The Inside Straight

Washington Candidate Wants Online Poker Law Changed
Lee Rousso Running for Governor
By Bob Pajich

Lee Rousso recently threw his hat in the ring for governor of the state of Washington. He will try to win the August primary against current Gov. Christine Gregoire, whom he voted for in 2004. Rousso has decided to try to seize the party's nomination because of the hard stance that Gregoire's taking against online poker.

In March of 2006, Gregoire signed a law that makes it a Class C felony to play online poker in her state. This puts online poker players in the same category in her eyes as people who possess child pornography, threaten the governor, or torture animals.

This rankles Rousso to the core. Rousso, a Renton, Washington, attorney, is attempting to erase this law from the books by challenging it in a court of law. He recently told CardPlayer.com that if he's unable to win his challenge in the courts, he will try to accomplish it politically. This is his fight.

"I'm just upset beyond words that a law like that in a country like this could become a law. It's just flat-out wrong," Rousso said.

His campaign goal is to contend for the nomination through the primary in August, but his ultimate goal is to get this law stricken from the books. Rousso, the Poker Players Alliance director for the state of Washington, says that he's heard zero negative feedback from Washington residents about his stance.

"You just can't even find people who think that this law is a good idea," Rousso said. "Even people who are opposed to gambling in general recognize that this law goes way, way, way too far."

Rousso has a background in wagering. He was a horse-betting handicapper for 17 years, a career that started when he was 24 when he won $83,000 in a horse-racing handicapper competition in Reno. He repeated the feat a few years later, and took the money and went to law school.

Rousso, a lifetime Democrat, hopes to attract both media attention to how utterly ridiculous the online poker law is, and Republican voters in the primary. Dino Rossi, the Republican candidate, is running unopposed and does not need the votes in the primary. In Washington state, voters can vote for whomever they choose in the primary and don't have to follow party lines.

Rousso hopes that Republicans who are disgusted with the Democratic governor's policies will get behind him and, if not give him the nomination, at least showcase how wrong the current law on online poker is in Washington state.

In fact, Rousso said that he would quit his campaign if the state legislature would revisit and wipe the offending SB 6613 off the books.

"The reason I announced (my campaign) in January when I did, the first day of the legislative session, is that I'm hoping to shake up the legislature and get them to revisit the issue during this legislative session," Rousso said. "If I could get the law changed, I would pack up my tent and go home because I would consider my mission accomplished."

Rousso's campaign information can be found at leeroussoforgovernor.org. Interested people can volunteer and donate to his complete grass-roots campaign.

CakePoker and the Evolution of Frequent Player PointsGold Card Promotion
Rewards Real-Money Cash-Game Players
By Kristy Arnett

Nearly all online poker rooms award frequent player points for cash rewards, prizes, and even cars. The formula is quite simple. The more you play and the higher the limits, the more you earn. While CakePoker offers a staple frequent player point program, Gold Chips, it also offers a new loyalty program called Gold Cards. By combining elements of lotteries and catchy games like Bingo and Let's Make a Deal, CakePoker has created a reward program that gives every real-money ring-game player a chance.

Players are randomly awarded Gold Cards when seated at any real-money ring game. Limits, hours played, and rake are not factors in being awarded a Gold Card. Every player dealt a hand at the table is eligible to receive a Gold Card. If the Gold Card released matches one of a player's holecards, he's struck "gold."

The card is added to a player's account information and instantly becomes part of his personal Gold Card collection. Players can redeem Gold Cards daily for cash or tournament entries, or build a deck for a $52,000 grand-prize jackpot.

Gold Cards are presented in a series, with each series consisting of a 52-card deck of "Gold Cards." CakePoker recently launched Series III, with two $52,000 jackpots already under its belt. Inasmuch as Gold Card rewards are tied into player traffic, CakePoker rewards has only gotten bigger and looks to give away a monthly average of $150,000 in the third series.

Aussie Millions Won by 21-Year-Old Russian
Erik Seidel the Runner-Up
By Bob Pajich

The Aussie Millions AUD $10,000 main event was won by 21-year-old Russian Alexander Kostritsyn, who outlasted Full Tilt pro Erik Seidel to win AUD $1.65 million. This tournament attracted 780 players and took place at the Crown Casino in Melbourne.

The heads-up match between the young player and the older, more experienced Seidel went on for nearly two hours. Seidel earned AUD $1 million for his second-place finish.

Results of the final table of seven were as follows:



Both Kostritsyn and Seidel came to the final table with about the same amount in chips (around 1.4 million). In fact, everyone who came to the final table had around that amount, except for Chrisanthopoulos, who had 6.8 million in chips (nearly half of the tournament's total).

The tournament was filmed by Fox Sports and will be broadcast internationally starting in March.

PokerTek Installs 43 Tables in Three Quebec Casinos
Rooms Opened in January
By Kristy Arnett

Three casinos in Quebec decided to cash in on the growing popularity of automated poker tables and had PokerTek install 43 PokerPro tables in January.

Casino du Lac-Leamy, located in Gatineau, features 13 PokerPro tables, and Casino de Charlevoix in La Malbaie has five. In Montreal, Casino de Montreal installed 25 tables, the largest collection of PokerTek tables in the world. All three casinos are owned by the Société des Casinos du Québec Inc.

The tables at all three casinos offer no-limit and limit hold'em cash games, as well as single-table and multitable tournaments. Catering to both sides of the border, these PokerPro tables have French and English options.

Poker Comedy Movie to be Released March 21
The Grand Features Woody Harrelson, Ray Romano, and Others
By Bob Pajich

The Grand, a comedy that takes place during "the second-most popular poker tournament in the world, the Grand Championship of Poker," is scheduled to hit theaters nationwide on March 21.

Like This is Spinal Tap, A Mighty Wind, and Best of Show, The Grand is a fake documentary following the six players who make the final table of a poker tournament with a $10 million prize. Producers say this film was almost entirely improvisational. The actors didn't even know who was going to win the tournament until filming began, and worked only from a detailed treatment written by director Zak Penn and producer Matt Bierman.

Shot at the Golden Nugget on Fremont Street in Las Vegas, the cast is loaded with some of the funniest actors around, including Woody Harrelson, David Cross, Cheryl Hines, Richard Kind, Ray Romano, and Dennis Farina. Poker celebs Gabe Kaplan and Shannon Elizabeth are also in the film. ♠

KGC Fines Absolute Poker $500,000
Subject to Random Audits the Next Two Years
By Bob Pajich

The Kahnawake Gaming Commission of Canada fined Absolute Poker $500,000 for the way it handled the cheating scandal that rocked the online poker world last fall. The KGC found that cheating did occur at the site for approximately six weeks, starting Aug. 14, 2007, and that Absolute Poker attempted to cover it up.

The KGC released several startling details about the cheating scandal, and undressed Absolute Poker for not reporting to the KGC that cheating had occurred on the site as soon as Absolute Poker found out about it. The KGC also discovered that Absolute Poker tried to cover up the cheating scandal by deleting certain gaming logs and records, and failed to report the security breach within 24 hours of its discovery.

Those acts violate several portions of the KGC's "Rules Concerning Internet Gaming." In fact, of the four rules that the KGC determined that Absolute Poker broke, three of them are in place to ensure that protocol is followed and that records are kept to ensure the integrity of the game.

On top of the $500,000 fine, Absolute Poker is subject to random audits of logs and records for the next two years. The company has to pay for these audits and the KGC requires Absolute Poker to deposit a yet undetermined amount of money in a bank account to pay for these audits.

The KGC found no evidence that the activities of the seven users who perpetrated this scam benefited the company. It also found that Absolute Poker took appropriate actions after the cheating was discovered to prevent its system from again becoming compromised and to reimburse the players who were affected by the scandal.

During the six weeks that cheating occurred on the site, people playing under seven different usernames wreaked havoc on Absolute Poker's players because they had an unfair advantage: They knew what the other players were holding.

Through a flaw in the way that hand histories were recorded, a "super user" with ties to Absolute Poker was able to see what everyone at the table was holding while the hand was in play. He then passed on this information to his cohorts. But it didn't take long for the cheaters to get sloppy and start making near-impossible calls during big-money tournaments. Players became suspicious and found evidence of collusion within the hand histories that were requested. Once pressed, the company and the KGC acted.

The KGC also determined that although at least one of the cheaters was associated with Absolute Poker, they were not part of the board of directors or of "principal ownership." The KGC requires Absolute Poker to cut its ties with the unnamed players and associates. Online gaming consultation company Gaming Associates was hired by the KGC to conduct the investigation.

Wynn Classic Starts Feb. 26 With Satellites
Prelims Lead Up to the $10,000 Buy-In Main Event on March 16
By Kristy Arnett

The slogan for this tournament is "Ultimate action. Classic Style," and that is what is set to go on at the 2008 Wynn Classic, which begins on Feb. 26 with single-table satellites.

Tournament action begins with a $500 buy-in no-limit hold'em event on Feb. 27. It is the smallest buy-in event of the tournament, and is expected to draw a significant number of entrants, since it is split up into two starting days. There are also other variations of poker being offered at the Wynn Classic. There is a $1,000 buy-in Omaha eight-or-better event on March 3, a $1,000 buy-in limit hold'em event on March 5, a $1,000 buy-in H.O.S.E. event on March 9, and a $1,000 buy-in pot-limit Omaha with rebuys event on March 12.

The tournament culminates in a $10,000 buy-in no-limit hold'em main event that starts on March 16. Supersatellites will run at noon and 7 p.m. on March 15. Last year, 198 players created a prize pool of more than $1.9 million. Zachary Hyman won just under $730,000 when defeating Ted Lawson heads up.

UFC Fighter's Charity Tourney Raises $90,000
Operation All-In Poker Tournament Benefited Xtreme Couture GI Foundation
By Kristy Arnett

Known as "The Natural," Randy Couture was the first to win the Heavyweight title in the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Chamionship) three times, so it seems "natural" that his talent, dedication, and work ethic will make him successful in other ventures, such as Operation All-In, a celebrity charity poker tournament benefitting his organization, the Xtreme Couture GI Foundation. It was successful in raising more than $90,000.

The goal of the foundation is to raise money and awareness for soldiers wounded in action and their families. More than 200 celebrities, mixed-martial-arts fighters, poker professionals, and fans came to the Joint, inside the Hard Rock Casino in Las Vegas, to support this cause. The no-limit hold'em event had a $550 buy-in with $200 rebuys.

Emceeing the tournament was 2006 World Series of Poker Champion Jamie Gold, who taught Couture the game two nights before the event. Gold also helped recruit many of the celebrity and poker pro attendees, including Todd Brunson, Hoyt Corkins, Kirk Morrison, Pam Brunson, Dean Cain, and Montel Williams.

Couture's fellow UFC fighter Frank Trigg made the final table, along with a number of other professional athletes, including former major league baseball outfielder Jose Canseco, wide receiver of the Chicago Bears Mike Hass, and major league baseball pitcher David Wells. Also at the final table was Scott Ian of Anthrax, poker pro Phil Gordon, Daniel Varian, Noel Anderson, Mike Lan, and the eventual winner of the $20,000 first-place prize, Jamie Scott.

For more information on the Xtreme Couture GI Foundation, visit www.ExtremeCoutureGIfoundation.org.

Card Player Player of the Year
Frenchman Leads Player of the Year Race After Winning PokerStars Caribbean Adventure

With the first month of 2008 history, Card Player's Player of the Year (POY) race is starting to take shape. At the top of the standings (at least for now) is French player Bertrand Grospellier. He is on top thanks to a victory at the European Poker Tour PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, which was the first major tournament of the year. Grospellier earned $2 million and 2,400 POY points for outlasting 1,135 players who entered this event.

The field was so big that most of the players who made the final table are now in the top 10 of the POY race. They include the tournament's runner-up, Hafiz Khan, who sits in the second slot with 2,000 points.

The Aussie Millions also put several players at the front of the race, including the winner of the event, 21-year-old Russian Alexander Kostritsyn, who won $1.45 million and 1,900 points after besting 779 players in Melbourne. He sits in third place in the standings.

Erik Seidel finished second in the Aussie Millions, which was good for $880,000 and 1,600 points. This puts him in a tie for fourth in the standings. Kris Kuykendall shares that spot with Seidel after finishing third in the PCA.

2007 Player of the Year David Pham is in the seventh spot in the standings. He finished fourth at the PCA, earning 1,200 points and $600,000. Last year, Pham clinched the race in December with a win at the Five-Diamond World Poker Classic. He finished the year with 6,562 points and more than $1.8 million in tournament winnings.

Before winning the PCA, Grospellier had cashed for more than $500,000 since starting to play live tournament poker in 2006. The best finish he managed before the PCA was a second place at the EPT Scandinavian Open in January of 2007 ($399,000).

Look Out!
Joseph Cappello, the big man from New Rochelle, New York, is tied for ninth place in the POY standings after winning a $1,000 event at the Borgata Winter Open that attracted 640 players. The win was good for $177,536, taking his lifetime tournament winnings over the $1 million mark. In 2007, he won four events, including a $5,000 buy-in tournament at the Borgata in November, for $283,000. Cappello is certainly playing some great poker, and if he keeps up the good work, he will most likely be in the POY race from start to finish in 2008.



Where Will They Be?
Tournament pros and those who aspire to be one always have plenty of tournament choices in this day and age. To see a complete tournament listing, visit CardPlayer.com and click "tournaments." The following are tournaments that will take place in the next few weeks in which POY points will be up for grabs:

Reraising From the Blinds Preflop
By Justin Rollo

I am a multitable tournament professional and provide exclusive coaching videos for Card Player Pro, powered by PokerSavvy Plus. My columns will center on hands taken from my videos. As a Card Player reader, you'll have access to clips of these hands and many others. My columns will provide in-depth analysis of interesting tournament scenarios. In addition to the columns, you can watch videos on CardPlayer.com for a richer learning experience.

In this column, I will touch on an important issue that I believe a lot of tournament players approach incorrectly: reraising from the blinds preflop when a player has already opened.

When you reraise preflop while in position (any position preflop other than the blinds), you have four things going for you: You have taken the lead in the hand, you can induce a fold, you further define your opponent's range, and you are in position post-flop. Due to these four advantages that you gain by being aggressive, your opponents is left with very little reason to continue without a premium hand. This, in a nutshell, is why tournament poker success is almost entirely predicated on selective aggression.

However, this formula gets complicated when reraising a pot from one of the blinds behind someone's action. When reraising from the blinds preflop, you lose the most important of the four advantages gained from raising - having position post-flop.



In this hand, I was in the small blind and facing a raise from the player who was under the gun plus one while holding A-K. A-K, like most unpaired and unsuited hands, gains most of its strength from seeing all five cards. Essentially what you want to do with all reraising hands here (not just A-K) is to either take down the pot preflop to avoid playing out of position or define your opponent's hand range enough so that you can play profitably post-flop. By flat-calling in a situation like this, I would not help define the villain's range at all. Furthermore, by raising to only three times his raise, I would not fold out enough hands that will call and play in position post-flop.

When the action got to me, the pot was 880 with 100 already committed to the pot from my small blind. A simple three-times raise of his 580 opening bet would give my opponent a good reason to call. He would be getting more than 2-1 pot odds with position post-flop - good enough for a very wide opening range to continue in the hand and do so profitably. Therefore, the quite simple solution to combat this problem is to raise more aggressively from the blinds.

In general, you will need to leave your opponents with less than 2-1 odds preflop to make their actions unprofitable in the long run. So, I raised to 1,970, leaving my opponent with the unpleasant option of calling my bet with slightly worse than 2-1 odds. The other main advantage of raising slightly larger from the blinds is that it narrows your opponent's range considerably (in all but the very deep-stacked tournaments). This enabled you to gain back some of the edge you lose by playing out of position postflop. In this example, my opponent flat-called my reraise. At this point, I could quite confidently say that my opponent's range was J-J or better and A-K. By narrowing my opponent's range to those hands, it enabled me to play the hand accordingly and minimize the potential losses I faced.

Raising larger amounts when in the blinds is an important lesson to learn while playing all forms of poker. If you are playing with sufficiently deep stacks, making normal raises can be a death sentence against good players, who will constantly take their odds and position and play profitable poker against you.

To watch Justin Rollo comment on and play this hand, point your browser to Card Player Pro, the complete online poker training site, at www.CardPlayer.com/link/jurollo2.

Brandon Adams Battles With Brian "sbrugby" Townsend
By Craig Tapscott

Cash Game: Pot-limit Omaha at Full Tilt Poker
Stacks: Brandon Adams - $27,341; sbrugby - $41,198; Ziigmund - $140,717
Blinds: $200-$400

Preflop: Ziigmund raises to $1,400. Brandon Adams calls from the small blind with the A K J 5. Brian "sbrugby" Townsend calls from the big blind.

Craig Tapscott: Preflop, what's the usual thinking in a shorthanded, aggressive pot-limit Omaha game like this?

Brandon Adams: Position is all-important in pot-limit Omaha. You want to play the button extremely aggressively in a threehanded game. When choosing among the marginal hands, you want to go with the ones that have at least some draws to the nuts, and avoid hands that often make a costly form of second-best (a good two pair, second-best straights, low flushes).

Flop: Q 8 3 ($4,200 pot)

CT: Were you hoping that one of the very aggressive players would bet so that you could check-raise with the nut-flush draw?

BA: No. I have nothing but a nut-flush draw here, and this flop hits a lot of hands hard. My line here is check-call. If I bet and am raised, I have to give up. Check-raising is a bad play because if Ziig or sbrugby bets this flop and I raise, he is going to put me all in a huge percentage of the time.

Turn: A ($4,200 pot)

BA: The other two players have big stacks and they checked a draw-heavy flop. They probably don't have much. The best they are likely to have is A-Q. A-8 is in the upper part of both of their ranges, and I thought they'd fold this hand. Townsend could have A-A, but this is extremely unlikely. All told, the A is definitely a good card for me. My original plan here was to check-call, but then the action made me change my mind.

Brandon Adams checks, sbrugby bets $4,000, Ziigmund calls, and Brandon Adams raises $20,200.

CT: What's your plan behind this raise?

BA: The overwhelming consideration is that both players are likely to fold and I will take the pot of $12,200 uncontested. Another consideration is that if I call and hit, I'm not likely to get paid. If the diamond or 10 hits, I'm not likely to get paid on the river, and although the king is an out for me against A-Q when I raise, I'll actually have to check-fold to a pot-size bet if I just call and the river is a king (although I'd have top two pair, J-10 is overwhelmingly likely).

CT: What hands are you trying to shut out by raising?

BA: Well, I can raise enough such that big straight draws can't call. If some straight/flush-draw combo calls, I'm in great shape, because I have the best made hand with A-K, and I have their diamond draw dominated. Plus, a jack is a winner for me. Against A-Q, I win with nine diamonds, three tens, and two kings (28 percent equity). Against A-8, I win with nine diamonds, three tens, two kings, two jacks, and three queens (38 percent equity). I can expect to take it down uncontested about two-thirds of the time.

Sbrugby raises to $39,798 and is all in. Brandon Adams calls $5,741 and is all in.

River: A

Sbrugby shows the A 8 5 4 and wins the pot of $60,081 with a full house, aces full of eights.

CT: What do you think of Townsend's call here?

BA: Brian made a hell of a call here. My image was very solid. I asked him about this hand later, and he said that he called because it seemed like a great spot for me to be making a move. He correctly figured that my check-raising range here is heavily weighted toward big draws.

Brandon Adams is a very successful online and live high-stakes cash-game player. He routinely plays in the "big game" when in Vegas at Bellagio, and has been featured on GSN's High Stakes Poker. He also made the final table of the 2007 World Series of Poker $1,500 WSOP pot-limit Omaha event, finishing sixth for $75,794.

Online Pro and World Poker Tour Winner Eugene Katchalov Talks Strategy
By Shawn Patrick Green

The screen name "MyRabbiFoo," derived from "my rabbit foot," has certainly lived up to its lucky connotations for the name's owner. Eugene "MyRabbiFoo" Katchalov had a killer month in online poker last year that culminated in a win in a Full Tilt $750,000-guaranteed event, worth $133,000. While that win was certainly impressive, it was put to shame when he went on to win the main event of the Five-Diamond World Poker Classic (called the Doyle Brunson Classic) less than one month later, which was worth $2.5 million.

The Ukrainian-born 26-year-old came to America when he was 10 years old. He's called New York home ever since. He went to New York University and got a degree in finance, a common first step for professional poker players. He also harbored, and still harbors, an interest in the stock market, another common trait of budding poker pros. After all of that buildup, it was his senior year in college that truly got him started on his path to poker success.

Katchalov played in penny games with his college buddies to start off, and he then graduated to online poker, which he used to support himself while he learned how to trade stocks effectively. As his poker knowledge grew, and as he became more successful at the game, he started to take the prospect of playing for a living more seriously. And, at this point, it seems like a good idea that he did.

Card Player recently did an interview with Katchalov that generated some invaluable poker strategy:

Shawn Patrick Green: How did you hone your poker skills?

Eugene Katchalov: In the first two years, the main thing that really helped me was that I used to just sit at home and watch high-stakes cash games online. And basically, let's say I saw 60 to 100 hands and one or two of them went to showdown, I was just looking through the hand histories to see how people played them. I remember that I learned a lot from that; I remember that I learned many interesting things about how people played the hands. I would think about the hands and ask myself, "Why would he play them like that?" I think I learned a lot.

SPG: How would you describe your playing style?

EK: My playing style has actually been changing a lot over the past four years. I went from being very tight to very aggressive, and then very quickly to being very tight, again. And now, I've learned to be a lot more aggressive. It's aggression at the right times and the right spots; it's really player-dependant and table-dependant. You want to play the opposite of what your table is playing - and this is quite well-known - so if the table is playing very aggressively, and everyone is playing wild, you want to sit and play tight. If everyone is playing tight, you want to take advantage and steal as much as you can.

At the same time, I like to keep a sort of aggressive image. By aggressive, I don't mean that I'm necessarily raising a lot and trying to steal the blinds a lot; I mean that I'm trying to play a lot of pots. So, I do try to keep the pots small, and I do try to win a lot of small pots. It's much more about just playing a lot more hands, especially in live tournaments, where the blinds are so small compared to the stack sizes.

SPG: You told me before that just before your two-month hot streak, you had started looking at tournaments a little bit differently. What did you mean by that?

EK: For six months before that, I wasn't playing in that many tournaments. I played them once in a while, but I didn't really have that much success in them. I think that it was, in part, due to a psychological problem. I thought that if I did something that I would do in a live game, like limp in, people would always take advantage of me; or, if I raised from late position, people would always assume that I was stealing, so they would reraise me. So, basically, I started changing the strategy that used to work for me into a playing-scared strategy, in which I would always be scared that if I raised, somebody would reraise me.

So, I was just very confused. I don't remember what it was, but at some point it just became clear in my mind at the beginning of those two months that I shouldn't be like that, and that it was all in my mind. Especially after the summer, I had some confidence from that win [at the Bellagio Cup III]. So, I just became more confident in my plays, and I wasn't as scared anymore, and it started working for me.

Chatbox Cunning
Card Player Pro trainers Chris Justin "WPTHero" Rollo and Evan "_fisherman" Roberts (part of the PokerSavvy Plus stable of poker pros) give us some insight into the games they specialize in.

Justin "WPTHero" Rollo (multitable tournament specialist)

On what advice he'd give beginning players with dreams of going pro:
"The one thing I would say to a beginning player who has dreams of going pro is that you have to take every step in the process. You have to start with the small buy-in tournaments, and it might seem like a grind, but you have to work your way up through the levels, because you learn invaluable things as you're moving up. It's a neat process as it goes along, because things you learn playing in $5 tournaments you build on when playing $10 tournaments. Things you learn in $10 tournaments you build on in $20 tournaments. So, I would say, don't go for just the big buy-in tournaments right away; work your way up from the smaller buy-in tournaments.

"We can think of it as a house, almost. The $5 tournaments are your foundation; it's how you play against poor players, because you're going to have really bad players at every level. You need to have that basic knowledge of, 'OK, this is how I play a bad player,' so that you can label somebody a bad player and have that knowledge of how to play him. When you move up a little bit, 'This is how I play a little bit better player.' That builds on the house; that's kind of the frame. When you go to a $200 tournament, that's your finishing touches, where you learn how to play good players. But it all interconnects, because you're not going to have a table with all good players; you need to be able to play against all of them."

Evan "_fisherman" Roberts (heads-up no-limit hold'em specialist)

On when to end a cash-game session:
"Ideally, you should always be able to realize how you're playing, and I would say, don't quit if you think you're still playing well and have an edge on the game or the opponent you're playing, and quit when you think you don't. But that's sort of ambiguous, and a lot of times after you lose a couple of buy-ins or you're having a losing day, you think you're still playing well, but there are some subtle changes in your game that you're just not realizing, and you're just subtly tilting and not playing well. So, I think for a beginning player, it's not bad to have a stop-loss. That is, if I lose X number of buy-ins, whether it be three or five, I'm just going to quit for the rest of the day and not play again until tomorrow.

"Something sort of specific to heads up is that if your opponent is winning and beating you by a significant margin, even if you're still playing your best game, a lot of times that can cause your opponent to play better. It's sort of difficult to explain exactly how, but part of it is that they become more fearless, to an extent, so they may be bluffing more often with the proper frequency or just playing better in general. Another part of it is that even though momentum in a heads-up game shouldn't be a legitimate thing - like, there's no reason why the fact that you've won the last few pots should really change anything - it sort of has a psychological impact on both players, and it can actually make beating whoever it is who's beating you a lot tougher."

Brock Parker
Ba Da Bing, Ba Da Boom
By Craig Tapscott

Brock Parker is old-school. Back in the day, he was playing poker online before Party, Stars, or Paradise hit the scene. Friends thought he was a whack-job, laying out hard-earned cash to play cards online. But he loved the action, loved the game.

Better known as t soprano on PokerStars, Parker has won more than a million dollars playing tournaments online. At 26, he is one of poker's goodfellas, with a rep for not making mistakes or letting emotions skew his composure. Parker's laid-back style makes building a stack look easy - mainly because he's been there, done that. And most importantly, he's learned from his failures and built a solid game.

"It's repetition," said Parker. "You have to be in different situations enough to know what to do, over and over. Learn the basics, but you have to put in the hours to figure things out for yourself to make it work. You can't just read books or the forums and hope that it just somehow clicks."

Back in 1998, when Parker threw down some cash on Planet Poker, there were no forums, training sites, or books serving up optimum strategy on a silver platter. Online poker was in its infancy, and Parker learned that relentless aggression was the way to take out the novices.

Craig Tapscott: So, sheer aggression was the key back then. How is that so different from today?

Brock Parker: Back then, it was a bit of a joke. During heads-up play at that time, it was all about aggression. They folded. Nowadays, it's harder to beat players heads up, because they know the basics; they know to play back at you. I learned to really play the player.

CT: How were you introduced to poker?

BP: I grew up playing Magic the Gathering. During the pro tours, my friends and I started to play poker.

CT: How did playing that game translate over to poker?

BP: Magic is a thinking game, and you learn about the nuances if you put in the practice. It also teaches you to compete.

CT: You were playing online before most of your peers.

BP: Yes. In the beginning, it was all limit cash games before tournaments got really big. When Paradise opened, there were no tournaments. I first started to win at heads up-play. Then they opened $20-$40 limit, which was super high stakes at that time. I started beating that game and moving up from $10-$20 heads-up play.

CT: Who were the players to watch?

BP: Really, only Eric123, Eric Sagstrom. I learned a lot from watching and playing with him, heads-up limit. Then when I first started playing online tournaments, there wasn't really anyone to look up to.

CT: What was the tournament scene like?

BP: Stars had the Sunday $215 limit tournament, which at that time got more entrants than the $215 no-limit event. I just started playing multitable tournaments online to do something different, back when PartyPoker had those weekday supers. I won those a number of times. I wasn't good at first, but no-limit looked to be the way poker was going.

CT: You're kind of quiet at the tables I've watched you play. Then, all of a sudden, you've got a big stack.

BP: I can be cautious. I'm pretty player-dependant. I'm less likely to pull moves against advanced players, which may be one of my weaknesses. They always want to make a move back on you. I like to pick on the weaker players. I think it goes back to my cash-game days and not wanting to mix it up with the good players. It's all about game selection. I'm not trying to beat the better players all the time, but instead am looking for the best spots to take advantage of.

CT: Do you experience any big swings playing multitable tournaments?

BP: No. I used to play $100-$200 or $300-$600 limit, and there were some big swings then, but now with tournaments, not so much. With multitable tournaments, I don't end up playing two-day sessions or go to bed down a lot of money. It's more stable for me.

CT: So, what's with the online name?

BP: I love The Sopranos. I've seen every episode countless times. I am tired of some of the same jokes. Everyone is always telling me, "You're going to get whacked."

CT: I'm sure that it's usually the other way around.

Morrison Makes the Right Read
By Mike Sexton, the "Ambassador of Poker" and Commentator for the World Poker Tour

The World Poker Tour World Championship at Bellagio, with its $25,000 buy-in, is an event that every poker player dreams of winning. The prestige of winning the WPT's premier event brings out the best players from all over the world, especially when first place is nearly $4 million!

In this hand, it was crunch time. After a long final-table battle up to this point, four players were left. The antes were 30,000 and the blinds were 150,000-300,000.

Guy Laliberte (the founder of Cirque du Soleil), with 6.7 million in chips, opened the pot for 1.3 million with A-J offsuit. Two players folded, and Kirk Morrison, the big chip leader with nearly 15 million in chips, opted to call from the big blind with two deuces. (Morrison had good success in the tournament world in the '90s, but left for New Zealand in 1999, only to return to a "new poker world" with multimillion-dollar prize pools seven years later. His cash in this event was his fourth straight in a WPT event, tying Daniel Negreanu for that record.)

The flop was Q 6 3. Morrison checked and Laliberte made a continuation-bet of 2 million with an overcard and a flush draw. Morrison then moved all in with two deuces (one of which was the 2)! With only 3.4 million left and staring at a pot of more than 10 million, Laliberte felt pot-committed and made the call (let me add that Laliberte is ranked the 664th-richest person in the world, according to Forbes magazine, so moving up another spot didn't concern him; his only interest was in winning).

The turn card was the 3, meaning Laliberte could now win with an ace, a jack, a queen, a 6, or a club (a lot of outs). The 8 appeared on the river, and Morrison dodged a bullet to win a monster pot and take a massive chip lead with three players left. Unfortunately for Kirk, his luck ran out when Carlos Mortensen won the heads-up battle to take his second WPT title and become the first player in history to win the main event of the World Series of Poker and the WPT World Championship main event. That's a feat that we might never see duplicated. Congratulations, Carlos!

In reviewing this hand, the preflop raise of Laliberte is standard, and I wouldn't fault Morrison for calling with his pair, considering the blinds structure and his chip count. I would question both players' actions on the flop. I don't like the check-raise by Morrison, because I think his opponent is pot-committed, and although I wouldn't harshly criticize Laliberte's bet of 2 million, I think moving all in is a better play for him. That would put a lot of pressure on Morrison to make the call.

I believe Morrison got lucky after check-raising all in to find Laliberte with the hand that he had. If your opponent has a pair or a flush draw, you have to think he is pot-committed after he bets 2 million on the flop. That means that you're going to have to tiptoe through a minefield to win the pot if you get called - and Morrison did just that.

A Matter of Skill
By David Apostolico

In the ongoing debate as to whether poker is a game of luck or skill, one of the predominant arguments in favor of skill goes something like this: "Poker is a game of skill because the best hand doesn't always win." Certainly, if the best hand doesn't always win, there must be a factor at work other than luck. Skill would seem to be that factor.

However, I still am bothered by this argument. I think it has the opposite effect of its intention. In fact, I believe that it shortchanges, rather than embellishes, the skill argument. To understand where I'm coming from, let's look at a different supposition. That is, what if the best hand always won? Would that mean that the game of poker was all luck with no skill? That would seem to be the corollary argument. If "poker is a game of skill because the best hand doesn't always win," it logically follows that if the best hand always won, poker would be a game of luck.

Let's look at an extreme example. Imagine that you played a marathon cash game against a bunch of inexperienced players in which the best hand always won. In fact, the reason the best hand always wins in this game is that there are always a number of players who will chase any draw and call down with any hand. Bluffing is useless. Now, let's add another supposition. This hypothetical game is played long enough to discount any variance in the number of "good" hands each player receives.

How do you think you would do in this game? My guess is that you are salivating at the thought of playing in this poker game in which luck reigns supreme and skill is a non-factor. That's because the biggest edge for experienced players comes not from bluffing, but from two other significant factors. First, and perhaps foremost, is one's ability to minimize one's losses. Next, it's about exploiting your winning hands for maximum value.

Sit down in a low-limit loose game and watch who the biggest losers are. Invariably, it is some fool who's playing almost every hand. This loser may win more hands than anyone else at the table, because he plays so much. He also will lose way more money over time than anyone else at the table. The biggest winners are often the tightest players, who may not win many hands overall.

While the above examples are extreme and obvious, they illustrate a couple of points. First, the fundamental concept of maximizing wins and minimizing losses is the same at every level. New players often fall prey to the skill argument that they need to be bluffing in order to show their skill. They don't perceive any other actions to be that skillful. This is not to discount the value and skillful nature of a bluff or other forms of deception. Just don't think of them as the only skills required at a poker table.

Next, while your edge over your opponents in maximizing winnings and minimizing losses may not be as great as in the above examples, that edge is magnified in no-limit play. Your biggest gains in no-limit are going to come from opportunities to take your opponents' entire stacks. You're not going to do that by bluffing.

You're going to do that by trapping and exploiting a winning hand to maximum value. There's a lot of skill in that.

Yes, there's a lot of luck in poker. Being dealt a good or bad hand is out of your control. However, what you do with those hands is where the skill factor comes in.

David Apostolico is the author of numerous poker strategy books, including Tournament Poker, and The Art of War and Poker Strategies for a Winning Edge in Business. You can contact him at [email protected].

And Now for Something Completely Different
By Tim Peters

Elements of Poker by Tommy Angelo (self-published; $29.95)

To discover what we really need in a new poker book, let's first examine what we really don't need: a list of starting hands; a reminder that "tight is right"; how to play a flush draw in limit. I could go on.

So, what do we need? We need Tommy Angelo's excellent new book that covers 144 "elements" of poker (the title, no doubt, harks to The Elements of Style by Strunk and White). We need to develop our own selection of starting hands, by position; he provides a chart. We need to learn to play "mum poker," which "is not about not talking. It's about not talking about certain things, namely, poker things." We need to learn about "the path of leak resistance" (say, avoiding the pits: "When a poker player plugs the leak, or tries to, he walks the path of leak resistance"). We even need to learn how to fold; not what to fold, but how to fold: You "fastfold" when "you muck your hand as soon as you know you are beat" because (a) it's courteous and (b) it reduces your information outflow.

Fastfold is one of the many words and terms Angelo has coined (and his great verbal dexterity makes the book a pleasure to read; it's lively, entertaining, and interesting, as well as instructive). He credits himself with the creation of the word "hijack" for the seat one to the right of the cutoff (because a raise from that seat "hijacked" Angelo from the button). Another one I particularly relished was "bliscipline," a combination of bliss and discipline: "when you are at the table and you are so totally in control of yourself and so totally at peace in the situation that no matter what happens next, you'll still have plenty of resolve in reserve."

Bliscipline is what you need to survive and win at poker; bliscipline is what you need to achieve - another Angelo-ism - "tiltlessness." While I still believe the definitive work on tilt is Zen the Art of Poker by Larry Phillips (see my review in Card Player, April 25, 2007), Angelo is the new poet of tilt, which he defines as "any deviation from your A-game and your A-mindset, however slight or fleeting." Everybody tilts; "To make money from tilt, you don't need to be tiltless. But you do have to tilt less."

Tilt less; win more. How? "To win at poker, you have to be very good at losing." And that requires practice. Learn to become "hopeless" ("if I am hopeful that I will win, it is inevitable that I will sometimes be disappointed"). Recognize that poker is the "mother fluctuater" (which is "why it's best to not give a fluc"). Understand that the "gray area" - that huge swath of poker where you simply don't know what to do - is just another part of the game. Do not "resist reality": "Extreme resistance is extreme pain."

And we need to learn how to breathe (that is, mindfully: "to elevate your calmness"). It sounds like New Age claptrap, but Angelo has made me a believer in the power of controlled, conscious breathing, which helps you step away from bad beats and losses: "By eliminating the past, and eliminating the future, we give ourselves this present." Very Zen, but, I think, very true - and very helpful (if you put it to work).

Elements of Poker does offer some traditional strategy on limit, no-limit, and tournament poker. Angelo is eloquently persuasive, for example, about the supreme importance of position, and there's a good section on the "dollar value" of your stack/position in tournament poker. But read this book for its understanding of the more subtle "elements of poker." Then, read it again.

What's your favorite book on tilt? E-mail me at [email protected].