on an medium to medium large pocket pair, you bet at the turn if an A, K, or Q comes, and if you put them on a big pocket pair or overcards, you bet any small connecting card. So in this case we could also bet a 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, or 8. If you do hit your straight you bet in order to gain the maximum value out of the hand. If you hit the flush, and still put your opponent on a possible higher flush, you will have to use your reads to evaluate if you have the best hand.

The key to playing a raise out of the blinds, is the deception you gain from the hand. Most people put you on garbage to begin with, so you have more opportunities to bluff at boards you expect no one has hit.

They say that practice makes perfect, but I’m a firm believer that being a student of whatever your trying to master is the fastest way to reaching your goal. Luckily for poker players, there exists a sea of helpful instructional materials to help you along your poker path, whether you’re trying to bust your buddies’ home game or take down a major tournament.

So which training methods are best for you? Over my next three posts I’m going to share with you the three best ways of learning poker, and explain which kinds of players should use specific tools and ignore the others. Lets get started.

Books

Before the poker boom, there was a little book called “The Super System”, written by Texas Dolly himself, Doyle Brunson. Considered the unofficial bible of poker by the majority of the poker community at the time, “The Super System” was the best textbook available anywhere when it came to playing against the types of players you were likely to find in a card room before thousands of 20 year olds flooded the scene.

For the most part now though, the original Super System isn’t nearly as effective against today’s young, fast action players as it was when originally written. Instead, there now exists a giant library of books that cover everything from math-based play to tells and everything in-between. Here’s what I recommend:

• Harrington on Hold’em:
By Dan Harrington and Bill Robertie

Written by 1995 world champion Dan Harrington, “Harrington on Hold’em” is widely considered to be the best of the new breed of poker books. Not only has Dan won the WSOP, he also made the final table back to back in 2003 and 2004, which featured two of the biggest fields in Main Event history.

Unlike books by players/authors like Phil Hellmuth, which include a lot of personal commentary, “Harrington on Hold’em” is very straightforward and wastes no time hitting you with big strategic theories and gamesmanship. Co-written by Bill Robertie, a backgammon expert, this book is ideal for players that enjoy diverse hand discussions and poker scenarios that make the reader really think about what’s going on in the lesson.

Considered a very conservative player, Harrington likes to focus on teaching his students how to make the right move at the right time and how to use smart, strict hand selection to capitalize on loose, aggressive players. Each chapter begins with a general discussion on the chosen topic, and then moves towards situational poker problems that tasks readers to try and work out a solution. Afterwards, Harrington gives his opinion on how he would’ve handled the scenario.

A second volume, one that focuses on endgame strategy, has also been released, and pairing the two together will be more than enough reading material for any one player to sift through.

• Kill Everyone:
By Less Nelson, Tysen Streib and Kim Lee

The follow-up to the very popular “Kill Phil” book, “Kill Everyone” moves away from the long-ball style of play primarily taught for use against expert players, and instead focuses more on short term tournament play.

Refreshingly, “Kill Everyone” makes a point to mostly focus on two specific segments of tournament play, the early game and the endgame. Basically, you are taught how to quickly accumulate chips early on in a tournament, and then how to change gears and adopt a more “move-in” style of play.

The trio of writers here understand better than most that far too many tournament players will let themselves be blinded off while waiting for top premium hands, when in many cases they should be moving in, forcing action, and focusing on making it to the final table instead of just surviving to the later rounds.

Although some of the strategies taught require a fair command of poker knowledge, most players will be able to benefit heavily from this very straightforward manual geared towards playing a “I’m here to win” style of tournament poker.

• Every Hand Revealed
By Gus Hansen

You can normally learn more from your bad plays than your correct plays in poker, and this is the method of which poker pro Gus Hansen elects to teach you with his book. Rather than being a straightforward “When the pot odds are right, call” type poker editorial, Hansen instead dedicates his entire work to recalling and discussing his plays during a live tournament.

Hansen is known for walking away from a table occasionally and speaking into a tape recorder. Until now no one ever knew just what the heck he was saying into that thing. With “Every Hand Revealed”, Gus lets the reader in on his mindset during almost every hand he played during the event, commenting on gut feeling, tells, emotionally dealing with bad beats, making the wrong play at the right time, and other interesting insights that can only come from one of the most eccentric pros of our time.

Hansen is also notorious for changing gears and playing styles on a moments notice, which is explains and comments on throughout his narrative. On top of all this, the book is just flat out interesting to read. Instead of being feed dead panned poker tips, readers are instead given a light-hearted retelling of a real player in a real poker tournament. There’s almost no better way to learn.

• Ace on the River
By Barry Greenstein

Most poker authors stay away from the super high-level and high-limit strategy’s that are usually reserved for poker experts in order to avoid alienating too much of their potential readership. Barry Greenstein apparently could care less about avoiding such topics, as “Ace on the River” is aimed almost directly at established players who are either attempting to make a living at poker, or at the very least are competing in high-limit games.

Outside of professional game theory, Greenstein also openly discusses maintaining a disciplined lifestyle that he feels is necessary for pros to adhere to, from staying away from other types of gambling like sports betting, to even how to manage your attitude and family life while still finding the time to grind out a living.

First time poker players will have no idea what Greenstein is discussing in this book, but I strongly believe in having a wide range of tools to draw upon in your poker workbench, which is why I highly recommend that even novice level players give this one a chance. If nothing else, it will help you decide just how serious of a poker player you want to become.

Wrapping it up

Now that we’ve talked about some of the best poker books out there, the question is, are poker books right for you? Most poker players play the game casually in their spare time and don’t have the opportunity to thumb through an extensive 300+ page book, especially one that requires them to focus on and remember strategy. For those looking for a quick dose of poker tips, you should consider turning to poker DVD’s and even poker clinics, both of which I’ll be discussing in future blogs.

But, for avid poker players that are willing to really put the time in, you simply can’t compare DVD’s and clinics to the amount of information you can absorb from one of the four books listed here. Read 10 pages a day or a chapter a week, and start to slowing implement the techniques you learn into your future poker sessions. You won’t regret it.

See you next time!

I can’t tell you how many times I have seen my friends grinding it out at the 5/10 tables, and I notice that they are playing against 8 other players that play poker for a living and there is no action. I’ve been victim to sitting down at games that were no good, just waiting for the action to liven up. This is not the strategy for a winning poker player. To be a winning player, you not only have to be a good player, but you also have to know how to gain maximum value out of your hands. Part of this is knowing when a game is profitable or not. If you are catching cards all night, but no one is giving you action, then that is not the best game for you to be sitting at. For example, I was sitting on a particularly dull game one night and got pocket Aces three times in two rounds. In this 5/10 game I only raised it $40 (which was the standard raise in this game), and it was folded around each time. Needless to say, my profit on that particular table was hardly enough to cover my dinner for the night.

If you live in a place that is scarce on live games, don’t feel like you have to play a game that is not profitable. Instead, go home and play online. If you are playing online, there is no excuse for you to be playing in a bad game because there are plenty of tables to choose from. If you are playing at a casino, check out the other tables and ask to be transferred into a game with more action.

When World Poker Tour Enterprises announced almost two months ago that the company was facing dire economic strain, one of their upcoming aces in the hole that they hoped would dig them out of the recession was their China edition of their World Poker Tour TV show. Now at last, the show was arrived.

WPT China debuted on China’s Nanjing Entertainment Television channel and is already making history, as the program represents the first time a government-sanctioned poker tournament has been aired nationwide in the country. The series has 16 planned events to take place within China, but most interestingly enough, the main game of the tournaments will not be Texas Hold’em, but rather Traktor Poker.

Basically, Traktor Poker is a cross between bridge and gin, where teams of either two or four players play against each other. Traktor is dealt using two full decks complete with jokers, and is actually considered an official sport by the CLSAC (China Leisure Sports Administration).

Filming has already been completed on the entire first season and four tournaments of season two, with the first episode appearing this month in the Jiangsu province. Broadcasting will then be expanded into additional provinces in the months to come. The grand finale will be played in Beijing in June.

As an avid WPT fan, I’m definitely on the bandwagon of supporting any and all things WPT, and so should any international players that have the ability to watch the WPT China episodes. If nothing else, you get to see what team-based poker is like! Check it out!

I recently posted an entry explaining my dislike of many of the aspects of the new method of showcasing the WSOP Final Table that ESPN undertook this year. Well, apparently I’m not alone, as a number of pokers best and brightest have voiced their criticisms of the program as well.

In an interview with Card Player TV, Mike Matusow explained, “If I was a fan, it’d be a big letdown. As far as that, I think it was a failure. As far as Harrah’s and ESPN, I think it was a major success.”

He’s right on the success part when it comes to ESPN. The final table program garnered 46% more viewers than in 2007, despite the fact that fans had to wait four months after the rest of the Main Event had ended in order to watch it. But for purists, it’s the content that matters, not the hype, and the fact that the final table, which ran for 17 hours total (the longest in WSOP history), was edited down into a two hour elimination montage, continues to be severely disappointing.

“They just never showed any hands,” said Matusow. “They just showed everyone’s bust-out hand.”

Over 274 hands were played at the final table, 23 of them made it to air. With just nine players at the table, that means that almost half of the hands shown were the ones that knocked players out of the tournament. And in an almost criminal fashion, only two hands total were shown during the final heads-up action, when in fact over 105 were played between winner Peter Eastgate and runner-up Ivan Demidov.

Chris Ferguson has come out and said, “The one glaring omission was that the heads up lasted two hands on television. It really didn’t show the entire battle between these two great players.”

The Mouth, as usual, also had an opinion on the lack of heads-up footage, saying, “It’s a shame the rest of the American public didn’t get to see that. It would’ve been so sick to watch.”

With the next WSOP still over half a year away, we’ll have to wait and see if Harrah’s and ESPN decide to stick with their new formula. Hopefully, they heed the advice of the pros and make some important and needed changes.

For anyone looking to combine two fine sports in one vacation its worth taking a look at the next stop on the PokerNews World Cup roster.

The next event will be held atop the Austrian Alps in Saalbach-Hinterglemm in a five-star luxury ski resort, the Alpine Palace. The 2009 PokerNews Cup Alpine is set to feature of total of eight events running through March 21st-28th, with a €1,500 Main Event as the priority attraction.

PokerNews hopes to attract players with the promise of over €400,000 in prize packages that include private helicopter transfer from the airport to the resort, main event entry, hotel accommodations, ski and spa passes, and spending money for their pleasure travels.

"It is our aim to take poker tournaments to the next level by providing qualifiers and guests with more than just a poker tournament," says PokerNews Ltd CEO, Damon Rasheed. "As such, PokerNews is delighted to have the next leg of the PokerNews Cup held at The Alpine Palace, the most exclusive venue to ever host a poker tournament."

My only question is whether anyone can handle an 8am skilift after an all night table or if I should simply look at this as a very cold place to play poker?

In Las Vegas there are tons of tournaments running every day with different structures, buy-ins, and starting chip counts. Cities across the world are starting to increase their tournaments as well, and it can sometimes be hard to evaluate which tournaments are best to play in.

There are several factors to take into consideration when finding a tournament to play in. For starters, players need to find tournaments that are easy on their bankrolls. Some poker pros recommend that you do not play a tournament that is more that 5% of your bankroll. Once you find tournaments that are in your budget, you should look at what the starting chip stacks are. Some tournaments offer 1500 in chips, while there are deep stack tournaments that will give 20,000 chips or more. Some players like to have a lot of chips so they have time to sit and wait for better hands. Other players like to have smaller chip counts so the tournament doesn’t take as long.

Players should then look at structure. If a tournament has a bad structure then there is no point in playing it. Most tournaments publish a structure sheet which can be looked at prior to registration. Another element that players often forget to research is the player count and registration. If a reoccurring tournament has the best buy-in and structure, but they are not getting very many players, then it might not be worth your time to play.

After taking these factors into consideration it should lead you to a more profitable tournament experience.

The 4th annual British Columbia Poker Championship has been won my Daniel Negreanu. Being the top poker event in Western Canada, the BC Championship draws many of the world class Canadian professionals to the River Rock Casino Resort in Richmond BC. The $2,500 buy-in main event drew 689 players and even though this is way below the buy-in level most pros will play, Daniel and other professionals made it to BC for the event.

The list of name players at River Rock included: Brad "Yukon" Booth, Gavin Smith, Lacey Jones, Mark Napier, Gabe Kaplan, Dennis Phillips, Steve Paul Ambrose, Isabelle Mercier, Maria Ho and Liz Lieu.

Daniel takes home the top prize of $371,910 and a Canadian Championship.

"Being Canadian myself, playing and winning the BC Poker Championship is extra special to me. The tournament was extremely well organized and my opponents were very good. It may have been a smaller tournament but I would say this has been the best $2500 buy-in event structure I've ever played."

With all my hobbies, I have become an avid collector of memorabilia and one of a kind items, poker included. Unique poker items though can be hard to come by, but thanks to Harrah’s, it looks like myself and other poker player across the globe will get the opportunity to grab some great World Series of Poker (WSOP) items.

Over 30 items are being placed into eBay auctions, with the crème a la crème being a very special poker table, complete with LED and blue-glass lighting, which was used to host the final table for both the 2007 and 2008 WSOP Main Events. The table was manufactured by Diamond Tables of Las Vegas. The starting bid for the table is $25,000, and also includes free shipping to anywhere in the continental U.S.

For those with smaller wallets, you can find relatively inexpensive items such as decks of cards used at the final table for as little as $50 (the price the card auctions started at), and even the dealer button used in the televised event. The winner of the dealer button will also receive a special certificate of authenticity signed by WSOP Commissioner Jeffery Pollack.

Whether you’re looking for the exclusive Milwaukee’s Best Light neon poker sign that hung above the WSOP poker set or one of a dozen “main table” felts, there should be an item to grab everyone’s attention.

Better hurry though, as many auctions end within’ a day. Happy hunting!

It seems that Penthouse Inc. is seeking a presence on the Las Vegas Strip.

For several years the Playboy brand has been on the Palms Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. There is the Hugh Hefner suite, the Big Bunny logo on the side of the 1st Palms Tower and several other Hefner/Bunny/Playboy promotions and tie-ins. Now the "other men's magazine" Penthouse is looking to buy a casino/hotel in Vegas.

Penthouse Inc. is seeking an already operating casino on the famed Las Vegas Strip. The Palms is not actually on the Strip but about a mile west of the strip in a group of hotel-casinos with the Rio and the Gold Coast.

"We have no intention to rebrand the name of the hotel. We would like to see a Penthouse casino presence and a Penthouse pool presence."

There clearly is the intention to buy while the market is weak, the real question is what property or properties might be on the block. Statements would suggest that a major remodel of the casino and pool area to bring those pieces of the property into line with a Penthouse theme are part of the package.

One has to wonder if the properties known to be available (Riviera or Tropicana) are simply too old to be the type of situation that would interest Penthouse. In any case, it does appear that the move of Las Vegas back to a more adult theme and away from the "family orientation" of the 90's will continue. Imagine bringing your focused "A" game to the Penthouse Pet Poker Room. Can you hear the pocket rocket jokes already?

So what's the buzz floating around the poker world these days?

Clonie Gowen, who is suing Full Tilt poker and others for $40 million, was not just offered a settlement. She took $500,000 and still filed the lawsuit.

Two of the November Nine were booked for national televison appearances. One on the Tonight Show and the other on Ellen DeGeneres and they both turned down the offers.

The European Union Commission will act after the first of the year against one member nation to open its markets to online gaming.

The Tropicana poker room in Las Vegas will close down on November 30th.

The European Poker Tour will add several more venues for next season and will begin a "All Around Champion" points competition.

The WSOP Tournament of Champions will be back next year with an expanded qualification system, including WSOP Circuit Event winners and runners-up, the WSOP and WSOPE final table members and yes there will be "Sponsor's Picks", so Johnny, Doyle and Phil can play.

The black market for Attention Deficit Disorder medication on the poker circuit has come to the attention of at least one major narcotics investigation unit.

The Netherlands Bankers Association (NVB) have told Dutch Justice Minister Hirsch Ballin that the current legislative plan to ban online gambling by using Dutch financial institutions as internet police is simply impractical and, in fact, probably illegal.

The Justice Ministry immediately dismissed the sound advice of the NVB.

"Justice bases itself on Dutch law in fighting illegal internet gaming and there is no room for free choice on the side of the banks.”

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Don't you just love the phrase: "There is no room for free choice." Ain't democracy great!

The governmental spokesperson went even futher, by distancing the Netherlands from the ongoing European Union Commission actions on internet gaming, when he said:

"European law has no influence on this."

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The Ministry did, however, admit that this reaction from the NVB would delay any legislation currently under consideration.

“The comments made in the consultation phase, as well as other events which took place in the first half of 2008, have led me to further re-examine the Dutch system. I refer to the Senate’s rejection of the bill regulating online gambling, the EC’s Reasoned Opinion, and the questions referred for a preliminary ruling by the Administrative Law Division of the Council of State and the Supreme Court. I have come to the conclusion that the policy needs adaptation on a number of issues, not just to increase support therefore, but also to ensure consistency and coherence with European law.”

Sounds like another social moralist is finding it hard to legislate how a free individual conducts their private life.

Dutch officials might do well to observe the regulatory mess the United States has gotten itself into by trying to enforce social policy through its banking system. The U.S. legislation remains unenforceable a full two years after its passage.

The third edition of the PartyPoker.com Premier League will begin early round play today in London. This year's line-up of competitors will feature a bit of the old and a brand new bit of the new. The just announced final player is 11 time WSOP bracelet winner: Phil Hellmuth. The most interesting new face to the Premier League is brand new WSOP Champion: Peter Eastgate. The former "youngest ever" World Series of Poker Champ will face off against the new youthful titleholder and an impressive array of other runners, including:

Tom ‘Durrrr’ Dwan
JC Tran
Nenad Medic
David 'Devilfish' Ulliott
Tony G
Vicky Coren
Annette Obrestad
Roland de Wolfe
Andy Black
Juha Helppi

Early action at Party Bets has the newly crowned WSOP winner at the favorite to take down the event.

Action begins with a live draw for seats and flights at 10 AM local time, followed by seven days of exciting play. The format remains as in previous two league mathces: All 12 players will play six times in the preliminary stages. The leading four players will then progress to the final table with the next four battling it out in heads-up matches for the final two seats.

There was a lot of noise last week when the present United States Administration appeared to finally put some actual regulations behind the 2006 Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act. On further examination though it appears that nothing may have changed. For one thing, the "new" regulations still say nothing about what is and what is not "unlawful internet gaming". Those definitions seem to be left to either local jurisdictions or to the banks and financial institutions who must bear the brunt of the UIGEA.

Second, the new regulations are now in a comment period and will not be a compliance burden on financial institution until December 1, 2009. This leaves plenty of time for the new administration and a friendly Congress to kill the law, even on grounds of it being "overly vague" or a "regulatory burden on the financial institutions" involved. There is actually no need for any agency to actually address the issue of unlawful internet gaming.

It was and remains a poorly written piece of legislation, which in all likelihood is unenforceable on its face. It was a good scare tactic but it also mobilized the poker industry, which should have positive consequences for poker players in the long term.

The European Union, on the other hand, seems drawing ever closer to actually making some kind of decision on internet gaming policy. Unfortunately, in this case, it would seem that the individual nations involved in the EU dispute seem to be gaining support for local rather than EU control. While the public arguments are centered on moral and social customs about gambling within varying cultures; the truth is more like that some countries are making a huge amount of money via their private gambling fiefdoms and they don't want to share. Remember we are not talking about taxation or regulatory fees, like we are in the U.S. No, the European Union members are after the rake from gaming sites. In the EU, some countries want to be your book maker. Maybe we can replace volunteer armies with just those citizens who are behind on their gambling debts.

The EU position is that gaming is an industry just like wine and cheese and automobiles. The countries who have staked out a private gaming website do not want to relinquish their income stream, so they argue that gambling is a moral question. Right now in the EU, it appears that the decision making scale may be tipping to the side of moral greed and away from an open markets policy.

By now you’ve probably at the very least seen some highlights from last Tuesdays ESPN WSOP Final Table event. I was able to watch the whole thing from beginning to end in my cabin aboard the Norwegian Star during my WPT poker cruise that I was on all last week. From the opening moments to the end credits it was obvious that ESPN was trying to go for something very different here and take a chance at doing the impossible, making poker a spectator sport.

Personally, I didn’t really get a good vibe from the whole production. Having an auditorium full of screaming fans didn’t exactly seem appropriate when you realize that the only action any of these spectators are going to see (since they can’t see the player’s hole cards) are the poker players pushing in chips or folding their hand. Not very exciting in its own right, in fact it’s down right boring. Poker in its nature is a very laid back activity, played for the most part in silent card rooms with few distractions. It’s not quite as mentally taxing as say chess, but there are numerous comparisons between the two that you can draw, and try to imagine a chess match that was televised with the same amount of over-the-top voice over and hype that the WSOP Final Table was. It just doesn’t make for a good fit.

Part of the reason I don’t believe this idea will ever be used again is because the players themselves were almost painfully boring. Despite the WSOP’s best intentions, these guys were not the all-stars that we were made to believe they would become in the months leading up to the final table event, and much like any other pro sporting event, without having someone to root for, and without having a great personality to watch (like a Phil Hellmuth or Daniel Negraneau), it was hard to stay emotionally invested with the show.

You can’t blame the poker players either, they were placed in a impossible, emotionally charged situation that was light-years different from any previous final table experience they may have had, and many of the “November 9” were too busy sweating bullets and worried about looking dumb on TV instead of providing compelling table talk or showing any kind of emotion at all that was worth watching.

For me, the final nail in the coffin was when Peter Eastgate finally eliminated Ivan Demidov in heads up play. The 22yr Eastgate had just won $9 million in cash, became the youngest player to ever win the WSOP Main Event, and he didn’t even crack a smile. Imagine watching the Super Bowl and when the winning team’s kicker makes a last minute field goal to secure the victory, he just walks off the field without celebrating. It would quickly ruin millions of viewer’s experience of the event, and Peter Eastgate’s zombie-like expression served as a cherry on top of why poker just shouldn’t be treated like a UFC type sporting event.

We have yet to find out just how many viewers tuned in to watch the final table, but regardless of the numbers I highly doubt that the production which was months in the making lived up in ESPN’s eyes to all the hype and time and money they spent trying to turn poker into something it isn’t. Here’s hoping that for 2009 we can look forward to the return of classic poker television.

If you are either a U.S. poker player or a non-U.S. poker player who would like to play against the rich and fishy U.S. players again, then you need to take a minute to read this blog. I will keep it short and precise because there is something you need to do.

There is a lot of angry noise about the outgoing Bush administration passing a lot of regulations in their final days in office, including finally coming out with the rules for the 2006 Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act.

Well, first the facts, this happens every time a U.S. President leaves office. This is not unusual and there will literally be hundreds of new regulations put in place in the next two months. Just another dirty side of American politics.

However, the UIGEA is already law, what has been offered up, as of yesterday, are the first "proposed" implementation guidelines. But here is the important thing to know: These are proposed rules and are now open to public comment by anyone. All you have to do is take a minute or five and write that you are opposed.

To be sure the American financial industry is opposed and they will say so loudly and publicly. But you are against these rules too and you have the right to be heard and you don't need to be a U.S. citizen. Below are the means to forward your comments and an additional link to the Obama Transition Team to let them know of your concern.

Probably the easiest way to communicate your thoughts is via email to regs.comments@federalreserve.gov, be sure to include the docket number in the subject of your email, it is R-1298.

There are also two websites for offering your comments either the Federal Reserve or the Federal RuleMaking Portal. Just follow the instructions to "comment".

To copy the Obama people, use this link.

And finally, if you would actually like to read the proposed rules, here is the site.

If you're like me, one of the first big things to come out of the poker boom that really got me hooked on poker 24/7 was the World Poker Tour (WPT) TV show. Whether it was the charm of commentators Mike Sexton and Vince Van Patton or the shows ability to turn no-name amateurs into instant celebrities, I still to this day make sure that every episode of the WPT makes it way to my DVR.

Unfortunately, the WPTE (World Poker Tour Enterprises), the parent company of the WPT, has not been having a great economic year.

Third-quarter revenue for the company is down 39% to $2.7 million, almost half that of last years $4.4 million. The company sites a decrease in domestic television license fees and lower domestic sponsorship fees as the reason.

The first casualty of the WPTE financial hardships will be the WTP-branded online gaming website, which is in the process of being shut down for good. To try and recover from their decline, WPTE President and CEO Steve Lipscomb has announced plans to expand their reach into the Chinese market, as well as produce a new poker TV show for the Fox Sports Network, which will include 13 one-hour episodes.

No word on how/if this is going to affect their main WPT TV show, so die hard fans like myself should keep their fingers crossed that one of the biggest shows that put TV poker on the map will continue to live to fight another day.

At 10 PM on a Monday night in Las Vegas, two players got together to play some heads up poker. One was from Russia, the other from Denmark. All of the players with big followings of family, friends and fans had been knocked out the day before. This heads up match was going to take place in the 3,000 seat Penn & Teller theatre, which had been a good venue for the nine player final table but was potentially going to be a big empty hall for the late night heads up match.

As the up-close-to-the-stage bleachers were being seated with the remaining friends and family and the ESPN crew got their establishing shots and the Harrah's officials prepared for their last introductions of the very long 2008 World Series.... as all of that preparation went on up on the stage.... Down on media row, I stood there talking with Dr. Pauly, Brad Willis, Michael Craig and Jen Newell. It was about ten minutes before the scheduled start of the Final, no really, Final Table. We all stood there looking up into the vast balconies of the theatre and we shook our collective heads at the sight of the thousands of poker fans who had come out.

I don't know what this says about poker in general or whether the November Nine was a success or not. All I can say is that on a late Monday evening in November, with only two players remaining to play for the World Series of Poker main event championship. There were and are enough poker fans in Las Vegas to fill the theatre and categorically settle all the cynical over/under bets on the crowd size. I don't know how this will all play on ESPN tonight, but at the Rio last night, it was a pretty good show with a great audience.

One of our favorite statistics to follow at final tables is the comparison of how starting chip stacks compare to final finishing position. Here are the starting chip stacks for the November Nine. We will update the finishing positions as they occur.

#1 Dennis Phillips 26,295,000 3rd on hand #169
#2 Ivan Demidov 24,400,000 playing 2nd hand #274
#3 Scott Montgomery 19,690,000 5th on hand #119
#4 Peter Eastgate 18,375,000 playing Champion
#5 Ylon Schwartz 12,525,000 4th on hand #155
#6 Darus Suharto 12,520,000 6th Place on hand #105
#7 David Rheem 10,230,000 7th Place on hand #76
#8 Craig Marquis 10,210,000 9th Place on hand #52
#9 Kelly Kim 2,620,000 8th Place on hand #53

Yes, it is finally here!

Just a few quick notes from inside and outside the Penn & Teller theatre at the Rio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.

-the place is packed! there are literally hundreds of fans in line for the seats still available;
-final table players have brought large contingents of family and friends;
-the most impressive group has to be the white shirted St. Louis Cardinal red hat wearing Dennis Phillips gang, which easily numbers over 300;
-the press box at the top of the theatre is really a good place to watch the whole scene, but there are really no good media seats in the house, because the main stage is set up for ESPN and the limited audience allowed in the three bleacher sections set up beside it;
-early professional sightings: Phil Gordon, Evelyn Ng, Barry Greenstien, Jerry Yang, Hevad Khan (all the final table players from 2008 were invited to attend);
-the crowd is very noisy, they have even given out those annoying bang sticks, not to mention cow bells and fog horns; this will not be your usual final table.

Cards are in the air at 11:10 AM local time (PST). Read no more today, if you want Tuesday's telecast to be a surprise.

The 2008 World Series of Poker Final Table is finally here. I want to go on record as repeating my first impressions of the delayed Main Event, I think and thought it as a bad idea. The promotion and hype of the "November Nine" never materialized. No one outside of poker knows this is about to happen and those in and around poker are not exactly enthused. Last Friday night at my regular home game, I gave the boys a short Main Event Final Table quiz.

1. When is the final table showing on ESPN?
2. When is the final table actually being played?
3. Name as many of the participants as you can.

Now my poker buddies read a blog or two; they damn well better read this one. They have been to major tournaments and know a fair amount about big circuit events. So they are average poker fans.

-All but one of the gang knew the ESPN show was this Tuesday.
-No one knew the Sunday-Monday actual play schedule.
-Several knew it was not being played Tuesday but when was anyone's guess.
-They did not know that live blogging was being allowed (so if you want Tuesday night to be a surprise, make this the last poker blog you read until then).
-As for the players? Dennis Phillips is chipleader; Chino Rheem is an L.A. pro; the Russian did good at WSOPE; and, er, umm...six other guys.

The final table begins Sunday morning at 10 AM local Las Vegas time. There will be a lot of live media present. They will continue play from where they stopped in July with the two hour levels and regular breaks until they are down to a heads up match.

The two remaining players start up again at 10 PM (yes that late!) on Monday night and play it out. The ESPN broadcast follows (nearly live) Tuesday evening.

Comments and complaints may be directed to whythehelldidtheydothis@harrahs.com

By the way, the staff of PokerBlog were surveyed and the results are:
Cranky Olde Coot - Against the delayed format.
Poker Shrink - For it and will be present at the final table.
Lindy Librarian - Wants to give it a chance.
Lenny - Will there be free food and booze?

Now that the dust has cleared on the federal elections in the United States, what does the new political line-up in Washington D.C. mean for online poker?

First, the news is mostly good. The democrats will have increased majority is both houses of congress as well as President Obama in the white house. Democrats are generally more favorable to a regulation of online gaming as opposed to a prohibition. Additionally, almost no one wants to put excess regulatory burden on the financial system during the present economic crisis, which is exactly what the draconian provisions of the Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act attempted to do.

Second, the various congressional committees that dealt with the various potential regulations of the internet and commerce are all in the hands of committee chairmen, who favor online gaming. Also several of those committee will be gaining new members, who politically will be expected to follow the party line on more liberal and open internet gaming politics.

So, what to expect:

-unless the old administration acts before January 20th to get out policies and guidelines based on the two year old UIGEA; expect such rules to never see the light of day under the new administration.
-expect several bills to hit the new congress early in 2009 with slow but steady progress through the cumbersome approval process.
-breakthroughs in trade policy negotiation on online poker with both the European Union and other jurisdictions, like Antigua.

Will it happen soon? No.

Will it happen? Yes, definitely yes.

Buy the dip and get your home game buddies ready, the World Series of Poker finale is coming up!

Final-table play starts this Sunday, November 9th and will finish up on Monday. For the first time ever though, the coverage of the final table will air on ESPN just one day after the last hand is dealt and a champion is crowned. This is a welcome change from previous years where viewers, most of whom already had learned online who had won the Main Event, had to wait a full month before viewing the coverage. It never really made any sense to me. Would you still watch the Super Bowl if you knew four weeks ago who had won?

If you haven’t been following the WSOP this year, the Main Event began in July with a field of 6,884 players. Play continued until nine players were left, and they were quickly dubbed the “November Nine”, the ones who would return to the Rio hotel in Vegas this weekend to play for the $9 million dollar first place prize.

Producers for the telecast expect to have about 16 hours worth of footage to comb through once the event is over, and they will have just one day to transform that into a cohesive two-hour package for the viewing audience on Tuesday. Play will begin on noon Sunday and will continue until the final two competitors remain. Then on Monday at midnight, the two finalists will return to play heads-up until just one of them is left. Hard to imagine that if heads-up play runs long, the production crew will have just a handful of hours to edit and finalize the package. But, I agree it’s a needed step in the right direction of poker broadcasting.

Personally I can’t wait to prop up my feet in the poker room aboard the Norwegian Star cruise liner and view a piece of poker history. Check your local listings and don’t forget to tune in to ESPN on Tuesday!

When the new more open U.S. government takes over next year, there is every belief that their national prohibitionist position on online gaming will at some point be reversed. Eventually the U.S. will regulate the online poker industry for U.S. players.

Let me suggest that this will make similar decisions in all parts of the world much more difficult. Let's take Sweden's Svenska Spel gaming monopoly for example. Despite EU pressure Svenska Spel and other national owned and operated gaming monopolies continue to both operate and exclude other online sites from operating within certain geographic boundaries.

There are advantages to government run sites. A uniform, non-English language is often used. Social and moral concerns are addressed within the strictures of a unique cultural set. And the government makes a lot of money on the rake.

But here comes the not too distant crisis of conscience and of pocket book. As far as online poker, the U.S. constitutes the largest revenue stream and dollar for dollar, euro for euro, lira for lira, peso for peso; the Americans gamble for more cash then any other nation on the net. This, of course, has to do with multiple factors of disposable income, as well as high speed internet penetration.

The problem? Do you want to keep these American gamblers out of your market, when they could substantially increase your revenue by inviting them in?

Well no, you say, bring them in to our website.

Here is the problem that all nations will face in the new unfolding open online marketplace. Countries, like the US, will ban your site, if you ban their sites. So Svenska Spel will have to let their citizens out, if they let others in. This will be a hard decision for some national gaming monopolies but the change in the U.S. law will also make the overall EU decision easier. The monster revenue potential of opening to the United States market will be just too much to ignore. What will break down trade barriers is not thoughtful regulation but the specter of lost profits.

The European Parliament's Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee will meet next week in Brussels to consider a draft report which seeks a European Parliament Resolution on 'the integrity of online gambling'. The report is clearly not favorable to online gaming and online poker. And although the report is not binding on future Commission action, the report reasserts all of the negatives used by opponents of online gaming and freedom of the internet. Once again we are to be protected from ourselves.

There is a separate political issue involved here that does not get much press and that is the EU Commission and the European Court of Justice are overwhelmed with gaming cases. Every country wants to assert it sovereign rights over gambling issues and every other country wants everyone else to honor those local and jingoistic regulations. Unfortunately, the EU was established, at least in part, to lower such lower tariffs and trade laws but with gambling there is the miasma of the moral and social order to be considered.

Rather than seek to revolve issues of regulation and fair business practices, the Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee has chosen to go with the reactionary position of prohibition.

"Member States have a legitimate interest in monitoring and regulating their gambling markets in order to protect consumers against addiction, fraud, money-laundering and fixed games as well as to protect the culturally-built funding structures which finance sports activities and other social causes," and "underlines that online gambling operators should comply with the legislation of the Member State in which they provide their services."

The report goes on site the nebulous fears of all prohibitionists:

"Online gambling is likely to give rise to risks to consumers and that Member States may therefore legitimately restrict the freedom to provide online gambling services in order to protect consumers."

Fortunately, the EU Parliament tends to act in the best interest of the whole of the EU populations, whereas the Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee tends to put forward the interests of individual member states, many of which seek to retain their own national gaming monopolies.

Online gaming continues to be the single largest unresolved issue before the EU Commission with no real signs of any movement towards an open market solution at this time.

I guess its close enough to All Hallows Eve to offer up some of the stranger happenings and non-happenings in the wide world of poker. Out there is the hinderlands, in the casinos and card rooms; tournaments and cash games; all kinds of happenings strange and stranger take place. Here are just a few:

Clonie Gowen won a poker tournament and I don't mean a six handed game in someone's garage; though she is invited to my garage any night of the week. I just need a one hour notice to take my cobalt medicine.

Clonie took down the $5,000 World Poker Open at the Gold Strike Casino in Tunica, Mississippi. One hundred and seven entrants took on the WPO, which used to be a big tournament on the circuit but has fallen by the regular tour wayside with so many other events vying for players this fall. But Clonie has always considered Tunica her home poker grounds. I even took her out a few years back with Kings over Queens; you know she can hold a grudge. Anyway, the wonderous Ms. Gowen took it all down after entering the final table with the chip lead. She takes home a $183,224 championship payday and gives me a reason to use her photo, which is why this item made it onto my fringe list in the first place.

Lots of casinos offer beginner's poker classes. Well actually many rooms have a sign up that says they offer instruction but new players are usually too embarrassed to actually take them up on the offer. But the Commerce Casino has created Poker University. Well maybe not quite a university but a weekly two hour class for beginner's that will actually give them the necessary skills to sit down at a low limit table. The 'University" runs every Tuesday, is limited to 25 students and is run in an isolated area of the casino, so they participants might actually be able to learn a trick or two.

From the Commerce press release: The University will feature poker comedian Roger Rodd - to provide a little levity to the proceedings - but will also be an intensive training course for newcomers to the world of poker as well as those intermediate players who need a little brushing up on their skills. Rodd is no stranger to the poker world; known as Hollywood’s “Instructor to the Stars,” Rodd has taught the game of poker to Hollywood’s brightest personalities and also served as poker coach for the movie “Lucky You,”

OK, so the mention of Lucky You is what set off my fridge-o-meter here. Those folks in Hollywood just never know when to leave a truly enormous flop off of their resume.

Finally, this really fridgy item. It seems the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, a political entity recognized only by Turkey, has begun to host poker tournaments and has "applied to the World Poker Tour" to organize a WPT event. OK, so we have the mere mention of region? province? country?, which might insight civil war. The violation of several national gaming laws on gambling and in particular a ban on tournament poker and an invitation to all of folks, the WPT, which is floundering on its own in the U.S. We all know how much thoughtful planning leads to a good, solid bankruptcy filing. Rube Goldberg would be proud of this and so would the International Monetary Fund. Hey, speaking of that, how about a huge charity poker tournament to bail out the world economy.