How does one earn the moniker "The First Lady of Poker"? As a player, Linda Johnson survived two decades in the male-dominated, cutthroat world of professional poker. She started her journey in $2-$4 limit games, and eventually grinded her way to and beat games with stakes as high as ...
Countries Head to UK for Online Gambling Summit Conference First Step to Creating Online Gaming Regulations By Bob Pajich Representatives from more than 30 countries visited the United Kingdom on Halloween to talk about regulating online gaming. The ...continued
It's no secret, certain places are hotbeds for particular types of talent. A disproportionate number of NBA point guards hail from New York City and Chicago. The town of San Pedro de Macoris in the Dominican Republic has more players per capita ...continued
Prologue In this column I'll do my level best to narrate the history of poker, from the game's arrival in New Orleans as 20-card poque (or poqas), its evolution into 52-card poker aboard Mississippi steamboats and later in the camps of Union ...continued
As I write this, I've been holed up at Foxwoods the last few days for the 2006 World Poker Finals. Foxwoods always has two things going for it: It attracts lots of players, and many of those players like to play fast and loose. Last year, Nick ...continued
On a Friday night in August in Minneapolis, longtime New York Knicks player Trent Tucker (he played for the Knicks for 10 years) had a charity event to benefit the Trent Tucker Youth Program. Normally, this event is all about the golf, and people pay ...continued
Finally, the World Poker Tour was able to make a long overdue stop in Canada, more specifically, at the Fallsview Casino in Niagara Falls, Ontario. I could actually see the Falls from my hotel room. Going into the event, I was just hoping that it ...continued
I've heard there is an ancient Chinese curse that states: "May you live in interesting times." Well, the game of poker is surely in an interesting time! Thanks to U.S. Senate Majority Leader and 2008 presidential candidate Bill Frist ...continued
People always ask, "How much do I need to play in a $20-$40 (for example) game?" The usual answer to all poker questions is, "It depends." But in this case, it is the wrong question. The question really should be, "Given my ...continued
I often hear tournament players tell me about their "pet peeve." It turns out that a lot of these players share the same one. When a player is all in, they tell me, everyone else should check the hand down, every time. "We want to ...continued
"When are you going to be on TV?" That is a question I have heard at least 50 times in the past three years. Friends, family, and even casual acquaintances seem to assume that every professional poker player gets on TV nowadays; so, when ...continued
This is an edited excerpt from Rolf Slotboom's brand-new book Secrets of Professional Pot-Limit Omaha. In this book, Rolf describes and analyzes, in depth, two specific strategies. One is a tight, sandbagging, minimum buy-in approach based on ...continued
Every month I divulge some of the strategies that I have learned about this game. This month, I would like to share a secret that most people don't know: I am the luckiest player in poker. It's true. I can't believe how often I get lucky ...continued
I visited Australia in August (winter there) and was greatly impressed. Sydney is an ultramodern, fast-paced, yet clean big city; it's scenic and highly civilized, and has modern architecture, rail and water transportation, abundant arts, and many ...continued
It is hard to believe that the 2006 poker-cruising season is nearly over. With only one Card Player Cruises poker trip left this calendar year, in December, I have to keep pinching myself to see if it's all truly real. Our December event is to ...continued
I was in Mississippi recently to do tournament write-ups for the World Series of Poker Tournament Circuit event at Grand Casino Tunica, and the first thing I noticed was how friendly everyone was. The security guards greeted you warmly, shook your ...continued
Recently I wrote about making fair deals in tournaments when only a few players remain. Deals can favor those with the most chips and those with short stacks. Whether you opt to partake in an offered deal - or offer one yourself - is, of course, your ...continued
"Oh, you cuss around women and you don't even know their names" Recently, there have been some threads on various Internet poker forums about chat policing. One thread on www.pocketfives.com said that the site for which I work, ...continued
The flop betting round is, of course, extremely important in no-limit hold'em. There are three new cards dealt at once, which can radically change the ranking of the players' hands from what they were preflop. Two black aces are nothing to be ...continued
I recently spent a day playing in an exceptionally good $100-$200 hold'em game at Bellagio in Las Vegas. The game was so good that someone was actually able to take a bad beat with an 8-3 (suited, of course). He had two pair with the 8-high flush ...continued
Most texts offer only generalities about playing the turn in limit hold'em, and I don't blame them. By the turn, so much has happened preflop and on the flop that comprehensive discussions of turn play become very complex. But we can discuss a ...continued