World Series of Poker Europe Launches This Fall
Poker Events Will Take Place at Harrah's London Club International Casinos
By Bob Pajich
The
World Series of Poker is about to cross the Atlantic.
Starting this fall,
WSOP Europe events will be held at London Club International (LCI) casinos throughout the UK. So far, three events during one poker series have been scheduled, but more are on the way.
WSOP Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack said that as soon as he heard Harrah's was able to buy LCI, the gears started rolling on how to bring the
WSOP brand to Europe. LCI owns 11 casinos; eight of them are located in the UK.
"We're very excited about this. We think it's going to be good to grow the WSOP business. We're going to do this with a style and a flair that will be unique," Pollack said.
With the
European Poker Tour, the
Irish Open, and many other major events taking place nearly weekly in Europe, Pollack stated, "We recognize that we're very late to the game in Europe," but he believes that his
WSOP Europe team - and the fact that the
WSOP bracelet is the most recognizable piece of poker hardware out there - will enable them to quickly catch up.
"We're the only poker brand in the world that has the
WSOP bracelet," Pollack said.
Since the events are taking place in Europe, players located there will possibly be able to qualify for the events by playing online poker satellites. Pollack would only say, "Stay tuned," when asked if Harrah's has any plans to either partner with an online site or build its own around the LCI brand to provide satellites.
The UK now has laws on its books that allow online sites to be owned and operated there, which gives Harrah's the green light to welcome online players with recognition and open arms - something it never was able to do in the U.S.
It's the goal of the
WSOP to make these tournaments uniquely European, and they will have certain European quirks that Americans may find either charming or annoying. For example, the
WSOP is debating a dress code that would have all male players in blazers, a standard practice in many European casinos.
Pollack believes that
WSOP Europe events will turn into a global kind of party, with players coming from all over the world to participate. This global view is much different than how the
WSOP sees its
WSOP Tournament Circuit series, which takes place in casinos owned by Harrah's all around America.
"I think the
Circuits, as they evolve, will become more local and regional events," Pollack stated. "I see the
Circuits as grass-roots events."
By launching
WSOP Europe, Harrah's is setting itself up to expand into budding poker markets with continent-specific tournaments. With billions of people, Asia is considered the next unconquered poker landscape. Pollack wouldn't or couldn't say if those plans are already in motion, but indicated it would happen.
"Don't be surprised if there are other announcements in the next 12 to 16 months," he said.
WSOP Europe starts on Sept. 6 with a £2,500 (approximately $4,900) H.O.R.S.E. event. A two-day £5,000 (approximately $9,800 U.S.) pot-limit Omaha tournament starts on Sept. 8. Both events will be held at LCI's Leicester Square Casino, which opens in April.
The six-day main event starts on Sept. 10. It's a £10,000 (approximately $19,600) no-limit hold'em event that will start at Leicester Square and then move to the Fifty and the Sportman casinos, all of which are located in London. Satellite events for all of the tournaments will be held at LCI's cardrooms all across the UK.
TV rights for the show have not been sold, and more tournaments will be listed shortly.
As Pollack put it, stay tuned for more news on the
WSOP's attempted conquest of Europe, and possibly the rest of the world.
High-Stakes Poker Show Features Amateur Qualifiers
Even Nonpros Can Play High-Stakes Cash Games on TV in the Ultimate Poker Challenge's Cash Poker
By Shawn Patrick Green
For those of you who have dreamed of playing poker on national TV, the
Ultimate Poker Challenge is giving you your chance. The
UPC's new show,
Cash Poker, is the first televised high-stakes cash game to feature Internet satellite qualifiers, and the show guarantees that every player will be seen on TV.
Cash Poker, held at Binion's Hotel and Casino in Downtown Las Vegas, pits 18 players (not including alternates) against each other in a $25,000-$100,000 buy-in no-limit hold'em cash game. Rebuys of at least $10,000 are allowed at any time. Players can cash out and leave at any point after at least four hours of play - or, of course, if they lose.
With such a large buy-in, the events are already attracting some big names in poker, including Kenna James, Chad Brown, Tex Barch, Robert Williamson III, Mike Matusow, Cyndy Violette, Doyle Brunson, Dan Harrington, David Williams, and others.
Along with the poker notables, one seat per table is reserved for an Internet qualifier. Players will be able to qualify for the seat via satellite tournaments on Absolute Poker, but these satellites had not yet begun to run at press time.
Binion's also is hosting live-poker satellites for entry into
Cash Poker. The satellites have a $500 buy-in (plus $50 entry fee), and are winner-take-all events. The next satellite is scheduled to run on April 4 at 4 p.m. PT.
Cash Poker is not an invitational event, so anyone can register to play through satellite entry or direct buy-in.
More information about the Binion's satellites can be obtained by calling (800) 622-6468.
The TV schedule/channel for the show varies widely on a city-by-city basis.
Passage of UIGEA Caused Flurry of Layoffs
From Los Angeles to India, People Lost Their Jobs
By Bob Pajich
A universal chill hit thousands and thousands of online poker fans when the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act was passed, but imagine what it was like to be an employee of one of the online companies that depended so much on the American customer base.
Even before the UIGEA was passed and signed into law by the president in the fall of 2006, companies began to prepare for the fallout that the law would create. Online sites like PartyGaming (home of PartyPoker) spent the five years or so prior to 2006 doing nothing but growing.
Only a handful of the companies that the law seriously affected are publicly traded and required to share records, so it's difficult to get an exact number of jobs that were lost thanks to the UIGEA. But those who willingly share information shed some light on how the law affected the employees who keep the online poker industry humming.
Here in the United States, where none of the sites are or were based, the only job cuts that took place were in California, the summer before the UIGEA was passed. Tiltware, the software company that built and runs the platform that Fill Tilt Poker works on, decided to close its offices in Los Angeles and relocated to Ireland. Close to 200 workers in California lost their jobs when Tiltware decided to relocate to Dublin. About 30 employees followed the company there, and the rest were hired from Dublin's strong technological employee pool.
North of the border in Canada, NETELLER cut 220 people in Calgary after it ended its business relationship with Americans, which accounted for more than 80 percent of its revenue. It also cut 45 employees from its UK-based staff. Just last year, the company had close to 1,000 employees. Now, it has about 425.
PartyGaming, which once was the largest online poker site in terms of traffic, immediately let go 800 out of 1,750 employees after it decided to comply with the UIGEA and pulled out of the U.S. Most of the workers were customer-support technicians based in Hyderabad, India.
This is just a fraction of the jobs that were lost because of the UIGEA. The exact number of Americans who in some way depended on online poker for part or all of their income will remain unknown. It is known that the UIGEA changed lives everywhere when it was passed.
More People Played in the L.A. Poker Classic Than Ever Before
Local California Players Found Their Way to the Top in Many Events
By Bob Pajich
The folks at Commerce Casino were right when they said in January that this year's
L.A. Poker Classic (
LAPC) would turn out to be the biggest event in its decade of existence. Los Angeles is the largest poker city in the world in terms of number of tables, and it seems that all of the locals who normally fill those seats took a shot at an
LAPC event. So many people played that more than $16.8 million was paid out during all of the events combined.
Each event in the 30-event series attracted hundreds of players, helping to break attendance records for just about all of the events. It all came to a crescendo during the last week of February with the $10,000
World Poker Tour championship event, which attracted 791 players and generated a $2.4 million first prize.
Last year's event was also huge, attracting 692 players, but the extra 99 players in the 2007 version gave the winner, Eric Hershler of Los Angeles, close to $100,000 more in prize money.
It's fitting that a Los Angeles amateur won the championship event, because most of the winners - particularly of events with buy-ins less than $1,000 - hailed from Southern California.
Although
World Series of Poker Tournament Circuit events haven't been attracting as many people as Harrah's would like,
World Poker Tour events continue to bring in the crowds. Since December, the
Winter Poker Open attracted 571 players, the
PokerStars.com Caribbean Adventure, 937, the
World Poker Open, 294, and the
Five-Diamond World Poker Classic, which had a $15,400 buy-in, 583.
World Series of Poker Preregistration Begins
Player Apparel Rules More Liberal
By Kristy Arnett
It is nearly that time of the year again when the best poker professionals and hopeful amateurs come together to play in the biggest and most prestigious tournament in the world.
Preregistration for the 2007
World Series of Poker, June 1-July 17 at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino, has begun. Payment for any of the 55 events can be made in the following forms: cash, cashier's check, and wire transfer.
Rio casino chips also will be accepted, including a special-edition
WSOP-branded $10,000 chip. The 38th-annual
WSOP main-event buy-in will remain at $10,000. Other events will range from $1,000 to $50,000.
Changes have been made in the participant rules, including a less conservative player-apparel policy. Players will now be allowed to wear apparel with multiple logos and patches.
Event information, player registration instructions, and player sponsorship rules can be found at the official
WSOP website.
Tournament Directors Meet in Vegas to Talk Poker Rules
Organization Now Has More Than 400 Active Members
By Lisa Wheeler
Tournament Directors Association members from around the world gathered for the annual TDA summit at the Venetian Resort in Las Vegas recently. Their mission was to adopt basic standards, rules, and procedures that will positively affect the poker tournament industry.
The rules changes made and new guidelines established at the summit will be discussed in detail by Jan Fisher in her column in the next issue of
Card Player.
"To get that large of a group to be unified on so many rules seemed like an impossible task," said board member Matt Savage. "Somehow, we all pulled it off."
Senior board members David Lamb, Linda Johnson, Jan Fisher, and Matt Savage founded the TDA in 2001. Since then, the association has exploded, with more than 400 active TDA registered members.
World Poker Tour and
World Series of Poker tournament directors and executives were also there to represent their brands and participate in the summit.
"Having more than 125 attendees made us proud," said Fisher. "It inspired us to continue our efforts, and we truly believe we have accomplished a lot, making the poker community a better place to work, play, and learn."
The new rules are now in effect.
World Series of Poker Academy Ladies Event
First Instructional Camp Exclusively for Women
By Kristy Arnett
The male-dominated poker community is taking notice of the growing popularity of the game among women.
The World Series of Poker Academy will be holding its first poker camp exclusively for the ladies at Caesars Palace, June 8-9, in Las Vegas.
The camp is a two-day event, with instruction by an all-star team.
World Series of Poker bracelet winner and poker pro Annie Duke, and Alex "The Insider" Outhred will be among the instructors. Also, former FBI agent Joe Navarro will give a new seminar on female-specific nonverbal behavior.
Players will learn poker skills through in-depth seminars, question-and-answer sessions, and live-hand demonstrations. Participants will receive customized handbooks and will become familiar with all aspects of Texas hold'em strategies.
The WSOP Academy ladies event will host a tournament at the end of the camp that will provide the top-10 finishers a $1,000 buy-in to the 2007
WSOP ladies event.
The fee for the camp is $1,699 and hotel reservations are also available. More information can be found at the official WSOP Academy website.
The Circuit
CardPlayer.com's hit radio show The Circuit brings you updates, interviews, and strategy from the biggest names in poker.
The Circuit broadcasts from all World Poker Tour events.
The following is Kristy Gazes describing a big hand she won and her image as a woman at the poker table, as broadcast on
The Circuit from day four of the
World Poker Tour's L.A. Poker Classic.
"The main hand I doubled today was through Greg Mueller. He just went crazy with his ace-king for some reason on me. He has always tried to bully me. I raised from up front with aces. I was thinking about limping, but decided to raise. I'd raised a couple of times prior to that and people had come over me and I had to muck. They always think I'm weak; I mean, of course they do, because I'm a girl. And then he pushed; he had ace-king and I had him covered. And he said, 'Goodnight; say goodnight, blondie!'
"You know, a lot of people don't know me; they just think, 'Oh a girl, she's weak. I came over her a couple of times, so let's try it again.' That certainly seems to be the trend at the moment, but it could change."
Plug In: Get direct access to the biggest names in the game from the biggest events on the tour only on The Circuit.
J.C. Tran Takes an L.A. Second That's Good for a First
J.C. Tran is again the man. Tran vaulted to the top of the Player of the Year (POY) chart with his performance in the
L.A. Poker Classic (
LAPC) championship event, and he didn't even win it. His second-place finish netted him $1.17 million, 1,600 Player of the Year points, and sole possession of the POY lead. With a total of 2,064 points, he is the first player of 2007 to break the 2,000-point mark.
Tran came awfully close to winning the tournament, but he couldn't hold off Los Angeles amateur Eric Hershler, who won $2.4 million. And because Hershler outlasted such a large field (791 players), he earned the maximum number of Player of the Year points and is now tied with John Hennigan for second place with 1,920.
Tran made the final table of the
LAPC main event two years in a row. Last year, he finished fifth and earned $265,728. Alan Goehring won it last year, for $2.3 million.
This was Tran's second final table at a
World Poker Tour event this year. He finished sixth at the
World Poker Open in January, which was good for $142,810 and 464 Player of the Year points. Bryan Sumner went on to win the event, beating Daniel Negreanu heads up.
Look Out!
Kristy Gazes came close to winning her first major poker event recently, and since January of 2006, she has cashed nine times, for $335,325. In January, she made the final table of the championship event at the
Aussie Millions, and eventually finished seventh, for $176,000. Then, she finished 16th at the
L.A. Poker Classic, which was good for another $58,470.
The high-stakes mixed-game specialist is getting hot on the tournament trail. With a win and a few more final tables at major events, she will put herself in great position to become the first woman to win
Card Player's Player of the Year award.
It's always fun to see who's at the top of the Player of the Year list. There's always a recognizable name in the top five, and it's amazing to see how much money these players have won.
But it's also fun - maybe even more so - to look at the very bottom of the list to see who hasn't performed as well as others the first few months of the year. But thanks to the saturation of poker tournaments, they still have a chance to take the top spot.
The bottom of the list is filled with players who have only two points, yet they're still not out of the race. They only need to look to Men "The Master" Nguyen's 2005 run to be inspired. For the first half of that year, Nguyen sat near the bottom of the list (he even took a few months off during the summer to visit Asia). But then he came back, dominated smaller buy-in tourneys during the fall and winter, and won his third Player of the Year award.
A major victory by any of the players at the bottom of the list would launch them right to the top of the list. In fact, depending on how many people entered the tournament, they could claim sole possession of the second spot - by two points.
Online Hand-to-Hand Combat: Bebop86 Makes a Sick Call
By Craig Tapscott
Want to study real poker hands with the Internet's most successful players? In this series, Card Player offers hand analysis with online poker's leading talent. And, as an added bonus, you can check out live video commentary provided by the pros and PokerXfactor.com at www.CardPlayer.com/h2hc.
Event: PokerStars heads-up no-limit hold'em cash game
Stacks: Bebop86 - $6,673, Villain - $4,670
Blinds: $25-$50
Preflop: Bebop86 calls. Villain raises to $200. Bebop86 calls $150, holding the 2
2
.
Craig Tapscott: What was your preflop read here?
David Benefield (Bebop86): A lot of people will raise in this spot; the villain plays pretty aggressively, and will be re-popping me to $650 a lot if I open to $200. So, I opted to limp, fully expecting him to raise to $200. Also, this match took place when the PokerStars software used the nontraditional big-blind-on-the-button positioning for heads-up play, in which the small blind was first to act both preflop and post-flop.
Flop: 6
6
4
($400 pot); Bebop86 checks, Villain bets $350.
CT: What's your read at this point?
DB: I made a smallish check-raise. Generally, this gets him to fold all of his overcard-type hands. I make this raise here with a wide range, including 7-5, 5-3, 8-7, 4-4, and 6-X, so it's hard to get a read on the exact hand I can have here. It's a great spot to pick up the pot with garbage against something slightly better that has missed the board. A lot of players will call here, or fold sometimes.
Bebop86 raises $600 to $950. Villain calls.
CT: You can't be too happy with the call here, can you?
DB: No. It puts me in a tight spot, because with the villain, it could be anything: any flush draw, even floating with a hand like 8-7, which makes being out of position very tough.
Turn: 5
($2,300 pot); both players check.
CT: Do you think you're beat at this point?
DB: I'm ready to give up the pot. His range includes hands that I beat, but most of them include random hearts, and I'm not that far ahead of any of them. Also, he easily could have a 6 here, so I'm not ready to contribute a dime more if he bets. However, he checks behind. Generally, this means that he doesn't have a 6, or a boat, or anything huge. Typically, you will see a bet of around $1,300 or so to extract value with a hand like that.
River: 10
($2,300 pot); Bebop86 checks, Villain moves all in for $3,520.
CT: This looks like a monster hand or a bluff shove.
DB: Well, this shove is about one and a half times the pot, so it's a fairly nonstandard bet, and not at all what I expected. If I were facing a bet of something like $1,400, there is a good chance I would fold, because it's more of a value bet. However, the villain has to put me on 7-5 or A-4, or something similar to that. By shoving, he probably thinks there's no way I can possibly call.
CT: What's his read?
DB: I gave off the impression that I had a weak hand, which I did, and he picked up on that and played accordingly. This is far from being a standard call, but it's one that I make from time to time against the right opponents in good spots. I am wrong here a lot, and he can easily have a 6, a straight, and so on, but sometimes you just have to go with your gut.
Bebop86 calls. Villain shows the A
K
.
Results: Bebop86 wins the pot of $9,339.
To see this hand animated and narrated with additional analysis by Bebop86, visit www.CardPlayer.com/h2hc.
David Benefield (aka Raptor or Bebop86), 20, regularly plays in the high-stakes cash games online, as well as eight to 10 $1,000 sit-and-gos simultaneously. He is adept at all games, recently finishing second for $92,000 in a pot-limit Omaha multitable tournament, and has won numerous online hold'em events.
Records and Near Misses
By Shawn Patrick Green
The PokerStars
Sunday Million event on March 4 broke the record for the largest prize pool in
Sunday Million history at $1,434,400 (although, to be fair, this was due solely to the $100,000 that PokerStars added as compensation for its server error). The previous record was set on Jan. 7, 2007, when 7,129 entrants generated a $1,425,800 prize pool.
UltimateBet almost broke its own attendance and prize pool records on the same day when 1,001 entrants bought in to its $200,000-guaranteed tournament. This was only the second time the tournament has avoided an overlay since its inception. The current attendance record at UltimateBet is just five players higher at 1,006 entrants (set Jan. 14, 2007).
Server Errors Translate to Overlays
With Internet-related industries, customers should realistically expect server errors every once in a while, and online poker is no different. Thankfully, however, server errors in online poker are relatively few and far between.
Given the rareness, it was quite a coincidence when both PokerStars and Full Tilt, the two most trafficked poker sites still serving U.S. customers, experienced server errors at almost the exact same time on Sunday, March 4. How the sites handled the errors, which took place when their major Sunday tournaments were set to begin, contrasted significantly.
PokerStars Adds $100,000
The server error at PokerStars was brief, but it occurred too near the final portion of the
Sunday Million registration process for PokerStars' comfort. The site decided to push the tournament's start time back one hour to accommodate for the glitch. As a bonus (apology?) to players for the late start and errors, PokerStars added $100,000 to the tournament's prize pool.
The tournament had 6,672 entrants who each paid a $200 buy-in and $15 entry fee. That number meant that PokerStars profited just $80 from the tournament, as the total entry-fee rake came to $100,080. Players profited from the error with a prize pool of $1,434,400, including the $100,000 in dead money.
Full Tilt Downgrades Guarantee
Full Tilt took a different approach to its server error. For one thing, the problems at Full Tilt lasted much longer, well through what would have been the first portion of the Sunday $400,000-guaranteed tournament. When the site was back up and running, Full Tilt had a new $200,000-guaranteed tournament listed, with a scheduled starting time four hours after the original tournament was to have been held.
Whether as a result of the halved guarantee or the very late start (10 p.m. EST), just 851 players bought in to the $200 buy-in event. With an entrant-generated prize pool of $170,200, Full Tilt had to put up $28,800 in overlays to match the posted guarantee. Once again, the players benefited from the error, as almost 15 percent of the prize pool was comprised of dead money.
Internet Pros in Hiding
Internet poker pros have been conspicuously absent from the final tables of the four major online tournaments recently, for the most part. However, two notable players did manage to snag one of the final nine coveted seats.
In the March 4 PokerStars
Sunday Million event, Peter "#1PEN" Neff finished deep and eventually busted out in sixth place, for close to $40,000. Just 14 days earlier, on Feb. 18, Nick "gbmantis" Niergarth took down the Bodog $100,000-guaranteed tournament for $25,000.
Two in a Row for Capsocool
Capsocool has been on a mad run in the Bodog $100,000-guaranteed tournament as of late. He finished within the top-20 players three weeks in a row in the tournament, with two of those finishes being at the final table.
On Feb. 18, capsocool took third place in the event, earning $9,000. Not to be outdone (by himself), he made another dash for the cash the very next weekend, on Feb. 25. He again made the final table, but this time he followed through and raked in the first-place prize of $25,000. Capsocool looked like he was about to snag a triple crown at Bodog when he was among the top 20 again the next weekend (March 4). He came up short, however, and was eventually eliminated in 15th place ($1,000).
Capsocool's total winnings in the Bodog tournament for the 15-day period came to $35,000.
Get a Piece of the Action
Those wishing to take advantage of the promotions, overlays, and guaranteed prize pools can do so by going to the following links:
PokerStars - www.CardPlayer.com/link/etpokerstars
Full Tilt Poker - www.CardPlayer.com/link/etfulltilt
UltimateBet - www.CardPlayer.com/link/etultimatebet
AbsolutePoker - www.CardPlayer.com/link/etabsolute
Bodog - www.CardPlayer.com/link/etbodog
Tournament Results, Feb. 25-March 4
PokerStars Sunday Million
Note: The Feb. 25 event was the monthly $500 buy-in version of the tournament. $100,000 was added to the prize pool of the March 4 event as compensation for a server error during the tournament's registration.
Feb. 25
Winner: ZIGENAAREN
Winnings: $257,552
Prize pool: $1,400,500
Entrants: 2,801
March 4
Winner: OnlyHope
Winnings: $118,383*
Prize pool: $1,434,400
Entrants: 6,672
* Payout reflects a deal made at the final table.
Full Tilt Poker $400,000 Guarantee
Feb. 25
Winner: CaptRunDown
Winnings: $84,460
Prize pool: $460,400
Entrants: 2,302
Full Tilt Poker $200,000 Guarantee
Note: The Full Tilt site crashed before the $400,000-guaranteed tournament, and thus the event was replaced with a $200,000-guaranteed tournament that was held four hours later.
March 4
Winner: get_that
Winnings: $45,000
Prize pool: $200,000
Entrants: 851
UltimateBet $200,000 Guarantee
Feb. 25
Winner: tutnik11
Winnings: $45,000
Prize pool: $200,000
Entrants: 924
March 4
Winner: hemipwered05
Winnings: $44,044
Prize pool: $200,200
Entrants: 1,001
Bodog $100,000 Guarantee
Feb. 25
Winner: capsocool
Winnings: $25,000
Prize pool: $100,000
Entrants: 828
March 4
Winner: timosy
Winnings: $25,000
Prize pool: $100,000
Entrants: 882
Jimmy Fricke
Scary Good
By Craig Tapscott
Peer pressure forced Jimmy Fricke to learn poker. The neighborhood kids, once hell bent on casting Magic the Gathering spells, turned their attention to a new game. Instead of epic battles between wizards and dragons, flushes and quads now clashed. Fricke wanted to fit in and keep his friends, so he reluctantly deposited a few dollars online. His screen name, gobboboy, was inspired from Croc, a popular video game; perhaps a furry goblin that danced could scare up some extra spending money.
"I played 50¢-$1 limit on PartyPoker, then started messing around with sit-and-gos and tournaments," said Fricke. "I finished second in a $20 multitable tournament for about $2,500. But still, I was a losing player in everything I played. Then, I moved $10 over to PokerStars. I told myself that if I lost it … I wasn't going to play any more multitable tournaments. So, I played the 45-person $1 sit-and-gos to build my bankroll, and eventually won a small tournament. After that initial $10, I never had to redeposit."
PokerStars would never be the same. Fricke terrorized the smaller buy-in tourneys, racking win atop win. Soon, the Illinois native would wade into higher stakes, capturing more wins, sharpening hand-reading skills, and eventually leading to a fortuitous trip down under.
At the 2007
Aussie Millions, Fricke, 19, found himself heads up with the chip lead against superstar Gus Hansen. An uncomfortable feeling set in, and a misplayed hand caused Fricke to mentally check out. Admittedly, his focus and sharp game collapsed. The second-place cash of $847,000 was a nice consolation but a disappointing finish; the experience became just more hands and live experience from which to reap future benefits. As soon as Fricke is legal for live U.S. events, there's no doubt that gobboboy will dance once again at a TV final table.
Craig Tapscott: Did any books help you with your tournament game?
Jimmy Fricke: I'm completely self-taught in tournaments. I believe the best way to learn to play poker is to play poker. When you play thousands of hands every few weeks, you're going to learn so much about hand-reading and people's general tendencies.
CT: Are you a math whiz or an instinctual player?
JF: I'm a good mix of both, but I definitely have room to improve. When you're making a bet size or judging your opponent's bet or raise, math becomes instinctive for a good player. With experience, you just know what types of things you should be doing. I believe that many live pros overestimate how much better they are than the math. And I think some online pros understand that the math is there, but they don't know how to apply it correctly.
CT: Talk about ego in poker.
JF: If you put too much ego into poker and make it personal, you're going to start to tilt. Some players with big egos get to the high-stakes games and make decisions based on the best way to win or prove themselves. That's foolish. There are going to be some times when you just need to back down. I think that's something a lot of people have trouble with. Having poker friends who will assist you in any way they can is a huge bonus, and that's one thing I've really prided myself on.
CT: It's a tournament, and you're short-stacked. Whom do you put your money on, the live or online player?
JF: When you get down to 10 big blinds, I'm taking an online player over a live player every time. It's all math at that point. There's no reading whatsoever. When everyone folds to me on the button deep in a multitable tournament and I have nine big blinds, I move in. And I'm doing that with any two cards.
CT: What part of your game do you think needs improvement?
JF: I need a lot more discipline. I think that's part of my lifestyle. I'm overweight, and I think if I work on that, it will help out a lot in my overall game.
CT: Do you have any advice for new players?
JF: If you want to make money from poker, you need to put a lot of time into it; you need to make it a large part of your life. If you're away from poker for a few months or so, I think you're going to lose a lot from it. Let's say that you had stopped playing in 2003 and then came back in 2007; you would have no idea what to do. Poker is constantly changing.
Putting Your Opponent on a Hand
By Mike Sexton, the 'Ambassador of Poker' and Commentator for the World Poker Tour
The
World Poker Tour event in Aruba is a fun time for players, as it combines a terrific poker tournament with a very nice vacation. Wives and girlfriends like to join their mates for this poker championship, as everyone has a great time.
As a player, you have to adjust your mindset somewhat when playing in this event. And if you're fortunate enough to reach the final table, you need to adapt to playing in a new environment - outside.
Here's a hand that took place when four players remained. Antes were $5,000, and the blinds were at $20,000-$40,000. Here's a tip: You always should recognize what the blinds and antes are in relation to your chip stack. This will help dictate how fast you should be playing. Also understand what the average chip count is throughout a tournament, so that you'll know where you stand in relation to the field. Here, it's $1.6 million.
On the button, Josh Schlein makes it $140,000 to go with A-Q. The small blind folds and Freddy Deeb calls another $100,000 from the big blind. They are the two chip leaders at the table. After a 7-6-4 flop, Deeb checked his two threes, and Schlein also checked. If you are sitting in Deeb's seat, you pretty much have to figure that you've got the best hand now with the two threes. That's because you should correctly assume that your opponent has two overcards and would have bet if he had an overpair, something like nines or tens. When he doesn't bet, it's a sign that he has two unpaired big cards.
A jack comes on the turn, and Deeb checks again. Most likely, he checked here to see if this might be one of the two overcards that his opponent might have. Once Schlein checks behind him, it should be fairly obvious to you now that he has A-K, A-Q, or A-10. Why? It's a process of putting your opponent on a hand by reviewing how the action went. He didn't bet on the flop or the turn, meaning the jack didn't hit him, and he's gonna check it down if he doesn't hit and hope that his A-Q is good.
When a 5 comes on the river, Deeb makes the bottom end of the straight, but is pretty sure that it's good. He now makes a value-bet of $120,000 (into a pot of $420,000). He bets this fairly small amount, hoping to get paid off - which is exactly what happened!
Deeb got some good breaks on this hand. His opponent didn't put him to the test by making a continuation bet on the flop, nor did he represent a jack on the turn, as he checked there, as well. And, you could say that he "struck out" on the river by paying Deeb off when he made the value-bet.
Here are some lessons from this hand:
1. Always keep putting "pieces of the puzzle" together at the poker table. You do this by following the action and continually analyzing why someone checked, bet, raised, or reraised. Your mission is to put your opponent on a hand. This is the skill that separates the best from the rest.
2. Once you check, you're always guessing when your opponent bets as to whether he has it or not. You're far better off to bet yourself, and make him guess as to whether you have it or not.
3. If you check on the flop and the turn, and your opponent bets half the pot or less on the river, be very careful about paying him off. Usually, he's trying to get you to call a value-bet.
Maximizing Strengths
By David Apostolico
Whether you're in school, business, or poker, you've probably heard countless times the need to shore up your weak spots. If you're getting an A in math but a C in English, you need to concentrate more on English. If you're good at selling but not good at numbers, you need to work on the numbers. If you find yourself getting blinded out in no-limit hold'em tournaments without making a move, you need to get more aggressive. When it comes to learning, growing, and improving, we tend to focus on our weaker points while taking our strengths for granted. After all, if we're strong in an area, why waste valuable time and effort that could be spent on our weaknesses.
There's certainly nothing wrong with trying to shore up weak spots. In fact, it is critical in poker. Opponents are trained to find and exploit any weakness you may have. Let's not do that work at the expense of our strengths, though. Most of your success in life, no matter what the discipline, will come from your strengths. If you're good at math and sciences and not English, you'll naturally gravitate to a job that capitalizes on your math and science ability. Thus, while you should work on improving your English, perhaps you should work even harder at improving your math and science.
It's often easier to spot strengths and weaknesses in others than it is in ourselves. In sports, the most successful coaches are those who are masters at playing to their team's strengths. If you have an immobile quarterback with an amazing arm, you find ways to offer him protection to give him time to throw.
In poker, the bottom line is to make money. If you're going to do that, you are going to have to capitalize on your strengths. There is an awful lot of luck in poker - certainly much more than most disciplines you'll tackle - so if your skill is going to win out, you have to give it the opportunity. If you are a great post-flop player, try to see more flops. If you are a better limit player, don't play a lot of no-limit. If you are a better cash-game player than tournament player, play more cash games.
Identify your strengths and put yourself in a position to use them. Keep in mind, though, that poker is not played in a vacuum. You are playing against up to nine other opponents, and you have to make adjustments. What is a strength against one opponent may not be a strength against another.
For example, if I'm up against an aggressive player who has position on me, I probably will be more reactive against him, plotting and planning a chance to trap him or play back against him. Against a more passive opponent, I'll try to isolate him, whether I have position on him or not. Position is irrelevant in that circumstance. I want to put myself in a position to outplay him.
You've probably heard the old poker adage that you should play loose in a tight game and tight in a loose game. I don't buy that. I'm going to play in a manner that will maximize my strengths against my opponents. If I'm up against weaker opponents who are playing loose, I'm going to play a lot of hands. I know I can outplay them, so I want as many chances as possible to do just that.
Learn from your mistakes, but also take the time to reflect on the things you do well. Take a deep dive into why certain things work for you. Nurture those things and work on improving them, just like you would a weakness. If you're good at something, become great. If you're great, become better. You will do better at the things you have confidence in. That is particularly true in poker, where your execution can be very revealing. Shore up those weaknesses, but spend more time maximizing your strengths.
David Apostolico is the author of numerous poker books, including Lessons from the Felt, Lessons from the Pro Poker Tour, and Tournament Poker and the Art of War. You can contact him at [email protected].
Ask Jack
Want to know how a multimillion-dollar poker tournament is run? Have a question about a specific tournament poker rule or past ruling you've encountered?
Card Player is giving you the chance to pick the mind of one of the game's finest - Bellagio Tournament Director Jack McClelland.
E-mail your questions to
[email protected], and Jack McClelland will share his 25-plus years of industry experience with you.
Brandon: Hey, Jack! My name is Brandon Pappas. I'm a young poker player who loves the game of poker. I try to play every weekend with my friends, and if I'm not able to, I play on Full Tilt. I'm writing to you to find out if you reuse the chips from one tournament for another. I also was wondering if you would send me a set of tournament chips, because every time I play with my friends, we never have enough chips to play. My parents won't buy me a good set with a lot of chips.
Jack: Yes, we reuse and replace chips approximately every five years. We destroy old chips, so I can't send you any. You can go to CardPlayer.com or worldpokertour.com to purchase chips. I'm sure that your birthday, or Christmas, will come soon.
Eddy: While playing in my home game (tournament-style play/last man standing), the following hand occurred:
The under-the-gun player (10-10) raised preflop, and everyone folded to a middle-position player (A-A), who reraised. The blinds folded and the under-the-gun player reraised all in, but before the middle-position player could call the all in (he was definitely calling; it was early in the tournament, but he was not folding this hand), the "dealer" proceeded to deal the first two cards of the flop. Someone said, "Wait," because the middle-position player hadn't called yet.
After five minutes of confusion (and the blinds clock running), the two players decided to chop the pot and move on. I was at another table and heard of the hand later. I told them that they should have played it out, using the two exposed cards as burn cards. In hindsight, maybe the cards should have been put back in the deck. I've read your answer to similar questions, in which you've you said the cards in question should be reshuffled in the deck. Do you mean actually reshuffling all of the remaining cards? Should the hand have been played out, and if so, how?
Jack: The exposed cards should have been reshuffled into the deck after the action was completed. Then, a new flop should've been dealt.
Sam: In one of your recent columns, a reader described a situation in which he had made a preflop raise without realizing that he had been dealt three cards. After all of the other players folded to him, he turned up his cards, and the dealing error was revealed. The player was awarded the pot based on the fact that everyone else had mucked. You advised that the hand should have been declared a misdeal, because no one at the table had the correct cards.
I have witnessed similar situations, and would like to know at what point you would call a misdeal, and at what point you'd muck the offending hand. What if there is post-flop action and the third card isn't discovered until the turn or the river? With other people's chips in the pot, and the flop already dealt, can you still call a misdeal? Would you consider the offending cards a dead hand, and would the player's chips then be forfeited to the pot?
Jack: Good question! If the player with the three cards instigates action on the flop, where he would have a chance to win the pot if everyone folds, and then the third card is found, I would kill the hand and forfeit his chips. If the pot is checked out, so that he possibly would not recheck his holecards, I would call a misdeal, reconstruct the pot, and give the players back their chips.
Revisiting a Classic of Poker Lit
By Tim Peters
Bigger Deal: A Year Inside the Poker Boom by Anthony Holden ($26, to be published in May 2007 by Simon and Schuster)
Back in 1988, British writer Anthony Holden parlayed a $1,000 satellite into a seat in the main event of that year's
World Series of Poker. He didn't win; he didn't cash. But, the recreational player (a regular in the infamous "Tuesday Night Game" in London, with the likes of poker writer extraordinaire Al Alvarez) was so smitten with poker that he took a year off from his work as a biographer and journalist to see how well he could fare on the professional circuit. He transformed his experiences into the 1990 book
Big Deal, a "from the trenches" account of life as a pro, now widely regarded as a classic of poker literature (along with Alvarez's masterpiece
The Biggest Game in Town).
Holden had a profitable year back in 1989 - but not quite profitable enough for him to quit writing. But he kept playing, and in 2005, he set off for another try at the
WSOP and a fine idea for a poker book: "to see just how much it has all changed, to examine the pros and cons of the 'new' poker."
Bigger Deal is the result, and it's an excellent survey of the state of poker today and its transformation since Holden wrote
Big Deal.
Engaging and informative,
Bigger Deal chronicles a year of Holden's play in cash games and tournaments, online and live, and it's a pleasure to read his anecdotal accounts on the felt. But what makes the book so valuable is his documentation of the events and personalities that catalyzed the poker explosion. A lot of the credit has to go to the holecard cam (Holden supplies a charming profile of its inventor and patent holder, Henry Orenstein), which enabled poker to be televised and, more important, to make for great TV. And, of course, there was the advent of online poker, which really took off after Chris Moneymaker's improbable win in the 2003
WSOP. It's particularly interesting to read about the meteoric rise of the online game, with PlanetPoker launching in 1998, and Paradise a year later. PokerStars, Holden notes, dealt its first hand online in September 2001; by the middle of 2006, the site "was dealing 10 million hands a day."
Bigger Deal also reports extensively on the legal crisis spawned by the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act and its enormous impact on online poker.
Holden tries to capture some of the differences between online and live play, including two interesting observations that begged for fuller explanations. First, he asserts that "random computer dealing [is] significantly different from random human dealing," and that some players adjust to that difference. It's easy enough to grasp that computerized shuffles might be less random than human ones, but I was curious about why. More important, how do players adjust their play for online shuffles? He also states, in a paragraph practically screaming for more detail, that "5 percent of online poker players are winners. A sobering 95 percent are losers." (I e-mailed Holden to get some clarification; he would only say that the figures came from one British gaming professional and were corroborated by another; still, I would love to know more.)
The experience of reading
Bigger Deal is not unlike having drinks with a charming and knowledgeable raconteur: a sophisticated amateur. Holden ranges far and wide, mixing anecdotes from his personal life with stories from the felt, covering the many facets of poker today: cash games, home games, poker cruises, fantasy camps, and tournaments (including the last two
WSOPs). He is refreshingly modest about his own skills; he refers to himself as "overcautious [and] unimaginative" at the table. But there's nothing unimaginative about Holden's prose. He is a terrific writer, and particularly articulate about the joys - and frustrations - of the game: "the thrilling sense of triumph when you sense something that turns out to be right; the disproportionate despair when you're wrong or the poker gods rule against you."
