Miscellany

Some things aren’t quite fit for a whole column, so I’m dropping a few of them here because they’re things I’ve been thinking about and want to get out on paper anyway.

1. I used to be sponsored by PokerStars when it was owned by the Scheinbergs. They were wonderful to me and ran a spectacular poker site. I haven’t played on the site once since they ceased operations in the US, though I have been keeping up with as much of the news about the site as I can. As a result, I’m aware of their terrible rake policies and game issues. People that I have respect for like Isaac Haxton and others have decided that they’d rather not take PokerStars money than continue to promote the site. I tend to think they’re not great to their customers and are insanely greedy much of the time. It’s hard to get me to side with corporations in general against their employees or customers. Gordon Vayo has done a good job of getting me on that side. I’ll still default to taking the customer’s side over the corporation’s in all future situations, but this one is tough to see from his side.

2. I’m not sure what I think of the World Poker Tour doing some of their televised final tables at a later date and different venue, the HyperX ESports arena in Las Vegas. I’m sure it’s a problem I’d like to encounter, but it seems to make things harder for amateurs to deal with. Not only do they have to find a way to take time off of work for the original four to six day tournament, they also have to get time off of work for the final table. I’m sure it’s easier logistically for the WPT, but it makes things a little harder for the players and I hope that doesn’t mean that it lowers attendance for those events.

3. In some casinos throughout the US, games take an additional dollar of rake to pay for a bad beat jackpot. This money is held to pay out when an especially good hand loses to another, even better hand. The qualifying hand in no-limit hold’em is usually aces full of tens or better with both cards from each player’s hand being live. The player who won the hand usually gets 20-25 percent of the jackpot money, the player who loses the hand gets 40-50 percent of it, and the other players at the table share the rest.

My local casino has started doing 2.5x bad beat jackpots on Fridays and it brings in quite a few more players than usual, but they’re not populating the games that I play in that have no jackpot. We’re losing some of our regulars to these jackpot games and I’m surprised to see that many of them are playing them. I’ve hit the big and small end of a jackpot and a couple of table shares and I would rather give back all of that money than have the jackpot dollar raked every hand. Many people think, oh it’s just a dollar, no big deal. That dollar is raked on every hand from every game and only paid out on miracle hands. The casinos are allowed to keep some of that jackpot rake as well. It’s not a winning proposition for the players, but they crave it and it drives people to come in. I try to find the jackpot free games whenever possible as they have the most player-friendly rake in the state.

4. I haven’t been able to play tournaments lately because of all of the medical issues I’ve been running into with my family, but I’m excited to play some good stuff coming up in California. The Gardens Casino in Hawaiian Gardens, just outside LA is running a $10,000 buy-in event in January that I’m interested in playing and then just after that, the LA Poker Classic gets going. I’m always happy to jump into the tournaments there. The cash games around that tournament are great as well. I might even try to get to the WPT event at Thunder Valley this year. If I venture outside of California and Vegas for tournaments this year, I’m really considering WPT Choctaw in Durant. I haven’t been there for the tournaments, but I hear they’re a great place to play. I still have friends in the Dallas-Fort Worth are from my time at TCU so it would be nice to get in a good tournament and a good time with friends.

5. I’ve been having a good time playing poker lately and it’s been a good escape for me. It’s nice to remember why I love playing the game and for it to be a positive thing for me mentally. It’s also been good to write about poker. It helps me work through some thoughts I have about the games I’m playing and what’s going on in the poker world. They wouldn’t ask me to keep writing if you weren’t reading this, so thanks for reading and I appreciate the comments that I get on my columns. ♠

Gavin Griffin was the first poker player to capture a World Series of Poker, European Poker Tour and World Poker Tour title and has amassed nearly $5 million in lifetime tournament winnings. Griffin is sponsored by HeroPoker.com. You can follow him on Twitter @NHGG